Lion Heart (Hearts of the Highlands Book 4)

by Paula Quinn

  #

  “Lily!” Elias shouted to her. He had to think clearly! His thoughts had never been influenced by his heart before. Panic and urgency filled him as he lowered little Eddie to the ground. He had once commanded five hundred men and, thankfully, his training kicked in. “Get the children and move oot of the way!”

  While she moved, he yanked a knife free from his belt and flung it at the man closest to her. The blade landed keenly into the man’s throat. He ran for his horse and helped Richard out of the saddle. “Go to Simon,” he commanded the apothecary. To Simon, he called out, “Take him and Lily and the children back to the shop!” He leaped into the saddle and rode his horse to the front of the line and set his gaze on Bertram. He would kill him for this.

  He heard someone sniffle and looked to his left at Deirdre, just a few feet away on Simon’s horse.

  She stared at him and tears spilled from her eyes. “You are willing to fight for people you hardly know.”

  He didn’t answer her or look around to see who was watching him. He didn’t listen to Bertram ordering Richard to get him and his men something for their sickness. The apothecary hadn’t gone to the shop. Had Lily? He didn’t turn around to find out but yanked on the reins with one hand and tore his claymore from its scabbard with the other. He rode directly for Bertram but two of his men rode in front of him to stop Elias. They died just as quickly. Another foolish man who was sweating profusely came at him pointing his shaky sword. Elias swung his blade around his shoulders and separated the man’s head from his body. A woman screamed. No, several women screamed. Elias chanced a look around. Agnes and Estrid were weeping loudly.

  Bertram had moved away from him, leaving in his place two more of his men. These could barely hold themselves up in their saddles. Some parts of their skin had turned black, like their fingers. There appeared to be large boils on their necks beneath their hoods.

  “Please,” one of them begged. “We just want a cure.”

  How many of the villagers were affected? How long would it take for the rest of them now? Everything had changed. In an instant. They weren’t going to Invergarry. Instead, they had just been sentenced to death. A very unpleasant one.

  “Ye shouldna have come here,” he told them and killed them within seconds of each other.

  “He has Lily!” Osbert’s wife, Ivett, screamed, pointing somewhere beyond the evergreens.

  Elias’ stout heart nearly faltered. No! Please, no! He saw Simon trying to hold back Richard but when the old man saw Elias thundering forward on his horse, he managed to break free.

  “Elias, do not kill him!” Richard shouted as Elias turned the bend and came to Bertram and Lily standing face to face.

  Damn it! Why hadn’t she listened to him and gone inside? “Lily…” he began.

  “Do you know what you have done?” she screamed, pointing a dagger at Bertram. “You have killed us all!”

  “Lily,” Richard commanded. “Put away your dagger! We need him to find a cure! Wife, do you hear me?” he asked with authority. “We need him. How can I know what works if I have no one with whom to try my mixtures?”

  “Perform yer experiments on me,” Elias offered, moving his horse closer to Bertram’s.

  Bertram knew he was too weak to fight, especially with one arm. He dropped his sword and held up his hand.

  “Get off yer horse,” Elias demanded.

  Bertram did as he was told and wiped his sweaty brow. “Hell, but ‘tis hot.”

  “I do not want to wait until one of us is stricken,” Richard called out as many sobbed and wept bitterly, for they knew they would most likely die now. “I want to have some knowledge of this monster before all my friends are gone. Let me try my remedies on him now.”

  “Kill him!” someone called out. “As he has killed us!”

  “Aye, kill him!” others shouted. “We do not want him alive to infect more of us.”

  “He will not come near you,” Richard shouted to them. “Everyone here will likely become ill by the rest of us. Finding a cure is vital now! You must let me try now that I have a living patient.”

  Everyone cried the same thing. Kill him! Elias wanted to. He hated Bertram Chisholm for all he’d done to Lily, for what he had just done to Sevenoaks.

