A Knight to Remember (3 page)

Edlyn’s guilt gained weight as Lady Corliss spoke. “Not so innocent,” she muttered.

“Your little sins cannot justify the great iniquities that have plagued you.” Lifting her hand, fingers together, Lady Corliss indicated the church. “Of course, who am I to decide? Nevertheless, I have prayed that your burdens be eased and the world shown the truth of your kind and honest ways, and lately I have sensed God’s own grace smiling on you.”

Lady Corliss had been praying, Edlyn had been praying, and their combined prayers had produced a wounded knight hidden in her dispensary. She had sworn not to tell, but Lady Corliss led an abbey of twenty-two noble nuns and their servants with a mixture of diplomacy and insight. What harm would it do to tell her? Edlyn wanted to so badly. “What if…what if I sinned horribly? Would the Lord’s displeasure manifest itself on the whole abbey?” Edlyn waited breathlessly for the reply.

“You’re not a child, Lady Edlyn. You know the Lord doesn’t work like that. He gives to some, takes from others, for no reason we earthly beings can easily comprehend. Yet if one thinks very hard, sometimes one can discern God’s plans.” With a satisfied smile, Lady Corliss said, “Think on it. When Lord Jagger died, may he rest in peace, the income you used to found the abbey and nurse it through its early years ceased abruptly. We had to prove ourselves able to provide food, clothing, medicines. And, praise God and all the
saints, we were able to do so. What happened to you was a tragedy, but for us it was a welcome revelation.” She squeezed Edlyn’s arm. “You’ll see. Somehow everything is for the good.”

Edlyn bent her head and scuffled her feet in the dirt. “But this is not like that.”

“Would you feel better if you told me?”

“I have sworn to keep it secret.”

“Then you must do what you think is right. You have a conscience. You’ll make the right choice.” The infirmary door stood before them, and Lady Corliss said, “Enough of that. What is your mission now?”

Do what she thought was right
. Edlyn stumbled as she said, “I need a…gown.”

“What kind of gown?”

“Like we use for the sick men.”

Lady Corliss didn’t hesitate. “Wait here.” She disappeared into the infirmary and came back with a gown of rough brown weave. “Here. Now go and do God’s work.”

Edlyn walked away, and when she looked back, Lady Corliss waved, then walked toward the church.

“She’s probably praying for me again,” Edlyn muttered. She should have felt even guiltier. Instead, she felt relieved.

She didn’t want to return to the dispensary, but she couldn’t allow herself to consider. She just marched down the garden path and into the hut to find Wharton glaring like the toad he was.

“Where have ye been? Th’ master’s in pain!”

“Is the patient stripped and washed?” she asked.

“Washed?” Wharton sounded scandalized. “In his condition?”

Edlyn stepped around the oven and smothered a gasp. Hugh had been stripped completely, and if
anything, he looked longer and meaner than he did in armor. The bruising and the thin film of mud formed from dust and sweat made him look as if he were Adam himself, created from the clay of Eden.

“Wash him.” She thrust the gown at Wharton. “Then put him in this. I’ll prepare something to help the pain.”

She didn’t stop to see if he did as she instructed, but her skin remained whole and without dagger wounds. Pushing a stool over to the table, she stepped up and rummaged around on the top shelf close to the thatch. From behind the other vessels, she brought out a small corked glass bottle and allowed herself a grin. From the bottles on the table, she plucked three, then in a cup she mixed their contents to her satisfaction.

“He’s washed an’ in that pitiful excuse fer a gown.”

Wharton might have been more surly, but Edlyn didn’t know how that could be possible.

“Good.” Cup in hand, she climbed over the woodpile to Hugh’s side. “Mayhap, Wharton, you should bring in more wood. A large pile would help disguise Sir Hugh.”

“’Tis
Lord
Hugh now,” Wharton said proudly.

With only the faintest hint of sarcasm in her tone, she said, “Of course. I should have realized a warrior as great as Hugh de Florisoun would have won a title by now.”

