Lord of Emperors Read Online Free PDF

delicate moment of all, invoking the Lady in her guise as Healer, and then he twisted it again and pulled gently back a very little.
    The king gasped then and half lifted one arm as if in protest, but Rustem felt the catch as the arrowhead was gathered and shielded in the cup. He had done it in one pass. He knew a man, a teacher in the far east, who would have been gravely, judiciously pleased. Now only the smooth, oiled sides of the spoon itself would be exposed to the wounded flesh, the barbed flange safely nestled within.
    Rustem blinked. He went to brush the sweat from his forehead with the back of one bloody glove and remembered-barely in time-that he would die if he did so. His heart thudded.
    "We are almost home, almost done," he murmured. "Are you ready, dear my lord?" The vizier had used that phrase. In this moment, watching the man on the bed deal silently with appalling pain, Rustem meant it too. Vinaszh, the commander, surprised him by coming forward a little at the head of the bed and leaning sideways to place his hand on the king's forehead above the wound and the blood: more a caress than a restraining hold.
    "Who is ever ready for this?" grunted Shirvan the Great, and in the words Rustem caught-astonishingly-the ghost of a sardonic amusement. Hearing it, he set his feet to the west, spoke the Ispahani word engraved on the implement and, gripping with both gloved hands, pulled it straight back out from the mortal flesh of the King of Kings.
    "I am to live, I take it?"
    They were alone in the room. Time had run; it was full dark now outside. The wind was still blowing. On the king's instructions, Vinaszh had stepped out to report only that treatment was continuing and Shirvan yet lived. No more than that. The soldier had asked no questions, neither had Rustem.
    The first danger was always excessive bleeding. He had packed the expanded wound opening with lint and a clean sponge. He left the wound unclosed. Closing wounds too soon was the most common error doctors made, and patients died of it. Later, if all went well, he would draw the wound together with his smallest skewers as sutures, taking care to leave space for drainage. But not yet. For now he bandaged the packed wound with clean linen going under the armpit and across the chest, then up and around both sides of the neck in the triangle pattern prescribed. He finished the bandage at the top and arranged the knot to point downwards, as was proper, towards the heart. He wanted fresh bedding and linen now, clean gloves for himself, hot water. He threw the commander's bloodied gloves on the fire. They could not be touched.
    The king's voice, asking the question, was faint but clear. A good sign. He'd accepted a sedating herb this time from Rustem's bag. The dark eyes were calm and focused, not unduly dilated. Rustem was guardedly pleased. The second danger now, as always, was the green pus, though arrow wounds tended to heal better than those made by a sword. He would change the packing later, wash the wound, and change the salve and dressing before the end of the night: a variant of his own devising. Most physicians left the first bandage for two or three days.
    "My king, I believe you are. The arrow is gone, and the wound will heal if Perun wills and I am careful with it to avoid the noxious exudations." He hesitated. "And you have your own… protection against the poison that was in it."
    "I wish to speak with you about that."
    Rustem swallowed hard. "My lord?"
    "You detected the
fijana's
poison by the smell of it? Even with your own scented herbs on the fire?"
    Rustem had feared this question. He was a good dissembler-most physicians were-but this was his king, mortal kin to the sun and moons.
    "I have encountered it before," he said. "I was trained in Ispahani, my lord, where the plant grows."
    "I know where it grows," said the King of Kings. "What else do you have to tell me, physician?"
    Nowhere to hide, it seemed. Rustem took a deep breath.
    "I also