Chapter Eight
Scars
Lara
“Sit.” Lara pointed the
captain toward the stool outside of the Black’s stall as Denys
stabled the stallion. Wolf came sniffing in behind them.
A groan escaped the captain’s pressed
lips as he sat and leaned his head back against the wall, eyes
closed. His sun-bronzed cheeks were paler than usual, with bright
pink spots in the middle, and a fine sheen of sweat glistened on
his nose and forehead. Wolf lay down at his feet as Lara let the
captain rest for the time it took Denys to finish setting the Black
up in his stall and another stable boy to bring the two buckets of
water she’d asked for, one of which she set down beside the captain
and the other in the stall with the Black. She pulled a stool over
to sit facing the captain and dug into her bag for a washing cloth
and tubs of cleansing and knitting balms.
“Captain?” He opened an
eye and peered up at her. “I’m going to wash the blood from your
wound.” She dipped the cloth into the bucket of water. He gave her
the slightest of nods and closed his eye. “I’ll try to be
gentle.”
He sighed. “I’m sure you
will.”
Lara wasn’t quite sure if he was
teasing her or not but decided to let it go. She wiped the drying
blood from a gash over his left eyebrow that was an inch in length
but shallow enough it wouldn’t need stitches, then rinsed the cloth
and dipped a corner of it into the cleansing balm and gently washed
the skin around the wound. She wiped the soapy balm away and then
sat back, letting the wound air dry. “Well. You’ll soon have
another scar for your collection.”
Both eyes now open, he peered up at
her, though the flesh around his left eye was already starting to
swell. “My collection?” He offered a more lopsided grin than his
usual. They both knew he’d caught her watching him strip down to
his breechcloth before bed a dozen times at least. “What collection
would that be?”
“I am a healer.” She felt
the sudden need to wipe her own heated face and neck down with a
cool rag. “I do notice such things.”
He flexed his scarred hand. “As well
as give them,” he said with a teasing grin.
“You’re never going to
forgive me for that, are you?” she half teased back. “You know as
well as I do you deserved it for your brazenness.”
“And had my hand served
back to me bloody for my transgression. And rightly so.” He held
her gaze for a moment, then lifted his marked palm up to her.
“Peace, lady?”
Lara took his hand in hers, the feel
of his warm skin and calloused palm causing her cooling skin to
flush once more. She lowered it to his lap. “Peace,
Captain.”
He nodded and leaned back against the
wall, closing his eyes with a heavy sigh as Lara wrung the
washcloth out and hung it over the stall’s gate. She put the tub of
cleansing balm back in her bag and sat forward, taking in the
captain up close. He wasn’t a pretty man like Ranulf or the young
soldier Dardinel; he had too many scars and his features were too
rough-hewn, too hard. But he was a handsome man, ruggedly so, his
maleness palpable. He opened his eyes, staring straight into
hers.
“So,” she said, sitting
back and putting a little distance between them, “what is this
curse that bedevils you?”
“Curse?”
“The curse that Phillipe
and Anglbert spoke of, that causes you to fall from your
horse?”
“Ah, that curse.” He
clamped his lips together and slowly shook his head. He wasn’t
going to tell her.
“Well then, what must you
do to break this curse?”
He snorted and rubbed his jaw.
“Nothing much. Just tame a wildcat barehanded without bleeding to
death.”
“A wildcat?
Barehanded?”
He looked down at his scarred palm.
“Apparently.”
“Then you will be free of
this curse?”
He cocked his head at her and
shrugged. “Who knows.” He laid his head back and closed his eyes
with a groan.
It would do no good to press him
further, this much Lara knew about the captain. She also knew that
curses weren’t always so straightforward. Did he really need to
tame an actual wildcat, or did the wildcat represent something or
someone else? Was it a woman, as wildcats were usually portrayed?
The carving she’d found in his chest came to mind, and how Phillipe
had described her as a dream. A dream of what, or who? It wasn’t
her. The captain had declared he didn’t want her in no uncertain
terms the night of Mallus. As far as Lara knew, he hadn’t shown a
special interest in any of the women in the valley, though plenty
had shown interest in him, especially Ravenna. She’d bought half a
dozen vials of love potion from Sophie since the captain had been
garrisoned here and had let Sophie know they were all intended for
him. That kind of attention could turn any man’s head. Lara
wrinkled her nose at the thought of the captain burying his nose
into Ravenna’s hair and breathing in the scent of her rose soap,
then admonished herself. Why should she care whose hair he chose to
sniff?
She got back to the
business of tending to her patient and pulled a long strip of bandage from her bag and set it by the
tub of knitting balm, then pressed another dry cloth to his wound
to soak up the bloody seepage. He didn’t wince or even
twitch.
