Chapter 87
CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN
I wasn’t sure what I had expected Rowan to actually do at the warfront, but she surprised me by lending her assistance with the wounded, something I only knew because one of the healers came to the command tent to make his displeasure known.
I didn’t bother looking up from the missive I was reading, nor did I bother keeping the substantial bite from my tone when I responded.
“Am I to understand that you walked away from the loyal soldiers who needed your care to complain about an extra set of hands?”
The man audibly swallowed. “It isn’t proper, Your Grace, not with the men in a state of undress.”
It was a ridiculous argument when the village saunas were not split by gender any more than the ones at the estate were.
“I’m quite certain they would rather be alive than modest,” I said shortly.
He sucked in a breath to speak before I cut him off sharply.
“Dismissed.”
He left without another word, and I returned to my report. We were still short on the numbers we needed. I needed to see how many soldiers the local lord had maintained to guard his estate, and those taking refuge within it.
Then I needed to decide if I was willing to risk his estate falling, along with all the women and children it housed, for the sake of the strategy that was working thus far.
Though there wasn’t much choice there. If the line didn’t hold, his estate would be the least of our problems since it would surely be forfeited if that situation came to fruition. As I walked through the estate in question, my mind all too easily conjured images of each child I passed bleeding out in the snow around us.
And still, I didn’t hesitate to commandeer the soldiers stationed there.
I would tally the marks against my tattered soul when this war was over. Until then, all that mattered was making sure we were on the winning side.
Rowan wasn’t at the camp when I returned, and neither was Kirill. According to the soldiers on watch, she had gone into town. Several hours ago.
Unease churned in my gut, the sight of freshly made corpses too recent for me to dismiss her absence.
I stood outside the command tent, debating whether to go after her just as she rode into camp…followed by a wagon stuffed to the brim with village women bundled under furs.
That explained why it had taken her longer to return.
She approached me with her chin tilted high, like she was already anticipating an argument. Her deep red curls were damp from the sleet, spiraling in every direction, and eliciting more than one wide-eyed glance from both the women in the wagon and the soldiers alike.
I raised an eyebrow in question, glancing from the women down to her.
“I could use your assistance with something,” she said simply.
Rowan asking for help was rare enough that I wasn’t sure I could remember a single instance of it, unless her wordless handing over of stubborn jars counted.
“Oh?” I watched the women dismount from the wagon, standing with their expressions carefully schooled into nonchalance, despite the wary set to their shoulders. Curiosity crept behind the stony exterior of my consciousness.
It was one thing for my wife to march into a camp full of soldiers, but these women were raised in the culture of Socair. Yet, here they were.
Rowan followed my gaze, squaring her shoulders like she was still half-preparing for an argument. “Really, I just need you to stand next to me and look authoritative.”
I could harbor a guess at what she had planned for the women, and an even better one for how the men involved might react. But I hadn’t married her with the illusion that my clan would stay exactly the same.
We needed more hands than we had, and she had gone to find some with a solution no one here would have considered. Women in the war camp were unheard of, until her.
More than that, she had deliberately left off her explanation of what she was doing. She wanted to know if I would support her, the way she had supported me the day I branded Vasily.
I wasn’t in a position where I would always be able to blindly lend her my faith without fear of the consequences, but I had made myself a promise to always grant her anything within my power.
And this was.
I tilted my lips in a small smirk. “I can do that.”
Rowan beamed up at me, a rare, genuine smile that I hadn’t seen for far too long blazed through the bleakness of this storms-forsaken camp.
She nodded to the women before leading us all to the medical tent, as I had suspected she would.
The smell always hit me first, metallic blood edged with decay and the sour odor of infection. Soldiers called for water with raspy voices or cried out in pain while the few healers here worked frantically to hastily stitch wounds or cauterize severed limbs.
It was chaos, and not the entertaining kind my lemmikki brought.
Though every man on duty in this tent had trained extensively, no one had been prepared for carnage on this scale, let alone without warning.
The healers looked to me when we entered, but I only glanced pointedly at Rowan, crossing my arms over my chest and daring a single one of them to question her right to be here.
“There are more wounded every day, and you’re short on help. So…I brought some,” she said grimly, gesturing to the women standing warily behind her. “I have a set of tasks for them, but please let me know if there is something more immediate you need them to do.”
Her words were respectful, but firm, like she was directly channeling her Aunt Jocelyn. They will be helping, but I’ll leave you to decide how. It was artfully done.
Without waiting for their response, she turned to the dozen waiting newcomers, separating them into groups tasked with things like bringing around water or cutting cloth for bandages, all of which she managed to communicate in her rapidly improving Socairan.
Very impressive, Lemmikki.
I might not have married her for the sake of my people, or for any reason other than my selfish need to have every last obstinate part of her, but she was turning out to be one hell of a Clan Wife, all the same.
The same healer who had come to my tent earlier sputtered at her audacity, and I raised my eyebrows at him until he returned his attention to his patient, where it belonged. I lingered for the better part of an hour, lending my strength to hold the delirious soldiers down for amputations while I silently reminded the men in charge here that their duke was in full support of the women in this tent.
They didn’t need many reminders, though. As the screams in the tent died down, so, too, did their protests.
Once things were secured there, I left to return to the command tent. Perhaps with our recently acquired contingent, we could stem the flow of men needing the storms-blasted healers to begin with.
And keep the bloodshed from reaching the estate I had left defenseless today.