Chapter 18 #3
"That a man who tends the wounded in those mountains learns to defend himself quickly, or he does not live long enough to tend anyone at all.
" A faint, remembering smile touched his mouth.
"It was not an answer that lowered my blade.
What did that was what came after — he reached into his coat, slowly, and drew out a pouch.
Leather. Frayed with age. Filled with dried leaves and twisted roots rather than powder or shot. "
"And you let him show you."
"Not immediately. I was still deciding what to make of the whole situation when he said something that stopped me entirely. He told me one of my own men was poisoned, and that he could see it plainly in my face — that I was already thinking of him even as we spoke."
Amelia lifted her head slightly. "How could he possibly have known that?"
"He had heard some men talking about it, while they were hidden, some of my men patrolling past them not an hour before. He offered me a bargain. Let him try to save my friend's life, and if he succeeded, I would let the two of them go free."
"Did you agree?"
"Against every instinct my training had given me, yes.
" He shook his head slightly at the memory.
"Oliver — my second-in-command, and the closest thing I had to a friend in that whole frozen campaign — was fading fast by then.
The surgeons had already given up on him.
I had nothing left to lose by trying something they called foolish. "
"What happened?"
"I brought the healer into the medic's tent myself, over no small amount of protest. The army surgeon called it a waste of what little hope remained — told me not to squander it on foreign roots and fairy stories.
I did not move. I simply let the man work.
" Benjamin's voice had gone quieter, more careful, as though he were back in that tent again.
"He brewed something that smelled of pine and copper and burnt mint all together.
Crushed the leaves between two stones. Mixed the powder with something clear and oily, and murmured something while under his breath, said over and over until it sounded like an incantation. "
"And it worked."
"It took three days. I did not sleep through any of them, if I am honest. But on the third morning, Oliver woke with his voice cracked and a grin on his face I had thought I would never see again.
The fever had broken entirely. The wound, which had gone black and angry at the edges, was clean and pale, as though it had never been poisoned at all. "
Amelia was quiet a moment, watching his face.
"I went back to the healer afterward," Benjamin continued, "entirely without words for what I had just watched happen.
He only smiled — tired, but satisfied with himself — and told me that not all medicine comes from a city apothecary's shelf.
That some of it only grows where men have stopped thinking to look for it. "
"Did you ask him what he had used?"
"I did. But he said he could not tell me anything more and asked me if I would hold my side of the bargain."
"And you let them go."
"I did. No chains. No escort at the point of a rifle. Only a nod, and whatever respect I had left to give a man who had just proven half of what I believed about the world wrong in the space of three days."
He was quiet a moment.
"You are fortunate," she said finally. "I confess I envy you such an experiences."
"I promise you," he said, "you do not."
"Perhaps not." She sighed, and shifted against him, and glanced toward the light already beginning to slant lower through the trees.
"I wish I could stay a great deal longer.
But it has been over two hours since I left the house.
My father and Frederick will send the army after me if I do not return soon. "
"They would be right to."
She rolled her eyes at him and began gathering her clothes, and when she was dressed she kissed him once more, lingering.
"Now," she said, "you may finally fix that fence. I know it has troubled you, that you have not kept your word to Frederick until now."
"There is always a way," he said. "I did promise you that much."
She smiled, and then reached for the anthology, closing it gently and pressing it into his hands.
"I want you to keep this."
He looked at her, genuinely startled. "Amelia — this is your life's work. Your memories. I cannot—"
"I want you to have it." She closed his fingers around the spine with both of her own hands. "And if you should ever find yourself in the presence of one of the plants I have never seen — take a piece of it. You may return the book to me then, and tell me all about it."
Something in his chest went very still.
"So this comes with a mission attached."
"It does."
"Then I accept it," he said quietly, "and I intend to return it to you myself, one day, in person."
She smiled at that, and turned, and disappeared back through the trees the way she had come, leaving him alone in the clearing with her whole life's work held carefully in his two hands.