Candace Robb - The Cross Legged Knight

Owen eased down on the stool beside the injured man’s pallet, found it too low, sat instead on the edge of the straw-stuffed mattress, reached for the bowl. As he leaned close to the patient the smell of singed flesh conjured flashes of battlefields slippery with blood, men groaning, begging him to help them die. He crossed himself at the memories and then pushed them back before they sickened him. He wet the man’s temples, glad of the clean odour of vinegar. In a short while the man’s belly rumbled. The purge that was incorporated in the dwale was at last working, the poison leaving his body. When the sounds ceased, Owen lifted Poins’s legs and pulled the waiting cloth from beneath him.

‘It is good that he fouled himself,’ said Magda.

Owen took the cloth out to the midden at the end of the garden, noting as he passed the corner of the house that Alfred was not at his post. Owen held his breath, listening. Gravel crunched near the roses, against the back wall of the garden. The night was still clear, with enough moonlight to outline shapes. The fruit trees shivered in the light wind, something skittered beneath the hellebore leaves, but other than that all was still, and he picked out no unexpected silhouettes.

With a sudden rush of noisy movement, a shape emerged from his left, blocking the path.

‘Who goes there?’ Alfred demanded in a loud, resonant voice.

‘Your captain,’ said Owen, stepping into the light. ‘What were you doing back there?’

‘I thought I saw someone. Creeping along, staying low, as you were just now. But I can find no trace. If someone was here, he escaped over the wall.’

At four feet high, that would not be difficult for an agile person.

‘I fear you were right that we should watch,’ said Alfred.

He deserved to know just how dangerous this was. ‘Someone murdered that woman in the undercroft tonight. If the man in my kitchen is not the murderer, it might be the intruder you just frightened off.’ Or there might have been nothing in the garden but Alfred’s imagination. Owen must remember that.

‘I guessed her death was no accident when you set us up to guard, Captain. You are not an idle worrier.’

‘I intend to move him on the morrow’ — as soon as Owen told Lucie what they were dealing with. He hoped she would agree with him. ‘I commend you for your quick response.’

‘Get some rest, Captain. I’ll be watching.’

When Owen returned to the kitchen, Magda had removed the cap that had held her grizzled braids from her neck and was pinning them high on her head.

‘Trouble?’ she asked.

‘Alfred fears we had an uninvited guest.’

‘It is good thou hadst the foresight to set a watch. Help Magda shift Poins on to his stomach.’ She tucked the light cover around the injured man, took her position at his feet.

Her lack of concern regarding a possible intruder calmed Owen. He bent to slip his hands beneath the man’s chest, smelling the noxious lotion Magda had spread on the right side of his face. Poins shuddered with pain, cried out at the movement beneath his shoulders and the rasp of the rough cloth against his burns as they lifted and rolled him on to his stomach, the cover now beneath him. Here were the worst of the burns, on his upper back, the back of his head, his buttocks. Some of the flesh was blistered, some of it burned more severely.

Magda began tucking folded cloths and cushions beneath Poins to ease the strain on his neck and allow him to breathe freely. Though her skin was a web of wrinkles, she was yet a strong woman, manipulating the man as if he were but a child.

‘Bring Magda the ointment she was stirring.’

‘It smells as if you mean to tan him.’

‘Magda must cleanse the wounds, prepare the flesh for healing. Adderwort, oak bark, lady’s mantle …’

‘… and urine.’

‘Dost thou suddenly have a weak stomach?’

‘No. We used it in the camps. But it is not a pleasant odour in the kitchen.’

‘Thou shouldst move him above the shop, keep him and the guards from thy children.’

‘I mean to move him at least that far.’

The oil lamp was flickering, about to go out, when Poins groaned and blinked rapidly.

Owen spoke his name.

Poins struck out with his remaining arm, knocking aside the bowl Owen had left beside him.

Owen caught his arm, held it down. ‘You are safe, Poins.’

The injured man opened his eyes, staring wildly. He opened his mouth, but had little voice. Twisting away from Owen, he arched, trying to roll on to his back.

‘You do not want to do that,’ Owen said, holding fast.

Magda appeared at Owen’s side. ‘There is sometimes this wildness after the dwale leaves the body. Magda is grateful thou wert wakeful.’

Poins began to breathe shallowly. ‘I am burning,’ he moaned. His face contorted. ‘My arm.’

‘Thou art saved,’ Magda said. ‘Sleep now. Thou hast much healing to do.’

His breathing slowed.

Magda turned to Owen. ‘Take thee up to thy bed. Thou hast returned him to the living. For now.’

Lucie lay in the darkness just before dawn. Owen had come to bed only moments ago and had fallen asleep at once. She listened to his deep, steady breathing, such a counterpoint to her own pounding heart. She fought against rising and going to see the children. Too often of late she had done so, only to wake them and spread her fear. They sensed a tension in her, that she was not the same, and she could see it frightened them. Even if they had been old enough for her to explain to them that she had lost a child, a half-formed soul, and now she woke each night terrified that God had taken another, she had no right to give them such a dark gift, rob them of all joy. They were too young to learn that life did not go on for ever. There was time enough for them to learn of death.

She would go down to the hall and watch the dawn in the garden, but Magda was in the kitchen. She felt she had told Magda too much already.

A cock crowed, a sound that both heartened and saddened Lucie, the end of the long night, another day in which her steps faltered, her attention wandered. People noticed her strangeness. Her friend Emma Ferriby had yesterday come for a draught to induce a dreamless sleep. Lucie had noted at Sir Ranulf’s requiem how her friend had stood with her gloved hands clasped tightly against her middle, her lips pinched, her back too stiff, fighting the anger and grief that warred in her.

‘You are unwell?’ Lucie had asked.

‘I cannot sleep — no, that is not true. I fear sleep. I am plagued by bad dreams.’

Lucie had searched her friend’s eyes for a desperation mirroring her own, but had seen only sorrow and exhaustion. ‘I can give you something to help you sleep, but I cannot promise it will be dreamless.’ She had taken Emma’s hands. ‘You must swear to me you will take only as much as I tell you.’

How strange she must have sounded. Emma had tried to laugh, but it came out an uneasy sound. ‘Sweet heaven, of course. I fear the night, I fear the dreams and it is all the worse for knowing nothing can be done, nothing. But I would not harm myself.’ She had withdrawn her hands from Lucie’s. ‘I swear it.’

‘I did not think you would,’ Lucie said. ‘I shall mix something for you. But it is a potent sleep draft. Too much will make you senseless.’

‘You are looking pale. Should you be in the shop?’

Lucie turned over in bed, dispelling the memory. The shop was precisely where she needed to be, mixing what she had promised Emma. The accounts and then the fire had distracted her from the task. But first she would check on the injured servant. She would tell Magda that is what had wakened her at dawn, concern for the man who lay so near death in her kitchen.