Kichlan grasped his brother's hand, earning a startled expression, and Lad dropped the pail. "Clean yourself up before it cools down." He flushed redder than the warm room could account for. "We'll be downstairs until you're ready." He had to drag his younger brother toward the stairs. "Come on, Lad!"
"Downstairs?" Lad's deep voice echoed up from below. "But what about her back, Kich? Who's going to scrub her back?"
Kichlan's splutters echoed also.
I shrugged off my jacket. It dropped with a squelch to the floor. I pulled the hat from my head and the gloves from my hands and kicked the lot as far from the bath and its promise of cleanliness as I could. My pants were sodden; the only clothes to have escaped the sewage appeared to be my shirt, kept safe by the coat, and the uniform itself. Would such strange material even stain? If it was designed for daily use, perhaps it was beyond such needs as washing.
The uniform peeled off like a layer of stiff skin, and hurt like it too, where it tugged on stitches and poked at bruises.
Voices made their way up from the ground floor.
"They got to her too, eh?" Eugeny's rattling baritone was clear despite the floor between us. "Be careful around her. You know they won't be far behind."
Kichlan was too tactful to be overheard, and I couldn't make out his answer.
"I know. But your kindness mustn't put the boy in danger."
I leaned into the water and watched coils of dirt and oil spread over its taut surface.
Just who were they?
The soap was plain and made a kind of half-lather, more like a film of white than any real suds. It smelled like faux flowers, sweet and manufactured, but at least it wasn't sewage. I rubbed the flakes into my hair and wherever my skin was free from bandages before ducking beneath the water, eyes squeezed tightly shut, and rubbing again to get it out.
When I sat up and slicked hair from my brow, I realised I looked worse clean. The bandages along my neck and left shoulder had been jarred out of place, the normally thin lines of pink scarring beneath them red and puckered. I could still see some of the grit stuck around a dark stitching cord.
"Other's hairy arse," I growled. Dirty, wet, and no clean bandages. "Damn it!"
"Ah, Tanyana?" The top of Kichlan's head bobbed in and out of view at the top of the stairs. "Are you all right?"
I allowed myself a rueful chuckle. I dipped myself lower in the tub. "No, Kichlan. Not really."
A moment of uncomfortable silence. "Can I help?"
"Why not?" What was one more indignity on top of a day full of them? "Do you remember the bandages…?" I let my voice trail away. "You might as well come and see for yourself."
I hadn't realised how uncomfortable silence could get, and resisted an urge to push it, to see what I would need to say to make Kichlan's discomfort worse. More references to the Other's backside would probably not help.
"If… if you think… I will…"
Grinning at Kichlan's stumbling, his overflowing discomfort, I shifted myself around in the tub so I sat with my back to the stairs. It was big enough to allow me to pull my knees close to my chest. "This is as decent as I'm going to get, I'm afraid. I'm part of your team now. Supposed to look after us or something, aren't you?"
"Yes." The word came out as a tangled cough.
"Kich?" Lad's voice was loud, boisterous and distinctly comfortable. "See, told you! Everyone needs help with their back."
"Lad! No!"
The scrapes and bangs of a struggle reached me from the stairs. I rested my head against my knees, thankful for the warmth that added flexibility to my strained and bruised neck, and grinned against wet skin.
"No, Lad. Eugeny! Eugeny, a hand?"
More struggling.
"But, Kich, what about her back?"
"Your brother can handle it, Lad, my boy." I could hear laughter in the old man's voice. "Why don't you help me with supper? We can make something especially for your friend. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, yes. I guess." Lad hesitated, torn. "Are you sure you can handle, Kich?"
"Yes," Kichlan answered in a squeak.
A moment more, then footsteps descended.
"What can we make, Geny?" Lad asked as his voice faded.
"I'm coming up," Kichlan called ahead. A warning of sorts, I supposed.
I waited until he was closer before turning my head.
"What's the matter?" His thin lips and serious expression were out of place on his blushing, flame-red face. "Is it your head?"
Looking over my shoulder was not helping my aches and pains. I turned around. "No, the stitches. From the glass, when I fell. Well-" I gestured to my left shoulder with a flick of my head "-you can see for yourself."
I leaned on my knees as Kichlan touched my shoulder and back. His soft fingers were cold compared to my water-warmed skin, and they shook, but he didn't knock the bandages or brush the sensitive stitching. "The dust, from the wall," he whispered.
"And the Other knows what else," I muttered.
"The old man is good with these things." Kichlan stood. I heard footsteps retreating. "Doing things without pions, that is. Wait a minute."
Left alone in the attic I righted myself, and stretched gingerly. The water was beginning to cool.
There wasn't much in Kichlan and Lad's shared room besides their beds and bath. A hamper of old wicker slouched beside a small chest of drawers. Two pairs of boots, cleaned well but betrayed by faded and cracked leather, leaned against the hamper. Could they only have enough clothes, enough possessions, to fill a basket and three drawers? I searched the room, to the bare wooden walls, rug and freshly swept floorboards. Simple, empty.
And, as I lay in a warm bath while an old man made evenbell supper in the house below, unavoidably comfortable.
Second glance at the dresser, and I frowned. There was something on top of it, something dull, metallic and ugly in such a bare-wooden room.
I frowned at it. What was it? It almost looked like a hand. A metal hand.
"I'm coming up, miss!" Eugeny called from the stairs.
I turned my back to the old man entering the room.
Eugeny whistled lowly, a soft rush of air under his breath. "Nasty." But he didn't ask what had happened, or comment further. "Can you remove the bandages? Got the boys tearing up an old towel to fix them."
Gingerly, I unwound the tucked-in knot and began unwrapping my shoulder. "I-" I swallowed on a sudden lump. "I'm sorry to make you do that."
"No fuss, miss." Eugeny took the wet, dirty bandages as I pulled them away. "Old anyway, just sitting in my cupboard tempting the moths."
I nodded, but wasn't entirely convinced. "Well, thank you."
"Not me you should thank."
I had to rearrange myself to undo the bandages around my hips and upper thigh. Eugeny had foreseen this, and was already facing the stairs. He clasped his hands behind his back. His fingernails were short and clean.
"It's your house, though." I shifted again. "You can turn around now."
He took the remaining bandages. "That's true. But the boys wanted to help you, and they're good boys, both of them. Help an old man out. So I do the same. Now, I'm going to leave this for you." Something tapped on the bath beside my shoulder. I glanced down. Eugeny was holding a wide glass jar, filled with a yellow paste. I took it from him.
"What is it?"
"Golden roots of the waxseal plant," he said, as though that explained anything to someone who'd never heard of a waxseal plant. "When you're dry, put it on the wounds, and then replace your bandages. Ah, here we go."
I glanced over my shoulder to see Eugeny shuffle to the stairs and take a bundle of pale material from a curious-faced Lad.
"They're on the boy's bed, with your towel. When you're ready."