A Healer For The Highlander

Anna did her mother’s bidding and, over the next hours, they gathered everything that was at or near readiness. A strange wariness filled Anna as night came and her mother continued to gather and sort and wrap all the plants and herbs they’d collected. When her mother sat at the wide, worn table and just stared into the dark corner of the cottage, Anna went to her and finally asked the question that had haunted her all day.

‘Are we leaving here, Mam?’

‘Aye, on the morrow.’

The few and simple words tore Anna’s heart apart. Her hands shook as she thought on the possibilities facing her now. Had her mother discovered her secret? Her secrets? Anna had been so careful not to bring Malcolm close to the cottage or the hidden garden. What did her mother know?

‘Why? Why would you leave this all behind? Where will we go?’ Anna stood and walked to the window. Resting her hands on the shutter, she stared past the rough wood and out at the forest surrounding their dwelling, waiting on her mother’s explanation.

‘Ye’ve been caught, Anna. Are ye three months gone now?’

Anna’s hands slid down over her belly in a movement she could not stop. She did not want to turn to face her mother and see the disappointment and disapproval in her gaze. But when she did she saw sadness, a touch of pity, but mostly the glimmer of love there.

‘Aye, Mam. Or close to it.’

‘When were ye going to tell me, lass?’

Anna swallowed against the tightness in her throat. She’d never kept secrets from her mother...until Malcolm. Keeping the knowledge of him and their love felt right. Or it had before this moment. ‘I would have told ye, Mam. He... Mal said he would tell his father and then we could...’

‘Malcolm Cameron, the chieftain’s son?’ Anna nodded. ‘Ye thought to marry him? The chieftain’s son would marry the penniless bastard daughter of the witch of Caig Falls? Ye ken better than that, Anna.’

Her mother’s words forced her to see the harsh and stark situation as it was—not as she’d hoped or pretended it could be. It was much more romantic to believe his promise that they would be together and the vows they’d made to each other. To believe that the child they’d made would be welcomed by his kin. To believe that she would be, too. Anna let out a sigh, releasing all the pretences she’d built around the sad truth of the matter.

Her mother walked to her and gathered her close. ‘All will be well, lass.’ They stood in silence for a few minutes until her mother released her, clutching her by the shoulders and searching her face. ‘My kin will take us in until we sort this out.’

Anna nodded, fighting the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. ‘I want to tell him before we leave.’

‘Nay. ’Tis too dangerous. If he kens, he will do something foolish and we will face more trouble than we could manage. I have seen this before, Anna. If a woman is called a witch, which is what Euan Cameron will do to me before his clan if it suits his purposes, she dies. Our only choice is to leave. Leave now. Leave quietly.’

Anna would have argued and protested, but the stony expression in her mother’s eyes told her she would fail to soften or sway her decision. The happiness she’d felt, the sense of love and anticipation, fled and a deep despair filled her. Her child would never know their father or their kin. Anna shivered as a wave of dread passed through her. Somehow, in that terrible, sad moment, she kenned she would never see Malcolm again. Never hold him. Never love him.

* * *

The next days and weeks passed in a blur as Anna and her mother packed and fled the glen and their home above Caig Falls for the north. Her mother’s kin, the Mackenzies, did take them in and her child, a boy, was born among them six months later. When word reached them of Malcolm’s death at the hands of Brodie Mackintosh three years later, Anna remembered the portent of it she’d felt that day.

And she mourned his death and the end of all the possibilities they’d shared. Mayhap one day she would return to Cameron lands and give her son, Malcolm’s son, the opportunity to be part of his father’s kith and kin.

Mayhap one day...

Chapter One (#u9395dc2f-8b29-5217-aaa3-1b63620cc54c)

Achnacarry Castle on Loch Arkaig —spring, the year of Our Lord 1371

Davidh Cameron stood at his laird’s back, listening and watching as the chieftain of their clan heard grievances and pleas. As the man who led the warriors of the Clan Cameron here on their southern lands, it was his duty to attend these hearings. But, more than once, he glanced up as someone or another arrived in the hall and approached in haste.

He let himself relax only when he saw that it was not someone from the village. When his laird stopped in the middle of speaking to a man and looked at him, Davidh understood his actions had been more apparent than he’d hoped.

‘Ye can go,’ the laird said, nodding towards the doorway. ‘This does not need your attention.’

His stomach clenched then, as he realised his inattention had been noticed and acknowledged. Davidh leaned closer to Robert Cameron’s ear.

