Cole shook his head. “If you wish to know more, then you must ask your father. I have told you all I can.”
She understood. “Thank you for being honest with me,” she said. “But I do hope he was not trying to lure my father into a war. We have seen enough of that.”
He peered at her strangely. “Here?” he said. “At The Keld?”
She shook her head. “Not here,” she said. “But my father trots out his army every time there is an action against the king in the north. He does not like the man very much. There are a few barons this far north who support the king and there are others who do not. Disputes arise. In fact, there was one a few months ago and my father went to support Prudhoe Castle against Lord Lanchester. It seemed that Lanchester wanted Prudhoe for the king and d’Umfraville called upon my father for assistance to chase him away. That was a rather… messy battle.”
Cole hadn’t heard of that particular skirmish, but he wasn’t surprised. John’s loyal barons were generally unscrupulous and targeted major castles from time to time with the intention of holding them for the king.
“The men of The Keld were fortunate to have you,” he said. “I am sure you tended to them quite ably once they reached home.”
She looked at him oddly. “I tended to them at the battle,” she said. “I am my father’s surgeon.”
Cole stared at her a moment before his eyebrows slowly lifted. “Youwent on a battle march?”
She nodded. “Of course,” she said. “Anytime my father’s army is called out, I go with them. The men have a much better chance of surviving if I am able to tend to them quickly.”
It took him a moment to digest that. Women weren’t surgeons and they certainly didn’t go on battle marches. At least, he’d never heard of anything like that in his life. But at The Keld, that was evidently the situation– the chatelaine healer was also the surgeon. Her practice of tending the ill and sick crossed over into battlefield.
He wasn’t sure he liked that at all.
“I see,” he said. “That is a very difficult life for a woman. I am surprised your father permits it.”
Corisande shrugged. “As I said, I am their best chance for survival,” she said. “My mother used to go with the army, too.”
“Twowomen surgeons?”
“Indeed.”
Cole had never heard of such a thing. To think of Corisande de Bourne in the midst of a battle… nay, he didn’t like that at all. A battle was no place for a woman, but he refrained from voicing his opinion. She clearly didn’t see anything wrong with it and he didn’t want to interject his position when he really had no place to. But it occurred to him that if de Bourne sent his army to Berwick, as he had pledged, then Corisande might be going along as the surgeon.
… and he had a distinct problem with that.
He’d known the woman a matter of hours and, already, he didn’t like the idea of her in danger.
It was a most interesting situation.
“Hopefully, there will never be another cause for you to venture out with the army,” he said, smiling weakly. “The Keldseems to be at peace for the moment. So we shall hope it remains that way.”
“And you’ll still come back and visit us?”
“I said I would. I meant it.”
The way he said it caused her cheeks to flush. He could see it in the dim light of the lamp. But she lowered her gaze, and the lamp, and his glimpse of those pretty cheeks was dimmed.
“Then I shall be in the stables before dawn with some food for your journey,” she said. “I hope that is agreeable.”
“I am grateful, my lady.”
“If I am to call you Cole, then you are to call me Cori.”
“It would be my greatest honor.”
“But do not let my brothers hear you. They might think you are being too forward.”
He laughed low in his throat. “I can handle the de Bourne brothers.”
“And they think they can handle you.”
