by Susan King
Diarmid sighed and looked at Gilchrist, who shrugged as if resigned to the noise, and went back to his harp. After a moment, Diarmid folded his arms over his chest and looked at Michael, tapping his foot. She glanced at him.
“Well?” he asked expectantly.
“A moment,” she said, and bent toward Brigit. “You’ve been an angel,” she said. “And I will play a game of chess with you later, as I promised. For now I must talk with your uncle.”
Brigit nodded. One of the dogs came up and licked her hand, and she laughed in delight, petting his head. Michael smiled and smoothed a few of Brigit’s tangled curls.
Diarmid gestured toward the door. “We cannot talk in here. Come outside.” He took her arm and escorted her to the door.
Cool wind, carrying the invigorating scents of salt water and pine, struck him as he stepped out onto the stone walk of the parapet. The autumn sun warmed his face as he looked around. Beside him, Michael stepped out onto the battlement and gasped in wonder.
Fifty feet below, the base of the castle was lipped by a border of green isle, a wide swath of grass. Beyond the narrow shore, the loch glittered like sapphires and gold melted together, reflecting the sky and the autumn-colored mountains in its depths. Far in the distance lay the wide expanse of the sea.
“What are those mountains?” Michael asked.
“Mountains in the western Isles,” he answered. “Mull is closest to us. Turn this way”—he took her small shoulders and shifted her—“far out there, you can see Jura.”
“Beautiful,” she said, smiling.
He smiled too, half to himself, standing behind her. After months of raiding with the king through mud and forest, he was home at last. He inhaled the salted air, heard the cries of seabirds overhead, heard the shush of wind and wave together, and could only smile, could only feel content, needing no words to express it. He had missed this place intensely, had needed to be here. Closing his eyes, he sensed the water, the air, the very strength of the earth and rock that supported his castle, as if he could draw their elemental, essential power into himself.
Then he opened his eyes, recalling the other reason he had come up here. He leaned against the stone wall behind him and looked down at the neat, creamy crown of Michael’s veil.
“Well?” he asked.
She turned and looked up at him. The cool clarity of the autumn sunlight revealed her flawless skin. Her gaze was as azure as the sky, but a frown shadowed their color.
“She is a lovely child,” she began. “Phlegmatic in nature, with a touch of the melancholic. She needs herbs suited to drying and warming her systems. She lacks enough choleric bile, but I believe we can balance her with herbs and the right foods. More chicken and broth, apples, eggs are good for her. Less grains. She also needs thyme and dandelion and—”
“Enough of that,” he said impatiently. “What about her limbs?”
“I am not certain,” she admitted. “The right side of her body seems normal, although her muscles are weak from lack of use. But the left side—” She frowned. “She looks almost like an adult who has had an apoplectic fit, though she has no impairment of speech.”
“None at all,” he said wryly. “She chatters like a jay.”
“She has lost most of the strength in her left leg, and some in her left arm. I notice that the left side of her mouth droops a bit—”
”Cam beul,” Diarmid said. “I have it too. The recent name taken by Clan Diarmid is Campbell, after cam beul.”
“Crooked mouth,” she repeated. “What of it?”
“It is a family trait. Clan Diarmid kin, through generations, often have a wry twist to the mouth. Brigit has the crooked smile of the Dunsheens. I do as well.” He grinned, mirthlessly, to show her.
“Ah,” she said, nodding, and returned a sweet ghost of a smile. Something inside of him flipped crazily, but he retained his somber expression. “The slant of Brigit’s lip is far more marked than yours,” she said. “And her left eyelid droops.”
“She is five years old,” he said. “She could not have had an apoplectic fit.”
“That would be unlikely,” she agreed. “But other diseases can cause similar symptoms. In an adult, lameness can occur when there is an excess of one humor or another. But children tend to be more balanced in their bodily humors and in their health. Usually lameness in children is caused by injury or an accident of birth, although there are diseases which can cause stiffness in the limbs and severe crippling, even death. Ibrahim treated such illnesses in the Holy Land and in Italy and France.” She paused, drawing her brows together in thought. “How long has she been like this, Diarmid? Was it evident at birth?”
He shook his head. “She was born a lusty child, strong and hearty.” He stopped, unwilling to say more. He looked at his hands, turning the left one, with its smooth scars, in the cool sunlight. A flashing image of the day, the moment, of Brigit’s birth rolled through his mind. He stilled its course.
“Until I brought her here, she fostered with her mother’s kin, as I told you,” he continued. “Mungo saw her a year past. He says she was fine and healthy then.”
“Someone surely knows what happened to her.”
He glanced away, fighting anguish and guilt. He would never forgive himself for leaving Brigit there. “The old grandmother told me that the child’s fostering parents died of a lung fever, which the child also had. Brigit survived, of course. But the old woman insisted that the fair folk stole the healthy child away and left a sickly, crippled girl in her place.”
Michael was silent for a long while. “A fever causing this? It is possible, but—until I have my medical treatises, I cannot be certain. There may be some information in there.”
“In the meantime, what treatment do you propose?”
