Thoughts of the healer made her angry once again, and all hope of composition was lost as she considered the treachery that had lead her into this fix. Patroclese had made a considerate gaoler, but he was still a gaoler and Caesar's pawn. The writing materials he had provided for her were mostly unused, as her mind whirled in too much of a turmoil to be able to concentrate on rhythm and metre. Most of what she had written was of little use, and she knew that she would be in no state to write until she knew what had happened to Xena.

She threw down her quill in disgust and buried her head in her hands as, for the thousandth time she dwelt on her concern for the Warrior Princess. - Where is she? Has she escaped Caesar's trap? Is she dead? - The uncertainty was becoming an inescapable torture that she generated for herself.

She heard the key grate in the lock of her cell door, and looked up to see who it could be. Patroclese normally visited her in the mid morning to check on her well being and see if she required anything. She knew by the candlemark that it was late. She had no window in her cell, but the candle that stood on her table had burned low, and by it she reckoned that night must have fallen.

The door opened admitting Patroclese and, behind him, standing in the open portal was a stern looking soldier whom she didn't recognise. The unexpected visit roused her curiosity somewhat, making her wonder what had brought him so late. Yet despite her interest in his visit, she met him with the angry glare that reminded him that she hadn't forgotten, or forgiven, his treachery.

"Gabrielle ...." Patroclese began, but was interrupted.

"You're here late. What's the matter? Guilty conscience keeping you from sleeping? Perhaps you can't face your dreams. Treacherous acts usually lead to bad dreams," she sniped acidly.

"Gabrielle ...." he tried again, but got no further.

"You know, you just might never sleep well again!" the bard sneered at him.

"Quiet, Gabrielle!" he snapped at her, using the tone of authority she had only heard him employ with the soldiers under his command on the trip here. He fixed her with a determined look as she subsided into rebellious resentfulness. "Xena's here," he told her getting her immediate and undivided attention, "and I need your help."

"Frightened she's going to beat you to a pulp?" she grinned smugly. "If you want me to intercede for you, you've got the wrong bard. I might just join in and help her."

"Gabrielle," he told her firmly, "She could be dying."

The bard looked at him for an instant as if he were speaking some foreign language to her, "What? What are you saying?" she demanded as she scrambled to her feet and tried to push past him.

Patroclese grabbed her shoulders and looked down into her eyes, explaining, "She was hurt when she was captured, Gabrielle. Badly hurt. And since then she hasn't been treated kindly."

"What did you expect from Caesar," she demanded shaking his hands off and wiping a tear out of the corner of her eye with the heel of her hand, trying to blink back her hard pressed emotions.

"Most of it was her own fault. She attacked Caesar, and tried to kill him, on her way here and was flogged for it. Her wounds haven't been treated. There's an infection and she's running a high fever. I don't think she's fighting it." He drew a breath as he told her, "She'll die unless we give her a reason to live. Will you help me keep her alive?"

Gabrielle looked at him blankly. - Do I have the right to make Xena endure life under Caesar's captivity? Am I being selfish wanting my best friend to survive? - Probably, but she knew that where there was life there would always be hope. She looked at Patroclese and nodded her assent.

The healer gestured for her to precede him, and her arm was grasped firmly by the silent soldier who had stood unobtrusively in the doorway during the conversation. She was taken down the corridor to the guardroom, which she barely registered as being full of soldiers as her hungry eyes sought out the location of the Warrior Princess.

Flaccus took her over to the cage cell and unlocked it to allow the bard and Patroclese to enter. Gabrielle stood just inside the cell door and looked at where Cornelius was working. The woman who lay naked on the stone bench looked only a little like Xena. Where the Warrior Princess was strong and physically impressive. The figure before her seemed like a poor imitation. She was gaunt, her broken ribs showing through taught flesh, her bruised features looked haggard from the fever that had left its obvious mark, and she could tell that she hadn't been eating. The brutality of the beatings she had taken had turned her flesh into a grotesque parody of the healthy skin that should be there.

Suddenly, as if aware of the bard's presence, the injured woman's eyes flickered open, revealing the startling blue orbs that Gabrielle knew so well, before falling heavily closed one more. Biting back a small cry of anguish, she rushed to Xena's side, and brushed aside the damp wisps of hair that clung to her face, "Xena," she said softly, "Don't do this to me again!"

