White Lion's Lady (26 page)

The wound had become infected. Thready fingers of redness trailed out from the center of the gash in all directions, poison creeping insidiously under her creamy skin. The light in the cave was too dim to tell how far the danger had advanced. Praying it was not as bad as he feared, Griffin carefully rolled Isabel into his arms and got to his feet. The mantle she was wrapped in trailed behind him, rustling on the earthen floor and then through the fallen leaves as he carried her out of the cavern, ducking under the low overhang of ivy-covered granite and bringing her into the pale light of the new morn.

Dawn proved to be as cruel as it was honest. In the pinkish glow of the autumn sunrise, Isabel’s wound bloomed red and angry at her shoulder, fanning out in a jagged star-burst shape toward her breast and lower arm, the infection seeming to spread almost before Griffin’s eyes. God’s blood, he should have known. He had been too late with the wine, too late cleaning the injury. He stared down at the fiery wound, cursing himself for her pain. He had promised to take care of her, had sworn to her that she would be all right.

Damnation, but she had trusted him. He could not fail her; he had to make it right somehow. He had to get her fever down before she slipped away entirely, had to find a way to cool her heated brow and body.

Heading toward the trickling rush of the nearby stream, Griffin carried Isabel through the forest bracken and down the gentle slope of the riverbed. His boots slipped on the muck and dew-slicked rocks as he brought her to the water’s edge and waded in. The icy brook soaked his hose and boots, the bracing cold drenching him to the waist, chilling him to the bone. He held Isabel in his arms, using his free hand to gather water and anoint her forehead as the current swirled and churned around them.

His teeth were chattering, limbs growing numb, but he hardly noticed. Over and over, he scooped up handfuls of water and fed it to her fever, praying it would help, praying she would respond. God help him, he had never felt so helpless, so inept. He did not know what to do, nor where he could take her. He was alone with her in these woods, alone with the responsibility of making her better, for he could not bring her into town and risk certain capture the moment they ventured into the open streets. Their allies—and, indeed, their choices—had been few before and were dwindling fast now that their bounty price had gone so high.

They had no one to turn to, nowhere to go.

And so Griffin simply started running, knee-deep in the freezing cold water of the stream. The weight of the current pushed against him with every stride, making his steps heavy, dragging. Sunlight slanted down from the treetops to dance on the surface of the brook, shattering like crystal as he crashed through it. Above him, high in the canopy of branches, a flock of starlings screeched at the intrusion and took flight. Somewhere, up ahead in the distance, Griffin heard the faint hum of voices raised in mournful song.

Monks’ voices, he realized, chanting their Latin prayers.
The vaguely familiar, low-tenor, haunting tone caught his ear at once, drawing him toward the sound like a beacon in a storm. He trudged out of the water and up the bank, his feet dragging in the leaves and pine needles that blanketed the loamy ground, his breath huffing out of his straining lungs and misting in the chill forest air. He saw nothing ahead to indicate his progress toward the monastery; his ears alone guided him through the gorse and bracken that clawed at his boots and snagged on Isabel’s trailing, sodden mantle. He traversed one rock-strewn gully and then a next, half stumbling in his haste, his panic, commanding his legs to keep going, pleading with Isabel to hang on, that it could not be far now.

And it wasn’t, thank God.

At last, the dark shadows of the monastery came into view through the trees. A low curtain wall of river rock and stacked wedges of granite circled a clutch of ancient buildings that seemed to rely more on their remoteness for protection than they did the barrier of their gate or stone enclosure. Griff pivoted his hip against the thigh-high fence and slung his legs over one at a time, taking care not to jostle Isabel as he jumped to the ground on the other side and ran across the space of the small courtyard.

“Please!” he shouted as he neared the tight huddle of buildings. “Someone! We need help!”

The drone of chanting was the only reply. Griffin followed the sound past the stables and almonry, then down a trellis-enclosed, narrow walkway lined with climbing rosebushes and worn from the treads of countless sandaled feet that had made the short trek toward the chapel at its end. Griff’s heels dug into the hard-packed earth, his boots and spurs chewing up the path with each long stride.

