by Delle Jacobs
"Beyond this bend," he said, an interpolation of the signals sent to him from the outrider.
She nodded, and studied the Saxon prisoner who rode behind her in a cart. The cloth she had given him was soaked with blood, but he fared reasonably well. The three wounded Normans still rode their horses, and managed well enough.
The outrider disappeared around that bend in the road, then came flying back, kicking his spurs into the flanks of his mount, and leaning low to its racing body. At the vanguard, he reined up, hard. The Norman lord rode up beside him.
"They're gone, lord. Save for a few dead Scots, they're all gone. Not even a horse."
"Another trap, Alain?" guessed Chretien.
"Hostages, mayhap."
Melisande's heart lurched. "Mayhap they made it to the motte."
"Mayhap, lady," said Chretien. But she could see he had little hope of it, nor did the lord.
The lord motioned his troop forward. "The blow we have already struck to Anwealda may be damaging enough to keep him from striking again. But he has probably hit here first, where the Norman forces are weakest."
"Would Robert command a high ransom?" she asked, then saw the covert apprehension in the Norman's eyes.
"Aye. He is a second son, but his brother is not well."
They reached the ground where the battle had been fought, when the messenger pointed excitedly to the rocky ledge above. The Norman shook his head and watched as two men scrambled up the steep slope to the sheltered area. They climbed over a rock shelf and disappeared behind it. Within minutes, they reappeared, waving wildly, and gesturing with their hands.
"Up here, lord. Robert lives."
She bolted out of the courser's saddle and yanked at the thongs that tied on the pouches. Others tore up the steep slope, carrying water and food, blankets, supplies. The Norman lord grabbed her pouches, tossed them over his shoulders, and dashed up the rocky slope ahead of her. She was no stranger to the jagged fells where they climbed. Only where she was not tall enough to grasp the next hand-hold did the Norman need to reach behind to help her up.
At the outcropping, a narrow band of grey limestone had worn away into a low cavern. Near the entrance lay five bodies, shrouded in their cloaks. Beyond, those who protected the wounded heartily slapped the backs of their rescuing comrades. And stared open-mouthed when they saw the lady in their midst.
"Where is Robert?" asked Melisande, to shake off the intensity of their astonishment.
"Here, lady." Robert's voice, yet weak, tenuous.
"Where are the others?" asked the lord, hurrying to him.
"I have sent ahead any who could go, Alain." Robert paused, taking a ragged, gasping breath. "The Saxons took the other horses, so I had little choice. I meant to make it look as if all had gone." He was a Norman knight. He would think of the hale first.
"Then, let us hope you were right. Likely, Anwealda was fooled."
In the dim cavern, only the barest outline of the wounded men could be seen. Melisande knelt beside Robert, frustrated. "I cannot see to tend them, lord," she said.
"'Tis as well, lady," Robert replied. In spite of his pain, the sweet tone she knew of his voice still lingered. "You cannot save me."
Behind her, a flint scraped, bringing the smoldering, charcoal scent of tinder. A reed torch flared, then another. Robert, his tunic soaked in blood, lay to one side so he could cough out the blood in his lungs. He was probably right.
She lifted his tunic, stiff from dried blood, and pulled torn fabric away from the skin about the wound. It was too late to stitch it. And if it had turned putrid, she could do nothing.
"It is not as deep as I first feared," she said. "The lung must be punctured, yet it already shows signs of healing."
The Norman lord knelt beside Robert while she worked. "Such a wound would usually kill, Robert. Was the man a weakling?"
"Aye, once I removed his head." Robert's weak smile twitched wickedly.
"He must not be moved just yet, lord," she said, and packed fresh linen to the wound.
"Nor can we stay here," said Chretien, as he bent over another knight. The man moaned at his touch.
Melisande rummaged in her pouches for fresh bandages and her salve. "You do not continue to cough up blood, I see. The blood here is old. And you breathe passably well."
"Aye. It is not the worst way to die, I'll wager."
"I do not think you will die, Robert. Your ribs are broken, and I cannot stitch the skin, and but your lung may be healing as we speak. If we can just keep you still for a day or two."
"But you cannot," Robert protested, still forcing a smile. "It is too dangerous to stay here. Alain, if Anwealda has any sense, he will hit at your center, now that you are away."
"Aye, he may do that. But Cyneric is dead, by Gerard's hand, and his men who have survived have submitted to me. Gerard comes north to aid Thomas, while Wallis watches the south. Anwealda has just taken another blow, and only barely escaped us. Know you anything of Dougal?"
"None of him, nor his men. He must have pulled north to Carlisle."
