“Philip, they’ve sent for Bertha. Apparently, Liam the baker’s son has taken a turn for the worse and his mother thinks Bertha’s care helped most.”
“I’m sure it did. Bertha said that Liam’s modor was depriving him of food and water. Anyone who fed and gave a sick person drink would appear a hero when the person revived.”
“Minerva has returned to the kitchen, but if you’d like to see your friend and talk to Bertha, she’ll take you to him.”
Excusing himself eagerly, Philip hurried from the room and to the kitchen. The baker looked worried as he pulled great loaves of crusty bread from the ovens. “Hello, Philip. Have you come to see my Liam?”
“Lord Morgan said I could, but if you’d rather—”
“I’m sure he’d like to see you. Take him to the room, Minerva.” The baker turned back to his work as if he didn’t have a son dying in one of the castle rooms.
As he followed the young girl down corridors, Philip asked about his care. Minerva answered his questions solemnly. “The Hælan has ordered that he be kept away from everyone lest his fever spread. My modor says it is very serious.”
“What has he had to eat or drink today?”
“Nothing that I know of. The Hælan has said it is too much for his body.”
Philip reached for the girl’s arm and stopped her. “When you leave me at Liam’s room, go fetch some broth and some water. Try not to let anyone see you. I don’t want to tell you to lie, but if you just mention me…”
“But if the—”
“They’ve called for Bertha, have they not?” Exasperated, he interrupted and then continued before Minerva could answer. “Bertha returned from helping him before the storm ranting about how they’d almost killed him from lack of food and drink. If he was better after her care, then we must ensure he gets her ‘medicine.’ I won’t lose my friend to starvation.”
“Well, I’ll bring it for you. What you do with it is your own business. Modor would kill me if she knew—”
“You may save his life. Thank you, Minerva.”
The girl giggled and scurried back toward the kitchens pointing toward the door closest to Philip. One last glance before she turned down the corridor told him she’d heard too many exaggerated tales of his “heroism” during the attempted siege. However, for once he was glad for the tendency of people in that part of England to prefer a tale embellished until it was hardly recognizable. He feared that without that tendency, she would never have acquiesced to his request.
He knocked gently and then pushed the door open. The sight of Liam lying soaked with sweat on a bed in a cool room unnerved him. Dove had told him of Bertha’s opinions on things like fevers, coughs, and other illnesses. Sometimes, her opinions went against the Hælan’s and this seemed to be another one. Liam shivered uncontrollably, leaving Philip wondering how his mother, seated next to him holding his hand, could stand the noise of her son’s chattering teeth and whimpers.
“Would you like to go watch for Bertha? I can sit with him.”
“Oh, Philip, I can’t leave him. Look how blue his lips are. He—” The woman choked back her thoughts as if speaking them would bring them to pass. “I should be here if—”
“I’ll come get you straight away, but you look cold and it would be terrible if you got ill just as he needed you most…” Though he felt a little guilty, Philip allowed Liam’s mother to imagine her son dying alone while she suffered ill in another room.
“Perhaps you are right. You will come get me immediately if anything changes?” I’ll just go to the kitchen for a little food and to thaw my fingers. It’s so cold in here, you’d think that fever would break!”
The moment Alys Baker left the room, Philip went to work, talking softly to Liam as he did. “Bertha is coming, Liam. She’ll take good care of you. I’m going to do what I can until she gets here. I know she’ll want a fire going. Dove says that if a person throws the bedclothes off while feverish, then you need to cool them, but if they shiver, you help keep them warm. I know she must be right. Bertha, for all her faults, seems to be wise about these things.”
For the next twenty minutes, Philip built a fire, helped change Liam out of his wet clothes and into dry breeches and tunic. When Minerva brought the broth and water, he begged the girl to bring him dry blankets to replace the wet filthy ones currently on the low bed. Liam protested every movement, but Philip insisted. The moment blankets arrived, he wrapped his friend well and kept the boy, who seemed even smaller and more waif-like than ever, from collapsing while Minerva pulled the soiled bedding from the straw mattress and replaced it with fresh.
