by Laurin Wittig - Guardians Of The Targe 02 - Highlander Avenged
She gasped and snapped her gaze back up to meet his. He didn’t look English, with his shoulder-length dark blond hair, braided at the temples, and his well-faded plaid that he wore with ease. But neither had Nicholas, their new chief, looked English when first he came among them. Yet, somehow, Jeanette had always known Nicholas was an honorable man and that had proved true. She couldn’t say exactly why, but she had the same sense about this man.
And then she remembered what her mum had always told her: “You are a fine judge of character, my sweet Jeanette. I do not understand how, but you always seem to ken the truth of someone when first you meet.” The memory was both sweet and melancholy.
“Lass?” he asked, his grin even wider now, lending a twinkle to his green-and-brown hazel eyes.
Instinct warred with recent experience and instinct won out. He might be an honorable man, but that did not mean she trusted him. Not yet.
“What are you doing here?” she finally snapped, setting her fists on her hips. She would find no comfort here in the company of a stranger and she wanted him gone. “Who are you?”
“I could ask the same of you,” he said.
“Nay, you could not. This is my family’s land and you do not belong here. I ask again, Who are you?”
The man folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head at her, his grin firmly in place as if he thought it disarming. Which it was.
Jeanette notched her chin up and waited for him to answer her questions. He was the interloper here. He was the one shattering the serenity of the place with his skin and his smile and his eyes.
“I am Malcolm MacKenzie,” he said finally.
She nodded. “Where is your home?”
“In the north, west of Inverness. Now, who are you, and whose land is this?”
“Come away from the pool.” She desperately wanted him away from her mother’s place, and motioned for him to join her outside the sheltering rock, but as he passed her, the almost-transparent damp linen of his tunic revealed a large festering wound on his upper right arm. She grabbed his arm at the elbow, stopping him. “What happened?”
Malcolm looked down, a swear hissing from his lips.
“ ’Tis nothing,” he said, but when he went to pull away from her, she held him fast, already pushing his sleeve up, exposing the long, oozing gash on his upper arm.
She could tell, from the faint marks around the edges of the wound, that it had been inexpertly stitched at one point. But the stitches were gone now, and yet it still oozed and there were faint red lines leading away from it.
She looked up at him. The grin had been replaced with a scowl, the twinkle no longer in his eyes.
“You were here to heal this.”
He stepped away from her touch and jerked the sleeve down.
“ ’Tis none of your concern, lass.”
She would be damned if it was not. This she could do something about. This was something she was still useful for and she might as well embrace her healer duties right away. She dug in the bag of herbs and salves that always hung at her waist but realized she must have left the salve she searched for back at the castle. She did have a small linen pocket full of moss with her. It was good for dressing a wound like this, but also good at drawing the fester out. She looked about them, trying to spy anything else that might help his wound heal, but there was only the wellspring.
“Did you pray?” she asked.
“Pray? For healing? Aye, every day.”
“Nay, that is not what I mean. The water will not heal you without a prayer, a chant really, and even then ’tis not immediate. Come, let me show you.”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the little pool of clear mountain water.
“Take off your tunic,” she said.
“Lass, do you seek to take advantage of me?”
“Advantage?” Confused, she looked up to find him grinning again.
“You demanded I take off my clothes.” He winked at her but she just rolled her eyes.
“I am a healer. Take your tunic off—only your tunic. That wound is in a bad way. ’Tis trying to send out poison to your blood. You are lucky I came upon you when I did. A few more days and it might not be within my skill to heal you.”
His expression turned serious again and he took off his tunic, scowling a little as it pulled away from the wound.
She took his elbow once more, stunned for a moment by the warmth of his skin and the golden hue of it next to her pale hand. But she had a task to do, so she turned him so that his arm was illuminated by the sun, and began to press around the hot edges of his wound, bringing the greenish ooze to the surface.
“How long has it been like this?” She was aware that she had fallen into her “healing voice,” as her mother used to call it. A soft, reassuring voice, showing concern but not fear.
He did not speak, and when she glanced up from her work, she found his eyes fixed on his injury. He did not look to be in pain, but there was something in his face that told her he was as concerned as he should be.
“How long?” she asked again softly, as if he were a bairn she did not wish to frighten.
“It has been a while.”
“A battle?” She had seen similar injuries in her kinsmen after a battle. Swords sliced clean and deep and if the wounds were not tended properly, they did not heal well.
“Aye.”
She worked the wound a bit more, pleased that he did not make her stop, nor did he complain over her attentions, as some warriors were wont to do. The wound showed signs of partial healing. The stitches had been removed some time ago, from the looks of it, which meant his injury had not happened recently.
“This happened before winter set in,” she said.
“Why would you say that?”
“No one battles in the Highlands in winter.”
He raised an eyebrow as if he challenged her conclusion, but Jeanette held firm in her opinion.
“Aye, before winter set in,” he said.
