Brenst pressed the trumpet against Solace's chest.

The heartbeat he heard was steady and unbothered. Same as it always was.

Solace's breathing was steady, as well, with no pops or gurgles. The boy was healthy, albeit a bit underweight. "If you could feed him a bit more often," Brenst said to Charlotte as he packed away his tools. "Otherwise, he's healthy."

The princess smiled and reached over to wipe her son's drool with a handkerchief. "I'm glad to hear that." The hint of sadness in her eyes was more than Brenst could handle. He looked away.

"Highness... I have a concern about the punishment methods employed by the Knight Commander."

"Oh?" Charlotte finished cleaning Solace's face.

"Yes... Last week, the Knight Commander had everyone in the Eastern Barracks whipping two squires from the Western Barracks."

"A whipping is hardly a matter for concern," Charlotte said.

Brenst pushed his glasses up and turned to face her again. "Not with a belt, Your Highness. A whip. And it was everyone taking a turn. These boys were barely alive when I got to them. Is there any crime they could have committed that would deserve death?"

Charlotte stared at him, mouth open. She took a breath and clenched her teeth. "No," she said finally.

Brenst nodded. He knew the matter was in good hands. "I will take my leave, Your Highness."

"Yes. Of course," she said softly, her gaze returning to her son. "Brenst."

"Yes?" He paused at the door, looking back at the princess.

"Which boys?"

"Squires Avery and Owen," Brenst said.

She nodded, caressing her son's silky hair, running her fingers through it. It had grown back nicely over the last four years.

Solace blinked, but his blank gaze relaxed slightly, though Brenst knew it was observer bias for thinking the boy looked content. He was probably just about to fall asleep, was all.

Brenst bowed to the woman and turned right at the door, heading toward the garden doors instead of back to his office in the southern hall. It had been a while since he'd checked on the two squires.

That Owen boy... was strange. In his confusion, he'd been speaking Ingvanic.

Of all things!

The doctor had identified that Bass and Squire Marx were the only others who had managed to decipher his slurred mumbling. The assistant Brenst had brought for the unexpected evening call should have recognized the language, but given Squire Owen’s thick tongue, odd accent, and the shock of hearing an uneducated Hannish boy speak a dead language, it was understandable that Vincent hadn’t recognized it.

Whatever was going on with that boy… Brenst was sure this wouldn’t be the last he’d be seeing of Reed Owen’s back. He made a mental note to start stockpiling medications for him specifically.

***

"By refusing to worship Nyltia, you are denying Her gift to the world," Tundra pointed toward the heavy, gray sky. "Abandon your false god and embrace Nyltia, for She is the bringer of Light..." Besides the Hans, there was a small crowd of Durs listening to Matron Tundra's sermon. They had come to gawk at the Hans who were crowding the very edge of the road since the riverbank had been flooded, and the water had yet to recede.

Rimmer's face still hurt. He couldn't breathe out of his flattened nose. He was forced to wheeze through his mouth like some uneducated slum ruffian. Every breath filled him with fury at the reminder of not only how that redheaded mudrat had beaten him but had done so easily.

"Stand up straight," High Priest Oregano ordered with a pinch to his aching ribs.

Compounding his foul mood was his mother's bi-annual attempt to convert the heathens to the Temple. Every year, she picked the nastiest weather. Today, it was drizzling and cold. Little pellets of frozen rain were occasionally hitting his head, getting caught in his hair, and melting. He stood in the soggy street, next to his mother, while she addressed the mob of stinky, muddy river rats. None of them were paying attention to her. She wasn't paying attention to him. And the gathered Durs weren't paying attention to the Hans they were supposedly there to support.

The whole thing was a waste of time.

Tundra didn’t actually want the Hans to convert and start coming to services. This was all publicity to make herself look good. She’s so generous, people would say. Extending a hand to these ungrateful heathens. And then they would, in turn, extend their purses to Tundra. The donations they made to the Temple were used for his mother’s luxuries. She had used last year’s donations to buy a slave from Harthford. A Han child who was there to massage Tundra’s feet or fetch things, though the child’s grasp of Durrish was poor, so he often got the wrong thing or went to stand facing the wall instead of doing as told.

Rimmer knew the boy was playing up his stupidity. He had a familiar glimmer of defiance in his gaze. The “misunderstood” orders were met with beatings, but the boy never “learned” and kept doing strange things.

