by Davis, Dee
"Roll him onto his back." Cameron's tone didn't allow for argument and the other man obeyed swiftly, turning Fingal over. He was unconscious, his face beginning to turn blue. Cameron drew in a breath. There wasn't much time. He had to establish an airway.
He glanced around the room looking for something he could use as a trach tube, dismissing the feathers on the bird, a quill might work, but it could also be too small. A bagpipe bellowed as it dropped to the floor. Cameron glanced at the fallen instrument. Its owner was frozen in place, staring at the table.
It wasn't often that a fifteenth century musician got to observe a twenty-first century surgeon. Surgeon. The word reverberated in his head, memories pressing hard and fast at the door to his conscious mind. He forced himself to mentally bar the door. There would be time for remembering later.
The pipe from the bagpipe was a little too large, but it might work. He felt for a pulse and couldn't find one. His time for decision making was over. "Bring me the bagpipe." No one moved. "I said, bring me the bagpipe. Now." Marjory jumped, hurrying to fulfill his request.
She handed it to him and he tried to wrench a pipe from the bellows. There was a gasp from the musician. With another tug, the piece pulled free. It was definitely bigger than he would have liked, but it would have to do. A flicker of light caught his attention. The pipe smoker was attempting, again, to light the bowl. The pipe. It just might work.
"The pipe. Bring me the pipe." In an instant, Marjory responded, jerking the carved instrument from the man's hand, thrusting it across the table at Cameron. He took it and twisted the base. He wasn't disappointed, the stem easily pulled out of the bowl.
"Let me help." Grania's quiet voice filled his ear.
He placed the pipe stem in her hand. "Wash it out." He turned back to Fingal who was definitely turning blue. "And hurry."
He took a corner of his plaid and dipped it into his wine cup. Not exactly sterile, but better than nothing. "Hold his head and tip it back." The young man obeyed without question, rolling Fingal's head back so that his neck was exposed.
"Marjory, hand me your knife." Marjory began to speak, but his tone of voice offered no latitude for argument. Her mouth snapped shut and she wordlessly handed him the tiny knife.
Dipping it into the wine, he palpated Fingal's neck and after visualizing the incision, cut the skin. Aimil screamed. No one else moved. The great hall was silent, almost as if everyone collectively held his breath. Cameron cut through the subcutaneous layer, pushing the skin and muscle apart with his other hand. The thyroid, thankfully, was not in the way and, with deft hands, he located the third and forth rings of the trachea.
Making a small vertical cut across the two rings, he automatically called for assistance. "Trach tube." Even as he realized that no one would understand his request, the pipe stem slapped into his outstretched hand.
"It should work. I tested it before I sterilized it." Grania's voice had lost its soft Scottish edge.
Cameron took the tube and inserted it into the trachea. At first nothing happened. Cameron bit back an oath and started to breathe into the tube. A wheezing sound echoed through the room as the man's chest began to rise and fall. Immediately, he began to pinken.
Cameron looked at Grania, forgetting for the moment that she couldn't see him. "We're halfway there. We've got to get the obstruction out."
Grania nodded. "Ye've got to help him, lad," she instructed the young man who had helped get Fingal on the table. "Pull open his jaw and hold it so that Ewen can reach into his mouth." Her voice held the same ring of authority Cameron's had and the man responded immediately, tipping Fingal's head back and opening his mouth. The tube wavered ominously.
"Marjory, I need you to hold the tube." Immediately, she wrapped a hand around the pipe stem, holding it firmly in place. With an approving nod, he wiped off the knife. It was a dangerous retractor, but it would have to do.
"I think I can see it." Cameron looked up at the sound of his assistant's voice, meeting the other man's gaze. "I can see the edge o' a bone. 'Tis just visible. There." The man released Fingal's jaw with one hand and pointed into his mouth.
Cameron moved around until he could look down Fingal's throat. What he wouldn't give for a penlight. He peered into the cavity and carefully used the knife handle to retract the tongue. "Hold this." The young man gingerly grasped the knife blade, keeping Fingal's tongue out of the way. Just below the uvula, Cameron saw the top of the bone. Grasping it carefully between thumb and forefinger, with a quick jerk, he pulled upward. Nothing happened.
