Chapter 8 #2
“We thought the husband would be out in the fields, no’ coming home for a midday meal,” Jamie allowed, his breathing easing the farther they rode from the croft.
“It didna matter in the end,” Jamie said, his gaze on the hills in the distance, beyond the village, his chest still burning and his belly in knots. That way lay home, and perhaps help for Robena's wasting sickness.
“What do ye mean?” Bhaltair frowned.
Jamie shrugged. “I couldna help her. She’s dying.
In agony. And I could only delay it and ease her pain for a time.
My arrogance…” He shook his head, regret in every wasted moment of the last eighteen months.
“With more time—but I doubt it. Perhaps only someone with the Lathan Healer’s skill and experience could save her. ”
“One of us could fetch her as Rabbie fetched ye.”
“Nay. I’ll no’ risk my mother until we ken more about what the Keith is likely to do. I believe I bought Robena some time. If she survives so long, Aileanna can come then.”
They rode through the Keith gates and gave their mounts to the stable lad.
Bhaltair glanced at the sky. “Ye should rest until the evening meal.”
“Nay, I’ll check on Niall first. I havena finished all he needs me to do.”
“It sounds as though ye have done enough for one day,” Bhaltair said as he opened the door into the keep.
Jamie followed him in. He was nearly asleep on his feet, but he’d neglected Niall today. Had Aftyn been in to care for him yet? Jamie hadn’t seen her all day, either.
He led Bhaltair up the stairs to Niall’s chamber. Niall sat by the fire, reading. Once Bhaltair closed the door, Niall stood.
“Have ye been walking today?” Jamie studied his face. His color was good and he seemed comfortable standing.
“Aye, and with a cane, as ye said.”
“Good.” He gestured Niall to the bed and unwound the bandage covering his calf. “I want to do a little more now, and again tomorrow. After that, ye will be able to ride to the Aerie.”
“Two more days?”
“I thought it would take most of a week, but ye are healing well. When did ye last eat?”
“An hour ago. Fearchar brought enough for all of us.” He gestured at the tray on the bedside table. “Help yerself if ye want.”
Jamie nodded. “Keep on as ye have and we’ll be free of this place sooner than I hoped.
” Sooner than he’d promised the Keith, but if Niall could ride, they should go.
Jamie didn’t like the impression the Keith gave him, nor his neglect of Aftyn.
He made it impossible for her to succeed.
Jamie couldn’t imagine why, but the man seemed avaricious—and any laird could be dangerous given the right incentive.
His clan needed a competent healer, but Jamie would not be it.
Aftyn, suitably trained, or someone else, would have to satisfy the man.
He moved to the tray and sampled the cheese, then cut a slab and put it on a slice of bread. Bhaltair poured cups of ale and passed them around. They ate in companionable silence. Finally, Jamie felt recovered enough to help Niall. This, at least, he knew how to do.
Niall lay back with his head on his hands. “Do yer worst,” he jested.
Jamie’s belly clenched. He’d done that already today, for Robena.
Niall’s wound was child’s play in comparison.
He shoved the despair to the side and put Niall into a light sleep, then placed his hands on either side of Niall’s wound, closed his eyes and pictured blood and tissue forming where there was none, filling the wound track with healthy new muscle and skin.
His leg ached, then pinched and burned as Niall’s wound changed under Jamie’s hands.
He took his time, ignoring his pain. They were all eager to get home.
The sooner he could make Niall ready for the trip, the sooner they'd leave.
Finally, he sat back and sighed, then reached down and rubbed his own calf. Bhaltair handed him a cup and he drank, not caring what was in it. More ale. As depleted as he was, it tasted as sweet as cider. He held out the cup for more and drank that down, too.
Then he woke Niall and wrapped his leg. “Dinna scratch it,” Jamie warned. “I’ll no’ have ye damaging it.”
Niall nodded and accepted a cup from Bhaltair. “I willna. I want to be ready to ride the day after tomorrow.”
“Walk as much as ye can with the cane tomorrow and we’ll see. And dinna let anyone unwrap it.”
“Anyone like Aftyn or Neve?”
“Aye. I’m for bed for a few hours,” he added and handed the cup back to Bhaltair. “I’ll check on ye later.”
“Aftyn, where are ye?”
Neve’s voice echoed down the hall and jolted Aftyn from the doze she’d fallen into over the herbs she’d been sorting.
After an eventful night, she was too wound up to sleep, and returned to the herbal to begin the work she’d planned for the day.
She’d missed seeing Jamie yesterday. Their paths had not crossed, even at meals.
She couldn't tell whether he'd spent time with her mother's journal yesterday while she was away from the herbal.
The table where he worked on it seemed undisturbed.
If he'd been here but frustrated in his attempt, there would be no new notes.
She blinked and glanced down to reassure herself she hadn’t mixed up any of the herbs she’d divided, ready to be bound and hung to dry or steeped in hot water for teas and tisanes.
The herbs that doubled as culinary flavorings were nearest to her, ready to flavor medicines, such as the mint she’d used in steam to help Braden breathe through one of his attacks.
