Chapter Nineteen
He awoke to snoring.
Gage wasn’t quite sure what it was. Flat on his back, the same position he’d been in since his wound went poisonous, he found himself staring at the cracked ceiling of the chamber, hearing a gentle and rhythmic snore coming from somewhere inside the room. Someone was in the chamber with him.
He was almost afraid to look.
It took him a moment to realize that he wasn’t trembling. He wasn’t cold. His eyeballs didn’t feel hot, either. They had felt as if they had been on fire the entire time he had been with fever. Lifting his left arm, since it was the only one he could move, he touched his own forehead.
He was cool to the touch.
“How do you feel?”
The old physic, Flush, was suddenly in his face, whispering. Gage blinked at the sight of the old man before moving his body slightly. He moved his right arm, just a tiny bit, and was met with pain and stiffness.
“I think I feel better,” he said, raspy.
Flush grunted. “’Tis a miracle,” he said. “I thought for certain that we would lose you, but it seems the rotten tea has done its job. Praise be.”
“Then I will live?”
“You will live.”
Gage couldn’t help the shock. Delight, but also shock. “I am thirsty,” he said. “May I have something to drink?”
The old man nodded, producing a cup of something and helping Gage lift his head so he could drink it.
It was water, but it also had some kind of fruit pulp in it.
It was very satisfying. When he was finished, he lowered his head but not before he caught sight of a body a couple of feet away.
Since he couldn’t turn his head to the right very far, he couldn’t see who it was.
“Who is in here with me?” he asked.
The physic looked over at the snoring body. “Lady Wynter de Thorington,” he said before returning his attention to Gage. “Ashington’s daughter, I’m told. She is exhausted, so let her sleep. Keep your voice down.”
Gage’s eyes widened. “Wynter?” he gasped weakly. “Why? What is she doing here?”
The physic began to peel away the bandages on Gage’s neck and shoulder.
“De Luci went to fetch her,” he said, inspecting a wound that was finally starting to heal after days of painful debridement.
There was no more sign of poison that he could see.
“He brought her back this morning, but they’d been traveling all night, so she fell asleep.
She did not want to wake you to announce her arrival. ”
Gage wanted very much to turn and look at her, but his wound made that impossible. “De Luci brought her to me?” he said, shock in his tone. “I asked him to send her a missive. I never asked him to bring her to me.”
The physic used a bit of wine to wipe clean the wound, something he’d been doing from the start. “As I said, we didn’t know if you’d survive the night,” he said. “Your fever was raging yesterday and de Luci went to fetch your lady because of it. He didn’t want you to die alone.”
Gage stared at the old man a moment. “God’s bones,” he muttered. “So he went all the way to Ashleven Castle to retrieve her?”
“He did. And it cost him.”
Gage’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
The old physic grunted, clearly reluctant to tell him, but he’d come this far. The man had a right to know.
“They were ambushed right before they reached Septentrion,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “De Luci took two bolts to the back. He did not survive, but the lady was unharmed.”
Shock rippled across Gage’s usually emotionless face as he realized what the physic was telling him.
He did not survive.
“Dear God,” he breathed, the impact of Brian’s death washing over him causing him to raise his voice. “Dear God, it cannot be. Brian is dead?”
“He is, my lord.”
A wall of guilt slammed into him, seeping into every pore, every crack.
The physic went back to tending his wound, but Gage turned his head away, listening to Wynter’s rhythmic snoring as he pondered the shocking news.
He remembered some of what he had told Brian the night before, how he’d begged him to relay a message to her.
If I am unable to see her again, will you please tell her that my last thoughts were of her.
Never, at any time, did he expect Brian to fetch her, but the man had done it of his own accord.
An utterly selfless man who would fetch the woman he loved for the man she loved.
There was such horrific irony in that realization that Gage could hardly comprehend it.
In fact, Gage wasn’t even sure that he could have done the same thing if the roles were reversed. But Brian hadn’t seen it that way.
And he’d paid for that generosity with his life.
Gage had no doubt who was responsible for the ambush, no doubt in his mind.
He knew that Boothe and whatever remnants of his army that the man could scrounge together were in the woods and fields around Septentrion.
