Lady Miracle (2 page)

“Holy Mother of God,” Fionn breathed.

The girl withdrew her hands, set them in her lap. Diarmid looked at the wound, raised the needle to begin hasty work.

But the gushing flow had slowed considerably. He could easily see the slice in the artery. Silent, unsure what had happened, he had not time to wonder. He repaired the tear while Fionn heated the tip of a dirk to cauterize the sealed artery. When that was done, Diarmid closed the rest of the wound, easing the muscle layers together with his stitches. He focused on what he saw, what he must do, and finished the task. Finally he accepted a cloth that the girl handed him and wrapped it around Angus’s leg.

He looked at her. She waited, her bloody hands in her lap. “He will live,” he said.

She nodded, vulnerable, her delicate head and neck like a flower on a stem. She rose to her feet, then wavered unsteadily.

Diarmid stood too, taking her arm to offer support. “What was it you did for him? Prayer?”

Her wide eyes were blue as a summer sky and fringed with lashes. Innocent, youthful, yet there was wisdom there, as if an old soul looked at him. “Something like that.”

“What is your name?” he asked. “I am Diarmid Campbell of Dunsheen.”

“Michaelmas,” she said. “I am Michaelmas Faulkener.”

He frowned at the odd English name. He knew an English knight by that surname, who was now one of Robert Bruce’s most loyal advisers. “Do you know Gavin Faulkener?”

She nodded eagerly. “He is my half brother! I came out here with my mother and our priest to help. Our castle is but a mile from here. I must go. My mother will be looking for me.”

Diarmid let go of her arm. She felt so fragile. ”
Micheil
,” he said in Gaelic, unfamiliar with her English name. Michaelmas. “Ah,” he said. “You are named for Saint Michael’s Mass, the feast day on the twenty-ninth of September?”

She nodded. “Aye. But Michael will do.”

“Tell me what you did. I have never seen the like.”

“You’re hurt.” She reached up and touched the cut above his eye gently. He felt her fingertips tremble against his brow.

He looked down at the pale golden crown of her head and felt heat cover his wound, like sunlit warmth. A moment later he felt heat throughout his body, too, as if he sat by a fire.

The girl took her hand away, and the heat with it. He touched the cut and saw only a thin line of blood on his finger. The ache had diminished. He looked at Fionn, who watched intently.

“Sweet Mary,” Diarmid breathed. “Girl, how do you come by such a gift?”

“My mother is calling me,” she said, as a voice sounded from afar. “I must go.”

“Michael—” Diarmid reached out, but she stepped away.

A stocky priest walked toward them, accompanied by a slender, dark-haired woman who called out the girl’s English name. “Michaelmas!”

The girl looked up at Diarmid. “You must never tell what you saw me do,” she whispered. “My family knows, and our priest. No one else can know. Promise you will not speak of it.”

Diarmid frowned, nodded. “You have the word of the laird of Dunsheen.”

“And his brother,” Fionn added.

“God keep you, Dunsheen,” she said, and ran lightly over the muddy field, lifting her skirts high, her thin legs nimble as she skimmed the tufted grasses. She was, he realized, just a child.

“What just happened?” Fionn asked. “I feel as if I’ve been struck by lightning.”

Diarmid did too. He watched as the girl greeted the woman and the priest and walked away with them.

“We’ve seen the making of a saint, brother,” Fionn continued. ”
Ach
, she will not wed me or any man. She’ll become a nun, that one, and be beatified one day.”

“She’s better off in a convent, if what we saw is real.”

“Real? You should see the cut over your eye. It looks like it’s been healing for days. We’ve seen a saint, man.”

“Perhaps.” Diarmid touched the spot over his eye. “Her family is wise to protect her. If others witness what she can do, she could be named a saint—or a heretic.”

“Pray that her family keeps her hidden.” Fionn clapped his hand on Diarmid’s shoulder. “But you should have asked her to tend to your arm. Now you have only me to sew it for you.”

Diarmid shot him a wry glance. “Let me find some strong wine first.” He glanced across the field again. The girl had disappeared into the mists, but he would not forget her. She had shown him a golden miracle on this bloody field.

