She looked around the room. There was a priest kneeling in the corner, counting prayers on his beads, his voice barely audible over Alasdair Og’s moans.
Someone else sat in the shadows, sprawled in the room’s only chair, regarding her with a coldness she could feel in her bones. The chief of the Sinclairs of Carraig Brigh wore a fine brooch on his shoulder, a red stone that glinted like the devil’s own eye in the candlelight. His hair was thick and dark like his son’s but shot through with gray, his face lined and haggard. Her heart went out to him too, knowing he’d been with his son through every tortured hour. The man needed sleep, and hope, and she had none to offer.
“Can you heal my son?” he demanded, his voice hard as flint, pitched low, as if he feared waking the man on the bed.
Moire treated simple sicknesses and injuries. She gave women herbs and charms to make or prevent babies, to ease pain, and to make birthing easier. She had no experience of battle wounds or madness. She glanced at the man who had brought her here, now standing between herself and the door with his arms crossed. His eyes were as cold as the chief’s. Even the priest glared at her, his beads still now, his eyes full of suspicion.
Moire approached the bed, checking the patient, buying precious time. Her hands shook, and her mind worked. What would she do if it were a pregnant lass lying here in pain? She put her palm on Alasdair Og’s forehead, felt the heat there. He flinched at her touch, muttered, “Jeannie . . .”
Moire couldn’t imagine what Alasdair was reliving in his fevered brain, didn’t want to. She lifted his eyelid with her thumb, looked into his eye. He did not look at her. She stepped back, rubbed her hands along her tattered skirts.
“Well?” Padraig Sinclair demanded.
Moire hesitated, overwhelmed. Such terrible wounds, such agony. Did she dare tell him that his son was going to die? She looked at the priest, saw malice twist his thin lips.Witch. . . the word was unspoken, but she heard it nonetheless. Fear of her own death stopped the truth in her throat.
Moire knew how to soothe the anxiety and pain of childbirth. Was Alasdair Og’s so very different? She opened the bundle tied around her waist with trembling fingers and took out a small pouch of valerian. She pinched up the dry leaves and crushed them between her palms, let them fall into the cup that stood by the bed. She filled it with wine and pushed the poker into the brazier, then plunged the hot iron into the draught to heat it.
“Help me lift his head,” she ordered the man by the door. He came forward, put his arm under Alasdair’s head. “’Tis only something to help you sleep without dreams,” she murmured as she held the cup to Alasdair Og’s cracked lips. He grimaced but swallowed. It was a good sign, and an unexpected one.
“’Twill help him rest,” she repeated to the chief, who hadn’t taken his eyes from her for an instant. She turned to examine his son’s injuries. The scars marring his chest were thick and jagged. She bent to sniff them but detected no corruption. The wound that ran down his right arm from elbow to wrist had healed badly, left unstitched and untended for too long. Now the scar was ugly, red, and puffy, but no streaks of poison ran under his skin. He was a strong man indeed.
Last of all, she turned to his injured leg, fearing it would be the worst, knowing it. There was blood on the bandage, black in the candlelight, and yellow pus. She bent over it and drew back at the smell. The corruption was far gone. Unchecked, the poison from this wound would spread through his body, kill him . . . but the chief was watching her with his hard eyes, his jaw set, his fist clenched on the hilt of his dagger, as if his will alone could keep his son alive.
“How long—” She was choking on the smell. “How long has he been like this?”
“Seven weeks, perhaps eight,” the chief replied. “Some days he is as he once was and seems to be improving. Other days he’s ill, fevered, fearful. The nights are the worst of all . . .” He swallowed, lowered his gaze, but not before Moire had seen the glitter of tears. When he looked up again, the hard mask was back. “You will heal him,” he commanded.
She could not. Moire opened her mouth to speak, to prepare him for his son’s death, but he drew his dirk, advanced on the bed with the naked blade glinting in the candlelight, and fear stopped her tongue again. Instead of plunging the knife into her heart, he slit the knot that bound the bandages on Alasdair’s leg and nodded for her to proceed.
Her hands shook as she unwrapped the linen, trying not to breathe. The miasma filled the little room. The priest turned aside to vomit in the rushes. The man at the door clamped his hand over his nose and mouth. The chief didn’t flinch. He stared down at the ugly wound. It oozed foul-smelling yellow fluid. Moire had known brave men to faint at a birth. This was death, and still Padraig Sinclair kept his feet. Was he so used to seeing men die? She could almost feel the wing beats of the raven goddess of death hovering over the bed, waiting. The priest held up his crucifix, one sleeve clasped over his nose, mumbling prayers, as if he could frighten the corruption away. If that were true, then why had his God not already healed the chief’s son? Moire doubted her goddess could do any better.
She wet a cloth in the remains of the warm wine and cleaned the leg. Her patient flinched, drew a harsh breath, but didn’t wake. He muttered, talking with someone she couldn’t see. It made the hairs on her skin rise and creep.
She stepped back at last. It was all she could do, all she dared to do with the chief and the priest watching her. She needed her wits now if she was to survive. “I need more than I have brought, other herbs and—things,” she dared, hoping for escape.
“Tell me what you need. They’ll be fetched at once,” Padraig Sinclair said. He had an intelligent face, not cruel, despite the tales she’d heard. She realized she’d unintentionally given him hope.
“Oh, but I must get them myself,” she wheedled. “’Tis easy to mistake pennyroyal for nightshade or chamomile for hellebore if ye don’t know.” Once back at her hut, the goddess would surely protect her from harm. But a bead of sweat trickled down her back as suspicion closed the chief’s lined face.
“Can you heal my son or not?”
It was her last chance to tell him the truth. She could do no more than make his son comfortable until the end came—and it would come, she was sure of that. But she wouldn’t be here to see it—she’d be at the bottom of the tower with her skull broken. She didn’t want to die—nor did Alasdair Og. She was sure of that too. He was fighting very hard . . . She silently called upon the goddess as she forced herself to meet the laird’s eye.
“He will live,” she lied, making her voice loud and sure, playing the role of the goddess. Had she miraculously come to this small room in the dead of night, taken control of Moire’s tongue? The priest looked up in surprise. The very walls seemed to lean in to listen. “But a holy maid caused this, and only another maid—a virgin pure—can restore your son to health,” she finished.
Padraig Sinclair stared at her a moment. “Then not you I assume, crone.”
Despite all her years and all she’d seen, Moire blushed.
“What kind of maid? A bride, a nun, a holy healer?” the chief demanded.
She had no idea. “You must search for her, bring her here,” the goddess said cryptically through Moire’s lips.
“Thevirgin,” the priest cried, excited. His accent was thick and foreign. “Our Lady will heal him. We will bring her image from the chapel, send to Rome for holy relics, place them before your son, offer prayers, say masses—”
The chief’s brow clouded. He had given up on God, Moire thought. Or he suspected trickery—whether from herself or the priest, she wasn’t sure.
“A living maiden,” the goddess insisted, using Moire’s tongue. Moire withstood the chief’s terrifying glare, cast it back at him until he looked away to gaze down at his son.
