The Faithful Heart (31 page)

 

 

They rode on in silence until Ruairc could restrain himself no
longer, and said, “Please, Morgana, I can’t help the feeling that
you are hiding something from me. That you're in some sort of
serious trouble. I wish you would confide in me. Can’t you tell me
why, when things seemed to be going so well, you suddenly decided to
go back to the convent? It just doesn’t make sense.”

 

 

“Ruairc, you promised me you would accept my decision. Finn and
Patrick are home now, and they will do what has to be done. My
duties at Lisleavan are finished,” Morgana said firmly.

 

 

“You seem so anxious to be rid of me as well. Do you really mistrust
me so much, Morgana?” he asked resentfully.

 

 

“Please, Ruairc, stop this, now. This is exactly why I tried to
creep away from Lisleavan. I haven’t got all the answers yet, don’t
you see? But in the convent I shall have time to think and reflect
on all that has happened, and then I can make some decisions about
the future. I’m not certain about my vows, or the investiture as
heir, or our love for each other. Only in the fullness of time will
some of these problems be resolved.

 

 

“You promised you wouldn’t rush me. I want you to go to Dublin, and
as soon as I am sure, I will send word to you, I promise.”

 

 

“If you are certain you aren’t going to take your vows, then I must
be content with your suggestion,” Ruairc grumbled.

 

 

“I swear to you, Ruairc, I am not going to become a nun while you
are away,” Morgana said reassuringly.

 

 

Suddenly Ruairc glanced around. “Riders coming, a lot of them!”

 

 

“And just when we need it most the fog is lifting,” Morgana
complained, as she looked back and saw several men in green and
brown jerkins riding towards them full tilt.

 

 

“Ride on ahead. I’ll hold them off at this pass in the woods,”
Ruairc urged, as he pulled his weapon out of its scabbard.

 

 

“Don’t be silly,” Morgana scolded, drawing her own sword. “There
must be at least eight, maybe ten!I’m not going to leave you."

 

 

“Damn it, Morgana for once in your life do as you are told!” Ruairc
barked, as he swatted her horse’s rump viciously with the flat of
his sword.

 

 

Morgana had to cling on desperately as Darkie leapt underneath her
and began to tear down the road at a breakneck pace.

 

 

She tried to rein the frightened animal in, but even as she halted
and struggled to turn the steed, she could hear the clash of swords.
Morgana headed for the trees and rode around the melee, until she
came up behind two of the horsemen waiting in reserve. Spurring her
mount into a gallop, she stabbed the man on her right in the back,
before switching the sword to her left hand to deliver a swishing
back hand cut which split the other soldier’s belly open.

 

 

Morgana kicked another man waiting on the ground out of her way as
she rode straight towards Ruairc, who was valiantly fighting off two
men with his dagger and sword. A sweeping cut with her sword
beheaded another man standing on the grassy bank, and then she
battled with another attacker on horseback, rising up in her
stirrups to raise the sword high for a deadly blow to the man’s
neck.

 

 

Morgana moved towards the next assailant, but suddenly felt herself
being dragged out of her saddle from behind. She clung to her sword
and crossed the weapon over her body, stabbing her would-be captor
in the side.

 

 

Morgana could feel herself falling from her horse's back. Pushing
off with one hand, she tumbled safely to the ground, on her feet,
ready to do battle again. She reached up to grab the man nearest her
by his chain shirt and yanked him out of the saddle, before neatly
cutting his throat with her sword.

 

 

At last she made her way to Ruairc, who was wounded in the arm and
shoulder, but still on his horse. She pulled one of his attackers
onto the ground, and smashed her elbow into his mouth as she stabbed
down with her sword and dispatched him quickly.

 

 

Ruairc fell from his horse just then, and Morgana moved quickly to
defend him. The other mercenary dismounted, and circled the pair
angrily.

 

 

“No harm is going to come to you, my employer just wants to talk,”
he said in English.

