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‘If he worsens...?’
‘Send for me and I will come,’ she said, meeting his gaze now. ‘I think he will not.’
Suisan moved the supplies to a shelf near the hearth and began preparing for her noon meal. Colm missed little now, watching with an interest that Davidh had not seen in many months. Anna retrieved her basket and put what she would take with her back in it, before taking her leave—first from Colm, then Suisan and then himself. Davidh followed her outside, trying to find the words he wanted to say to her. She stopped after a few paces and turned to face him.
‘I did not wish to say this in front of them, but I cannot know if this will make him better. He may never re—’
His hand covered her mouth before he could stop himself. Her lips were soft against his fingers and he felt her gasp before he heard it.
‘Your pardon, Anna,’ he said. ‘Watching him just then, well, I do not wish to hear words of caution. I have been living with his eventual death for so long, I had not realised the weight of it until just now. Now, when he has more colour in his face and is breathing more smoothly than he has in months and months.’ He dropped his hands to his side then and shrugged. ‘Allow a father a measure of hope before tearing it apart.’
Whatever she was going to say, she did not. Instead he saw the tears filling her eyes before she turned away from him. He’d not meant to drive her to tears, for he’d simply spoken his fears aloud for the first time to someone other than his dead wife or the dark of night.
‘I will come two days hence then,’ she said.
He stood there on the path and watched her until she disappeared from view on the road through the village and towards the north. He went back inside and spoke to Suisan and Colm for a short while before returning to his duties at the castle. For the first time in such a long while, the sound of Colm’s coughs did not follow his steps away.
* * *
Anna used all of the control she could pull together not to fall to her knees and sob over this man and his son. Truth be told, she worried that the lad was too far gone to bring him back from the brink of death. But how could she say that to the man who stood there with both hope and desolation in his gaze? He knew. He knew how dire the situation was. And somehow his own survival depended on that of his son’s.
Nay, he was not ill or stricken by the same lung weakness that assailed the boy, but she thought that his son’s death would tear him apart in other ways. Anna stopped now, at the edge of the village, and turned to look back. He’d been watching her, she could feel his gaze burning into her with each step. Now, though, she did not see him there.
She quickened her pace, wanting and needing to put some distance between herself and the village. But the boy and the man were in the centre of her thoughts all the way back to her cottage. And for the rest of the day as she weeded and pruned the unruly and overgrown plants in her mother’s plot above the falls.
* * *
Davidh and his son remained her concern over the next two days as she prepared concoctions and unguents and even as she and Iain ate and talked. Methods of treating the boy’s lung affliction filled her thoughts. She had kept notes on her mother’s recipes and cures in a precious book and she consulted it as she prepared her basket for her journey back into town. Though Iain wanted to accompany her, she bade him to wait there, in the safety of the shadows.
The revelation of his existence and his connection to this clan would come, but Anna wanted it to happen to her own plan. Once it did, she would lose control over the one thing in her life that was her own to claim and she did not relish that moment at all.
Chapter Five (#u9395dc2f-8b29-5217-aaa3-1b63620cc54c)
‘Mistress Mackenzie!’
Colm’s excited call greeted her on her approach to the blacksmith’s cottage. He sat outside the door, waving and speaking to anyone who passed by him that morn. A collection of others stood nearby, waiting or watching, she could not tell.
‘Good day to you, Colm,’ she called out to the boy.
Sitting in the unexpected morning sun revealed that there had been some improvement in his condition. His colouring, though not as pale and pasty as he had been, was a scant bit nearer to health than sickness now. A good sign that. Anna reached the boy and he reached out and tugged on her skirts.
‘Mistress Mackenzie, I sat up all day except for when I was asleep. Like you told me to.’
Suisan came to the opened doorway then, wiping her hands on the apron tucked at her waist.
‘Good morn to ye, Mistress Mackenzie,’ she said, nodding at the boy who was struggling to remain on the stool there. ‘He has been hoping ye would give yer permission for him to leave the cottage.’
Anna walked over and slid her hand across the boy’s hair and forehead. No fever. ‘Well, let me see how he is doing and we can talk about extending his prison walls.’
‘I have taken every one of your remedies,’ Colm said. ‘Even the brown one that smells putrid.’ He gagged loudly, showing his distaste for it.
‘Is that true, Mistress Cameron?’ Anna asked in a serious tone. ‘Has he followed my instructions?’ The lad’s enthusiastic words and manner spoke of his improvement, with or without Suisan’s confirmation.
‘’Tis true,’ Suisan said.
‘Come inside and let me check your breathing first, Colm.’
