“I’ve got this,” he said.“Can ye thread the needle and soak it with verjuice?”
She nodded, no doubt glad to be relieved of the gruesome duty.
While he kept pressure on the wound, he eyed the discarded dagger.
It was a standard weapon.It could have belonged to anyone.But when his glance caught on the metal seal embedded in the haft, his blood ran cold.
It was the Scottish royal insignia.Simon had been stabbed by one of the king’s men.
An unthinkable possibility reared its ugly head.
“Fonia,” he whispered out of Eve’s hearing.“Whose clan do ye belong to?”
“Fergus,” she murmured back.“Why?”
The terrible truth hit him like a quintain in the gut.But he forced a smile of reassurance to his lips.“Ye have clanfolk to care for ye then?”
“Aye.”
Adam ground his teeth.Bloody hell.The king needed a firmer rein on his men-at-arms.
It wasn’t difficult to figure out what had happened.Rogue royal soldiers had stopped at the alehouse, drank too much, and decided to avail themselves of the charms of the Fergus clan alewife.Her husband had intervened to protect her and been stabbed for his efforts.And to destroy the evidence, the men had set fire to the alehouse.
He felt sick.War was supposed to be noble.Armed warriors fighting armed warriors.Not innocent innkeepers and wives murdered in their dwellings.Not defenseless crofters and children slain in cold blood.Not unarmed clanfolk suffering burned fields, butchered cattle, and decimated villages.
Both sides, it seemed, were guilty of dishonorable battle tactics.
He’d witnessed the lawless raids from the Fergus clan.
Now he saw evidence of rampant violence on behalf of the king.
Adam was trapped in the midst of the corruption.By oath, he must be loyal to King Malcolm.But in his soul, he knew what the king allowed was wrong.
The only way out of the turmoil was to subdue both sides.To somehow convince them that war wasn’t the answer.But he wondered if that was a hopeless endeavor, considering how much men loved to wield weapons.
He’d subdued an uprising before, at Perth, between the king and his rebelling lairds.For that, he’d used the power of the church.He doubted it would work in this situation.But perhaps, being a spy on both sides of the war, he could whisper in the ears of the two leaders and persuade them to come to a peaceful compromise.
Eve, averting her eyes, presented him with the threaded needle.
He carefully removed the blood-soaked gown.The cut was still there, but the bleeding had subsided for the moment.Still, he had to work fast.
“I’m goin’ to need both o’ ye to help hold him down.”
Though he worked quickly, stitching up the wound was an unpleasant task.Simon jerked awake and moaned with each jab of the needle.And Fonia sobbed with each of his moans of pain.
Finally it was done.
“A dollop o’ honey, a clean bandage,” he announced, “and Simon should be good as new.”
Eve wasn’t so sure about that.
Simon had roused with a yelp when Adam made the first stitch to close his wound.He was obviously glad to see his wife unharmed and the knife out of his side.But the pain of the needle was fierce.And sometimes infection set in after such a wound.On top of his physical suffering, the sight of his smoldering alehouse was doubtless dispiriting.
With Fonia’s encouragement, he survived the rest of the stitches.
As for Eve, she hadn’t been able to watch.She couldn’t imagine how Adam could endure it.On the other hand, she supposed a Rivenloch warrior had to be accustomed to inflicting and repairing wounds.
She handed him the pot of honey and linen for bandages.
