Highland Healer

by Willa Blair

  “I couldna allow ye to sacrifice yerself, Aileana. I need ye. The clan needs ye.”

  “And Ranald needed me,” she snarled, marching up to stand toe-to-toe with him, fury plain in the grim lines of her face even as her body shook with her anger and fatigue. “But you didn’t trust me. Or you believed Colbridge’s lies and thought that I was intent on saving a man I loved.”

  “Nay, Aileana…”

  “Yes, you did. You knew we were never lovers…” her voice faltered and she swallowed. Toran was certain images of their lovemaking were flashing before her eyes, and their handfasting. “But he loved me. He was the last of my kin. I cared…enough to want to help him. No more than that. But it would have been enough.”

  Tears started afresh down her cheeks. It was all Toran could do not to lift his fingers and wipe the wetness from her skin, but he kenned that she would bat his hands away, which would be bad enough, or run from him, which would be worse. “And for that, you kept me from him. You let him die.” Her words fell like stones at his feet. Her recriminations clawed at him. She believed them, that jealousy had guided his actions, not concern for her welfare.

  “Aileana, I love ye, and ye love me. I couldna let ye die along with him, no’ when I could prevent it. It is my place to protect ye.”

  “No,” she said, backing away from him again. Toran wanted to reach out, but her cold expression stopped his hand. “That won’t be a problem for you any longer.”

  Ice suddenly slid down Toran’s back, from his neck to his buttocks. “What do ye mean, lass?”

  “You made a promise to me.”

  “A promise?” Panic surged like beating wings in his belly. He knew the promise she meant. One he’d never wanted to make. One he damned himself now for ever uttering.

  “You promised me that once Colbridge was dead, or gone, I could leave.”

  “If ye truly wished to…”

  “Yes. And I do. I wish to leave. I’ll go south with the men. Back to my village. Maybe some of the people I knew are still there. They’ll take me in…”

  “Lass,” Toran choked, and couldn’t believe his voice could break on a single word. But it had, and it had not affected Aileana at all. She still stared at him, determination replacing the fury that had inhabited her features only moments before. “Ye canna.”

  “Can’t I? What? You won’t allow it? After you promised? You’ll hold me prisoner, then, while you let the rest of these men, who injured or killed some of yours—you’ll let them leave. And force me to stay? What? As your healer? As your slave? What will it be, Toran?”

  “Nay,” Toran acknowleged, feeling like the only word left to him to utter was nay. Nay, he couldn’t believe what she was saying to him. Nay, he couldn’t let her leave. He loved her and needed her by his side. “Nay,” he repeated and sighed. “I willna force ye.”

  “No, you can’t. You may be a big, bad warrior, Laird Lathan, but you made me a promise. You can’t go back on your word in front of all these men,” she said, her hands sweeping in a wide gesture to encompass the camp and the men milling around in it, “or they won’t trust your word to them, will they? You want them to leave peacefully, don’t you? You must let me leave peacefully, too.”

  “I dinna wish to force ye, Aileana. I wish for ye to stay with me. Ye made a promise, too, Aileana. We both did. Have ye forgotten so soon?”

  “No, Toran. I haven’t. But I cannot stay. You still don’t trust my judgement, my Talent. You don’t trust me.”

  “Please…Aileana…get some rest. Dinna leave. At least dinna leave without talking to me again.”

  “No. I will not speak to you again. I cannot forgive what you did here today. I cannot.”

  With that, she turned on her heel and started to walk away from him into the camp.

  Toran stood, helpless to restrain her, without the words to call her back. Without the words to gain her forgiveness. Without the words to convince her that his actions had been for her benefit, not because of some petty jealousy or wounded pride. She said she could not forgive him. She was walking away from him, her shoulders straight, her braid a dark line down her back, her bloody fists clenched.

  Then she disappeared into the chaos of the camp. He was alone, the only woman who cared about him gone from his life in pain and heartbreak and tears…just like his mother, and his childhood love, Fia. Now Aileana. Was he destined to be alone? Spurned or abandoned by the women who should have loved him? Toran’s gaze swept the camp, but he barely noted the activity taking place, the Lathan clansmen who had come from the Aerie, and the MacAnalens who were guesting with them, except as movement and chaos. He couldn’t focus on any single part of it, or any one person.

  He felt isolated and dazed. Donal and the rest of his men had left him to deal with Aileana while they took care of the camp. He was vulnerable to any of Colbridge’s men who might still hold a grudge. But he could not move, could not think.

  He could only stand there, lost in the memory of when she’d told him that she loved him. She’d meant it, he was certain she had. How could she walk away from him after that? After all they’d shared? All they’d promised to each other? How could she leave the comfort and security of the Aerie, and a life with a man who loved her. For this rough camp? Or worse, for the dangers of the trail and the slim possibility of finding anything like the home she’d been taken from two years before?

  Toran grimaced at the moisture gathering in his eyes.

  Donal must have been right: she was spent, and out of her mind. So was he. She needed rest and food and drink, just as she had after healing Jamie. Perhaps even more than she had then. She needed care and comfort, not this crazy path she planned to take. She needed to come home to the Aerie, where he could care for her, love her, live his life with her.

