Antony limped into the room carrying his right boot. He had been leaving the kitchen when a dog mistook his big toe for a rat and now he was bleeding rather profusely, and as soon as he left the infirmary he intended to help the servants clean up the mess he had tracked through the palace.

"Hate to interrupt, it rather minor, but I do believe I'm loosing more blood than is healthy" he said in a middling loud voice to the bustling orderlies. He plunked himself onto a free bed and tried to prop his foot up on the end board without bleeding on the sheets.

Katherine looked up from the shelf she was organizing for her cousin, Eleanor and saw a man walk into the infirmary with his boot in his hand. She put down the jar she was holding and walked over to him.

"Um...the chief healer, the one who is sceduled to run the infimary right now had to step out for a couple of minutes. She'll be right back." She looked at his foot, and winced. "But I can at least stop the bleeding for you till she gets here."

She walked over to a shelf and pulled a bottle out. She grabed some bandages and walked back over to him. She sat down on the bed next to the end board and opened the bottle and pour it's contents onto the bandage. She started to clean his wound, hoping that her cousin would return quickly.

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you get this, milord?"

"Why thank you. I've seen you in the practice courts before. You're a page then?" Antony grimanced slightly at his foot, cursing his huge feet a hundred times over.

"A dog decided the edge of my boot was too big and brown to be anything but a rat so he managed to bloody up my toe before the owner wrestled the bloody thing off." Antony laughed.

"It was a pup though, the owner said it was in training and didn't know a horseshoe from a horse yet. Apologized profusely. Oh I'm being rude. Antony of Torhelm at your service Miss." He said bowing at the waist as he sat up.

" You probably don't know me quite yet, I've just returned from Torhelm and haven't had a chance to bash any of your classes." He grinned widely. Normally the young girls, especially the pages were fun enough to have a sense of humor around.

"Yes, I'm a third year page. My cousin, Eleanor, is the chief healer, so I come up here ofter to help her and just talk."

She took another bandage and wrapped it around his toe, trying to hide a smile as he told her what happened. "But you made it out with just a bloody toe, and nothing more." She tied it and tore the extra off. She closed the jar and placed it on the table next to the bed.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Antony of Torhelm. I am Katherine of Blackwater."

"Acutally I think I might have seen you a couple of times." She said getting up and straiting her skirts. She took the jar and walked over to the shelf to replace it. "I have an older brother who is a knight. Maybe you know him? Daniel of Blackwater?"

OOC: Do you mind if Antony knows Daniel? After all they were pages at the same time, they ought to know each other by sight at the very least.

"Daniel...Daniel... Oh yes!! Blond fellow, looks a bit like you, massive arms really. I always thought he could be a good hand with an axe if he got over the blooming sword. Was quite boisterous as a lad. Introduced himself to me the day he got here. Yes two years behind me...He's quite a deal older than you." Antony stated, rescrutinizing the blond.

"Its all right to smile at me." he said noticing the quirking mouth of the page.

"I know my feet are rather enormous. The midwife that birthed me said my hands and feet were bigger than my head when I was born. I always wondered whether she was joking or not. But really JUST a bloody toe. I'll have you know there's a rather long track of my blood on the palace floors. I'm sure some lady is at this very moment fainting at the sight of it."

"Eleanor is it? Yes, I know who she is. You have interesting relations Katherine."

Antony wriggled his toe experimentally.

"I don't think I ought to walk on it quite yet" he said to himelf

Katherine smiled as he talked about her brother. "Well that sounds like my brother alright. Right now he's home at Blackwater. Our father has been very sick recently." She sighed. "He's getting better though."

She walked over to the door and picked up a basket. She walked over to the stool she was sitting on and placed the basket on top of it. "If there's blood leading here. Eleanor should be running here any minute. Or she's cleaning it up on the way here. She can't stand anything that is messy."

She smiled. "My family is very interesting." she said placing jars on certain shelves. "My brother is a knight. I'm a knight in training. My mother is a novalist. And my father just stays home and watches the fief."