“Hot packs and herbal soaks, medicines for pain and stiffness, and techniques to strengthen the muscles.”
“I began those treatments months ago,” he said.
“Of course. You would know how to treat muscle weakness.”
“I know little besides the basic herbs and the need for heat. A local herb-wife prepares herbal doses for her, and Lilias gives her those and applies moist hot cloths often. The curling of her foot concerns me,” he added.
“Her foot is beginning to drop, and soon those muscles will shrivel and her foot will stay limp. We can place a board in her bed to support her foot when she lays down. But we must stretch her muscles, and she must be on her feet more often.”
“On her feet?” He raised his brows. “She sits up often. We carry her downstairs each day.”
“She can stand,” Michael said.
“She falls,” he countered.
“She will learn to catch herself,” she said decisively.
He frowned. “But her legs are fragile.”
“Her muscles are beginning to atrophy,” she said bluntly. “We must encourage strength rather than weakness. She is a healthy child, not a piece of Venetian glass. She will fall, but she will pick herself up.”
Diarmid lowered his brows. “I brought you here to help her, not to impose harsh demands on her. I want her healed,” he said, teeth clenched, “wholly and fully. I do not want her to drag herself about, lamed and marked, like a freak in a city gutter.”
Michael faced him, her shoulders squared. “You have asked the impossible of me. Allow me to attempt it.”
He stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“I want to watch Brigit, and work with her, before I know—”
“Know what?” he demanded.
“If she will walk,” she finished.
“She will,” he snapped. “You will see to it.”
“Then allow me my methods!” She glared at him.
He leaned down toward her. “I have told you what I want!”
“And I have told you what I can do!”
He opened his mouth to reply hotly, then paused to master his temper. “I want her healed, Michael. Quickly. Surely you understand.”
/> Her gaze softened. “I do. You are a fool, Dunsheen, but a wonderful kind of fool.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“A fool made simple by his love for a small child.” She gave him a sweet smile, so kind that it made his heart ache. He looked into her sky-colored gaze and wanted to pour some of his agony into that well, to find comfort, understanding, relief there.
But sharing his grief would mean forgiving himself. He shuttered the urge quickly, looking away. “I am her guardian, and I owe her an obligation,” he said curtly. “Tell me—what other methods do you plan to use to treat her?”
“Herbal poultices and infusions,” she said. “I need to know what she already takes.”
“I will go over the ingredients with you later.”
She nodded and turned as if to go, then spun back. “Can you tell me the day of her birth? Was it March, or late February?”
“Mid-March, the feast of Saint Patrick,” he said, surprised.
“I thought so,” she said. “She is an enchanting child, delicate and kind, with a dreamy, imaginative mind, very much like those born under the constellation of Pisces.”
He rubbed his chin in dismay. “I should have known—a book-learned physician would be an astrologer too,” he muttered.
“Of course,” she said easily. “Those born under the sign of the Fish often have trouble with the feet,” she went on. “But her legs are an area of weakness too, so there must be negative aspects among some of her planets, and perhaps a poor placement of Saturn or Mercury. Do you know the hour of her birth?”
“The hour?” he repeated. He knew it too well. “Why?”
“When Mungo brings my books, I will use my charts to cast her natal horoscope. Then I will better understand the nature of her condition and how best to treat it.”
“Stars are for steering ships at night, and for shedding light on the earth,” he growled. “We had a physician here who made a natal chart and insisted it was accurate. He said her poor Saturn placement made it necessary to amputate her legs.”
Michael paused. “I am sure that is not the case,” she said. “When my belongings arrive, I can show you how helpful a horoscope chart can be for medical matters.”
“Books will not show you what Brigit needs,” he said.
“They will be of great help—”
He leaned close. “Look at her, touch her—heal her, Michael,” he said bluntly. “You need nothing but your hands.”
“If that were true, I would be beatified before the week was out,” she snapped. She clapped a hand over her mouth as if regretting her remark.
He scowled down at her, frustrated once again by her tendency to do what she wanted—rather than what he asked of her. “You would be an admirable saint,” he drawled.
She lifted her chin. “I know what I am doing. If I can discover the planetary influences at the time of her birth and of her illness, I will know more about her health and about what treatment she needs,” she said. “Surely you have used astrology in your surgery experience.”
“I did not learn medicine from dead mathematicians.”
“Will you bleed a patient during a full moon? Or perform surgery then?”
“Not by choice,” he said. “Bleeding can become profuse during the days of a full moon.”
“Exactly. Then you did not cut, advised by astrology.”
“I was advised by plain sense.”
“Charts can predict the waning and waxing of the moon for months in advance. Years,” she added.
“So useful for making schedules in a city barber-surgeon’s shop,” he said wryly. “Income surely increases with the waning of the moon, when bleedings are safe and profitable.”
The glance she shot at him fairly sizzled. “I have never used indiscriminate bleeding techniques,” she said stiffly, “nor did my husband. The tradition of Arabic medicine does not advise that, but does use astrology extensively. All the celestial bodies pull upon the fluids and humors in our bodies and determine the inner balances of body and mind. When we understand that, we know more about our health and ourselves.”
