CHAPTER
53
IT WAS THE EARLY HOURS of the morning before we returned to the palace. Tom wobbled, half-asleep in his saddle, covered in soot, dirt, and blood. I steadied him as we rode, feeling much the same.
We dismounted at the stable. “Leave the horses to the groom,” Lord Ashcombe said. “See to your wounds.”
His command reminded me of the groom we’d caught earlier, the secret Covenanter. I would have asked what happened to him, but I was simply too tired to care. It could wait.
We trudged over to the tiltyard, where the wounded from the ambush at Barnham Wood had been arriving all night, carried on horseback. Many of the King’s Men had died from their injuries; the bodies lay untended near the jousting rail. The rest had largely been cared for, which was a blessing. I don’t think I could have borne any more screaming.
Men and women worked under the soft light of the torches staked around the yard. From the blood that drenched their aprons, at least two were surgeons. Master Kirby walked among them, offering remedies and poultices to cover gashes against infection.
He’d already prepared an infusion of poppy; I could smell the cauldron from here. It had allowed the worst of the wounded to doze, to steal a few hours of peace before they awoke once more to agony.
Sally was there, too, gathering rags, bandaging wounds, administering potions, offering comfort. Her dress, like everything else, was covered in blood and dirt, ruined. Her cheeks were smudged. Her hair, tied back, had come loose on one side, auburn curls tumbling past her ear. She pushed them away absently as she worked. And, in the glow of the torches, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
She saw us and hurried over. “Are you all right?”
We lowered ourselves to the ground and nodded, too tired to speak.
“I have to tend to the others,” she said. “There’s an order to seeing the wounded.”
She squeezed our hands, then hurried back to finish dressing wounds. Wings flapped at me, salt-and-pepper speckled, as Bridget came to land on my lap. I’d thought she was locked in my quarters; had Sally let her out? I’d have figured she was too busy to bother.
As glad as I was to see Bridget, I was too tired to even stroke her feathers. I just let her walk all over me, fly to my shoulder, my head, then back again to my feet.
Master Kirby passed by, a cup of poppy in his hands, and glanced at the pigeon. When he finally noticed whom Bridget was climbing over, he stopped and stared.
I stood, joints cracking. “Do you need my help, Master?”
He looked me up and down, saw the cut on my arm, the slump in my bones, the muck and the filth.
“Busy day for everyone, it seems.” When I didn’t answer, he waved me back to the ground. “Not tonight, Rowe,” he said softly. I sat as ordered, gladly.
The few King’s Men who’d suffered only cuts and scrapes had dressed their own wounds, so Tom and I were the last to be seen. The surgeon looked us over, put a half dozen stitches in Tom’s leg, and three in my arm. He offered us the poppy. Tom took it; I didn’t.
Sally tended to Tom while the surgeon worked on me. She wiped his wounds clean with a damp cloth as he lay in the dirt, drifting off to sleep. When the surgeon left, and Sally had finished, she nudged him. “Time for bed.”
Tom curled up on the ground. “M’already in bed.”
She laughed. “Go on, now, go on.”
“Mn. Wait for Christophmrr.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. He would ache like the devil in the morning. I couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be if he slept all night on the ground. I poked him until he sat up. “Go inside. Take Bridget. Come on, if you fall asleep, I won’t be able to carry you.”
“Mnngln,” he grumbled, but he staggered off to our quarters, Bridget cupped in his hands, bumping into the wall along the way.
“I should go, too,” I said.
“You can’t sleep like that,” Sally said. “Let me look at you.”
She tried to help me take off my shirt, but my arm hurt too much to lift. “Just cut it off,” I said. “It’s ruined, anyway.”
Sally used a knife to split it from collar to hem, then drew a breath when she saw the damage underneath. My arm was bloody where I’d been cut, flesh bound together by the stitches, and I had scrapes all over my shoulder, chest, and back. Everything else was bruised and swollen, angry red splotches covering my skin.
“Christopher,” Sally said, dismayed.
“At least no one shot me this time.”
“What happened out there?”
I bowed my head and sighed. “I fell off a horse.”
She leaned in close, dabbing my skin with cold water. It helped dull the pain. A little.
“Everyone keeps talking about you to me,” I said.
“Oh?” Sally wiped the dirt away. After a moment, she asked, “What are they saying?”
I didn’t answer. She cleaned me up and wrapped a bandage around my arm.
“You should take the poppy,” she said.
“I’ll be fine.”
She looked into my eyes, searching. Then she leaned in and kissed me softly on the cheek.
Sally stayed there, her head against mine, her breath warm on my neck. I wanted her to stay like that forever.
One of the King’s Men woke and moaned. She went to him. I trudged up to bed.
CHAPTER
54
I SLEPT ALMOST THE ENTIRE day. I kept waking, body throbbing with pain, then falling back for a few more fitful minutes. Tom did the same. Eventually we gave up and just lay there, watching the boats float along the Thames, playing with Bridget, and talking across the room about nothing at all.
“Should we be doing something?” Tom said.
At that moment, I honestly didn’t care. “If
