Chapter Six #6
With a heavy sigh, and thinking he was a fool to acquiesce, he simply nodded to Stephan. “Put that woman on your horse,” he said, pointing to the disheveled figure. “Let her show us where these children are or we shall never make it to Hyssington on schedule.”
As Stephan moved to help the woman onto his saddle, and unhappy in doing so because she smelled and was dirty, Gates turned to the soldiers mounted nearby and gave them a directive – the main body of soldiers was to remain on the road and wait for them while he took ten men with him as a guard just in case the weeping woman was leading them into trouble.
His horse was fast, and he was certain he could get away if this was some kind of trap, but he wanted the main part of the escort to remain behind in case it was.
Too many men caught up in a trap would make it chaotic and difficult to flee from it.
With the weeping woman mounted behind Stephan, she directed them onto a small path they had passed about a quarter of a mile back, a path that led through a snow-covered field, through a grove of snow-heavy trees, and emerged out the other side to a small farm.
It really wasn’t far off the main road at all and, so far, there had been no signs of a trap.
Still, Gates was cautious and his senses were heightened as the woman riding behind Stephan led them to a small cottage amongst a cluster of outbuildings, all of them housing barn animals of some kind.
With the melting snow and cold weather, it smelled terribly of animals and urine.
The entire complex appeared dirty and run-down.
The woman riding behind Stephan slid off and rushed to the door of the cottage, pushing it open.
Kathalin didn’t wait for Gates to help her down from the saddle; she simply slid off as well and followed the woman into the cottage.
With a grunt of frustration, for he had wanted to check out the cottage to make sure there was no danger inside before Kathalin entered, Gates bailed off his steed, secured the animal’s reins to a post used for that purpose, and barged into the cottage after her.
The moment he entered the cottage, he knew something was very wrong.
It was dark and freezing cold, and there was no fire in the hearth.
He blinked his eyes, adjusting to the dim light, and he could see Kathalin over against the far wall, bending over a bed.
As he stood in the doorway and let the cold air filter in behind him, Kathalin left the bed and scooted in his direction.
She had both of her fine new gloves in one hand and was starting to unfasten the cloak around her neck.
“Both of the children indeed have fevers and I believe the grandmother does as well,” she said, indicating a very old woman sitting next to the bed. “This cottage is freezing. Can you please start a fire? We must warm it up.”
Gates frowned. “It is not my job to start a fire,” he said flatly. “Let the husband do it.”
Kathalin looked at him, disheartened by his selfish reply, before turning to the peasant woman who was now bending over the bed, weeping softly as she spoke to her children.
“Where is your husband, woman?” Kathalin asked. “Where is wood for the fire?”
The peasant woman turned to look at the lady and the knight standing in the doorway. “Me husband died two weeks ago of illness,” she said, wiping her nose with her hand again. “It has been snowing and we’ve not had the means to cut wood.”
Kathalin’s brow furrowed with concern. “So you have been without fire for two weeks?” she asked, aghast. “In this weather?”
The woman merely shrugged. “Everyone is ill but me,” she said. “I cannot leave, even to cut wood. And the snow has been very bad. Even leaving this morning to seek a physic was difficult. It has been the first clear day in weeks and I had to go.”
Kathalin was horrified by the story. Turning to Gates with a look of such sorrow in her expression, he didn’t even wait for her to ask him again.
He was already on the move. Turning around, he began barking orders to the soldiers that had accompanied them and soon, men were beginning to move, off to find an axe or some other way to cut wood.
Things were in motion. Gates watched his men move and, in particular, Stephan taking a lead role in the search for an axe, before returning his attention to Kathalin.
“We will start a fire,” he said. “I will have my men chop enough wood to see them through for a while. Do you require anything else?”
Kathalin nodded. “Provisions,” she said, looking around the dark, cold cottage.
“If they’ve had no fire then they’ve had little food, and certainly not hot food.
Bring me the remainder of the provisions you had for the army on their journey to Ludlow.
