“Saoirse?” The low vibration in her voice brought her two companions to a halt. “What is that?” Her numb index finger extended toward the red splotch in the snow.
A moment of silence. Then another. And one moment more.
“There’s another one,”Ӕmma croaked, pointing farther away.
Focusing her eyes, her vision made blurry by the cold, Isabella saw that, in fact, none of the leaves were red. The crimson pops of color punctuating the path to the men’s quarters were a jagged line of blood stains, leading straight to Thorstein’s door.
The freezing air caught in Isabella’s throat and she nearly choked on her tongue as she bolted toward Thorstein’s room. Saoirse andӔmma easily overtook her, their shoes and skirts spitting snow and blood back into Isabella’s face as she ran.
With fire in her lungs, Isabella continued her labored sprint as she watched Saoirse andӔmma burst through the gaping doorway and out of her sight. Twin screams enveloped her as she finally reached the door, panting and suppressing the urge to vomit.
Please don’t let him be dead.
“Move! Move goddamnit! I can’t see!” Throwing her shoulder into Saoirse and propelling her away from Thorstein, Isabella could finally see his face, his beautiful, untouched, unblemished face. It was the only part of his body not covered in thick, sticky blood.
Isabella whipped her head around toӔmma. “Run back to the barn and bring that sled. As fast as you can!”
Like a hareӔmma shot out the door, her face as boldly white as the snow her feet kicked up around her.
“I’m sorry!” Isabella cried, falling to her knees and gathering Thorstein’s bloody mass up in her arms. “I’m so sorry!”
As she held his head in the crook of her arm, tiny pinpricks of pain rose up on her shoulder. Not bothering to open her eyes, Isabella winced against the pain of Saoirse’s fingernails in her arm.
“Don’t move him unless you have to!” the girl hissed.
“Is the chiurgeon still here?”
“No, he’s gone on the hunt!” Saoirse sobbed, her finger straightening to point. “It’s in his belly. The wound.”
Though his rattling gasps of breath declared him to be alive, Thorstein’s condition was dangerously unstable. Cradling him in her arms, Isabella could feel how cold he was, how shallowly his breathing was. The blood still seeping slowly from his side confirmed Saoirse’s observation that he had suffered a stab to the gut.
“Get him a blanket,” she whispered, rubbing her hands on his bare arms. “He’s freezing.”
“Deorca?” Thorstein’s strangled whisper was muffled by her shoulder.
“Don’t talk, Thorstein. We’re going to help you.” Saoirse returned to his side, laying the fur onto his chest, gently wrapping it around his shoulders. Isabella’s throat was tied into a knot with the overwhelming knowledge that no matter what, Thorstein was going to die. You’re too late, an angry voice hissed in her head.
“The keys…”
Thorstein’s warbling voice had a liquid sound to it. Please God let his lung not be punctured. The wound was low on his left side, but she did not know how far down the lungs extended or what organs were situated beneath them.
“It’s all right, she’ll come soon,” Saoirse reassured him, leaning her shoulder against Isabella’s.
“The keys…she came for them,” he mumbled out again, this time more forcefully.
“Hush, now.”
Now you tell me what use that boy has for jailer’s keys?
The realization snapped clearly into place in Isabella’s mind and let out a moan of anger and frustration at her own stupidity.
“The jailer’s keys? Did Annis do this to you?” she asked, her voice finally taking hold.
“Don’t ask him questions, Deorca. He must not speak!” Saoirse’s roared.
Thorstein’s eyes were unfocused, his pupils dilated, but as she wrapped the fur tighter around his arms in a vain attempt to warm him, she heard him hiss out, “yyeeee..ssssss.”
“I told you,” Saoirse growled. “I told you what she could do.” Weaving her arms into the space between Isabella and Thorstein, Saoirse pressed her hands onto the seeping wound in his belly, prompting a low hiss from Thorstein, who had lost his light grip on consciousness. “I will make you well again,” she whispered. “You will be well.”
Stupid! Selwyn had been right. Thorstein had been holding those keys to keep Isabella safe from Annis, not to help her. Why had she ever listened to Garrick? So stupid! And now her friend may die because of it.
