apostatised | [log] but i pursue in vain the sinking god

The road to recovery is fraught with perils mostly the result of the man doing the recovering being a lousy patient. 'Uncooperative' is a kind word for his irritable attitude, and one can only assume that either the attending physician is being promised vast sums of money or a masochist. A distant third is the possibility of being just precisely that professional.

The wounds are cleaned, stitched (again - he's pitifully grateful for the nausea's passing), and healing; the physician watches closely for signs of an infection, but so far he seems to have been spared that, at least. This doesn't make it any less uncomfortably painful, and sleep comes fitfully at best. It's an altogether unpleasant experience and Martel spends much of it flat on his stomach, 'resting', partially because the physician threatened him with further bodily harm if he does anything now to rupture his stitches again.

Onelle's messenger ought to have found Candice by now, and since discovering that the Duchess sent word to his wife the thought has occurred to Martel that he's probably going to be in trouble when she compares one note to the other.

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'Trouble' indeed; Candice arrives in record time, being able to travel on her own speed and in her own way. It's early in the evening when she bypasses the physician and anyone else in her way, dusk just beginning to settle. She know Martel knows her presence, though, and if he's aware enough, he'll recognize she's there before she says anything.

But what she does say is this:

"I hear you've been giving your doctor hell."

It's not that Martel wouldn't like to look at her, it's just that his present range of motion would require he sit up and turn around - but he knows she's there and he's entirely alert when he answers, dimly lit by the lamp beside the bed. "That seems like an exaggeration."

"Figure of speech." She sits down next to the bed so he can look as best he can, pushing her coat back further.

"I started packing when I got your note. By the time I was ready to go, I got the other one."

"I should've known," he says contemplatively, and tilts his head to the side against his arm so he can watch her. As far as he's concerned it's been altogether too long since the last time he saw her, and the fact he's laid up now seems highly unfair.

A beat passes.

"I did stay off the battlefield, you know."

"The battlefield just didn't stay off you?" Candice guesses, dryly.

"I'll stay a while. How do you feel?"

"Assassins," is the explanation there, in a tone that'd be accompanied by a shrug if it weren't for the fact that he probably won't be doing any such thing for a while yet. "I feel as if I've recently been poisoned and the antidote turned out to be far more unpleasant."

That being more or less what happened, yes. He's more gaunt and more pale than usual, but if he's well enough to complain about it...

"Appropriately." She drifts one hand over his hair, wishing they could be reuniting under better circumstances, but- if anyone is ideal for playing the role of 'soldier's wife,' it's Candice, possibly because she's a soldier in her own right. So she got her bearings before she arrived; she'd rather he not have to comfort her while in the midst of his own recovery.

"You must be intolerably bored, lying here. So I brought a sliver of our library."

Yes, she'll read to him.

"Have I told you recenty how deeply I'm in love with you?" Coming at once to his sickbed doesn't warrant Martel's brand of effusive affection; the way to his heart lies directly through his bookcases.

"I don't object to hearing it more often," Candice smiles, settling down at his side.

"Any preferences?"

"Something I don't have to think too hard about," he requests, although his definition of 'not too hard' and someone else's might not be the same. (This is presumably not a concern with Candice, given her occasional tendency to run rings around him.)

"All right." What she reads will be in Elenic--her mastery thereof having improved enough for that, and because she thinks he'll find it reassuring.

"I'm really glad you'll be okay," Candice murmurs, quietly (her voice betrays some of the fear and anxiety for a split second), before she begins to read.

Most of the Elenic books in the library (not all, but most), he's already read; whether he admits it or not, it is comfortingly familiar. He knows what comes next- so it doesn't matter if he interrupts her, he's not missing out on anything. "It won't even scar, Candice," he says, eventually.

"Good," she decides, after a short pause, "I'm glad."

She sets the book down in her lap for a few moments, marking the page with a fingertip.

"When do you think they'll let you come home?"

Not half soon enough for his liking. "When I can travel without tearing my back to shreds again-" again? "-I expect. Soon, hopefully."

"I'd really feel more comfortable if you were in a modern hospital," she sighs, "and what do you mean 'again'?"

Martel's grimace is eloquent on just how he feels about modern hospitals, but he doesn't comment on that. He studies the lamp, instead, while he answers her question. "The poison's antidote had me retching for days. It played merry hell with the stitches."

"I'm certain. And, ah, the assassins...?" She raises one eyebrow.

"I left the third alive to be interrogated." Which means he killed the other two. "You know, I don't think I'd killed anyone since the day I came back to life."

-wait.

She suspected that the majority of them would be dead. Candice tugs at one of her locs, absently, shaking her head to push back the anxiety that even the thought can provoke.

"Well, I sincerely regret that the streak was broken. That long?"

"I've been staying out of trouble," he drawls, which is intensely debatable, Martel. "And I do feel strongly about only working for money when I have the luxury of being choosy."

Yes, killing people is...work.

"Ah, of course. Even if I doubt that you've really been staying out of trouble so much as you've contented yourself with running alongside it." She smiles at him, fond.

"Should I keep reading?"

"I haven't bullied a monarch or a priest in months," he says, piously, before nodding. If she keeps reading long enough, he'll probably just fall asleep again.

"You haven't had as much opportunity," she says, wryly, and begins to read again, voice clear and even.

[log] but i pursue in vain the sinking god

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