Chapter Ten #2
The wounded had come early. Gratiana and Gaia had accompanied her to the great hall, but Gaia began to cry the moment the first bloody injury arrived, so Corisande sent her to the kitchens to make sure there was a steady supply of hot water.
It was really the only thing Gaia was capable of because she not only hated mundane chores, the sight of blood made her ill.
She didn’t want to be around it at all, and about an hour into the battle, the cook reported that Gaia had retreated to her chamber and refused to come out.
Therefore, the burden was left to Corisande.
But she didn’t mind, really. She was in her element tending the sick and wounded.
In fact, it was better not to have to worry about Gaia, the sister she was still coming to know.
But she had Gratiana’s help and the help of several servants, so the men were well-tended.
As the cook left her and headed back to the kitchens to collect some of the boiled bandages, drying out over the heat and flame of the hearth, Corisande made her way over to a young soldier who had received a fairly nasty gash to the head.
It covered most of his forehead and ended near his left eye.
The servant tending him was the same servant who tended to the knight’s quarters, the one who had helped her when she’d lanced the infected boil a couple of days ago.
The servant took good initiative trying to stop the bleeding on the gash, but the only thing that would really stop it would be stitching it up, which Corisande intended to do.
As she came upon the wounded man, she spoke quietly but firmly to the servant tending him.
“They are bringing more bandages,” she said. “Now, we need to lay him perfectly flat and you must hold his head still so he does not move it while I stitch.”
The servant nodded, moving to the opposite side of the young soldier, who was looking at Corisande fearfully.
Her father had over a thousand soldiers at Castle Keld and she didn’t know every one of them, but she had seen most. However, she didn’t recognize this slender young man. He looked very young and very scared.
She smiled reassuringly.
“Just a few stitches and you’ll be as good as new,” she told him. “You must lay down. All the way down; that’s right.”
The servant was pulling him back, his head eventually resting on a folded blanket. But the young man was still looking at Corisande with terror in his eyes.
“Are you going to stick a needle in me?” he asked, his voice quivering.
Another servant appeared with a tray containing a jug of the wine and vinegar mixture Corisande favored.
There were also a few bandages as well as a needle and catgut, which had been soaked in a salt solution.
Corisande had learned everything she knew from her mother, including how to treat the catgut and how to keep her needles and bandages clean by soaking them in the wine and vinegar solution.
Her mother believed that people had a better chance of survival if the items touching them had been cleaned of any poison from the previous patient, and Corisande had seen that belief in action.
It worked.
She smiled at the terrified young man.
“I will tell you what I am going to do so that you are not afraid,” she said steadily. “What is your name?”
“Dunne, my lady.”
“You have not been at The Keld long, have you?”
He tried to shake his head a little, held still by the servant. “Nay,” he said. “My mother and father have a farm to the west. I came to Castle Keld to earn money to send to them. Lord Alastor is our liege. My father says he is a fair man. But I’ve never been in a battle before.”
“I see,” Corisande said. “Then you’re really a farmer.”
“I am, my lady.”
“It is noble of you to want to earn money for your family.”
“Will I be sent home because I was hurt?”
Corisande shook her head. “Of course not,” she said.
“But I must stitch your gash. I am going to put something on it to cleanse it, and it will sting a little, but I know you are brave. Then I will quickly stitch it up so you will only have the smallest scar. You can tell your mother and father that you were very courageous in battle.”
The young man nodded briefly, unsteadily, and Corisande silently motioned to the servant to hold the young man’s head steady.
As the servant clamped down on the young soldier’s head, Corisande quickly swabbed the wound in the wine and vinegar solution.
The young man made a pained face but, to his credit, he didn’t cry out.
Quickly, Corisande stitched up the gash.
Unfortunately, it was a jagged cut and it took thirteen fine, careful stitches.
But when she was done, she swabbed the wound with the solution again and made sure she removed all of the dirt and sweat she could see.
