The maiden turned from the window with dread in her face. He hoped the tea worked. The pain in his leg made him clench his teeth, but he bit back a hiss, since the girl looked as though she might cry herself at any moment.
He set the cup on the floor and lay flat, letting his head sink into the prickly, straw-filled pillow. She placed a low stool next to him then rummaged through a basket at the foot of the bed and withdrew black string and a needle.
“So what is that you’re stitching me up with?” He forced his tone to sound calm, hoping to put them both at ease.
One side of her mouth went down as if she were avoiding his gaze. “Catgut, my lord.”
She stared down at the needle and he watched her draw in another big breath. She closed her eyes as she made the sign of the cross. Her lips moved silently, then her long lashes swept up, revealing warm brown eyes that brimmed with determination.
His heart beat faster.
“When Frau Geruscha sews up a wound, she tells the person to think about something else, to imagine they are in a favored, peaceful place.”
Wilhelm nodded and closed his eyes. He could do that. He wouldn’t think about the needle, the catgut, or his leg.
Her soft fingers, gentle and tentative, touched his bare leg, near the wound. But he couldn’t think about that, either. He’d think of a stream…Yes, with the sun glittering on it…a nice grassy bank and a big tree. The leaves are moving with the breeze…the grass is cool.
There it was, the stab of the needle piercing his flesh. His leg tensed in spite of himself. He forced a moan to the back of his throat. The tea wasn’t working.
I’m floating above the stream, watching the water glide over the rocks. The breeze rustles the leaves…birds are singing. The sun is bright and warm…
His eyes watered. He wanted to groan against the fiery pain reopening in his leg. He tried to ignore it, but he couldn’t see the stream or the tree or the grass anymore.
He opened his eyes. The maiden was bending low over his leg. Her hair fell like a curtain around her face, but she sat at an angle and so he had full view of her features. She bit her lower lip, and he thought he saw her chin quiver. Was that a tear glistening on her eyelashes?
The pain was intense, radiating from his leg to his whole body like flames of fire. He wanted to cry out, but he wouldn’t do that to her. No, he wouldn’t make a sound. Instead, he would concentrate on making her think he was asleep. He would relax each muscle in his body, starting with his legs…going up to his stomach…relaxing his arms…now his face. Yes, he was on the stream bank again, watching the leaves of the tree, hearing the water rush along.
Time seemed to stand still as he fought to ignore the pain. Sweat slid from his forehead into his eyebrows, into the corner of his eyes and down his cheeks, but he didn’t move to brush it away. At some point he stopped seeing the stream and tree and opened his eyes again. He saw Rose, her hair glowing in the sunlight, and heard her soothing voice.
“It’s almost over now.”
The pressure near the wound lifted as she removed her hands from his leg. He watched her disappear into the storage room.
Raising his head, he looked at the crisscross of black stitching. The whole area throbbed and burned, but he was relieved to see the wound closed.
Wilhelm collapsed back on the pillow, his thoughts filled with the maiden, Rose. He remembered the compassion emanating from her eyes. And that was the thing that had surprised him. Plenty of people were afraid of him, and he’d received many amorous looks from women, but he wasn’t sure he had ever seen such raw compassion.
He closed his eyes and saw her again as she’d looked standing at the window, and a warm, pleasurable sensation flooded him.
Must be the herbs.
Out of sight of her patient, Rose sobbed silently into her hands. It was over now. She hadn’t mishandled the stitching too badly—she hoped. Thanks be to God, Lord Hamlin must have sunk into unconsciousness halfway through.
She stopped crying and wiped her face with a cloth. She poured some water into a basin and washed her hands, rubbing her cuticles where Lord Hamlin’s blood had dried black.
The sweat had poured off his brow while she worked on his leg. She should get a damp cloth to wipe his face. She poured cool water from the pitcher onto a clean bandage. Her hands shook and the water dribbled onto the floor.