Late on the second night—or early the third morning—the king became delirious. Helen mopped his brow, squeezed drops of whisky in his mouth, and tried to keep him calm, but she didn’t know what to do. She was losing him, and never had she felt so helpless.
She gazed at Magnus, who had taken a position opposite her at the king’s bedside. The stress of the situation had caught up to her, and tears of frustration and exhaustion gathered in her throat. “Where is Muriel? Why isn’t she here?”
Magnus detected the threat of hysteria lurking behind the despair. He took her hand in his as he used to do when they were young, and gave it an encouraging squeeze. It was so firm and strong. The king’s illness had toppled the wall Magnus had erected between them—at least temporarily.
“The king can’t wait for Muriel, Helen. He needs you. I know you’re tired. I know you’re exhausted. I am, too. But you can do this.”
There was something about his voice that calmed her fraying nerves. It was how he’d been the entire time throughout his own ordeal. It was as if the direness of the situation, the pressure, the stress, never reached him. He knew the king was dying, but his confidence in her never wavered.
God, had she really thought him too temperate? He was solid—a rock. An anchor in a stormy sea.
She nodded. “You’re right.”
With a burst of renewed energy and determination, she asked him to describe the king’s previous illness for her again, wondering if she could have missed something.
He spoke of the king’s pallor and weakness, the sunken eyes, the violent nausea, and the lesions on his skin. All common characteristics of the sailors’ illness.
Helen could still see the scars on the king’s legs where those lesions had been. But so far, no new ones had appeared.
“Was there any swelling of his limbs?” she asked.
He shook his head. “There could have been; I don’t remember.”
Helen knew that was a common trait of the sailors’ illness.
“What is it?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing.” Or nothing she could put her finger on. But the absence of the skin lesions and swelling bothered her.
Other maladies ran through her mind, but the one that made the most sense was the sailors’ illness. The only other time she’d seen something like this was when one of the villagers had accidentally been poisoned by handling monkshood.
Poison. Here at Dunrobin? Even the suspicion could have horrible ramifications for her family, whose recent submission made them of suspect loyalty as it was. She quickly pushed the thought away.
“There must be something else you can do? Something you haven’t tried?”
She hesitated, and he immediately jumped on that hesitation. “What is it?”
She shook her head. “It’s too dangerous.” The finger-like plant foxglove was poisonous in certain quantities, causing violent vomiting not unlike what the king was experiencing now. Except that sometimes, Muriel said it could effect a cure of the same. The difficulty was in determining the quantity.
He held her gaze, steady. “I think we are past caution, Helen. If there is something you can do—anything you can do—try it.”
He was right. Dunrobin village was too small for an apothecary, but Muriel had always kept the castle well provisioned. “Keep giving him the whisky and try squeezing some of the juice from the lemon,” she said. Fortunately, the trading routes from the East had opened again with the truce, and the availability of foreign fruits had become more plentiful. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
She returned in less than a quarter of an hour with the tincture of foxglove, vinegar, and white wine. Her brothers, Gregor MacGregor, and other high-ranking members of the king’s retinue who were standing vigil in the Great Hall and wanted to know whether there was any improvement had delayed her a few additional minutes. Magnus had given strict instruction that the news of the king’s illness must be kept quiet—Bruce’s hold on the throne was still too precarious. There would be some who would try to take advantage. Undoubtedly he counted her family in that group.
When she saw the king’s stilled body, she feared the worst. “Is he …?”
Magnus shook his head. “He’s alive.”Barely, she heard the unspoken word. “But exhausted,” he finished.
The delirium had weakened him even further. Helen knew she had no other choice. Praying that she hadn’t used too much, she poured the medicine in a small pottery cup. Her hand shook as she held it to the king’s mouth. Magnus lifted the king’s head and she poured it between his chapped lips. His face was as gray as a death mask.
Some of the liquid dribbled out of the corner of his mouth, but most of it went down.
She and Magnus sat in silence, anxiously waiting for a sign. Helen was beset by self-doubt, wondering if she’d done the right thing. For a while nothing happened. Then the king woke and started to writhe. Her fear increased. He started to lash out, calling her Elizabeth—his queen still imprisoned in England—and demanding to know why she hadn’t bought him marzipan for his last saint’s day. He loved marzipan. Was she still angry with him about the woman? She didn’t mean anything. None of them did.
Magnus held the king down, and their eyes met. He looked at her in question.
“Sometimes it makes people see things.” She explained the king’s vision of his imprisoned wife, ignoring the private conversation they’d overheard. But the king’s love of the lasses was well known.
