Just as the jailor comes scampering out, indicating that no one is home, the thick clouds overhead release their burden and it begins to rain. However, even wounded and ill and passed out, the knight is still a giant of a man. “We cannot carry him in,” I tell the jailor.
He reaches out and shakes the knight, but not even his eyelids flicker in response. Concerned that he has died on the way here, I look to his chest, relieved when I see it rise and fall with his breathing. The jailor begins to shake him harder, but I stop him. I glance up at the rain falling from the sky, big fat drops that plop down onto my face. Cleaning the prisoner up will be a mighty chore involving buckets and buckets of water. “We will let the rain do some of the hard work for us. It is not a freezing rain—let it wash some of the prison grime from him before we take him inside.”
The jailor scowls, as if this is some great insult or injury I have offered his master, but I ignore him, grab two of the bundles tucked up against the side of the cart, and head for the lodge. He can follow or not, it makes no difference to me.
While the jailor stays to cluck over the knight, I make a quick exploration of the lodge to see with my own eyes that no one is here. The back door opens directly into a large kitchen with a fireplace. There is a hall beyond, and three chambers on the second floor. They are all empty of any but the most basic furnishings, and nothing but cold ashes sit in the hearths.
Since getting the knight up the stairs is out of the question, we will have to set up a trestle table in the kitchen. I go to the door and see the jailor dripping by the side of the cart, as if his getting soaked will somehow lessen his prisoner’s discomfort. I motion him over.
When he is close enough, I hand him a rough cloth to dry himself. “I need to set up a table in here, but I cannot move it myself.”
Together with many grunts and muttered oaths we get the trestle in the kitchen and cover it with two old blankets we found. The effort has chased any remaining chill from my bones. “Let’s go see if we can get him in here,” I say with a sigh of resignation, for it will be as easy as trying to maneuver a greased ox.
Outside, the rain has not only cleansed some of the filth from the patient but roused him from his sleep. As the jailor and I peer down at him over the sides of the cart, he blinks up at us, the water spiking his thick lashes. When he sees me, his eyes cloud with confusion, and suddenly my anger rises up in me again, a white-hot fury that he has robbed me of my prize—the one thing that would have justified all I have endured the past six months. I lean down and get my face close to his. “I have been sent on the duchess’s own orders to aid you, and how do you repay me? By ruining all my carefully laid plans.”
His eyes widen in surprise. “From now on, until I get you safely to Rennes, you will do exactly as I say and no more, do you understand? Else I will leave you here to rot in the rain.”
“What did I ruin?” His voice is rough, like a shower of rocks tumbling downhill.
“Plans that I worked six long months to put in place. Why? Why did you do it?” I ask.
“Do what?”
I reach up and touch my tender jaw. “Take me with you.”
He shakes his head, as if trying to clear it. “The last thing I remember is an insistent, soul-searing voice spewing venom and lies.”
“That was me,” I say curtly.
“You?” He looks thoroughly nonplussed, as if he cannot reconcile that voice with what he sees before him.
“Yes, you great lummox. It was the only way I could get you moving up the stairs and into the cart.”
“You tried to bring the battle lust upon me? Have you feathers for brains?”
“No one had a better idea on how to get you out of that dungeon. I simply used the tools at hand.”
“You’re lucky you only got a clout to the jaw.” He squints up at me again, as if trying to make sense of something in his mind. “Besides, you looked afraid,” he mutters.
I gape at him. “Now who has feathers for brains? I had a mission—there was no fear involved.” But that is a lie. I was terrified, and I hate that he saw it.
Chapter Sixteen
PALE AS A CORPSE AND breathing heavily, the knight eases onto the trestle table, then the jailor helps him lie down. He closes his eyes, and it is clear that even this small amount of activity has cost him much. Merde. It is just as well I am not returning to Nantes because this man will need every ounce of my paltry healing skills—and a bit of the gods’ own luck—in order to make it to Rennes. If he dies on the road, then I will have well and truly nothing for all my work and sacrifice. I snag a bucket from a hook on the wall and thrust it at the jailor. “Here. We’ll need water to finish washing him. And fetch the two bundles left in the cart.”
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.