The boy pulled a small clay pot from his pocket. “This is for you, milord.”
Lyall took the pot.
“Salve for the bruised lip,” the boy said.
Lyall stared at the pot.
“It always works for me, my lord.”
“They beat you here?”
“Nay. Not here. I should have said it has worked for me...before. I am safe here,” he said with a smile that proved his words true. “I no longer need salve for bruises and beatings, for blackened eyes and swollen lips.”
Oh lad, that you had some salve for my blackened heart.He pulled out a coin and tossed it to the boy. “Fetch me some more water from the barrel and then you can leave us.”
The boy ran off in the burst of a young colt, and Lyall asked himself when he had last had so much vigor. He watched his tousled red head disappear from sight and thought that perhaps he had left what lightness he had at Dunkeldon so long ago, before now, when he had become as much as liar as Glenna and did not hold the right to judge her.
Before he took the dog into the stable troughs, he pocketed the salve pot and started to walk away, but could not help himself and looked out at her again. She was pointing at a bushy plant and talking blithely to the monk. There was joy in her bright face. None could look at her and believe she was a thief or a liar. Sitting there, she looked like the royal daughter she was.
Perhaps she was his recompense. His own actions and lies would lead to his punishment--her.
A sense of inevitable probability came over him—what he was going to have to do with her. Whatever distant and long-lostpiece of a good heart that resurfaced ever so briefly could not change that. He felt a small ache in his chest where he supposed some slim ability to hope had just slipped away completely. The feeling was there only to haunt him bitterly. His destiny was done. There was nothing left of him to be saved.
Glenna setdown her comb and leaned over the plot of herb gardens outside the infirmary, pointing to a thick green plant with white buds overtaking a nearby sage plant Brother Leviticus told her was good for melancholy. “And what is this one called?”
“That is ramsons. For intestinal worms,” he said.
She made a face.
He smiled slightly. “But so is white willow bark, which I used in the tea we fed you.”
“I have no worms, brother,” she said indignantly.
“Nay, but it helps with high fevers and mixed with rue and mint will aid with sore ears and throat, mixed with yarrow and elderberry it will increase sweats.” The brother was a cheery sort, with a face like an apple and the brown eyes of a doe. He was a small man, with breadth, and was the abbey herbalist, an expert in teas and medicinals, and apprenticed to Pater Magoon, the infirmarian. He moved across the herb bed, pulling small weeds with a weed fork and pick. He paused toward another thick green plant with small flowers, plucked off a leaf, removed his leather work glove and handed the herb leaf to her. “Chew it.”
She put it in her mouth and chewed thoughtly. The flavor was strong, almost pungent, and familiar. “It taste like meat…like Easter,” she said surprised.
“That’s because the seeds are used to season spring lamb. This is star anise and if you chew its leaves it will help digestion…and tea from it increases mother’s milk” He paused. “Do you and your lord have children?”
“Good Lord…never!” she said laughing and without thinking.
He frowned at her strangely and touched the heavy cross hanging from his neck.
She tried not to wince, her mind spinning quickly. “I’m sorry. I should not have spoken so.” She looked down, then back at him, feigning a meekness foreign to her. “We have been on the road for a long time. I would not do well away from him. My lord husband enjoys the tourneys,” she said vaguely, having no idea if a baron would be at a tourney. She made up her stories as she went. “I could not travel with him so readily were I with child. Surely someday….” She stood to distract him and moved toward the nearest bed, sitting on the boards and wattle that framed it. “What is this woody one with the strong fragrance?”
He dusted his robes off, then joined her. “That is thyme and it is used in salves and poultices. Wild thyme has recently been used by the local midwife to help expel the placenta, and along with yarrow can stop childbed bleeding.”
“I like the smell,” she said smiling.”
“Many have strong fragrance. They are part of the cures. Camphor for ringworm and delirium. Rosemary is used in cooking but is made into salves which work well for wounds and sores, rashes and gouty limbs. If you breathe in the smoke it will cool hot lungs. Quince is for belly pain. Skullcap and valerian for tumors and rabies.”
“You have thistle growing in the corner. What does it cure?”
He looked uncomfortable and leaned very close. Looking all around him, he whispered, ”Hexes.” He then he moved back and quickly made the sign of the cross.
“Ah…” She nodded, biting back a smile. “Magic herbs.”
“There is no magic in God’s house, my lady,” he said seriously. “God gives us these plants to help us. But there is the Devil’s work all about. Many must be used carefully or they will poison, such as wolfbane, and if you brew a tea too strong of bloodbane,” he knelt down next to her, “and too much of this bright red plant, which induces sleep, and the patient might never awaken.”
