MacAlister's Hope (4 page)

Tavish let out a laugh so hard he startled several birds awake who were roosting in a tree overhead. Brodie took Annis by the upper arm and pulled her around the fire to stand near her pallet. Fia swallowed her own laugh and hurried to her blankets. Kieron’s quick-witted way of solving the problem of Tavish’s temper did remind her of the lad she had briefly known so long ago, but it still didn’t explain why he credited her, and her few words of encouragement, with his transformation when clearly he had done the work on his own.

Chapter Three

Relief swept through Kieron as they rode into Kilglashan. Now Fia would heal the chief and all would be back to normal again. Tavish didn’t stop at the stable, but rode along the winding main road, then up the motte, a small hill built by the first villagers to settle here, to the large hallhouse where the chief’s family lived and that also served as a gathering place for the village as a whole on festivals and other special occasions. It was only there that his cousin called a halt and dismounted. Dropping his reins, Tavish moved quickly to Fia’s mare before Kieron could, and judging by the gasp that escaped the lass, he pulled her out of her saddle before she was prepared. Kieron helped Annis down, then untied the saddlebag from Fia’s horse and followed the three of them up a stair and into the hallhouse.

They crossed a large open room, then took another flight of turnstile stairs up to the bed chambers. Tavish opened his father’s door without so much as a knock, startling the two women who tended the chief.

“How is he?” Tavish demanded.

“No better, lad,” Margaret, the older of the women said. “The blisters continue to grow and there is naught we can do to stop them, nor to ease his pain. Where is Lady Elena?”

“Leave now,” Tavish said abruptly, without even acknowledging the woman’s question, then he pushed Fia forward. “Heal him.”

Fia shrugged off Tavish’s hand, then moved to the bedside and began examining his father, who lay as if in a daze. Kieron had never seen their chief in such a state. Usually he was charging about, seeing that everything and everyone in the clan was well and doing their duty. He looked as if he had aged a score of years in the three days they had been away. His cheeks were hollow, his skin a sickly yellow-gray, and his left eye was sunken, though the right one was ringed by new blisters, its lid so swollen it barely opened.

At least he was not moaning as he had been when they left to fetch Elena. Except maybe that meant it was worse.

“Heal him,” Tavish demanded again, but Kieran knew him well enough to hear the edge of something deeper than worry, but not quite fear, in his voice.

“I have not seen such an affliction before,” Fia said quietly, lifting the sheet carefully to look at the chief’s naked torso. “Oh my.” Her eyes went round as she pulled the sheet away, exposing a wide swath of angry blisters wrapping from his stomach around to his back on his right side, caked with what looked like bits of herbs.

Fia froze as if she did not know what to do for the man.

“Perhaps you should have taken him to Elena.” Annis’s quiet voice filled the otherwise silent room.

Kieron glared at the girl who seemed unaware of how much her doubt-filled words could undermine Fia’s confidence. Annis reminded him vividly of his younger days when Tavish’s more pointed efforts to undermine his confidence had done their job.

“You need to leave,” Kieron said to her, unwilling to let anyone weave doubt about Fia’s ability to heal the chief in Fia or in Tavish.

“But I am here to help,” Annis said, with a childish pout.

He took a moment to calm himself, then stepped in front of both Annis and Tavish, blocking Fia from her “helper” and from Tavish’s piercing stare.

“Then be helpful,” he said, softening his voice as if he spoke to a wean. “Fetch your things and Fia’s from the horses and have one of the women show you where you will be sleeping.” He glanced over his shoulder at Fia, who was still standing perfectly still, staring at the chief’s ravaged body. “Tavish, she is just deciding what to do first, ’tis all, I am sure of it. There will be things that need your attention—other than your da—now that we are back. I will stay and make sure she has everything she needs.”

Tavish actually growled but that no longer bothered Kieron. For all that Tavish was a skilled warrior, experience had taught Kieron his cousin was more bluster than bite, most of the time.

“Go,” Tavish said to Annis, much to the lass’s apparent surprise.

“But—”

Tavish cut her off with a quick slant of his eyes in her direction. She spun without another word and left without bothering to close the door behind her.

“You, as well,” Kieron said, and was relieved when his cousin gave a sharp nod. He paused before he closed the chamber door. “Make sure she heals him, Kier. She is here because you believed her and Lady Elena.”

Kieron nodded, knowing that both women believed Fia had sufficient skill, but even he was having a hard time believing that was true, in spite of the evidence of the Winter Stone, now that he could see Fia’s doubts. He turned back to Fia and started to speak, but realized her lips were moving, as if she were speaking to herself, though he could not hear her voice. Her eyes were darting from the chief’s torso, to his face, now badly ravaged by the strange welts, and back, all the while her lips moved. She laid a hand upon the chief’s brow. She closed her eyes, her lips still whispering. Her brow furrowed deeper and deeper until suddenly her eyes popped open.

“I need—” She looked up and glanced past Kieron. “Where is Annis?”

“I sent both her and Tavish away. She was annoying me and you made Tavish very nervous when you did not respond to his demand that you heal the chief.”

“His dema— Nay, he did not demand such a thing, did he?”

Kieron smiled at her. She hadn’t been hesitating over treating the chief, she’d been figuring out what to do. Her concentration reminded him of his grandmother. “Aye, he did. Tell me what you need and I shall see it fetched immediately.”

Fia turned her attention back to the chief. Even Kieron could tell that though he slept, his pinched, grey face spoke clearly that he was in great pain.

“I need more of whatever sleeping draught the women have given him for what I need to do will cause more pain before it begins to help. I need warm water and rags to clean him, oats— enough to fill a large pot, but not cooked—a mortar and pestle, a kettle of hot water, and my bag.”