“He’s th’ earl o’—”

“That’s enough.” Hugh still maintained enough authority to silence his servant in mid-sentence. “Bring the wood.”

“What if someone sees me?” Wharton asked.

“Tell them you’re a mendicant at the abbey. ’Tis impossible to recall all who come and go here.” Edlyn knelt beside the fallen hero. “And leave the door open
so I can see what damage you did when you moved your master.”

“I had t’ hide him!” Wharton opened the door.

Edlyn wasn’t in the mood to be fair, but Hugh reassured him.

“Did well, too.” Hugh’s voice sounded fainter now. He waited until Wharton’s footsteps faded, then said, “Hauling wood hurts his dignity as my man.”

“His dignity could use some adjustment.” Now that Edlyn could see the gown, she admitted Wharton might have a reason for being disgruntled about it. The sleeves hung only to Hugh’s elbows and the hem struck him at the knee. Edlyn would have to lift the hem to examine the wound, and she should have just done it when Hugh lay naked. It would have been less intimate than this undressing. But she hadn’t thought of that then; she had only wanted to get him covered.

“Don’t be alarmed. I’m going to look.” She kept her voice steady and soothing.

“Don’t you be alarmed,” Hugh answered.

But when Edlyn jerked her gaze to his face, his eyes were closed.

He had handsome features: strong and full of masculine beauty that had always made women pant after him like bitches in heat.

She snorted. She’d already had that disease, and like someone who had suffered from smallpox and lived to tell about it, she couldn’t get it again—and she was only stalling. She had to check that bandage.

Lifting the gown, she focused on that one thing. Hugh’s move onto the pallet had loosened the linen strips, and she adjusted them to fit tightly once more. She lowered the gown and allowed herself a small smirk of self-congratulations. That hadn’t bothered her a bit. Her hands were hardly shaking.

She lifted his head and placed it on her bent knees. “Drink.”

He drank, but a bit of the precious liquid oozed out of the corner of his mouth and he choked a bit as he swallowed.

She would have to hold him higher next time.

Taking the rags, she started folding them. He watched her steadily as she worked, and when he spoke, she flinched at his curiosity.

“Edlyn, why are you living in a nunnery?”

“Maybe I’ve taken vows.” She kept her gaze on her hands as she folded.

He laughed softly, then closed his eyes as a spasm of pain struck. “I don’t think so.”

Offended, she said, “What? You don’t think I’m virtuous enough?”

“I think those two vipers”—he gasped for air—“who visited made your status clear.”

“I don’t think you ought to talk anymore.”

His fingers tangled in the skirt of her cotte. “Then tell me.”

He was starting to drift but fighting against it, and she subdued her instinctive rebuff. She did, after all, hold the power in this situation. “Lady Blanche and Adda might have been twins, so alike are they in temperament and appearance.”

He struggled to open his eyes. “Don’t care about them.”

“Lady Blanche’s mother was singularly unappreciative when presented with her husband’s child by her maid so soon before Lady Blanche’s birth.”

“Tell me…you.”

“I think Lady Blanche drank bitterness from her mother’s tit, and Adda absorbed it from the moment she was put in Lady Blanche’s service.”

“When I’m better…”

“Both girls were placed in the nunnery at the age of seven to get rid of them.”

“Edlyn…”

“And they move from abbey to abbey as they make themselves unwelcome.”

Hugh’s faint snore stopped her. She slid the folded rags beneath his head, but he didn’t move, and she grinned in open triumph.

Wharton’s voice sounded from behind her. “He’s going t’ wake someday, ye know, an’ he’ll get those answers he wants.”

Gathering the bottle and the cup, she faced Wharton and his armload of wood. “Not from me, he won’t.”

Wharton knelt to place the logs on the pile. “He always gets what he wants.”

