Much Ado About Highlanders (The Scottish Relic Trilogy) (7 page)

What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?

The north shore of the narrow loch rose quickly to rugged foothills covered with gorse and dotted with rock outcroppings and twisted trees. In protected places, dense groves of tall pine spread out, green and dangerous. Good places for lookouts to hide.

Kenna’s gaze swept from the stony beach to the wooded hillside. Thick mists clung to the high grassy elevation beyond. A soft rain was falling—chilling her and adding weight to the dress still soaked from her time in the river.

“You can’t be taking the road to Oban,” Jock warned them. “To be sure, the English will be waiting for you.”

Kenna and Jock helped Alexander out of the boat and through the shallow water to shore. She had questions for the boy about this Donald Maxwell but doubted he knew more than he’d told them already. She definitely didn’t know the man. Never heard his name. She didn’t understand why anyone—especially a renegade Scot—would be working with the English to find her. Unless it was ransom they wanted. But why not Emily, rather than her?

In all the years of running wild in the Highlands, she’d never thought even once about being kidnapped.

Jock was staring at Alexander’s shirt. The wound was bleeding badly again. “And the hills are too high for climbing.”

“The fishing huts are just through these trees?” Kenna asked.

“Aye. Tumbled down, mostly. Put up before Noah and his animals, they say. Some folk who fish here in season use them now and again.”

She had to get Alexander under cover where she could see to his wound and do whatever she could to stop the bleeding.

“I can take you to my folk at Knipoch.”

“Nay, lad. We’ll be fine,” Alexander managed to say. “From here, we’ll follow the loch down to the sea. I’m thinking we’re not a day’s walk from Oban.”

“Aye, that’s about right.”

Alexander reached into his sporran and held out some coins. Jock backed away.

“I didn’t help you for gold. And I’d never give you over to no English pissling or Lowlander, neither. I’ll not say a word to anyone, not even to my kin.”

“We know. Take it, lad.” He gave the coins to Kenna, who put them into the boy’s hand. “Be on your way now.”

Kenna pushed the boat off, and Jock rowed away into the fog. Trudging out of the water, she found Alexander sitting on a boulder. He looked pale, his face drawn. Blood was running through the cloth he held to his wound and dripped steadily from his fingers.

Panic arose in her, causing her heart to drum loudly in her ears. She’d never been squeamish at the sight of blood, but now she felt vaguely ill and wet and cold. She’d sewn up many wounds at the priory. She’d looked after many men. But none were this badly hurt. And none had been Alexander.

She glanced out into the fog. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to call Jock back. They should have gone with him to Knipoch. But she understood Alexander’s thinking. He didn’t want to lead the devil to the door of helpless fisherfolk.

Now was the time to be strong. She’d use whatever shelter they could find, and she’d tend to his wounds. They were too exposed here. There was no assurance that those pursuing them didn’t have a boat. They needed to get away from the beach.

How the feeling between them had changed, she thought. Whatever had kept them apart was behind them now. At this moment, all that they had was each other. Alexander saved her life fighting the English raiders. Kenna was his only help now.

“Don’t forget your promise,” she told him. “No dying on me today.”

“If you start fretting and whispering sweet nothings in my ear, wife, I’ll know I’m a dead man.” He stretched his right hand for her to take. “Where’s the she-devil I married?”

“Right here. Though I don’t know why I shouldn’t be running even now.” Kenna helped him to his feet. “I’m staying to help you for only one reason.”

“And what would that be?”

“I’ll not have some weedy, plume-plucked Englishman killing you. I’m the only one who has the right to do that.”

“There’s my woman,” he said, leaning on her heavily as they walked.

Kenna led him inside the protective line of trees. Three low mounds of earth and stone, with doors cut into the sides, sat in a circle. The cottages. Two of the roofs had caved in. Near the third, a number of drying racks for fish had been erected, but they too were in various stages of ruin. She looked and listened for any sign that other people might be around, but only the sound of seabirds and a small stream tumbling toward the loch disturbed the silence.

