Claire heard the wagon rumbling down the path to her home and she looked up from the apples she was cutting for jelly. Setting aside her knife, she went to a window to see who it could be. Even though the figures were too faraway to make out faces, she could still see the violent scarlet, gold, and black eruptions of an aura blossoming into a warlock’s power. A second later, she recognized Bayard and judging by the colors swirling around him, he was very angry.
“Oh, hells,” she hissed. She hadn’t expected the knight to bring her the boy like this but rather to summon her as he would for any of his retainers. For him to come like this, it meant he ready to accuse her of harming his squire. “Merciless hells.” Her best bet was to throw Bayard off balance.
It took some rushing, but she was ready when they pounded on her door. Claire, with her hair combed and bodice pulled slightly lower than was strictly modest, answered.
"Sir Bayard!” she cried, widening her eyes into as much shocked innocence as she could feign. “What brings you here? Is there something wrong?”
♘— It was at least a fortnight, if not longer, that he’d seen the healer. They shared moments and she made him happy and his wife had died of a fever. He did not have children, but he supposed that was alright. He considered Leo his child ofttimes, which would explain his rage. Of course he didn’t take Claire to be anything but a blessed healer, but he’d heard stories of witches who became warlocks, and stories of witches who cursed little children–sure they were meant to scare lads around the campfire but it did not mean they could not be true.
He was about to slide his sword out of the sheath when she opened the door, but that soft, desperate tone had him hesitant, that and well–
"Claire…“ he started, and pretended the move with the sword was a casual sort of thing. It was hard to be threatening to a woman like her, especially if the anger was unwarranted. "Yes. Remember the boy I sent you a few goods with? He’s very ill. It seems witchcraft is involved? I don’t understand how he would be falling into a warlock fever, someone must’ve cursed him.” Bayard moved slightly out of the way to show her the pale boy in the guard’s hands. Though Claire did not appear to be the foul hag he thought she might have turned into, he did not discard the prospect of her being the culprit either.
