"No," Wulfston interrupted him, "you are of no use to me. Your Readers may have reported that we had… some small difficulty in communicating while we were immobilizing your army. The severe scarcity on this side of the border is of Readers. I will take these two." He pointed to the Masters who had accompanied the Commander.
//Torio! Stop him!// Melissa warned. //He will be planting spies in his own castle!//
//Like you?// he replied cheerfully. //Wulfston knows what he's doing, Melissa. If these Readers report the truth, we will soon have that peace treaty!//
Masters Amicus and Corus were both fighting fear. "Commander Verinus," said Amicus, "the girl, Melissa, has been with these people only since she was washed overboard in the storm. Within a single day they twisted her mind and made her work for them. If you order it, Commander, I will stay-but you must warn the Council of Masters that nothing reported by hostage Readers is to be accepted as true."
Torio Read the man's horror increasing as he spoke.
He understood the blind terror of losing control of his own mind, and sought to reassure him. //Masters, you will find out quickly enough: No one will tamper with your minds.//
Oblivious to the silent communication, Wulfston said, "You must do any work I ask of you, Master Readers-with the exception of anything harmful to your empire."
"We will have no choice but to obey you," Master Corus said stiffly, refusing to expose his deep fear to this nonReader.
"Only if you give me your word, and only in matters in which I require your skills. No one will prevent your communicating with your homeland-and, the more quickly a meeting can be arranged with your Emperor, the more quickly you will go home."
//Go home as spies!// Master Corus realized.
//Never,// Master Amicus told him, and calm descended on both men.
It was Melissa who recognized the meaning of their sudden change in attitude. She stepped up beside Wulfston and whispered, "They feel just the way Magister Jason did when he decided to die rather than let you take him. They will find a way to kill themselves before they ever reach your castle."
"Suicide." Wulfston's dark skin blanched to gray at the thought-he might have been born Aventine, but he was savage through and through in his code of beliefs. For a savage, suicide was the ultimate defeat, the most dishonorable way to die. In the empire, however, it was considered an acceptable way to escape dishonor-or the forced action against their beliefs that these men feared.
"Your word, Master Readers, that you will not attempt to take your own lives. Torio-Melissa-what oath will bind them unconditionally?"
"By the Readers' Code," they chorused. "Make them swear on their Oaths," added Torio. "No Master Reader would break a vow sworn on his Master's Oath."
The Readers turned to appeal to Verinus, but he said, "You have seen what they can do. For some reason they are letting us escape with our lives. What revenge will they take if we refuse their single demand?"
Despairing, the two Readers swore, and the parties separated. Wulfston was fighting deep tiredness; he would have stopped to sleep except that the watchers reported that Lenardo and Aradia had crossed into his lands, and were headed in the direction of the battle. "Torio-hasn't Lenardo Read us?" he asked. "Doesn't he know the battle is over?"
//Yes, I do,// Lenardo replied, and Melissa started. //I've been watching your arrangements, and since I agree with everything, I did not wish to interfere.//
Torio relayed to Wulfston, who said, "I hope I did the right thing in taking Readers."
//You certainly did no harm, and it may possibly do some good. I watched most of the… battle… if you want to call it that. Who thought of quicksand?//
//I did,// Torio told him. //It almost went wrong again-//
//But it didn't. You kept it under control. A good idea, Torio-I wish I'd thought of it.//
The captured Master Readers were trying to locate Lenardo-but he was far out of their range. What they could not know was that he was not out of body; since becoming a savage lord he had increased his range to unheard-of distances, and learned the trick of Reading without being Read. He had some other interesting abilities, too-but it would be best if Masters Amicus and Corus did not find out about them for the time being.
It was arranged that Lenardo and Aradia would divert to Wulfston's castle with their small train, and send the rest of their army home. Wulfston's army was to care for the Aventine soldiers-and incidentally guard against their attacking their captors. Supply wagons were unloaded, and Wulfston commandeered three to take him and the minor Adept talents home-those who had not already collapsed were practically asleep on their feet. Someone had dug Torio's horse out of the mud, but he hadn't yet found out where it had been taken. He was still riding Rolf's horse. The boy's walking stick hung from the saddle. Torio laid it beside the sleeping boy on one of the wagons, hoping he would never need it again.
