Chapter 15
Fifteen
The shepherd drowsed beside me, cupping my body with his own. His arm draped across me and held me close. To lay curled in his arms almost took away the loneliness I had felt since Mairi Grieve’s death, or even before.
Only almost. It could not change the fact I was half-faery in this mortal realm.
I had no wish to move. To interrupt the peculiar perfection of sleeping curled in the shepherd’s arms. Thomas’s breath was morning sour, his cheeks rough when they brushed against my own; his dark curls lay damp with sweat and matted against his forehead.
Mortal sweat, mortal breath, mortal stubble.
Imperfect and beautiful in a way the fae could not touch.
This is why they fascinate us so. Why we can be surrounded by the stench of wool, weighed down by mortality, and pricked by the hay poking up through the mattress, yet feel as though we were touched by the divine.
The shepherd king and I shared a holy union, though I was one for whom holiness should not exist.
Fae and mankind do need one another, however much we wound each other, too.
Someone barked, and the spell was broken.
Thomas cursed under his breath. “You never do let me sleep in, do you, Cullen?”
The dog whined until Thomas gave in and rumpled his fur. The shepherd stretched full long and stood, showing me his bare backside, broad shoulders, and shapely legs. A flush spread across my cheeks. Now I truly did not wish to leave the cottage, or at least not the shepherd’s side.
Out Cullen bounded, eager to get started on the day’s work.
Thomas faced me, his eyes sleepy as he gave me a lazy grin. “Sorry if he did wake ye.” He stood and stretched, grabbing his breeches. “’Tis well past time I was up anyway. Must look in on young Douglas before I take out the flock.”
I grabbed his shirt and hid it behind my back. “Ye must rest your leg.”
Thomas sighed deeply. “Young Douglas is ill. I wouldna go if he could tend them.”
“What is wrong with the boy, then?”
Thomas must have sensed some skepticism in me. “He’s an honest lad, Bess. I do not believe he is lying.”
Nor do I. “That is not why I am asking. I meant, what are his symptoms? I may know something that could help.” A gargle of mustard seed and vinegar if he had caught a cold; beeswax for a toothache; ginger for stomach troubles.
“Oh.” Thomas cocked his head, considering me. “They say ’tis a bit of a cough. Mayhap the croup? Did you mean to look in on him?”
Well, why shouldn’t I?
I had set and bandaged Thomas’s leg; now it was healing straight, and he barely felt any pain.
With Mairi Grieve, I had delivered infants, brewed up elixirs, and taken them to the ill and the infirm.
All these years, Eamon Grieve had let me feel I was worthless, of no import at all, but it was not true. I knew things. Had skills.
And if I was Thomas Shepherd’s leman, that did not mean I was good for naught but warming his bed.
“I could look in on him, yes.”
A warm grin spread across Thomas’s face. “I am certain his family would appreciate it.”
His family.
Nay, this was the Douglases we were talking about, who held the largest allotment of land in the village, whose standing Eamon had greatly aspired to, and only just fallen short.
The boy’s father had been twice reeve already, and the family was distantly connected to nobility throughout the Borders.
They could well afford the services of a university-trained physician if there were one in the village.
My services were just as good as those of a university--trained physician.
Mairi had cured diseases that troubled them numerous times.
“Of course. I will look in on him this evening.” I smiled, and clutched Thomas’s boots to my front.
“You will get these back when I return from watching your flocks.”
“Bess, I . . .”
“I will brook no argument. Come now, Cullen.”
The dog gave me a contemptuous sniff.
I would brook no argument from him either. “I said, up!” And I made my way out to the sheepfold, with Cullen barking at my heels.
Do not follow in your mother’s footsteps. So had Eamon Grieve and the priest advised me.
It was already too late for that. I had tended Thomas’s wound. I had attempted to help Glenna Baker, and if she still needed me, I would do it again. For better or worse, I could no longer call myself Eamon Grieve’s dutiful daughter. He had already booted me out.
