Zypheria's Call (A Tanyth Fairport Adventure) Read Free Page B

looked to Tanyth. “Willow bark tea?”
    Tanyth sighed but nodded. The sharp pain in her arm throbbed with each beat of her heart and she tried to think of anything else. Even the bitter taste of willow bark would distract her.
    “How wet do we want this, mum? Pasty?”
    “Make a thick paste of it. Soak the bandages in the water before you wrap me.”
    Sadie and Amber nodded and set to their tasks, Amber fishing the hot, soggy herb out of the pot and placing it in the cheese cloth that Sadie held open above a bowl. The gray-green liquid dribbled into the bowl with a faint splashing sound.
    The back door burst open, startling them all. The sudden flinch made Tanyth wince. Frank strode into the kitchen, his eyes raking the room.
    In three strides he knelt beside her chair, his gaze alternating between the swollen, discolored limb on the work surface and her face. “You fell down?”
    She laughed in spite of herself and rubbed her head with her free hand. “Bumped my head, too.”
    He leaned over to look at her scalp but didn’t touch it. “Got quite an egg there.”
    She nodded, the rum making her at once giddy and drowsy as her body’s reaction to the emergency passed and the two women finished constructing the poultice.
    “Stand back, Frank,” Sadie said. “We need to get this on her arm.”
    “What is it?” he asked, even as he rocked back and stepped out of the way.
    “It’s called bone stitch,” Tanyth said, steeling herself for the heat and pressure that would probably hurt.
    “Can I help?” he asked.
    Amber tutted and shooed Frank out of the way with backward flicks of her fingers. “Go clean the barn or something. She’s not going anywhere for half an hour or more. Come back then and you can help her get home.”
    “That’d be a trick,” Tanyth muttered considering that she didn’t really have a home at the moment.
    “You hush,” Sadie said. “That rum’ll turn you into a chatterbox and you don’t wanna be sayin’ things you’re gonna regret later.”
    Tanyth blinked and looked at Sadie. “How much did you give me?”
    Sadie poured another dollop into Tanyth’s mug. “One more shot oughta do it.” She thrust the mug into Tanyth’s free hand and lifted it up to her mouth. “Drink up. Doctor’s orders.”
    While Amber and Sadie positioned the soggy mass along the length of Tanyth’s arm, she up-ended the mug and felt rum roll over her tongue and burn down her throat. “Much more of that and I’m going to pass out.”
    “We don’t want that now, and not so much as to make you sick, either, mum, but you need to go lay down in a bit. That’ll help keep you in bed.”
    Tanyth grinned. “Oh, I think Frank can keep me in bed jes’ fine on his own.”
    The two younger women giggled. “I’m sure he can, mum, but you’ll need to be careful about that arm for a day or twelve until it’s had a chance to start knitting,” Sadie said.
    Tanyth felt her eyes blinking slowly as she tried to think about Sadie’s words, peering down at the hot poultice resting on her arm. Even the faint weight of it made the bone throb but the heat and moisture felt good on the swollen flesh.
    “Be better cold, fer swellin’,” Tanyth said. “Never snow around when you need it.”
    Amber giggled. “Not much ice this time o’ year either, mum.”
    “You just relax, mum,” Sadie said, and patted her good shoulder. “You’ll be right as rain in a few weeks.”
    Tanyth looked down at her splinted and poulticed arm. “This isn’t good.”
    “No, mum. Looks like you’re going to be stayin’ a bit longer than you planned,” Amber said.
    Tanyth frowned at that. “Can’t. Gotta get north.”
    Sadie poured Tanyth’s mug full of tea and placed it on the table within easy reach. “That may be, mum, but you can’t go anywhere with your arm the way it is, so you may as well sit back and enjoy it.”
    “Hurts,” Tanyth said glaring at it.
    “It’ll do that for a few days,” Amber said. “Then