by Hazel Hunter
“I’ve had a headache since it happened,” the dancer admitted, glancing at her sister.
“Tell him the rest,” Rowan said.
Perrin sighed. “It’s wrecked my druid thing. Since the mad druids brought us here I’ve had visions almost every day. After Lily knocked me out they stopped completely.”
“If I may touch your head?” Ruadri waited for her nod, and then carefully felt around the swelling for fractures. But Perrin showed no sign of discomfort. “Have you felt confused, unbalanced, or stomach-sick?”
“Not at all.” The dancer rubbed her temple. “The headache isn’t that bad. Actually, it seems to be going away now.”
Ruadri came around and brought a candle close to her face, noting how her eyes responded as they should to the nearness of the light.
“Setting her on fire isn’t going to help,” Rowan said, taking a step closer.
“Relax, Fight Club,” Althea told her before he could reply. “He needs to check her pupils, and they don’t have penlights in this century.”
The dark lass made a rude sound. “I thought you weren’t a medical doctor.”
“See how I’m letting her have the last word?” the botanist asked Ruadri. “I think I’ve grown.”
“No signs of bleeding from within. I feel naught broken.” He set the candle aside. “I’ll make a poultice for the swelling, my lady. If you’ve any changes for the worse you should come to me at once. I reckon with rest and food you should feel better in a few days.”
“Okay.” The tension went out of her shoulders. “What about my visions? Will they ever come back?”
No injury could remove the power bestowed on her by passing through the sacred grove’s time portal. To tell her that would reveal too much of his knowledge of druid kind, however.
“Mayhap, once you’ve healed.”
“Which means he doesn’t know,” Rowan put in.
“Why would he?” her sister countered. “Not like he’s a druid or went to medical school.”
Guilt made Ruadri turn away. He busied himself by taking a small linen pouch and filling it with herbs to make a compress, using lavender, mint and sage along with some dried heather flowers for her headache.
“Soak this in warm water before you apply it to the swelling, Mistress Thomas,” he said to Perrin, and then regarded Althea. “She needs food and rest as much. If you would, my lady, ask Kelturan to prepare his bone brew and a bolstering pottage for her.”
Brennus’s wife tucked her arm through the dancer’s. “Come on and I’ll show you the kitchens. You’re going to love our clan cook. Well, not really, but as the chieftain’s lady I’m not supposed to refer to him as the annoying medieval blockhead he is.” She glanced at Rowan. “Don’t worry. I’ll guard her with my life. Which is immortal now, so…”
“Fine,” the dark lass said with a snarl. When the two ladies left she turned her ire on him. “I’ve got more than a bump on the head going on here, and you’re not an MD. Where’s Emeline?”
“In her chambers.” The shaman recalled how Lily’s presence had seemed to calm the nurse and wondered if Rowan would do the same for her. “I’ll send for her, if you wish.”
Relief flickered through her dark eyes. “Yeah, that would be awesome.”
He summoned a sentry, who returned a short time later with Emeline. The nurse had changed into clean garments, and looked annoyed but otherwise clear-headed as she hobbled into his healing chamber.
“Hey, Flor– Ah, Emmie,” Rowan quickly corrected herself. “Would you mind looking at my shoulder? Nothing against Witchdoctor Mountain here, but I’d rather have someone from the twenty-first century patch me up.”
“On the table, please.” She didn’t spare Ruadri a glance. “I’ll need shears.”
“Permit me.” Drawing his sharpest dagger, he carefully slit the sleeve and yoke of Rowan’s tunic.
Emeline lifted the edge of the linen he’d tied over her injury last night. “It looks infected, and the bandage has stuck to the wound. We’ll want to soak it.”
He brought her a bowl of meltwater he’d earlier boiled and let cool, and she poured a small amount onto the bandage. Rowan’s jaw tightened, but she remained silent as Emeline slowly peeled away the sodden cloth. The deep graze and the flesh around it appeared reddened and swollen, and Ruadri saw the seep of festering around something still lodged in the center.
“’Twas done with a spear?” he asked Rowan, who nodded. “A piece broke off when it struck you, mayhap.”
