Chapter 5
The Hidden Name
Diana studied the narrow track ahead.
"Which passages?" Alistair asked.
"The ones that lead to water, to shelter, or to ground where few men can hold back many. A map does not have to be understood in full to become dangerous."
Graeme glanced at the laird.
"Malcolm knew the line of retreat. If he found a mark on the parchment tied to it, he'll be able to find others."
Alistair did not answer. The way his weight increased on Graeme's shoulder said enough.
By the time the first lights of the shelter appeared between the slopes, night had covered the track. Diana had lost the feeling in her toes nearly an hour before. Alistair alternated stretches of silence with tremors he went on denying.
The herding track climbed again every time Diana began to believe the worst of it was behind them.
Among the pines the light dissolved and left the path in grays and dark green.
Graeme held Alistair up on the right. Diana stayed on the other side, watching the bandage under his coat.
Eliza came behind with their father's case and the provision bag, breathing through her mouth so as not to complain out loud.
The silence lasted until Alistair caught his boot on a root.
Diana caught his waist before his weight took her down with him.
"Enough."
"Not yet," he said.
"Your body disagrees."
"My body doesn't decide."
"That may be the origin of a considerable part of your difficulties."
Graeme looked back over his shoulder.
"The shelter is past the next rise."
"You said that two rises ago," Eliza said.
"This is the right one."
"I'm relieved the mountains have finally cooperated."
Diana pushed Alistair's coat aside far enough to feel the binding. The cloth was damp, though the blood had not come through the outer layer. He shook under her hand.
"Are you cold?"
"No."
"Then the fever is beginning."
"Nor that."
She looked up.
"Laird MacLeod, I can argue with you about authority or about symptoms. Choose one. I have not the breath for both."
He held her gaze for a moment and started walking again.
The familiarity rising in his eyes troubled Diana more than the fever did. He had not placed her yet. Every answer pushed him nearer to a memory she had spent years keeping quiet.
The debt from the river explained why she had helped him beside the road.
It did not explain why she was still there.
When they reached the rise, Diana understood why Graeme had avoided calling the place a camp.
The main MacLeod shelter filled a hollow between two slopes.
A roofless chapel covered part of the stores.
Two stone farmhouses, built well apart, were joined by passages roofed with branches and dark wool.
There were people in barns, under makeshift roofs, and inside buildings that might once have held animals in summer.
Low smoke rose from fires hidden between walls.
Children carried wood. Women mended blankets along a wall out of the wind. Wounded men filled a shed whose roof had been braced with new timber.
Towers and halls had been left behind. A laird's authority survived only in the way people stopped when they saw Alistair.
The quiet moved through the shelter ahead of the news.
"The Laird."
The voice came from somewhere on the left.
Then another.
"Alistair's back."
People moved. A man set down the pail he was carrying. A woman put a hand to her mouth. Two young men ran toward them until Graeme raised his arm.
"Room."
Alistair tried to push Diana's support away.
She tightened her hand at his side.
"Do not consider it."
"They need to see me on my feet."
"They can see you alive. Today that will be sufficient."
His eyes went over the buildings and the faces. His body went rigid beside her. Each wounded man reached a different place in him.
Graeme spoke low.
"Later."
Alistair nodded once.
A man came out of the wounded men's shed, wiping his hands on a cloth. Brown hair tied at the nape, the hem of his trousers marked with earth. The deep blue eyes found Alistair first. The unknown woman holding him up came a moment later.
"Put him inside."
The voice was calm, without the hurry that had taken the rest of the shelter.
"Iain," Graeme said. "Ball below the ribs. It came out a few hours ago."
Iain cleared a way to a narrow table at the back of the shed. Three beds were occupied. There were shelves of clay jars and bundles of plants hanging from the beams. The air smelled of vinegar, wet wool, and some bitter root Diana did not know.
They laid Alistair on a clean blanket.
Iain pushed the coat aside and examined the binding.
"Who did this?"
"I did," Diana said.
He looked up at her.
"Who are you?"
"Miss Diana Whitmore."
Eliza came in with the case.
"And I'm Miss Eliza Whitmore. The sister who carries everything heavy while Diana carries responsibility for the world."
Iain did not take his eyes off the bandage.
"I need to see the wound."
Diana undid the knot and lifted the layers away with care. The stitching held, though the skin around it had gone warm.
Iain brought a lamp closer.
"Did the ball come out whole?"
Diana opened the small pouch and showed him the ball.
He turned it between his fingers and went back to the incision.
"You followed the track along the rib."
"Yes."
"How far did you open?"
She showed the length with her fingers.
"The minimum required. There was internal bleeding from a small vessel. I closed it before I stitched the skin."
Iain touched the stitches lightly. His face held nothing but attention.
"I couldn't have reached it without doing more damage."
Graeme folded his arms.
"She's kept him alive since the road."
"I see."
Iain looked at Diana's hands, then at the case Eliza had set on a bench.
