Chapter Seven #3
Dallas could see that Lady Brooke would not let the subject rest. It was important he return to Braxton and Lady Gray so that they could take charge of the willful little lady. He turned away from Brooke and the distant tournament field.
“Come along, lady,” he said to her. “If you want to visit the tournament, you’ll have to ask your mother.”
By the time they returned to the Street of Merchants, Braxton and Gray had just come out of the merchant stall where they had been shopping.
The men at arms were piling bolts of fabric and other goods onto the wagon as Braxton stood with Graehm, supervising the loading.
Hearing the approach of the errant group, he turned to them.
By his expression, he did not look pleased.
“What goes on?” he asked as Dallas and Geoff approached. He eyed Edgar, in Dallas’ arms. “What happened to him?”
“He injured an ankle running from Lady Brooke,” Dallas told him. “I cannot say if it is broken, but he cannot walk on it.”
Gray had come out of the merchant stall in time to hear Dallas mention her daughter’s unruly behavior.
Though Braxton had not told her about the earlier confrontation between Brooke and Edgar, she wasn’t surprised to hear of her daughter’s actions against the young lad.
Brooke could be quite disruptive, and she had been known to be particularly aggressive when challenged. She frowned at her only child.
“Brooke,” she scolded. “Why were you chasing him?”
Brooke was torn between self-righteousness and regret. “Because he kicked me.”
“You kicked me first,” Edgar yelled as Dallas sat him on the wagon bench.
Gray’s expression darkened. “You did this to him?” she grabbed her child by the arm. “Tell me the truth.”
Brooke’s indignant stance was rapidly slipping. “But… Mama, he has been rude and horrid to me. He needed to be punished.”
Gray gave her daughter a small shake, silencing her. “Enough. I shall deal with you later.”
While Brooke sulked, Gray went over to the young boy with the dark hair and big blue eyes, a victim of her daughter’s misbehavior. “Remove his shoe,” she told Dallas. “Let me see the ankle.”
Dallas obliged and Gray took a close look at the joint. Brooke, hoping to distract her mother’s anger, tugged on her arm. “Mama,” she said timidly. “There is a tournament happening. May we go watch it? Edgar has said he wants to see it.”
Gray’s head came up. “Edgar?”
Brooke pointed at the lad. “Him.”
Nothing would heal a sprained ankle like entertainment. It just so happened that Brooke would also benefit from Edgar’s wish. Not strangely, Gray wasn’t buying it.
“Not today,” she said. “We have other plans.”
“But I do not want to shop,” Brooke begged. “I want to watch the tournament. I have never seen one. And it would make Edgar feel better. Please?”
“Nay, Brooke,” Gray told her, more forcefully. “We have not the time today. Mayhap another day.”
Pouting, Brooke turned away from her mother and folded her arms angrily across her chest. After a moment’s indecision, she focused on Braxton. He was standing with Geoff, watching Gray as she gently inspected Edgar’s ankle.
“Sir Braxton,” Brooke said, mock sweetness in her tone. “Have you ever been in a tournament?”
He looked at her. “Several.”
“Did you win?”
He lifted an eyebrow, searching for a correctly worded answer, when Geoff chimed in.
“My lady, Sir Braxton is a master on the tournament field,” he said.
“Since I have known him four years, he has competed six times and has won the joust every time. He has lost once in the mêlée that I know of, and that was last year. Did you not have a broken shoulder during that bout, my lord?”
Braxton nodded modestly. “Broke it in the joust earlier that day.”
Geoff nodded in remembrance. “He should not have even been competing, but honor dictated otherwise.”
“Who won the mêlée?” Brooke wanted to know.
Geoff tilted his head in Dallas’ direction. “Dallas did.”
Brooke was excited with the thought of Braxton and Dallas locked in mortal combat, battling one another to the death before a throng of screaming fanatics. She looked at Dallas, his head bent over Edgar’s foot, and then looked back to Braxton.
“Would you please compete in this tournament so that I can see such a fine spectacle?” she asked.
The corner of Braxton’s mouth twitched. “I am sure the match cards are full. Moreover, I do not have any of my equipment with me. My joust poles and my banners are back at Erith.”
“But you can send one of your men back for those things,” she went to him, putting her hand on his arm. “All my life I have wanted to see a tournament, but we never had the time or money. Now we have both. Won’t you please take me?”
