“Then why does he keep you?” snapped a thin-faced redhead.
“To seduce me,” she replied. “What is your name?” she asked of the less wounded man who crouched on the other side of her patient.
“’Tis Robert,” he replied in a hoarse voice.
“Weel, Robert, ye will have to hold him still.” She carefully threaded her needle. “Now, ye women,” she continued as she began to stitch yet another large wound, guessing this one could well prove fatal, “I understand why ye would wish these men ill—”
The brunette gave a scornful laugh. “Ill? I wish them to rot and burn in a thousand hells.”
“Fair enough. Of course, helping these men could help you.”
“How? How could doing even the smallest good for our abusers aid us?”
“I saidcould, just mayhaps, not for certain. If ye turn a hand to aiding them—only in mending their hurts and the likes—ye could soften their feelings toward you. Ye wouldnae just be captives but one of those who helped bind that mon’s wounds or bathed that mon’s fevered brow. And there is their selfishness to think on. Ye might be seen as more use in aiding the wounded than in being one mon’s plunder. The others may begin to object to your being abused. After all, if ye are treated too harshly, ye might not be able to help them. ’Tis but a thought.”
“Aye, but it holds some sense,” murmured the brunette, even as she walked to Jennet’s side. The redhead quickly followed. “If naught else, ’twill keep me busy, too busy to become sunk in self-pity and sorrow.”
Jennet glanced at the three women who remained huddled together, making no move toward her, not even acknowledging that they had heard her request. “They dinnae agree?”
“Who can say? I think they have grown sick in their minds. I am Elizabeth and that is Mary.” Elizabeth nodded toward the redhead at her side. “We have the misfortune to belong to Gordon Frazer and his faithful cur, Mad Morgan.”
“I am Jennet.”
As she briefly shook each woman’s hand she tried to hide her pity. Both men were well known to be rough and brutish. They were short, squarely built, and indisputably ugly. Whereas some men were reluctantly caught up in the bloodlust, Frazer and Morgan thrived on the killing.
Afraid she had been quiet too long and revealed her horror to the women, Jennet quickly said, “Help me bandage this boy.”
“So young,” muttered Elizabeth as she lent a hand. “Too young to die.”
“He willnae die,” declared Robert.
“Nay? ’Tis no mere scoring of the skin here. ’Tis best if you face the truth about your friend’s fate.”
“He is my brother,” Robert whispered, then tugged away from Jennet and Mary when they moved to help him. “I dinnae need coddling. I mean to set here by my brother.”
“Fine. Set there,” Jennet snapped as she tugged off his battered helmet. “Ye willnae serve the lad weel if ye faint from your wounds and fall on top of him.” Once his jupon and shirt were removed, Jennet nearly gasped, for he had an open bleeding wound that covered the full breadth of his chest.
“It has been said that Sir Hacon grabbed himself a sharp-tongued wench,” Robert muttered. “I see ’tis true.”
“So my fame spreads out before me, does it?” As she bathed the sword cut across his hairy chest, she shook her head. “Ye should have spoken up. I would have seen to this sooner had I kenned it was so bad.”
“’Tis but a scratch.”
“A scratch, ye say? If this ‘scratch’ was but a hair deeper, ye would have parts of you dropping out that ye would sore grieved to lose. Mary, there is a fair lot of blood matting that red hair of his. See if he has lost more than his wits.”
When she began to stitch his wound, everyone fell silent. Out of the corner of her eye, Jennet saw Elizabeth gently cover the man’s young brother with a blanket and begin to bathe his face. Clearly, Elizabeth would not turn the hate and anger she felt for her brutal captor against everyone. Jennet wondered if there was a way to free the woman before Gordon Frazer’s harsh treatment of her killed all the softness in her.
“What were ye doing in Berwick? Were you with the English?” Robert asked, his voice ragged with pain as she bound his wounds.
Deciding there was no reason to keep it a secret, Jennet told her story as she efficiently tended to his lesser injuries. “’Twould be nice to learn my father’s fate, but . . .” She finished with a shrug, trying to appear resigned.
“Weel, ye should ask your mon.”
“He isnae my mon.”
“He might ken, for he was there.”
“Sir Gillard was at Perth?”
