Knights of de Ware 03 - My Hero (16 page)

“What’s happened to you?” she whispered. “You were once so full of life, so compassionate.”

The maid could no more contain her thoughts than one could keep wine in a cask full of holes. And now, were those tears brimming in her eyes? Bloody hell, anything but tears.

She yanked her underdress back down, and then snatched up her soiled surcoat and struggled into it. “How could the church do so much damage to a man’s spirit?”

Within the stony shell of his body, Garth shuddered. Wariness crept in, the wariness of a man whose most secret door has been unlocked by a woman. She was half right—he
was
damaged—though it wasn’t the church that had damaged him. But she was treading too close to the truth, trespassing into his heart. And that he couldn’t allow, for her own protection as well as his.

He gazed at her with schooled mercy and calmly, deliberately made the sign of the cross, blessing her errant soul.

“Don’t you bless me!” she cried. She crossed her arms smartly across her chest, but a tear traced a muddy path down her cheek. “You’re the one who needs saving.”

She swept up her wimple and would have stalked off then, he was sure, leaving him in the dust of that singularly feminine alloy of fury and hurt. But her new maidservant came hurtling toward them as she turned to go.

“My lady!” young Mary cried, nearly bowling Garth over. “It’s Meggie, my lady! Elspeth says her babe is coming!”

“Meggie?” Cynthia dropped her own worries like a hot coal. “Shite!”

She streaked past him, and he watched her all the way across the sward until she was swallowed up by the great gray stones of Wendeville Castle. Then he sighed.

Providence had once again favored him. It seemed the woman was always rushing off to see to someone’s ills. To be sure, he’d owe extra prayers to the patron saints of the sick on the next Sabbath.

Staring up at the chamber Cynthia had made into a makeshift infirmary, he briefly wondered if there was something he should do to help. He hoped not. He’d had about all the temptation he could endure for the day. Surely even Adam hadn’t been so tormented by Eve. He supposed she’d manage well enough anyway. After all, birthing was a woman’s affair.

A parchment of seeds had dropped from Lady Cynthia’s pocket. He picked it up, brushing the dust off the letters scribed on it.

Marigolds.

His lips hardened into a grim smile.

How could he forget someone with hair the color of marigolds?

Somehow, he thought, rubbing his thumb across the word, Lady Cynthia Wendeville
was
familiar. But it must have been years since they’d met, and he wasn’t about to go digging into the past. He’d sealed his old life away into a safe tomb four years ago, and he was loath to call that Lazarus forth now. No matter how persistent she was.

And she
was
persistent, flitting from cajolery to reproach as easily as a sparrow from branch to branch, trying to jar his memory of the secular world. Well, whoever she was and whatever she’d meant to him in the past, the relentless lass had certainly shaken him to the core. He tossed the packet of seeds into the wheelbarrow and prayed that God would strike him dead if he ever forgot just how dangerous she was again.

Cynthia tossed her soiled tunic over her head as she hurried through the great hall, dropping it on the rushes.

“Leave it!” she commanded as Mary hesitated to pick it up. “I’ll get it later. I need you to come with me now.”

She plunged her hands into the large basin of water beside the pantry screens. “The babe wasn’t due till summer,” she murmured mostly to herself. She scrubbed hard, leaving the water muddy, and dried off on the linen hung above the basin. “Is she in the infirmary?”

“Aye.”

“Come then.”

Elspeth met them halfway up the steps, her brown eyes as round and sunken as river pebbles. She looked twice her age. “Oh, my lady,” she whispered in misery, crossing herself, “Jeanne says the babe…the babe is dead.”

Behind her, young Mary gasped.

Sorrow pierced Cynthia’s heart. It was Meggie’s first child, and her husband was away on pilgrimage. But such was the way of life and the will of God. There was no time for tears. She straightened. “Then we must save Meggie,” she stated. “Mary, you fetch clean linen, and tell Cook we’ll need the water he’s boiling for stew. El, my herbs.”

As Cynthia reached the top of the stairs, a weak scream issued forth from behind the closed door. Bracing herself for the worst, she took a deep breath and entered the chamber.

The young mother’s eyes rolled like a frightened calf’s. Her forehead was dotted with sweat. Her stomach, exposed like a silvery half-moon in the dim light, writhed with cramps. The linens at the foot of the bed were stained crimson with blood. Jeanne the midwife was beside her, holding Meggie’s hand tightly, trying to comfort her, but her own face was lined with guilt and frustration.