The best hut had a patch of skin fashioned as a door. Pulling it aside, Kenna peered in. Several piles of dry seaweed and straw used as bedding were visible. A fire pit contained charred wood, and the place was dry and reasonably clean. No one had been here for quite some time, but no animals were taking shelter in it.

Wincing, Alexander stooped and followed her in. He lowered himself onto a log by the doorway and leaned back against the stone wall.

“Now tell the truth.” The short walk took too much out of him. His words were drawn out and he had to pause to catch his breath. “Are you truly a healer? Or are all those rumors coming from Glosters Priory . . . are they just tales to justify your stay there?”

“Just hush and save your strength.”

“Oh, do you have plans for me?”

Kenna removed a slab of wood from the only window, allowing in air and light. She quickly searched the cottage for anything that might be left behind. Kicking at the bedding, she raised some dust but found a battered wooden bowl by a wall behind one of the piles of straw. Anything else of use had been taken. She hurried out to the stream to wash and fill the bowl with water.

By the time she returned, Alexander had pushed the tartan off his shoulder and was struggling to remove his shirt. She went to him, pushing his hands away. The cloth was plastered to the wound. She peeled the shirt gently from the skin and pulled it over his head.

The shirt slipped from Kenna’s fingers to the floor. Tears burned the back of her throat. The wound in Alexander’s side was a ragged stab. The gash was as wide as her hand, and it went deep. He’d lost so much blood. There was nothing she could do.

She sat back on her heels and stared at the wound. She didn’t want to look into his face. She didn’t want him reading her thoughts.

“Drink this.” She held the bowl to his lips.

“So those tales were all lies,” he teased. “You’re no healer. You have no talent. They kept you there to tend the sheep and milk the goats.”

“The nuns at the priory would have welcomed me even if I had no . . . no . . . no aptitude.”

He labored to speak. “Or perhaps Magnus MacKay had to send . . . gold to the priory . . . to put up with you, since you obviously can’t take care of a wee scratch like this one.”

Alexander couldn’t quite muster a smile. His tolerance for pain was impressive, but she saw his vitality draining out of him with every passing moment.

Kenna’s gaze searched the hut again. There was no chance she could find a needle or thread. And she knew nothing of the damage done inside of him. But she had to save him, help him somehow.

His eyes started to drift shut. She was losing precious time. The light from the window fell on the straw across the hut.

“Help me. Walk with me to that bedding.”

His eyes fluttered open. “Are we finally to make love, wife?”

“Nay.” She pressed her lips against his fevered brow. “It’ll be easier for me to desert you if you’re away from the door.”

With her help, he managed to get to his feet and took the faltering steps. “But I’ll come after you. In this life or the next.”

“Why? Still for the good of the clan?”

“Nay, lass. I’m getting used to you . . . as you get used to a wart.”

He sprawled out on the bedding—his breathing as labored as if he’d climbed a mountain. She rolled him onto his back.

“Not a bad response for an ape. You’re learning. But I’ve always been a good teacher.”

No answer. Blood continued to run down his side, disappearing into the straw beneath him. Fetching the bowl, she tore off another piece of her shift and dipped it in the water, cleaning around the wound.

He closed his eyes. His breathing became shallower. Kenna couldn’t stop the tears. She knelt beside him, her hand on his heart.

“Don’t do this. Do you hear me? You can’t die on me.”

His eyes remained closed. There was not even a hint that he could hear her. The beat of his heart was growing weaker.

Prayers, calls for guidance filled her thoughts. She searched her mind for distant memories of days when her mother was alive. Many times, Sine MacKay went away to heal a child or see to a sick cottager or a wounded warrior. Staying in the shadows, Kenna often followed her, watched her as she performed miracles. Sine always wore the stone fragment. She always held it as she prayed.

The skin near Kenna’s heart was growing warmer. Thinking of her mother, she reached for the leather pouch hanging around her neck, feeling the piece of tablet within. This was as far as she’d gone in relying on the stone before. But it wasn’t enough. Her husband was dying. There had to be more. Kenna opened the pouch and dropped the stone into her palm. Her fingers closed around it.

