Lords of the White Castle (35 page)

The covers were flapped back and Emmeline was leaning over his lower body, her own complexion the colour of whey. As Maude advanced to the bed, Fulke looked up. Alarm flickered in his eyes and he lashed the covers back over himself so swiftly that he almost took out his aunt's eye on the corner of a sheet.

'What are you doing here?' he snarled in a voice that was as far from the grave as Maude had ever heard. 'Get out!'

Hand over her eye, Emmeline turned. 'Maude?' Behind the half-mask of her fingers, a look of relief swept over her features.

'I said I would return this way.' Maude looked angrily at Fulke. His rejection made her all the more determined to stand her ground. 'With an invalid to nurse'—here a disparaging curl of her lip at Fulke—'and a passel of hungry men to feed, you are in need of help.'

Emmeline rose and wiped her streaming eye on her cuff. 'Bless you, child,' she said in a heartfelt voice. 'What do you want me to do?'

'You're not going to do anything,' Fulke snapped, drawing himself up on the bolsters and glowering furiously. 'I'm a rebel, and if you so much as associate with me, you'll be tainted too.'

Maude shrugged. 'Who's to know?' she said. 'Theo would be more angry with me for riding away than for staying to help.'

Emmeline looked uncertainly between them. 'It is true that I will be very glad for you to stay, but not if it is going to put you in danger.'

'No more danger than you are in yourself,' Maude said to the older woman. 'My brother-in-law is the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King's Chancellor. That surely must bestow some protection.'

'His support never did us any good,' Fulke growled.

Emmeline turned round, her sallow cheeks flushing. 'Has your wound bled the courtesy from your body?' she demanded. 'What is wrong with you that you should behave like a thwarted small child?'

'Aren't all men like that when they are injured?' Maude gave Emmeline a wry woman-to-woman smile.

Emmeline snorted down her nose. 'Some of them are like it all the time,' she said darkly.

Clearly annoyed, but recognising that a retort would only lead to more ridicule, Fulke clamped his jaw and thrust his spine against the bolsters. 'If you can remove this arrow from my leg, I won't trouble your hospitality above a couple of days,' he said.

'I've sent for the priest. He'll be here as soon as he can.'

'The priest?' Maude thought of the agitated note in Emmeline's voice and linked it with her pallor as she leaned over Fulke's wound.

Her horror must have shown on her face because for the first time since she had entered the room, Fulke smiled, albeit savagely and without humour. 'You need not concern yourself, Lady Walter, I am not about to be administered the last rites.'

'I…'

'Someone has to cut this arrow out of my leg. Having seen the mess William makes gutting a hare, I don't trust him to do the deed, and I won't ask any of the men. It's too great a responsibility. If aught should go wrong, I do not want one of them to carry an unnecessary burden of guilt.'

The speech had begun with defensive, sardonic humour, and ended in sincerity. Maude's throat tightened as she was yielded a glimpse behind his shield.

'I am afraid I cannot play the healer's part,' Emmeline said, unconsciously wringing her hands. 'Even the sight of blood makes me faint. My father always said that it was a good thing that I wasn't born male.'

'And can the priest?'

Emmeline nodded, although there was a spark of doubt in her eyes. 'He set Alwin Shepherd's broken arm last year and it has healed cleanly.'

'But he has never removed an arrow?'

Emmeline shook her head. 'Not that I'm aware,' she said.

Maude pushed up her sleeves, exposing slender forearms, and advanced to the bed. 'How deep is it in?'

Fulke's fist clenched on the bedclothes, holding them firmly down over his leg, and in his face there was fear, anger, and stubborn mutiny. Maude looked at him and then down at his hand, remembering how the sight of it had affected her as Theobald's new bride. Now the long fingers were curled in tight and the raised knuckles were bleached.

'Let me see,' she said, laying hold of the sheet's edge.

'Why?' he challenged. 'I warrant you have never removed an arrow from flesh either.'

'No,' Maude admitted, 'but I have seen it done. One of Theo's knights received a quarrel in the leg during a hunt, and we were fortunate enough to have a Salerno-trained chirugeon claiming hospitality in Lancaster at the time.' She held Fulke's gaze steadily. 'Me, or the priest. The choice is yours.'

