“Actually, I believe it was ten days before her wedding. But let us nay quibble o’er such things as how many days and whether or nay ye are the rutting swine your banners proclaim. There is but one truth that should concern us: Cecily is my wife. Ye yourself heard us declare it.”
“I heard no such thing.”
“I feared ye might say that, so we handfasted again in a wee village before three witnesses who have put their mark on a document. So, dry your tears and trot home.”
“Nay, Cecily Donaldson was promised to me and I mean to have her. If ye havenae the sense and honor to send her out to me, her betrothed husband, then we shall kick down these gates and drag her out.”
“Kick away,” called Angus.
“Is that really a rutting swine on those banners?” Bennet asked as he joined Artan in watching an obviously furious Sir Fergus ride away.
“A rampant boar actually,” replied Artan as he wondered if they would have a battle or be trapped for days just staring at each other and occasionally trading insults over the walls.
Artan was abruptly pulled from his dark thoughts about the tediousness of a siege by the sounds of pigs. It took him a moment to realize it was coming from the Glascreag men gathered on the walls. Bennet had obviously spread the word of what was on Sir Fergus’s banner. It was a good taunt, he decided.
It did not take long for Artan to see just what a good taunt it was. An enraged Sir Fergus decided to plunge right into battle. Or, more specifically, order his men to plunge into battle while he sat at a safe distance on his big white horse shouting commands and ordering them to try harder. It soon became clear that Laird MacIvor did not approve of this abrupt attack and had given his men permission to hold back or join in the fight if they chose to. Few chose to fight in what was clearly an ill-planned assault on well-defended walls. As Artan threw himself into the hard work of sheltering from volleys of arrows and defending Glascreag’s walls, he wondered just how long it would be before Sir Fergus’s own men decided their was no honor in dying for a fool and a coward, a man who recklessly wasted their lives, and turned on the man.
“M’lady, Crooked Cat says to come and show her just how good ye are at healing,” called a young girl from the door of the kitchen.
Before Cecily could respond the girl was gone. She set aside the herbs she had been preparing and hurried to the great hall that had already been prepared for tending to whatever wounded there were. Even in the far corner of the kitchen she had heard when the battle began. The cold fear that had flooded her body was still there. It was impossible not to think of how her husband and her uncle were out there on the walls in the way of arrows and swords.
She was horrified when she first stepped into the great hall. There was the scent of blood and sweat in the air, and there were a lot of men already gathered there waiting to have their wounds tended to. By the time she reached Crooked Cat’s side, however, Cecily had begun to see that most of the wounds were small ones caused primarily by protecting oneself from a shower of arrows or being grazed by them. A few men had more serious wounds, but only two of them looked as if they might not recover from their hurts.
“Just how good at healing are ye, lass?” Crooked Cat asked Cecily.
“The wise woman in our village said I was very good, mayhap e’en better than she,” Cecily replied, blushing for she sounded rather vain.
“And she was good was she?”
“Aye, people would travel miles just to see her.”
“Weel, then, ye best come with me.”
The moment they reached the young man stretched out on one of the tables lining the great hall, Cecily heartily wished she had not boasted of her skills. He had three arrow wounds and one looked to have just missed his heart. One arrow remained in his body, sticking out of his thigh. She recognized the work of the Donaldson fletcher.
“I am a wee bit afeared of taking that one out,” confessed Crooked Cat, speaking quietly so that others nearby could not overhear her. “He could bleed to death, aye?”
Cecily carefully studied the placement of the arrow. It was high up on the youth’s thigh and had gone all the way through. The young man was tall and almost too lean, and she was glad of that even if he probably was not. It meant, however, that she would not have to push the arrow all the way through, a necessity sometimes, but one she hated. It did look as if it was near a place where it could make a manbleed out,as Tall Lorna had called it.
“I would think that if that arrow had struck the place where the blood can flow as swiftly as it does from a cut throat, he would already be dead,” she told Crooked Cat in a soft voice.
“Aye, ye may be right.” Crooked Cat reached for the arrow to pull it out, then looked at Cecily in surprise when the younger woman stopped her. “I thought ye meant that the arrow could come out now.”
“It can, but the head of it needs to be cut off or whate’er damage it did going in will be dangerously added to as it comes out.”
For a moment Crooked Cat leaned over the young man to study the part of the arrow tip sticking out of him. “Aye, I can see it now. Makes sense. Suspicion ye could e’en risk hitting something it missed as it went in. So, now what do we do?”
After hastily washing her hands, Cecily showed her. She had a big, broad-shouldered woman called Mags hold the youth still as she pushed the arrow in until the point was completely clear of the body, then cut it off. Careful to clean the area around the shaft of all cloth and dirt, she then had Crooked Cat yank the shaft back out. To her relief, although the wound bled freely, it was not the pulsing flood that could so quickly drain the life from a man. With Crooked Cat’s help, she stitched and bandaged the wound and then checked his other wounds to be certain that they, too, were clean. As they left him in the care of a young girl who was obviously infatuated with the boy, Cecily paused to wash her hands again before they reached the next man who needed his wounds tended.
“Why do ye keep washing?” Crooked Cat asked.
“Trying to keep your hands and the wounds clean seems to help in the healing.”
“Is that what your wise woman told ye?”
“Aye, she was teaching me that no good healer e’er ignores what others say about healing. She told me that she used to, that she would decide they were all fools and she would do things just as her mother had taught her. Then she heard about how keeping her hands and the wounds clean might help hold back fevers and infections. She scoffed at that; but then something happened to make her think it might just do that e’en if no one could tell her why.
“She was called to aid a woman who was giving birth. ’Twas just after she had had the bath she takes every month.” Cecily ignored the way Crooked Cat shook her head and muttered her astonishment over anyone taking a bath so often. “As she told me, she was oftimes verra concerned about getting dirt on herself for a few days after her bath, and when she arrived at this woman’s house, she carefully scrubbed off the dirt that had gotten on her hands from hurriedly collecting a few herbs. The woman having the bairn was complaining bitterly about the bairn deciding to come right then, right after she had bathed and cleaned her house and all her linens. It seems an important member of her family was about to come to visit.”