  Elias slanted his gaze to Lily. He wanted to scream and tear out his hair. No! He wouldn’t let her die! He wouldn’t let the sickness take her! It was too late for everyone now. Richard needed to start practicing his remedies on someone who was ill now! The choice wasn’t his to make. Lily was the one he’d hurt the most. But this was about more than Lily now. This was about the lives in Sevenoaks.

  Elias pointed the tip of his blade into Bertram’ back and looked to Richard. “Where do ye want him?”

  “In the shed.”

  “Richard,” Elias said before they left. “If he gets well, I’m killin’ him.”

  Richard nodded. There wasn’t much else he could do. No one would stop Elias from what he meant to do.

  “Ye took Lily from her family,” he growled, giving Bertram a shove forward. “Someone verra close to me was taken from his family at a young age. I have seen the effects of it firsthand. I will not let ye live.”

  “Ye are a Scot,” Bertram breathed out in front of him. “A Highlander judgin’ by yer plaid. Ye know how lonely winter can be.”

  Elias pushed him through the door and hurled him inside the half-empty shed.

  “Ye know ye have been stricken with the pestilence, aye?” Elias asked him, dragging him to a post. “Ye are dyin’.”

  “I suspect it.”

  “Ye brought it here,” Elias said, tying him to the post. “For that, I might allow the villagers some time alone with ye before ye die.”

  “The bishop knows I’m here,” Bertram warned.

  “Good, I will invite him here to examine yer body,” Elias promised, then kicked him in the kneecaps to get him to sit on the floor.

  “Take a nap or somethin’,” Elias told him, leaving him alone. “Enjoy the short time ye still have alive.”

  “Ye do the same, MacPherson,” Bertram called out in a low, guttural voice.

  At the door, Elias turned to him and smiled. “I will.”

  He shut the door and took a long, deep breath. What was he to do now? Come to terms that he would likely be dead within a few days, and Lily a few days after that? No. No, he wouldn’t.

  He stepped outside and found a dozen villagers, including Lily, Richard and Simon staring back at him. A blink of his long spray of lashes was all it took to get them all talking. It all came at once. Most begged him to take them to Invergarry. Everything was ready to leave. Mayhap none of them were afflicted, but he wouldn’t take that chance.

  “What will we do now?” Walter called out.

  “My girls are just children,” Norman lamented.

  “Aye, our son, Terrick is only eight summers,” cried Walter’s wife, Eleanor.

  “Richard, are we going to die?” Martin Miller asked, holding on to Joan and his daughter.

  The apothecary held up his hands to try to quiet them. ”We know very little about this illness. We do not know how ‘tis spread only that ‘tis moving quickly. That is all we know, so…based on that alone, I would say ‘tis likely that many of us have become afflicted.”

  Horror ensued. Two women fainted. Men cried out and fell to their knees.

  Elias understood it. He never really had before. He’d grown up in the sheltering safety of a fortified, mostly self-sustaining village—with no reason to be afraid. Life had been dull and he’d grown curious for more. He’d been trained to master the art of fighting and he’d wanted to use his skill in battle. He left the stronghold at seventeen to fight the English in Dunbar.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t feel fear. He felt it. He liked how alive it made him feel. He’d experienced it often in battle, but something was different with this enemy. This enemy wanted her… his gaze flicked to Lily trying to calm Estrid and Eleanor.

&nbs
p; Miserably, he reconciled himself to the fact that he was beginning to care a bit too much for her. He was sorry for it, but that didn’t stop it. He’d have to confess the deep, dark things that crossed his mind at times…things about her husband, his friend.

  Would the sickness take her? He had the sensation of his heart and belly sinking downward. A different kind of fear, like nothing he’d ever felt before, encased him like a dark cloud. It didn’t feel invigorating. It felt as if he were being smothered to death. Slowly. He wanted to take Lily and run. Take her and hide.

  But there was no place to go without possibly spreading the sickness to others. He wouldn’t do it and he wouldn’t let the others do it.

