Chapter 3
A Fraser's Hands
The cart jolted up the field road. Every wheel found a stone the one before it had spared.
Diana kept one hand on Alistair's bandage and the other locked on the wooden side. The blanket hid the blood but not the heat coming off him. The fever had not arrived yet. It would, if the ball stayed where it was.
"Slower," she said.
The man from the inn pulled on the reins.
"If I go any slower, miss, we'll arrive tomorrow."
"Tomorrow he will be dead."
The man looked back over his shoulder. The cart lost speed.
Graeme rode alongside the left wheel, watching the road and the line of trees. Eliza sat facing her sister with their father's case held against her chest. At every turn the lid knocked against her chin.
"If I lose a tooth," she said, "I'm charging the patient."
Alistair opened his eyes.
"Put it on the clan's account."
His voice came out low, whole enough to bring Graeme forward in the saddle.
"Still with us, Laird?"
"Unfortunately," Diana said. "He is still talking."
Eliza rested the case on her knees.
"Is that a sign of improvement?"
"With MacLeod men, I do not yet have sufficient data."
Graeme glanced at the two of them. Diana went back to the bandage before he decided to join in.
The mill appeared past the fork, leaning over the dry bed of a stream. Several paddles were gone from the wooden wheel. Part of the roof sagged inward, though the ground floor still had three sound walls and a door that no longer closed.
Diana recognized the place. She and Eliza had passed it months before, on a journey with Penelope, and her sister had suggested that the mill would serve to hide a lover, stolen goods, or a badly planned escape. Diana had answered at the time that she did not expect to require any of the three.
The afternoon was not over, and she already regretted the lack of precision.
Graeme went in first. He checked the space behind the broken millstones, the stairs with no rail, and the back room. He came out quickly.
"Clear."
"Water?" Diana asked.
"There's a well in the yard. The rope still holds."
Eliza climbed down from the cart.
"I'll fetch it."
"Boil it before you bring it near the wound," Diana said. "And fill a second pail to wash the floor."
Eliza raised an eyebrow.
"Do you intend to operate on the man or renovate the mill?"
"I intend to keep the filth of the mill from participating in the operation."
Graeme and Murray carried Alistair inside on the spread blanket. Diana pointed to a wide table against the wall.
"There."
Graeme inspected the wood.
"It's covered in old flour."
"Which is why Eliza is going to wash it."
"I am?"
Diana looked at her sister.
Eliza let out a breath and picked up the empty pail.
"Sometimes I forget how much medicine depends on the younger sister."
The man from the inn stayed by the door, turning his cap in his hands.
"I need to be back before dark."
Graeme took a coin from his pocket and handed it to him.
"You saw no one here."
The man looked at the coin.
"I saw two ladies taking a sick man to a house."
"Better still," Diana said. "If anyone asks, repeat that."
"And if they ask where the house is?"
"Point south."
He put the coin away and went out. The creak of the cart faded down the road.
Graeme followed the sound until it was gone. Then he shut what was left of the door and set a board against it.
"We haven't much time."
"Then stop spending it saying so."
Diana opened the case.
The dark leather was worn at the corners. Inside, every instrument had a fitting of its own: scalpel, forceps, needles, probes, and small bottles held down by straps. Her father had cut his initials into the lid years before.
A. F.
Alistair watched the case.
Diana noticed. She did not cover the letters. She took out the scalpel and turned the edge to the light coming through the broken window.
"I need more light."
Eliza came back with water and set the pail by the stone hearth.
"There's dry wood in the back room. There are rats as well, but they seemed willing to negotiate."
"Light the fire. Then hold the lamp."
Graeme took off Alistair's coat. The cloth had stuck to the dried blood, and the laird held his breath when the linen léine was pulled aside.
Diana cut the garment away from the side, keeping clear of the injured arm.
"This léine will not survive."
"He has others," Graeme said.
"I am relieved. I feared the fate of the clan depended on it."
Alistair closed his eyes for a moment. His mouth moved, barely. Diana could not tell whether it was pain or an attempt at a smile. She chose not to investigate.
She washed her hands with warm water and soap, then cleaned the instruments with the spirits Eliza had taken from the case. The sharp smell cut through the damp of the mill.
Graeme watched every movement.
"What do you intend to do?"
"Find the ball."
"That much I understood."
"Then we are making progress."
Diana brought the lamp close to the wound.
The entry sat below the last rib, slightly toward the back.
