He looked at the coals on the stone hearth, considering whether or not to cast the old bandages into the fire. When he decided against it, he turned back to Madog, who held a cup in his hand and shook his head faintly at the woman’s back. She was leaving, walking out the door after having placed the cup in her cousin’s hands. She had come that close, and Ranulf had failed to turn his head in time to see her face, to learn if the angel was merely a delusion born of illness.

“Drink.” Madog ap Rhys handed him the cup, which was the source of a new and pleasant smell. Lavender and rosemary and he knew not what else, but slowly it eased his headache until it was near nothing at all. The Welshman didn’t speak again, dipping the fresh cloths into the steaming bowl and laying them across the wound.

Ranulf didn’t need to be told to take his rest while he could. Tomorrow, he would have to ride in spite of his weakness, with a group of hostile, mocking Welshman and one mysterious Welshwoman as his pitiless audience.

CHAPTER 3

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“Cease your poking, old man.”

Ranulf sat on the bed he’d been given, stripped down to the waist. The old man–a physician, the seneschal had told him–pulled away without protest, withdrawing to study the bag of medicines at his side.

“Your pardon, my lord,” he said mildly. “Curiosity is required of a physician. I always say there was never a wound healed without curiosity, for if man had not asked how to heal, he would never have learned, and never have mended anything.”

He felt around in the bag, all the while prattling on in that singsong voice that had plagued Ranulf these two days past. The healer of this keep – whichever keep it was, for Ranulf had yet to pry the information from healer, steward, or the occasional servant who ventured into this room – was fond of pontificating and theorizing over most anything. Theology, herb lore, philosophy, politics: the old man could go on for hours in the voice of one in the habit of lecturing rapt students.

But he never gave the name of this manor, nor would he even locate it for Ranulf. He had no idea if he sat in the middle of Welsh territory or if they had crossed back into the Marches on the journey. Two days they had ridden, through scenery he could not see for the rain and exhaustion that blurred his vision. That, at least, had not been as humiliating as he’d anticipated. The group traveled at a swift pace, but whenever Ranulf felt he had reached his limit of endurance, just as he began to fight against asking for a pause, they would stop for water or other refreshment, or sometimes only to slow the garrons to a walk.