If I must pay the penance, I might as well commit the sin.
My only fear now was what might happen if my efforts went wrong.
I could go from disgraced daughter to poisoner or even witch, and if they thought me such, well, the Douglases would be dangerous enemies to have.
Though my fae blood meant I did not die easily, I was not eager to put it to the test. But when had Mairi ever worried about what could go wrong?
Never had I known fear to stop her when she could be of help.
No coward would I be. Let Eamon call me ingrate, let the priest label me heretic and slut. Mairi’s healing wisdom was inside me, and I would not shrink from the opportunity to put it to use.
And so, after a brief day in the fields—for in May the flocks go out late to avoid the troublesome dew, and come home early to avoid the troublesome heat—I returned to find Thomas lying abed, feigning sleep.
Restless knave, I thought. You don’t fool me. I knelt beside him and kissed his forehead. “Sweet mite, ha’ ye been lying here abed all this time?”
Thomas allowed his eyes to flutter open, batting his long dark lashes. “Have done as ye bade me, nymph.” Then he grabbed for me, far too vigorously for one just roused from his nap.
“Nay, rascal.” I slapped at him playfully. “I am for the Douglases, as ye recall.” But I gave him a wink, to make it clear such mischief was not off the table upon my return.
I tidied myself the best I was able, given that I had only the kirtle I had left home in, and none of my herbs, save the wormwood and valerian I used to soothe Thomas’s pain.
I took some of the latter with me, for young Douglas had both a cough and a fever, which are sometimes accompanied by pain.
For the rest, any tonics to brew up, I hoped the Douglases’ garden was sufficient to make do.
Their house was half again as large as the one I had grown up in, with stone footings, a thatched roof, and clay walls.
Most luxurious to me, there was a second full story for the family to sleep in, and since the Douglas family had only four boys and a girl to our eight bairns, I could only imagine how spacious that must feel.
At the rear of the home was a separate room to quarter the two servants—human servants, unlike Morven, could not use the crockery for a bed.
So too the Douglas house was much less smoky than either the one I grew up in or Thomas’s, for their hearth had venting to the outside through the roof.
’Twas a novel idea, it seemed to me, though I did not know how they might keep out the rain.
I knocked on the front door before calling in, “Is anyone about? I have come to see the sick child.” And I chewed pensively on my lower lip, hoping they would not shoo me away.
A small woman I recognized as one of the family servants came to greet me, with a finger to her lips.
“Young Douglas is sleeping,” she said quietly.
“We hope he will stay that way. The cough does trouble him so.” As if to illustrate this, a dry, hacking cough came from deeper in the cottage, accompanied by harsh, gasping breaths.
Poor bairn.
The servant sighed. “Ye may as well come in. He’s awake now anyway.”
I did not let her terseness bother me, but stepped inside, handing her my cloak. “That cough sounds dreadful. Do you boil up three onions into a brew. Will taste awful but shall soothe the cough.”
She stared blankly at me for a moment. I supposed she had no idea who I was to order her about. “You are Mairi Grieve’s daughter.”
I nodded. “Thomas Shepherd sent me to help.”
“Your father did remarry—” She shook her head, clasping her lips closed, as one who had been chastised for gossip many times in the past. “I will set the onions to boil.” She scurried away to the hearth.
I felt my eyes go wide, biting back an astonished, “Who?” I did not care. Eamon Grieve was not my father, nor need we pretend so any longer. He was nothing to me.
Disloyal lout. Mairi is not six months in the grave.
I followed the sound of coughing to a pallet tucked away in the corner.
The youngest Douglas boy was damp of forehead—I would bid the maid bring dried feverfew for him as well—and the blankets were a twist around him.
His arms lay across the covers, and one of them had been wrapped with a bandage.
Beside him sat his mother, head bowed in her graceful wimple, weeping.
Like as not, she will catch it from him. But you cannot keep a loving mother from her sick child. Mairi it was who taught me that.
“Mistress Douglas.” I inclined my head, then gestured at the bandaged arm. “Was he wounded?”
