by Jayne Castel
Mother Shona shook her head. “It’s a miracle he still lives.”
Coira let out a long exhale. “Aye … but it’s a risk having him here. There’s a price on that man’s head that would tempt many. If MacKinnon ever discovers him here, all of us are in jeopardy.”
“I’m aware of that,” the abbess replied. Her voice was unusually weary. “But he came to us out of desperation. We couldn’t turn him away.”
Of course they couldn’t. Coira had never refused to tend anyone, and had been pleased to hear that MacKinnon’s bastard brother was causing the clan-chief so much trouble of late.
However, keeping him at Kilbride was another matter. Here, he risked bringing the wolf to their door.
“So, what should we do?” Coira asked, almost dreading the answer.
“We will keep him here, out of sight.” The abbess now adopted a determined expression that Coira knew well. “Unfortunately, news of an injured man’s arrival has already spread through the abbey, but no one beyond its walls knows he’s here, yet. If he survives his injuries, as soon as he’s able, he will have to leave.”
Coira nodded. Mother Shona’s decision didn’t surprise her. Neither of them was going to turn an injured man away, and yet the sooner they rid themselves of Craeg the Bastard, the better.
After supper, Coira discovered that she couldn’t settle. She’d filled her belly with bread, cheese, and onion broth; slaked her thirst with a cup of ale; and tried to rest—but she found that she was full of nervous energy.
Instead, she decided to practice with her quarter-staff.
Having MacKinnon’s half-brother here at Kilbride had put her on edge. It didn’t matter how much she steeled herself before visiting Craeg, every time she set eyes on the man the likeness between him and MacKinnon made a shiver slide down her spine.
However, unlike the clan-chief, Craeg was loved rather than reviled by the people of this territory. There were a number of stories about this man that had almost become folklore upon Skye. Despite that he was a criminal, Craeg had recently become a savior figure for the folk here, the only one who’d stand up against the clan-chief’s iron fist. His behavior was audacious and foolhardy to the extreme. He boldly attacked supply wagons, couriers, and even MacKinnon’s own men, stealing food and silver, most of which he gave away to the poor. MacKinnon had been hunting him for a while now, but Craeg always seemed to slip free of his net.
Maybe this time he wasn’t going to be so fortunate.
Outdoors in the misty gloaming, Coira noted that tension had turned the muscles in her neck and shoulders into planks of wood. The evening chores had been done and Compline completed, and the abbey had just entered the Great Silence—a period of quiet reflection during which the nuns did not converse until after Mass the following morning.
The Great Silence was actually Coira’s favorite time of day. And usually at this hour, she was happy to rest upon her sleeping pallet—but not this evening. Returning briefly to her tiny cell in the building next to the dormitories, Coira retrieved her quarter-staff—a six-foot stave fashioned of ash with pointed iron tips.
This was her weapon of choice.
Upon arriving at the abbey, it hadn’t taken Coira long to realize that all wasn’t as it seemed. Aye, the abbess was a pious woman who took her service to God very seriously, and expected the nuns to do the same, but she was also an enigma. Like Coira, she appeared a woman who kept secrets.
Even so, Mother Shona had revealed some of her past to the nuns. Over the years Coira discovered that the abbess had once been a novice in a convent in Lismore upon the mainland. One summer, brigands attacked the convent, raping and slaughtering any nuns they found there before burning it to the ground. Shona had been spared that day, for she’d been out collecting herbs when the attack had taken place. Terrified, she’d fled into the forest, and had been on the verge of starving when a group of outlaws found her and took her into their fold.
Coira wasn’t sure what had happened afterward, for this was the part where the abbess had been vague, but it appeared that the outlaws had taught the young nun how to defend herself. Eventually, she’d left the band and traveled to the Isle of Skye, where she’d entered Kilbride Abbey. Years later, when she was elected as abbess, Mother Shona had determined that the nuns under her care would always be able to defend themselves, and had set about teaching them all skills that were highly unusual for a nun—abilities that she’d kept secret from her fellow sisters for years.
