Highland Healer (2 page)

As she regarded him, she fought the urge to caress his face with her fingertips. Tiny laugh lines around his eyes and mouth betrayed the only trace of the person within. For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine his smile. Her Talent did not help her with that. Though she often wished it would show her the past or the future, it persisted in showing her only the now and the needs of her patients, no more. Until he awoke, she would not know the color of his eyes, nor the temper of the spirit that dwelled within his massive body. She moved to her chair and sat down to wait.

****

Toran became aware of his surroundings slowly. First came the pounding in his head, painful evidence that he was not dead after all. He should be glad, he supposed, and would be when the infernal hammering stopped. Then he realized that his hands and feet were bound. He was a prisoner? How the devil had he allowed that to happen? His nostrils flared and he fought to remain still in case someone watched. Try as he might, he could not remember. His head hurt too much to concentrate. Instead, he kept his eyes closed, and listened intently for any sound that would give away the presence of a guard. The faint whisper of soft breathing told him someone else waited nearby. Distant shouts and clangs pierced the silence. Did a battle still rage?

What had happened to the two men who’d come with him to meet with the MacAnalen laird? Had they escaped, or were they dead on the field of battle?

He carefully tested the strength of his bonds and found them damnably sufficient to restrain him, at least for now. Focusing inside himself to gingerly catalog other aches, he tried to recall the last moments of the battle that brought him here. The usual residue of physical violence remained in the arms, shoulders, back, and legs, all of which were old companions, and none of which brought back any particular memories of the fight. Suddenly, he noticed cool air on his skin, skin that should not have been bare to any breeze. For a brief moment, he hoped he was wrong about being a prisoner. If he’d been stripped and left for dead on the battlefield…but nay. If that were true he wouldn’t be bound.

A soft cough startled him and his eyes flew open. He was surprised to see rough-spun cloth peaking over him, blocking the anticipated view of the sky. He turned his head slowly against the pain to survey the rest of his surroundings and saw a lass dozing in a chair set against the wall of the tent.

Only a lass to guard him? Was he injured worse than he kenned, then? Nay, none of the all too familiar pain that came with serious wounds plagued him, thankfully, except the damnable throbbing that threatened to split his skull. So he gathered his strength and pushed up to sitting. The tatters of his shirt fell away from his back, leaving him bare from the waist up. Dizzy fairies whirled in a mad dance before his eyes, then settled and disappeared as he pulled in a deep breath and bit back a curse.

He turned carefully and looked around the tent. One entry, flap askew just enough to show a sliver of trees, sky, and movement when anyone walked past, but not to allow anyone outside to see within. He sat on a table crisscrossed by his plaid, and by his belt and his claymore strap, which must have been unbuckled to allow his shirt to be cut from his body. He groped frantically at his throat as another thought occurred to him. A relieved breath gusted from his lips. The Lathan torc remained around his neck. That his claymore was missing failed to surprise him. He reached into his boot. His dirk…ach, gone, too. Damn. Injured, without weapons, and in a strange camp. He’d seen better days.

The only other furniture was the chair occupied by the bonny lass. Even in his present condition, he could appreciate her beauty. Auburn hair fell in a thick braid over her shoulder onto the nicely curved breast of her deep green dress. Slumped in her doze, he could not be sure, but she seemed tall and slender. Her face was fair, with smooth skin and full lips. Toran wondered why she alone attended him, why there were no guards in the tent, and why he was restrained so lightly by leather cords instead of chains. In time, he could weaken and break bonds such as these. Did they think him so enfeebled by battle wounds that a mere lass could hold him? He didn’t ken whether to be insulted or embarrassed. But the question remained. What had happened to him and why didn’t he remember? Why was he here and not dead on the battlefield?

