The Quest

“Only a short distance,” he assured her. He lied. She could see it in his eyes and rebuked him with her expression. “Very well, then,” he amended, shamefaced, “I admit it is a good two hours’ walk.”

“Two hours?” Iana threw up her hand and rolled her eyes. “Why me? Why would you think I know aught of healing?”

He perched his hands on his skinny hips and struck a superior stance. “Most ladies are taught such, are they not? How else would they care for the people in their charge? Please, lady. I would not ask, but he is sorely injured and needs to be stitched. I will pay you well.”

She eyed him shrewdly. “You call me lady. If you believe me that, why would you think I need your coin?”

The sandy-haired youth drew up to his full yet meager height and looked her up and down, judging. “Your demeanor and your speech betray your birth, even though you dress little better than a peasant,” he observed.

He glanced around at the nearby cottages of daub and wattle. “And you live here. I would venture you have fallen upon hard times. Through no fault of your own, I am certain,” he quickly added.

His last words disclosed his doubt of that, and he avoided looking at or mentioning the sleeping child. She had told him she had no husband. He probably thought she had disgraced herself with some man, and been cast out of her family for it. Not far off the mark concerning her station and her exile, she admitted, though he had the cause wrong.

“Sir Henri and I reward good deeds, I assure you,” he said.

With a few coins of her own, she could more easily quit this cursed village where Newell had left her to stew in her rebellion. For days now, she had been thinking that anywhere short of hell would be preferable to Whitethistle. Though she had nowhere to go and no way to get there, she had been about to attempt it in her desperation.

She knew if she did not, she must give up wee Tam. Newell would never allow her to keep the bairn once he found out about her, and none of the villagers would take the poor babe. Surely God had sent this young man to provide the ready means for her escape.

“How much will you give me?” she asked, trying not to sound too eager.

The boy withdrew a finely worked silver chain from inside his salt-crusted doublet for her to inspect. “This,” he offered regretfully. “It was to finance our journey east, but I suppose it will do us no good if Sir Henri dies from his hurt. Tend him and you may have it.”

Her eyes grew wide at the richness he held. She could separate those links and easily support herself and Tam for months to come. As quickly as that, she decided. “We must return to my cottage first and gather my things. His wound is a cut, you say?”

Relief flooded the boy’s eyes. “More like a gouge. Not terribly deep, so he tells me. We bound it up, but it has kept bleeding off and on for nigh a week now. Loss of blood and fever have weakened him, but it has no stink of decay.” He winced. “Yet.”

Iana nodded and led the way to her cottage. As luck would have it, none of the villagers were about. The men were busy fishing and the women preparing meals this time of day. Even the young ones had their chores. So much the better if no one noticed her leave with this young stranger.

It would take no time at all to collect her sewing implements and the few things she could not leave behind. Tam wakened as they entered, so Iana removed her from the sling and fed her the last of the bread and milk. She then set the child upon a small earthern pot. The lad made a hasty exit and waited outside.

“There, sweeting,” she crooned. “There’s my good Thomasina! Ah, you’re a braw lass, are you not?” Iana took a few moments to clean the child all over with a cloth and the water she had just drawn, and dress her in a fresh linen gown.

The large brown eyes regarded her with such trust Iana felt tears form. She brushed her palm over Tam’s dark, wispy curls. “No one will part us if I have aught to say to it,” she assured her. “You have lost too much this past month, as have I. Now, here we go, love,” Iana said as she set the pitifully thin foundling within the sling she had fashioned and wrestled it around to hang against her back. The burden had become a true comfort to Iana this past fortnight, a bit of warmth in her cold isolation.

The mother had died from a coughing sickness, pleading with her last breath that Iana take the child and help her survive. Little Tam had been near death herself, though from starvation rather than the illness that felled her mother.

Iana knew nothing about them other than the child’s forename and that the mother had been forced to leave the village some months before. Iana had found the two in the woods while gathering herbs. None of the villagers would speak of the mother, and they shunned the child as though she were a leper.

Other than her light weight in the back sling, the babe was no trouble. She ate when food was offered, relieved herself when Iana helped her, and she never cried. Judging by the number of teeth she had, Tam must be near two years of age, though she looked only half that and she could not walk. The first night when Iana had lifted the babe in her arms, Tam had reached up one hand, touched Iana’s cheek and uttered one faint mew like a kitten. Aye, Tam was hers now.

Iana looked up to see the boy reenter the cottage.

“Oats,” she muttered briskly, grabbing up the drawstring sack that held her supply, “and usquebaugh.” She handed the youth the jug to carry. The strong spirits would serve as well as any medicaments she could borrow from neighbors.

No one here had much use for the herbs Iana favored for treating wounds and sickness. They mostly relied on animal parts and old Druid remedies. The forest was full of better things. Iana added what she thought she’d need to her sack. The old healer at Ochney had been a good teacher. Iana only wished she had been able to remain there past her girlhood to learn more from her.

