* * * * *
Sometime later he fluttered over to where she washed laundry in the stream. Breakfast had come and gone, as had lunch. While she'd pretended not to watch, Mikhail had silently moved the bodies. Wherever he'd dumped them, she didn't want to know. Let their own kin come looking for them to perform the death rituals!
She gestured to the spear hole in Mikhail's leg.
“Let me look at that."
Blood soaked his pants, but the wound didn't appear to be bleeding heavily. The spear had only hit flesh, not one of the vital areas that carried blood from the rest of the body. Mikhail had a remarkable ability to heal, but she wanted to clean his wound and stitch it up so it didn't fester. Without a word, he sat on his customary boulder and waited. Ninsianna approached him cautiously
“They were Halifians,” she said, deliberately forcing herself to make eye contact and not look away. “People of the desert. They are sworn enemies of my tribe. I don't know what they were doing with Jamin.”
Mikhail watched her with his sharp eagle's gaze, scanning her face for the slightest ripple of emotion. Although his eyes didn't possess the inhuman blue glow of earlier, Ninsianna shivered. Now she knew what it felt like to be a mouse.
“I shall tell my father when he visits again,” she said. “He will speak to the Chief. Jamin shouldn't be consorting with our enemies.”
Mikhail didn't answer, but she didn't expect him to. She spoke more for her own benefit than his. Although he couldn't understand everything she said, she knew it was the normalcy of her voice, and not the words themselves, which would win back his trust.
“You must remove these so I can look at it." She motioned for him to remove the strange leg coverings that he called 'pants. “Unless you want to lose another garment when I cut them off. It's your choice.”
Without a word, he rose and undid his belt. Sliding the pants down to his knees, he sat back down. Ninsianna tried not to stare at the tight-fitting loincloth covering his private areas or the fact such a tight undergarment afforded her a good idea of what lay beneath. Although she'd not yet shared her bed with any lover, as a healer Ninsianna had attended to wounds near a man's private areas. She was relieved to learn her new friend resembled a human male in that respect as well.
“This will hurt." She poured water into the wound to rinse it.
Mikhail didn't flinch, but as she dabbed, her sensitive fingers could detect the twitch of pain he forced himself to suppress.
“I must stitch this up so it heals or it will keep seeping blood," she said. "I have some bangha in my satchel if you want something to kill the pain. It will make you sleepy." She'd offered the cannabis to him several times already to aid his sleep and numb his pain, and each time he'd refused. Perhaps he would accept it now?
“No,” he finally made eye contact. His face was impassive, but his eyes had lost the inhuman blue glow they'd possessed earlier when he'd transformed himself into an instrument of death.
She pulled her bone needle out of her satchel and rinsed it with water. She only had a few strands of horse tail hair left. She would need to ask her father for more. Working as efficiently as she could, she stitched up his leg. It took 17 stitches to close the wound, 34 separate punctures of the broad bone needle into his flesh, and not once did Mikhail flinch.
“All done," Ninsianna's fingers lingered on his thigh to communicate she was sorry for having to hurt him. "If you take these off, I'll wash and mend them for you." She pointed to his pants.
Mikhail nodded, his expression wary.
"I saved you some food." Her voice sounded high and shrill even to her own ears. Normal. She needed to act normal. She took a deep breath and forced her voice to convey calm. "Would you like something to eat?" She gestured towards the food she'd cooked earlier.
“Yes."
He watched her with that closed expression he used to hide his thoughts. At least it was an expression she recognized, not the inhuman one he'd sported while in killing mode. Her tribe valued warriors, but his abilities surpassed anything she'd ever seen, or even heard sung about in Papa's songs; even more awesome than the legends of Lugalbanda, her warrior-shaman grandfather. The goddess had sent him to her. She must accept him for who he was.
Acting as though it was lunch for any other day, she gathered the tubers, wild onions, fiddleheads, and a small bird she'd captured and cooked earlier and served them on one of the strange platters from his ship. He wolfed them down. He had to be ravenous after skipping both breakfast and lunch, but he kept his eyes on her the entire time.
Taking his bloody pants, she waded into the stream, washed out the blood, and hung them in the sun to dry. He went into his ship and came out wearing an identical clean pair. The rest of the day was spent in silence. Ninsianna talked her way through the daily routine as if everything were perfectly normal. Mikhail only answered yes or no when prompted. There were no language lessons that day, nor did Ninsianna dare ask him how he'd become so efficient at killing. Even if he remembered, she had a feeling it was not something he liked to talk about.
As the sun went down, they moved inside to turn into their bunks. Mikhail placed debris in front of the crack so it would make noise if somebody tried to enter. Turning to him just before she slipped under the covers, she buried her face into his chest and wrapped her arms around his waist, sobbing. She was surprised when, not only did he return the gesture, but he buried his face into her hair, his body shuddering with whatever emotion he kept at bay. His good wing, the one which was not hampered by a splint, curled around her, as though he wished to shield her from the ugliness they'd both witnessed today.
She withdrew and whispered good night. Without a word, she slipped off her shawl, slid beneath the covers, and went to sleep.
Mikhail stood over her a long time before doing the same.
Chapter 27