Daughter of Fire (33 page)

There was a small niche in the kitchen where she might work, and she found some measure of solace for the next several hour in preparing her powders and potions. The syrups and precious liquids were poured into vials and sealed with wood corks. Powders and ground leaves were folded in pieces of parchment., all carefully labeled so that there would be no confusion later as to the remedy.

William’s cook had provided her a shelf for the vials. The dried herbs were tucked away in the leather pouch she always kept with her. Because of the lack of some potions, she’d been forced to make a few substitutions from what was available at market, but she felt confident that she could take care of most complaints.

Meg had been waiting for her upon her return and even without the ability to see she sensed Vivian’s distress. She waited until they were well within the passage and away from the kitchen where none might overhear.

“Something has happened,” Meg said with a certainty. “I can feel it in you. Your hands are as cold as ice.”

Quickly, Vivian told her of her encounter with Conal and the means she had been forced to use to save his life.

Meg shook her head. “I feared it might come to this. He was wild with grief when you were taken from Amesbury. You must surely know of the boy’s feelings for you.”

Vivian nodded sadly. “Aye, he spoke of them. I tried to dissuade him. But I fear it is not ended.”

“It is not,” Meg said with a certainty. “And I fear no good will come of it. What will you do?”

“I tried to convince him that he must leave London, but I fear he will not listen.” Then her gaze lifted to Meg’s tense face. “Poladouras spoke of visiting friends in London. If only he were able to find Conal and convince him that he must leave.”

Meg nodded. “I will speak with him.” Her voice trembled on another thought. “I fear the bishop. He is like the ones at St Anne’s, who cannot see beyond their own ambitions. His  ambitions are dangerous. You must be careful, my child.”

Vivian kissed her wrinkled cheek. “And have a care for yourself.” She warned, for none of them were safe.

“Bah!” Meg snorted. “These Normans cannot do any more than five hundred years have done. Did you remember the leaves for the misery of my hands?”

“Aye,” Vivian laughed. “ ’Tis here.” She handed over the packet. “And now there are others I must see to.”

Throughout the long afternoon she treated several injuries. William’s knights continuously practiced in the courtyard and sought her with various bruises, cuts, and scrapes from their practicing war skills. Kept busy by their demands, she tried to put the events of the morning out of her thoughts.

When it seemed the last of the injuries had been tended, she looked up to find Tarek al Sharif lazily sprawled on a chair across the great hall. He rose to his feet with the grace of a large cat, and strode toward her.

He possessed a quiet power that hinted at the exotic ancestry of his mother—Persian, she had been told—and contrasted sharply with the stark, bold blue of his eyes, the gift of his Norse father, a man he had never known.

Tarek al Sharif reminded her of the wild creatures in the forest—creatures of the earth, wind, and sky—living as one with other men, but at the same time always apart, aloof, solitary, and proud, like the falcon.

Yet she had never felt afraid when she was with him. On some deeper level they had established an unspoken understanding of one another, for they were both strangers now in an unknown land. As he approached, her eyes widened at the wound that carved the flesh in a perfect half-moon above his left brow.

“You’ve been injured!”

“It is hardly more than a scratched he said with a self-deprecating smile. “But it bleeds profusely.” The smile became a grimace as he tried to staunch the flow with his fingers.

“Perhaps you have a potion that will stop the blood, or perhaps the magic of your healing touch.”

“Or, perhaps,” she suggested with an arch of an auburn brow, “you should have ducked when you stood your ground, and not been injured at all?”

He shrugged as he sat at the table beside her and reached for a linen cloth to press against the cut. “It has been suggested that I have a most stubborn nature. In truth, I find it difficult to yield when victory is within my grasp.”

She glanced down at his strong hands, powerfully lined with veins beneath the bronzed skin that carried the look of the sun even in the midst of winter.

“Were you victorious?”

“My answer would be yes,” he answered carelessly. “However, if you were to ask the same question of my opponent, he would claim the victory for himself.”

