Walpurgis Night (6 page)

The light faded as they worked. The woman who’d brought the other things returned with candles and oil lamps to light the room.
Fianna
asked for more hot water and kept changing the cloths on
Ranulf’s
shoulder, replacing each as it cooled. Eventually she felt the heated cloths had done all they could. She got a bottle and a jar from her bag and
unstoppered
the bottle.

“You’ll have to hold him again,” she warned
Henrik
. “It will sting when I pour this on the wound.” He nodded and resumed his place, keeping his brother still, even when the stinging liquid washed over the damaged flesh, though
Ranulf
flinched and tried to roll away.
Henrik
watched in fascination as
Fianna
took another pot and spread the ointment from it over the injury.

The last thing to accomplish was
restitching
the wound. Mercifully
Ranulf
had lapsed into complete unconsciousness again by then. Though
Henrik
continued to hold him,
Ranulf
didn’t move while she worked the needle in and out. When it was done, she knelt by his side a few minutes longer, watching the patient’s face, praying quietly for his healing. She wasn’t at all sure he would survive.

She put a shaky hand on his forehead. As long as the fever remained moderate, it was likely a good thing, but should his temperature spike too high, the outcome wouldn’t be good.

“There’s little more I can do for him right now.” She glanced up at
Henrik
.

The man’s pale face was drawn into a frown. “Will he live?” he asked.

She reached for a clean cloth, soaked it in the cool water and bathed his face with it. “He’s a strong man,” she said, trying to reassure herself as well as
Henrik
. “And the wound itself is not so very serious. If the ill humors hadn’t taken him so strongly, he’d have recovered from it quickly. If the Lord is merciful, we’ll have driven back the poison far enough that his own body can overcome the rest.”

“Is there no more we can do to help?”

“Keep him warm enough and cool enough,” she answered. “Cool him down if the fever goes high. Try to get some nourishment in him. Wait. And pray.”

Henrik
stroked his brother’s hair back from his face. “I’ve waited for so many things, for so long,” he said, his voice quiet, reflective, sad. “I should be better at waiting than I am. Do they not say practice brings competence? If so I should be very good at patience. Yet I am not. I cannot but anticipate every coming moment and wish it were done and over with before it begins so I can move onto the next and thus get through them more quickly.”

He sighed and laid a hand on the side of
Ranulf’s
face. “Sleep, my brother, and may your body mend.”

He got to his feet, though the movement lacked his usual grace as he was stiff from hours of kneeling. Exhaustion took its toll as well.

He reached down to draw
Fianna
to her feet. “Come and rest now that you’ve done all you might.”

“Someone must stay with him and sponge him regularly,” she protested. “And I need to be here if the fever spikes.”

Henrik
studied her face. She wondered if she looked as drawn and gray with fatigue as he did. “I’ll get someone to stay with him.”

He disappeared through the curtained exit and was gone for some time. When he returned a woman in middle years followed him into the room. They had a long conversation in his language, and he pointed to the cloths and water twice. As he finished his instructions, the woman nodded and shooed him away.

Henrik
put a hand on her arm to lead her though the curtain. “Riga will watch over him the rest of this night. I’ve told her what to do. She’ll wake us should there be any change. I’ve also had a mat brought in and placed in the other room, so we can rest but be nearby should we be needed.”

Fianna
wondered at his use of the word “we”. Did he plan to share the mat with her? But she was so far beyond exhausted it shouldn’t matter that he’d be so near. She would sleep.

When they lay down together, she curled up facing the wall, but he put an arm out to draw her closer to him.

“
Fianna
?” he said as they lay in the darkness. “I regret I acted as I did earlier. Drawing my sword and threatening you. It was badly done.”

“Why did you so, then?”

“I didn’t know if you… I feared you would be angry with me and refuse to come, or after I forced you to come, refuse to help him.”

“Why would I not help him?”

He was silent for a moment. His breath sifted gently through the hair above her ear. “After the night we spent together, I didn’t come back to you again.”

“And you believed I’d be angry and refuse assistance because of that.”

He sighed. “I think I should have known you better. But in truth, we did little talking that night, and so I cannot truly say I know you so well.”

Fianna
considered that. “Aye, that’s so. Though I think I could say I knew something of your heart after that night.”

“Without doubt, you’re a better judge of people’s hearts than I am.”

“Then know this now. No matter how angry or disappointed I was that you failed to seek me out again, it would never have stopped me from doing all in my power to heal one who is sick or injured.” She paused before she added, “In truth, I could not in fairness blame you. I chose you without giving you much choice, asking only that night. And you gave more generously than I deserved.”

His laughter blew over her ear and the side of her face. “You think you gave me no choice that night? I could have easily said you nay, did it not suit me to answer your request. But I was intrigued by a woman so bold and beautiful. My curiosity as well as my manhood demanded I say aye.”

“And your manhood and your curiosity being at once satisfied, you had no further need of me.”

“Not so. You’re one who could inspire a lifetime of curiosity and desire. I have met none at all like you before in my life, and every part of me, from my head to my manhood, clamored to explore further what happens between us. But I should not do so. ’
Tis
not right I should do so.”

“Nay?”

“
Fianna
, I told you. I thought you understood. I will be leaving here. I would have gone as soon as
Ranulf
returned, had he not come back in such condition. Even so, when he recovers and is able to take my place by our father’s side, I’ll be off. Knowing this, it didn’t seem fair that I seek you out again, despite your kind invitation. I would not have you forming an attachment to me that would be cruelly sundered when I left. Were it not for that, I would have come to you every night since.”

“My invitation was many things, but kindness played no part in it,” she admitted. “This trip is important to you.”

