Lady Miracle (17 page)

“And yours?”

“My own marriage was—unsuitable.” He paused, looked away. “We were wed five years ago. Anabel is beautiful, intelligent, and willful. She soon found that a husband who was gone for long months with the king was boring. She took a lover.” He shrugged, but she sensed in his posture that he still felt the burden of that pain. “I tried to obtain a divorce, but the bishop’s court declared instead that we should have a divorce
et mensa et thoro
—we are separated in bed and board, and not required to live together.”

“Where is she now?” Michaelmas asked quietly.

“She lives in a convent as a lay sister. I hear little word of her. She is Ranald’s cousin, and he has word of her now and then. I send a coin and goods twice a year to the convent, but I never see her. And I do not ask.”

“But you are still wed,” she said.

He nodded once, brusquely. She saw the telltale muscle thump in his cheek, and realized that it cost him much to speak of this. “I am resigned to it, but I do regret that I will never have sons. Dunsheen will pass to Arthur, as the eldest of my brothers.”

“I am sorry,” she whispered, stricken by a heaviness in her heart, as if she felt his hopelessness. A laird without a wife, without sons, and no hope for either, was sad indeed.

He smiled ruefully. “Do not be sorry for me. I made a mistake and I am paying for it,” he said. “I was young, and enchanted. Never again,” he added, looking away.

She felt a slump of hope within herself. Until that moment she had not realized that she had even considered the possibility of marriage to the laird of Dunsheen. She reminded herself that she had a widow’s secure status, and did not need to marry again. And Diarmid Campbell was virile and attractive, but far too stubborn and insistent on his own way.

She sighed and tucked the covers again around the sleeping child. “I will rub her legs tomorrow. She should have heat treatments with hot cloths soaked in herbs. I will give the instructions to Lilias.”

He nodded and rose when she did. As she went toward the door, he took her arm in the shadows.

“Michael.” He paused awkwardly. “Thank you. Brigit will do well in your care.”

She looked at the sleeping child in the bed, so small, so fragile beneath the heavy covers. “I wish I could give her the magic she deserves. I understand why you promised it to her.”

His fingers pressed her arm in a brief, comforting gesture. “I could not refuse,” he answered. “Now that I have promised, I must find some way to make it happen.”

She looked away. “I am sorry that I cannot be the answer to your prayers.”

His thumb made heated circles on her shoulder. “You may be yet, Michael girl,” he murmured. “You may be yet.”

The feel of his fingers sent delicate shivers along her throat, into her breasts, along her spine. She looked up. The warm glow of the hearth softened the hard, handsome planes of his face. He tipped his head, his gray eyes as clear as crystal.

“There is more magic in you than you know,” he murmured.

His touch brought back the memory of the brief, compelling kiss they had shared by the healing pool. Michaelmas suddenly wanted his lips on hers so much that she thought she would melt with the urge, thought her knees would buckle beneath her and her thumping heart pound through the silence between them.

The desire he roused in her with the slightest touch stunned her, drew her in. She had never responded to a man’s touch like this. Her body, of its own accord, surged toward him, wanting the vibrancy, the promise that his hands, his body, could offer. She craved that and more, much more, as if he was water for her thirst, warmth for the cold she had felt for so long.

But she drew in a breath and fought against the strong urges of her body. He was wed, hurt. She was lonely, and had been for a long time, even during the years of her marriage. But she would not behave like a wanton. Neither of them would want that, and no good could come of it past the satisfaction of the moment.

She stepped back. “Good night, Dunsheen.”

He nodded. “Micheil,” he said. Even his voice was like a lodestone to her. She loved the way he said the name he himself had given her. She wanted no other name now.

But she had to get away from here, or regret it. Going to the door, she pulled it open and stepped out into the dark corridor. She felt a tug in her heart as she walked away, as if a silver thread linked them together and strained a little as she left him. That glittery thread had begun to stretch between them on the day she had knelt beside him on a battlefield. Now she was moored to him, and did not know how to free herself.

“He is sodden drunk,” Michael said. She frowned at Angus, who grinned back at her. “Does he do this often?”

