“Arm’s not broken, either. If she hasn’t snapped her neck, she should be all right—and there, I just saw her eyes flutter.”
That was Roderick’s voice, followed instantly by Elisandra’s. “Corie? Can you hear me? Corie? Are you all right?”
She sounded so worried. I had never heard Elisandra sound that way. It took immense effort, but I opened my eyes and found her face hanging right above mine. “I think so,” I whispered. “What did I do?”
Incredible relief swept over her face. She swooped in to kiss me gently on the cheek. “You fell off your horse, foolish girl,” she said in a teasing voice; but even through my pain I could hear the falseness of the gaiety. She was still supremely terrified, but determined not to show it. “And after you promised Roderick you would not.”
“I don’t think you’re too badly hurt.” Roderick spoke again. “Concussion, maybe. Can you sit up? Or is there something really wrong with you?”
I cast him a smoldering glance and pushed myself to a sitting position, though I had to lean heavily on Elisandra’s arm once I was upright. My head pounded and my vision swam; I thought I might throw up. “It wasn’t my fault,” I said distinctly. “My horse tripped or something.”
“And your next question should be, ‘And is the horse all right?’ ” Roderick prompted. “For you don’t want it to have broken its leg, all through your careless treatment.”
“I wasn’t careless—” I began, but Elisandra interrupted, saying my name in a soft voice. “Oh, very well,” I mumbled. “I shouldn’t have tried to gallop off the main road. Is the horse all right?”
“Yes, indeed, a little skittish but uninjured,” Roderick said. “But I don’t think you’ll be riding him back.”
“That’s stupid,” I said crossly. “How else will I get back to the castle?”
I saw him glance consideringly at the sky. “Well, it looks to be a dry evening. I think if you spend the night here, lying nice and quiet on a couple of saddle blankets, you’ll be fine by morning. I’ll come back with a spare horse tomorrow and take you home.”
I sat up straighter, though it made my head throb. “You will not leave me here all night! Out in the open! And hurt!”
He looked innocent. “But I thought you liked to sleep out under the stars. Why, when we went hunting with your uncle—”
I ignored him. “And with wolves around! Rabid wolves! You wouldn’t dare leave me out here—”
“We didn’t see any rabid wolves,” he said dismissively. “I don’t think you need to worry.”
I was outraged. “Elisandra! Tell him! You’re not going to leave me—”
But she had dissolved into laughter, her hand pressed against her mouth and her eyes filling with tears. I decided, later, that some of the hilarity sprang from reaction, a release from the fear of finding me dead, but for a moment I was even more furious. “And it’s not funny!” I added.
She hugged me again, still shaking. “No, no, dearest, we wouldn’t think of leaving you behind. I imagine Roderick will carry you back—and I’ll lead your horse.”
“I wouldn’t let him carry me any—”
Abruptly Roderick came to his feet. “Excellent idea, Lady Elisandra,” he said. “That’s exactly what we’ll do. I’ll round up the horses, and you see if you can get your sister on her feet.”
Ten minutes later, a much more slow-moving caravan continued on its way back to the castle. Despite his light words earlier, Roderick did not seem in the least disposed to leave me behind. He had Elisandra hold his horse’s head while he lifted me into the saddle and quickly climbed up behind me. I swayed against him, not meaning to, and I heard the frown in his voice.
“I don’t think this will do,” he said. Holding me hard against him, he swung me across his lap. He cradled me against his chest with one arm and gathered up his reins with his free hand. When I gazed up at him, he was smiling down at me.
“Better?” he asked.
“Yes, please,” I whispered.
“Can you handle her horse?” he asked Elisandra.
“Easily. Let’s be on our way.”
Roderick kept the pace to a walk, I think because I cried out in pain when he attempted a faster speed. “Is she all right?” I heard Elisandra ask more than once, as if she could not help herself. Each time he answered her gently, “I think so. She’s strong. She’ll be fine.”
