Healer (10 page)

“At risk of his own life, I might add, for when the O’Byrnes regathered at the lake, they’d have surely tried to kill him, had they come upon you in the thicket. But look as they might, the snow made you impossible to see.”

So the clan had looked for him. Ronan took a spoonful of the broth-soaked bread. And his attacker was naught but a common thief. Had he been of the rival clan, he’d surely not have attempted his final blow without hurling the name Gowrys in Ronan’s face.

As sure as his shoulder ached, Ronan would hunt the thief down when he was recovered. A horse like Ballach was easily traced.

“So how’d you manage to get me here?” he asked when the bowl was nearly emptied. He hadn’t realized that he was even hungry.

“Barely, and there’s the truth. I had to drag you upon your cloak.”

“Such slender and graceful limbs must be stronger than I’d have wagered.”

“Strong enough, no more,” she replied without pretension. She rose, taking the empty bowl with her. It was a smooth, flowing motion, utterly effortless. “This is the first entire bowl you’ve taken.” She rewarded him with a smile that infected his own lips, as though her pleasure was his as well. “You’ll be moving about on your own strength soon, if you continue to take nourishment like this.”

Ronan wondered if that were really possible. He’d done nothing but open his mouth and swallow, yet his body was clammy with the effort. He tried to watch Brenna as she made quick work of cleaning up the table where she’d evidently eaten earlier, before he awoke. But moments after she poured some steaming water into a basin, Ronan drifted off into sleep.

Later, when he opened his eyes again, the fire was renewed with extra logs for the night, and the primitive lamp on the table had been blown out. A stirring next to him drew Ronan’s attention to where Brenna approached his pallet. On meeting his gaze, she hesitated for an awkward moment before lying on it. Heavy as his eyelids were, Ronan could not close them now, not with this living, breathing woman curling up beside him, her back to him beneath the covers. The rough linen of her shift was all that separated his naked flesh from her own. That, and the small distance between them.

So she
had
slept with him, innocently of course. That had not been a dream. And she had held his head to her shoulder, all the while singing away his fiendish dreams, without any thought but to soothe his troubled mind. It was her heartbeat that had calmed his—not that of an imaginary angel, but of a real one. Except that then he’d been in a netherworld, where reality and imagination blended without distinction and sleep dominated all.

Now he was very much alert, very much aware that the most gentle, enigmatic woman he’d ever met shared his bed. Even now the warmth of her body beckoned him closer. Ronan turned abruptly, his back to temptation. Herth’s fire, he’d not sleep this night.

“Good night, Rory. Sleep well.” Her weary sigh stroked his senses. Absurdly, he wondered how his real name would sound on such inviting lips. For the first time in his life, Ronan glimpsed an inkling of the mad obsession his father suffered. The recognition struck panic in his chest.

Was he bewitched? Reason reared to counter the notion, but oddly enough, both it and his alarm were smothered by the slumber he vowed would never come.

Ronan awoke with a start, slapping instinctively at the furred creature licking his face. As punishment for his hasty movement, his wounds screamed foul until he saw the pain flashing like lightning across his eyelids. Swearing himself into complete wakefulness, he tried to ease the burning throb with his good arm but froze instantly at the sight of snarling canine teeth bared at him.

From behind him, the maid Brenna’s sharp admonishment backed the animal away. “Faol, shame on you!” With a rustle of covers, she crawled off the end of the pallet, shift askew, and rose to her feet. “What fickleness is this, that ye’d save the man one day and eat him the next?”

She grabbed the fierce-eyed creature by the ears and shook its head roughly. “Shame on you, pup!” Then her voice lightened to that of a mother’s teasing her child. “Been off on a gallivant, have you?” she asked, picking pine needles from his fur.

As if to apologize, the wolf reared up on its hind legs and placed its paws on the girl’s shoulders. Ronan wrinkled his nose as it licked her about the face and neck, tail wagging happily. Had Brenna ever been kissed? By a man, that is.

“Dancin’ will not earn you forgiveness, you ragged ball o’fur!” Brenna laughed, buckling to her knees under the large animal’s weight. “’Tis a thrashing you deserve for growling at poor Rory so.”

Not very likely,
he observed as maid and wolf rolled on the rug before the hearth with giggles and growls. Until Brenna found Faol’s weakness and started rubbing his belly. With a pitiful wail of surrender, the canine fell over on his back, one hind leg jerking in ticklish ecstasy.

