Victor O'Reilly - Rules of The Hunt

"The romantic General," she said with a smile. "Another romantic we both know said something rather similar."

Kilmara laughed. "I'm a part-time romantic," he said. "Very part-time. My nature is to be practical, to see the world the way it is without the expectation that I can change it. Hugo is the real thing. Even worse, he is a romantic and an idealist. He believes things can and will get better, and in such notions as honor and duty and fidelity. That's what gets him into so much trouble. Yet I envy him his nature. He can be a lethal son of a bitch, but in essence, he is a good man."

"And you're not?" said Kathleen.

Kilmara took his time answering. He was thinking of Sasada, of drugs and sensory deprivation, of other terrible techniques; of what they had done to the man to make him talk.

The man now slobbered and grunted and could no longer control his bowels. He was permanently insane.

"No," he said heavily. "My world demands other qualities, and it appear that I may have them. But goodness is not high on the list."

Kathleen had the sense that he was referring to something specific, and she shuddered. His was a fearful world and he had spent a lifetime in it. Violence was a perversion of all civilized values. How could one be exposed to such a culture of destruction and remain unaffected? And yet she was being unfair. Violence was a reality, and the relative peace that most people enjoyed depended on such men as her companion. Without people such as the Bear and Kilmara, she reminded herself, she would now be dead.

She took his arm companionably. "You're a kind man," she said thoughtfully, "and a good friend to Hugo."

Kathleen had not seen Fitzduane since the carnage at the hospital. In view of the investigations after the incident, she had been sent to a hospital elsewhere and released after a week. Her physical injuries were not serious and were now almost healed. Then there had been her father's funeral and her mother to look after. And there was a sense of shock and violation that was taking a lot longer time to overcome; it might take years.

In truth, her feelings about Fitzduane were hard to clarify. Indirectly he was the cause of these terrible happenings. He was not responsible but he was directly associated. If she had never met the man, her father might yet be alive and her mother would not have had a nervous breakdown.

"How is he?" she said. She missed him as she spoke and had an overwhelming desire to be with him. She felt confused. Here was a man with a son by another woman, whose life was associated with a level of threat that any sane person, given a choice, would avoid like the plague.

He was also the most attractive and stimulating man she had ever met, and she could not stay away from him. Yet she was scared of being with him and the emotional pain that might ensue. And she was appalled by the latent physical danger. The memory of McGonigal and Sasada was still fresh in her mind. She had trouble sleeping and found it difficult to concentrate. Sometimes, for no specific reason, she felt herself shaking with terror and sweating.

"Grumpy," said Kilmara, in an amused voice, and then he became more serious. "For the last couple of years, Hugo has been focused on Boots and rebuilding Duncleeve and some work for the Rangers – but otherwise skating. He did not seem to be fully engaged. It was as if he needed to rest up for a little time before embarking on something new. He had hung up his wars and his cameras but hadn't found a replacement activity. He seemed to me to lack a purpose in life."

"Looking after a child and building a home is not a purpose?" said Kathleen, a little annoyed.

Kilmara laughed. "Touche!" he said.

Kathleen stopped and stared at some seaweed, kelp, the deep-brown rubbery kind with long stalks and little bubbles on the fronds that you could burst. She was reminded of summers at the seaside with her family and the reassuring feeling of her father's hand in hers, and she was gripped with a sense of loss and desolation. Tears welled from her eyes.

Kilmara looked across at her and saw the tears and put his arm around her, and they walked like that for some distance before either spoke again. The beach seemed endless and the headland in the distance was shrouded in mist. Kathleen imagined that they were walking on clouds. When she spoke again, she picked up the conversation where they had left off. "And his being shot," she said. "Are you implying that this has changed him?"

"Being shot, seriously injured, tends to concentrate the mind," said Kilmara grimly. "You'll have seen it for yourself. Some people fold and die and others draw on all their reserves and seem to get a renewed grip on life, as if they realize just how little time there is and the importance of making the most of what you've got."

"Well, Hugo is a fighter," said Kathleen forcibly.

"And there is the irony," said Kilmara. "He claws his way back into the land of the living, and insofar as it is humanly possible in such a condition, operates flat out…" He paused and laughed.

"And?" said Kathleen impatiently.

"And when something happens that he cannot remotely blame himself for – the attack on the hospital – he gets an acute attack of depression and just does nothing for five days," said Kilmara. He looked at Kathleen. "I think he misses you."

Kathleen did to reply at first. Her cheeks were tingling from the breeze off the sea and the salt spray. She felt defensive about Fitzduane and thought Kilmara was being a little cruel. "He feels responsible," she said slowly. "He was the target and others died. That would hurt him."

"Well, he is back on track now," Kilmara said, "and furious with himself for losing so much time. That is why he's grumpy."

Kathleen started to laugh, and it was infectious. Soon both of them were laughing as they walked arm in arm along the endless curve of the sand.

The most unpleasant initial aftereffect of his injuries, in Fitzduane's opinion – a judgment he felt most qualified to make, since it was his body, after all – was the external fixation the orthopedic team had used to repair his smashed thighbone. Fortunately, it had been a temporary expedient.

They had screwed four pins into the bone, two above and two below the fracture, which protruded through the skin. They had then joined the pins together externally with crossbars. When Fitzduane looked at his leg, the fixation reminded him of a scaffolding construction. He was part bionic. Frankly, he had preferred being all human.

The orthopedic surgeon had been proud of his handiwork. "The advantage of external over internal fixation is that it does not contaminate," he had said, looking at an X ray of Fitzduane's thigh with much the same enthusiasm that a normal male might reserve for a Playboy centerfold.

"Very nice," said Fitzduane, "but it makes me look like part of the EiffelTower. What's the downside?"

The surgeon had smiled reassuringly. "Just a little discomfort," he had said. "Nothing to be concerned about."

"Just a little discomfort," Fitzduane had soon learned, was a relative term. External fixation was extremely uncomfortable. There were four sites of entry in Fitzduane's leg for the pins, and despite regular dressing they were a constant source of pain and irritation. If he accidentally bashed the fixator, the skin tore. To help him sleep, a frame was put over his leg at night.

"You are able to walk almost immediately with external fixation," said the surgeon. "Exercise is very important."

Fitzduane, cursed with an imagination and his mind painting a graphic picture of shattered bone, could not at first even mentally consider walking, but he was given little choice in the matter.

On the fourth day after he had been shot, he had begun dynamic exercises.