He returned her stare, then with a sigh capitulated, raising his hand and looking away. 'Do as you will.'

Maude lifted the covers and folded them aside. He wore a loincloth for modesty, but still she had never been as close to any man's intimate area save Theobald's. Fulke's thighs were long, powerful, and surprisingly hairless given his dark colouring. On the nearside one, the stump of a quarrel protruded from the skin like the stalk of a pear. The full length of the shaft had been snapped off to leave about two inches standing proud.

'I'll need a thin wedge of wood,' Maude murmured as she gently prodded and felt Fulke tense like a wound bow.

'I don't need anything to bite on,' he said indignantly.

'Oh, stop being so proud, you fool,' Maude snapped. 'And it's not for you to bite on anyway. The way you're behaving it might be a good thing if you used your own tongue as a clamp.' She raised her head to Emmeline and gestured with forefinger and thumb. 'A wedge of wood about this thickness, no more. I'll also need two wide goose quills, a small sharp knife and needle and thread.'

Emmeline nodded and turned away.

'Oh, and in my baggage there's a small leather costrel. Ask my maid to find it.'

Fulke's aunt vanished on her errand.

Maude sat down at the bedside. One half of her mind was studying the other half in astonishment. Had she really given orders so briskly and with such confidence? Any moment now the facade would desert her and leave a trembling wreck, no more capable than Emmeline of doing what had to be done.

'I am sorry that your mother has died,' she murmured. 'I came to see her at Alberbury when she was ailing and I stayed with her.'

Fulke stared obdurately at the wall hangings directly opposite his line of vision. 'That was kind of you,' he said stiffly as if the words were being forced out of him. 'My aunt did tell me.'

Maude pleated the coverlet in her fingers. 'We became good friends,' she said. Some instinct held her back from telling him how close. She did not think he would want to hear that Hawise considered her the daughter she had never had. At least not now, when it might seem like a rejection of the sons she had borne.

'Did she suffer?'

Maude busied herself with the coverlet. 'No. At the end she went peacefully in her sleep.'

'You're not a very good liar, are you?' He turned his head so that their eyes met on the level instead of from a side glance.

'What do you want me to say?' Maude demanded. 'Will it make any difference to know that she was in terrible pain? Will it ease you to know that she only died in her sleep because we dosed her with Alberbury's entire supply of poppy syrup to calm her agony?' She blinked and scrubbed angrily at her lashes. 'I loved her, and I didn't want her to go, but for her own sake I prayed harder than I have ever done in my life for God in his mercy to take her.'

There was a quivering silence. Then she saw his throat work and the betraying glitter in his own eyes. He turned his head again, this time looking away, and muttered indistinctly beneath his breath. Of its own volition, her hand crept from its pleating to cover his on the bedclothes. Even while she made the move in compassion and the need to offer comfort and be comforted, a part of her mind acknowledged that it was something she had wanted to do ever since her wedding breakfast.

He tensed, his face remained averted, but he did not withdraw from the light pressure.

The curtain rattled on its pole as Emmeline returned with Barbette in tow and the requested articles. Resisting the impulse born of guilt to snatch her hand away, Maude tightened her grip.

'How good are you at ignoring pain?' she asked Fulke.

He shrugged and looked at her, his expression restored to one of sardonic humour. 'That is hard to say since I have never had an arrow taken from my flesh before. How much are you going to inflict?'

Maude briefly compressed her lips while she pondered how to reply, finally deciding that in kind was as good a way as any. 'That is hard to say also, since I have never taken an arrow from anyone's flesh before.'

Fulke eyed her fingers upon his. 'Then we are well matched,' he said.

Maude reddened. 'In this matter, yes,' she said, trying to appear unruffled and in her own time removed her hand.

'Do you want me to stay?'

Maude glanced over her shoulder. Emmeline's voice had been thready with fear. 'No, there is nothing you can do, but if you could send two of the men in, I would be grateful.'

Emmeline nodded and scurried out, her relief obvious.

'Two men?' Fulke raised his brow. 'You think it is going to be that difficult to hold me down?'

'You may well buck like a branded colt, and do serious damage to yourself.

She took the knife, examined its edge, then went to the brazier burning in the middle of the room and thrust the instrument among the glowing lumps of charcoal. Fulke stared, and she saw sweat spring on his brow. She had no doubt that if he had been sound in limb he would have run from the room.

