Nothing Else Matters (26 page)

Lars distracted her from her fear for a moment by asking, “How is Lady Edythe faring?” as he jumped down from his horse.

Eleanor tried to take some consolation by the men’s casual attitude toward the wounded man. If something were seriously wrong with him, they would

certainly show more concern. She dropped to her knees beside Stian. “Edythe is in mourning,” she informed Lars. She looked up at Malcolm. “What

happened? Is he hurt badly?”

“I think not,” Malcolm answered. “He’s lost some blood from the arm wound and caught a chil from sleeping on the damp ground last night, I think.”

“He’s feverish,” Eleanor confirmed. She gestured the group of waiting servants forward. “Take him upstairs.”

“A word with you first, Lady Eleanor?” Malcolm asked when she would have gone with Stian.

She chafed at the delay, but said to the servants, “Make him warm and comfortable and I’l be up to tend him directly.”

While she gave orders for her lord’s care, Malcolm went back to his horse. Eleanor had barely noticed the thin youngster who’d ridden behind him, now

she took a closer look as Malcolm hauled the lad to the ground. She was surprised to see that he was bound. She was even more surprised a moment

later when Malcolm came up with the prisoner.

“You’re a woman,” Eleanor told the tal , thin stranger.

“So she is,” Malcolm agreed. “Save your French, my lady, she wouldn’t know a word of your civilized language if it bit her on the behind.”

Eleanor had learned quite a bit of the Border dialect but she understood it better than she could speak it. She was saved from trying to speak to the girl when Fiona came hurrying up.

“Katherine?” she asked the girl angrily. “Is that you, Long Kate? Were you with the raiding party?”

“She was,” Malcolm answered. “Stian took her prisoner. She’s to be ransomed back to the Muraghs. The girl’s the Muragh heir,” he added to Eleanor.

“Making her a very valuable commodity.”

“I see,” Eleanor said, though she did not see what a young woman had been doing traveling with the reivers and dressed like a man. She wanted to get to Stian but she supposed she’d better deal with the presence of the prisoner first.

“I’l see to her, shal I my lady?” Fiona volunteered before Eleanor could decide what was to be done with this Katherine Muragh. “We know each other.”

Malcolm touched his sister’s arm. “There’s good reason Long Kate’s bound,” he told her. “She’s grieving for her da and grandda, so she won’t remember

you were friends.”

“I saw Lord Roger die,” Fiona told her brother. “I won’t forget who the enemy is.” she looked the sneering Katherine over careful y. “I’l watch her close.”

“Keep a guard with her at al times.”

“Keep a guard with her at al times.”

“I wil . I’m not stupid, Mal.”

Eleanor listened to the two of them disposing of the prisoner and wondered why Malcolm had asked her to stay. “Do what you think is best,” she said to Fiona. She gave the prisoner one last cursory look. “Just find her some decent clothing. I must go to my husband.”

She’d forgotten why she’d been upset with him by the time she reached their room. Oh she remembered al his unkind words and actions in the hours just after his father’s death but her rancor at al of it was forgotten. Wel , if not completely forgotten, she knew there was nothing that had happened that shouting and throwing a few things at him wouldn’t settle. Al she knew was that he was home, he was hurt and he needed her.

“You have to get wel ,” she whispered as she came into the room. “Get wel so I can break your head myself.”

She came up to the bed where a serving woman was helping Ranald undress Stian. She waited until they were finished, then said, “Bring warm water and

fresh bandages, Ranald. Wynnol, you fetch my herb box.”

While Eleanor waited for her orders to be carried out, she gently began to remove the old bandage. She soon saw that it was crusted with blood and

would have to be soaked loose to prevent opening the wound again. The flesh around the bandage looked healthy enough so perhaps it real y wasn’t

such a bad cut.

“It’l need sewing,” Ranald said when he came back with the water. “Not even Long Kate had a needle on her or we would have sewn him up before

bringing him home. He told me just to make the bandage tight and that seems to have kept it from bleeding too much. Have you ever sewed a wound

before?” Ranald added with an anxious look between her and his master. “I can do it, if you want, my lady.”

She patted the concerned squire’s arm. “I can manage,” she said. “Besides, my stitching is better than yours.”

