It had come.
“Help me get this back, Myles,” he said to his brother, who came to assist him with the handcart. “Since my wife is not eating these days, I suppose we could give it to the men before it spoils.”
They turned the handcart for the gatehouse, with Curtis and Myles pushing it between them. Christopher followed alongside, peering at all of the food in the cart.
“Elle must be fond of the honey bread,” he said. “There is a good deal of it.”
“She is fond of everything the baker made,” Curtis said. “If she knew it was here, she would rise up out of her bed and rush to eat it.”
“Then take it to her and let her smell it,” Christopher said, half joking. “If she smells it, it might rouse her.”
Curtis smiled weakly. “Pliny says she is sleeping heavily now,” he said. “The fever has gone down. He hopes it will soon break.”
As they reached the gatehouse, pushing the cart through, Christopher put his hand on Curtis’ shoulder. “That is good news,” he said. “Is your mother with her?”
“Aye,” Curtis said. “I’ve been sitting in the same chair since last night. Mama told me to get out and get some air. But I am going to take some of the honey bread and go back. Mayhap you are right—if I wave it under her nose and she smells it, it will rouse her. At this point, I am willing to try anything.”
He sounded hopeless. Christopher felt bad for the man, with every day being a day of grief and sorrow. Well did he know what it felt like to worry over a wife that was loved more than life itself. As Myles shouted to Douglas and Westley to help with the handcart and take it to the kitchen, Christopher picked up a loaf of the honey bread and handed it to Curtis.
“Do not lose faith,” he said quietly. “Women are remarkable creatures. They are far stronger than you think they are. I know this because your mother almost died giving birth to you. I endured days of horror as she struggled, and in the end, I had a horrible choice to make—your life or hers. That was what the physic presented to me. But before I had to make that choice, by a miracle, you were born. I will never forget that moment, Curt, not as long as I live. I, too, had lost all hope. But your mother… She dug deep down, tapping into that strength that all womenhave, and willed you to be born. She wasn’t going down without a fight. And neither is Elle.”
Curtis took the bread, hearing his father’s words that brought tears to his eyes. “I want so badly to believe that,” he whispered tightly. “I do. But every day that passes, she grows weaker. Every day that passes is a day my hope lessens, just a little. She cannot keep going on like this.”
Christopher smiled sympathetically. “She will not,” he said. “This will be over, soon, one way or the other. All I am saying is that you must have faith in Elle’s strength. The woman threw you over a wall in battle. She can fight off a fever.”
In spite of his tears, Curtis started to laugh. Christopher patted him on the cheek and pointed to the keep, a silent command to return to his wife. Taking the bread with him, Curtis obeyed.
The keep was warmly lit when he entered, with a fire in the hearth near the door and torches lit to illuminate the stairwell. He took the stairs two at a time, increasingly smelling the bread in his hand, to the point of taking a bite, as he came to the level where the chamber that he shared with Elle was. He realized how hungry he was and took another bite as he headed toward the chamber door, chewing with a very full mouth. Opening the door, he swallowed part of the bite just as his gaze fell on the bed.
It was empty.
Momentarily stumped, he nearly choked on the rest of the bread in his mouth, spewing it out all over the floor as he envisioned an empty bed.
Empty!
“Jesus,” he gasped, panic filling his veins. “Oh, God.Mother!”
He bellowed at the top of his lungs, only to hear his mother answer him almost immediately.
“Curtis, hush,” she said. “Why are you shouting?”
She was sitting at the window seat off to his left, the one that was set in a small alcove that contained chairs and a chest. Most of the windows in the chamber were lancet, but there was one big window sunk into the thickness of the wall, with two seats facing one another in front of it. It was Elle’s favorite place to sit, and as Curtis’ frantic gaze found his mother, with Pliny standing beside her, it took him a moment to realize there was someone sitting opposite her.
Elle turned to look at him.
“I’m here,” she said softly. “Do not fret.”
Curtis looked at her as if he were seeing a ghost. She was wrapped up in a robe, leaning weakly against the wall behind her, but she was alive. And she was speaking to him. For a moment, he couldn’t answer. He pointed to the bed with the bread he was holding.
“You… But you were sleeping,” he said, clearly unable to process what he was seeing. “I left, and you were sleeping.”
“She was,” Pliny said. “Her fever is completely gone, my lord. She awoke shortly after you left, and we told her you had gone outside. She wanted to see for herself.”
Curtis stood there with his mouth open. Then he burst into quiet tears, covering his face with one hand to hide the emotions that were coming out all over the place. He took a few staggering steps in Elle’s direction as Dustin jumped up and rushed to him, helping him over to his wife, who weakly put her arms up to guide him down next to her. As Dustin and Pliny wandered away to give the couple some privacy, Curtis put his arms around Elle and sobbed.
“I thought you were dead,” he wept into the side of her head. “You were so ill, and I thought you were…gone.”
Truthfully, Elle felt as if shewasquite nearly gone. She was horribly weak, but even so, she had demanded to sit by thewindow. Dustin had told her that she forced Curtis out into the fresh air, so she knew the man would return shortly. Elle was counting on it. What she hadn’t counted on was his falling to pieces in front of her. He’d been so terribly frightened that his fear brought tears of her own. She hugged him as much as she could, trying to reassure him.
