Chapter Forty-Two
The Farmstead in the Black Hills
Wethe slid off the back of the horse before Yfin brought it to a halt before the manor. Lady of Laughter, she was too old for this, but needs must when the snows threaten. She checked her satchel was still on her hip. She wasn’t as sure about her wits.
Jerrold and Captain Roth were splashing buckets of warm water onto the blood splotches in the courtyard. Steam rose in the cold air.
The boy had said that only Rye was wounded, but there was a lot of blood scattered about. Wethe ducked into the warm kitchen, to find Rosalind and Orval there, both clearly in shock/ Thankfully they had no visible wounds.
“Amari,” Orval started.
“She’s safe, with the babes.” Wethe doffed her cloak as she moved farther into the room. “Mother Bercie and Petro won’t let her leave until the all-clear is sounded. Where is Rye?”
“Thank the SunLord,” Rosalind said. She looked down at the bloody clothes in her lap. “They carried Rye to his room,” she said, jerking her head toward the stairs. “Aramal is with him.”
“Anyone else injured?” Wethe asked.
“No.” Rosalind’s face crumpled. “Wethe, it’s his head.”
Wethe nodded as she headed up the stairs. Yfin had told her as much when he’d burst through her door, words spilling out of the boy even during the wild gallop here. From the amount of blood on that tunic…
Well, no knowing until the doing. She pushed the door open.
“Wethe,” Aramal held a bloody cloth to the wound in one hand; his other held one of Rye’s. She acknowledged him with a nod, but only had eyes for her patient.
“Well, let’s see what we can do,” she said, and set about it. Aramal released Rye’s hand, stood, and stepped slightly to the side.
She pulled back the bandages and started to examine the wound. Aramal was trembling, watching her every move, his tunic and trous stained with blood. Time to give him something to do. “Warm water,” she murmured. “A few more clean rags, if you will.”
“Of course,” Aramal said and slipped out the door.
“Tsk,” Wethe clicked her tongue as she tilted Ry’s head. It was a bad injury, sure enough. She’d seen enough to know that recovery was unlikely.
Aramal returned with a basin and towels, and with his help Wethe dressed the wound again.
Together, they settled Rye in the bed. She watched as Aramal fussed with the blankets, pulling them up over Rye’s shoulders.
It struck her, as it always did, that hands so rough and worn with work could be so gentle.
“Now we wait,” she said. “The hardest part.”
Aramal nodded, never taking his eyes off the man in the bed.
“Aramal, you need to clean up and eat something,” she chided him. “I’ll sit with him.”
Aramal stood, shoulders slumped, his face etched with sorrow. “I can’t,” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “He didn’t rouse when we washed him, his eyes, his hands, his feet, nothing twitched…” He trailed off, his gaze fixed on the wounded man’s face as if waiting for a miracle.
“He breathes,” Wethe reassured him. “And the bleeding has stopped. In the morning, we will see if he can swallow liquids.” She fumbled in her satchel for a sleeping draft.
“I offer no promises, Aramal. Head blows are difficult to predict.” She pressed the bottle into his hands.
“Is there another place you can sleep? For tonight?”
“Leeda’s room,” Aramal took the bottle, but still watching Rye’s face, so pale and still in the candlelight. “Leeda had to leave…to go…”
There was a tale there, Wethe thought, but not for the moment. She met Aramal’s gaze with a steady one of her own. Rye was not her only patient.
“Even if he can swallow, he’ll waste away.” Despair was thick in his voice. “I will do anything, care for him.” He looked at her. “If there is any chance—” he broke off with a sob.
“It may be a long, hard road,” she set a gentle hand on his shoulder.
He nodded through his tears. “I would still walk it.” He looked back at the bed. “We had such a short time,” he whispered. “But it was…perfect.”
Wethe felt the all-to-familiar pang of trying to heal the pain of the heart. So much easier to deal with the body.
She tugged at Aramal’s arm. “Eat, then take that tincture. It’s mild enough, trust me. I will watch over him tonight. Mind you, I am bolting this door. Don’t even think to return until you have slept and bathed and eaten.”
“Yes, yes,” he turned toward the door, giving in to her urging. “But if he wakes or stirs—”
“I will call you.” Wethe gently pushed him out the door.
“Thank you,” Aramal said. “Thank you for—”
“Doing my craft?” She smiled at him to take the bite from the words. “You are welcome. Now go.” With that, she shut the door and threw the bolt. She heard him sigh, then his footsteps as he slowly walked away.
There came the sounds of a wagon and a goat cart pulling up outside. She heard Amari calling for Orval, and him calling her name in response. Other voices chimed in. They’d be busy for a while, talking over events.
Wethe returned to Rye’s bedside, but her patient hadn’t stirred. Of course, one never knew what the unconscious heard or remembered. The blankets were up tight around his neck; he’d be warm enough. She went to the window and opened the shutters.
Cool air flowed in, swirling around her ankles. Wethe sat on the chair by the bed and stared out at the sky.
The setting sun and the rising moon shared the sky as the twilight deepened. The old stories told of the Lord of Light and the Lady of Laughter dancing together, the stars the jewels on their clothing.
She pulled her chair around so she could both watch her patient and see the moon and stars, and settled in. She’d a bit of mending in her bag, always did for times like these. For the moment, in the quiet of the night, she’d let herself breathe.
Aramal’s pain lingered with her, like a bad taste at the back of her throat. Such pain, and the gossip was that they’d only been together for since the Summer Solstice, after pining after each other for years. Such a short time.
