Then Leila lifted a finger in warning.She gestured and one of the boys gave her Fergus’ flask.At her indication, he opened it.
“Eau de vie,” she said to Farquar who sniffed it and blinked.“We must hold the foot fast.This will sting her, but will cleanse the wound.”Enguerrand translated, then the boys braced the horse and Farquar held Nellie’s foot.Leila carefully poured a measure of the liquid over the injured foot and felt a ripple pass through the horse.Nellie snorted and stamped one of her other feet and tossed her head.Leila held the hoof until it dried.Farquar pointed to the one side, where the wound already looked less angry, and nodded approval.
“The Romans wrapped the hooves of their horses in leather,” Leila said.“Nellie must walk a bit to aid her digestion, so we will do the same to keep the hoof clean.Once she returns to her stall, the air will aid more than the leather.”
Farquar listened intently to Enguerrand’s translation, then fetched a piece of leather and a length of narrow rope.Leila nodded approval and they encased the hoof, only letting Nellie put it down once the leather was secured.Leila stood up and brushed off her kirtle.She had a small bag of roots, ginger and turmeric, and half a dozen apples from the kitchen.She used her eating knife to cut them up into chunks, sharing quarters of apple with the two palfreys until Nellie turned in curiosity, her ears flicking.She put the remainder in a feed sack, let Nellie sniff it, then backed away.
Nellie’s tail flicked.Her ears pricked.Leila held out a piece of apple and the closest palfrey nickered, stretching her neck over the stall for it.Leila gave it to her and Nellie snorted.Leila then offered another to the plow horse.Nellie exhaled, then took a step closer, putting her weight on the injured foot.She was hesitant at first, but then took another step, stretching her neck to seize the apple.
Farquar grinned and the boys would have clapped their hands, but he silenced them with a gesture.Leila backed up again, compelling Nellie to follow her.It took some time but the temptation of the treat was too much.Nellie followed her the length of the stable and back, then her belly rumbled and she farted with gusto.Leila let her have the contents of the feed bag after that effort.Nellie chewed through the ginger, turmeric, and apples, then gave a mighty belch.
By the time the boys had led her back into the stall and removed the leather from her hoof, she was touching the toe of it to the ground as she had not before.She belched three more times before Leila left the stables, then loosed another noisy fart.Leila and Farquar nodded and bowed to each other.
“Tomorrow,” Leila said in Gaelic, then held up the spice bag.
“Tomorrow,” Farquar agreed, his satisfaction more than clear.
“You will have no shortage of friends in this abode, Lady Leila, if you heal their only plow horse,” Enguerrand said as they returned to the hall.
Leila cast him a smile.She was not thinking of allies.She was thinking of a horse being able to walk again, even a little bit, and how being in Farquar’s smithy had been the closest thing to being home again.
But the Templar was right.She could and would make Killairic her abode.
Isobel had learned muchsince putting her hand in that of Stewart MacEwan.
She had learned the price of a hasty decision, to be sure, and the folly of impulse.More importantly, she had learned to never cultivate the suspicion of her husband—and since he was inclined to seek peril in every shadow, that was difficult to achieve.
She was pregnant again and as sick with the child as she had been with the last two.She despised the ordeal of pregnancy but Stewart had been mightily vexed with her failure to bring his second son to light.Did she dare to oust this child, as well?
Isobel might not have done as much but Fergus was returned.Fergus!And he looked even more handsome than he had four years before—as well as more prosperous.Dunnisbrae seemed poor and mean after he had ridden away, dark and dirty and desolate.Isobel hated it and her husband anew.
There had to be a way to change her situation for the better.
She knew, though, that only a fool would give any indication of such thoughts to Stewart.She returned dutifully to the hall, as if she had forgotten Fergus, and resumed her interrupted meal.
“You are forgetting your gift, Isobel,” her husband said from behind her, his tone mocking.“How could you forget a present from your former betrothed?”
She was desperately curious about the gift, but would not reveal that to her jealous spouse.Stewart marched to her side and placed the trunk on the board beside her.Isobel fairly itched to open it, but she barely glanced at it.
“Are you not going to open it?”Stewart prompted.
“I have no need of a gift from another man,” Isobel said.“My lord husband provides for all of my desires.”
“Then perhaps one of the women in the village will welcome whatever filthy infidel trinket he has brought for you,” Stewart said, so obviously trying to provoke her that Isobel had to keep her gaze downcast lest he see the flash of her eyes.
“Perhaps,” she agreed.
Stewart’s eyes glittered and he shoved the trunk at her.“Open it.”
Isobel knew this test well enough and she steeled herself to try to succeed at it.“It smells,” she said, as if repulsed by the trunk.It did smell, of spices and the salt of the sea, of foreign places and adventure, and all the things that Isobel desired.It smelled of promise and hope and far, far more than she had gained in this match.
Fergus had handfasted to an infidel.
It was the kind of gallant gesture a man like Fergus would make.
But he should be wedded to her.Surely he could be convinced to cast the infidel aside once she was wed no longer.
“Open it.”
