Her eyes widened and she gasped, turned and ran for her boots. “Help me,” she pleaded, jamming a foot into one. Stellan set aside his relief that she would accept his help, knelt and got her other boot on and laced, then pulled her to her feet. She was shaking and breathing too fast.
“Calm yerself, lass. ’Tis likely the healer is still working on him. He’ll need ye to be steady enough to listen if he has anything to tell ye or any orders for ye. And ye need to be calm for yer people.”
She nodded and headed out the door, leaving Stellan to close it behind them. He followed her rapid footsteps to the herbal and paused in the doorway, not certain whether he should go in. The men who’d carried in their laird had gone. The healer was alone with her patient. She finished stitching up the laird’s side as Mariota approached and blanched. Stellan moved behind her and led her to a seat.
“I’ll be done in a wee,” the healer said while slathering a foul-smelling poultice on the wound. “Yer da is made of strongstuff. The tusk didna penetrate too deep, so despite all the blood ye see, he should be fine in a fortnight, I’d say. He’ll need rest and someone to handle his responsibilities for a few days. That would be ye, lass, aye?”
Mariota nodded. “Has he said anything?”
The healer shook her head. “Nay, ye can see he lost a lot of blood. I got a draught in him for the pain so he should sleep a while yet. While I clean up, sit with him in case he does wake. Ye, too, lad,” she said to Stellan. “He may wake thinking the boar is still moving, and try to avoid it. Ye need to keep him still until he realizes where he is.”
“I will,” Stellan promised, his gaze on Mariota. Tears glimmered in her eyes. After all her father had done to, and not done for her, she still cared about him. Perhaps even loved him. It hurt to see someone you cared about injured and suffering. Even if you didn’t like them much. Mariota had little reason to like her father, but he was still her father, so Stellan sympathized with what she was going through.
The healer left to see to herself, leaving the two of them to sit vigil over the MacKay laird. Mariota alternated between sitting by her father and pacing around the chamber, walking off her anxiety. Each time she passed near Stellan, he wanted to reach for her hand, to offer what comfort he could, but she avoided his touch and kept going. As time passed, a few from the hunting party looked in for a moment, but let them be when they found nothing had changed.
“Cook has the boar,” one reported. “I’d wager the MacKay will enjoy eating that bastard more than most.”
Mariota, again sitting by her father, choked out a laugh. “Aye, nay doubt he will.”
The man gave her a grin, nodded to Stellan and to his sleeping laird, and left them.
“Boar broth is very good for a wounded man,” Stellan said, trying to reassure her. “Or so the Sutherland healer often says. Though perhaps she means it much as yer man just said, as a way to get revenge on the beast.”
“Which would make the meat even better when he’s ready for it,” Mariota agreed, giving Stellan a sad smile. “’Twill be a day or two, I’d guess, before he’ll want that.”
“Mayhap, but the healer said the wound wasna bad.”
The MacKay twitched.
Stellan stood and went to stand by him in case he did as the healer feared and thrashed about.
“Canna tell them,” MacKay muttered.
Mariota stood, eyebrows creased under a frown. “Canna tell what?”
“Promised her.”
“Promised who, Da? Promised what?”
He mumbled some more, then subsided.
Stellan traded a frown with Mariota. “What did that mean?”
“I dinna ken.”
“The lad is called Alber,” MacKay suddenly said. “After his da.”
Mariota paled and her eyes went wide as she studied her father, then looked again at Stellan. “I dinna like this.”
He didn’t either. It wasn’t much of a leap to think that the MacKay had promised a woman to raise her son. Who was the father, and why was he important enough to the laird to take in a lad who was not his? Stellan could see another possibility, that he had a child with his friend’s wife. That would explain why Mariota hadn’t been told, and why he had let Alber run wild as he had. Did Alber know?
Nay, that didn’t feel right. “We shouldna jump to conclusions, lass.” Though he had, and he knew she had, too.
“Da has much to answer for if this means what I fear it does.”
“I dinna think it does. There’s a simpler explanation.”
She clenched her jaw and shook her head. “Ye are right. That doesna make sense. He’s no’ been pleased to have a daughter as his heir. Alber is older than I by at least two years. Why would Da no’ claim him? He could have been named heir already.”
