Medieval 03 - Enchanted

it?”
    “Aye.”
    “And?”
    “She seems…” Simon hesitated.
    “What?” asked Cassandra sharply.
    “She seems almost to enjoy it.”
    Cassandra’s grey eyes gleamed.
“Excellent. And you?”
    “I?”
    “Does the balm please you as well?”
    Simon gave the healer a sideways glance.
    Cassandra simply waited, saying nothing.
    “Aye, it pleases me,” Simon said,
“if that matters.”
    The Learned woman tilted her head and smiled.
“It matters, Simon.”
    “Why?”
    “The balm was exactly blended to enhance all
that is Ariane.”
    “Midnight, moonrise, roses, a storm,”
Simon said, looking back at his wife. “Ariane.”
    “Has she awakened?” Cassandra
asked.
    “Almost.”
    Cassandra went to the bed, watched Ariane for a
moment, then shook her head slowly.
    “She won’t fully awaken this day, nor
even on the morrow,” the Learned woman said.
    “In the past two days, she follows my touch
as though more awake than asleep. Sometimes I almost believe she
understands my words.”
    “She may.”
    Simon gave the Learned woman a quick glance.
    “’Tis the balm,” Cassandra said
simply. “It reaches past what we know of the world to another
place, a place where waking and sleeping are combined. It is a
special kind of dreaming.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    Cassandra almost smiled. “Ariane will awaken
feeling as though she has dreamed deeply. And within the dream, she
will also feel deeply. As will you.”
    “Will she feel pain?” Simon asked
sharply.
    “Nay, unless you intend it.”
    “Never. She has suffered enough on my
behalf.” Simon hesitated. “Will she remember aught
else?”
    “Such as?”
    “Disgust at my touch,” he said
bluntly.
    “Are you disgusted to be touching her?”
Cassandra asked.
    “No.”
    “Does she seem to draw away when you touch
her?”
    “She draws closer.”
    “Excellent,” Cassandra said succinctly.

“She progresses.”
    Simon stroked Ariane’s long, loose hair in
silence fora time. As had happened before, she
turned her face toward him, taking ease from his touch.
    “Will Ariane remember what she dreamed when
she awakens?” Simon asked.
    “Very few do. Healing dreams
are…” Cassandra shrugged. “Such dreams are very
different from ordinary sleep.”
    When Cassandra turned away to stoke the fire, Simon
picked up the herbs she had brought with her. He sniffed each
packet carefully. When he was satisfied that the correct medicine
lay within, he rubbed a bit of each herb delicately between thumb
and forefinger, sniffed, tasted, waited for five breaths, and then
either accepted or rejected the mix.
    “The yarrow is a bit musty,” Simon said
at one point.
    “You have a very keen nose. I have sent for
more yarrow. Until it comes, ’tis better to have some a bit
musty than none at all.”
    Simon’s mouth drew down at one corner, but he
said nothing. He mixed some of the herbs into water that had been
heated on the brazier. Under Cassandra’s watchful eyes, he
picked up a mortar and pestle, added various herbs, and ground them
to dust with efficient, powerful strokes. The resulting powder was
worked into a pungent salve.
    Throughout the room, the smell of the fires in the
brazier and hearth gave way to the complex interplay of medicinal
herbs and fragrant balm. Simon’s nostrils flared subtly,
testing the salve for any false or overly potent scent. He rubbed
some of the balm on the tender skin inside his wrist and
waited.
    No burning arose. No itching. Nothing to suggest
that the salve would do anything except what it was supposed to do.
Heal.
    “You are very careful of your unwanted
wife,” Cassandra said after a time.
    Simon threw her a black, slanting glance and said
nothing.
    “Many men in your position would have been
happy enough to make a token effort and then flee,” the
Learned woman added.
    “I am not a coward, madam.”
    Though soft, the words cut like an ice-tipped
wind.
    “Your bravery is well-known,” Cassandra
said calmly. “No man would have raised a question if you had
failed to save your wife from the rogue knight who had slain
better-armed and more numerous enemies than you.”
    “Is there a point to this?” Simon asked
in a low, impatient voice.
    “Simple curiosity.”
    “There is nothing simple about Learned
curiosity.”
    The tone of Simon’s voice penetrated
Ariane’s hazy awareness. She turned restlessly. Her fingers
tightened on his hand as though afraid he would withdraw.
    “Exercise your curiosity