At the sound of the bard's voice, the eyes opened once again, the blueness filled with fever, pain and confusion, "Gabrielle?" she breathed, "Promise, I prom..." before lapsing back into unconsciousness.

"He did this to her," Gabrielle said grimly.

"Forget that for now, Gabrielle" Patroclese told her, "We have work to do."

Cornelius had done a good job of cleaning Xena's back of all the crusted blood, dirt and grime that had accumulated during the journey from Narbo. He'd even picked out the colony of maggots that he'd found feasting upon her. The partially sealed whip cuts that scored her back were now clearly visible. All showed signs of festering, several of them were discharging a pus like secretion, none of it looked healthy. The skin surrounding the infection was a violent red and purple colour that looked particularly ghastly against a background of the yellow and brown mottling of half healed bruises. It was the obvious source of the fever that was wracking her body.

"Get those brazier's lit," the healer ordered Cornelius, as he searched through his medicines for the powder he sought.

"All of them sir?" questioned the little orderly.

"Yes. We're going to have to break this fever before it kills her. I want this cell like an oven." Patroclese explained and watched Cornelius set off about the task.

The healer reached for a cup and the water skin closest to him. He uncorked it, sniffed the contents, recognising the astringent smell of vinegar, and replace the stopper, before getting the second skin and pouring a measure of water into the cup. He poured in some of the powder he had retrieved and shook the container to help dissolve it in the water.

"What's that?" asked Gabrielle suspiciously.

"It will help dull the pain for a while," he told her. "Get her to drink it all."

As Gabrielle climbed onto the bench and turned Xena so that she could coax the medicine into her, Patroclese turned to Cornelius and got him to bring one of the braziers close. As soon as he had it he began arranging several sharp bladed knives over the heat, "Has she drunk it all?" he questioned the bard, without looking at her, watching his instruments as the heat from the fire began to slowly turn the blades red.

"Yes," the blonde told him. "What are you going to do?"

"I've got to clear the source of the infection before it poisons her blood," he pointed to the red and purple skin that was forming around the wounds, "Unless we can clear out all of the infection, it will seep into her blood and be carried around her whole body. At that point there will be nothing we can do. As it is, we may be too late. That colouration is the beginning of the process. We can only hope that if we do a good job, her natural healing ability will pull her through."

He checked his knives and then snapped out, "Cornelius, come and help hold her down. Gabrielle, you're going to have to be strong here,' he warned.

He took one of the hot blades from the brazier and delicately began to open up the infected wounds, carefully expressing each area, removing all evidence of the infection that he could find. The work was long and arduous and agonizing for the patient, even with the pain killing potion that Patroclese had provided. Gabrielle could feel Xena's torment as she writhed weakly beneath her hands. The fact that the bard had no difficulty in restraining the Warrior Princess, showed just how weakened Xena truly was. Gabrielle had no idea how long it took Patroclese to complete his task, but it seemed to take candlemarks that were filled with the stench of infection and burning flesh as the hot knives seared the wounds.

When at length he had finished, he took the skin containing the vinegar wash and liberally doused the raw wounds of Xena's back with the biting liquid that would serve to help kill any infection remaining. Xena cried out in pain as the astringent bit into her, but did not regain consciousness.

With the first stage of the treatment completed, Gabrielle relaxed a little. As Patroclese checked through his kit, the bard noticed, really for the first time, the shackles that her friend bore. She looked at the healer and asked, "Are those really necessary?"

"First rule, Gabrielle," he told her, "under no circumstances is the Warrior Princess to be released from her restraints. She's far too dangerous to give her the slightest edge. No, she stays chained and we work around it."

Gabrielle knew that there was nothing that she could say or do to influence a change in that decision. Xena's reputation was what dictated such measures and Caesar would take no chances with her. She leant forward to pick up and discard the bloody and torn shift that still lay next to them on the bench. As her fingers grasped the material, she felt Xena's hand clench around her wrist, and she looked down to see her friends blue eyes on her.

Gabrielle gave her friend a puzzled frown, but reading her friend's need she shielded her from unfriendly observation, while the warrior ran her shaking fingers over the scraps of material, until she found and retrieved the metal toothpick that she had paid so dearly to secure. She slipped the pick into the hem of the blanket that she was laying on, gave the bard a weak smile and lightly squeezed her hand, before her eyes shut once more. Gabrielle gathered up the tattered cloth and threw it onto the nearest brazier, before wiping sweat from her brow. It was beginning to get very warm within the cell and the guardroom.