"May I?"
Diana opened the lid.
He went over the instruments without touching them. At the letters cut into the leather, he stopped.
A. F.
"Andrew Fraser."
The name landed in the shed with more weight than it should have had.
Eliza went still. Graeme turned his head toward Diana. Alistair opened his eyes.
Iain touched the initials with a fingertip.
"Dr. Fraser treated my father many years ago. A blade went through his thigh. Others wanted to take the leg. He found the vessel and closed it."
Diana breathed slowly.
"He used to tell that story."
"He said he had two daughters."
No one spoke for a moment.
Alistair turned his face toward her.
"Fraser."
The rough voice reached something Whitmore had never reached.
Diana closed the case.
"Yes."
Graeme took a step forward.
"You gave us a false name."
"I gave the name I use in public."
"Why?"
"Because Fraser stopped being safe."
The shed was smaller with all of them looking at her. Diana took off her gloves, one at a time, and laid them on the case.
"My father was born in the Highlands. He studied in the Lowlands and treated men from different clans at a time when political disputes made any help suspect. He did not ask which side a wounded man belonged to before he closed an artery."
Iain nodded, barely.
"That brought him enemies," Diana went on. "After he died, my mother took us to her family in Northumberland. She went back to the name Whitmore. So did we."
"Your mother's English," Graeme said.
"She was Eleanor Whitmore before she married. To Penelope we are the daughters of an English widow with education enough to serve and too little money to choose otherwise."
Eliza leaned a hip against the bench.
"The disguise works very well until some MacLeod starts giving orders with every breath. Hiding an accent gets harder under those conditions."
Graeme looked at her.
"You haven't a Highland accent."
"You see? It's working again already."
Something moved in Iain's face. He went back to the patient before it became visible.
Alistair was still watching her.
"You understood the Gaelic."
"I understand more than I demonstrate."
"Did you speak it as a child?"
The question came low. Too close.
Diana folded the torn glove over the other.
"My father used a few words at home."
"A few."
She held his gaze.
"Enough to know when a wounded man is being ill-mannered."
Iain put a hand to Alistair's forehead.
"The fever's starting."
The shed's attention went back to the body on the table.
"I have willow bark and an infusion for pain," Iain said. "There's also a root that helps hold the fever down, but the amount has to be small. Is his stomach empty?"
"Since he was shot, most likely," Graeme said.
Diana searched the jars and bundles.
"I need to keep the wound clean and watch his breathing. If the fever rises, I want cold water and cloths. Nothing that sits on the stitching and holds dirt."
Iain took a dry sprig from a shelf.
"This brings down the swelling. I use it in an infusion, not on the skin."
She brought it near her face. The smell was resinous and bitter.
"I do not know it."
"It grows on the northern slopes. In winter we use the bark and the dried leaves. I can prepare a safe amount."
Diana handed it back.
"Then prepare it. I also need to know what he tolerates when he is ill, whether he has had high fevers before, and how long he generally takes to recover his strength."
Iain looked at Alistair.
"He generally gets up before he recovers anything."
"That I have already diagnosed."
"I can help you with what grows here and with what his body has already been through. You take what's under the stitching."
The offer came in the shape of a clear division.
"Agreed," Diana said.
Iain handed Eliza a bowl.
"Water from the barrel by the door. What's in the pail hasn't been boiled."
"At last, someone in this place who gives complete instructions."
Eliza went out.
Graeme followed her with his eyes a little too long before he found Diana watching him. He turned back to Alistair.
"I'll tell the men you're alive."
"Tell them I'll see them tonight," the laird said.
"You will not," Diana said.
"I will."
Iain began sorting the willow bark.
"She's right."
Alistair looked at his cousin.
"Get them both out."
"I can remove Graeme," Diana said. "Iain stays."
Graeme grunted and went out with the news.
Diana cleaned the skin around the stitching again. Alistair followed the movement of her hands.
"Fraser," he said again.
She did not answer.
The true surname sounded different in his voice. Old. Too personal for a man who did not yet know why.
Before Diana could cover the wound, voices rose outside. A short argument, then heavy steps.
A gray-haired man came into the shed without waiting for permission. Broad shoulders, a beard cut close, and the face of someone who had decided before listening.
His eyes went over Alistair, found Diana, and hardened.
"Dugald," Iain said.
"They tell me two Englishwomen have been brought into the shelter."
"They told you wrong," Eliza said, coming in with the water. "Technically."
Dugald did not look at her.
"These women know the way to us. They know the state of the laird, and they have seen our wounded."
Diana straightened.
"I have also treated the laird, and I intend to continue treating him."
"Not here."
Alistair tried to rise.
Iain put a hand on his shoulder.
Dugald pointed at the door.
"The two of them must be kept away from the rest of the clan before they bring Penelope's men down on all of us."
Alistair's fever made an immediate decision impossible. Iain ordered them all out, and not even Dugald argued when the laird stopped answering the voices around him.