A Healer for the Highlander

by TERRI BRISBIN

  ‘I swore not to tell, Papa.’ The whispered words surprised him. Colm had wakened and heard his question.

  ‘Swore not to tell what, Colm?’ Davidh shifted and offered his son a sip of the tea before anything else. ‘Tell what?’

  ‘They kenned I had been up here and did not believe I could climb up.’ He coughed again and Davidh waited for it to pass. ‘I would not tell anyone about the way here. Not my friends. No one.’

  Her gasp and her stricken expression told him that she understood. Davidh had made him swear to keep a secret and it had almost killed him.

  ‘I did not tell.’

  Colm’s body slumped against his chest and, for a moment, Davidh feared the worst. Was his son dead? He looked at Anna who rushed over and knelt there beside him, touching and feeling and listening for his son’s breaths.

  ‘He is so weak. I do not know how he held on for as long as he did,’ Anna said, sitting back on her heels.

  ‘Tell me the rest.’ Davidh looked at Iain, who still stood in the shadows watching him. ‘They argued and Colm climbed. How far up was he?’

  ‘About halfway. He made it just above the first pool.’

  ‘God!’ Davidh said. He put his arm around his son from behind and held him. ‘How did he get here?’ The boy across the chamber did not reply in words, just a nod in his mother’s direction. ‘You brought him here?’

  Anna nodded and stood then. ‘Aye. With Iain’s help.’

  ‘You got him off the rocks? How?’ With the falls overflowing due to the recent storms, the thought of any of them in its control was unthinkable. But that she even attempted it for his son... He was the one finding it difficult to breathe then. ‘You risked much, Anna.’

  ‘He is just a boy, Davidh. Who would not have done it?’ She walked over and put her arm around her own son and he realised that the lad was almost as tall as she was. ‘You would have done it for Iain. Or for any child.’

  ‘I thank you for what you did. He would have died there.’

  ‘He was keeping his word to protect me,’ she said.

  ‘You did not know that when you went out on those slippery rocks, in those torrents of water.’ Davidh eased himself from behind Colm and rose to his feet. ‘You could have been hurt or worse.’ He walked over to her, fighting with each step he took the urge and need to hold her in his arms. He stood a few inches from her now as he stared into her eyes. ‘I thank you for saving my son.’

  Had she lifted her chin just then? Would she allow his kiss? Tilting his head, he moved closer. Before he could touch his mouth to hers, everything changed. Iain shuffled in the corner, Colm let out a moan and Anna uttered the worst words he would ever think to hear.

  ‘I have not saved him yet, Davidh.’

  Davidh turned to his son and watched as the coughing and tremors began anew. Worse, these spasms were harsher than any since Anna had begun treating him. It was as though the last fortnight had only been an imaginary reprieve and it was over. The coughing had returned as though it had never gone and he rushed to his son.

  ‘Sit him up and support him,’ Anna said as she fetched something from the table. She moved around it, picking up this and that, adding each to a bowl, and then mixing it. ‘This will ease the cough,’ she said.

  ‘But you said not to stop his coughs with the juice of poppy.’ He remembered she thought it was the worst thing to give his son.

  ‘Listen to his cough, Davidh. Listen as he tries to draw breath. This is a different cough,’ she said. ‘This is a different tincture.’ She came over to them and bent down. ‘Lean his head on your shoulder and open his mouth.’

  It took a few tries, but soon the thick liquid had been placed on Colm’s tongue. Together, they coaxed him to swallow it. A second wave of coughing followed and then a third, but, thankfully, each one seemed to calm a bit more until his son was deeply asleep. They sat a quiet watch to see if he had calmed indeed. Davidh dared not move while Anna sat there on the edge of the pallet, not taking her gaze from his son.

  Iain looked on from the corner. Only then did Davidh realise he was working with a dagger and a piece of wood. After easing Colm down to the pallet and tucking the blankets around him tightly, Davidh stood and stretched his own muscles that were tight from holding one position for so long.

