“You aren’t a Frank, are you?” asked India,
regarding his close-cropped black curls and wiry frame. Perhaps
conversation with this pleasant young man would help to take her
mind off Theuderic’s tantalizing nearness.
“I am a Lombard,” Marcion told her. “I was
brought to Francia five years ago after Charles conquered Lombardy
and deposed King Desiderius. In the past, my father was one of
Desiderius’s most valued counselors, so I was made a hostage for
the future good behavior of the rest of my family.”
“You are a hostage?” India must have looked
stunned by this information, because Marcion laughed and nodded his
head in a reassuring way.
“It has been a most enjoyable time,” he said.
“I was immediately given into Theu’s keeping, and we have become
friends over the years. I have made many friends in Francia, not
least of them Charles himself, and I have learned much from the
Franks. Their king is a great man.”
“How old are you, Marcion?”
“I will be twenty-one at the end of August,”
he said. “Then it will be time for me to cross the Alps and return
to Lombardy. Charles has arranged a marriage for me with the
daughter of one of his nobles. I will miss Francia, but it will be
good to see my parents again and to show my home to my new
bride.”
While India was assimilating this agreeable
picture of a hostage’s existence, so different from the
twentieth-century image of such a life, and trying to gather her
courage to ask Theuderic if he was married or betrothed, their
progress through the forest was halted by shouts off to their
left.
“Move behind me,” Theuderic ordered her. “I
can’t fight with you sitting in my lap.”
He started to swing her up and around, but
before he could lift her, Osric burst out of the trees on a
lathered horse.
“Theu, it’s Eudon,” Osric shouted. “He’s been
gored by a boar. Hugo said to come at once. He didn’t want to leave
Eudon alone.”
“Lead us there.“ With those terse words
Theuderic pushed India back into place in front of him and dug his
heels into his horse’s sides. He and the rest of his men followed
Osric through the trees.
They found Hugo bending over his companion,
who was lying on the cold earth. Theuderic leapt off his horse to
go to them. India, left to her own devices, tumbled to the ground
without assistance. Averting her eyes from the huge boar that lay a
short distance away, impaled by Hugo’s spear, she ran toward the
wounded man.
“We never saw the beast till it attacked,”
Hugo told Theuderic. “Eudon and I had dismounted to track a pair of
rabbits. Osric was keeping watch. He shouted as soon as he saw the
boar, but it was too late. It charged out of the bushes and gored
Eudon in his right buttock.”
“Better his buttock than his belly,” said
Theuderic, bending to inspect the damage. “You were fortunate this
day, my friend. This is just a grazing cut.”
Coming up behind Theuderic, India saw that
Eudon’s wound was a slash along the side of his buttock.
“I thought boars always charged their prey
head-on,” she said, with images of pictures of medieval hunts in
her mind.
“They do,” Hugo told her. “This would have
been a death blow had Eudon not turned aside when Osric
shouted.”
At this point Theuderic spared a glance for
the boar, another for Hugo.
“A good, clean kill,” he said appreciatively.
“Neatly spitted.”
“Now cook it,” came Eudon’s voice through
gritted teeth. “I plan to eat its heart. Give the liver to Hugo;
he’s earned it.”
“Before you eat anything,” Theuderic told
him, “we are going to cauterize that wound. Osric, tell the others
to find some dry wood and start a fire. Hugo, get the
bandages.”
“No,” India protested. “That’s barbaric.
Can’t you just wash it with wine, or with clean water?”
“If we had brought any wine with us,”
Theuderic said, “we’d have drunk it long ago. It’s not a deep
wound, but a boar roots up its food from the ground, so its tusks
are dirty. If we don’t cauterize it at once, Eudon will die of the
poison that was on the tusks. If you don’t want to see how we treat
him, I suggest you keep out of the way. I’ll assign someone to
guard you.”
“There must be something I can do for Eudon,”
she insisted. “I tended my master in his last illness, so I am
accustomed to caring for the sick. Let me help.”