Tundra paid more attention to that kid than she’d ever paid to her own son.

Rimmer wanted to punch something, and Tundra’s slave was off limits. She’d notice new bruises on her pet. His eyes scanned the mudrats. All of them were trash. His gaze landed on the whore he'd cornered the night the redhead mudrat had attacked him. He'd make her pay, he decided. She had screamed. She was the reason his face and ribs ached, and he couldn’t breathe.

He'd also get that redhead. It wasn't enough that the guy had been whipped nearly to death. He was still alive, and that was unacceptable.

Mudrats had no business being in Durshand. They were nothing but criminals and were better off dead.

Rimmer looked toward the river. Was drowning too good a death for that redhead?

No, he decided with a slight smile. It was fitting. The bottom of the river was exactly where that scumbag belonged. How to get him there, though?

Matron Tundra continued prattling on about how Nyltia was their savior and that she deserved their respect and reverence. All other gods were demons and should be shunned.

"Your faith and worship of this false god are why you are suffering," Matron Tundra said.

This statement got something of a reaction from the Hans. They glared at her.

Rimmer snorted, earning a glare from the High Priest standing beside him. If his mother actually intended to convert these heathens, that was clearly not the way to do it. Her statement riled the Durs, though. They turned suspicious looks on the Hans.

***

Week two, and Reed was finally able to get out of bed on his own.

He grit his teeth as Brenst picked the stitches out of his back. "So doc," Reed said casually, looking over his shoulder. "Can I ah... stop the medication? I really don't like being forced to sleep like that."

"Sleep helps you heal." Brenst sighed, setting his tools aside in a bath of disinfectant alcohol. "Considering you've not followed directions and been laying on your wounds this whole time, it's surprising they've healed at all."

"I can't breathe on my stomach," Reed complained, "And I've been on my side."

"You're going to have scarring."

"So what. I got plenty of those." Reed gestured with his arm at the bite marks he'd gotten from one of those giant wolf spiders. "Please. I just don't like the sleep meds. And the pain meds don’t do anything." He didn't want to admit the medications gave him nightmares worse than he usually had. He felt bad about sharing that room with Timmons. And frankly, it made no sense for them to share rooms at all. There weren't enough knights and squires combined to fill the barracks. Packing them all into rooms on the front hall was stupid.

Secretly, he suspected it was because Bass didn't want neighbors. The walls were kind of thin. Also, it kept men from bringing company back to their rooms. That much Reed appreciated. This wasn't a brothel after all.

However, his current predicament was spurred by his need to protect Lily's reputation. It was getting around that she was tending to him more than necessary. Just earlier, Phil had asked Reed where his wife was.

“You have another half week of the medications left. You need to take it all.”

“And what else is even in it?” Reed asked, twisting to look back at the man. “I already said whatever you put in there for pain don’t work and the sleep ain’t restful.”

Brenst met his heated gaze, well used to belligerent patients. “Antibiotics to keep your wounds from getting infected.”

“Then just give me a half week of that by itself. I’ll take that and won’t say another word about it.”

The doctor sighed, staring Reed in the eyes. “Fine. But you must rest. No running around. No training. Rest.”

“Deal,” Reed said. “Promise you won’t see me up to anything except standin' if I gotta.”

Brenst nodded and stepped back to wash his hands before going to one of the locked cabinets. “What side effects are you having from the previous medication?”

Reed rubbed his face with both hands before pulling his shirt on. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he knew that if he was going to get what he wanted out of Brenst, he needed to be honest. “I don’t sleep good to begin with. The meds make it worse.”

Pausing in taking a brown-glass bottle out of the cabinet, Brenst looked at him again.

Reed held his gaze, making sure Brenst understood that if the sleep medication he’d been given already was making it worse, then there was little chance Reed was going to take anything else for it.

Turning back to measuring out a small amount of powder into a few packets of paper, Brenst returned to stand in front of Reed where he sat on the table. “Half of one in the morning, the other half at night until it’s gone,” Brenst instructed. “Only bandage your back if it bleeds. Do not scrub or scratch but you may take full baths now. Try not to lie on it.”

Reed held his hand out for the packets. “Yes sir,” he said with slight amusement.

Brenst was not amused. He stepped back, letting Reed drop off the edge of the table.

“See you,” Reed said as he headed for the door.

“I hope not often.”

“Probably often,” Reed promised with a knowing look.