by Grace Draven
All the tears she thought dried or frozen inside her spilled down her face. She laughed and sobbed while her father patted her lightly on the back. Magda and Ambrose found them that way, and the housekeeper coaxed her to her feet.
She raked Louvaen with a glance. “Girl,” she said. “You look like you’ve been kicked by a mule. Go to the kitchens and wait for Clarimond. She’ll take care of you once we get Gavin and the dominus inside.
Louvaen balked. “I want to help.”
“You’ll help by staying out of the way. Now do what I say.”
Louvaen knew when she was defeated. With a last lingering look at Ballard, she trudged to the kitchens and found them a shambles of overturned furniture and broken crockery. The table had been flipped to its side and shoved against the wall. Shards of a shattered wine crock littered the floor, and she picked her way carefully through the ruins to right a chair and sit down. Gavin or Ballard must have vented their rage in the kitchen before they burst into bailey. Louvaen slumped in her seat, exhaustion sweeping through her now that she no longer acted under the feverish impetus of desperation. Clarimond found her sliding half out of the chair and rescued her from a thump to the floor.
“You’re in a sorry state, mistress. Stay put, and I’ll get you settled straight away.”
Louvaen sat limply in the chair while Clarimond swept up the crockery pieces and set water to heat. She washed Louvaen’s bloody hands and bathed her face, clucking in sympathy at her blackened eye and bruised mouth. The clucking changed to an indignant sputter when she stripped Louvaen of her muddied night rail and saw the welts and purple contusions stippled across her left side. “A bath will be painful, mistress,” she warned.
She shivered. “Please, I need to bathe.” She’d stand in an ice storm if it meant she could wash away Jimenin’s touch. Her skin still crawled at the memory of the hours spent against him in the saddle.
Clarimond had gentle hands, but Louvaen thanked the gods when the bath was over. Her knees knocked together; she needed to sit before she fell. The servant dressed her in one Cinnia’s shifts and tossed a blanket over her shoulders.
“Come mistress,” she said and nudged her toward the great hall. “Your room is unchanged. You can rest. I’ll bring you a warm drink once you’re in bed.”
They stepped into a whirlwind of activity. Mercer helped a semi-conscious Gavin upstairs while Joan ran past them for the bailey, arms heaped with bandages. Louvaen waved her father on when he halted at the mezzanine, bowed under by Gavin’s weight. “Go on, Papa,” she called out. “I’m well.”
She paused, drawn to the hall’s open door and those who tended Ballard outside. Clarimond gave her a slight push. “They’ve done this before, mistress. As soon as I know something I’ll tell you.”
Resigned to waiting, Louvaen nodded and climbed the stairs. She was drunk with fatigue by the time Clarimond tucked her in and turned her attention to lighting the hearth. She barely heard the door close behind her before she fell asleep to the image of bright blood on snow and the echo of a pistol shot.
The scrape of a chair across the floor woke her, and she discovered Cinnia, gilded in streamers of watery pink light, sitting by her bed. She placed a hand on Louvaen’s shoulder to keep her from sitting up. “You need to rest, Lou.”
Louvaen shrugged her off. “What time is it?”
“A little after dawn. You slept the whole night.”
Her stomach lurched. She only meant to sleep an hour or two. She yanked the covers off, startled into full wakefulness by the sudden draft of cold air hitting her body. “Where’s Ballard?” She swung out of bed and stood, only to stagger. Her head swam, and her side throbbed.
“You are the most stubborn woman I know.” Cinnia left her seat and pushed Louvaen into it. “Must I tie you to the bed?”
“Yes.” She’d shot her lover last night. She should be at his bedside. Her heart pounded in her chest at the thought she might also stand at his graveside before this was over.
Cinnia sighed. “De Sauveterre is in Ambrose’s room right now. Magda’s taking care of him.” She shrugged at Louvaen’s questioning gaze. “Those nasty roses took over the entire solar, including his bedchamber. I’ll be glad when we rake them out and burn them.”
Louvaen remembered how the roses had hissed and writhed in a murderous frenzy the night before and then went abruptly silent at the snap of the curse’s last binding. “Are they dead? The roses I mean.”
