by Dan Davis
“Stop!” Henriet shouted.
He stood on the rear of the other wagon with the boy standing before him. The poor lad was about eleven years old or so. His face swollen and bloody and his hands bound. Henriet had one fat arm wrapped tight around the boy and he held his dagger to the lad’s cheek.
“If you don’t stop right there,” Henriet said, “I cut his face off his head and eat it in front of you.”
“And if you harm him,” I said, forcing myself to be calm, “then I shall certainly murder every one of you.”
Henriet grinned, his teeth brown and black in the lamplight. “You want him, do you, you bastard? You want this? Do you? Eh?” He took his blade and sliced into the boy’s arm, a long, wicked, twisting cut down the inside of his elbow. The boy cried out in anguish and his legs gave out, though he was held where he was by the massive arm coiled about him.
“Enough,” I said, my voice coming out as a growl. “Hand him over.”
Henriet grinned and shoved the lad off the wagon. Wrists and ankles bound as they were, he fell on his face in the dirt, landing hard. He lay motionless in shadow.
“Best take him and go,” Henriet said. “Before he leaks himself to death.”
I rode to the wagon but Henriet must have guessed my intentions, or else he was a naturally mistrustful soul, for he jumped from the far side and loped off into the darkness. The other man likewise scampered away.
“Henriet?” Poitou wailed. “Samuel? He’s killed me, he’s killed me, he has. My guts be pierced. Henriet? I need blood, Henriet. Samuel, you come back here, you filthy bastard.”
Jumping from my saddle, I stooped to pick up the boy. He was unconscious and drenched with blood from his wound and soaked from pissing himself. It seemed likely that he would die but while there was breath in him there was hope, and so I flung him over my shoulder, mounted and eased him into position in front of me on the saddle, holding him upright.
After a mile or so, I stopped to wrap my cloak around the lad. He was cold to the touch and his head bounced around alarmingly as I rode. The horse was tired after his exertions that night and I begged him, over and over, to have strength and keep riding.
There was a physician, Pierre Mousillon, in the village of Tilleuls. I prayed that this time he would be home and that the boy would still be alive when I reached it.
Through the moonlit landscape, I rode.
“Hold on, there, son,” I said, over and over into his ear. “Just hold on.”
6. The Physician’s Daughter
June 1440
I banged my fist against the door again. “Please! I need help!”
The boy in my arms was soaked with blood and his skin was cold to the touch. He seemed dead already but there was the faintest whisper of breath coming from his nose and so there was still hope. But there would not be for long.
“Please, I need the physician,” I called through the door. “I need Pierre Mousillon, the physician.”
Shutters banged open on the floor above the front door, spilling wan yellow into the blue-grey night. “Begone!” the voice called, harsh and urgent.
I backed up, carrying the boy. “Who is that? Are you the servant? I need your master.”
“Be off with you, I say,” the servant hissed.
“I met you, sir. My name is Richard. Let me see, your name is Paillart, is it not? You were present when I met with your mistress.”
“What’s that to me? You need a physician, you got to go to Nantes.”
Other houses in the village behind me opened their shutters at the commotion and the church door creaked open. Yet no one came to help.
I shifted the lad, lifted him slightly so the light fell on his face. “For the love of God, man. Look, see here? I have a boy. See this boy in my arms? He is dying, Paillart.”
The servant was pushed aside by the young woman, Ameline. She held a lamp out of the window and peered down, her hair free and lit up like a halo.
“Open the door, Paillart,” she said.
He stayed where he was. “It’s a ruse, Ameline. A ruse. He’s no good, that one, I can smell it on him as clear as—”
“Open the door,” she commanded.
Grumbling, he moved off into the house.
“Thank you, my good woman,” I said. “The boy is in need of—”
“If this is a ruse, I shall gut you myself,” she said, and brandished a long knife.
“I understand.”
The door was unbarred and opened.
“I’m watching you,” Paillart said, pointing at me with his drawn sword.
“Out of the way, man,” I said and I strode into the dark house.
“Put him on the table,” Ameline ordered me and I obeyed, laying the boy gently down upon the dining table as she cleared away the surface. “Light all the lamps and bring them here,” the woman ordered her servant. “Candles, too. I must have light.”
“Forgive me, good woman,” I said. “Is your father not yet at home?”
“He is home,” she said, her eyes fixed on the boy as she peered into his face. “Yet he will not be roused until morning and if we could rouse him, I fear he would be insensible.”
“Ah,” I said, my heart sinking. “Is there anything you can do for him?”
“What happened?” she asked. “Where is this blood coming from?”
“His arm. A cut, see, here? There was a group of men who—”
“Cut away his clothing, all from his upper body,” she ordered, then raised her voice. “Paillart, we must have clean water immediately and then hot water as soon as you can.”
The servant came in with two lamps and a bundle of candles in his arms, speaking rapidly. “Yes, mistress. Lighting the lamps, cold water, then hot. Anything else?”
“The boiled cloth, my father’s physic bag, and the needle and thread.”
“At once, miss.”