“Captain,” she said
softly, then louder when he didn’t respond. He opened his eyes, and
it took him a moment to focus on her. She held a finger up in front
of him. “Can you follow my finger without moving your head?” She
moved her hand back and forth, and he tracked and
followed.
“I know what you’re
doing.” He sat up straighter and took a deep breath in and blew it
out. “I’ve done it a few times myself to men with head
wounds.”
“Then you know what I’m
going to ask you next?”
He took another breath in and exhaled.
“Yes, I only see one of you. No, I don’t feel dizzy or sick. And
yes, my head hurts like hell.”
“Good. That’s good.” Even
so, she didn’t want him nodding off again. “What sort of short
sword is it you carry? It’s not what the men of Gaul usually carry.
Not a spatha.”
He squinted through his good eye at
her. “It’s called a falcata. The soldiers of Rome use them. They’re
lighter made than a spatha, but the blade is as strong.”
“Was your falcata made in
Rome?”
“It was, by the swordsmith
Reynaldo.”
“The horse head hilt,”
Lara said. “It fits you.”
He cocked his head at her, then winced
and cupped the back of his neck.
“You should soak a towel
in hot water and lay it across your neck and shoulders,” she told
him. “It will ease some of the tightness.” He grunted, and she
scooped some of the knitting balm onto her fingertip. “This is a
balm of yarrow and comfrey.” She smeared it over his wound then
wiped the excess on a rag as he touched a tentative fingertip to
his eyebrow. “You’re lucky.” She unraveled the length of bandage.
“It won’t need stitching and should heal well with only a bandage
for several days.”
“Good. I’ve been pricked
by a healer’s needle before. It wasn’t a pleasant
experience.”
“Your leg?”
“It took fifteen
stitches.”
Lara winced involuntarily, her body
remembering.
“You’ve been sewn up
too?”
She pushed her left sleeve up and
pointed to a faint white line that ran up the inside of her upper
arm. “When I was ten, I dove off the old oak into the river and got
sliced open by a stick. Sophie closed it with six
stitches.”
“No fun, is
it?”
She shook her head. “None at all.” She
held the bandage up, and he sat forward. She wrapped it around his
head and breathed in the unexpectedly heady scent of man, horse,
and leather. “Wash the wound in your bath each night. I’ll bandage
it again after. Otherwise keep it dry and clean and no more
headlong dives into the dirt.”
The captain snorted. “Tell it to that
brute there.” He waved a hand toward the Black. “A stallion who
charges into battle but shies away from flies.”
The horse snorted right back, and Lara
laughed softly as she tied the bandage off. She closed the tub of
knitting balm, then put it back in her bag before grabbing an apple
from the bottom of it and stepping up to the gate of the Black’s
stall.
“He’ll not let you near
him,” the captain warned her. “Not when he has his ire up like
this.”
“We’ll see about that,”
she said in a singsong voice. “Shan’t we, Black?” The stallion
pricked his ears forward and the captain sat erect on his stool.
“You remember me, don’t you Black? We first met at the river and
then several times since.” She held the apple out on her open palm,
grinning as the stallion gently plucked it from her hand. “I’ve
been bribing him with apples for a while now.”
“Traitor,” he growled
good-naturedly at the stallion, who munched his apple, unconcerned.
The captain stood with a slight groan as she picked up her bag,
then followed her into the stall. He took hold of the stallion’s
bridle and patted his neck as Lara ran a hand over his withers and
down his injured foreleg.
“There’s a swelling on his
fetlock. No cuts or scrapes.” She squeezed the joint, gently at
first, then applying more and more pressure until the Black tried
to pull his leg away, then she slowly bent his hoof forward and
backward, noting the stallion’s reaction. She lifted his hoof,
taking a good long look at the underside. “His hoof looks fine.”
She set it back down on the ground and watched as he shifted so the
leg didn’t bear any weight. Standing upright, Lara ran a hand down
the stallion’s powerfully muscled back and haunches. “I think he
twisted it. Bad enough that he’ll need to be kept off it until he
can walk without limping.” The captain nodded and swayed on his
feet. “You should sit and rest as well.”
“No, I’m—”
She pointed at the stool on the other
side of the gate. “Sit. Now.”
“Yes,
mistress.”
Lara waited until the captain was
safely on the stool, then she pulled out the same tub of ointment
she used on Fulrad’s knee, scooped up a handful, and rubbed it into
the stallion’s fetlock, grinning as the horse nickered and blew
into her hair.
“You should be quite
flattered,” the captain said as she scooped another handful of
ointment from the tub. “He’s never let anyone but me tend his
wounds before. He can be a contrary beast at times.”
Lara grinned. “Much like his
master.”