Leslie Moore - Griffin's Daughter

“ I told you not to go to work today. I asked you to stay in and rest! Why didn’t you listen to me?” Gendan scolded gently, tears streaking his weathered cheeks.

“ Jelena, please hurry!” Aneko urged.

Jelena turned and ran for the door. She pounded down the stairs and sprinted across the lower yard. Up the path and through the lower gates she ran, ignoring the shouts of the guards, slowing down only when she had crossed the upper yard and had to think a moment to remember which way to go.

The infirmary lay at the back of the main wing of the castle. By the time Jelena arrived, she was thoroughly winded. Breathlessly, she pounded on the thick, wood door.

The doctor’s assistant, a gangly young man, answered the door, listened closely while Jelena gasped out her request for help, snapped, “Wait here!” then slammed the door shut, leaving Jelena alone in the warm darkness.

Anxiously, she waited.

Terrifying thoughts tumbled over themselves in her mind, each new one more horrible than the last.

What if Kami is losing her baby? What if she’s dying? What if she dies before I can bring the doctor? Will Gendan blame me?

Just when she thought she would go mad with fear, the door flew open and the doctor stepped through. Jelena immediately recognized her as the woman who had tended the injuries she’d received on the day Ashinji had rescued her from the bandits.

“ Lead on, girl!” the doctor commanded, handing her bag off to her assistant. Wordlessly, Jelena turned on her heel and started back the way she’d come, the doctor and her assistant following closely behind.

By the time they arrived at the barracks, Gendan and Aneko had stripped off Kami’s armor and clothing, and had put her into bed. Gendan had pulled up a stool and now sat beside his stricken lover, her small hand clutched tightly in his.

“ Doctor Metai, please, you must help my girl!” the captain begged, his voice ragged with fear. The doctor crossed the small room in two strides and bent over Kami, peering into the girl’s half-lidded, restless eyes. She pressed her first two fingers to the large vein in Kami’s pale throat, then after a few heartbeats, clicked her tongue in dismay. “What exactly happened, Captain?” Doctor Metai asked.

Gendan shook his head. “I don’t rightly know,” he replied. “I wasn’t there, but Aneko, here, was. She came and fetched me just after the bell sounded the hour-said my girl had taken ill.”

“ We’d just come in from our shift,” Aneko explained. “Kami’d been complaining since dawn that she didn’t feel well. She insisted it was just the morning sickness and that she’d be all right. She refused to stay in the bunk house to rest, even though Gendan asked her to.”

“ She’s such a hard-headed girl, sometimes!” Gendan added, sniffing hard and wiping his eyes on his sleeve. Kami moaned softly and began to shiver. Gendan stroked her tousled blonde hair. “Can you do anything for her, Doctor?” he asked.

“ I’ll not lie to you, Captain,” Doctor Metai stated. “Kami has fallen ill with a very serious malady. I’ve seen it most often in young women during the early weeks of a first pregnancy. Sometimes, the girl miscarries. Sometimes, she dies.”

“ No!” Jelena whispered, her hand flying to her mouth.

“ But Kami is strong and healthy,” the doctor continued. “With luck and good nursing, she has a decent chance of survival.”

“ What about our child?” Gendan asked quietly, resting one hand on top of the blanket covering Kami’s belly.

The doctor paused a heartbeat before answering. “If the mother survives, usually the child does as well.” She motioned for her assistant to bring her bag. “Kami will need constant tending through the crisis,” she added, reaching into the bag’s depths to withdraw several vials.

“ I will watch her,” Jelena volunteered. Both Aneko and Gendan looked sharply at her.

“ You don’t have to do this,” Aneko said. “Gendan can find a nurse…”

“ No, I will nurse Kami,” Jelena insisted. “Captain Miri must work. You must work also, Aneko. I need not work…I mean, there is other messenger…Taba. He can carry all Lord Sen’s messages for a short time. I will stay with Kami as long as she needs me.” She paused, then added, “Kami is my friend.”

Gendan noisily cleared his throat and scrubbed at his eyes with his fists. When he looked again at Jelena, his face shone with relief…and gratitude. “Thank you, Jelena,” he murmured.

When the doctor at last departed, she left behind three vials of medicines and instructions on their use. Kami was to be kept warm and the room quiet and dim. Gendan left briefly to shed his armor, and Aneko went to fetch them all some dinner. For a while, Jelena sat alone with Kami, who looked so small and vulnerable beneath the blankets. Kami might be small, but her size misled many. Jelena had seen her friend’s skill at arms, had witnessed first-hand the strength of her sword arm.

Kami is a fighter. She’ll survive.

“ You have to live, Kami!” Jelena whispered fiercely.

I need your friendship!

Kami sighed, and her eyelids fluttered. “Gendan,” she murmured. “Sweetheart, where are you?”

“ Gendan will return soon, Kami,” Jelena replied softly.

“ Jelena…You’re here.” Kami smiled weakly. “I’m so glad.” Abruptly, her face crumpled. “I’m scared!” she sobbed. “My baby…”

“ Do not worry, Kami. All will be well.” Jelena made no effort to hide the tears streaming down her cheeks.

When Gendan returned, he found Jelena huddled beside Kami on the narrow bed, holding her friend in her arms.

For three exhausting days and nights, Jelena remained by Kami’s side, leaving only to tend to the most basic needs of her own body. She slept very little and ate and drank sparingly, ignoring the aches in her own barely healed arm and side.

Kami alternately burned with fever and shivered with chills as the illness raged through her body. Jelena could do little to ease her friend’s suffering, other to than bathe the sick girl’s forehead with cool water one moment, then pile on more blankets the next. When Kami writhed with nausea and retching, Jelena held a basin to her cracked lips and wiped her mouth afterward.

Gendan came in the evenings after the end of his shift. Lovingly, he massaged Kami’s back and limbs with sweet almond oil; his touch seemed to do more to relieve her pain than anything else. Jelena had never witnessed such a tender display of love and devotion between a man and woman before, and she slowly came to realize that, beneath Gendan’s gruff exterior dwelt a soul perhaps as kind and good as Ashinji’s.

Ashinji came to the barracks each evening to check on Kami and to personally bring Jelena her dinner. He didn’t stay long; he seemed to sense that Gendan preferred the nobles not to make a lot of fuss. Lord Sen paid a visit only once, and Gendan seemed greatly relieved when he had gone.

“ Don’t get me wrong,” he’d said. “I ‘preciate my lord’s concern, but Kami’s ours to take care of.”

Jelena understood his meaning. Gendan believed that the lives of noble and common folk should intersect only in carefully prescribed ways. He considered caring for his sick sweetheart a private matter, one in which his bosses had no reason to involve themselves.

Four days after she’d first fallen ill, and after having spent the past night in restless semi-consciousness, Kami at last lay sleeping. Groggy from fatigue, Jelena rose from the chair she’d occupied since sundown and stretched her aching limbs. She shuffled over to the open window and peered out, shading her eyes against the sunrise with one hand. Behind her, Gendan’s rough snoring rattled the stillness. Drawing in a deep breath of the fresh morning air, Jelena rubbed her eyes and then returned to the bed, where she laid a hand on Kami’s forehead. The girl’s skin felt cool and dry. Jelena nodded in satisfaction.