By this time, the cook had sent out more clean bandages and she left the male servant to carefully wrap the young soldier’s head.
But the young soldier smiled gratefully at her.
Standing up, she turned to the hall to see who needed her help next and was startled to see Cole standing a few feet away.
He was watching her closely.
“Cole?” she said with concern, moving towards him. “Are you injured?”
He shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “But Addax was hit in the head, twice, by a very big Scotsman with a club, so I brought him here. He has a bloody nose and ears.”
“Where is he?”
Cole pointed to the opposite side of the hall, near the hearth, and they could both see Addax there, propped up against the wall.
Corisande went over to him.
“Someone tried to bash your brains in, did they?” she said as she knelt down beside him. “I hope you punished him severely.”
Addax’s dark eyes glimmered with mirth. “I did not,” he said wearily. “But Cole did.”
“He did?”
Addax sat still as she inspected his face to see where the blood was coming from.
“He cut his head off,” he said “I saw it rolling off into the grass along with his hand. I am certain Cole would have chopped the man to pieces had I not been bleeding all over myself. He chose to seek help for me rather than continue his revenge.”
Corisande lost some of her humor as she looked up at Cole, who gazed back at her neutrally.
As if he hadn’t just partially hacked a man to death.
Truth be told, she wasn’t surprised to hear that given Cole’s size and skill, but that same man spoke to her sweetly and with vulnerability…
to think of him cutting off a head jarred her, just a little.
She had to remember that he was a de Velt.
He was a killer.
“He made the right choice,” Corisande said, returning her attention to Addax. “Now, let me take a look at you. May we remove your helm?”
Between her and Cole, they managed to get the dented helm off and Corisande went to work. Standing at Addax’s feet, holding on to the man’s damaged helm, Cole simply watched her.
All he could seem to do was watch her.
Corisande had been with the young soldier with the gash on his head when he’d arrived with Addax, lugging the man over to the spot where he was now. It hadn’t taken him long to find her in the hall, bent over a young man and reassuring him that everything would be well in the end.
Dressed in a brown broadcloth dress with a linen apron, stained, her long hair was pulled into a braid that trailed down her back and she wore a kerchief over her head to keep it away from her face.
Cole had been struck by her confidence, her kindness, and her fluid beauty as she tended to the young soldier and deftly stitched up his head.
There was something about Corisande that made him feel reassured and comforted, something he’d never experienced before.
Not even with Mary.
Mary had been a sweet woman who had been obedient to a fault, and at the time they were married, that was what Cole needed.
He hadn’t been eager to marry as it was, so a wife who somewhat blended in with the house and hold and never gave him any trouble was perfect for him.
He didn’t exactly ignore Mary, but he wasn’t as attentive as he could have been.
He knew that. Little Lucy came and he’d found himself being more thoughtful of his little family, enjoying it more than he thought he would have. Then the fever struck.
He’d been away at the time, at Alnwick Castle on an errand for his father.
He’d been gone five days and in those days, his wife and child had succumbed to the same fever.
It had been vicious and fast and overwhelming, and he well recalled returning home to find his mother and father waiting for him in the bailey.
He didn’t believe anything they told him until he saw the bodies for himself.
Sometimes, that episode of his life seemed like a bad dream and he had regrets about it. Regrets that he wasn’t the father and husband he could have been. Regrets that he’d never once told his wife that he loved her.
Perhaps that was why Corisande gave him hope.
He was older now, and wiser, and he understood the value of a good woman.
There was part of him that always wanted to marry a woman who was like his own mother – smart, focused, determined, loving.
He found that he required more than a pretty girl who made herself scarce.
He wanted a wife he could be proud of and in watching Corisande, it struck him that she was exactly that – someone he could be proud of.
Someone he could boast of to other men, telling them that he had a wife who was strong, brilliant, beautiful, and loving.
Wasn’t that what all men wanted?