But Ulla could not shake the foreboding premonition that something was terribly wrong. Cardin needed her. She could feel it in her very bones.
“En garde!” The voice of ten-year-old Gunnar reverberated through the cavernous Great Hall as he engaged his younger brother Haldar in a mock battle with wooden swords and shields.
“All knights must train outside in the lists, not inside the castle.” Gabrielle—who had joined Laudine and Ulla in decorating the Great Hall—laid down the white hellebore blossoms she was tucking into a holiday wreath and shooed her two oldest sons toward the imposing front entrance door.
“I’m going to be a castle archer, like my father.” Lukaz nocked a fletched arrow, tautly drawing back the string of his finely crafted bow, as if to demonstrate his already impressive skills.
Curiosity evident on their intrigued young faces, Gunnar and Haldar stopped in the doorway and turned to watch Lukaz exhibit his fine form.
“My papa is the Basati, the Basque Wolf of Biarritz. But he’s not going back to Aquitaine. He’s staying here in Bretagne. With me. And bringing me with him tole Château de Beaufortafter he marries Lady Ulla.” Expressive blue eyes widened with pride, he grinned triumphantly at his older cousins. “My father is Sir Cardin de Landuc. Captain of the Royal Archers for King Guillemin of Finistère. When he marries Lady Ulla, the three of us will be a family,and we will live together atle Château de Beaufort.”He lifted his chin in exultant defiance. “I’m not a bastard anymore.”
Gabrielle smiled lovingly at the future castle archer, the nephew whom she and Bastien had raised since birth. “That’s right,” she agreed, encouraging Lukaz to lower his drawn arrow with a gesture of her hand. “Your papa will teach you to become a castle archer, just like him. You’ll live with us in Finistère—and train to become a knight with Gunnar and Haldar.” She glanced sternly at her two oldest sons, conveying her expectation that they would accept Lukaz and treat him fairly. “When Vidar is old enough in a few years, he’ll join the three of you, too. We’ll all be a big, happy family.” She beamed at Laudine and Ulla, who had paused their holiday decorating to observe the cousins’ chivalrous display. “And every Yuletide season, we’ll come here to visitMamieandPapiatle Château de Landuc.” Ushering the three whooping, jubilant boys outside into the afternoon light of the setting sun, Gabrielle announced, “Practice now, while you still have enough daylight. It will soon be time for supper.”
As the knights-in-training stormed out of the castle, shouting with glee, the flame-haired French princess lifted her wailing infant daughter from the cradle on the floor and settled down to nurse her in a tufted chair near the crackling hearth. “I am delighted that Cardin has acknowledged his son,” she said to Laudine and Ulla as they resumed wrapping evergreen garlands around a supportive pillar. “It was so hard for Lukaz to be ridiculed and humiliated as a bastard. Now that his father has returned, no one will ever call him that again.” Gabrielle kissed her babe’s soft auburn curls and looked up at Ulla. Maternal lovelight glowed in her generous eyes. “After the wedding—you’ll be theMamanLukaz never had. Reunited with his papa, a mother to love him at long last…he’ll have a true family. The greatest Yuletide gift he could ever receive.”
Ulla’s eyes brimmed with joyful tears. She loved Lukaz with all her heart and wanted desperately to become hisMaman. As she watched Gabrielle nurse her infant daughter, her own breasts tingled at the thought of Cardin’s child now thriving in her womb. She couldn’t wait to tell him the wonderful news. If only she could shake the horrid anxiety that plagued her. Wiping damp palms against her woolen gown, she smiled gratefully at Gabrielle’s generous praise.
The thunderous pounding of horses’ hooves in the courtyard sent several servants scurrying to greet the unexpected visitors. Her face alight with anticipation and delight, Laudine dropped the evergreen garland she was holding and rushed toward the door. “Gaultier and Cardin have returned!”
Ulla’s heart hammered in her chest. Although Laudine was thrilled that her sons had returned, Ulla knew intuitively that something was dreadfully wrong.
And that Cardin desperately needed her.
Swallowing the bile that rose to her constricted throat, she ran to the front door.
And nearly swooned at the sight of Gaultier, Padrig, and two other knights transporting a bloodied, grotesquely wounded Cardin strapped onto a wooden stretcher.
“Bring him in here,” Laudine shouted as the men entered the castle, indicating a small bedroom near the kitchen alcove where Maëlys sometimes slept. “Lay him on the bed. What happened?” Her voice quavering, she hovered over her injured son, assessing the grievous puncture wound where a bloodied arrow protruded from the pierced chain mail armor. She straightened and spun to Gaultier, her stricken face crumpled in grief.