“Of course, it did.” The dark lass looked up at Emeline. “How are you at minor surgery, McAra?”
“My hands arenae as steady as I’d like.” Now her blue eyes shifted to Ruadri. “Wash your blade with whiskey, dry it with a clean cloth, and then run it through the candle flame. Once it’s sterile I’ll tell you how to cut.”
“Wonderful.” Rowan closed her eyes.
Ruadri knew how to clean a wound knife properly but held his tongue as he followed Emeline’s instructions. Once he had prepared the blade, he fetched some cloth to place under her shoulder for the drainage.
“She’ll first want a draught for the pain,” he murmured to the nurse.
“No need. Rowan laughs at pain, dinnae you, lass?” Emeline said, her voice taking on a harsh edge.
“Yeah, sure.” The carpenter frowned. “Just get it over with, Shaman.”
“Cut here.” The nurse made a short gesture over the swelling to indicate the place and length.
Ruadri applied the blade, opening the wound and releasing a stream of bloody fluid. Rowan hissed in a breath, and at her sides her hands fisted. She yelped as something caught on the edge of the knife.
He leaned down to peer at the spot. “’Tis a shard of wood, lodged in the center. I cannae tell how deeply.”
“Cut around it,” Emeline said. When he stared at her, she made an impatient sound and tried to take the blade from him. “My hands have steadied. Give it to me.”
“I’ve got a great idea,” their patient said, looking alarmed now. “Why don’t I pull it out?”
The nurse’s expression darkened. “You dinnae ken anything about healing.”
“But I’ve got wood mojo, remember?” Rowan lifted her hand to the wound.
Ruadri caught Emeline’s wrist when she tried to grab the dark lass’s hand, and pulled her away from the table. “Mayhap you should wait outside, my lady.”
With her free hand she slapped him, and while the blow only stung his cheek the unexpected attack put him on his heels. A heartbeat later Emeline shoved him aside and lunged at Rowan.
“Hey.” The carpenter rolled off the table, backing into a rack of drying herbs. “Take it easy, I got it.” She held up a long, bloody splinter.
Emeline uttered a low, furious sound as she came around the table.
“I said to leave it to me, you stupit wench.”
“Okay, Florence, calm down,” Rowan cautioned her and glanced at Ruadri as he came up behind Emeline. “It’s all good now.”
The nurse’s cane whistled in the air as she tried to hit Rowan over the head. “I told you no’ to call me that.”
The dark lass dodged the blow and shoved the drying rack over between her and the nurse. Her eyes widened as Emeline picked up the rack and tossed it aside.
“Emmie, come on. I was just joking. You know I’m your friend. Or I try to be. Sometimes.”
“Friend.” The nurse’s expression twisted as she pushed Rowan against the wall, and then plucked Ruadri’s blade from the table. “You’re naught but fresh meat to carve.”
The chieftain’s half-brother came into the chamber holding a delicate chain in one of his scarred hands. “Ru, I’ve managed this much for you–” He stopped in his tracks just as Ruadri grabbed the nurse from behind and Rowan snatched the dagger from her. “By the Gods.” He rushed over to help.
Emeline screamed and struggled wildly as she fought to free herself from Ruadri’s grip. As he turned to move her away from the dar
k lass she seized a stone pestle and hurled it at Kanyth. The heavy bowl bounced off the weapons master’s skull, and he fell to his knees before toppling onto his side.
“I’ll put you all back in the dirt,” Emeline said, her voice so low and rough now she sounded like one of the famhairean. “’Tis where your kind belong, feeding the worms. Let go of me.”
Ruadri kept an arm clamped around her waist as he reached for one of his vials. Removing the cork with his teeth, he lifted and put the nurse on his work table. There he kept her pinned as he brought the potion bottle to her lips and poured a measure of its contents into her mouth.
Emeline spat it back in his face. “I’ll tear off your head, human, slow–”
She choked as he poured another measure into her mouth, and then pinched her nose shut to force her to swallow.
“I got this guy,” Rowan said as she went to kneel beside Kanyth. “He looks a lot like Brennus. Great. She had to knock out the chieftain’s bro. Don’t hurt her, Shaman.”
