Lady With the Devil's Scar Page 2

  He frowned, not understanding her reasoning.

  ‘It is my experience that filth often finishes what a blade begins.’

  Riddles. Another thought wormed into his head. Was she one of the silkies that the legends from these parts were full of? He had never seen a woman so easily able to manage the sea before and the colour of her hair was that of the sleek black coats of fur seals often sighted off the coastline.

  Lord. The blood loss was making him unhinged and those knowing eyes so full of secrets were directing him to imagine things that would never come to pass.

  He looked away and did not speak again.

  * * *

  The stranger would be screaming before the night was out despite the careful diction in his sentences. Isobel was glad for it, glad to imagine the weakness in him as he submitted to a mending that would not be easy.

  He unsettled her with his verdant, vivid eyes, his high-priced golden bracelet and his French accent. Ian had wanted to kill him, finish him off and be done with any nuisance or trouble, but the thought of his blood running on the ground as his soul left for the places above or below filled her with a dread she had not felt before. They were probably David’s men, newly returned from France with the fire of the power of the monarch in their bellies, and no mind for the ancient laws.

  What would they know of her and of Ceann Gronna?

  ‘Unmarriageable Isobel’ she was called now; she had heard it from a bard who had come to the keep with a song of the same name.

  Swearing soundly, she returned to the food, panic subsiding as the everyday task took her attention; two days’ walk to the keep and another two to Dunfermline where the strangers could be sent by ferry across the Firth towards Edinburgh.

  She wished Ian and Angus had not been with her, for she would have to watch them and the foreigners at the same time. Anything of worth had been taken, after all, and now their presence could only be a bother. Isobel doubted the third man would last the night, given his colour, but there was little in truth she could do about any of it.

  She hoped that the green-eyed man would speak the French again so she might over-listen and at least know just what his intentions were.

  The jewellery might tell her something of them, of course, but she did not wish to ask Angus for a look at the haul just to probe into the mystery of who he was. Nae. Better she never knew and sent him on, out of her life and out of her notice.

  The simple silver ring on her own finger tightened as she turned it, a lifetime pledge reduced to just two years, and then a yoke of guilt. Sometimes, like now, she hated who she had become, a scavenger outside the new system of government imposed on the old virtue of possession, leaving no true home in any of it. Even the ground did not speak to her as it used to, whispering promises of the for ever. Once the system of lairdship had ruled this place, the great estates handed down through the generations, like treasured possessions and always nurtured. Until King David had come with his fealty and his barons, taking the land by force and granting it to his own vassals for their allegiance and loyalty.

  Now possession was tempered by blood and war and betrayal. Sweat beaded beneath the hair at her nape and if she had been alone she might have lifted the heavy mass away from her skin and simply stood there.

  But she was not alone.

  She could feel his eyes on her back like a hawk might watch a mouse crossing a field. Waiting.

  Had he not said exactly that to his friend as he sat there against the tree, his hose tight in places that made the blood in her face roar.

  ‘Alisdair.’

  The name came beneath breath like a prayer or a plea, invoking what was lost and would never be again. She was glad when Angus reappeared from the forest with a bundle of dry tinder and a good handful of blaeberries.

  Chapter Two

  The fish and rabbit were tenderly cooked and when the one she called Ian might have given them only a very small portion she had gestured him to ladle out a full plate, with a crust of hard black bread in the juice.

  The boatman had eaten nothing, his head lolling on to his chest in a way that was worrying. Marc saw the woman bring an extra blanket and lay him down on it with care. He also saw that she did not bind him again, but left him free. To die in the night without fetters, he supposed. Perhaps there was some folklore from this part of the world that a man should meet his maker unconstrained.

  After she had finished with his comfort she came to him, loosening the ties at his wrists and directing him to come to the fire.

  There was a flask of whisky waiting and she motioned him to drink. The brooding in her eyes lent him the thought that she had not meant to do this at all and he swallowed as much as he could before she took it back. He was pleased to feel the burn of it down his throat as an edge of calm settled.

  He would need it. Already she had lifted her knife.

  ‘I have to remove the bad skin.’

  He had not even answered before she poured whisky across his gash, fire against the hurt and his heart beating as fast as he had ever heard it.

  Flames lightened her eyes into living gold and her fingers on the blade were dextrous. He saw she had another scar running from the base of her smallest finger right across the foot of her knuckles to the thumb. He wondered if she had got that at the same time as she had received the one on her face.

  ‘If you stay still, it will help.’

  The message in her words was plain. Move and the agony will be greater. Like a challenge thrown down into the heart of mercy.

  He wished he had a piece of leather to bite upon, but she did not offer it and he would not ask.

  ‘You are experienced in the art of healing?’

  At this question both the men behind her began to laugh.

  ‘The art of killing more like,’ one of them muttered.

  He saw her grasp tighten on the blade, an infinitely small movement that suggested wrath a hundred times its size. He trusted it also signalled care or humanity or just simple expertise. At the moment it was the best he could hope for. Marc was surprised when she spoke again and at length.

