The chill bit through my wool cloak as I stepped out of my cottage, the hinges groaning in protest. Winter clung stubbornly to the forest, frosting the stone path that wound toward my apothecary hut. My breath fogged in the air as I adjusted the satchel across my shoulder—already heavy with fresh tinctures for the day's patients.
I'd taken three steps when the sound stopped me cold.
A groan, the guttural sound of a man clinging to consciousness .
My boots crunched on frozen leaves as I veered off the path, following the noise to the base of a maple tree. The stranger lay half-curled in the roots, one arm clutched across his abdomen. A dark stain spreading between his fingers.
Blood. Too much of it.
"Easy," I murmured, kneeling beside him. The scent hit me first—blood and sweat and something herbal beneath it. Not local. "Let me see."
His hand shot out, clamping around my wrist with surprising strength. His eyes—a striking blue against his ashen face his eyes stared into mine. "I don't need a healer ."
I wrenched free from his grip . "Lucky for you, I'm an apothecary."
Pushing aside his torn tunic revealed a laceration below his ribs. The edges were jagged , the flesh an angry red. Not fresh. A day old, perhaps. And poorly treated, the sticky paste smeared over it an obvious indication.
"Who patched you up? A lazy seamstress? "
His lips moved weakly . "Did it myself."
I snorted, already rummaging in my sack . "That explains the stitching." The wound had started to fester , pus mixing with a green goey paste,i guessee it was the paste he used as first aid .
Foxglove leaves, mandrake root and some maple syrup. My hands worked fast mixing the roots in my little mortar with a few drops of willow bark tincture. The stranger watched through hazy eyes as I took some tincture to apply to the wound.
"This will hurt."
He flinched as the mixture met raw flesh, hissing as I pressed the mixture in.
A knife wound ?" I asked, covering the wound with some maple leaves.
His breathing had evened slightly. "Something like that."
The first rays of sunlight pierced the trees, glinting off something at his belt. A knife hilted in his shoulder pocket.
.
I sat back on my heels. "You'll be fine . Try not to exert yourself too much." Standing, I brushed dirt from my skirts. "My hut's just up the path if the fever returns."
He caught my wrist, but gently this time. His palm rough and calloused, warm despite the cold morning. "Why?" He asked
I shrugged "because its the right thing to do "
"You're so kind,bless your parents "
I smiled at him and turned toward the hut, where a line of patients already waited in the dawn light. I didn't look back.
But I felt his eyes on me all the way to my hut