“Eudon is not sick, and he’s not dying. He
has been wounded. There is a difference,” Theuderic told her. “But
perhaps you can be useful here. You don’t look strong enough to
hold him down when the moment comes, but you can help me to undress
him.” His face was perfectly serious, with no hint of humor, but
India was certain that in his heart Theuderic was laughing at her,
expecting her to dispute his suggestion with sudden modesty.
“Do you want everything off?” she asked
coolly, telling herself that a man’s body held no mystery for a
woman who had been married.
“Just pull his tunic up and remove his
breeches and underdrawers,” Theuderic replied, watching her
closely.
Determined not to betray her female status,
India reached boldly forward to lift Eudon’s tunic and undershirt
so she could tug at the cord that held up his coarse woolen
breeches. Removing them was an unpleasant process and took some
time, for Eudon, though he tried to help her, was in considerable
pain and was loath to move in any way that might cause more
discomfort. Theuderic let her do the job by herself, waiting until
she had the breeches down around the man’s knees before he knelt to
remove Eudon’s cross-gartered stockings and unlace his shoes. Eudon
wore linen underdrawers, torn and bloodstained like the breeches,
and these India also removed, leaving him lying on his left side
with his remaining garments hiked up to his waist, half naked in
the cold dampness. Theuderic spread Eudon’s own cloak, and he and
Hugo moved the man onto it.
“Who’ll hold his head?” asked Hugo.
“I will,” India offered, sitting down and
pulling Eudon’s head onto her lap. Gently she smoothed back his
tangled hair, brushing it off his face.
“Boy, are you strong enough?” Hugo
demanded.
“I held Robert Baldwin when he was racked
with pain,” India replied, meeting Hugo’s eyes squarely, but aware
of Theuderic watching her every action. “I will do no less for this
man.”
“Let him stay where he is,” urged Eudon. “His
hands are gentle as any woman’s on my brow.”
“Do him no harm,” Hugo warned India. “He’s my
friend. You will answer to me if you hurt him.”
“I only want to help,” India assured him. To
try to distract Eudon from the preparations for his coming ordeal,
she asked him, “Have you a wife?”
“No,” Eudon replied, “but there’s a whore in
Paderborn who likes me well. I pray I will be able to serve her in
the future as I have in the past.”
“If you satisfied her before,” Hugo said,
“she’ll cry out in pleasure again when next you come together. This
wounding won’t affect your manhood, and you’ll have a fine scar to
show her as proof of your courage. Now, here’s the cloth.” He had
been folding a piece of fabric as he spoke. This he placed between
Eudon’s teeth.
India saw Theuderic squatting by the fire
holding a knife blade into the flames. Now Osric took one of
Eudon’s arms, Marcion took the other, a third and fourth man held
his feet. Hugo knelt beside India, his hands on Eudon’s
shoulders.
“If you’ve never done this before,” Hugo said
to India in a low voice, “he’ll buck and heave at first, and it
will be hard to hold him. The cloth is to keep him from biting his
tongue. Don’t worry, Theu knows what he is doing, and he’ll make it
as quick and painless as possible.”
“I understand.” And she did, despite her
initial protests and her horror at what must be done. This, after
all, was not the familiar twentieth century, with hospitals and
antibiotics readily available. Without cauterization of the wound,
infection would soon set in and Eudon might well die. With it, he
had a chance to heal and recover. In the faces of the men around
Eudon, India saw the reflection of her own understanding of his
condition – saw, too, their open and honest concern for him.
Hardened warriors they might be, but the comradeship among them was
a fine and heartwarming thing, and for those few minutes India was
proud to be a part of it and determined to be worthy of their
acceptance.
Theuderic rose from his place beside the
fire, holding the heated knife. He came forward and knelt at
Eudon’s right side. India stared at the knife, then raised her eyes
to Theuderic’s face.
“Are you ready, Eudon?” Theuderic asked, but
India felt as if he were asking her the question. When Eudon said
something muffled by the cloth in his mouth and nodded his head,
India gritted her teeth and nodded her own head.
“Hold him,” Theuderic said in a quiet, calm
voice, and a moment later laid the knife flat upon the open
wound.
Eudon squealed in pain, his jaws clamped hard
on the cloth. His body fought the searing heat, and it took the six
of them to hold him on the ground. Theuderic kept the knife where
it was. Eudon went limp.