“Never would I.” Ruadri looked down into Emeline’s eyes, which became dazed as her eyelashes fluttered. “Dinnae fight it, lass. ’Twill no’ hurt you. Only rest now.”
It took another minute before his sleeping potion took effect. Tears slid down her flushed cheeks when at last she closed her eyes and went limp.
“Okay, Hammer Time, up we go,” the dark lass said as she helped a groaning Kanyth to his feet. “Shaman, you got any more of those head compresses?”
Ruadri kept his arm across Emeline’s waist as he glanced over at the weapons master, who swatted at the blood streaking down one side of his face. “He needs but a swim in the river to heal.”
“Why would the lady attack me?” Kanyth demanded. “I’ve done naught.” He glanced at the necklace he still held and then at Ruadri. “It couldnae be this could it?”
“This isn’t about you—or you,” Rowan told Ruadri. “When we stepped out of line Hendry and Murdina’s guards used to knock us around and beat us with sticks, the same way Emmie was fighting just now. They were too strong to use their fists. And you heard what she said, right?”
Ruadri nodded. “Why would she call us humans, and wish to kill us?”
“She wouldn’t.” The dark lass eyed the unconscious nurse. “But that’s exactly how those famhairean assholes talk.”
Chapter Five
GATHERING IN THE great hall and gabbing incessantly seemed to be the Skaraven’s only way to deal with crises, not that Rowan really cared. Her newly-stitched shoulder throbbed like someone was steadily whacking it with a club. She had the same light-headed buzz she used to get in her time just after donating blood. With so many huge men around, she had to constantly squelch the urge to run for the nearest exit. All the fight had been shocked the hell out of her. She was operating in flight mode now.
But neither bothered her as much as why Emeline had attacked her.
Rowan actually liked the Scottish nurse, who she considered to be the only genuinely nice woman in the bunch. Since being brought back to Never-Ending Medieval Fest, Emeline had worked herself into exhaustion trying to take care of everyone. She’d never let any of them go off the deep end. She’d made rounds like the nurse she was in order to check on them and talk to them. Sometimes she’d even joked about the lack of food, water, and creature comforts that had made them so miserable.
Emeline had also never laid a hand in anger on anyone except Rowan just after they’d arrived at the stronghold. But that had been just a girly slap she’d definitely earned. Thing was, Emeline didn’t slap or punch or hurt anyone, ever. No matter how bad it had gotten, she’d always tried to help—until today.
Listening to Althea tell Brennus all about it while Ruadri listened was pissing off Rowan, too. The botanist hadn’t even been in the room.
“She’s been under tremendous stress since they took us,” Althea told her husband, though not with much conviction. “Maybe she finally snapped.”
“I don’t think so,” Rowan said and pushed herself off the edge of the table where she’d perched. “Emeline doesn’t snap. Not in the barn, the cage, the granary, and definitely not any time while we were on the run. She nagged or she puked or she bitched, and a few times she cried, but she never once lost it. Ask Lily, who, by the way, didn’t open her mouth once during the first week of Fun at the Forest Farm.”
Everyone glanced over at the chef, who spread her hands. “In my defense, I’d just had my neck broken and then healed by time travel. Also, the voice took a spot longer to come back.”
“It’s not a criticism. I’m just saying.” Rowan regarded the shaman, who hadn’t uttered a peep since Brennus’s guards had carried Emeline to the underground levels. “You’re the medieval medic. Something is seriously off with Emmie. Did the crazy couple do something to her, or can’t you tell?”
“I couldnae sense any lingering spell work,” Ruadri said, his cavernous voice sounding almost angry. “I searched her garments for charms but found none. From what I ken of the lady, whatever compelled her wasnae by choice.”
Rowan would have mentioned that the shaman had known Emeline for all of two minutes, but that wouldn’t help the cause. “There you go,” she told the chieftain. “Maybe the guards did something to her. She was talking and acting like them when she went postal on me.”
“More the reason to keep the lass apart from others,” Brennus said.
No wonder he’d fallen in love with Althea. They were both thick as a brick.
“But she’s our friend, and she’s in trouble,” Rowan reminded him. “This is not the time to go all chieftain on her. She needs some help here.”