The wind whistling through the still swaying door was the only sound in the little room as all three of them waited for Æmma to return with the sled.
“Where will we take him?” Isabella whispered. “With the lach gone?”
“Redwald will help him,” Saoirse nodded, seemingly to herself. “He can dress wounds.”
Isabella felt herself recoil at the idea of Redwald and his filthy shit-stained hands being the one to address Thorstein’s internal bleeding. “Are you sure he knows how? What if he makes it worse?”
“Would you rather take him to the wise woman so she may sprinkle herbs on him?” Unraveling herself from Thorstein, Saoirse shoved herself off the floor and bolted out the door screaming, “Æmma! Æ-mma!”
A distant call echoed through the trees. “I’m here!”
Isabella sighed in relief at her extraordinary speed. Æmma must have run at a dead sprint all the way to the barn in order to have made it back so quickly. Pressing her fingers to Thorstein’s neck, she could still feel his weak pulse. “Please God let him live. Please let it not be too late.”
“Deorca!”Ӕmma’s voice was much closer now.
Craning her neck to see out the door, Isabella could see the one-eyed woman running with all her might, pulling the sled by a pair of leather straps she held over her shoulders. She skidded to a halt a foot away from the doorstep, spraying bloody snow across the threshold.
“Help me,” Isabella said behind gritted teeth, but she hadn’t needed to. Saoirse was already bent beside Thorstein’s feet, waiting for Isabella to grab his shoulders. AfterӔmma joined them to secure her grip under his back, in tandem they heaved him onto the sled, using two of the straps to tie him down like so much firewood. He moaned at them, clearly trying to say something, but he was trembling so badly Isabella could not be sure he even knew where he was. There was just so much blood, dried into crystals all over his skin and the waist of his breeches.
In an unspoken acknowledgement that Isabella’s flayed back would be of no help,Ӕmma and Saoirse grabbed the remaining straps and pulled like twin draft horses, lobbing Thorstein’s head back with the sudden jolt of movement.
It was then—watching his blonde head sway from side to side as she hobbled behind him—that Isabella felt the rage seep into her, almost as if the freezing wind had carried it from Saoirse into her. I will kill that bitch when I see her. I don’t care who sees or what happens to me. I will cut her open.
“Saoirse, slow down.”Ӕmma’s voice was hoarse, shaking with the concentration it took to keep from slipping. Isabella tore her eyes from Thorstein’s ghostly white face to see a look of concerted pain on the side ofӔmma’s face. Pulling as hard as she was, Saoirse was pulling the heavy sled straight intoӔmma’s much longer legs. The empty road was slick with partially melted ice from last night’s snowfall and it seemed at any moment the girls would lose their grip on that sled, sending Thorstein careening into one of the empty market tables.
“The tannery is so far, I will not—”
“Redwald is at home, Sweet, not the tannery.”Ӕmma pointed towards the cluster of ramshackle huts to the left of the main road, bringing into sharp relief the fact Isabella had never once considered where Redwald went when he wasn’t scraping out cows. The houses had only been a background object for her as she walked to and from her work, and she had never given any thought to the fact that people actually lived here.
A pinched, hysteri
cal giggle erupted from the little girl’s mouth and she looked back at Isabella, twisting her mouth into a sob-strangled smile. “He will be all right.”
With a low, bovine grunt Saoirse pulled again, this time more steadily and to the left, directly toward the houses, withӔmma heaving out a sigh alongside her, but not a sigh of relief. Isabella turned her eyes skyward to block out the sound of sheer hopelessness ringing in her ears.
The sight of her friend bleeding had clearly scrubbed all sense of her low station, as Saoirse did not even wait to reach the first house before she started screaming.
“Redwald! Redwald Tanner you are needed!” Saoirse’s voice had turned coarse, becoming more of a howl. Her cries bounced off the walls of the tightly packed houses, each call prompting several heads to pop out of windows and doorways, all women, all looking concerned and confused.
Isabella joined in with the cries as they pulled Thorstein across the rocky path, prompting two passing older women to drop their water buckets to run alongside Thorstein’s unconscious body.