For the remainder of the ride, I caught patches and pieces of their conversation, which they seemed to indulge in for no other reason than to distract Elisandra from her fear. She asked him questions about his family and their farm, about his brothers, about his time in the royal guard.
“And did you want to join the guard, or is that where younger brothers are sent when there are too many in the family?” she asked.
It was so easy to detect Roderick’s expressions by the melody of his voice. Now he was smiling. “A little of both. My father’s holding is large enough to support all of us, but I was restless and wanted to make my fortune elsewhere. I trained with the city guard from the time I was twelve, and it was my captain there who recommended I come to Auburn. My mother did not want me to go so far away, but my father was proud. He packed my bags himself.”
“And how often do you see them, now that you’re here?”
“I’ve only been here a few months. At the solstice holidays, I’ll be going back for a few days.”
“Don’t you miss them? Don’t you wonder if you can spend your whole life apart from them?”
“Well, not yet,” he said. “But it’s still fresh and new. I’ve known many a wild young man who came home a sober older man and said, ‘No more of this roving for me.’ It could happen to me, I suppose. Right now, my eyes are still big from looking at the world.”
“They say many people don’t learn until too late what’s precious to them,” Elisandra said. “And too late they learn they’ve traded away something that they want more than life itself.”
“I guess I haven’t learned yet what would matter so much to me,” he said thoughtfully. “Have you? What’s the most precious thing in the world to you?”
Her voice was so low I almost couldn’t catch it. “My sister,” she said. “The very thing you’re holding in your arms.”
I SPENT THE next week recuperating in my rooms, which I thought was excessive. You would have thought I had nearly fallen through a chasm into the void of the netherworld instead of stupidly tumbling off a horse. Even Greta, who could not truly have cared if I lived or died, insisted I stay in my bed and be constantly attended.
Although I was still embarrassed by the incident, and there were days I thought my head would never stop aching, I have to admit I enjoyed all the attention that followed. My routine for that week was simple and self-indulgent. I lay in my bed till Cressida came in carrying a tray of food that might be expected to tempt an invalid: soft-boiled eggs and cream pastries and peeled fruit. Laying the tray aside, she would take my chin in her hand and study the contours of my face, asking how I had slept and how my head felt. Her quiet concern made me feel marvelous no matter how badly the night had gone. I always gave her my first smile of the day.
Once I had eaten, the aliora would assist me into the bath and wash my hair so I would not slide my concussed head under the water and drown. She had such gentle, miraculous hands that this shampooing was an ecstasy in itself, as her fingers massaged the planes of my skull and made even my brain feel relaxed. But I was troubled, now and then, by the metallic clink and clamor of the copper chains around her wrists. She did her best to keep the shackles from swinging against my bruised head, but I could not help wondering how they interfered in the daily pleasures and duties of her life. I did not ask her.
After I was thoroughly clean, she would help me out of the old ceramic tub, towel me off and assist me into whatever flowing invalid-appropriate clothes she had chosen for me out of my closet.
Generally she would stay with me for the next few hours, reading to me or telling me
stories (which I preferred). All of her fables started with the same phrase, “One spring night when the full moon was luminous,” and involved tales of bravery, treachery, magic, and true love. I had heard a dozen or so in the past, when I was a child and sick in the night, but I had never before heard so many told, one right after the other. I loved them all.
During this period of time, Giselda came by almost every day to feed me potions and check for swelling. She was a large, comfortable woman with wispy gray hair and a distracted manner, but she knew her herbal lore. The first day she gave me ground tiselbane mixed into a sweet syrup, for there was no other way to swallow the bitter herbs. They helped my aching head but made me so sleepy I could not keep my eyes open. The next day she brought me kinder medicines, sarafis and wotyn.
I had been familiar with the others, but sarafis was new to me. It was made of crushed red petals and smelled faintly of cinnamon.
“What is this?” I asked, sniffing the dried leaves. “I don’t know that my grandmother has ever used this.”
