by Sue Wilson
His face was slender and sharply chiseled at cheek and jaw, and at least in sleep, free of the choler she imagined would mar it. A carefully groomed beard darkened his chin and the edge of his jaw; a black mustache swept over full lips. His hair, equally black, was not shorn in the Norman style, but a tumble of carelessly tousled waves that swept away from his face and fell to his shoulders. Sweat-soaked tendrils draped across a high forehead.
Odd that a cruel man had been gifted with such handsome features. She wondered if it were some ironic curse of birth to have such harsh beauty at constant war with an angry temperament. Gently, she laid her hand against the center of the Sheriff's chest. His heart thumped powerfully beneath her palm. He would not die on his own. Too strong for that. It would take something deliberate.
She picked up her blade, quickly before determination fled, and held the knife to the pulsing point below his earlobe. A single slice. Swiftly done, he would feel nothing, and she-
Terrified, Thea dropped the knife to the pallet.
She had claimed to be no surgeon, an outright lie. Was there any truth that she were murderess as well? Oh, God, she wanted him dead. How blameless was that?
Her hesitation grew, doubling with the rhythmic rise and fall of the Sheriff's shallow breathing.
There was Sir Guy, of course, already too curious about her motives. That he had reported his encounter with her to the Sheriff was certain, for how else had Nottingham known to come to her? It was doubtful the Sheriff could die now at her hands, either through design or lack of skill, without bringing Gisborne and his hounds to her door.
Yet it was not fear for her own life that stayed Thea's hand. It was another choice; the instinct that came to her first, always, before killing was even a thought. She could save him.
John and the others would damn her for that, and she would never be able to explain, wasn't even certain she understood the decision herself, except that it had little to do with reason.
Thea spread her fingers over the expanse of flesh, feeling the warmth and pliancy of living tissue beneath her hand. She did not know how many minutes passed as she knelt there, staring at him, feeling confusion spin into conviction. All she knew was that she could not turn him away. She certainly could not be the instrument of his death.
Drawing a slow, deep breath, she reached again for the blade, and let it hover over the wound until her hand steadied. Best she wait and calm herself and not kill the man with ineptitude if she could not kill him by intent.
Her knife reached to open the wound.
~*~
Fortune smiled on Lord Nottingham. The arrowhead had not pierced a vital organ, nor were there any bleeders within that would make short shrift of his life. The arrow was deep, and there were links of mail carried with it-when would these Normans learn that armor was no protection against a loosed bow?-but Thea had seen worse, had tended worse.
As she worked over the wounded man, her focus sharpened, and she shut out all distractions around her. She heard neither the wind-driven rain outside nor the crackle of fire within. Her sense of where and when and who she was coalesced into a very small fragment of space and time: only she and Nottingham existed.
No, not even Nottingham. Just a part of him, the torn and damaged flesh that was without guilt as much as she was without conscience to kill him.
Somehow she would right the wound and see him alive. After that, she didn't care. Let the devil take him. Or Robin. Or John. But she would not.
She reached the metal point, removed it, and laid it aside with a sob. Her hand shook then, uncontrollably, until there was nothing to do but drop the blade and clench her fingers together tightly in her lap until they stilled.
His color was good, not the pallor of those who had fared poorly under the knife, and his breathing had slowed, deepened. He was even stirring a little. His fingers stretched out into empty air, then not finding what they sought, curled under again. His lips pressed together and he swallowed, a sign of thirst.
Thea caught herself staring, watching the minute movements as if he were some curious creature she had trapped. She could give him nothing to drink now, not while the mandrake still wove its sleeping spell around him, but she must continue. There was still much to do, and she preferred to do it before he woke.
He would need a poultice and strips of linen to bind it to him. She scraped back the hair loosened from her braid and wiped her brow with her forearm. After a moment's deliberation, she chose agrimony for the injury. Its leaves and stems were perfect for sword-wound because they offered protection from an enemy blade. Thea reckoned they would work as well for an enemy arrow and the harm she had done retrieving it. She pounded the shoots she had found growing wild in Sherwood the day before and pressed the pulp into the wound. She wondered if she should use a charm, or a prayer, but any words she could think of would be spoken halfheartedly at best.