 

 

“If your employer is Dermot MacMahon, then we have nothing to say to
each other, and he shouldn’t have decided to send eight armed men
after me for this little chat,” Morgana panted, as she raised her
sword up to defend herself from the man’s thrust.

 

 

Ruairc, though winded, was able to rise. Morgana was just about to
finish off her opponent when she felt a stinging blow to her leg,
and saw the man whom she had charged with her horse preparing for
another strike.

 

 

Morgana swung her blade wildly, but was able to make contact with
her assailant’s belly before her leg collapsed under her.

 

 

Though winded and desperately gasping for breath as the pain
rocketed through her, Morgana managed to roll out of the way of the
first assailant’s weapon. Stabbing upwards, she skewered him with
her sword, and grimaced as the dead body fell on top of her.

 

 

“Morgana, good lord! You’re hurt!” Ruairc said, sounding as if he
was far away, as he pulled the corpse off her to examine her wounds.

 

 

“Your leg, it’s very bad,” he panted, as he took in the gaping wound
which ran almost the full length of her leg from hip to knee.

 

 

Just then Ruairc heard a cart on the road, and taking his sword, he
waited behind a tree.

 

 

A young woman was driving the cart, and looking around her at the
corpses in dismay.

 

 

Ruairc ran to the fork in the road, and she screamed.

 

 

"Nay, my lady, I would ask for your help, beg for help please. I’ve
got a wounded woman here. Do you live anywhere nearby?” he asked
desperately.

 

 

“I live at the inn up in the pass through the hills. We can be there
in a few minutes if we hurry,” the girl replied calmly, though she
was looking around her in dismay.

 

 

Ruairc picked up Morgana and ran to the waiting cart, where he laid
her down gently in the back, and climbed up beside her.

 

 

“Ruairc, am I going to die?” Morgana murmured dazedly, as the loss
of blood made her lightheaded and drowsy.

 

 

“No, Morgana, I’m not going to let you. Just hold on to my hand.
Don’t let go.We’ll be in an inn soon. I’ll look after you. I won’t
let anything happen to you,
a stor
, do you understand?”

 

 

“I’m sorry, it’s because of me that this all happened,” Morgana
sighed.

 

 

“You saved my life, you silly girl!If you hadn’t come back to help
me, I’d have been killed,” Ruairc whispered as he hugged her limp
body to him.

 

 

“I love you, Ruairc, I always have,” Morgana confessed as she felt
herself slip slowly into darkness.

 

 

“Morgana! Morgana!” Ruairc pleaded, but she was slipping into
unconsciousness.

 

 

“I love you too. I won’t let you die,” he vowed solemnly.

 

 

The journey to the inn seemed to take forever, but at last the girl
jumped down and flung open the front door, then gathered up sheets
from a linen cupboard before showing Ruairc a room he could use for
Morgana.

 

 

“I’ll get hot water and a knife, and a needle and thread,” she said
knowingly, after a glance at the wound. Ruairc peeled off the trunk
hose and noted with relief that though the blood was flowing, it
wasn’t gushing in huge spurts.

 

 

His companion, who introduced herself as Anna, leaned on Morgana’s
hip as Ruairc instructed, while he swabbed away the blood with a
cloth gently to expose the mouth of the wound.

 

 

“I’m going to have to seal it,” he muttered.

 

 

The girl nodded.

 

 

“I’ll get some brandy, and we can pour some into her before you
start,” Anna said hurriedly as she ran below to the bar where the
liquors were kept.

 

 

When Anna returned with the flagon of spirits, Ruairc shook his
head. “She’s out cold. I think I need that drink more than she
does,” Ruairc said shakily as he took a hefty swig from the bottle
to steady his nerves.

 

 

Morgana was blissfully unconscious, but with the blood still flowing
this was also a bad sign, so Ruairc knew he had to act quickly.

 

 

“I’m going to tie her legs to the bed posts, and if you could sit on
her chest, that should work,” Ruairc instructed, as he stoked the
fire with the bellows and put the knife, cleansed with brandy, into
the glowing embers.

