The winter of the first year had been spent making new clothing and bedding from the furs she had accumulated from animals she had killed for food. She made weapons for hunting and protection. The items she created looked crude, but they improved with practice, and they were functional. Roger continued to plague Wolf, but that didn’t last long for as the snake slept, the wolf grew. He lost his puppy fur, and gained a full healthy coat for the winter. This he shed as spring approached, and the warmer weather returned.
Aura had to admit, by spring, she was very lonely. Even if she had never been the social type she had never been totally on her own as she had been during the past year. She needed the company of other people. She needed the sound of voices and movement about her, and needed to escape the cave, which had become as much of a prison to her as it had been a home. She decided, she would leave for a time, to check out the land about her more thoroughly.
During her travels Aura discovered a way she could make money and to keep her makeshift family fed. She had taken skills she had learned in the kitchens, the classrooms, and the hospital, and found a use for them as she practiced a form of medicine. It seemed that everyone was in need of some form of treatment.
Those who had not been able to pay her in coin did so by giving her a meal, or something to travel with before she moved on. She understood, they gave no money because they had none. Some she had insisted she treat for free, although she had found it harder to refuse payment from them, for they often were the ones most insistent on giving what they could not afford to part with. It was their way of salvaging what they considered their most valuable asset, their pride. She had found, in her new world, that those about her who had nothing of value, valued their pride above all else.
It did not take much imagination for Aura to understand these people for there had been times in her own past that she had felt that she had nothing beyond her pride to hold her together. She had given the matter some thought and had offered them a face saving option. If they could not pay, she would accept something else from them, something that would cost them nothing. Advise, directions, company, a place to sleep, and often just a little knowledge and understanding. She soon discovered that she was being guarded, and she was never in danger as most others who travelled were. She never got to see who her guardians were, but she knew they were there. She could feel them all about her.
Towards fall she decided to quit traveling, and returned to her cave, for despite being amongst people, the loneliness that had driven her from her abode in the first place had lingered. She knew that she would soon have to return, so she would have time to get ready for the approaching winter season. For Aura it was a matter of survival. She either saw to her own chances of preparing for the season, or she would either starve or freeze to death.
This time she found preparing for the winter season easier. She was more experienced, and knew what was involved. She had also brought some things with her that she knew would make her life better, if not easier. She had brought along some spices, and even more important, salt.
It was late fall before Aura looked beyond the preparation of her living quarters. She would section off a part of the cave to work as a cold area. She was sure the temperatures were low enough that she could make it work. That meant that it was time for her to go hunting for meat. Winter was long and supplies were low. They would desperately need fresh meat. She whistled for Wolf and they started off, with her carrying a bow in her hand, and a quiver of arrows slung from her shoulder. A knife, given to her by a blacksmith with whom she had treated for burns, hung from her hip, and her step was quick and eager.
By late in the afternoon she took stock of her catch and gave a self-satisfied smile. The hunt had gone well. She had brought down two birds, and Wolf had caught three rabbits. He was in the process of running down a fourth when Aura heard the crashing of horses as they sped through the nearby forest. She gave Wolf a soft whistle, just as he caught his quarry, and he rejoined her looking very pleased with himself as the rabbit drooped from his jaws.
They were going to need some place to hide from whomever was coming in their direction. She was still too uncertain of the world around her and one of the first lessons she had learned from the people was that those who were wealthy enough to afford horses were often dangerous. She was not going to take chances when she was alone and vulnerable. Her first thought was to climb a tree. It was an evasive tactic that she found worked more often than not. The chances of anyone even noticing her, up in the highest branches, was remote, unless they were looking for something, they would not even bother to look up. She shimmied up the tree, and had no sooner settled in her perch, when three men entered a nearby clearing. Their horses had been unmanned and moved about restlessly, puffing great clouds of steam from their nostrils as they tried to avoid the swinging swords that whistled through the air and sang as they clashed against one another.
"Damn," Aura thought to herself, unimpressed by the show below her. They could have taken their skirmish somewhere else or at least have waited another half an hour for her to be gone. But, as they had not, she climbed down a bit, so she would be able to see the battle better. She had never seen a real sword fight before, nor were these men interested in her, so she felt safe, as long as she remained unseen.
There were four men in all, one who fell quickly, pierced by a clean thrust through the heart. This left three, two against one, and having known the feeling of being the odd one out all of her life, Aura decided to side with the underdog. She noted, with satisfaction, that he was holding his own quite well, until another mounted man, entered the arena, the lone warrior was quickly overpowered. When the men thought they had killed him, they mounted their horses and left.