“Then it’s time he learned differently.” Stepping well away from Wharton, she returned the bottle to its hiding place and put the stool away again. “I have work to do.”

“How long will it take him t’ get well?”

Edlyn realized that wasn’t what he wanted to ask. He really wanted to know if Hugh would get well, and she didn’t know the answer to that. She had prescribed the most effective medicine she knew. “Pray for him. Perhaps in a fortnight he’ll be well enough to sit up.”

“Pray fer him.” Wharton’s despair sounded clear. “Isn’t there more I can do?”

“Let him sleep.” She stared at the long log of a man in the rough brown garment. “When his fever rises, bathe him with cool water.”

“That’ll kill him.”

“Not as long as he rests by the oven, it won’t. It’ll keep the fever from going too high.” She frowned at
the filthy clothing Wharton had stripped from Hugh. “I’ll have to hide this. It’s clearly a warrior’s aketon, and a large warrior at that.” Picking up the pieces, she wondered what to do with them, then stuffed them behind the large jars of oil and wine on the floor. “He probably won’t wake until tonight, and then you should give him a drop from the bottle you saw me hide.” She pointed her finger at him sternly. “But only a drop, or he’ll drift away and never return.”

Terror made Wharton’s eyes bulge. “Ye do it.”

“I can’t. I sleep in the guest house, and there’s a monk who questions all who come and go in the night.”

“That monk’ll do as he’s told.”

“Nay.” She tried to soothe Wharton’s alarm. “You take good care of your master. This, too, you can do.”

“Ye.”

When Hugh woke, he was aware of only two things. He was hot. And he had to be silent.

A beast gnawed at his side, cutting its teeth against his ribs and seeking the softer meat of his intestines. Its warm breath seared him and he wanted to push it away, but he dared not move. He had to be silent. Everything depended on his silence. Wharton’s safety. His own safety. Edlyn’s safety…Edlyn.

Edlyn? Consciousness nudged at him. He hadn’t thought of Edlyn in years, and she certainly couldn’t be here now. Not in a nunnery. Not working like a common peasant. He was delirious. He had to be.

“Drink this.”

His dream Edlyn knelt beside him. She lifted his head and pressed it against her bosom, then placed a cup to his lips. He drank greedily, then turned and nuzzled her breasts.

She put him down rather hastily, jarring his aching head. He heard Wharton’s voice harp and scold and opened his eyes to reprimand him.

He didn’t see Wharton. He saw his dream Edlyn leaning over his side, forcing the ravenous beast to cease its dinner. But it might turn and rend her, so he said, “Careful.”

He said it clearly, but she didn’t seem to understand. “What?” She leaned close to his face. “Did you say something?”

Her breasts. He remembered resting against them, and now he could see them. Her shift had been negligently tied, and her wrap gaped at the neck. She looked as if she’d just been roused from bed.

He would take her back. Reaching out, he cupped her breast through the material. “Mine.”

His dream Edlyn disappeared from view then, and he closed his eyes. She must be quite a woman, because just laying his claim on her wearied him. Then she started working on his side again, and energy surged through him. He woke to touch her, but when he reached out, he touched coarse material and heard Wharton’s raspy voice. “Master, what do ye require?”

Sleep. He required sleep, so he could dream of Edlyn again.

“
How are you going
to get me back into the dormitory?” Edlyn desperately needed privacy to regather the shreds of her composure.

Hugh had tried to suckle on her like a baby, and while she could delude herself that his action had been nothing more than a sick man’s attempt to return to the comforts of childhood, nothing could change that elemental gesture of ownership he had made afterward.

“Mine.” He had cupped her breast through her wrap and her shift and said, “Mine.” And it hadn’t been a tentative touch, either. He had grasped her firmly and rubbed his thumb across her nipple with such certainty she’d had to reassure herself she was decently covered.

“I don’t want ye t’ go back.” Oblivious to her discomfort, Wharton stood with his feet apart and firmly planted on the dispensary floor. “I want ye here if he needs ye.”

