Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Me sister was a healer,” she began.
Arthur wanted to listen to her—he truly did. But the pounding in his head was making it nearly impossible. At this rate, he was understanding maybe every other word, painting an incomplete picture of the tale of her life. But he was trying to piece it together.
“Why did they poison Cody?” Ayla asked.
That question caught his attention.
Someone poisoned the lad I met?
“To torture Michael,” Marissa explained, her eyes wide as she recalled the past. “They wanted him to suffer. Wanted him to nae be able to think, to drive him mad after they killed his wife.”
“And yer sister was able to heal him?” It was Amara who spoke this time.
Marissa nodded. “Aye. Freya, Abigail, and I all worked to nurse him back to health. It’s how Freya and Michael fell in love. And it was the first time I ever told Elspeth’s story.”
Arthur had no idea what that meant. Who was Elspeth? Was it another family member he didn’t know about? An event that had shaped her?
He wanted to know more, wanted to ask, but he felt another sharp throb in his head and closed his eyes again.
Everyone around him kept speaking, the noise of it all combining to create a groaning, droning mesh that he couldn’t make any sense of. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying his best to drown out the noise and the light.
He had no idea how much time passed. All he knew was that he was squeezing his eyes shut, trying to drown out everything he could, and the next thing he knew, a featherlight touch brushed over his arm.
His eyes flew open, the bright light making the pain in his skull flare anew. Immediately, his gaze landed on Marissa.
Her brow was creased with worry, her eyes fixed solely on him. It was then that he noticed all conversation at the table had died down, and everyone’s attention was focused entirely on him.
“What?” he grunted, his grey eyes darting to each person seated around him.
It was Ayla who spoke.
“I asked if ye were hidin’ from the council,” she quipped, and Arthur wished that she would lower her voice. “I heard one of the maids talkin’ earlier—they said that they paid ye a visit.”
“The council was here?” Marissa asked, turning her head to glance between Arthur and his sister.
He nodded, the movement sending another wave of pain through his head.
“Aye,” he grunted and then winced. Even the act of speaking was painful. “But I chased them off. They’ll nae bother us today. I’ve had enough of dealin’ with the old men.”
Joseph chuckled, shaking his head at his brother. Ayla and Amara turned their attention back to each other. Marissa, however, stayed focused on him.
“Are ye all right?” she asked, cocking her head to the side as the other three began chatting.
Arthur opened his mouth to answer, but a groan escaped his lips instead when the pressure behind his eyes increased.
“He has a headache,” Joseph explained in a low voice.
Arthur was grateful for his brother, unsure if he’d have been able to give Marissa much of an explanation. Without knowing what else to do, he cupped his hands and rested his forehead in them, staring down at the table.
His plate lay below him, his food untouched. When his head hurt like this, even the thought of eating made him feel as if the contents of his stomach might spill on the floor.
“Does he get like this often?” Marissa asked, directing her question to Joseph.
“Nay,” he answered. “But when the headaches come, they hit him somethin’ awful.”
Arthur couldn’t raise his head to look at the expression on his bride-to-be’s face. He didn’t even want to move. The only thing that sounded even remotely good at the moment was retreating to his bedchambers, darkening the room as much as possible, and burrowing beneath his covers.
But he couldn’t do that. He’d promised Marissa a day at the lake, and he had a cèilidh to discuss.
“I may be able to help him.”
Arthur tried to tune out the noise as the sound of a chair scraping back from the table filled the air. Joseph’s voice picked back up as his brother jumped into conversation with Ayla and Amara. And Arthur was thankfully, blessedly, left alone.
He didn’t move. He simply kept his head in his hands, with his eyes squeezed shut, trying to will his headache to go away so that he might go about his day.
“Here,” Marissa’s voice sounded beside him, a warm, light palm resting on his shoulder to grab his attention. “Drink this.”
Arthur lifted his head, wincing as he opened his eyes and the light made the pressure worsen. Slowly, the scene around him came into focus.
Marissa was sitting in the chair next to him, a mug of what appeared to be tea in her hands.
“What is it?” he asked, eyeing it warily.
“It’s a medicinal tea me sister taught me to make when I was young,” she explained. “We’d often be summoned when the local priest had acute headaches. They might be like yers. And he swore by this tea. Said it was the only thing that kept him goin’ some days.”
Arthur nodded. He had never encountered anything that could help when his head began hurting like this. But the look in Marissa’s eyes was so hopeful that he didn’t want to let her down.
He could try it, at the very least.
Pressing the mug to his lips, he emptied it in a few quick gulps. The liquid within was warm and had a thick, pungent aroma. But it tasted quite bland, which was unexpected, considering the smell.
Once he’d downed the last drop, Arthur placed the mug back in Marissa’s extended hands.
“It will take a few minutes,” she added, setting the mug down on the dining table in front of them. “But the pain should start to ebb soon. It gets better bit by bit.”
Arthur nodded, not wanting to say anything else as his head gave another throb. He placed his head back in his hands and closed his eyes, breathing slowly as the liquid sloshed in his empty belly.
He heard Marissa move from the seat she’d occupied just a moment ago, back to the space beside Ayla. The conversation around him continued.
There’s nay way somethin’ as simple as tea will get rid of this. Nay one has been able to cure me headaches.
But as soon as the thought came to his mind, Arthur began to feel a bit of relief. The sharp pain in his forehead dulled to a mild ache, something a little more manageable than it had been moments ago.
A few more minutes went by, and suddenly he felt like he could open his eyes. The light didn’t hurt anymore. He blinked rapidly, clearing the haze his headache had brought on.
