It wasn’t a long wait, fortunately, for Dolwyd could move quickly when he wanted to. He appeared in the chamber with a satchel full of medicaments and instruments he used in the course of his healing. Already, he began snapping his fingers and issuing orders.
“Ewan,” he said. “Start a fire in the hearth; be quick about it. And Thomas – you will help me with my instruments. Take them out of my bag and set them on Kaspian’s table. Hurry!”
There was a sense of urgency in the room as the knights began to move. Ewan quickly stared a fire in the hearth, igniting the kindling with a flint and stone, as Thomas cleaned out Dolwyd’s bag and set everything upon the big table in Kaspian’s room as he’d been instructed. A small oil lamp with an iron frame on it was set up and upon the frame, over the flame, was a small iron pot that Dolwyd began to immediately put ingredients into. A bit of wine and powder went into it and he stirred it with his finger. Thomas also pulled forth a mortar and pestle, and any number of small sacks containing mysterious and magical ingredients, as least as far as Thomas was concerned. What Dolwyd did had always fascinated him. The man had limitless knowledge, which was going to be put to the test now in the case of Kaspian.
As Ewan’s fire began to blaze and he went to fetch water to boil in the hearth, Dolwyd was busily working at his table, surrounded by his ingredients. Thomas watched over Dolwyd’s shoulder curiously. Dolwyd brewed and mashed, and then he carefully pulled forth an earthenware jug that wasHe is corked tight with a wooden plug. When he popped it open, even Thomas could smell the putrid scent. He pointed in disgust.
“What is that?” he asked. “It smells like a man’s arse!”
Dolwyd grinned, unusual for the old man. “It is called rotten tea,” he said. “It is brewed with bread and left to sit and fester in the warmth. It smells horrible and tastes even worse, but if a man has a fever, it will cure him. It will kill whatever poison ails him.”
Thomas watched the old man pour a measure of the black liquid into a cup. “And a man must drink this?” he asked, appalled.
Dolwyd nodded. “Aye,” he replied. “You must help me get some of this into St. Hèver. His wound is already festering and if we cannot cure it, he will die.”
Thomas followed the old physic as the little man shuffled over to Kaspian, who was unconscious on his bed. They both paused a moment, looking down at their once-mighty commander.
“He has grown very weak, very quickly over the past day,” Thomas said grimly. “We have withheld all food and water from him because of his wound.”
Dolwyd nodded faintly, his gaze lingering on the powerful commanding officer. “As well you should have,” he said. “With a belly wound like that, he cannot eat anything. It will only make it worse.”
“What of boiled water?”
Dolwyd simply shook his head. “I fear it will only hurt him.”
Thomas looked at the physic. “Then what?” he demanded. “Do we simply let him starve to death? If the fever does not kill him, the lack of food will.”
Dolwyd started to reply when an idea suddenly hit him. Food for St. Hèver was out of the question because of the belly wound; more than that, the man was too weak to eat. He could take liquids, however, yet they needed to be nourishing if that was his only way of gaining strength. And they needed to be particularly gentle on a man’s system, something as bland and soothing as mother’s milk.
… mother’s milk!
Aye, a grand idea came to Dolwyd, one that made the most sense in the world as far as he was concerned. In the chamber below them was a lady full of milk for a dead infant, a nourishing liquid that was meant to sooth and fill a hungry belly. It was the perfect food for an infant and the perfect food for a dying man with a belly wound. He could think of nothing better for St. Hèver.
“We have food for him,” Dolwyd said, the light of excitement in his old eyes. “The food God has intended for man from the beginning of time.”
Thomas looked at him, puzzled. “What food?”
Dolwyd pointed to the floor as if indicating the lady beneath them. “Lady l’Ebreux is producing milk for a dead child,” he said. “It is nourishing and gentle and will aid St. Hèver in his quest to heal.”
Thomas’ eyebrows lifted in surprise and perhaps some outrage. “Milk?” he repeated. “You intend to feed Kaspian milk?”
