In the Healing Pavilion

Healers Pavilions

The interior of the tent is dominated by row after row of cots. Set off from the cots into the upper right corner of the tent is a stack of crates. The topmost of these is open revealing jars, bowls and other supplies. A worktable constructed of a wide slab of wood atop a pair of saw horses has been set into this corner as well. Two large wicker baskets rest near the crates but behind the table. The first contains bolts of raw linen while the second contains strips of this linen that have been rolled into bandages.

A number of trunks have been arranged beneath the table, their contents carefully hidden beneath latched lids. A handful of chairs have been arranged behind the table for the use of the healers or visitors as needed.

[+TIME] Middle-earth time is:

Daytime on Hevensday, Day 28 of March.

Execute the +TIMEFRAME command for year information.

Real time is: 17:34:30 MDT on Thu Feb 19 2009.

Menawa finishes rolling up the bandage she\'s working on, then stands to check on those that sleep, looking for signs of fevers. She doesn\'t linger overly long on any one patient. Lesson learned.

Indilzar marches into the Pavilions with a grim look.

Menawa is currently checking on sleeping males, walking along at the ends of the cots, looking at them for signs of discomfort or fever. When Indilzar marches in, she looks that way, imediately searching for signs of injury.

\"Six days,,\" Ceredir calls to the novice healer from where he is lying in a bed. \"Six days now, I have counted. I may sit?\" His glance goes to the Knight as he enters. \"Sir.\"

[Indilzar(#10108)]

\"I am well Lady Menawa,\" says Indilzar to the healess. \"I come only to see the injured while I may. Yet you look weary as well Lady. I think I might take you to the Houses of Healing so tired you seem.\"

He looks at Ceredir and says, \"Ceredir. I see you have been making a good recovery. That is well. I didn\'t want to have to dispatch you -- nothing personal of course. Just a matter of compassion.\"

Indilzar smiles ruefully.

Menawa smooths her palms against her apron, then smiles very faintly at Indilzar, \"There is not time for weariness, Sir.\" She motions to Ceredir, \"Please, if you will, entertain the Master Scout while I fetch someone to assist in helping him sit up.\"

[Indilzar(#10108)]

\"Certainly Lady,\" replies Indilzar. \"I\'m nothing but entertaining.\"

\"Your compassion warms my heart, Sir Knight, and long shall I remember it,\" Ceredir replies with perfect courtesy. Continuing, only his eyes give away a note of humor. \"In fact, I shall recommend to the Quartermaster, when I am well, that your noble hound be given double rations, since you take so kindly to me as well.\"

\"But,\" growing serious, \"what news? Have scouts been sent out east and north, as Amrundirn suggested to me he would do?\"

Menawa would return with a healer, not a novice such as herself. And only with permission does she assist in helping Ceredir sit up, pillow behind his back for support. Then, unless she is needed for something more, she will go back to the task set before her by the heatler.

[Indilzar(#10108)]

\"Perhaps double rations for you I might say,\" says Indilzar. \"Perhaps they will even make you a ranger for your deeds. As for news. I have none that I can tell at this time I fear.\"

\"Thank you,\" Ceredir answers, sighing just slightly as he is settled upright for the first time in days. The words also perhaps hide a grimace of pain, quickly masked. \"Menawa...water if you would?\" The Master Scout reaches out one hand to try to stop the novice from leaving, though there is no real strength behind it.

\"A ranger?\" Ceredir laughs. \"March-warden first, Sir Knight, and then only for those who deserve it. It seems to me that losing half your men to a battle against orcs that walk the sun is not deserving of a promotion, no matter how badly I was wounded. But...\"

With a pause and more humor in his eyes, Ceredir eyes the Bragollach. \"Perhaps I should leave the Scouts and the company of Ithilien now that I have failed so? Become, say, a Squire to a worthy Knight who might take me on?\"

[Menawa(#20113)] And his request for water was heard. Menawa returns with not one, but two tin cups of water. She offers one to Indilzar, then will move to hand another one to Ceredir. While she\'s there, the healing Knight groans in his sleep, garnering her attention. She turns to kneel by his side, her gentle touch checking for fever..

[Indilzar(#10108)]

\"That all depends on how well you heal,\" says Indilzar. \"It may be that you will not be able to bear a sword again. Nevertheless, for that boon, you must seek the leave of your Captain.\"

Again, Ceredir nods his thanks to the healer, his brows knitting as he turns to watch her tend the wounded Knight. And then that frown grows as Indilzar takes his answer seriously, and Ceredir, too, grows serious and quiet for several moments.