Aura watched the trio leave, and when she was sure that they were gone, she made her way down from her perch, and to the side of the stranger on the ground. She checked him first for a pulse, which, when she found it, was weak but steady. Satisfied, she left him, to catch his horse, feeling that she just might need it.
The horse, as it turned out, was a troublesome brute. It refused to budge for her in the beginning. She pulled on the reigns, and tried to mount it, but it only snorted at her and sidestepped her attempts to get up on top of him. After a few futile attempts she tried another method, after all, there was more than one way to skin a cat, or in this case, to ride a horse. She talked to the huge animal, as she stroked his nose and petted him, telling him how strong and important he was, and how his master needed him. The horse, after a time, gave another snort then followed her lead.
Aura gave a sign of relief as the horse moved beside her to his master's side, then lowered his head to nudge the comatose man. She understood, he wished to make contact with the man himself. She took the man's blanket from out of the sacks slung over the horse's back then knelt to tend to his injuries.
The first thing she did, as she believed that he was probably in shock, was to cover him, to give him warmth. The man was still bleeding, though not as much as he had before, and he was still unconscious, so she could gain no insight into his condition by questioning him.
Working with a swiftness she had witnessed first hand at the hospital in the convent, she checked his exposed limbs for breaks. She was relieved to find none, although she needed to remove his chain mail to be sure. After the chain mail there would be the thick leather undershirt to deal with before she could be able to make sure of his condition. It was not going to be easy undressing this man, not without his or anyone's help. To Aura he was massive, and even with her training, she knew she was going to have trouble accomplishing what she needed to in order to help him.
It took a while but eventually she succeeded in ridding him of his first two layers of clothing. She then tended to the rest of her examination. He had a deep gash across his upper arm one that she decided would need careful tending, as well as stitching. She felt for broken bones on his upper torso, and found none, so she removed his helmet. There was a tear in the headge
ar, and beneath it she found another gash, on the upper part of his skull. She hoped it was not a sign of a fracture, for that was something she had no skill with.
Deciding to leave the head injury for last, she removed a light tunic, to see if there were other injuries. It was hard to tell, as there was blood everywhere, on both the man and his clothes. She found no other gashes; however, she did notice the bruising about the curve of his shoulder, where the horse had struck him. She prodded the area for a while, looking for deeper injuries, and noted that his shoulder was slightly out of place. That, she determined, she could do something about. She had spent enough time in observation rooms, and time acting as Dr. Rorrit's sidekick, to remember how he dealt with things like this. She had found that she could learn a lot by listening to the old doctors prattle on about the old days and how things had been done. She set it by bracing her feet against his body and pulling on the displaced arm until it popped back into place. Outside of a groan the man made no sign that he was aware of what she had just done. She bound his shoulder tight with his shirt, before sitting down to rest.
A howl in the distance alerted both Wolf and Aura to other dangers. The evening was beginning to set in, and they were in the open without supplies or protection. She gave the comatose man a disgusted frown then sighed in resignation. It was not his fault he had been attacked by outlaws. Nor was it his fault that he couldn’t manage to fight them all off on his own, after all, he was just some poor Joe who had ran into bad luck, not superman.
Aura was too tired to move the man at this moment. She gathered some dry moss and wood to make a fire with, in order to provide them both with a little heat and light, to keep the more aggressive wildlife away while she rested and regained a little more strength. She sat near the fire and ate a small meal. While she recuperated she sewed up the wounds that needed attention. The head wound, she decided, she would tend to when they got back to the cave. After making sure that she had tended to his worst injuries, she sat back and watched him as she made plans.
He had not moved yet, which, to Aura, was both a blessing and a curse. He had been hit on the head with that metal ball and there was a nasty bump under the untreated gash. Aura was sure that it was this injury that made him sleep. She doubted if this sleep was a healthy one, although it had given her the opportunity to set his shoulder without being challenged.
Preoccupied as Aura was by her patient's problems, Aura failed to even notice the man himself. To her he could have had three eyes, a flat nose and pox-marked complexion. That was not the case though, for even in his sleep the pride he bore was plain to see and was stenciled throughout his body. His character developed by years of responsibility and hard work.
Some might have considered his features handsome, his jaw strong, and his nose aristocratic. His cheeks and chin were beginning to show a shadow from the new growth emerging from a formerly shaven beard. His chest barreled out, framed by arms well muscled, and tapered to an equally well-developed waist and hip. There was nothing soft about this man, and even laying as he did, there was no mistaking his strength and maleness. Aura saw him only as a patient, someone in need of what few medical skills she possessed, and she was determined to not fail.