“Can you find me pillows?”
“I’d be whipped for sure! Servants don’t get pillows! You should know that!” The girl’s shock overrode her near hero-worship.
“Lord Morgan would give them to me if I asked. You know he would.”
“Then you ask! I’m not risking a beating just so you can pamper your friend.”
Not that Philip didn’t believe his bold assertions, but the boy didn’t run back to Lord Morgan’s side for permission. Instead, he hurried to the bedchamber where he’d rested after the attempted kidnapping of Lady Aurelia and grabbed the pillows from that bed before rushing back to Liam’s room. Using them as props, he helped Liam to a semi-seated position and then sent Minerva from the room. “If the Hælan or his modor returns before Bertha arrives, I don’t want you here. You shouldn’t get in trouble for my actions.”
As she scurried from the room, Minerva gave Philip one last admiring glance and said, “I hope you’re right about this. You’d be responsible for saving another life!”
It was all Philip could do not to groan. As it was, he was grateful that Liam was too delirious to understand anything that was said or happened. Instead, he fed his friend, gave him sips of water, and prayed like he’d never prayed in his life. Rather than requests, each plea sent heavenward was more like prostrate begging for the full restoration of Liam’s life.
This is how Bertha found Liam Baker when she arrived with Alys nearly an hour after Philip sent the woman from the room. The fire burned briskly, the bed was clean and so was Liam’s face and clothing. Alys took one look at the fire and her son’s blanket-covered body and shrieked. “You’re killing him!”
“What are you talking about, Alys Baker?” Bertha’s stern tones were, for once, a welcome sound.
“Feel how warm the room is? See the blankets? He’s been feeding my son!” Deep wails followed the angry accusations, until Bertha sent the woman from the room.
“Get out of here. You’ll make him ill with your weeping. Sleep. You’re obviously not sensible at the moment.” To Philip, once the door closed behind the hysterical woman, Bertha nodded with approval. “This is your doing?”
“I found him soaked to the skin, shivering, he’s ravenous and has raging thirst, and this room was cold enough to make my teeth rattle, and I am not sick.”
“How did you know what to do? The Hælan is of the opinion that all fevers require a cool hand.”
“Dove told me what you said about fevers, and I remembered you said that they were starving him. I just did the opposite of what they had been doing.”
As she listened, Bertha mixed herbs in a goblet of water and forced the liquid down Liam’s throat. “He is no longer thirsty. That is good.” Feeling the boy’s head and pressing her ear to his heart, the woman nodded with satisfaction. “Well, if I hadn’t come, you might have saved his life.”
“No, you saved his life regardless. I wouldn’t have known to go against the Hælan if you had not saved Dove’s life and she had not told me.”
The woman didn’t speak for some time. Instead, she piled the dirty blankets and clothes outside the door, opened the window for fresh air for a few minutes before the cold drove her to shut it again, piled another log on the fire, and then seated herself on the short bench Alys Wood had occupied. “You are an intelligent boy. The girl always says so, and she is right. Perhaps you sh
ould study healing.”
“Is she home?” He’d wanted to ask the question from the moment Bertha entered the room, but despite his best efforts not to ask, Philip couldn’t resist any longer.
“I haven’t seen her. She must be dead.”
“She’s too cunning for that! I know her. She’d take shelter— she’d make shelter!”
Unsettled by the look in Philip’s eyes, Bertha chose to agree. “She would if she could. That child has always been resourceful.”
“I will pray for her safe return until the day she arrives or they find her body. I will be like the woman who pestered the judge until she received justice. I will not rest until we’ve found her.”