“Fools!” she hissed under her breath, and slammed down a slender blade used for blending medicants. “Will this warring never end?”

He looked at her askance, his uninjured brow lifting with uncertainty. “It occurs to me that I would be safer in allowing the wound to bleed,” he suggested, suddenly wary of her mood. “There seems to be a plague of ill humor about that might prove more dangerous than a mere cut.” He made to rise.

“Sit!” she ordered. “I will mend the wound. But if next time you find your head severed from your shoulders, do not expect me to mend it.” She wondered briefly who his opponent was, and then wondered no more, for the answer was simple. There was only one person Tarek al Sharif practiced against. A tremor of fear sliced through her as she wondered if Rorke had been injured, for their practices were known to be as fierce as any battle.

Tarek al Sharif watched her skeptically, and kept a wary eye on the blade beneath her hand.

~ ~ ~

It was later afternoon when trestle tables were moved into place for the evening meal. Vivian supervised the distribution of tansy among the newly changed straw that covered the floor of the main hall. She also helped the young servant girls hang bundles of the sweet smelling sprigs about the hall to help ease the smell of tallow and the many bodies that gathered in the hall at eventide.

Green sprigs were hung to dry from the rafters in the kitchen and adjacent laundry.  Meg’s healing tisanes had been set to cool. Powders now filled vials and jars and Meg had gone to find Poladouras to speak with him about finding Conal in London.

The laundry was behind the kitchen to make use of the cook fire at the hearth for hot water, and the laundress had said she might use the water for bathing. Mally was taking down freshly laundered shirts and other garments from rope lines drawn across the large chamber.

“I’ve left the last tub of water for you,” Mally told her. “I bathed earlier when no one was about.”  And the men least likely to bother her.  The girl’s hand lowered over her softly curved belly where the child grew. Color flared across her cheeks.  “Justin brought the water. It took him several trips from the well.” 

The water was barely warm and smelled strongly of lye soap, but anything was better than washing from a basin of cold water.

She wrapped an arm about the girl’s shoulders and reassured her, “It will do very well. Thank you.”

The girl left her then to seek out Justin, for there was no doubt for whom Mally had risked the perils of bathing in midwinter.

From among her herbal concoctions Vivian took a double handful of lavender and sprinkled them across the surface of the water. She shuddered at the sight of the caustic lye soap, replacing it with a vial of thick extract from glossy, dark green shoots that were among the purchases she made that day. When rubbed briskly between both hands, the extract produced a lather that was far better than lye for bathing and didn’t burn the skin.

It was pleasantly fragrant, and she used it sparingly as she bathed and then lathered it through her hair, certain she would not have another opportunity to visit the market any time soon.

Some time later, as she returned to the chamber, wet hair plaited down the middle of her back, the folds of the heavy mantle held close about her against the cold drafts found in the halls, she heard the sounds of boisterous revelry from the main hall.

The evening meal had ended and William’s knights, feeling the restraint of inactivity, challenged one another to feats of marksmanship, wrestling, as well as contests to determine which man could consume the most Saxon ale.

As she crossed a passage, empty except for guards posted at each entrance and doorway, she caught a glimpse of a woman in the glittering light from torches set along the walls. Judith de Marque was briefly illuminated in the pool of light from a torch at the far end of the passage. She had not seen Vivian, so fixed was her attention on the tall warrior whose identity was hidden by shadows. Vivian heard the whisper of exchanged words followed by Judith’s sultry laughter.

There was a brief glint as light from a torch reflected off some piece of finery the knight wore. Then they disappeared together into the shadows at the end of the passage as it angled to another part of the royal residence away from the main hall, no doubt seeking one of the private niches.

Vivian thought again of Rorke FitzWarren and the rumors whispered among his knights, and wondered if he sought to take his ease with the woman. Pain twisted sharply somewhere under her breast at the thought, making it difficult to breathe. Frowning as she reached the chamber, she tried to rid herself of the feelings so unfamiliar to her.

