Chapter 8
“What are ye doin’ to me wife?”
Jamie straightened at the husband’s sudden appearance in the croft’s doorway.
Startled by his outraged demand, for it was surely a demand and not a question, he lifted his hands away from the woman’s diseased breasts and stepped back.
The man’s echo of Mhairi’s husband’s challenge when he arrived home urged Jamie to rest one hand on the pommel of his dirk.
He fought it. He hadn’t actually been touching her, though it was clear that distinction had escaped the irate highlander now moving toward him with a murderous gleam in his eye.
While he took measure of the man’s height and weight, Jamie told him, “I’m a healer,” and gestured toward the typical healer’s kit of small pots and packets of dried herbs he’d set out on a nearby table when he arrived.
“Who sent ye here?” The man stopped just out of arm’s reach, fists clenched.
Jamie eyed him, not letting down his guard. Big and angry, the husband would be a challenge to subdue in Jamie’s depleted condition.
The exhaustion that accompanied each healing session varied depending on its intensity and length, and this one had been extraordinarily difficult. He’d stopped to rest and was stepping away from her as her husband burst in.
Jamie had never seen anything like this woman’s condition.
He now had a tangible reason to regret spurning his mother’s pleas that he accompany her when she went to deal with “women’s complaints.
” She might recognize the wild growth. It had taken over one breast and spread like mold to the other, and into the woman’s lungs, causing her body and spirit to waste away.
He’d done what little he could to attack the invader, but it wasn’t enough.
He knew the basic anatomy of a woman’s body better than most men, no matter how sexually experienced they were, but this went much deeper.
He feared doing more harm than good, and dismay compounded his exhaustion that he hadn’t been able to save her life.
All the more reason he did not want to harm her husband.
She’d need his care, rest, and good food if she was to have a brief respite from the trauma of her illness.
“Aftyn sent me,” he told the man. “She meant to come with me but was called to tend to someone else. She said yer wife was very ill. She was right.”
Her pain still tormented his own chest. He was having trouble breathing, and prayed the husband didn’t notice or he’d jump to the wrong conclusion. Jamie was in no condition to fight a man who thought he’d assaulted his dying wife.
“Aftyn sent a strange man to my wife?”
Where were Bhaltair and their horses? “She’s seen yer wife many times but said that she wasn’t getting better.
She trusted me to try to help.” Would the man stop frothing at the mouth long enough to notice the simple robe Jamie wore over trews—though the effect was somewhat spoiled by the dirk slung at his hip and the claymore on his horse, outside.
“Aye? Are ye from the abbey?”
“Nay.”
“Well, then, I dinna trust ye. What kind of healer carries a sword?”
Again a demand, not a question. Jamie shrugged, then regretted it when a phantom dirk knifed him in the chest, the residue of what he’d been doing when the husband burst in.
How did she stand it? He took a moment before responding, hoping the pain would quickly subside, gathering strength to answer the man.
“A healer who often travels through unfriendly glens.” If Aftyn hadn’t warned him how sick Robena was, he would have walked from the village.
Instead, he rode and brought food, drink, and weapons, all of which, except the dirk and the sgian dubh in his boot, remained with the horses Bhaltair attended.
“I was a warrior, once,” he said, stronger.
“When needful, I can be again.” He paused to let that sink in.
It didn’t.
“Let’s see if ye can fight as fast as ye talk outa that mouth of yers,” the man challenged and raised his fists. “Step outside. I can take ye. I’ll no have ye harming my lass.” He backed toward the door, never taking his gaze from Jamie.
Resigned, Jamie moved to follow him.
“Colin, wheesht!” The woman’s weak voice stopped her husband in mid-stride.
“Robena? Ye have breath to speak?” He pivoted away from Jamie and knelt by his wife’s bedside.
Forgotten for the moment, Jamie watched as the man took her hand and stroked it.
“A wee,” she replied, her voice stronger. “The healer helped… ye must no’ threaten him.”
“What was he doin’ to ye when I came in?”
Jamie suspected the man had cause to be jealous.
Despite her dire condition, Robena was still a lovely woman, though pale and with threads of premature gray streaking her dark hair.
She must have been radiant before succumbing to her illness, attracting the eye of every male in the region.
