Chapter 3
Old Scars And New
The next day dawned bright and clear, the air crisp enough to freeze a person solid if they stood still too long. The courtyard cobbles were slick with frost and ice, and the horses steamed nervously where they stood, ready to pull carts full of people and belongings.
Senga watched them, arms folded tight across her chest. She didn’t even notice Astrid until she appeared beside her, hands tucked in her wide sleeves.
“It’s not too late to change yer mind, Senga,” Astrid remarked idly. “Ye can choose to come with us. We’d like ye to come.”
Kyla appeared beside her, blinking large eyes. Her hand rested over her belly, where Senga knew that a child was beginning to grow already.
“Oh, aye,” she piped up. “The convent will need some work to rebuild what we had, to say nothing of earning the trust of the locals once more. I’d like ye to come.”
Senga bit her lower lip. “I’m tempted, I’ll not lie, but Freya has asked me to remain here to manage their infirmary. They have good healers here at Keep Grahame, but they want direction. Besides, I have to leave the convent sooner or later, eh?”
Astrid nodded slowly, and there was something like sympathy in her eyes. “We’ll miss ye, lass.”
“Ye won’t have time to miss me,” Senga shot back. “Ye have yer own clan to run, and Kyla here has a baby. As for Una…”
“As for Una, what?” the woman in question responded, stepping out of the Keep and stretching her arms. A sword clanked at her side—Una was never without her weapons these days.
“Well, Una has a rebellion to run,” Senga finished, snorting.
The four of them stood there for a while, staring down at the carts preparing to leave. She couldn’t quite bring herself to believe that her friends were going to leave, and that she would be left behind.
This is how it must be, Senga told herself firmly. It’s all for the best,
“I am glad ye are staying,” Kyla murmured after a while, her voice quiet. “It’s high time ye found yer own path, Senga.”
She glanced sharply at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Kyla shook her head. “I mean nothing. Forgive me. Now, I suppose I had better go. We have a long way to travel, eh?”
The carts were loaded up now with nuns, supplies, and a few other people. Senga spotted familiar faces, old friends, and people she knew she’d miss.
Perhaps I’m making a mistake.
If she had made a mistake, she was running out of time to fix it. Sure, the distance between Keep Grahame and the Convent of St. Deborah was not an insurmountable one, but if Laird Dickson’s armies came between them, then Senga might as well be on the moon.
Kyla’s husband, Thomas, came forward with a smile, hand outstretched, and helped her up onto a cart loaded with cushions. Astrid sailed forward to climb up beside her, whereas Una would be riding. Senga kept a smile on her face.
The last nuns climbed onto the back of the cart.
Some would have preferred to walk, but they’d go faster on horseback and in the carts.
Speed was of the essence here. Senga kept her eyes peeled for Bluebell, the horse belonging to the poor man who’d lost his leg and was due to be buried this morning, but she didn’t see the horse. Bluebell was staying here, then.
A shout went up from the head of the convoy.
Heads turned back towards the Keep, and Senga’s head turned with them.
Laird and Lady Grahame, Brendan and Freya, stood in the doorway, hand in hand.
They were going to give a speech, Senga realized.
It would be a short speech, a quick well-wishing, and perhaps a prayer for luck.
She glanced over at her friends, and found that their faces were all turned up to Freya and Brendan, waiting and listening.
She didn’t want to be there for the final goodbye.
Swallowing hard, Senga turned pointedly away from the convoy.
As she hurried along the side of the Keep walls towards a quiet little side entrance, she heard Brendan start to speak.
By the time she started inside the dark doorway, applause had broken out in the courtyard, the sound twanging at Senga’s headache.
Letting out a long, shaking breath, she calmed herself, trying to take stock of where she was.
The doorway, apparently, led to yet another stretch of Grahame Keep which she had never visited.
It opened onto a long hallway, studded with doorways at regular intervals.
The closeness and darkness of the corridor made her think that it was part of the servants’ quarters, the rabbit warren of halls and rooms and staircases that made a maze of the Keep.
If I keep going straight, Senga thought, trying to regain her bearings, I’ll come out in the kitchens somewhere.
Her choices were simple now—go forward or go back. Go forward into the bowels of Keep Grahame and risk getting lost, or go back into the bright, cold-sun courtyard and risk panicking and jumping on board the last of the carts headed back to the convent.