She smiled as the boy jumped up from the stool and ran into the cottage. The mistake to avoid would be to let him try too much too soon. Though, watching his increased vigour, she knew it would be hard to keep him from pushing himself.
Colm allowed her to push and prod him and he followed her instructions to test his breathing. He coughed, but it was not the uncontrollable, breath-stealing spasms it had been. This was good. He was not recovered, that would be a long process, but if the various things she’d given him eased the symptoms, she would be happy.
‘I think he can be permitted some time outside on the morrow, Mistress Cameron,’ Anna pronounced when she’d finished. ‘No running, course, but some time with his friends.’
‘Truly?’ Colm asked. ‘On the morrow?’
‘Aye. If you promise not to run.’
‘Aye, Mistress Mackenzie. Aye!’
Colm’s smile warmed her heart and she could see a bit of her own son in his reactions. They were but a few years apart in age with Iain being nigh to ten-and-three while Colm had eight years.
‘For now, you may sit outside and speak with your friends. Make your plans.’
The boy was up and outside before she could say another thing. True to what Anna asked of him, he sat on the stool next to the door and called out to his friends.
‘So, the vapour has worked then?’ she asked Suisan. ‘Has he been coughing much?’
‘Nay,’ the older woman said. ‘Some the first night, but less after each dosing or use of the vapour. He did not complain or refuse, nay, he did not. He is a good lad.’
‘Better than most others who have asked for my help,’ Anna said.
‘About those seeking your help...’ Anna raised her gaze to Suisan and waited for her to continue. ‘Word has already spread about ye being a healer.’
‘Those outside?’ Anna walked to the doorway and looked past the boy and his friends to see a growing crowd. ‘They are to see me?’
‘Aye, if ye would? Many have ailments that Old Ranald could not see to. Many have minor things, but I think ye could help a number of others with the things ye grow and make.’
Those waiting noticed her scrutiny and began to move closer. Anna nodded to them and they approached. She recognised a variety of symptoms and ailments as they grew closer.
‘Suisan, I would not see them in the road. Can I bring them inside your cottage? Or is there another I might use?’
‘Ye are welcome here and mayhap I could help ye a bit? Introduce ye to the villagers and such?’
* * *
Within a short time, Anna was speaking to the people who needed her services. Though it took several hours, with Suisan’s help, Anna managed to speak to each person who sought her aid. Some could be helped then, but others could not for she had not the ingredients or supplies to do so. A few more days and she would have some of what she needed, but it would be weeks of tending to the plots above the falls before she would be ready.
Colm sat by the door, greeting everyone who came by, but she could see the exhaustion growing in his face. Just as she finished with the last person, a loud voice rang out drawing her attention.
‘Malcolm Cameron, what do you think you are doing?’
For a moment, she lost her place and time. She heard the name and stumbled to the doorway, almost expecting to see her Malcolm there before her. Staring into the road there instead she saw Davidh’s approach. Anna shook herself from the shock and glanced at Colm, who sat there watching his father walk towards them.
Colm.
Malcolm.
He had truly named his son after his closest friend.
‘You are not supposed to be out here!’ Davidh said sharply.
* * *
‘Papa, Mistress Mackenzie said I could.’
Davidh had only been watching his son and now caught sight of the healer as she stepped into the sun’s light. He did not know who looked paler at that moment—her or his son. Crouching down before Colm where he sat on a stool, he studied his face and listened, as he always did, to his breathing. Though pale, he did not struggle to draw a breath.
‘Well, if Mistress Mackenzie gave her approval, I cannot naysay her.’ He read the relief on Colm’s face then. How long had it been since his son had been outside this cottage or theirs? He glanced up and met Anna’s gaze then. ‘And what else did Mistress Mackenzie have to say?’
‘If he rests today and follows my instructions, he may walk about in the village a bit with his friends on the morrow,’ she replied.
‘From the look of him, he has not done the first.’
‘Nay, not yet. This morn, I was grateful for his help with the others who came to see me.’
Davidh stood then and touched his son’s shoulder.
‘You look tired, son.’
He could see the struggle within the boy. He did not wish to go back inside and yet his strength was fading. Considering that he’d been up and about more in these last two days than he had in weeks and weeks, Davidh was more than willing to listen to the healer’s advice. Whatever doubts had initially assailed him had faded in the face of the results in his son.
‘Since we have finished our work, I think it a good time for you to rest, Mal-colm.’
She stuttered over his son’s name. Oh, she’d heard him use his proper name. But a glance at her face revealed something else or something more was behind her stammer.
‘There you go then. Mistress Mackenzie has so spoken and we cannot argue with her. Well, you could, but I suspect that her promise to release you from this doorway depends on you obeying now.’
