is no’ so,” the physician said.
“You know verra well what I mean,” said the old man. “Look at your long faces! I’ll be right as rain!” he said irritably. “Why, I scarcely feel a thing, thanks be to the captain’s fine brandy.”
Aulay suppressed a groan. That was expensive French brandy, the last of what he and his brother Cailean had smuggled into Balhaire a few years ago.
“Have you any more of it?” the healer asked.
“Aye, there’s a good lad, Mats, hand him the bottle.”
“I’ll need fresh water as well,” the physician said, and Lottie went at once to the sideboard to fetch it, returning with the ewer.
The physician poured water directly into the brandy bottle—so much that there would be no salvaging the brandy. He shook the bottle to mix the contents, then put his hand on the injured man’s leg. “Steady yourself, Bernt,” he said, and poured the diluted brandy onto the wound.
The old man howled with pain, which startled the giant, and he, in turn, shrieked like a banshee. When he did, the youngest of them threw his hands over his ears. “By all that is holy, Drustan, donna do that!” he shouted. “It hurts me bloody ears!”
“I’ve made a sleeping broth,” the physician said, nonplussed by all the shouting and screeching. “It ought to keep you from this world for a few hours, Bernt. You need to sleep, aye?”
“What if he dies?” the giant asked tearfully.
“I willna die,” the old man said sternly. “A small wound canna kill a Livingstone, lad.”
“We’ll need a clean bandage,” the physician said. All of them looked at Lottie.
“Aye,” she said, and without the slightest compunction, went to the cupboard beneath the sideboard and removed one of Aulay’s shirts.
“I beg your pardon—wait,” Aulay said, but of course she paid him no heed, and handed the shirt to the physician. He tore the shirt into strips, then employed the two younger men to help him bind the old man’s abdominal wound.
When the bandaging was done, the physician picked up a bowl. “This is the sleeping draught.” He held it up like a vicar would hold a cup of wine at communion.
“Aye, let’s have it, then,” said her father. “I’ve got an awful pain, that I do.”
Lottie lifted his head and the physician helped him drink from the bowl.
“All right, then, lads,” her father said with a sigh when he’d finished. “You heard Morven—I’m to sleep now. Do as Lottie says, aye? But go now, let your old father rest. I’ll be good as new when we reach Aalborg.”
“I donna like to be here,” the giant said to no one in particular. “I want to go home to Lismore.”
“We’ll be there soon enough, lad,” the physician said, but Aulay saw the man exchange a look with Lottie. He doubted his own words.
Lottie kissed first the giant, then the younger one. “Mind you do as Duff or Mr. MacLean tells you,” she said to them. “If they donna need you, find a place to sleep. We’ve a long voyage ahead of us and I’ll have you rested, aye?”
“But what of you, Lot?” the youngest one asked.
“I’ll stay here, with Fader.”
The young man glanced at Aulay and frowned. “What of him?”
All heads turned toward him. “We’ve no other place to put him,” Lottie said with a shrug.
“I donna like to be here,” the giant said again.
“Aye, I know,” she said soothingly, and rubbed his arm. “None of us do.”
“I do,” the younger one said as he bumped into a chair on his way out. “This is a bigger ship than Gilroy’s, and it’s much faster. I should like to be captain of this ship one day.”
“That post has been taken,” Aulay reminded the lad as he reached the door.
The young man shot him a wide-eyed look and disappeared out the door.
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