The Executioner's Daughter (5 page)

Will snorted as if coming close to waking, then he turned his head away from her and snored.

“Father!” She shook him harder.

“Be gone,” he grumbled without opening his eyes.

“Mother has a fever. She needs you!” Lily waited for a reply, but all she got was another deep snore. “Too much to drink,” she said with disgust, standing and kicking her father's leg harder than she meant to, but he didn't stir.

Lily pulled aside the curtain that separated the cottage from the apothecary, and held it open by draping it over a wooden peg in the wall. This way she could gather the medicines in the smaller room, while still keeping watch over her mother.

Her hands shook. Why did her father have to drink so much last night? What if she gave her mother the wrong medicine and made the fever worse?

Trying to clear her mind of her horrible thoughts, she stood before the apothecary table and looked down at the herbs and plants and boxes of grains and seeds, and at the flasks of tinctures and concoctions. She reached for some celandine to make a tincture and wondered whether a hot poultice of mint on her mother's chest would do any good for the cough. Trying not to twist her thoughts into worry knots, she worked quickly. She placed a pot of water over the fire, and when it came to a boil she poured the steaming liquid into a cup with crushed white willow bark, making a brew to help reduce the fever. She also made a mixture of borage and set it aside.

Taking the cup with the willow brew, Lily knelt beside her mother's mattress. Gently, she raised Allyce's head with one hand and held the cup to her cracked lips with the other. She dribbled the liquid into her mother's mouth. More spilled down her chin and neck than was swallowed, but Lily hoped any little bit would help.

For what seemed like hours, Lily moved ceaselessly back and forth between the apothecary and the cottage, stepping over her father and occasionally stopping to give him a good shake or a swift kick in hopes that he would awaken. He slept on while Lily racked her memory for infusions or powders that might cool her mother's fever.

At last, exhausted in body and ideas, she knelt beside her mother.

Allyce coughed weakly and her eyes fluttered open.

“I'm here, Mother,” Lily said, bending forward and smiling with relief.

“Lily,” her mother said, her voice barely a whisper. A fit of weak coughing followed.

Lily lifted her mother to a sitting position, supporting Allyce's back and head with her arm. She didn't notice her father until he spoke.

“What are you doing?” he hollered, stumbling into the room.

“I'm caring for Mother!” Anger rose in Lily's voice. “While you slept off your ale, I nursed Mother. She burns with fever and she is too weak to cough as strongly as she should.”

“Why didn't you awaken me?” her father demanded.

“Find the bruises on your leg,” Lily retorted, “and you'll know that I tried.” Lily had never before spoken to her father like this, and she half expected a thrashing, but he simply knelt beside Allyce and took her hand out of Lily's.

“My Allyce,” he said in a voice Lily hadn't heard in a long while. “Gentle Allyce, what ails you?”

Lily blinked with surprise. Her parents rarely passed harsh words to each other, but neither did they speak sweetly as her father did now. At least not when Lily was around to hear it.

“'Tis just a bit of fever,” Allyce whispered in a breathy voice. “Yesterday's rain…”

Will smoothed a large hand over his wife's forehead. “Hush. I'll prepare some comfrey and willow tea. Just rest.”

“Father, I gave her some while you slept,” Lily said, stung that he would think she hadn't already done all she could for her mother. She went on to list what she gave.

Her father nodded. “You've done well.”

Lily sagged with relief, glad her father was finally awake. Surely he could cure her mother. “What can we do now?”

Will uncovered a sharp instrument from a shelf in the apothecary. Lily recognized it right away, though she had only seen this procedure done once when she had secretly watched her parents tend to a patient.

“We need to balance her humors,” he said.

Lily named the four humors silently: choler, phlegm, black bile, and blood. She knew that if they were not in perfect balance, any number of maladies could attack a person. Bloodletting would help realign them so her mother would get well.

Her father stretched Allyce's arm out to the side. Lily saw blue veins, like rivers, running down the length of her arm. Will chose one of the veins and cut into it. Blood poured from the incision. Lily held a cup to collect it.

