by Syme, R. L.
Chapter Two
Anne nearly retched at the smell of the heavy air that swallowed her into the dungeon. A combination of human waste, rot, and filth tickled her throat with its pungent invitation until she finally had to hold her breath against it, or risk soiling herself. She came to the first door at the base of the winding stairs and tried the handle instinctively, wanting to escape the nausea more than anything.
Behind her, the scarred man and his captive stomped into the storeroom. The door slammed closed and the wounded man fell to the floor. Anne turned to see that his captor had released him and he was unable to stand on his own. William, she thought she remembered them calling him.
She knelt and put her hand under his arm. The fabric of her sleeve immediately stuck to her forearm with a warm, wet stickiness. She must be near his wound.
“Can you stand?” She strained to pull him to his feet, but her leverage wasn’t enough to move the giant man. His blond beard hung long and braided, in the common style of the western Highlands, practically dragging on the floor from his kneeling position. He really did remind her of Broccin Sinclair, her childhood fiancé. The news that Broc lay in the dungeon fluttered her heartbeat. While she had never loved him the way a woman should love a man, she had enough affection for the man that she didn’t want him to rot here.
And while she hadn’t seen Broc in many years, she imagined that he would look just like William Campbell. Perhaps without the braided beard, although word was that Broc had taken up with Andrew de Moray and had been living with his renegade band that had been striking weak English posts since the incursion.
He could be anyone.
She had to get to him. Perhaps her father could intervene. But first, she had to know why he was here and how she could help.
And she needed William Campbell to make that happen.
Before she realized what was happening, the wounded man’s body fell away from her and he landed on his feet. The scarred man, Aedan, had hold of him again.
“He’s losing blood.” Aedan lifted William’s arm and found the wound that had been pressing against Anne’s dress.
“Can you put him on a flat surface?” Anne looked around the room for the first time. “Is there a table?”
The storeroom, as the Sheriff had called it, was really more like an armament hall. A long, thin room, it sat just wide enough for the three of them to stand shoulder-to-shoulder between shelves that held helmets, mail, boots, and jerkins lining one wall, then weapons of every kind lining the other. About ten feet into the dark room, a thick, short table stretched between the shelves.
Aedan grunted as he laid the man’s torso across the table. His legs dangled over the end, but Anne could easily see the extent of his wound. The man’s shirt lay torn from below his shoulder nearly to his waist, hanging open to reveal an oozing, bloody wound at his side just under his arm.
Anne pulled at the soiled material until it ripped even farther. She held the pieces apart with her fingertips and studied the wound. Blood dripped thickly from the wound and his skin pulled at jagged edges.
She took a deep breath and froze. Her insufficient dinner felt as though it might come up again.
Edging her out of the way, Aedan took the shirt and ripped it from the man’s torso in one swift movement. He released the remains of the garment and only then did she realize that he breathed in urgent silence at her elbow.
“Thank you, sir.” She stepped back. “I hadn’t thought to…”
He sighed loudly and grasped the end of the shirt again. He lifted the captive only slightly and pulled the tattered fabric out from underneath him, then held it up to Anne. She nearly reeled at the scent alone.
“Don’t you want to stop the bleeding?” A note of taunting flirted at the edges of his voice. He shook the shirt under her nose.
Anne froze. She hadn’t even thought. Surely, if he had such little faith in her healing knowledge, he would push her out of her opportunity to help Broc. To help Scotland.
“Of course, sir.” She wrapped the shirt several times around her hand and pressed it to the wound. The captive winced and hissed a curse. It wasn’t long before she could feel the same warmth as had soaked her sleeve. Unthinking, she recoiled, taking the rag with her.
Another loud expelling of breath feathered against her cheek as Aedan reached past her, taking the shirt from around her hand, and pressing it back on the wound. The intimacy of his breath on her skin almost made her hold back, but she had to convince this man that she knew this craft. She just had to have a moment alone with William.
“Not too much pressure,” she said.
Aedan’s eyebrows raised and he stepped back, allowing the bloody fabric to fall away from the wound. William howled.
“Why not?” Aedan asked.
She pressed the shirt back against the wound and placed her other hand on William’s chest, hoping it would calm him even a little.
“The man is in pain.”
“The man is bleeding to death.”
“I am trying to stop that.” Anne steadied William’s moving body, locking her elbow and leaning hard against him, but his moaning intensified.
“I’m not sure you’re doing any good.” Aedan shifted from side to side, making disapproving noises at her every move.
She lifted the cloth and looked at the wound again. It seemed to have slowed bleeding with William on his back, but that left the issue of how to stitch it up. It was extremely clean, but wide. She’d never stitched a wound before and wasn’t sure where to begin, even. Perhaps it would be like stitching cloth.
She tore her eyes away from the gore, trying to keep her stomach from losing its contents everywhere. “I need some supplies.”
Aedan stopped shifting and went for the exit. “What do you need?”
“Whatever you can find.”
He remained at the door, searching the room for something. “Are there no supplies here?”
With her stomach roiling, Anne reached out for support, but her hand fell on William’s hip bone and he yipped like a puppy beneath the pressure—far as it was from the wound.
