Sister Oda did not ask Sir Cael Ardent for permission to draw his blood; she took his left wrist in her calloused fingers, turned the forearm palm-up against the linen cloth, and wiped the skin with a scrap of wool soaked in vinegar.
The flesh of his inner arm was cool, yielding to her thumb with a strange, doughy resistance. Where the veins branched near the elbow, the vessel walls felt stiff, like dried quill stems buried under a thin layer of grease. The skin had that dull, yellowish-gray cast of winter tallow, completely lacking the healthy pink flush that should have accompanied a man who had ridden through freezing morning wind.
She lifted the silver lancet, its triangular tip gleaming in the gray light from the courtyard casement. “Hold your fingers flat against the table, Captain,” she said, her voice dropping into the steady, mechanical cadence of an army apothecary. “And do not pull away when the steel bites. A ragged puncture leaves a purple hem that takes three weeks to fade.”
Cael did not pull away. He sat motionless upon the rush-bottom chair, his teeth clenched in tight concentration, his gaze fixed on the white porcelain saucers resting side by side upon the linen.