Scotland, the Western Highlands

Spring, 1322

The cry echoed again, eerie in the darkness. Diarmid straightened in his saddle, alert, thinking it must be some small, young creature lost or hurt, though the wistful cry made him think of the legends of the fairies, the
daoine sìth
or fair folk, said to inhabit so many of the hills in the Scottish highlands. He rode on, and heard a whimper nearby.

Halting the horse, he glanced at the surrounding hills beneath a half moon. No one else would be out here on a chill night, under scudding clouds threatening rain. Surely it was the wind. He urged his sturdy black horse forward.

Years had passed since he had come this way, but this was Sim MacLachlan’s land, and the man’s small castle was nearby. MacLachlan and his kin would not be expecting the laird of Dunsheen, but would offer a seat by the hearth, food, a dram. Highland hospitality would prevail. After attending to the matter that brought him here, Diarmid planned a night’s sleep and a ride back to Dunsheen in the morning.

He shifted the reins to his left hand, but the cool air made his weaker hand ache again. The keening sound came again, louder now, sliding along his spine like ice water. The horse whickered and slowed, and Diarmid placed a hand on the dirk in his belt. What was that sound?

The next cry came from the direction of the low hill beside the road. He dismounted in the moonlight and climbed the slope. At the crest, a bundle of rags fluttered in the wind, and something moved beneath them, whimpering. Diarmid went forward, crouched low.

A child sat there: a small, slight thing, shivering under ragged folds, its pale hair in a tangle. It stared up at him, then scuttled away, using scrawny arms to slide backward. It did not run. The creature stared at him. Its eyes were light, its face elfin. Was this indeed a child of the fair folk—the fairies? But the wobbling lower lip was so human—this was a child, lost and frightened, a little girl clutching a ragged plaid around her, her hair all tangled golden curls.

She sobbed out, and the small sound stirred Diarmid to the soul. He hunkered down. “Are you lost, little one?” he asked gently. She shook her head mutely, scuttled backward. “Not lost? How is it you are out here alone? Where is your mother or your father?”

Silent, she only shivered in the cold wind.

“Here,” he said, drawing the plaid closer around her. He held out a hand. “Come, I will take you home to your kin. Tell me where to find them.” He stood, beckoned.

She held up her thin arms, a trusting gesture. She wanted him to lift her up.

”
Ach,
you’re that tired, hey.” He bent down and picked her up. She might have been a sack of feathers. He began to descend the slope. The child rode in his arms like a moonbeam, weightless, fragile, silent. She tilted he head against his shoulder.

“What is your name?” he asked. She watched him with somber eyes. “I am Diarmid.”

“I heard a wildcat,” she whispered.

“It cannot harm you now,” he replied. “I am here.”

“I waited for you. I was cold,” she added plaintively. “And then you came.”

He frowned. No one expected him here. He had ridden out to visit the girl-child fostered in Sim MacLachlan’s household. He remembered a pretty, sturdy toddler with blond curls and the impish, crooked smile of the Dunsheen Campbells. This little one was fair and young, but far more delicate a child than that one would be at her current age.

Sim MacLachlan, who had the safekeeping of his niece, Brigit Campbell, kept Fionn’s orphaned daughter well. Diarmid had left her in the care of Sim’s wife as an infant, and paid a handsome fee each year to keep her fostered and happy there.

The girl looked up at him. “Are you the king?”

“King of Scots? I am not.” He almost smiled.

“King of the
Daoine Sìth
,” she said. “They are my kin. I am a changeling child.” She said it casually, as if she told him the color of her hair, or the number of her toes.

He stopped. On this moonlit night, he could almost believe that of the waif. But the pressure of her little arms around his neck, the unwashed odor of her hair, her fragile weight were real—and alarming. Something was very wrong here. “You are what?”

“Old Morag says my kin are the fair folk. She is Simmie’s old grandmother,” she added.

“Sim MacLachlan?” he asked. A sense of dread filled him. Reaching his horse, he bent to set the child on the ground for a moment. Her arms tightened around his neck.

“Do not let go,” she said. “I cannot walk.”

Suddenly he was aware of the limp drape of her legs over his arm. “Are you hurt?”

“I have a curse on me. Morag says I am a changeling. She is a wise woman.”

“I hardly think so,” he growled.

“She said if I stayed out here, all would be well.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Old Morag left you out here alone?”