“Quite.” Cinnia draped one of the blankets over Louvaen’s shoulders and handed her a cup of lukewarm ale. Her brown eyes watered, and she raised a hand to trace a ghostly outline of her sister’s features. “Oh Lou, your poor face.”
Louvaen shrugged and sipped her drink. She thought her face a vast improvement from the previous night. This morning she’d been able to open both eyes. “Tell me what happened while I slept.”
“A lot of running up and down the stairs for things Magda needs to tend de Sauveterre. Ambrose has been wearing a path in the floor between his chamber and Gavin’s.
“And Papa?” Louvaen would never forget the expression on his face after he’d stabbed Jimenin. One more reason to hate the vile tarse. He’d forced her gentle father to kill.
Cinnia took her empty cup and set it on a nearby table. “Well enough considering. He’s in the kitchen right now with Joan and Clarimond. They’ve taken him under their wings while you’ve slept and I’ve been with Gavin.” She grinned, her eyes sparkling. “Gavin’s himself, Lou. Exhausted but that’s all.” She grabbed Louvaen’s hand, squeezing her fingers. “The curse is truly broken.”
Louvaen kissed the back of her sister’s hand. She was overjoyed for Cinnia who now had a chance to live a happy life with a man devoted to her and to whom she was equally devoted. Her joy, however, carried the taint of envy. She wanted the same with the master of Ketach Tor. Cinnia’s news made her even more determined to see him.
“Help me dress,” she said and stood a second time, more slowly.
“Lou, I don’t think...”
“Don’t argue with me, Cinnia. If it were Gavin in his father’s place, you wouldn’t be lounging in bed either.”
With that, Cinnia bowed to her sister’s wishes. She dressed Louvaen in one of her frocks, scowling at the too-short hem. “You look like you pilfered a child’s wardrobe.” Her scowl deepened. “I can’t believe they brought you here without shoes!”
Considering Jimenin had almost brought her here without teeth, Louvaen wasn’t too indignant about her lack of footwear. “Give me a pair of your woolens. They’ll keep my feet warm until I can borrow shoes that fit.”
They debated briefly over her hair, a spectacular snarl of elf-locked mats.
Louvaen dodged a brush-wielding Cinnia. “It’ll take too long. I’m not attending a royal ball to lure a prince! Just help me pin it up.”
They bickered the entire way to Ambrose’s rooms as Cinnia tried to mother her and Louvaen resisted the mothering. She raised her fist to pound on Ambrose’s door.
“I’ll do it.” Cinnia pulled her away. “Your ham-fisted methods will guarantee he won’t let you across the threshold.” She knocked—three light raps. There were a few quiet moments before the door opened and Ambrose stared at them stone-faced.
Unfazed by his lack of greeting and forbidding stance, Cinnia smiled sweetly. “Good morning, Ambrose.”
Louvaen, desperate to see Ballard, met Ambrose’s gaze. “Please, Ambrose.” Like Cinnia’s knock, it was a simple, restrained request. To her surprise he nodded and stepped aside.
They passed him and entered a cozy antechamber redolent with the scents of spice and candle wax. The room was a magpie’s nest of tables crowded with scrolls and grimoires, glass vials and bottles full of liquids or dried bits of macabre oddities. Small heaps of herbs shared space on a sideboard with mortars and pestles of various sizes. Garlands of garlic and dried violets hung from hooks in the ceiling. Coals glowed orange in a corner brazier, and from that black latte
n rose undulating wraiths of pungent smoke tinged blue with magic. They had entered a sorcerer’s lair.
Any other time and Louvaen would have trampled Cinnia trying to leave. Now her only concern was getting through the second door near the brazier.
The sorcerer motioned for them to follow as he led them to his bedroom. He allowed the women ahead of him into a room reeking of blood, unguent, beeswax and tallow. Even at this early hour, the chamber was brightly lit by oil lamps and candles, and a fire crackled in another bigger brazier covered by a grate on which a kettle and cauldron heated. Magda bent over the grate and tossed a handful of herbs into the cauldron.
The housekeeper skipped the customary greeting and pointed to the bed. “There’s a stool for you. You can talk to him, but he won’t answer. He hasn’t moved, even when I dug the ball out of his leg.”
Louvaen flinched at Magda’s words.
