The blow came at the third pace past the council door.
Aldric registered it before he registered the pain.
He registered it in the small careful steady inner way of a man who had been at long corridors for fifteen years and who had — by some small careful steady inner reading of fifteen years of walking the long corridor at the ninth bell of an evening past a long council session — built a small careful steady inner registering of the small careful steady inner distances and shadows of the long corridor at that particular hour. He registered, in the small careful steady inner first half-second, the small steady careful inner shift of a body coming up from the small steady careful inner alcove at the third pace past the council door at the small careful steady inner angle of a body that was not, by the small steady careful inner pattern of that alcove on any other evening of fifteen years, supposed to be at the alcove at the ninth bell.
He did not, by the small careful steady inner first half-second, have the time to turn.
The knife came in at his left thigh.
It came in at the inner side of the thigh, at the small careful steady inner angle of a knife meant for the long inner vein. It hit the muscle. It hit the muscle at the small careful steady inner depth of a knife that had been set, by the small careful steady inner work of an experienced hand, to go through the muscle to the long inner vein. It did not — by the small careful steady inner half-second that followed — reach the long inner vein.
It did not reach because Aldric had, at the half-second the knife came in, turned a quarter on the left foot at the small careful steady inner reflex Gorlim had taught him at the second year of the founding — a small careful steady inner quarter-turn that took the knee out of the line of the long inner vein and put it, instead, at the line of the inner muscle.
The muscle took the blade.
The blade went into the muscle to the depth of a hand's breadth.
The blade stopped at the muscle's far side.
Aldric registered the stop.
He set the right hand at the long inner cabinet at his right shoulder — the small careful steady inner cabinet the keep carpenter had set into the corridor at the seventh year of the founding, with the small careful steady inner brass handle at the height of a Mannish hand — and he held himself at the cabinet for the count of perhaps half a breath.
The pain came up the leg at the second breath.
It came up at the small careful steady inner depth of a knife that had been at the muscle to a hand's breadth. It came up at the slow careful steady inner pattern of a wound that had not, by the small careful steady inner reading at the half-breath, reached the long inner vein. It was a pain — by his small careful steady inner reading at the cabinet — that was going to be the small careful steady inner work of perhaps six weeks of healing if the leg held; and perhaps the small careful steady inner work of a longer count if the leg did not.
He set the right hand at the cabinet's brass handle.
He did not — in the second breath — fall.
The attacker had pulled the knife back at the half-second after the strike.
He had — by the small careful steady inner reading of a man who had been at the work of striking knives at fifteen years of small careful steady inner work — been preparing to strike a second time, at the second small careful steady inner pass that would, in the small careful steady inner pattern of an inner-vein strike, finish the work at the second pass.
He did not finish the second pass.
The second pass did not come because, at the first half-second of the second pass, Halbarad the Younger — who had been three paces behind Aldric on the way out of the council session, at the small careful steady inner pattern he had been holding for the better part of three years of council exits — set the long inner blade he had been carrying at the second-seat captain's belt at the attacker's right shoulder. The blade went in at the small careful steady inner angle of a Ranger blade meant for the inner shoulder muscle; the blade went through the inner muscle to the lung; the attacker registered the blade with the small careful steady inner half-second of a body that had been at the inner lung; he registered it without sound.
He fell forward, against the cabinet.
He fell at Aldric's feet.
He was, by the small careful steady inner reading of Halbarad the Younger at the next half-second, dead before the right knee hit the floor.
Halbarad the Younger set his hand on Aldric's right shoulder.
He said: "My lord — at the wall."
The wall was three paces along the corridor.
Aldric set his weight on the right leg.
He took the three paces.
He set his shoulder at the wall.
The wall took his weight.
He registered, with the small flat private inner registering of a man at the small careful steady inner work of staying upright, that the wall would do.
Tauriel came up the corridor from the side door.
She had been — by his small careful steady inner reading at the wall, with his head turning the small careful steady inner half-turn that the muscle in the leg would still permit — at the side door at the ninth bell, in the small careful steady inner pattern she had been at the side door at the ninth bell of every council evening of the past three years, waiting for him at the proper distance the small careful steady inner courtesy of the council's exit pattern had permitted.