Power surged up her arm, but she held on to the relic. Heat released in bursts through her body, the intensity of it seizing control of every limb. Alexander disappeared and other images danced before her eyes. Her mother’s face. Others whom she didn’t know. Women and men with black and brown faces. Old and young. They spoke to her all at once, but the words came at her in unknown tongues. They flowed around her like a melody to decipher. The music became louder. Kenna’s struggle became desperate. She needed to understand what she had to do.

Kenna reached out and her fingers brushed against Alexander’s skin. All at once, like the cessation of a summer storm, the voices and the words became orderly. She closed her eyes and a sense of calm filled her. Fear gathered in a diminishing space and then suddenly was gone. The music of the words became clear, understandable. She knew what to do.

The stone slipped from her fingers onto her lap, and Kenna laid both hands on Alexander’s chest. The skin was cold, his heartbeat faint.

She flattened one palm on the skin below the bleeding wound at his side. Slowly, she moved her hands around the gash, circling it. Two shafts of light, one coursing up from her feet and another down from the top of her head, combined into one. It swirled around her heart and flowed out through her arms and hands. Her fingers vibrated on his skin, conducting the force from her body into his.

As the power flowed, she saw in her mind’s eye where the sword had cut through and ripped the flesh within. Kenna felt where the pain was sharpest and the damage worst. She followed the path of the blade through the sinew and muscle. She saw things in her mind that were beyond reason.

With a feathery touch, she placed her hand over the wound. She closed her eyes and willed her mind and heart to pass on the restoring light.

The voices became one:
Heal this man. Heal this man.

Her hand warmed, then it iced, and then it grew warm again. She didn’t know how long she sat still, allowing the power she’d unleashed to run through both of them, to heal him.

The voices became encouraging whispers.

Finally, when Kenna opened her eyes, the bleeding had stopped.

The wound was closed.

This was no traditional treatment, nothing she’d been taught by the nuns. Everything she’d known before changed at this moment. No longer would she be limited by the experiences of those healers around her. And whatever this power was—be it magic, dark arts, or witchcraft—Kenna welcomed it. It was a gift from her mother. And it was saving the life of her husband.

She pressed her palm against Alexander’s heart. The beat was stronger, his breathing regular.

The sword wound wasn’t the only injury to his body. Kenna’s fingers traveled over his chest, up his shoulders, down his left arm. She found exactly where each blow had fallen. Using the same touch, circling the injury, feeling the rush of light through her, focusing the heat and cold and heat, she used the power in her.

She unclasped his brooch and belt, removed the sword, and laid it at his side. She pulled off his boots. His kilt, still wrapped around his waist, was wet from the river and soaked with blood. Leaving the tartan draped across his midsection, she continued to search for points of pain. Her hand traveled down one leg and up the other, past the worst wound and to his chest and down the arms and to the fingertips.

Even as she searched, she could hardly ignore the powerfully defined muscles, the skin so soft that she wanted to press her lips to it. His chest was broad and magnificent, and a slant of soft hair that thinned as it moved down to his navel disappeared beneath the fold of the kilt. His legs were long and muscled.

Kenna couldn’t stop touching him, memorizing every dip and valley, every scar. The fluttering deep in her belly made her pull back her hands. She sat back on her heels, studying the body of her husband, realizing that this was no longer a journey of healing but one of passion.

She slipped the tablet back into the pouch.

“Kenna.”

She jumped. His eyes were open. He was watching her. Her face burned with embarrassment. She didn’t know how long he’d been awake.

“The bleeding . . . the wound at your side . . . it’s better.”

“Pain,” he whispered.

“Where? Tell me.”

“Come closer.”

He hadn’t moved. She inched closer. “You need to rest. Your body needs time to recover.”

“It’s too much. I’m suffering.”

“Where?” she asked, her knees brushed against his bare skin. He closed his eyes, his fingers moving weakly across the bedding. Kenna took his hand. “Show me.”

Alexander took her hand and brought it ever so slowly to his chest. She flattened her palm, his hand covering hers. He guided her hand down to his stomach, moving it lower.

By the time Kenna realized his intention, it was too late. Her hand was under the kilt. His arousal was silky and hard. She jerked her hand away.