  ‘You have quite a skill there,’ he said, crouching down in front of the boy. ‘Who taught you?’ If there was a son, mayhap there was a husband?

  ‘One of the men at the Mackenzies’ village where we lived. He was a carpenter and liked to carve the extra bits into animals.’

  ‘What are you working on now?’

  ‘A deer. Like the one that sneaks up to the cottage in the morn.’ Iain held it out to him and Davidh took it.

  ‘You have the head and neck exactly as it looks. How long will it take to finish the rest?’ He handed it back, watching as the boy’s fingers moved over its surface as though contemplating the next cut.

  ‘It depends on what chores my mother gives me. On the morrow, I would expect.’

  ‘You have my gratitude as well, Iain. For what you did for my son.’ The boy’s face flushed at his words and he nodded. ‘He would have died there if you had not sought help.’ Davidh stood now and nodded to Anna.

  ‘And you also. No matter what the outcome of this, you have done so much to ease my son’s affliction over these last weeks. You have my word that I will do anything for you that is in my power to do.’

  A sense of peace filled him then and he had the strangest feeling that his son would survive. He could understand the challenge ahead of them, but he had faith that Anna would see Colm through it.

  * * *

  The next two nights and days tried that faith and his endurance and patience and every other shred of self-control he thought he had. He and Anna took turns staying at Colm’s bedside and giving him a series of brews and tinctures and drops, all in an attempt to end the fever that burned its way through his son’s frail body.

  Davidh’s own chest hurt in sympathy with Colm’s as wave after wave of coughing came and went. Just when Anna thought she had the right measure of ingredients, it would fail. She tried so many ingredients that he lost track of what had worked and which had not. But she did not. She surprised him when she opened a worn, leather-bound book and scratched notes and amounts in it each time she changed a recipe.

  On the third morning, one that began with a strong, bright sun rising in a near cloudless sky, Colm seemed to improve. Or, he seemed to stop worsening. His breathing came easier and his colour looked better.

  While Anna and her son slept in the other chamber, Davidh left the cottage for a few minutes. The air, with the chill of a spring morning lacing through it, was cool and it felt like heaven to him. The cottage had been warm—another change to the way she handled Colm these last few days. Warmth was needed to keep his body from struggling to warm itself.

  He walked now, back and away from the falls, to a place he’d found the day before. It was difficult to believe that the river meandering along the sides of the hills there was the same one that became so dangerous just yards further on. A small, calm pool formed in one of the river’s curves and that was his destination now. He tugged off his boots, then his shirt and trews and walked into the water gathered there.

  The cold of it shocked him at first, but it also brought him fully awake. The water only came up to his hips, so he dipped down, wetting his hair and rubbing his face. A few days’ growth of beard would need to be tended. He spent some minutes submerging in the pool and then stood and twisted his hair to wring out most of the water.

  He needed to return to the keep and speak to Robert. By now, he was certain someone had told him of the situation and Robert knew him to be trustworthy enough to get back as soon as he could. As he walked from the pool and began tugging his clothes back on, he knew that this was that time. When he ap
proached the cottage, Davidh found Anna watching from beside the open doorway.

  ‘Tavish’s father was just here.’

  ‘Robert sent him?’ he asked, as he tied his hair back out of his face. ‘Was there a message?’

  ‘There has been a skirmish or trouble of some kind near Tor Castle and you are needed.’ He glanced in the direction of the cottage and she stopped him with her hand on his arm. ‘Leave Colm with me and see to your duties.’

  ‘You would do that?’ he asked. The warmth of her hand on his now-chilled skin spread up his arm.

  ‘Aye. He is in no condition to be carted on your back down the hillside and will need supervision these next days. Leave him with me.’ She released his arm and stepped out of the door so he could enter.

  ‘Have you enough food?’

  ‘Aye. And my son can hunt for more when we need it. I have plenty of oats to make porridge.’

  He paused for a moment and stared at her. The question that had gnawed at him for days now pushed forward, needing and wanting to be asked. But first...