Ranald gave a faint laugh. “That’s the truth, my lady. I’l just soak off the cloth then, why don’t I? And leave the rest to you.”

Eleanor stepped back to give Ranald room. She was oddly cheered to hear Stian give out a low, grunting moan as the bandage came off. It gave her

hope to think that he was not too deeply sunk in a fever. She just hoped he wasn’t so close to waking that he would feel her sewing the cut when Ranald was done. He did not wake and she was soon finished. Afterward, she applied a poultice then put on a fresh bandage with Ranald and Wynnol’s help.

When they were done, she propped pil ows beneath Stian’s head so that he at least looked comfortable. His breathing was deep and regular, his color a

bit pale but then he was a fair-skinned man. She supposed she might be exaggerating his pal or in her worry. Only time would tel if he was truly badly injured or not.

She turned to Ranald. “Tel the cook to keep broth and spiced wine warm for when I want them then get some rest.”

“Yes, my lady. Thank you, my lady.” He gave one last look at Stian before he left. She was wil ing to wager he’d get his rest sleeping out on the landing.

“I used the last of the orris root,” she said to Wynnol. “Is there more in the storeroom?”

“No, my lady, I already looked there. I noticed it was nearly gone when I checked the box.”

Eleanor frowned in frustration for the only mixture she knew to draw poison from wounds was made from a paste of orris root. She found herself wishing she’d listened more to lessons about mixing different medicines than to Lady Constance’s amorous adventures while she was growing up.

“I need orris.”

“Do you, my lady?”

“I do. Someone with more knowledge of herbs and cures might not.”

“There’s a wise woman lives near Stobs. She might be of help.”

Eleanor looked worriedly to the big man stretched out on the bed. He looked vulnerable, helpless, and she hated seeing him that way. “Yes. Send for her.

How long before she could get here?”

“Four, five days at most.”

Eleanor shook her head. Stian would be better or the wound too infected to treat by then. “Never mind.”

“What wil you do then, my lady?”

Eleanor paced from one side of the bed to the other and back again while she thought. She didn’t take her gaze off Stian. “I think I saw irises growing in the pool by the cave,” she said. “Perhaps those roots wil be an adequate substitute for the kind I know.”

“I know the place,” Wynnol said. “Do you want me to fetch them, my lady?”

Eleanor looked Stian over careful y once more, touching his arm, his forehead, the spot over his heart. He was lying quietly, unaware they were even

there. She didn’t want to leave him but didn’t think he’d want just anyone tromping around his favorite place. It wasn’t such a long trip, she could be back within the hour.

“No. I’l go. Stay with him,” she told the servant. “I’l fetch a basket and dig them myself.”

As she left the hal , she saw Malcolm and his men riding toward the castle gate, heading home to his own lands, no doubt. He lifted his hand to her in farewel . She returned the gesture with regret for this was one cousin of Stian’s she had grown very fond of.

She did not regret the chance to be away from the hal for a while, even though she left a sick husband behind her. She thought having a few minutes to herself might help her fortify herself for the effort of nursing him and running the hal . Edythe had made her understand just how much her life had changed in the last several days. She hoped she could sort through her roiling thoughts and emotions at the turn her life had taken while she dug a few iris bulbs in the peaceful quiet of Stian’s private place.

It was less than a mile to the cave tucked into the wooded hil side. She had thought the journey a long one that first night, rol ed up in a stifling cape and held fast in a surly horseman’s arms. On this fine summer day, it took her only a few minutes to make the trip.

The cave mouth was almost overgrown with creeping vines and the pool was clogged with water flowers. Wild flowers and weeds covered the smal

meadow. The place was humming with busy honeybees while a magpie strutted across her path, boldly cal ing his annoyance at her presence.

Eleanor laughed at the insolent rascal then stripped off her overdress, rol ed up her chemise sleeves, tucked the hem up around her hips and waded into the sun-warmed water. A few minutes of grubbing around in the mud produced the roots she needed. She washed them off, tossed them into her basket

then washed herself and put her clothes back on.

As she finished dressing she heard a low growl from close behind her. The sound sent a thril of fear through her, fol owed closely by annoyance. Whirling around to face the black-faced wolf she demanded, “What do you want?”