  But nay, she could not forgive him. Toran shook his head and blinked away the tears. She must. She was his wife. He would find her, cajole her, convince her. He could not live without her. He would not let her leave him, not like this.

  ****

  Aileana kept her gaze straight ahead as she walked away from Toran. She dared look neither right nor left or she might turn back to look at him. And if she did, she’d be lost. All her anger, all her grief, would be wasted if she ran back to him. No, she must leave him. He did not trust her Talent, and she could not trust him to let her use it as she needed. Because of him, a good man, the last of her kin, and the closest thing she had to a friend in the last two years lay dead.

  She passed through the camp like a ghost. No one seemed to notice her. Everyone was intent on their own business, gathering their belongings, packing up their meager provisions for the long march southward, finding traveling companions. The army was quickly breaking up into groups of three or four, the better to move unnoticed, she supposed, and less likely to look like the army that had passed through the area not long ago with such devastating results.

  Colbridge was dead. There was nothing to hold them together. And nothing to hold her, either. She had loved Toran, handfasted with him, but without trust, she could not stay. Breaking her promise to him stung. She’d given her word, said she loved him. And she did. But he had lied when he said he loved her. He could not—not and treat her this way. Kill her brother, deny her control over her own Talent. No. He wanted to control her for his clan, that was all. And that was over.

  The Healer’s tent still stood. Of course it did. Colbridge would have had no reason to take it down. He intended to get her back. She passed by, knowing there was nothing within she needed.

  Her sleeping tent was also still in place. That surprised her. She thought her things would have been pilfered by now. She ducked into the entrance and gazed about her. Her pallet, her brush, her clothes, her few possessions lay where she’d left them. Perhaps Ranald had done her this service. Or Colbridge had threatened anyone who thought to disturb her things. Either way, she had little to gather, and if she was to find trustworthy traveling companions, little time in which to do it.
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  She bent to work, finding a rag and some water to clean Ranald’s blood from her hands. Then she tucked her spare clothes into the sack that served as her pillow. It didn’t take long. She donned her travel cloak and looked around. She despaired of leaving the pallet and tent behind, but she could not carry them, and since most of the horses had been stolen or run off during the raid that had freed Toran and the MacAnalens, like most of the others, she’d be traveling on foot.

  She shouldered the sack and left the tent without a backward glance. A crowd had gathered around the cook fire, and she could see Cook and a few others dividing up what little food remained. She was surprised that no one was fighting over the scraps, but the small bundles were handed out without comment or difficulty. After each man received one, he moved aside. Aileana joined the queue and prayed that there would be something left when she got to the head of the line.

  She hadn’t been waiting long when she saw Cook notice her and start toward her. “Healer, take these,” Cook told her, pressing several packages into her hands. “You cared well for me. Now I can return the favor. And there’s more coming from that keep on the hill. Godspeed.”

  “I…thank you, Cook,” Aileana stuttered. “What about you?”

  “Me? I’m staying here. There’s nothing left for me in the Lowlands, and a keep like that,” she said as she gestured toward the Aerie sitting high and proud on its tor, “can always use another cook in the kitchen.” Cook squeezed her hand, then went back to her station.

  Aileana glanced around her. No one seemed to object to her special treatment, so she stepped quietly out of line and tucked the food into her sack. She’d eat some of it as soon as she found someone to travel with. God, she was tired. She desperately needed food and drink and rest, not to set off on a long trail. She scanned the crowd for familiar faces but saw no one she recognized. She had to find someone she could trust. She dared not risk the trip alone, but feared that going with some of the rough soldiers could be even more dangerous, unless she could find someone that she had healed.

  Just then she spotted one of the other healers who had taken care of the less seriously injured. She gave a sigh of relief as she started toward him. He stood with three others. She couldn’t believe her luck.

  “Healer,” they greeted her.

  “Are you leaving soon?” she asked without hesitation. “I seek companions for the trip south.”

  Galen, the eldest of the four, nodded. “We are, Healer, and would welcome your company as we go.”

  Exultation filled Aileana, and despite her weariness, she told him, “I am ready.”

  “As are we,” Galen responded with a bow and gestured for her to preceed him. “Shall we, then?”

  She nodded. As she started walking, the others fell in around her. No one took her arm, no one touched her, but they made it clear that anyone trying to get to her as they left the camp would have to go through them. Relief washed through Aileana, and brought with it the return of the fatigue that had swamped her when she’d lost Ranald. A tear slipped from her eye and left a damp trail down her cheek. She wished she had a chance to go back and say goodbye to him, but to turn around would mean losing her escort, and it would put her face to face with Toran. She could not bear to see the hurt in his eyes again. No, she’d chosen her path. Now she would walk it.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Aileana sat on a log next to the fire and pulled her cloak more closely around her shoulders. She could get warm on the front facing the fire, but her back still felt chilled, despite the heavy travel cloak.

  She longed also for the warmth of Toran’s arms around her, but she knew she was no more likely to feel that comfort again than she was to find herself magically transported to the luxurious depths of the bedcovers in her chamber in his fortress...the cozy chamber that she’d left behind the night she stole from the Aerie. That action had set her on this path, and she wondered if she had to do it all over again, what she would do. She had failed to save Ranald. In her despair, she had blamed Toran and run from him. But was he really to blame?