But Jamie had given them so much, she’d give some to Cook.
The deadliest, such as black nightshade and foxglove, lay nearest the wall, covered with coarse linen against prying eyes and fingers.
Nothing had been disturbed. She sighed and slid off the wooden stool she’d perched on when she began her work.
She needed a good night’s sleep to recover from delivering Kayla’s wee bairn just before the sun rose.
She stretched her arms above her head in an attempt to wake herself, then strode to the door and peeked out.
“I’m here,” she called back, just as her friend rounded the corner, dark hair flying around her head and covering her face, so fast had she moved. Aftyn put a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh and stepped back into her workspace.
“What took ye so long to answer me?” Neve demanded as she entered, still shoving her errant strands back behind her shoulders.
Aftyn gestured at the table. “I was working and didna hear ye. Where have ye been?
“In the village. Mhairi was glad of the food ye sent. Rory wasna there, but she said he’s been… polite… since Jamie talked to him.”
“Good. So why are ye in such a rush? Is there more news?”
“Ach, aye. I stopped by the post house to visit a friend. Ye will want to hear this. Jamie tended to Robena yesterday. Can ye imagine? A male healer! And after all ye have done to help her! Colin told a mate of his who told the stable master. That’s where I heard it.
The whole glen is talking about it by now. I bet Agatha is in a fine temper.”
“Ach, nay! I thought he spent yesterday with Niall. When I was called away to help Kayla, I asked him to wait to see Robena with me. Did Colin say how she is or what Jamie did to her?”
“I didna hear.”
Aftyn gave her worktable a regret-filled glance. The tasks she’d planned to do this day would now have to wait. “I must go to her. He may have saved Niall,” she said and clenched a fist in frustration. He was a better healer, aye. “But he doesna ken Robena,” she said, finishing her thought aloud.
Neve pursed her lips. “Ye have been trying to save that woman’s life for months, yet she still suffers. Perhaps he finally put her out of her misery. ’Twould be for the best.”
Aftyn slashed her hand across the space between her and her friend. “Nay! Never say that. Robena doesna deserve to die.”
“She hasna deserved the suffering she’s borne, either, but that has been her lot.”
“A lot I’m still trying to change.” Aftyn muttered, moved to the cabinet of newly finished tinctures and potions she kept closed away from prying eyes, and pulled out what she thought she’d need to help Robena.
She could only guess, not knowing what Jamie had done for her.
She’d talk to him, aye, when she found him.
In the meantime, she’d do her best to help the poor woman.
“Where is Jamie?”
“I dinna ken. If I see him, I’ll tell him ye are looking for him, and where ye have gone.” With that, Neve left.
When Aftyn finished filling her pouch, she closed the cabinet and grabbed her shawl.
Once she saw Robena, she could come back by Kayla’s cot and see how she and the bairn were doing today.
Then she’d visit Neve and let her know what she’d found.
Her friend would expect that, since she’d brought the news in the first place.
Colin was nowhere around when she arrived at the croft.
Aftyn assumed he was working an outlying field, or off in the woods, hunting.
She let herself in, pleased to see Robena sleeping and breathing easily, more deeply than Aftyn had observed in months.
What had Jamie given her? Aftyn must find out, so she could continue to treat Robena, and others who might need similar care.
She looked around for anything he might have left, and found a small bottle filled with a liquid that smelled pleasantly herbal, a blend she recognized as a common sleeping draught her mother taught her to make.
Surely that was not all Jamie had used, but he must have taken everything else with him.
She settled at the croft’s small table to rest before starting back to the village to visit the new mother and bairn. She hoped Robena would awaken while she was here, but did not want to disturb her to speak to her.
The door opening jolted her out of her second doze of the morning.
She glanced toward Robena, still sleeping peacefully, and despite her tiredness, could not be jealous.
Robena hadn’t slept well in months. Then she turned toward the door.
“Colin, come to check on yer wife?” She greeted him with a smile. “She seems better.”
“’Tis a blessing,” Colin told her, as he bent over Robena’s sleeping form. “One I scarce deserve.” He stood and turned back to Aftyn. “I nearly pummeled that healer ye sent, before my lass spoke to me.” He turned his head to look back at his wife.
Aftyn could imagine Colin’s surprise—and ire—at finding Jamie here alone. Yet—“She spoke?”
“She breathes better now. I’m ashamed, and thankful, too.”
But how? “I’m thankful, as well, Colin.” She stood and put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “Now ye are here, I’ll leave ye to tend Robena and come back to check on her tomorrow. Ye will send for me if anything changes, aye?”
“No’ the new healer?”
Pain lanced through Aftyn’s chest. She pushed it aside.
Jamie had done more for Robena in one day than she had in months.
Of course, Colin would want him to attend his wife.
“We wouldha come together, save for Kayla’s bairn.
She had a long day and night. The wee one came before the sun this morning.
” She covered a yawn, then added, “But we’ll both come if ye need us. ”