As time passed, her mother grew weaker, but her cough subsided and she seemed to rest easier.

“'Tis working, I think,” Lily whispered.

Her father nodded solemnly. “We'll bleed her a little more to be sure. Go prepare a bit of self-heal to mend the wound.”

Lily let her father take the cup of blood while she prepared the poultice, which would act as a styptic to stop the bleeding. She finished quickly so she could return and be by her mother's side.

Her father applied the poultice, wrapping Allyce's arm tightly with a strip of cloth.

Lily felt her mother's forehead. “She's still warm.”

“She's sleeping now,” Will replied, “but the bleeding will help her.”

Lily nodded firmly, as if by agreeing and believing it would make it so.

*   *   *

They sat with Allyce all night. Though she tried not to, Lily dozed off and slept fitfully. Every time she jerked awake, she found her father feeding her mother or talking to her in a low voice.

At last dawn crept into the tiny cottage. With eyes that itched from lack of sleep, Lily tended her morning chores while her father remained at Allyce's side.

Blossom scratched at the door a long while before giving up. Lily wanted to play with her dog and walk through the forest to relieve the cramps of sitting in one place for so long, but she felt ashamed for even thinking of leaving her mother's side.

That afternoon when the sun was high, her mother opened her eyes and smiled. It was all Lily could do to keep from bursting with joy.

Allyce tried to talk, but Will hushed her. “Save your strength, dear wife,” he said soothingly.

Lily leaned over and kissed her mother's cheek. Then she flew outside, calling for Blossom. The dog appeared from behind a pile of firewood, wagging her stubby tail.

“Come along,” Lily called, running into the forest. “Mother's going to be just fine.”

*   *   *

A sennight passed. During those seven days and nights, Lily helped her father with the medicines, since her mother was still too weak to rise. Allyce still lay by the hearth, though she said she felt stronger every day. Secretly, Lily didn't think she looked any stronger. But she was afraid to voice her fears.

Some afternoons, Lily found John waiting for her outside by the cages. She came to expect him, and when he didn't come, she missed his company.

One day, she found the boy sniffling and curled up under a willow. Blossom nudged him with her cold nose, and even that didn't make John smile.

Lily crouched next to him and tentatively lay a hand on the back of his shoulder.

When he looked up, she saw a purple bruise around his eye and a long, shallow cut on his cheek. “What happened?” she exclaimed.

“I left the flour keg open. The rats came and feasted,” he said bleakly.

Lily groaned. “Was it all ruined?”

“Most of it. And Mum said 'twas especially disgraceful because I'm to be Master Miller's apprentice soon, and if the miller hears of this, he may not want to take me on.”

Lily sat next to him. “Does your father beat you often?” she asked gently.

He looked at her sideways, his injured eye nearly puffed closed. “'Twas my mum who did this.”

Lily couldn't imagine her mother hitting her, or even her father, though she was sure she'd deserved it a time or two. “Does it hurt?”

“Nay,” he said, but she could see from the streaks of dried tears on his cheeks that he was trying to be brave. A few weeks ago, she might have taunted him about the tears. But it was different now.

Lily jumped to her feet. “I'll be back in a moment.” She crept into the apothecary and took what she'd need for John's injuries. Her parents, sitting in the cottage by the crackling fire, didn't hear her. Under the willow tree again, the trailing branches hiding them from sight, Lily cleaned John's wound with wine, then applied a poultice.

John wrinkled his nose. “What's in it?” he asked.

Lily laughed and told him the contents. He didn't seem too impressed by her knowledge of herbs and got up soon after to leave. But before he left, he looked at her shyly through his one good eye.

“It feels better already,” he admitted. “Thank you.”

Lily waved her hand at him, feeling a blush creep into her cheeks. “Be gone, John the brave,” she said, pretending irritation. “I have no more time for you.”

He grinned at her, his puffy eye looking painfully squeezed. With a slight nod in her direction, he took off.