“I am not mistress of this abbey,” she said. “I must conform to the rules or be banished. Before the sun rises, I am to join with any other guests and together we make our way to the church for Mass.”

“Your soul’ll not miss Mass one day.”

“This is an abbey. They don’t see it that way, and anyway, that’s not the point.” Exhaustion and frustration made her slow. “I must be seen coming from my chamber, or as the only full-time resident not bound by holy vows, I must explain my absence. And since no one saw me leave, it will be difficult to explain.”

“What do ye do that they’re so suspicious?” Wharton demanded. “Have ye a lover ye visit?”

Unwittingly, her gaze went to Hugh, and she jerked it back to Wharton when he laughed.

“As ye wish, m’ lady. Ye’ll see, that monk’s still snoring at his station an’ we’ll slip right past him.”

She hoped so. She prayed so. Abbeys were obsessed with two things: salvation and sin. Nocturnal wanderings would automatically be assumed to be sin. She would be required to explain her actions, and how could she do that?

As she followed Wharton through the garden and across the abbey yard to the guest quarters, she kept her head down and her hood up, and with every step she trembled with fear. She’d been out in the wide world for a brief time, living hand to mouth, never knowing where the next meal would come from or whether the next place she begged at would be her last.

So many cruelties. So many horrors. They had scarred her. She
had
to get back into her room without discovery.

“Keep close behind me.”

Wharton spoke softly, so softly she wondered if he comprehended her fear.

“Take off yer shoes.” He paused in the overhang of the guest quarters while she did as he instructed. “If th’ sleepy one wakes, I’ll distract him while ye slip past me an’ down th’ hallway t’ yer room.”

She didn’t like the way that sounded, and she didn’t trust Wharton. “Don’t hurt him,” she warned.

“I don’t hurt ol’ monks,” Wharton answered scornfully.

He swung open the door that led to the entry, and Edlyn wondered briefly how he had opened it in the first place. When one wanted admittance, one knocked and Brother Irving looked through the high, covered peephole. If he liked the explanation given for entering the guest quarters, then he took the key from his belt and unlocked the door.

But Wharton, it seemed, made his own rules. Somehow he’d entered the guest quarters without Brother Irving’s knowledge and found Edlyn’s cell without instruction. Wharton was the resourceful sort.

Through the open door, the sound of Brother Irving’s lusty snoring made a welcome din in Edlyn’s ears. Wharton gestured for her to stay, then slipped inside the small, cold entry room and covered the single candle with his cupped palm. At his signal, she crept inside, her gaze never leaving Brother Irving. He still sat as he had when they stole past the first time—in a tipped-back chair, his chin resting on his shallow chest.

She released her breath in slow increments. Brother Irving hadn’t seen her leave and he hadn’t seen her return.

The guest quarters had been built as a long hallway with the doors of the cells leading onto it and the entry breaking it in half. The women slept in the right hallway, the men in the left hallway. Because of Edlyn’s status as a live-in dependent on the abbey’s charity, her cell was at the end of the right hallway. The candle in the entry never cast its illumination all the way to her door, and when the dusk had settled and she walked
the hall alone, she imagined the ghosts of her past walked with her. That always made her run, but she couldn’t do it now. Not with Wharton trailing behind her.

Anyway, if the ghosts were smart, they would be afraid of Wharton.

Putting her hand on the door, she turned to her shadowy escort. “Lord Hugh should be well enough until morning.” Because she knew how sounds echoed along the stone walls, she spoke as softly as possible. “Don’t come to get me again.”

Wharton paid her no heed. Instead he gave the door a push and followed it as it swung in. “I’ll give ye a light.”

“A light?” She scurried in after him. “I don’t have any candles.”

“I do.”

