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The knife's hilt was slick with Luis' blood, but Robert couldn't let himself think about that. He fought down the helpless anger, fear and regret stinging his eyes and refused to think beyond the efficiency and professionalism the occasion required. Colonel Montoya was just another patient. He mustn't think about holding Luis close under such different circumstances earlier this evening. He mustn't remember that it was his fault that Luis was lying here like this now.
He took firm hold of the knife, pulled the blade free, and dropped it into a basin. The slow trickle of blood became a more steady flow, and he shifted his weight and hold on Luis' body.
"Robert?" Luis had fainted from the shock of the knife's removal, but he was starting to come round again now.
"I'm here. Just a little while longer." The blood wasn't issuing in rhythmic spurts, thank God, nor with the dangerous bright red of an arterial flow. This was bad enough, though: the knife was small and sharp, and it had cut cleanly, but the Queen had driven it murderously deep. The knife had cut through layers of clothing, too, so it was doubly important that the wound be allowed to bleed itself clean. That was a lesson a soldier learned more thoroughly than any medical student at St. Bart's. But it mustn't bleed too long. "That's enough. We'll stop the bleeding now." Robert felt Luis shudder a little under his hands as he laid him back down on the table. He positioned a folded cloth dressing over the wound and began to press firmly.
"About time..." Luis nodded his head and closed his eyes.
"No, Luis. Damn it. Keep your eyes open. I need to know you're still awake." The dressing was soaked through already; Robert covered it with a second and kept pressing.
Luis grimaced as he complied, then did his best to smile. "Your bedside manner...a little lacking."
Robert forced a smile in response. "I'll have to try and do better, then."
Luis nodded. His breathing was becoming more laboured, and his pupils a bit dilated. "I'll hold you to that."
Luis could hold him however he liked. But Robert bit back his flip, hysterical response; this was no time for giddiness. Still bearing down with one hand, he drew his other across Luis' brow: the skin was slightly clammy to his touch. The bleeding had to stop soon. It had to. But this dressing, too, was becoming damp beneath his palm, and he added yet another over the wound
At last the blood flow from the wound seemed to slow, and when he removed his hand from the layers of cloth, the small red patch on the white barely increased. He reached away for bandages to bind the dressing in place, and when he looked back Luis' eyes had closed again. "Luis?" There was no response. "Luis!" The eyes snapped open. "Stay with me, Luis. We'll get this bandaged, then you can rest." Robert drew a deep breath to keep his hands from shaking as he lifted the heavy, limp body, wrapped the bandage tightly about shoulder and chest, and tied the ends.
"Now let's get you somewhere you can lie down more comfortably, eh?" This was hardly the first time he'd had to patch up one of the garrison after an encounter with the Queen. His surgery did not include any kind of recovery ward, so nine times out of ten he left the wounded man to rest there on the table until he had regained enough strength for a couple of his companions to take him back to the barracks. But there was no way he would allow Luis to leave, even had there been an official ambulance squad outside the door.
Luis nodded as Robert wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him off the table. The bedroom was only a few steps away, but they took them slowly and awkwardly, Robert supporting most of the other man's weight and angling his body so as to jar the wound as little as
possible. Balancing precariously, he managed to pull back the covers and lower Luis on to the bed: common, army issue bedding was the best he could offer, he was afraid, not the fine, lavender-scented and lace-trimmed linen on which they had tumbled earlier. He settled Luis back against the pillow, then pulled off his boots, loosened the rest of his clothing, and tucked the blanket close around him. Even on the warmest California night a man who had lost so much blood would be susceptible to a chill.
"So all this," Luis' chuckle broke in a cough, "was to get me into your bed?" It was almost obscene that the man should be indulging in innuendo at a time like this. But then again, it was probably bravado, the Colonel's way of maintaining control of the situation. It would be foolish to read anything more into it than that -- and even more idiotic to let himself reveal the depth of his feelings for this man or to hope they might be returned. Especially now, when everything this evening might have begun had been so definitively shot to hell. Maudlin hysterics would help neither of them. Much wiser -- safer -– to focus upon the present. That Luis would attempt such a conversation had to be a good sign: if he was talking at all coherently, he wasn't passing into unconsciousness from loss of blood.
"And to keep you there," Robert replied, hoping his joviality did not sound as brittle and false as it felt.
"And the Queen?"
"What are you talking about, Luis?" He dipped a small towel in his water jug and wrung it out. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and wiped the cloth along the lines of Luis' strong, handsome face. "What about the Queen?" Perhaps it was only wishful thinking, but Luis seemed to be regaining some of his colour. His eyes were clearer, his breath more steady. A few strands of his hair had escaped the restraining ribbon, and Robert stroked them gently back into place.
"Your masked lady will not be pleased to find me in your bed."
Robert turned away to lay the towel aside. "Who I invite into my bed is hardly her concern."
