“She is verra little for a grown cat and everything frightens her. She kens what is a danger and avoids it. In truth, she stays with me all the time, ever since I beat off a hawk that thought she looked tasty. I suspicion she also senses my alarm.”
“Smart cat, and those are words I would ne’er have thought to say. Why are your cousins trying to kill ye? And why did they kill your parents?”
“They want what was left to my father. I fear they also killed my brothers, Niall and David.”
“Ye dinnae ken for certain?”
“Nay, they were in France to fight and gain some coin, but they have nay returned and ne’er wrote to my mother and father. Verra unlike them.”
Sigimor kept asking questions and Mora did her best to answer though she was feeling deeply tired, fighting to keep her eyes open even as her head ached and her wound throbbed. When he turned his questions on Gybbon, she turned to Jolene. She hoped the woman knew something about healing as she knew she needed something done soon.
“Do ye ken anything about healing?” she asked softly.
“Aye. Do ye need something?”
“I got a wee wound when running from Robert and I begin to think it needs something.”
“Oh.” Jolene felt her forehead and frowned. “Yes, I believe ye do.”
“Has she got a fever?” Sigimor asked.
Jolene sighed. “Nay. She just needs a little woman’s aid. ’Tis just habit to feel for a fever. There is nothing I can catch here, so you can just go back to pummeling Gybbon for information.”
Gybbon watched Mora collect her bag, let Freya in it, and then follow Jolene up the stairs. “Why are ye fretting about fever? It hasnae struck here again, has it?”
“Nay, but I admit, I fret o’er illness,” Sigimor answered.
“No one has better reason. Is that why ye are here? There is illness at the keep?”
“Aye, and I am certain Jolene is right, that it is nothing of any great consequence, but I rushed her and the bairns here as fast as I could. Fergus will come to tell me when it is gone.”
“Good. It is that time of the year, Sigimor. I doubt it is anything truly bad.”
“I ken it. Annoys me as I didnae ken I was worried so about such things until I had my bairns and a wife. Now, we can talk more plainly about this trouble the lass has. I am saddened by her parents’ death as her mother was a great help, yet wise enough to wait until asked and nay pushing herself into the family. And now I am here to talk of these murderous cousins and sort them out. ’Tis the least I can do for how she helped me and mine.”
Gybbon grinned, helped himself to some more cider, and proceeded to tell Sigimor everything he knew. He also told him all he and Mora had guessed at from overhearing the cousins’ conversations. The questions Sigimor asked and some of the ideas he threw out told Gybbon that Mora’s parents had chosen well when considering their daughter’s safety.
Chapter Six
“Oh, my dear,” said Jolene when Mora disrobed enough to show her the wound. “You are very close to being badly infected by this wound. Lie down. I fear the first thing I must do is close it.”
“I ken it.” Mora lay down on the bed and winced as she looked at the wound; it looked redder than it had, was still open, and there was a little swelling around it. “I thought that it might need a stitch or two, but I just couldnae sew my own skin shut.”
“No, I can fully understand that. This will all hurt,” Jolene said as she began to gather the things she needed to work.
“Ye dinnae have any soothing words?”
“No, and if I tried them on any of these mad Camerons, I would be laughed at or seriously lectured about lying. I do have to cleanse this as much as I can and that will hurt. Mayhap that will make the rest seem less unpleasant. Myself? I will cry like a tiny bairn if I am even told a wound on me needs stitching.”
“I have ne’er been stitched up but all my brothers have been, and they tried to make me believe it was naught, just a wee pinch.”
Setting down a bowl of hot, soapy water, Jolene wet the clean rag she had and then placed a cloth beneath Mora in the area of the wound. She then grabbed a couple of long strips of cloth to tie around Mora’s wrists, tying the other ends to the small posts that were at the head of the bed. She met Mora’s very wide eyes and suddenly laughed.
“I should have warned you. I do that so I do not get punched in the face when something I do hurts the one I am working on.”
“People have punchedyou?” Mora worried about what she was about to suffer.
“Oh my, yes, and when you get punched by a Cameron, it really hurts, and then I must act as if it doesnae hurt much to keep Sigimor from hurting them for hurting me.” She wet the cloth, wrung it out, and without another word, she started to wash Mora’s wound. “Try not to scream or curse or I will have the men in here and I think you would like to avoid that.”