After pondering their predicament for an hour, Aura rose. She had, she hoped, come up with a workable solution, or at least something that had possibilities.
She had remembered watching a movie about how primitive peoples had made up stretchers to transport people. She decided that, as the horse was well rested, she would take advantage of his strength. She made her stretcher, finishing the last of it by the light of the fire, rolled her patient on to it then attached the apparatus to the horse. He snorted and flattened his ears back, as he rolled his eyes in objection then, sensing his master's presence, obeyed her commands, even to the point of letting her lead him by his reins.
The cave, as she had expected, was cold. The fire had gone out hours before, and needed resetting. She sighed deeply as she felt the humidity in the air. It would take a long time to dry out her home before it was fit to be occupied.
Aura made a fire, and when it was burning to her satisfaction, she returned to her patient. She untied him, and dragged him into the cave then left to tend to the horse. The animal stood still while he tolerated her touch. She removed his saddle and trappings then tied him to a tree with a long rope, before returning to his master.
The man was breathing irregularly when Aura re-examined him, taking short, shallow breaths, and although she knew it was unlikely that he would wake soon, she hesitated to touch him. She had become aware of a sense of power and danger about him, and she felt unsettled by being forced to keep him company. She couldn’t justify the change in her perception but it was there. She gathered extra moss to make up a bed for him then transferred him from the stretcher to his new resting place. By the time she had him moved and felt satisfied with her efforts, the fire was almost out and needed tending. She added a small armful of wood to the fire then banked it for the night, before going outdoors to bring in some fresh wood to use in the morning. She then returned to check on her patient.
He was shaking, as if cold, yet, when Aura touched him he seemed warm enough, and he was not running a temperature. She sat back on the heels of her feet and tried to remember what she had been taught about people in his condition. There were several possibilities that sprang to mind. First and primary, was that he could be suffering from a reaction to his injuries from the battle. It was also possible that he could be having a reaction to the cold or perhaps even a combination of events.
Aura was not impressed with the solution that came to mind. It was obvious that he was going to need more heat than the fire could provide. She called Wolf to her side and ordered him to lie down beside the man, to provide him warmth from that angle. She then took all of her blankets and covered him. Then she watched to see if it was going to help.
An hour later she gave a sigh of resignation. Her efforts, while not without some merit, had not been completely successful. That left her with the one option that she had tried to avoid. She sat closer to the fire, and unbraiding her hair as she remembered the words of her teacher.
"In primitive surroundings, in cases of shock due to exposure, nothing works better to warm the patient than skin to skin contact. For one body lends its heat to the other."
Aura removed all but her thin underclothes and sat combing her hair for a few moments, while warming her feet. There could be nothing cold touching her patient if she was to be successful. She rose, when she felt warm enough, and made her way over to his side then, taking a deep breath to fortify her decision, she slipped under the blankets beside him. He felt hot to the touch; although he still shivered, and she slid her arms around him as she pressed her semi clad figure against his, taking special care not to hurt him further as she did. She sighed as she settled her head against his good shoulder then fell asleep. She was so tired that she didn’t even wake when he stopped shivering, or when his arm curled about her shoulders to hold her closer.
CHAPTER VIII
Feeling warm and comfortable the man woke with the first rays of sunlight. He squirmed then winced at the pain the slight movement caused. Where was he? How did he get here? He gave the matter thought, but could remember nothing beyond the fight that he had been involved in.
The light movement of a person at his side alerted him to another presence and he moved to view that person closer. It was a woman. One he had not even noticed when he had woken earlier. She was asleep and he was finding it almost impossible to keep his eyes off of her. This was no village wench that he had taken to his bed to warm him during the night. He noted the deep healthy shine in her hair, the clear complexion of her face and the sweet smell of her body. He gave a smiling sigh of contentment, pleased with what life had dealt for the moment. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep, pulling her body back against his to draw her closer.
Aura woke an hour later and extracted herself from her patient’s s
ide with exaggerated care, so she could dress and tend to her fire. When she had everything under control again, she turned her attention back to him. He was slightly flushed and showed traces of a fever. She frowned at this turn of events, but was not really very surprised. He had been hurt and had been chilled by his exposure to the elements. She should expect him to show some effects.
She turned her attention to his head injury and noted how it had already started to heal. The wound looked good, but she was not too pleased about the sanitary conditions surrounding it, his hair was caked with blood. She doubted if it had been washed in a long time before the incident had occurred, although she could be wrong about that. She thought about what she should do about him then decided that if he did not wake within the next hour or so, she would have to find a way to bathe him and to wash his hair on her own. He needed to be clean or he would catch an infection.
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