Kieron pointed at the end of the bed where he had laid her saddlebag, then went to the door, relaying Fia’s requirements to the women who had been tending the chief.

“Can she help him?” one of them asked.

“I believe she can,” he answered, then closed the door again, sending up a prayer that he was right.

Three days later and all Fia had accomplished was to help the chief sleep a bit with the soothing of her oatmeal poultice. His eye was so swollen the lid could not open and he complained of the pain of it even when the blisters on his torso were bearable. A willow bark brew did little to help with either the fever or the pain. She’d even had Annis make a brew of birch, and they had tried a poultice of balsam, but neither had done more to ease the man’s pain than the willow and oatmeal.

Fia paced the chief’s chamber, exhaustion pulling at her feet, but the need to find some solution to this affliction kept her from resting. The door opened quietly and Fia tensed. Kieron came in, followed closely by Annis with the fresh kettle of willow and birch infused with garlic she’d been sent to make more than an hour ago. Thank heaven Tavish wasn’t with them. Fia did not think she could take another confrontation with that one, though she knew he would be by before much longer to push her out into the corridor and rail at her for not healing his father.

But not while Kieron was here, she realized. Tavish never berated her when Kieron was about. She took a deep breath, letting the tension of the anticipated confrontation ease out of her—for now.

“Pour a cup, Annis,” she said quietly, “and set it on the table to cool. I do not want to wake him if I do not have to. ’Tis the only reprieve from the pain we can give him right now.”

Annis nodded and did as she was told, another miracle created by the presence of Kieron. She did not ken why Annis was wary of Kieron, but she was grateful for it. “Will you fetch some fresh bed linens?” she asked the woman.

When Annis turned to face Fia, her mouth was set in a disgruntled line but she did not complain that she was being sent on yet another errand. The truth was, Fia could not stand the sly cuts of Annis’s conversation and glances anymore. The constant doubt Annis sowed wore on Fia and she was sure she would not be able to keep a civil tongue much longer, so she kept the woman busy and away from the chamber as much as possible.

“You should let her sit with the chief,” Kieron said when the door was closed.

“I do not trust her attention enough to do that.” Speaking those words lifted a weight from her she had not realized she carried.

“Then let me. Tell me what to do if he wakes. You can rest on the pallet over there that has yet to be used.”

She worried her lower lip, weighing her fatigue against the needs of the chief. Kieron held out a hand to her and she only hesitated a moment before reaching out and settling her palm against his. When he gently pulled her close she did not resist. He enfolded her in his embrace and laid his cheek against the top of her head. For a moment she froze, surprised to find his embrace so welcome.

“You are too tired, Fia.” He ran his big hand up and down her back, as if he soothed a bairn, and she allowed herself to relax, to rest her cheek against his broad chest, to let him hold her. “A little sleep will clear your mind and perhaps then you can discover another way to help the chief.”

Fia closed her eyes. The scent of him—the sharp scent of evergreen, the cool scent of fresh Highland air, and a spicy scent she could not name but that was his all alone—surrounded her, soothing her better than any herbal brew she might take. The slow beat of his heart against her cheek, and the comfort of his strong arms around her, revived her more than sleep could. Here was a welcome shelter from the storm of doubt and worry that she had weathered from the moment she agreed to come to Kilglashan.

“I know you can help him,” he whispered into her hair.

“Do you really?” Fia asked looking up into his brilliant green eyes. She was captured by both the care and the desire that lit them, like sun sparkling through new leaves.

“Aye, I do.”

“Why?”

Kieron stared into her eyes for a long moment, then cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, lightly, but the touch of his lips to hers lit a need inside her so fierce it took her by surprise. She rose up on her toes, laid her hands against his scratchy cheeks, and pressed her lips to his, letting all thought and all care fall away as she lost herself in the softness of his mouth. He let out a low growl and pulled her hard against him, even as she swept her tongue along the line of his lips. She did not know why she did that, but followed her instincts and was rewarded when he deepened the kiss, sweeping his tongue over hers. Jolts of desire raced through her, focusing her every fiber on this moment, this man, this kiss.

A short rap on the door had them leaping apart just as Annis swung it open, her arms filled with fresh bedding. Kieron turned away, shoving his hair back from his face as he moved to a small window and peered out toward the village. Fia hoped Annis could not tell what she had interrupted, but the knowing smirk on the woman’s face dashed her optimism.

Annis used her hip to close the door with a bang, startling the chief awake. Fia wiped her sweat-damp hands on her skirt and turned her attention back to where it should be—on her patient—chiding herself for allowing her attention to be drawn away so easily.

“How are you feeling?” She asked him as she lifted a rag from the bowl of cool water on the table and wrung it out, then smoothed it against the man’s forehead and the side of his face unaffected by the blisters.

“Thirsty.”

“I have a brew for you. This one is stronger so it should help with the pain.”

The chief merely grunted as he tried to shift in his bed. A grimace, combined with a moan he tried to swallow, told her the pain still rode him. Kieron came to the bedside and helped the chief as Fia held the light sheet of the finest linen away from him so it would not pull across his skin as he moved, for even that light weight was unbearable.

“Annis, prepare another oatmeal poultice,” she said without looking at her assistant. She did not want to see the woman calculating how she could use the indiscretion she had walked in on to her best advantage. Fia put the rag down and reached for the cup. Habit had her lifting it to her nose to check the strength. She was about to help the chief drink it when she stopped and sniffed it again.

Something wasn’t right. She sipped it, let it lie on her tongue for a moment, then swallowed.

“Annis,” she turned to find the woman staring at her. “What did you put in this?”