She pointed at me. “Take this one with you.” She glanced at me. “If you wish to save this boy’s life, you will follow Paillart’s orders.”
I nodded. “I will.”
“And take off your belt. I need it.”
While Ameline worked on the boy, I did as I was instructed and lit and tended the fire, and fetched and boiled water. When I was called back in, I found the room filled with light and the delightful smell of fresh blood. The boy was on the table, his upper body bared. He groaned, a low, mournful cry and twisted where he lay. My belt was tied about his upper arm just below the shoulder and Ameline was sewing together both sides of the long gash down the inside of his arm.
“Out of my light!” she snapped, and I stepped aside. “Hold him down.”
“He lives,” I said, placing my hands on the boy’s chest. His skin was cold and damp. “By God, you have the skills of an army surgeon.”
She blew a strand of hair away from her face as she worked, concentrating closely. “I think that he will die,” she whispered. “And so we must pray to God.”
Paillart came in. “The bandages, mistress. Clean and new.”
“Out of my light!” she barked at him. She wrapped his wound up with practised skill and slowly loosened my belt before handing it back to me. “I apologise. I fear it is quite covered in blood.”
“It is not the first time,” I said softly as I tied it around my waist. “What now?”
“Now, we will see if he survives to see sunrise. Paillart, carry him to my bed, will you, please?”
“Oh, no, mistress. Dear me, no. Your own bed, mistress? I will not hear of it.”
“Do as I say.”
“Let it by my bed, Ameline. Don’t sully your good clean bed with the filth of this peasant, I beg thee.”
“It is because my bed is good and clean that the boy shall have use of it. Now, you will do as I command.”
He sighed and scooped the boy up with a profound gentleness and bore him toward the stairs, whispering kind words as he did so. “There now, lad. You’ll be alright now, you will. You just rest, son, and you�
�ll be right as rain, you will.”
Ameline stood and stretched her back, her hair falling about her face with the light falling on her from every angle and her dress straining at her chest. Her hands were bloody up to the elbows. She looked really quite wonderful.
“I will wash, now,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said. “For saving him.”
“He is not saved.”
“For doing what you have done, then,” I said. “You were magnificent.”
She scoffed, and yawned. “He will need watching,” she said. “In case he takes a turn.”
“I will watch him,” I replied. “If you do not mind it.”
She eyed me. “Who is this boy to you?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I do not even know his name. There were men from the castle. I followed them. They met more men, at a house a few miles east of here across the river. They handed over that boy, who I assume was bound for the castle. I stopped them but they hurt the boy. I wanted to finish them all off but he was dying. I had to get him help.”
Paillart returned, stomping down the stairs and into the parlour. “What’s that he says? He assaulted the lord’s men?”
“I stopped them from taking this boy, yes,” I said to him.
“That’s trouble, that is, miss. That’s trouble, and trouble for you and for your father.”
Ameline said nothing but regarded me with a strange look in her eye.
“I want no harm to come to you,” I said to her. “No one will know I brought the boy here.”
Paillart scoffed. “No one will know? You daft sod. Everyone will know, and know already. You’ve done it now, so you have.”
“Whatever I have done, I have done with good intentions and for good reason. I will let no harm come to you, my lady.” I looked at her servant. “And I will kill every man in that castle if I have to.”
“Paillart,” Ameline said. “Escort Richard to my room so that he may keep watch on the boy. Then go spread word that a boy has been found.”
“Go?” he spluttered. “And leave you alone with him?” He jabbed a finger at me.
“Father will wake soon enough,” she said, unconcerned. “And you must find the boy’s mother and father and have them come. Before it is too late. Go and find who has lost a son about his age in the last day or two. Other servants in the village may ride out also to let the boys’ parents know so that they can be here for his end, if that is what God wills. We must do that for them, at the least.”
I sat alone in the bedchamber, on a low stool, watching the boy breathing beneath the sheets. Every breath in seemed a miracle, and every breath out seemed as though it would be his last. The lamplight played across his grey face, making it seem as though he twitched and grimaced where in fact he lay as if he was dead. The only sign was that breath in and the shuddering breath out. Over and over. In and out. I grew tired and my head nodded.
“Here,” Ameline said, nudging me with her knee and handing me hot wine. Grey light shone at the edges of the shutters. I must have fallen asleep. In fear, I looked at my charge.
The boy yet breathed.
“God bless you,” I said as I took the warm cup in both my hands and breathed in the spices. “Some watchman I turned out to be,” I said. “My apologies.”
“It is well,” she said softly, and placed a stool beside mine. She had her hair tucked away beneath a simple cap. “He has passed the most dangerous hour. And you had a long night, full of adventure.”
I smiled into my cup. “Not compared to some nights I have had, my lady.”
“You must call me Ameline, sir. Your work must be quite remarkable, if saving a boy’s life is not a thing out of the ordinary.”
“I snatched him away from danger but it was you who saved him, if saved he is.”
She looked at me, a slight smile on her lips. “Unless you wish to argue further, sir, shall we agree that we both saved him?”
I smiled and nodded. “Let us so agree it. And you must call me Richard.”
