(no subject)

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan leads Sinric into the suite of rooms, and straight into the bathroom.

"Would you like plain water, or something in it?"

Either way, it's probably going to sting.

Comments

[athelstanthescribe]

"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.

[thewidewideworld]

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.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

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

[athelstanthescribe]

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.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar comes in, and stops short.

"What in...??"

[athelstanthescribe]

"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."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

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

"How can I help? Hold anything?"

[athelstanthescribe]

"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."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"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.

[athelstanthescribe]

"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."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"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."

[athelstanthescribe]

"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."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"That is good, because he's not pretending he is fine," Ragnar nods. "That's important to help him get better."

[athelstanthescribe]

"There's a woman I know, if he can be brought to talk to a stranger about it. She does this kind of thing for her living."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"Talk to people for a living??" Ragnar says, finding the idea quite strange.

[athelstanthescribe]

"Talk to people when they've been through things like this, and help them with it."

He only has the vaguest idea of what psychiatry and therapy is, yes.

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"But that is what we have good friends for," Ragnar says. "Or we go to the seer to take our worries to the gods."

[athelstanthescribe]

"I don't know if he believes in gods, and if he does, they won't be ours. But he will have us, if nothing else."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"He does, for whatever he needs us."

Talking. Distraction. Killing people.

[athelstanthescribe]

"If I knew the names of the men who followed that order..."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

"What can we do?" Ragnar asks. "Unless he takes us to his world, that is.All this happened almost thirty years ago, for us."

[athelstanthescribe]

"He won't do that." Athelstan's certain of that. "But some of those men may still live in our time, and if they would do it once, even on command..."

[bigarmy_strangepants]

Ragnar nods. "They would do it again. But that still means we should best kill them all in Sinric's time, where we can't get. Because we won't have a chance to go to Miklagard and hunt them all in ours."

Pause.

"Unless there is somebody we can send with our vengeance."

[thewidewideworld]

Sinric stirs and starts to roll onto his side. The gesture makes him whimper with pain, still half asleep.

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan's attention is instantly on Sinric.

"Ragnar, could you go and fetch the bandage, lying on the floor there?"

He wants to see if it's clean enough.