Chapter 11
Scynscaþa
“Demon!” The cries of terror echoed in the great round chamber, but Dove stood paralyzed by her own fear. Her hood hung loosely around her shoulders, her hair flying wildly about, now that it was unrestrained by the confines of the hood. Her eyes, the flames of the torches nearby reflecting in them almost savagely, seemed to validate the cruel accusations of the frightened Mæte.
“Come, Dove, let’s go!” Jakys threw the hood over her head, and nearly dragged her from the room. Down passageways, and through smaller caverns, they sped. He led her, stumbling blindly behind, farther into the mountain, but Dove was too disoriented to know if they were moving toward the cliffs or farther from them.
“You should not have brought me here.”
“I did the right thing. It’ll just be harder now.”
“What will?”
As if he didn’t hear, Jakys ignored the question and pushed Dove into a small room. “Stay here.”
“I want to leave. I want to go home.”
“Don’t even consider trying to leave right now. The others wouldn’t let you pass.”
“But—”
Before she could utter another word, Jakys shook her gently. “Listen. You must not cry. You must not whimper. You must be completely silent. Can you do that?”
“Apparently, I must.” Anger flooded her voice as she spoke.
“Yes, you must if you want to live. Wait here.”
Up and down the tunnels, Jakys raced from torch to torch putting them out as he reached each one. Once all were extinguished, he led her to a tiny hole in the rock, pushed her into it, and knelt before her. “You must stay here until I come for you. Even if one of the others passes right by your feet, you must not move. Hold your breath. They will expect me to put you in one of the rooms.”
“I’ll be so visible here—”
“Not if you keep covered with your cloak. You’ll blend into the rock because they expect only to see rock.”
“For how long?”
This seemed to confuse the little man. “What—”
“I cannot sit crouched like this forever! How long before I can move?”
“You can stand for five minutes after I leave. Then hide for an hour. If no one comes by then, you can stand again, but do not sleep. If you hear anything, even if it seems to be a rat, hide again.”
With those words, Jakys ran from her. Dove counted silently to herself, stretching, twisting, moving her muscles as Philip had described doing in the Keep during the siege. Once she was sure the allotted time had passed, she crept into the crevice and tried to make herself comfortable. The height was low and awkward, but after repositioning herself a few times, she found an arrangement that offered the least amount of discomfort. Pulling her cloak around her, Dove leaned her forehead against her knees and allowed her hood to droop over her.
She settled herself just as the faint flicker of light from advancing torches lit the tunnel in which she hid, but Dove, eyes hidden by cloak and knees, could not see it. However, she heard the shuffling of feet, the loud whispers of men who had no aptitude for stealth, and felt their presence advance with each passing second. A lifetime of sitting perfectly still in the clearing in order to entice the woodland animals to trust her was now her salvation. Not a single muscle twitched while feet pounded the stone floor as four men passed, waving their torches too quickly to notice movement or unnatural shadows.
Their disappearance around the corner made staying in place much more difficult. As if it knew the danger was past, her body suddenly screamed for relief. The desire to stretch, shift, or scratch her nose became nearly overwhelming. Her mind flew to the story of David hidden in the caves able to reach out and kill King Saul if he chose, and Dove felt a certain kinship with the man who eventually became the second king of Israel.
What seemed an age passed, and Dove wanted nothing more than to stand, stretch, and fumble her way through the tunnels to the outside world. She’d find her way back to Wynnewood if it took a lifetime. However, just as she started to reach for the rocks beside her, the faint shuffle of feet came again. “Did anyone check down here?”
“I don’t know, the torches were out. How could the thing find its way around without light?”
“Unless it put them out.” Maulore’s voice sounded even more imperious now than it had while dancing.
A third voice joined the other two excitedly. “Baldric has refused to answer. I am sure he knows where Jakys is.”
“Well,” Maulore said in a tone that would have put shivers down Dove’s spine if she could have been afforded that luxury, “let us go determine where Baldric’s true loyalties lie.”