Over the years, Coira had learned to fire a bow and arrow, throw a knife, handle herself with a sword, and defend herself with her hands if the need arose.
But wielding the quarter-staff—a weapon that could be as dangerous as a sword—was the skill she’d focused on. Coira carried it with her whenever she left Kilbride’s walls, which was often because she needed to collect particular healing herbs in the woods, and attend the sick and injured beyond. To the folk beyond here, it looked as if she carried a staff to help her walk upon the uneven terrain, but the Sisters of Kilbride knew differently.
Coira was lethal with a quarter-staff.
She walked to the wide yard before the shadow of the kirk now and stood for a few moments, legs planted hip-width apart as she centered herself.
Around her, it felt as if the mist had closed in further still. The oil lamp that Coira had brought, and placed down on the ground a few yards behind her, only illuminated a limited space. She couldn’t even see the surrounding walls of the abbey. It mattered not though; she could still practice, even in the fog.
Swinging the quarter-staff around in an arc, Coira started through a series of drills. She could have done them in her sleep, for they were movements that she taught all the young nuns who’d entered the abbey after her. These days, she and Mother Shona shared the duty of training the others.
The wooden stave whistled and swooshed through the air as she spun it around. She shifted stance then, holding the staff two-handed—attacking, feinting, and parrying, as if an opponent stood before her.
She went through the drills, again and again, her mind completely focused. For a short while, the rest of the world receded. Her past ceased to exist, and all the problems that had plagued the abbey of late disappeared as well. She’d lost two friends recently, both of whom had been very dear to her. Coira knew that a woman who dedicated herself to serving Christ shouldn’t cling on to earthly relationships, but she’d been very close to Sisters Ella and Leanna.
Fortunately, both women were still alive. However, due to extreme circumstances, they’d left the abbey for new lives. And although Coira kept herself busy at Kilbride, she sometimes felt an ache in her chest whenever she thought of Ella and Leanna. Without them here, she sometimes felt very alone.
Finally, the sweat pouring down her face and back, Coira finished her practice. She was breathing hard, yet the tension had now eased from her neck and shoulders, and the muscles felt loose.
I needed that, she thought as she turned, retrieved her oil lamp, and headed toward the nun’s quarters. Yet halfway there, she halted. She’d intended to return to her cell, where she’d retire for the evening. But something prevented her.
Instead, she turned and made her way around the back of the complex, to where the infirmary stood, shrouded in mist.
Her patient would be alone.
She couldn’t leave him like that—not tonight. Not when his life hung by a thread.
With a heavy sigh, Coira entered the infirmary. It was dimly lit by the glow of the hearth at one end and a flickering oil lamp on the low table next to the only occupied bed.
Craeg the Bastard lay sprawled upon his back, his breathing deep and even as he slept. He wasn’t thrashing now, which could be a good or bad sign, depending on how his body was responding. Lamp aloft, Coira approached the sleeping pallet and peered down at his bandaged midriff. They’d removed his vest, leaving him naked from the waist up. Examining the bandage, she was pleased to see there hadn’t been much seepage—that
there was no tell-tale yellow stain from pus. That was a positive sign.
Satisfied that she had done all she could for the moment, Coira set down her lamp and pulled up a high-backed wooden chair next to the bed. With a sigh, she sank down onto it and clasped her hands before her.
All she could do now was pray.
3
Just a Man
CRAEG AWOKE TO a dull throbbing pain in his side and a raging thirst.
He opened his eyes slowly, for although the room in which he lay was dimly lit, his eyes still stung from the candlelight.
For a few moments, his vision was cloudy and blurred, and then his surroundings sharpened into focus.
And the first thing he saw was an angel standing over him.
A woman with a face that looked as if it had been sculpted by the hand of the master: strong patrician features, and high cheekbones, with a full, beautifully drawn mouth. But the thing that really caught his attention was her eyes. They were an unusual color—violet—and framed by dark arched eyebrows. Truly, he’d never seen such beauty.