She had registered, by her own small careful steady inner reading at the side door, the small careful steady inner break in the pattern.
She had come up the corridor at the small careful steady inner pace of an Elven captain.
She reached him at the wall before the gate-watch reached him.
She set her hand against the side of his face.
She did not, at first, look at the leg.
She looked at his eyes.
She read him.
She read, by her small careful steady inner reading at the wall, that the leg was the leg, that he was upright, that he was not — by her small careful steady inner reading — at the small careful steady inner moment of going down. She read this in the count of perhaps four seconds.
She looked at the leg.
She set her hand at his right elbow.
She said, in the small low voice she reserved for inner-channel exchanges: "Halbarad the Younger."
"Lady."
"You will, with me, take him down to the inner chamber on the left side of the corridor. We will not take him to the upper rooms. The inner chamber on the left has the long bench. We will set him on the long bench. We will not, at any of the small careful steady inner moments of the next half-hour, set him at any of the standing positions. You will send the gate-watch for Arethil. The gate-watch will send for her at the inner sleeping-chambers; she sleeps tonight at the inner sleeping-chambers because of the small careful steady inner pattern of the children's spring colds, by the small inner-channel note she set me yesterday morning. She will, by the small careful steady inner reading of her own pace, be at the inner chamber within the count of seven minutes. You will, in the same half-minute that you send the gate-watch, send a runner for Maira. Maira will, by her small careful steady inner inventory, be at the inner administration wing at the ninth bell. The runner will set the small careful steady inner words the lord is wounded in the corridor and there is a body. Maira will, by the small careful steady inner reading of those words, be at the corridor within the count of three minutes."
Halbarad the Younger inclined his head.
"Lady."
He set his hand under Aldric's left elbow.
Tauriel set her hand under the right.
The two of them, in the small careful steady inner work of an inner moment, took the lord at the proper pace of a wounded man to the inner chamber on the left side of the corridor.
The inner chamber had the long bench.
They set him on it.
He did not — by his small careful steady inner reading at the wall and at the corridor and at the long bench — let his face register what he was, by the small careful steady inner reading of the leg, registering: that the leg was going to be the small careful steady inner work of more than the six weeks he had registered at the wall. The depth of the knife at the muscle, by the small careful steady inner work of a man who had been at small careful steady inner readings of his own body for many years, had been more than the hand's breadth he had first registered. The blade had — by the small careful steady inner secondary reading at the wall — caught the small careful steady inner part of the muscle at the small careful steady inner crossing of two long fibres that did not, by the small careful steady inner reading of any Mannish body, heal back to their first pattern.
He set his head back against the inner wall.
He did not — by his small careful steady inner discipline — close his eyes.
Tauriel sat at the long bench beside him.
She set her hand against his shoulder.
She did not, by her small careful steady inner reading at the long bench, say anything for some minutes.
She waited.
Arethil came in at the seventh minute.
Maira came in at the third.
Maira said, at the door of the inner chamber, in the small low voice: "My lord — the body."
"You will have it at the small careful steady inner work of your function within the half-hour. Halbarad the Younger has, at the corridor, set the long inner blade in. He has — by the small careful steady inner reading of the captain — secured the corridor. The body is on the corridor floor. The gate-watch is at it under the captain's instruction. Nothing on the body has been moved."
"My lord."
"Two readings, before Arethil sets me at the long table. The first — was he alone."
"My lord — by my small careful steady inner reading at the three-minute pace I have just come up the inner corridor, yes. By the standing pattern of the corridor exits I have been monitoring at every council session for six years, no second figure was at any of the alcoves of the corridor at the ninth bell tonight. The gate-watch confirms. Halbarad the Younger confirms by his own small careful steady inner reading. The attacker was alone."
"The second. Was he one of the seven."
A pause.
"My lord — I will not, by my small careful steady inner reading at this moment in the doorway, set the answer. The body is at the corridor under my hand for the next half-hour. The small careful steady inner work of identifying the body — at the inner inventory of my function — will be at its end within the small careful steady inner work of perhaps the next forty-eight hours. I will set the answer within the forty-eight hours. I will not, my lord, set it at this doorway."