  “Everyone!” he shouted once, and then again in a thunderous voice. “There is no sense in cryin’ over what canna be changed. The pestilence may be here, but we have the most intelligent apothecary the good Lord has ever created here with us. Let us help him find a remedy. If ye want to be a part of doin’ somethin’ to help, to give us all hope, then grab some of Richard’s bags containin’ his herbs and let us help him bring them back to the shop.”

  He took a step forward and clasped one hand around Richard’s thin arm and the other around Lily’s even thinner wrist. “Come, there is work to be done.” He pulled them gently along, leaving the villagers to follow or not.

  There was nothing left to do but find a cure…and pray. Pray hard.

  Chapter Ten

  On Richard’s instruction and Osbert’s agreement, they burned the dead bodies of Bertram Chisholm’s men. Richard had requested that everyone tear a cloth and tie it around their face as a makeshift mask and wash their hands as often as possible. Some complained about wasting water and what did their hands have to do with anything? Richard confessed that he didn’t know if it would help, but his reasoning was that it wouldn’t hurt.

  Now, standing around the shop, waiting for the first batch of tea to boil on her small trivet in the back, Lily watched her husband. He mixed and stirred, smelled and tasted three different concoctions. Elias wrote the ingredients of each on a sheet of parchment then dipped his finger into different colored dyes and marked each list and a small bottle with a corresponding color.

  She watched them both, thankful for them, thankful for Richard’s knowledge of herbs and roots and his skill at using them, and thankful that Elias was here to offer so much help, in so many different ways. He was strong and able to lift and carry many things to bring them back to the shop. Things were done faster because of him. He was intelligent and clever in a time of sheer panic, able to protect them with his sword if needed. And he knew how to read and write, which also made Richard’s tasks easier.

  Bother Simon, too, made himself available to everyone young and old, praying with them and offering comfort—from the most terrifying, horrific sickness to ever fall upon mankind. The Black Death was here. It had found them.

  It seemed as if the wailing never ceased. Someone was always weeping, whether man, woman, or child.

  They had almost been away from here. On their way to a new life. Lily had wanted to lament with Joan when she last saw her, but she hadn’t. She had never given up her life before. She wouldn’t begin now.

  She was sorry others were dying, but that didn’t mean any of them would.

  The tea boiled in the kettle and filled the air with an aromatic scent.

  “’Tis ready,” she informed them and stepped back when Richard filled a small cup with the mixture.

  “Richard, why do you and Elias have to go near him and expose yourselves to the sickness?” What if they both fell ill? What would she do then? What would any of them do?

  “I must know if this can cure him, my dear. Imagine how many people we could save. We have already been exposed, Lily. The three of us more than the rest. I must be about my work.” Her husband turned and left the shop.

  She didn’t know if she agreed with Richard and Elias’ decision to let Bertram live. Save an evil man in order to try to save everyone else? Or let him die and rot in hell for the things he’d done and would do again if he were given the chance.

  If they didn’t find the cure before he died, what good was letting the sickness spread from him?

  But if they found something…

  She caught Elias slanting his gaze at her over his shoulder. Did he wink? Oddly, she felt a little better about everything and leaned back against the doorframe and watched them head toward the shed.

  A little while later, she saw Brother Simon coming toward her and smiled, though he couldn’t see it behind her mask.

  “Are they inside?” he asked, reaching her.

  “Aye.”

  “I have been praying in the church with Father Benedict,” the brother told her without moving to go into the shed after them. “We have different views on some things. But we agree that we need the Lord’s intervention here.”

  “Do you think He will let Bertram live?” she asked him.

  “God might,” Brother Simon guessed, “but Bertram will have Elias to worry about after that.”

  “Aye,” she said with a hint of a smile hovering over her lips. “Richard told me Elias’ promise.”

  Brother Simon looked toward the shed and spoke solemnly. “I have never known him to go back on his word.”