  ‘If you would like to see to your...needs, I will wait.’

  A momentary hesitation vanished and she nodded. ‘I will hurry.’

  He watched as she gathered a few items and then ran out the door, heading for the same place he’d just been. Even as he sat at Colm’s side, his thoughts followed her steps. Wondering if she had a husband that she’d not mentioned. Cursing himself for a fool for even thinking about a woman who was not his to question. A woman who’d saved his son’s life.

  Colm stirred then and opened his eyes. When he saw that his gaze was clear and not glassy-eyed, he offered up a prayer of thanks that the fever had finally relented.

  ‘Papa?’ Colm’s voice was hoarse. Davidh retrieved the cup of cooled betony tea with honey and held it out to his son to sip. Colm was able to lift his head off the pillow and drink a small amount.

  ‘I am here, Colm,’ he said, brushing the tussled hair out of his son’s eyes. ‘We must talk when I return.’

  ‘Aye, Papa,’ his son whispered.

  ‘For now, you will obey every word that Mistress Mackenzie says and you will thank her for saving your life.’ Colm’s brow gathered and he looked puzzled. ‘You do not remember?’

  ‘Nay. Only bits and not much.’ His son swallowed the rest of the tea and shrugged. ‘When will you return?’

  ‘A few days. If longer, I will try to send word. Do not make yourself a nuisance to the woman or her son.’ Iain chose that moment to come out of the smaller chamber. ‘Mayhap you can ask Iain to show you the deer he carved. Or the horse he is working on now.’

  The door opened then and Anna stood there, outlined by the sunlight. Her long hair had been twisted and piled on top of her head. If she let it dry that way, it would tumble down over her shoulders in thick waves when she... Davidh shook himself free of such images and leaned over his son.

  ‘As I said, do as Mistress Mackenzie tells you.’ He touched Colm’s cheek, trying not to think of how close the boy had been to dying just two nights before.

  Davidh gathered up his belongings and carried them outside. His horse was waiting below; he or Iain had seen to its care several times over the last days. After tying the length of tartan around his waist and placing his belt there, Davidh slid his sword from under the pallet and placed it back in its scabbard. He knew she’d followed him outside and she watched as he prepared to leave.

  ‘I will be gone for a few days. This fight with the outlaws is not unexpected,’ he said. ‘I will send a message if I will be longer than that.’

  ‘We will be fine, Davidh. See to your duties without worrying about your son.’ She let out a breath and nodded. ‘I think he will be well soon.’

  He turned to go, but knew he wanted to say more to her. She had saved his son’s life at the risk of her own. She had dragged him back to her cottage and kept him from dying. He owed her so much.

  ‘When I return, we will talk about how I can repay you for what you have done.’

  ‘I could do nothing less,’ she said, clearly uncomfortable with his praise.

  ‘When I return,’ he promised in a sterner voice, one he reserved for a misbehaving Colm. She nodded and he turned, but not before asking that damned question he needed to ask.

  ‘Have you a husband? Iain’s father?’

  A shadow filled her gaze then. ‘Iain’s father is dead.’

  ‘A Cameron?’

  He did not think she was going to answer. The slight nod was long in coming. Then she stared off for a moment before turning that green gaze back to him. ‘Aye, he was. But I have no husband.’

  He had even more questions now about her son and his connection to the Camerons, but they would have to wait. Knowing that the boy was kin made her return here more understandable.

  Davidh walked away then, following the steep path down through the shadows and trees until he reached the bottom. Looking up past the falls, he saw her standing there. She waved and he lifted his hand to return the gesture. Iain walked to her side then and Davidh shivered. The old ones would say that the feeling was like that of someone picking at your long-dead bones, but Davidh only knew it was a strange sensation that rippled through him as he watched mother and son at the top of the hill.