“Look at this harmless little pup, Rory.”

“If any creature’s to put a tongue to my face, better a woman, not a blasted wolf!” Ronan snorted in indignation.

Chuckling, Brenna climbed to her feet and tossed more wood on the fire. “Ye provoked him, didn’t ye?”

“What was I to do, waking nose-to-nose with a wild wolf?” Ronan declared. “Aye, I struck him away and, s’help me, am suffering the worse for it without your reproach.”

Instead of showing offense, the girl studied him with curiosity. “You are a peculiar sort, Rory of the Road.”

“And you’re not, Brenna of the Hallowed Hills, who lives in a cave with a …” Ronan’s voice trailed off as Faol lifted his head from the rug to stare at him. “Wolf.”

“He senses your hostility even now.”

Ronan lay back against his pillow and dislodged his good arm. It was as numb from his having slept upon it as his other was anguished. What else was to befall him? He flexed his fingers, glad to see they responded.

“Are you always so ill-tempered, Rory?”

“Only since I was ambushed by a murderous horse thief and awakened near dead in a cave tended by a madwoman and her pet wolf.”

Instantly Ronan regretted his outburst, not because the wolf had risen and placed itself between him and the girl, but because of Brenna’s stricken expression.

Her eyes narrowed. “’Tis my
madness
that’s kept you alive, sir! Few men survive so many days of fever.”

“I meant no discourtesy, Lady Brenna.”

Her wounded look faded. “Well … at least I’m a mad
lady
now.” She rolled the word off her tongue. “
Lady
Brenna. It has a pleasant ring to it.”

Frustration riddled Ronan’s voice. “My limbs outweigh my strength, I fear, and it’s
that
which settles poorly with me, not you … or the wolf.”

With every ounce of will Ronan possessed, he reached his hand out, palm upward toward the animal. Not only did he not trust it, but the effort was supreme in its toll upon his body. Unable to keep the limb suspended, he let it lay on the rug by the pallet until the wolf warily moved closer and sniffed at his fingers. “Apologies to you as well, Faol.”

“It appears they are accepted, sir … by us both,” Brenna added, when the animal began to tentatively lick at his hand.

The last Ronan remembered, Faol settled down an arm’s length from the pallet and placed his furry chin on Ronan’s outstretched palm. Had the wolf decided to devour him, starting there at his fingers, Ronan still could not have resisted the fatigue claiming him.

Chapter Eight

Under the impatient gaze of Faol, Brenna stripped the skin from a rabbit she’d trapped. The fur, along with others she’d dried during the Long Dark, would help replenish her supplies at the May Fair two months hence.

“Don’t worry. The scraps are yours,” she told her companion. And the fresh meat and barley would be a welcome change to Rory’s diet. By the way he’d begun to screw up his face at the herbal broths that had brought him through the worst of his infirmity, one might think she was trying to poison him, rather than save him.

With a glance toward the pallet where he slept, Brenna set about cutting up the beastie and combined it with water and barley in a pot. For seasoning, she added salt and crushed rosemary, which she took from one of the bags that she’d sewn together over the winter’s course. There was a pile of bags, each one fat with ground or powdered herbs that had dried overhead in the heat from the hearth. By May, she should have sufficient enough to take to the May Fair, where, dressed as a laddie, she’d exchange them to replenish her stores.

Mayhaps she’d buy a bolt of cloth at the fair to make herself a new dress, which she needed far more than a cloak. The woolen gunna she now wore over her shift was worn through at the sleeves, the elbows, and the hem, in spite of her many attempts to mend them. What clothing she had was cut down from Mathair Ealga’s wardrobe. And when no longer fit for wear, she made the rags into bags for her herbs.

There was but one exception—a dress so dear she’d never once worn it. In anticipation of Tarlach’s attack, her mother had packed the dress in a small chest along with some ribbons and a silver comb and had left the keepsakes for her baby daughter in the stone passage of their escape route. Sometimes Brenna shook out her mother’s wedding dress, aired it, and carefully replaced it in the chest to await her own wedding day.

Not that she could foresee such an occasion.

Your will, Lord.

If only giving her loneliness to God would take it away. Instead it crept back again and again. She wiped her hands on a towel, sinking into thought. Thought that bade her turn and consider her patient.

