by Allie Mackay
Aidan humphed. “I’d hear what happened. From the lad, or whoe’er. And someone—anyone—send men to comb the castle and grounds.” Stepping up to the table, he frowned when Kendrew moaned. “The lad didn’t end up like this from tangling with a mist wraith.”
The healer shrugged. “The sharp edge of the mounting block could’ve cut his shoulder. The knot on his head might be from the block’s stone as well,” he suggested, pulling on his beard. “Depends on how he fell.”
“Pah!” quipped an older woman hovering close. “He didn’t fall. Conan Dearg attacked him. The lad swore it.”
A second, equally grizzled old woman clucked in agreement.
She held a laver while the other dipped a rag into the bloodied water, then swabbed at the gash in Kendrew’s shoulder. “Aye,” she gabbled, turning bright eyes on Aidan, “the laddie said your cousin waved something strange at him, laughing that he’d now ‘best every foe, because he’d see them coming before the battle began.’” Straightening thin shoulders, she flashed a gap-toothed smile and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Conan Dearg then leapt down from the arch, knocking the poor laddie into the mounting block and dashing him on the head wi’ the object.”
“The object?” Aidan folded his arms.
“The thing he claimed would let him see any foe’s approach,” the other old woman chirped, once more dipping her rag into the laver.
Kira stared at the two women in horror, scarce hearing their babbling. She saw only the youth’s shoulder gash and the filthy rag clutched in the woman’s gnarled and age-spotted hand.
Medieval healing at its finest.
Hygiene at its worst.
Shuddering, she clutched Aidan’s arm, pulling him back from the table.
“Make them stop,” she urged him, her voice rising when the rag-dipping old woman tossed the dripping cloth onto the floor rushes, then produced another, promptly blowing her nose into its ratty-looking folds before plunging the thing deep into Kendrew’s wound. “He’ll get an infection! Maybe even die. Those filthy rags are full of germs.”
“Hush, Kee-rah.” Aidan patted her hand. “Nils and the birthing sisters know what they’re about.”
“Oh, no, they don’t,” she shot back, her whole body trembling. “They’ll only make it worse.”
“Kee-rah, leave be,” he warned again, but three startled faces were already looking her way.
The tiniest, most wizened woman peered sharply at her, her lips tightening to a thin, disapproving line. The rag-dipper appeared confused, her knotty hand still pressing the offending cloth against Kendrew’s shoulder until Nils puffed his broad chest and plucked the thing from her hand, tossing it not onto the rushes, but into a pail at his feet.
“Lass!” he boomed, fixing Kira with a twinkling blue-eyed stare. “I dinna understand half of what you said, but what I did grasp is just what I’ve been trying to get through the thick heads of certain she-biddies for years!”
Planting beefy hands on his hips, he cast a frown on the two old women. “To think they call themselves midwives,” he scolded, his tone good-natured all the same. “Me, having seen the work of the great healers of the East, and some here still choose not to heed me when I tell them to use clean lengths of linen and fresh water on wounds.”
“Fresh, boiled water,” Kira allowed, sensing an ally in Nils the healer.
Even if the so-called clean bits of linen he was now pulling from some hidden cache in his robes looked anything but snowy white.
They’d surely never been bleached or disinfected.
But they were a vast improvement over the ghastly rags the birthing sisters seemed so fond of.
A chill running through her, she opened her mouth to say more, but glanced at Aidan first, relief sweeping her when he jerked a quick nod, giving her his approval.
At his elbow, Tavish grinned. “Nils learned the healing arts in Jaffa,” he disclosed, edging close so only she could hear him. “He went there as a lad, tagging along on an uncle’s pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, but the poor man succumbed to the journey. Nils was stranded there for years, learning much before he could return. Naught you might say will shock him.”
No’ even talk of flying machines and tour buses filled with Ameri-cains? Kira was sure she heard Aidan mutter beneath his breath.
She hesitated, her gaze flicking from the healer, to Tavish, to Aidan.
The she glanced at Kendrew, his pale face and glittering eyes deciding her.
