"The shoulder? Aye," Iseabail said, her voice dry. "The habit of lifting beams alone? Less certain." She pressed two fingers to the joint with a sudden, firm pressure.
The shepherd made a sound, a sharp hiss of air, that he immediately tried to convert into a grunt of manly indifference.
"Hold still, Dougal," Iseabail commanded, her tone that of a mother dealing with a wayward boy. "I've told ye twice. If ye fight the pull, the muscle willnae set."
Fergus watched the exchange in silence. He had been Laird for more than a year, yet he had not stood in this chamber before. He had meant to. A laird should know his healer as well as he knew his master-at-arms, but the fences, the rot in the granaries, and the endless, circular boundary disputes had filled his days.
He had planned to make an introduction to Iseabail tomorrow, then the next day, and then another. But now, it was Margaret who made the introduction for him.
‘Lilly will need herbs for the teethin', Fergus. Chamomile, if the healer has it. Clove if she doesnae. Go now.'
Iseabail secured the shepherd's arm against his chest with a length of rough linen. She gave him two instructions in a firm tone, as if expecting them to be ignored and intending to be proven right later. Then, she turned to look at Fergus.
She was somewhere past forty, lean as a winter wolf, with gray-streaked hair pulled back without ceremony. She looked at him exactly as she had looked at the shepherd's shoulder, as a thing to be assessed, understood, and dealt with accordingly.
"Laird MacKenzie," she said, wiping her hands on her apron. "Ye'll be here for the bairn."
"Chamomile," Fergus said, trying to sound like a man who often discussed infant remedies. "For the teethin'. Clove if ye daenae have it."
"I have both." She moved to the shelves without hurrying. "It was yer wife who thought of it?"
"Aye."
"She's right. The chamomile should be put in warm water, a clean cloth soaked in it, and pressed to the gum. The clove oil should be applied sparingly, a touch only, on the finger." She measured the herbs into a small square of cloth, her movements unhurried. "Too much of the clove and the bairn willnae thank ye. It numbs the tongue as well as the ache."
"Understood."
Iseabail glanced at him sideways, her eyes sharp in the firelight. "Has she been eatin'?"
"She had oats at midday. Some of them," he added, remembering the mess on Margaret's sleeve.
"And at night?"
"She's been settled. She slept through."
Something in Iseabail's expression shifted. Not quite approval, but a recalibration of her judgment. "Better than last week, then. Mrs. O'Halloran said the keep was fair ringin' with the noise."
"Last week I didnae have…" He stopped, the words catching in his throat.
"A wife," Iseabail finished for him.
She tied the herb parcel with a length of twine and held it out. When Fergus reached for it, she did not immediately release the string. Her eyes locked onto his, forcing him to look at her directly. "The bairn isnae the only one who responds to presence, me laird. Or the lack of it."
He didn't move. He felt the weight of her gaze like physical pressure.
"Dougal there," she continued, nodding at the shepherd, who was sitting up with the careful movements of a man reassembling his shattered dignity, "took three days to come to me with that shoulder. Three days of it gettin' worse because he thought waitin' would cost him less than admittin' he needed help." She finally released the parcel. "Pain passes quicker when fear does, me Laird. That's true of shoulders and a fair number of other things."
Fergus gripped the herbs. "Thank ye," he said, his voice a low scrape. "For the medicine."
"Come back if she doesnae improve."
The afternoon light hit him as he stepped out of the healer's hut. It was warm and direct, smelling of gorse and drying peat. He paused in the courtyard for a moment, the small parcel in his hand and Iseabail's words weighing on him like stones.
‘Pain passes quicker when fear does.'
He turned toward the inner courtyard, and the sound hit him before he reached the archway.
It was the sound of children, high, bright, and chaotic. Beneath it ran a lower thread of laughter. He recognized it instantly, though he had heard it only a handful of times. It was the sound of the kitchen, the sound of the carriage, the sound that was quickly becoming the heartbeat of his keep.
