Page 26 of Always
“Yes, and the nuns have been wonderful to us, giving us everything we need and taking good care of you.”
“The princesses?”
“They are well.”
“No one has tracked us here?”
“We could see more wolves searching the plains and ravines, but they turned back. No one has come since.”
Relief hit me like a strong current. It pulled me down, and I sank into its embrace, closing my eyes and letting peace wash over me. I knew we couldn’t stay at the holy house forever. I’d have to devise another plan for the princesses. But at least for now I’d kept them from Ethelwulf and harm.
I wanted to ask Felicia more questions, hold her hand, and stare at her. But I was too exhausted from my fight with death, so I let sleep claim me.
I slept on and off for another three days. Sometimes, when I awoke, Felicia was at my side. More often, the older woman was present—a nun by the name of Sister Agnes. I learned she was a skilled physician and had saved my leg and life.
The moment the wolf had sunk its fangs into my flesh, I’d known the wound would be ugly. The teeth had ripped through muscle all the way to my bone. Sister Agnes had done her best to fend off putrefaction and repair the damage. But when I was finally strong enough to sit up and look at my calf, I realized I’d been very fortunate to remain standing and finish fighting the wolf, much less walk away.
“I have had a cane fashioned for you,” Sister Agnes said as she entered the low-ceilinged chamber where I’d been bedridden for the past week. It was just one of the many small rooms of the abbey that had been carved into the mountainside.
Due to blending in to its surroundings, the hideaway was invisible to the outside world. Additionally, the route to the holy place was nearly impossible to locate without insider help. Although I prided myself on my sense of direction and ability to find anything I set my mind to, we’d been fortunate Sister Katherine had seen us and come to our aid when she had.
Sister Agnes handed me a well-crafted cane made of blackthorn. But I didn’t take it. Instead, I stood and tried to put weight on my leg. Immediate throbbing enveloped my calf, so unbearable I had to sit back down, suddenly breathless.
“You need it, Lance,” Sister Agnes said firmly but not unkindly. Her pale skin glistened with a persistent sheen of perspiration, even in the coolness of the stone room.
I shook my head. “I’ll learn to get along without it.”
She lowered her hefty frame into the chair next to the bed. Twirling the crutch in her soft, healing hands, she leveled a frank look at me. “You will never be able to walk again without a limp.”
I flexed my leg and resisted the urge to cry out at the pain that was still so sharp. “I’m young and strong. With time, I’ll heal and be able to strengthen my muscles.”
“That is true,” she conceded. “But you will never regain the agility, speed, or strength you once had.”
Her words pierced me more than the pain in my leg. Without my agility, speed, and strength, I’d no longer be fit for the army, much less the king’s guard. Even though the king’s elite guard would no longer exist as it once had, there were others like me who would never submit to Ethelwulf, warriors who would go into hiding—perhaps flee to the country of Norland to the north—until the occasion was right to fight for the true heir. When that time came, I would be ready to rise up with the rest of my comrades in arms.
“You must resign yourself to some other purpose in life besides the army,” Sister Agnes said.
“I have no other purpose.” I couldn’t return to working in a smelter. I’d only put everyone around me at risk, particularly my family. As it was, I could only pray they’d receive my note encouraging them to hide, a note the nuns had assured me would reach my mother.
Sister Agnes twirled the cane again and then held it out to me. “Sometimes, when we think we’ve come to a dead end, we’ve arrived instead at God’s stepping-stone on the way to bigger plans.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with Sister Agnes. I’d worked hard for my position in the king’s guard, put myself through years of intense training. I was a warrior, and that’s what I wanted to remain.
Even so, I took the cane, placed it on the floor, and then rose, letting the sturdiness of it brace me. I didn’t want to be dependent on anyone or anything. I’d stood on my own for too long, and it galled me I had to rely on the cane, on Sister Agnes, or even on Felicia. But for now, I didn’t have a choice.
Before I could say more, the door opened and Felicia stepped inside. Her hair was windblown, her cheeks flushed, and her eyes bright. At the sight of her, my heartbeat began to ping like a hammer against hot metal. Of course, my thoughts returned to the kiss she’d initiated a few days ago. I’d relived it a dozen times, wishing it could happen again.
Ever since the kiss, she’d been slightly more reserved around me, as though she, too, was remembering the moment. But neither of us had said anything about it.
“How are the babes today?” I asked.
“They were awake for an hour this morning,” she said. “The longest time yet.”
Apparently, the first day we’d arrived, Felicia had admitted to the half dozen nuns who lived in the abbey that the girls were the royal princesses. She’d told me she’d had no choice, that the wise women had guessed as much the moment they’d spotted us from the lookout. A warrior and a beautiful noblewoman racing to safety together with two infants and a child? What other explanation was there?
I’d known we would need to divulge the information to the nuns at some point anyway. We wouldn’t have been able to keep up the peasant charade around them for long. They were too intelligent and would see right past it.
Besides, we needed their help in protecting the princesses. During the few days of lying abed, I’d formulated a dozen plans for what to do next, and I always came back to the option of leaving the girls here at St. Cuthbert’s. I hadn’t been able to search the premises yet, but from everything Felicia had told me and that I’d gleaned from my observations, I guessed this place was safer than most.
