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.”
There is a moment of silence during which I think he will let the matter drop, but no. “If you are an assassin trained, why are you here tending me?”
Unable to help it, I twist my mouth into a bitter smile as I return to his side. “It is a question I have asked myself many times, you can be certain. My orders were to ensure you got safely to Rennes so that you could further serve the duchess.” I look up and meet his gaze. “So that part of my taunting was true.”
We stare into each other’s eyes for a long moment, before the knight gives a small nod—of understanding or forgiveness, I am not certain. “Well then.” He smiles, an utterly charming and devastating grin that makes me want to smile back at him. Instead, I lay the hot poultice on his thigh.
He sucks in his breath so hard I fear he has swallowed his tongue. His face grows red from the heat and the pain and the effort to not cry out. “I thought you said you were not here to kill me,” he finally says with a gasp.
“I am sorry,” I say. “It is the only way to draw out the poison so you will not die of blood fever.”
“Just warn me next time.”
“Very well, I am putting one on your shoulder now.”
He gasps out again, but it is not as forceful as before. Good. The wound is less tender, then, and will hopefully be that much quicker to heal. I glance back up at him to see how he is doing. “You should, by all rights, be dead from these wounds.”
A brief flash of white teeth. “A gift from Saint Camulos. We heal quickly.”
As the poultices draw the foul humors from his body, I turn my attention to his arm. “This must be cleaned,” I warn him. “Vigorously.”