The Winter King
Page 51

This morning, though, she’d been so quiet and withdrawn that he’d paid a surprise visit to check on her himself during their midmorning stop. And he’d caught the maid trying to dispose of the breakfast Khamsin had supposedly eaten three hours earlier! After threatening to freeze the maid with a cold so deep she would never thaw, the truth came tumbling out.
Two days! For two days now, Khamsin had not been able to keep more than a cup of broth in her stomach. And she’d hidden that from him!
His fury at her deception was stronger than any emotion he’d felt since the day he’d learned of his brother’s death. He wanted to roar and gnash his teeth. He wanted to stomp so hard the earth would shake and rip trees up out of the ground in a violent rage that would do a wounded giant proud.
Behind him, the carriage door opened, and Wynter spun around to watch Jorgun alight from the conveyance.
“Well?” His jaw clenched as he waited for the surgeon’s answer, but he knew, even before Jorgun slowly shook his head, what that answer would be.
“She’s much worse, Your Grace. Fever’s set in, and her wounds are going septic. If we don’t stop long enough to cure the infection and let her fully heal, I doubt she’ll reach the borders of Wintercraig alive.
The prognosis left Wynter stunned. Like Valik, Jorgun was no exaggerator. His grave concern meant she was all but knocking on death’s door.
“We’ll stop here then,” Wynter decided abruptly. “And you will do everything in your power to heal her.” He turned to his second-in-command. “Valik, ask for volunteers—fifty men, no more—to stay with me and the queen until Jorgun says she’s well enough to travel. You and the rest of the men continue on to the Craig. You’ve been gone from home long enough. There’s no need for you to delay your return.”
Valik’s spine went stiff and a stubborn, all-too-familiar light entered his eyes. “I won’t leave my king in the middle of enemy territory with a sick woman. Especially not when that woman is the daughter of your enemy. Not with five hundred men to guard you.”
Wynter arched a brow. “You think I can’t protect myself without you?”
“I think you’ll be distracted. Whether you like it or not, she’s gotten under your skin. She’s been there since that first day in the tower, and you know it. And I don’t trust it. I’ll handpick those men—a hundred, not fifty—and we will stay with you. The others can go on ahead.”
Wynter’s eyes narrowed. “You’re an impudent get, Valik Stone-skull.”
“Take after my friend, the king of rock-headedness.” Valik saluted briskly, then turned his mount around to charge down the line.
They set up camp by the road’s edge, in the remains of what had been a wheat field. The rest of the army marched north at a brisk pace, carrying Khamsin’s young maid with them. She’d protested the dismissal at first until Wynter near froze her with a look. She’d known her mistress’s condition was worsening and not only had she not alerted Valik or Wynter to the truth, but she’d helped Khamsin mask the true depth of her illness until it was almost too late.
Valik set up a perimeter around the encampment and appointed shifts of men to stand sentry. A dozen soldiers rode out to hunt for game, while a dozen more headed east along a narrow road to see what they might scavenge from local farmhouses and villages.
Wynter carried Khamsin from the fetid stuffiness of the coach to his tent. Shame and fear battled inside him. She’d lost so much weight, she seemed little more than bones wrapped in a thin casing of flesh.
“Light a fire in the stove, and set out those lamps around the pallet.” His men had prepared the surgeon’s cot in the center of the tent, closest to the iron stove and farthest from the snowy chill that seeped through the edges of the canvas. Gently, he laid his bride facedown upon the prepared bedding. He turned her head to one side so she could breathe without restriction and smoothed the soft ringlets of white-streaked hair back from her face. Her skin was burning to the touch.
“Stubborn, damned-fool woman,” he muttered. “Were you trying to kill yourself?”
He hadn’t thought her that sort. She’d struck him as the kind more likely to fry him with lightning than suffer in silence.
Not that she’d been in any shape to summon lightning lately. He’d almost begun wishing for a thundercloud on the horizon and the misery of torrential rain.
He unlaced the back of her gown and parted the loose-fitting fabric. His jaw clenched at the sight of her back. The skin was red and inflamed around the wounds, and infection—quite a bit of it—had most definitely set in. Red streaks radiated out from several of the deeper lacerations, and underlying the scent of blood and pus was the first hint of a smell that made Wynter’s blood run cold.
Jorgun, standing near Wynter’s elbow, handed him a small, capped pot.
“What’s this?” Wynter growled, removing the lid and sniffing the gooey contents within.
“The herbalist’s salve. For her wounds.”
Wynter recapped the pot and tossed it aside. “What good has it done her? I’ll be damned if we waste another second on failed remedies. Don’t you have a better solution?”
“I’m a surgeon, not an herbalist.”
“But you’ve treated enough battle wounds to know a few basic healing aids for festering wounds. Tell me what you need. I’ll send men to find it.”