“I could care for him.”
Valda’s expression turned vexed. “Nay, how could you? We have not enough food to make camp here. And it would be a waste of time if we did. He is more like to die than not.”
Staring again at the man, Blythe became stubborn. “If there is a chance to save him, I will take it.”
“I tell you, we cannot linger here. We needs reach the next village to replenish—”
“Then we take him with us.”
Valda threw up her hands in disgust. “Are you daft, girl? Why would we do a stupid thing like that?”
“To save him,” Blythe said simply.
“But he is naught to us.”
At which point Blythe mentioned the one thing guaranteed to make Valda agreeable. “He will reward us for saving him, and not just a few pennies, but a hundred at least. He is a lord. Why else would his every stitch have been taken? Would you not like to arrive at Aldrich’s this time with coin in your pocket so we do not appear so needy?”
Valda was caught by the notion, but still frowned. “’Tis no easy task to force gruel down the throat of a man who is half dead and cannot swallow. He will weaken by the day and perish in a sennight.”
“Mayhap two hundred—”
“So help me get him into the cart. But I warn you, girl, if he has not wakened by the time we reach Bedford, I will dump him in the bushes myself. We cannot come to Aldrich with thisman, or he would not let us in the door. My cousin does not like to draw the attention of nobles, even grateful ones. Naught good ever comes of it. So your promise, or he does not budge from this spot. There will be no argument from you when the time comes to be rid of him.”
Blythe nodded eagerly, her confidence strong that they could heal the man in a fortnight, the time it would likely take to reach Bedford with their old ox. He did not fit in the cart, of course. The back had to be left down so his feet could hang over the end, and even then because his legs were so long, every bump in the road had his feet striking the ground. None of which woke him.
The days passed, with Valda grumbling continuously, though she did show Blythe how to rub the man’s throat to get liquid to trickle down it. Not much liquid went down in that way, however, though she couldn’t tell if he was weakening, he had been so healthy and muscular to begin with.
But she gave him the tenderest care, already far gone in love with him. She even sold herself to buy meat for his broth, when she and Valda rarely ever had meat for themselves. She did it gladly, determined that he would live despite the fact that he never made a sound, never moved a limb on his own, never opened his eyes, and was running a fever that came and went.
In truth, Blythe did the best she could, though neither she nor Valda knew aught of healing.Still, they reached Bedford with the man’s condition unchanged. With the promise she had made hanging over her head, Blythe managed to cajole and coerce her aunt into making camp for two extra days, but she could ask for no more than that. Her own future was at stake, a better life to be gained. Valda made sure she realized that their future couldn’t be risked for a man they did not know.
But, God help her, it was the hardest thing Blythe had ever done, leaving the man behind. She cried all the while she dressed him from Valda’s store of stolen garments, fighting with her aunt to do so, for Valda could not see the waste, whereas Blythe refused to leave the man as naked as they had found him. That was the least she could do, now that she was deserting him. But her feelings also overwhelmed her at the end, and she slapped him again and again, screaming at him to wake up, raging at the unfairness of it, after all she had done, to have her aunt be right. He was not going to wake up, ever.
Finally Valda dragged her away, complaining about her puffy eyes, complaining that Aldrich wouldn’t like a weeping woman. Blythe didn’t care at the moment. She would get Aldrich to wed her, puffy eyes or not. And although she would never see the man again, whoever he was, she was going to remember him for the rest of her life.
Chapter 6
IT WAS THErain that woke Selig, steady drops that gathered on the clump of leaves over his head and struck the dead center of his forehead. But the pain at the back of his head that greeted him was so excruciating, it sent him straight into blackness for another day.
The sun was shining when he woke again, and the very brightness of it hurt him, even though he could see, through the narrow slit of his eyes, that it didn’t touch him directly, that he was shielded by the bushes he lay under. That other pain was there again also, and it wasn’t so merciful this time, did not render him into oblivion again and did not go away either. He was afraid to move because of it, and for long, disoriented minutes he did not, adjusting to the throb of it, gritting his teeth to keep from groaning.