Melisande bound Robert's chest, giving him scant room to breath, then moved on to the next man, whom Chretien tended. She looked up at Chretien, and knew he thought the same as she. The man would not survive. She gave the knight a kind caress, to which he did not respond. She moved on. The next two, she thought had a chance, if they could reach safety and good care, yet would likely die if she moved him. A dilemma. Robert also might die if they moved him, for the broken ribs lodged dangerously against his lung.
Yet, if they could carry him on a litter, he might survive. Aye, that might do it. Not the bone-jarring ride of a cart. Certainly, not on horseback.
If only she had some way of lifting the ribs away from the lung, so that he did not risk further puncture of his lungs. Mayhap fastening them to a board of sorts. But she did not have such skill.
Quietly, Melisande continued. But merely touching each man, cleaning their wounds, and seeing them warmly wrapped and given water was all she could do. Sadly, she realized she had dreamt of great miracles, not these simple acts of bringing comfort. She returned to the front of the cavern where Robert lay. His lord helped him drink from a horn.
"What think you, lady?"
"Give us a little time, lord. It is but a few miles farther to Hugh's motte, is it not?"
"Aye."
"Robert may go if carried by litter, and three more may survive better if they are carried, than if they remain here. One, I cannot tell. One other will not."
"If we remain, will he live?"
"I think not. But I cannot leave him alone."
The Norman lord rose from his place. "Take me to him."
He knelt beside his man, and his huge hand caressed the knight's forehead. "You have been with me a long time, Ivo."
The knight's voice was barely more than a rattle.
"We will not leave you."
"Nay. Go."
"We will stay, Ivo."
"Save the others."
"Aye. I send them on to the new motte."
"Go. Only come back to bury me, lord."
He would not leave his man to die alone. She knew that, already. All that he had said of not sacrificing the hale for the injured was belied by his actions this day. And she would stay with him, as well.
"We will stay. Lady, you will go with Chretien. See to those who survive."
"Nay, lord!"
"That is why you came. You must give your aid and comfort to those who might live because of it."
But she also had come to protect him from the viciousness Fyren had infused into the purple cloak. If he stayed, he would surely wrap himself in it for warmth while it continued its slow, insidious killing.
"Your blessing, lord. I die now."
Whether Ivo willed it to happen, or it just did, she could not tell. As his life slipped away, the Norman lord committed the knight's soul to God, and closed the man's eyelids.
"It is more than some receive on a
battlefield," he said, as if that somehow explained it to her.
Below on the road, knights waited with the war horses, her long-legged courser, and the carts with their supplies. She called for the assembly of litters to bring the dead down from the cave to the carts and carry the living to the motte.
Both joy and sadness infected the troop as it moved toward the motte at the pace of the men who walked and carried the litters. Melisande gave her courser to the Saxon because of its gentle gait, and walked beside Robert. Only when she was persuaded his wounds would not reopen did she dare succumb to the lord's request and ride behind his saddle on the great white stallion.
The day had warmed. Mayhap because of the priest's prayers.
"Could you not dispense with that cloak for a while, lord?"
"Dispense with it? Why?"
"I do not like it."
"So you have said. But I cannot fathom that."
"It does not become you."
"Does it not?"
"It makes you look pale as a maid. And it is too short. It was made for a woman, not a large man."
"Then it becomes me well, for I am not one to wear my garments to drag in the mud."
"It smells, lord. Do you not feel the chalkiness of the dye? It makes me want to sneeze."
"Ah, is that it? Well, the day is warm enough."
He unfastened the brooch and draped the cloak over his horse in front of the high cantle of his saddle, and Melisande sighed her relief. Grateful that she did not have to press her nose into the evil thing, she wrapped her arms around his waist, feeling his breathing beneath his mail.
For a while she daydreamed of this Norman lord, this man, his lips descending to claim hers. He held her, carried her to his bed, caressed her. . .
Ah, just for now, she could pretend. The future would come soon enough. Why let fear of it destroy the pleasure she had now?
"I do not understand why a lady would wish to press her cheek against chain mail," he said.
"I do not."
"You do."
"Well, mayhap I am a little tired."
His deep-throated chuckle felt like the rumbling purring of her great red tabby, and he lapped his hand over hers. Let him laugh. It felt good against her hands.
* * *
They saw the new motte across the valley long before they reached it. Located on a natural low hill, its new palisade circled the old manor and the new mound atop the hill, to dominate the valley surrounding it. Great piles of logs lay nearby, the materials for the tower that would soon rise in its midst.
Melisande looked back over her shoulder. The Saxon still rode the courser, though he looked ready to fall. Pain etched Robert's face, but she saw no fresh blood on his windings.
"The Saxon must rest," she said to the Norman lord, who turned to see the man wavering in the saddle.
"Aye. "Tis but a little way."