“These, too, should be boiled.” She indicated two impossibly large-looking bone needles lying on a nearby stool, a suspicious coil of horse-tail thread revealing their purpose. “Kendrew could catch an infec—…I mean, it could go bad for him if these things aren’t properly cleaned before they’re put to use.”
The two old women sniffed in unison.
The same men who’d narrowed eyes at her when she entered the hall crowded round, looking on expectantly. Those who’d averted their gazes shook their heads and grumbled, but pressed forward just the same, curiosity winning out over stubbornness.
Nils the Viking hooted and grabbed her arm, pulling her closer to the table, thrusting one of his almost-clean cloths into her hands.
“She’ll bespell him!” someone objected from the throng.
“Be wary, Nils!” another agreed. “You might find those healing cloths turned into snakes next time you reach for one!”
Ignoring them, Nils handed her a bowl of unsavory-looking paste. “’Tis woundwort,” he told her. “My own special betony healing salve. If you aren’t faint of heart, you can apply it to Kendrew’s shoulder. It’ll help draw out the evil.”
“Of course,” Kira agreed, steeling herself. “I should wash my hands first.” She forced a smile, not wanting to offend. “You should, too. Anyone who touches—”
“Ho, Nils! You speak of evil. I say she be evil.” A female voice cut her off, rising clear and angry from somewhere near. “Telling a healer and his helpers how to care for the lad!”
Spinning about, Kira almost collided with the speaker, a beautiful woman with the creamiest skin and brightest hair she’d ever seen. Flame-bright hair that glistened in the torchlight, her braid swinging as she plunked down a basket of fresh linens at Nils’s feet, then whipped around to disappear into the crowd without a further word.
Kira opened her mouth to protest, but the rag-dipper scuttled forward then, snatching the cloth and bowl. “Sinead and the others speak true.” She shunted Kira aside with a bony elbow. “With so many strange goings-on these days, it willna do to have you poking and prodding at the laddie.”
Bristling, Kira rubbed her ribs. “I only wanted to help,” she said, amazed the tiny old woman could pack such an elbow jab. “I know you mean well, but—”
“And what do you know?” another clansman demanded. “You dinna look like a healer to me!”
“My father was a healer.” Kira lifted her chin, hoping the lie wasn’t flashing on her forehead. But better a lie than tell them she knew what she did from life in a future century. “He worked for a king,” she added, borrowing the name of her dad’s boss, Elliot King, at the Tile Bonanza.
An uproar rose from the hall. Men pushed closer, scores of bushy brows snapping together as they glared at her, skepticism in every eye.
Aidan was frowning, too. He stood watching her, his arms still folded and his dark expression saying exactly what his tightly clamped lips didn’t.
He’d warned her to keep out of it and she hadn’t.
“My father did work for a king.” She put her hands on her hips and glanced round, letting her own dark look dare any of them to challenge her. “I helped him sometimes.”
She left off that her helping consisted of long-ago summer jobs at the tile shop’s checkout.
“Then prove it.” One of the men edged closer, clearly unimpressed. He pointed at Kendrew, sleeping soundly now. “Do something for the lad.”
Kira swallowed.
Heat was begin
ning to bloom inside her. Any minute now it would sweep up her throat and burst onto her cheeks, revealing her for the liar she was.
“It isn’t that easy.” She straightened her back, aware of every stare. “My knowledge isn’t very fresh. It’s been years since I helped my father,” she added, almost choking on the words.
It was more than years.
Considering where she was, her father hadn’t even yet been born!
And even if he were here, he was a ceramic tile salesman, not a healer of kings.
She bit back a groan. She’d really flubbed it this time. Aidan had every right to be frowning at her.
“Good lass.” He stepped forward then, slinging an arm around her shoulders. “I will have water boiled for the cloths and stitching needles,” he said, nodding to Nils and the two birthing sisters. “Now tell us what else you know. Perhaps something that will ease young Kendrew’s pain?”
Kira sighed and shoved a hand through her hair.
