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A Tale of Flynnigan Rider Chapter 6

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A Tale of Flynnigan Rider
Chapter 6 

Kay was nervous. His temperature kept shifting. Burning, freezing, back and forth - the odd thing was that he was actually doing both and not merely feeling one while doing the other. She was used to a steady fever and ague. She had no idea what even to do for him. Also, this task had become almost unbearable. Kay was only working on his back here and again. She still had not finished, but she was  both getting tired from the work and worried that she would miss some splinters or anything else that could be hiding. That most of the cuts would be infected was certain. What she could do for it was much less certain. Eugene had still not come to, but Kay preferred it that way. Nothing made her cringe more than seeing someone else suffer while she was doing her best to help them. She just did not know if Eugene could survive such a massive infection. He whimpered quietly again. She wasn't touching him, so he was either having a nightmare or he was in that much pain. The worst part of this was that Kay was certain that the master had some manner of pain killer, but where and what to look for? She didn't even know where to start. 

She sighed wearily and lifted the blanket again, once more exposing his back. There was dry blood, sticky and partially wet blood, and - here she shuddered - puss forming beneath some of the scabs. Kay sighed and rubbed her forehead. She had to finish cleaning the cuts or he would never heal. Once the inspection was over - providing Antoine somehow avoided detection once again - she would have no more chance to help him. 

The water was boiling again, so she poured more over her rag, letting it cool a tiny bit before touching his back with it. She would have to drain the infection too, something that she was not too terribly pleased to think about, but something that had to be done nevertheless. She started working with a sudden vigor, realizing that some of the infected spots were where she had already cleaned. She should have already finished and bandaged him up, but she had been holding out hope that one of the boys would come through with something to help, but they were busy too. She couldn't expect too much right now, what with Antoine on the rampage to save his own skin. There was no choice. She gave it up and cleaned the remainder of the gouges that ran from his shoulders all the way down to his waist. Then she searched the leg of Eugene's trousers for the knife hidden away inside the leg above his ankle. She held the blade in the fire, careful to make it look like she was just warming her hands so that she could secret it away if Antoine happened to burst into the room. 

Satisfied that it was clean, she wiped the blade and made small cuts beneath the thick scabs that lined his back. Kay was rewarded by the puss oozing out immediately. She cleaned it up as it came and then individually pressed each scab until it ran with blood instead. The sad part was that she had no way to stop it from happening again. She could bind the wounds, but that was no guarantee against further infection. Kay had no choice.

"I'm sorry, Eugene." She sighed, hiding the knife away again. Taking her bed sheets in hand she started to work away at the hems, determined that Antoine should not find out about the knife. The sheets were old and worn anyway, so tearing them was not very difficult. 
Suddenly there was a tapping at the window, and the tapper was apparently impatient or hurried because he started whispering her name too.
"Kay! Kay!"
"Ryden?"
"Quick!"
"What is it?" She demanded, racing toward the window.
"Here. Darren said this should help." He said, shoving a bundle of rags into her hands. "He didn't have time to explain, I don't know how it will help." He blurted everything all at once and kept checking behind him for the master.

"Good. Thanks. Go." She replied, taking the package and also looking warily about. Ryden dipped down and, rather than rushing back to the chores, made his way quietly through the trees and shrubs before rejoining as if he had never left. The scullery maids saw and noticed his sudden return but made nothing of it.
Kay turned from the windows, scared to death for a moment that Antoine would have entered silently behind her, but the room was still empty save for Eugene, and the rug that she had pushed up to the door had not shifted in the slightest. 
She breathed a shaky sigh of relief and walked to the fire to look at her treasure. 