She nodded. “I am to wait for the
daoine sìth
to come for me. And here you are.” She tilted her head. “You are tall and strong, like a king.”

He huffed. “I am no
sìtheach
come for you.”

”
Ach,
” she said, nodding wisely, “you are.” Her quick smile was elfin.

That slanted little grin struck him to the heart. Carefully, he set her at the front of his saddle and swung up behind her.

Someone had abandoned this child, believing her to be a changeling—a weakling fairy child switched for a healthy human one—in this case perhaps because she was fragile and had some trouble in her legs. The idea of such cruelty and ignorance chilled him—and the thought of who she might be made him tremble with dread and anger.

Taking the reins, the child in his lap, he looked down. “Tell me your name,” he said.

”
Brighid
,” she said. “Brigit. It means strength.”

“Brigit Campbell?” His voice was barely above a whisper. He saw then that her moon-colored eyes were surely gray, like his, his sister’s, Fionn’s too. Now he saw the ghost of his brother’s face in her small countenance. Fionn’s daughter, Diarmid’s own charge since his brother’s death, looked up at him.

Shock coiled into rage as he realized that his niece had been mistreated. And he felt the burden of remorse and guilt, for he had promised to protect Fionn’s child as if she were his own. As for those he had trusted with the task—

“Where is Sim MacLachlan?” he growled.

“Simmie is dead. They are all gone, but for Old Morag. She took me to her little house.”

“I am your kin, Brigit. Your uncle, Diarmid Campbell of Dunsheen.” He drew a deep breath. “You will come to live with me now. But first I want a word with Morag.”

“Her house is on the next hill,” Brigit said. “But she will be sleeping.”

“Then we will wake her up,” he said fiercely, and urged the horse ahead.

September, 1322

The wild brilliance of dawn faded into morning as Diarmid rode beside Mungo MacArthur, his friend and
gille-ruith
. They headed toward home, past the lavender shoulders of the distant mountains to the western coast and Dunsheen Castle, far from these border hills where King Robert’s army clustered. He and Mungo had been with the king’s raiding force for months, and now were finally riding westward. Diarmid would have agreed to almost any request if the task he took on brought him home. Owing fealty and service to the crown, either knight service or the loan of his fast multi-oared galleys, he had chosen to personally report to Robert Bruce.

Now he cantered quickly, but Mungo, used to running wherever he went as Dunsheen’s runner, was less sure on a horse and lagged behind. “You are in a hurry, Dunsheen,” he panted when he caught up.

“We have an errand in Perth before we can go home.”

Mungo grunted. “You seem certain this woman in Perth will come with you to Dunsheen.”

“She will,” he said. “She has the soul of a saint. She will not refuse my request.”

“Ah, the laird of Dunsheen eagerly leaves his games of war for the sake of a small child.”

Diarmid gave him a wry look. “You have four children, man,” he said. “Would you not do anything you could for them? I thought so. Brigit has improved little since I found her that night. I thought rest, good food, herbal doses and a good home would help her regain strength.”

Mungo sighed. “The herb-wives, even the physician you hired have all said the same. She will not walk, Dunsheen,” he said gruffly. “Accept it as fate.”

“One woman said she would waste away to nothing,” Diarmid said bitterly. “Another said she will not survive another year and should be left in a convent. And the physician,” he added, “the educated man, wanted to amputate her legs so the weakness would not spread. I will not listen to any of that.”

“No one knows what caused this for her, and no one knows how to treat it. Even you, with your medical knowledge.”

“I will see her healed. She is my responsibility,” Diarmid growled. He would find a way. She was his niece, his ward, the soul of the promise he had made to his brother and had not kept.

“Is this fierceness because Brigit believes you are the king of the
daoine sìth
, and capable of magic?”

“In part,” he admitted. “She has too much faith in me, I trow. And I can refuse her nothing. I am lost each time she smiles at me.” And he had made an impulsive promise to the child that he had to keep. Brigit wanted magic. She believed in it, and in him. And he, desperate, had agreed.

He sighed, wishing the brisk wind could blow away all the troubles that sat on his shoulders. He needed peace in his life; he had only turmoil of late. Now king and crown made more demands of him, and would challenge his honor in the bargain. But he had a sworn duty to his king as a Highland laird.