“O’ course.”Carenza drew near, wringing her hands.“How can I help, Peris?”
He handed her a wee vial.“Pour out a cup o’ the wine.Then add three drops o’ this.No more.No less.”
While she fetched the wine, the physician carefully removed the remains of Hew’s leine.
“’Tisn’t too severe,” he proclaimed as he studied Hew’s damaged flesh.“The worst is your hand.Your arms should heal within a day or two.But ye won’t be able to wield an axe for a while.”
When Carenza returned with the wine, the sight of his injuries must have shocked her.She fumbled the cup in her hands and nearly dropped it.
“Does it look that bad?”Hew rasped out.
“Nay,” she rushed to say, turning as red as his arms.After that, she wouldn’t meet his gaze, though her eyes flitted frequently to his bare chest.
“Have him drink it down quick,” Peris said.
Hew hated the way he was shivering.Doubly hated that he wasn’t able to even hold his own cup.
But the compassion in her eyes, the light breeze of her sweet breath upon his face, and the touch of her delicate fingers on his chin as she tipped the cup up for him almost extinguished the fiery pain searing his arms.
The wine did the rest.
Whatever was in the vial, it worked quickly.Once he laid back on the pallet, his shudders subsided.The burning in his arms lessened.And lethargy drained the strength from him.
When Carenza drew near to mop his brow with a cool rag, he looked up at her with glazed eyes and smiled.
She was a mess.She was still clad in the blackened shreds of her leine and the scorched arisaid she’d adjusted for modesty.Strings of her dark hair, strewn with dead grass, had escaped her braid and now hung like a frayed mantle over her shoulders.Her hands were filthy.Her pendant was askew.Ash smudged her perfect nose and painted her rosy cheek.
But his last thought as he drifted off to a land of oblivious euphoria was that he had never seen a more beautiful woman.
Samhain had been cut short after Carenza’s accident.But before the clanfolk retired, they took the time to snatch branches from the bonfire to light their own hearths for good luck.The sacrifices from the harvest had worked to appease the dark spirits.No evil entity had dared to venture past the bright fire of the living to do harm.Unless you counted the wicked flames that had licked at Carenza’s gown.
Now, with Hew sleeping soundly, Peris and her father chatted quietly by the fire.
“O’ course he’ll stay at Dunlop to mend,” her father announced.
Carenza was afraid of that.
She could feel things happening in her heart that did not bode well for the future.Things like the way it had softened, knowing Hew had sacrificed his own safety to keep her from harm.Things like how it pounded when she beheld his bare chest, bold and magnificent.Things like the way it ached when she thought of the kind warrior wasting away in a monastery instead of taking a wife.
She sighed.She needed to listen to the voice of destiny.Hew’s fate was spoken for.By a higher power than she possessed.
It was hard to remember with temptation so close at hand.
“But he’ll miss All Saints Day,” she argued, “and All Souls Day.”
“Tis best not to move him in his condition,” her father said.“Besides, the physician is already here.”
“But they have an infirmary with beds at Kildunan,” she told him.“Ye can have your bedchamber back.”
She knew she was grasping at straws.Her father was perfectly content to sleep on the rushes in the great hall with his clanfolk.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said.
“He’s goin’ to need watchin’ o’er, day and night,” the physician warned.He held up the vial.“He’ll need drops o’ this every few hours.”
“Right,” Carenza agreed.“At Kildunan, they have dozens o’ monks who are up all night, prayin’.Surely they can—”
“I insist,” her father insisted.“’Tis the least we can do for the man who saved your life.”To the physician, he said, “Ye’ll o’ersee his care.And if ye’re called away, Lady Carenza can look after him.”He uttered the words with far more enthusiasm than Carenza deemed appropriate.