Cynthia pressed the door closed behind her. She went to the window and slowly opened the shutters to let in more light. Then she came up beside Meggie.

“My lady,” the girl gasped.

“Meggie, I’m going to see you through this,” she said, speaking soothingly as she rubbed her hands together, palm to palm. “You understand, don’t you, lass, that the babe isn’t…?”

Meggie’s haunted sable eyes were answer enough.

“There was nothing you could do for the infant, Jeanne,” Cynthia murmured to the midwife, who looked up in despair. Her hands began to tingle with heat. “But I’ll need your help with the mother.”

A faint scratching on the door announced Mary’s return. She bore an armload of linen and a small but heavy cauldron of steaming water.

“Now, Meggie,” Cynthia said, stroking the girl’s forehead, “it’ll be over before you know it. We’ve got to make quick work of it so you’ll begin to heal all the sooner.”

Cynthia closed her eyes and rested her palms on Meggie’s head, patiently letting them guide her. Blurs of color circled lazily in her mind’s eye, coming slowly into focus. Images flashed past in a blaze of white light—monkshood and shepherd’s purse—and, after a moment, she envisioned Meggie whole again, surround in a halo of healthy blue.

When the warmth in her hands subsided, she shook them like a hound shaking off water. Then she wet a linen rag and gently swabbed the blood from Meggie’s thighs.

Elspeth arrived with the herbs.

“Monkshood, El,” Cynthia murmured.

Jeanne gasped, her eyes wide. “Monkshood?”

Mary made the sign of the cross and looked on fearfully.

The other two women might have hesitated at her request for the deadly herb, but Cynthia knew she could rely on Elspeth. El had seen too many miracles at her hands to question her judgment.

Cynthia ignored the others and uncorked the vial of monkshood extract. “This will make you feel very light, Meggie,” she cooed, pouring the liquid generously into her palm, “almost as if you could fly.”

She reached very tenderly between the girl’s limp legs and smeared the extract at the spot where the infant’s tiny blue head was crowning.

“I want you to tell me when you feel as if you’re flying, Meggie.”

There was no need for the girl to speak, for in a few moments her body relaxed, and her face took on a dreamy expression, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

“We’ll take the babe now,” Cynthia murmured to the midwife.

Jeanne ran a hand across the girl’s belly and massaged, pressing gently at first, then more firmly. Cynthia eased her fingers in around the babe’s head, trying not to think about its poor, lifeless body. It was difficult, slippery work, but she managed to turn the baby and pull it forth as Jeanne pressed hard on Meggie’s belly. Meggie was mercifully oblivious through the whole procedure. She scarcely knew the deed was done.

Cynthia received the afterbirth onto a thick pad of linen and handed the baby to Mary. The young maid went white.

“You stay with me,” Cynthia ordered. The girl had probably never seen so horrifying a thing, but Cynthia couldn’t afford to lose her help.

Then she applied a poultice of crushed shepherd’s purse to stop the bleeding. She insisted the midwife scrub her hands clean in the hot water and go home to rest, asking her to send the chaplain to the infirmary. Elspeth pressed a wad of absorbent linen between Meggie’s legs while Cynthia scoured her own hands. Then she took over, covering Meggie with a thin sheet and combing the girl’s hair back with her fingers till she fell asleep.

Meanwhile, Mary cowered in the corner of the chamber, and now she hissed like a frightened kitten. “She’s bound to die after what you did, my lady.”

Elspeth rounded on the terrified maid, wagging an angry finger. “Lady Cynthia’s healing is held in the highest regard, whelp. There may come a day you’ll be thankful for it yourself. Until then, you’d do well to remember your place and hold your tongue.”

“But it’s a witch’s herb, monkshood,” Mary argued.

Elspeth’s voice was dangerously soft. “Would you be calling Lady Cynthia a witch?”

“See that you wash your hands well, both of you,” Cynthia interrupted before a fight could ensue. “Monkshood isn’t a witch’s herb, but it can be dangerous.”

She shook her head. Where anyone got the notion that an herb could be evil was beyond her. After all, hadn’t God created
all
the plants? True, some of them could be poison if used in ample amounts, but they possessed no mystical powers. Herbs were simply for healing the sick and removing pain.