He watched her doubtfully. “Is this what they teach in Italy? What of bandaging methods, or medicinal treatments, or techniques of surgery and childbirth?”
“I learned those too. You, Diarmid Campbell,” she said, narrowing her eyes. “I would say that you were born in the spring. Likely in mid-April.”
He blinked once, twice. “The eighteenth day of April. You guessed by luck,” he said.
She smiled. “Your character told me. You are so much the ram—headstrong, determined, impatient, impulsive. You want others to do as you say, and do it now. Those born under the sign of Aries are highly intelligent and—” she stopped.
He folded his arms. “Go on, I am fascinated.”
“The ram loves to hear about himself,” she said saucily.
“Highly intelligent and what?” he prodded, suppressing a wide grin.
“And passionate in all endeavors,” she said frankly, but Diarmid saw her cheeks pinken.
He quirked a brow. “Would you like to find out?”
She looked away quickly. “I am sure enough,” she said. “I would guess that your ascending star is in Scorpio—you have some secrets—and your moon is probably in the sign of the Crab”—she studied him speculatively—“but I would have to know the time of your birth before I could know the rest.”
“Moon and stars or none, you will never learn the whole of me,” he said in a low voice. “Not from books.” He tipped his head and looked at her critically. “I would say that you were born on the twenty-ninth day of September.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “How did you know that?” She smiled. “You do know something of the stars.”
He could not resist. Leaning forward, he tapped her chin, covered by her widow’s wimple, lightly. “I know something of Saint Michael’s Day,” he drawled, “Michaelmas.” He enunciated her name slowly, in careful English.
She looked chagrinned, then laughed. He chuckled with her, feeling a burst of happiness that startled him. “Whatever I learn about you will not come from a chart,” he said somberly. “It will come through being with you. Watching you. Listening to you.” His voice became husky, and he leaned in close. “Touching you.” He should not have said that so boldly, he knew, but just then he felt as if he could not hold back the words, or the thoughts, or the feelings she stirred in him.
She lowered her lashes as if in sudden ecstasy, and he felt its twin in himself, a plummeting rush of desire. He wanted to feel her lips pillow beneath his again, wanted to touch the silk of her hair and skin, wanted more, so much more.
And could not have it. Heart thumping heavily, he fisted his hands against the powerful desire to take her into his arms. Uncertain how he had gotten caught in this current, he fought it like a drowning man.
She looked up then, and drowning or not, he drank in the exquisite color of her eyes. “There is something else that tells me you were born under the ram,” she said softly.
“And what is that?” he whispered.
She reached up and touched his left eyebrow with the tip of her finger. “Head wounds,” she said. “Aries is prone to them.”
He could not answer for a moment. A feeling shot through him at her simple touch, a sensation so strong that he sucked in his breath. Warmth like liquid fire rushed through him, head to toe, its source the point at which her finger met his skin.
She smiled, fleeting and soft. “Here is another, and another.” Her fingers slid along his cheek to his stubbled jaw, touching the line of a scar on his chin, tracing the thin crease of another old wound that nicked his upper lip. His heart pounded heavily, and his body surged, filling, desiring, changing the innocence of her touch to something more. His breath deepened, became ragged.
“These scars tell me that the influence of Mars is strong in your life,” she murmured. “You are indeed a warrior.”
Mars be damned. For an instan
t, he could barely breathe. Fascinated, drawn closer, he leaned in toward her. He had never felt such utter pleasure in a simple touch. He wanted to give her equal pleasure; raising his hand, he touched her cheek tentatively.
She drew in a slow breath and lowered her lids as if she felt the same strange pull that he did, and as if she resisted it too. She dropped her hand quickly and turned to walk away.
Diarmid reached out to pull her back to him, but cold sense spilled in from somewhere. He hesitated, summoned control, and remained still. He should not pursue this with her.
Michael turned back, her face anxious. “Look there,” she said, pointing past the battlement toward the loch.
He lifted his gaze. A galley, long and low, with a gracefully curved prow and stern, glided toward the castle. A square sail billowed out, its embroidered red design of a lightning bolt clearly marked in the sunlight.
“That is one of my own birlinns,” he said. “I own three oared galleys—two for trade use, and one in the service of the king. That is my largest trading galley.” He took her elbow. “Come down to the shore and greet my brother Arthur.”
CHAPTER NINE
“Lightning?” Michaelmas asked. She looked at the galley’s wind-filled sail. As she spoke, the men on deck lowered twenty pairs of oars, jutting upward, into place to row closer and pull the galley into place beside the quay. “What does the design signify?”
“The lightning is for Loch Sìan,” Diarmid answered. “Loch Sheen has long been called the loch of storms, and so lightning became the device of the Campbells of Dunsheen.”
Michaelmas watched as the galley streamed toward them gracefully, then looked at the silver-blue calm of the loch, at the surrounding pines swaying green and slow, at the soft white clouds drifting overhead. They stood on a natural ridge of rock that thrust into the loch and served as a quay. She could not imagine strife at Dunsheen from weather or war or any other source.