“Zilar’s men attacked us just as we reached Issoudun. Cardin got Comte Ibarra safely inside the Tower, but took a crossbow bolt in the chest. The healer atla Tour Blanchedidn’t have sufficient skill to remove the arrow, so I rushed him home to you and Ulla. Can you save him?” Gaultier’s deep voice cracked as Esclados, Lukaz, and Quentin rushed into the room.
“Papa!” Lukaz shrieked, rushing to his unconscious father’s side. Tears streamed down his ruddy cheeks, flushed from the cold winter chill of training as knights with his cousins in the lists.
Limbs shaking with horror, Ulla stared in stunned disbelief at Cardin’s ravaged body. As she hugged Lukaz tight, vainly trying to comfort the sobbing little boy she loved so very much, her instincts as a healer took over, spurring her to act. Handing Lukaz gently over to his grandmother, she conveyed the silent message to Laudine with imploring, desperate eyes.Take him. I’ll rush home, get my supplies, and be right back.
Weaving frantically through the throng of men crowded around Cardin’s bed, Ulla dashed from the room and raced out the back door of the castle kitchen.
Vill—who had been lying on the floor near the back door—sensed her urgency, leapt to his feet, and bounded with her toward the forest, sprinting across the snow-dusted courtyard.
Ulla bolted up the front steps of her stone cottage, clumsily unlocked the wooden entrance door, and raced into the kitchen to retrieve her satchel of herbs from the corner cupboard.I’ll need healing crystals, too. Amber and carnelian to strengthen his stamina. Celestite and opal to fight disease. Emerald to bathe him in the verdant healing power of the forest. And curative waters from the sacred spring.Tucking the selected gemstones into a protective pouch within her leather bag, she hoisted it over her shoulder and grabbed an earthenware container to fill at the well.
Dashing out the front door, she ran through the dense woods, stopping at the Fountain of Barenton—the sacred spring in the heart of the Forest of Brocéliande. Kneeling beside the gurgling underground spring, she filled the ceramic jug to the brim and closed it with a cork stopper. Whistling for Vill, she raced through the forest, bringing the sacred water, curative herbs, and healing crystals back into the castle.
****
Inside the quiet, vacant chamber where a now naked Cardin lay upon a linen-covered straw mattress, the cleansing aroma of burning sage purified the still air. A blazing fire crackled in the stone hearth and warmed the small room against December’s winter chill. Laudine stood near a marble-topped walnut sideboard upon which she had assembled a variety of herbs, tinctures, and ointments to treat her critically wounded son. On the table near the lone window, a sweet-smelling beeswax candle glowed in the golden light of the setting sun.
“Lukaz is with Gaultier, Esclados, and Quentin. I asked them to take him riding and keep him occupied while we remove the arrow. I took off Cardin’s blood-soaked armor and cleansed his wound with calendula soap and yarrow leaf.” Laudine walked over to stand beside her son’s bed, taking hold of Ulla’s shaking hands and fixing her with a determined, encouraging stare. Wisdom sparkled in her amber eyes. “We will save him, you and I. With our divine healing skills as Priestesses of Dana and with the overwhelming love we both have for him in our hearts.” She hugged Ulla tight, then released her, gesturing to a knife upon the walnut sideboard. “Place the tip of the dagger in the flame. The fire will purify the blade.”
Ulla complied, handing the heated instrument to Laudine. Legs quivering under her woolen gown, she examined the gruesome gash in Cardin’s lower left shoulder. Around the puncture wound where the wooden arrow shaft protruded, his decaying flesh was swollen and inflamed, oozing a noxious, foul-smelling fluid.A few inches lower, and it would have pierced his heart. Dear Goddess, please help us save him. I pray that we are not too late.
“I will make an incision here,” Laudine explained, indicating an area to the left of the wound. “When I pull back the skin, use the tweezers to grasp the quarrel and carefully remove the arrowhead.” With the razor-sharp blade, she meticulously sliced into the skin of Cardin’s upper chest, causing a sudden surge of bright red blood.
Ulla wiped the flow with a clean cloth, gripped the metal arrowhead with tweezers, and carefully withdrew the embedded crossbow bolt. While Laudine examined the incision to make sure no fragments of metal remained in Cardin’s flesh, Ulla laid the long wooden shaft with its bloodstained tip upon the sideboard table.
With Laudine’s knife, Ulla painstakingly cut away a small area of diseased skin around Cardin’s wound. She wiped the blade clean, returned it to Laudine, and crossed the room to retrieve a small kettle from the hearth. Pouring hot water into a cup on the table, she stirred in a mixture of crushed raw garlic, sage, rosemary, and calendula. Cautioning Laudine to step back, Ulla trickled the scalding concoction into Cardin’s open wound, setting the empty cup aside and stanching the new bleeding with a poultice of yarrow.
“Your sewing skills are much finer than mine.” Laudine handed Ulla a needle and thread.