Twisting the bone to the right, he tried again. Still no movement. He twisted it the other way and felt it give. With a sharp tug, the bone and gristle pulled free. Tossing it aside, he motioned for the man to let Fingal go, then returned to Fingal's side, and covered the top of the pipe stem with his finger. Fingal jerked once and then began to breathe on his own.
Cameron sighed in relief, and held the plug, waiting until he was certain Fingal was breathing normally. "I'm going to need a bandage of some kind."
"Done." Grania's voice was steady as she handed him a thick folded pad of linen and a longer strip to secure it.
Working quickly, he removed the tube and immediately applied the square of linen, pressing against the wound. Marjory moved next to him, her hand replacing his as he wound the strip of cloth around the neck and bandage, securing it into place with a knot. Cameron felt for a pulse and was satisfied to feel its comforting beat beneath his fingers.
Fingal's eyes flickered open. His mouth moved, but there was no sound. Panicked, he tried to sit up. Cameron signaled the man to hold him again, and placed a finger across the bandage, effectively covering the stoma.
"It's okay, you should be able to talk now." He kept his voice low and comforting, his eyes never leaving Fingal's.
"What…" The older man paused, sucking in a breath. "…happened?" His voice cracked with the effort, but the words were discernible. Aimil started sobbing anew at the sound of her brother's voice.
"You swallowed a bone, but we got it out. You'll be fine." He patted the man on the arm, remembering a thousand other times he had reassured a patient in just such a way. "Don't try to talk anymore. Just rest."
He shifted his attention to the crowd. "We need to get him to his room." Two men sprang up from their positions of stupefied wonder and, grasping Fingal around the feet and shoulders, carefully began to carry him from the hall. "See that the bandage isn't dislodged."
"I'll go with them." Grania followed them, a wailing Aimil bringing up the rear.
Cameron sat down, his head spinning, the doors in his mind threatening to break open now that the crisis had passed.
"Will he be all right?" He looked up to see Marjory's drawn face. It was a contrast of fear and wonder.
"He should be fine. The fact that he was talking is a good sign. I expect he'll make a full recovery."
Marjory placed her hand on his. It was cold. He automatically covered it with his own. "What...what magic did you do tonight?" Her words were low and her voice trembled.
"It wasn't magic, Marjory, at least not the kind you're thinking of. It was a simple procedure really. It's called a tracheotomy." She bit her lip and gave him a blank look. "Look, I'm too tired to explain it now. I'm a physician, Marjory, a surgeon. And though I normally work under less primitive conditions, a first year resident could do what I did."
"You saved him." Her voice still held traces of awe.
He pushed a hand through his hair. "Probably." There was a certain satisfaction in saving a life, but right now he wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking about his memory.
It called to him, waiting for him to open the doors and let it all back into his conscious mind. He felt panicked suddenly. Too much was happening too fast. He had to think. Alone. "Marjory, I need to be alone right now." His voice came out more harshly than he had intended.
Hurt washed across her face, but she quickly masked it. "Fine, I'll leave you then. I want to
check on Fingal, anyway." She rose and with a last worried look in his direction, hurried from the hall.
Cameron looked around him. The great hall was empty, food and drink abandoned on the tables. He vaguely recalled someone telling everyone to leave. With a grateful sigh, he buried his head in his hands and waited for the memories to come.
*****
Marjory stood in the doorway of Fingal's chamber. Firelight mixed with candle flames to cast dancing shadows across the walls, the effect making the events of the evening seem even more ominous. Grania sat on one side of the bed and Aimil on the other. Fingal lay sleeping, the rise and fall of his chest, exaggerated by the blankets covering him, giving mute testimony to the night's miracle.
"Is he all right?"
At the sound of her voice, both women looked to the door. Aimil's features were drawn, her face ragged and harsh.
