hearing such a voice would immediately know the owner of it.
She frowned. He’d assured her he wasn’t a knight, he certainly wasn’t a Scot…so what could he be? she wondered. He was too old to be one of their Sassenach squires. Which left only one thing: a mercenary. He was one of their paid killers. Aislynn wondered why she hadn’t realized it instantly. Not only was he her enemy…he was paid to be one! That made everything she was doing so much worse. She should have known it the moment she met him. A man possessing all the muscle and scarring this man did obviously warred for a living. No wonder he hid his wound from the others. It would probably mean his death. She was shaking as she brought the pot over to him.
“What…is it?” He slurred the question with that resonating voice of his.
Aislynn turned her attention to rinsing the wound. She had to. She had to keep herself occupied. Aside from a quick intake of breath, her giant didn’t give any outward sign of how it pained him. Perhaps it isn’t paining him, she told herself, since he’d just drunk a wineskin of ale.
“Feels…strange. Like naught. What is it…you do?” he asked.
“Your senses must be blunted.”
“You do…such a thing? You—your talents must be…in great demand.”
“You drank yourself into it. I had little to do with it,” she replied stiffly. The last of the water mixture had been poured on, leaving the flesh slightly white at the edges, before it started bleeding again. Aislynn frowned more at it. She knew she was going to have to seal the wound. She’d only done it once and that was to a stray dog—and she’d had her other knife. The cur hadn’t even stayed around so she could see if it worked. She stood, looked for her blade, and then put it back in the fire.
“Why do…you heat it? A-again?”
“I have to burn you.”
His eyes really were a perfect match to the sky. It was especially noticeable as wide as he had them as he stared up at her. “Nay! Why?”
“To stay the bleeding. I’ve nae other choice.”
“Oh.” One word and he went from an anxious male back to a virile, handsome, enormous, and slightly intoxicated one. “Is it going to hurt?”
“Aye,” she answered. “Everything I do hurts. It heals, too.”
He nodded and was silent, watching her with luminous eyes that now matched the center of the flame. Aislynn looked away, put the comparison aside as more stupidity she didn’t need, and picked up the knife. She moved the three steps to him quickly, before the blade could cool.
At the first touch, he arched his body and groaned again, louder than the first time, and filling the clearing with his deep voice again. Aislynn looked quickly about. Everything seemed to stop, the very air seemed to have silenced, and that made the stupidity of her actions even more apparent. If the people accompanying him think him in trouble, will they come? she wondered. She returned her gaze to him. There wasn’t anyone or anything else to see.
“That…pained,” he said, breaking the silence.
“Just as I warned. I’m na’ finished,” she was answering as she rose to look down at him.
“You’re…not?”
“I have to sear the other side.”
He made a sound suspiciously like a sob. Aislynn was afraid of verifying it. She rinsed her blade, twisted her lips at the blackened metal near the joint, and then shrugged before putting it back into the fire. It was a special knife; hers for years. It was one of her prized possessions. Now it was strangely tinted and used, but still prized.
If he’d suffered anything like tears, they were nowhere in existence as she knelt and pressed the blade to him the second time. In fact, he was looking at her with something indefinable. His expression sent shivers through her. Aislynn had to look away. He was too immense. He was too strange. Everything was. The entire morning was getting too large to absorb. She was going to be late at the mill. She’d be punished. And she was tired. That was especially strange. Aislynn never tired.
She hung her head and waited for the blade to cool against his skin before sliding it away. He was going to have a definite scar below his knee but there wasn’t one sign of poison.
“I believe…you succeeded,” he commented finally but with the same disjointed phrasing. “It isn’t bleeding. You didn’t hear…me cursing…much?”
“I dinna’ have to,” she whispered.
“Discard…it. I infuse suffering…with anger. Makes it…bearable. My. You did…well. It even…feels better.”
“I’m na’ finished,” she told him. He went so tense next to her that she felt it. “Dinna’ fret—it will na’ pain. I’m going to wrap it with special moss. It will soothe. It will keep poison away. Nae one will know. You’ll have full use of it again soon…then you can go back to your business of war and killing.”
“W-war and—and—and…killing? Why…do you…say that?”
She should have bitten her tongue to keep from saying it. She spoke her next words to the grass. “You’re verra large. Fit. Scarred. You kept a weapon in your leg for days ignoring the pain. Such things define what a man is and by your own words you’re nae knight. I decide at what I dinna’ know. I use clues. You’ve given me some.”
“Unlike…all else you say…that one is not—not—not…it’s wrong.”
Aislynn looked up, caught her lip at the intent look on his face and looked away. “I—I have to get the moss,” she stammered.
“It will be…most welcome.”
She stood and moved to where she’d left the woven greenish netting, covered with a thick layer of lichen. It looked wet enough. It smelled of earth and loam and the strength of the spirits. She lifted a section between her fingers and thumb and approached him with it. Then she was kneeling beside him, placing the lichen atop the freshly cauterized flesh and holding it there.
“Lady?” he whispered.
Aislynn turned her head, moving her eyes up his tunic-covered chest, and caught his gaze. The moment she did, she knew she was in trouble. She forgot to breathe, every thought flew her head, and pinpricks of sensation tickled the area about her nose. She’d known he was disturbing, she just hadn’t realized how much. She’d never felt this way. It surprised and stunned and terrified…and yet it felt wondrous, too. Aislynn knew there wasn’t any such thing as love in the world anymore. The warring and killing destroyed it. There was no such thing as love, and there certainly wasn’t such a thing as love at first sight. Such an idea was for those who believed in faeries.
“You’ve my…thanks.” He stopped and licked his lips. “I’d pay…but I have no—no coin with me. I’ll…have some sent. Tell me where.”
Aislynn looked down and welcomed the embarrassing sting of reaction. Love at first sight? she wondered. It was obviously one-sided and he was stewed. She cleared her throat in order to answer as forcefully as the Lady of the Brook would. “You must forget me. That is my price. And my payment.”
“What…if
