And with that, she turned and left the building.
Chapter Seven
The Truth Will Come
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Ciaran paused outside the chamber door, feeling the weight of his own reluctance pressing down hard. He hated to be wrong, hated even more to admit it aloud. But three men had gone feverish that morning, their wounds no worse than half a dozen others who were already walking. Claire’s words from yesterday echoed despite all his attempts to shove them aside.
Hot water. Clean linen. Sterilize everything.
Nonsense, he’d told himself then. Yet the memory of her certainty—standing up to both him and Diarmad, her voice never faltering—stayed with him. He had dismissed her too quickly, and now the price of that dismissal lay groaning in the infirmary.
He rapped once on the door to the chamber Alaric shared with Ivy Mitchell, Alaric having advised of Ivy and Claire’s location. At the call for entrance, he pushed open the door and stepped inside—and immediately, he felt too large in the space, too rough-edged, as though his boots and sword didn’t belong among such quiet things.
The chamber was not what he expected. It had been softened since Ivy had claimed it. Chairs had found their way inside, cushioned and comfortable, a blanket folded neatly across one. The faint sweetness of lavender sat in the air. The bed was draped with several léines and kirtles.
Both women looked up as he entered. Claire stiffened, the smile she’d been showing Ivy’s bairn disappearing.
Ciaran swallowed.
Claire sat in one of those newly added chairs by the window with the swaddled infant in her arms. Ivy stood near the bed, folding garments strewn about there.
“Laird Kerr,” Ivy greeted him, quick to hide her surprise at his coming. “Come in. What can I do for you?”
He cleared his throat. “’Tis her I came for.” He turned his regard to Claire.
Claire blinked, surprise flickering across her features. “Me?”
“Aye.”
She looked natural there with the bairn, her posture easy, her hands steady as she shifted the babe against her shoulder and rose to her feet. The wee one made a small sound, and Claire soothed her with a gentle pat that seemed second nature. She swayed side to side in a rhythmic motion.
Ciaran’s throat tightened unexpectedly. He did not step further into the chamber and Claire did not stray far from the chair across the room.
“Aye.” He repeated, shifted his weight, then rested his hand on the door’s latch. “I was...wrong yesterday,” he said, his gaze fixed on Claire’s hand on the bairn’s back, watching it pat lightly. “Too quick to dismiss ye.” The words tasted like gravel, but he forced them out. “And now, today, three lads burn with fever. Lads who shouldnae be laid so low.”
Claire’s expression softened—to her credit, she did not wear a smug expression, though surely she could have—but she didn’t speak, seemed to wait for him to say why he’d come.
The crease on his forehead deepened. “Ye said there was a reason for it, why fever would come. Something unseen, carried from one to the next. I dinna ken what ye meant, but...I’d hear it again.”
For a moment, Claire only stared at him.
“If ye’ll explain it,” he requested, as polite as he could manage while eating crow. “For their sake.”
Still swaying and patting, Claire said evenly, “What I meant is simple. The fevers come from dirt, from other blood, from bacteria—tiny things, alive but too small to see—that get into wounds when they’re touched with filthy cloth or tools. That’s what causes the infection.”
He listened, aware peripherally that Ivy had resumed folding the garments, though her attention was on Claire as well.
“I suggested boiling instruments and all the linen used there in...that place,” she went on, “andboil the leather pouch the doctor keeps his instruments in. And the straw beneath the men should be changed daily—or better yet, get rid of it altogether. Lord knows what kind of bugs and debris are in there. Ideally, they would be kept on raised beds, simple cots are fine, but made of something or covered with something that can be cleaned. Essentially, everything should be sterilized—made clean. That’s what the boiling will do.”
“And this will prevent fever from claiming lives?” He asked.
“It will reduce the risk,” Claire clarified firmly. “You probably won’t or can’t eradicate fever altogether, not in these conditions, with so many...variables. But you can reduce the risk. Maybe only one man would have developed a fever today instead of three if those practices were in place.”
He’d come because what she’d said yesterday had stuck with him, but it still seemed to him almost too...simple.
“I dinna mean to offend, but what ye say is...” He searched for the word, his brows pulling tight. “It’s too plain. Too small a thing to hold so much power.”