Colm grumbled as he stood, waved farewell to his friends and walked in slow, delaying steps inside. Davidh fought the smile that threatened to break out on his face since it would ruin the serious attitude he was forcing himself to show. He found he needed to turn away rather than watch as Colm sighed over and over as he lay down on the pallet. It was the short time it took for his son to fall asleep that reminded Davidh of his true condition and need for rest.
‘I...’ There was so much to thank her for doing, yet the words would not come.
‘I have given Suisan something new to try over the next few days,’ she said. She blocked his view of his son then, standing closer so her words did not carry inside. ‘The vapours seem to be helping.’
‘Aye, they have. He barely coughs.’ Again, words of gratitude swirled around, but none seemed good enough for what she’d accomplished. ‘Anna...’
‘The thing is, Davidh, this is only the beginning. The weakness in his lungs will not stop because of a few concoctions or using the vapours for a couple of nights.’ Why was she trying to dissemble with her words? To what purpose was it to undermine what she’d accomplished here?
‘He has been ill for some time,’ he said. ‘I understand that it could take time.’
‘Or not.’
He heard her words, but he did not want to accept them. That tiny bit of hope that he always carried in his soul for his son had burst into a stronger one just over the last two days. Could he contain and dampen it now? Must he? She reached out and placed her hand on his arm.
‘Sometimes it does not proceed as I expect it to and if, if, this does not work...’ She paused then and stared out towards the village. ‘I do not wish to raise your hopes without making certain you understand the true situation here, Davidh.’
‘I am afraid ’tis too late for that, Anna.’
She blinked several times and looked at him. He shrugged.
‘I understand the situation, Colm’s situation, for I have watched other bairns and wee ones die of things like this.’ A single tear trickled from the corner of her left eye and he wanted to reach out and wipe it away. He stepped back instead. ‘I will take whatever days your treatments give him. The rest is in the Almighty’s hands.’
She walked past him then and he heard the soft groan as she did so. Watching her, he noticed the signs of discomfort or pain in the way she walked now.
‘Mistress Mackenzie, are you yourself in need of a healer?’
She laughed then and the sound of it made his heart beat faster.
‘Aye, I think I might. Do you know one?’
‘Old Ranald is good if you need anything hacked away.’ The jesting relieved the tension in him.
‘Nay, not that. I just need to walk a bit after crouching and bending for so long. I will not keep you from your duties, Commander.’
‘Come,’ he said, motioning with his hand ahead of him. ‘I am not expected back for some time yet and I can show you the rest of the village if you have not walked it yourself.’
‘I would like that,’ she said, following him to the road, then walking at his side.
They walked along that main road and Davidh pointed out the important places of their village—the smithy she knew, but the baker, the miller near the stream and the weavers she did not. Word had spread about her and many came out to greet her. Some she called by name which surprised him at first, but she told him that she had seen them just a short while before his arrival.
Davidh guided her as far as the stream that led north to the river that connected Loch Arkaig to Loch Lochy. To reach the falls and her cottage she would follow the river to the mouth of Loch Arkaig, cross the small bridge there and head around to the northern side of the river. The river that rushed over the falls fed back into the River Arkaig. The most surprising thing about the walk was that Davidh found it easy to talk to her. Giving her bits of gossip and explaining the connections between this person and that one continued as they made their way back to the smithy.
‘You did not show me where you live.’
He had not time to ponder her curiosity, for a man came running towards them, shouting out his name. Only then did Davidh realise he’d lost all sense of time as he’d walked with Anna. Robert expected him after the noon meal to meet with the steward and Davidh had forgotten all about it.
He could blame it on the sight of his son, sitting outside for the first time in weeks. He could and that would have been part of it. The other part was that he’d been enjoying himself too much and, for that short time, he’d forgotten his duty. He’d forgotten his duty.
Davidh nodded at the messenger and faced Anna.
‘I must go.’ She nodded. ‘Will you be back on the morrow?’
‘I will be back in a few days. There is so much to do before I will have enough to help those in the village.’
He wanted to argue with her, but he could not now. Any anger or frustration he felt was his own fault, so he took his leave with a hurried word of gratitude. Davidh cursed silently first, with every step he ran to the smithy to claim his horse and then with every stride of his horse after he mounted and as he rode to the keep.
Never in his life, never since taking command, had he ever forgotten to carry out a task or duty or responsibility. Never. Not even when Colm suffered the worst of his affliction.
But this young woman arrived, bringing help to his son and appealing to him more than any woman before or since Mara, and he allowed her to distract him. From his duty.