A tentative knock came at the door as she scrubbed at a spot of blood on her sleeve.

“Come,” she called.

Garth frowned. He’d half hoped no one would hear him. He had no idea why he’d been summoned. After all, he knew nothing about birthing. And he was filthy from the garden.

He pushed the door inward anyway. A de Ware never walked away from a lady in need.

The metallic odor of blood unnerved him for an instant. His eyes sought the source at once. A young woman lay atop the bed in the middle of the chamber. The linens at the foot of the bed were streaked with scarlet, as if the bed itself had been slashed and wounded in some gruesome battle. But though the woman’s face was as pale as plaster, as still as death, she was alive. The sheet rose and fell to the rhythm of her breathing.

The two maids tidying the chamber stared at him. He clearly didn’t belong here. This was a woman’s domain. Yet Cynthia motioned him in, fetching a bundle from the bed with great care.

“The babe,” she said quietly, not meeting his eyes, “needs blessing. I was hoping you’d defer your vow of silence to see it done.”

He furrowed his brow. The infant could scarcely be moments old. Why such urgency?

She lifted her gaze to him then, and he knew at once.

The babe was dead.

He swallowed hard. She wanted him to perform last rites.

She continued to stare at him, beseeching him with eyes burdened by sorrow, haunted by pain. And in that moment, no matter what had passed between them before, no matter that he thought her the seductive daughter of Eve, he knew he’d do anything to take that suffering from her eyes.

He received the feather-light bundle and strode to a private corner of the infirmary, whispering the words around the painful lump in his throat to save the poor babe’s soul. By the last Amen, Cynthia had gone.

He handed the babe to Mary. The women would no doubt prepare its tiny body for burial. The mother snored softly from the bed, her grief abandoned for the moment in the land of dreams. Elspeth blew her nose, then shoved the rag into her pocket, busying herself with gathering up the soiled linens. His work here was done.

But what about Lady Cynthia? It was his duty to comfort the living as well as bless the dead. Certainly she must be in need of comfort. After all, he’d seen how she took her duty to her household to heart. In some way, she probably felt responsible for this tragedy.

He found her in the outbuilding she’d fashioned to grow starts of tender plants. It was a cozy place, kept warm by a roof of sheepskin that let in the sun’s light, and wet by a well sunk in its midst. Earthenware pots of all sizes, filled with assorted foliage, cluttered the wooden shelves. As he let himself in, warm, moist air enveloped him.

“Close the door.” Her voice came from the far corner, muffled by a forest of greenery. “Please.” Then her head popped up between the fronds. Her eyes were red from crying, and he felt a sudden, inexplicable longing to cradle her against his shoulder, to let her sob her sorrow into his cassock.

“Oh. Chaplain.” She self-consciously wiped at her cheeks, then gestured toward the entrance. “If you’ll kindly…”

He secured the door.

“The babe?” she inquired.

He nodded.

“If you’ve come to tell me it’s the will of God,” she muttered, “you’re wasting your breath.”

He frowned, taken aback. Cynthia snipped a flowered branch from one of the plants with all the wrath of Perseus beheading Medusa. She wasn’t grief-stricken. She was vexed.

“I know. He is at peace now.” She snipped another branch. “His soul is in a better place.” Snip. “God works in mysterious ways.” Snip. Snip. “You don’t need to preach to me. I’ve faced death more times than you can imagine.”

She hooked the shears over a nail in the wall and gathered the white-flowered stems into a bunch. With a swish of her wool skirts, she tried to pass.

He caught her arm. He didn’t know why. It was foolish and instinctive and dangerous. Maybe it was the vulnerability underlying her bitter words or the helpless frustration reflected in her eyes.

She gasped softly as the flowers were crushed between them. A light breeze wafted their fragrance past his nose, a sweet fragrance vaguely familiar to him. What was it? His mother had grown this in her garden. He was sure of it, but…

Jasmine.

He only mouthed the word, but the air stilled as if he’d uttered an enchantment. A queer prickling traveled up his spine as he inhaled the scent.

Jasmine.

He struggled to remember. There was something about jasmine and the woman before him. He perused her face, his eyes only half-focused, and gently took the bouquet from her fingers. Faint images of lazy summer afternoons spent reading in the garden buzzed around his brain like…