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She shook her head. “If he’s alive, we must do what we can for him. He saved my life.”
* * *
After handing Adelina a small pot fished out of a bag slung across his body, Godric trudged away and disappeared over the crest of the hill.
Roland had to admire Terric’s sister. She didn’t flinch as she knelt by Mandeville and examined his deep wounds. “He’s no longer bleeding, which is a good sign,” she announced. “However, there’s a risk of fever if he’s lain out here on the damp ground all night.”
“It’s ironic the wolf’s body may have kept him from freezing,” Terric remarked.
Mandeville’s throat was so badly mauled, Roland deemed it a miracle the man could even breathe, albeit the occasional intake of air sounded like a death rattle.
Adelina opened the pot and sniffed. “Godric said it’s wool grease—from his sheep,” she explained, wrinkling her nose. “He told me to smear it on the wounds.”
“To seal them against infection, perhaps,” Terric suggested, his hands pressing on Mandeville’s shoulders to prevent him from writhing.
Adelina scooped some of the grease out of the pot with her fingers and gingerly daubed it on the lacerations on the soldier’s face and neck. Roland had witnessed men suffer horrendous wounds in battle, but had to look away lest his belly rebel. Adelina, on the other hand, seemed concerned only with tending to the gruesome injuries.
“I think the blood on his tabard is from the wolf,” she said after smoothing her hands over the stricken man’s body. “However, both hands are badly scratched and his thigh has suffered a deep wound.”
By the time she’d smeared grease on Mandeville’s hands and thigh—too close to his privates for any man’s comfort—Roland quivered with jealousy. It was lunacy to be envious of a dying man, but he wasn’t feeling very rational. Adelina was lavishing too much loving care on a soldier who’d delivered her into the hands of evildoers. Not to mention he’d left Roland and Terric tied up at the mercy of a hungry sow.
“Found it,” Terric shouted from a few yards away. He held the dowry chest high above his head in triumph. “He’d secreted it between two of the broken pillars.”
Roland tensed when Mandeville’s eyes flickered open for the first time. The soldier’s mouth moved, but no sound emerged.
“Don’t try to speak, Harcourt,” Adelina said softly.
Jaw clenched, Roland got up and walked away, glad of the distraction of Godric coming back over the hill dragging some sort of contraption. As he came closer, Roland realized the resourceful fellow had fashioned a litter from young trees lashed together with twine.
Clearly, confusion over his feelings for Adelina had turned Roland into a thoughtless nitwit. Everyone else had done their part in trying to save a dying man, except him.