Greenery wrapped in rags. She pocketed the rags so that they would not be questioned and looked carefully at the contents. There were a lot of longish, feathery leaves, a few of them still attached to stalks. One of them was even the whole plant. Darren must have run short on time. Knight's milefoil. That's what her grandmother had called it, but she did not remember it's use as a medicine. Still. She smelled the leaves and they were sweet. She remembered having eaten them before as a child, so she also knew that Darren had not picked something nasty by mistake. Well, she would try it. The remaining question was whether Eugene could hold himself up long enough for her to wrap the bandages. She took the leaves and rubbed them a little in her hands before laying them all down each mark. She would not have enough for his whole back to be covered, but she hoped that they would be sufficient at least to hold infection at bay.  
Praying that they would stay in place, she began an agonizing process of lifting him slightly, pulling the bandage under and around him and drawing it tightly across his back only to start the process over again. She ended up tying several bandages one to the other before she was finished with the first round, but finally she was tying the end off. Now she would do it again. Eugene had woken with all of the moving and pushing...actually he was hurting quite a bit by the time that she was done.

"Eugene, I need you to see if you can support yourself on your arms for a bit." She said, using her reasoning 'adult' voice. Eugene knew that voice and normally had something sarcastic to say or smolder in reply to it. She wasn't expecting that this time around and she didn't get it.
"Huh?" He questioned, his voice was low and shaky, and Kay could tell that he felt just as feverish as the sweat rolling off of him said. She should give him more water before the master returned if she could, though she still couldn't be certain that he could keep it down. He groaned, not really meaning to once again, it had just come out of him. Slowly he pushed himself up, wincing and gasping as if this were more work than he ever did, but he made it. Kay did not waste time with any relieved sighs or words of encouragement or anything of that sort. She saw that Eugene had managed to push himself up and she jumped for it before the opportunity passed her by. Even with his help she found the work long and tedious as she tried her best to bind the wounds more tightly, not move the herb, and to hurt her young friend as little as possible. Eugene's face was dripping perspiration and he looked like he was about to pass out or throw up. Kay was hopefully anticipating the former to the latter.

"We're done. I'm done, Eugene!" She said as she tied the last knot. Eugene dropped as heavily as a skinny waif can and let out a gasp that sounded like he had just been lifting a cow. "I'm not going to ask if you feel any better." She concluded.
"That's good." He groaned. "Because I don't." He whined about two octaves above his normal speaking voice. He gasped again, and Kay could hear him crying softly.
"It's okay, Eugene. I'm here." She whispered, combing her fingers through his hair. "I know it hurts. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry it hurt so much." He was cold again. She say closer and pulled the blanket over his back.
"It's not...your fault." He sobbed. "It's that...him. Antoine. And the king who doesn't remove him."

"It's not the king, Eugene."
"It's his fault!"
"No!" Kay defended him, but she could see where Eugene was coming from. She had been there herself. "Well, maybe - maybe some, Eugene." She conceded, "But he can't know. People who haven't lived like this and people who would never dream of acting like Antoine does don't usually assume that anyone acts in the way that he does."
"But how can he care, Kay?" He whispered, again near to passing out. "How can he care if-"
"He does, Eugene." Kay said, taking hold of his arms, crying. "He must. If he has forgotten, if he doesn't realize What is happening - Eugene, we have to forgive him. You're angry, Eugene. You're hurt, you're tired of it all. I know. But giving up won't help me. It won't help you or any of the rest." Kay insisted tearfully, begging him to believe and have hope as much as she did. Eugene sighed shakily again.

"I know, Kay." He whispered. "I'm sorry."
"You need to sleep, Flynn Rider." She whispered. "You know that as soon as this inspection has passed, he will toss you right back into that cellar or worse. I don't know how you will survive that. If you - if you rest now, maybe you can beat it out. You are strong, little brother." She whispered as she pulled the rough blanket up over his shoulders. "You sleep now. Maybe you'll even feel better when you get up."
"Alright, Kay." He murmured.
"You'll do great things one day, Eugene, as long as you remember who you are." She reassured him though she was speaking half to herself.
"Who's that? Flynnigan Rider? I'm just Eugene. I can't do anything important." He chuckled far too bitterly for a boy not yet fifteen years old.
"You can't, huh?" She reproved him gently. She wanted to rub his shoulders like her mother used to rub hers, but his were sore and in tatters. "I would say that getting Bobby away from the hell house, that telling the children stories of hope, that laughing and playing with the youngest children and showing them that not every man is like the master are all very important, Eugene Fitzherbert. And if you remember that - if you always remember Eugene Fitzherbert - then you can do anything important. Remember that, Eugene."