  ‘From experience I find healers are women with little mind for the ordinary. My opinion of them is tempered by their need to eke out some existence in a world that might otherwise be lost to madness.’

  This train of thought was to his liking. ‘So you are not of that ilk?’

  ‘Witches and fairy folk are born into the lines that whelp them.’

  As Isobel raised her blade into the light the dancing flames were reflected in silver.

  ‘But your line was different?’ Suddenly he wanted to know something of her. With her mind distracted by his pain and hurt, she might be persuaded to answer him.

  But she remained silent, her lips firm as she cut into his flesh, the roiling nausea that had been with him since the rescue at the beach rising up into his throat as bile.

  ‘Lord Almighty.’

  ‘You are a religious man, then?’

  ‘If I said that I was would it help my cause?’

  ‘With your God or with me?’ she countered, turning the knife into live tissue and watching as blood filled the wound.

  He swallowed.

  ‘There is sand and grit in the furrow and it must be removed.’

  ‘Grain by grain?’ He visibly flinched and she stopped for a second to watch him, a measured challenge in the tilt of her head and so close he could feel the warmth of her breath.

  He shook and hated himself for it, but even as he held his hand to anchor the elbow to his side he could not stop it.

  Shock, he thought; a malady that men might perish of as easily as they did the cold. On an afterthought he glanced over to the boatman on the blanket and saw that he had stopped breathing.

  ‘He left us as I poured the whisky across your arm.’ Isobel Dalceann’s words held no whisper of sorrow even though she had tended him. ‘Tomorrow would have been too hard for him to manage, so our Lord in his wisdom has seen him walk along a
nother path.’

  Two things hit him simultaneously as she uttered this. She was a spiritual woman and she was also a practical one. For some obscure reason both were comforting.

  The pain, however, was starting to war with the numbness of whisky and he stayed quiet. Counting.

  By the time he had got to a hundred and she placed her knife back on the hook across the fire he knew he was going to be sick.

  * * *

  She turned away and did not watch him throw up even though she had promised herself that she would. But this man with his bruised green eyes and gilded surcoat was...beguiling. No other damn word for it.

  As long as he did not look as though he might fall over and mark the wound with the earth she would wait; patience had always been her one great virtue, after all.

  ‘Are you finished?’ She wished she might have inflected some empathy into the query, but the others were watching her and they would not expect it.

  Nodding, he straightened. He still shook, though not with the fervour that he had done before.

  ‘The poultice I have prepared will numb any pain you have.’ God in Heaven, now why had she said that?

  A slight smile lifted his lips. ‘Do I dare hope that the Angel of Agony has a dint in her armour?’

  ‘The needle that I will sew your hide up with is not my finest.’

  ‘Where is your finest?’

  ‘Lost in the skin of a patient who had no time to sit longer.’

  ‘A pity, that. Not for him, but for me.’

  Unexpectedly she laughed out loud, as though everything in her world was right.

  Ian stood and sidled closer. ‘Have ye drunk more of the whisky than ye used on him, Izzy?’ he asked and picked up the cask. Snatching it from him, she placed it on the ground and plucked an earthenware container from her bag. Sticks of fragrant summer heal and dried valerian were caught in twists of paper, but it was the rolled and cleaned gut of a lamb that she sought.

  Taking the long sinew between her fingers, she wished the stranger might simply faint away and leave her to the job of what had to happen next, for no amount of alcohol would dull this pain.

  With the needle balanced across the flame, she dunked the gut in boiling garlic water before threading it, feeling the sting of heat on her skin. A gypsy she had met once from Dundee had shown her the finer points of medical management and she had never forgotten the rules. Heat everything until boiling point and touch as little as you needed to. Alisdair had bought her silver forceps from Edinburgh after they had been married, but they had been lost in the chaos of protecting Ceann Gronna. Just as he had been! She wished she might have had the small instrument now with its sharp clasp and easy handling.

  Her patient’s arm glistened in the firelight, the pure strength and hard muscle, defined by the flame, tensing as she came closer.

  ‘If you stiffen, it will hurt more.’

  He smiled and his teeth were white and even. Isobel wished he had been ugly or old.

  ‘Hard to be relaxed when your needle looks as if it might better serve a shoemaker.’

  ‘The skins of all animals have much the same properties.’ Pulling the flap of skin forwards, she dug in deep. The first puncture made a definite pop in the silence, but he did not move. Not even an inch. She had never known a patient to sit so still before and she kent from experience just how much it must hurt.

  She made a line of stitches along the wound. Blood welled against the intrusion and his other hand came forwards to wipe it away. She stopped him.

  ‘It is better to let it weep until the poultice is applied.’ She did not wish to tell him again of her need for cleanliness.

  He nodded, his breath faster now. On his top lip sweat beaded, the growth of a one-day beard easily seen, though he turned from her when he perceived that she watched him.

  ‘The woman has the way of a witch. I do not know if we should trust her.’ His friend spoke in French, caution in his words, but the green-eyed one only laughed.

  ‘Witch or not, Simon, I doubt that the physic at court could have made a better job.’