"All right."
"My lord."
She inclined her head.
She went out.
Arethil came in at the second after she went out.
The healer had, at the door, the small leather case she had been bringing up to small careful steady inner emergencies for the better part of nine years. She set the case on the small inner table. She crossed the chamber at the small careful steady inner pace. She inclined her head at Tauriel — the small flat inner-channel acknowledgment of one woman to another at a long bench at a small careful steady inner crisis — and she set herself at the long bench at Aldric's right.
She did not, at first, speak.
She set her hand against the line of the wound at the inner thigh.
She set the small leather case open at the inner table.
She worked.
She worked at the small careful steady inner pace of an Elven healer of the Imladris house who had been at the inner healing for nine years at the keep and at the better part of a thousand years at Imladris before. She did not — by Aldric's small careful steady inner reading at the long bench — set any of the small steady careful inner alarmed gestures Mannish healers set at the small careful steady inner moments of crossing fibre wounds. She did not — by his small careful steady inner reading — set any of the small steady careful inner reassuring gestures Mannish healers set when the wound was, by their reading, smaller than the patient had feared.
She set the small careful steady inner inventory in the small low voice she used at the long bench.
"My lord. The wound is — at the small careful steady inner depth of the knife — to a hand's breadth and three finger-widths. The blade passed at the small careful steady inner crossing of two long fibres. The fibres do not — by my small careful steady inner reading of the Mannish body — recross to their first pattern. The leg will, by the small careful steady inner work of perhaps eight to ten weeks of healing, function. The leg will, by the small careful steady inner reading at the long bench, not — at the count of those eight to ten weeks — be at the small careful steady inner level of function it had at the seventh bell of this evening. The leg will, my lord, do the small careful steady inner work of walking, of standing at long councils, of sitting at long benches, of climbing the long inner stairs at the small careful steady inner pace of a man who is not at his fastest. The leg will not — at the count of those eight to ten weeks — be at the small careful steady inner level of the long ride. The long ride will, my lord, by the small careful steady inner reading, ask of the leg the small careful steady inner thing the leg will not, by the small careful steady inner work of the crossing of two long fibres, give. The leg will, in time, find the small careful steady inner workings of its own. I will, in the small careful steady inner months past the eight to ten, set the small careful steady inner inventory at a small careful steady inner long bench. The leg will be — my lord — a leg that has been at a knife. It will, by the small careful steady inner reading at this long bench at this hour, ask of you a small careful steady inner cane at the small careful steady inner long distances of any given day. The cane is — my lord — by my small careful steady inner reading — a thing of the next ten years. The cane is the small careful steady inner work of a leg that has, at the small careful steady inner work of one moment in one corridor, taken a knife at the inner muscle."
She stopped.
She set the small careful steady inner setting of the dressing at the long bench.
She did not — by Aldric's small careful steady inner reading — set any of the small steady careful inner reassurances she might, in any other Mannish or Elven house, have set.
She set the wound straight.
He drew the slow breath he had been holding since the second bell of the breath at the wall.
He said: "Arethil."
"My lord."
"Thank you."
"My lord."
A pause.
He said, in the small low voice: "Before the small careful steady inner work of the pain medication — Tauriel."
Tauriel was at his left.
She had been at his left at the long bench for the count of the long inventory.
She set her hand against the side of his face.
She said, in the small low voice: "I am at the long bench, Aldric."
"You are at the long bench."
"All right."
"All right."
She did not — by his small careful steady inner reading at the long bench — say more.
She set her hand against his.
He let her.
Arethil — in the small careful steady inner pace of an Elven healer who had been at the long bench at small careful steady inner crises for nine years — set the small careful steady inner pain medication at the corner of the small inner table and waited the small careful steady inner moment Aldric had asked for.
He held Tauriel's hand for the moment.
He let her go at the end of the moment.
Arethil set the medication at his hand.
He took it.
The chamber held.
⚜ ━━━━ ROYAL PROCLAMATION ━━━━ ⚜
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