Dove was surprised. After all, Baldric hadn’t shown much support for Jakys decision to bring her into the caverns and tunnels beneath the Sceadu or into the mountains. A flush of guilt spread over her as she realized that the poor creature would probably suffer for his loyalty. She wanted to race from the nook, call out for him, beg him to flee, but of course, she could not and did not.
A long while later, surely at least the required hour, she heard a familiar shuffling. It took her several seconds of careful listening to realize what it must be. Baldric. The way his foot dragged a little as he took his steps was already very familiar to her. Would someone mimic it? Could she run fast enough to get away if they did? Was it worth the risk to try to warn the little man?
A new resolve entered her heart. The man had resisted questions to protect her and Jakys once. Even if this was a trap, it was her duty to try to help. Philip would do it if he were here. That thought clinched it for her. She must try to warn Baldric, and if Maulore’s men caught her, well, it was worth the price to try.
“Baldric.” Her voice was a mere whisper and she tried to throw it from her as if coming from another direction. She almost succeeded.
His feet shuffled close to where she hid, and she felt him kneel close to her. “Dove?”
“I heard Maulore and his men. They are searching for you. They—” She hesitated. How could she explain what she heard?
“They want to make me tell where you’re hidden. I didn’t know, but they wouldn’t believe me if they found me.”
“You have to get out of here.”
“I suppose.”
“Go out onto the cliffs and into the cave near the dragon’s lair. It’s warm there, and I’ll tell Jakys where you are.” Her idea was a sound one, but Dove had a new thought. “Where is the king?”
“I can’t—”
“From the way Maulore was talking, Jakys was in danger before I was exposed. I have to try to tell the king.”
“I could be—”
“I won’t tell how I found him. Just t—”
Baldric suddenly flattened himself against the wall and then slid down beside her. Lifting her hood slightly, he whispered very quietly, “Shh.”
Before she could nod, shift, or touch him to acknowledge his order, Jakys voice stood nearby. “You two have made enough noise to wake the dead. How can I conceal you if you refuse to hide?”
Dove stretched and rose gingerly from her crouched position. Her muscles ached, her head pounded, and she wanted nothing more than another night in one of Lord Morgan’s soft beds. “I heard Maulore threaten Baldric, so when he shuffled by…”<
br />
“What were you doing down here?” The fury that Jakys unleashed on the younger dwarf was excessive in Dove’s eyes. “You should have known I’d bring her here.”
“I knew they were coming to search. I was going to get her outside. Once in the forest, the Scynscaþa should know her way around better than any of us.”
“Don’t call her that! She is no demon.”
“Well, if she is one, she’s a good one. She was trying to save me.”
“There is no such thing as a good demon. They are all of wicked origins,” Jakys argued. Baldric seemed ready to contest the idea, but Dove interrupted.
“Philip says that demons are fallen angels— heavenly creatures that followed Lucifer and are now banished from heaven.”
“Well, are we going to sit here and listen to fairy stories or shall we move before we are all captured?” Grifon’s voice joined them from a few feet away. “I could hear you down the passageway. King Waleron has ordered that we all come to him.”
“And Maulore?” Jakys looked suspicious.
“Has gone to the cave near the dragon’s lair. I hinted that it would be the only place the Scynscaþa would feel safe.”
“Don’t call her that,” Baldric and Jakys snapped in unison. Dove giggled.
“I’m glad I didn’t listen to the girl. I would have been captured.”
“Sorry, Baldric. It seemed logical at the time.”
Jakys led them from the nook, talking all the while. “You cannot be logical if you want to evade capture. If it makes sense that you would flee outside, then you must stay close.”
“Is that why you put me almost in plain sight?”
“Exactly. As long as you did not move, they would assume you were a part of the wall. No one expects someone to hide where they can be seen.” The wise old dwarf led them more swiftly until they entered lit tunnels that led in a direction that she hadn’t imagined existed.
The Annals of Wynnewood Complete Series Page 27
