Fifty-five
Agony consumed Bane. To attempt to move, to breathe tortured his body. He trembled from cold, and even those tiny, involuntary movements made him want to scream. But he found that he could not move of his own volition—he was tied down upon what felt like his charpoy. Ropes wrapped across his chest, his hips, pinning his arms to his sides, immobilizing his legs, the hemp rough against his skin. Where were his clothes?
Distant voices echoed all around him, but he had to strain to hear them. He tried to speak but made no sound other than low moans and mumbles. He felt someone's hands upon him, detected the doctor's scent.
I am alive, he thought. How can I be alive?
Someone draped a blanket over him, then another, and another, but still he shivered, realized his hair was wet. Of course…he must have landed in the pool. How far had he fallen? How could he have survived? Why had he fallen? The rope… Bane heard the sickening snap all over again, remembered. The rope had broken. But how? Hans regularly inspected it…
The voices around him became more distinct, separated from one another so he could distinguish who was speaking. Those closest were the doctor…Hans…Abrams… Several male voices beyond theirs, outside of his cell, he guessed; no doubt the morbidly curious. But there was another sound, close, to one side, and it took all of his foggy concentration to realize what it was—sobbing. A small, fearful voice, higher pitched than all others around him.
"Ba-ba, wake up. Please wake up."
Through the blanket layers, he felt her tiny hand upon his shoulder, trying to shake him, but then her touch retreated.
"No, baby. The doctor doesn't want him to move." Melisande's unsteady words, betraying her own tears. "He is badly hurt."
"Ba-ba, wake up!"
Slowly he cracked his eyelids. Tears born of unrelenting pain trickled from the outside corners of his eyes. He could not move his head, for that also had been immobilized with a cloth-covered rope across his forehead. Having regained consciousness, his immediate instinct was to fight against the restraints, but his physical torment forbade even the slightest movement.
"Lie still, Bane," Assad gravely said, his face close.
"He's awake, Mama!"
Hans and Abrams stood near the foot of his charpoy, both men grim. The doctor, who sat on a stool next to the charpoy, looked like death itself—drained of color, his eyes dark and troubled.
"What happened?" Bane winced.
"The rope broke," Hans said bitterly. "It makes no sense; I checked it just the other day…"
"You fell, Ba-ba."
"A hell of a long ways," Abrams added with more emotion than Bane had heard from the man since he had arrived in the pit. "I think someone cut that damn rope; it's the only explanation."
"I believe you have multiple broken ribs," Assad said. "Your right wrist, your hand as well. And I fear you may have seriously damaged your spine."
"I can feel my extremities," Bane insisted.
"Yes. That is a good sign. But we have immobilized you as a precaution. Tell me where you feel the pain."
"Everywhere," he gasped. "My neck, my back."
Talia, perched on her charpoy next to her mother, as close as possible, reached through the bars again, her cheeks drenched, her eyes large and terrified. He wished he could hold her, console her, assure her that things would be all right, but the pain that engulfed him would not allow such a lie. She touched his shoulder gently this time, and her mother allowed her hand to remain there. Melisande also reached for him, resting her hand atop the blanket covering his left hand. The tracks of countless tears marred her face as well. No doubt she had witnessed his plunge down the shaft. If she had screamed at the sight, he had no memory of it, of anything after he had heard the rope snap. Surely he had been conscious when he struck, but he knew the mind often protected itself by erasing the sensory memories of trauma.
"I have a small supply of morphine," the doctor said. "I will give you a shot."
"Then what?" Bane rasped, already eager for the drug, hoping Assad did not have to return to his cell to retrieve it.
The doctor frowned. "We wait. What else can we do?"
"Doctor," Melisande said desperately, "there must be something."
"I am no surgeon," Assad snapped, aberrantly unnerved, "and even if I were, this is no place for an operation. Without radiographs we don't even know the extent of his injuries. Anything that I blindly attempt could lead to something worse, like paralysis."
"What's that, Mama?"
"Hush, baby." She put her arm around Talia and drew her close. "Don't worry."
"Ba-ba needs medicine."
"Doctor Assad has medicine. But it will make Bane very sleepy, so we must let him rest."
"Can I sit with him? I'll be quiet."
Melisande's glance went to the stray prisoners still hovering outside Bane's cell. "Maybe later, habibi."
Assad rummaged through his medical bag and withdrew a needle and syringe, along with a single-dose vial of morphine. With unsteady hands, he drew the drug, saying, "We should be resupplied within the next couple of days. I will do everything I can to have you removed from here, so you can be properly treated."
Instead of relief Bane felt only frantic fear at the thought, his gaze reaching for Melisande. "No, I don't want to leave."
"Damn it, Bane," Abrams growled. "Don't be an idiot."
"Ba-ba's going to leave?"
Assad pushed the blanket away from Bane's right arm, rubbed an alcohol swab against his skin.
"Bane," Melisande said, gently squeezing his hand, "I will try to get word to my mother. She will know of someone who can help you."
"I don't want him to leave," Talia said, the tears back in her words. "Ba-ba, don't go."
The needle pricked him.
"Bane needs a doctor, habibi," Melisande soothed.
"He has a doctor."
"Doctor Assad can't fix him."
"Why? Why can't you fix him? Ba-ba, don't go. I'm scared."
Bane welcomed the drug, impatient for its release, the physical agony made worse by the emotional. But he did not want to slip away with Talia's sobs in his ears. He wanted to reach for her hand, his fingers twitching impotently, his gaze searching for her as his eyelids began to sag.
"Don't be afraid," he murmured. Then the darkness returned, and he fell far away from them all.
#
Time meant nothing to Bane. Perhaps he had lain in his cell for two days. Or perhaps it had been two years. He was cognizant of few things other than pain. The morphine helped, but the doctor did not have enough of a supply to give him the dosage required to completely alleviate his hell. When he was lucid enough to gain foggy awareness, he sensed Talia and Melisande nearby. They would talk to him, muffled words that made little sense to him, but he was grateful for their efforts, for he did not feel so alone and hopeless then. The doctor was often beside him, caring for his needs, administering the morphine.
"I want to kiss Ba-ba good-bye, Mama."
Bane heard Talia's faraway voice, tried to make sense of her words. Good-bye? Where was she going? Unwittingly he tried to move, only to cause more discomfort throughout his body.
His cell door opened, and he heard Doctor Assad say, "You must be quick, child. We must carry him out before the soldiers leave."
Then Bane remembered. He fought through the medicinal haze, opened his eyes.
"Ba-ba." Talia sat on the edge of his charpoy, her anxious face close to his. "Mama, he's awake."
Melisande was sitting near the bars. He felt her presence, but he could not look away from Talia. The doctor stood nearby while just outside Hans and Abrams waited, stone-faced.
"Hurry, habibi. Say your good-byes so they can take him out."
Talia tried to speak, but her words broke into sobs.
Bane softly shushed her. "It's all right. Don't cry."
Assad crouched beside Talia and put his arm around her, murmured, "Do not worry, child. You will see him again." He smiled at her. "Say farewell now. We don't have much time."
Talia tried to swallow her sorrow as her index finger absently traced Bane's lips, as if this familiar gesture would somehow return him to health. "Good-bye," she whispered, then kissed his damp cheek.
He kissed her finger and tried to smile but even that effort hurt. "Good-bye," he whispered.
Another needle prick, and Talia's image dissolved before him.
