Aura (8 page)

"No! Please no.  You cannot do this!  Wolf.  Oh, please, no." What scared her even more was the small inner voice that belied her words and screamed YES!
Wolf, hearing the screams from out in the field where he had been chasing down yet another hare, stopped then ran to protect his mistress.  Again.
The sound of the woman's voice penetrated the red haze that had taken over his mind and he moved to silence her objections.  The last thing he wanted was for her to be rescued at this moment, not when he was this close to breaking through her defenses, not when he was this close to making her his.  He repossessed her lips as he tried to hold her thrashing body still.  His senses were so completely under the control of the lust pounding through his veins that he was not even aware of her lip splitting under his as he attempted, unsuccessfully, to force them open.
So oblivious to anything about them was he that he was totally taken by surprise when the wolf attacked, digging his teeth deep into his sore arm.
All thoughts of the woman left his mind as he fought to keep the wild animal from his throat and his mind focused on the danger before him.  He knew instinctively that he could not depend on the woman for help, not when he had just been stopped short of taking her as he had.  In fact he was surprised that she was not helping the wolf.
Aura watched the two adversaries as they wrestled about on the floor of the cave, and collected her scattered wits about herself.  When she felt she was in control once more she called Wolf to her side.  The wolf left the man and came to stand beside her.  He was still growling to warn the man off and his teeth were barred to show he meant business.
"You are obviously recovered enough to travel."  Aura snarled.  She was angered by the man's audacity and her own reactions to his manhandling.  "I suggest that when you get back to wherever you are going that you get someone to cut the little stitches that I have put into your arm and pull them out.  Now, I would appreciate it if you would gather whatever is yours and get out.  You have overstayed your welcome and abused my hospitality."
He glared at the wolf and the woman as he rubbed at the bites on his arms, then nodded.  "You are right.  I owe you an apology.  I will leave, but not until you agree to come with me.  You cannot live in this cave forever, I will not let you."
"I can live wherever I choose.  Nor do I need you or your permission to do so.  You do not own me, I can do as I please."
"You are a woman in a man's world.  You will soon learn that there are many things that you will never be able to do.  That wolf will not be able to protect you from everyone.  In fact you could have been mourning a wolf as well as a snake if I would have had my sword nearby.  Then you would have been more than just a little at my mercy."  He spoke through his pain and frustration.  If it were not for the wolf at her side he would have attacked her again.  It was not a thought that he was proud of.
"Haven’t you done enough?"  Aura shot back.  "I am overwhelmed by the extent of the gratitude you have shown me for having saved your life.  Next time I find you beaten and left for dead in some forest I will just leave you laying wherever you have fallen."
She stormed out of the cave and refused to return until he had gathered whatever was his, mounted his horse and galloped off.  Once gone she returned to the cave, where she sat beside Roger.  Placing her hand against the snake’s cold, still form, she cried.  She would bury him then move on.  She did not trust the man not to return.  If he did, she wanted to make sure she was not going to be here.

The winter following the confrontation between Aura and the man she had saved had been the hardest time she had ever lived through.
  She was afraid to go back to the cave, where she had food and shelter, for she could not trust him to stay away.  Then again, she feared she might encounter him as she traveled, as she had no idea where he lived.  It was a meeting she feared above all else, for memories of him still continued to haunt her.  She was not so sure she cared for some of the feelings he had invoked in her.
In dreams she could hear his voice calling for her, though she knew he did not know her name.  There were times she could have sworn that he had been with her, for when she woke his scent seemed to fill her nose, and a lingering sensation of having been held by him haunted her.  The memories sometimes made her feel hollow, her breathing shallow, and her skin heated.  Sleeping made her feel insecure and so lonely she could have cried.
As Aura traveled she learned how to earn her keep by practicing what she considered a crude form of medicine.  The people she met accepted her as a true physician, however, it was something she never professed to be.  Whenever she met a real doctor she spent as much time as possible exchanging knowledge and experiences.  It was a practice that often benefited both sides, though she was unaware of that.  In some ways she felt she had reason to feel grateful that she had gone back far enough in time to be of service.
Beyond an easy acceptance, Aura's medicine also earned her the potential to become quite wealthy, for she tended to stash the coins given to her.  This was not necessarily through a natural frugality so much, as the pure lack of understanding of the monetary value of the currency of the time period.  Another benefit of her travels and versatility was that she was developing a clearer insight into what was happening in the country. 
The people, Aura found, were expecting a war.  Word of an impending army planning to invade the country appeared to be common knowledge.  The people were frightened which she thought understandable under the circumstances, and she was wary.  War in general never made any sense to her, and even less so in this time and age.  It was illogical to think that the people could be confident of winning the war while not having any faith in their King to lead his men into battle.  It they could not believe in their monarch, she wondered, who did they turn to?