Perhaps, with Jamie’s help and some time to regain her strength, she could be again.
“I dinna ken,” she told her husband, then smiled at Jamie, “but see?” She took a breath.
To Jamie’s eye, she still struggled, but her husband apparently believed her.
Colin glanced around at Jamie and shrugged one shoulder. “Ye have my apology, if ye’ll accept it.”
“Of course,” Jamie told him with a slight nod, his face impassive.
Now that the tension had abated, fatigue washed through him like a wave, nearly taking his knees out from under him.
He fought to stay on his feet and to answer Colin’s questions.
A hot meal, a pitcher or two of ale, and a long sleep were what he needed.
Why hadn’t Bhaltair stopped the husband from coming in?
He gathered his kit and dispensed his last bit of advice before he escaped to care for himself.
“I’ve done all I can today, Robena.” He took a chance and touched her head in full view of Colin’s suspicious gaze.
“Rest now,” he said as he took a moment in what to the husband would look like silent prayer and laid a healing sleep on her.
“I’m sure Colin will take good care of ye until ye are again able to do for yerself.
” He hoped, though he hadn’t saved her, at least he had given her a little more time.
And if he could treat her again, he might do better.
He lifted his hand and turned his attention to the husband whose gaze was fixed on his wife’s face.
“She will sleep until tomorrow morning. See that she rests as much as she needs.” He offered a vial he’d set aside from his pack.
“Give her a wee sip of this each evening to help her sleep. Only a sip, mind ye.” When Colin accepted it, Jamie continued, “And feed her well, as much as she will eat on her own. Then convince her to take another bite or two. She’s lost a great deal of her strength.
Food, cider, and mead will help her. Let her rise and work if she is able, but do not push her beyond her wishes or it will be harder for her to recover—if at all.
” Jamie hated saying the words, but her husband needed to prepare himself.
Colin blanched, but nodded dismissal and turned back to the woman whose life Jamie tried to save.
He wasn’t used to this kind of illness, this sense of ignorance and failure.
He never wanted to experience anything like losing his friend on the battlefield again.
But not being able to cure Robena filled him with even more guilt.
If he’d listened to his mother—his teacher—and accepted her precept that all knowledge was good for a healer to have at her or his command, he might not be leaving here with the weight of Robena’s suffering on his shoulders.
He backed toward the door and left the croft. He didn’t see Bhaltair or their mounts. He must have moved them behind the cottage. Pausing outside the door, he sucked in air that, though damp and chill, tasted like wine after the interior’s sickbed stench.
To his very great surprise, the door opened behind him and Colin stepped out.
“I dinna ken how to repay ye,” he began.
Jamie waved him off, knowing full well what came next. “Ye must save yer coin for yer wife’s needs.”
“Aye.” Colin ran one strong hand through his graying hair and pushed it back from his forehead.
He held out his other hand, gaze on his palm.
“But she would want to spare at least this. It might buy ye a meal at the post house yonder in the village.” He looked up and met Jamie’s gaze.
“Go with my thanks. Robena… well, I dinna ken what I’d do without her. ”
Jamie accepted the two coins Colin offered in the spirit the man intended, with honor.
He could not spurn a gift so hard-won and so meaningful to the giver.
“I will inquire, thank ye. And I hope ye never have to find out. She seems a good wife to ye. I will return in a day or two to see how she is.”
Colin gave a gruff nod, eyes downcast as though his thoughts had already returned to her impending death rather than the glimmer of hope Jamie had tried to give her. He pivoted on one heel and went back inside.
Jamie studied the coins in his palm. Though twice nearly nothing was still nearly nothing, it might pay for a meal at a croft or pub on the way home.
He tucked away the coins and used his last bit of strength to call out for Bhaltair, who appeared in moments, leading their mounts, a package of food in one hand.
With a meal and some rest, Jamie would recover his strength by morning.
If only he could say the same for his patient.
Bhaltair laughed as Jamie described Colin bursting in and demanding to know what Jamie was doing to his wife. The ride back to the keep didn’t give him much time to relate how the encounter had gone. “Why did ye no’ keep him out?”
“Of his own home? Aye, I suppose I couldha spun a tale to keep him entertained while ye sneaked out the back.” He snorted. “But then, I’d have no explanation for why I was there with two mounts, now would I?”