Dolwyd nodded eagerly. “Indeed,” he said. “It is a perfect solution. In fact, perhaps it is God’s intention all along. He has given us a wet nurse for St. Hèver – if Lady l’Ebreux cannot nurse her child, then she can nurse a man back to health.”
Thomas was dumbfounded. “But a lady…,” he sputtered. “Nursing a grown man?”
“What is your issue with such a thing?”
Thomas threw up his hands. “It is improper to say the least!”
Dolwyd waved him off. “Pah!” he spat. “’Tis foolish to stand on such proprieties, Thomas. Shall we let St. Hèver die simply because you are uncomfortable with what will cure him? Pah, I say!”
The old man was shuffling towards Kaspian again, cup of rotten tea in hand, as Thomas stood there with his mouth open. “But…,” he said, moving forward to help lift Kaspian’s head when Dolwyd motioned to him. “But what will Lady l’Ebreux think of such a thing? She has only just lost her husband and….”
Dolwyd put the cup to Kaspian’s lips, tipping it, as he cut Thomas off. “And what?”
Thomas was growing frustrated. “And she may take issue with putting a grown man to her breast,” he pointed out. “It is not only improper, it is unseemly and uncivilized. A man does not nurse from a grown woman’s breasts!”
“Would you rather have St. Hèver die, then?”
Thomas backed down. “Nay,” he muttered after a moment. “Of course I do not, but…”
Dolwyd finished pouring the rotten tea down Kaspian’s throat as the man coughed and choked on it. “Silence,” Dolwyd hissed at Thomas. “Bring me Lady l’Ebreux immediately. Carry her up here, for it should be difficult for her to walk after just having given birth. Tell her I am in need of her.”
“I will not!”
“Unless you want St. Hèver to die, you will.”
Thomas took the cup from the old man and set it aside as Dolwyd carefully laid Kaspian’s head back down to his pillow, peeling back the eyelids and looking at the man’s eyes. All the while, Thomas stood there, uncertain and uncomfortable. When Dolwyd realized the man was still standing there, he snapped his boney fingers at him.
“What are you waiting for?” he asked. “Bring me Lady l’Ebreux. This shall help her as well; it will help her heal if the breasts are stimulated. It heals the womb. She needs this as much as St. Hèver does so stop acting like an embarrassed child and bring me the lady. Time is of the essence.”
With a reluctant sigh, Thomas finally did as he was told. But upon collecting Madelayne from her bed chamber, for she was still deeply grieving and did not wish to leave, he only told her that Dolwyd needed her and nothing more. He would leave it up to the old physic to inform Lady l’Ebreux that she was to become a lifeline for St. Hèver. That she was about to become a wet nurse for a grown man.
Once he carried the woman up to Kaspian’s chamber, he didn’t stay to see the end result. He was already too uneasy with the entire situation. Setting Lady l’Ebreux on unsteady feet, he fled the chamber and went in search of his wife, who would want to hear of Dolwyd’s outrageous scheme of forcing a woman to feed a grown man from her breasts.
Oddly enough, however, Mavia wasn’t as outraged as her husband was. Something about Kaspian St. Hèver suckling on her breasts rather excited her, but Thomas never need know that.
The mere thought brought a smile to her lips.
She envied Madelayne.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I am to do what?”
Madelayne wasn’t sure she had heard correctly but Dolwyd was quite calm, and quite firm, in his reply.
“You will get into bed and nurse the man as you would an infant,
” the old man explained again. “My lady, you have milk in your breasts that will keep him alive. He has a belly wound and cannot eat. He cannot take any food at all. But you have food within you, meant for your dead child, that will help him survive. Will you not do this for St. Hèver?”
Madelayne had entered Kaspian’s chamber as a woman in the throes of grief. Grief for her dead son, her dead husband. All about her was pain. But Dolwyd’s unconventional request had her full attention, enough to momentarily push her grief aside because the request was so shocking in nature. To nurse a grown man? She had never heard of anything so outrageous in her life.
