A Catalogue of Injuries

"Very well," the Davar replied. "But it must be tomorrow." With that he left.

Returning to her patient's bedside, the nurse found that - heavily sedated as she was - she had already dozed off again. That was good. For the time being, the more that she could sleep the better. At least given time she should recover either fully or almost so; depending on just how well her almost completely severed Achilles tendon healed she might be left with a permanent limp, or if she was unlucky even need the aid of a walking stick.

It was evening before Astra woke again. Immediately, it seemed, the woman in white was at her bedside. "How are you feeling, khanomam?" she asked.

"Less woozy than when I last woke. I still have a bit of a headache. It hurts when I breathe too, and there's a stabbing pain down near my left ankle."

"You are still being sedated to dull the pain, though not so heavily as before, so you are bound to feel woozy, as you put it. You had severe concussion. At least your skull was not fractured, though, and the headache should soon go. The pain when you breathe will take longer to go away since, as well as severe bruising, you have a couple of cracked ribs. You are heavily bandaged there. But the most serious injury is the gash just above your left ankle. The Achilles tendon was almost completely cut through, and that will take six to eight weeks to heal. It is lucky that it was not completely severed. The wound has been stitched and, to prevent your pulling on the tendon and doing further damage, the leg is in plaster from the ankle to just above the knee. Now I need to check whether you still have any lingering concussion. Your pupils look normal, but I would like you to count backwards from twenty down to one for me."

Astra did so satisfactorily. Then she asked: "What is this place?"

"The White Hospital, khanomam."

"Where's that? Is it in Hesht? Sorry, I mean Hespan."

The nurse noted the slip, and also that her patient seemed agitated. "No," she said. "It is in Yepenhan, in the Duchy of Penham."

At that, the woman visibly relaxed. "All right," she said. "Are you saying that I'll have to remain here for six to eight weeks? I can't possibly do that."

"You may be well enough to be released after a week or two. But you will need to stay somewhere in town, as you will need to return here every couple of days for your progress to be assessed and your bandages changed. And eventually your cast will need to be removed, of course. Even after that, the muscles of your leg will have wasted, so that you will need a programme of exercises to build them up. It will be at least three months before you are fully fit again." And that's taking the most optimistic view, she thought but of course did not say.

As Astra digested this unwelcome news, the woman went on: "You will have a visitor tomorrow, khanomam. The Davar, that is the judge, of Darvazde Yepenhan wants to talk to you to find out what happened."

"I can only tell him what happened up to the point when I was hit on the head. For what happened after that, he will need to talk to Hesht - that's my companion. I would like to talk to Heaht too, to find out what happened, especially whether they raped me. Would you bring him to see me, please?"

The nurse reflected that her patient evidently had no inkling that Hesht had been badly hurt. She replied:

1. "He has been unconscious. He received a bad cut, and lost a lot of blood. But he should be fine. In fact he will be out of hospital in a day or two, long before you. You may be able to see him tomorrow."
2. "Prepare yourself for some very bad news. He died a couple of hours ago."
3. By prevaricating. "You aren't well enough to have any visitors today. In fact I have already kept you talking longer than I should have. Have some water, and then go back to sleep."
4. "I can reassure you on one score. You are still a virgin."

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