Another contraction brought Maggie to a halt, and Iain could stand it no more. As soon as it passed, he lifted her into his arms and charged up the rest of the hill.
Maggie rested her head against his chest and thought she was silly to have denied him this. Being in his arms was the very best place to be.
The End
Read a snippet from Highlander Heroes Book 6: The Love of Her Life.
Coming November 15, 2020. Pre-Order Here
IT WAS A SHAME THAT such charming weather really did not see any greater number of critters, or a better variety, brought to their table. One might think that as much as she longed to be out of doors when the weather allowed, so too might the rodents.
She stirred the few pieces of meat around in the kettle, supposing she should be happy for even the substance of one hare she was able to add to the stew. Truly, it only was afforded the name stew because she’d been able to add one carrot and one leek and a very tiny bit of garlic. When all the chunks were gone, tomorrow possibly, she’d toss in the pile of bones she’d hoarded of late and boil these for a full day. At least they’d have a good bone broth for several days after that.
Mayhap tomorrow, someone might call, might need her aid. Mayhap she’d be paid with food—bread, she hoped—thinking Henry ate any bread or oat cake so much more agreeably than any pitiful thing Katie might put to the kettle. She supposed it was not very charitable of her to wish illness on another so that she might eat, even if she were imbued with plenty of faith in her healing capabilities.
Straightening, she tossed a glance over her shoulder, found her son still seated at the small table where they took their meals, busy yet with the needle and thread and his own tattered hose. He was young yet, only seven, and a lad at that. He shouldn’t then ever have to learn such domestic chores, but she was only one person and couldn’t possibly do everything. Actually, they were two, Katie and Henry, he’d said, which had put her in a mind that he was indeed old enough to start helping out. Turning fully, she watched as he scrunched up his brow and showed just the tip of his tongue, as he did often when he concentrated, pushing and pulling the needle and coarse thread through the hole in the toe of his hose.
“That’s very well done, Henry,” she said, and meant it. His stitches, learned only in the last month, improved with each attempt. “Mayhap I’ll have you begin mending my things as well.”
He kept his gaze on his work. “I dinna mind doing this—inside where no one can see—and on my own things, mam. But dinna ask me to be mending yours.”
“Fair enough,” she said.
It had been just the two of them for so long that she supposed she often treated him more as a friend and companion than her son that she thought he was much older than his years. Possibly a harsh life demanded that a child grow quickly. She thought she had, for certain.
Their hound, Boswell, larger than Henry yet, his coat wiry and three shades of brown, lifted his head. He tipped it toward the right, the gray snout and whiskers moving as he sniffed. Of course, this was not uncommon, as their cottage sat well away from the Dalserf castle, tucked between a small forest of trees and a narrow stream, that so many critters scurried around and through their immediate yard. Until, apparently, she stepped outside with any intent to catch one for their supper.
Boswell did not settle, as was normally the case, but growled low and got to his feet. The hair along the ridge of his spine stood straight, prickled with some awareness that Katie was not privy to, despite her own stillness.
She stepped softly to the front window, moving aside the linen covering, just an inch or so, to peer out into the yard. It was empty and the landscape of trees beyond, some hundred yards away, showed no one, of two feet of four, approaching.
The hound continued to growl, moving again, around the table, now facing the backside of the cottage. There was no window that faced the stream, that she could not peek to find what had spooked the normally unflustered Boswell. And when he began to bark in earnest, the hair on her own neck stood on end, that she said calmly, “Henry, get under the bed. Now. Dinna come out for nothing.”
Her son obeyed, not terribly accustomed to such a command, but then sadly it was not completely foreign to him either. No sooner had the boy scrambled from the table and slid under the low mattress in the far corner of the room, than the noise came.
Katie froze, knowing full well what dozens of mounted riders sounded like. But it couldn’t be that swine, Farquhar, from the castle, not coming ‘round the back, from the stream and from the south. She took up the lone knife she possessed, which had remained on the table after she’d sliced the sparse vegetables and hid it within the folds of her skirt.
As one, she and Boswell, he still barking, turned, their gazes following the noise outside, from the back wall, around the side, and then to the front.
And then it stopped. No hooves pounded the earth. No harnesses jangled. No words were called. Everything was quiet.
Breathing quickly now, Katie stared at the handle of the door, watching, waiting for it to turn, imagining it probably wouldn’t have done her any good anyway to have set the bolt in place.
The handle did not turn.
The entire door crashed in, swinging fully around, slamming into the small cupboard behind it.
Boswell charged and Katie shrieked, jumping back.
A goliath entered, having to duck under the door frame, having to twist and turn as his arms were laden with yet another mammoth man.
He growled at the charging hound, but otherwise ignored him and laid the man unceremoniously upon the table, setting him atop the carrot and leek parings and knocking over Katie’s only jug of ale. It crashed to the packed earth floor as several more giants entered the small cottage, each and every one of them having to duck as Katie, nor even her husband, had ever needed to do.
Sadly, Boswell was forever the proverbial more-bark-than-bite hound that this was the only defense he offered just now.
“You are the healer?” Asked the man gruffly over Boswell’s dislike of this circumstance.