Still, the way Dolwyd had explained it made perfect sense. Her milk would keep the man alive. Pushing aside the shocking nature of the request, it did, in theory, make utter sense. Still, her initial reaction was to refuse. Staunchly so. But the more she thought on what Dolwyd was trying to accomplish, the more confusion she began to feel. His only goal was in healing St. Hèver and she was the means to an end. Her wary gaze moved to St. Hèver, lying still and pale upon his bed. A very big man, a very handsome man… who needed her breasts.
She was stunned.
“He is to… to…?” she stammered, motioning hesitantly to her breasts.
Dolwyd nodded patiently. “Suckle you,” he finished for her. “Please, my lady… St. Hèver’s life depends upon you. Will you not save his life?”
Madelayne didn’t know what to say. She gazed at the unconscious man, mouth agape, wondering how she could decline such a thing. Increasingly, she knew she couldn’t, not after the way Dolwyd had put it. St. Hèver’s life depended on her, so he said and in looking at the man, she could believe it. He looked terrible. But the grief in her heart, the sorrow for her son and husband that had consumed her, was wreaking havoc with her generosity.
“How can you ask me such a thing?” she demanded. “It is because of St. Hèver that Cairn is dead. Now you would have me save the life of the man who saw my husband to his doom? I will not do it, I say!”
Dolwyd remained surprisingly patient with her. “Cairn is not dead because of St. Hèver,” he said. “Cairn is dead because of the Welsh. It has nothing to do with Kaspian at all. The Welsh have already claimed your husband. Will you now let them claim St. Hèver as well when you have the power to save him?”
Madelayne looked at the man, fury in her eyes. “You cannot put this all on me,” she said. “It is unfair of you to put his life in my hands. I do not want the responsibility!”
Dolwyd sighed. “Lady, the milk in your breasts was put there by God,” he said. “It was meant to feed your child, who is dead. That milk has the capability of sustaining life. It would be a sin for you to deliberately withhold it from someone who needs it.”
Her eyebrows furrowed. “Speak not to me of God,” she hissed. “He took my son and my husband on the same day. I am not particularly grateful to God at the moment so it would be wise to keep Him out of this conversation.”
Dolwyd could see the fire in her eyes that had often frightened Cairn. The man had spoken much about his wife’s iron will, something he was subjected to but something he willingly subjected himself to. It was well known that Cairn was deeply in love with his beautiful wife but it was also quite clear she had never returned those feelings. She had been kind to him, and dutiful, but there had never been a spark in her eyes when it came to Cairn. The man knew it but it didn’t seem to matter; she was his wife and that was all he cared about. And Madelayne had always treated him with polite regard, as an obedient wife would.
But the lust for him, the passion, had never been there.
Still, Madelayne respected her husband and she was fond of him in a brotherly sort of way, which made completing her physical wifely duties something of a task and not a desire. Cairn’s lust for his wife had been insatiable and she would never deny him his wants; she simply laid on the bed and spread her legs as any good wife would. Dolwyd knew this because he could hear Cairn bedding his wife nightly. He would grunt and gasp in his fervor but she never uttered a sound. That was what told Dolwyd, and most other inhabitants in the keep, that her passion never matched his.
A sad but true fact.
In spite of her lack of passion, she had obeyed him, as her husband, and that was all that truly mattered. A wife was only meant to be obedient even if she never loved him. Even now, Dolwyd knew she would have still obeyed her husband had he been standing next to her. Therefore, he made a calculated move to that regard.
“What would Cairn tell you to do?” he asked pointedly. “Would he tell you not to give St. Hèver that which would keep him alive?”
It was like a shot to the heart for Madelayne, whose gaze trailed to St. Hèver once more. Dolwyd could see the defiance drain out of her face, leaving sadness and indecision in its wake. After several long moments, she hesitantly shook her head.
“He would not be so selfish,” she said. “He considered Kaspian his friend.”
“Would he tell you to help the man, then?”
She nodded faintly before averting her gaze, ashamed and embarrassed at what had been asked of her, of what she realized she would have to do.
“He would,” she said softly.