  Court? Did he mean in Edinburgh or Paris?

  Flexing his arm as she finished, he frowned when the stitches caught.

  ‘It would be better to keep still.’ She did not want her handiwork marred by use.

  ‘For how long?’

  Shrugging, she took the powders up from their twists of paper and mixed them on the palm of her hand with spit. A day or a week? She had seen some men lift a sword the next evening and others fail to be able to ever dress themselves properly again. Positioning his arm, she placed the brown paste over the wound and bound it with cloth, securing the ends with a knot after splitting the fabric.

  ‘By tomorrow you will know if it festers.’

  ‘And if it does?’

  ‘Then my efforts will be all in vain and you will lose either your arm or your life.’

  ‘The choice of Hades.’

  ‘Well, the Sea Gods let you loose from the ocean so perhaps the Healing God will follow their lead.’

  She was relieved as he moved a good distance away.

  Everything ached: his arm, his head and his throat. The rain from above was heavy, wetting them with its constant drizzle.

  He slept fitfully, curled into the blanket like a child, waking only as the moon waned against the coming dawn. Isobel Dalceann sat upright against the trunk of a tree. Her hair now was bunched under a hat so that the raindrops fell off the wide edge to dribble down the grey worsted wool of her overcoat. One hand played with the beads of an ebony rosary, glass sparking in the fire-flames and the way her lips moved soundlessly suggested an age-old chant. He could not take his eyes away from a woman whose knife lay across her knees, ready to take a life after spending the whole of an evening trying to save one.

  ‘I know you are awake.’

  He couldn’t help but be amused. ‘Hard to sleep with the possibility of losing my arm on the morrow.’

  ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘Sore.’

  ‘But not sick?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Then I should imagine you will get to keep it, after all.’

  ‘Your bedside manner lacks a certain tenderness.’

  She smiled. ‘Ian hoped you might be dead by now. We placed the other man back into the outgoing tide and he’d like to do the same with you.’

  ‘Unshackle us and we will walk away in any direction you choose.’

  ‘The problem with that is you have the way of our names and our faces, and there are many who would hurt us here in the ancient hunting grounds of the Dalceann clan.’

  ‘If we gave our word of honour to maintain only silence...?’

  ‘Words of honour have the unfortunate tendency to become surplus to survival once safety is reached.’

  ‘Then why did you swim out to us in the first place?’

  Her eyes flickered to the empty skin at his wrist.

  ‘The gold?’ He pushed himself up to a sitting position. Streaks of red-hot pain snaked into his shoulder. ‘You could not have known that we were adorned with such before you reached us.’

  He caught the white line of her teeth. ‘But we could hope.’

  ‘Only that?’

  She remained a shadow amongst the trees, her legs against her chest with a blanket around her shoulders. ‘A boat left the Ceann Gronna keep two weeks ago bound south with a dozen of our men aboard and Ian, Angus and I came from the keep to see if we could see any sign of its return. We thought it might be the vessel that had foundered.’ Her hand stilled for a moment on the count of the beads and she switched languages with barely an inflection of change. ‘You spoke with your friend today of a physic at court. Which one do you hail from?’ He was astonished.

  ‘You speak French?’

  ‘Fluently. My mother was from Antwerp.’

  ‘It might have been wiser to keep that to yourself.’

  ‘As a weapon?’ Deep dimples graced each cheek
as she placed her fingers across her mouth. For the first time since he had been in her company he saw the coquette she might have played so very well in any other lifetime. ‘Why would I have need of one? Your friend can hardly walk with his bruising and your arm is bound and useless. Are you right-handed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then let us hope you have had practice with your other arm to fend off the enemy.’

  ‘Why? Are they close?’

  ‘You are looking straight at one, monsieur. As close as breath.’ No humour at all lingered.

  ‘A woman who has saved me twice can hardly be classed as an enemy.’

  ‘The most cunning of foes are those you know and trust.’

  He knew she spoke from her own experience but, with a little chink of goodwill settling between them, did not wish to mention it and ruin the discourse.

  Besides, here in the night with the moon upon them and the quiet call of birds that did not sleep,

  either, there was a sense of camaraderie he had never felt before with any woman.

  ‘What is your name?’ Her question came after many moments of silence and he hesitated. How much should he tell her? He opted for caution.

  ‘James.’

  She turned it on her tongue twice. ‘I had a brother of the same name.’

  He noted the past tense.

  ‘My mother took him with her when she left my father. I was six. He was three. The boat they used to escape foundered off Kincraig Point and they were both drowned.’

  Her head tipped up and he saw her eyes watching him in the moonlight. Why had her mother not taken her? He did not like to ask the question, but she answered it for him anyway.

  ‘Enemies can operate under the guise of love just as easily as they can do hate, and it is my experience that all parents have their favourites.’

  ‘God.’ His expletive was filled with all the anger she must have felt as a six-year-old.

  ‘Were there other siblings?’

  ‘You ask too many questions,’ she said and stood, stretching. The outline of one breast was easily seen against her tunic where the material had slipped to allow the soft abundance an escape.