The man pulled the leeches from Lady Margaret’s arm, dropped them into a little leather-bound box, then stepped away from the bed.
“You’ll need a glass of water.”
“Wine!” Lady Margaret commanded, and Nicholas handed her a tall silver goblet studded with rough-cut jewels.
Dougless was aware of the unnatural hush in the room, and suddenly she realized how brave Lady Margaret was. Or how dumb, she couldn’t help thinking, since she was taking medicine from a stranger. Dougless handed her a cold tablet. “Swallow it and in about twenty minutes it should work.”
“Mother,” Nicholas began, but Lady Margaret waved him away as she swallowed the capsule.
“If she is harmed, you will pay,” Nicholas said into Dougless’s ear, and Dougless swallowed. What if the Elizabethan body wasn’t ready for cold tablets? What if Lady Margaret was allergic?
Dougless stood where she was, still dripping water and beginning to shiver from cold. Her hair was plastered to her head, but no one had offered her a towel. No one in the room seemed to breathe as they looked at Lady Margaret lying against the embroidered pillows. Shifting nervously, Dougless became aware of another person in the room. Near the bed curtains was another woman. Dougless could just see the shape of her in a dress with a tight bodice above a full skirt.
When Dougless coughed, Nicholas, at the foot of the bed, gave her a sharp look.
It was the longest twenty minutes of Dougless’s life as she stood there, cold and nervous, and waited for the pill to take effect. When it did work, it worked quickly. Lady Margaret’s sinuses cleared and she lost that awful stuffy feeling of having a cold.
Lady Margaret sat up straighter, her eyes wide. “I am cured,” she said.
“Not really,” Dougless answered. “The pills just mask the symptoms. You should stay in bed and drink lots of orange juice . . . or whatever.”
The woman behind Dougless came bustling from the shadows, leaned over Lady Margaret, and tucked the covers around her.
“I am well, I tell you,” Lady Margaret said. “You! Go!” she said to the physician, and he backed out of the room. “Nicholas, take her, feed her, dry her, clothe her, and bring her to me on the morrow. Early.”
“I?” Nicholas said haughtily. “I?”
“You have found her, you are responsible for her. Now go.”
When Nicholas looked at Dougless, he curled his upper lip. “Come,” he said, and there was anger as well as distaste in his voice.
She followed him out of the room, and once they were in the hall, she said, “Nicholas, we must talk.”
He turned on her, still wearing that expression of distaste. “Nay, madam, we do not talk.” He arched one eyebrow. “And I am Sir Nicholas, Knight of the Realm.” Turning on his heel, he walked away.
“Sir Nicholas?” she asked. “Not Lord Nicholas?”
“I am but a knight. My brother is lord.”
Dougless stopped walking. “Brother? You mean Kit? Kit is alive?”
When Nicholas turned toward her, his face was distorted with rage. “I do not know who you are or how you come to know of my family, but I warn you, witch, you harm one person—should a hair on my mother’s head change color—and you will forfeit your life in payment. And do not think to use your witchcraft on my brother.”
He turned again and started walking. Dougless followed, but she didn’t say anything. Great, just great, she thought. She’d come all the way back across four hundred years to save Nicholas’s head, and all he could do was threaten to kill her. How was she going to make him listen?
They went upstairs to the top floor, and Nicholas threw open a door. “You sleep here.”
She stepped inside. This was no pretty room filled with treasures. It was a cell with one tiny window high up on the wall, and little more than a lumpy mattress in a corner, with a filthy wool blanket on top. “I can’t stay here,” Dougless said, horrified. But when she turned, she saw that Nicholas had left the room and shut the door behind him. She heard a key turn in a lock.
She yelled and pounded on the heavy door, but he didn’t open it. “You bastard!” she shouted, then slid down the door to the floor. “You rotten bastard,” she whispered, alone in the dark room.
TWENTY - TWO
No one came to release Dougless that night or the next morning. She had no water, no food, and very little light. There was an old wooden bucket in a corner, and she assumed this was to relieve herself in. She tried lying on the mattress, but within minutes she felt little things crawling on her skin. Clawing herself, she jumped out of the bed and pressed herself against the cold stone wall.
She could tell when morning came only because the room changed to a lighter shade of gloom. During the long night she’d scratched at whatever was on her skin so much that places were bleeding. Expectantly, she waited for someone to release her. Lady Margaret had said she wanted to see Dougless early. But no one came.
By holding her arm up to a narrow ray of light coming in through the window, she could see her wristwatch, and if it was set correctly for Elizabethan time, at noon still no one had come to release her.