"He's resting comfortably." Grania rose as she spoke, crossing the small chamber to Marjory's side. "'Tis naught that ye can do now, child. Let's leave Aimil with her brother. Come the morning I've no doubt that we'll find Fingal in fine form, asking fer his porridge."
Marjory allowed the older woman to draw her from the chamber.
When they returned to the great hall, it was empty, the remains of the feast looking like the carnage of a fierce battle. She stared at it all in a daze, her mind trying to take in the miracle that had saved Fingal's life. "What…what happened here tonight? Cameron tried to explain, but his words were strange and his manner even more so."
"I know, I know." Grania drew her across the vast hall to the bench by the fire.
Marjory sank down on the hard wood, her eyes falling on the discarded bagpipe. "Cameron said he was a physician."
"So his name is Cameron, is it? Appropriate in an odd sort of way." Grania frowned as she contemplated the thought. "Judging from what happened tonight, I'd say that he's no' only a physician, but a verra good one."
"But, Grania, physicians canna do what he did, surely." She reached for the older woman's hand, desperate for human contact.
"Well, if I remember correctly, there are some who can perform a tracheotomy, but none that can do it with accuracy and success. 'Twill be more than four hundred years before the procedure is perfected and another fifty or so before it is standardized."
She spoke quietly, almost to herself. "And quite truthfully, I'd have probably used that bit o' bagpipe." She pointed in the direction of the abandoned instrument. "It was too big and might have damaged the vocal cords, but I'm no' sure that I'd have thought to use the wee pipe." She trailed off, turning her face to the fire.
Marjory frowned, things suddenly coming clear. "You're more than a healer aren't you?"
Grania nodded, without answering.
Marjory pressed forward. "The pump, Bertram didn't bring it from England did he?"
"I never even knew Bertram."
Marjory felt dizzy as revelations came faster and faster. "Never knew Bertram?"
"Nay, I came after he died. Your father found me wandering in the woods. Yer sweet mother just assumed I was Grania. I saw no need to tell her the truth."
"Are you from Cameron's time, then? Is that how you know about pumps and trach-e-o-to-mies?"
"Aye. 'Tis true," the old woman admitted in a whisper hardly loud enough to hear.
But Marjory heard, her head spinning with the impact of the words. "Then you're a physician, like Cameron?"
"No' any more. There is too much I've forgotten, but once, a lifetime ago, I was a surgeon, too."
"You've traveled across time?"
"Aye."
"And nobody else knows?"
"Nay. Cameron has guessed I think, but I've ne'er told a soul."
"Why no'? You must have been so confused and afraid."
Grania smiled. "All of that and more, but unlike Cameron, I had my memory and so I knew without a doubt who I had been. And I knew, too, that there was no one here who would have believed me. I wasna willing to take the risk of exposure, and in time, I grew content with my life here. I found a peace that I'd ne'er felt before."
The women sat in silence, their hands still joined, each lost in her own thoughts. Marjory tried to make sense of it. All these years she had lived with Grania and never even noticed that she was different. She'd merely thought her gifted, perhaps a bit eccentric. Seen from this new light, however, Marjory was amazed that she'd never guessed.
She almost laughed. Until Cameron's confession, the thought would never have entered her mind. Now it seemed there were two time travelers at Crannag Mhór.
Unable to deal with the enormity of that thought, Marjory concentrated on Cameron. "He's remembered, hasn't he?"
"'Twould seem so, or at least a part of it. Amnesia is a funny thing. 'Tis often the result o' the mind trying to protect itself. I think Fingal's trauma forced Cameron to remember who he was. As to whether he remembers whate'er it was that caused him to forget in the first place, I canna say."
"Do you think…" Marjory whispered the words, praying for the answer she so desperately wanted. "Do you think that he might stay, now that he knows who he is?"
"I canna say, lass."
"But you stayed."
"Aye, that I did, but I came to realize that the woman I'd become was a far better one than the woman I had been."
"Maybe Cameron will come to the same conclusion." Her words sounded empty even to herself.
