Page 58 of Historical Hotties
There were alreadymen trickling into the great hall.
Dacia was ready for them. She knew that, with any battle, there needed to be a place to tend the wounded and that logical place was the great hall. In the skirmishes she could remember from the past, she seemed to recall the servants setting up an infirmary in the great hall with the help of Mother Mary. Dacia had been quite young at the time and didn’t remember much of it, but she knew enough to know that men would be returning from battle soon, some of them injured, and she had to have a place to put them.
Already, men were trickling in, mostly with bloody head and upper body wounds, and she put those with more severe wounds closer to the hearth and tended them first. Edie was with her, as was Fulco and her maids, and between the eight of them, the men were well covered.
Argos the dog was also in the hall, mostly following Dacia around, and she was learning to ignore him. It seemed thathe simply wanted to follow her about so she let him, and the casualties were light, so he wasn’t in the way. But Dacia was coming to believe that the fight hadn’t been too terrible because of the limited wounded. In fact, it was so light that her grandfather went to bed. He didn’t see any need to stay up and help, not even to manage his castle’s own defenses.
That left everyone else at Doncaster overseeing the safety of the fortress and with Dacia in charge of the wounded, everything was organized brilliantly. Men were receiving the best of care. When one of Darian’s knights was brought in with a myriad of wounds, he was put in a more secluded area of the hall so he could have some privacy.
Dacia was tending to the knight when she caught sight of someone entering the hall through the servants’ alcove. She thought it was another servant until she glanced up again and caught sight of Amata.
Immediately, she returned her attention to the knight, who had several puncture wounds and what she suspected to be a broken jaw. She’d brought her medicament bag with her, which included a sewing kit, and she finished sewing up the last puncture wound on the knight’s hip with very fine silk thread. The knight was young, and trying hard to be brave, and she had one of the servants bring the man some beef broth. With his jaw, he didn’t have to chew it, so she was just packing her things up when Amata approached.
“What happened?” she said, looking around the hall with shock. “Why are these men wounded?”
Dacia wasn’t ready to play nice yet. She continued putting her things away. “There was a raid in the village,” she said. “The men rode out to chase them away. Some were wounded as a result.”
Amata was still wide-eyed. “The chamber I am in faces the rear of the castle,” she said. “I did not know this was going on until I heard some of the servants speaking of it. Can I help?”
Truth be told, it would be nice for her help, but Dacia wasn’t sure just how much help Amata was capable of. She didn’t like blood or dirt, and she had never seen her cousin work very hard at anything other than attracting men, so she thought carefully on her answer.
“If you can go to each man and see if he would like something warm to drink or some broth, that would be helpful,” she said. “They should not eat anything solid, like meat, so only liquid for now. You can help the men who cannot eat very well. Can you do this?”
Amata nodded. “I can,” she said. Then, she started looking around again. “Where is Cousin Vincent?”
“He has gone to bed.”
Amata looked at her curiously. “He did not stay to help his own men?”
Dacia shrugged. “You know that he does not like war,” she said. “He has never been comfortable with it. He provides the money and the titles and lets other men do the fighting.”
Amata simply nodded, looking around at the men nearest her. “Where should I begin?”
“Anywhere. Just pick any man and start with him.”
Dacia started to move away, but Amata stopped her. “CeeCee,” she said. “I… I am sorry I became angry with you. I really did come to Edenthorpe to see you.”
Dacia paused, looking at her cousin. The hurt and humiliation from Amata’s treatment still hadn’t vanished. “You came to see Cassius,” she said. “Amata, I know you. I know how you think. Lying to me is only going to make this worse, so do not think I will fall for your false apologies any longer. The onlyway we will find forgiveness is if you are completely honest with me.”
Amata frowned as if she were going to become angry again. “I’d hoped to see him,” she said. “I will not deny that. But I wanted to see you, too. I did not come here only hoping to see Sir Cassius, but now I see that my efforts were in vain. His focus is on you.”
Dacia was careful in her answer. “His focus isnoton me,” she said. “He has simply been kind to me, much as he was kind to you at the Lords of Misrule feast, but the difference is that I did not follow him to someone else’s castle. If he had wanted you to come to him, he would have sent for you.”
Amata was beginning to lose her temper. She had come into the hall perfectly calm and willing to forget about their earlier argument, mostly because she knew Dacia had been right. But her willingness to be humble only went so far.
“How would you even know what a man wants?” she demanded. “You have never known a man in your life.”
“And you have known too many.”
Amata didn’t have the restraint she’d had earlier when Cassius had been witnessing everything. She and Dacia had experienced plenty of arguments in their lifetime together and Amata had always emerged the victor. Lifting her hand, she slapped Dacia across the face, not hard enough to really hurt, but the message was obvious. She didn’t want Dacia to gain the upper hand. She wanted her to shut her mouth and be submissive like she usually was.
But Dacia wasn’t having any of it. Feeling the throb of Amata’s slap on her cheek, she set her bag down, turned fully to Amata, and slapped her so hard that the woman toppled over onto a chair behind her. Amata ended up sitting in the chair, her hand to her stinging cheek and looking at Dacia as if the woman had just done something horribly wrong.
Dacia’s eyes narrowed.
“Hit me again and I shall give it back to you stronger than you can imagine,” she said. “I am tired of being your pawn, your obedient dog, and anything else that strikes your fancy. You are a petty, vain, and terrible girl, Amata. I told you I did not want to see you anymore. I meant it.”
Amata rubbed her cheek, her eyes spitting daggers at her cousin. “You are wicked,” she hissed. “Everything Mother Mary said about you was right– youarea demon. The devil has taken you over!”