When he finally lifted a hand to locate the source of the pain, his fingers shook, and his arm wouldn’t remain lifted, but fell back to the ground. Weakness, he realized. His blood loss must have been great to account for it, and he began to worry that he was in serioustrouble. He could be close to death, for all he knew, and he still had no idea of what kind of wound he had sustained.
He waited a while before he tried once more to find the wound, and this time he succeeded. He felt over his face first, for the pain seemed to be everywhere, yet all he found was a slight stubble of beard there. That assured him he hadn’t been unconscious for long, mayhap a day, but then, he had no way of knowing that a tender hand had been shaving him for the past ten. He found the lump on the back of his head at last, bringing a gasp from him as he pressed the tender spot. It was nowhere near as swollen as it had been, of a size now to relieve his mind that it wasn’t so serious as he had feared. But there was no stickiness of blood either, so what, then, accounted for the weakness of his limbs?
He suspected first that he must be wounded elsewhere as well, just had yet to feel it. So he took stock of the rest of his body, shaking each limb slightly to see if pain would accompany the movement. None did, other than a general discomfort and stiffness all over, a hollow ache in his belly, which didn’t surprise him if he had gone a day without food, and a strange soreness on the soles of his feet, as if someone had taken a stick to them. And since that made no sense to him, any more than his weakness did, he didn’t dwell on it, for thinking only increased the pain in his head.
He did wonder, however, how he was going to return to Wyndhurst, which was no morethan a day away, possibly two on foot, when just the thought of sitting up filled him with dread. He lay there for another hour, loath to try it, but finally he did, lifting himself to his elbows first, then pushing upward until he was sitting straight. He had been right to dread it, for immediately he was assailed by dizziness, but worse was the nausea that quickly followed. He bent to the side, ready to spill his guts, but nothing came out. That didn’t stop the gagging, however, which he did again and again, each time jerking his whole body and sending extra knives into his skull, until the pain was once more too much for him to bear.
It was still daylight the next time he awoke, but he couldn’t say if it was the same day. The pain was still there, too, still just as bad, and memory of his attempt to rise kept him from trying again for a long while. It was the ache in his belly, and the strange weakness that would not go away, that finally prompted him to move. He needed food—Odin help him, he felt as if he were starving—and a soft bed, and his sister to fuss over him, none of which he would get remaining where he was. So he finally gritted his teeth, determined to make it to his feet this time and be on his way, but he did so inveryslow degrees.
The dizziness came again when he was sitting upright, but he fought it with what strength he had, and managed to keep the accompanying nausea at bay. Only now he noticed a blurriness of vision, which, fortunately, was not constant, but came and went.
However, sitting there, in no hurry to make the final plunge to his feet, he had time to note his surroundings as well as the clothes he was wearing, which were not his own. The mud-colored braies fit him so tightly they didn’t need to be cross-gartered, and they stopped just short of his knees. The gray tunic was wide but short, no doubt made for a man who liked his food overmuch. It was so loose he didn’t note his weight loss, which would have explained the weakness, but not the why of it. The cloth shoes had holes on their soles, which might account for his sore feet if he had done some walking—which was possible, he supposed.
He was reminded of the time he had wandered the south coast of Wessex when he searched for his sister in the guise of a fisherman from Devon of Celtic origin, and a poor one at that, dressed in threadbare clothes. But before that, there had been the feverish delirium he had suffered before he found help for his wound. He had had powerful dreams then, whilst he recovered, and he felt a moment’s fear that this was still that time, that all that had happened since was no more than dreams. He shook the notion off quickly, though, for he couldn’t have dreamed someone like his brother-in-law before he had even met the man. Royce was too unique—and the pain in his head was too real and unrelated to that other time.
The clothes were not, however. They were just as ragged as those others had been, andit made no sense that he should be wearing them. For that matter, his party had been on the road when they were attacked, so why had he been moved to the side of it? Actually, he could see the road through the foliage, and there were no corpses lying about on it. Had they been discovered already and he himself overlooked because he had crawled into these bushes? And if he had got there on his own, how had he come by the clothes?