"Damn you, Sheriff, don't die on me," was all she could manage, and she doubted it was an incantation the priest would approve.
A layer of moss covered the agrimony and over that, strips of gauze soaked in vinegar. Thea laced the bandages across Nottingham's midsection, reached underneath to bring the strips behind his back-and stopped.
This was not the same sleek flesh of his chest and arms.
Her fingers stretched out along the Sheriff's back, feeling the slight swell of muscle and the indented valley of his spine, then explored further, from his narrow waist to the flare of broad shoulders. She dared not roll him over or move him in any way merely to satisfy her own curiosity, but she was certain of what she felt. She slid her hands from beneath him and pressed her palms hard against the pallet, the tactile memory boring into her.
There was not a scar or blemish on him, save the one the arrow would cost him-that and the horrible etching that covered his back. Every inch of skin overlaying strong muscle was furrowed and ridged. No sword slashes those, no lance wound, nothing she doubted the Sheriff had won in tournament or battle, but the uneven streaks of flesh torn by the whip.
She could not explain it, no matter how long she thought on the injury, but there was no lie in the man's skin. The Lord High Sheriff had been flogged. Highborn, noble Nottingham had been striped by the same mean weapon reserved for slave or recalcitrant serf.
Tenderness welled alongside horror, the fainter emotion winning out. Thea touched the wet strands of hair plastered to his forehead, more dare than gentleness. Beneath her fingertips, the Sheriff's skin was warm and moist-and alive.
She dared more, dabbing his mud-streaked cheek with the skirt of her shift. A stab of feeling, like a phantom touch, streaked across her breast. Her hand jolted back into a tight fist in her lap. She had nearly forgotten that strange rush of sensation he'd caused, and there it was again, a haunting reminder of his touch.
How dare he find with his stray caress the very traces of desire she had thought were gone? How dare he touch her at all!
She let out an uneven breath. Steeling herself, she slid her hands beneath him again, picked up the linen bandages, and continued wrapping them around him until the poultice was held firmly in place. Mercifully, despite her movements as she cleaned and bandaged his head wound, Nottingham still slept under the effects of the draught. Thea prayed his slumber would last well into the morn; it would spare them both further confrontations. After that-
She looked up suddenly, questions pouring through her mind. After that...what?
He could not stay there, lie there like that, while she waited for Gisborne to come and indict her for making mincemeat of the Sheriff's gut. Or worse, for John to return and find them both, she holding a cool wet cloth to Nottingham's fevered brow and the Sheriff with his hand tangled in the ribbons of her shift. Nor could he leave, a man in his condition, who had survived the arrow and her ungentle probing and still had the wound-fever to face. Where would he go with the forest between him and his castle?
She wondered if she shouldn't have dispatched the scoundrel after all,
then called for John to dispose of the body that now claimed her bed, long arms and legs draped over the edges. The man was too tall, and he looked rather ridiculous, booted feet hanging off the pallet's edge and one arm flopping indecorously across his bandaged belly. He didn't fit. Not in her bed. Not in her life. Most certainly not in her bed-
And she stopped herself with that thought, because John would not have fit either, but she had never thought of John there, not once in three years, much less twice in one breath.
He would have to go, this Sheriff, and soon. That's all there was to it. He was inconvenience personified. No, worse. Trouble.
There was firewood to be gathered for the night to chase away his chill, his horse to be untacked and watered, bloody rags to be boiled clean, or burned if she'd a mind for destroying evidence. Crusts of mud from his boots to be swept from her floor, and his shirt-what remained of it-to be washed. And feeding. Was there ever a man who didn't demand something to sup on the moment he waked?