The lord pointed to a knight, who rode up next to the Saxon and steadied him. Melisande breathed out a sigh, glad they had not moved him to a jarring cart. The lord had not said for what purpose he wanted the Saxon, but she guessed he meant to divine Anwealda's plans. But Anwealda had always been as secretive as Fyren, and probably had not shared them with his men. The diabolical Saxon now thought of himself as inheritor of Fyren's schemes, and even lord in the dead earl's place.
Had the Normans not come when Fyren died, Melisande's future would have been limited to marriage to that hated man, or death, for Anwealda would not have allowed her to hold the castle alone.
But in that case, Fyren would not have died.
Melisande shuddered, as if a chill wind had suddenly risen and frozen her, soul and all. She clung more tightly to the Norman.
The heavy log gate swung open to admit the Norman and his contingent, and Hugh, with his arm still in its sling, hurried forth to greet them. The lord reached around and lowered Melisande from her place behind his saddle, then jumped down to greet Hugh with great slaps on the back.
"Lord, it is good to see you– and the lady. But I am surprised. Is it not– "
"Aye," answered the lord, cutting in. "She has assisted us in surprising ways. She has come along to attend the injured. She has an unusual skill."
Melisande did not think of herself that way. She had done nothing uncommon. Her salve was comforting, and seemed even to prevent festering. But she had not saved the dying, nor improved the living. Where was skill in that? Still, she said nothing, beyond accepting Hugh's gracious hospitality.
"There is little of luxury here, lady," Hugh said, and his brows raised slightly as they wrinkled. "Yet the bed in the chamber is good."
"My thanks, but I have no need of luxury. The bed is better used for Robert, for he must be kept still, lest the wound open again, or the ribs prick his lungs."
"It shall be, then," Hugh declared, and motioned to have Robert taken into the chamber.
Melisande followed to see Robert settled. With better light, she studied the wound across the side of Robert's chest more thoroughly, and washed it clean of dried blood. The imprint of the mail dug deeply into in his skin around the great slash. By feel, she determined that his ribs indeed indented where the blow had struck. If there were only some way of lifting them back into place.
She sighed. There were a lot of things she wished she could do. Mayhap many of them were actually possible, if she only knew how. But she was no surgeon. She left the chamber to find the other wounded knights.
The Saxon was weak from loss of blood. She cleaned his wound and stitched it with horsehair, then gave him a potion for his pain. Save for those injured just today, the knights had already gone past the time when the wounds could be stitched, and she could only hope for proud flesh to form safely.
"What think you, lady?" asked the lord.
So absorbed had she been in her thoughts and her task, she had not heard him come up behind her. She washed her hands in a basin, then dried them on a rough towel before leading the lord away, out of the hall.
"All will heal, if they do not fester. It is Robert who worries me," she replied at last. "He may live. But the wound will cripple him."
"How so? I had thought he might die, but if he lives, why would he be crippled?"
"The ribs will heal wrongly. The mail no doubt saved his life, but it also turned the sword into a hammer. His ribs are caved in to his lungs, broken rather neatly about a knuckle's length away from the wound on both sides. If they heal that way, he will never be able to breathe deeply without great pain, or risk of puncture to his lungs."
"His father wants him home. Mayhap it is best."
"Even at home a man must defend what is his. You have said yourself men will always war against other men."
"Yet, what else can be done?"
"I know not. If only I could go beneath his ribs and lift them back into place. I pictured something in my mind, mayhap like the curved bone needle I use for sewing heavy cloth or hides, something that might draw a length of sinew or thread beneath the bone, that then could be pulled upward. But I do not know how to do it."
"If you did, what would hold it in place while it healed?"
"Mayhap the sinew could be tied to a small, flat board? Mayhap a board with holes drilled in it at the right spots, and the sinew pulled through the board? If it happened the way I imagine it, the ribs would be pulled up, and held in place by the board."
"Would you try it, then?"
"I know not. I do not know enough to decide."
"Let us talk with Robert."
She gave a cautious, solemn nod. It was a fantasy, not a real thing. She knew nothing of the tissue beneath the ribs, or whether her efforts might cause more harm.
Once again in the bed chamber behind the dais, the Norman lord woke Robert, who had been dozing fretfully.
"We have an idea, Robert, and we must ask you about it."
Robert gave a sleepy grunt, and attempted to roll to his back, but Melisande stopped him.
"The lady thinks your injury will cripple
you if it is not repaired properly."
"Aye, I have no doubt. A man is not much if he cannot breathe well."
"Tell him," the Norman said.
Melisande explained her thoughts, carefully including all the envisioned drawbacks.
"If you open the wound, can you see what you need to do?"
"I would not know until I did it. And I could not stitch it closed. You could bleed to death. But I fear accidentally puncturing your lung more."