The ball might have turned on the bone. His breathing stayed short but regular, and there was no bloody froth at his lips.
Even so, one wrong movement could reach what she had no way to repair here.
She touched the skin around it.
"Does this hurt?"
"Yes."
"And here?"
He answered with a low sound.
"I will take that as a yes."
Diana put the probe in only far enough to follow the track. Alistair pulled his stomach in.
"Do not move."
"Excellent advice."
"Save your strength for disobeying me later."
The probe met resistance near the rib. Metal touched something hard.
The ball.
Diana drew the instrument back.
"It is accessible."
Graeme let out his breath.
"Take it out."
"First I need you to hold him still."
"He'll stay still."
Alistair opened his eyes.
"Don't speak for me."
"Then show some sense for the first time today," Graeme said.
Diana handed Eliza a folded strip of leather.
"He can bite this."
Alistair looked at the leather.
"No."
"I only wish to preserve your teeth, Laird."
"There's nothing wrong with my teeth."
"We will find out."
Eliza set the lamp near the table. The flame wavered in the wind coming through a gap in the wall.
"If he breaks a tooth, I'm still charging."
Graeme stood behind Alistair and took hold of his shoulders.
"Ready."
"Hold the patient still," Diana said. "Do not demonstrate your opinion of him."
The pressure of Graeme's hands eased a little.
Diana made the incision.
Alistair's body went rigid. The leather stayed on the table, refused. He took hold of the edge with one hand, and the knuckles lost their color.
Diana worked without hurrying. Blood covered the tip of the scalpel. Eliza brought a cloth close, and Diana used it to clear the field before she put in the forceps.
"Lower the light."
Eliza moved the lamp.
"Like this?"
"A little to the left."
"Your left or mine?"
"The one that lights the wound."
"What surprisingly useful guidance."
The forceps found the track. Diana went in another fraction of an inch.
Alistair said something in Gaelic, through his teeth.
Diana understood the unflattering reference to the ancestry of the ball. She went on working.
"What did he say?" Eliza asked.
"Nothing relevant."
Alistair kept his eyes on her.
The forceps touched metal. Diana turned the instrument, working to catch the flattened edge of the ball. It slipped once. The second time, it held.
"Now do not move."
Graeme bore down harder.
Diana pulled.
Alistair arched off the table. The sound that came out of him hit the walls and came back lower. Graeme held the shoulders down. Diana kept her hand steady until the ball came up between the arms of the forceps.
She let it fall into a bowl.
The metal landed with a dry knock.
For a few seconds no one spoke.
Diana checked the bleeding. A small vessel had been caught on the way out. She pressed, waited, and looked again.
"Eliza. Thread."
Her sister opened the right compartment without asking.
Diana stitched the inside first. Alistair breathed through his mouth, his eyes open and fixed on the dark roof. When the needle went through the skin, his hand left the edge of the table and closed around her wrist.
It did not interrupt the stitch.
"Let go," Diana said.
He did not let go.
She finished the knot and looked up.
Something in his face was searching. Alistair studied the tilt of her chin and the sound of her voice, and his body seemed to remember before his mind did.
"I know you," he murmured.
Diana's wrist stayed still under his fingers.
"You have lost blood."
"Your voice."
"You have lost your manners as well."
"Diana," Eliza said, lower.
Diana looked back to the stitching.
"I need to close the skin."
Alistair loosened his hand, and his fingers brushed the inside of her wrist before it fell to the table.
She finished the stitches, cleaned away the blood, and put on a firm bandage with room left to breathe.
"The ball is out. The next night will tell whether there will be fever."
Graeme looked at the bowl.
"Does he live?"
"At this moment."
"That's no answer."
"It is the only one I have."
Alistair turned his eyes to the open lid of the case.
"A. F."
Diana put the needle away.
"They were my father's initials."
"Whitmore?"
The question came too quietly to be idle.
Eliza stopped by the fire.
Diana closed the case.
"His name does not matter to the wound."
"It matters to me."
Before she could answer, Alistair spoke in Gaelic again. A short sentence, the one she had understood by the road.
Diana understood every word.
She picked up the stained cloth, folded it, and put it in the basin.
"He is delirious," she said, in English.
Alistair watched her without speaking.
Outside, a horse whinnied.
Graeme put out the lamp with wet fingers. Eliza shut the case. Diana stayed by the table, one hand on the new bandage.
Another horse stopped in front of the mill.
Then a third.