“Deorca, what evil is this?”
With a start, Isabella pinched off her call for Redwald as she realized the puffy, middle-aged woman with the dark circles under her eyes had been one of the first to help her in the market. The one who had laughed at her when she desperately asked where to buy cabbage.
“The Mad Lady tried to kill Thorstein,” she panted out. “We need Redwald to–”
“Redwald!” The woman joined in with Saoirse’s screams, needing no further information, and pushed on Isabella’s arm to direct her farther away from the road. It was only under her direction that Isabella realized she had absolutely no idea which house was Redwald’s
“God’s death! What are you mass of chickens squawking at?”
The gravelly bark cut through her cries, clanging off the sides of the houses, and silencing every female voice that had risen up in the street. Isabella whipped around to see Redwald planted on the side of the road, a storm in his eyes and a cleaver in his hand.
Does he sleep with that thing?
“Redwald,” Saoirse whispered. “Help.”
The old man’s eyes drifted downward, understanding lighting his eyes as he noticed the “chickens” who had so disturbed him were not hauling a mule’s carcass. His eyes lingered a moment on Thorstein, who laid still as death, before snapping them to Isabella’s face.
“Bring him. Hurry now.”
He jerked his head and marched across the road, past the bucket-dropping women, who stared after him, mouths agape.
“Shall I send me daughter after the men so the chiurgeon can come and see to him?” one of them called after him.
Whirling around, Redwald jabbed his finger at Saoirse. “You! You ride out and tell Lord Cædda what’s happened. You tell him what that mad bitch of his did and you bring the lach back here. Go now!”
“I will not leave him!” Saoirse dropped to her knees beside Thorstein, her cheeks red and wet. “Send—”
Isabella watched the very specific look of fury at wasted time overtake Redwald’s face. In a single smooth motion, he leaned down, wrapped his hand around Saoirse’s tiny arm, and yanked her roughly to her feet.
“Your weeping will do him no good, Woman. The darkie can’t leave the city lest she be accused of escaping again and I haven’t the energy to dish out another flogging. I can’t very well send that fat cow,” he said jabbing his fist at the thin woman who had called out to him, presumably meaning the woman’s daughter was fat. “And I can’t send the Cyclops after him,” he jerked his head at Æmma. “She’d run into a tree ‘ere she left the city.”
Saoirse opened her mouth, allowing only a single, screeching syllable to escape before Redwald’s bellow cut her off.
“Who would he trust more than his favorite whore? Run now, Girl!”
A final agonizing moan escaped from Saoirse as she gave Isabella a last pleading look before turning to run toward the livery.
I’ll save him, Saoirse. I swear I’ll save him. She had to save him; why else would there have been a dream at all?
Redwald, satisfied Saoirse was doing as she was told, bent down once more and wrapped his burly arms around Thorstein’s midsection. “Be mindful now you don’t jostle him, lest the guts fall out before I can sew him up.” He did not look up as he spoke, did not make any implicit commands, but moving as one, Isabella andӔmma bent down and grasped onto Thorstein and heaved him off the ground, carrying him twenty feet into one of the two-room huts near the tree line and laid him out on the long oak table positioned in the center of the room. Horrifyingly, it was spattered with dried blood.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Isabella demanded, looking for signs that he brought his filthy tanning work home with him.
“I know how to treat a stabbing wound.” He shot a glare at Isabella. “Now make yerself useful and fetch the tools,” he pointed to the far corner of the room. “And make sure that fire’s high so I can heat the irons.”
Following his extended finger, Isabella started toward the fire only to collide with Hilde. Reaching her arms out to steady the old woman, solely out of instinct. No matter what time of day or night Isabella came home, Hilde was always at the Great Hall, always there fawning over Annis or screaming maliciously at the kitchen girls. So wasn’t she there now? Why was she at home in her nightgown in midmorning looking like she might cry?
“Husband,” she rasped, wriggling free of Isabella’s hands. “What has happened?”
“That damned Annis has finally gone cracked, that’s what. The needles, Woman!”