“Well done,” said Hugo, releasing Eudon’s
shoulders. The other men relaxed their grip and sat back. “You can
move now, lad. We’ll roll up his breeches and use them for his
pillow.”
India rose on unsteady legs, telling herself
she dared not faint, because if she did they would all know she was
a woman. Worse than that, she would be embarrassed before men she
was beginning to respect. She took a few deep breaths to clear her
head.
“He’ll need bandaging,” she said to Hugo.
“I’ll do it if you like.”
“That’s my job,” Hugo said.
“Someone should sit with him.”
“Osric and I will do it.” Hugo was a
big-boned bear of a man, but his massive hand was remarkably gentle
when he patted India’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I doubted you, lad. You
did what you said you would, and I thank you for it. Eudon will be
all right. Get yourself some food. There’s fresh meat tonight.”
She saw then what the rest of the men had
been doing while seven of their number had been occupied with
Eudon. Underbrush had been cleared away from the area around the
fire, and the horses had been tethered nearby and their trappings
removed. The boar had been skinned and cleaned, and the carcass was
cooking on a heavy spit set over the fire. With branches stripped
from the trees, the men had built several rough shelters for
themselves, little more than flimsy lean-tos against wind and rain,
and no protection at all against the cold. In one of these shelters
a bed of pine needles had been prepared and onto it the men who had
held Eudon were laying him under Hugo’s supervision.
“I misjudged you,” Theuderic said, very low.
He had come silently to stand before her. “You are no coward. But I
should have known that. No craven soul would be permitted to wear
this.” His right hand lightly touched the pendant that still hung
from the chain around her neck. With his eyes holding hers, he
moved his fingertips until they rested at the spot where one small,
firm breast began to swell. Very gently, he pressed against the
softness. The corner of his mouth began to turn upward. And then,
amazingly, while India stood frozen, unable to react in any way, he
removed his hand and turned from her to the fire.
“Come and eat,” he said in his normal voice.
“You’ve earned your slice of meat this day.”
They carved the boar by hacking off the
outermost pieces, which were burned on the outside and dripping red
an inch or so inside, and they left the remains to continue cooking
until the meat was more thoroughly done.
India sat on the bare ground between
Theuderic and Marcion. The others were eating heartily, and she was
hungry, too. She had a chunk of greasy meat in one hand, a crust of
stale bread in the other, and a wooden cup of sour ale on the
ground beside her. It was a wonderful, restorative feast. When she
thought of the way she used to pick at her plain, non-fat yogurt
and sip her decaffeinated coffee, she felt like laughing out loud.
She had just survived two incredible days, she felt more alive than
she had ever felt before, and she cared not at all if her present
diet would be considered unhealthy by twentieth-century standards.
Enormously grateful for the food, she swallowed the last bite of
her meat and licked her fingers as Marcion was doing to his.
“Why did you build the shelters?” she asked
Marcion. “We had none in the last place we stopped.”
“Because we’ll be here for two or three
nights,” he replied.
When she looked at Theuderic for confirmation
of this, he nodded.
“I won’t divide my band,” Theuderic said.
“Not while we’re still east of the Rhine. We stay together, and we
stay where we are until Eudon can travel again.”
“How far is it to the Rhine?” she asked.
“Half a day’s ride at the speed we were
traveling. Had Eudon not been hurt, we would have reached it by
tomorrow evening, and we would cross the next morning. As it is, we
will wait.” He said this with no sign of impatience or irritation,
as if a definite schedule were unimportant. She thought that in a
land where time was told by the rising or the setting of the sun
and wrist-watches had not yet been invented, perhaps the delay of a
day or two did not matter. She found that a restful notion.
“Who’s on first watch?” Marcion asked,
smothering a yawn.
“Osric and Rollin,” Theuderic decided. “Then
you and Hugo. I’ll take the dawn watch with one of the others. I’ll
ask for a volunteer.”
“I’ll do it,” India said, feeling at one with
the group around the fire and wanting to contribute to its
collective welfare.
“Not you, India.” Theuderic’s look was warm.
“Thank you for the offer, but we need a full-grown man, able to use
sword and battle-axe if need be.”