To her surprise, Rory was no longer asleep but sitting upright on the pallet watching her intently. Although surely he had no clue what fancy had crossed her mind….

“Good morning, Brenna.” He stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. “How long have you been afoot?”

Rory had improved by the day since the fever left. He ate without her aid and saw to nature’s call on his own, though the effort wasted his energy quickly. But as he improved, an uneasy awareness of him as a man, rather than a patient, had begun to develop. Perhaps it was the way he watched her. Sometimes that russet-shaded gaze upon her reeled her senses as though she’d been caressed. And robbed her of wit.

“Um … ”

It really wasn’t that difficult a question.

“Since before daybreak,” she finally managed. Feeling more the fool, she pointed to the pot over the fire. “I trapped a rabbit for supper.”

Thanks be for the herb that still protected her from a man’s baser nature, for the way he warmed her with his eyes and smiles had her brain spinning widdershins. Yet even with her mind circling counter to the sun, she never forgot to slip the herb into his porridge or tea.

“Finally,
fresh meat.”

Sarcasm, after all her work?

“I have not only the finest healer in the land, but a huntress as well,” he added hastily. Within the reddish brown thicket of his beard, a smile appeared.

Brenna’s irritation deflated under its spell. “I should change your bandages and give you a bath, lest you become overripe to the nose,” she thought aloud.

Instead of answering, Rory tossed back the covers, revealing the linen wrap he’d taken to wearing knotted about his waist for modesty’s sake. It confounded Brenna that the sight of him, the thought of ministering to him, made her blush even more than the first time she’d tended him. True, he’d taken over his more intimate hygiene, but when she rubbed in the liniments designed to keep his muscles from withering with disuse, the ridges of sinew beneath her fingers filled her mind with all manner of dangerous fancy.

“You finish your breakfast while I get the water.”

“No, not this time.”

Brenna froze, the bucket dangling in her hand. “What?”

With a determined expression, her patient took a deep breath and walked to the table. “I think I am capable of walking to that healing spring you’ve told me about,” he said upon reaching it. “You’ve done more than enough already, milady. I owe you much.”

Milady
. It sounded like a caress, the way he said it. Filled with gratitude and perhaps something more. It was a brave and charming front he presented, but as he sank onto the crude bench, his knees nearly buckled.

Brenna rushed to ease his descent. “Just because you can rise and walk to the table doesn’t mean you can make the trek down to the pool,” she chided him. “When you’re stronger, I’ll help you there, but for now, we’ll make do with hand bathing and the oil rubs.”

“I think I can walk.”

“Down there, perhaps. But you’d be weak as a newborn kitten on the climb back.”

Rory muttered something beneath his breath, his gallantry expired with his strength. “I have my pride, woman,” he groused, slamming his fist on the table as if that would make her change her mind. “I’m weary of being coddled like a
naked
babe.”

Naked
. His intonation told Brenna she wasn’t the only one growing more ill at ease … though it was silly on both their parts. She was a healer. “Such modesty is a bit belated, don’t you think, sir?” Before he could reply, Brenna put a finger to his lips, sheer mischief infecting her voice. “I promise I’ll touch nothing I’ve not touched before.”

“By my ancestors’ bones, you’re the saucy one.”

“Aye, and you’re the cantankerous one,” she shot back, swinging the bucket as she dashed out of the room.

But her smile faded as his parting words caught up with her. “Enjoy riding the high horse while you may, milady, for your privilege grows shorter lived by the day.”

Praise be for the barrenwort.

Rory had returned to the pallet by the time Brenna returned with the warm spring water. If his warning hadn’t knocked the sass out of her, carrying the loaded bucket up the sloping tunnel had. Perhaps he’d learned that he was not as strong as he thought himself to be.

“I thought you’d be out for a brisk walk to stir the blood by now,” she quipped, pouring some of the water into a smaller basin.

Rory grunted in response, eyes remaining closed.

Alarm shot through her. “You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?” She rushed to his side. “Did you fall?”

“No, I’m tired. Too tired to listen to all this clucking.”

Heaven save her from such a childlike temperament. “Fine then.” Brenna spun about to fetch her supplies. “You’ll get your bath in silence, but a bath you
will
have.”

“Then do it and be done. Not that I could stop you, if I were of a mind, with this confounded shoulder.”