I can do this. I can do this.
“I’ll search here,” she promised. “But we need hot water and a clean knife. It must be very sharp. With all haste, please.”
With a gruff noise, the door closed behind him. The momentary shift of air brought a touch of reprieve. Having never been this close to a wound before, she hadn’t known how it would upset her stomach. Her weakness was nearly as disagreeable as the blood-soaked cloth she continued to grip in her hand.
Anne took a deep breath through her mouth, stifling any more nausea, and leaned over William to take her opportunity at last.
“You don’t know me,” she began in a whisper, in case any guards walked by. “But I know of you and I know one of the men you seek here.”
“How did you know?” William groaned and opened his eyes. “That I was coming to rescue Broccin Sinclair.”
Anne’s heart flipped. So Broc was here, after all. He could help her, certainly. “I didn’t. I mean, I don’t. I only knew Broc as a child.”
William’s brown eyes flickered back and forth between hers, searching. What for, she wasn’t certain, but she hoped that her sincerity would convince him.
“I mean to help rescue him if I can.”
He glanced at the door as soon as she uttered the words. Wrinkled concern covered his face. “Do you know of the plan?”
“What plan?”
William shifted and covered his bare chest with his far arm. It must have been some kind of signal. She lifted her left arm in a diagonal position across her own chest, mirroring him.
“We’ve had more men captured this winter than ever before. Many are jailed here in Berwick, awaiting no trial, given no quarter.”
“And Broc is one of them?”
“He came to rescue Andrew de Moray, when he was captured in a raid near the border. Since then, we’ve had two dozen men captured and impris
oned. The Sheriff’s cells are bursting with us.”
Anne pictured the dank, smelly dungeon that laid just two walls beyond where they sat in semi-darkness, with only a low-burning torch to give them light. She imagined the dungeon to be darker, even, than this. Disorienting. Frightful. And Broccin lay in that awful place. Perhaps she never loved the man, when he was a boy, but she certainly wouldn’t wish this fate upon him.
Only the English deserved that.
William laid back, eyes closed, breathing through some kind of pain or spasm. Suddenly aware that Aedan would be back in a moment, Anne urged him onward.
“You say there’s a plan?”
William nodded. “I was to be the last one captured. There is a man in the guard who is sympathetic to us and I have been given leave to pay him for a key and lead the escape.”
Anne fluttered her fingers against the cloth. This would never do. William was certainly in no place to lead a rebellion, and they must have taken whatever purse he’d had on him, because she saw nothing.
“And now that you’ve been wounded, what is the plan?”
He winced a smile and reached for her hand, pulling it toward the wound and pressing down. “I’ll heal in the dungeon. Then we’ll make our escape.”
“That could be weeks.” Anne allowed her eyes to wander the room as she considered what could be done. Far down the shelves, her eyes lighted on a pile of wrapped cloth that would work for bandages, hiding behind a row of helmets, stuffed into a corner.
She pressed harder on his wound and he cried out. “See, you’re in no position to do anything right now. How far is your camp?”
His brows narrowed and he jerked his head. “How did you know there was a camp?”
“There’s always a camp.” She took his far hand and put it on the blood-soaked shirt. Careful to avoid his legs, Anne squeezed down the length of the room and grabbed a few rolls of bandages.
She took one of the shirts from the pile of requisitions and tied a bundle together, leaving one of the rolls out. “I’m going to leave this here next to your good arm.”
Anne placed the tied bundled shirt next to William’s body where it would be invisible to Aedan from the door. Perhaps even from a close distance. Arm’s length distance.
“What is it?”
“A bundle of bandages, for the road.”
He caught her wrist as she squeezed past him. “For what?”
She lifted the bloodied rag from his wound and replaced it with a clean shirt. Thankfully, it didn’t soak through with blood as quickly as she’d expected it might.
“For the road,” she repeated. “Because we have a new plan, and I don’t think you’re going to like it very much.”
*****
Aedan’s arms were so full of supplies he imagined they might need, he fumbled for a moment or two with the door before he could get it open. He should have just left it open in the first place, and likely would have, if he hadn’t been so concerned about what ideas the Sheriff’s men might have gotten if they’d come across Anne de Cheyne without him there to protect her.
Whatever Highland hill she’d been born on, he was certain it was nothing like the danger and bustle of the city. Especially one ruled by a corrupt magistrate with Simon Alcock’s history.
Naiveté was only so appealing before it became dangerous, and in a place like this, innocence could get you killed. Or worse.
Aedan needed to extricate himself from her as quickly as he was able. Just this door and a few stitches, and he’d be free of her.
The door latch gave a heavy click when he finally managed enough leverage to force it to open. The storage room was darker than the hallway and it took him a minute to adjust.
A pile of white linen rolls sat on the table. Thankfully, she’d found more because the two he’d managed to scrounge up wouldn’t be enough to wrap a man fully. Anne stood in the same posture and place she’d been when he left. Leaning against the table, holding what looked like a clean cloth to William’s side.
The blood-soaked remains of the shirt lay at her feet. Aedan shifted the mess to the wall with the edge of his boot, trying to keep the blood away from her dress. On one of the empty shelves, he set down the bowl of hot water, the knives, the needle and thread, and the two rolls of linen strips.
