Page 48

A sleek dark brow arched up. “A learned woman. It is nearly as unusual in your country as it is in mine.”

Caryn flushed. “I hope you do not find it offensive.”

“Quite the opposite. It should make my task far more interesting.” He steepled his long dark fingers in front of him. “As to the text you have been reading… the best of your physicians come from the south of France. Even so, they are no match for our Arab healers.”

“’Tis not idle words, Cara.” Ral turned his hand over and laced his fingers through hers, stirring an unwelcome wave of heat. “I know of at least a dozen good knights who would be dead but for Hassan.”

“Then I will learn my lessons well,” she said, “for ’twould please me greatly to help the people of my village.”

***

And so together, they did. As soon as word reached Braxston village that a great physician was among them, people began arriving at the keep. Old women, sick men, the weak, the blind, the crippled.

Ral had a storeroom cleared and turned into a medicinal. He furnished it with worktables and benches, and Hassan and Caryn used it to care for their patients, though the daily regimen turned out to be far different from what she had expected.

Where the priest prescribed violent purges, bloodletting, and amputations, often convinced the illness was some sort of devine punishment, Hassan’s treatments were less severe and most times more effective.

A poultice for an abscessed leg, an ointment of docks mixed with lanolin for skin complaints; coltsfoot with honey for coughs; pepper and sulphur for itching; horseradish with tallow for muscle strains and bruises.

Hassan’s odd prescriptions didn’t sit well with the priest, who was certain the heathen’s cures were the work of the devil. When Hassan recommended a change of diet for a woman with a lung condition, Father Burton flew into a rage.

“I cannot believe such a thing,” he said. “Why, in France, the head would be shaved, the skull opened up, and the brain removed. ’Tis highly unlikely a change in diet will correct the problem.”

Hassan grinned. “It is also highly unlikely that the patient would survive such a surgery.”

Caryn grinned, too. She found she liked the exotic, dark-skinned man, and in time she came to admire him. Each day they worked together, she learned more, fascinated by the healing power Hassan found in the simplest of herbs.

Wormwood stimulated the appetite—particularly good for the old and infirm.

Mandrake root helped skin infections, or induced the patient to sleep.

While the priest prescribed a concoction using the heads of seven fat bats for a spleen infection, a tincture of crickets and ox dung beetles for gallstones, Hassan gathered and worked his herbs, ofttimes heating them in a furnace, or pounding them in a stone mortar.

He showed Caryn his techniques, explaining each one thoroughly, and as always she learned quickly.

Though she accepted his skills without question, the rivalry between Hassan and Father Burton grew worse each day.

It wouldn’t end, she knew, till the Arab was gone, and she had much to learn before then.

She glanced up at the sound of her name.

“Lady Caryn!” Nelda called out. “You must bring the healer and come quickly!” The tall thin woman stood at the door to the infirmary, her hands shaking, her narrow face pale.

“What is it, Nelda? What’s happened?”

“’Tis the young girl, Edmee. Her time is here and the babe will not come. ’Tis breached, Isolda says. She has been unable to turn it, and poor Edmee grows weak. Please, milady, I beg you to come.”

“I must find Hassan.”

He sat beside Ral in the great hall, leaning back against the stone wall with a casual grace. At Caryn’s worried expression, both men came to their feet.

“What is it?” Ral asked, his eyes like steel and suddenly concerned.

“A woman in the village. There is trouble with the birth. They ask if Hassan will help.”

The Arab came away from the wall and moved toward her in his graceful way. “Of course. I will get my things.”

“I will go with you.” Ral’s hand rode protectively at her waist and if her heart hadn’t lurched with such yearning, she might have been grateful to have him with her.

Gathering the supplies they would need, they ordered their horses readied.

It was raining when they left the keep, the wind whipping the branches of overhanging trees, stirring leaves, and bending grasses.

The temperature had dropped, and Caryn shivered within the folds of her cloak.

When the fabric caught a gust of air and snagged against a tree, Ral rode up and freed it.