He ran the last few steps to the chapel door and scarcely paused before kicking it open. The old oak panel swung wide, banging against the wall. Daylight poured inside, illuminating the windowless, candlelit chapel peopled with
more than a score of kneeling monks, their tonsured heads bowed in prayerful chant but a moment ago and now turned on the stranger who filled the doorway of their private sanctuary. A stranger who stood before them dripping wet, panting, face taut with worry, holding a half-naked, unconscious woman in his arms.

“This lady has been injured,” Griffin said to the slack-jawed, gaping assembly of holy men, too grim to trifle with apologies for disrupting the assembly. “Please. She needs help.”

For a long moment, no one moved. Then the monk at the head of the group gave a nod to one of the brothers and a slim cleric rose in silence from his place on the floor. Head bowed, the young monk walked toward Griffin and motioned for him to follow. Griff fell in behind, carrying Isabel down one winding corridor and then another, until finally the novice stopped and indicated a small chamber off the hallway.

He pointed to a modest pallet situated inside. Griffin carried Isabel in and laid her gently on the thin straw mattress. As an afterthought, he tugged the mantle together to cover her, as if the wet wool was any source of warmth. As if it could hide the fact that he had brought her there naked, half dying as a result of his inadequate care. Shamed, Griffin turned back to face the young monk.

“She was hit by a crossbow bolt yesterday. It grazed her arm,” he said, gesturing to her and feeling a stab of anguish for how small and pale she looked on the humble bed. “I did what I could to clean and bind it, but this morning …” He shook his head, swallowing past a knot of dread that clogged his throat. “I don’t know how long she’s been fevered. A few hours, perhaps. But the wound is festering.”

The novice’s gaze was sympathetic, devoid of condemnation. Still, Griffin found it hard not to blame himself for Isabel’s condition. He should have sought help immediately. He had seen enough soldiers die in fevered agony
from injuries less severe than Isabel’s; he never should have risked trying to tend her on his own. If she died … God’s love, if she died, he did not think he could bear it.

“Can you help her?” he demanded of the silent cleric, watching in helpless frustration as the monk knelt down beside the pallet and gingerly inspected Isabel’s arm. “I must know if you can help her.”

A moment passed without response, a moment during which Griffin could only close his eyes and plead with God to show him some scrap of mercy. The monk came up off the floor in a faint rustle of robes, his expression placid, maddeningly indiscernible. With one hand outstretched, he nodded to Griffin, indicating the open door.

“No. I’m not leaving her,” Griff growled. “Heal her, but heal her where I can watch you.”

The young monk stared apologetically but maintained his stance. He blinked slowly at Griffin, waiting patiently for him to accept the terms of his help.

“My son,” a gentle voice called from the corridor outside. Griff turned to find the elder monk standing at the threshold, his hands tucked into the wide bells of his sleeves. “Time is fleeting. We should leave the good brother to his work.”

Griffin cast a final glance at Isabel, then reluctantly allowed himself to be walked to the door. Once outside, the oak panel sealing him off from the room, Griff turned, pressing his head and splayed palms against the rough wood, idly watching as water dripped from his wet hair and tunic to splash on the floor at his feet.

“Have you a scribe here?” he asked the monk with whom he shared the cramped space of the hallway.

“Of course. Most of our brothers are skilled with letters.”

“I need to send a message,” Griffin said, deciding then and there what he had to do for Isabel. It was the only thing he could do for her now. “I need to send word to Sebastian,
Earl of Montborne. He should know that his betrothed is here … that she is ill and in need of escort home.”

“Very well.” The monk’s voice was gentle beside him. “Consider it done, my son.”

“Thank you.”

“Brother Ronan is a good healer,” the old monk offered, placing his hand on Griffin’s shoulder. “If there is aught to be done for your lady, he will see to it with his herbs and God’s help.”

“I pray you are right, Father.” Griff released the weight of his thoughts in his heavy, heartsick sigh. “I pray you are right.”

“Come,” the monk said. “We will pray together, my son.”

