“First things first, child.” Lonan patted her hand and guided her to a squat stone building. The small size, low ceiling, and enormous hearth declared its sole purpose to be heat. He steered her to a large leather chair by the fire. She sat, mesmerized by the flames, dancing tall and warming her to the bone.
“But how did you find me?” she asked, as he slathered a foul-smelling paste on her extremities. She shuddered to think what sort of rancid animal lard was currently warming her through. “I hid in the bushes.”
“Yes,” he said, and Magda had to avert her eyes from his grotesque smile. “You dragged yourself under cover, leaving a path in the sand like a turtle up from the sea to lay her eggs.”
He slowly wiped his hands on a rag tucked in the rope of his belt. Using a pair of crude tongs, Lonan began to pull strips of heated linen from a cast-iron pot and laid them out along a blanket by his side. “If this is how you hide, my child, I count you doubly blessed. It’s a wonder you made it here at all.”
“What about the painting?” Magda struggled to keep her emotions in check as all of her questions and fears and worries of the past weeks boiled to the surface.
Lonan looked up at her with a kindly smile. “What about the painting, child?”
“The painting. You know.” She pulled her feet out from Lonan’s hands. “You were the one who did that portrait of James. How did you do that? I don’t understand why I’m here.”
Lonantsked. “You’ll injure yourself further, child. Your feet are shredded and in need of warmth and cleansing.”
He tenderly took her feet back in his hands and, cupping her heels in his palms, said, “All in good time, Magdalen. You will understand all in good time.”
Maybe it was her exhaustion, but although she wanted to protest further, she found she trusted the old man. Magda let him finish in silence then, watching as he bound her feet with the soothing linen bandages, transfixed by his age-spotted hands and knobby fingers covered with patches of wiry white hair. Despite herself, her own mind gradually grew quiet.
“Ah,” Lonan said, as he tied off the last of her wrappings. He’d been kneeling in front of Magda, and as he rose creakily to his feet, she prepared to catch him if he toppled.
He took a small handkerchief from his pocket. “Lest I forget.” Unfolding it, he produced a small square the color of seafoam. “This is for the wound under your skirts.”
Wary uncertainty flashed in her eyes.
“There’s no shame about it.” Lonan pressed it into her hand. “I smell the blood, child. This is a natural styptic. It will speed your healing.”
She stroked it between her fingers, and it was cool and spongy, with a lush velvety texture only possible in nature. “What is it?”
“It’s merely touchwood, dear.”
She shook her head, confused.
“If I tell you it’s a fungus that grows like a shelf from the sides of trees, will you still place it between your legs?”
“Certainly not.” She stiffened her back, trying to muster the picture of robust health.
“Well,” he said, amusement quirking his features, “then I suppose I mustn’t tell you that.”
Relief at her successful escape had loosened something in her belly, and she laughed.
Lonan joined her, and his scar once again deformed his features, one half of him joyful and the other misshapen into a grimacing mask.
Magda forced herself to hold his gaze, though she had to fight herself from flicking her eyes to the left side of his face.
“You’re wondering what happened.”
She raised her brows in mock innocence, and he met her charade with patience.
“To my face, child. I can see you’re wondering what it is that befell me.”
“Well, I . . .”
“Do not be ashamed. Wonderment is what drives men to more and greater things.‘It was through the feeling of wonder that men now and at first began to philosophize.’”
Magda looked baffled.
“Aristotle’s words, not mine. I am not nearly so circumspect.”