“I should have forbidden you to come. ’Tis cold and damp, an unfit night for you to be out.”

“I’m grateful for your worry, my lord, but I am fine. Hassan will be leaving soon. ’Tis important that I learn all I can.”

Ral grumbled but said nothing more.

They reached the cottar’s hut sometime later, a small black shape against the villein’s planted fields. Caryn was chilled to the bone, her clothes damp and clinging, but mostly she was anxious for the woman and unborn child struggling for life inside the small thatched cottage.

Hassan stopped her flight toward the door. “It is not believed that cleanliness affects the healing process, yet in my work, I have seen less putrifying of the wound, less infection and death when fresh linens and soap are applied.”

“I have brought them as you requested,” Caryn said.

The Arab washed his hands and so did Caryn, then they entered the small, airless room.

“’Tis too warm in here,” the Arab said. “The woman loses too much fluid. Lift the flap on the door.”

“But she is bound to catch a chill.” The midwife, Isolda, came up from the foot of Edmee’s straw pallet. “If the birthing does not kill her, ’tis certain the fever will.”

“I have learned that it is best to broach one problem at a time.”

“Do as he says,” Ral softly commanded. He flashed Caryn a supportive glance, then moved out of the way toward the door. He would wait with Edmee’s husband, Tosig, share a flask of wine to ward off the cold and help ease the poor man’s fears.

“What do you give her?” Caryn asked Hassan, once Ral had gone. It was amazing how much larger the room seemed without him, yet also it somehow seemed more bleak.

“A potion of rue, savin, southernwood, and iris.” He held it to the woman’s trembling lips. She was covered in perspiration, her hair clinging wetly to her shoulders. “It will help her to relax.”

“’Tis all right, Edmee,” Caryn said to her softly, pressing a damp cloth on her forehead. “Hassan knows what will help you.”

“I-I would save the child, if there must be a choice. My husband so badly wants a son.”

Caryn’s heart turned over. The girl would sacrifice herself for the man she loved. Caryn wondered how far she would go for Ral and knew in that moment, she would do almost anything. It wasn’t a comforting thought .

“It is your worry that inhibits the birthing,” Hassan said to Edmee. “Please, you must try to relax.” He waited for the potion she had drunk to begin its work, then parted her legs and reached inside her. “It is as the midwife says. The child is breached and somehow wedged.”

“Can you turn it?”

“I am not sure.” But his long arms worked with gentle pressure, moving the fetus around, trying to bring it into position. Every minute dragged, and the small room echoed with the woman’s shrieks of pain.

Still, Hassan bent to his task, working until his own body glistened with sweat. Edmee looked so pale Caryn feared she was moments from dying. Finally Hassan looked up.

“Ready the birthing chair. The head is now in position.”

“Thank God,” Caryn whispered, adding a silent prayer that the babe and its mother would live. Tosig would be wild with joy. Unbidden came the thought: How would Ral feel if she were the woman and the babe were his son?

Hassan mixed two drachms each of the juice of hyssop and dittany, along with two scruples of quicksilver.

Edmee drank it as they propped her in the birthing chair.

In minutes, the head of the babe slid through.

With Hassan’s gentle instruction, the shoulders appeared and then the tiny, glistening body.

Isolda took the child from its mother’s womb, a wide smile on her face. “You have done it, foreign one. You have succeeded where I would have failed.”

“I will show Lady Caryn how to mix the potion and she can show you. Next time you will not fail.”

“She is all right?” Tosig asked, walking in behind Ral, searching his wife’s closed eyes and pale face as he moved toward her.

“Your wife and son are fine.” Isolda set the sleeping child in the crook of its mother’s arm. Edmee slept as soundly as her babe.

“There are not enough words to thank you,” Tosig said to Hassan, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “May God grace your goodness in all the years to come.” He sat down near the pallet and took his young wife’s hand.

It was nearly dawn when they left Edmee’s hut, but Caryn had never felt more vitally alert. The air outside seemed less chill, the sky more vast, and the darkness less fearsome.

