I had a sick sourness in the pit of my gut, but the lie came to my lips of its own volition. "No, I can't tell you. He rode out of the fort last night on a private matter. I have no idea when he will be back. Bring me to the girl." I followed him back to his quarters, stopping only to tell one of the men heading towards the Council Hall that I might be detained and that the session should proceed without me and without Uther.
Lucanus had not exaggerated. The girl lay naked on a cot, hidden from view by folding screens. She had been beaten without mercy with a club of some kind, and the contusions on her white skin would take weeks to heal. Most of the blood had been washed away, and several of the angrier-looking cuts had been stitched together. Her eyes were puffed and bruised completely shut and her startling mouth, which I was immediately sure had been the cause of this, was a shattered, bloody mass. "I'll find her later and teach her a lesson she won't soon forget!" I could hear Uther's voice and my skin crawled in loathing. How could he have done this to a skinny little girl? My mind could not accept it, but there was the evidence, lying naked and smashed in front of me.
"Has she been violated?"
"I think you could say that."
I heard the sarcasm in his voice and rounded on him in a fury. "Sexually, I mean, you fool! Has she been raped?"
His eyes were glacial. I had made an enemy. "Yes, Commander. She has been brutalized and sodomized. Both by extreme force. Her vagina and her anus are both badly torn."
I felt the room swaying around me. "Will she live?"
"I think so, if she wants to."
"What do you mean by that?"
He shrugged his shoulders and ducked his head in a curious manner, pursing his lips as he did so. "Just what I say. If she wishes to live, she will live. People can die by simply choosing not to live. This young woman has had a terrible experience. Is it true she is mute?"
I looked down at her again. "We don't know. She hasn't spoken since we found her, but we found her beside the bodies of two people who might have been her parents.
Commander Uther thought at first that she might be in some kind of trance brought about by witnessing their deaths."
"How did they die?"
"We don't know that, either. There were no signs of violence, and we saw no indications that they had been sick. They were just dead, and the girl knelt beside them."
He made that peculiar gesture again. "I suppose that could be true. She might have been in what we call shock. The body's defensive systems are a wonder we know practically nothing of. How long has it been since she was found?"
I did a quick calculation. "Six days."
"Hmm! Well, even if she was not in shock then, she certainly is now."
I was looking down at her body as it lay there on the couch in front of me. Her skin was white and her body small, but she was not as emaciated as I had suspected. Her thighs were rounded and full, and her breasts small, but firm and plump. I felt another stirring of desire and was filled with disgust at myself.
"Are there any bones broken?"
"No. No fractures. Only contusions, as you can see, both front and rear. And perhaps internal bleeding. Whoever did this is an animal."
"Aye, there's no doubt of that. How can you tell about the internal bleeding? Do people bleed internally?" I had never really thought about that before. His raised eyebrow was an eloquent mockery.
"Aye, Commander, that is what causes bruising. At times, however, a severe blow will rupture a major blood vessel and cause heavy bleeding into the body's cavities."
"And what does that mean?"
Again the shrugged shoulders and the peculiar gesture. "It means the person will probably die."
I squeezed my temples with my left hand, feeling as though my head might burst apart. "What time did this happen, do you know?"
"Sometime in the night. We do not know when. But the blood was congealed when they found her."
"What about the guards?" I was speaking to myself, more than to him. "Didn't anyone hear anything? Surely to God she must have screamed?"
. "Not if she's truly mute, Commander."
I heaved a sigh that was part sob and jerked my eyes away from the girl's ruined body, fighting to bring my anger and revulsion under restraint and keeping my back to Lucanus until I could control the muscles of my face. Finally, I calmed down enough to hide the roiling sickness in my soul and to speak evenly.
"Thank you, Lucanus. You have done well. Where are the men who found her?"
"I sent them back to their duties."
"Hmm! So word of this will be all over the fort by now. Whoever is responsible for this will know she is still alive. I want guards posted outside every door to this place. I'll see to it myself. As soon as you know whether she will live or not, I wish to be informed. In the meantime, you will stay here with her. Don't leave her alone for a moment. That's an order." He nodded his head and I made myself go on, "If Commander Uther should return today I'll send him over. Do what you can for her, Lucanus. She did nothing to deserve this." Not if she'd bitten it off, I added to myself.
He stopped me at the door. "Commander?"
"Yes? What is it?"
"How do you know her name?"
I frowned at him and then realized what he meant. "We don't," I told him. "It's our name, not hers. She seemed tragic enough, even then, to be Cassandra of Troy. Uther named her."
"I see."
I grimaced, deciding in mid gesture that I had no smiles in me. "No, Lucanus, you don't see." Because you did not see what I saw, my mind added.
Outside again, in the bright sunlight, the image of that bruised body still tore at my eyes. I started to walk towards the Council Hall, but when I saw my fellow councillors thronging in that direction and thought of the dry, bloodless, boring trivia on that day's agenda I knew I couldn't cope with it in my present frame of mind. I turned aside and walked off, fighting to keep my face blank and my mind empty, and nodding to the people who greeted me at every step. I ended up beneath the scaffolding against the inner wall, where the masons were at work adding new quarters abutting the main defences of the fort. I sat there in the shadows undisturbed for a long time, thinking this whole mess through.
Had I been the only one who knew the circumstances of this affair, I would have sat on my knowledge until I could face Uther with it privately, but I was not the only one who knew. Our four consorts of the previous night had witnessed the whole thing and would lose no time in airing their knowledge. Struck by a sudden thought, I stood up quickly and made my way back to the games room. It was not yet noon.
As I approached the door, it opened and two of the girls came out. I stopped them with a stiff, insincere smile on my face, and open arms, and asked where they were going. To eat, they told me. They had not yet broken fast? No, they had just arisen. And where were the other girls? Still abed. In my relief, I almost betrayed myself, but managed to guard my features like a hardened liar. I turned them both around, led them back inside, told them to take their clothes off again and promised to bring food, wine, a masseur and Uther back with me shortly. They were surprised, but complacent. I fondled the one with the long tongue—I never could remember her name, but I never forgot her—and asked her if she had tasted the other two as she had the one with whom she had shared Uther. She had not, she said, but was willing to, if they were.