  She couldn’t help but wish Elias had come to Sevenoaks two years ago. But everything happens for a reason. He was here. Now. For a reason. What was it?

  Did it have something to do with her…or the Black Death?

  She suspected she would soon find out.

  “Brother Simon?”

  “Aye, lass?”

  “There is something I have been meaning to ask. Why did you and Elias stay when you first heard about the pestilence? Why did you both not race back home to the north?”

  His cheeks turned red and he swallowed as if he fought to keep his words in his mouth, but they pushed out. “He…he is sometimes reckless, or so ‘twould seem. One always comes to realize that he had his victory planned out from the beginning. As in the case of Bertram. He rushed to your defense and to mine, but not before he rendered Bertram helpless. In your case, he saw you, met you—and everyone here, and once more stood up to the threat of death.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to slow her heartbeat. He cared for her and for Richard and the villagers. He’d proven it. He was courageous and compassionate. Lion Heart. Oh, it was difficult to resist him.

  She looked around then leaned in closer to Brother Simon. “I have been dreaming about him,” she confessed, knowing she could trust him. Even so, she felt ill speaking it aloud. But if she was going to die, she wouldn’t go guilty. “I do not mean to. I pray not to, but then there he is, every night. Tell me what to do.”

  He pulled down his mask and his luminously large eyes softened on her. “These are dire times—”

  “Never mind,” she whispered nervously when Elias and Richard left the shed and headed back.

  Brother Simon pulled his mask back up and turned to greet them. “Does he still live?”

  “Aye,” Richard told them. “But he is worse. It progresses swiftly. I must get back to my task. Eli will fill you both in on what happened.” He walked away and returned to the back room.

  “He is weary,” Elias remarked about Richard. “He will not rest.”

  Aye. She knew it was true. Richard barely sat down and had been awake all night. Now that he had a patient, he would find a cure.

  “Did Bertram drink the tea?” she asked Elias, letting her gaze drift over the top half of his features. She loved looking at his eyes, not just looking into them. She loved the silver shards against a background of blue—like a sky lit with stars, or lightning. She wished she could pull down the cloth covering the rest of his face. She wanted to take in the strength of his jaw, the…

  She blinked out of her reverie, when she realized he was speaking.

  “He complained like a child aboot the taste and was takin’ too long to drink. I had to convince hi
m to drink faster with the cold tip of my blade against his throat.”

  “You enjoy pushing him around,” Brother Simon accused Elias with a teasing smile.

  “Verra much,” Elias confirmed with a sinister snarl that made her catch her breath. “We will give him more tea in two hours. Richard says we will know more after that.”

  Lily looked toward the shed rather than at Elias. She would like to go in and have a word or two with Bertram while he was still alive to hear her. She knew it wasn’t safe, but she had already been exposed. Besides, Richard and Elias had gone into the shed. If they both died, she would prefer to die, as well.

  But what was there to say to him? That she hated him for taking so much of her life, and then returning to take the rest of it? Would it make her feel better to tell him that she hoped he lived so that she could watch Elias kill him, or mayhap, she would kill him herself? Was he worth her soul?

  No.

  But she would speak to him…tonight, when everyone was asleep.

  They started back to work, preparing for the next batch, talking about the sickness.

  Lily turned to both of them with a pleading look in her eyes. “I do not wish to speak of this thing any further today. We do not know what tomorrow will bring, or whose life the sickness will claim.” She spread her eyes over the village. “I do not want to think on it anymore.”

  Brother Simon lowered his gaze and nodded in silent, somber agreement.

  “I dinna want to think on it anymore today either!” Elias proclaimed across the narrow table. He turned to look down and offer her a bright smile. “Let us gather everyone, includin’ Richard fer some hours of drinkin’ and mirth. Simon, knock at every door and tell the villagers to meet us ootside the shop in an hour. Lily, gather the children, invite them to come and meet me fer some games. Also, who was that man playin’ the lute last eve?”