Page 31 of By the Sword
With his eyes still fixed on Kate, Prescott said. ‘I’ll bid you goodnight, Master Rowe…Mistress.’
He gave a cursory bow and turned on his heel, the two troopers following.
William shut the door behind them and bolted it. He looked up at Kate, and she read the concern in his usually bluff, cheerful face.
Chapter 9
Kate set down the tray she carried and crossed to the bed where Ellen leaned over the wounded man who muttered and tossed in a restless, feverish sleep.
‘Mary!’
The name was uttered with such anguish that both women took a step backward. Jonathan’s eyes opened wide but unfocussed as he struggled to sit up. Ellen gently eased him back against the bolsters. He turned his head from side to side, muttering incoherently.
‘I wonder who Mary is,’ Kate remarked more to herself than Ellen.
Ellen laid a damp cloth on Jonathan’s forehead and shook her head. ‘Whoever she is, I don’t think that they’re happy memories.’
Jonathan knocked the cloth aside and his eyes flickered open, this time with the light of lucidity.
‘Kate?’ He frowned in an effort to concentrate and reached up to touch her face. His fingers brushed her mouth and she caught his hand and held it fast. ‘I found a copy of Shakespeare’s sonnets. I…I must have dropped it.’
‘Another time, Jonathan.’ She pressed his hand to her breast and bit back the threatening tears. Exhaustion, that was all.
‘Are you crying?’ he asked.
‘Of course not,’ she snapped. ‘We’ve stopped the bleeding and Ellen has patched you up as well as any doctor. Now we need you to get some sleep.’
Ellen hovered at her elbow with a beaker.
‘Drink this,’ Kate said. ‘We found some laudanum. It will help.’
Kate raised his head and held the cup to his lips. He drank the liquid and she laid him back on the bolsters.
She stroked the back of his hand. ‘Try and sleep now. We will need you in the morning if we’re to get you away from York.’
Jonathan’s fingers tightened on hers. ‘I’ll be fine in the morning, you’ll see,’ he muttered as his eyes closed.
***
Long after midnight, Kate paced the downstairs parlour.
‘What are we to do, William? We must get him away from York. You saw that man Prescott. If he even begins to suspect…’ Her voice tailed off and she turned to traverse the length of the room again.
William rose to his feet and put a hand on her arm to still her. He handed her a glass of his best Canary and she drank the sweet wine almost in one gulp, feeling her taut nerves begin to loosen.
‘Prescott’ll have the gates well guarded,’ William said. ‘I don’t see as how it will be easy to get a wounded man past ’em.’ He sat in his chair and toyed with the wine. ‘Now I brought the wool clipin on a wagon that’s got to go back to Barton. If we were to leave the city with it…’
Kate looked up at him. ‘What do you have in mind?’
William’s eyes twinkled mischievously. ‘As long as your lad, Tom, can play along, I’ve a thought or two that might work…’
Together they conceived a fragile plan and at dawn, Kate slipped into the small bedchamber where they had put Jonathan for the night. Ellen sat beside him, dozing in her chair. She looked up as Kate entered and stood, easing her back.
‘How is he?’ Kate asked.
Ellen looked down at her patient. ‘Well as can be expected.’
‘He has to do better than that.’ Kate said with determination. She leaned over the bed. ‘Jonathan. Wake up.’
