go blithely off down a deserted beach with him when he might have older friends waiting to ravish her or worse?
Yet she could see for herself that the boy was no beggar, nor did he look to be an outlaw seeking sport. His clothing, wrinkled and ruined as it was, possessed a richness foreign to these cottagers. His speech indicated a worthy education and his manner indicated gentility. She did not truly doubt he was what he declared, some knight’s squire.
Iana set down the bucket again and faced him, hands on her hips. It troubled her to think she could save someone with a few moments of her time and a handful of herbs, when he might otherwise die. “How far away did you leave this fine master of yours?”
“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.