Ayla and Amara were deep in conversation with Joseph. But Marissa was watching him, a knowing smirk playing at the corners of her lips.
“Feelin’ better?” she asked, her tone indicating that she already knew he was.
“Aye,” Arthur answered, unable to hide the awe in his voice. With each passing moment, his head became more and more clear. “Where did ye learn to do that again?”
He knew that she’d already told him. A conversation niggled at the back of his mind, but he was having trouble remembering it.
Was it something she had spoken directly to him? Or had she told the others? Something about being taught by a healer?
“Me older sister, Freya,” Marissa explained patiently, repeating the information for him all over again.
“Before she married Michael, she was a healer. She taught me and Abigail, even though we were young. There used to be a priest that got headaches like that at least once a week. Swore by that tea, he did.”
Arthur nodded, the story she’d told him slowly coming back to him. Bits and pieces of what she’d told the others filtered through as well, finally making sense.
“And ye helped yer sister when Cody was poisoned, is that right?”
She grinned. “Aye. And while we worked to heal him, I would tell him the stories I was thinkin’ of writin’. It gave me the chance to see if the story was good, and it gave him somethin’ to focus on besides how horrible he was feelin’.”
She seemed proud of this, and a flicker of amusement stirred inside him.
Before he could respond, his stomach gave a loud growl, reminding him that he hadn’t yet eaten.
Between the run-in with the council and the resulting headache, he hadn’t been able to. But now he found himself famished.
He turned his attention to his plate and picked up his fork, shoveling food into his mouth.
“Do ye still want to go the loch today?” he asked around a mouthful of bread.
Marissa nodded. “If ye feel all right. I wouldnae want ye sufferin’ in the hot sun.”
“I’ll be all right,” he grunted. “May just need to have a quick lie down after I eat for a bit—chase off the remaining pain. Then, we can head out.”
Marissa nodded just as Ayla turned to her. Ayle asked a question about her writing, and Arthur quickly tuned it all out, focusing entirely on his food.
He made quick work of eating. Then, when his stomach was satisfied, he took his leave.
Walking through the halls was painful, each step echoing in his head. But it wasn’t nearly as bad as when he had gone down to have his mid-day meal. Of that, he was certain.
As he finally walked into his chambers and collapsed on his bed, he let out a groan of relief.
“These headaches will be the death of me,” he muttered to the empty room. Or rather, to what he thought was the empty room.
“Ye cannae die just yet,” said a voice from the threshold.
Arthur started, his eyes flying open and landing on Marissa, who was standing in the doorway.
Under any other circumstances, Arthur was confident that he would have heard her following him. But, apparently, the thundering in his skull had drowned out the sound of her footsteps.
“What do ye mean?” he groaned, sinking back down onto the pillows.
Now that he was in his room and that the tea had had a little more time to take effect, the thundering was dulling even further.
He closed his eyes again, listening as Marissa crossed to him. The sound of water sloshing drew his attention, and he cracked an eye open.
She was standing at the side of the bed, a wooden bowl held between her small hands.
“I mean, ye cannae die before we wed,” she said, giving him a sardonic grin. “I cannae go back to livin’ at Castle McEwan after I’ve seen the grandeur of this place. Ye’ve spoiled me already. So ye have to wait until after our weddin’ so I can stay here.”
Arthur couldn’t help it. He chuckled in amusement before nodding toward the bowl. “What is that for?”
“Somethin’ else that will ease yer headache,” Marissa explained. She reached into the bowl, swirling her hand in it, and the sound of water sloshing filled the air once more. “Now, lie back.”
Arthur did as he was told, closing his eyes and sinking further into the pillows. A second later, the cloth she’d been wringing out was pressed to his head.
The water was cold, immediately easing the pressure in his skull. She dabbed at his forehead, and with each dab, the pain in his head subsided little by little.
What had once been a cacophonous hammering between his eyes had already subsided to a dull roar by the time he’d reached his rooms. But now, that roar faded.
The pressure that had made his ears feel like they were about to burst, and the sensitivity to light, all went away.
“Ye’re good at this,” Arthur murmured after a while, his eyes still closed as Marissa continued to dab at his forehead.
“Freya is a talented healer,” she explained, a hint of pride in her voice. “She taught me what she could.”
“I’ll have to give her me thanks.”
A silence descended on them again, but it was a comfortable one. Eventually, the pain between his eyes had ebbed almost entirely, and he finally felt up to looking at her.
When his gaze fell on her, she was watching him with an open expression, clearly studying him.
Her cheeks flushed when she caught him staring. Their eyes met and held, neither of them wanting to look away.
“Get some rest,” she said finally. “I ken neither of us got much sleep last night. The loch will still be there for us when ye wake up.”
Arthur nodded, exhaustion wearing on him now that his headache had subsided.
“Ye didnae get much rest either,” he commented.
“I was able to rest me eyes quite a bit in the garden,” she explained. “And I might just do the same thing right now.”
“Or ye could rest them here, with me.”
He didn’t mean for the words to sound suggestive. But even as they fell from his lips, Arthur couldn’t help but hear the implication.
Marissa shook her head, but a smile was playing at the corners of her lips. “Ye’ll nae get that lucky,” she said, dropping the rag back into the bowl of water.
A few droplets spilled over the edge, but neither of them paid it any mind. Their attention was focused solely on each other.
“I’ll see ye after me nap, then,” Arthur said.
Marissa nodded at him before turning and walking out of the room.
Even though Arthur was more exhausted than he had been in quite some time, it still took him a little while to fall asleep. Because every time he closed his eyes, his vision was filled with dancing brown eyes and a smirk that made him want to kiss it away.