Fraul, 8

Fraul slept little that night. He lay on his side, which was the most comfortable position he could find, and stared at a stone in the hearth. He wanted to get up and take a walk. He couldn’t.

When the gray light filtered into the sky, when Heath finally snuffled to himself and turned over, Fraul whispered, “Brother.”

“Huh,” Heath grunted. Fraul pushed himself gingerly into a sitting position, feeling it in his hips, his knees, his ankles, his elbows. He was shaking, he was hot, and Heath looked down and drawled, “You didn’t sleep.”

“No.”

The healer sighed, swinging his feet to the floor, saying, “Hold on. Coffee first.”

Fraul waited, rocking himself imperceptibly, staring at the same place on the hearth at which he’d stared all night. He tried to relax but the muscles were locked in place, and the constant tension was giving him a headache.

Only when the water bubbled in the kettle, and Heath poured them both coffee and handed one to Fraul, was he distracted from his discomfort. He sucked the coffee down and his shoulders unclenched.

Heath drank his mug slower. He said, “I’m going outside.”

Fraul nodded, feeling more human, his long fingers around the ceramic cup. The healer wandered out to the porch and leaned on the wall, watching the men begin to wake and emerge from tents, the mist obscuring their lamplight. He sighed. It was good here. The morning was biting and cold, and the coffee was hot.

A little crease appeared between his brows, thinking of Fraul. His eyes roved alongside Raru, striding across camp, rubbing his face.

Heath wandered back inside. Fraul was sitting against the wall, looking at the wheelchair. His gaze lifted and Heath asked, “How is it?”

“Fine, fine,” murmured Fraul. “I think I will stay inside today. If you don’t mind my using your house. I am sorry to put so much on you.”

Heath grunted and sat down for his morning routine, beginning to pour over the notes of yesterday. Fraul was still looking at the chair, wanting to get into it.

He breathed deeply. He said, “I actually had an idea last night.”

“Oh, no,” Heath drawled at the paper. Fraul’s face was set.

“You told me once,” he said slowly, “that you knew how to kill nerves.”

“I wouldn’t say I know how to do it. More like I’ve done it before.”

“And the last time you did it, the nerve was in the woman’s back. That is what you told me.”

“Uh-huh.” Heath sighed, and looked at his hands. He was getting too old for this. His hands were starting to shake. He looked at Fraul. Then back down at the paper. He began to sketch a vertebra.

“Here,” he said, tapping the paper, “is where the spinal nerve sits. You get a needle. You stick it in the nerve and run heat down the needle.” He looked at Fraul and expected him to wince, but the other man sat with steepled fingers and calm tawny eyes. His gaze flicked up to the healer.

“And you can do it?” he asked. Heath nodded.

“Mind, nerves heal,” he said. “I–”

“But you can do it?”

Heath sighed. In truth, he thought he could do it better this time around. He started to pace.

“The real problem,” he said to himself, “is keeping you under. You can’t move. You cannot move. I have to hit a very precise spot. And it’s painful. Sawing off a limb painful. But at least if I was doing that, you could move a little. For this, you would have to be unconscious. And I don’t have medicine that strong.”

Fraul was looking steadily at him. His fingers were still steepled. “Then I’ll be still,” he said. Heath looked at him for a long time and was on the verge of refusing. Fraul put an imploring hand out.

“Look, brother. Captain.” He gave a part-smile. “I can do this.” Then he frowned, realizing what he was asking. “I don’t mean to ask so much of you. You are my friend. But if all I have to do is be still, I can do that. If you wanted me to pay you, I could do that.”

Heath folded his arms and considered. “Give me a day to think about it,” he muttered.

When Fraul met up with Raru that night, Raru knew something was different. Fraul intercepted him while he walked to the Bazairi den, and the two of them looked at each other with secretive smiles before moving together over the cobblestone.

“Something wrong?” Raru asked, when Fraul was silent a second too long. A single look at Fraul’s face confirmed it: Raru stopped walking and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Fraul gave a delicate sigh, pulling the chair to a stop.

“Heath would have told you eventually, I suppose,” he murmured. Raru stepped close to the chair and put a hand on its back, holding it in place, hunching to catch Fraul’s downturned gaze.