  Tiny snowflakes drifted lazily down from the leaden sky. And her feet hurt. She didn’t know how far they’d walked these past few days, but she knew that without some rest and warmth, she might not make it much further.

  Not that her companions were any better off. They had carried what they could of warm clothes and provisions, but they, too, were tired and footsore. And hungry. The food that Cook had provided was long gone, and their skills as hunters were evidently vastly less accomplished than their skills as healers. This time of year, brambles yielded a few berries frozen on their stems that the birds had yet to find, but any wild apples had long since fallen or been nibbled away by the canny wildlife hereabouts.

  Aileana was becoming convinced that they were lost.

  Though she thought they tended generally southward, no one could keep to a straight course on the winding mountain paths. Heavy cloud cover hid the sun and made daylight flat, cold, and unhelpful. For all she knew, they could be circling back to Toran’s glen, or miss it completely and wind their way further into the mountains. They had not found anything resembling a village, or even a simple croft, to shelter them and provide directions. Not even the remains of the MacAnalen village that Colbridge had razed. These Highland hills went on and on, green and brown, then white and sere with the dusting of snow that carried little moisture. The burns, as they called the streams here, ran cold and sluggish, some coated with a thin glaze of ice that melted away if any sunlight managed to find them.

  On the trip, she had learned more about her traveling companions than she had in two years of traveling with the army. She had known that Galen was the most experienced healer among them. Edward was the next eldest. Paul and Clarence had been apprenticed to Edward when they were caught up in Colbridge’s rampage through their village.

  Now she had found out that Galen was stern and that Edward was only a few years past her own age and handsome enough if she cared to look, which she did not. No man could compare with Toran. The apprentices were younger, but wise beyond their years after experiencing the aftermath of Colbridge’s battles. They all kept a polite distance from her while lending what support they could, except Edward, who had begun giving her long looks. She feared what that meant. Oh, she could put him off with her Voice, but if he was contemplating forcing her, then he surely thought they were doomed, and she was his last chance to know his release in a woman’s body.

  Aileana shivered and leaned closer to the fire. Already the apprentices had resorted to bedding down together for warmth. She expected she would receive a similar invitation soon from Edward. Or even Galen. If she was cold enough, she might break down and agree to it, even though she knew where it might lead.

  She held her hands out to the fire and watched the light flicker over her ruddy and chapped fingers; her fingernails nearly blue with cold. It was dusk; the night stretched long ahead.

  Suddenly Edward entered the circle of firelight, two mottled white hares clutched by the ears in his fist.

  “Supper,” he announced, pulling a knife and beginning to skin one of them. “Clarence, find some sticks. We’ll roast these over the fire.”

  The young apprentice jumped up and began searching nearby, stooping to collect suitable deadfall for skewering their meal. Any stick that met their needs, he handed off to Paul, who stripped it and whittled a sharp point on one end with his knife. Soon, Edward finished his bloody work skinning, cleaning and halving their dinner. He punched the sticks through the meaty portions and handed one to each of them to hold over the fire, then cleaned the blood and gore from his hands with a clump of snow.

  The scent of roasting meat soon wafted into Aileana’s nose and made her mouth water. The hiss and pop of melting fat falling into the fire warmed her as much as the flames.

  “How did you catch them?” she asked.

  “Carefully,” Edward replied sagely and winked at her. Then he reached into a pocket with his fre
e hand and pulled forth a sling and several small stones.

  “These two are the first I’ve seen or we would have eaten better before now.”

  “I’m glad you saw these, and were so careful with your throwing stones.” She turned the rabbit haunch over to cook the other side. “Thank you.”

  “Indeed,” Galen seconded. “Well done.”

  “You’re all welcome,” Edward answered. “Perhaps there will be more tomorrow, or a small deer.”

  “Might as well wish for a village to shelter us,” Clarence muttered, “or the Regent’s coach to carry us home.”

  “Or a horse or two,” Paul said, continuing the wishful game Edward had unwittingly started, “to carry us farther and faster than we can go afoot.”

  “No use tormenting yourselves wishing for that which does not exist,” Galen pronounced, effectively putting an end to conversation.

  Aileana sighed and pulled her dinner away from the fire to test its readiness, then put it back to the flames again. Finally, the meat was cooked to her satisfaction and despite Galen’s dour pronouncement, hot food gave her heart, warming her from the inside out. Far from replete, but no longer empty and cold, Aileana settled back and let her eyes drift closed to the sound of the men’s conversation.

  ****

  Toran cursed as he followed the trail. And cursed again, and again. Light snow had been falling all day. Darkness was upon him and still he kept on. Banner kept on, unflagging despite the miles he’d carried his master. Toran patted the big horse’s neck, then cursed again. Why had he let Aileana go when he had her close to hand? He’d meant to talk to her, and even to carry her back to the Aerie against her will, if that is what it took to make her realize that was where she wanted to be, not wandering the Highlands on the threshold of winter with a band of refugees.