‘They will send word if I am needed, my lord. I will see to my duties here.’ Davidh waited for a reply and, when none came, he stepped back to his place behind the chieftain’s chair.

He did not wish to shirk his duties. As commander of the clan’s warriors, his place was at his chieftain’s back during his official meetings and when he travelled or carried out other duties. The last thing Davidh wanted was to be absent when he was needed by his laird.

The business of the clan went on for some time and yet Davidh found himself distracted. What if Colm worsened? What if his breathing became even more laboured than it had been last night? It seemed that the boy failed more with each passing day. What would he do if the worst happened? How could he survive if he lost his son after losing his wife and more recently his own parents?

The last years seemed to be filled with only death and destruction for Davidh and his kin. The only good thing that had happened was the ascension of Robert Cameron to the high chair of the Clan Cameron. Thankfully, the laird’s brother Gilbert had ruled for only a few short years, but those years had driven their clan to the brink of a bigger conflict with not only their long-time enemies the Mackintoshes, but also the larger Chattan Confederation. And Gilbert had managed to target his brother in his attempts to undermine Robert’s possible claim.

In the end, it had been a Mackintosh raised as a Cameron who had brought Gilbert down and had placed the clan back on steadier ground with the powerful Mackintoshes and even with the King. In the last year or so, Robert had established himself as a fair chieftain with a good sense of how to oversee his people. The self-serving and utter ruthlessness of Gilbert had been followed by a man content at stewarding his clan’s lands and people while safeguarding them, too.

The sure and steady footsteps across the stone floor broke into his thoughts and Davidh looked towards the person who approached. His worst fears filled him, making it now hard for him to breathe. Colm? Without waiting for the woman to reach the dais, the laird motioned to him.

‘Go.’

Davidh was down the steps before Margaret, the blacksmith’s daughter, could reach him. ‘Is he worse then?’

‘Aye,’ she whispered.

The worried expression on the lass’s face told him more than he wished to know. Davidh ran then, leaving the girl behind and not waiting for her to catch him. Colm could be... He could die this time. The words of some remembered prayers began to flow in his thoughts as he forced the pleas to the Almighty to replace everything else.

Colm was the last person he had and he could not lose him.

Not the boy. Dear God, not the boy.

He did not remember making his way out of the keep or yard or through the gates and village. Davidh found himself at the door to the blacksmith’s cottage and he stopped. Fear kept him from reaching up to knock. Fear paralysed his own breath and made his heart pound within his chest. How could he face the death of his son if that was what awaited him inside?

Davidh tamped all the fears down as he had for months and years and knocked before lifting the latch. Slowly, as he offered one final prayer up, he opened the door and looked for his son. Colm lay on a pallet in the corner near the hearth. The boy was almost lost in a cocoon of blankets and all Davidh could see was the pale face and bluish lips that spoke of a recent attack. He stared now, trying to discern if his son lived or had died.

‘Come in,’ Suisan whispered as she opened the door wider for him to enter. ‘He is sleeping now, puir wee laddie. Exhausted from...well, ye ken what he faces when the spells come on him.’

Aye, Davidh understood the terrible attacks that stole his son’s ability to breathe and the racking coughs that strained his muscles, leaving behind bruised ribs from the ferocity of the spasms.

But Colm lived. He’d survived another attack of the breathing disease that had struck him down on a more frequent basis in the last few months. And no tisane or poultice or brew from the last healer had helped. Colm worsened with each bout and Davidh understood that, one day, he would not make it through.

This day, though, Colm lived.

‘I would not have bothered ye this time, but I feared...the worst. I have never seen him like this.’ She nodded at his son.

‘I thank you for caring for him, Suisan.’

The stout woman nodded and then gathered her own daughter in her embrace when Margaret arrived there. Davidh stood over his son, watching and assessing every breath the boy’s frail body pulled in and let out. Running his hands through his hair, Davidh wondered how much more Colm could endure.

‘Margaret, take this to yer father,’ Suisan said. She released her daughter and handed her a small sack. It seemed a strange thing to do, but Davidh watched as the girl obeyed without question. When they were alone but for his son, Suisan walked closer to him. ‘I want to suggest something to ye though I have only rumours to go on for now.’

‘Go on.’ Davidh shrugged. ‘I have always heeded your counsel, Suisan.’

‘There is talk of the witch’s return to Caig Falls.’