Harvest of Rubies (37 page)

Damaspia motioned for one of her guards to come forward, and Darius handed me to him as he mounted. The guard gave me back to my husband, trying not to jostle me in the process. Darius’s arms cradled me. He smiled into my eyes. “Just like old times.”

The motion of the horse intensified the pain in my head and chest. I began to realize that I hurt everywhere. Two falls and Teispes’s rough treatment had left me covered in bruises. To distract myself, I asked, “How did you find me?”

“I found out this morning that Teispes had escaped. Although I increased the watch around his brother, I could not shake my unease. Finally I came in search of you to warn you to be on your guard. I found out you had gone riding with the queen, and decided to follow. When I caught up with her party, we discovered that you were missing. Then Kidaris galloped into our midst, foaming with exertion and riderless, and we knew you were in some manner of trouble. I doubled back and managed to follow Kidaris’s tracks to the glade. Why did you go to him willingly? There were no signs of struggle until the glade.”

“He sent a boy to tell me that a man wished to meet me in the woods. I thought it was you.”

Darius pulled me closer against him. We were silent for a
while. I wished I would lose consciousness again so that I’d stop suffering. Finally I said, “Could you halt for a moment? So I can catch my breath?”

He brought Samson to a stop. To Damaspia he said, “Why don’t you and your ladies go ahead, Your Majesty? We will follow at a slower pace.”

“I will have the physicians sent to you right away. They will await your arrival in your apartments.”

Darius shifted me in his arms when everyone had ridden past. “Ready?”

I tried to sound confident. “Yes.”

“Not much longer. We’ll be upon the first wall before you know it.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord,” I said a few moments later. “I’m going to be sick.”

He stopped Samson just in time. I was mortified as I retched before him, for in spite of my urging, he refused to leave me alone. He was concerned that I would start bleeding again, but he had done a thorough job dressing the wound earlier and it did not open. My head pounded beyond forbearance as I disgorged everything in my stomach. When I was finally able to stop, Darius gave me a little wine with which to rinse my mouth. I feared it hardly covered my stench.

Now I smelled as bad as I looked. Back on the horse I croaked, “I bet I looked prettier than this on our wedding night.” If my brain weren’t so addled, I would never have brought up such a sensitive topic.

I could tell I had startled him as his green eyes opened wide. “You are a terror, little scribe. One never knows what will come out of your mouth.”

“Given the memento I just left on the side of the road, I can’t dispute the accuracy of that statement.”

I could feel his chest contracting under my cheek as he laughed. Into the ensuing silence he said, “I don’t know what to do with you.”

Wisely I kept my thoughts to myself.

True to Damaspia’s word, we found two royal physicians in our room, ready to attend me. They told Darius that he had done a proficient job, but the wound in my chest would have to be sewn. I wished they would leave me be so I could drift into sleep. Instead they poked and prodded me with their instruments, sewed me up like a Phoenician cushion, wiped the dirt and blood off me, wrapped my head, put salve on my wounds and bruises before finally leaving me in peace.

To my discomfort, Darius supervised every step of their treatment. By the time they were done, I was barely dressed, sprawled on the bed with nothing save a short under tunic, and even that had been cut on one side, exposing too much skin. No one seemed to have a care for my modesty.

Alone with Darius, I pulled the covers over me haphazardly, using my good arm. “You seem to have made a habit of this,” I said. I was dizzy with exhaustion and pain, but sleep would not come.

He straightened the covers over me with a soldier’s precision. “Of what?”

“Of saving my life.”

“You seem to have made a habit of endangering it.”

I smoothed the linen coverlet with a feeble hand. “Thank you for your care. I am indebted to you.” I lowered my lids so he couldn’t read my expression. “Please don’t feel that you must remain here with me.”

He shrugged. “I haven’t anything better to do at the moment. Go to sleep, Sarah.”

I gave a weak smile. “I know everyone jumps to obey your
every command, my lord. But I’ve been
trying
to sleep for well nigh two hours to no avail. You don’t really think I wanted to stay awake while a needle was pushed in and out of my flesh, do you?”

He ran his finger down my nose in a casual caress. “I’ll say this for you; you are courageous.”

I wanted him to call me
sweetheart
again, not
courageous
. He made me sound like one of the kings Immortals. “Anything to oblige,” I said.

“A less obliging woman I have yet to find.”

“Is that the best you can do for bedside manner to a sick, weak creature at the door of death?”

He raised a hand to rub the back of his neck. To my surprise I realized that my words had pricked his conscience. “I was jesting. You’ve been nothing but kind.”

Darius sat next to me on the bed. The mattress dipped under his weight. My head was finally beginning to fall under the spell of the medicated wine the physicians had poured down my throat and I found it hard to focus on his words.

“I sent a message to Damaspia early this morning,” he said. “I asked her to separate our rooms.”