Jeanette tried not to smile at his admission. It was almost summer, now. She thought back and determined the wound could be no less than six or seven months old, and still it was not healed. He would be in no shape to battle this summer, the high season for that sort of activity. She looked at the wound and his arm closely, then looked down at his hand. The muscles were weak from disuse. Even if she could heal his injury, it would take even longer before he could wield his claymore, the large two-handed sword she had noticed leaning against the wall of the cave.
’Twas too bad. He looked to be a braw warrior and her clan could use a few more of those if the English really did send more soldiers, as the clan expected. Jeanette shuddered at the thought of what it would mean to her beleaguered clan if they were set upon again before they could rebuild the castle wall.
If they were set upon . . .
She stilled and looked up at him. Here she was, with a half-naked stranger who claimed to be a MacKenzie but whom she knew nothing about, regardless of what her instincts said. She did not know his loyalties, nor his true reason for being on MacAlpin land, for she doubted he had come so far from his home just to wash his wound in the wellspring. Why would a Highlander be wandering alone in the wilderness with a wound such as this anyway? Why would he not have gone to his home to be nursed back to health, or have asked for help from any chief he might encounter? He would not if he was hiding, and he would only be hiding if he should not be here.
“Did you fight for the English?” Though she tried to hold it in, all the hatred she felt for the English rolled out with her words, along with the disgust she felt for those Scots who fought with them against their own countrymen.
“I fought with Robert the Bruce at Methven and Dalrigh.” He once more pulled free of her grip, thunder in his eyes. “There are Scots who would fight with the English devils, but I am not
one of them. Are you?”
“I have more than one reason to hate the English king and the men who fight for him.” She glowered at him.
“Then we have that in common,” he said.
She watched him, gauging the truth in his words by the evidence of his body. He met her eyes without hesitation. His feet were planted firmly on the ground, as if he held fast to his assertions. His hands were unfisted at his sides and he seemed genuinely insulted that she called his loyalty into question.
Jeanette let out a long breath.
“Come, kneel down by the pool and let me finish caring for your arm, Malcolm MacKenzie.”
MALCOLM COULDN’T HELP but smile at the beautiful woman. The turn of events this morning was stunning. He had heard there were healing wells in this area, though he’d only stumbled across this one, following the nearly hidden path on a hunch. And then an angel had found him. He wondered at his own excessive language but it was apt.
“Will you kneel?” She motioned for him to resume his place by the pool of water, then she knelt beside him and began to move her hands in the air over the wound as she whispered something. The words meant nothing to Malcolm, nor did the fluid motions of her delicate, long-fingered hands. When her hands stilled, she closed her eyes and kept whispering, and he took the opportunity to look at her more closely.
She was perhaps twenty years old, no more, with flaxen hair and, though they were closed now, her eyes were the color of a clear midsummer sky. When first he saw her, the sun had outlined her gentle curves for a long moment, and then she’d spoken—nay, commanded. There was no shortage of confidence in her as she stood there, her hands on her hips, demanding answers to her questions.
And she was a healer.
Saints be praised.
When her whispering was finished, she took a small wooden cup from the fold of her arisaid, dipped it into the icy water, and poured it over his wound as she returned to her whispering again. Malcolm’s skin prickled against her hand where it cradled his elbow, but the numbing water was a welcome respite from the pain that had seared through him when she had poked and prodded at his arm. As she poured the water over his arm, again and again, he was captivated by the way it flowed down his skin, rippling over and around the angry wound, then running off his elbow and her hand and splashing back into the pool.
“Why did you not return to your home when you were injured?” she asked, breaking his reverie.
She released his arm, shook out the cup, and put it back where she carried it, then grabbed his tunic and used it to carefully dry the area around the injury.
She looked up at him and raised her eyebrows. It was only then that he realized he’d been so busy watching her graceful movements, he hadn’t answered her question.
“I . . . I was too ill, and then winter set in.” He sat back on his heels and reached for the tunic in her hand.
“Do not don that yet.” She pulled a handful of dried moss out of her healer’s bag. Deftly, she arranged the moss into a thick layer that would cover the length of the no-longer-oozing gash. She dipped it in the water, squeezed it out, and laid it over the site. “Hold it there a moment.”
He did as she asked while she pulled a rolled-up strip of linen from the bag and used it to secure the moss in place.
“You must come to the castle with me,” she said, rising and brushing sandy grit from her skirts. “You will need that arm seen to for a fortnight at least, maybe longer.”
“The castle? What castle would that be?” He tried not to smile as she watched him don his tunic. He also tried not to wince when he raised the arm she had just tended to slide it into a sleeve. He refused to let pain keep him from doing anything—well, anything but training with his claymore. His will, it turned out, was stronger than his arm, or his hand. But if she could heal his wound, finally, then it would not take long before he was back in fighting form. As he tucked his tunic back into his plaid, she seemed to realize she’d been staring and she pushed past him, out of the sheltered area and back out into the sunshine.