Isabella’s head snapped back as he turned his attention back toward her. Stepping around Hilde, she reached out for the bundled kit next to the hearth, one just like (she prayed not the same one) Redwald used to sew up skins.
“My Lady would never—” Hilde sputtered, swaying slightly as she reached out a bony hand to steady herself on Isabella’s shoulder.
“Of course she would,” Isabella muttered, her intended hiss tempered by the realization that Hilde must be ill, very much so, to be anywhere but the Great Hall. “And frankly given our company,” Isabella jerked her head toward Æmma, who was feigning deafness as she cradled Thorstein’s head. “It’s an offense to all decency you would pretend otherwise.”
“You’re all so cruel to her!” Hilde cried out, stumbling as Isabella shook off her grip and moved back toward the table with the bundle Redwald had asked for.
“Back to bed with you!” Redwald snapped. “This is bloody work and I don’t need ale.” He nodded toward the cup in her hand. “Go back to our bed and stay there. If you need something, the Cyclops here will tend you.”
“Husband, this woman…”
“Is my apprentice,” he finished, more softly than Isabella could have ever imagined. “Obey me,” he said quietly.
Hilde held firm for a moment, seeming to debate the merits of defiance, but in the end she just nodded, and trudged into the adjoining room to lie down.
Checking the fire as she was asked, Isabella took two of the pokers resting on the hearth and dug them deep into the fire so they could heat.
“Why do you need the needles and the irons?” Æmma asked as she flicked her eye in Isabella’s direction. “If you burn a wound, there’s no need to sew it.”
A sour frown overtook Redwald’s face, prompting Isabella to bleat out a single, inappropriate laugh.
“I won’t know whether sewing or burning is better for the wound unless I see it.” He grabbed hold of Thorstein’s trousers, held in place by laces. “And I need to wake him. For all I know, the shock of the burn will kill him. That would do no good, now would it? Wake up, Boy!” Redwald shouted at Thorstein as he tugged the trousers down, exposing the deep V of his pelvis and the bloody gash in his side.
“Ssstttoppp.” Amazingly, Thorstein’s eyelashes fluttered, his fingers reaching down instinctively to halt Redwald’s invasion of his modesty.
“None of your popish prudery today, B
oy. And you,” Redwald’s eyes, creased with worry, flashed at Isabella. “Fetch me all the wine you can carry from the Hall’s kitchens. He’ll need something for the pain.”
Isabella nodded, turned to do as she was told, then jolted to a stop as Thorstein’s icy finger clamped tight around her wrist.
“Jesus!” she screamed, pulling away on instinct.
“Wyrtgeorn,” he gurgled.
“What?” she leaned down to be near his face, pushing her braid off his forehead.
“Don’t move you daft bastard, or we’ll be done before we start!” Redwald cried, pinning Thorstein’s shoulders to the table. “Help me get these damned wet trousers off him afore he freezes solid, Cyclops.”
“My name is Æmma, Old Man.”
“I sent Wyrtgeorn to the jail,” Thorstein moaned, raising his voice as best he could over the sniping.
Isabella made a soothing sound and laid her hand across his forehead. “It’s all right, Thorstein. Lady Annis would never hurt Wyrtgeorn, even if she sees him. We need to get
you—”
“Einar will kill him,” he coughed out. “She’s letting him out. She doesn’t know her son is there. I sent him… please.”
The room went silent.
“The crippled lordling, face to face with the Bishop Killer.” Redwald breathed out heavily through pursed lips. He took his hands away from Thorstein’s belly and stared at Isabella, dragging his eyes up and down her body in an appraising way. “Go to the jail. And bring that stupid boy back here.”
“What should I do if she already let the Dane out?” Isabella felt her legs weaken under the intensity of Redwald’s stare.
“Run,” Æmma gasped out.
“Run, nothing you miserable cunt!” Redwald shot his most poisonous glare atӔmma. “You kill him, that’s what you do. Take those with you,” he jerked his head toward the corner of the room, where a longbow and full quiver leaned against a chair. “I trust you know what to do with them, you great bull of a woman.” His eyes bored into hers for just a moment before he returned his attention to Thorstein.
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