Ambrose’s bed was a smaller version of Ballard’s—high built with a canopy and brocade curtains on three sides to hold in the warmth. Those had been shifted to the corners, giving her an uninterrupted view of Magda’s patient. He lay along one side of the bed, bundled in covers except for one leg equally swathed in bandages from upper thigh to just above his knee. A circular patch of blood stained the linen where she’d wounded him. He breathed deeply, the covers over his chest rising and falling in slow rhythm. She claimed Magda’s seat next to him so she could hear him breathe and assure herself he still lived.
She had never known him as a ruddy or swarthy man—and winter had washed them all pale—but he was ghastly against the pillows. The curse had given his skin a wan cast. Even with it broken, he still sported the pallor of a man who courted death. Dark smudges bruised the thin skin below his eyes and deepened the valleys beneath his cheekbones. His lips were bleached of color, contrasting with the shadow of a new beard. The runic scars were gone as were most of those that mirrored the roses’ thorny vines. The few remaining had faded to blend with the ones he’d carried home from the battlefield centuries earlier.
“He looks almost as he did when Gavin was a child still tied to my lead strings.” Magda stood beside her, staring fondly at Ballard. “I’ve physicked him through worse things than this. Tournament is as deadly as war.” She sighed. “He’s always been strong, but I don’t know what the curse has done to him after these many years. Made him stronger or weaker?”
Louvaen caressed his scruffy cheek, cool beneath her touch. “I meant to kill him,” she said.
“Well you’re a piss-poor shot, my girl.” Magda smiled at Louvaen’s stunned expression. “You did what needed doing,” she declared. “Besides, Ballard’s spirit would never rest if Isabeau had bested him, and he killed his son.”
“I’d prefer he kept his spirit in his body a little longer so he can share both with me.”
Magda patted her shoulder, and her features grew dour. “I’ll not sweeten the bitter, Louvaen. I got the shot out of his leg, along with bits of bone, but the muscle is shredded. If he lives he’ll limp for the rest of his days.”
Louvaen traced Ballard’s nose, passing over the bony bridge to the flared nostrils and down to his lip. Warm breath drafted across her finger. “He isn’t feverish.”
“Not yet, but he will be. I’ve poured feverfew down his throat until I just about drowned him. Still, wounds like that almost always poison.”
Her words proved prophetic. Over the next four days, fever ravaged Ballard. The deathly pallor of his skin served to highlighted the flush dusting his cheekbones. Louvaen worked frantically with Magda, Ambrose and Gavin to change bed sheets stained with the blood and pus that soaked through the bandages. The room sweltered and stank of rot, and she helped Gavin hold him down while Magda scooped a spoonful of maggots into the wound so they’d feast on the ragged edges of dead flesh and infection.
The housekeeper and the sorcerer brewed teas and mixed elixirs. When they weren’t pouring them into Ballard’s mouth, they were splashing them over his swollen leg, dousing the putrid laceration. Ballard thrashed in delirium, hard enough once to pitch himself out of bed and halfway onto Magda who’d been standing over him. Gavin rescued them both. Fully recovered from the curse, he lifted his father off Magda and deposited him gently back on the bed. He spoke to Ballard in a steady voice, and the older man quieted even as the fever raged.
On the fifth day, when the red streaks radiating from the wound had retreated and the blood trickled clean, Magda announced Ballard would live. She grinned at Louvaen, who stared back at her owl-eyed. “You’ve another chance to take a crack at him, Louvaen, but wait a while. I’m too knackered to tend to him.”
Gavin, unencumbered by the sleep deprivation that numbed Louvaen, whooped his elation and yanked Magda into a rib-cracking embrace. She wheezed out a protest and finally cuffed him on the side of the head until he let her go. He did the same to Louvaen—who hung limply in his arms—before bolting out the door, crowing Cinnia’s name.
Louvaen stared after him before turning to her companions. “Are you sure?”
Ambrose shrugged. “How can anyone be sure of such a thing? But the fever’s gone and the wound is clean. He looks worse than a skinned rat, but he’s alive.” He drew a worn Magda into a much gentler embrace and kissed her mouth. “We are all in your debt, woman.”
