Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Nyneve
Nyneve came to a halt, grateful for the quiet and the crutches the servants had procured for her to make the long walk from the castle to the physician’s cottage.
Out past the citadel’s center, the sounds of wagon wheels, clopping hooves, and shouting merchants had faded, giving way to birdsong and the rush of the wind through the trees.
She tried to draw in a long inhale, only for her lungs to hitch when the guard raised his hand and knocked crisply on the cottage’s door.
Apprehension curled in her belly, sticky as tar.
Yet again, Nyneve fought the urge to run despite the crutches held tight in her clammy grasp.
The guard at her side smelled of leather and sweat, the dagger on his belt gleaming in the sun like a reminder that she did not belong here and could be cut out of the citadel in a moment.
Her heart fluttering, Nyneve looked away from the weapon, taking in the physician’s cottage again.
It was a small stone structure that sat on the far side of Camelot beside one of its crumbling inner walls, perched on the edge of the hill.
Fens and forest spilled out at the foot of the slope, dotted with clouds and the passing shadow of winged creatures.
Gardens surrounded the cottage on three sides like a half-moon.
Pots sat in precise rows, and plots of freshly tilled soil were dark with spring rain.
Arbors reached toward the sky, vines just beginning to wake from their sleep.
The sight of it made her take a long, deep breath—probably the first deep breath she’d taken since walking through Camelot’s gates earlier this morning. The guard knocked again, and this time she caught the sound of a gruff male voice yelling something from within the cottage.
Then the door swung open with surprising force, revealing a tall older man in blueish-gray robes. He had a mane of white hair and thick eyebrows, which pulled into a furrow as he took in Nyneve and then the guard.
“Is one of you on death’s door?” he inquired, crossing his arms.
“No,” the guard replied. “This is a noble lady who seeks apprenticeship, you see. Lady Nyneve of House Or’Afon.”
The physician’s attention swept over her, his heavy brow drawing even tighter. “You’re of a noble house, yet you seek apprenticeship with the court physician?” he asked, as if it were the most absurd thing in the world.
“It was Her Highness’s idea,” the guard replied.
Galen ignored him, his gaze still on her, which Nyneve appreciated. The physician had asked her a question, not the guard.
“It was,” Nyneve confirmed, shifting her weight.
The crutches were beginning to hurt her arms. “I lost my parents as a young thing, sir. I’ve spent my years in a nunnery, trained in common healing and scribing.
When I came of age, the sisters told me the truth of my birth and sent me to seek my fate in the halls of my father. ”
She winced—maybe a little too close to what she’d said to the queen. Too rehearsed, making her possibly suspicious. Or maybe perfectly normal, any young, sheltered girl simply reciting the words she’d been told to say by her elders.
Galen leaned against the doorframe, looking deeply annoyed. “Why do you not seek marriage like any other noblewoman?” he demanded, staring down at Nyneve, his eyes hawk-like, the effect only emphasized by the hook of his nose.
The guard made a noise of approval at her side, crossing his arms. Nyneve bit down on her tongue, trying to quiet the swell of rage in her chest. Had this been the queen’s plan, she wondered? Had Her Highness simply wanted to pass Nyneve off to someone else to deal with?
Settling on a reply, she said, “Because I do not want one,” lifting her chin to meet Galen’s eyes.
She paused, letting the sweep of the breeze and the sound of birdsong calm her racing heart.
“My talents would be wasted on a marriage, doing little more than producing heirs like a broodmare. Besides, I have no living father. No coin. No land. Who would have me, even if I wanted it?”
Beside her, the guard let out a choked sound. Nyneve ignored him, bracing herself for Galen’s admonishment, for some half-spat, half-snarled command to get out of his cottage.
“Ah,” Galen replied instead with a nod, his voice lighter than before, the furrowed brow relaxing.
His deep blue eyes glimmered, making his features seem much more alive and animated as he pushed off the cottage’s doorframe to examine her, peering into the bright sunlight.
“Very good. I do not wish to train an apprentice, make a good healer out of her, grow to like having a young whelp carrying my things around and helping set a bone, just to lose her to the fickle affection of some idiot knight, you see.”