They may not have known they were ambushing Brian, but they were waiting to ambush someone related to the new presence at the castle.
It just happened to be Brian.
What a horrible tragedy.
Perhaps he and Brian had been competing for the same woman.
Perhaps there had been the potential for a bitter rivalry there, but it had never come to fruition because of Brian’s good character.
Had Brian behaved any differently in the circumstances, behaving in a way that could have offended Gage, then perhaps the situation would have been different.
Perhaps there would have been something bitter and intense between them. But Brian never let that happen.
Neither had Gage.
El Viento del Norte, the man as cold as ice, did something at that moment that he’d never done before.
He shed a few tears for his friend.
Aye, his friend. A quiet, serious man who had never lived a wild or terrible life. He’d lived a good one and that goodness, that kindness, had cost him in the end. But Gage knew one thing – he wasn’t going to let it go unanswered while there was breath left in his body.
He was going to punish those responsible.
As he lay there and let the quiet tears fall for Brian, Flush finished cleaning up his wound and rebandaged his neck and shoulder. When he was finished, Gage wiped what tears were left on his face and turned to him.
“Who is in command now?” he asked.
Flush was putting a few things back in his satchel. “The man from Navarre,” he said. “De Soto.”
Gage’s brow furrowed with surprise. “He is still here?”
The physic nodded. “He is,” he said. “De Vries and de Becque are still here, also. The castle is well-guarded if that is your worry.”
It wasn’t. “Where is de Luci?” Gage asked.
The physic swept his hand in a general gesture. “He is in the solar until the priest arrives,” he said. “The lady asked them to tend him well, so they’ve summoned a priest.”
Gage felt a very strong urge to pay his respects to Brian before the priest arrived.
There was something he wanted to say to the man and he wanted to do it without an audience.
More than that, he simply had an overwhelming urge to see the man who had risked everything for his happiness.
He shifted on the floor, testing out just how badly he actually felt.
“Help me to sit, please,” he told the old man.
The physic looked at him in horror. “Are you mad?” he hissed. “You cannot sit up. You must rest. You are very weak, my lord.”
Gage lifted a dark eyebrow. “Either help me sit up or I will do it myself,” he said. “I am sure I will do damage to my wound if I try it myself, so help me sit up unless you want to fix that damage.”
The physic still wasn’t convinced. “But why?” he said. “Why must you sit up?”
“I will not argue with you,” Gage said. “If you will not help me, then send de Vries and de Becque to me. They will help me do what needs to be done.”
“Or mayhap they will not if I say they will not.”
It was a feminine voice who replied. Gage still couldn’t move his head very well, but he turned as far as he could in Wynter’s direction. The sound of her voice filled him with instant and complete joy and relief.
“Wynter, my darling?” he said. “Did we wake you?”
Wynter came into his line of sight, rubbing her eyes and yawning.
“Not really,” she said, her sleepy eyes glimmering with mirth.
“I have been listening to you speak for just a few moments, savoring the sound of your voice. It is the best possible thing I could have awoken to. You are better and that is all that matters.”
“My fever is gone, anyway. That is something to be grateful for.”
“Very grateful, my love. It is a miracle.”
The old physic knew he was forgotten. They didn’t even see him leave the chamber as they smiled at one another, thrilled to be in one another’s presence once again.
Gage extended his left hand, which Wynter took strongly and for a moment, they simply gazed at one another, drinking in the sight of something so precious that it was difficult for either one of them to verbalize it. It was an incredibly impactful moment.
But that moment had come at a terrific price.
“I heard about Brian,” Gage said softly. “The physic told me.”
Wynter’s smile remained but her eyes began to swim with tears.
“He risked himself to bring me here,” she whispered, a lump in her throat.
“He told me that you did not send him, but he felt the need to fetch me because he thought you were dying. He knew, Gage… he knew I would want to be with you if you passed. Instead, I was with him when he passed.”
Gage shushed her gently, reaching up to pull her down to him, her head against his chest, his hand on the back of her head.
“He was a brave man,” he said softly, caressing her head. “I have never known finer. I am simply sorry that I was not aware of that before now. The entire time I was with fever, he hardly left me.”