"Are you sure?" Luis asked, his words soft and oddly hesitant.
Robert opened his mouth to reply, but when he looked back, Luis faced away from him, staring into the distance. For a moment Robert watched the rise and fall of his breast beneath the blanket and tried to decide what he could say. Luis' breathing was even and regular, he noticed with professional detachment, but just a touch too rapid with whatever emotion had prompted and then made him regret his question. Robert felt torn. He wanted to reassure the other man of his...what? His love? That would be a bit melodramatic. With his own nerves in tatters he was glad for the other man's evasion. "Good night, Luis," he managed at last, rising from the bed. "Rest now."
Returning to the surgery, Robert bundled up Luis' ruined shirt and uniform jacket and began to clear away the bloody basin. If only he could tidy the rest of this evening's cock-up as easily. Perhaps if he had stayed in his surgery none of this would have happened. But the soldiers' cries –- "It's the Queen!" –- and his own curiosity, his anxiety, his need to see this sordid little drama played out, something, had drawn him outside. He'd found them in that courtyard, the Queen pinned against the wall, Luis with his sword at her throat, and his world had lurched to a momentary halt. He had to choose. She had expected him to help her as he had done before; maybe Luis had expected that too. Neither seemed even to consider the possibility that he wouldn't. His refusal to take her part had angered the Queen and distracted Luis just long enough for her to strike. Robert could still see the pain in Luis' eyes as he turned, dropping his sword, and the cold, determined fury in the Queen's as she bent to pick it up for her coup de grace. Suddenly everything was happening far too quickly. He'd yelled out instinctively, "Run!" It was the only thing he could think of, something to warn her off. Did she think he had done it to save her? Did Luis?
Robert sat down at his desk and ran both his hands through his hair. Christ. This was what came of wanting too much, of trying to be too clever. He looked down. His own shirt, he noticed with an idle frown, had caught the odd bloodstain as well. Bloody typical: he couldn't remember whether he had another clean one. His wardrobe was, after all, nowhere near as princely as Luis'. God, he was tired, too tired to bother with that now. He laid his head down on his folded arms.
"Doctor Helm?"
It seemed only minutes later, but when he raised his head Robert blinked into unexpected light. Outside he could hear the varied dust-muffled rumblings with which the pueblo greeted the morning. A small, brown hand was snatched back from his forearm, and he squinted up at its shy owner. "Juanita?"
"Si, señor." Juanita's father was only a private, and with eight children and another one on the way, his family needed every realé it could scrounge. That meant that even a ten-year-old girl had to hire herself out to draw water and sweep floors. "I didn't know whether.... Papa said that El Coronel was here and I–- "
"Thanks, child." Robert rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "You can run along now."
He stood up and stretched: every muscle in his body ached with stiffness. Maybe coffee would help. The canister rattled rather hollowly as he pulled it from the shelf; he was running low on supplies. Juanita had started the fire and filled the copper that would keep the surgery supplied with hot water for the day. There was plenty of cold water, too, in the barrel, and Robert drew some out for the coffeepot. He poured a measure of the beans into the grinder and turned the crank, then tipped the grounds into the pot. The coffee would take a few minutes to boil, and he took the opportunity to find some breakfast. There wasn't much, but with Luis in the other room and likely to wake at any moment, Robert didn't want to risk wandering over to cantina for something more substantial. He put the skillet on the stove, slopped in some dripping and fried up a bit of the stale bread.
He'd need to provide something a bit more nourishing, though, to build up Luis' strength. The reminder soured his stomach, and he left most of his meager meal uneaten while he went into the surgery and looked out what he would need for a tonic. While it was cooking he poured himself another cup of coffee and went to check on his patient.
Luis was just stirring. The blanket had slipped off his shoulders, and his long hair had broken free of its ribbon completely. He looked...undone, just the way Robert could vaguely remember asking to see him last night. It was strange. Robert despised aristocratic entitlements and the gentlemanly affectations of social superiority. He'd seen enough of them. Wellington had encouraged -- counted on -- intelligence, daring and pluck, but everyone knew promotion came so much more easily to staff officers in the best regiments, the rich, handsome, conventionally gallant sons of peers. Headquarters had glittered, but Robert had seen too many elegant young bucks unravel like tawdry lace in the cordite fog, the mud and blood of battle. They'd taken too many good men with them when they did.
But then, Luis wasn't the type to unravel. Even dishevelled and wounded as he now was, his affectation but not his native elegance stripped away, one could recognize the tempered steel at his core. Was it that, some inherent mastery, with its inherent danger and challenge, which was so damn seductive?
And God, but Robert was more than willing to be seduced. For a moment he indulged a fantasy of waking to Luis' taut, masculine strength and tangling together in lazy, dissolute morning sex. Not that that was at all likely: the very best he could realistically hope for was, he knew, a succession of cautious, furtive engagements ending well before dawn. And then only, he reminded himself, if he had somehow escaped fucking up that possibility as well.
