“You look like a monstrous, beautiful great angel,” cried he. Her hand was on his pulse. He was as pleased and soothed as a naughty infant when it is lifted from its cradle and nursed.
She stood, and seemed encircled by the fragrance of the sacrificed cup, lavender and thyme and other sweet and wholesome herbs.
She thought he wandered, yet his pulse was steadying down under her finger into a very reasonable pace for a convalescent. She looked down at him with puzzled eyes.
“What is it, my lord?”
“Prithee,” said he, “though you live so quiet here, my maid, and keep your secrets so well, you would have known, would you not, had there been a death at the castle?”
“Surely, my lord,” she said, and bent closer to comfort him. “Nay, it must be that you have the fever again, I fear. Nay, all is well with your kinsfolk. Mall, haste thee with another cup of the drink. Is the wound painful, my good lord, and how goes it with the breathing?”
As he bent he caught her great plait in both his hands and held it so that she could not straighten herself.
“It would go vastly better,” cried he, “I should breathe with infinite more ease, my sweet nurse, and forget that I had ever had a gaping hole to burn the side of me, could you but tell me that there had been even a trifle of sickness at the house beyond. Come, my sword was red, you know! It was not red for nothing! Was not Master Leech sent for in haste to draw more blood? The excellent physician, thou mindest, who helped thy worthy father so pleasantly from this world.”
She would have drawn from him in soft sorrow and shame, for she understood now, but that his weak fingers plucked her back. Truly there seemed to be a devil in his eyes. Yet she was too tender of him not to humor him, as the mother her spoiled child.
“Hast heard, Mall, of aught amiss at the castle?” quoth she, turning her head to address the old woman at the fire.