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.”She jerked her chin at him.“Should not your own ear be nailed to the post then?”He grinned suddenly, a wicked smile full of self-confidence.“Nae, remember? I’m laird here.”He walked away, so brazenly self-assured he did not even glance back.Isabella leaned against the wall of the alcove, pressing her fevered cheek against the icy stone.The English court was rife with passionate—and often dangerously ill-advised—couplings.More than one court lady had been brought to ruin for the sake of a handsome face and a standing cock.The MacKimzie is gravely mistaken to measure me such a fool, she thought, pushing away from the wall.A position of honor and a noble husband await me.Her heels clipped sharply against the stones as she hurried to the solar.Marriage to Alexander Douglas meant a safe haven for her and Kat both, far from the danger they fled at the English court.No handsome face would divert her from that.When she had left Kat, her cousin had been sleeping peacefully.Her return found Caitrina hovering over her kinswoman.Kat had twisted herself in the bedding as if trying to flee her illness.Caitrina straightened the quilts, tucking them around her.From the grim look on Caitrina’s face, it was plain the news was not good.“How does she?”Caitrina shifted on her crutch.“The sickness has settled in her lungs.She still burns with fever and grows ever weaker.I have placed another plaster on her chest, I hope I can draw out the fluid and let her breathe clear again.”“Have you seen this before?”Caitrina hesitated.“I’ll do what I can for her.”“And Sir William?”“He’s restin’.The bleeding’s stopped, if it doesna go septic he should live but he too now has a fever.”“The same as Katherine’s?”“I dinna think it plague, neither has the boils and yer nae sick.” She looked at Isabella sharply.“Are ye?”Isabella shook her head.“I am tired, but otherwise I am quite well.”Isabella looked at the pair of them, Kat and Sir William, and back at Caitrina.“Thank you.For your kindness to them, and to me.”Caitrina tucked her chin, now busying herself with the pots at the fire.“’Tis who I am to help those who hurt, ye neednae thank me.”“I do nonetheless.If there is anything I can do to help, please tell me.”“They’re peaceful now.Perhaps ye should go and sleep a bit.”“Methinks I will sit me by Kat awhile.”As Caitrina returned to her pots at the fire, Isabella settled beside Kat, whose skin seemed parchment thin, her cheekbones too prominent now.Isabella took Kat’s dry, warm hand and suddenly realized that she had had no visions of Kat’s future, just as she had none of the MacKimzie’s attack.Isabella did not know if she should be grateful for this reprieve or desperately frightened.It was as if, with Kat’s hold on life so tenuous, her visions had fallen into respectful silence.“Hush, lady.’Tis only me,” Caitrina soothed, her hand gently placed on Isabella’s upraised arm.“Ye were cryin’ in yer sleep.”Disoriented, Isabella took in the solar, the fire, the pale morning light eking through the leaded glass windows.Kat slept on the pallet beside hers, the dark shadows still marring the skin under her eyes.The vision had returned as a nightmare.Queen Joan sobbing against her shoulder.A sickening crack as the floorboard split beneath her feet.The knife plunging into her chest—Isabella wiped the tears from her cheeks with cold hands.She made her way to the fire, holding her hands out to it.Caitrina offered her a steamy cup.“Ye sat up through most of the night again.Ye must rest more.”The warmth of the cup in her hand helped dispel the last of the nightmare and Isabella took a sip of the broth.It was delicious, meaty, hot.Another might ask about a dream that set Isabella weeping her in sleep, but not Caitrina.The Scotswoman showed great respect for the privacy of another’s heart and mind.For that Isabella was grateful.Colyne’s sister bent over her pots to mix another of her potions, the fire lighting her thoughtful face.Her healing methods were mystifying.She did not bleed her patients to drain the bad blood to restore their humors, or purge them or examine their morning water as any true physician would.The woman’s ways would make her a laughingstock at court.She did not use their birthdates to calculate the influence of the stars; she felt foreheads and asked immodest questions and poked and prodded in a most unmaidenly way.Certainly among ladies of the court there were the making of poultices, washes for the eyes to soothe and brighten them, and remedies to restore and enhance beauty were constantly sought.Less public but also whispered were the remedies to stop a wandering lover, to prevent the making of a child or silence gossip.Caitrina had no qualm about employing her methods, no matter the age or sex or status of the patient.She never shrank from asking questions, no matter how personal.She treated every wound, sickness of the stomach and bowel with compassion and unblinking fortitude.She kept all things, including her hands, scrupulously clean and her tools and herbs organized.She was willing, when Isabella showed interest, to explain how she used wine and whiskey to clean wounds and her needles to sew cuts [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]