Staying still, of course, was not a choice at all.
Breathing in deeply, Senga moved forward. She was about halfway down the hallway, still with no idea of where it actually led, when she heard the noise for the first time.
It was a sharp, ragged gasp of pain, half-smothered.
Senga had worked in the infirmary for long enough to recognize this particular exclamation as somebody trying and failing to take care of their own wound.
Biting back a sigh, she hurried forward, peering in every doorway that she passed by, searching for the source.
The rooms were servants’ quarters, she realized at once, small and serviceable, boasting only a narrow mattress set in an iron cot, a washbasin, and a trunk for clothes. That was all. The rooms each had a tiny barred window set high in the wall, which didn’t let in much light.
She found the source in the seventh room.
A man sat on his bed, his back to the door. Barechested, he was trying to wind a bandage around his torso.
Senga couldn’t have said how she knew it was him. After all, his back was turned.
But it was him.
For an instant, she considered slipping away as noiselessly as she could manage.
But a healer would never back away from somebody in distress, she thought moodily, facing the undeniable truth head-on. Instead of slipping away, she spoke.
“Ye are doing that wrong.”
The man on the bed flinched so hard the bedframe shook and rattled. He leaped to his feet, spinning around.
Yes, it was Noah. Of course it was.
His hair was tangled and disheveled, in need of a good brush, and there were dark, purplish semicircles of exhaustion carved out under his eyes. He had always had pale skin, and now it seemed almost translucent, made whiter by the darkness of his hair and eyes.
His shoulders seemed broader than Senga recalled, and he certainly had not had those powerful chest muscles and thick arms when they parted all those years ago.
He swallowed thickly, throat shifting, and met her eye.
“I dinnae need yer help,” he said flatly. “Are ye spying on me?”
Senga folded her arms tightly. “Don’t flatter yerself. Ye made it clear ye want nothing to do with me, and I’m not in the habit of forcing myself in where I’m not wanted. Ye might have heard that I’ve been asked to remain and manage the infirmary, for now at least. This falls within my remit.”
She gestured vaguely at his torso. The gash she’d noticed on his arm last night had not been seen to, she could see that at once. Blood still leaked out, streaking down the curve of his bicep and collecting in the hollow of his elbow.
“That’ll grow infected if ye don’t care for it,” Senga added pointedly. “Ye don’t have to let me see to it, but somebody should.”
Noah’s jaw tightened, a muscle jumping in his cheek. Had that muscle been there before? Senga wasn’t sure. Perhaps she’d forgotten, or perhaps this was a new expression, something that was simply part of the new Noah, a man she didn’t quite recognize.
Perhaps I never knew him as well as I thought. No, that’s not true. I knew him. I knew him. I just don’t know if I know him anymore.
“Ye were right about the cracked ribs,” Noah said at last, his voice a gravelly growl in the silence. “I only wanted them bandaged up for support.”
“Ye need rest to heal them.”
“I know how to heal cracked ribs,” he shot back sharply. “I’ve no leisure for rest. Ye have yer duties, and I have mine.”
Senga briefly toyed with the idea of turning on her heel and telling him to manage his own wounds. If she ran, she might still be able to climb on the last convent-bound cart. She could leave him and all of this behind—just like he had.
She didn’t need answers. Not now. Not when it was so painfully apparent that he’d chosen to leave her behind.
Instead, Senga took a careful step forward over the threshold of the room.
“I’ll bind yer ribs,” she heard herself say. “Ye have bandages, aye?”
“Aye.”
She withdrew a small glass pot from her utility belt, holding it up so the translucent green paste inside caught the light. “I’ll put this on yer arm and bandage it. For the infection.”
He stared at the pot for a long moment, an endless moment, before those dark eyes strayed back to her. To Senga’s horror, she felt the familiar tightness of desire in her gut when he looked at her.
No, no, no, she thought furiously. Not after all this time. Not after he turned his back on me. Why can I not forget him? It would be better for everybody.
“Very well,” Noah muttered at last.
He stood still, and Senga realized to her chagrin that she would have to go to him. Still, there was no backing out now.
She crossed the room towards him, snatching up a roll of bandages from the bed. The bandages he’d already tried to tie around his torso were far too loose and came away easily once she’d unpicked the knot.