Master Elbana stood by the bed, practicing her breathing.

Not many people realized, you had to practice breathing, just like any other physical task which one wanted mastery over; and so it was with breathing. Breath control was essential to proper movement. Proper thinking. It was at the core of all physical and mental tasks.

Integral.

Hardly any Swordmasters taught "breathing."

Elbana had. And always would.

She inhaled. Instinctively it may be, but it was done at a measured four beats. The correct rhythm for being "At Rest and Alert."

The room was darkening as the evening came on. The windows had been thrown open all day to let in the unseasonably pleasant air. The beautiful golden light.

Behind her, two women bustled about the room, tidying and preparing. A table had been moved into the room earlier at the behest of the tiny doctor, Veda Kaule, that Ashe was showing such deference to. She wanted a table near at hand, just in case.

After the three beat hold, she began her exhale.

It was that “just in case.” that had bothered Elbana.

Slowly releasing the air she had briefly held in a controlled and measured expulsion.

One of the two women, both members of the staff who regularly served the King’s Chambers as cleaners and laundresses, now began to draw the windows closed. One after another, the solid shutters had been drawn in with small rods, and latched, then, from inside the room, the lightly tinted glass panes were also drawn shut, and secured. Curtains were finally drawn slowly across the wide expenses, shutting out all light and errant breezes from beyond the walls of the palace.

A slow count of six beats ended with the last of Elbana’s breath noiselessly slithering from her nostrils.

A ewer of water was refilled by the King's bed.

Myrl's sweat stained the pillow in a halo about his dark brown tangle of curls.

A three count pause.

Both women, tears unshed on their faces, cheeks dry but eyes moist, curtsied to Elbana’s unconscious charge who slept insensate on the royal bed. As they passed the guards outside the door, a small, dark skinned, elderly woman in the white and red robe of the Leech Hall walked past them into the room, and stepped up to the large bed.

A four count inhale.

Slow. Calm. Unhurried.

Doctor Kaule felt the skin of the king’s neck, lifted his eyelids and looked into Myrl’s eyes. She mumbled and tutted, and turned back to the door.

“Yarpa,” She snapped. “Quit your dithering and get in here.” She ran a hand over the scarlike ridges where the king's crown had held on tightly until Myrl had passed out. According to witnesses, the thing had fallen from his head just as his eyes had closed. It sat now next to his scepter on the table by his reading desk.

A young woman, taller than the small doctor by a head shuffled timidly into the room, a stylus and wax pan in her left arm, and a heavily laden leather bag strapped across her chest hung at her right side. She took up a place near the doctor, and whispered, “Apologies, Doctor Kaule. Ready, Doctor Kaule.”

Kaule began to talk, quietly, in an even tone as she examined the king. This was the third time today she had been in to see to his condition. SInce the hired pirate’s daughter and her crew had helped to mop up the last of the insanity and carried the unconscious body of the king back to one of the checkpoints her guards had established.

Hold for three.

The feisty woman had almost drawn her sabers on Elbana when she had told them to go back to their ship, and they would be called for when the king’s advisors had time to deal with them. Ashe had interveined, and saved everyone another bloody fight in the palace.

Elbana understood her anger. By all accounts, those of her crew, those of the palace guards, and those of the priest, a very battered and bloodied Arne, they had saved the king from his own Royal Stupidity. Captain Kleinhoff had seen reason rather quickly, and then she and her crew had marched from the palace to the docks.

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A six count exhale.

Kleinhoff and one of her officers had returned around midday, with a man in chains. The Parthiqueen captain who had fled the city harbor two days ago, just after having dropped off Parthique’s Political Envoy. He was now in a cell in the lower floors. Ashe had assessed the man for Talent, but had found none. A regular cell would do.

It was perplexing. Worrying on many fronts.

