Determination and sadness laced through his words, and Gisela felt her heart lifting up a prayer, that this kind man wouldn’t lose... Who was he afraid of losing?
She tried to remember, but her thoughts were blurred. So instead, Gisela snuggled into his embrace, grateful for the solid arms that kept her on the horse, since she was certain she would otherwise fall.
* * *
Moses wouldn’t go any faster, and they’d finally entered the wooded region where John had some hope of finding the hare’s tongue at any time, so he let the animal slow his steps. Fledge had been sleeping on his shoulder, her head tucked in the crook of her wing, but now she looked about as though the scent of the woods sparked in her a hunger for wild game. She pranced impatiently. Her sharp talons prickled him through his leather shirt.
“You want to find a hare, Fledge?”
She cocked her head and trained her bright eyes on him.
“Fly, then. Find a hare. Perhaps it will lead me to the hare’s tongue.”
The bird flew to a branch not far ahead and looked back at him impatiently. John kept his eyes down, scanning the underbrush for a sign of the distinctive leaf pattern he sought. Hare’s tongue tended to grow in shady areas, often in loamy soils, in earth enriched by a long-fallen tree, or among the pebbled manure of the rabbit warrens, as the name of the herb suggested.
The soil was too rocky here, with too much hard yellow clay. John looked past Fledge to the forest beyond. If he traveled farther north, he’d only skirt the rich soil. The chance of him finding the necessary herb wouldn’t be good there.
And yet, if he turned east and plunged into the cool darkness of the woods, he’d quickly enter Illyrian territory. Yes, hare’s tongue might await him there.
But so might his enemies.
For an instant, John recalled the distinctive crooked beak of a nose and the sneering face of the man who’d killed his father. A bandit of sorts, powerful in his own right, Rab the Raider lived by the sword, took what he wanted and didn’t seem to care what destruction he left behind. As John understood it, Rab had come from the north years before. He thrived on war and had moved south to conquer more villages, leaving the once-Lydian village of Bern in Illyrian hands.
Luke kept John updated on the Illyrians’ movements, always with the unspoken implied request to go to war with them. But the situation was stable, if undesirable. John wasn’t about to invite bloodshed on his people—and on his own brother—just to satisfy a desire for revenge. A thirst for revenge could never be satisfied. Even if he killed Rab to avenge his father’s death, one of Rab’s men would then come after him in return. To meet death with death was only to create a cycle of death with no end.
It simply wasn’t worth it.
If he’d had his way, John would have kept to the tip of his peaceful peninsula. But Gisela’s fever grew, and John’s concern for her grew with it. He couldn’t let this precious woman die. She meant more to him than continued peace, more to him than proof that his skills had not dissolved completely. The warm bundle in his arms provoked a sense of protectiveness and allegiance he didn’t fully understand. But there was no time to examine those feelings now. He had to act quickly to save her life. He turned Moses toward the east, to the cool shadows of the mountains. He prayed the shadows held only hare’s tongue and not Illyrian war scouts, watching him.
Chapter Three
The deeper they traveled into the forest, the greater John’s sense of anxiety grew. He recognized these woods. They were transformed from the snow-covered lands that had hidden the herb that might have saved his mother, but they looked all too much as they had the day his father had died here.
Woods of death, that’s what they were. And he’d been foolish enough to travel here in search of healing.
“Almighty God in heaven, have mercy,” John prayed in a low voice as Gisela’s moans became less frequent and her fever grew. But hadn’t he prayed for God’s mercy when his mother had died?
He scanned the underbrush, spotting bladderbark, motherwort, hyssop, wormwood and devil’s nettle—enough herbs to cure a host of other ailments, but none that would take care of the infected injury above Gisela’s right eye. The shadows lengthened, threatening to cloak the tiny leaves of hare’s tongue in darkness.
There was nothing for it but to give up or continue deeper into the territory the Illyrians had stolen from Lydia over the past several generations. If Lydia hadn’t lost those lands, the hare’s tongue would have been easy enough to get. The loss tugged at him. Perhaps there was something to be said for taking back these lands.
But there was no point thinking about that now. Gisela lay deathly still, with only the fiery warmth of her fever to reassure him that he hadn’t lost her yet.
Fledge had flown back to him and now pranced in place on his shoulder, straining forward, pointing her beak toward potential prey. John recognized her dance and followed the aim of her gaze to where a plump bunny sat among the underbrush, a long leafy stem drooping from its mouth, half-eaten, dangling like a green tongue.
Hare’s tongue.
The animal had sensed their approach and stood frozen like a furry statue.
Fledge’s wings beat thrice as she lifted off from John’s shoulder. As she sped toward the hare the animal took off, the falcon in hot pursuit.
John didn’t waste any time watching to see if his falcon caught her prey. Noting the place where the rabbit had been munching on the precious herb, he scooped Gisela up in his arms and slid from Moses’s back, settling her in a soft bed of leaves.
“Lie here. I’ll be right back,” he promised the princess, though he doubted she was in any condition to hear him. He darted to the spot where the rabbit had been munching the herb, and found, to his relief, several plants nearly as high as his ankle—a good size for the reclusive vegetation and an indication that these late-season specimens were mature enough to contain the fever-reducing oils. Grabbing them up roots and all from the loose soil, he stuffed all but one into the bag he wore strapped crossways over his chest.
He tore leaves from the last plant, crushing them between the gloved fingers of his left hand as he hurried back to the princess.
The underbrush beyond him rustled with movement. His attention on the herb and the suffering princess, John paid the sound no heed until a flash of activity ahead of him caught his attention.
Fledge had her hare to the north beyond him.
So what was that sound coming from the south, behind him?
John had his right hand on his sword hilt as he spun around. Branches shifted in a stand of bushes.
Something was there.
It could be a bear or a fox or possibly a slighted falcon that had lost his lunch to Fledge. Or it could be an Illyrian war scout. Whatever it was, it wasn’t attacking, at least not yet.
But the Frankish princess needed the herbs, and the sun was sinking fast, taking with it any hope for her recovery. Even if that was an Illyrian in the bushes, it would take a flurry of arrows to kill the princess any faster than the fever that already had her in its grip, dragging her relentlessly through death’s door.
Crouching at her side, John hastily applied the crushed herbs to the festering injury, ignoring its ugliness. He’d seen worse.
Of course, most of those had killed the men who’d borne them.
* * *
The pungent scent of freshly crushed herbs teased her nostrils. Gisela tried to think past the pain. Herbs were important somehow, vitally important, but she couldn’t think how.
Suddenly jabbing spears prodded at her eye and light exploded across her field of vision. She tried to cry out,