Chapter 10 #2
“Sit by the window in the light,” she said crisply, then realized she was still clutching his bracelet. She handed it to him. He laid it carelessly on a shelf, then sat as she had directed.
“Take off the bandage, please.”
He did so, ripping the last sticky part off without hesitation. She leaned close to study the wound. Though he appeared calm, she could sense tension in him, but ignored it. Many a brave man feared the healer’s touch.
Madeleine concentrated on her task. It was a messy wound, but not serious unless it festered. The tusk had ripped a finger’s length up the back of his hand and arm through a skin design. What the design was there was no way to tell, and it was unlikely ever to be quite the same again.
As he’d said, the gash wasn’t deep, doubtless because the bracelet had absorbed most of the force.
There was a bruised welt where the top edge had bit into him before it was wrenched free, but that would heal of itself.
A weaker arm would have broken in that struggle, however.
She was very aware of the muscular strength of the arm under inspection.
“Have you full movement in your arm?” she asked.
Obediently he moved elbow and wrist. Fine muscles moved sleekly under the skin. The movement caused some bleeding, but not a dangerous, gushing flow.
“It will do well, I think. I just need to clean and stitch it.” She rose to instruct the servants who had brought the water.
When they left he said, “Don’t stitch it.”
“You’ll have an ugly scar,” she objected. “It would stiffen your wrist. If I stitch it, it may heal very well.”
“I don’t want it stitched.”
Madeleine stared at him in exasperation. The great and noble warrior was scared. She walked briskly out into the hall. “Count Guy,” she said, “your son refuses to let me stitch his wound, and it must be stitched.”
Guy raised his brows but returned with her. As soon as Aimery saw him, he looked as if he’d like to throttle someone, doubtless her.
Count Guy studied the wound and grimaced. “It must certainly be stitched. No more nonsense, Aimery.”
Aimery sighed. “Very well.” His father nodded and left.
Madeleine frowned at her patient. He’d given up the argument at a word. Strange man. She poured him some mead. It wouldn’t make the process more comfortable, but it might soothe his nerves.
She set St. John’s wort and pimpernel to steep in mead in one pot, and soaked iris root, fenugreek, moonwort, and dwayle in honey and hot water in the other.
Then she took a clean cloth, dipped it in water, and gently cleaned the edges of the wound, waiting anxiously for him to flinch or even strike out.
Perhaps she should call for his very large brother to hold him when it came to the stitching.
A glance showed her he looked, if anything, preoccupied with other matters.
With a shrug she lifted the mead decoction.
“This will sting,” she warned. She gripped his wrist and angled his arm downward, then poured some of the fluid to stream down the wound.
His fist clenched and he caught his breath, but he made no attempt to wrench away.
Feeling those muscles flex, she knew she would have had no way of stopping him.
“Animal wounds are always risky”—she looked at the wound, searching for obvious dirt—“but I’m not going to cauterize it. I’ll keep a close eye on it, and if there’s yet any sign of infection, I’ll do it later.”
“It would be simpler to do it now,” he said, as if it were a matter of small account. Most men quailed before hot iron. Perhaps he’d never experienced it.
“It wouldn’t heal as neatly, and it looks clean. It’s strange how hard it is to tell,” she mused to herself. “One wound looks dirty but heals well. Another looks clean but kills a man.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly.
She looked up guiltily, knowing she should not be saying such things to a patient, but he appeared amused rather than fearful. They shared a tentative smile.
Memory of that kiss returned to leech the strength from Madeleine’s limbs and confuse her.
She hurriedly dragged her gaze away. She took up a needle and silk thread, willing her hands to be steady.
She didn’t like this job, particularly if the patient made a fuss, but it was kinder to be firm and quick than to be hesitant.
There was a skill to sewing a wound so that it healed with hardly a scar, and it was something she was good at.
Even though the task made her cringe inside, she was always careful to show a calm face to the patient.
She had often been complimented on her resolution in sewing a wound even as the patient jerked and cried for mercy; inside she had been flinching with every stitch and crying for mercy, too.
And now there was this extra factor to shake her nerves. The memory of his body against hers; the tangy smell of leather and that other scent which was particularly his; the feel of his strong, resilient flesh beneath her hands . . .