Gray’s head came up from Edgar’s ankle. “Brooke,” she admonished with a threatening glare. Then her eyes sought out Braxton. “Forgive her, my lord. She is young and silly.”
Braxton looked at Gray, so lovely with her hair pulled away from her face, bent over the injured boy.
It suddenly occurred to him that he might like for her to witness his skills on the tournament field.
He’d never had a lady in the lists cheering him on, at least not one he cared about.
A strange sense of pride filled him, and perhaps a stronger sense of egotism.
Though he was a warrior, and a mercenary at that, he was also a very skilled knight.
Gray had never seen him in action, at least not the kind of action he would have liked her to see.
He couldn’t take her to the battlefield with him. But he could take her to a tournament.
“So you really want to see a tournament?” he asked Brooke.
She nodded eagerly. “Please? Would you enter?”
Braxton’s gaze lingered on the young girl for a long, pregnant moment.
“Graehm, send a few men back to Erith for my joust equipment,” he spoke to the knight while still looking at Brooke.
“Make sure to bring the banners. Dallas, go to the field marshals and see if they have any openings in the match cards.”
“Can we all compete?” Dallas asked him, his blue eyes twinkling. “It has been a long time since we’ve all gone to sport against each other.”
Braxton shrugged. “If you are all willing to be crushed by me, then by all means, enter your names,” he watched Dallas grin and walk away. Braxton refocused on Brooke. “If the field marshals will allow late entries, we may very well have a tournament for you worth watching.”
Brooke clapped her hands in excitement and skipped back over to the merchant stall where she had dropped her sack of candy when she attacked Edgar. Gray, of course, had been listening to the entire conversation; leaving Edgar, she went over to Braxton.
“Braxton,” she said quietly. “You do not need to do this to impress my daughter. A tournament is a serious sport. You cannot simply jump in and compete. It takes training and preparation.”
He blue-green eyes were soft on her. “No worries, sweetheart,” he said softly. “I can joust in my sleep.”
“But…” she gestured towards Edgar. “The lad is injured. We must return him to Erith.”
“We’ll make sure he stays off of the ankle,” he told her. “He’ll be fine. Besides, he likes a good tournament, too. Your daughter seems convinced it will heal his injury.”
She stared at him, realizing he was quite casual about something as serious as a tournament. She furthermore realized that she did not want him to compete. Men in tournaments were often hurt. She did not want him to get hurt.
“Please don’t do this,” she almost whispered.
He reached up, stroking her jaw tenderly before letting his hand fall back down again. “You needn’t worry,” he told her gently. “You’ll be greatly entertained, I promise.”
She did not look at all pleased. He collected her hand, kissed it, and tucked it into the crook of his elbow.
“Shall we go and look at more goods while we are waiting for Dallas?” he asked, attempting to distract her.
She shook her head. “I must tend the boy’s ankle. Is there an apothecary around here?”
“What for?”
“Wraps and healing herbs. His ankle is swelling and he is in pain.”
“Is it that bad? Boys are fairly resilient.”
“It’s bad, Braxton. It needs to be wrapped.”
He looked around, trying to recall if he had seen a shop during his past visits to this place. “I am not sure where an apothecary might be, but we shall find one.”
Leaving Brooke and her candy with Geoff and Norman, Gray and Braxton struck off in search of an apothecary. After asking a few of the merchants where such a place might be, they found their way onto the next avenue where a small medicament shop was wedged in between two larger merchant stalls.
This street was busier than the one they had just left.
People bustled all about them, quickly going about their business.
Gray almost got run over, twice. The first time was from a busy farmer that crossed her path.
The second was a knight on horseback, a big black knight with eyes like obsidian.
Though she paid no mind to him, he paid a great mind to her.
Fortunately, Braxton did not notice; he was more concerned with getting her out of the traffic.
The apothecary shop was so small that Braxton had to bend over to enter it; once inside, there were odd smells and strange implements all around them.
A tiny little man sat behind a cluttered table at the far end of the shop, ignoring them.
He either hadn’t heard the pair enter or didn’t care.
As Braxton and Gray made their way toward the old man, a fat white cat jumped into their path.
It hissed. Gray shoved the beast away with her foot.
Braxton went straight for the old man. “We are need of healing aids for a young boy’s ankle,” he said. “Do you have such things?”