She looked into the broth she had prepared for her own dinner, forgotten and left simmering in an iron cauldron pushed to one side of the fire. Thin, vegetable broth-not the sturdy fare the Sheriff would need to recover from his wound and rebuild his strength. She added a handful of grain and fresh greens, then several precious bits of dried pork she had stored. Not what the man was used to certainly, but he was lucky it was not mid-winter when there would have been only weak cabbage soup to quiet his belly. Luckier still that Thea would share her best provisions with such a heartless varmint when his people had nothing but watery gruel with which to break their fasts.
She stirred the kettle, then sank, cross-legged, to the floor beside the Sheriff's pallet, wearied muscles screaming with fatigue. She wiped her hands across her face.
He wasn't worth the work. Moreover, it was hopeless to think that any amount of frantic effort would correct the disarray Nottingham's descent had visited upon her house. There was no explaining this unreasonable concern for the man, save she'd lost her common sense along with her nerve.
From an earthenware bowl, she retrieved the arrowhead she had removed and examined it closely. The horribly familiar triangular shape-how was it possible to forget the damage one of these vicious devils could cause?
Her mind filled with questions. How had the Sheriff been wounded? And why was he alone on this miserable night? Who had done the slipshod shooting?
There were no answers for any of her questions, and Thea felt her world had been tipped over on its side, her anonymity and safety evaporated. She was past speculation on Nottingham's plight, past thinking, past anything but sleep. Even as she stared at the deadly metal tip, her vision blurred and her eyes burned from too many hours spent in close work, and from the smoke that curled up from the fire through the smoke hole in the thatching.
She put the arrow's point in her pocket, wondering if she dared face Nottingham with the mystery in the morning. Somehow, she doubted he would relish telling her the story of how he came to be hurt; he would probably stand for an interview even less. Maybe it was not even important.
She rested her head in the heels of her palms and rubbed her eyes. When she looked up, she spied the one thing she'd forgotten to right in her whirlwind of activity. The heavy, full-length mantle the Sheriff had worn over his armor lay where he'd dropped it. She grabbed the hem of it, dragged it over to where she sat, and laid it across her lap.
It was the most magnificent cloak she had seen, wide stripes of black wool and silver-studded leather, the whole of it fur-lined. She fingered the intricate silver beadwork that adorned the capelet. Layers of mud flaked away at her touch. The hem was soaked with water, and a tear marred the perfect symmetry of the stripes. Had someone sliced him with sword after all, only to have the mantle and mail he wore beneath keep him intact?
Strange, this whole business of warring and killing, of a soldier who should have looked like a demon but slept peacefully, like some kind of fallen god, at her side.
Thea drew the mantle over the Sheriff, laying the dry inner lining of fur against his skin. She lowered the slats of the lantern to darken the room and watched as its flame danced hypnotically, casting an eerie array of shadows upon the walls.
Glancing at Nottingham, she observed his even, unlabored breathing. No fever raged upon his brow, and the pulse below his jaw was steady and strong. What would it matter if she slept for a few minutes?
She lay down on the hard, earth floor, careful to keep her distance from the pallet, from him, and crossed her arms beneath her cheek as a pillow. She watched the flickering shadows gray, then blacken. His rhythmic breathing filled her mind and led her toward sleep.
~*~
Something about the smell...or the sound...
Rows of herbs swayed gently in the rafters above his head, their dried leaves fluttering in the early morning breeze.
The Sheriff struggled to wakefulness, then regretted leaving sleep, and oblivion, behind. The euphoria he had felt momentarily as the drugged ale took effect was gone, and he felt the horrible gravity of being pulled back into a sore and weary body. The rustle of herbs drying upside down, even the sough of the breeze, seeped through his fogged mind.
Wincing at the throbbing in his head, he put one hand to his temple as if to drive out the ache. His fingers met the ragged cloth that circled his forehead.
He remembered then: the incident in the forest, fragments of his journey out of Sherwood's trap and across the lea. This place...the herb witch.
He slid his fingers beneath the bandage and slipped it off. His head still swam with the aftereffects of whatever herbs the woman had used, and he felt not quite part of the world around him.
