I HAD BEEN CONCENTRATING too hard on the king to sense Sir Peter’s approach. He leaned on the big worktable for support.
How would he greet me?
I hoped no one noticed I was trembling.
And tingling.
He bowed to Lady Eleanor, a half bow because of weakness. When his head came up, he smiled at her—the same loving smile he’d once beamed at me.
She blushed.
I gripped the purpline jug hard enough, seemingly, to soften the metal. I imagined slamming it into his smile.
His eyes moved on. For me and Squire Jerrold, he had an equable nod—as if I were any healer and neither an ogre nor someone he’d romanced.
Did he believe I’d understand he had to behave this way in this circumstance and that he loved not the comely Lady Eleanor, but me, who’d first claimed his heart?
I gripped my common sense. I wasn’t an idiot!
He turned to the king, and his smile blazed again. “Majesty! Indeed, all of us are alive. How happy I am to find you awake and yourself again.”
“As I am to see you.” He waved his hand feebly in front of his nose. “What is that?”
My odor.
After a moment, he added, “Have many died?”
None of us knew. Squire Jerrold volunteered to collect information.
I curtsied. “Sire, I’ll make a tea with herbs to help restore you.” I crossed the room, stirred up the embers in the stove, added wood, and filled a kettle and placed it on the stove, a newfangled one, such as the master had.
Lady Eleanor told the king that I’d also saved Sir Peter and others. “Mistress Evie is the hero of Frell.”
I couldn’t hate her.
I found cups in an open cabinet, took one and, on second thought, another. Evidently, I couldn’t yet hate Sir Peter, either. Into both mugs, I spooned the same herbs from my carpetbag.
Squire Jerrold coughed. “The hero of Kyrria and Frell.”
“How did she save us? What was the remedy?”
Squire Jerrold said, “Purpline.”
“That’s dragon urine, isn’t it?” The king’s face reddened alarmingly. “Urine!”
Hoping to improve matters, I said, “You’ve probably had it before, Your Highness. When it’s available, healers put it in physics and tonics.”
King Imbert was unappeased. “That I’ve had it unknowingly doesn’t comfort me. Sir Titus would have found another way to cure me. Does anyone know if he’s all right? I’d like his opinion.”
Rather than an ogre’s.
The kettle whistled. I poured the tea and let it steep.
Trunk came in. “I used up the purpli—” He saw the king. “Oh! Oh! He’s alive. Beg pardon. Long live the king!” He bowed.
Lady Eleanor said, “I don’t know where Sir Titus is. Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, I didn’t see him dashing from chamber to chamber as Mistress Evie did, restoring people to life.”
Sir Peter said smoothly, “If she saved only you, Sire, we’d be in her debt forever.”
In that case, he wouldn’t be in anyone’s debt. He’d be dead.
King Imbert seemed to like flattery (as I had, too). “Thank you, Peter, but a monarch needs subjects. I’m grateful to you”—he took in my dress—“er, Mistress Ogre.”
I curtsied. “Evie. Mistress Evie.”
King Imbert waved his hands across his nose again.
“Shall I open a window?” Squire Jerrold asked. “Will that be safe, Mistress Evie?”
I knew he wanted the answer to be yes for his own sake. “If we start a fire.”
Squire Jerrold cranked open two casements, then added logs and kindling to the fireplace, while Sir Peter did nothing to help. I judged the tea ready and carried mugs to him and the king.
King Imbert hesitated.
Sir Peter drank. He tilted his head appraisingly. “Fenuce, ginger, camphor. You’ll taste the camphor first, Sire. Sharp but not impossible. Any more ingredients, Mistress Evie?”
He had discernment, one of the compliments he’d paid me. “Mugwort, which elf healers use. Majesty, the ingredients will strengthen you and increase your appetite.”
Trunk recounted how he’d been Twig before I’d intervened. “Mistress Ogre, should the king drink ginger sheep’s milk, too? Your Highness, that’s what she dosed me with.”
King Imbert looked amused.
“When His Majesty is more recovered,” I said, “sheep’s milk will benefit him greatly.”
The king sipped his tea. “If anyone sees Sir Titus, please send him to me.”
I left the kitchen to treat others.
While I was gone, the king was helped to his bedchamber, as Trunk told me later. When I returned, I commandeered a corner of the enormous kitchen as my infirmary. Trunk kept broth and tea hot for my patients and cooked roasts for me. The castle cook and both her undercooks had died, so he was also preparing food for everyone, assisted by three kitchen maids.
Squire Jerrold and his knight, Sir Stephan, and others brought the afflicted to me. Servants carried in mattresses and blankets. Several stayed to watch me work. People couldn’t have failed to notice that I was an ogre, but no one seemed to care—except that the corpses were carried away immediately, before, as my onlookers may have feared, I could eat them.
My supply of purpline ran out in two days, and making patients better became slow and uncertain.
My almost constant companion was Lady Eleanor, the only child of the duke and duchess of Evesby. Lady Eleanor didn’t let rank get in the way of being useful. If I needed a hot compress, she had it. If a patient shivered, she fetched another blanket. After a patient died—one I’d thought would live—she saw my distress and, with no disgust that I could detect, stroked my arm. I never saw her wave her hand in front of her nose.
When she’d gone that first night, I asked Trunk if he could find out whether or not she and Sir Peter were wed.
He left the kitchen and returned a few minutes later. “I asked two chambermaids, and they didn’t mind telling me that Sir Peter is a single gentleman.” He chuckled. “One said, ‘Sir Peter calls my spirit sweet.’”
As he’d called mine.