As she took the last jar out of the basket she went to place it on the shelf and missed, causing the glass jar to shatter on the floor. "Oh no... Lucky me it was only dried herbs." She bent down and started picking up the shattered glass.

"I'm sorry about your father, but it's good that he's getting well again. " Antony said. Watching the girl drop the jar he smiled to himself thinking of his own clumsy time growing into his appendages.

"Here let me help you with that."

He swung his legs off the bed and hopped on his good fot over to the kneeling page. Carefully lowering himself to the ground he began to pickup the rather large sharp looking pieces of glass.

"Master Antony, you shouldn't walk until Eleanor can look at your foot. I've only cleaned and bandaged it to make it stop bleeding." She brought over the basket she was using and placed the broken glass in it.

As she finished she straitened and placed the broken glass by the door. She walked back over to Antony and grabbed his arm lightly. She helped him up and back over to the bed.

"I hopped, if you don't mind me reminding you", Antony joked as he limped back over to the bed.

"Not even my feet could spread the pressure enough to keep my toe from hurting if I tried."

Antony sat back down on the bed.

"So I'll just wait here for your cousin then. Unless you'll keep me company?" he asked.

Katherine sat on the empty bed next to him. "You would rather have some company until she gets back? I wouldn't leave you alone in the Infirmary without someone to look after you, Sir Antony. Eleanor would be very mad at me if I left."

"I'm sure she would. Any head would. So Katherine, tell me about what dear Evvard has come up with in the years I've been gone." Antony said. He bashed the classes regularly, but he knew it was very unlikely the regular training would be like anything that happened when he was around.

"Well, everything is the same I guess. At least it has been since I arrived." She placed her hands in her lap. "The book learning classes are boring as ever, as usual. I wouldn't know if the training has changed. I havn't been to classes in three weeks..."

Antony's brow furrowed.

"Why not? Evvard hasn't kicked you out yet??"

"What's this about Evvard?" Eleanor asked, entering the small, but brightly colored room.

"Oh, hello there, Antony," she exclaimed, wiping her forhead with her apron - it was a hot day for late summer. "I just got back from lunch - so sorry to keep you waiting."

She donned one of the white linen kirtles designed to keep her robes unstained, and walked over to the cot, knelt, and began examining his foot.

"So what did you do to it now?" she murmured.

"Well I told you I'd be here in the morning, but I didn't think it would be in this manner. I had just finished breakfast and a pup mistook my toe for a rat and bit it. Surely you saw the blood in the halls? Your cousin just told me she hasn't been going to classes for 3 weeks and I was wondering why Evvard hasn't kicked her out yet." Antony winced as Eleanor probed his foot.

Katherine sighed in relief. She wasn't in the mood to explain why she wasn't in her training classes. To explain to him that she couldn't train, not with a torn ligament in her shoulder...

She looked at Eleanor, hoping that she would take care of his questions. She had permission from Lord Genlith to be in here, instead of being at classes, and it would be hard to explain that. She got off the bed and walked to the side of her cousin. "I cleaned it as best as I could, and bandaged it to stop the bleeding till you got back."

She walked back over to the door to get another basket, and start arranging the herb shelf, as well as sweep up the one she had dropped.

"I'm impressed," said her cousin, who, if she had not been otherwise occupied would have beamed in her direction. "If I had not known better, then I would have assumed it to be one of my senior healers! I really must congratulate you!"

She looked up at Antony and scowled. "So. You've not only managed to create even more work for me, but for the poor servants, as well, who now must scrub the hallways again. And completely unnecessary, all of it! I won't mention how late you are... since I expecteted it from the start..." She glowered at him, trying very hard not to burst into a fit of giggles.

"Sir, what have you to say for yourself?"

Now, that should cure him of any unnecessary questions, she thought.