If Hyssington is not far off, then surely we do not need them. These people need food.”
It made sense to Gates and he nodded without hesitation. “It will be done,” he said. “If there is anything else, do not hesitate to ask.”
“Willow bark,” she said as he turned around to leave. He paused to look at her curiously and she continued. “I need willow bark. Certainly you know what a willow looks like?”
He nodded, cocking an eyebrow. “What do you need with willow bark?”
Kathalin finished unfastening the cloak and she carefully laid it across the old, broken-down eating table near the hearth.
“I will make a brew to ease their fevers,” she said.
“She says the children have been sick for several days so I am not entirely sure I can help them, but I will do what I can.”
She was businesslike and confident, and Gates realized he was seeing a completely different side of her.
The lady who had fought him, resisted him, and who was so incredibly na?ve in the world outside of St. Milburga’s seemed to have finally found something she was quite confident in – healing.
She was in her element now and Gates, initially reluctant to allow her to help these peasants, wasn’t so reluctant any longer.
In fact, he was rather interested in watching her work.
“Very well,” he finally said, eyeing the peasant woman over by the bed. “Before I go hunting for willow trees in the snow, ask her if she knows of any.”
Kathalin nodded, returning to the bed where the woman and her children were gathered, and she asked the woman about willow trees in the area.
Immediately, the woman pointed off to the west and, as Gates watched, evidently gave Kathalin some manner of instructions.
Kathalin listened and quickly returned to him.
“There is a stream behind the house and the woman says that the white willows grow there,” she said. “You must cut out squares of the surface bark and bring it to me. Please bring me as much as you can.”
She was holding up her hands to demonstrate the size and thickness of what she required. Gates bobbed his head in acknowledgement.
“Aye, my lady.”
“And hurry.”
“Aye, my lady.”
Kathalin offered him a timid little smile of gratitude as he headed out of the cottage and Gates was bold enough to wink at her. That sassy, bold wink. Kathalin’s smile turned genuine as she watched the man walk out and close the door behind him.
Giddy, she thought. He makes me quite giddy.
Smile still on her face, she turned back to the woman and her children, huddled in the bed, and promptly went to work.
When the farmer’s widow had set out for the nearest village that morning in search of help for her children, she never imagined that the day would turn out as it did with the fortuitous meeting of the soldiers from Hyssington.
It would seem that God had decided she’d had enough pain over the past few weeks and was determined to send her angels of relief in the form of a well-dressed lady, two knights, and several burly soldiers.
It started when the two knights had gone off to harvest willow bark per the lady’s instructions.
Outside, the soldier searching for an axe had managed to come across two of them in the larger outbuilding that served as a barn for several sheep, two goats, two horses, and a cow who were quite hungry from having not been fed.
With the death of the farmer and the sick children, the widow hadn’t been able to tend them as well as she needed to.
Therefore, while four of the soldiers went off to cut wood for the fire, the rest remained behind with the stock and released them from the barn so they could wander the muddy, frozen yard.
They found a stash of hay in a smaller outbuilding, part of which had been damaged by a leaking roof, and while a pair of soldiers tossed bundles of hay to the hungry animals, another soldier fixed the roof so the rest of the hay could remain in good condition, at least for a while.
When they finished pitching the hay, the de Lara soldiers wandered the farm to see if anything else needed tending or fixing.
When they found something, they took care of it.
The little farm had a good deal of help that day.
Meanwhile, the four men who had gone off to chop wood from a nearby copse of trees returned dragging saplings and other not-quite-mature trees because they didn’t have the means to haul anything bigger.
The wood was mostly wet although there was some of it that was dry, and the wood was cut up and brought into the woodshed next to the cottage, stacked up so it could dry.
Meanwhile, Kathalin had admitted one of the soldiers into the cottage so the man could start a fire.
Soon enough, a blaze began to burn in the darkened hearth and for the first time in days, the sad little cottage saw light and warmth.