Page 114 of Heart of Winter
“Rune shamed him.” Erik’s voice held a promise of violence. “In front of all of Aeretoll, and he wanted revenge. How bad is it, Olaf?”
“Bad,” the physician said, right away, shifting around the table. He’d pushed up Rune’s tunic and shirt and revealed a stretch of lean, muscled abdomen. The wound was just beneath his ribs, no longer bleeding, though a stack of bloodied bandages on the floor proved that it had bled a great deal.
As they all watched, Olaf pried apart the edges of the wound and peered down at the layers of exposed muscle and viscera beneath.
A sudden surge of cold nausea forced Oliver to turn his head. He closed his eyes and took a shallow breath through his mouth, fighting not to be sick. Had his father been like this, at the end? His Uncle William, and John? Had they lain on a muddy battlefield, full of holes, unconscious, while the last of their lives bled out of ugly, gaping wounds?
“Will he live?” Erik asked, and Revna let out a quiet choking sound.
Olaf said, “I shall do my best. The bleeding’s stopped, and from here” – slippery, squishing sounds issued from the table, and Oliver had to swallow a few times to keep from gagging – “it doesn’t look as if anything vital’s been punctured. There could be a slow, internal bleed, though.” He sighed. “We won’t know. I’ll clean him up best I can, and then it’s a matter of his own body fighting the ensuing infection.”
“He’s strong,” Revna said, voice watery. “He’ll make it.”
Head still turned toward the window, away from whatever Olaf was doing poking around in Rune’s cut-open stomach, Oliver saw a flash of movement at the door just before Bjorn said, “No, you can’t –get out of here.”
He turned. Ragnar strode into the surgery, still dressed, lean, close-shaven face taut with a closed-off, guarded sort of anger. “Erik,” he began.
Erik whirled away from the table. His dressing gown brushed Oliver’s arm as he stalked forward to meet his cousin – with a hand that he wrapped around the other’s throat.
Revna gasped.
Leif moved around the head of the table in a few startled, lurching steps. “Uncle.”
For his part, Ragnar went totally still: hands limp at his sides, chin lifted high, exposing himself, face going blank above the hand that gripped his neck. “Erik,” he said in a soothing tone. “They just came to tell me. How is he?”
“One of your men put a knife in his belly,” Erik growled, “how do you think he is?”
“Erik, I promise you–”
“I don’t want yourpromises.” The rings on his fingers flashed as his hand tightened; Ragnar’s mouth fell open, his next breath cut off. All of Erik’s teeth were bared, and there was nothing of the reindeer stag in him, now – no stalwart beast of burden. He was all wolf, rabid with fury. “You brought a murderer into my home and sicced him on my nephew, you cowardly, underhanded rat. You–”
Oliver stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. “Erik.”
Leif appeared on his other side; he met Oliver’s gaze with a stricken one of his own. “Uncle. At least hear what he has to say.”
“If you don’t mind,” Olaf said from behind them. “I don’t have time for another body on a table at the moment.”
Bjorn stepped up behind Ragnar and gripped the back of his tunic. “Let go, Erik, it’s all right. He won’t get away from me.”
Oliver could feel the flex and leap of the tendons in Erik’s arm; felt the fine tremors that gripped him, the effort it took to turn loose. But turn loose he did, albeit roughly, breathing harshly through flared nostrils, lips still pulled back in a snarl. “Explain,” he ground out.
Ragnar took a few gasping breaths and massaged at his throat. He looked decidedly less composed than when he’d first entered. “Do you think this happened on my orders? Erik. Cousin. You and I, we have our pissing contests, and I don’t usually agree with the way you do things here. But do you really think I would order one of my men to do this? To attack my own flesh and blood cousin? And a prince, no less? That’s an act ofwar.”
“Yes,” Erik said. “It is.”
Ragnar’s brows shot up. “Only if you allow it to be. Ormr acted on his own. This was the doing of a lone, stupid man, with a personal vendetta.”
Erik’s head tilted to a dangerous angle. “Are you asking me forclemency?”
“No. I’m asking you to mete out punishment, and be done with it. Don’t let this drive a wedge between our peoples.”
“The punishment for attempting to murder a crown prince is death.”
Ragnar took a deep breath. “I know that.”
The cousins regarded one another for a long time.
Oliver traded another glance with Leif, who looked only worried and confused, and could offer no insight.
