“My golden –” Zahnin started but I whipped my head back to him, raised the point of my own bloody dagger toward his face and his mouth snapped shut as his eyes went to my weapon.

“Quiet, Zahnin, you will allow me to see to your wound. Your queen commands it!” I ordered.

His gaze moved from my blade to my face, his lips twitched and then his eyes slid to Bain.

“Our king told us of this,” he remarked drily.

“Indeed, our queen gets something in her head…” Bain trailed off, sounding amused… yes, amused... as he agreed with his brother from behind me.

I turned to glare with narrowed eyes at Bain then I swung my glare back to Zahnin and I snapped, “No more banter. You!” I jabbed my dagger at Zahnin. “Lie down.” I swung the blade to the bed. “I’m seeing to your wound.”

“As you wish, warrior queen,” he muttered, also sounding amused, deeply, my narrowed gaze got squinty and Jacanda scurried in, face pale, eyes wide, fear visible on every inch of her frame.

I turned to her. “Boil water. I need soap, clean cloths and cleaner bandages. I’ll need a needle and thread uh…” I stopped because I didn’t know the Korwahk word for “sterilized” then said, “Cleaned.” When she looked confused, I explained, “Boil those too… for a long time.” She nodded though now she looked less afraid and more perplexed. I ignored it and kept going. “Bring the healer to me. And send someone to get some zakah. A lot of zakah.”

“I could use some zakah,” Zahnin muttered and I whirled to him.

“You’re not going to drink it. I’m going to use it to clean your wound.”

He stared at me with unconcealed surprise.

“Don’t question me,” I ordered. “They do it in my land. It’s a good thing to do.”

“It’s a waste of good zakah,” Bain commented under his breath from across the tent but I caught it and I turned to him.

“Don’t you have a Daxshee to lock down or possible enemies to round up or something?” I prompted.

He pressed his lips together I knew to suppress a twitch and I squinted at him.

“Yes, my true golden queen,” he muttered, his amused eyes slid through Zahnin then he left the tent and I noticed Jacanda was still standing there.

“Go, sweetheart, now,” I urged, she nodded and shot off.

I turned to Zahnin and noted, “You’re not lying down.”

“Right,” he muttered, I moved to the bed and pulled the bloody sheet off and also any hides that had blood on them. Then I shoved off any pillows that had been bloodied.

What I didn’t do was look at any of the cut up bodies or body pieces littering my tent or think of the fact that I, myself, had taken at least one, possibly one and a half lives (I might have delivered a killing wound but it was Bain who definitely executed the kill so I was counting that as a half). Nor did I allow myself to think about the obvious news that my Teetru had betrayed me to her people.

She betrayed me yet got out my dagger, exposing it openly both to warn me and to give me a fighting chance by providing me with the only weapon she, or I, had at our disposal.

And lastly, I did not think about why she would do either of these things, betray me first then warn me second.

“May I have my queen’s leave to find a warrior and ask him to gather other warriors to collect these bodies?” Zahnin asked solicitously from behind me, far more solicitous than he ever spoke to me (mainly because he never spoke to me solicitously) and I heard the humor in his tone and something about it made the adrenalin surging through my system and subsequent temper flare evaporate.

I straightened from the bed and turned to him.

“I’ll do that,” I said softly, “can you please, for me, lie down?”

He read the change in my tone and his face softened, the amusement faded and warmth hit his eyes.

“I am fine, my golden queen, this is my vow.”

“You bleed for me,” I whispered, “please, please, I know you don’t need it but I need to take care of you. Please.”

He studied me. Then he nodded. Then he lay down.

I ran to the flaps of the tent, stuck my head out and saw two warrior guards on either side.

“We need clean up in here, if you don’t mind,” I said to the one on my left.

He nodded but didn’t move. Instead, he bellowed my order to a warrior standing post some ten feet away. That warrior nodded, turned and bellowed my order to someone else.

I didn’t hang around to watch the rest. I saw Packa running toward me with the big bath cloths Lahn and I used and I moved back into the tent.

* * * * *

Needless to say, everyone was a little surprised, and get this, sickened, by the medicine I explained was practiced freely in my land.

They did not sew flesh together, Bain informed me with curled lip, eyes filled with disgust.

Yes, this from a man who cut up a bunch of the enemy in what amounted to my freaking house. And, after, stood amongst the carnage bantering with his comrade.

Furthermore, they didn’t have a word for germs, because they didn’t know what germs were, so my explanation of why I would waste good zakah cleansing Zahnin’s wound fell on deaf ears.

Luckily, I was queen so they had no choice but to give into my commands and they did.

Though Bain and Zahnin did it obviously humoring me.

However, when I commanded a clearly squeamish Gaal (Jacanda told me she was a very gifted seamstress when I demanded she find the best one in the Daxshee) to sew together the edges of Zahnin’s wound, the healer, standing and observing, saw the wisdom of this.

“Very clever,” she muttered as Gaal, swallowing with nerves and aversion but still game, started to use the needle I’d further sterilized in a candle flame and thread that Jacanda had boiled in a pot over the fire and I’d soaked in zakah to sew Zahnin’s wound together.

Gaal looked like she was about to heave a couple of times (and I was right there with her, talk about gross) but she stuck with it mainly because I stayed close for moral support. Her eyes kept lifting to me, I nodded to encourage her and eventually she lost her distaste for it and did, from my extremely limited experience, what looked like a very good job.

For Zahnin’s part, he didn’t even wince but lay on my bed with pillows I’d shoved under his head, one arm bent, hand behind his head, chatting amiably through the whole thing to Bain who was standing at the head of the bed, arms crossed on his chest and one ankle crossed over the other in a casual warrior pose which didn’t fit with what had become a minor medical procedure in a primitive examination room.