When Love Awaits by Johanna Lindsey

Author:Johanna Lindsey [Lindsey, Johanna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 1986-10-14T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

AFTER four days, Rolfe was worse. Thorpe was at wit’s end. It had seemed a simple wound. Rolfe had received worse than that and recovered quickly. This wound actually seemed to be sapping his strength. A fever started the second day and climbed until Rolfe raged in delirium, calling for his wife one moment and cursing her the next. He didn’t recognize Thorpe at all.

Odo, that cur, had sneaked out of the keep, escaping before he could be blamed for Rolfe’s worsening condition.

Thorpe did not know what to do. No, that was not the truth. There was one thing he could do, and finally he did it, sending a servant to fetch Rolfe’s wife. When she came into the room, her servant Wilda with her, he had the grace to look ashamed. He flinched when she let out a stream of curses.

“Why did you not call me sooner?” she demanded of Thorpe. “The dirt within the wound is killing him.”

“I did not change his bandages,” Thorpe replied defensively. “So I haven’t seen the wound.”

“You should have! I warned you Odo would do more harm than good.”

“Can you help him?” Thorpe asked humbly.

Looking at the pus-infested wound, she said, “I truly do not know. How long has the fever been this bad?”

“Three days.”

“God’s mercy.”

Thorpe lost his color. The hopelessness in her manner said all he needed to hear. Praying, he moved closer to the bed and watched her. First she forced liquid down Rolfe’s throat, succeeding in getting him to swallow. Thorpe felt respect well up in him. Then she began crushing leaves to pack onto the wound along with some foul-smelling stuff. Water was set to boil and she began mixing together the contents of several bottles.

When she brought a little knife out of her basket, Thorpe gripped her wrist. “What is that for?” he demanded.

She eyed the large man. “His wound will have to be opened so I can search for what is causing this fever. Would you like to do it?” she asked him pointedly. Thorpe shook his head and let go of her wrist.

Leonie cleaned the knife, then very carefully removed the leaves she had packed against the wound. Using the knife, she started to probe inside the wound, cleaning it. There was complete silence for several long moments, and then she let out a horrified cry.

“Death is too good for that leech.” Leonie glared at Thorpe in a way that made him feel wholly to blame for Rolfe’s condition. “He removed the arrow, but he left inside a piece of Rolfe’s chain mail that the arrow carried with it!”

She extracted it slowly and carefully, then resumed cleaning the wound. When clear blood finally began to ooze from it, she sighed gratefully. With the wound now clean, she covered it with her concoction.

At last she sat back and looked at Thorpe, her expression no longer anxious. “The blood must be allowed to seep from the wound until his fever abates, so we know the illness has left it.

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