The palace barracks and the Leech Hall itself were full of those who had been wounded and were now being seen to. The woman she and Vogel had pulled from the small house where three of the creatures had lain in wait for them was now in a bed in the Leech Hall as well. With the damages and privation she had suffered under the hands of that monstrous mage, the doctors did not think she would ever reawaken. Elbana wondered if she would want to, were their places reversed.

Three count hold.

…had that just been two days ago? Not even two entire days yet, either… she wondered. Elbana knew she needed to sleep soon. Her body was tearing itself apart as her discipline kept her now at Myrl’s side.

She had been angry almost to tears when Myrl had ordered her to see to organizing the defenses and the retaking of the palace. A day later, and still she had not shed a single tear. She couldn’t. Not while she still needed to do… everything. Everything that Ashe wasn’t already doing. Everything that dear Donk counldn't do. They each had their spheres.

And Master Elbana, Lady of Horse and Sword had hers.

Kaule had flipped the covers from the king's body, and was cataloging his injuries again, noting where they had been tended to. Testing the various bandages for dryness, and cleanliness.

Her king… her charge, her best student, and most frustrating friend, lay in the bed unable to awaken from a deep slumber brought on by a host of injuries. Slashes and lesser cuts. Some broken ribs.

And that leg.

Inhale…

The air in the room was no longer fresh, cool, and redolent of salty windswept breezes. Now it was closer. The air still, and the firelit room much darker, the Sun in Her Glory had fled and the windows all locked and covered by the heavy drapes. Kaule poked at her charge. And the young woman standing behind her took the notes dictated by the little doctor.

Hold for a three count.

When the mage had finally fallen, he had stabbed her king, his long curved knife running the slim boy through, as his body had landed on Myrl’s. Elbana didn’t know if that had been intentional or not. But, the stab wound had been seen to by the Leeches, and judged not the king’s worst problem.

His weight as he landed, however, had broken Myrl’s already horribly injured leg. A leg that had gained some kind of infection as the night had wore on, and which Myrl had ignored.

Royal Stupidity.

The bed was large, and heavily built, tall; Kaule now had to crawl up onto the bed to get a closer look at Myrl’s leg. It had been recleaned, the bones set as best they could be where they had been broken, the skin restitched, and the leg splinted and tightly bound. She carefully began to unwrap the linen above the breaks.

A slow six count as her chest released the air it had clung to with such ferocity as the wet bandages fell away.

Even in the firelight of the candles and sconces. The flickering light from the fireplace. She could see the flesh was an expanded mass of stretched, tight, poisoned red that wept white at the wound edges and smelled of the charnel house.

She held herself as still as the grave now. Waiting.

Ashe had entered the room at some point, who knew when, or from where.

“Veda,” He said.

Kaule whipped her head to the left to see Ashe standing beside Elbana. She had not heard him enter, either.

She looked at the tall, gray man. Her eyes wide and dark.

“If I don’t do this now, My Lord, I won't have the chance to do it later.” She told him. “At this point it will only worsen, and the infection will pull him down before dawn tomorrow.”

“Do it.” He said, barely audible.

Veda stared up at the gray man, her dark, almond shaped eyes searching his face.

He nodded then. His eyes closed as he probab;y weeighed the chances of his only student, Ashe's closest friend and greatest responsibility, surviving until the light of dawn once again crept over the horizon.

Elbana inhaled.

And began to count as the little doctor took a small bottle from her assistant’s bag, and then sent off the awkward younger woman to gather what was needed. With a gesture, another young Leech Hall Apprentice entered the room carrying a bucket filled with strong smelling, astringent water, and began to wipe down the tope of the large table that had been brought in earlier.

Yarpa had been gone now long enough that yet another apprentice entered the room with a pair of standing braziers they placed at either end of the table, adding more light to the room. Apparently a saw hadn't been in Yarpa's leather bag.

By the time she had returned, carrying a leather wrapped bundle of long saws and surgical blades, Myrl's limp and unmoving body had been moved onto the table.

It was time.

She exhaled. And calmly counted.