The Bleak and Empty Sea by Jay Ruud

Author:Jay Ruud [Ruud, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781893035737
Publisher: Encircle Publications
Published: 2017-08-09T22:13:01+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

THE FAITHFUL BRANGWEN

In watching his patient, Master Oswald had been spared singing matins and lauds, but one of the younger monks had come up and called him to prime, and with that I awoke to find Merlin still sitting up—I never knew whether he had dozed off during the night or not—and Dinadan himself sleeping peacefully and breathing normally. He had made it through the night and, I was now convinced in my heart, he was likely to survive this attack.

Master Oswald rose and stretched, and then confirmed my optimism. “Your friend seems to be out of immediate danger,” he told us. “Must go to sing prime now. Perhaps you would still like to watch with him for awhile. When I come back, I’ll change his dressing, and we’ll see how that wound looks. Odds are it will be looking better. When the service has ended, I will have young Brother Aaron here show you the way to the lady Brangwen’s cell in the cathedral,” and with that he nodded at the youthful tonsured lad who had come to fetch him, a boy younger than me. “She may even be at the service. She often attends prime and vespers,” Oswald added. “If she is there this morning, I’ll warn her that you’re coming.”

“Thank you, Master, that would be good of you,” Merlin said as the two monks left the sickroom. Then he plopped down on the other bed and told me, “It’s good you’re finally awake. You ought to know better than to practice your filthy sin of sloth here in a house of God. You watch Dinadan for a while, boy, I need some rest.” And with that he curled up in a ball and seemed to go to sleep instantly.

And so I sat for some time, listening to the two of them breathe and thinking vaguely about my lady Rosemounde and the queen, when Sir Dinadan gave a brief cough and suddenly opened up his eyes. He looked confused, and tried to get up, but I laid a hand across him and gently pressured him to stay prone. “Gildas!” he exclaimed, though in a weak voice that made him look confused, as if he did not recognize it as his own. “Where am I? What’s happening?”

“You’re in the monastery of Saint Vincent,” I told him. “We brought you here last night after you were shot by a crossbow dart, remember? You’re in the care of Master Oswald.”

“Oh great,” Dinadan replied. “Well, I sure hope he’ll have better luck with me than he did with Tristram. Isn’t there another doctor in this town?”

“He seems to know what he’s doing. At least it doesn’t look like the arrow that pierced your chest was poisoned.”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Gildas my lad. I’m not going anywhere else in this town without my sword. Where’s that captain fellow? Send him round to fetch it from our luggage, and you won’t soon see another one of these wounds in me, I’ll tell you that much.

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