The Lady's Butler

The Promise Arc {Part 5}

(Part 5)

Kyrano did not take long to surface back from the pain, blinking his eyes slowly to find himself in a familiar surroundings. The soft haven of a bed cushioned him, and though he felt strange and mostly numb, he knew enough that he was lying on the bed of the infirmary. The fact that he still had eyes to open probably meant that he was still alive –still weak from blood loss, but very much alive.

"You should not be awake." A gentle voice spoke beside him, and Kyrano let his head slowly turn to the side where he saw the academy's nurse looking down at him with pity and gentle concern. "You were badly injured."

"Miss Louise..." Kyrano whispered because he felt like he couldn't manage more. "Is she well?"

"Your mistress is perfectly fine. She is changing out of her wet clothes now." The understanding reply came gently, and Kyrano nodded slowly, knowing that no fast movements would be allowed.

"How is my shoulder?" Kyrano asked the second thing that came to his mind in the instant of waking. "Will I be able to serve Miss Louise with it?"

"It must have been a painful fight." The nurse replied with concern in her eyes. "You need to go for surgery to right the bones. Unfortunately, we don't have the appropriate equipment here with us at the moment. For the moment, you cannot move your arm, but given surgery and a little more time to rest, it will be good as new."

"I can't use my right arm at all?" Kyrano asked in dismay. His dominant hand was now crippled; how could he hope to serve his mistress well with his dominant hand useless?

"I've given you an injection to kill the pain. You shouldn't be feeling much of anything at all at the moment. Try to move your fingers." The nurse instructed grimly, as if understanding the cause of his dismay. Kyrano obeyed quickly, looking down at the hand that was limp on the bed beside him.

The nurse was right; he didn't feel much of anything at all. Perhaps some discomfort and a strange out-of-body feeling, but no pain at all. But it wasn't the only thing that the nurse was right about, because no matter how hard Kyrano tried and concentrated, his fingers didn't even twitch.

"In the medical we consider this as partial paralysis of the arm caused by bone failure. As soon as your bone knits back into perfect shape, your nerve will right itself, and you can regain use of it. But until then, you cannot move it."

"How did it get so bad?" Kyrano whispered mostly to himself, but with the nurse keeping vigil right beside him, there wasn't much to hide.

"Miss Rowena Julian told me that you had a crack in your shoulder already before your duel. I watched it as well; your blocks were weak and you did not counter with many sword strikes. The shoulder was clearly hurting you. Why did you not call off the duel or postpone it? Your lady must know that your injury will put both you and her at risk of losing."

"I didn't tell her." Kyrano admitted sheepishly. "To have Miss Louise postponing the duel for my sake... it is unthinkable. It is the duty of the butler to serve his lady, not make his lady serve him. To have her stand up and face the public, to declare that she required more time to prepare for the duel that she herself recalled; that would be utterly humiliating for Miss Louise."

"And yet I would have done it nonetheless." The interruption gave cause for both sides of the conversation to express surprise –Kyrano's much weaker than the nurse's –for neither had been aware of the return of the young lady.

"You are here." The nurse bowed softly in greeting of the young lady who approached the other side of the bed slowly. "I will leave you some time with your butler. Kyrano is not supposed to wake up so early, but he seems insistent to care for your well-being. Be sure that he does not get up, however. I will come back in another hour to give him another dose of pain killers."