Chapter 3 #3
So she must wait until the healer determined it was time to reveal his eye—and his future.
The Marymas feast was a time to celebrate the Assumption, the coming harvest, and to prepare for the long winter ahead.
It was also a celebration of good fortune.
Of miracles. Ella hoped for two—that the feelings Calum once held in his heart for her remained, and that once his eyes were no longer covered, he would see on her face and in her eyes, the feelings for him that she had hidden from him for too long.
Calum took another breath, annoyed when his belly rumbled in reaction to the scents of the feast being prepared. “I will return to my chamber now,” he announced, not even certain Janet remained with him. She’d been silent since his angry comment.
“I’ll take ye.” Her voice had taken on a gruff edge. Had he hurt her feelings? He would never deliberately do such a thing to any lass. Or he wouldn’t have, before Harlaw.
How much had this injury changed him? Calum knew he should be grateful he was still alive.
Yet, he didn’t know how much longer he could stand living like this.
The enforced blindness was bad enough, but worse were these feelings for a woman who was not Ella.
So like her in some ways, but not in ways he could be certain were real or contrived.
If Ella was indeed pretending to be Janet, he didn’t know what he would do.
Was she? There were times he was convinced Ella attended him. At times, the onions Janet favored failed to completely mask her natural scent. But her touch seemed like that of a lass who worked with her hands, rougher than Ella’s. Her voice was different, deeper, but not remarkably so.
Altered. Deliberately?
He’d held this woman in his arms moments ago, more closely than he’d ever been able to hold Ella.
He’d nestled her body against his chest, her heat warming his hands, his arms, his blood.
Surely, he could not be this attracted to any other woman but his Ella.
He was a warrior. A scout. And Ella was the woman he loved.
The one that he wanted for his wife. The woman he wanted to bed, damn it.
Without any doubt, he should know the difference between them.
Were his senses failing him? Or, after the blow to his head, was his mind?
Or was Janet a mummery cooked up between Mhairi and Ella to find a way around his wish that she not be involved in his care?
He could not bear for Ella to see him as weak and helpless, like a child.
But, when he told Mhairi to keep her away from him, he might have been days too late to prevent it.
She was at his bedside when he woke up. Had she cared for him until he regained his senses and objected?
Had she cared for him as a mother cares for a sick wean? He couldn’t stomach the idea of it.
He wanted to erase from her memory the misery of her forced marriage to Thomas Ross.
He wanted to show her what love could be when it was right.
What loving him could do for her. For both of them.
Yet, how was he to arouse her to accept him as a man if she’d cared for him for days while he was unconscious and helpless?
A sudden sense of guilt further soured his belly. Had she damaged her hands to make the ruse more believable?
And what harm had he just done by his angry words?
What good was beauty to a blind man, indeed?
Yes, Ella was beautiful, but he loved all of her, not only her appearance.
Her beauty encompassed who she was, how she cared for others—even for him, perhaps—and how she fought for and protected herself and her friends at Ross.
Yet, he’d told the truth. His angry outburst expressed his torment over the future he foresaw if he didn’t get his sight back.
If he lost his eye, he’d lose his place in the clan.
Then, he’d have to give her up, too. She deserved to be with someone who could protect her.
The thought tore at his guts. He wanted her, but only if he remained the man he once was—with both eyes.
He had to keep his distance until he knew who he would be, the warrior or the half-blind man.
He was confused, and he knew it. And tired from the walk outside, which added to the anger he struggled to control. How could he fight for his clan if a walk around the bailey exhausted him?
He felt a slight movement, as if Janet shifted her weight from foot to foot. She was waiting for him to answer her. “Nay, ye needna take me to my own chamber. Stay and enjoy the feast. I can find my way.”
“Third door—”
“On the right. I ken it.” He moved away without another word.
He was at a loss for how to deal with Janet…
or Ella…at this time. The healer must take these bandages from his eyes.
Then, the deception he feared they practiced would be impossible.
And he would know whether he had two good eyes and the future he had worked for his entire life, or if he would be forgotten among the clan’s crippled and ill, struggling to find a way to make use of any skills he retained.
It was a grim thought, and soured his mood further. He needed to see! But after Janet’s admonition, he retained enough sense not to rip the bandages from his head and eyes himself.
Where was the healer?
He stood still for a moment, orienting himself to the increase in sounds and movement around him as preparations for the feast got underway in the great hall.
Had he gotten turned around? Which way should he go?
Ah, the great hall’s hearth was ahead of him…
there. The scent of burning wood was stronger in that direction.
The way sound bounced around the hall, seeming farther away in the same direction, told him the shape of the room.
The stairs were…there. Someone was clumping down in heavy boots.
Which meant the herbal was to the left. He turned that way, going slowly so as to avoid barking his shins on a bench or tripping over a trestle table.
People saw him coming, of course, and helped him avoid obstacles.