At the sound of her voice the animal took a quick step backward then snarled menacingly.

Eleanor refused to be impressed. “You’re only a wolf,” she told it as she stared angrily into its eyes. “Just teeth and claws and muscles. Why should I be afraid of you, eh?” Slowly, without taking her eyes off the wolf’s, she bent and picked up the basket. “I’m going home now,” she told it. “Good day to you.”

She walked forward, as bold as the magpie that stil croaked in a nearby tree. “You
will
step aside,” she told the wolf as she approached it. “Make way for the lady of Harelby,” she added with a slightly wild laugh.

The wolf backed up slowly as she advanced. Then it dropped its head and whined at her. Within moments Eleanor found herself scratching the more than

half tame thing behind the ears. The wolf looked up at her, no menace in its gold eyes this time. It looked more imploring than anything else.

“You miss him, don’t you? You don’t know whether you belong in the wild or lying by the hearthfire with a bone, do you? Poor, lamb.” She chuckled. “I beg your pardon, for you are no lamb but Stian’s lady wolf.”

At the mention of Stian’s name, the animal’s sharp ears pricked up.

“Stian,” Eleanor repeated, and got the same reaction. Along with a curious tilt of the head. The effect was appealing. Eleanor gave the wolf’s fur one more pat then walked away. She wasn’t surprised when the animal, after some hesitation, fol owed her.

No one at Harelby seemed surprised either when the wolf accompanied her through the gate. If she’d hoped for cries of amazement, al she got was a few comments from people who said they’d wondered when Stian’s pup would get tired of wandering the woods and settle down to being a proper dog.

“She’s half wild,” Eleanor pointed out to an old guardsman standing before the hal door.

“Everyone of us at Harelby’s at least half wild, my lady,” he answered with a jagged-tooth smile. “That’s no reason for Lark here to go scavenge out in the woods, is it? I always thought it a fool thing for the lad to try to make a pup suckled in a warm hal into a wild creature.”

“She’s a wolf.”

“Al dogs were wolves once. Or so I’ve heard.”

Eleanor had no answer to his comment as she went past him into the castle. The wolf trotted in after. Here, the animal at least caused a stir among the hounds in the hal as it bounded forward with a loud growl. Eleanor stood back and waited while a snarling, snapping, barking confrontation was briefly played out before her.

It didn’t take Lark…Lark?…long to settle just who was going to be in charge of the hal now that she was home. The dogs slunk off behind the hearth to lick their wounds while the wolf trotted up the stairs beside Eleanor.

When she entered the bedroom, she saw that Stian was awake. Eleanor sighed with relief and hurried forward. The wolf was faster, jumping up on the

bed to lick Stian’s face. He pushed it away with his good hand and it settled down beside him panting happily. He put his right hand on the wolf’s head.

Al Eleanor could think of to say when she came up to man and animal on the bed was, “Lark? You named her Lark?”

Stian’s eyes were dul with pain, even his mustache seemed to droop with weariness. His voice was barely a whisper when he answered. “She used to

make this squeaking, chirping sound when she was little. Reminded me of a bird.”

Eleanor shook her head and decided not to press the sick man for more conversation. She looked across the room to where Wynnol sat beneath the

window with a piece of embroidery in her lap.

“His fever’s worse, my lady,” Wynnol said as she got up. She came and took the basket from Eleanor. “I fed him a bit of broth. Shal I fetch up the spiced wine now?”

“Yes, please. Then hang these up to dry.” The servant gave her a curtsey—the first Eleanor ever remembered anyone giving her—then left. Eleanor turned back to Stian. “Rest,” she told him.

She touched his forehead to find that his fever had indeed grown during her absence. Then she touched his cheek just to be touching him. He leaned his head into her cupped palm, closed his eyes and gave a deep sigh. She thought he was asleep a moment later.

Eleanor spent most of the rest of the day by his bedside while Stian fel into an ever more restless sleep. When Wynnol brought both her and Lark dinner, the servant stood back, looking as if she had something on her mind. Eleanor sopped up a few hurried bites of boiled pork and greens with a thick chunk of dark bread. The meal tasted so good she realized she hadn’t had an appetite for days.

Once her stomach was ful , she handed back the bowl and stood. “What is it?” she asked the worried-looking servant.