Louvaen closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Magda had sagged into Ambrose’s side, asleep on her feet. She didn’t hear Louvaen’s fervent “May the gods bless all your days, Magda.”
Ambrose tucked her closer to him and half carried her to the door. “I’m taking her to her room. I don’t think she’s slept in a sennight.” He glanced at Ballard resting peacefully in the bed. “Can you stay with him? I’ll send one of the girls or even your father to take up sentry duty so you can sleep as well.”
She shook her head. “No need. I’m not sleepy, and I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
“As you wish.” He paused at the chamber’s threshold. A tiny smile played about his mouth, and a gleam of admiration brightened his eyes behind his spectacles. He nodded once. “Well done, harpy,” he said in tones usually reserved for Ballard.
Recognizing the respectful salute, she curtsied low and returned the sentiment. “Well done, spitfrog.”
After they left, she dropped down on the stool they’d each occupied at some point during Ballard’s ordeal and stared at the man who refused to die. Four days of fever and delirium had taken their toll, sculpting the skin tight to his facial bones. His beard, dark and salted with gray, covered the lower part of his face, hiding most of his gaunt cheeks. He wasn’t so pale as before though, and his lips were no longer chalky.
She took his hand, noting the pink nail plates with their white crescent moon tips. Perfectly normal nails. He needed a trim, but she’d no longer have to use hoof nippers. Louvaen raised his palm to curve against her cheek. “It’s just the two of us in here now, my lord. Magda broke her back to save you, and while I’ve never killed anyone, Ambrose is convinced I’m a murderess. Please do us all the courtesy of not dying on my watch.” She kissed each of his fingers before notching them with hers. Ballard didn’t waken, and Louvaen spent the next few minutes counting his breaths. For her, they were the most extraordinary music set to the finest rhythms. She could listen for hours.
They were soothing enough to put her to sleep. She woke to find herself hunched on the stool, her head propped on her folded arms where she rested them on the mattress. Something touched her scalp, exploring from crown to nape and back again. Louvaen straightened and discovered Ballard watching her from heavy-lidded eyes. His hand slid down her hair to her shoulder and over her forearm.
“Hello, my beauty.”
She blinked. “Ballard?” His lips twitched into a ghost of a smile. Louvaen leapt to her feet and pressed her hand to his forehead. His skin was cool and his gaze lucid. Her hands fluttered over him—his head and chest, shoulders and blanket-covered torso. The questions cascaded off her lips in a waterfall. “A
re you in pain? Do you want me to get Magda? Are you thirsty? There’s willow bark tea.”
For a man who had just kissed death on the cheek before sending it on its way, he was fast. He caught her hand. “No tea,” he said firmly. He gentled his hold, and his pale features took on an arrested expression. “Gavin?”
That single-word question held a mountain of fear and an ocean of hope. Louvaen’s grin threatened to crack her face. “He’s fine, Ballard. The curse is broken. Gavin is and will remain himself.”
His eyes closed once more, long lashes like soot marks on his cheeks. His grip nearly broke her fingers, but she swallowed her gasp and squeezed his hand in return.
When he opened his eyes again, his gaze pinned her in place. “You shot me.”
Everything inside her stilled—her heartbeat, her breathing, her blood flow. She stared at Ballard and stayed silent.
“Remind me to teach you how to use an arbalest. You’ll have better luck next time.” He winked.
Her knees gave, and she plopped back down on the stool. “There will be no next time,” she declared. Her heart resumed beating albeit at a much greater pace. “You don’t have another four hundred years to forgive me.”
He tugged insistently on her hand until she sat on the bed, her hip pressed to his side. “There’s nothing to forgive.” He kissed her wrist, sending hot tingles up her arm. “Except maybe your bad aim.”
She frowned. “You’re not the first to make that point, though I’d challenge any of you to do better while half frozen and half blind.”
His eyes narrowed as he assessed her. Louvaen wanted to turn away but remained where she was as his gaze tracked the bruising that mottled her face in fading shades of lavender and yellow. His mouth flattened to a grim line. “I didn’t see when he struck you, but I saw the result in Cinnia’s mirror.” He growled low in his throat. “I should have been there. I’d use his guts for bowstring and turn his hide into a scabbard for one of my swords.”