“Aye, nearly as big as you are. I hope for the sake of your wife that you never become fevered. Now, let me look at his wound.” She unwound the bandage. “This man is amazing. Look at the pink flesh. I have never seen such speed of healing.” She took dried bramble blossoms and laid them on the wound, then wrapped it again.
“Then why did he get the fever?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows why it strikes some and not others. Mayhap it is his foul humor. He was very angry with me last night. He came to my chamber and made threats. Mayhap he’ll believe I cursed him and the result is the fever. Aye, I like the sound of that.”
“What do you mean he came to your chamber? He said naught to me of going to you again and we played chess in here until well after midnight.”
“Ah,” she said, and nothing more.
“You’re turning red, Hastings. What happened? What were his threats? Was he rough with you? Did he hurt you?”
5 0 •t
“I think he wanted to but he didn’t. He left me alone after he raged t me. Aye, his own nastiness brought on the fever.”
The marten mewled, lifting its paw toward them.
Severin was shivering now, the burning heat turning into a wasteland of cold, freezing him from the inside. He felt the weight of blankets, so many of them, and they were but pressing him deeper into himself, into that frigid wasteland. He hated the weight of them but he didn’t have the strength to throw them off. He heard a strange noise, it was close, too close. He realized then that it was his own teeth chattering. He hated this, the helplessness, this endless devil’s cold, but there was naught he could do because his mind spun away, leaving him awash in the misery and with no ability to control it.
Suddenly, he felt a spurt of warmth and turned his face into it. Trist was curled next to his head, his fur thick and soft, but he didn’t feel heavy, not like all those deadening blankets. His thoughts returned as the cold slowly lessened. He heard her voice and knew she was close. He felt her hands on him, easing the weight of the blankets off his shoulder. He didn’t want her hands on him. He didn’t want her to know that the blan-
kets were grinding him into frozen pulp, making the pain in his shoulder unendurable. He didn’t want her to see him helpless.
“He’s quiet at last,” he heard Hastings say as she and Graelam stood over him. “That’s a good sign.”
“If he gets the fever again, I just might let him drown in his own sweat. I would rather fight the infidel than wipe down his big body again.”
She laughed. “Do you know,” she said after a moment, “it is said that when a mandrake is uprooted it shrieks and will bring death to the one who has destroyed it. The Healer told me always to have a dog do the uprooting.”
Graelam smiled. “I will tell Kassia the tale. Mayhap she will believe lt:- She has a streak of witchiness in her. Aye, she just might believe it. You have put me off long enough. Did Severin hurt you last night?”
Severin wished he had the strength to snort. Hurt her? Of course he
5 1
hadn’t hurt her. He’d shaken her, naturally, she’d deserved that. St. Peter’s thumbs, he was the one who was hurt, couldn’t Graelam see that?
“Nay. Graelam, he didn’t hurt me, not really, but know that he doesn’t like me, truly. He believes me an encumbrance, nothing more. I am part of this prize of his, very likely the only part he doesn’t want. He is a warrior, ruthless and hard. He wants to treat me like a possessionhe probably sees me as less desirable than his bathtub over there. That bathtub does what it is supposed to do. That is what he expects of me. I’m to be humble as that damned bathtub, do his bidding without question or argument, and do it without thought. He is very angry with me. Do you think he will kill me once he has secured my father’s possessions?”