He needed to get a look outside. If he could move quietly enough so as not to wake the lass, he could peer out the tent flap. His boots were lashed together with enough slack between them to hobble him, but not to prevent him from walking in some limited fashion. He considered trying to remove them, but the bindings around his ankles were too tight, and even if he got the boots off, he didn’t want to lose them. He wouldn’t get far on bare feet, so he’d have to find a way to cut the cord between them. First things first. He started to stand, teeth clenched against the throbbing pain that movement caused. But the table creaked as he gained his feet. The lass stirred, then blinked, and with dismay plain on her face, noted his position, half on, half off the table.

“Oh! You shouldn’t be awake,” she said, smoothing her dress as she stood and moving quickly to the tent’s entry flap and peering out. Did she mean to leave or call the guards? He didn’t want her to do either.

“Wait,” he said, wincing. “I won’t hurt ye. I want to look outside.” He hoped his warning would allay any fears she might have. He kept his gaze on the entry as he stood the rest of the way up and hobbled carefully forward. He didn’t want to seem threatening by staring at her, though she was worth gazing upon. As he approached, she stepped back. He pulled the flap a finger’s width aside and peered out. Aye, he was held in the invader’s camp, and things had not gone well for the MacAnalens. Judging by the few wearing MacAnalen colors that he could see, they, too, were bound in leathers, and talking to others beyond Toran’s line of sight. And those were the guards, he supposed, facing this tent, sitting by a small fire. He could see plenty of men around similar fires within view. Too many. And a few more practicing at arms. Even a brief glance was enough to show him that he’d not walk out of here easily on his own. He hoped that a lot of MacAnalens survived. The more there were, the better the distraction whenever his own men arrived to free him, and the better all their odds of getting away.

He sighed and turned back to the lass, who stood quietly by as he peered out of the tent. As he faced her, she backed up a step, but only one. It puzzled him that being left alone with a strange man seemed to cause her so little concern for her own safety. She was no match for him, even with him injured, bound, and weaponless, but she neither called for help, nor tried to escape the confines of the tent. Instead, he saw with pleasure, she stood tall and proud.

If she was meant as a serving wench for an important prisoner, he might yet enjoy this captivity.

“Now that your curiosity is satisfied, you should not be on your feet,” she said as she pulled him away from the entry toward the table. He nearly stumbled in the fetters, but her grip held firm, and he stayed upright. At the table, she urged him gently to sit, and then more forcefully said,
“Lie down
.
”
He moved to obey before he could consider objecting. Her voice held a tone of command that he found he could not ignore. He lay back, puzzled. As he did, the pounding in his temples reached a new crescendo, preventing rational thought. He tried to stifle the groan, but it escaped. “Damn,” he growled, lifting his bound wrists to his throbbing forhead.

“Ah, your head,” she said, moving to the top of the table and leaning over him to push his arms down. With that nearness, her scent floated over him, softly pleasing, and something more...much more. His groin tightened in response. “This will help,” she said and straightened, taking her scent with her.

He could not see what she did, but her fingertips whispered across the skin of his forehead to ruffle his hair, and the pounding receded.

“You took quite a blow,” she said quietly. “’Tis a good thing you have a thick skull.”

He could hear amusement in her voice, but felt none of his own, only relief. The pain continued to recede as her hands stroked gently over his forehead and down the sides of his face. Tension he was not aware of holding ebbed, and he sighed deeply.

“Who are ye?” he asked, feeling more and more at ease and drowsy as she continued, the pain blessedly fading away. “How can ye do that?”

“I should be asking the questions, don’t you think?” Her voice projected calm reason, as if she was discussing nothing of importance. But she delivered her next question with more emphasis.
“Who are you?”

“I am called Toran,” he heard himself say, biting his tongue before he said the rest of his name. What was she doing to him?

“And you do not belong to this clan Colbridge fought today, do you?” she asked. “Your tartan is different than the ones the other prisoners wear.”

Damn. Confusion and dismay washed over him and he reached for an answer that would satisfy the lass. He was in great danger here, bound and without his weapons in an enemy camp, but it would be worse if she found who he really was and told her leader. He’d fought with the MacAnalens, so the invaders probably believed he belonged with them, at least until she of the sharp eyes and soft hands noted the small differences in the tartan he wore.