\"Do not say such things. I will wield a sword again. As for my Captain, I do not think I would want to leave the service of the Lord Faramir. Though in truth..\"

Here he looks again to Indilzar, considering, \"there are merits to leaving or there could be, perhaps, based on what I had told you when we met on the road so many weeks ago. But I know not how you feel about such a prospect of my being a Squire to you. I had been in a good mood at sitting up, the pain lessening, the prospect of healing, and it was meant as a jest. But jest it is not, as I think on it.\"

Menawa finds the Knight is not feverish, so stands straight and moves to the next patient in line. She will kneel by his side and move the blanket to check his bandages.

[Indilzar(#10108)] Looking at Ceredir, Indilzar visage turns very serious and he says, \"I hear you scion of the Bragollachs. Yet, for my part I am troubled. I may be of the ancient houses, but I too am no longer a young man and I thought to retire in peace to Belfalas where I might reunite with my daughter and let others of my House lead.\"

Indilzar falls silent and seems uncommitted.

\"Of course.\"

The Master Scout\'s face falls, but he turns to watch Menawa for a moment in an attempt to hide it. He speaks quietly, still looking to the healer.

\"Too many years spent healing too many wounds. It might wear thin after many years. But tell me,\" he turns back. \"Are the Bragollachs always Knights and Squires, not Scouts?\"

Menawa is kneeling by a bed, changing the bandage on a soldier\'s leg under the watchfull eye of a senior healer.

[Indilzar(#10108)]

\"I think Ceredir,\" says Indilzar. \"That it is so, for we live in the South and West of Gondor. Never has any of the Bragollach held lands in the east and therefore we have served the Lords of Belfalas. Yet even so, I myself have also served as the Fleet Captain of Gondor, and not just the Knight Marshall.\"

\"Yet if this is what you seek,\" he continues. \"I might consider it. But be warned Ceredir. To be my squire is not an easy road. It is not like serving under a foppish Girithlin or a too-honourable Isilrim. Bragollachs are Men of loyalty and we brook no betrayal or dishonour. To do so will mean your death...\"

Indilzar smiles, \"And probably at my hands.\"

\'I would not seek to be your squire only to dishonor your or be disloyal. Though I would want a clear path as to what exactly you consider such,\' Ceredir answers with some careful consideration. His grey eyes deviate from the Knight\'s only once, and that is to look about to see who might be listening. And then he lowers his voice.

\"Well do I love the Lord Captain Faramir and the guidance he has given the Company of Ithilien. And more so do I find some measure of peace in being a Master Scout and leading men, though I am new to it and my mistakes are...large. And yet, my lord, I desire this other thing because of my family heritage. I am forever, it seems, blocked out of my family heritage, to my anger and frustration. And as you have seen, I need guidance on this. If it means following the traditional ways of my father\'s family and being a squire, then perhaps that is the path I should take to appease that which you saw inside of me which caused you to name me orc. For I do want to heal that--this much I swear to you, that I do want that gone, and I seek a way to heal it daily.\"

[Menawa(#20113)] The wounded man that Menawa works on sucks in a hissed breath through his teeth, doing his best not to let on that it hurst. Mena lifts her hand and stops cleaning the wound, then swallows and gets back to it, her soft voice whispering words of apology.

[Indilzar(#10108)]

\"Well said,\" says Indilzar Bragollach. He then says, \"As for a clear path, then this is what you must be: Dutiful. Honourable. True of mind and disciplined of task. If you are not those things -- well...\"

A humourless laugh.

\"Well we shall not talk of consequences,\" Indilzar continues. \"Yet, this is a great decision not only for you, but for myself as well. I had planned on a quiet retirement but perhaps it will not be so. Heal from your wounds and then seek me out. I shall be tarrying in Minas Tirith ere I return to the land of my fathers.\"

\"It is, and it is something I had not considered before, yet in lying here thinking all these days, it has been on my mind. But I will do as you say, my lord.\" Ceredir looks at his left hand with the missing finger. \"I will do as you say no matter how this decision ends. And I will seek you in Minas Tirith, as well.\"

[Indilzar(#10108)]

\"So be it,\" says Indilzar. He then turns. Bows courteously to Lady Menawa and departs from the healers.

Menawa missed the courtly bow, more\'s the pitty, for her attention being paid to the leg she is working on. When she finally gets the leg cleaned, then blows softly to dry the wet skin. Then she inhales through her nose, testing for infection. She nods slightly to herself, then goes about re-bandaging the wound.

Ceredir\'s head slumps back against his pillow as he sighs and closes his eyes after Indilzar leaves.