“’Twas a wondrous thing we did,” she said. “There can be no greater joy.” Standing close beside her, Ral cupped her face in his hands. They were massive and powerful yet they could be infinitely gentle.

“Only should the child have been ours,” he said and kissed her softly on the lips.

How would it feel to bear Ral’s son? she wondered. There would be pain—she had known that all along—but there would also be gladness. The joy of holding their babe, the pleasure of watching him grow through the years. It pleased her to know it was something Ral wanted.

Her glance shifted back to the cottage and her smile began to fade.

Inside the hut, the wee babe suckled at its mother’s overripe breast. Caryn remembered how cumbersome the young woman had grown in the months before her lying-in, how fat and clumsy.

She thought of how Edmee had waddled when she moved, how her heavy weight had left ugly marks upon her skin.

Caryn stared after her husband as he moved off toward the horses.

He was tall and handsome, virile and powerfully built.

He was every woman’s dream and even without his title she didn’t doubt he could have his pick.

She looked down at her stomach. Her waist remained narrow, but even now his seed might be growing .

What would he think of her when she was as big and cumbersome as Edmee had been? Would the sight of her disgust him? And what of his passions? Would he wait for the arrival of their child? Would Ral remain faithful?

’Twas more likely that he would take another leman.

Caryn’s insides churned. He had given up Lynette, but he had not said there would never be another. And he had never spoken of love.

Caryn shivered, feeling a sudden chill.

“You are cold,” Ral said, returning to her side. “You will ride home with me.”

Caryn did not argue. She needed the warmth of his hard arms around her. She needed to feel wanted and safe.

She wondered how long he would make her feel that way.

***

Richard absently finished eating, his mind on the night’s entertainment ahead.

“Where is the jester?” Lord Ral asked from the seat beside him on the platform. “We have much to celebrate. I would hear a verse to the child of Braxston that Hassan has delivered among us.”

Richard shifted uncomfortably, thinking of the girl who would soon come forth to entertain them.

Now that he knew that Ancil was a woman, each of her movements drew his eye and fired his blood.

What would the other men think should they realize the truth about her?

’Twas indecent for a lady to be dressed so, showing off her shapely limbs beneath the short tunic and making him wonder at the size of her breasts.

Was their small size the reason they did not show, or had she disguised them, as she had done to her ears?

Uneasy all through the evening, Richard waited till the meal was ended then approached the girl in the passage at the end of the great hall.

“I would have a word with you, lady. ”

“Aye, Richard. Why do we not go into my chamber where we will not be seen?” She lifted the curtain to her small private sleeping room.

“We cannot go in there. ’Twould be unseemly to do such a thing.”

“No one knows I am a woman.” She lifted the flap once more.

“I know,” he said, firmly jerking the curtain from her hands and letting it fall back in place. “Which is why I seek you out.”

She turned to face him more squarely, her expression hidden by her half-black, half-white face paint. “Go on.”

“’Tis unseemly for a woman to display herself as you do. You must tell Lord Ral the truth.”

“Nay, you know that I cannot.”

“Then at least find a way to end your lewd charade. You are a lady. You cannot continue to behave as you do.”

Ambra set her hands on her hips, her tunic sliding in to reveal her tiny waist. “I act the part of jester. There is nothing lewd in that and even if there were, ’tis no concern of yours.”

“’Tis my concern, since you have fallen under my protection.”

“I do not need your protection. And I have never behaved as aught but a lady. That I dance and sing does not change that.” She ducked beneath the curtain and Richard followed her in.

“Damn but you are vexing.” And too beautiful for words. Now that he could see beneath her disguise, his throat went tight just to look at her.

“And you, Richard, are stuffy and prudish. If I displease you so much, then why do you not just leave?”

He bristled, torn between fury and a lust that seemed to swell with every heartbeat. He gave her a courtly, mocking bow. “As you wish, my lady. ”

“And do not call me that. ’Tis far too dangerous. What if someone should hear you?”

He scoffed at that. “Since when has danger been of any concern to you?” He turned and stalked from the room.