Page 26 of Katherine the Vixen

As the shock of what she had just done hit her, Lady Malpas gave a gasp and, taking the tray with her, fled the room. Immediately, Katherine jumped from the bed. She had been about to intervene anyway. Someone had to stop the murderer, she couldn’t care about the consequences for herself when someone was in danger of dying.

Before running to Siaspar, she ripped a strip of cloth from the sheet under her. She had to staunch the blood before it was too late. Muttering to herself she wrapped the piece of linen around the cut on his wrist and pressed as hard as she could on the wound to try and close the vein. After a while, she saw that the red stain on the cloth was not getting any bigger. Relief swept through her. He had lost a lot of blood but thanks to her timely intervention he might not die from it.

“My lord,” she murmured urgently. “You need to go and lie down. You cannot stay here on your own or you will fall and injure yourself. My lord, can you hear me?”

His eyes fluttered as if he could indeed hear her but was too feeble to respond.

Katherine looked around in despair. Siaspar was too big for her to move. She would be unable to drag him to the bed, let alone hoist him up onto it. But she had to leave the room to get help and she could not leave him on the chair; he would only fall and break his neck. She had to at least lay him down on the floor. She placed her shoulder under his armpit and tried to make him stand up. He was too heavy. She would never manage this unaided.

In the end, she had no other choice but to ease him gently to the floor, breaking his fall as he went. He had gone completely limp, and with his eyes closed, he put her in mind of a corpse. Pushing the horrid thought aside, she went to rip another band of linen from the sheet, to wrap on top of the first bandage. Thankfully, the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Then she placed him on his side, remembering what her father had told her once.

“’Tis always a good idea to lay someone who is senseless on his side in case they get sick and choke.”

Of course, he had been talking about his friends at the tavern, who sometimes overindulged in drink, not lords who had just escaped an assassination attempt but the principle was the same, she thought.

She had to go. Lady Malpas could come back any moment to check the result of her handiwork. It was not safe to remain here.

The last thing she did before leaving the room was to drag the sheet from the bed and place it next to Siaspar’s hand. That way it would look as if he had used the last of his strength to make the bandage. With any luck no one would suspect he’d had any help in saving himself.

“Here,” she murmured in his ear. “Hold on, my lord, I’m going to get someone to help you.”

After one last glance at Siaspar, Katherine left and ran to the courtyard.

Luck was with her. Gwyn, the squire, was there, checking his master’s hauberk. Amiable, efficient, discreet—and strong—the young man was the perfect person to send to Siaspar. He would know what to do.

“I thought I heard his lordship call for someone to go to his room,” she told him, doing her best to keep her voice even.

She needed to send someone to him straight away, but she could not betray the fact that she had been in his room.

“Thank you.” The young man beamed at her in gratefulness. “I’ll go presently, and hope he doesn’t rip my head off for keeping him waiting. He’s in a foul mood today.”

He won’t rip your head off. He will not even know you’re there.

“Yes.”

Heart in her throat, Katherine watched the man walk up the stairs to his master’s bedchamber.

8

Katherine.

She was the one who had bandaged his wrist, Siaspar was sure of it. He’d thought to see her face bent over him, creased with worry, while he was fighting blackness. He’d thought to hear her voice, crisp in her English accent, asking him to stand up. He would have laughed if he had been able to. She wanted him to stand up when he could not even keep his eyes open!

That accursed Lady Malpas had given him wine tainted with a potion to make him sleep. At least it had not been poison. His mind had been floating in a sea of mist, his muscles unable to respond to his command. And then while he was at her mercy, she had sliced his wrist open. The cold blade had cut through his veins, he had felt its sting clearly, as clearly as he had felt his life ebb away from him in hot, pulsing beats but he had been powerless to do anything to stop her. His entire body had felt as heavy as if it had been encased in lead.

In that moment, he had known his death was inevitable.

He was going to die and he had not been able to do anything other than to close his eyes and accept his fate.

Confusedly, before he could drown in oblivion, he had felt someone fumble with his arm and mutter to herself. A woman. An English woman. Katherine. Had he died already? What was she doing there, in his room?

Then her voice, talking to him this time. A question, spoken in an urgent voice.

Can you hear me?

Then nothing. Blackness. Whether it was due to the potion or the loss of blood, Siaspar wasn’t sure. Either way, he had passed out.

And now he was up. Or rather, awake, and lying in his bed. How had Katherine had the strength to lift him up there? How much time had passed since he had lost consciousness? Was she still there in the room? He wanted to call out to her but his mouth was full of wool.