It had taken three days. Three days before Isabel gave the first indication that she might survive. Brother Ronan had kept her arm wrapped with a series of herbal pastes and poultices, all of them sickly colored and foul smelling. Griffin asked on several occasions what the nasty concoctions were made of and how they were working, but his questions earned him only a bland smile or a cryptic shrug from the infirmarer monk. Brother Ronan would not tell him how Isabel fared nor how long she might remain asleep, his silence subjecting Griffin to a prolonged and maddening state of ignorance and utter helplessness.

He had told himself that he would send his message to Montborne, then go, leaving Isabel in the monastery’s care. But his urgent missive was long gone, and he still could not leave. Not without knowing that she would be all right, not without seeing her well with his own eyes.

And so Griffin had stayed for the duration, holding cold compresses to Isabel’s brow, cleaning soiled bandages, making new ones as Brother Ronan required them, helping in whatever ways he could. He did not eat or sleep, leaving Isabel’s side only when he had to, and returning always with the same hopeful question: “Any change?”

Finally, around dusk of the third day, her fever broke.

Griff waited in tense anticipation for Brother Ronan to confirm his suspicions. At last, his hand on Isabel’s brow, the monk turned to Griffin and nodded, the uncustomary
width of his smile telling him that the worst was over. But still, Isabel did not wake.

As dusk dragged on toward midnight with no further sign that Isabel was on the mend, Griffin wondered if this seeming improvement had been but a false omen, the cruel trick of a vengeful God who had every reason to scorn him. Weary, some long hours into another night’s vigil, Griffin let his head drop, resting his forehead on his bent elbow.

“Gri … Griffin?”

It was such a quiet sound, the barest thread of a whisper, that Griff thought at first his ears had deceived him. He raised his head, almost afraid to look at her and find her still asleep, still separated from the rest of the living world. But then she stirred slightly. Her pale lips parted and she said his name again, stronger this time as her eyes slowly opened. “Griffin …”

“I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m here.”

He left her side just long enough to go to the door and call for Brother Ronan to come to the room, then returned to the pallet where she lay and hunkered down at her side. Isabel blinked several times, her eyes growing brighter in the dim candlelit room, more alert as she peered up at him, then slowly took in her surroundings. Griffin squeezed her hand, scarcely able to rein in his urge to sweep her into his arms. “You’ve had me so worried, my lady. Thank God you are awake at last. How do you feel?”

She blinked up at him, then frowned. “Starving.”

Griff’s answering shout of laughter was thick with joy and deep relief. “Starving,” he chuckled, smoothing the hair from her brow. He turned at the sound of Brother Ronan’s sandals padding softly into the room. “My lady is awake, and she’s hungry,” he told the silent, smiling monk. “Will you fetch her something from the kitchens? Some bread and wine, perhaps a wedge of cheese?”

“Turnips,” Isabel murmured sleepily. “I should like some boiled turnips, I think.”

Griffin brought her fingers to his lips and kissed them. “Anything you want. If there are none in the kitchens, I’ll go to the gardens and dig some up myself.”

Brother Ronan returned a short while later with Isabel’s requested meal. He placed the tray of steaming food on the pallet near her feet and left as quietly as he came, as if he sensed the intimacy of the moment and knew it was not his to share. Griffin helped Isabel sit up, propping the bolsters at her back. He fed her, held her cup while she drank, and when she was finished and too exhausted to stay awake past her last bite, he settled her back under the covers and watched as she slept.

Griffin was tired beyond measure himself, but he found no solace in that moment, for now that Isabel was whole and hale, he knew that he would soon have to find the words to tell her good-bye.

Food was foremost on Isabel’s mind the following morning, as well. After allowing her privacy for her morning toilette and a fresh dressing for her arm, Griffin was back at her bedside, pleased to see her sitting up on her own. She whispered her thanks to Brother Ronan as he brought in a steaming bowl of fish stew and a loaf of bread, heartier fare than any of the monks would take to break their fast, but they seemed happy enough to feed their ravenous little stray.

“I’m glad to see you’re feeling better,” Griffin said, taking the bowl when she struggled to balance it on her lap.

She had been given a dark brown habit to wear, a boxy, crudely cut garment that hung off her slim shoulders like a grain sack. But above the plain collar, her cheeks were pink, her eyes clear and bright, and Griffin had never seen a more welcome sight in all his years.