Then Luis opened his eyes and blinked at him, as if slowly recalling where he was and how he came to be there. His gaze measured and assessed. God alone knew what kind of mood the man would be in this morning.
"Good morning, Colonel." Robert lounged against the door frame and took a sip of coffee. A bold offence made the best defence, didn't it? "Well," he added, attempting his most chipper tone. "And how are we doing this morning?"
"I am in agony, Doctor," Luis grumbled. He hitched himself up, favouring his unwounded side somewhat awkwardly, and winced at the pain. "This mattress is thin and lumpy, and your sheets are little better than sacking." He adjusted the blankets around himself self-consciously. "Is that coffee? I take mine con leche." He gestured imperiously, as if directing a servant. Despite his injury Luis was surprisingly cheerful this morning, and Robert's anxiety lightened a little. "With pan dulce. And some fruit. Strawberries, I think."
"A little late in the season for strawberries, Colonel." Robert suppressed a smile as he fetched from the other room the breakfast he had prepared for his patient. He sat on the side of the bed and presented the mug. "Drink this."
Luis glared at the beverage. "And what is 'this'?" He took a sip and handed it back. "Argh. Not content with getting me stabbed, you are now trying to poison me?"
The accusation stung as sharply as a slap. Obviously all was not as well between them as it had initially appeared. Robert placed the mug on the table beside the bed. He stood and moved across the room. "It's chia tea," he explained quietly. When Luis didn't reply immediately he dredged up something else to add, anything to forestall the recriminations he expected. "Coming here from Texas, across the desert, I lived on the stuff, brewed with whatever water I could coax out of some half-dead cactus."
"A cherished memory, I'm sure." Luis frowned at him, but his light eyes were teasing rather than accusatory. "Perhaps it is to avoid such privations that sensible people travel to Alta California via ship from Mexico."
The familiar scorn was a blessed relief, a reprieve Robert didn't yet dare trust. "Indian war parties," he continued cautiously, "travel all day on a spoonful of chia seeds."
"Really. I dare say more than a spoonful would be quite disgusting, Doctor, even for ignorant savages."
"It's a powerful tonic, Colonel. It will do you good. You've lost blood, remember." And whose fault, Robert reminded himself bitterly, was that? "I should change that dressing, too. I'll just be a moment." Maybe in that moment, as he gathered new bandages and a vulnerary tincture, he could find a topic of conversation that didn't continually revert to his own guilt.
No topic presented itself, however, so he began to unwind the old bandages in silence, avoiding Luis' eyes as he carefully peeled the bloody dressings away. The wound, still fresh, oozed a little, but the edges of the cut lay close together. There was a little redness, normal enough at this early stage. No need to fear infection yet, he hoped as he dabbed at it with a little of the vulnerary. Luis tensed at his touch; well, the tincture did sting. He'd have to keep careful watch, though: he had seen enough death from infected wounds, even within the most scientifically run hospitals -- maybe especially there. Perhaps that had made him more willing than most physicians to incorporate the makeshift remedies he had learned on the battlefield from army surgeons and from the old veterans who had managed to cheat the surgeons' knives. He'd learned from the mission padres too, for that matter, and from their native flock. Sometimes Robert wondered what his teachers back in London would think of his medical practice. But so far he'd saved more lives than he'd lost. He'd been lucky. He put a new dressing over the wound and tied it in place, praying that his luck would hold.
He could feel Luis watching him, equally silent, as he laid the extra bandages and the bottle of the tincture on the table beside the tea. He gathered up the used cloths and started to leave.
"Robert."
"It seems to be healing well-– " Luis laid a hand on his arm to stop him from moving away, and Robert raised his eyes to meet the other man's. His fragile control broke. "Oh, Christ. I'm sorry, Luis. I never meant for this to happen. I just wanted her to escape. I wanted everything back the way it was. I-– "
Luis' hand stroked up Robert's arm, resting on his shoulder, then cupping his neck to pull his face close. Their lips met in a brief but warm kiss. Forgiveness, then? Could it possibly be this easy?
They drew apart slowly. "Now," Luis sighed with a self-satisfied smile as if enjoying some private joke. "May I have some coffee?" His hand slipped back down Robert's arm. "And a decent, civilized breakfast?"
"Only if you promise to drink the tea." Luis rolled his eyes and nodded. Robert laid his own hand over Luis' and squeezed it lightly before removing it. He rose reluctantly, holding the other man's hand a moment or two longer. "I'll go and see what your cook can cobble together, then. I can probably arrange for some clean clothes as well."
"Should I be insulted? That you prefer me dressed?"
"Drink your tea, Colonel."
