Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Roy learned early that pain became less troublesome when ignored.
The lesson had served him through winter marches, broken ribs, infected cuts, and one memorable arrow wound whose surgeon possessed more enthusiasm than skill. A man could continue through most injuries if he refused to grant the body authority over the mind.
The wound beneath his ribs was merely an old argument resumed.
He felt it pull while lifting the end of a timber into place along Dun Ard’s outer wall.
The damaged section had taken the worst of the storm three nights before.
Since dawn, Roy had worked beside the masons and clansmen, hauling beams, testing mortar and inspecting every repair before permitting the men to move to the next.
He shifted the timber higher upon his shoulder. Pain sliced through his side. It came sharp enough to steal half a breath, bright and sudden beneath the lower ribs.
Hamish, holding the opposite end, looked at him. Roy knew that look. He had seen it across battlefields, campfires and several occasions upon which Hamish had been correct in a manner no friend ought to find satisfying.
“Dinnae,” Roy warned.
“I said naething.”
“Yer face is unusually eloquent.”
Hamish adjusted his grip. “Me face was considering whether tae fetch help before ye drop this upon a clansman.”
“I am nae dropping it.”
The man beneath them glanced upward with understandable concern.
Roy carried the timber the remaining distance and lowered it into place against the stone supports. The instant the weight left his shoulder, the pain eased into a deeper throb.
The outer stones were still slick from the night’s rain. Water gathered in shallow seams beneath his boots, darkening the leather. Below, men carried fresh mortar from the courtyard while two MacNicol guards secured the new supports with iron pins.
Roy paused near the broken parapet and pressed one hand against the new masonry.
The repair held firm beneath his palm. The MacNicol masons worked well, though several regarded his presence with suspicion when he first joined them.
By midday, suspicion had worn down beneath shared labor.
Men found it harder to call a laird an invader while he stood ankle-deep in mud beside them.
Roy bent to inspect the lower brace. The motion pulled at his ribs again. This time, heat spread beneath his shirt.
He straightened carefully. A blade had left the scar during the final winter of the war, when frozen ground made every fall feel like striking iron.
The wound had closed badly, opened twice and ached whenever cold rain settled into his bones.
Roy had long since ceased to think of it as an injury.
It was merely one more portion of his body that objected to being used.
He placed his hand against his side. When he withdrew it, blood marked the leather of his glove.
Roy continued walking. The pain sharpened with each step, though he kept his pace even.
Weakness drew attention. Attention invited concern, and concern became interference.
He had survived too many years by relying upon his own endurance to surrender the habit merely because a wound had opened upon a quiet morning.
He descended from the wall into the training yard. Men moved around him with timber, ropes and baskets of stone. Hammers struck in uneven rhythm from the scaffolding. Roy reached for a coil of rope.
A hand closed around it first. He lifted his gaze only to find Donaldina standing on the opposite side. She was wearing a dark green cloak fastened at her throat, the hood fallen back from hair braided loosely over one shoulder.
“Release it,” he said.
Donaldina’s gaze moved slowly down his chest. Roy knew the exact moment she saw the blood.
“Ye are bleeding.”
“It is an old wound.”
Blood spread through the linen shirt beneath his tunic, darkening the fabric along his left side. Roy resisted the impulse to cover it with his hand. The gesture would only confirm that the pain was greater than he wished her to know.
Donaldina released the rope. For one hopeful instant, he believed she meant to let the matter rest. Then she stepped around the coil and came directly toward him.
“How long?”
“It opened a moment ago.”
Hamish made a sound behind him.
Donaldina looked past Roy. “How long?”
Hamish’s loyalty survived almost three heartbeats. “Since the wall.”
Roy turned his head. “Which wall?”
“The one upon which ye nearly dropped a timber.”
“I didnae nearly drop it.”
Donaldina looked back at him. “Inside.”
Roy looked at her intently. She raised her chin, adopting the same confident expression she used when correcting councilmen who mistook the volume of their voices for authority. “I have repairs tae inspect,” he shook his head.
“Someone else will inspect them.”
“They answer tae me.”
“At present, they appear tae possess more sense than ye.”
