Beloved Stranger (7 page)

“I know where it is.”

“Show me.”

Audra went to the herb garden and immediately went to the plant with the long narrow leaves, then looked up triumphantly.

Pride surged through Kimbra. Audra had been helping her tend the gardens since she was three years of age. Still, she’d not realized how much Audra had learned. She’d always thought Audra extraordinary, but she’d also considered the fact that Audra was blood of her blood, and therefore she was wont to think Audra the most exceptional child. “That is very good,” she said.

Audra bent down and started picking the herb. Kimbra would mash the leaves together with aloe for poultices. Both were said to have healing powers, especially in stopping infections.

They had not stopped Will’s.

She prayed it would stop the Scot’s.

 
 
K
IMBRA napped on and off during the afternoon. She sat in a chair next to the Scot’s bed. His face and body had warmed, and she feared infection.

He slept on and off as well, though she recognized it was a dark sleep. He mumbled words, not clear enough to understand. He thrashed about, and at times she laid her body across his to keep him from falling from the bed. She thought she heard a woman’s name—or was it a child’s?—but she wasn’t sure.

At one time when he moved restlessly, she brushed her fingers across the stubble of his beard and let them linger there, a gesture of comfort. He seemed to still, and she held her hand there for a moment, willing her strength into him. In that moment, he became more than a Scot who represented her only chance for an easier life for herself and her daughter. He became a person whose life was intertwined with hers. Warmth radiated between them, a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire in the other room.

She jerked her fingers away. He meant nothing to her but the funds he could bring. He could not mean more. ’Twas quite obvious he was noble. He spoke well. His manners, even without knowing who he was, were finer than she’d ever seen.

The Scot’s station was obviously so far above hers that she knew she could not have even the slightest feelings for him. If he ever regained his memory, she would be less than nothing to him. She knew how nobles treated their servants, those they regarded as less than themselves. It was unlikely that he would be any less treacherous.

He moved violently again. Then began shivering, even though his skin was still hot. She lay next to him, warming him with her own body.

Will had suffered the same way. Fever. Tremors. Violent shaking. Thank Mary in Heaven she didn’t see the same red streaks running from the wound.

When the shivers subsided, she left him and went into the other room. She mixed more willow bark with water, and put water over the fire for a new poultice. The room had darkened, and she lit an oil lamp. Audra was sound asleep on a sheepskin before the fire, one arm around Bear. Kimbra put a warm hide over her. Since Will’s death, Audra had slept in Kimbra’s bed, each of them a comfort to the other.

She went outside and stretched. The air was cool this late summer evening and finally clear of the smoke that had hovered over the land for days. But she knew she would never again think of the wet, boggy valley bottom without smelling death.

She went back in. The water was hot enough, and she made the new poultice. She changed them often, wanting to draw out the infection in his body. Holding both the poultice and cup of the foul smelling willow bark mixture, she reentered the room. The coverings were gone, and he lay there half naked, his eyes open.

She leaned over. “Lift your head,” she commanded. She put a hand behind his head and supported his back slightly. He tried to help her. His body was hot with fever, and she heard—and felt—the intake of breath. With his help, she finally got his head high enough to enable him to drink.

He was weaker than he was yesterday, the fever sapping what strength he had. When he finished drinking, she inspected his leg. The wound was ugly, and much of his leg was red.

The leg should come off. She knew that. But she had no skill in cutting. She only knew herbs. She felt his gaze on her. He knew the danger as well as she, even though he may not know how he knew.

“No,” he said.

“You could die,” she said.

“But I will go to God—or the devil—with two legs.” His words were raspy.

“Are you wed? Do you have a wife?” She knew she had to keep trying to kindle a memory.

He simply stared at her, the familiar frustration filling his eyes.

“I know I would want Will alive, with one leg or two. Someone must be waiting for you.”

She could see the strain in his face as he struggled to find answers that he could not.

She closed her eyes. What would God want her to do?

She would wait another day. If he did not improve . . . if his leg grew redder, she would have to go to the Charlton. She would have no choice.

She had tonight.

“Can you eat anything?”

He shook his head.

But he must. He must have enough strength to fight the demons in his body.

He thrashed suddenly, then his breath caught from what must be terrible pain in his bruised ribs.

She leaned down and put her hands on his shoulders. “Try not to move,” she said. “The poultice must stay in place, and the ribs will heal only if you are still.”

He nodded, his eyes thanking her.

She sat down until the willow drink and his own exhaustion lulled him back into sleep. She closed her eyes, wanting to join him. Then she opened them again.

She needed to tell the Charlton that she had found an Englishman and had nursed him back to health, but how could she explain that she’d waited so long to tell anyone?

First of all she would have to coach the Scot in the ways and speech of the English.

If he got well.

He
would
get well. She would not allow anything else.

F
OR three days, the Scot hovered between life and death.

His eyes were sometimes open, but unseeing. He moved restlessly, and his breath came in small labored gasps.

He said things in a language she did not understand. It might have been Gaelic, but then it might well have been French. She had no knowledge of language other than her own.

“You will be well,” she insisted over and over again, as if the words would work their own cure.

Audra brought water to her, even mixed the willow bark into a cup, and then the child sat quietly in the corner. Watching. Clutching her straw doll. Once, she went to sleep in Kimbra’s lap, and they both jerked awake when the Scot stirred and uttered a cry.

Kimbra continued to bathe him with cool water, trying to bring down the fever. Sometimes she had to rest her body against his to quiet the violent shivering and thrashing. He muttered words she didn’t understand.

She often touched his face to judge the course of the fever. Once she ran her fingers through his hair, the thick, damp wayward strands wrapped around her finger. He was so warm.