'Good Christ, woman, what do you think you're doing?'

'The chirugeon who showed me his art said that fire purifies. To stop a wound from festering you must use instruments that have been tempered in its heat. Don't worry: I'll quench it first.'

'I think I need to be drunk,' he said weakly.

Maude gave a brisk nod. 'It would be a good idea.' Leaving the knife in the glowing charcoal, she went to the costrel and removed the stopper. 'Are you familiar with uisge beatha?'

Fulke managed a grim smile. 'I was introduced to it as a squire in Ireland with Theobald—vile stuff, but useful if you crave to get drunk without bursting your bladder.' He held out his hand for the costrel. Before she gave it to him, Maude poured off some of the almost colourless liquor into a large pottery beaker.

'Are you going to drink that before or after you cut out the arrow?'

'Neither,' she said. He was jesting, trying to be light and flippant, but she knew that he must be feeling sick with apprehension and fear. Even if the operation of removing the arrowhead was simple, it was still no small undertaking and she knew without a doubt that for a brief time at least he was going to be in agony.

The curtain pole rattled again as two of Fulke's brothers entered. Not William, who was nursing cracked ribs and heavy bruises, but Ivo and Richard who were both big and strong. The latter was cramming the last of a griddle scone into his mouth and dusting his hands on his tunic.

'Is there ever a time when you're not eating?' Fulke demanded from the bed.

Richard patted his solid stomach. 'Extra flesh acts like another layer on your gambeson,' he said.

'It's no wonder your horse sags in the middle.' Fulke took a swig from the costrel, and his repartee was immediately silenced by a glottal wheeze.

Maude waited until he had drunk more than half the remaining uisge beatha in the costrel then gestured Ivo and Richard into position. Fetching the knife, she quenched it in a jar of water standing nearby and then, with a prayer on her lips, picked up the mead cup and sloshed some of its contents over Fulke's wounded thigh.

Although he was well on the way to being gilded, Fulke still arched and yowled like a scalded cat and there was nothing his brothers could do to hold him. 'Bitch!' he gasped. 'Vixen, bitch!' He fell back on to the bed, his lids squeezed tightly shut and moisture leaking out between them.

'That is the worst over,' Maude said tremulously. Her heart was pounding in her throat at both Fulke's reaction and what she was about to do.

His voice was ragged. 'Christ, just do what you must, and be quick about it!'

Faces grim, Ivo and Richard pinned him. Maude took the knife. 'I have to open the wound to reach the arrow head. With good fortune it will not be barbed and can be eased out.'

'And if it is barbed?' Ivo gave her a searching look from beneath his brows.

'That is what the goose quills are for. They are set over the tines so that when the arrow head is drawn out, the flesh is not ripped.'

Both brothers winced. Fulke made an inarticulate sound conveying drunken, angry impatience.

Maude took a deep breath, entreated God to steady her hand, and set to work. To his credit, Fulke tried hard not to tense his leg and she was able to cut down to the arrow head reasonably quickly. There was plenty of superficial blood, but she could tell from the way it welled around the wound that no major vessel was involved. A gentle probe revealed that mercifully the arrow head was not barbed. She took the thin wedge of wood, slid it carefully into the side of the slit and eased the iron arrow out.

'Here,' she said, presenting it to Fulke in her bloody fingers. 'A talisman for luck.'

'Luck!' he laughed weakly. His complexion was ashen and his pupils huge and dark with pain. 'What kind of luck is that?'

'The kind that lets you off lightly. It was only in your flesh, no damage to bone or major vessels. If you do not suffer the wound fever or stiffening sickness, you will live with naught but a scar to show for it.'

While he was still looking at the bloodied arrow, she removed the wedge and doused the wound in uisge beatha a second time. Once again he reacted like a scalded cat, this time almost losing consciousness. Maude quickly packed the wound with a greased bandage and then wrapped it in strips of linen swaddling- band.

'How long before he is able to ride again?' Ivo asked. His look was a little reproachful and she could tell that he thought her unnecessarily cruel. 'When can we leave?'

'A week at least, but better two. You'll need to do some hunting for your suppers if you are not to strip Higford of its supplies.'