An instant later though, he realized he was not looking up into the face of an angel, but a nun. Those angelic features were framed by an austere white wimple and a black veil. She was tall and broad-shouldered for a woman, and her body was shrouded in a heavy black habit, girded at the waist with a leather belt, where a small wooden crucifix hung.
A jolt of surprise made Craeg catch his breath.
He wasn’t dead and being attended by one of heaven’s angels after all—although in retrospect, after the life he’d lived, he was much more likely to have been sent to the depths of hell—but very much alive.
Craeg tried to remember how he’d gotten here. He could remember telling Gunn and Farlan to return to the others, before he’d finished the journey to Kilbride on his own. He also recalled staggering through the trees, to where the austere walls of Kilbride Abbey rose in an impenetrable barrier against the outside world. He’d barely made it to the gates, and hadn’t had the energy to reach for the heavy iron knocker to alert them to his presence. Instead, pain, fever, and a crushing fatigue had slammed into him like a charging boar, and he’d collapsed upon the dirt before the gates. An instant later darkness had taken him.
Staring down at him, the nun’s lovely face tightened a little. Those unusual violet eyes widened.
“I’m so thirsty,” Craeg croaked. “I can’t swallow.”
With a brisk nod, the nun moved away, and returned an instant later at his side with a wooden cup. Craeg found he was propped up on a mound of pillows, and as such, when the nun raised the cup to his lips, he was able to take a sip, and then another, without choking. The ale that she fed him was watery, yet it tasted like the sweetest mead to his parched mouth and throat. He could have gulped it down, but since he knew it would only make him ill, he prevented himself.
With a sigh of relief, Craeg sank back against the pillows. Then, dreading what he might see, he lowered his chin to look down at his left flank.
Unlike the last time he’d seen it, when the bandage had been filthy, stained with blood and pus, and stinking like the devil’s toenails, it now looked clean, although the dull throb set his teeth on edge.
“How is the wound?” he asked dreading the answer. Craeg knew he’d been a fool to leave it as long as he had; the last month had been fraught as he and his band had narrowly escaped capture again and again. There had been no time to think about himself. A chill settled in his belly as he remembered just how awful the wound looked last time he had dared uncover the bandage.
“Much better than it was,” she replied. Her voice was as lovely as her face. It had a low, husky quality to it, and its timbre soothed him. “The souring came from a splinter of wood that hadn’t been removed.” She paused here, those startling eyes narrowing. “From an arrow, I take it?”
Craeg nodded. “I took the wound around a moon ago, and it started to trouble me a few days later.” He halted there, his eyes closing as he braced himself for bad news.
“Don’t look so worried,” the nun continued, her tone rueful. “Ye might live yet, outlaw.”
His gaze snapped open. “I might?”
She nodded, the edges of her sensual mouth lifting in the barest hint of a smile. “Last night was the most dangerous time, and ye passed it. Now, if I can keep the wound clean, and help it to heal, ye will live and continue to be a thorn in yer brother’s side.”
Her dry sense of humor made Craeg smile. “I see ye know who I am?”
The nun nodded, breaking eye contact with him. She then took the wooden cup from him and set it down on the table next to the pallet.
“The people of this territory have much to thank ye for,” she said, her voice soft now as she started to sort through what appeared to be a basket of herbs. “Last winter ye gave silver to the folk of Torrin after MacKinnon robbed them. They’d have starved otherwise. Because of ye and yer band, they have hope.”
Her words, strangely, made warmth spread out from the center of Craeg’s chest.
He knew that many folk living upon MacKinnon lands saw him as some kind of savior figure, but he never spent much time dwelling upon the fact.
The truth of it was less pretty.
He didn’t do this for them, but for himself. Revenge fed him, drove him—it was his beer and bread. However, he prevented himself from telling the nun this. Despite that he’d only just met her, he realized that he wanted this stranger to think well of him. Odd really, but he did.
