Without questioning me, he takes the bucket and heads back outside into the rain. I take a tinderbox from one of the bundles I brought in and move to the fireplace to start a fire. The clouds overhead will likely mask any smoke that manages to clear the treetops. Even so, I build only a small fire, just enough to heat some water for the poultices I must make up for the knight’s wounds.
When the jailor returns, he sets the two bundles next to the others, then busies himself pouring water from the bucket into a battered old tin pot. I thrust a wad of cloth in his hand. “Finish washing him so that I may tend his injuries. Cut away his garments if you have to.” Again the jailor does what I ask, and I begin to relax somewhat.
For the next little bit, we work in companionable silence, the jailor washing the prisoner, the prisoner gathering the strength to ask all the questions I can feel swirling in his head, and myself mixing the powdered elm bark and mustard with the boiling water and praying the damage to his body is not too far beyond my skill.
When my preparations are done, I slowly rise. It is time to see just how dire his situation is.
The man’s feet jut over the edge of the table, and his face, still ashen beneath the black and green bruises, is as cheerfully ugly as any I have ever seen. His cheeks are pockmarked, and a long scar puckers one side of his face. His nose has been broken—more than one—and he has a notch in one ear. None of which will improve once the swelling and bruising go down.
His body is as thick as a boar’s, with bulging ropes of muscle and sinew. If a sculptor wanted to bring brute strength to life, he would carve a body such as this. Nearly all of it is covered in some sort of scars, the red, angry recent ones mingling with the silvery white of the older.
In spite of myself, I am fascinated—perhaps even impressed—by the damage this one man has sustained.
And survived.
I step closer, and, of its own volition, my hand reaches out to him, my fingers skimming oh so lightly across his battered, ravaged flesh. “How is it you are still alive?” I wonder.
“I am nearly impossible to kill.” The deep rumble of his voice fills the room to the rafters. My gaze snaps up to his face; I had not realized I’d spoken aloud. His eyes, though filled with pain, are fiercely intelligent and put me in mind of a wolf’s, with their eerie light coloring.
“Ah,” I say, “that is good to know. Now I need not worry quite so much while I tend to your wounds.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “You?” Those fierce blue eyes rake up and down my entire body, not with prurient interest but in detached assessment.
I make a great show of looking around the empty kitchen. “You have someone else in mind? Your jailor, perhaps? Surely if he were able, he would have tended to them already.”
I thrust my hand out at the jailor, who has been watching our exchange with nervous eyes, and wiggle my fingers. After a moment’s uncertainty, he hands me the cloth, and, in spite of my threat of roughness, I begin gently cleaning the patient’s face, removing yet another layer of grime. It does not help his appearance any, but I am relieved to see there are no serious cuts or breaks under the dirt.
I turn my attention to the long gash that runs along the meat of his forearm. It does not go to the bone, nor were any tendons or ligaments severed, but it will need a deep cleaning, which will not be pleasant for either of us. The two puncture wounds from the arrows in his left shoulder are infected and inflamed. Covering my fingers with the cloth, I press gently against them, searching for any remaining shards of wood or iron. The patient sucks in his breath sharply, but that is all.
“No splinters, then, so those will be easily enough dealt with. And the arrows appear to have missed any vital ligaments.”
He nods, but says nothing.
There is more bruising and swelling along his middle. I reach out and gently press. He gasps, then grabs my hand with his good one, surprising me, for the gentleness of his touch is incongruent with his size and bulk. “You do not need to prod and poke at my ribs for me to tell you they’re broken.”
“Very well. There is nothing left to do but examine your leg, and that is the one injury that frightens me the most.”
The jailor was too lazy—or modest—to remove the man’s riding breeches, so I take the small knife from the chain at my waist and quickly cut away the sodden, filthy leather. As I reach to pull it aside, he swats my hand aside. Puzzled, I look up to find his cheeks pink and cannot help but smile. The Beast of Waroch is embarrassed. “Pish,” I tell him. “It is nothing I have not seen before.” His eyes widen in surprise, but I reach out and pull the leather from his thigh.
The jailor gasps—in shock, perhaps?—and I suck in my breath. “That bad?” the knight says.
The entire thigh is red and swollen and hot to the touch. Foul stuff oozes from the wound itself, and streaks of red have begun to work their way up and down the leg. I glance up to find a faint grin on his face and, not for the first time, wonder if all he has endured has caused him to lose his wits. I turn my gaze back to the cut. “It is bad,” I agree. “Fortunately for you, I am not a surgeon, so I cannot cut it off were I so inclined.”
“Nor would I let you.”
“I am not sure you are in a condition to stop me,” I mutter, then hold up my hand before he can begin arguing. “I will not cut it off, but what I must do will not be enjoyable either.”
Beast studies me. “Who are you that you know so much about caring for battle injuries? I have yet to meet a noblewoman who tends wounds like a field physician.”
To give myself some time to think, I return to the fire and fetch the hot brew from the bubbling pot. What do I tell the man? I wonder as I begin spooning the herbs and mud into the linen cloths I have prepared. I am d’Albret’s daughter, you oaf, and you have just ensured he will follow us to the ends of the earth. But I find I am unwilling to trumpet my true identity. Indeed, I wish to leave it far, far behind me, bury it like a corpse, and never speak of it again. Besides, if he learns who I am, he will never trust me to get him to safety. Still, I must tell him something.
I think back to the first time I saw him, down in the field with the duchess and her party. “I am a friend of Ismae’s.”
“Ismae!” He tries to prop himself up on one elbow, then winces and eases back down on the table. “How do you know Ismae?”
I can feel his eyes upon me, assessing, weighing, but I concentrate very carefully on folding the square of soft linen around the boiled herbs. “We trained at the same convent.”