Katie nodded, transfixed and aghast at the same time.
“Call off your hound.”
She shook her head, not persuaded to remove whatever little defense Boswell might provide for her, against this horde.
“Call off your hound or Aymer there will happily snap his neck.”
She made a face at him, for giving her no choice, hating this man instantly.
“Aye,” she said. “Boswell. Corner,” she instructed. The hound knew this command, as it came his way often when people in need came calling. He went, but not quickly, and not without more low growling.
She swallowed as the man approached her, strode ‘round the table and bore down on her. Every instinct, every fiber inside her screamed run, but she held her ground as he came close and towered over her, held her breath as well, lest he see how frightened she was.
“Boswell, stay,” she instructed while the man appeared interested only in intimidating her. She’d sensed that the hound was getting to his feet again, in the far corner, near the bed where Henry hid.
Leaning over her, that she was forced to tip her head back, the man spoke slowly, infusing great menace into each word, “You fix him now,” he said, pointing his hand behind him, to where he’d laid his friend. “If he dies, then so shall you.”
She didn’t move, continued to hold her breath, her fright immobilizing her.
The giant lifted a brow at her until she nodded shakily.
With that he pivoted, and Katie released a whimper of breath and then a greater puff of air. Sadly, it was only now that she recalled the knife in her hand. Little good the blade might do against this horde of goliaths. She sent a critical glance over the warriors, their very presence shrinking the size of the very tiny cottage.
“Out. Everybody out. I need light and space and you’re taking up all of it.” She’d meant to sound imperative, but it emerged more as wretched begging.
The
big man who’d just threatened her sat in the very chair Henry had only seconds ago. He inclined his head toward the rest of them, and they departed, one at a time, leaving the door open.
“I’ll be sitting right here,” the man said, “make sure you dinna carve him up yet more.”
Katie sighed nervously and tucked the knife into the pocket of her gown and then exchanged her house apron for her work apron and washed her hands at the small cupboard near the hearth. She approached the table and the unconscious man with the bright orange hair and the barrel chest, possibly larger than that one sitting in the chair, terrifying her with the very essence of savagery that surrounded him.
“All this needs to come off,” she said, indicating the bloodied leather breastplate and his sliced and charred tunic. “And I’ll preface any treatment with an initial estimation that there’s a lot of blood, likely worsened by you moving him and carrying him so recklessly. Hence, if he dies, I’d say the fault lies with you.”
“And yet you will be the one who pays for it.”
Narrowing her eyes at him, so that there was no confusion about what she thought of him, she tried to move around him in the chair. He grabbed at her, his fingers circling her upper arm almost completely.
“The patient is here,” he said, pointing at his friend. His eyes were as black as pitch, the same color as his hair and the stubble on his cheeks and jaw and chin.
“And my tools and remedies are there,” she said heatedly, indicating the counter along the far exterior wall, under the only other window.
ALEC RELEASED HER AND watched for just a moment as she strode to that counter and began pulling items from all the different shelves and crocks and jar. She walked past again, going to the hearth and dropping several utensils into one of the two kettles over the low burning fire. Satisfied that she would get about the work of saving Malcolm quickly then, he stood and began to remove the captain’s gear, slicing his knife through the leather and then the linen, pulling everything open, baring the entire trunk of his body, and showing three wounds, all bleeding still.
Alec grimaced, not with the unpleasantness of the wounds, but for the seeming severity of them.
The woman returned, her hands full, and stood across the table from him. Biting her lip, she considered the wounds as well, blindly setting all her implements down next to Malcolm’s head, the only space yet available on the table. She lifted her blue-eyed gaze to Alec, but briefly, though did not manage to suppress her negative opinion quick enough that Alec’s heart dropped to his stomach.
“I can clean them and sew what needs repair,” she said, “but I...I can promise nothing else.”
The first words she’d spoken to him only minutes earlier had been harsh and without any emotion save perhaps her anger at Alec’s threat. These words were given with some sympathy, a healer’s tone, which offered no hope.
Nevertheless, he maintained his fierceness with her. “I dinna think you want to die, woman.”
Nae, she did not, as told by the seething in her gaze, and something deeper, as yet unknown to Alec. He watched her work then, addressing the largest and bloodiest puncture first, not wincing at all when she opened it further to gauge the damage within.
“Cracked his rib but doesn’t appear to have punctured his lung. Will you fetch the pliers?” she asked, peering inside the wound. “On that cupboard?”
He hesitated, not entirely trusting her.
“Or we can sew up the tip of the blade that broke off in his rib and only hope it doesn’t become infected.”
With that, and the brutal look she leveled upon him, Alec did as requested and returned with the tool, expecting to hand it to her.
She shook her head. “I’ll hold everything out of the way. You pluck it out.”
Bluidy hell. He did grimace now but bent over Malcolm’s chest and peered inside the wound, blood and tissue and torn muscle staring back at him.
“See it? That glint of metal?”
“Aye.”
“Do not yank too hard,” she instructed, “or you’re likely to cause more damage to the muscle and skin. Clutch at the metal and wiggle it back and forth, gently, to cause no other harm.”