Dolwyd didn’t want to give her any more time to think on it. He grasped her arm and pulled her towards the bed. “Then you must help him,” he said. “Get into the bed next to him and offer him your breast, as you would offer it to an infant. The instinct to suckle is a strong one. Do this, Madelayne. Help him.”
Madelayne didn’t acknowledge that he’d called her by her given name. Dolwyd was usually much more formal but this circumstance didn’t call for formality. It called for action. She was moving stiffly, however, because her legs hurt and everything between her legs hurt even more. It was difficult to walk but she did so, allowing Dolwyd to lead her towards Kaspian as the man lay, wounded, upon the dirty bed linens. When Dolwyd pulled back the coverlet, Madelayne could see the bandage around the lower part of his abdomen. He smelled of urine and infection.
With great uncertainty, she sat on the bed and Dolwyd helped her lift her legs onto the mattress. She shifted around, uncomfortably, trying to find a good position to do what needed to be done as Dolwyd stood over her and watched most attentively. But his attention was quite embarrassing to Madelayne, given what she had been asked to do.
“I will not do this with you watching,” she said flatly, unlacing the top of her shift. “If you want me to do this, then you will give me privacy to do it. I’ll not have you watch.”
Dolwyd snorted. “I would say your modesty at this point is misplaced.”
She turned to glare at him. “Look away or I’ll not do this.”
He sighed heavily. “When I had my hands betwixt your legs delivering your child, you said naught about it. And one breast looks like all the rest.”
She continued to scowl at him, so much so that he eventually turned away in a huff of annoyance. But the truth was that he understood somewhat; he was viewing the situation from a completely clinical standpoint but she was viewing it as something rather intimate. Since he wanted her to tend St. Hèver very much, he didn’t want to agitate her. He would give her some privacy.
So he returned to his table and focused on his medicaments as Madelayne returned her attention to the knight breathing heavily beside her. St. Hèver. She’d never had much thought about the man other than the fact he was very cold, very serious, and very handsome. All of the women thought so. But his manners were so icy that it precluded any manner of attraction any female might have for him. Some would even say he was terribly unpleasant, but Madelayne didn’t give the man much thought one way or the other. She never really had.
Until now – now, she was looking at this cold, serious soldier who was very badly wounded and needed her help. Truth be told, she began to feel some pity for him, injured as he was. She supposed that it was, indeed, her duty to help him however she could, as Cairn’s friend, and if her milk could not do her child any good, then perh
aps it could help St. Hèver. Looking down into his pale and stubbled face, she was a bit more apt to try now than she had been before.
With a faint sigh, because she was still rather embarrassed to be offering the man her breast, she finished unlacing the top of her shift and she pulled it aside, off of her right shoulder, to expose an engorged right breast. He was flat on the mattress next to her, his face turned in her direction, and she shifted so she could put a nipple by his half-open mouth. Since he wasn’t conscious, she wondered if it would even work, if he would sense the nipple by his mouth, so she sought to help him along.
Gently, she rubbed her nipple against his lower lip, hoping he would get a feel for it or at least sense that she was there. When that didn’t work, she squeezed her breast slightly and allowed drops of milk to fall into his mouth. She did it a few times before he reacted, licking his lips, tasting the sweet milk on his tongue. She did it again, creating a bit of a stream into his mouth, and this time he reacted faster. He licked his lips again and it seemed to her that he was trying to wake up a bit. She lowered the nipple into his mouth and put her hand on his cheek, as one would do when trying to coax an infant into suckling.
“Drink,” she whispered, tickling his cheek. “Drink and regain your strength, St. Hèver. Take what I can offer.”
The stimulation to his cheek and mouth brought him around and without even opening his eyes, he latched on to her nipple with surprising strength and suckled so hard that he brought pricks of pain shooting through her breast. Madelayne gasped at the force of it, yelping softly when he suddenly grabbed at her and pulled her against him. She was sore and stiff, and St. Hèver might have been on death’s door, but he was still quite strong in moving her towards him. He suckled her hungrily, his hands moving from her torso, where he had grasped her to pull her against him, to her breasts where he started kneading her.
Mercenaries and Maidens: A Medieval Romance bundle Page 89
