Wolf's Cross by S. A. Swann

happened if he hadn’t caught up with her. Would he have come into her house? Threatened her family? Her brothers were strong, but they slept too deeply. She could easily imagine a dagger slitting a sleeping throat or two before enough of alarm was raised to rouse them.
    But the events of last night were still such a jumbled mess in her mind that she hadn’t spared a thought to wonder which German Lukasz had attempted to evict—not until she saw the broken latch on the door to Josef’s room.
    Lukasz’s room.
    “Josef!” she yelled, pulling the door open and almost spilling Josef’s breakfast in the process. “Josef!” she repeated, unnecessarily, as he turned to face her, clad only in a long nightshirt, seated at the foot of the bed.
    “Are you all right?” she asked, deeply relieved to see him smile weakly in response. The odd realization struck her that, however unknowingly, Josef had punished her nemesis as much as the outlaw Darien had. The thought broadened her smile until she felt the tug of the bruise on her cheek.
    “I seem to fare better than I deserve,” he said. “From your abrupt entrance, you must have heard of my nighttime visitor.”
    She looked at him: strong as he was, the injury still weighed upon him. As much as his expression and posture tried to project a hale physique, she saw the lie of it in the beads of sweat on his brow in the cool morning air, and in the lack of color touching his lips. “You shouldn’t be sitting up.”
    “Perhaps not,” he sighed. “I thought that when God granted me the strength to resist being waylaid, He might have left me with the power to stand up this morning.”
    Maria shook her head and set his breakfast down, then helped him back into bed. “You haven’t seen how badly you were wounded.” She took a clean cloth and wiped the sweat of his exertion from his brow, from his cheek, and from his neck. She lingered a moment with her hand against his face.
    “I have felt it.”
    “Let me look at it, and see what damage you’ve done to yourself.”
    His brow furrowed. “My lady, allow me some modesty, please.”
    His addressing her as “lady” instantly reminded Maria of their relative statuses. Whatever comfort she provided him, that couldn’t change. She pulled her hand away, wringing the cloth.
    “Sir, did you allow the doctor to see you last night?”
    “I was unhurt.”
    “Do you wish to see him now?”
    “I am healing fine.”
    “You’re my responsibility. If you don’t wish me to examine your wounds, I will fetch him.”
    He muttered something quickly in German that Maria couldn’t quite understand. Something about God testing him again. Then he said, “Do me the favor of turning your back a moment?”
    “As you wish.” She turned away from him. “I can fetch the doctor, if that would make you more comfortable.”
    “I serve the Hospital of St. Mary in Jerusalem. Caring for the sick and wounded is a tenet of my Order. I know doctors and their practices.”
    “You are afraid of what he might do?”
    “No. But I know that such men, once called to assist, find their own vanity ill-served if they do nothing—even if nothing should be the best course of action.” He sighed and said, “Turn back around, then, and satisfy yourself that I am in no distress.”
    She turned, and Josef made a point of staring up at the ceiling and not meeting her eyes. He had drawn the sheets up around his waist to cover his privates, and had pulled his nightshirt up to expose his abdomen.
    She stared at him for several long moments. He might not realize it, but she had already seen all that the sheet covered. And, ironically, the concealment only drew her attention, firing her memories of what was hidden. Her cheeks flamed.
    “Maria?”
    “Yes,” she answered, quickly bringing her attention back to the wounds in his abdomen. The linens that bound his wounds were spotted with stains of old blood, but fortunately there were no signs of fresh blood or