Katherine smiled at her cousin. "I didnt know what else to do. He was making a mess, bleeding all over the place. Maybe I should work up here more often, I learn alot."

She hid a smile as her cousin scolded the knight. She looked over and saw that Eleanor was trying to fight back laughing. She turned and put the last jar on the shelf. "Elenor, I'm done with the herbs. Is there anyting else that needs to be done?"

"Yes, it was completely unneccessary." Antony said stiffening."It's hardly my fault that somehow my parents normal feet got turned into giant sized and branded my toe as a rat for life." Antony registered Eleanor's contorted face and calmed down a bit.

He frowned and mulled like a sulking child

"Besides, I was going to clean it up if I got permission. But I can't can I? Anyway it would hardly do for me to faint from lack of food"

"Well, I seriously doubt that you're in any danger of that," she told him sternly. "But now that it's been proven that there's absolutely nothing wrong with you, apart from maybe a sore toe, you can help Katharine fold bandages in the storeroom - Katharine, would you please show him how?"

As Antony climbed out of bed he cries outwith indignation "Just a sore toe! I would have you walk out the door and follow my trail of blood and see that it wasn't just a sore toe! It was a hunting pup! THose things have sharp teeth! You just weren't here when I came in." he hobbled over to join Katherine in the storeroom.

"Just a sore toe indeed" he grumbled.

"I wouldn't worry about it, Master Antony, at least it will heal fast." Unlike my shoulder, Katherine thought. She continued to fold bandages and place them on the shelf of the storeroom.

She stopped her fast folding and showed Antony how do do it properly, and show him where to put them. She watched him fold a couple of times, then went back to what she was doing.

"It still hurts"Antony snapped. He felt sheepish for being so grumpy and he bagan folding the bandages diligently.

"You can use the stool, dear!" Eleanor called out from the other room, smiling. The pages had been in training long enough that they'd already brawled out a pecking order. The first wave of injured pages had come and gone, and next round of fighting wouldn't come about for awhile. Not since that poor Falik kid had been attacked, and ever since then, the pages had been much more subdued, her cousin in particular. She glanced over at her instinctively, subconsciously needing to make sure that she was all right. Infirmary work didn't seem to bother her shoulder. Maybe if being a page didn't work out after all, Katharine could join her, maybe for life, or at least until she was married.

Marriage. She frowned and bit her lip, deep in thought.

"Antony," she called out absentmindedly, "have you got a wife?"

She immediately regretted asking. What a stupid question, she scolded herself.

[This is pre-letters, right?]

Antony was carefully lowering himself (one-footed) onto the stool when he heard Eleanor's question. He promptly fell over. He forgot his foot and jumped to his feet blushing like mad, and swearing even worse because he had used his bad foot to rise.

'Please, Godess' he thought 'Don't let her be like the others'

Still standing he stopped his swearing midstream realizing he was in the company of a young page and a noble lady.

"No Lady Eleanor, I do not." he said. He knew this could become dangerous ground. After all he had sworn himself to service here for as long as he didn't have other duties.

[opps! That's kinda of funny Emmi!]

[I am laughing so hard...]

When Eleanor heard a loud thump from the other room, followed by a stream of obcene words, she came running, thinking that her apprentice had managed to injure himself yet again. He was embarrassingly clumsy for a man of his age...

The sight that met her eyes was funnier than she could have ever imagined. Antony was so red that he looked like those longtime drunkards that came to her from time to time, seeking an instant remedy to their addiction. Even worse, the bandages that had so diligently been folding were now draped around him, which, coupled with his serious demeanor, lent him the aura of an avenging ghost, or maybe of one of those Carthaki mummies.

Eleanor couldn't help it. She burst into a round of giggles that shook her entire frame, forcing her to lean against the doorpost for support.

"Sorry!" she tried to gasp, but it came out completely unintellegible. It suddenly occurred to her that she ought to set Cosette on him, if only to see what happened, which only caused her to laugh even harder. What a wicked thought! she tried to scold herself, but even her conscience wasn't much help in this situation.