Though his leg appeared to be getting better, the fever remained, and she feared an infection in his lungs. She continued to urge him to drink her mixture of herbs, even as she washed his body repeatedly. She came to know it intimately, the new wounds and an earlier one—a jagged scar across his left arm. His chest remained different shades of purple from the blow struck there.

On the fourth day, she knew she had won. She had defeated a fever for the Scot that she’d been unable to defeat for her husband.

It was a bittersweet thought.

 
 
J
AMIE Campbell paced his cell in the dungeon of an English castle.

He had been allowed to pen a message to his father in Edinburgh, telling him that he was being held for ransom. He also related that he had seen Lachlan Maclean go down near his king.

He knew that King James was dead. He’d heard the celebrations, even as his heart ached for the monarch he so admired. The king had attended his marriage to Janet Cameron and had played a part in bringing Jamie’s cousin Felicia and Rory Maclean together after a century-long feud between the two families.

James had known how to draw the nobles together, how to charm even the most reckless of them. He’d loved music and poetry and literature. And he’d admired law, insisting that the clans end their ancient feuds and work together for the good of Scotland.

Now there was only a bairn to rule a Scotland that had just lost the best of its nobles. Jamie knew Scotland’s weaknesses. There would be chaos as clans tried to manipulate the queen and her young son.

God’s love, but he’d sworn to protect his king, his Campbell soldiers, and his friend Lachlan. He had failed at all three.

He’d seen Lachlan’s horse go down, then he’d been swarmed by the English as well. A pike had tumbled Jamie from his horse, and when he tried to get to his feet, a sword was at his throat.

He had been taken as hostage for ransom, while archers and pikemen were systematically killed. He wished now that the sword had gone through his throat. The flower of Scotland died at Flodden, and he should have been among them. He should have died protecting his king and his friend.

His self-loathing competed with his need to get free and discover exactly what had happened to Lachlan. Was his friend, too, being held for ransom? Or was he still lying on the Flodden killing ground?

Jamie thought of Janet, of her smile and blond hair and eyes so blue they put the summer sky to shame. She hadn’t wanted him to go, but he’d looked forward to war with anticipation. What a fool he’d been.

How many Campbells died at Flodden? He had brought 200 of them: archers and pikemen. How many would return to Dunstaffnage?

He shivered in the dampness. In Scotland, hostages were held as guests, but he had been brought to a cold, damp cell and told to write to his family.

How long would it take for a rider to reach the island and return? Then he could begin his search for Lachlan. He had sworn to Rory that he would look after Rory’s younger brother. He could not return home until he knew what had happened to the man once his enemy, then one of his closest allies.

If he spent his entire life doing so, he would bring Lachlan, or his body, home.

 
Inverleith on the Sound of Mull

The news of the disastrous battle reached Inverleith by a messenger on horseback.

The king was dead.
The messenger knew nothing about Lachlan Maclean. Neither did he know about Jamie Campbell, the heir to the Campbell clan. It was believed, though, that all the men at the king’s side died with him.

Rory Maclean bowed his head. His wife, Felicia, who had been with him when he heard the news, put her arms around him and lay her head close to his heart. She was very close to Lachlan as well as to Jamie Campbell, her cousin, who was as dear to her as a brother.

Then she moved back.

“I do not believe it,” she said. “Not Lachlan and Jamie.”

“If the king is dead, so is Lachlan,” Rory said heavily. “And probably Jamie as well. They would have been with James.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Lachlan surprises everyone,” she protested, “and Jamie . . .” She paused, then said brokenly, “I must go to Janet.”

Rory touched her cheek. “Aye. Both she and Angus will need you.” He paused, then added vehemently, “I should have gone.” Guilt sapped his heart. He should never have allowed Lachlan to take his place, but his younger brother had begged to go. And Rory believed in King James, knew he would have a far superior force and thought that for once and all this quest might drive the final demons from Lachlan.

And Rory had a new bairn and a wife he loved dearly.

He closed his eyes. How much did they have to do with his decision? It had been his place as the Maclean to lead his soldiers into battle. And how many of them had lost their lives? How many widows and orphans?

He would provide for them all.

Lachlan.
His troubled brother who’d hidden his torments behind a smile and a song. Rory had not known how deeply scarred his brother had been until Rory had returned to Scotland after ten years at sea.

He could not lose another brother!

Patrick, his older brother, had disappeared somewhere in Europe years ago. Then Rory’s father died. Now Lachlan. He had thought the Campbell curse on his family conquered, but now he wondered whether it hadn’t been waiting out there, seizing one after another of the Macleans.

He swallowed hard. He had to find his brother. Mayhap he was wounded somewhere, or had been taken for ransom.
He couldn’t be dead.

He knew one thing. He would not leave his brother on the border. He would find out what had happened, and he would bring him back to Inverleith.

 
The Border

He kept retreating into the dark cave. Pain didn’t follow him there. Nor did the terrible void that had become his world.

A voice called him back. Over and over. She would not let him go.

He grew angry. Anger gave him strength.

He knew when his eyes opened, she would be there. The woman who refused to let him die. His body was cold, and he had a terrible thirst. Every movement was a supreme effort. Even opening his eyes seemed too difficult to do.

He felt as weak as a kitten.

A kitten. He knew kitten. He knew water. Light. Darkness. He recognized voices. The woman’s voice. A child’s voice. A sweetness in the latter. Determination in the former.

Why didn’t he know anything else? Why did everything else retreat behind a curtain he could not raise?

“Can you take water?”

He knew the words. He’d heard them over and over again.

He opened his eyes. The woman had haunted his fevered dreams until he’d believed her to be naught but a figment of them. But she was real, her long dark braid falling over her left breast, her gray eyes intense.