“What?” he asked. Fraul avoided his eyes.

“I’m asking him to do something for me.”

“You’re scaring me.” Raru released the chair and folded his arms on his chest, turning away, his face stricken. Fraul laughed a little.

“My poor lieutenant,” he said, reaching a hand out. Raru clasped it hungrily and Fraul breathed, “I didn’t mean to scare you.” Their hands lingered together. Raru released him and said, “Ashin’s not at home. We can, uh, talk there.”

Fraul allowed himself to be wheeled to Ashin’s house, feeling every bump in the cobblestone. When they reached the little one-roomed shack he was exhausted; the younger man stopped on the porch and leaned on the railing.

“So,” he said, “what are you asking Heath to do? Kill you?”

Fraul laughed. “No, no,” he said, although he had considered that too. “But I’m just…sick of all this. I can’t sleep. I can’t walk. I don’t know the last time I ate.”

Raru frowned. Sure enough, Fraul’s cheeks were hollow and his eyes rimmed in shadows. But the light that came out of his eyes was steady, his face cold. “He says he can do something to kill off the nerves,” he said. “And I believe him.”

“Heath told you he could do this?” Raru asked, folding his arms.

“Quite.”

Raru looked down at his boots, at his folded arms.

“Well,” he muttered. “I know I can’t stop you.”

But the next day, when Fraul came back to Heath’s house, Raru was there. He was leaning with both hands on the table and speaking low.

“Whatever you’re going to do,” he was saying, “don’t do it. I know him. He thinks he’ll be fine. But he won’t, Heath. And I know you’re a good healer, and I know you could probably do it, but the way he was acting last night, it can’t be a good idea.”

Both of them looked up when Fraul wheeled inside. He was too tired to say anything to either of them, but his face registered Raru’s presence before he backed the chair up to a wall and closed his eyes.

“What did Crowe say?” Heath asked. Raru backed off the desk, his feet shoulder-width apart, arms folded.

“Said yes to me teaching,” Fraul murmured. “If I live.”

Raru made a concentrated effort not to sweep everything off Heath’s desk. He slammed the door behind him.

They prepared for it in Heath’s cabin. Heath took a break from drinking, and poured over his texts, and drew spinal column after spinal column. He prodded Fraul’s back with his hands. Fraul told himself that, one way or another, it would be over by the end of the day.

Heath went to the forge for fresh needles. Raru paced and muttered darkly to himself. Only Ashin dared to speak with him, and this in the Bazairi den when they were both high.

“You gonna be there?” Ashin asked, tipping up the cup of liquor and gagging. Raru swiped it from him and drained it.

“No,” he rasped, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. “He can do this alone.”

But alas, Raru was there, in the cabin, when it was to happen. Heath planned it at noon, when the daylight was brightest, and Leonard Tere used his lunchtime to assist in the proceedings.

Fraul dozed in the chair by the fireplace, having drugged himself an hour before. He was actually feeling quite giddy, and was wondering why he didn’t use poppy more often, when Raru came and squatted at the head of the cot. Raru passed a glance to the two healers, neither of whom were looking at him, and then he snuck a hand up onto the cot and took Fraul’s fingers.

“Hi, dear,” Fraul teased, opening his eyes. Raru’s brow creased; he squeezed Fraul’s hand hard.

Tere glanced sideways at Heath, who said flatly, “What?”

“Why are you so calm?” Tere muttered. “I’m scared shitless.”

“He’s calm. I’m calm. Why aren’t you calm?” But Heath passed him a sardonic smile that said otherwise. Tere forced himself to look over the supplies, making sure they had everything–two needles, one of them hollow. The other needle was smaller, sitting in a tray over the fire.

“Fraul,” Heath said, “mind if my apprentice here watches?”

“Not at all, dear. Captain Tere is his own master, after all.”

“All right. Get your ass on the cot and try not to bleed too much.”

“Just my ass, Heath?” Fraul asked, and the healer raised his eyes skyward.

“Before I change my mind,” he said. Fraul beamed and rolled up to the cot. He was all optimism now, perhaps because he could not afford his doubts, perhaps because he was high off his ass.

