LITMIR.BIZ

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wharf now returned with stomach-lurching spite. The site of her injury throbbed, producing flashes of colorful light that swooped and swirled across her field of vision. And through it all, the relentless fever threatened to bake her like grapes laid out to dry in the sun. She heard a plaintive moaning sound and realized it came from her own throat.

      “Don’t worry about staying on the horse. I won’t let you fall.”

      Gisela clung to the promise in his words. King John’s voice was pleasantly deep, his accent alluring but not so foreign that she couldn’t readily understand his words. Indeed, she found the sound of his voice soothing. Gisela wanted something to think about that would distract her from her pain—preferably something more intellectually engaging than mere curiosity about the handsomeness of her benefactor.

      Was he young or old? Married? Betrothed? It shouldn’t matter, but as she drank in his masculine scent, she couldn’t help wondering. If she could learn more about the king who’d set aside his plans on a moment’s notice to help her, perhaps he would distract her from her pain. She found her voice. “Your reputation as a healer must be widely known. Have you been practicing for many years?”

      The king seemed to appreciate her need to talk, and answered readily, as though hoping to distract her from her ailment. “My mother began teaching me about herbs and injuries when I was young. Her family has had a gift for healing for many generations.”

      “I wondered—” Gisela had to struggle to speak past the pain “—why a king would also be a healer. Most men settle on one or the other.”

      “Actually, the healing lessons were originally intended for my brother Luke. My mother named us after the New Testament gospels, and she hoped my brother would become a great healer like the physician, Luke.”

      “Didn’t he?” Gisela would have finished the question, but the aching in her head caught up to her, and the bone-rattling pace of the horse didn’t help.

      John answered quickly, as if he didn’t want her to strain herself by trying to speak. “Luke tried to learn. So did my youngest brother, Mark. But for whatever reason, I’m the only one who ever caught on. The other two had no success or interest and quickly gave up trying.”

      “You have to have a gift for it,” Gisela agreed, understanding. “I wanted to play the lyre, but no amount of practicing would make me half as good as my sister, and she didn’t even care for the instrument.”

      “That’s precisely how it was. I took to it readily. For many years, I thought I had a gift.” A melancholy note infused his words.

      “Had?” Gisela repeated.

      She felt the man behind her tense. Was there something that had caught his attention, which she couldn’t see due to her injured eye? Or was his sudden change in demeanor due to her question?

      Finally, the king murmured. “The results of my efforts haven’t always been successful in recent years.”

      A melancholy silence followed his statement. Gisela got the sense that he still mourned some great loss. Was it the loss of his gift? But then, surely his knowledge of herbs and how to use them had not been taken from him. He wouldn’t have tried to help her if his skills for healing were completely gone.

      She couldn’t sort it out. The more she tried to think, the more her injury throbbed, distorting her thoughts with feverish confusion. Was it the king’s pain or her own that filled her heart with sorrow? It couldn’t be her own—she’d earned it honorably defending the ship from Saracens. If she hadn’t been injured she’d have likely been killed.

      So then, it must have been King John’s past hurts that prodded her heart to the verge of mourning. Already strained by the gash on her head, Gisela whimpered softly as tears formed under her eyelids, adding pressure to her already-swollen eyes.

      “Whoa.” The king pulled his mount to a halt. He shifted, and a moment later Gisela felt his hand on her face. “Are you getting worse?”

      His touch imparted comfort, and when he drew his hand away, she missed it.

      “Are you thirsty? Can you drink?”

      Gisela mustered her voice. “Please.”

      Moments later a flask touched her lips, and cool water flowed into her mouth. It tasted so much better than what they’d had on the ship, which had begun to carry the flavor of the wood barrels in which it was stored. The water John gave her was slightly sweet and blessedly refreshing to her fever-parched tongue.

      “Now rest if you can,” he murmured, slowly urging the horse up to speed. “We have a long way to travel yet.”

      Rest. If only she could—if only the pain would fade away and allow her a measure of peace. The cacophony of sound and light roared inside her head, thundering with each rise and fall of the horse’s stride. Would this infection be the end of her?

      “You need to rest if you’re going to keep your strength.”

      The king’s words were a reminder she sorely needed. Yes. She had a mission to fulfill. She couldn’t die. She had to keep up her strength. To rest.

      The people they’d left back at the dock were depending on her. If she didn’t make it, there would likely be war, not only for her father’s people, but for King John’s, too. She owed it to them to survive.

      More than that, she owed it to King John himself. His willingness to help her, politically motivated as it may have been, was nonetheless an act of charity. It would be ungrateful of her to die when he’d gone out of his way to procure for her the means of life. Besides, she had to recover if she was ever going to see if King John was half as handsome as she imagined him to be.

      * * *

      John kept to the main road that led southeast down the Lydian peninsula. When the woman in front of him finally slumped into a fitful sleep, he prodded his horse to greater speeds. He hadn’t wanted to upset Gisela too much, but they needed to hurry. He’d wasted precious time arguing with his courtiers.

      Fortunately Moses, his favorite stallion, had been bred for speed. The animal hadn’t been out for a hard run in weeks and was eager to stretch his legs. “Good boy, Moses.” John reached past the Frankish princess and patted the stallion on the neck, encouraging him. If he had to take the emperor’s daughter to the Illyrian borderlands, there was no animal he’d rather ride.

      And Fledge, his falcon, perched upon his shoulder with her beak pointed forward, the wind produced by the horse’s speed hardly ruffling the raptor’s feathers. Fledge was used to diving on her prey from blustery mountain updrafts. Their pace didn’t bother her in the slightest.

      The only one John worried about was the Frankish princess, who moaned and twitched as she fought her rising fever. The late-summer day was warm, but her flushed face felt warmer still. John had seen this type of infection far too many times, and he knew its usual pattern. Without the hare’s tongue to stop it, the fever would continue to rise until the woman was dead.

      It was just such a fever that had killed his own mother when he was a boy of twelve years. Tragically, she’d fallen sick during winter when there was no hare’s tongue to cure her. Nonetheless, John had set out with a search party in hopes of finding some tucked away under the snow.

      He’d returned in the night half frozen from his search, with nothing to show for his efforts.

      His mother had died the next morning.

      The memory spurred him forward. It had been his last failure for many years. Some had said that with his mother’s passing he’d inherited her healing gift full force. For a while he’d almost believed them.

      Then his own wife had taken ill during childbirth three years ago, after years of battling recurring illness and a miscarrying womb. In spite of all his efforts, he’d lost her and the child she carried. From then on, failure haunted his every effort at healing. Even simple maladies had spiraled out of his control, as though the touch of his hands carried death instead of healing.

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