“I don’t get sick. Eat your lunch.”
“You ought to be in bed.”
“I told you.” He tilted his head down to look at the food he’d put on his plate, which he still hadn’t touched. “I’ll be fine.” He coughed, lifting his elbow to cover his mouth as his forehead creased.
“This is foolish,” she informed him. Ayla stood, her chair squeaking back against the stone floor. “Up.”
“What?”
“You look like you’ve been run through a grain mill. You need to go back to bed.”
Niel glared up in her direction, but his eyes weren’t focused.
“Don’t play nursemaid to me.”
“Then don’t be a fool man who thinks he can avoid resting when he needs to.”
“It’ll pass.”
“Yes, with rest.” She held out a hand to him, demanding he take it and rise.
“I ran the castle wall twice this morning. Could a sick man do that?”
“I neither know nor care. But consideringyourhealth stands between me and being returned tohim, for Mercy’s sake, will you stop being so stubborn?”
That had his attention. He stared up at her and the trembling hand she offered him, his dark eyes glassy and unfixed and yet pointed unerringly at her. Slowly he reached out and placed a large, calloused hand on her soft palm. He rose from his chair, and she was glad he didn’t actually need her help, because she wasn’t sure she could have lifted him, armored, tall, and broad-shouldered as he was.
“I’ll be back with medicine,” she informed him as he staggered towards the doorway to Ditmar’s bed chamber.
“Don’t need it,” the knight said stubbornly without looking over his shoulder.
“I’m bringing it nonetheless,” she called. Ayla layered quince and meat on a slab of bread, then left the sitting room, eating as she walked.
The door to the infirmary stood open. She took her last bite outside, chewed, swallowed, and stepped in.
The first thing she saw was a blindfolded man sitting on one of the beds. His arms were tied behind him, and he was missing the bottom half of one leg. The bandage made clear it was a recent loss.
She gasped and took a step back. The wounded captive was dressed in filthy, bloodstained clothes, likely the same ones he’d worn during the attack. He was brown-haired, with a muscular build, his skin blue-gray from blood loss.
“Luck and Mercy,” Ayla whispered.
“Lady Blackfell.” One of Lord Niel’s soldiers lounged at the healer’s worktable. He stood quickly as her eyes flickered from the prisoner to the soldier, and back.
“Who…?” she asked.
“Prisoner,” the soldier told Ayla, which had already been obvious.
“Lady Blackfell, is that you?” the blindfolded man asked, sitting straighter. “Are you harmed? You must be strong. Help will—”
“Shut the fuck up, unless you want me to gag you, too,” Niel’s soldier said to the wounded man, his voice sharpening.
“Please, don’t do that,” Ayla muttered, a hand going to her throat. So this was the Enarian knight who’d been taken captive. Was Lord Niel determined to treat all his prisoners cruelly? Blindfolding a bound, injured man was little better than keeping Isalde in a dark room. “Yes, sir, I’m Lady Ayla. I am not harmed.”
The captive knight wasn’t one of Ditmar’s men. He was one of the Queen’s men, who’d come with Niel’s brother to take back castle Blackfell. It was not the captive’s fault that Ditmar was a wretched man, nor that Niel had taken Blackfell in the first place. Like Ayla, this man was caught up in other people’s conflicts, and he had paid a price for it. She could not help but hurt for him.
“What do you want?” Niel’s soldier asked her.
She feared if she didn’t answer fast enough, he’d kick her out of the infirmary to stop her from talking to the wounded knight. She tore her gaze away from the prisoner and blinked at Niel’s soldier.
