Chapter Twenty-Five
It was the same thing on a different day.
It was the same chamber and the same bed. It was the same sights and smells and sounds—of Ming Tang and his ancient medicines, of the physic from Exebridge and his knowledge of English medicine, and Marina as she bathed Athdara’s face and arms, trying to keep the fever at bay.
A fever that had been going on for the past twelve days.
As they had feared, the wound in her belly had festered.
It oozed pus and other fluids for several days as Ming Tang put moss and mustard plasters to draw the poison out.
That had seemingly tapered off a few days ago, thankfully, and Athdara had moments of semi-lucidity that Ming Tang took advantage of to force a concoction called a rotten brew down her throat.
Literally, it was brewed from the blue mold in bread.
Sometimes the fever was greater, sometimes it was lessened, but the past ten days had seen it constantly present to some degree.
Tay was close to giving up hope.
This morning had been the worst of it. He had refused to surrender all hope until Athdara had some sort of fit just before dawn.
Her fever had been high at the time, and her entire body quivered and bucked.
Tay had been forced to hold her down until the fits stopped, and it was the most horrifying thing he’d ever experienced.
Ming Tang had Tay and Marina put cool rags all over Athdara’s body to bring her temperature down, and it had worked.
Since the fit that morning, she’d been sleeping like the dead.
For the moment, she was stable.
With one crisis averted, another one arose.
He had a recruit class to attend and was reluctant to do so.
St. Denis had tried to be lenient about Tay’s devotion to Athdara, but after a few days of his doing nothing but sitting around and grieving, St. Denis finally had to force him back to work.
There was nothing he could do for Athdara, so St. Denis used that logic to force Tay to resume his training, which he did so under great duress.
It hadn’t been pretty.
His recruits were shouted at, scolded, and verbally assaulted on a regular basis.
Even Bowen and the men were the targets of Tay’s bad humor.
They knew why he was having such a difficult time, so they took the abuse stoically, but it had been quite vitriolic at times.
Of the new recruit class that had started right before Athdara’s injury, Tay had lost more than half the men in about two weeks.
Those that remained were quite tough, indeed.
The Leviathan was out for blood.
On the day of Athdara’s fit when Tay was forced back into training, his mood was particularly bad.
St. Denis sent Aamir to shadow him, making sure he didn’t tear anybody limb from limb in his distress.
Fox even abandoned his group for a couple of hours to stand with Aamir, and both of them watched Tay rake his recruits over the coals.
When Payne joined their little group, also watching with concern, Tay turned around and caught sight of them.
Such a grim, concerned group of friends.
That was when Tay started to realize just how much of a bear he was being.
The recruits around him were trying desperately to do his bidding.
They were strong men, including the two brothers who had trained at Kenilworth.
Therron and Torr de Allington were strong and competent, helping some of the other recruits with their exercises when Tay wasn’t looking.
This particular exercise had the recruits rolling boulders, part of their strength training program, only the boulders had been dug out of the Devon earth by the recruits and then moved by manpower.
They were enormous rocks, heavier and larger than several men—each.
But Tay was having his recruits roll those things around as if they weighed little.
It was making the recruits stronger, but it was also unnecessarily injuring them.
Toward the end of the day, Tay began to see that. With his friends grouped together several yards away, he called a halt to the daily exercise.
“Enough!” he bellowed, looking at the exhausted, muddied, bloodied group.
“I know it has been a difficult week, but… life will be difficult sometimes. It will not always be fair. I hope you understand that was the point of this exercise. The things you will face as a Blackchurch knight will be beyond your endurance sometimes, but you must not give up. You must push through because you are trained to do so. Because of your hard work this week, you will take the rest of the day to rest and then all day tomorrow. There will be no work tomorrow.”
Weary smiles spread among the men, but they didn’t dare celebrate. Not until they were clear of the Leviathan, who could very well change his mind if they annoyed him too much. No one had had a rest day since they came to Blackchurch as a dreg, so that was an unexpected treat.
As the men began to pick themselves up, Tay turned to Bowen. “That means you too,” he said quietly. “I know I have not been easy to get along with as of late, Bowen. You have had a greater burden to bear because of it, so rest tomorrow. You and the men have earned it.”
