So pronounced Lord Richard Basset, Chief Justiciar of England, as Hugh stood before him head bowed, black hair hanging in sweat-drenched strands, left arm slowly dripping blood into the packed-dirt footing of the Inner bail.
The Bishop of Lincoln concurred with this judgment, saying in a stern voice to Bernard, who stood beside Hugh, “Bernard Radvers, you are a free man.” Then, on a more kindly note, he recommended that Hugh have someone see to his arm.
Hugh nodded and turned and blinked as Thomas put an authoritative hand on his good arm. “Lady Cristen will take care of your arm,” he said. “Come with me.”
The silent crowd parted to allow Hugh through, Thomas on one side of him and Bernard on the other. Now that the excitement of the combat was over, the townsfolk were just beginning to take in the significance of what had happened.
Richard Canville had murdered the Earl of Lincoln.
It didn’t seem possible.
But it had to be true. God had spoken.
Still speechless, groups of people began to filter out through the east gate to join those clustered on the other side of the wall.
Bernard said to Thomas, “This bleeding must be staunched immediately.”
Then they saw Cristen approaching with a roll of bandage in her hands.
“Let me see that arm,” she said to Hugh, gesturing to Bernard to step out of her way. She placed the bandage right over Hugh’s sleeve. “I’m just going to bind it now. I’ll clean it and sew it when the bleeding stops.”
“How nice,” he said. They were the first words he had spoken since Richard fell.
Cristen began to wrap the roll of linen around his arm. He winced once when she tightened it, but otherwise he stood stoically and did not speak.
“All right,” she said when she had finished. She looked into Hugh’s pain-darkened eyes. “The castle or Ralf’s house?”
“Ralf’s,” he replied, and she nodded and turned to Thomas.
“He can’t walk that long way. Get Rufus.”
Thomas turned and ran to the stockade.
“Alan,” Cristen said. “Help Thomas.”
Alan raced toward the stockade as well, leaving Hugh alone with Bernard, who was bracing him with an arm around his waist, and Cristen, who was regarding him somberly.
“You took a dangerous chance,” she said.
He managed a fleeting smile. “There are some advantages to being smaller.”
“Did you deliberately let him drive you back to the wall?” Bernard demanded.
“Mmm. In his enthusiasm to crush me with his sword, Richard appeared to have forgotten all about the daggers.” Hugh’s words were clipped, as if he were expending as little energy as possible to form them. “But I hadn’t. And I can use my right hand as well as my left.”
He swayed slightly, and Bernard tightened his grip.
“Here comes Rufus,” Cristen said briskly.
The white stallion was led up to Hugh and Alan held the bridle while Thomas and Bernard lifted Hugh onto the horse’s unsaddled back.
“Lead on,” Bernard commanded Alan, who began to gently lead Rufus forward. Thomas and Bernard walked on either side of Hugh to hold him upright.
“I can stay on Rufus by myself,” Hugh protested with annoyance.
“We are not in the least interested in your opinion,” Cristen informed him in the same brisk tone as before.
“Oh,” Hugh said. His voice sounded meek, but there was a brief glint of amusement in his eyes.
At Ralf’s house they were greeted by an ecstatic Nicholas and Iseult. Cristen issued a few short, crisp orders, and Hugh found himself being guided upstairs to his old bedroom by Bernard and Thomas. He sat on a chest by the window and impassively awaited his fate.
She arrived shortly, followed by Mabel carrying a tray that held a water jug, a bowl, more linen bandage, a scissors, a needle, thread, and an ointment jar. Hugh eyed these items warily.
Mabel put down the tray on the chest next to him, and Cristen drew up a stool and sat down. “This will hurt,” she warned him.
His arm was already on fire with pain and he was feeling sick and dizzy. “Really?” he managed to say.
To his great relief, she dismissed Bernard and Thomas before she went to work, cutting away sleeve and bandage to expose the long ugly gash in his forearm.
“Can you make a fist, Hugh?” she asked.
Resolutely ignoring the pain it caused, he closed his fingers into a fist.
“Good.” Relief sounded in her voice. “Nothing vital is severed.”
“That is good news.”
Cautiously he moved his head from side to side. It had begun to ache shortly after the duel, and now there was a tight band of pain around the base of his skull.
It’s just because of the wound, he told himself firmly. It’s not a headache.
Cristen said, “The first thing I am going to do is clean it.”
Hugh stared at the corner of his bed and maintained a resolute silence as she washed his injury with warm water and soap. He made no sound all the time it took her to stitch the edges of the wound together and to anoint it with an ointment of centaury.
As she worked on his arm, the band of pain around his skull kept getting fiercer, and he could no longer ignore the fact that he was getting a headache.
Blood of Christ! he thought, half in anger and half in despair. Will I never be free of this crippling ailment?
Cristen was bandaging his arm once more.
He felt the pain begin to move into his forehead.
“Cristen,” he said. “Do you have any of your betony elixir with you?”
She looked at him and knew instantly what was the matter. “Aye,” she said. “I’ll get it.”
She stood and instructed her assistant, “Thank you for your help, Mabel. You may take the tray down to the kitchen.”
The door closed behind the girl. “Another headache?” Cristen asked.
“So it seems,” he said.
“Oh, Hugh.” Her voice ached with compassion. Then, more matter-of-factly, “Let me get you out of these filthy clothes and into bed. Then I will get the elixir for you.”
“All right.”
His lips formed the words but scarcely any sound came out.
Cristen had kept her scissors, and took care of his sweat-stained tunic and shirt by simply cutting them from top to bottom and sliding them off of his shoulders. Then she easily slipped his hose off his legs and feet. Once she had him stripped to his drawers, Hugh got under the blankets, which she had turned down for him.
By now the pain in his head was a furnace of agony.
Cristen pulled his blankets over him. “I’ll be right back,” she said.
He rested his head against his pillow, shut his eyes, and tried to think of something else beside the agony in his head.
Time passed.
“Hugh.”
It was Cristen again, the only person he could bear to have near him at such a time.
“The betony has never relieved you that much,” she said. “Let me give you some poppy juice instead. It will help the pain and perhaps put you to sleep.”
He squinted up into her large brown eyes. Cristen knew what she was doing, he thought. She would never give him anything that could harm him.
“All right,” he said and pushed himself up on his good elbow to drink from the cup she was holding out.
He lay back down and closed his eyes. His stomach began to churn.
He opened his eyes. “I need a basin.”
She had one ready, and held it for him as he vomited up the stew he had eaten for dinner.
The pounding in his head was sheer anguish. How could he endure hours more of this?
He felt her take his hand.
Time passed with excruciating slowness.
Then, slowly, the sharp edge of the pain began to dull. His head still throbbed, but it was not as unbearable as it had been.
“It is feeling a little better,” he said to her.
“Good.”
He was actually feeling sleepy. His stomach heaved again, but he forced it down.