 

 

When he was sure the knife was hot enough, Ruairc wiped the wound
site once more, and then said, “Ready.”

 

 

The stench of burning flesh, and the howl of Morgana’s agonised
groans seemed to fill the tiny room as Ruairc laboured to stop the
bleeding.

 

 

At last it was over. Heheaved a shaky sigh as she fell back on the
pillows, unconscious but still alive.

 

 

“Do you have some old bread and mustard?” Ruairc asked the young
woman.

 

 

Anna went down to the kitchen to make a poultice for the wound to
draw the poisons out. Ruairc dreaded the possibility of infection,
and knew in his heart that by rights most physicians would have
taken off the entire leg rather than risk the wound festering.

 

 

But Ruairc knew he could never have brought himself to allow that to
happen to his beloved Morgana.

 

 

So he stripped off her bloodstained tunic and pulled her shirt down
over her thighs, before tucking her into the bed with as many
blankets as he could find. Then he banked up the fire, and ordered a
posset of milk and wine and herbs to be made.

 

 

“Is there anyone else here besides yourself?” Ruairc asked.

 

 

“They’ve all gone off to the market, and probably won’t be back
until tomorrow. There’s just my father and two brothers anyway.”

 

 

“Well, Anna, when one of them does come back, we will have to get a
message to the convent at Kilgarven, to explain what has happened
and ask for some remedies.”

 

 

“Sir, you’re doing the best you can, really. Father was in the wars
in France and he’s told me all about the wounds he was cured of. The
poultices and posset and the hot knife are the best you can do,
though if the wound does fester, we might also try maggots.”

 

 

Ruairc wrinkled his nose in disgust, but Anna said quickly, “Father
swore he saw it work. I’ll try to find you some.”

 

 

The girl went about her chores in the inn, and Ruairc was left alone
to nurse Morgana.

 

 

The hours ticked passed, but as Morgana’s cheeks became fiery red,
and she started to mumble deliriously, Ruairc knew his worst fears
had been realised.

 

 

“She’s burning up,” Anna observed, when she came in to bring him
some supper.

 

 

“I know. Have you managed to find those maggots?”

 

 

“I have them right here,” she said as she held out a small bowl, and
then moved to clean the old poultice off the leg.

 

 

“We have to put them all along the wound, like this, and then bind
the leg loosely with some cloth,” Anna explained as she worked.
  “We can check it in the morning, and see what it looks like
then. I’ll also bring you some brandy to bathe her in.”

 

 

“Bathe her in it?” Ruairc repeated in astonishment.

 

 

“It will reduce your wife’s fever, cool the skin. I'll fetch some
now.” The girl smiled, and left the room before Ruairc had a chance
to correct her assumption about their relationship to one another.

 

 

She brought him some fresh cloths and a flask of spirits a short
time later, and then shut the door behind her. Ruairc cleared his
throat a few times, but finally with shaking fingers he stripped the
shirt from Morgana’s sweat-soaked body, and bathed her from head to
toe, avoiding only her injured right leg. He tried to concentrate on
his nursing duties, but the sight of her naked was more lovely than
he had ever dared imagine, and he knew the vision of her laying on
the bed was one which would haunt him forever.

 

 

Morgana murmured incoherently as he rubbed her body with long
strokes form head to toe.

 

 

Ruairc watched her in an agony of suspense for any sign of
improvement.

 

 

Finally at about midnight, Morgana seemed to grow calmer, and her
breathing was less laboured. She opened her eyes for a few moments,
and saw Ruairc was by her side.

 

 

“I thought I was dead. I felt you, but I couldn’t make you hear me,”
Morgana whispered, so that Ruairc had to strain to catch the words.

 

 

“What did you want to tell me, Morgana,
a stor
?” he asked
as he stroked her face lovingly

 

 

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t running away from you, Ruairc. I wanted you to
get away to safety. You could have been killed because of me. Once
it was safe I would have sent for you, and asked if you could
forgive me, and if you still wished to be married,” Morgana
confessed.

 

 

“When you love someone,
a thaisce