"You think that I'm a man?" He questioned her with another weak laugh that this time did not exhibit the hallow tone of bitterness.
"Well, " Kay laughed, "a very young man, Eugene. Once you're seventeen, well, given your upbringing, I think that you can call yourself a young man." She said with a wink even though he couldn't see it, but he smiled. 
"Alright, enough of this, Eugene. Some of those gashes are infected and I need you to get more rest than you are at this moment or I am going to have a very ill adventurer on my hands."
"Fine, fine." He muttered, drifting off to sleep.

She let our her own pained, weary sigh once she was certain that he had fallen asleep. She was very tired after all of this and wanted nothing more than to lie down to sleep herself. She didn't dare. Antoine could come in at any minute, and she would be rudely awoken - or far worse. Up to this point she'd never heard of his taking advantage of his charges, but there was always a first time. She knew, with all of the anxiety surrounding him, that now would be a dangerous time to presume upon the few strengths he had exhibited. 

Instead she busied herself in cleaning. She threw out the water full of blood and dirt. There was far more than she had thought in there. From the window she could see the boys beating out what should by now be the last of the mattresses. Antoine didn't have any choice but to keep those clean. Even his usual inspector insisted upon that. Flea-ridden children were apparently very hard to be rid of. She hoped that someone had started scrubbing the boys' room by now. It was larger than the two girl's rooms because it housed every last one of them three years old and older, and by the sole virtue of it being occupied by boys, it needed more cleaning. Kay didn't mind the occasions where she'd been asked to clean it, and she found herself wondering how good a job the younger girls would do on it without her help. 

It didn't matter - yes, it would matter if Antoine punished them. She had to hope that he wouldn't have time for punishment. The poor girls were used to being shouted at by now, perhaps that would be sufficient if the floors were not scrubbed to his liking. Kay shuddered involuntarily. She dearly hoped that the Master had not discovered the parts of the floor that she had left dirty. He was likely having the young children's clothes patched, or at least would have that done soon. It was almost tragic how good some of the girls had become at patching the holes. Most of the time you couldn't tell that there had been a hole, and that, it seemed, would not help their case. 

Kay stole a glance at the sky through the window. It was already past noon. She had taken more than two hours to clean Eugene's back and bind it up. Thank God she had been allowed to do so, even if she was kicking herself for not having worked faster. She looked out the window again to see all of the boys carrying mattresses and blankets back to the door. She'd heard no dinner bell, but perhaps they had all been called to eat regardless. Heaven knew they could use food, whatever cold fair there was today. And if the king was coming on the following day that meant a real meal for supper and a filling breakfast the next morning. Good meals until the inspectors or prospective parents were leaving. She only felt sorry for the two scullery maids, who were forced to do both house work and cooking, and there was barely the time in one day for either one or the other.

She leaned her very weary head against her outstretched arm. She was so tired. All of this extra work and worry. Eugene must be too ill to see straight, because he was always the first to notice a change in the note of one's voice or the sudden pallor of their cheek. Kay knew from how she felt that both symptoms were coming on. She wished so desperately now that Eugene had gone to that family. She wished that he didn't have to be there when she died. But she felt it coming on, and at this rate very soon. She had to calm down, take some time. While it would theoretically be helpful to show the true nature of Antoine if she were ill in bed, she knew that the king would never see her. No, she must somehow rise above this. Somehow she had to keep going long enough to do something, even if that something was to die at the king's feet. She was so very, very tired. 
Before she knew it she had fallen asleep.
Well, this has taken forever! I just hope that I haven't digressed in "quality" of writing.

So busy! 

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