Chapter 4
Ailsa got around the guards and their burden in the great hall and hurried into the herbal ahead of them. The Sinclair healer, Maighread, was working there when she arrived. “We’ve got an injured man,” Ailsa told her.
Maighread looked up at the sound of her voice, saw the men following her, and gestured for Ailsa to help her clear off one of her long trestle tables. “Who is he?”
“We dinna ken,” Ailsa told her as the men set him down on the tabletop. His lower legs and feet hung off one end. Maighread had them shove another table under them. “He showed up at the gate, then collapsed.” Ailsa swallowed. “Is he dead?”
Maighread bent to watch his chest and put a hand on his throat, feeling for a pulse.
“He’s alive.” She waved away the guards who’d carried him in and lifted an eyebrow at Ailsa as she walked around the table, studying the man as she went.
“Look at him,” she said once the other men left.
“Banged up a wee, for certain. He took a nasty crack on his head. But he’s a bonnie lad.
He didna say anything? Who he is? Where he’s from? ”
“Nay. ’Twas odd, he didna seem to ken. Said he was bereft of answers.”
“Hmmm.” Maighread continued her inspection down his body, turned and moved back up to his face and head. She tutted over the blood, then said, “Coulda lost some or all of his memory with that head wound,” she muttered. “It could come back. Eventually.”
Ailsa crossed her arms and rubbed them, trying to soothe away her fear for what this man might have to go through. “Eventually?”
“Aye, or never. Hard to say. Naught on him but his léine, trews, and water-stained boots. Nay clan insignia. Nay plaid. Naught. Ye are a mystery, my lad.”
“Can ye help him?”
“Heal his hurts? Aye. Retrieve his memories? Nay. He’ll have to do that himself.”
Ailsa moved up from the man’s feet to join her, studying their mystery guest as she went. He was not only big, he was tall.
“Those muscles were honed in training and in battle,” Maighread said, pointing to the width of his shoulders and arms, the depth of his chest. “By the lines around his eyes, I’d say he’s in his early twenties. About the right age for a lass like ye, aye?”
Ailsa ignored Maighread’s comment. What else could she do?
Admit that even in his present condition, he interested her?
To Ailsa, the lines around his eyes spoke of fierce concentration, but more bracketing his mouth were evidence of frequent laughter.
Would he be as charming as those laugh lines hinted?
Or was his laughter cruel and given at the expense of someone else?
“Aye, he’s a bonnie lad, he is,” the healer remarked again. “Imagine what he’ll be like when he’s back on his feet.”
Ailsa’s pulse spiked. “When will that be?” He’d be formidable.
Had she brought a danger to her people inside their walls?
That worry would be with her until her father returned from the north.
Her brother Boden would insist on moving this man to the dungeon, but she couldn’t allow that, not while he needed Maighread’s help.
“A few days, mayhap more,” Maighread told her as she began to pull the man’s léine from his trews. “Help me shift him. He may have injuries I canna see under these clothes.”
“I’ll call for the guards to come back,” Ailsa said, suddenly reluctant to approach their visitor.
“Nay,” the healer answered as she tried to roll the man to his side. “Well, aye, ye’d better. He’s a heavy one.”
Relieved, Ailsa left the healer and sent the first two men she encountered in the great hall back to help her.
Ailsa’s friend Siobhan waved her over to her table. “Have ye broken yer fast?”
“Nay, there wasna time. The guards summoned me—”
“I heard they carried in a man. Who is he?”
While they ate, Ailsa told her the little they’d learned while he was still awake and talking. “’Twas strange. He’s injured. His clothes were still wet from the storm last night, and he canna recall his name.”
“Or he says he canna.”
Ailsa heaved out a breath, relieved to hear her friend give voice to her suspicion. “Or that. But Maighread looked him over and said his head wound might have affected his ability to remember anything, so I guess ’tis possible.”
“Is he handsome?” Siobhan flirted with many of the lads in the clan, but to Ailsa’s knowledge, she’d never lain with one.
“Aye, even though he doesna look his best this day.” Maighread’s words came back to her in a rush.
What would he be like when he was back on his feet?