“Sarafis,” she said, preening a little. “I buy it every year at Faelyn Market, for it can only be found far north, up around the border mountains. It’s very dear, but it works such miracles that I don’t like to be without it.”
“My grandmother uses halen root for pain most of the time,” I said.
Giselda nodded. “It’s expensive to buy this far north, and it makes me a little nervous. You can only use the tiniest amount or you risk killing your patient. I’d like to have some, though.”
“I have a little with me,” I said. “If you’d like it.”
Giselda could not keep the surprise from her face. Like everyone, she knew my history, but she could not entirely credit that a girl so young could know anything useful about plants—or be trusted with medicines so dangerous. “You have halen root? Well, well. I don’t recommend that you use it for this type of injury, however—it’s more common in the birthing bed or when a man is in so much pain he needs calming.”
I knew all this. Halen was a sedative as well as a painkiller, though if you took too much of it, it would poison your body; you would vomit, lose feeling in your extremities, have trouble breathing, and die fairly quickly. I did not bother to repeat the symptoms to Giselda, however; I merely nodded gravely.
“I agree, and I am very interested in trying your sarafis,” I said.
“Though, if you have halen root to spare,” she said.
“I do. In my satchel there, over by the closet.” She dosed my pain, I gave her the drug, and we both felt better for it.
Once I had slept off the morning medicines, Cressida would feed me lunch. Then she would support my frail body down the hall to Elisandra’s sun-filled sitting room. There I would be installed on a divan where I would read (rarely), sew (badly), or hold court (which I loved). Sometimes Elisandra sat with me, often Angela and Marian came in to giggle and gossip, and Kent tried to stop by every day at least for a few minutes.
Of course, all the pain and all the mortification were worth it the day that Bryan dropped in to check on my progress.
Angela and Marian were with me that afternoon. They had just told me about the hunt being organized to catch the rabid wolf, still unfortunately at large. Elisandra sat nearby, writing a letter, and only occasionally joined our conversation.
“Lord Matthew wanted to just send a few of the guards out, but Bryan thought this would be more exciting—a challenge for all the noblemen at the castle. The prize is a gold ring that bears the royal Ouvrelet crest,” Angela said.
“That seems like a large prize for so small a hunt,” Elisandra commented from the corner.
“I think it’s a ring he doesn’t like much,” Angela said.
Elisandra smiled. “Ah, well, then an excellent trophy.”
“So how many have decided to join the hunt?” I asked.
“Fifteen, last I heard,” Angela said.
Marian exclaimed, “Fifteen! I don’t know much about hunting, but wouldn’t that many men make so much noise they’d scare away any wild creatures?”
“Men and women,” Angela corrected. “Lady Doreen and her cousin have decided to join the lists.”
“Yes, fifteen riders would make an incredible amount of noise,” Elisandra said absently. She was rereading her letter and was paying little attention to our conversation.
“Plus guards,” Angela added. “So maybe twenty.”
Marian sighed. “I wish I could go,” she said.
“Which guards?” I wanted to know.
Angela gave me a blank look. “I don’t know. Just some guards.”
“Is Kent going?” Elisandra asked.
“I think so,” Angela responded.
“And the regent?” I asked.
Angela wrinkled her nose. “He seemed to think there were plenty of others involved already.”
Marian sighed again, more theatrically. “I’m sure Bryan is the one who will bring the wild beast down,” she declared. “With one stroke of his sword.”
“Actually, it’s more likely to be one shot from my bow,” said a voice from the door. If you were attuned to it, you could hear the silent shrieks from Marian, Angela, and me. Bryan! Here! We all straightened in our chairs and then froze, unable to speak or move.
Elisandra came to her feet to greet him. “Why, Bryan, I thought you would be busy with the Mellidon envoy today.”
He took her hand and bowed over it. The three of us had to shut our mouths tight to choke down little moans of envy. He was grinning wickedly; I’m sure he knew exactly the effect he had on us and was playing the gallant on purpose. He was not normally so formal with Elisandra.
