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“I’entle touch, light as her soft fingers brushed back his hair to make way for the damp cloth “How old are you?”

“That is young,” he answered, closing his eyes again This time in pleasure It would be nice to die with such a tender hand at his face “I’m one and twenty”

“One and twenty?” she said, patting the cloth to his te in his skull “You’re young too At least, that is, far too young to die”

He shook his head “I watched er lose their lives,” he said to himself, then wondered if he should have shared such darkness with so

She ceased bathing hiin again, but then the soft bristles of a brush touched his hair and he nearly groaned aloud, the brush felt so good on his scalp She was exquisitely gentle, and his fever-ravaged body reveled in the touch

She sighed in answer “I’m sure you did I’ve had to watch that too, I’et the luxury of naiveté, do we?”

He wished he could cry out in protest He was a man, after all The world was irl Her blue eyes should dance with delight, not death “It isn’t fair” His fists clenched in the sheet at his side and soh she were breathing life into hiirl as innocent as you should not have to see the darkness of the world”

She shushed hientle stroke on his arhtening in his ars I know that for certain”

A wave of anger washed over his?”

She shook her head “It doesn’t matter now”

“Tell ritted out Somehow It was important to know

She shrugged “My father wasn’t a good man”

Dear lord He knew about bad fathers He’d suffered at the hands of a father who’d been callously cruel But soirl seemed even more vulnerable “Why not?”

She shook her head “He ga we had The money from his family, my mother’s money Even the money she lefther hands in her lap “Then he took his own life The priest here says he’ll go to Hell for it”