What if he was a good person who’d had some bad luck?
Mayhap he was even a laird or heir from one of the clans to the south.
She let herself dwell on that for a few moments while she finished her porritch, thankful that while she chewed, Siobhan wouldn’t expect her to divulge any more.
It was more fun to suppose he could be someone special than a danger to the clan.
Could he become special to her? Her father had been hinting at making a match for her.
At twenty summers, she would soon be past prime marriageable age.
Her mother kept telling him not to rush her, to let her choose her own mate, but they were surrounded by unfriendly clans, and she rarely saw any men she hadn’t grown up with.
She couldn’t imagine marrying a Sinclair, and even years ago on a rare family trip to Kirkwall in Orkney, no one had caught her eye.
How she was expected to find a suitable man was beyond her.
Unless one just walked up and knocked on her gate.
Anders woke up with a throbbing head and sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. The urge to sneeze reassured him. He was where he could be cared for. He’d know a herbal anywhere by the smells of drying herbs, and from poultices and tisanes a healer prepared and used.
The image of an angel with hair that gleamed like a Highland sunrise filled his mind. Had he dreamt her?
He pressed his hands over his eyes and swore at the pain in his head and the sting in his palms. He’d hoped by the time he slept, some of his discomfort would have abated, but, wait.
He stilled and let the sensations in his body come to the fore.
It had. Somewhat. He kept his eyes closed as he took stock of a thirst that made his throat so dry, he thought it would choke the life from him.
And pain in every other part of his body that revealed his injuries, but they seemed less troublesome than they had before he slept.
He opened his eyes, squinted against the dagger blade of brightness piercing them.
“Damn,” he muttered, but opened them again, this time slowly, squinting until they adjusted and he could see.
A small square window was open, letting in light and a cool breeze.
Shelves filled one wall. Drying herbs tied into bundles hung from the rafters, adding to the scents filling the chamber and confirming what he’d sensed when he first woke up.
That was an improvement over his situation last night on the beach.
Or was it longer ago than that? He must have been given something for pain, and possibly a sleeping draught.
He could only guess how long he’d lain here, unconscious and defenseless.
Could he have been lucky enough to stumble onto a friendly clan? It seemed so.
At least it seemed some of his memory had come back.
He remembered pulling himself up onto the beach and part of the trek to the castle he’d spotted on the cliff.
And a name. Anders. Was it his? What about the rest of his name?
Did he have a clan, or at least a small family?
Where were they? Where was he? Was this home?
Frustrated, he forced himself to sitting, surprised to note that he’d been stripped out of his clothing.
All of it. By the healer? That didn’t bother him.
He was as proud of his body as any man. But his skin itched where salt dried on it.
And he was cold. More than anything, he wanted answers.
Next though, he wanted a hot bath and a pitcher of watered ale all his own to drink.
Mayhap two. A lovely lass to bring it to him and to wash his back would not go amiss, either.
The linen sheeting covering him from toes to waist was itself covered by a thick plaid, and another pair, now crumpled on his lap, had kept his upper body warm.
His palms were wrapped in a layer of linen that covered the scrapes he’d felt when he pressed them to his eyes.
He flipped aside the lower cover and saw his leg wound had been bound up.
Replacing that cover, he touched his head.
The wound there was also covered with a bit of muslin and probably some concoction of the healer’s to hold it in place.
Someone had tried to take care of him. He appreciated that.
But where were his clothes? He wrapped the upper linen and plaid over his shoulders and around his upper body, grabbed the lower set, and stood, swaying and fighting for equilibrium with one hand on the table he’d arisen from, and the other clutching his temporary cover in front of his lower body.
After a few moments, his breathing steadied and his head ceased spinning.
He wrapped himself in the lower plaid, tucked and tied it as best he could and prayed it would not fall off him at an inopportune time.
Barefoot on the cold stone floor, he wished for his boots, but they, too, were missing.
Had everything been taken to be cleaned and repaired?
Clearly whoever cared for him did not expect him to revive this soon.
That gave him an opportunity to look around, if only out the herbal’s door, to see what he could learn before someone arrived to question him.