With Wulfston sound asleep, Torio was left in command. The trip home would take much longer than the journey to the battlefield. He sent the wagons ahead, and took Melissa and the other Readers to the field hospital where the healers worked over those wounded in the single battle.
Hevert, the best healer in Wulfston's land, had things well under control when they arrived. Healing was one of the many things the empire would benefit from if they ever made peace with the savages. The four Readers Read the fact that the wounded were healing without medication, purely through the efforts of the healers.
"My lord," Hevert said to Torio, "will you please Read two injuries for me? This man seems to be bleeding inside. I cannot stop it."
The man's ribcage had been crushed. Perhaps after he had fallen from a lesser wound, one of the heavy supply wagons had rolled over him. Whatever the cause, he was critically injured.
The splintered ribs had been pulled back into place, relieving pressure on lungs and heart, but the man's skin appeared yellow-no color beneath his outdoor tan. His lips were blue.
"Is it his spleen?" Hevert asked. "I worked on that-"
"Not his spleen," Melissa answered. "You missed a splinter of rib from his back. It's piercing his right lung. Where is your surgery? We must-"
"Surgery?" Hevert was speaking hesitant Aventine for Torio's benefit; this was obviously not a familiar word. "You mean-cut into him? He is injured enough already. Tell me where the rib is. I will move it back into place."
Melissa understood at once-when Hevert handed her a chart of the bones of the human body, she quickly pointed out the rib that was broken. Hevert studied the chart, knelt down and gently felt the ribs of the injured man with his fingers, counting… and as he concentrated, the splinter of rib dislodged from the man's lung and slid back into its proper place.
"He's bleeding more heavily!" Melissa said. "He'll drown in his own blood!"
But in moments Hevert had the bleeding under control. When Melissa said, "That's it. He's healing," he sat back on his heels, breathing heavily.
"Thank you, my lady," Hevert said. "You are as good as Lord Torio at pointing out injuries."
"She's better," said Torio. "She's had medical training I haven't. Thank you, Melissa. Hevert, you said you had another critical patient?"
"Not critical," replied the healer. "He'll live, but I don't know if I've done the right thing." He got up, and led them to another pallet where a man-hardly more than a boy-in an Aventine tunic lay. His right arm showed an ugly cut through the bicep. The bone had been sliced through, although it was already beginning to heal. Muscles and blood vessels were reunited-he would keep his arm.
Torio could say nothing; he was too powerfully reminded of discovering Decius with a similar wound-although to the thigh rather than the upper arm. In the empire, there had been nothing their best healers could do but amputate.
If only we had had such powers!
"Sorcery!" said Master Corus.
"He will have his arm," Hevert said, ignoring the comment, "but will it do him any good? Will it be paralyzed, my lord, my lady?"
Torio said, "Melissa, I can do the fine discernment to Read the nerves-but I have not had medical training you have. I cannot tell whether they have been reunited in the proper patterns."
Melissa looked to the two Master Readers. "Help me, please, Masters."
"Aid you in abetting Adept sorcery?" asked Master Amicus.
"This man is an Aventine citizen," Melissa answered. "Our own healers could not have saved his arm at all-I certainly could not have, and I am a skilled surgeon. Think of his whole life ahead. Will he be left with an unfeeling, unmoving, useless arm? I will do my best-but I am only a Reader in training. You are Master Readers. You can Read deeper into those fine nerves than either Torio or I could."
"Which is the true betrayal," Torio asked, picking up something of the turmoil in the two Master Readers' minds, "aiding a healer to restore an Aventine soldier to full function, or denying health to a man who might have served again to protect his country, and preventing his even working to his full capacity as a citizen?"
The Master Readers looked at one another, and nodded. "We will help."
Hevert had successfully united most of the major nerve fibers-the ones that had shown in the cut flesh. But there were others, not easily seen, that he had missed. When the Readers were finished, though, the boy on the pallet had an arm that would heal to full function, as good as it had ever been. Through it all, he remained in healing sleep. Torio wondered if he would ever know that he had a savage healer and at least one renegade Reader to thank for a healthy arm.