She looked up with reddened eyes, and I knew not whether she meant to welcome me or banish me from her house. “Oh, Mistress Grieve,” said she. “Good of you to come. Nay, he is not wounded, but has been bled.”
I struggled to hide my frown. Bleeding does naught to help the bleeder, only to line the pockets of the charlatans who use it.
A vision came upon me then of rivers of blood, high enough to reach my knees, and an echoing phrase: The land must feed. I blinked and shook it away, confused and with no leisure now to puzzle it out.
The boy fell into another fit of coughing, dry and hacking, the type that produces nothing but a sore belly.
Once it gets started, it rarely stops, and breathing becomes difficult.
Indeed, he heaved out rough, aborted gasps, only to be interrupted by another fit of coughing.
Desperation was setting in for both the boy and his mother. It clawed at me as well.
Do not give in. What would Mairi do? But all the knowledge she’d had passed to me seemed to have flown from my mind.
And a small voice inside me whispered, Mairi’s knowledge is not the only resource you possess.
I closed my eyes, reached down deep for the sense of calm to overtake me, and focused on slowing my pulse.
I envisioned the forest around me, where once I had sat and gathered wildflowers with Mairi under the bright summer sky.
How the sun had beat down on our heads, and the breeze had tickled across my face.
I took the peace of that day deep inside myself and, when I was ready, opened my eyes.
I placed a hand upon the boy’s forehead and allowed my sense of calm to radiate outwards.
“Be at peace,” I told young Douglas. “Fear not that this illness shall steal your breath. For like the oak, you shall remain standing, and the ailment is like a breeze that moves through your branches and will be on its way.”
His coughing stopped.
I pulled back, hands at my breast. Those words came not from Mairi Grieve. You choose to live in mortal lands. You should restrict yourself to mortal means of healing.
No.
I will use any means within my power to restore what is unwell.
Young Douglas stared at the ceiling, blinking in disbelief, his chest raising and lowering dramatically as normal breathing was restored.
His mother gaped and brought her hand to the cross around her throat. “He breathes again. Blessed saints!”
I scowled, I hoped discreetly. They had naught to do with it.
A power blossomed within me, greater than Mairi’s knowledge. This calm I exuded came from some wellspring of my own. If I put Mairi’s knowledge and my gifts both together, what couldn’t I achieve?
The priests would have said I lacked humility. Humility was greatly losing its appeal.
The servant returned with a cup of the onion brew, which the lad took, scrunching his nose at the smell.
“My throat does itch still,” he said, voice as rough as if he’d not spoken for years.
“The illness is not gone from ye,” I told him. “’Twill most like last out the week. But ye panicked, and feared ye would not breathe. That does no one any good.”
He nodded and drank the onion brew, making a foul face as he did.
To his mother I said, “For a dry cough such as this, I recommend anise and parsley seeds brewed with violet seeds and wine. Give it to him once every day until he is well.”
Mistress Douglas nodded, and said to the servant girl, “Heed ye well.”
“If ye have summat to prop his head up while he sleeps, that will likely do him some good, too,” I continued. “And do not hesitate to send for me if you need help preparing the brew, or if his condition should worsen. You may find me with Thomas Shepherd if you have need.”
I thought of the gossiping beldames, and of Eamon’s constant chastisement, how he had called me a huir. But if Mistress Douglas was to dismiss and look down on me for my choice of bedfellow after all the good I had just done, well, then humans really were the worthless hypocrites they seemed.
She did not, only putting a hand to her breast, while she murmured prayers to all the saints. “’Tis a miracle. Ye have saved him.”
“So I hope.” For the boy had taken a turn for the better but was not yet out of the woods.
But pride kindled in my breast as she told me, “You truly are Mairi Grieve’s daughter and prentice,” and gazed at me with wonder.
Not her daughter. Never hers. Never human.
Yet, somehow, in the truest way I could imagine, I had become Mairi’s heir.
And who else’s? That was what I needed to know.