Page 89 of The Knucker King

For three days, Avice, Trewoofe, Bramble, and Ashling were lulled into a domestic routine while they waited out the snowstorm. For the first time in her whole life, the midwife rested, allowing her body to recover from the frenzied weeks before and the presence of her courses.

When she did not nap in Trewoofe’s arms, Avice pottered around her cottage. She tidied and restocked her medical satchel, organised her herbs and tinctures, planned meals from their dwindling reserves, washed the bandages and her linen scraps, and prepared floral offerings for the Faeries when – she hoped – they would arrive for the Equinox ritual; when she would dance at Spring’s beginning to bless the yields of the woods and fields of Lamorna.

Trewoofe was her shadow. Her ever willing, and often underfoot, assistant. He learnt quickly, gaining knowledge that had never left the women of her bloodline. He could now name each plant she had in her herbarium and their uses in medicine. Yet, other things alluded him: the use of cutlery befuddled him, he could not bear to wear anything on his feet, and he often banged his horns on the beams of the cottage.

By the third evening, after their meal, Avice had Trewoofe sit on the pallet so she could remove the bandages on his arms and torso.

She sat back, astonished. “All of the stitches can come out, except the newest three here.” She brushed the bottom of the largest wound with her fingertip.

“So, I am healed?” Trewoofe asked, allowing himself to be guided into a lying position.

As usual, Avice rolled up a pelt to help ease the discomfort that his horns put on the angle of his neck. “Not quite. I will leave the last three in and cover this part again.” She patted his belly. “As for the rest of you? It will scar, like this old one.”

She trailed over the ancient scar down his midline, from the top of his chest to just above his groin. Trewoofe had said nothing about it during their time together, and she had not asked. He said he would tell her when he was ready, and she was prepared to wait.

Trewoofe caught her fingers. Intertwining them with his own, his claws pressing into the back of her wrist. Their faces met, and Avice felt the unfathomable sadness shifting in his eyes.

His throat bobbed. “I will tell you while you work.”

Avice nodded and extracted herself from his grip. She was silent as she rifled through her medical satchel on the pallet side, and extracted a tiny, sharp copper knife.

“I had a soul-bound. Lindana. She was kind, intelligent, fierce, and beautiful; all I could ask for in a mate and mother to my Knuckerlings,” Trewoofe began, his voice thick.

The midwife focused on her work while she listened. She snipped the first stitch and pulled it free with a swish. She had a cloth prepared to catch any oozing blood from the minuscule thread holes, but none came.

“It happened many, many turns of seasons ago. When my daughters, Dalinda and Branna, were old enough to come down from Knucker Hill, Lindana and I took them to play in the woods. I did not think of moving through the trees unseen. We had never had to before.”

He stifled a sob.

Avice placed her knife beside her and reached to cup his face, rubbing away the tears that ran down his sharp cheekbones.

They were silver, just like his blood.

Trewoofe closed his eyes and nuzzled into her touch, his lips brushing her palm. “I thought they would be safe with their mother when I went to hunt. Lindana was larger, older, stronger, faster, and smarter than me.” He wept into her skin. “But brooding and hatching our daughters had weakened her more then I understood. She had not wanted to come outside yet, but I did not listen to her and insisted. I said that the Sun on their scales would benefit all three of them. I was young, impatient, and keen to show Dalinda and Branna the world.”

Trewoofe turned his face away.

His chest rose and fell several times. Avice returned to her work, a lump in her throat, while she waited for him to continue. Several snips echoed through the cottage, mingling with the sound of the crackling hearth. Bramble plonked his chin onto the end of the pallet, eyes wide and watching. Ashling landed on his head, both intent on listening to the King’s story.

“I left them in a clearing nearby,” he continued, voice raw.

Avice cut the final stitch she planned to remove that night and gently spoke, “That was the last one for now, Lord.”

He turned his face back to her. Rivers of silver ran down to his sharp chin. She reached and wiped them away with her cloth.

“Do not feel like you must tell the whole story. If it is too hard, I understand.”

“I want to tell you,” Trewoofe replied.

“Sit up and raise your arms, please,” Avice instructed. “I need to bandage here again.” She grazed her fingers down the side of his remaining stitches, making his skin twitch.

He did as he was told, and Avice looped the fresh, clean bandages around his lower belly. She pushed a single crystal against the wound, and completed her task with a final layer, tying it all off with a tight knot.

She gave him a soft smile. “All done. You can lower your arms now.”

Trewoofe dropped his hands into his lap, chin tucked to his chest.

Hesitantly, not sure whether it would help, Avice shifted to her knees and shuffled closer to him. She reached up to him and stroked calming lines between his horns and down the back of his head to the nape of his neck.