She watched as Patroclese began to smear a pungent smelling salve over the open wounds. Then he picked out some rolls of bandages and told the bard and Cornelius, "We need to get her sitting up. She's got a lot of broken ribs that need to be strapped to support them and make it easier for her to breathe, and the strapping should help guard against a reoccurrence of infection in some of those whip cuts .. if we keep a regular check on them."

Carefully, with gentle slowness, Cornelius and Gabrielle managed to lift Xena into a sitting position on the bench. Then the pair gently lifted the warriors arms so that Patroclese could get to work with the strapping, "Be careful of that left shoulder, he warned, "it's dislocated and likely very sore."

"Can't you put it back into place?" demanded Gabrielle.

"Not until her ribs have healed a bit," explained Patroclese patiently, "I'm going to need to lever it back into situation and those ribs need to mend before we try that," he smiled. Having finished wrapping the tight linen around Xena's ribs, he instructed, "Keep her upright while I do something for those sores around her wrists, where the chains bite."

He carefully bathed the wrists in the vinegar solution, where the chaffing manacles had open raw sores, before smearing the thick salve around them and binding them with fresh bandages. He then did the same for her ankles. Once finished, Patroclese and Cornelius arranged the thick, stuffed cushions, that had been brought, on the bench before covering them with one of the new blankets.

Xena was laid carefully onto the cushions, "She needs to rest on her back to help those ribs," he explained, "but the cushions should help her protect her a little." He then took the other five blankets and wrapped them around the Warrior Princess tightly, before telling Cornelius, "Go and get a pot of good vegetable broth from the kitchen. No meat mind," he warned. The medical orderly left, and Patroclese mixed another cup of water with a powder from his kit, "Here get her to swallow this," he instructed the bard, "but slowly, just a sip at a time. It should help her to fight the fever, but shouldn't be taken too much in one go."

Gabrielle settled on the nest of cushions with Xena's head in her lap. She occasionally poured some of the concoction in the cup between her friends lips, and spent the rest of the time gently soothing her fevered brow. After a while, she became aware of those blue eyes looking up at her, "Hey. How y'doing?" she asked softly.

"Oh, fine, " came the weak reply with the ghost of a smile, "I thought I'd left you with the Amazons."

"Long story," Gabrielle told her neutrally, "I'll tell you about it when your stronger."

Xena nodded slightly and leaned into the bard's protective arms. Gabrielle brushed a stray wisp of hair away from her friends closed eyes. It felt odd to be in the position of protector .. that was normally Xena's role. But she intended to act out the part to the best of her ability.

Patroclese leaned over them and touched his hand to Xena's brow and then felt the pulse at her throat. He brought the braziers closer making the heat surrounding the pair almost unbearable. Catching Gabrielle's look the healer told her, "We must break that fever quickly. She's too weak for it to run it's normal course. We need to force the issue if we are to have any chance of saving her."

Cornelius returned with the vegetable broth which was placed by one of the braziers to keep warm, "When the fever breaks, and she wakes, she'll be hungry. She can have a little of the broth, but only in small amounts. She hasn't had any food for a week and her system won't be able to handle it."

The rest of the night was spent in a hellish nightmare of artificial heat designed to drive the fever from the delerious woman. Gabrielle stayed awake, making sure that Xena got as much fluid as Patroclese deemed necessary. The healer hovered protectively, checking on the fever's progress, while Cornelius curled up out of the way, but ready to respond to any order.

All three had worked their best to ensure that the warrior had her chance to fight for life, and all three were past tiredness and well into the realms of exhaustion. None of them slept other than for fitful dozes, passing the night , following day and the next night with slowly increasing concern as the fever continued to build within the restlessly stirring woman they watched over.

Just after cock crow on the second morning, Patroclese checked, yet again, on Xena and a slow, cautious smile split his lips, "I think the fever's broken," he announced.

"Thank the gods!" Gabrielle offered up a heartfelt prayer, the healer's words rousing her from an opened eyed stupor, and brushed her lips over Xena's hot, but cooler brow.