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She blew out the candle.
“Don’t let him die. Ye can’t let him die.” Wharton’s words skidded out of him, each lurching with panic. “He’s my master.”
“I know.” Edlyn washed Hugh’s hot, wasted body with a cloth dipped in cool water. Her gritty eyes searched for a flicker of improvement, but Hugh remained motionless. For four nights now he’d lain like this, his head resting on a pile of folded rags, while she had tried everything she knew to bring his fever down and relieve his infection. Nothing had worked. Nothing.
Wharton had tried everything he knew, too. He had shouted, threatened, bullied, and prayed. Now he pleaded, wiping at the tears that leaked from the corners of his eyes. “I beg o’ ye, m’ lady, bring him back t’ health. There is no one t’ replace him.”
She looked away from Hugh’s emaciated form and observed Wharton, pale even in the golden light of the oven’s open door. “Go out,” she said compassionately. “Breathe the night air.”
Wharton had reached the breaking point, it seemed, for he took a last look at Hugh and plunged out of the door. She heard his footsteps as he ran, seeking solace away from this house of putrescence, and she was alone. Alone with a man who wouldn’t live until dawn.
She shouldn’t care. He’d caused her no end of trouble. She’d been awakened every night by Wharton sneaking into her room and dragging her down here. She’d lied to the people who sheltered her. She’d been surly with the nuns, barring them from the dispensary and shoving her herbs out the door. She’d spent all her time fixing poultices and decoctions, depleting the last of her stores as she wrestled with death for Hugh’s soul. Yet when she looked at him, she couldn’t give up. She remembered him. He had been part of her youth. The largest part of her girlish dreams had resided in him. And she couldn’t let that end. For herself as well as for him.
“Hugh.” She leaned forward so her mouth touched his ear. “Hugh. Come back to me.”
He didn’t move. He showed no change.
Rising, she walked to the long table against the wall. There in a line stood her boxes, each wooden box marked with the name of the herb within. She pulled them forward and lifted each one. Bitter rue. Piquant savory. Strengthening sage. Pungent thyme.
Common herbs. Herbs used to cure and purify. They didn’t work. They hadn’t worked. She had tried. Turning, she looked at the still, bare body stretched out on the floor behind the oven. Then she put her elbows on the table and cupped her forehead in her hands.
She didn’t know what to do. All the jingles she’d ever heard from all the old wives ran through her head.
Borage leaves chopped fine with yarrow,
Brings the poison forth tomorrow.
That wouldn’t work. She’d tried it.
Lady’s mantle you will pick,
Spread it thick.
She’d tried that, too. Stupid old wives.
Twitch the tail of the dragon,
Pluck it from its lair.
Prick it with a virgin’s nail…
Oh, this was so stupid. Dragon’s blood was just a root. It wasn’t good for anything. And she wasn’t a virgin.
Moonlight and springtime,
Magic of old…
Superstition. Her hands shook. She didn’t even know where to look for the stuff.
Under the sacred oak…
She remembered all of that poem. All of it. She didn’t even know when she’d learned it, but it made her faintly ashamed. Ashamed she remembered. Ashamed she even considered trying it.
Then she heard the silence again. Silence pressed down from behind her. No sound of breath. No sound of movement. No sound of life. Hugh was dead, or would be. What difference would it make if she tried one of the ancient spells?
Whirling, she ran out into the garden. The moon changed the familiar landscape to one of stark shadows and eerie shapes. The oak tree in the corner by the stone wall was thick with darkness. Nothing grew under there. The shade clung to the ground; sunshine couldn’t penetrate. At night, it was positively spooky. If she believed in fairies, she would be frightened.
Of course, it was a fairy cure she was thinking of trying, so she had better be respectful of the wee folk.
