No Dark Place by Joan Wolf Read Free Book Online Page A

the keep.
    Hugh followed, clammy and shivering and sick, his head thundering with pain.
    They entered through a large door, out of the hot sunshine and into a cooler hall.
    Hugh shut his eyes.
    When he opened them again, a young girl was standing in front of him. “My daughter, Cristen,” Nigel was saying.
    Hugh looked down into a pair of enormous brown eyes. They looked back clearly and then a quiet, low-pitched voice said, “You’re ill. What is wrong?”
    “It’s nothing,” Hugh said. “A headache. It has made me rather dizzy, that’s all.”
    A small hand closed competently around his wrist. “Come with me,” Nigel’s daughter said.
    Hugh went.
    She took him across the hall, through two doors, and into a small bedroom.
    “You must get out of that mail,” she said. “I’ll send someone to help you.”
    Hugh clenched his teeth against the bile he could feel rising in his throat. He would not be sick in front of this girl. He would not .
    She handed him a bowl.
    “Go ahead,” she said practically. “You’ll probably feel better once you clear out your stomach.”
    Unfortunately, at this point he had no choice. He gagged, and then the whole of his midday meal came burning up through his throat and into the basin.
    When he was finished, she took the mess away from him.
    “Here is William,” she said quietly. “He will help you out of your mail. Then get into bed.”
    A young boy came forward and Hugh endured the removal of his mail coif and hauberk, his spurs and leather boots. Finally, when he was clad in only his shirt and leggings, he managed to say, “Thank you,” and to crawl mercifully into bed.
    The agony did not lessen. If anything, it was getting worse. He shut his eyes against the pale light in the room.
    The quiet voice of Nigel’s daughter said, “Try to drink this. It might help.”
    He would drink scalding pitch if it would help.
    He pushed himself up onto his elbow and swallowed the liquid in the cup she was holding to his lips. Then he lay back down again.
    “I have some cold cloths for your forehead,” the girl said.
    “Thank you. I’m sorry to be such a nuisance.”
    “Don’t be foolish,” she said, and placed something cold on his head.
    He shut his eyes again. “Thank you,” he said.
    She didn’t reply, but once again he felt her fingers on his wrist. This time she was feeling his pulse.
    After a minute, she released his hand and said, “Are you often subject to headaches?”
    “No,” he replied in a voice that sounded very far away. “This is the first time.”
    “It will pass,” she said reassuringly. “I have seen this kind of headache before and I promise you that it will pass.”
    “When?” he asked desperately.
    “Within a few hours. Perhaps sooner.”
    The pain had begun to throb with the beating of his pulse. How could he stand hours more of this?
    “Do you want me to go away?” she asked. “Or do you want me to stay?”
    And Hugh, who had thought he wanted nothing more in the world than to be alone, heard himself saying, “Stay.”
    The headache lifted two hours later. There was the slight sensation of a hum in his head, and then,suddenly and absolutely, the pain receded and disappeared.
    Slowly he opened his eyes. “It’s gone,” he said in amazement.
    The girl, who had been sitting beside him, periodically replenishing the cold cloths on his forehead, stood up.
    “Thank God,” she said simply.
    He moved his head back and forth on the pillow, testing to see whether or not the pain would return.
    Nothing.
    He drew in a deep, unsteady breath and let it out again.
    “You will be all right now,” the girl said. “I have seen these headaches before. When the pain finally goes away, it does not come back.”
    She reached out and removed the cold cloth that was still lying on his forehead.
    Hugh looked up, and for the first time he really saw the girl who had been taking care of him.
    She was young, sixteen perhaps, and she was lovely. Her face