He thanked them and moved on, embarrassed to be treated as one who could not take care of himself, even though he knew they meant their assistance as a kindness.
Could he face them with a warrior’s pride once he could see again?
Or worse, could he live among those who’d known him as a warrior when half his sight was gone forever?
That would be harder to survive than any battle he’d fought up to now.
He must be freed from this darkness before he went mad. If he wasn’t there already.
The last helpful voice told him he’d reached the hallway he wanted. Once he’d successfully transited the great hall, getting to his objective was easy.
“Healer, are ye within?” He knew he’d come to the right place. The scents of herbs and flowers, added to the often acrid or odorous potions and poultices she was constantly making, assaulted his nose.
“Good day to ye,” he heard her say. “Where is…Janet?”
Her hesitation gave him another reason to think Janet was Ella. He didn’t let Mhairi’s use of the name distract him. “I left her to find her friends to enjoy the feast, and came to find ye.”
“Come in, then. There’s a stool six paces ahead of ye to yer right hand. Have a seat and tell me what ye want.”
“I want ye to remove these wrappings from my eyes,” he said as he found the stool and settled one cheek on it, then slid over to sit on it fully. “It has been long enough.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
He felt as much as heard the healer approach him. He fought to keep his voice calm and level as he told her, “If ye dinna remove them, I will. I’ve lived in darkness too long. I must ken what my future will be.”
She stayed silent long enough that he began to sweat. Would she deny him?
“I will uncover yer eyes long enough to check the injured one,” she said. “But ye must accept that if I dinna like what I see, I may have to cover it yet again.”
“Please. Dinna do that.” He couldn’t believe he’d been reduced to begging, but that’s what blind men did, was it not? Only he would not be blind, merely one-eyed, if the healing had not gone well.
“Turn toward my voice. Ye will keep yer eyes closed,” she ordered as she clipped the binding around his head and unwound it.
The feel of cool air on the skin of his face that she’d kept covered for weeks, except for brief periods when she changed the bandages, nearly undid him.
“Eyes closed,” she reminded him, then removed the pad over his damaged eye. “I’m going to touch yer eyelid,” she warned, slid a warm finger down from his eyebrow and pulled up the lid.
Brightness assaulted him, but he reveled in it.
“Hmmm. What do ye see?”
“Light. Brightness. How is it?”
She let go of his lid. “Keep it closed.”
He was happy to comply, wincing against the sting of tears the sudden brightness elicited. But her failure to answer him made his gut tense.
She removed the pad from his other eye. “Verra well. Open them slowly,” she ordered.
At first, the light was too much, though she’d taken care to face him toward a dark corner of the herbal and not looking toward the hearth or even any candle flames.
His eyes teared, but he blinked and cleared them.
Slowly, things came into focus. Both eyes or just the good one?
He closed that lid and found he could still make out objects in front of him with the healing eye.
The relief that filled him was so profound that it made his chest heavy, his arms leaden weights he couldn’t lift.
“I can see with the injured one.” He turned to her where he’d last heard her voice. “I see ye. A little blurry—”
“That is to be expected.” She pointed across the chamber. “Tell me what ye see on my table over there.”
“Two pots, three piles of green herbs. Rose petals. Pink.” He turned back to her in time to see her expression lighten into a smile.
“Do ye still have pain?”
“Only a little.” She meant in his eye. His hearing was sharper since she removed the wadding in his ears. The headaches he had continued to suffer were diminishing. He’d kept them from Mhairi, not knowing what foul-tasting potion she’d force on him if she knew he still had them.
“Good. I am not surprised the light seems strong now. Ye will adjust to it as yer vision clears.”
“Ye are certain that it will,” he said, his words heartfelt. He desperately wanted them to be true, to relieve the weight smothering him since he woke up blind in his own bed.
“I’m certain ye have a good chance, if ye do as I say.”
A good chance was better than nothing. “I’ll do the best I can.”
“Calum.”
Her tone held a warning, so he relented and nodded.
But he had to know something else, too. “Now, tell me the truth before I have to see for myself,” he demanded, but lowered his voice when her eyes widened.
He was not here to frighten her, but he needed answers.
“Ella and Janet are the same person,” he declared softly. He didn’t make it a question.
The healer’s cheeks pinked, and she glanced aside. “Ye suspected so.”
“I did, though not right away.”
Her reluctance to answer told him everything he needed to know.
She had lied to him. So had Ella. Fury sparked, choking him.
He fought it down. The anger twisting his gut told him no matter how much he condemned what they had done, he had allowed himself to be deceived.
He hadn’t believed what his senses told him.
He couldn’t accept what his mind knew to be true, or thought to be false.
In some fashion, he’d known all along that Janet was Ella, so he could not be angry with them alone.
Most of his ire he must direct at himself.
And he didn’t know what to do about any of it.