“I have just spent hours with him, and must soon hurry off to some dull meeting Uncle Matthew has planned for me, but I wanted to see how Corie was doing. I meant to come by a day or two ago, but—”
Elisandra led him over to my divan, where I tried my best to look pale and interesting. Taking my hand, he bowed over it as well, and may I say that I felt more devastated then than I had after the fall four days earlier.
“How are you feeling, Corie?” he asked with a charming smile. I felt my whole face dissolve into blushing giggles.
“Fine. I mean, much better. I mean, my head hardly hurts at all anymore.”
“I wanted to have that horse shot the minute I heard about the accident,” he said in a regal voice. “But I—”
“Oh, no!” I exclaimed. “It was all my fault! Don’t hurt the horse!”
He nodded. “Well, I do not tolerate animals that abuse humans, and so I made it very clear. But both your sister and that guardsman seemed quite certain that the beast caught its foot in a snake hole or something, and that it was an accident not a malicious event. So I had mercy and did not have it destroyed.”
“Oh, yes, thank you, truly it was not the horse’s fault,” I said, tripping over the words now, because it had not occurred to me before that retribution could befall anyone but me. But I thought Bryan’s gesture very grand—that he would sacrifice a horse because it had dared to harm me! The thought made my pulse skitter.
“And how is your head? Better?” he asked.
“Very much. Sometimes it hurts.” Right now it was throbbing. “But every day I am much improved.”
“Where did you hit it? Are you bruised?”
I put a hand to the back of my head, a little to the left, where I had landed with such jarring force. “Here,” I said. “It’s still a little tender.”
And leaning forward, he touched my hair right where I had just laid my hand. Such was the glamour that attended him that I expected the ache to instantly melt away, healed by his royal caress. But in fact I felt a sudden leap in my heart that made the pain briefly more intense.
“Poor Corie,” he said in a sympathetic voice. Shifting his hand, he patted me on the top of the head. “Heal quickly. We want you back among us as soon as possible.”
And turning on his heel, he nodded casually to the other women in the
room, and walked out.
Needless to say, there was stunned silence for about ten seconds, and then Marian and Angela and I all began squealing at once. “Did you see that?” “He touched you!” “Corie, he came by to ask after you! He was worried about you! Bryan!” Elisandra, who had gone back to her writing, glanced over at us once or twice with great amusement, but did not comment. To her, I knew, tokens of Bryan’s affection were commonplace and received much more coolly. But I was overwhelmed with the immensity of the favor. I fell back against the cushions of the divan.
“I am immortal, and no grief can ever scar me again,” I declaimed. “For Prince Bryan of Auburn touched my head.”
THAT INCIDENT WAS the most momentous, but I enjoyed Kent’s visits as well. He came more often, stayed longer, and did not think he conferred much honor on me by his presence.
His first visit, however, was not entirely pleasant. It was on the very first evening after my fall, my head hurt abominably, and no one had had time for me all afternoon so I was lonely and sullen. When Kent strode into the room, he looked grave and a little angry.
“I see it is true, what your sister said, that you did your best to kill yourself yesterday,” was his opening remark. “I know you’re careless, but I thought even you would pay more attention off the road and an hour from home.”
Everyone else had been so sympathetic that his censure caught me unprepared, and my eyes filled with tears. “Well, I didn’t meanto fall off my horse and cause everybody so much trouble,” I protested. “I suppose you’ve never in your life come unseated—”
“I have—we all have—but neither did I foolishly invite trouble by going too fast on unsuitable terrain.”
It was true, and I didn’t have the strength to defend myself anyway, so I just turned my head aside and did not reply. I felt two more tears gather and fall. Suddenly Kent was kneeling at the side of the divan and patting my shoulder.
“Oh, Corie, I’m sorry. That was cruel. It’s just that Elisandra was so upset when she told me how you were hurt—she loves you so much and she was so worried—”