What Kendrew needed was morphine and penicillin. A clean, freshly laundered bed in a sterile-smelling hospital, with cute and smiling nurses cooing over him, rather than being cared for by a dark-robed giant who looked like a Viking and two tiny, birdlike women who smelled like they hadn’t bathed in a hundred years.
If ever.
She slid a glance at them, hoping Aidan’s threat to make his men bathe applied to them as well. Not that their stares would be any less hostile if their bodies were sweet-smelling.
“See?” The rag-dipper pointed at her. “She canna answer you, my lord,” she gloated, beaming at Aidan.
“Well, lass?” He squeezed her shoulders, the gesture giving her courage. “Prove to Ella and Etta that you know what you’re about.”
Kira took a deep breath and closed her eyes, concentrating.
Silence filled the hall as everyone waited. A great, ominous silence, unbroken until a long-ago memory flashed through her mind, filling her ears with her dad’s grumbles and groans. His endless fussing the day he’d been brought home from work with a huge lump on his head after a heavy box of tile had tumbled off a shelf, striking him.
Kira almost smiled, remembering, too, how her mother had immediately slapped a cloth-wrapped bag of frozen peas onto his head and given him two aspirins.
Her eyes snapped open and she did smile, certain she had the answer.
“I know how to care for that lump on Kendrew’s forehead,” she announced, pitching her voice to sound like a healer’s daughter. “I’ll need something cold. Really cold.” She slipped out from under Aidan’s arm and faced the crowd, hands on her hips. “What can you bring me that is cold as winter ice?”
A sea of blank faces stared back at her.
“The siege well in the kitchen has cold water,” Tavish spoke up. “Would that do?”
Before she could answer, Mundy the Irishman pushed forward. “There’s a wee spring out near the byres with water much colder than the kitchen well. One sip is enough to make a man think his teeth will crack.”
“That’s it!” Kira clapped her hands. “Go, and bring me buckets of it. And”—she glanced at Aidan—“send someone to the kitchens for several small sacks of dried peas.”
He looked at her, his brows starting to pull together again. “Dried peas?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “Just make sure the sacks are as clean as possible,” she added, hoping ice packs made of dried medieval peas soaked in spring water would decrease the swelling as quickly as her mother’s bags of frozen veggies.
A muscle jerked in Aidan’s jaw. “Right. Peas,” he said, not looking entirely convinced.
“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” Kira reached to touch his plaid, willing him to trust her. “We’ll soak the sacks of peas in the icy water,” she explained. “When they’re cold enough, we’ll place a cloth-wrapped sack on Kendrew’s forehead, leaving it there until the sack isn’t cold anymore. We’ll apply a new sack every two hours, so someone will have to keep bringing chilled water from the spring.”
“Tavish! Mundy!” Aidan swung around to the other men. “See that her orders are followed,” he said, nodding in satisfaction when they took off at a run.
He glanced back at her. “Aught else?”
“Only that we need to get the icy sacks onto Kendrew’s forehead as quickly as possible.”
“It will be done.” He looked at her and something flared in his eyes.
Something heated that went straight to her toes.
“Aye, it will be done,” he repeated. “Whate’er you want.”
She blinked, her heart pounding. What she wanted was to continue what they’d started in the solar.
But now was clearly not the time.
So she touched a grateful hand to Nils the Viking’s sleeve and gave Ella and Etta her best smile, hoping they’d accept a truce if poor Kendrew’s goose egg went down as quickly as she hoped.
Aidan looked hopeful, too, and that pleased her more than she would have believed.
Folding his arms again, he raked his men with a triumphant stare. “Soon, Kendrew will be well,” he announced, his voice ringing.
Almost as if he’d suggested the chilled pea sacks.
Not that she minded.
O-o-oh, no, she didn’t care at all. Not as long as he made it up to her the instant they were alone again. Then she would tell him exactly what she wanted.
Judging by the way he’d just looked at her, he was more than ready to give it to her.
She smiled. For a night that had soured so quickly, things were definitely looking up now.
