The Merchant's Daughter (41 page)

The two men carrying the boy burst through the door, the woman following close behind. Rose recognized one man as a farmer who lived near her parents’ home. The boy was his son, perhaps eight years old. He wore ragged brown hose and his torn shirt drooped on his thin frame. Bright red blood covered one of his sleeves. His lips were white, as if all the blood had drained out of his body.

Here was her chance to show Frau Geruscha she was a competent apprentice. She would strive to appear calm and ready to help. She was thankful she had already braided her hair that morning and covered it with a linen cloth, as her mistress had instructed her.

“Frau Geruscha!” Fear and panic lent a high pitch to the woman’s voice. “Our son fell on the plow blade.”

The healer’s wise face wrinkled in concentration as her gaze swept the boy from head to toe. She pointed to a low straw bed against the wall, and the men laid the child on it.

Pain drew the boy’s features tight. Rose longed to comfort him, but she didn’t want to get in Frau Geruscha’s way.

Frau Geruscha sat on the edge of the bed. She showed no emotion as she pulled back his sleeve, revealing the gaping wound.

“No!” The boy screamed and shrank away from her. He held his arm against his chest and drew his knees up like a shield.

Rose turned her head.
O God, don’t let me get sick.
She had to prove herself.

Frau Geruscha glanced back at Rose. “Fetch me some water from the kettle and a roll of bandages.”

Rose scurried to the fireplace and grabbed a pottery bowl. Using a cloth to hold the lip of the iron kettle, she tipped it to one side and poured hot water into the shallow vessel. She carried it back to Frau Geruscha then dashed to the storage room to get the bandages.

“Don’t touch it!”

Rose tried to force the boy’s terrified voice from her mind. When she returned, Frau Geruscha was washing the blood from the wound. Rose held out the roll of fabric.

Her hand shook. She had to get control of herself before her mistress noticed.

Frau Geruscha took a section of the clean linen and used it to soak up the blood and water around the wound. “Rose, get him some henbane and wormwood tea.” She turned to the parents. “The herbs will help ease his pain.”

Biting her lip, Rose ran into the adjoining storage room again. She should have guessed Frau Geruscha would want that tea. She should have already gone for it instead of standing there with her mouth open. So far she wasn’t proving herself very competent.

Shelves of dried herbs lined the walls. She grabbed the flasks labeled
henbane
and
wormwood
and scooped a spoonful of each into a metal cup, then used a dipper to ladle in steaming water from the kettle.

She hurried back and placed the cup in the mother’s outstretched hands. The woman held it to her son’s lips.

Frau Geruscha made the sign of the cross and laid her hand on the boy’s arm. She then closed her eyes. “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, we ask you, God, to heal this boy’s wound in the name of Jesus and by the power of his blood. Amen.”

The smell of blood, warm and stifling, mingled with the odor of sweat. The bowl of water was now bright red, and Rose caught another whiff of the familiar, sickening smell.

Frau Geruscha opened her eyes and crossed herself again. She reached into her box of supplies and held up a needle. The tiny metal object glinted in the morning light.

The boy locked wide eyes on the needle and screamed, “No! No! No!” His father moved to hold him down.

Rose fled into the storeroom, her bare feet noiseless on the stone floor. She leaned against the wall and sucked in deep breaths. Her head seemed to float off her shoulders, as light as a fluff of wool, while her face tingled and spots danced before her eyes.

How childish. Rose pressed her face into her hands and stifled a groan. Had Frau Geruscha seen her flee the room? She must get back in there and overcome this squeamishness.

She drew in another deep breath. The earthy odor of the herbs that hung from the rafters was stuffy, but at least it didn’t trouble her stomach like the smell of blood. Rose focused on the sights around her — the rushes strewn over the stone floor … low shelves packed with flasks of dried herbs … the rough stone wall poking her back. The screaming drifted away.

The tingling sensation gradually left her face and she breathed more normally.

She entered the room again, stepping carefully so as not to rustle the rushes on the floor and draw attention to herself. The boy’s eyes were closed and his lips were the same ash gray as his face. He must have lost consciousness, since he didn’t even wince as the needle pierced his skin.

Frau Geruscha quickly finished stitching the wound. After she tied the last knot and clipped the string of catgut, she wound the remainder of the bandage around his arm and tied a thin strip of cloth around it to hold it in place.

Finally, the people left, carrying the limp boy with them.

Rose hurried to clean up the water spills and the bloody linen. Her stomach lurched at every whiff of the metallic odor, but she had
to pretend it didn’t bother her, to hope her mistress didn’t notice how it affected her.

“Are you well?” Frau Geruscha’s gray eyes narrowed, studying Rose. “You looked pale when you ran into the storage room.”

So her mistress had noticed. “I am very well.”

How could she be so pathetic? She had to find a way to prepare herself for the next time she must face the blood, screams, and smells.

Ravenous after his long journey from Heidelberg, Wilhelm attacked the roasted pheasant on his trencher. A page, a lad of less than ten years, leaned over his shoulder to refill his goblet. The boy lost his balance and teetered forward. Wilhelm grabbed him around his middle and righted him, but the goblet overturned onto the table.