The darkness was less intense inside the room. The window was high and small, just as in the other buildings of the abbey, but except in the coldest weather Edlyn kept it open. She welcomed the moonlight, the starlight, and the light of dawn. She welcomed any kind of light. Earlier when Wharton had leaned over her body to waken her, she had screamed a little—only because he seemed part of a nightmare and only because she couldn’t see his face. But she thought she had successfully masked her discomfort. How he had seen through her pretense and why he moved now to dissipate her fear, she didn’t know.

He struck a spark and as the wick caught, she thought of something else. “
Where
did you get a candle?”

Laughing coarsely, he placed the light into a pewter holder he pulled from his pocket. Then he looked around the cell. Here he would see the bare truths that governed her life.

He did, too. His gaze had encompassed everything, then he looked at her with pity—the kind of pity that made her soul shrivel.

He placed the candle on the table beside the bed and he left on silent feet.

Tucking her wrap around her, she sat down on the bed and put her shoes on the floor where she could easily reach them in the morning. She slid between the covers, snuggled down, and stared at the yellow flame as hard as she could until she blinked.

Then when she looked around, she saw it all.

The tapestries on the wall. The fine rugs to protect her feet. The constantly burning fire on the hearth. The furs on the bed.

How dare Wharton look at her with such pity? What other lady had such sumptuous riches?

She blinked again. The grand furnishings vanished, leaving only a bare room with stone walls. A narrow rope bed covered with rough wool blankets. A rickety table with a wooden water bowl. And two pallets, folded neatly and stacked in the corner.

She blew out the candle.

“Don’t let him die. Ye can’t let him die.” Wharton’s words skidded out of him, each lurching with panic. “He’s my master.”

“I know.” Edlyn washed Hugh’s hot, wasted body with a cloth dipped in cool water. Her gritty eyes searched for a flicker of improvement, but Hugh remained motionless. For four nights now he’d lain like this, his head resting on a pile of folded rags, while she had tried everything she knew to bring his fever down and relieve his infection. Nothing had worked. Nothing.

Wharton had tried everything he knew, too. He had shouted, threatened, bullied, and prayed. Now he pleaded, wiping at the tears that leaked from the corners of his eyes. “I beg o’ ye, m’ lady, bring him back t’ health. There is no one t’ replace him.”

She looked away from Hugh’s emaciated form and observed Wharton, pale even in the golden light of the oven’s open door. “Go out,” she said compassionately. “Breathe the night air.”

Wharton had reached the breaking point, it seemed, for he took a last look at Hugh and plunged out of the door. She heard his footsteps as he ran, seeking solace away from this house of putrescence, and she was alone. Alone with a man who wouldn’t live until dawn.

She shouldn’t care. He’d caused her no end of trouble. She’d been awakened every night by Wharton sneaking into her room and dragging her down here. She’d lied to the people who sheltered her. She’d been surly with the nuns, barring them from the dispensary and shoving her herbs out the door. She’d spent all her time fixing poultices and decoctions, depleting the last of her stores as she wrestled with death for Hugh’s soul. Yet when she looked at him, she couldn’t give up. She remembered him. He had been part of her youth. The largest part of her girlish dreams had resided in him. And she couldn’t let that end. For herself as well as for him.

“Hugh.” She leaned forward so her mouth touched his ear. “Hugh. Come back to me.”

He didn’t move. He showed no change.

Rising, she walked to the long table against the wall. There in a line stood her boxes, each wooden box marked with the name of the herb within. She pulled them forward and lifted each one. Bitter rue. Piquant savory. Strengthening sage. Pungent thyme.

Common herbs. Herbs used to cure and purify. They didn’t work. They hadn’t worked. She had tried. Turning, she looked at the still, bare body stretched out on the floor behind the oven. Then she put her elbows on the table and cupped her forehead in her hands.

She didn’t know what to do. All the jingles she’d ever heard from all the old wives ran through her head.

That wouldn’t work. She’d tried it.

She’d tried that, too. Stupid old wives.

Oh, this was so stupid. Dragon’s blood was just a root. It wasn’t good for anything. And she wasn’t a virgin.