Surprise slammed into Nyneve. Her mouth hung open in shock for a heartbeat or two, but then she gathered herself. “Fair enough, sir,” she said with a shrug. “You’ll find I’m not particularly moved by errant, half-hearted affections.”
Galen grinned at her, uncrossing his arms. “Well, come in, then,” he said, stepping away from the door and opening it wider. “Let’s look at that ankle of yours and have a longer talk.”
Nyneve’s heart soared at his response, and she hobbled her way through the door, pleased to find a small antechamber with hard-swept stone floors, bookended by floor-to-ceiling shelves.
Two windows in the front wall with thick, opaque glass let in the daylight, making the bottles and jars tucked neatly into rows on the shelves glimmer.
“No, not you,” Galen said suddenly. Startled, Nyneve turned to find the physician barring the guard from entering. “Back off to the castle with you. We have no need of you any longer.” And with that, Galen slammed the door in the guardsman’s face.
Nyneve looked at him with surprise, holding his gaze as the room darkened in the absence of the light streaming through the door.
“I wish to speak with you plainly,” Galen said as a way of explanation, striding across the room to light a hearth Nyneve hadn’t noticed, set at an angle into the corner of the wall. “And I prefer to do such things without royal ears.”
“Ah,” she murmured in response, sinking into a chair pushed up against a large table in the middle of the room.
She bit down a cry of pain, setting the crutches to the side.
“The queen granted me wardship but asked me what I might give back in return to the city. My skills in healing interested her most.”
Galen nodded, turning his back to her to rummage through a drawer. She swept her gaze along the towering shelves, taking in the dried herbs and powders and even some books—rare, precious things in her world.
“I’d like to address your injury, unless you’d rather do it yourself,” he said.
“No, no, I would appreciate that,” she replied, immediately bending over to unlace her leather boot.
In the woods, she hadn’t had time to properly examine her ankle, so she rolled her woolen stocking down carefully.
Gingerly, she felt around her bones and tendons, biting down the discomfort.
Her ankle was swollen, hot to the touch, but lacking obvious signs of a broken bone. “A bad strain, I would reckon.”
“Sometimes that’s worse than a clean break,” the physician grumbled, turning back to face her, his arms filled with supplies.
Wordlessly, he deposited two wooden splints and a folded strip of clean linen on the table next to her.
He insisted on evaluating her injury himself and then launched into an incredible lecture on tendons, which Nyneve happily devoured.
After binding her ankle with the sturdy linen and splints, Galen rummaged through the bottles arranged on the large, dark shelves. “Nyneve,” he began, turning back to look at her. Then he paused, considering. “May I call you Nyneve, or is that too familiar?”
She smiled at him, a tiny bud of fondness for the physician pushing through the dense soil of her heart. “Nyneve is perfectly fine,” she replied. “And what shall I call you?”
“Oh, just Galen,” he replied, crossing his arms. He cleared his throat, the backlight of the fire making his bushy eyebrows and hawk-like eyes all the more intense. “They say you rode to the city’s gates on a knight’s destrier.”
Nyneve kept her expression neutral despite the way her heart floundered against her ribs. She hadn’t thought news would spread so quickly. “Yes.”
“Hmph,” he said with a pleased expression. “Useful in an apprentice. I can’t ride as hard and fast as I used to. Sometimes it’s needed in case of an emergency in the outlying villages.”
“Of course,” she replied, wondering if he’d caught her momentary panic. “The nunnery had a small livery. I’m comfortable on horseback.”
Galen said nothing in reply, turning toward the hearth as if she hadn’t spoken. She watched him retrieve a pot hanging over the flame and then pour the water into a cup he’d pulled down from the shelves. Confused, she eyed the peculiar man until a familiar earthy aroma met her nose.
“Oh, bless you, Galen,” she said as the physician turned, offering her the cup of steeped white willow bark. “I have some more bark in my rucksack if you need to replace the stores used on me.”
Nyneve took a long sip and then set it aside to steep into a stronger draught.
Without replying, Galen sat down in the chair at the opposite end of the table.
Then, lacking any warning or prelude, he immediately began to quiz her on the properties of common herbs.
Once satisfied with her answers, he moved on to posing hypothetical illnesses, asking what she’d consider as root causes and how she might treat the ailment.