19
FINN
Frigid winds ushered in the new year while Cecily burned with fever.
When Finn had first carried her to the physician’s home, Master Nicholas, a stout man with graying temples, had taken one look and offered a trade: Finn’s labor for Cecily’s care. Finn would have agreed to anything.
He had held her steady while Master Nicholas worked. The physician cut the sling away and washed the wound with wine, making Cecily cry out even in her delirium. “The bad humors have taken root,” he’d said grimly, taking up a small, dark-stained knife. “I’ll have to release them.”
The knife flashed. Cecily gasped, a thin sound, and her fingers clenched in Finn’s sleeve as blood ran into a shallow bowl. He held her long after the physician had bound her arm in clean cloth and carried the bowl away.
“If the fever breaks by morning, she may yet recover,” Master Nicholas had said.
Finn stayed where he was long after the bowl had been carried away. His hand was steady on her shoulder, listening to her breath and praying the physician was right.
∞∞∞
It was night again. The fire had burned low. Cecily lay still beneath the blanket, her breathing shallow but steady. Her arm was bound thickly. Heat radiated through the cloth even in the cold room.
She had not woken properly since they arrived. Sometimes she thrashed weakly, murmuring his name, her fingers clutching at his sleeve.
“Don’t go,” she had moaned once. “I’ll be good.”
Finn had swallowed hard and kept his grip steady.
“I’m here,” he told her. “I won’t leave you.”
Now she lay quiet. Finn shifted on the mat he slept on at the foot of her bed, his back stiff, his hands raw from the day’s work. He had split wood until his arms shook, scrubbed the floor until his fingers burned, and carried water until his shoulders ached. He would do it all again tomorrow.
If she lived.
Cecily stirred. Finn was on his feet at once. Her eyelids fluttered. She made a small sound, confused and pained.
“Where…?” Her voice cracked. “It hurts.”
“I know,” Finn said softly. “Don’t move. We’re in the physician’s home.”
Her eyes opened fully this time, unfocused at first. She looked at the ceiling, then at the fire, then down at her bandaged arm.
“My arm,” she whispered. “I’m so hungry.”
A smile lit Finn’s face. “I’ll get some broth. The physician said you can have a little.”
She frowned faintly. “I thought… I thought you’d gone away. I couldn’t see you. I was dreaming. You tired of me. I kept slowing you down.”
“No,” he said at once, a small smile curling his mouth. “Not yet.”
She looked at him with dreamy eyes, then her lids quivered and her eyes closed.
He crouched beside the bed. “You’re not a burden,” he said. “You’re alive. That’s what matters.”
∞∞∞
Most days, when his chores were done, Finn hiked through the snow back to their shed in the woods and worked on the machine. After assisting Anton for months on its reconstruction, he knew he was making progress. But he would have to test it to make sure, and that was risky.
At night, Finn lay on the mat at the foot of her bed and stared at the ceiling, his thoughts circling the same truth.
She’s not safe here. Even if she survives, I can’t protect her like this. I need to get her back home, to our time.
The thought took root and would not let go.
She needs to go back to her family. Back where she had walls, and food, and pretty dresses, and a name that carried weight. He could confront his father’s plan to wed Cecily then. He would confront him. And whatever it took, he would prevent it.
He could say none of this out loud, though, not to her. He knew she would resist.
∞∞∞
Days passed, measured in halting breaths, in spoonfuls of thin broth, in the slow easing of the fever. Cecily woke and slept and woke again. Sometimes she spoke. Sometimes she didn’t know where she was. Sometimes she cried without knowing why.
When Cecily could finally sit up, when some color returned to her cheeks, and the fever no longer burned beneath Finn’s hand, it felt as if they had climbed back into the light.
She laughed once, softly, when he spilled water on the floor.
“You’re terrible at this, Sir Know-It-All,” she said.
“True,” he replied. “I’m much better at chopping wood.”
She smiled at him then. The old Cecily.
That night, she reached for him as he stood to return to his mat.
“Stay,” she said. “Sit here a little longer.”
He hesitated only a moment, then sat on the edge of the bed. She leaned her head against his chest carefully, mindful of her arm. He could feel her breathing, warm against his chest.
Neither of them spoke.
Then she lifted her face to his. He bent without thinking. He leaned in and kissed her. It was brief, uncertain, and tender. With that kiss, something in him changed.
Neither of them said a word, and she drifted off to sleep with her head still on his chest.
∞∞∞
Later, when she slept, Finn slipped away.
The shed in the woods was cold and dark when he reached it. The machine stood where he’d left it. Finn set to work by candlelight.
He tightened a bolt with numb fingers and the meager tools he’d purchased, the image of the vagrant’s face flashing in his mind. The man was gone, but another would come. Another soldier, another threat. He could not keep her safe here. There was only one way home.
The next day, as dusk approached, he knelt beside her bed. The thought of leaving her, even for an hour, felt like a betrayal. But the thought of staying, of waiting for the next danger, was worse. He had to know if the machine would work. He would test it tonight.
“Finn?” she murmured sleepily.
“I’m here,” he breathed.
Finn had made his decision; he would test the machine that night.
“Cecily,” he said. “I…”
She smiled, eyes still closed. “Hmmm?”
He looked at her sleeping face for a long moment.
“Sleep, Cecily,” he said softly.
“I’ll be right back.”