“I’ve waited half my life, it seems.”

“Yet your brother has been gone on his adventure.”

“Aye.
And I tell myself I begrudge it not. Yet in some measure, I do. But now my time is near, should he live.”

“And if he does not?”

He was silent so long she wondered if he’d answer or if he’d fallen asleep. His breath had not the regular rhythm of sleep, however, and after a while he said, “I would remain here. My father is not well. Age and exhaustion are on him. He needs someone vigorous and strong to maintain his order.”

Fianna
sighed. “I’ll do all in my power to save
Ranulf
.
More than that I cannot promise you.”

“Nor do I ask it, despite my rash words earlier. I spoke out of my fear and frustration.”

“I understand. It is done.”

They were both quiet for some time. She thought he’d fallen asleep until he asked, “What was happening at your home this afternoon? Why did all those people come to you? Were they concerned that you were being taken against your will by us? Or did they seek your testimony against those young men who would have forced you?”

“None of those,” she said. “They came to tell me I was disrupting the peace of the town by inciting lust in the young men. It was decreed I must choose one to marry.”

“’
Tis
not your fault.
True men need not force a woman to their will.”

“Aye.
But whether I am at fault or no bears little on the case. In the interests of peace, I must be wed. So I must choose one by the night of your Walpurgis feast.”

“And if you do not?”

“Then I must leave the town, on pain of death.”

He moved against her, apparently distressed by her answer. “That is harsh of them. Do they value you so little?”

“Not
so
high as their peace, it appears.”

“You could leave and find others who value your services more.”

“Aye.
But I’ve been happy there, and they have need of me. I have no wish to leave.”

“You have no longing to see more of this world? ’
Tis
a very large place, and I understand there are wonders to be found. I am eager to be off and begin discovering them myself.”

“Nay.
I want the comfort of a room of my own, my bed, my garden and my work.”

He touched her, ran a gentle hand through her hair. She got the feeling he wanted to offer comfort but knew not how. Finally he said, “I hope you can find your way to a solution that brings you peace.”

That was the last she remembered of that night.

* * * * *

Fianna
roused when the first light of dawn seeped through cracks around windows and doorways. She shifted and was momentarily surprised to feel another body moving against her back. When she rolled over,
Henrik
was awake and watching her.

She smiled and reached out to touch him. She ran her fingers through the tangled disarray of his blond hair, watching the lazy grin play across his face. That smile, worn for her, touched a place deep in her breast with a heat of longing and desire. But within moments his face darkened, and he looked toward the curtained-off partition.

Reminded of her purpose for being there,
Fianna
quickly scrambled up off the mat and went to the other room.
Henrik
was right behind her.

The woman, Riga, was wiping the cloth across
Ranulf’s
forehead. She spoke to
Henrik
in Norse for several moments, and he commented or questioned in the same tongue.
Fianna
was reassured when
Henrik
didn’t seem too upset or unhappy in response. Several times, though, as he looked toward his brother, worry shadowed his expression. Once he even closed his eyes briefly and expelled his breath on a long sigh. She found herself wishing she could pronounce some magic words to wipe that concern from his face and restore the smile from earlier.

Fianna
touched
Ranulf’s
forehead and throat. He felt warmer than he had the previous night and was still muttering, though she couldn’t decipher the words. The pulse in his throat beat hard and fast.

“He stayed the same for most of the night,”
Henrik
reported to her after he’d sent the other woman off to bed. “About an hour ago, he began to get worse. He started talking, but making no sense with it, and Riga thinks he has been getting warmer.” His breath caught in his throat. “This is not good, is it?”

“It is not good but not surprising either,” she told him. “I didn’t think I could get all the ill humors out of the wound. I pray we removed enough that his body can fight what remains.”

“What should we do?”

“Sponge him off and try to keep his fever down. I have an infusion I’ll make that will help with that. If he shows signs of chills, we must have more blankets to wrap him.”

Henrik
nodded. “I’ll get more blankets.”

While he was gone,
Fianna
dipped a cloth into the water and swabbed it over
Ranulf’s
face and down his chest and arms. Like his brother, he was an impressively built man. In fact, if his face weren’t so gray and drawn, his hair so shaggy and unkempt, he would look a great deal like
Henrik
.

Odd that she didn’t have the same kind of reaction to him she had to
Henrik
. There was no tingle of excitement when she touched
Ranulf
, no frisson of longing for closer contact when she looked at him. He roused her pity and her concern as a patient but nothing more.
In fact…

She froze, horrified by the thought that crossed her mind. It wasn’t something she could wish for. It wasn’t what she would want. But she couldn’t deny it was there. If this man were to die,
Henrik
wouldn’t go away. He wouldn’t leave his father on his own, no matter how much he longed for travel and adventure. And if he were staying, he’d likely want to see more of her, maybe even provide her with an alternative to the men of the town.

Nay.
She didn’t want to think that way. He was her patient. She would do all in her power to save him, though she wasn’t truly sure how much that was.

She drew out the dagger and held it over
Ranulf
with the blade parallel to the length of his body. She stared hard into the red jewel in the center until the wash of scarlet filled her vision to the exclusion of all else. She waited for the vision of flames or even the sight of
Henrik
, but it didn’t happen.

After she’d looked into the jewel for some time, the red color began to swirl in a way she’d never seen before. The color seemed to flow in waves in an uneven, roughly circular way. She wondered if her sight were going odd, but couldn’t tear her gaze away from the jewel. No vision came to her, but she thought a voice spoke inside her head, saying,
“
Choose.”

Choose what?
she
asked silently.

“What you pray for.”

What I pray for? I don’t understand.