Marcus hissed, winced and groaned the whole time they were cleaning him up and putting Solomon's 'family secret' potion on the gashes the dogs left. Marcus had understandably refused to come into the cabin with Koji in there. Dido took the dog up to the deck where Azdrubaal and Solomon were talking about what had happened. Bacchus was still down in the hold cleaning up Ghadu and Qhadir. "Oh shush you mouth," Shu-shu growled at him. "I don't feel sorry for you. You disobey Master's orders. Hold still, Marcus! I try to sew you up. Alright, I feel sorry for you, but hold still. Bad, bad wounds Celus. They awful now that we clean him up. Aye?" "Aye." Celus agreed stoically. He'd sewn his former master up a time or two. It was him who taught Lady Domna the art. "We're gonna sew up the worst ones for now, Marcus. I won't tell you it isn't gonna hurt, because it is. They're real bad, some of them. Your backside aint so bad. Nothin' we can't fix though." He looked up at Shu-shu. "Do the worst ones there on his arm first. I think we can wait until tomorrow to do the ones on his chest. I'm afraid he'll go into shock if we try to do them all tonight. He don't move that so much as his arms. I'll get these two on your side, Marcus. I'll see if Mistress Dido can't mix you up something so you can sleep sound. An' try not to wake our Mistress, please." "It's okay, Celus," Domna said from her bunk. "Who can sleep with all this?" "You okay my Lady?" Shu-shu asked. "No, my stomach churns like the sea, but you tend to him. Ohhhhhh," she groaned doubling up as another wave of nausea hit her. It wasn't good to move. "Is Ba'al on deck?" "Aye Domna," Celus answered her. "Would you like me to get him?" "Nay. Did he eat?" "He did." "Good." ***** The sort of powdery looking stuff on his wounds is the dried alum in the potion. Dang, those are some natty wounds Joanna made on that skin texture! I tried to spare us all the worst of them by putting that on them and smoothing some of them out a bit. Ah yes, the cleaned up Celus appears here for the first time - sort of. Seems I had a real house mouse today. Made my cat nuts...lol. To make a long story short, it ended up in the trashbin and I took the trashbin outside and laid it down and kicked the bottom of it and the little mouse went running off into the night. It was a cute little brown mouse. I'm glad! I really didn't want to kill it or the cat to get hold of it...or visa-versa. Whew! It must have been looking for a place to come in from the cold. Have a good Tuesday and thanks for coming by and your comments! Rayvn