[Oh no! We posted at the same time! Well, maybe she didn't notice immediately, or this was simulataneous.. Gr.]

Katherine continued to work, folding bandages until she reached the end of her pile. She went to go get the next crate of supplies off the shelf to be put away.

But as she heard her cousin's question, she looked at Antony as he fell off his stool, and had bandages all over him. She saw her cousin laughing. She smiled and then looked up to find the next box. But as she grabbed it and started pulling it down, it slipped from her grip and hit her in the shoulder. She gasped as pain flew through her arm.

She sat back on her stool to keep herself from falling to the floor. "Eleanor..." she whispered, hoping that her cousin would realize what happened and would help her, without telling Master Antony.

"This is just wonderful!" Antony roared "I have a throbbing foot and no one has the coutesy to be concerned and then I'm scolded as if it's my fault for getting bitten. Then I get asked silly questions and instead of getting apologies afterwards, people laugh at me. I feel just wonderful!" he said.

This was turning out to be one of those rare times when Antony was getting tempermental over things not going his way. But if marriage wasn't personal he didn't know what was.

He started ripping off the silly bandages. He yanked on one he was standing on and it put enormous pressure on his foot again.

"OOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!"

Antony fell to the floor once more. This time thouh he lay down spread eagled breathing carefully until a box hit him in the forehead.

"Oh for Mithros' sake!!!" he yelled. "I'm not coming back until people are sensible and my toe doesn't hurt!"

He limped out of the infirmary as fast as he could and went to his room to take care of himself.

OOC: It is funny.

Katherine rose quickly as she realized that the ox she dropped had landed on Antony. "Master Antony, I am so sorry."

She watched him leave the Infirmary. She turned to Eleanor "Sorry...I didn't mean to drop the box..." she whispered. "Is he going to be alright?"

"Who knows? At least not for a long while." She shrugged. "Teperamental, that man is - I'm surprised some foreign knight hasn't lopped off his head yet." She pursed her lips in his general direction, enjoying some quick but engaging daydream. Laughing around, she turned around and gathered up the bandages strewn everywhere by the clumsy knight.

"Are you all right Katherine?" she asked as she knelt down. "You seem upset."

"My shoulder..."she whispered softly. "The box hit it as it fell off the shelf." She placed her hand on it, and winced. "I think I bruised it, it hurts to move it."

"Is there anything we can give Master Antony for his pain, at least, I feel very bad for losing grip on that box of supplies..."

"Bruised?" She reached out her hand to use her Gift, thought the better of it, then instead picked up a wrap. "Which shoulder? Not the bad one?"

Katherine nodded her head slowly as she sat down on her stool once more. "It is..." she whispered as she cradled her right arm with her left. It hurt to much to move it.

Tears stung her eyes. "I'm so tired of people asking me, why I'm not training." She said as she remember how shocked Antony was to hear that she was not in training. "I want to hold my sword so badly, but I can't because the weight will strain my shoulder, and I can't fence with with my left hand that easily..." Katherine looked up at her cousin. "Sorry..."

"Katherine, I am damn sick of you saying sorry! It's completely unnecessary for you to be so apologetic about it, especially when there is absolutely nothing you can do." She glared at her cousin, to reinforce her point, in the back of her mind feeling somewhat guilty that she was being so harsh to the young girl, but at the same time she couldn't see how anyone could stand to be around her when she was like this.

"You can do one of two things," she told her sternly, thinly plucked eyebrows creased together in a delicate, concentrated scowl. "You can sit around and mope about your fate, or you can pull yourself together and get busy. Mithros knows there's much much more to being a knight than holding a sword, and if you can't understand that, I don't know how to help you." A pause, and then, more mildly, "Do you catch my drift?"

[This is entirely OOC, but I just realized that this thread hasn't been archived yet - you probably knew that, but, hey, I didn't. BTW, did you want to continue on the thread Bored?]