The old man blinked up at Braxton, then at Gray standing behind him. He was a frail old soul, with a long yellowed beard and most of his teeth missing. He blinked again.
“What’s this you say? You want a young boy?”
Braxton shook his head. “Nay. We are in need of pain medicaments for…”
“Ah!” the old man threw up his hand and turned his back on them, rummaging through a cluttered shelf.
“I have something that will help your wife bear a strong young son and crushed root that will take care of her pain in childbirth,” he yanked forth a glass phial with dark powder.
He thrust it at Braxton. “Pessaries. Guaranteed to produce a son. You place it into your wife before coupling. It will magnify your seed so that a strong lad is produced.”
Shocked at the bizarre path the conversation had taken, Braxton looked at Gray. “Is that what I really said?” he muttered to her. “I don’t recall asking for pessaries to produce a son.”
Gray was struggling not to laugh. After the initial surprise wore off, she found the senile old man absolutely hilarious. “Perhaps you should,” she whispered. “Perhaps then we will receive pain medicaments to help a swollen ankle.”
He wriggled his eyebrows at her, turning around just as the little man pulled forth another phial containing a clear liquid with dark floaters on the bottom. The old gentleman swirled it around, mesmerized by the drift of the fluid.
“For the pain, my lady,” he said. “Boy infants always produce more pain than girl infants. I do not know why. It has always been thus.”
Gray struggled not to erupt into giggles. “Perhaps you could provide us with medicines to produce twins. Two male children at once would be most… uh, pleasant.”
She had no idea why she asked, only that the entire conversation, and visit, seemed so absurd. She wanted to see if she could somehow steer the old man towards what they were really seeking. True enough, the old man’s face lit up.
“Ah!” he threw up a hand again. “I have just what you need for an aching joint. ’Tis over here, somewhere. It will help with the pain and reduce any swelling.”
Gray and Braxton looked at each other. She bit her lip to fight off the laughter while he simply shook his head. He put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her up against him.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered, kissing her temple. “It worked.”
The old man sold them a solution of willow and ergot, and a viscous cream that was supposed to dull away any aches.
It smelled strongly of mint. He also sold Braxton the pessaries and the clear liquid for childbirth because Braxton was sure he could not explain to the man that he did not need such things.
He just paid for them and left. By the time they reached the street, Gray was nearly doubled over with laughter.
He grinned at her. “So you think that funny, do you?”
She tried to catch her breath. “Oh, Braxton, that was hilarious. Do you think the old man was hard of hearing or was he just insane?”
“Probably a little of both,” Braxton reached out and pulled her to him, stealing a passionate kiss as they passed in an alleyway between the avenues.
They paused a moment in the shadows between the buildings, gazing into one another’s eyes.
“On second thought, I should hang on to these pessaries. I may need them some day.”
He meant with her. Her cheeks flushed again, now for an entirely different reason. “Perhaps,” was all she would say.
He took her hand again, leading her out into the sunshine of the Street of Merchants. To their left, Brooke was now sitting up on the wagon bench beside Edgar, apparently sharing her candy with him. Braxton lifted an eyebrow at the sight.
“Do you think she poisoned the candy?” he asked quietly.
Gray shrieked softly, giving him a little pinch. “How dare you speak so cruelly of my child. And I would not be surprised if she did.”
He winked at her as they came upon the wagon. Edgar had his mouth stuffed with vanilla candy and Brooke was sitting beside him quite innocently. The young boy looked fearful as Gray began to lay out the medicaments on the wagon bed.
“I will need a long strip of cloth, preferably linen,” she said to Braxton. “Do you have something that might fit that description?”
He shrugged. “If not, I can find one somewhere.”
A half hour later, Edgar’s ankle was slathered with the smelly cream and bound tightly in a strip of linen that Geoff had provided from his saddlebag.
Just as Gray finished the final tug of the ankle wrap, Brooke caught sight of Dallas’ return at the far end of the avenue.
She leapt off the wagon and ran to him, dodging customers and merchants as she dashed down the road.
Everyone, including Braxton and Gray, turned to watch as Brooke said something to Dallas and the knight nodded his head. Even though Braxton hadn’t heard the words, he had seen the response and presumed what it meant. He began to feel the familiar excitement swell within him.
There would be a bit of sport that afternoon.