Alec nodded and used one hand upon the tool, his head touching hers as they both bent so close over the hole. He managed quite easily to clamp the pliers around the piece of metal, but it was embedded fairly deep, and he was afraid to cause more harm as she’d said, that it took several minutes to wrest it free.
“Very good,” she said when he did. “Now, behind me, fetch the two spoons I dropped into the boiling water.”
He did this and returned to the table, opposite her, holding the hot metal gingerly.
“You’re going to hold open the skin flaps with the spoons while I stitch up the inside.” Without waiting a response, which was yet another twisting of his features, this time indeed for the gore, she retrieved a needle made of bone and threaded it with two strands of string that looked like silk.
She set this down on Malcolm’s chest and took the spoons from him, both their hands and fingers bloodied now. She pressed the spoons inside, taking her time to wedge them against the skin and not the muscle. When they were set to her liking, she inclined her head to Alec that he should take them. He set his hands over hers, and she pulled hers out underneath when his fingers had control of the spoons.
Straightening that she might be able to lean in further, he stared at the top of her head while she sewed, saw not much more of her face than the thick fringe of lashes and her nose, slim and straight. He hadn’t met many healers in his life, and while all the ones he had were women, he didn’t think he’d ever met one like this. The ones he’d known were ancient and bent crooked with age, their manner abrupt and often surly.
This one was...she was beautiful. Her manner was indeed abrupt, but that might have been wrought by their barging in, and his threatening her life. Might have been, he wouldn’t know. She was certainly not ancient and not at all crooked with age but was young and lean and crowned with a wealth of dark blonde hair that might actually be very blonde outside this dim cottage. Her eyes, when she’d faced him earlier so breathlessly, were true blue, light and dark and brimming with more a show than a reality of fearlessness, he’d understood at the time.
While she worked, he held his hands and the spoons still, even as her fingers so often brushed against or rested upon his. He passed his gaze around the cottage, making judgments about her based on the evidence around him. The meal he’d spied inside the second kettle had been sparse, more broth than anything else; the bed in the corner next to the cupboard was covered in a blanket of coarse wool, the color as drab as the ground beneath his feet; linen curtains, such as they were, hung over the two windows but seemed to serve no purpose but to keep out the light and mayhap the summer flies; a vase of wilted wild flowers sat on the cupboard near the hearth, next to a crude ewer and basin. Alec’s brow lifted and then lowered darkly as his gaze landed on two pairs of boots to the left of the door. He frowned, considering the different sizes of the footwear. The woman was tiny, relatively speaking, but that smallest pair of boots there by the door would likely not fit her. Above that, hung on pegs hammered into the wooden walls, was what Alec assumed to be a cloak of wool, which matched the drab bed covering and next to that, a wee jacket of earthen brown.
Alec sent his gaze around again, studying everything with a fresh eye now. The hound—useless as protection, Alec had already decided—lay sleeping now between the bed and the counter where he’d fetched the pliers, his snout pointed under the bed. On the mantle above the hearth, beyond the woman’s head, were stacked two wooden bowls and two wooden cups.
“You can move your hands now,” she said, standing straight for a moment, while she threaded the needle again.
Alec pulled his hands away and inspected her work. Of course, he had no idea what it should look like at this point, but he was pleased to see that it didn’t bleed so much now.
She bent again over
the remaining puncture marks, quiet and efficient, cleaning the other wounds and then sewing, these apparently requiring only external stitching that his assistance was not needed.
Alec sat in the small chair again and when she was done, she surveyed her own work while wiping her bloodied hands on her previously clean apron. She set her palm against Malcolm’s forehead but declared it too soon for a fever if there was to be one. Then she dipped her fingers into a bowl and drew them out, covered in a gooey yellowish substance, which was thicker than liquid and did not drip, and was speckled with bits of whatever seeds and plants she’d ground earlier. She spread this over the three wounds and applied more to a wide scrape on Malcolm’s forehead. Her fingers were long and thin, her nails short but neatly trimmed, though dirtied now with all this business.
“If that doesn’t become infected, it should cause him no trouble at all. Change the bandage every third day. I’ll send you off with the mixture to smother over the wound to stave off infection.”
So now she stood, her hands on her hips, staring across Malcolm’s inert form with her pretty blue eyes, waiting it seemed, as if she thought he might just scoop up Malcolm and be on his way.
“What is your circumstance here?” Alec asked.
She blinked. “My circumstance?”
“Aye. We were given your direction in a village called Rutherglen.” It hadn’t been given kindly. Aymer had crept up on a lad moving sheep from pasture to meadow and held a knife to the lad’s throat, inquiring of the nearest healer, threatening to come back and carve up the lad if he breathed even one word about Aymer’s visit. Lad said to follow the stream to find the witch’s cottage, Aymer had reported upon his return to where Alec and the others had hidden.
Witch, was she?
“Healing seems to bear no fruit,” he said. “The coffers appear empty—or rather, the kettle.”
She was only befuddled by his questioning, his suppositions.
“I get by,” she said, with some hint of annoyance, “obviously.” She shrugged then. “The poorer I am, the richer they are in health.”
The Truth of Her Heart (Highlander Heroes Book 5) Page 31