Chapter 2 #3
She remembered just in time to pitch her voice to Janet’s deeper and softer tones rather than her own.
“I’m Janet. The healer has asked me to check on ye.
I’ve come to see if there’s aught ye need.
” She lifted a finger to her lips to signal the lad not to question her name.
Surely the healer would have instructed her lads about the ruse, but this one seemed young enough to be disconcerted by her presence.
He might forget to use the proper name, which was why she’d identified herself as Janet first.
The lad opened his mouth, closed it and glanced at Calum, who appeared to be asleep, though with the bandages hiding the upper half of his face, it was hard to be certain.
A plaid covered him from feet to chest, and he wore a leine that appeared as if he slept in it since he’d been brought home from Harlaw.
She would make sure he was given a clean one in the morning.
“Ye can tell the lad to help me sit up,” Calum suddenly said, his tone as surly as she’d ever heard from him.
“I canna do that. Ye must have the healer’s permission.”
“Then fetch her. I’m tired of lying here. I need to move.”
“Can ye twist to either side without moving yer head? That might make ye feel better.”
Calum started to roll onto his side.
“Wait!” Ella moved to the head of the bed and placed her hands on both sides of his face, her sore, tattered palms firmly against his skull and her fingers tunneled into his hair above the bandage.
That also put her pocket full of onions close to Calum’s face.
“I will hold ye,” she told him. “Dinna try to turn all at once. Bend yer legs and let them drop to one side. Aye, like that. ’Twill relieve yer back. ”
Calum held the plaid in place under his arms and did as she directed. His answering groan told her it was working.
“Now, twist the other way. Ye, lad, come here and help him move.”
With the lad shifting Calum’s knees from side to side while Ella kept his head steady, they managed to give him some relief.
The healer walked in during their ministrations and stood, silently watching. The lad’s back was to the door, so he didn’t know she was there. She gave Ella a nod of approval.
Ella smiled, then turned her attention back to her cranky charge. The lad helped him move his legs as if marching while he lifted and lowered his arms. That was harder on her because even slow movement of his shoulders tended to make his neck and head shift, too, but she kept them steady.
When Calum tired, the healer made some noise to let the lads know she’d arrived.
Ella straightened as if surprised by her entrance.
The healer nodded and spoke up. “That looked helpful. Calum, how do ye feel?”
“Like I need to get out of this bed. How much longer must I stay here?”
“A few days more, then we’ll see about ye carefully sitting up for longer and moving around this chamber. But for now, what ye were doing should help.”
“Aye, it did, but I need to get up and move about. I dinna think I can stand days more in this bed.”
“I ken it, lad. I’ll have ye up as soon as ’tis safe. Now, thank ye, Janet,” the healer told her, but her tone made it clear it was a dismissal.
Ella pursed her lips, tempted to argue, but no servant would gainsay the healer. She nodded and left the room to let Calum be readied for the night.
Calum had spent many restless nights since his injury.
Nightmares came often, replaying scenes from the battle that had blinded him.
In some, he failed to protect Iain and watched his friend die, bleeding into the ground around his body.
In others, he, too, died, after losing an arm or a leg, or suffering a sword strike to his gut and watching his innards spill out.
Those were the worst so far and never failed to wake him, shaking and sweating and cursing the darkness he lived in.
But now, a new terror seized him. He prayed he was dreaming, and that he would wake from this scene. He feared he was losing his mind.
Ella stood before him, her luminous beauty undimmed, strangely visible despite the unrelenting darkness surrounding her.
She glided toward him like one of the fae she resembled, hair and dress floating around her as though stirred by an unseen breeze.
His heart hurt to see her. He wanted her more than he could say.
More than he would admit to anyone, even to himself.
More than getting his eye back. As long as he could see her like this, he wouldn’t need it.
He knew that was wrong somehow. But watching her arm lift and her hand turn so her palm faced up, beckoning to him, he couldn’t remember what it might be.
He held out a hand, reaching for her, but blood dripped from his fingers.
He’d ruin her dress. He pulled back his hand, ashamed to sully her beauty in any way.
She frowned and turned to the side.
When she turned back, everything about her had faded, the color leached from her clothes, her hair, her smile. Her beautiful face looked tired, dry, and her hands rough, as though she’d spent a lifetime toiling. Was this Janet? Where was Ella?
Suddenly she changed again, and he saw Marjorie, the lass who’d nearly ensnared him in a marriage to save her reputation.
Only now her dress stretched over her belly, grown enormous and ripe with the child she’d tried to hide from him.
What was she doing with Ella? Or with Janet?
He didn’t know what to make of this, but he didn’t like it.
Suddenly, she was Ella again, but she turned from him.
Because he was blind? No, that wasn’t Ella, that was someone who looked like her who reached for him.
Janet again? Were there really two women?
This one looked like Ella, her beauty undimmed, but the hand that reached out to him was rough, her clothes homespun. Janet?
He said her name. Janet. She moved to him, raised her face to his and kissed him. Her lips were smooth and warm, enticing him. How could he want Janet? He loved Ella.
When he didn’t respond, she turned away, then turned back and was Ella again, face, hands, and clothing luminously beautiful, but disdainful, looking at him from the side of her eye as if not wanting to acknowledge him.
Janet wanted him, and Ella did not? What kind of nightmare was this?
He backed away from her, shaking his head, pushing with empty hands to keep her away. Ella? Or Janet?
A hand on his shoulder roused him. “Calum! Ye’re dreaming. Wake up. Calum, wake up!”
The lad charged with tending him was bent over him, hands on his shoulders, holding him down while he shouted at him. He recognized the lad’s voice.
“I’m awake.”
Immediately, the lad let go of him and stepped back. “Ye were having a bad dream. Ye started moving, tossing yer head from side to side. Mhairi willna be happy to hear about that.”
God’s bones, had he destroyed all the work she’d done, the care they’d taken to keep his head still, all his time lying in this damned bed, only to ruin his injured eye during a bad dream?
“Fetch her, lad.”
“I will.”
Calum heard him move away. The chamber door opened and closed.
He was alone. Blessedly, silently, peacefully alone. No one watching him. No one tending him. But for how long? Mhairi would come quickly, he knew. He took a deep breath, trying to soak in the peace. The sense of himself as he used to be, when he could see. Confident in himself and his abilities.
Would Janet come in Mhairi’s place? That thought brought the nightmare crashing back.
He’d dreamed of Ella and Janet and Marjorie.
Because Marjorie lied to him? Because he feared Ella was lying to him, too?
Was that the message of his dream? Three women, or two, and their lies?
He pursed his lips, his peace broken. Until these bandages came off, he would never know.