“How many of them are there?” Elizabeth asked.
“Five,” Sir Guy said. “His horse must have thrown him into a family of them. He had only his sword and the little dagger but he killed all five of them and managed to drag himself here. Rab led us to the boars but ran off before we found Lord Miles.”
“He came to get me,” Elizabeth said. “Can you carry Miles?”
Without much show of effort, Sir Guy carefully picked up his young master as if he were a child. Instantly, his wounds began to renew their vigor in bleeding.
“Careful!” Elizabeth half screeched, and the look Guy gave her made her quiet.
Sir Guy led the way as he carried Miles through the trees toward the crofters’ cottage, and laid him gently on a cot against one wall. It was a tiny, dark, one-room hut, the open hearth the only source of light. There was a crude table and two chairs and no other furniture besides the cot. A pot of water simmered over the fire. Immediately, Elizabeth dipped clean cloths that had been left for her in the water and started washing Miles. Sir Guy lifted him, helped her remove the shreds of his clothes from under him. To Elizabeth’s relief, there were no more wounds on the back of him other than minor cuts and bruises.
She had him almost washed when Morag and Bronwyn arrived together, Morag carrying a big basket of medicines.
“I can’t see as well as I used to,” Morag said, looking down at Miles, nude, the two wounds gaping redly. “One of ye will have to tend to him.”
“I will,” Elizabeth said quickly. “Tell me what to do and I can do it.”
Sewing a man’s flesh was far different from sewing on cloth, Elizabeth soon discovered. The muscles of her body tightened each time she slid the needle inside Miles’s skin.
Miles lay still, not moving, barely breathing, his body pale from the loss of blood as Elizabeth stitched. Bronwyn threaded the needles, cut and helped to knot.
When Elizabeth finished at last, she was trembling.
“Drink this,” Bronwyn ordered.
“What is it?” Elizabeth asked.
“Lord only knows. I learned long ago not to ask what Morag puts into her concoctions. Whatever it is, it’ll taste vile but it will make you feel better.”
Elizabeth drank the brew, leaning against the wall, her eyes on Miles. When Morag started to hold a cup to Miles’s pale lips, she thrust her mug at Bronwyn and went to him.
“Drink this,” she whispered, holding his head. “You must get your strength back.”
His eyes moved, his lashes barely parted as he looked up at her. “Worth it,” he whispered as he drank Morag’s brew.
Morag gave a derisive snort. “He’ll stay on his back for a year if ye pamper him.”
“Well, let him!” Elizabeth snapped back.
Bronwyn laughed. “Come sit down, Elizabeth, and rest. I want to know how you knew Miles had been wounded. We’d only just found him when you rode up.”
Elizabeth sat on the floor by Miles’s head, leaned back and shrugged. She had no idea how she’d known he was injured—but she had.
Her moments of rest were short-lived. Seemingly seconds later, Morag had something else for Elizabeth to feed Miles.
Night came and Bronwyn went back to Larenston. Elizabeth sat beside Miles, watching him, knowing that he didn’t sleep, while Morag nodded in a chair.
“What…” Miles whispered. “What is Raine’s wife like?”
Elizabeth thought he was delirious since she’d never met Raine or his wife.
“Singer,” Miles said. “Pagnell.”
Those words were enough of a key to make her understand. She was surprised that one of the Montgomery lords would marry a lowly little singer. Elizabeth told Miles the story of meeting Alyxandria Blackett, of hearing her extraordinary voice and later her attempt to rescue the singer from Pagnell’s clutches—which led to Elizabeth’s own capture.
Miles smiled at that and searched for her hand. Still touching her, he fell asleep just as the sun began to rise.
Morag woke and began to mix another batch of herbs, dried mushrooms and several things Elizabeth didn’t recognize.