The heavy iron latch at the stout chamber door was rusted from the ever present dampness that seemed to invade the royal fortress and groaned uncooperatively. It usually required the efforts of two young squires to lift it.  With a touch as light as down, Vivian lifted the latch. 

It lifted easily, the metal glowing slightly as she pushed open the door to the chamber and drew aside the heavy tapestry. On a startled sound, she stopped suddenly just inside the doorway to the chamber.

Eighteen

R
orke FitzWarren turned from the hearth. “My apologies, mistress. I didn’t mean to frighten you.  When I arrived there was no one about.”

“You did not,” she said, slowly releasing the breath that had suddenly lodged in her lungs at finding him there. “Tis only that I thought everyone to be in the great hall,” her words tumbled over themselves and sounded awkward. 

“I had not expected to find you here.”

Several candles had been lit, their light quivering in the sudden draft from the doorway. A trencher of food and a flagon of wine sat on the table. A fire had been laid at the hearth and burned ravenously, throwing fierce golden light across his features.

He had poured a goblet of wine. The cracked shells of several nuts lay nearby. The small blade he always carried in a concealed place skewered a piece of fruit.

“Nor I,” he replied with sudden seriousness of voice, the expression behind those wintry gray eyes inscrutable. It was impossible to know his mood. He drank from the goblet with great deliberateness of movement as though fortifying himself for something to come.

“Duke William deemed it necessary that I seek your healer’s skills,” he explained.

A delicate auburn brow lifted in surprise. “You have an injury?”

“Aye, and most serious,” he said, his weight supported at the edge of the table.

One long leg was thrust before him propped on the heel of his boot. His other leg hitched the edge of the table with a casual, restrained power that belied any impairment from injury.

“An encounter with a Persian blade,” he went on to explain in that same grave manner.

Her brow angled even higher. Her earlier conversation with Tarek—owner of that Persian blade—left no doubt that he had considered himself to be the victor of the encounter. And yet, she had also seen Rorke’s skill with a broadsword and found it difficult to believe the wound was serious.

Then, as he turned and reached for the goblet of wine at the table, she saw the stain of blood on the shoulder of the linen shirt he wore beneath his tunic. She crossed the chamber with such a suddenness of movement that the flames at the candles fluttered wildly. She retrieved the leather pouch that contained her healing powders from a niche at the wall.

“You must remove your shirt,” she told him when she turned back around, for there was no other way for her to treat the wound.  He set the goblet aside and removed it, clad only in breeches and boots,  and she again experienced that jolt of sensual awareness at the sight of lean muscles and bronzed skin. 

There was a good amount of blood at his shoulder, most of it dried. She concentrated on the task at hand as she soaked a linen cloth with a tincture of white willow bark extract, and then washed away blood and grime of sweat and mud from the practice yard, wondering why he had not immediately sought her skills.

As she cleaned the wound she took note of other scars that spoke of far more serious injuries  at the deeply muscled contours and angles of his chest and shoulders, that by the deep scars had been left to heal on their own.

“It must have been very painful,” she said, contemplating him through narrowed gaze, and wondering the reason he had sought her healing skills for surely the wound was not as serious as the one he had received weeks earlier that she had tended for him.

“Aye,” he agreed. “A dreadful wound.”

“ ’Tis more likely a wound to your ego,” she replied.

He gave her an amused look. “You have a sharp tongue, mistress, hardly needed by a man so gravely injured who sits before you in need of tender care.”

“And
you
have a lying tongue,” she retorted. “The wound is hardly more than a scratch. I have suffered nothing as serious harvesting greens in the forest.”

“And yet, even the smallest wound may fester and bring on a fever,” he pointed out, having decided he must take a new course with her if he was to learn the truth of what happened that morning in the square. For he had seen her strength of will and knew he could not threaten the truth from her.

“You will bandage the wound now. If you please,” he added, recalling something his friend Tarek al Sharif had once told him—that a tender mare was more easily persuaded by a gentle hand than the lash.

Vivian watched him warily.  She had no idea what game he played, or to what purpose, but she was not about to do his bidding.