Robert crossed the plaza with a much lighter heart. Maybe everything could return to normal. Padre Quintera stood on the steps of the church ringing a hand bell as the last of the pueblo's children came running late for school. A lone guard yawned outside the comandancia. If Santa Elena's mundane placidity this morning gave any indication, the Queen's capture and subsequent escape might never have happened.
Luis' cook seemed almost to have anticipated his visit: the kitchen air was rich with the scent of baking. A basket on the table held not only some of the sweet, saffron-tinged pastries Luis had requested, but plain bolillos as well, and the fruit buns he himself preferred, the ones speckled with pieces of apple and dried, candied pumpkin. Not even the Colonel's kitchen could offer strawberries out of season, but bunches of plump ruby-colored grapes spilled from a second basket.
"El Coronel Montoya is well, Doctor?" The mayora wiped her hands on her apron and frowned with concern. She looked him over with a critical eye, and Robert was acutely aware of how rough he must look. "That bruja almost killed him, they say."
"Oh, it's not as bad as that, señora. I just thought it best he stay where I could keep an eye on him last night, just to be sure. But," he added. "It's safe for him to come back here if he promises to rest for the next few days. I'll pop in from time to time, of course."
"Oh, si. Together we will take good care of him, Doctor." She smiled and nodded. She would send a servant with freshly laundered clothes and the breakfast, she assured him. Everything must be just so for El Coronel: he was very particular. And for his almeurzo there would be chicken in mole and a bottle of his finest rioja. "I knew it could not be as they said," she told him finally, shaking her head.
"Señora?"
"Some of the men, they were saying that you and the Queen-– Ai! But I knew it had to be lies, that you would never hurt him. I told them. You are good friends, no?" She looked at him shrewdly.
As he started back toward his office Robert wondered what she knew, what she might guess. Rumours of all kinds spread through the garrison town like wildfire through dry grass. All the more reason why he and Luis needed to be so very discreet if they--
"Doctor Helm! Hold it right there!" Captain Grisham blocked his path, and Robert found himself surrounded by half a dozen soldiers, their weapons drawn and at the ready.
"What the hell--?"
Grisham smirked at him. "Robert Helm, you're under arrest."
"Arrest? What are you playing at now, Grisham? Arrest for what, in God's name?"
"For the attempted murder of Colonel Luis Ramirez Montoya."
"What?" Robert could barely stop his hysterical laughter. "Don't make yourself any more of an idiot than you can help." He raised an arm to shove the Captain aside. "Now get out of my way. I'm busy."
Grisham grinned more widely. "I don't really mind if you resist, you know, Doc. That'll just give me an even better excuse for beating the shit out of you." He took a step closer. "See, I even have evidence. The keys to the jail were found behind your house."
"I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know anything about-– "
"The Colonel had the keys, Doctor, before the Queen escaped. And afterwards, well, you were right there with her, weren't you? When Colonel Montoya was stabbed." A cold sweat trickled down the back of Robert's neck. Was that how it had looked to the patrol last night? "And the knife had to come from somewhere, didn't it? I know the Queen didn't have one: I searched her myself." Grisham leaned even closer. "Very thoroughly. Didn't miss a thing."
Robert refused to rise to the Captain's bait. Perhaps it was less than gallant of him, but then the Queen was quite capable of defending her own honor. Besides he had other problems right now.
"Don't be absurd. I would never– " But how many men had seen him draw a pistol on Montoya that time he and the Queen were running from El Serpiente? "Ask Luis--" Something like curious surprise lighted the low cunning that glinted in Grisham's eyes. "Ask Montoya," Robert
began again. "He'll tell you-– Do you honestly think he would let me anywhere near him if I had been the one who stabbed him?" Out of the corner of his eye he saw a couple of the soldiers glance at one another and relax their stance.
"Oh, yeah," Grisham remarked. "That reminds me. Esteban!"
"Capitan?"
"Congratulations, Private. You're now a medic."
"No!" Esteban was good-natured enough, but Robert would never willingly allow him to treat any of his patients, let alone Luis.
Some of the men behind him were grumbling about the order as well. "Capitan-– " a bolder voice began.
"Shut up, Cruz. You never know your luck, Doc. Maybe Colonel Montoya will back your story up and you won't be sent off to Monterrey for trial. And look on the bright side: so long as the Colonel doesn't die, it's just attempted murder. You'll only get life with hard labour for that. 'Course you never know; knife wounds can be nasty." Grisham rocked back on heels. "Now is it the noose or the firing squad for murdering a military governor?"
"You son of a bitch!"
Grisham backhanded him, and Robert tasted the salt and copper of his own blood. "Temper, temper, Helm." The Captain stepped closer again. "You know, I'm really going to enjoy this." Grisham's punch hit him low. Robert doubled up with the pain and dropped to his knees. Rough hands seized him by the arms and hoisted him to his feet. He didn't bother resisting as they dragged him off to jail.