“Aye,” he improvised. “My clan is related.”

“And you’re a chief?”
she asked, seeming to accept his evasion. She continued to stroke his neck and shoulders, her fingers brushing over his torc, and Toran’s strange lassitude deepened, but not enough to halt his tongue.

“Aye,” Toran admitted after struggling not to speak, his voice sounding curiously distant to his ears. He tried to clench his jaw shut, but found that he couldn’t do it with her hands so warmly soothing on his skin. “Clan Lathan,” slipped out before he was even aware he was about to speak. He groaned his dismay and tried to clamp his lips between his teeth, but numbness stole his ability to compress them. Was she a witch, then, he mused dreamily, to pull answers from him even when he did not wish to give them?

“Ah, well then; that is why Colbridge wanted you,” he heard her murmur to herself as he slipped into a warm, blessedly pain-free sleep.

****

Gar Colbridge stood on the edge of the field of battle and looked around him with grim satisfaction. In the waning sunlight, the bodies of his enemies lay strewn like so much chaff across the landscape. A few of his men and some of the camp women picked through them, stripping useable clothing and searching for weapons and other valuables. Those, he knew, would be few and far between in this poor countryside.

“A good day, all in all,” his master-of-arms remarked, dropping his reins and dismounting next to his commander’s horse.

“Aye,” Colbridge answered, giving a nod to the sturdily built man beside him who had, under his guidance, molded a ragtag band of reivers into a passably capable fighting force. “We’ve achieved what we meant to do this day, and reaped a bonus, too...the MacAnalen chief, alive.”

He relished the moment, in the heat of the battle, when he’d recognized the clan leader. He had noticed the man’s torc a moment before striking and turned his blow to disable rather than kill. Odd that none of the laird’s men were nearby to defend him, but luck, it appeared, was in Colbridge’s favor this day. The tides of battle must have swirled them away, leaving him the element of surprise.

A clan leader, even an inexperienced one, as most were these days, would be a valuable source of information about his own holdings, and those of his neighbors. Colbridge congratulated himself on his forbearance. “Aileana’s tending him,” he continued. “Once he’s awake and talking, I’ll have what I need from him, and then be done with him. Scotland lost many lairds at Flodden three years ago; one more won’t matter.”

He noticed a man roaming alone among the bodies, stooping now and again to examine one but taking nothing.

“Who’s that? Ah, of course, Aileana’s man, Ranald. He’ll be looking for live ones, then, as if there are any worth keeping.”

The wounded clansmen did not have the value of their laird, but some of them made acceptable additions to his army. Once their clan was broken, they had little choice but to join him or die. Many were so grateful for life and health after suffering grievous wounds that they took little convincing, especially the ones only Aileana could heal. Her abilities saved many when their wounds were beyond the care of the lesser healers.

She had talent, that one, and the Sight. While he had never yet been seriously injured in battle, with her considerable skills on his side, he believed that his conquest could not be stopped by the blows he might take in the future. That made him fearless, and feared. Word of his prowess traveled ahead of his army, so that a few clans surrendered rather than fight, and gained his protection. Not all. Not the MacAnalens today. They paid the price of defiance. Their dead lay before him. The rest were prisoners whose fate would be decided by the choices they made. Their women, children, and old ones huddled in their village, begging for mercy. He would give it. He had more important matters to attend to than his new subjects.

His companion’s expression turned grim. “There were observers on the ridge early this day,” he said.

Colbridge nodded with satisfaction. When the observers reported back, their unknown laird would have an advantage, but only briefly. “They’ll know we’re here, and in what strength,” he said. He grabbed the reins and pulled his horse’s head down, preparing to mount. “They hung back to assess the enemy rather than rushing in to defend another’s turf. Just as I would have done.” He considered his next moves and swung onto his horse. The observers would carry word of his prowess to the neighboring clans and villages. That was good, if they chose the wise course and surrendered to him. If not, well, he must find the observers’ clan and destroy their ability to fight, or they’d be a viper at his back when he turned south.