“Come,” Magnus rumbled. “I’ll take ye to our erstwhile patient. The sooner ye see him, the sooner we can be on our way and Oskar can find something else to gripe about.”
He turned and led her along the corridor, Oskar trailing behind. They reached a battered wooden door which creaked as Magnus pushed it open, revealing a small, bare room. It was dimly lit by the soft glow of a flickering oil lamp sitting on a rickety nightstand beside the narrow bed.
Clutching her bag, Lily went inside. The floorboards groaned under her weight as she approached the bed where a man lay motionless. His features were worn and weathered, etched with lines of pain. He looked like he’d probably once been overweight but now it had melted off him, leaving his skin sallow and saggy like candle wax.
A second man straightened from where he’d been mopping the first’s brow. He was in later middle-age, small and with thinning hair. He was dressed as strangely as Magnus and Oskar, although his clothing looked more expensive. He smiled at her.
“Ah! Ye must be the healer. Thank ye for coming so quickly. I’m Henry Eberwyn.”
“This is his house,” Oskar supplied.
“Um. Right. What’s his name?” Lily asked, approaching the man in the bed, who seemed to be asleep.
“Alfred Brewer,” Oskar replied, closing the door behind him. He leaned against the door with his arms crossed. His expression was hard as he glared down at the man in the bed.
“Alfred?” Lily said softly as she approached. “I’m Lily. I’ve come to have a look at your leg.”
The man didn’t stir but his eyelids flickered briefly.
“Careful,” Oskar warned in a low voice. “We’ve taken precautions but the man canna be trusted.”
Lily pulled back the thin blanket that covered the man and gasped at what she saw. She whirled on Oskar, Magnus and Eberwyn.
“Why is this man restrained like that?”
Both of Alfred Brewer’s wrists were tied to the bed post with thick rope.
“Didnae I just tell ye?” Oskar replied. “He canna be trusted.”
“Untie him right now! What’s wrong with you? Is this how you treat injured people?”
“Nay,” Oskar replied. “It’s how we treat criminals. This man is a traitor and an outlaw. We’re taking him to Edinburgh to stand trial.”
Lily said nothing, trying to take this in. She had expected to find a patient in need of medical attention, not a restrained man labeled as a criminal. The room suddenly felt suffocating.
“So who are you? Police officers?”
They shared a puzzled glance. “We’re just simple soldiers, lass,” Magnus replied. “Tasked by our commander to get this man safely to Edinburgh. Unfortunately, he had other ideas. He tried to escape. This was the result.” He strode over to the bed and pulled down the blanket to reveal the man’s leg. It was clearly broken, canted at an odd angle and had been inexpertly splinted with a piece of wood.
Lily breathed deeply. These men were soldiers? Were they part of some local regiment? That might explain their strange clothes and gruff manner. But it didn’t explain why this house seemed stuck in a time-warp or how she’d ended up in the middle of nowhere.
“Why didn’t you just call an ambulance or take him to the hospital?”
Oskar pushed himself away from the wall. “We dinna have time for all these questions, woman! Ye said ye could do what was needed. Now can ye fix him or not?”
Lily pressed her lips together into a tight, flat line. She opened her mouth for an angry retort but Eberwyn stepped smoothly forward.
“Ye dinna understand, lass,” he said. “He is a dangerous man who is accused of plotting against the crown. We canna risk that he escapes or that his associates find out where he is. Oskar and Magnus brought him here when he injured himself because my manor was closest. The authorities will deal with his injuries once we have him secured in Edinburgh. We just need him fit enough to travel.”
This was wrong. All wrong. She breathed deeply.One thing at a time, Lily.
“Is there any way you can loosen the restraints? At least until I can assess his injuries properly?”
Oskar glanced at Magnus and Eberwyn, exchanging a silent conversation before finally nodding. “Aye, but ye best be quick about it.”
He moved to the head of the bed and untied the ropes around the man’s wrists and then watched Lily expectantly.
Lily crouched and began assessing Alfred Brewer’s broken leg. The man stank of whisky and she guessed he was dead drunk which probably explained why he didn’t wake as she gently probed the injury, feeling the bones shift beneath her fingertips. It was a complicated fracture that might need surgery.
