Chapter One
Northwest Scotland, June 1620
Rhian MacBeith raisedher gaze and scanned the battlefield. The fighting here, fierce and desperate, had lasted most the afternoon. She’d watched from her father’s keep just behind her, aching because she could do nothing to help the people she loved—those who bled and suffered and, aye, all too often fell beneath the swords of their rivals and enemies, the MacLeods from across the glen.
Fear, anger, and frustration made her sweat. As a healer, she found it tortuous to stand by and watch, unable to act while others suffered. She’d wept and prayed for their MacBeith warriors to turn back their enemies, chase them back to the loch that separated the MacLeod from MacBeith lands.
The warriors of Clan MacBeith included two women, for both Rhian’s sisters fought in this battle. Moira had, since their father’s death early this summer, set herself up as chief of Clan MacBeith, and took her duties most seriously. Saerla, Rhian’s dreamy-eyed, fey younger sister, who made a surprisingly fearsome warrior, had long since trained for the field.
The battle had turned just before nightfall when members of the MacLeod vanguard fell, and the others withdrew. Pursued by Rhian’s sisters, their war chief Alasdair, and the rest of the howling MacBeith hosts, the enemy had not paused even to pick up all their dead. Everyone Rhian loved was still out there, in danger.
Now, in the rapidly gathering gloaming, she stood heartsick and surveyed the carnage.
She’d come stealing out of the keep past the forecourt and the main gate, which now stood open, with her basket of simples over her arm. No one had ordered her to stay inside, mainly because no one remained who had the authority to do so. Dead and dying—members of both clans—lay everywhere. Her heart told her it was her duty to alleviate suffering where she could.
But standing here, it seemed pure folly to think she and her basket of cures could do much good. The smell of blood arose and assaulted her nostrils. It mingled with that of sweat and mud trampled underfoot, for it had rained earlier. The air felt soft, and mist had begun to claw its way down the surrounding hillsides, mingling with the dusk to obscure what she did not want to see.
By God, what could she do here in this sea of suffering? Where to begin?
“Mistress Rhian!” One of their men, Hector, ran up beside her. He’d been defending at the gate for most the day and bore a number of garish wounds. One, which coursed down the side of his face, still dripped blood. “Ye should no’ be here.”
He was right—she likely should not. Moira would have a fit if she knew Rhian had ventured out. But her sister yet risked her life somewhere off in the gathering darkness.
Could she, Rhian, do any less?
“There are wounded,” she began to Hector, but he had already left her. She could hear him still, calling to his fellows who had begun moving out into the field. “Bring in our wounded. Any MacLeods who are no’ dead—finish them!”
Finish them.End their lives. Let whatever blood they had left after contributing to the morass that lay at Rhian’s feet flow.
Murder accomplished here in the soft dark.Madness.
She went sick inside, and aye, she nearly turned back. Her skills would be needed when they began bringing in their wounded. She should retreat.
But—what she heard coming out of the gloaming would not allow her to turn away. Men calling out. Groaning, crying, one screaming from a wound he could not bear.
How could she turn back when these men needed succor?
She tightened her grip on the basket. She could not think of her own safety. She must put her feelings of horror aside, as she had so often in the past. When her ma, whom she adored, had died. When her brother, Arran, had fallen in a battle not long after, and with him the hope of the clan. And Da—cut down only weeks ago in a battle against these same opponents. She had learned to bear the unbearable, to present a serene front, to think always of others.
She headed for the man she could hear screaming, who lay to her left. Most of the rescuers-cum-murderers had moved out straight ahead, where lay the thickest numbers of casualties.
Here, here had been the flank. She found her man lying among other wounded and dead. She could tell which were which because the living moaned or cried out. This man’s shrieks were wordless and tortured.
She went down on her knees in the soaking turf next to him. Blood wet the ground all around him. As soon as she laid eyes on him, she saw there was nothing she could do.
She knew him, of course, as she knew most everyone. His name was Brann, and he was less than a score and five years old. He’d been partially disemboweled, his clothing rent along with the flesh beneath. His guts spilled from his body, and he stared in shock. He still held his sword in his right hand.
Rhian seized his left in both of hers and spoke his name. “Brann.” She added a lie: “’Twill be all right.”
“Mistress? It hurts. It hurts.”
If she were truly bent on alleviating suffering as she so often claimed, she would open a wound just beneath his ear and, aye, let his life’s blood flow. She had asgian-dubh—no one went about without a knife, ever. And she could do naught else for him.
His gaze clung to hers in the dim light of the gloaming.
“Am I dying?”
“Aye.”