She bundled the few clothes she owned inside her shawl and knotted the ends together. Once she had sewn this knight’s wound, she would set out immediately for Ayr, the nearest good-sized port. A few silver links from the chain she had accepted from the young squire would gain her passage on the first ship leaving Scotland. Mayhaps to the Isle of Eire. She had heard that it was beautiful there and the folk a friendly lot.

Iana cared not where fate took her so long as it was away from here. If her brother found that this exile of hers had not taught her a lesson and changed her mind about wedding Douglas Sturrock, Iana did not doubt he would resort to much stronger measures. He had warned he did not wish to beat her into compliance. Little did he know what scant effect that would have. As if beating her once would make her accept a lifetime of beatings. Toads had more brains than Newell. The things his wife had told Iana about him indicated he had become nigh as dastardly as her own husband had been. Iana could scarcely believe it of her brother, but his own actions lent truth to Dorothea’s words.

Becoming wife to Sturrock offered about as much promise as had her first marriage. Iana might survive it if Newell forced the match, but wee Tam would not. The defenseless orphan would be left alone here to die. Now Iana had a way to avoid that, a definite chance of successfully saving them both.

The thought of that sped her steps so that the lad had to scurry to keep up.

“There was a battle at Portsmouth, you say?” she asked out of curiosity. “Have you French already invaded England? Where is this city?”

“The southern coast, lady. We had fired the place and were away home when the ship began taking on water. We signaled the nearest of our vessels, but she did not respond. Before we knew what was happening, we listed sharply and many went over the side. Then she sank like a stone.”

He paused, took a deep breath and then continued, “Sir Henri was injured by a broken spar. He fell against it as he released the barrels tied on the deck. We thought everyone might use those to float, though we saw no one else doing so. We believe all thirty souls perished, save ourselves.”

Iana shook her head and clicked her tongue in sympathy. She had no political leanings whatsoever, but it seemed a shame so many should die in any cause. Scotland had always sided with the French, of course. Her own King David had sought asylum in France the past few years while Bailliol, friend to the English king, had usurped Scotland’s crown.

Here in the west country, it mattered little who ruled. Life went on the same as ever. But she would break away from here before the day was out and make her own way in the world.

No one at Ochney Castle would know where she went. Newell would come in three days to ask whether she was ready to surrender her will in the marriage matter. The thought of him discovering her mysterious disappearance made her smile with satisfaction.

They had trudged along for some time when the boy, Everand, suddenly passed her at a run. “There! There he lies! Come quickly, lady. Hurry!”

She watched him drop beside his master and tenderly lift the man’s head upon his knees, cradling the face as though feeling for fever. Soon she stood directly over the two and looked down upon the man she was to care for.

Not an old man, as she had imagined. She guessed him to be thirty years, mayhaps a few past that, but not many. He was a large fellow and darkly handsome. Blood loss accounted for the sickly pallor of his skin beneath the short, thick beard. Sand coated one side of the long dark locks that must reach his shoulders when he stood upright. He was unconscious, maybe even dead already.

“Move out of the way,” she instructed the squire as she knelt. Carefully, she untied the sling and set the baby behind her on the sand. To the boy, she ordered, “Mind the child for me if you wish me to do this.”

Iana tugged aside the blood-soaked clothing and began to pull loose the wrappings around the man’s midsection.

“God have mercy,” she muttered when she saw the angry wound. She spoke to the lad again. “Gather some wood and build a fire. It looks as if we shall be here for a while.” Though she knew it would be wiser to leave within the hour, Iana could not bring herself to desert this knight or to rush his care.

He opened his eyes, but she could see that he did not focus well. Fever, she guessed.

“Take the boy to Baincroft. Anything you want,” he mumbled in her own language.

“And leave you here like this?” she asked wryly. “I do not think your little man would allow it.”

He blinked hard and his lips lifted in either a pained smile or a grimace. “No, I suppose not,” he mumbled. His accent proved faint, but there was no mistaking he was French. “Then I thank you for…helping.” His eyes drifted shut.

Iana uttered a mirthless laugh. “You might want to delay that gratitude, sir. I am about to deal you more pain than you already bear.”

When the boy returned with the dry deadwood, she found her flint and tow to make the fire. When she’d accomplished that, she fished a small metal bowl from her belongings and handed it to the squire. “Fill this with seawater.” Then she sat back to wait, snuggling the silent Tam against her side.

Henri struggled to hold his gaze on the woman’s face as she worked upon him. Efficient as a moneylender counting coins, he thought, while she removed his tunic and bathed his body in the seawater Ev had fetched for her.

The sting of the cleansing troubled him little more than the constant throbbing pain he had endured for days. When she glanced worriedly at his face, he summoned a smile, knowing she would think him brave and stoic. His small deception pleased him, having a lovely woman believe him so. In truth, he was half-dead already and quite well used to the agony of dying. He would make a good end of it. Not one whimper.

She lifted a small container to pour some liquid over his wound. The excruciating fire of it tore a groan from his throat.

“Felt that, did you?” she asked. “It will get worse.”