Several nearby clansmen developed sudden interest in their boots.
Roy lowered his voice. “Donaldina.”
“Roy.”
His name sounded different when she spoke it in anger. More intimate somehow, as though she had already grown accustomed to using it and resented being given cause.
“It is a shallow wound,” he tried to explain.
“Then it will require little time tae tend.”
“I have endured worse.”
“I have nae doubt. That doesnae improve this one.”
Roy felt the eyes of the yard upon them, though no man was foolish enough to look openly. A laird being ordered indoors by a woman was apparently a spectacle that demanded great concentration on unrelated tasks.
Donaldina stepped closer and reached toward his side, then stopped before touching him.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Nae.”
Her eyes lifted to his. Roy had lied to kings, enemy officers and men whose blades rested against his throat. He found lying to her unexpectedly difficult.
“A little,” he amended.
Donaldina’s mouth tightened. “Inside.”
This time, the order was softer which made it harder to refuse.
Roy looked once toward the wall. The masons continued their work. Hamish had already taken the inspection list from one of the guards with the air of a man who expected victory and intended to be intolerable about it later.
Roy exhaled. “Only until it is bound.”
Donaldina stepped aside to allow him past. “Naturally.”
He began walking toward the hall. After two paces, the wound pulled sharply enough to shorten his stride. Donaldina noticed.
She moved beside him without comment, close enough that her shoulder nearly touched his arm. She did not offer assistance. She understood him too well for that already. Yet she remained there.
Roy had spent years teaching himself that pain was easier to bear alone. As they crossed the cold courtyard together, he began to suspect that ease had never been the same thing as strength.
The infirmary was empty when she led him inside. Pale, reluctant morning light seeped through the narrow windows, illuminating shelves packed with linen, clay jars, and bunches of dried herbs hanging from the rafters.
Roy stopped beside the nearest table.
“I can bind it myself.”
Donaldina closed the door behind them. “Nae.”
He looked at her.
She found a basin upon the shelf and poured water into it from the pitcher. “Ye refused me three times when I asked ye tae teach me tae defend meself. I have therefore concluded that refusal is merely how ye begin every reasonable conversation.”
“This is different.”
“Aye. I wasnae bleeding through me clothing.”
Roy looked down at the dark stain spreading on his side, his expression implying that the blood had betrayed him by revealing itself.
Donaldina set the basin upon the table. “Sit.”
He did not move.
She turned toward him. “Must every instruction become a battle?”
“Only those delivered as commands.”
“Then consider it a request spoken with unusual clarity.”
The corner of his mouth shifted, though pain tightened the rest of his face before the expression could become amusement.
“Sit down, Roy.”
This time he obeyed. He lowered himself onto a stool beside the table, moving with greater care than he had shown in the courtyard.
Had she not seen the blood, he would have continued carrying timber until his body denied him the choice.
Men called such conduct endurance. Donaldina increasingly suspected that it was merely pride wearing a more respectable name.
She gathered clean linen, a needle and the small jar of spirits Elspeth kept for wounds. When she returned, Roy had begun unfastening the leather guard at his wrist.
“Where is the healer?” he asked.
“Helping in the village.”
His gaze settled upon her hands. “Have ye stitched a wound before?”
“Many. Lachlan possessed an unfortunate belief that every wall, horse and fishing blade in Dun Ard had entered intae a private conspiracy against him.”
Roy looked down. The mention of her brother placed a silence between them, but it was no longer the hostile silence that followed Roy through the gates. Grief remained there, deep and unaltered, yet it had begun to share its space with understanding.
Donaldina poured the spirits into a shallow cup.
“Remove yer tunic.”
Roy’s eyes lifted to hers. For reasons she refused to examine, warmth crept beneath her collar.
“I cannae reach the wound through wool,” she said.
He exhaled through his nose and reached for the fastening at his shoulder. The movement pulled at his side. His mouth tightened, and his hand stopped. Donaldina crossed the distance before she considered whether she ought.
“Let me.”
His fingers lingered on the fastening a moment longer before he lowered his hand. Donaldina stood between his knees.