“Bring her inside an’ lie the wee one on the table.” Elias shifted over to his medicine chest and began to lift out vials and bottles.
The youth muttered an apology to Denny Macmillan, who sat upon a stool with lint bandages wrapped around his leg before lowering his sister to the physician’s table. Denny told the youth not to mention it; he was happy to step aside if it were to help wee Alice.
“Denny, yer leg is wrapped up all right an’ tight. It should heal nicely in a few days. Dinnae walk on it too much ’til I see ye again.” Kinney helped Farmer Macmillan to hop out of the door to where his cart and horse was waiting for him, and then he turned to the girl who lay still as a corpse upon his table, feeling her forehead and placing the palm of his hand gently on her chest so as to feel the strength of her heart.
The youth began to recount the symptoms. “When I came from work this evening, Elias, I found her thus. She’s been feelin’ poorly for a long spell, but I was only able to get the gold after noon this day.”
“Is that so now?” Kinney said, pulling back the girl’s eyelids. The irises beneath were a pretty sky blue, but hazy and without recognition. “Och, I’m an auld goat for bein’ so harsh with me payments, lad, but ye ken full well how dear these herbs and roots are. I need to warn ye…I should’ve done it years ago when yer parents were lost to the plague. Yer dear Alice here will never be whole. The most we can do is make her comfortable. The cost of keeping yer sister in cordials will be yers to bear for the rest o’ yer life, laddie. Now, where d’ye get the gold?”
The youth hung his head, making his long black hair fall over his face, but when he spoke, he looked at the healer, and his green eyes seemed to pierce the apothecary’s soul.
“I sold a small jewel out of our faither’s sword.”
Everyone in the village knew the youth’s father had been a noble warrior, descended from a long line of lairds and chieftains. The elders would always say, “It’s uncanny how the lad is so like his faither, while wee Alice is the living spittin’ image o’ her mother.” Now, all that was left of the man’s memory was the richly inlaid sword the lad’s father had carried into battle.
Elias sighed. He did not doubt the strapping youth had managed to get a pretty price for one of the jewels set in the sword’s hilt, but that was not the point.
“Laddie, Alice will never get better, ye ken. What are ye going to sell once the sword is gone?”
The physician looked over the girl in his charge and listened to the faint and rasping sound of her breathing. He then looked at the youth with true heartbreak showing on his face. “Well, lad, what are ye going to do? Ye cannae work even longer days than ye are already.”
The stubborn look came over the youth’s face again. “Dinnae ye fash about that, Elias. When the time comes, I’ll find a way. I’llalwaysfind a way.”
1
“How d’ye manage it?”
Laura looked up from her plate. Her sister-in-law Arabella was watching her with a look of awe upon her face.
“What?” Laura asked, bewildered.
Arabella was watching her hands, which made Laura glance down at them too. Like the rest of her, the digits were pale and slim. Her slender fingers were currently wrapped around one of the many silver utensils on the dining table. Between them lay the leg of lamb she had been avidly attacking until Belle had caught her attention.
“How do you manage to eat so gracefully?” Belle explained. She gestured to Laura’s hands with her fork. “I could practice my whole life and never be as elegant as you.”
Considering the way she had been stripping meat from bone, Laura wasn’t entirely sure that she agreed with her friend. It had been a long day, and she had missed the noonday repast. She had been too hungry to consider her table etiquette. Apparently, years of education had taken over and saved her the embarrassment of inelegant manners. At least enough that Belle was issuing compliments.
“I hadn’t noticed,” Laura admitted. “But I suppose that is a benefit of fresh eyes, no?”
Arabella Munro, nee Henderson, originally Fisher, was a woman of many names but little upbringing. Born to the common folk of the Highlands, it had been only two years since Henry had brought her into the world of social cues and expected mannerisms. Some she had conformed to, such as using a frayed stick of hazel wood to clean her teeth in the mornings and evenings. Others, such as wearing tight stays around her slim waist, the beautiful woman had rebelled against.
“Ye eat with great finesse, Bella,” Henry promised from the head of the table. “Stop worrying.”
As Arabella’s husband and Laura’s brother, Henry’s place setting was appropriate but more from habit than any real authority. Belle was of the Henderson bloodline. The castle in which they sat was only Henry’s by virtue of a marriage contract. Both always seemed more than aware of these bizarre circumstances and ruled Belle’s father’s lands together. As a partnership.
Not that Belle had ever taken the seat at the opposing end of their majestic dining table. She always had flatly refused.
Laura still remembered her sister-in-law’s words the first day she had eschewed her rightful seat as matron of the house:
What is the point of eating together if we cannot speak with one another? Having a meal should include sharing more than just our time.
Laura had known her stuffy brother to be in love the moment he had refused to argue. He had bowed to his wife’s favor without one word of protest. And she had only to look at Belle’s face now to know that the deep feelings of love were mutual.
“I think ye’re sabotaging me, Munro,” she told her husband. She took up her cutlery and continued to eat with her nose in the air. “Ye wish to have yer sister outshine me at every possible opportunity.”
The twinkle in Belle’s pretty, dark orbs told Laura all she needed to know. She smothered her smile behind her napkin.
“My sister needs no advantage in shining,” Henry declared with filial devotion. “If I were intending to sabotage ye, Arabella, it would be more likely to ensure meself a lack of rivals for yer affection.”