“I think the bleeding has stopped.” Anne removed the mostly clean cloth from the wound and showed it to him, looking up for approval.
He almost smiled. Something about the turn up of her eyes reminded him of Brighde. Perhaps that was what made him trust her, as well. A childlike desire for his approval had endeared his sister to him from the moment she’d opened her eyes. His heart warmed at the memory and he found one corner of his mouth turning upward of its own volition.
“That’s good news.” His gruff tone erased the Brighde-esque moment from her face and solidified her requisite determination. He still couldn’t decide what had so set her mind toward this task, but she was fierce in her persistence.
She passed him the cloth and looked over the contents of his offering. She wrinkled her nose for the shortest of moments, but smoothed her face into a smile.
“I suppose you’ll have to help me,” she said.
Aedan marveled at the shift in her demeanor. One moment, familiar and almost intimate, like… family… and the next moment, the valor of noblesse, and a steeled indifference. Strange woman.
“Indeed. Where would you like to begin?”
She crinkled her mouth to one side and looked up. There was the look of his sister again. Unguarded. That was it. No one ever allowed themselves to be unguarded in his presence. He blamed his scar for that.
“Let me pour just a bit of this water over the wound and then I think I’ll have you—” she stopped and closed her eyes for a moment, “hold the wound closed so it will be easier for me to sew it.”
Aedan glanced down at William, poor man. He lay still with his eyes closed, his jaw set against whatever might come. Aedan admired the man. He was almost certain that William was a good man. Indeed, if there hadn’t been such a price on his head—on all the heads of the de Moray rebels—Aedan might have counted the man a friend. Hell, if he’d been free to choose, he might even have joined their cause.
But he wasn’t free to choose, and he needed to remember that.
“You stand over there.” Anne pointed to a stretch of the table near William’s head. She stood at his hip and poured some of the water over the wound, dabbing at the edges with the cloth. Water pooled in little crags on the table’s surface and then washed down in the cracks between the slats and onto the floor below. It mixed with what little blood had escaped.
The slow in bleeding was a good sign. Perhaps the man would live after all. And Aedan intended to question him once Anne de Cheyne was out of the way. He had to know where Andrew and Elizabeth made camp. And he had to find them. That would finally pay off the last of the debts and he could go home.
“I’m going to start up near the top, where there seems to be the most skin.” Anne took the long thread and needle in her hand, knotted one end, and pointed toward his side. “Now, you press the wound together so I can work at it.”
Aedan put a hand on either side of the wound and pushed the skin together. William let out an animal-like yowl. “Do you have something for him to bite on?”
She looked around, exasperated, but shimmied to the far side of the room and returned with a nice leather belt. She offered it to William and he chewed the thick end, letting the other drop across the other side of his body.
Anne nodded at him, then plunged the needle into his skin and shuddered. His cry affected her, Aedan could see. Whatever her reason for doing this, it wasn’t to inflict pain.
He could only really spare a finger, so as her hand came near his, he stroked the side of it with his pointer and she looked up at him, her lips parted in a silent question. The warmth he’d felt before returned with a force and Aedan found himself staring into this beautiful face, unable to speak
or even breathe. Certainly, her beauty was arresting—he’d known that the first time he saw her—but this was something else. Perhaps the artless gaze, perhaps the wet promise of her lips and the tiny indrawn breath when their eyes met, perhaps the memory of Brighde.
He’d wanted to comfort her at first, but his touch lingering on the soft, round underside of her palm suddenly seemed the most intimate thing he could have done.
Aedan cleared his throat and pressed his lips together, giving her a gentle nod. She could do this. He hadn’t known her long, but he’d seen her resolve. She could handle a little pain.
Her icy blue eyes cooled and her mouth spread into a smile. She returned the nod and plunged the needle into William’s skin again. This time, the cry was less, and Anne finally set a pace that allowed William a bit of time before each stitch to prepare himself.
Anne pulled at the last stitch and tied the two ends together, then used one of the knives to trim the end. With a backward step, her whole demeanor changed. He couldn’t decide what it was, but as soon as the stitching was complete, the whole feel of the room changed.
“You have done well,” he said.
She smiled tightly and took another step in retreat from William. Aedan stepped between Anne and her patient and reached for her hand, as much because he wanted to touch her again as to congratulate a job well done.
“I wasn’t certain, at first, that you’d done this before. But in the end…” Aedan initially stopped to turn his head, but he couldn’t be certain if there really had been a movement, or if he was just being paranoid.
But the blinding pain on the side of his head put the questions out of mind. As he fell against the shelves, he reached out for Anne, not wanting to leave her to the savagery of this fugitive. William took one more swing at Aedan and black crept from the edges of his vision to the center, no matter how hard he fought it.
Chapter Three
Anne couldn’t breathe as she watched Aedan collapse to the floor. Suddenly, the plan seemed not to be her most brilliant. He’d been so gentle with her, so kind, and how had she repaid him? By distracting him so a wounded fugitive could bludgeon him with a heavy helmet.