“She told me.” I was finding it hard to breathe. “Not that she will mind me, but I requested that she free you to go where you wished.”

My vision was growing blurred and I saw his face through a fog. He studied me intensely. “Is that what
you
want? For me to leave?” He caressed my cheek with unexpected tenderness.

I found the combination of his touch and his talk of leaving too confusing and closed my eyes. “I think I’m going to sleep now,” I said.

“Not yet. Answer me first.”

“What?”

He leaned his face close to mine. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No! No, I don’t want you to leave!” As I finally slipped into blessed unconsciousness, I dreamed that my husband kissed me softly on the lips.

A whole day and night passed before I awoke. Sleep had not softened the blow of pain. My body felt like it had been through the battle of Thermopylae, on the Greek side. I could smell the scent of myrrh mixed with blood under my linen bandages.

Added to the agony of half healed wounds and bruises was the urgency of the call of nature. Leaning on my good arm and shoulder, I raised myself to sit on the bed.

Suddenly, Darius was perched next to me, pushing me back into the pillows. “What are you doing? You mustn’t try to rise yet.”

I blinked. “I didn’t know you were here.”

He looked as fresh as one of the king’s new coins in his crisp linen tunic. I felt dirty and unkempt in comparison. I examined his recently bathed form in dismay. He sat next to me guarding my every move when what I needed was privacy. With inexpressible passion I wished for my sweet friend, Pari. She would know how to help me. But she was plodding somewhere on the king’s highways, and too far yet from Ecbatana to help me.

One of Damaspia’s handmaidens would serve, I decided, considering the urgency of my need. But I would have to trouble Darius to arrange for one. Hadn’t I caused him enough problems? Had he not declared that he wanted a different
room, and yet here he was, stuck with me, feeling duty-bound to bide with me while I recovered? Could I add one more inconvenience to an already mounting pile? But what choice had I? I bit my nail, trying to find a way to get him out of the room so that I could at least relieve myself discreetly.

He stepped into the turmoil of my mind with alarming accuracy. “Why do you have such a hard time asking for what you want? I can see you are uncomfortable. What do you need?”

“I have bothered you enough. If you could leave the apartment for a little while—”

“Why? So you can get up and fall on your head again?”

“I didn’t fall on my head,” I said, my voice heavy with indignation. “That man threw me down. In any case, I wish to get up and … do what must be done.” I had grown up in a country that was profoundly private about bodily functions. Persians didn’t even spit in each other’s presence. In spite of his refined background, Darius had traveled among the peoples of many lands, most of whom had no such compunctions about their personal needs. He would have no problem staying in the room and insisting on
helping
me. I could think of few things more mortifying.

Something of the mutiny on my face must have communicated itself to the man. Without a word he rose from the bed and sent Arta, waiting in his usual place outside our chamber, to go and fetch a maid.

“Have their majesties not released you to move to new rooms yet?”

“Who said I wanted to move?”

I frowned, trying to recall the thread of our conversation just before unconsciousness had claimed me. “You did. You and Damaspia.”

He sat on the bed once more. “I said I wanted to move yesterday morning. I’ve changed my mind since then.”

I tried to cross my arms and narrow my gaze and found both intentions impossible. One hurt my shoulder and the other my head. Expelling a vexed sigh I said, “Thank you for your noble sacrifice, my lord. I don’t know if you feel obligated to me because of guilt or some misguided notion of duty. But I think it best you leave.”

“No, you don’t. You told me you want me to stay.”

Like smoke on a windless day, the hazy memory of yesterday’s conversation began to penetrate the cobwebs of my mind. “That’s because you were pestering me and I would have said the sunrise was green for the chance to sleep.”

Grinning, he put his hand on my pillow and leaned forward. I could smell mint and ginger on his breath. “Someone woke up in a foul temper.”

A timid knock on the door saved me from having to answer him. Darius left me alone with the maid the queen had sent, which was a relief. By the time the maid had finished wiping me as clean as I could become without a bath and changed me into a fresh under tunic, I was grey with fatigue.

I had no strength to continue sparring with Darius when he returned to the room. He could waste his time at my bedside if that satisfied him. But he was silent as he poured out another cup of herbed wine and held it to my lips. I drank down the physic without objection and fell back into a restless sleep.

There was no sign of Darius when I awoke. The maid who had helped me earlier was dozing on a stool next to my bed.
Too many troubling thoughts tenanted my mind. I spent time in prayer, hoping that it would soothe my agitated state. I asked God to forgive me for my sharpness toward my husband. What I realized as I prayed was that I had no wish for Darius’s pity. I did not desire him by my side for the sake of duty or guilt. In the end he would be sick of me; who could keep up a kinship based on pity or guilt? Before long, these emotions would wear out, would give way to resentment. And I would have to bear his abandonment after having experienced something of his tenderness.