So she believed him a murderer of women as well as an animal? He
cherished evil thoughts before the pain in his shoulder made his mind go blank.
“Don’t be foolish, Hastings. You are tired. You are not thinking correctly. Severm won’t kill you, but I fear that you will not mind your tongue when he angers you with his orders and commands. And you are right, of course. Severin hasn’t known much easiness or softness in his short life. But he is a man to trust.”
“Trust, you say? Well, we will see about that. At least he won’t be gi4eg^any orders today.”
His mind came back into his body when she spoke those words. As soon as he had the strength he would give her more orders than her feeble brain could take in. And it would be today. If it killed him he would give her all those orders today. Was it still today? he wondered.
“Now, I need to give him more gentian mixed with a bit of poppy, then he will sleep for many hours.”
He didn’t want to sleep through the day. He wanted to think about what he’d heard. Graelam had said he was a man to be trusted. Naturally he was. He was a man of honor. She doubted even that. Perhaps he wasn’t a model of the minstrel’s songs of the chivalrous knight. He was a man and a warrior and he would rule his possessions. She was one of them.
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«ut damn her, she could trust him. Kill her? Mayhap he would want to thrash her, but not kill her.
He wanted to tell her so, he wanted to give her at least one order, but he simply had not the will to open his eyes and tell her that he resented her speaking so plainly to Graelam. Graelam wasn’t her husband. He wished Graelam would tell her that he, Severin, didn’t have the feelings
of a toad.
There was something else. Aye, he wanted to tell her that he could mend himself without her damned potions. He did not want to have to show her gratitude, not that he had any intention of doing so in any case. But the goblet was at his lips and he felt her fingers prying open his mouth. He had not the strength to fight her.
When it was done, when Hastings was satisfied that he would rest easily, Graelam called for Severin’s man Gwent to stay close to him. Gwent was a giant of a man, larger even than Lord Graelam. There was a wide space between his front teeth and a very deep dimple on his chin. He had large hands, a rough tongue, and, she saw, a gentle manner with both Severin and Trist. But what relieved her mind was that the marten liked him.
That satisfied her.
“I will bring you some ale and bread, Gwent, and Trist, well, I will find something to interest him.”
“The little lordling likes eggs that are lightly boiled, not firm on the inside, just very hot, the yellow and the white a bit clingy. Once the yolk was too hard and Trist spit on the back of my hand. I thought I should warn you. But the marten is not spoiled, not really, and it amuses Severin to please him.”
Little lordling indeed, she thought. “You’ve been with Lord Severin long, Gwent?”
Since he was a lad of seventeen, just arrived in the Holy Land. He saved my life in a Saracen ambush. My master had been killed. I swore ealty to him on that day. Aye, I have never known boredom with Sev-
erin.”
Of course Gwent hadn’t ever known boredom, Severin thought,
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feeling as though his brains were as sand trickling through a sieve, except for those hideous weeks in the dungeon in Rouen. Why was she asking Gwent all these questions? When he was himself again, he would see that she kept her woman’s curiosity to herself. He wanted to tell her that Gwent would protect her while he was still lying flat on his back, but why should he bother to tell her anything? No, he thought, he would remain as silent as the night. He breathed deeply, feeling the inexorable blankness seep into his brain.