Ah, so that was it. His pride was sore. Well, what about hers? She’d spent countless hours, nay days, nursing him, and this was her reward?

“Move over,” she said, on returning to his bedside. “You’re not only acting like a petulant child, you’re taking up the whole bed.”

With another grunt, he complied, giving her room to kneel on the pallet rather than the hard stone floor. As she dropped to her knees, he turned his face away, straining the cords of his neck. Brenna hesitated, taking in the rise and fall of her patient’s chest beneath the sheet pulled to his chin. The way his beard clung to the clenched box of his jaw. She guessed at the disapproving line surely formed by his lips.

“I’ll be as fast—” She remembered her promise of silence.

Rory tensed as she tugged away the sheet to expose the dressing on his chest. It was still moist from the poultices, but no blood had congealed on it. A very good sign. Upon removing the bandages, she saw his flesh had begun to knit with little sign of the inflammation that had driven up his fever just days before. She had truly wondered if he’d survive, but God had answered her prayers. The worst had finally passed.

She probed ever so gently for any ooze of hidden infection. Nothing! Her spirit soared. She was at last her mother’s daughter. God had used her for healing as He had Joanna. Just as Ealga said, it was what Brenna was created to do.

If only she could do more of it. Be safe enough to move to the village near the river glen and help others like this, instead of sending her medicines through Brother Martin while hiding in the wild.

But that was impossible. Just as her mother’s gift flowed through her veins, Joanna’s curse imprisoned her.
Lord, why give me such a gift, if I must keep it hidden?

Beyond the sudden blur of despair in her eyes, Rory’s shoulder came into focus. Brenna let go her longing for the future to grasp the present. The task now was to rebuild the strength he so sorely grieved.

With Your help, Father God.

Gently, Brenna sponged the healing mineral water over the wound, then dabbed it dry. She repeated the same process, cleansing Rory’s arms and chest to his waist. When she stopped to pour the liniment on her palm to rub into the muscles surrounding it, Rory glanced down to see the damage that had dragged him to the pits of hell and back, but his expression was veiled. In truth, the wound looked small, considering the great toll it had taken on him.

As Brenna massaged in the herbal oils, his tension grew palpable.

“Relax, Rory. You must let me work the oil into your muscles.”

“I
am
relaxed.”

“I could crack an egg on your chest.”

“If it would restore my strength, then have at it,
woman
.”

She mimicked him. “Just turn your back to me,
man …
and pray your other wounds are healing as nicely.”

The exit wound from the frontal arrow was. The other, where the arrow had wedged in his shoulder blade, was not. At least it wasn’t as well knit as the others. But after careful examination, Brenna was satisfied there was no infection. That she’d had to cut a larger opening to retrieve the arrow from Rory’s back likely accounted for its slower healing. Brenna washed it, oiled carefully around it and its connecting sinew, and applied fresh poultices. Those she secured with strips of cloth.

“And now for the rest of you,” she announced, easing him on his back again.

“I’ll see to myself, thank you.”

This irritability was becoming infectious. “What is this? A warrior with a maid’s modesty?”

“Go below this blanket with that cloth, and I’ll not bear responsibility for any consequence you find, lassie.”

Brenna stiffened. Had the barrenwort failed? Is that what he wanted to hide?

“’Twas not my most favorite of chores anyway, Rory of the Road. I’ll leave the washcloth and towels here for you to tend to yourself then, though I venture to say, there’s naught for a maid such as myself to fear.”

Rory’s dark gaze sharpened. “How can you be so certain, Brenna of the hills?”

Glory be, what now?
Brenna folded a towel to purchase time, but hot blood stampeded to her face. “If there be any mischief in ye, weak as ye are, Rory of the Road, methinks it’s in your mind and naught else.”

Taking his lack of response as the answer to her question, Brenna started to rise. “But I’ll leave you to whatever modesty you require—oh!”

Rory gripped her arm with iron fingers.

His strength and suddenness so startled Brenna that she lost her balance and fell across him with a gasp. “What
are
you doing? You’ll break open—”

“I think there is something on your mind, milady.” His voice rumbled low and threatening from his chest, not unlike Faol’s warnings. “Something you may wish to share with me.”

Ho,
that
she was not about to do.

But before Brenna could collect herself, the blanket hanging over the entrance to the chamber gave way, and Faol bolted straight for them. His growl and bared teeth left little doubt of his intention.