She reminded herself she was going to marry Stephen de Faix, who doubtless had sleek muscles, too.
Madeleine took a deep breath and pressed the swollen edges of the wound close together.
Steadying herself, she pushed the needle firmly through the flesh, braced for a fight.
There was the slightest movement of his arm, instantly stilled.
She went in again and then tied off the stitch, not too tight, not too loose.
She moved down a little and pushed the needle in again. He couldn’t stop the rock-hard tension in his arm, but apart from that it was as if she worked on meat, not living flesh. If he could control himself so well, she could do a good job.
He was not a coward then, she thought as she worked, trying to pretend this was a piece of pork she was sewing, just like the ones she had used when training at the Abbaye. How easy healing would be if one could ignore the patient’s pain.
But why the fuss earlier if he could handle pain? Because he hated being touched by her? At that thought, she missed her place and had to take the needle out and put it in again. She glanced up guiltily. He gave no reaction.
Heavens, she was probably going to be the one in tears, not him.
She fixed the final stitch on the back of his hand and gave a shuddering sigh of relief. A goblet appeared before her. “You are very skillful,” he said.
She took the cup and drank deeply. “You are an excellent patient,” she responded. “Can I hope you will continue it and not use that arm for a day or two?”
She returned the cup, and he drank from it. They were sharing the same cup. It seemed unbearably intimate.
“That depends,” he said, “on whether you insist on a fight for the maiden’s favors. I don’t think I’d be allowed to stand aside, and I don’t wield a sword well left-handed.”
“You are not to even think of lifting a sword for a week,” she declared, horrified.
He raised a brow. “I think your previous experience has not been with warriors, demoiselle. If I’m called to fight, I fight.”
She turned to put away some of her supplies. “I won’t ask for a trial of arms.”
That mad scene out in the woods had returned as if it were taking place all over again. His anger. His threats. His kiss. His pain. She closed a chest blindly and turned to him, but without words of any purpose . . .
He was studying her, puzzled. “Some of the people here were flogged some months back,” he said. “What happened?”
She frowned over the question, but suddenly it led straight back to Odo’s attack, and Edwald, who’d been kind to her that day for the last time. Edwald, who carried a skin design on his right hand. “Those marks on your hand,” she said slowly. “Are they common among the English?”
The discontinuity of the conversation clearly didn’t surprise him. “Yes,” he said. “All English nobles are marked in this way.”
“In the same place?”
“On the sword hand and arm.”
Her earlier certainty that this man was Golden Hart had begun to waver. Now his words suggested that Edwald and Golden Hart could be some other golden-haired, green-eyed, handsome English nobleman.
One who turned her knees to water at a touch?
“Face marks used to be popular,” he added with a wry smile, “but have gone out of fashion, for which I’m grateful.” He seemed at ease.
She raised his hand. “How is it done?”
“Needles and dye,” he replied. His hand rested without resistance in hers.
“It must hurt.”
“No more than you sewing me up.”
“But so many more needles. How old were you?”
“Fourteen. It’s a sign of manhood not to flinch.”
The flesh was swollen and discolored, and it was hard to see the design.
Higher on his arm was the stylized rump of an animal with flying legs.
It could be almost anything—horse, deer, sheep.
She turned his unresisting hand into the full sunlight, ostensibly to check her work but really to study the red, brown, and yellow marks.
It was no good. She could not identify the animal, but if the hand healed well, in a few days the design would be clear once more. In a few days she’d be married to Stephen de Faix, and Aimery de Gaillard would be gone from her life forever.
He turned his hand to take hers. “What is it?”
She shook her head and pulled away to assemble her poultice and bandage, and to gather her self-control. She was in command of herself again when she turned back.
He dryly anticipated her words. “Don’t tell me, it’s going to sting.”
Her lips twitched. “If it doesn’t hurt, it’s probably not doing any good.”
“You remind me of my mother,” he said lightly, and was relaxed enough to let out a curse when she pressed the warm pack over the wound. She quickly bound it there with gooseskin and leather thongs.
“I want to check it tomorrow,” she said briskly.
“On your wedding day. What devotion.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Hardly a normal wedding day.”
The silence built in the room like a nest of blades, painful every way she turned.
She met his eyes. “I’m going to marry Stephen.”
He stood. “It will be for the best.”