“I need to take a look at that wound,” the nun informed him, her tone changing from warm to cool in an instant. It was almost as if she realized the conversation had become too familiar. She was now trying to distance herself from him.
“Go on then,” Craeg replied.
He fell silent, observing as she approached once more and deftly cut away his bandage. He noticed as she did so that she had beautiful hands with long, nimble fingers. When she had removed the bandage, he forced himself to look upon the wound.
It still wasn’t a pretty sight. The flesh around the wound was badly swollen, although the red lines that had scared him into making the journey here had started to fade a little. Thank the Lord that the wound no longer stank. It was red and angry looking, but there was no pus, and it no longer had a putrid appearance.
The nun bent close, her cool fingertips gently prodding the inflamed skin around the injury. She then glanced up, and their gazes fused for an instant. “I’m going to have to wash it again, she informed him. “It’s going to hurt.”
He nodded, steeling himself. “I’m ready.”
She hadn’t been lying. When the vinegar poured over the wound, red-hot pain exploded down his left flank. Craeg gritted his teeth, his hands clenching by his sides as he bit back a groan. The first jolt of pain receded, followed by waves of burning agony that seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat.
“Sorry about this,” she murmured, meeting his eye once more. Craeg saw that she meant it to, for her gaze was now shadowed. “The vinegar removes the evil humors.”
Craeg nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He’d taken a few wounds over the years, but even the one on his face hadn’t hurt as much as this did. He didn’t want to embarrass himself over it though, so he kept his jaw clamped shut.
“I’m curious,” the nun said, as she continued her tortuous work. “How is it that ye and yer band have eluded MacKinnon for so long? I’d have thought there were only so many places ye can hide.”
She was trying to distract him, he realized. All the same, Craeg appreciated the gesture.
“The heart of MacKinnon lands is a wild place,” he replied through clenched teeth. “There are many hidden corners where few men have set foot … I have discovered them.”
“The people of this land must truly love ye,” she replied with a shake of her head. “But don’t ye worry all the same that one of them might betray ye?”
Despite the red-hot agony that pulsed down his left side, Craeg’s
body tensed. One of his men already had, barely a month earlier. However, this wasn’t the time to discuss it.
“Not really,” he grunted. “MacKinnon has done a fine job of making himself the most hated man upon Skye.”
“He has,” she agreed, “but silver has a way of making folk forget such things.”
Their gazes met, and he saw the keen intelligence in those violet eyes. An instant later the nun rose to her feet and wiped her hands upon a damp cloth.
“That’s done for now,” she said with a half-smile. “Ye did well.”
Somehow Craeg managed a wan smile of his own. “Aye, thanks to ye distracting me. I’d tell ye that ye have the gentlest touch this side of the Black Cuillins… but I’d be lying. I’ve never been in so much pain.”
Her mouth curved then into a proper smile, and if Craeg had thought the nun was beautiful before, she was positively radiant now. That smile illuminated her face like winter sun emerging through a bank of frozen fog. For a moment Craeg merely stared at her, entranced. Eventually, when he spoke, his voice had a slight husk to it. “So as ye will know, my name is Craeg. May I know yers?”
The nun’s smile faded, although her eyes were still warm. “I am Sister Coira,” she replied.
Coira stepped out of the infirmary into the misty dawn and raised an unsteady hand to the center of her chest. As she suspected, her heart was racing.
Mother Mary … it’s like looking upon MacKinnon’s twin.
The man had been civil and respectful in his manner, so different to the clan-chief. But it didn’t matter that Craeg wasn’t his brother, he still unnerved her. The similarity in their looks was eerie—although she’d noted a few differences.
Firstly, his eyes. She’d expected them to be grey, like Duncan MacKinnon’s. But the eyes that stared back at her this morning were a deep moss green—as different from MacKinnon’s as mid-winter was to mid-summer. Even shadowed with pain, there had been wry humor and a large dose of arrogance in them, which wasn’t surprising. She hadn’t met a warrior who wasn’t arrogant.