When she found the time to reflect on her own life, and how it had changed, she had to admit that losing Roger had not been the traumatic experience she had thought it might have been.  She missed him but traveling had become easier, and although people noticed her because of Wolf, they never stared at her in horror, as some had done when they had caught her with her snake.  Also, towards the end, she had had to admit the snake had become almost unbelievably heavy.
With the first signs of spring came word of a new invasion and, so the people said, their local Lord and his troops had rallied to their Duke's side.  Together, along with some of the other Warlords, they were leading their armies to battle the enemy, who had already begun their raiding and pillaging as they crossed the land.  She heard and listened to the fearful horrors of the atrocities being committed.  She was thankful to be so far removed from the action.  In fact she found it hard to be very involved in much of anything.  It was still a revelation to her to wake up every morning stuck in the time she was in.  She often wondered if one day she would wake to find herself back in her little hole in the ground during her own time period and all of this would have been just a dream.
She returned to her cave, believing that it would be safe to do so as the man was sure to have forgotten about her over the winter season.   He was probably at war by now as he had been a warrior.  Her main reason for returning was less simple, she was homesick.  It was something she hated to admit and the cave was the closest thing she had to a home.
When she arrived at the site of the cave she went to the mound that marked the grave of her snake.  She then made her way into the cave to see how much it would take to make it habitable again.  She hoped that it had not dilapidated too badly, as she felt weary and unable to extend the energy she felt it would take to bring it back into shape.
She looked about the cavern with a great sigh.  The animals and rodents looked as if they had found the cave a good place to make a winter home, and although it was empty at this time the moss and grains she had gathered the season before held traces of former occupants.  She cleared the cave to the bare walls, even going as far as to sweep the dirt floor, before moving anything fresh into her home.  She was not about to take the chance that there was more than just traces of the rodents left.  She hated rats and mice with a passion.  She had always believed them to be dirty animals.
Wolf had done his part, killing a couple of rats before he had spotted a hare, which he had chased down to bring to her.  She, in turn, patted him, scratching him behind the ears and gave him words of praise.  She did not have the heart to tell him how sick of rabbit she was when he looked so pleased with himself.  When she thought about it she decided she would have done almost anything for a very large serving of fish and chips.  Her craving gave her an idea.
There was nowhere in England that she remembered that seemed far from the sea.  So why should she deny herself such a little treat?  It was well past time she took a trip to the coast to do a little fishing.  It would be a welcome change.  The invasion was given little or no thought, after all, it was a long way away and she was headed in the opposite direction.  Or at least that was what she believed.
 
Together Aura and Wolf managed to spend almost two months by the sea and did no actual fishing.  She had started off her trip at a lazy pace, reaching her destination two weeks after she had started.  She stopped, from time to time, to care for someone ill, or to lend a helping hand to someone in need.  As soon as people began to hear that a traveling doctor was in the vicinity they swarmed to her side.  By the time she reached the shore she had accumulated more gold and silver than what she had started with.  She found the innkeeper was more than happy to have her set up a small practice outside of his inn.  His only disappointment was that she refused to take up residency in one of his rooms.
Today, Aura had promised herself, she was going to head for home.  Much as she had enjoyed her trip it was well past time that she returned to the cave.  She had supplies to gather and a winter to prepare for.  She did not want to repeat the mistakes she had made over the last six months for they had been personally costly.
She was watching a small group of little boys playing with a cart she had made as they took turns riding the vehicle down an embankment when she heard a scream, warning of danger. 
"Ships! Ships!" A woman shrieked as she streaked past Aura to warn others.  Aura moved to a better vantage point, then, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun with a hand, she looked out to sea.
The ships were about a half an hour away, which did not give a particularly long time for her to find a good hiding place, but she managed to anyway.  Wolf always seemed to find a way to disappear when he was supposed to, as she had taught him to do in the past.  If she climbed up a tree he was to go to hide in the bushes.  He always seemed to be close at hand and happy to see her when she came down and called for him.
Aura watched as the town was looted and parts of the buildings were burned.  She felt angry and helpless.  There was nothing she could do to help, at least not yet.  Anyone who tried to oppose the barbarians were butchered and left for dead.  Any woman caught was dragged off and not all of them returned with their captors.  When the raid was over a man with a scar on his face growled out an order and the warriors left.  He supervised their withdrawal then spoke to another man who joined them.  They stood right under the tree where Aura had hidden as they discussed their future plans, then left.
