athelstanthescribe | (no subject)

He sobs again, letting the tears flow now.

"Yes", Athelstan murmurs. "Let it out, how they've hurt you."

Whether in coherent words or tears, he thinks it all helps.

He cries for some time, letting the tears wash away the pain he cannot give word to. He sobs till it's wrung out of him and he hangs limply in Athelstan's arms.

Athelstan is holding him in warm solid arms, letting him cry and supporting him in the water.

Once cries out, he leans exhaustedly onto Athelstan's embrace, weak as a kitten. The tears have helped, but he's still in great pain.

The tears could only help spiritually, and Athelstan knows it.

"Has the heat helped your muscles at all?" he asks softly.

"A little." He sniffs softly, trying to pull himself together. "But I'm very tired."

"Then let's go to bed." It's not remotely a sexual advance, not this time. "You can rest, and I can check your wounds."

He nods, leaning on Athelstan to get out of the bath. The bandage on his thigh has come loose and he reaches to keep it in place with a flinch.

"Leave it", Athelstan says gently as he helps Sinric out. "I'll check the wound looks as it should and then put it back."

He nods and lets it fall. He feels so tired. So very tired. He staggers, leaning heavily on Athelstan. He's on the verge of fainting.

Athelstan catches him, not quite carrying him because he doesn't have the height for that, but certainly taking most of his weight, and starts towards the bed.

Sinric falls more than lays on the bed, the wound on his thigh bleeding afresh. "Forgive me." He whimpers, his eyes closing as he falls into a swoon.

"Oh, my friend. There's nothing to forgive you for."

Carefully, he lays Sinric out on the bed, sliding a pillow under him to keep his sorer places from pressing, and begins to inspect his wounds.

His injuries are much as to be expected considering what was done to him. The worst are the solid black line across his rear - a strike with the shaft of Leo's mace, the three deep red marks that ooze blood on his inner thigh where the flanges dug in and the swelling to his throat and chest.

His ravashed hole has been cleaned and salved by the Viking women but the swelling there also is severe.

Given over to blessed oblivion, Sinric looks very young and very hurt. Like an angel savaged by wolves.

There's a knock at the connecting door, from Ragnar's room.

Athelstan looks up sharply, caught between two conflicting reactions - but he can't keep Ragnar from knowing about this, not for all the time it will take for Sinric to heal physically.

"Come in", he calls quietly, and goes back to his work.

Ragnar comes in, and stops short.

"What in...??"

"Leo", Athelstan says simply, and Ragnar has never heard such calmly vicious hate in his voice, crammed into a single word. "He had his men - I don't know how many, but more than a few... hurt him."

"Rape him?" Ragnar says, very grimly, coming closer.

"How can I help? Hold anything?"

"Yes. And he's been whipped and he said this, here, is where Leo struck him with his mace. It was all so needless, Ragnar." He sighs. "He's been cleaned and cared for - you'll be pleased to hear Leo's Varangians would have no part in it and then took him to their women for treatment, and he bathed again here - but I haven't finished salving his wounds."

Edited 2015-06-26 15:05 (UTC)

"I suppose I can't go and kill whoever did that?" Ragnar says, raising an eyebrow.

Suddenly, he hates their time paradox.

"Let me hold that for you?"

He holds out his hand for the pot of salve.

"He's determined that Emperor Constantine can never know about it", Athelstan says quietly, putting the pot in Ragnar's hand. "For the trouble it would cause - and in our time, Leo is already dead."

Edited 2015-06-26 19:58 (UTC)

"So we can't go marching down to Miklagard and kill him as a kind of very cold revenge," Ragnar says, holding the pot so Athelstan can easily reach it. "Just as he started thawing out. Being raped hurts the heart even worse than the body, as a rule. Killing a rapist is always justified. As Lagertha killed Knut."

"And every other man who tried it", he agrees with a fleeting affectionate smile. "We're going to have to help him, when he admits he needs it. He's already been crying."