A Healer For The Highlander

‘Are you ill?’ She leaned in towards him and took in his measure, glancing over his body and then staring once more into his eyes. ‘Have you a fever?’ She lifted her hand up as though to touch his forehead and paused, her hand waiting there a scant few inches from his skin. ‘Your pardon,’ she said as she dropped her hand back to her side.

‘I have no need of your services,’ he said. His choice of words was ill made and he shook his head. ‘My son has been ill for some time and nothing has helped him.’ Davidh shrugged, fighting the urge to beg her for any help she could offer.

‘I have not unpacked my supplies yet, but tell me of his symptoms so I will know if I can help him.’

He could not help it—he let out a loud sigh of relief. Something in her expression gave him confidence that she could indeed help his son.

‘His breathing becomes laboured often,’ he said.

It took a few minutes for him to describe all the ways his son had suffered over the last year and how he seemed to worsen by the week. She nodded as though she recognised these signs and symptoms and he found himself studying the way her brow gathered when she asked him to clarify something he’d said. She was methodical in a way the village healer was not. Her questions made sense to him as she tried to understand his son’s illness.

‘Can you help him?’ he asked when he’d finished.

‘I have my suspicions about the cause of his illness, but I must see him to be certain.’ She glanced around the small clearing in which this secluded cottage sat and then back towards the falls. ‘Can you bring him here on the morrow?’

Now Davidh looked at the surrounding land and wondered if it was possible. This small area of woods and clearing around the cottage was like an island in the middle of sheer rock cliffs on one side and a large river that rushed around the other and fell, forming the falls. Oh, aye, he’d followed the path that Malcolm had told him of all those years ago, but he would have to carry his son to bring him here. Shaking his head, he looked back to the woman.

‘Nay. I see no way to get him here in his condition. Even using the hillside path that I did.’ She looked startled at his reminder of how he’d arrived there, but he did not let that deter him. ‘Can you not come to the village and see him there?’ As her expression turned into one of refusal, Davidh knew she would not come. ‘I can pay you in coin for your inconvenience.’ He would give her every bit of coin or valuables he might own if she could help his Colm.

‘’Tis not about payment. I have not yet asked the chieftain’s permission to be here. To offer my herbs and skills to his villagers. So, to visit your son before I do so would offer an insult he could not ignore.’

Once more relief flooded him. This was not an obstacle. He could bring this woman to Robert and make her known to him easily.

‘Then I would take you to Robert and see you given permission to live here among us.’ The words came out even as innate caution raised within him.

Robert trusted Davidh’s judgement and would accept this woman on his word. He searched her face for any sign of danger and found only sympathy there.

‘You could do that?’ Her gaze narrowed then and she studied his face more closely. ‘I do not even ken your name or who you are.’ She glanced away then, as though thinking on something, and turned back to him. ‘I did not mean that to sound as rude as it did, especially not when you have just offered help to me.’ A scant smile eased her mouth.

‘I did simply invade your home without an introduction and never asked your name either,’ he said. ‘I am Davidh Cameron and I command the Cameron warriors for our chieftain.’

The effects of his words were immediate and surprising. Her green eyes grew wide and fluttered several times at his words. Then those eyes filled with tears for a moment before she glanced away. Strange, that. Davidh searched her face for some sign of familiarity, but there was no way he could have met this woman and forgotten her. A moment later she seemed to pull herself out of whatever reverie she’d fallen into and looked at him with clear eyes.

‘Forgive me for my refusal to help you, sir,’ she said softly as she curtsied before him. ‘I did not understand who you are and I meant no insult to the chieftain or his man.’

This part, this obeisance, still unsettled him, but Davidh understood that, in his new position of service to the new chieftain, it would be something to which he must accustom himself. He was in a position of honour and a certain level of power and others who wished to gain entrance or favour with the chieftain would attempt to go through him to get it. He nodded at the woman.

‘I took no insult from your words, mistress. I suspect Robert would not take insult from your coming to the village first, but others might on his behalf.’

There were always some who protected the chieftain’s dignity or just wanted to toady up to him to gain advantage for themselves. She waited with a look of anticipation in those lovely green eyes and he lost his thoughts for a moment. When he wanted to speak, he realised he did not know her name either.

‘What are you called?’ He finally forced out the words. He wanted to know what name he would whisper when he brought her to mind when she was not there.

‘I am Anna. Anna Mackenzie.’

‘Lately of...?’

‘I have lived with my mother’s family in the north.’

‘What brings you south? Here?’

Though he was being less than hospitable and was questioning the person who possibly held his son’s life in her hands, Davidh could not forget his duty to his clan. She glanced away, staring off in the direction of the falls, and then back to meet his waiting gaze.

‘I have been learning the healing ways since I was but a wee lass and showed some skill in them. I have always wanted a place to call my own. A place to hone my skills and to help the ill and injured.’ The seriousness of her words gave him pause.

‘You make it sound like a calling.’

She smiled then and he nearly let out a gasp. No woman before had caused such a visceral reaction within him as this one did. In a short time, she had him uneasy and aroused and curious. This was not good. He had many things that needed his focused attention and anything, anyone, who took his mind off his responsibilities was not good.

‘My mother often spoke of it in those words,’ she, Anna, said. ‘Some people were called to certain stations or places in their lives. She was called to be a healer and it would seem that I have been, too.’

‘We have a healer in the village, but he sees more to injuries. He kens little of concoctions and ways to heal other than what most ken.’

‘Then who has been treating your son?’ she asked, stepping closer to him. A breeze rustled through the clearing and Davidh inhaled an enticing scent. A soap mayhap that she used? So taken by it, he paused a bit too long and she noticed.

‘We had another, a woman, who was here for but a few months, before leaving with her husband to his village. Morag left me a goodly supply of the syrups and medicaments that Colm needs. But now Old Ranald sees to things.’

She muttered something under her breath before she nodded.

‘I will come in the morn, if that is convenient for you,’ she said.

‘Come to the gates and tell one of the guards to send to me when you do,’ Davidh said. ‘I must get back now.’

He’d spent too much time here and the sun was beginning its journey down to night. Even using the path Malcolm told him about would be treacherous come dark. And the one that went down along the falls was dangerous at any time of the day. Only fools and wee lads were stupid or proud enough to try it.

‘On the morrow, then,’ she said as he nodded and turned to leave.

‘How did you ken about that path to get up here?’ she asked.

‘I have known it for a long time. I just had no need to use it until now.’ He stopped then and faced her, for the loud rushing of the falls would make hearing his words impossible if he walked closer to them. ‘My old friend Malcolm told me of it.’

He did not know her at all, but the expression on her face alarmed him, nonetheless. ‘Mistress, are you well?’ he asked.

‘Aye,’ she said, waving him off. ‘I would prefer that no one knew of it.’ He understood that a woman living alone far from the village had reason to wish for privacy...and for safety.

‘I will share my knowledge with no one, Anna,’ he said, seeing her worry ease and her face brighten. ‘On the morrow, then.’

It took him less time to reach the bottom of the falls and the horse he’d left tied there in the shade. And, for the first time in such a long while, Davidh felt hope rising in his heart.

His son would not die.

This woman, this healer, this Anna Mackenzie, would help his son and Colm would grow up to be the man that Mara and Davidh had dreamt of at his birth.

His son would not die.

The chant was familiar to him, but now he allowed himself to believe it could be true.

* * *