Aura watched the aggressors sail off then got down from her perch to survey the damage.  She felt guilty as she viewed the devastation.  She cursed the barbarity of the acts, and her own uselessness.  She could help now, but it was not quite the same.  These people had needed protection.  The knowledge of a doctor was of little help during the rampage.  Her knowledge would suit the purpose now and she realized just how ridiculous her twinge of conscience.  She could not have helped in battle.  She knew nothing of weapons, nor would her death have served any purpose, and she knew she would have died under those circumstances.  She would have challenged anyone who would have tried to touch her and her fate would have been sealed.  She picked through the rubble, as she worked her way about, and checked on the people she had come to know.
The village had been destroyed.  The inn had been looted and the liquor stolen.  Most of the buildings still stood, but some had been torched, and still smoldered despite efforts to kill the fires.  After going through some of the bodies lying about, Aura had to tell people that there was no hope for a loved one.  It was a painful experience.  To have to look into eyes glistening with desperate hope then watch that light die in them as she passed on the news hurt worse than anything she had ever known.
The invaders had been thorough, for few people remained alive of those who had been caught.  Aura counted the dead, five men, seven women, four children and one adolescent girl, who had suffered what Aura felt, an extremely horrid death.  No woman, young or old, deserved to die at the hands of men who were no better than animals, but for some reason, it seemed worse when something like that happened to a child.  Those who had gone to sea to fish were lucky, for otherwise they would have also lain on the ground before her.  Three men lay to the side with serious injuries.  She turned her attention to care for them.  She prayed as she worked, that she would have the stomach to give them the attention they needed.  She had noted the gaping wounds on some of the dead and, listening now to the cries of pain coming from her patients, she feared the worst.  She took a deep breath to steel herself to the job ahead of her, prayed for courage then went to work.
Aura saw to the worst casualty first and found she could do nothing to help him.  He had sustained a deep chest wound and he had bled too much for any of her ministrations to be effective.  What the man needed was a blood transfusion and who knew what else due to internal injuries.  There was no way any of this was possible under the conditions she was working in.  She also had to admit, it might have even been a struggle even in a proper facility.
As Aura turned to the second man a fourth man stumbled towards her.  She put an arm about his body to stabilize him then led him to a resting spot, before turning to the man she had been about to attend.  The second man had also sustained a chest wound, as had the first, although his was not nearly as serious.  Aura checked the gash, mixed some herbs to make a poultice then had the man drink some medicine she had made up to ease his pain while she prepared to treat the wound on his chest.  What she was about to do was going to hurt a lot; although, he would not feel most of it.  She cleansed the wound and surrounding area then, with quick deft fingers, sewed up the gash.
The man watched her with curious detachment, amazed by the swiftness of her work and the lack of pain.  That, when he asked about it, she assured him would come later when the opiate she had given him earlier would dissipate.  By the time she had finished with the wound he slept and she proceeded to check him over for other injuries.  Finding nothing but relatively minor bruising, she moved on to the third man.
About this time, a troop of men rode into the village and she became the center of attention in a different way.  Where people had watched her before with nervous concern, she now came under a cold calculated scrutiny.  She shrugged off the discomfort of their manners, thinking of them as a minor irritation, and turned her full attention onto her patient.  He had a deep gash in his thigh and was lucky it had ceased bleeding earlier.  He also had a bruise over his left eye, which she determined would bear closer examination, in case of a concussion.  He watched her, whimpering at her every touch and Aura wished he could have been unconscious, for he looked as if he could cause her trouble.
"Are you capable of moving?"  She asked as she checked out his eyes to ascertain the extent of damage his head had received.  She decided the problem, if any, was minor.
"Yes, M'Lady."  He whined. "You are not going to cut off my leg are you?"  The question was very telling, giving Aura the reason for his fear, as well as a way to deal with it.
"Not if you cooperate."  She decided to give him something else to think about, as well as a reason to control his basic instincts.  She did, however, wonder where he had ever seen a leg amputation in this day and age.
"What do you want me to do?"
"Remove your trousers and lay back.  I need free access to the wound."
The man nodded, and as she went to check on the fourth and last patient, he removed his pants then sat down to wait for her return.  The fourth man had not waited for her to tend to his wounds in a stationary manner.  He had grown restless and had gotten to his feet to move about, for lack of anything else to do.
"How are you feeling?"
"I am not cut open like the others were, if that is what you mean, but my shoulder feels as if it is on fire.  Nor can I seem to move it."
Aura nodded as she tried to remove the man's tunic, but he would not let her as he screamed with pain at the first sign of movement.  She sighed as she noted his anguish then took out a sharp knife to cut the shirt off of him, only to uncover a mass of bruising.  She sucked in her breath as she looked at the discoloration then told the man to sit down while she took care of the man awaiting her attentions.