“Ach, that’s what ye mean,” he muttered to himself, and straightened up from where he bent over the journal. “Another symbol sorted,” he announced to her with a smile.
She moved to his side and looked where he indicated. He’d drawn the symbol her mother used and identified it, then listed several uses for the plant it represented. “Another mystery solved,” she said. “Ye must ken how grateful I am. Yer notes will make it possible for me to become the healer I would have been had mother lived.”
Jamie took her hand in his. “Yer mother still lives in her journal.”
Aftyn’s throat closed and she clung to that sentiment. “Ye are right,” she choked out. “My best memories of her are wrapped up in the care she gave the sick and injured.”
“She meant her journal to preserve her methods,” Jamie told her. “We just have to understand it.” He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.
Aftyn suddenly realized other than Niall, she had never seen Jamie willingly touch another person’s skin.
His kindness warmed Aftyn to her bones, but his touch heated her in an entirely different way.
He’d been harsh with her when they first met, but he’d been right. She’d had no business treating Niall. In retrospect, she could admit that just because she was good with stitches did not mean she was competent to cut off his leg and keep him from bleeding to death. “I owe ye and Niall an apology,” she said, reluctantly pulling her hand from his and crossing her arms. This was so hard. Her future might depend on whether Jamie accepted her apology. “I should never have thought to remove his leg. It was foolish of me to contemplate it. And dangerous. I wanted to save him, but I could have killed him with my ignorance.” She shuddered at the idea of what might have happened had his companions not been able to argue against her plan, and leave Fearchar there to protect him from her.
“Ye meant well, lass. I see that now. I’m sorry too, that I was so angry with ye. I didna ken…”
“Nay, ye were right.” She interrupted him, not wanting to discuss what he didn’t know about her situation, for that could lead to even more revelations she did not wish to make. “I never should have been so hot-headed with ye the first night. I kenned what it cost Rabbie to bring ye so quickly, and that ye had to be wrung out before ye even started to treat Niall. I… my anger was inexcusable.”
“Mine, too, lass.”
“And I want ye to ken how grateful I am to ye. I have come so far with yer help, yer guidance. Ye will leave me a much better healer than when ye arrived.”
Jamie had worked miracles, and the thought made her brow crease. She still did not know what he’d done to Niall’s wound for it to improve so rapidly.
There was so much to learn, and so little time before Jamie left. The task before her might as well have been a mountain, reaching to the sky, steep and impossible to climb. She’d never scale it. No one could learn all she needed to know in time.
“What fashes ye, lass?”
Jamie must have noticed the dismay on her face. “Nought,” she lied, then thought better of it. She might wish he would stay longer, but her father’s threat still hung over her head. “There’s so much I dinna ken. How ye saved Niall’s leg, for one.”
“Ye saw the tissue I cut away. It would never heal the way it was. Each day, several times a day, I rinse the wound with a weak vinegar solution.”
“I smelled whisky, too.”
“Only at first, and only while Niall remained passed out. It… burns. Vinegar does much the same with less pain.”
“What else?”
“The poultice ye ken. Yers was too old and the wound track too contaminated with lichen and soil from the forest. Dry as much of these,” he said, waving at the bunches hanging along the wall, “as ye can, then use them as ye need. Some of these preparations will keep for a few weeks, some longer, some only a short time. I’m writing down everything for ye, including a new one I want for Niall.”
With Jamie’s notes, she could use her mother’s journal as it had been intended. She would always have the pages he wrote for her, his handwriting a constant reminder of their time together. But she wouldn’t havehim. She would miss him. She turned away to fuss with a bunch of herbs, hiding her face from him. Surely her expression would reveal her sense of loss.
“Now, I have a question for ye,” Jamie continued, clearly unaware of the path Aftyn’s thoughts had taken. “Can wee Alastair be found, do ye think? I would like to be certain he has no wounds or broken bones suffered at Rory’s hands. The lad is quick and may be unhurt, but I’d like to ken that before I leave.”
“I’ll send Neve to find him.” Aftyn’s heart swelled that Jamie would care about the wee lad, but the thought of Jamie leaving made her chest ache. “If he isna home with Mhairi, someone will ken where he bides.”
“Good. Are there others in the village ye wish me to see? Those who havenae gotten better after days or weeks of care? Ye ken the laird asked me to help ye with such while I am here.”
Aftyn frowned. She wasn’t surprised at that news, but it hurt, all the same. Jamie must have noticed her reaction.
“Ye didna ken?”
“Nay.” She couldn’t tell him why it bothered her. Still, as much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, her father was right. They should take advantage of Jamie’s expertise while he was here. And she knew whom she wanted him to see first.
“There’s a woman with a wasting disease. She’s terribly ill. Lately, she’s started having trouble breathing. I fear she will not survive much longer, but perhaps if ye could do something for her, or at least make her passing easier…”
Jamie frowned. “I will see her, and do what I can for her, but I will no’ kill her.”