Several hours later, Kira sat alone at a heavy oaken table in Aidan’s room, frowning at a stack of parchment sheets. Moonlight slanting through a nearby window arch and two large wax candles illuminated the unwieldy scrolls. Her efforts to record her time-traveling experiences for Dan. Everything that had happened to her since arriving in Scotland, up to and including Kendrew’s mysterious scuffle and how she’d subsequently introduced ice packs to the good folk of Castle Wrath.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t yet write about whether they’d worked or not, having gladly let Aidan usher her from the hall when Nils the Viking placed a smooth bit of wood between Kendrew’s teeth just before the birthing sisters set to work with their bone needles and horse-tail thread.
She shuddered, certain she’d been wise to leave.
At least, thanks to Aidan’s nod and the healer’s open-mindedness, the sisters had used sterilized needles.
Not sure that they would make much difference, all things considered, she helped herself to a small sip of the wine someone had thoughtfully left sitting beside her parchments. Still not fond of the rather piquant taste of medieval spirits, she wrinkled her nose, restricting herself to a very small sip.
A cloud passed over the moon, dimming her vision. She blinked and edged the two candles closer, needing better light to see. Ink splotches blotted some of her words, the sight of them making her head pound with annoyance. Rubbing her temples, she peered down at the squiggled lines, not sure if she should credit the messiness of her scribbles to the awkwardness of using an inkwell and quill or if working on a keyboard had just ruined her handwriting.
Either way, she could only hope that if ever the parchments reached Dan, he’d be better at deciphering her script than she was.
She also hoped Aidan would return soon.
The moonlight was making her ache for him, its pale glow spilling not just across the table and her blasted parchments, but across the luscious coverings of his great timbered bed on the other side of the room as well. Every time she glanced that way, a delicious curl of anticipation warmed the deepest part of her, making her tingle with excitement. He’d promised to hurry back, the swift, heated kiss he’d given her at the door suggesting even more.
Shivering, she took a deep breath, her scribblings forgotten as his words from earlier circled through her like heady, honeyed wine.
Whate’er you want.
Chills sweeping her, she s
miled. The words sent heat coiling through her even as her body trembled. Her breath quickened, and her heart began to thump with a slow, erratic beat. She could almost feel him striding into the room, claiming it and her as his own as he crossed to her. Possession in mind, he would yank up her skirts and settle himself beneath them, telling her that he knew what she wanted so badly and that he wanted it even more.
Hot and cold in turns now, she bit her lip, not wanting to get too worked up before his return. She also needed to write more. Now, with everything so fresh in her mind. But it was hard to concentrate, and the squiggly lines were beginning to look even squigglier, some of them seeming to dance and swim before her eyes.
“Was your father truly a healer of kings?”
“Oh!” She jumped, her heart skittering. She looked up, the quill slipping from her fingers, its ink splashing across the parchment.
Pushing to her feet, she swayed, nerves or the lateness of the hour making her clumsy. “Sheesh!” She frowned and grabbed the chairback, grateful for its support.
She swallowed hard, pulling up all her strength to stand tall and look normal.
Unfazed by tiredness and immune to moon glow. Wholly unaffected by his dark, penetrating gaze, or whatever it was that had her mouth so dry and her legs feeling like rubber bands. The way he changed the very air just by being there.
She blinked, her fingers still clutching the chair. “Is Kendrew okay?”
To her relief, he smiled.
“The lad sleeps.” He looked pleased. Equally good, holding her gaze as he did, he didn’t seem to notice her death grip on the chair. “Nils gave him a strong sleeping draught after Ella and Etta did their stitching. I doubt he’ll wake till the morrow’s noon.”
“And the lump on his forehead?” She was almost afraid to ask. “Did it go down?”
Bemusement lit his eyes. “Och, aye. With remarkable speed, much to everyone’s astonishment.”
Kira released a ragged breath. “Thank goodness.”
“So tell me, lass.” He stepped back and folded his arms, once more assuming his most lairdly tone. “Was your father truly a healer? And of kings?”