Bowen, who had indeed been as beaten up and scolded as the rest of them, smiled weakly. “Thank you, my lord,” he said. “You are generous.”
“I am not,” Tay said. “I am moody and beastly, but you tolerate it well. You will be rewarded for it.”
Bowen cocked his head curiously. “My lord?”
“I will speak to Lord Exmoor about making you a permanent trainer.”
Bowen’s eyes nearly popped from his skull. “Me… my lord?”
Tay snorted at his shock. “Mayhap we shall call you the Titan,” he said. “Wasn’t it Atlas who bore the weight of the world upon his shoulders?”
“Aye, my lord.”
“You have earned it. You bore my weight well enough. I will inform you when I’ve spoken to Lord Exmoor.”
Bowen might have actually had a tear in his eye. “I cannot fully express my gratitude, my lord,” he said. “Long has it been a dream of mine.”
“And you have worked hard for it,” Tay said.
“But if you become a trainer, that means I lose you. That is like cutting off my right arm. I want you to approach the two recruits who are brothers—the de Allingtons—and ask them if they would consider working under me when their training is finished. I have been watching them, and I like what I see. Serving me would be lucrative work.”
Bowen nodded. “Well do I know it, my lord,” he said. “I will approach them.”
Tay gave him a crooked smile. “Off with you before you start weeping like a woman.”
Bowen started to move, but he paused. “My lord…” he said hesitantly.
“Tay. I’ve not had the opportunity to tell you how sorry I am about the lady.
I was not sure if my sympathies would be well met, but…
but I know how you feel. I lost my wife when we were both quite young, so I…
I understand what it is to lose the woman you love.
I pray it does not come to that, for your sake. ”
Bowen was usually so professional in all aspects of their relationship that it was unusual for him to let his guard down. Tay appreciated that. He also appreciated the fact that now he knew something about Bowen, who had served under him for years, that he had not known before.
“I am ashamed that I did not know that,” he admitted. “My condolences to you, Bowen. As for the lady… she is strong. She will survive.”
Bowen smiled, though it was not one of joy or encouragement. It was one of sympathy to a man who didn’t seem entirely convinced by his own words. Excusing himself, he headed off after the men.
With Bowen gone, Tay turned to the group of trainers behind him. With a heavy sigh, he trudged in their direction.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You have come to make sure I do not rip any of my recruits apart with my bare hands. Wait—it is more than that. You have come to make sure I do not kill them all, pile their bodies, and dance on their corpses to ease my consuming grief. Is that it?”
He meant it as a jest. Sort of. He smiled weakly as the others chuckled.
“That is it, exactly,” Payne said. “Yer Scots blood was evident, lad. Ye would have made any clan chief proud the way ye were bellowing commands.”
Tay shrugged. “My father was Scots.”
“I know,” Payne said, a twinkle in his eye. “Ye’re not like the rest of these pasty English. Ye’ve got lungs loud enough tae shout tae the Highlands.”
Tay laughed softly. “Loud enough to frighten the recruits, anyway,” he said. Then his smile faded. “I know I have been unbearable. Thank you for coming… to stand behind me as you did. If you stand here, I cannot fall. I will not fall.”
“We wanted to make sure you did not destroy yourself,” Fox said. “I’ve known you for many years, Tay. I know what happens when your mood becomes like this. I wanted to make sure you did not hurt yourself—or anyone else, for that matter.”
Tay nodded even as he hung his head. “I know,” he said. “I am torn up inside, and I cannot hide it. But I will try. I will do better.”
“Your mood is the manner in which you bleed,” Aamir said.
“Your heart has an open wound, and your sharp manner is the blood flowing from it. If you continue to bleed, you will kill yourself. You know that. I think you have realized that it is time to dress the wound. The lady is not dead, Tay. She continues to survive, and only a woman of great strength would have lasted so long. I cannot believe God intends for her to die if he has saved her this long. You must have faith, my friend.”
Aamir could always come up with a poetic way to explain the character of men. Tay understood his words deeply. “Never surrender,” he whispered.
“Exactly.”
Tay simply nodded, and Aamir patted him on the side of the head, a brotherly and comforting gesture. Before they could continue their conversation, however, a shout came from the direction of the village.
“Tay!”