Chapter 4 #3
Some splashed over his hands, but it was still half full when he flipped the contents in her face. She gasped and spluttered, then he was holding a full bowl again. “Make your infusion,” he said with exactly the same inflection as before.
Madeleine took the bowl.
She’d suffered worse in her life many a time than water in the face and her courage had remained unbroken, but here . . . here there were no rules. He could scare her, blind her, maim her.
The water rippled with her fear as she placed the bowl beside the fire.
She put one of her bundles of herbs in the pot and then used the tongs to add a hot stone.
With a hiss the water heated and she stirred it.
The bitter aroma began to rise. She glanced up warily.
He was leaning against one of the sturdy posts, arms folded, watching her.
“It must steep for a while,” she said, her voice thready in the leaden atmosphere.
“I can wait.”
Wait he did. The silence played on her stretched nerves like a harsh bow on a viol.
She couldn’t stand this. She had to know. “Why have you changed?”
“When we met before, you promised a good roll,” he said crudely. “You lied.”
It was like a knife thrust. “And for that you turn against me? Turn the people against me?”
“Oh, you turned the people against you on your own.”
Now her anger was real. Such was her hero—a lout who sulked because she balked at giving him her maidenhead.
A flare from the fire highlighted him briefly. On his right hand, where it lay upon his left elbow, she could swear she had seen a design—a head, perhaps, with horns. The skin-marks. The skin engravings of the English nobles. She had not been wrong, at least, about his high birth.
“Are you the one they call Golden Hart?” she asked.
She saw him tense. “What if I am?”
She put a touch of malicious pleasure in her voice. “My uncle plans to maim and unman you and leave you in the village dust.”
“My plans for your uncle are no different. Is this why you’ve learned our language? To taunt the defeated?”
“I have learned because this is my land.”
He pushed off the post to loom over her. “Then perhaps you should care for it instead of working your people into the ground.
“There are so few!” she protested. “I am seeking to heal their sickness.”
“There are so few,” he echoed with grim humor. “Even the cruelest farmer learns to care for his beasts of burden. Eventually.”
Madeleine gave up. She tended to her brew in silence. Eventually she said, “It is ready, I think.”
“Don’t you know?” he said, sneering.
“It is ready,” she spat. She took a wooden cup and scooped up some of the brew, then added cold water from a pitcher. “Where’s the patient?”
“Drink it.”
“Me? Why?”
He just looked at her. She longed to hurl the medicine in his face but didn’t dare, which was as bitter as the feverfew she had mixed into the brew. Stiffly, she raised the bowl and drank all of the foul-tasting fluid.
“That was a waste,” she said icily. “I don’t have an endless supply of herbs.”
He regarded her in silence.
“I’m not going to keel over dead, Saxon.”
For a moment she thought he would hit her. She’d welcome the pain. It might smother the agony in her heart.
“I’ll tell them they can use your medicine.” He walked past her toward the door. I’ll tell them . . . These were her people. What right had he to stand there and pretend to be lord over her people?
“If I still care to give it.”
He swung back to face her. “You’ll care, Lady, or you’ll feel my anger.”
“You dare not touch me. The king would flatten Baddersley and kill everyone here!”
He sneered. “There are ways,” he said. “I’ll get you more herbs if you need them. Tell Aldreda.”
“How can you get herbs from Turkey and Greece?”
“Just tell her.” With that he left.
Madeleine stood for a moment fighting tears.
She would not cry over a man who was so unworthy.
He’d clearly told the truth. All he’d ever been interested in was her body.
The nuns had warned her it was always so.
A bitter lesson, but one well learned. She stiffened her spine, gathered her herbs, and walked out into the sunshine—to face half a dozen pairs of inimical eyes.
The glances quickly slid away. She soon found out why.
“I have a daughter sick,” said one woman hesitantly. “She can’t eat or drink.”
Just because he gave permission. Madeleine was tempted to give curses instead of aid, but it would be a petty retaliation. It would put a black mark on her soul and destroy any chance of gaining the trust of her people.
And she wanted the trust of her people.
By the Virgin’s milk, she’d supplant that worthless rogue in their hearts.
She followed the woman into the village. She visited four homes and showed the women how to make the infusion, leaving enough of the herbs to last two days.
The situation in the village was horrendous. The children and the elderly were taking the sickness worst, and despite her help she thought one child would die. She hoped she wouldn’t be blamed for it. The adults were recovering better, but she still gave them strengthening potions.
What they all needed was rest and more and better food. It was midsummer and there should be plenty, but their gardens were in poor condition because they did not even have time to weed and water them properly. Nor did they have time to go into the woods to pick berries and find wild plants.
She would take up her country explorations again and gather some of the most beneficial plants to pass on to them. She would try to find ways to ease their labor at the castle. Improvements were needed in irrigation for the main garden near the manor, which was shared between village and hall . . .
As she made her way back across the earthwork, Madeleine was full of a new sense of purpose. To the Devil with Golden Hart. She would save her people herself.