  Chapter Nine

  Tor Castle, banks of River Lochy

  Davidh stood on the parapet of the castle and looked south and west along the river. The castellan, Archibald Cameron, pointed to the last place where the band of outlawed men had been seen. Robbie, the chieftain’s eldest son and the clan’s tanist, stood at Archie’s side. The lad was strong and learned quickly. He had a good grasp of the balance needed to rule over a clan the size of the Camerons.

  ‘They fade back into the forest by the time we reach them,’ Parlan, Davidh’s friend and second-in-command, explained.

  ‘Do you think someone is warning them?’ Robbie asked. Observant, too, this one.

  ‘Aye,’ Parlan answered, turning to face them. ‘We have tried approaching from different directions and at different times of the day and they always scatter just ahead of us.’

  ‘Do you know who it is yet?’ he asked of Parlan. His friend had been here for more than a week, searching for those behind the recent attacks.

  ‘We suspect that some are those who fled when Gilbert was killed,’ Archie offered. ‘They were complicit in his crimes against the clan, but were never caught.’

  ‘Colum and Duncan?’ Robbie asked.

  ‘Aye, and others, too,’ Archie said.

  ‘Many had fled that night while The Mackintosh helped the Camerons sort out the truth of Gilbert’s perfidy,’ Davidh said.

  ‘What is their plan? What is their aim?’ Archie asked. ‘Why remain here?’

  ‘To make my father’s position and claim an unsteady one,’ Robbie answered. ‘Many Camerons still question his right to rule, especially considering the revelations and events of that night. These...outlaws sow seeds of discontent and illegitimacy where they can.’

  Davidh’s estimation and respect for Robbie rose with every assessment the young man made of this situation. Robbie stepped back from the edge of the stone wall and nodded at him and Parlan.

  ‘What are your plans for eradicating them?’ the young man asked him.

  ‘I would speak to Parlan and the other men and see what has been done so far. Then I will bring the plan to you.’

  The tanist nodded and walked off with Archie, leaving Davidh and Parlan there on the highest part of Tor Castle. Gazing over the side, he watched the river flow by and was reminded of the other river.

  ‘I did not want to summon you here, Davidh.’

  ‘I understand. And I had no doubt you could handle this matter. But ’tis my duty to see to such as this, so I came.’

  Parlan motioned for him to follow and they ent
ered the stairway leading down to the lower floors of the castle. The evening meal would not be served soon, so they sat at one of the tables and Parlan explained his previous actions to his commander. Davidh could see no weakness in what his man had done, so their suspicion of collusion, of someone here and throughout the areas involved, must be correct. He asked many questions and was satisfied by Parlan’s answers.

  The conclusion worried him for a number of reasons. He’d not expected complete and instant acceptance of Robert as chieftain, but this attempt by those elders who yet held the respect of many kith and kin was...dangerous.

  ‘There is enough daylight left to ride to the place that was attacked most recently. Take me there,’ he said.

  * * *

  Within a short time, he and Parlan were on their way to the southernmost point on the Cameron lands. Not a true village in size or inhabitants, it was more a small gathering of crofts at the river’s edge. They dismounted and several approached them. They recognised Parlan and so spoke openly to him.

  After inspecting the storage barn that had been damaged and hearing from the people who’d witnessed it, Davidh was more convinced than ever of the identity of the perpetrators and their cause. Worse, knowing the extent of this threat did make Robert’s hold on his high seat less a sure thing than it had been even weeks ago.

  * * *

  They ate supper in an uncomfortable silence that evening. Each of them realised the possible consequences if those who had betrayed their clan were allowed to live and succeed in their goal. Though none of those outlawed by Robert had a direct claim to the high seat, the old ways of choosing a laird still held sway in some areas and clearly these men were attempting to do that now.

  The only thing that linked the attacks was the river, so he and Parlan laid plans to place guards at key locations along the river leading north to Loch Lochy and then the river and Loch Arkaig to try to capture some of them. With a little luck, they would see something and report it.

  ‘So, I have not asked and you have not mentioned how Colm is doing,’ Parlan said.

  ‘Thanks to the new healer at Achnacarry, he was much improved,’ Davidh replied.