CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The village hall smelled of blood and herbs and unwashed bodies.
Mhairi knelt beside a makeshift stretcher where a woman lay with a deep gash across her forearm. The woman's face was pale, her breathing shallow, and her eyes were glazed with shock.
"I need ye tae stay still," Mhairi said, her voice calm despite the chaos around her. "I'm going tae bind this wound, and it might hurt, but I need ye tae hold steady fer me. Can ye dae that?"
The woman nodded weakly.
Mhairi worked quickly, cleaning the wound with water and a cloth before applying pressure to stop the bleeding.
Her hands were steady, Donnach's training serving her well, and she wrapped the bandage with the precise tension she'd practiced fer hours in the castle healing chambers.
"Good," she murmured as she tied off the binding. "That should hold until we can get ye tae a proper healer fer stitches."
She moved to the next patient, a young man with burns across his hands from trying to put out fires. Then an elderly woman with a broken wrist. Then a child who'd been trampled in the panic and had a badly bruised shoulder.
Patient after patient, injury after injury. The work was endless.
"Mhairi." Alpin appeared beside her carrying a bucket of fresh water. "Ye need tae drink something."
"I'm fine. There are still people who need help."
"Drink." He pressed a ladle of water into her hands. "Ye cannae help anyone if ye collapse from exhaustion."
She drank, barely tasting the water, then immediately returned to work.
Alpin stayed close, anticipating what she needed before she had to ask. When she reached for supplies, he had them ready. When a patient needed to be propped up, he was there to support them. When her hands shook from fatigue, he steadied them with his own.
They worked together like they'd been doing it for years instead of hours.
"Bandages," she said, and he handed them to her.
"Clean water," and the bucket appeared at her side.
"That woman over there is swayin’."
Alpin was already moving, catching the woman before she could fall and guiding her to sit against the wall.
Hours blurred together.
The light through the hall's windows shifted from afternoon brightness to the softer glow of approaching sunset. Mhairi's back ached from bending over patients, her knees protested from kneeling on the hard floor, and her hands were stained with blood and dirt.
But she kept working.
"Me lady?" An older villager approached her, a man she vaguely recognized from her trips to the village with Donnach. "That's me wife ye just tended. Thank ye. I thought we'd lost her when the raiders came through."
"She'll be fine," Mhairi assured him. "The wound was clean. Just keep it dry and watch fer signs of infection."
"Ye have a gift, miss. Just like old Donnach." The man's eyes were damp. "We're blessed tae have ye here."
Mhairi's throat tightened. "I'm just daein’ what I can."
"It's more than most would dodae He glanced at where Alpin was helping another patient. "And our laird, he's lucky tae have found ye."
Before she could respond, someone called for her help across the hall. She moved on, but the man's words stayed with her.
By the time the last patient had been stabilized, Mhairi could barely stand. She'd just finished binding a child's sprained ankle when Alpin appeared beside her again.