She flashed a quick smile at me and looked once more to the boy. We shared a quiet, companionable silence while we sipped our hot spiced wine. It roused me.
“But you are wounded, Richard,” she said, looking at my leg.
“I am?” The hosen over my calf was torn and drenched in dried blood. I recalled that the man who had sneaked up on me in the darkness had cut me there. “Oh yes. Well, I am sure all is well now.”
“But your wound must be cleaned before the corruption begins.” She moved to one knee and reached for my leg, poking a finger into the sliced fabric to look beneath.
I had little doubt that the wound had already healed and so shifted my leg away. “A scratch on a branch, nothing more. The blood is not mine.”
“Is that so?” she asked, disbelieving me. The sharp tear was clearly caused by a blade and the wool was dark and stiff all around where my blood had gushed out. “Very well.” She sat back and frowned.
I thought perhaps she had noticed there was no wound to be seen on my flesh and I spoke quickly to distract her from what that might mean.
“Is what your servant said true?” I asked. “That I have caused you danger by coming here?”
She reached out a hand and grasped mine firmly where it rested on my knee. “I am thankful that you came here. I would not have had you go anywhere else. Whatever the consequences, that shall remain the way that I feel.”
I squeezed her hand back and she let it linger on my knee for a moment before withdrawing it.
“How much like Jamet he looks,” Ameline said softly, tilting her head to regard the sleeping boy. “If only someone could have saved him as you did this one.”
“Forgive me but he was taken in this manner? By men in the night?”
She sighed. “We told him. We all told him. Never go off with anyone. Never, not for anything. Stay within sight of the church at all times, never once lose sight of it. I wonder what cunning they employed to get him away. They said it was La Meffraye who took him.”
“The Terror,” I said. That was La Meffraye in the Breton dialect.
“That is what they call them,” she said. “And they are well named. The old woman from the castle who wanders from village to village with her evil familiar at her side, tempting the children away with her sweets and promises and dark magic. But no one knows what happened with Jamet, not truly. Perhaps it was not La Meffraye after all and instead it was the men, and they snatched him up in a sack. Not knowing how it occurred is perhaps the most awful part. Is that appallingly selfish of me? How conceited I must sound.”
“Not at all,” I said, as gently as I could. “Surely, nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Ever since my brother and my mother, my father is almost never at home. He attends to the sick for miles all around. When he does come home, he does not stay. When he is here, he drowns himself in brandy wine. I think that his heart cannot bear it.”
“I can understand such actions,” I said. “People stay away from pain, like an animal fleeing attack, or a child flinching from a hot candle. But we are also drawn to places where we once felt strength and love. And no doubt that is why he returns to his home. To you.”
She scoffed, though there was a surprising lack of bitterness in it. “Strength and love, or even to the illusion of such things. As can be found in a bottle of brandy wine.”
No matter the pain her father felt, he had a duty to his daughter, the only member of his family still alive. Despite all her evident ability and the strength in her heart, she needed him.
“Perhaps, in time, he will find the strength to be your father once more.”
She sighed at that, almost gasping at the sudden emotion of it. “Forgive me,” she whispered. “I do not know why I burden you with such nonsense.”
Ameline had lost her brother, and the grief had taken her mother in turn. And her father’s misery had driven him away while only she remained, all alone with no one but a grizzled old servant for
company. And no one to share herself with.
I reached out and took her hand. “It is no burden. But if it was, I would bear it gladly if it meant easing yours.”
Our eyes met and her look was unwavering, latching onto mine with a fierce scrutiny. I could have drowned myself in her eyes but I sensed it was she who was drowning and she saw in me the strength that she needed to pull herself free.
A loud voice burst in on us, filling the room with outraged surprise.
“What is the meaning of this?”
Her father loomed in the doorway, his hair wild and shirttails flapping. His eyes were red and unfocused as he blinked all around, leaning on the wall. I could smell the drink on him from across the room.
Ameline snatched her hand away and jumped to her feet. I stayed seated.
“Father. It is nothing. This good and decent man brought the child in the night, grievously wounded and in need of a surgeon.” She lowered her voice. “And so I attended to the boy myself.”
The father’s outrage dwindled into shame and he hung his head. “Ah. I see. Well, get off with you, now, girl and fetch my water. Where is Paillart, for the love of God?”
“Gone to send word to the boy’s family to come and collect him,” Ameline said. “He will be back soon.”
Her father stuck a finger in his ear and wiggled it around. “Well, what is all that blasted commotion that roused me? Is it Sunday already?”
As he said it, I noted the swell of voices outside, several of them, speaking softly but incessantly and growing all the while in volume. It did indeed sound like folk gathering for Mass at the church across the square.
“It is not Sunday, father,” Ameline said and crossed to the window. She pushed open the shutters and then stepped smartly back, crossing herself in the morning light.
I stood and looked out, edging forward to lean on the sill.
There were a dozen people outside, men and women both, drifting closer to the house from all directions. Some led horses behind them. When they saw me at the window, the men pulled off their hats. Beyond the group directly below, more people approached in ones and twos from both sides of the street. Horses clopped in at the edge of the village.