"It could happen, but ye have to remember, child, that a man is very different from a woman. His identity is everything to him. In the world Cameron comes from, the worth o' a man is often based solely on his profession. Physicians are revered, especially surgeons. 'Twould be a hard thing to let go of. Dinna be misled by my words, 'twas no' easy, even for me."
"Did you try to get back?"
"Aye, that I did." She smiled with the memory. "But I couldna remember where it was that I arrived. I wandered about for quite a while before yer dear father found me. There was no way o' knowing where it was I first awoke."
Marjory felt her stomach lurch with dread. "Cameron knows the exact spot where he arrived."
"I know." Grania turned away from the fire to face Marjory, placing her free hand over their entwined ones. "Marjory, sometimes the hardest thing to do is to let go of the ones that we love. If you really love him, then you may have to face the fact that he'd be better off in his own time. He has a life there. Perhaps even a family."
Marjory felt tears slide down her cheeks. With an angry hand, she wiped them away. "'Twould seem 'tis my lot in life to have to let the ones I love go." She pulled back her hands and rose from the bench, intending to go, but she stopped, seeing the older woman's face in the firelight, wet with tears. Somehow she'd never thought that blind people could cry.
"Grania?"
The woman turned in the direction of her voice.
"What was your name? I mean, your real name?"
For a moment Grania looked startled by the question and then, with a smile that lit the chamber, she answered. "My name was Eileen Donovan Even."
CHAPTER 21
Cameron leaned his head back against the cool stone wall, and closed his eyes, letting the silence surround him. The room was dark and more than a little cold, but any discomfort was more than made up for by the serenity it afforded. He'd never thought of himself as a particularly religious man, but he'd always believed. And even in the fifteenth century, it seemed a chapel was a place of peace.
His thoughts flashed, briefly, to a trip made as a child. A trip to New York City. His father had taken him. A special holiday for a lonely little boy recovering from the loss of his mother. It had been a short train ride from Boston to New York, but to an eight year old boy it had been a grand adventure.
Among other places, they'd gone to a museum full of religious artifacts from the middle ages. Not exactly the sort of place favored by growing boys, but there had been something magical about it. He frowned, trying to remember the name.
It was one of the Rocke
feller museums. The nunnery or something like that. He struggled with the name and then smiled at the sheer joy of trying to remember something as routine as the name of a museum.
The Cloisters. That was it.
It had been a surprise to him. Quiet and subdued, unlike any other museum he'd ever been to. There had been one room, an arched vault of sorts, empty save for some rustic benches. He shifted uncomfortably on the real life version.
He'd sat in that room much as he was doing now, and more importantly, he'd found peace there. After his mother's accident, he'd felt alone, deserted in many ways. His father had tried in his own gruff way to help him, but he hadn't been a demonstrative man, and Cameron had continued to feel isolated, devastated by the loss of his mother.
Then suddenly, in that room, at the Cloisters, he had felt comforted. As though God himself had reached down from heaven to embrace him. The moment was as real now as it had been twenty-five years ago. And here he was again, only this time the chapel was the real thing.
He waited in the dark, waited for some kind of sign, for comfort or release, but there was only silence. He sighed. He'd probably had more than enough miracles in one lifetime. He winced. Make that two lifetimes.
"I thought perhaps I'd find ye here."
Cameron turned toward the sound of the voice. The shadows of the chapel hid the owner, but he recognized it nevertheless. "You can drop the accent. I know who you are. Or should I say, who you aren't."
"The accent is real. As real as I am. Dinna forget that I've been here for many years. Whoever I was, she is only a part of the distant past now."
"Don't you mean future?" he asked dryly. He heard her begin to make her way across the room. "You should have a light, it's dark in here."
She chuckled and he immediately recognized the error of his words. "I've no use o' a light, lad." Grania stopped in front of him, resting a hand on his shoulder. "I've been worried about ye."
"Really? And what exactly are you worrying about? The fact that all the inhabitants of Crannag Mhór think I'm a sorcerer? Or perhaps you're concerned that I now know definitively who I am? Or maybe you're worried that I've discovered who you are?" He paused, shocked at the bitterness in his voice.