Lily lay back and smiled up at the tree branches. She had helped her mother get well and now John. Perhaps someday she would be a real healer like her parents. She blew a strand of hair off her forehead.
A healer and an executioner's assistant,
she corrected herself. She knew one did not necessarily have to come with the other, except in her case it did, and there was no escaping it.

CHAPTER FIVE

Her mother's recovery was slow. Even after a fortnight, she still complained of a constant pain in her side, and her breathing became labored if she did more than stand. But Lily's father assured her that all was going as well as could be expected.

Every day, Lily checked on her animals, letting go a few of the rabbits, only to capture one of them a few hours later that had barely escaped the claws of a falcon. Then the day finally came to release the fox.

Lily crouched beside the collection of cages. The kit ran in circles with excitement. “Aye,” she said to the animal, “today you are going free. And the rest of you, too, as soon as you are strong enough to run away from hunters with arrows and boys with sharp sticks. And birds of prey,” she added for her reinjured friend.

After tying up Blossom, she fed the animals and examined their healing wounds, then she took a long length of rope to the fox's cage. Opening the small door, she blocked the exit so the creature couldn't run out and disappear into the surrounding forest. Lily wanted to lead the fox far away from town, where, hopefully, he would find a family of his own.

Once the rope was tied around the fox's neck, she pulled the reluctant animal out of his cage. He balked, straightening his forelegs and twisting his head back and forth to rid himself of the rope.

“Come on, stubborn kit,” Lily said, relaxing the tension on the lead. “You can't stay here forever.”

With the rope slackened, the fox took a tentative step out of the cage. Then another. Soon he was trotting beside Lily, just as long as she didn't pull on the rope. When she did, he stiffened his legs and Lily had to drag him. She put up with this for a while, but finally she scooped the kit into her arms, where he settled quite comfortably.

“We'll never get far enough away with you dawdling and me dragging you,” Lily said, picking up her pace. As she walked, she scratched behind the fox's large ears and hummed the songs her mother used to sing to her as a child.

Suddenly she stopped and turned. “I see you, John the tailor's son,” she called to the small figure behind the tree. “I know you're there,” Lily said, tapping her foot. “You want to see where I leave this poor animal so you can catch him with your pointy stick,” she teased. By now she knew very well that John loved the animals almost as much as she did.

“Nay,” the shadow said, finally pulling away from the tree. John came closer. “He's too handsome to kill.”

“Oh, so the rabbit you near speared wasn't handsome enough to let live?”

“I can eat a rabbit,” John said stubbornly. “Besides, I haven't hunted with the others for a long while.”

“True,” Lily agreed.

They walked the rest of the morning side by side. Lily glanced at his eye and was pleased to see it had healed nicely.

When they came to a small clearing, Lily put the fox down and untied the rope.

“This will be your new home,” she said.

The fox scuttled off, sniffing the ground. Soon, even the white tip of his tail was lost from sight in the tall meadow grass. He was healed and free, but he had run away without saying goodbye. She remembered helping her mother tend his wounds, and staying up with him the first few nights as he lay on a rush nest she had made for him next to her own pallet. Just then his nose poked out of the grass and he yipped. Lily laughed. He said goodbye after all.

*   *   *

John headed off on his own when they neared the town walls.

“Come see Blossom,” Lily called after him. “She's getting fatter every day.”

He waved without looking back.

At home, much was the same. Her mother rested before the fire, while her father sat on a bench whittling a spoon, his eyes rarely leaving his wife.

Lily set about making supper. She and her father ate roasted chicken and leftover mutton pie. Allyce ate next to nothing.

After the meal, Lily started to clean up when she heard a familiar sound coming from outside the cottage. She gasped. It couldn't be.

She ran to the window and peered out. Indeed it was! She raced out the door, her father calling after her, “What is it?”

Lily gave her answer by returning with a bundle of red fur in her arms. Her kit had come back to her. She knelt beside her mother. “Look who followed me home,” she said. She couldn't help the smile that curled her lips.