Anne checked her watch. Sharon was on foot, and Adam might get lost on the way to Grantville. Neither of them might return for several hours. If Drud's condition deteriorated any further, he might not last thirty minutes. She didn't have time to worry about the something bad. "I'll give him another bed bath while you make it up."
The old woman left the house for a moment, then returned with some flowers and leaves and went to the pot of water boiling over the fire.
The nurse glanced over her shoulder. "What's that?"
"Fairy's glove, to ease his chest." Tibelda crushed some leaves before immersing them in hot water. "How is the fever?"
Anne took Drud's temperature. "Climbing again."
Tibelda cooled the second tonic by pouring it from one pot to another, then brought it to Anne. They had to dribble it between Drud's parched lips, a little at a time, but had gotten two-thirds of it in him when the door flung open.
"I have returned," Harvey announced.
"I'll notify the press." As Drud coughed, Anne took the cup away. She didn't see the English physician go to the table and examine Uli's ingredients.
"What have you done?" He stalked over and grabbed Anne's arm, giving her a hard shake. "This moronic hag means to kill him! Give me that!"
With difficulty, Anne held the tonic out of his reach. "Hands off. Let us do . . ." she trailed off as the three stooges and a sizable number of villagers entered the farmhouse. "What's going on?"
Tibelda seemed frozen.
Harvey turned to the people and pointed an accusatory finger at the two women. "They have poisoned this man!" He strode back to the table, grabbed a handful of leaves, and shook them. "Here is what they have used to hasten his end!"
Uli pushed her way through to the front, then stared in horror, first at Tibelda, then Harvey.
The crowd made a collective, ugly sound, then several voices cried out "Witches!" and "Murder!"
Drud's wife flung herself on top of her husband, while Tibelda backed up until her thin shoulders hit the wall.
Anne stepped between the mob and the herbalist. "We are not witches and we are not poisoning this man. Tell them that, Dr. Harvey."
"I have proof of the poison right here." The physician put on his judge face. "You may not be witches, but women like you kill more patients in a month than I can save in a year."
"Yeah? And how many do you bleed to death, doc?" Anne held the cup out toward the villagers. In German, she repeated, "I'm a trained nurse. This is not poison."
Curly lifted a ham-sized fist and shook it at her. "Save your assurances for God, witch!"
"You need proof?" There was only one way to handle their disbelief—the same way she had Tibelda's. "Fine. Cheers." Anne lifted the cup to her lips and drank the rest of the tonic.
* * *
"Maybe you should drive, Sharon," Father Mazzare said as he held onto the pickup truck's roll bar with a white-knuckled hand.
The paramedic patted Hans Richter's strong arm. "Slow down, Hans, you're scaring the priest."
"Jeff says I am good driver," Hans said proudly. Jeff Higgins, the American boy who had saved Hans, his sisters, and his nephew during "the Battle o' the Crapper," had since become both brother-in-law and personal hero to the young printer. He glanced at Sharon. "You wanted to get back fast, you said, ja?"
"Fast, ja. With concussions, nein."
Hans chuckled and eased his foot off the accelerator. For the beautiful dark angel who'd awakened him to his new life, he'd do just about anything. "Okay, I slow down."
Father Mazzare muttered a short, fervent prayer of thanks.
"Almost there?" Gretchen yelled through the window from the back of the truck.
Sharon checked through the window, saw the lights of the village and gave her a thumbs up. She watched as the German girl adjusted the belt around her curvy hips. "Did your sister have to bring a gun?"
Hans's grin faded. "The Committees of Correspondence recommend it, but Gretchen would carry her pistol no matter what is said. Anne and the old woman were kidnapped. She is also concerned about this English doctor Adam brought out of Jena."
Sharon knew a concerned Gretchen was no one to mess with. "Just see to it she doesn't create more patients for Balthazar." She glanced back to see how the Balthazar Abrabanel was faring, but Rebecca's father seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. With her father tied up in surgery, he'd not only insisted on returning with her but riding in the back of the truck as well, probably to keep Adam Olearius company.