Diarmid scratched his chin, puzzled. “Only at Yuletide,” he said, wondering what lay behind his elderly cousin’s unusual state. Angus was sprawled on a bench in the great hall, head down on the table, moaning. “I have never seen him do this, in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason.”

“Well, we will have to convince him to tell us the reason,” Michael said.

Diarmid nodded. Iona had knocked on his door quite late, during a wild storm, two days after Arthur and Ranald had left for Ayr. At first Diarmid had mistaken the frantic pounding for thunder outside the walls. Once he had gone to the door, Iona had told him that her grandfather was miserably drunk and moaning in the great hall. She had already fetched Lady Michael, who had sent Iona for Diarmid.

He lifted Angus’s arm over his shoulder. “Ho, man,” he said, shifting Angus’s weight until the man stood. “Off to bed, now. You’ve had enough
uisge-beatha
for five strong men.”

Angus groaned again and collapsed back down to the bench. Swiping at a winebladder on the table, he spilled some into his mouth. Another moan, long and loud, inspired one of the dogs by the hearth to echo the mournful sound.

“He must be in pain,” Iona said. “Grandfather, what is it?”

Angus and the dog howled again. The old man took another swallow from the bladder, then clapped a hand to his cheek and opened his mouth.

Diarmid leaned forward and swayed back, hit by a foul blast; the man’s breath mixed good amounts of hard spirits with decay. Angus attempted to speak, his reply garbled by the effects of the drink, and by what Diarmid now saw was a swollen cheek.

“Ah,” Diarmid said, nodding sagely. “Bad tooth.”

Angus nodded miserably and swished more liquor around in his mouth, spitting it onto the rushes. Then he took another generous mouthful and swallowed it down.

“He’s trying to numb the pain with liquor,” Iona said.

“By the look of him, he should be quite numb,” Michael said. She touched his shoulder gently. “Let me see, Angus.”

He craned his mouth open. Michael peered inside, then felt his jaw and neck. She motioned for Iona to bring a candle and hold it high, then looked again into Angus’s mouth.

“I need to probe to find the bad tooth,” she said. “It will have to come out. The foul humors are causing his face to swell.”

Angus moaned and shook his head, hanging it in his hands. Iona bit her lip and looked fretfully at Michael and Diarmid.

Michael glanced at Diarmid. “I will need some help.”

He nodded evenly and turned to Iona. “We need hot water and a good deal more candles for light.”

“Iona, does Lilias keep oil of wormwood in her kitchen supply?” Michael asked.

“I think so.”

“Fetch me that, and clove oil too, if she has it.” Iona nodded at Michael’s brisk order, and left the room.

Diarmid hauled a protesting Angus off the bench and situated him in the high-backed carved chair, then propped up his feet. Turning toward the hearth, he set a few pine logs on the already glowing peat coals, and coaxed the wood until it blazed brightly.

“I have some surgical tools,” he said. “I’ll get what you will need.” She nodded.

Once back in his bedchamber, Diarmid opened a locked wooden chest beneath the window. He took out a leather bundle and unrolled it to reveal a silk lining and the surgical instruments that he had carried with him, years earlier, when he traveled with Robert Bruce’s army. Golden needles, silver scissors, iron pincers, steel scalpels and small saws gleamed and chinked as he handled them. His hand trembled as he chose a pair of pincers.

When he returned to the great hall, Michael and Iona had already placed two basins of steaming water on the table. Michael sniffed the contents of a couple of small clay vials, while Iona arranged several flaming candles on the table near Angus’s chair.

Diarmid handed the pincers to Michael. “Those should do well for you,” he said, while she rinsed them in the water. She then soaked a small cloth in the oils from the vials and applied the wadded cloth inside Angus’s mouth.

“That should help deaden the pain,” she said. After several moments, she probed gently with her fingers. Angus thrashed, and she stepped back, looking, Diarmid noticed suddenly, quite unsure of herself. He was puzzled, for he had seen her calm and certain when dealing with physical ailments. Perhaps she thought her patient too agitated for a procedure just now. Diarmid agreed; at this point, clove oil would hardly make a difference in the pain Angus felt.

“On the battlefield,
uisge-beatha
was our best aid in surgery,” he said. “Perhaps he could use a little more.”

“More!” she exclaimed.

