Crow just nodded wordlessly in response when Penelope said she would get Jane. At the moment, he was in too much pain to care that the physician would be interrupting their time alone. All he wanted was for the sharp ache in his body to stop. He closed his eyes again, leaning back into the mattress of the bed as the feeling worsened briefly. Vaguely, he was aware that Penelope had gotten up and left the tent to retrieve her comrade, but her absence didn’t bother him as much as he had thought it would. He just hoped she would be back soon with Jane, so the physician could fix whatever had been strained in his suturing.

After a while, the initial burst of pain subsided, and he was able to breathe a little easier. He let out his breath slowly and opened his eyes again, staring up at the canopy over his head. With everything else that had been happening lately, he had forgotten about the lingering remnants of his illness. If the coughing fits didn’t stop on their own, he had a feeling the process of healing from his wound was going to be much longer than he’d originally thought it would be.

He gingerly traced his fingers across the bandages that adorned his abdomen, wincing slightly as the wound stung in response to the light touch. Something had definitely gotten strained when he’d coughed. He shook his head to himself. If he busted his stitches every time he had an episode, the injury might not heal properly at all. He didn’t even want to think about what might happen if he was never able to recover. The idea of being bedridden and dying a long and slow death made him shudder.

Eager to focus on something else, he turned his head as he noticed that his coughing fit had left a spatter of bloodstains on the mattress next to him. The sight made him shift uncomfortably and glance towards the entrance of the tent. He didn’t want any of the nobles in the camp to find out about his illness—not even the physician who was treating him. There was no telling what any of the knights might do if word got out that the most infamous thief in Brerra was sick, but he knew it couldn’t be good.

So, even though it hurt to move, Crow forced himself to shift on the bed so that he was lying on top of the crimson stains. Apparently, he’d had good timing too, because in the next moment, the flap peeled back, and Penelope stepped inside of the tent followed by Jane, who trailed behind the knight with obvious reluctance. The physician hesitated for a moment before approaching his bedside, and he watched as she looked over his bloodied bandages.

“Can you move at all?” she asked dryly, clearly unhappy about having to deal with him again.

Crow just shook his head faintly in response, grimacing as his wound sent another wave of pain through him. Moving on the mattress had made it worse again.

Jane muttered something under her breath and then dug through her bag of supplies to retrieve a knife. The sight of the weapon made the thief tense reflexively, but she just rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to kill you,” she said, lowering the blade to his abdomen. “Since you can’t sit up, I’m going to have to cut these off.” As she finished speaking, she slipped the knife beneath his bandages and gave the fabric a sharp tug to rip through it.

As always, her rough touch made Crow flinch, but he endured it with the knowledge that she would soon fix whatever was causing the deeper pain in his body.

Once the dressing had been removed, the physician clicked her tongue annoyedly. “I’m going to have to redo this suturing,” she muttered, reaching into her bag again to get more supplies. Pulling out a rag, she worked on cleaning away the blood from around his injury to prepare it for new stitching.

“It’s a good thing you can’t move, because this is going to hurt,” Jane added just before she began removing the torn suturing from his wound. Crow groaned and bit the inside of his lip as the process sent another sharp pang of pain through his middle, but the physician ignored him. She worked mercilessly until all of the old catgut had been extracted and didn’t waste any time stitching him up again with a new strand. By the time she was finished, he was panting lightly from the exertion of enduring the procedure without anything to dull the pain.

“There,” Jane nodded, seeming satisfied with her work. “That should hold so long as he doesn’t tear it again.” She turned to Penelope. “Help me get him sitting up, so I can redress his bandages.”