“Dunlairig Castle,” she said. “This is Ben Lairig.” She raised her hands to indicate the mountain they stood upon. “The valley that runs from its foot, west toward the sea, is Glen Lairig. This is the home of Clan MacAlpin of Dunlairig.”
“And you are?” he asked.
Her breath hitched as he stepped into the sunshine next to her.
“I am the one who will bring a warrior, trained to fight the English, to a clan who desperately needs one.”
“Why would your clan be fighting the English? I have heard that King Robert clashes with them in the south of late.”
She looked at him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. “Suffice it to say, they have attacked us once, and we expect they will attack again. Will you lend your experience to us, and your sword, in exchange for my care for your wound?”
“You say ’twill take a fortnight to heal my arm?”
“Aye, maybe more.”
He looked away and considered her request. Clearly he needed a healer’s care since neither the old man who had tended him after the battle and sheltered him through the winter, nor he himself, could keep the thing from festering again and again. But he would not promise more than he could deliver.
“I will gladly share whatever I can from my experience fighting the English, in payment for your healing care, but I cannot offer you my sword.” He held out his right hand and did his best to make a fist but his fingers would not obey his command. His hand closed only halfway, making it impossible to grasp the two-handed claymore.
She looked from his hand to his face and back, nodding a little.
“Then we shall have to work on your hand, too.”
He laughed at her confidence. “Aye, that we shall.”
“So we are in agreement?”
“There is one other thing,” he said. “My duty is to return to the king’s army as soon as I am able. When my arm is healed and I can once more wield my sword, I must take up that duty.”
“So you will help us until your arm is healed and strong enough to fight and I will do everything I can to make it so as quickly as possible. Are we in agreement now?”
“Aye, we are. Shall we seal our agreement with a kiss?” He grinned and waggled his eyebrows at her, charming a smile out of his angel.
She shook her head as if he were a naughty lad, then headed down the same trail he had taken to the spring. He quickly looped his travel sack over his shoulder, grabbed his claymore with his good hand, and hurried to catch up with her.
After they had been walking quickly down the ben for a while, he began to wonder how far the lass had come from her family all alone. He looked down the trail, hoping to catch sight of this castle she was taking him to but the trees crowded close, their thick leaves and the underbrush of holly and juniper obscuring any view beyond the next curve.
“Tell me about Dunlairig Castle, lass.” He caught up with her, walking by her side in spite of the narrow path. “How far away is it?”
“Not much farther.”
“What is the best thing about it?” he asked, hoping for something more than a terse reply.
“It still stands,” she said quickly. “Mostly.”
He laughed, well acquainted with the never-ending maintenance required for castles of any size. The Highlands themselves seemed to lay siege to any structure men had the temerity to build.
As they reached the bend in the path where it curved around a huge lichen-dappled boulder, the sharp snap of a branch had him reaching for his companion, even though he could not grasp her arm as she had his earlier.
“Wheesht!” he whispered when she started to complain. “Stay here.” He merely mouthed the words but she nodded once to show she understood. He handed her his claymore, as it was more of a hindrance than a help right now, then motioned for her to move into the t
hicker brush of the forest as he drew his dirk, a long thin dagger, crept up to the boulder, and peered around it.
Hellfire and damnation!
There, just stepping out of the wood to stand in the middle of the path, looking directly at him, was an English soldier, his sword drawn and a grin slashed across his face.
CHAPTER TWO
LONG HABIT HAD Malcolm reaching for his claymore, but the sharp pain of his wound speared up into his shoulder and stopped him just as he remembered that he had given his sword to the woman.
“Who are you, ye feckin’ bastard?” The English soldier scowled at him and waved his scrawny weapon around as if he knew what to do with it. The soldier glanced all around. “Where’d the bitch get to?”
“I saw a lady, but no bitch,” Malcolm said, correcting the man, earning himself another scowl. He dared not look behind him, but he hoped his angel had slipped off the path and into the wood. If she was smart, she would be on her way down the ben to her castle. At least there she might be safe if he could not best this man. His task now was simple: he needed to kill this soldier, as he’d killed so many before. He missed the weight of his claymore in his hands but he’d make do.
“ ’Tis a poor excuse for a sword, you have,” Malcolm said. He grinned at the soldier as he slid his dirk back into its sheath, then flipped a branch up from the ground with his foot, deftly catching it in his left hand. It wasn’t his claymore. It wasn’t even the cheap sword the soldier had, but it was better than his dirk, if only because his reach with the branch was longer than the soldier’s with his sword.
The soldier smiled broadly, showing a dark gap where his two front teeth should have been. “ ’Tis better than yours.” Gaptooth advanced up the path toward Malcolm, the light of victory already gleaming in his eyes.
Malcolm judged his position: The large boulder on his left would block the swing of the soldier’s sword. He took half a step backward to give himself more coverage from the boulder, then held the branch as if he planned to swing it like a sword, though his right hand upon it was all show and no grip.