The boy’s face flushed red. “Lord Hamlin, forgive me. I —”

“No harm done.” Wilhelm gave the boy an encouraging smile.

With a quick bow, the boy refilled Wilhelm’s goblet and moved on to the next cup.

The Great Hall looked exactly as Wilhelm remembered it. Flags bearing the family colors of green, gold, and red jutted out from the gray stone walls on wooden poles, and several hung like banners on either side of the large mural painted on the wall. His father still spoke sternly, and his mother still clucked over him and his brother, continually admonishing Rupert to proper, gentlemanly behavior. At that moment she was reprimanding him for pinching the serving wench.

If she only knew. While they were supposed to be educating themselves in Heidelberg under the finest teachers in the Holy Roman Empire, Rupert had spent more time carousing than studying. And as Rupert misbehaved, Wilhelm had continued sending out spies in search of Moncore.

His younger sister, Osanna, smiled at him from across the table. Wilhelm smiled back and winked. She’d grown up in the two years he had been away. He missed the freckle-faced maiden who used to trail behind him, begging him to teach her to hunt or fish or shoot arrows.

His father sat at the head of the trestle table, on Wilhelm’s left. He put down his knife and wiped his hands on the cloth across his lap. Then he took a drink from his goblet and turned to Wilhelm.

“So, son, you are still scouring the country for Moncore.” He peered at him from beneath bushy eyebrows. “You’ll get him.”

Wilhelm remembered how his father had awed — and intimidated — him as a child. His greatest desire was to make his father proud of him. “Thank you, Father.”

His brows lowered in a scowl. “You must.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Your responsibility is to your people and to your betrothed. You must not let them down.”

Did his father say these things because he doubted him? He had worked hard to become mighty in strength and swordplay, believing that would please his father. But there was still one thing he had not been able to accomplish; one thing that would exalt him in the eyes of his father, as well as the entire region.

“Wilhelm.” His father nudged him with his elbow, pointing toward the far end of the table. A man dressed in leather hunting clothes stood near the door of the Great Hall. He nodded at Wilhelm, tucked his chin to his chest, and backed out of the room.

“Pray excuse me.” Wilhelm stood and stepped over the bench where he sat with his family and the guests who had come to welcome him home. He strode from the room.

“Lord Hamlin.” The courier stood in a shadowed corner of the corridor outside. He handed a folded parchment to Wilhelm then bowed and slipped out the door.

Wilhelm glanced at the wax seal, confirmed it was from his spies, then ripped open the missive.

Lord Hamlin, we have reason to believe Moncore is in our region. Be on your guard.

Wilhelm crumpled the note in his fist. “Glory to God.”

After Wilhelm’s six years of failing to locate the evil conjurer, the fiend had come to him.

If he were able to capture Moncore, he could tell his future father-in-law, the Duke of Marienberg, to bring his daughter out of hiding. Wilhelm’s betrothed would finally be safe.

But Moncore had eluded him before. The fact that one man had continued threatening Lady Salomea’s safety, despite Wilhelm’s best efforts, was a frustration like he’d never known, a splinter he couldn’t gouge out no matter how hard he tried.

With long strides, Wilhelm headed back into the Great Hall. He’d
find Georg and Christoff and discuss where to hunt for Moncore. They would ride out in less than an hour.

Morning sunlight winked through the narrow window as Rose moved about the southwest tower. The only sounds were the blows of the blacksmith’s hammer ringing from the castle courtyard. She straightened jars of herbs, checked to see which of them needed to be replenished, and began sweeping up the old straw from the stone floor. Once finished, she would sprinkle new rushes and dried lilac over the chamber floors.

Rose so wanted to impress her mistress, but had failed miserably. Frau Geruscha never turned ashen at the sight of blood, never shrank from the bad smells, never grew squeamish when sewing up a wound.

O God, make me like Frau Geruscha.

Because one day she would be expected to take over her mistress’s healing work, Rose grew increasingly more desperate to be a good healer. If she returned home a failure, her mother would torment her until she accepted one of her suitors — a desperate widower with nine children, an old man with no teeth, anyone with a little money.

A commotion in the courtyard cut her musings short. She put her broom away in case the noise was the result of someone in need, coming to the healer for help.

As the shouts drew closer, her stomach knotted. Frau Geruscha was away and might not be back for several hours.
Please, let them not be coming to see Frau Geruscha.
She stood in the middle of the room and held her breath as she stared at the door, waiting.

“Frau Geruscha!” a masculine voice boomed. Someone pounded on the door.

Rose rushed to unlatch the door. Three men stood at the threshold. The middle one’s arms were draped over the shoulders of the other two. His head hung down so that she couldn’t see his face. Sweat dripped from the dark hair clinging to his brow.

She recognized the men on either side as the two knights who yesterday had traveled alongside Lord Hamlin and Lord Rupert. That meant the one in the middle was —

Lord Hamlin lifted his head, his face pale. His eyes riveted her with a look of pain.

Other Books by Melanie Dickerson

The Healer’s Apprentice

THE Healer’s Apprentice

Melanie Dickerson