“He can handle it,” Diarmid said dryly. “I know him.”

“Soporific sponges soaked in opium work best of all, but I have none with me,” she replied. “I keep some with my medical tools, but—” she shrugged eloquently.

“We cannot delay this until Mungo returns with your trunk,” Diarmid said. “His father could perish of poisoning. The spirits will have to do.” He handed the bladder to Angus and encouraged him to drink again. Angus complied, generously offering Michael and Diarmid sips, which they refused. After a while, Angus slumped into a quiet stupor, gazing at them with glazed eyes and a little smile.

“I think you can begin now,” Diarmid said.

Michael’s hand hovered over the iron pincers. Wondering again at her uncertainty, Diarmid supported Angus’s head in a stable position and waited. Michael still hesitated.

A thought occurred to him. “Have you ever extracted a tooth?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “Never. I am not a barber-surgeon.”

“I’ve done it several times. The procedure is simple enough.” He explained it to her and she listened, nodding. Finally she picked up the tool and leaned forward.

After several attempts to pull the tooth, her cheeks grew pink with effort and she stepped back. Shoving loose strands of hair from her eyes, she looked at Diarmid. “This needs the strength of a blacksmith,” she said.

“Sometimes,” he said. “Try again.”

She did, without success. “The roots of the molar must be very long. It will not come loose.” She braced her knee against the chair and pulled again. Then she sighed and looked up at him. “Diarmid, please, I need your help.”

He shook his head. “You can do this.”

“I do not have the strength.” She held out the pincers. “I am afraid I will crack the tooth and Angus will be worse off than he is now.” She looked at him with full pleading in her gaze.

Diarmid glanced away, left fist clenched. “I cannot—”

“You can. You need but the one hand for this.”

He sighed, then sighed again. The procedure was hardly complicated surgically, and his friend would suffer if he did not help Michael now. He clearly had small choice.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose I am more of a blacksmith than you are.” He accepted the tongs, then leaned forward and braced against the chair. “I suspect only a blacksmith could pull a tooth from Angus MacArthur’s head,” he said, and applied unrelenting pressure. Finally the tooth came free, and he dropped it with a clink into the basin.

Michael swabbed Angus’s mouth and inserted an herbal poultice that she had asked Iona to prepare. She stood back and glanced up at Diarmid.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Easy enough to do with experience,” he said.

She nodded. Her veil had fallen askew, and she pulled it free wearily. Her loosely braided hair spilled over the shoulder of her black gown like a rippled stream of moonlight. Diarmid watched, his eyes soaking in the sight of her. Unkempt, flush-faced, she looked, to his eyes, serene and incredibly lovely.

“Thank you, Iona,” she said to the girl. “Your kin will be proud of how helpful you were. Your grandfather can sleep the night in this chair. I will make sure he’s comfortable. You are tired, dear. Go to bed, now.”

Iona murmured her thanks and fetched a thick plaid from a bench, tucking it around her snoring grandfather. Then she picked up the used basins and bid Michael and Diarmid good night as she left.

Michael slumped down to the bench, the color drained from her face. She slipped a trembling hand through her silky hair. “I have done little surgery of any kind,” she said quietly. “Ibrahim was a surgeon, but he had a male assistant, and left dentistry to the barber-surgeons. My studies and practice involved treating diseases of various kinds, and health problems of women and children. Never this sort of matter.”

“Then this was a new challenge for you. You did well.” He poured the last of Angus’s liquor into a wooden cup. “Drink this,” he said. “You need its strength in your blood just now.”

She drank, then gasped and coughed. Tears sprang to her eyes. Diarmid half sat on the edge of the table and reached over to pat her back until her breath returned.

”
Uisge-beatha
is the water of life for Highlanders,” he said, amused. “But I’ve seen it kick over someone who is not used to it.”

“Another drink of that and I might be kicked over indeed,” she replied, wiping her hand over her eyes.

“You looked pale a moment ago, but no longer. Now you need to rest. Angus will sing your praises over this, and you will be very busy indeed when everyone brings their ailments to you.”

She stood. “Then they should come to you, Dunsheen. You did this, not I. If not for your help, poor Angus would still be suffering.”