Free The YIELDING by Tamara Leigh

containing the foodstuffs and his physician’s tools. The first vial that came to hand was not what he was looking for—he knew it by the shape and weight—but the third…
    Aye. However, as he started to unstopper it, realization struck. The preparation of bitter mandrake might render him deeply asleep, thus making him three times a fool to Beatrix Wulfrith. He clenched the vial as another spasm thrust up his leg and radiated through his spine. He would simply have to suffer.
    When droplets of water landed on the back of his hand, he glared up at the billowing clouds that portended a downpour.
    “A scourge upon you,” he muttered as he thrust the vial to the bottom of the pack. Without the succor of mandrake, he would have to drag himself back from the opening if he was to avoid becoming drenched. And the pain would be nearly intolerable.
    The rain beginning to fall harder and seep through his mantle, he pulled the packs onto his lap and levered onto his outstretched arms. As he dragged his injured leg across the floor, biting down on the need to shout out his torment, the dark of the crypt swallowed him. Finally, some twenty feet distant from the opening, he backed up to a column.
    Tunic clinging to his perspiring chest, he squeezed his eyes closed. By the morrow, the worst would be over. The muscles would be quieted and the bone set to undertake the long process of healing—providing he had not erred, which was possible in acting physician to one’s self.
    “Lord D’Arci?”
    He looked to the opening that poured rain into the crypt. At this distance, he could see nothing of Beatrix Wulfrith.
    Let her wonder where I have gone, he told himself. After all, questions often led to seeking.
    The silence of rain enlarged, but just as he concluded she had withdrawn, something fell through the breach and sent a hollow clatter around the crypt.
    “Splints for your leg,” she called and pulled something over the hole that turned back the rain and cast darkness all around.
    Michael stared into nothingness and considered the wooden splints. Though their use would return his sword to hand, he would leave them where fallen. Another question for Beatrix Wulfrith.
    Remembering that which he had carried since he had tended her head injury—which had urged him on when it seemed she would never be found—he opened the purse on his belt. From beneath the coins, he extracted the tress of flaxen hair he had cut away to stitch up her head and rubbed it between thumb and forefinger.
    “Seek me, witch. Seek me soon.”

    With night had come the sound of distant riders, but none had paused at Purley. Were they searching for D’Arci? Having been too fearful to allow herself more than snatches of sleep throughout the long dark, a fatigued Beatrix wove a path from the small chapel out into a morning that sparkled as if God had cast diamonds upon it.
    For the moment forgetting her worries, she breathed that wonderful mix of rain, foliage, and earth, then sent up a prayer of thanks that she had been given another day. If not for the breach…
    She looked to it and struggled as she had done when met with silence on the day past. How did D’Arci fare?
    Fear had shot through her when she had peered into the crypt on the day past and found him absent, but she had calmed herself with the reminder there was only one way out and he must not be too badly injured if he was able to pull himself clear of the rain. Fortunately, the new day ought to throw enough light into the crypt to calm her conscience.
    Lowering to her knees before the breach, she lifted the false floor. It fell back, its meeting with the moist ground causing mist to fly upon the air and fleck her tunic. She leaned forward.
    Sunlight illuminated the stone floor of the crypt, as well as the wooden splints where she had dropped them on the day past.
    Dear God, even I know broken limbs are best repaired immediately. She caught her breath. Michael D’Arci had dragged himself back from