Still. The moon would rise and the sun would set and it would be as it would be. As it always was.
She heard a scratching sound from outside before the ugly barn cat leaped up on the sill. It sat, curling its tail around its feet, its watery green gaze fixed on her.
Wethe narrowed her eyes at it, then looked back at the moon, which appeared brighter now, glowing white. It paused, hanging there, as if to ask a question.
Or make a request.
“It’s a risk,” she whispered. “One I am not sure it is wise to take.” She waited, listening to her own heartbeat, as the moon glowed.
The cat started to wash its face, uncaring, as cats can be.
“It’s a bad wound,” she whispered again, not sure who she was trying to convince. “It might do no more than stave off death, given the blow.”
Deep within, she felt Aramal’s pain echo in her own heart.
Wethe sighed. So be it. She dug deep into her mending bag and drew a worn, silver brooch from its secret pocket. She gently rubbed her thumb over the raised half-moon and its accompanying silver stars. She hadn’t done this in so long, always wary of discovery.
Well, it would be as it would be. She went again to check the door was securely bolted, then returned to the bed. She looked down at her patient as she pinned the brooch to her tunic. “Don’t make me regret this,” she whispered to Rye.
She rubbed her hands together, warming them, focusing with half-closed eyes. She placed her hands on either side of Rye’s head, combing through his thick black hair to make sure each fingertip touched skin. She drew breath, then, and let it out slow.
“Hail to thee, Lady of Laughter,” Wethe started the old prayer, keeping her voice low and soft.
Her hands began to glow.
The sound of a sharp inhalation of breath roused Amari. “Orval?” she whispered into the still darkness.
“Sorry,” came the reply from beside her.
“A cramp?” she asked, lifting her head from her pillow. Their chamber was lit with moonlight, enough that she could see.
“Nightmare,” his breathing was ragged. “I close my eyes to try to sleep and I see him, coming toward me, sword in hand, coming to kill—” he stopped and swallowed hard.
Amari shifted, reaching out to cup Orval’s face. His skin was cold and clammy under her fingers; there were tears on his cheek. “Orval, you’re freezing,” she said as she wrapped herself around him and felt the tremors running through his body.
He threw his arms around her and she put her head on his shoulder. “I had my dagger,” he said. “But all I could do was feint and flick that damn scarf in his face. I see him coming, and there’s nothing I can do, I can’t move, I can’t—”
“Roth said you did well,” Amari said. “For a bookish type,” she added.
Orval snorted a thin, trembling laugh. Amari closed her eyes and listened to his racing heart, breathing in his scent of ink and paper and skin.
She’d feared for him, all that time, waiting to hear what had happened, sitting with her children, helpless, nothing to do but sit and wait and wonder and worry.
A different kind of nightmare.
Orval seemed to sense her disquiet. His arms tightened around her.
“We’re safe,” Amari reassured him, and to be honest, herself. “Here,” she found his hand, as cold as the rest of him, and held it to her heart. “I am safe, the children are safe—”
“Ten men dead in our courtyard, obeying the Queen.” Orval sighed. “What of their families? Lives cut short—”
“Orval, those men would have given no second thought to your death,” Amari protested.
“They were offered the food and comfort of the Hearth and they offered harm in return.” The very idea angered her and she spoke sharply. “They deserved no less.”
“Ritathan will probably die.” Orval continued. “Aramal already grieves his death. I let them take Halithe—”
“No, you allowed her to make a choice,” Amari said firmly.
“You allowed her to save her master and keep us safe in the bargain. Brave girl, to offer herself like that. The Ancestors aid her to find her way back to us.” Amari shifted so she could see Orval’s face in the moonlight.
“And you have won the loyalty of the Black Hills. Or at least, the town of Waerington.”
“Ritathan was keeping secrets,” Orval said. “He never mentioned the Ring.”
Amari nodded. “As we kept secrets from him and Aramal and Halithe. That was wise.”
Orval nodded, staring at the ceiling. “Ussin told me that Xyrath warned him. That Ussin was to carry out no orders but his.” He looked at her, his eyes glittering in the light. “Why would Satia do this? We did nothing to her, we are no threat to her.”
“She plots and schemes, so she thinks we plot and scheme in our turn.” Amari said. “Her reward is constant worry and paranoia. Eventually she will come to see that. We will defeat her.”
“With our bean harvest?” Orval asked wryly, but she felt him relaxing against her.
Amari nestled back down, her head on his shoulder, his hand on her heart. She covered that hand with both of hers, feeling warmth return to his fingers. “We will work and grow in all the good gifts the Hearth brings us, in spite of her. We will be wary, but we will not fall into despair or hate.”
“As you say, wise and wonderful Hearth Mother.” Orval kissed her ear.
Amari tilted her head, inviting more. “If I had my way, I would love the nightmares right out of you,” she whispered.
He sighed. “Not sure it will work.”
“No reason not to try,” she said, then stifled a groan as the baby kicked her hard. “Oof. I fear the babe has other plans.”
Orval chuckled, then moved them both so that she was on her side, spooned within his arms. His hand rubbed over her belly. “Go easy on your mama, little one.”
The babe kicked again.
“I suspect this child will be a fighter, the way it kicks.” Orval said, and yawned.
“I hope she has your eyes,” Amari let out a slow breath, closing her eyes at the comfort of Orval’s touch, relaxing into the warmth.
“He’ll have more than that,” Orval said drowsily into her ear, clearly fading into sleep. “He’ll have our love.”