She lay beside him, Gisborne's suspected traitoress, the wench who had saved him instead of ending his miserable life, which might have been easier for them both. A curled-up pile of shapeless tunic and apron that scratched his ribs, she slept with the soundness that came from exhaustion.
Yes, Gisborne, a certain danger this one. The sarcasm in his thought lanced through his head, a fire flash of pain. Although her herbs are poison enough.
He flipped his mantle off them both and noticed she huddled closer to him, burying herself beneath his arm for warmth until little was visible but her stained shift, one small hand fisted on his chest, and a riot of untamed curls loosed from braids in the night. On any other morn, his thoughts would have strayed to baser instinct, but he felt pressed to the straw by his own weight and lethargy. She had drugged him, no doubt, deprived him of manhood as well as the alertness that should have him on guard in such a state.
Yet he was alive and oddly content to do nothing more than lie still, washed by the morning breeze, feeling a woman's soft curves snug against him.
She smelled like the lavender flowers that dangled overhead, and her breath fell in small, warm bursts against his chest. Nottingham Castle was miles...hours...another lifetime away. For a moment, just for a moment, he imagined what it would be like never to return, never to have to return, but to live out life in this bucolic simplicity, where things were as plain and uncomplicated as the earth itself.
He fought the inertia that claimed his body and edged the fingers of his right hand down until they touched the braid of hair that lay across her shoulder. Odd hair, the darkest brown he could remember seeing, shot through with strands the color of burgundy wine.
He coiled the serpentine length of the braid around his hand and brought it to his face. It smelled of the same sweet fragrance as the herbs waving above him. Damnable plants! She'd spared him just to charm him with the witching things. Sucked the very strength and will from him.
Ah, Gisborne! Worse than you ever suspected. An underhanded plot, worthy of the Britons.
He rubbed the braid across his lips-and stopped.
His hand was clean, absent of the blood and grime of battle that had covered it the night before, as were his forearms and chest. She'd bathed him then, or part of him; he still wore his leather breeches and muddy
boots. The Sheriff was amused at the woman's unnecessary attention to his cleanliness and the clear limit of the areas to which she wished to extend such attention.
"Not even remotely curious, were you, healer?" he asked aloud, stroking her hair in a gesture that was hypnotically soothing to him.
She did not stir.
"Healer?" he said again, louder. One finger traced the tendril curled against her ear.
CHAPTER FOUR
"Healer!"
The voice, full and throaty, cut through Thea's sleep. Her eyes flew open to daylight streaming through the chinks in the wattle, to his lips at her ear and the sultry sound of his voice. The events of the past night rushed back at once, hazy of detail, as if her mind refused to grasp the unlikely turn of her circumstances. The solid length of his body against hers was far more distinct.
She was, at once, awash with a cold dread, imagining the worst. She had slept the entire night at his side, not once waking to tend him. Her neglect had brought on the fever-how else could his body be so hot?-and the fever, this delirium.
She pushed herself away from him and up on her elbows only to feel a sharp tug on her scalp. He held the length of her braid coiled around the back of his hand, and even as she watched, slowly wrapped another loop of disheveled hair around his palm. She saw in the dark gleam of his eyes a lucidity that was anything but febrile.
"What the hell kind of surgeon do you suppose yourself to be?" It should have been an accusation, not the smoky-toned taunt she heard.
Her cheeks grew warm from embarrassment, and her fists closed in indignation in the skirts of her threadbare shift. "The kind that has saved your life!" she retorted without thinking. Too late, she realized she had overstepped her bounds in every conceivable way. "My lord," she added, with a soft emphasis he could never interpret as respect.
He raised one eyebrow, whether in mild surprise or disdain she could not tell, and released his hold on her hair. "Ah, salvation where one least expects it," he said wryly. "Now help me out of this damnable bed of torture or I will leave your place in worse shape than when I came in." He twisted around and rose up on one elbow, grimacing violently at the stab of pain this action cost him. "Saved my life, my ass," he muttered. "Feels like you added an arrow's point or two for good measure."