“All we ken is that the lady near skewered you, and felled my weapons master,” Brennus said. “I and my lady shall be some days at the McAra stronghold. Until we return, Lady Emeline shall be kept in the eagalsloc. From there she can hurt no one, nor come to harm.”
“The eagle’s what?” Rowan demanded. “I don’t speak Gaelic.”
Althea grimaced. “It’s the clan’s…confinement area. I stayed there myself for a bit.” She cleared her throat. “She’ll be perfectly safe, I promise.”
“I must see to preparations for our journey, my ladies.” Brennus’s dark eyes shifted to the shaman. “Once we reach the McAra’s I shall consult with Bhaltair Flen on the matter. Until we ken the cause of Lady Emeline’s affliction, she remains below. Keep watch over her, Ru.” He nodded to Rowan and Lily before he strode off toward the stables.
The shaman stared after him before he went in the opposite direction.
Oh, this was so not happening on her watch, Rowan thought, and turned to the idiot redhead.
“Say, Doc, you haven’t given me the whole underground castle tour yet, and I’m just dying to see the place.” She looped her arm through Althea’s and clamped it to her side. “Excuse us, Lil.” Rowan nodded at the men. “Guys.”
“The only thing back here is my brother-in-law’s forge,” Althea said as Rowan hustled her into the nearest empty corridor. “Also, Kanyth likes me and is conscious now, so if you start hitting me he’ll probably–”
“I’m not going to punch you, you idiot.” As soon as they were out of earshot of the men in the great hall Rowan dragged her to a halt. “What are you doing, going along with this? They locked up Emmie. Emmie. She’s a nurse, for God’s sake. And what the hell is this eagalsloc thing anyway?”
“You’re not going to like it,” the botanist warned her. When Rowan fisted her hand and took a step closer she heaved a sigh. “Fine. It’s an oubliette.”
Rowan pinched the bridge of her nose to keep from punching Althea. “Just FYI, I don’t speak French, either.”
“It’s a deep pit in the ground accessible only by a rope ladder lowered from the edge. Which Brennus has no doubt removed.” Quickly she raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. “Try to see it from his point of view. Emeline didn’t just knock out his half-brother. Kanyth is a clanmaster, second only to the chieftain in rank. And she was t
rying to kill you, Rowan. No one goes that crazy and still gets to wander around the stronghold.”
She stared at Althea in disbelief. “You really have no idea what you’ve done. That woman kept the rest of us alive. She did it with a bashed face and a broken ankle. She couldn’t even eat for days after the last time Coig—oh, but I forgot. You weren’t in the cage with us starving and freezing and waiting for the next beating. You were here playing flip the kilt with Brennus.”
The other woman’s light blue eyes glittered. “You’re right. I wasn’t there for whatever they did to you after I escaped. I was too busy trying to convince the Skaraven to help us. And, if you recall, I came back with the clan to rescue your ass, which also killed me. Brennus selfishly took a little time to bring my frozen body back here to bury me. He and the clan were lowering me into a grave when the immortality thing kicked in. Lucky for you I did reboot.” She leaned close. “Or you might still be starving in a cage.”
“You’re breaking my heart, Doc,” Rowan snarled back at her. “Cade and Lily got us out, not you. You killed yourself trying to save the Scotsman and his crew. Whatever. Nothing makes it okay to toss Emeline in a freaking prison pit. Give her to me, and I’ll take her to the portal and send her back to our–” She stopped as she saw something flicker over Althea’s face. “What?”
“In the state she’s in, Emeline can’t go back to the future. She could do worse to the people there than she did to you today.” The botanist backed away a few steps. “She can’t stay at Dun Mor, either.”
Rowan folded her arms. “I know Brennus is pissed about his brother, but come on. You can’t kick her out in the snow for it.”
“It’s not that. We’ve learned that Emeline is likely a direct descendent of our mortal allies, the McAra Clan. She and the laird, Maddock McAra, look so much alike they could be siblings.” When Rowan rolled her hand, she added, “Women in this time have very few rights, and the rules about unmarried females are very strict. Custom demands that because she’s blood-kin she should be handed over to Maddock.”