Page 35 of My Hero
How could he forget someone with hair the color of marigolds?
Somehow, he thought, rubbing his thumb across the word, Lady Cynthia Wendevillewasfamiliar. But it must have been years since they’d met, and he wasn’t about to go digging into the past. He’d sealed his old life away into a safe tomb four years ago, and he was loath to call that Lazarus forth now. No matter how persistent she was.
And shewaspersistent, flitting from cajolery to reproach as easily as a sparrow from branch to branch, trying to jar his memory of the secular world. Well, whoever she was and whatever she’d meant to him in the past, the relentless lass had certainly shaken him to the core. He tossed the packet of seeds into the wheelbarrow and prayed that God would strike him dead if he ever forgot just how dangerous she was again.
Cynthia tossed her soiled tunic over her head as she hurried through the great hall, dropping it on the rushes.
“Leave it!” she commanded as Mary hesitated to pick it up. “I’ll get it later. I need you to come with me now.”
She plunged her hands into the large basin of water beside the pantry screens. “The babe wasn’t due till summer,” she murmured mostly to herself. She scrubbed hard, leaving the water muddy, and dried off on the linen hung above the basin. “Is she in the infirmary?”
“Aye.”
“Come then.”
Elspeth met them halfway up the steps, her brown eyes as round and sunken as river pebbles. She looked twice her age. “Oh, my lady,” she whispered in misery, crossing herself, “Jeanne says the babe…the babe is dead.”
Behind her, young Mary gasped.
Sorrow pierced Cynthia’s heart. It was Meggie’s first child, and her husband was away on pilgrimage. But such was the way of life and the will of God. There was no time for tears. She straightened. “Then we must save Meggie,” she stated. “Mary, you fetch clean linen, and tell Cook we’ll need the water he’s boiling for stew. El, my herbs.”
As Cynthia reached the top of the stairs, a weak scream issued forth from behind the closed door. Bracing herself for the worst, she took a deep breath and entered the chamber.
The young mother’s eyes rolled like a frightened calf’s. Her forehead was dotted with sweat. Her stomach, exposed like a silvery half-moon in the dim light, writhed with cramps. The linens at the foot of the bed were stained crimson with blood. Jeanne the midwife was beside her, holding Meggie’s hand tightly, trying to comfort her, but her own face was lined with guilt and frustration.
Cynthia pressed the door closed behind her. She went to the window and slowly opened the shutters to let in more light. Then she came up beside Meggie.
“My lady,” the girl gasped.
“Meggie, I’m going to see you through this,” she said, speaking soothingly as she rubbed her hands together, palm to palm. “You understand, don’t you, lass, that the babe isn’t…?”
Meggie’s haunted sable eyes were answer enough.
“There was nothing you could do for the infant, Jeanne,” Cynthia murmured to the midwife, who looked up in despair. Her hands began to tingle with heat. “But I’ll need your help with the mother.”
A faint scratching on the door announced Mary’s return. She bore an armload of linen and a small but heavy cauldron of steaming water.
“Now, Meggie,” Cynhia said, stroking the girl’s forehead, “it’ll be over before you know it. We’ve got to make quick work of it so you’ll begin to heal all the sooner.”
Cynthia closed her eyes and rested her palms on Meggie’s head, patiently letting them guide her. Blurs of color circled lazily in her mind’s eye, coming slowly into focus. Images flashed past in a blaze of white light—monkshood and shepherd’s purse—and, after a moment, she envisioned Meggie whole again, surround in a halo of healthy blue.
When the warmth in her hands subsided, she shook them like a hound shaking off water. Then she wet a linen rag and gently swabbed the blood from Meggie’s thighs.
Elspeth arrived with the herbs.
“Monkshood, El,” Cynthia murmured.
Jeanne gasped, her eyes wide. “Monkshood?”
Mary made the sign of the cross and looked on fearfully.
The other two women might have hesitated at her request for the deadly herb, but Cynthia knew she could rely on Elspeth. El had seen too many miracles at her hands to question her judgment.
Cynthia ignored the others and uncorked the vial of monkshood extract. “This will make you feel very light, Meggie,” she cooed, pouring the liquid generously into her palm, “almost as if you could fly.”
She reached very tenderly between the girl’s limp legs and smeared the extract at the spot where the infant’s tiny blue head was crowning.
“I want you to tell me when you feel as if you’re flying, Meggie.”
