“I can’t stop the bleeding,” the doctor said worriedly, shaking his head. He had a bowl full of bloody water and stained rags. “I think I have some woad in my tent. Here, press your hand against the wound rag until I return.”
Alensson knelt by her side, doing as the doctor had asked, and the man rushed from the tent. He glanced at the boy, wondering if he should take the scabbard away and bring it to her. He knew it would heal her wound. But the boy’s injuries had stolen his life. While the external injuries had been healed, he did not know how long it would take for the scabbard to heal the inward ones.
He heard a faint whisper from Genette’s mouth.
Looking down, he saw her eyelids fluttering. She was so weak she couldn’t move at all. He pressed the bandage even harder against her leg, willing it to stop bleeding.
“Are you awake, Genette?” he asked, bending close to her mouth.
“Alen . . . sson,” she whispered.
“I’m here,” he said, his heart churning with worry. “I’m going to bring the scabbard.”
“No,” she whispered. “Or he won’t . . . recover. I’ll not die yet. Not yet, Gentle Duke. Just weak. So weak.”
He felt a surge of relief, but while he believed her, it did not stop him from worrying. He was still looking down at her pale face and seeping wound. “The doctor is getting some woad.”
“Pretty yellow flower,” she mumbled. Her head lolled to one side. She blinked her eyes open fully, gazing up at him. “I’m cold,” she said.
Keeping his hand pressed against the wound, he pulled the blanket up to her chin. She closed her eyes again. “Promise me.”
“What? Did you say something?”
“Promise me.”
He strained to hear her over the commotion of the camp. He leaned so far forward that his ear was nearly to her lips. “What? Promise you what?”
“That you’ll not kill the king,” she said. “He must live. Even if I must die.”
A piercing pain shot through his heart. “I don’t understand.”
“I know. I know. There is so much . . . you don’t understand. Promise me that you won’t kill him. Or his child.”
“I wouldn’t kill a child,” Alensson said indignantly.
“Lewis won’t always be a child,” she said with sigh. “Promise me, Gentle Duke. Please. Even if you don’t understand. Promise me. The game must go on.”
“What game? What are you talking of, Genette? Tell me!”
“I can’t. You must find out . . . for yourself. Promise me.” She gave him a pleading look. “Or my death will be worth nothing.”
“Have you seen your death, Genette? Do you know when it will be?”
She stared at him and then slowly nodded. It was the first time she’d moved her body since breathing life back into Brendin. “Promise me. Please.”
He let out his breath. She had given everything to see Chatriyon crowned. She had suffered and she had bled and she was bleeding still, yet she was determined to see him king. It didn’t matter that Chatriyon was ungrateful, that he was perhaps unsuited to leadership.
It was not an easy promise for Alensson to make, and he did not make it lightly. Still pressing the soaked cloth to the oozing wound on her leg, he rested his other hand on top of hers. “I promise you, Genette of Donremy.”
A rustle of the tent fabric announced the doctor’s return.
“What took you?” Alensson grumbled, turning and glancing at the doctor. The man looked haggard and spent as he crossed the tent to where the Maid lay. There was a stalk of vibrant violet-tipped flowers in his hand. Violet, not yellow.
When Alensson gazed down at Genette, she was looking at him, her mouth turned into a frown. “That’s not woad,” he said.
The doctor’s eyes were full of panic. “He . . . is . . . outside,” he panted. His voice was hoarse.
As Alensson rose, the flap rustled and a man came through it, dagger in hand. A poisoner, no doubt. The doctor quailed, letting out a moan of fear, and scrabbled away from the Maid. Alensson noticed a sticky substance on the tip of the dagger. The poisoner lunged at him, bringing the hilt down toward his neck to stun him, but the duke hiked up his shoulder and caught the blow that had been intended to knock him out. He kneed the poisoner in the stomach and grabbed at his face with his blood-slick hand, the one that had been staunching the wound moments before. Their two bodies collided as they wrestled each other for control. The poisoner’s knee slammed into Alensson’s groin, but he was protected by his armor, and when the dagger came slicing down at his forearm, it glanced off the metal bracer.