Raru took one look at the oversized needle and felt nauseous. Fraul pulled himself onto the cot on his stomach. Raru shifted his weight. Fraul said, “Go on, Captain. Come back later.”

Raru deliberated with himself in some agony. He muttered, “I’ll be on the porch. Sir.”

Tere wanted to follow him out, but he swallowed and tuned in Heath’s voice.

“Look, you know what a vertebra looks like.” Tere nodded, and Heath continued, “You feel for the hook of it. Relax, Fraul. I can’t do this if your back is tense.”

Fraul took deep breaths and tried to put his mind somewhere else, reminding himself that he was safe. His breath hitched and he said, “Wait.” Heath’s fingers paused. Fraul called, “Raru?”

Raru opened the door, passing his gaze over them. He sighed and walked to the head of the cot, crouched down once more. Fraul smiled at him, at his somber worry and his wide mournful eyes.

“All right. Sorry, Heath,” Fraul said.

“Whatever you have to do,” said Heath dryly.

Fraul receded into himself, allowing his focus to become narrow. He centered the point of his focus on Raru’s boots and breathed a shaky inhale. Raru stared at his own boots, also trying to go somewhere else, not succeeding.

Heath slid the hollow needle in. Fraul’s face twitched, but he looked at Raru’s boots and breathed. He could do this. It would be short.

Heath muttered to himself, took the needle out, prodded Fraul’s back for the shape of his vertebrae. He envisioned the spine, found the divot he needed with his fingertips. He glanced at Tere, keeping his finger where the needle would go.

The cabin was quiet. Heath was waiting, testing Fraul’s stillness. The other man’s back was relaxed but his jaw was clenched. Heath slid the needle in again, making a hole close to the first one.

Fraul’s mind was going, thinking to itself, while his eyes found every scratch and scuff on Raru’s big boots. Then his thoughts trailed away. He was somewhere above himself. He felt the pain but didn’t feel it–more, he felt the fact of the pain but did not feel the pain itself. It burned.

Heath knew that the first needle was in the right place, but it was cold. This was the part he hadn’t gotten right the first time.

“Leonard,” he muttered to Tere. “The other one.”

Tere went to the fire where the other, smaller needle sat in a metal tray. Its point was red-hot but the other end of it was cool enough; Tere handed this quickly to Heath and Heath stabbed it through the hollow one, which was his pilot-hole. The little burning point sank into Fraul’s spine and sizzled.

Fraul stopped breathing. His eyes burned into Raru’s boots and Raru wanted to get out of there. He hated Heath for going along with this, and Heath held the needle there until he was sure it was done. Fraul was shaking; sweat had sprung up along his spine and, even when Heath pulled the two needles out at once, he stayed still.

Heath wrapped his fingers in gauze and put this over Fraul’s back, absorbing the blood which was quickly stopping. He frowned.

“You can move,” he said.

Fraul did not. He wasn’t sure how to unclench his body. Raru knew where Heath’s liquor was stored, grabbed a stone cup and swigged it before he held it out to Fraul. Fraul raised himself, turning his head, nose wrinkling, and Raru tipped the cup so he could drink it. He drained it like a man looking for water. Then he was still and quiet, looking at Raru’s boots.

“How will I…” he rasped, and then cleared his throat. “How will I know if it worked?”

“Once the inflammation goes down,” said Heath. “You’ll know.”

The liquor hit Fraul quickly, since he had not eaten. Raru sat there in the wheelchair with his boots propped up on the hearth, arms folded, eyes closed but brow creased. Fraul rocked himself and tried to forget he existed.

Heath cleaned everything up with Tere, and they drank together on the porch. The whole place smelled of alcohol and Heath, after awhile, muttered, “Glad you were there.”

“Don’t know how you keep your hands so steady,” said Tere, examining his own shaking fingers. Heath took a swig and snorted. Then he looked at Tere through squinted eyes.

“You’re a good captain,” he slurred. “You’re the only healer now, too.”

“I know,” Tere said. “But I see how many of them still come to you.”

“Right.”

“It’s like they don’t trust me.”

“You’re what, fifteen?”

Patiently Tere shook his head. He’d had enough of this joke. Heath wheezed a laugh and slapped his knee. “Well,” he finished, “you look fifteen.”