Superstition. Her hands shook. She didn’t even know where to look for the stuff.

She remembered all of that poem.
All
of it. She didn’t even know when she’d learned it, but it made
her faintly ashamed. Ashamed she remembered. Ashamed she even considered trying it.

Then she heard the silence again. Silence pressed down from behind her. No sound of breath. No sound of movement. No sound of life. Hugh was dead, or would be. What difference would it make if she tried one of the ancient spells?

Whirling, she ran out into the garden. The moon changed the familiar landscape to one of stark shadows and eerie shapes. The oak tree in the corner by the stone wall was thick with darkness. Nothing grew under there. The shade clung to the ground; sunshine couldn’t penetrate. At night, it was positively spooky. If she believed in fairies, she would be frightened.

Of course, it was a fairy cure she was thinking of trying, so she had better be respectful of the wee folk.

“I hail thee.” Her voice sounded loud in the night and she lowered it to a whisper. “Ancients, I come for dragon’s blood to heal one of your favored ones.” Foolish, to greet an imaginary race in hopes of appeasing them. “You blessed him in the cradle, giving him the gifts of strength, beauty, and wisdom.” She placed one foot just in front of another and moved toward the darkest part of the shade into another world. “Help me cure him now.” Her breath rasped, her hands trembled, and she knelt close to the trunk. She should have brought a trenching tool, but she hadn’t thought of that and she wasn’t about to creep back to the dispensary. She wouldn’t have the nerve to try again if she did. Using her fingers, she dug blindly, searching for the tuberous roots that stained skin bright red and, it was said, shrieked when torn from the ground.

She didn’t hear any shrieking, so she must have done something right. The roots came up easily. She didn’t know how many she needed—after all, her
guide was a silly song, not a recipe—but she pulled until she had an apron full. Stupid, fruitless endeavor, but she was desperate.

Standing, she crept back out of the deep shadow. She sighed with relief, then hurried toward the dispensary. After a pause, she turned toward the oak and whispered, “My thanks, wee ones.”

A gust of wind rustled the oak leaves, and she almost tore off the door getting inside.

Ignoring her racing heart, she tumbled the roots onto the cutting board and heard the silence again. “I’m hurrying,” she said. “I’m hurrying.” She picked up the knife and brought the biggest root into cutting position. But when she touched the iron to the plant, she hesitated. The fairies didn’t like iron. But how? She looked at her fingertips, already stained a rusty red, and at her nails, dirt packed into the cuticles, and started tearing into the roots. Long strands clung to her skin, and blood—no, juice—dripped onto the board and sank into the old slashes left by the knife.

“Funny,” she muttered. “I would have thought dragon’s blood was green.”

With the strands gathered, she walked to the oven and threw the pieces into the pot of water she kept steaming there. “I should recite a spell…” But she didn’t have to. A scent filled the air, like strawberries growing in the sun or water lilies in a tranquil pool. She stared at the pot, breathing deeply as the smell cleared her mind and gave her a strength she hadn’t imagined. Then she jumped. She didn’t need the help. Hugh did. Wrapping a cloth around the metal handle, she took the pot off the oven. She set it beside his unconscious body and waved the steam toward his face. “Breathe,” she urged. “Breathe it in.”

Did it help him? She couldn’t tell. The dim light told no tales.

Not knowing exactly what to do with this liquid dragon’s blood, she tipped the pot over the bandages on his side and let it soak in. Then dunking her finger into the fluid, she touched it to her lips. It didn’t taste like anything. It didn’t numb her or make her breath grow short. It just had a thin, tart tang, so she dipped the cloth into the red fluid, then dribbled it between Hugh’s slack lips. He didn’t swallow, and she realized with a panic he would choke on it. Lifting his head, she rubbed his stubbled throat as if he were one of the sick cats that hung around the barn. “Swallow,” she commanded. “Swallow. Hugh, swallow it.”