“My thigh.” Niall folded back his plaid to reveal the bandage and then held out his hand. “I can do this myself.”
“Aye. Men always think they can take care of themselves.” The doctor’s wife swatted his hand as she started unwrapping the old bandage. “Which usually just makes more work for the woman.” She tsked as the linen came undone. “By all the saints! This is nae a scratch. And ’tis infected.”
“I kenned it!” Annie said and came closer, then stifled a gasp. The wound was now a deep, ugly red with purple mottling around the edges, and Niall’s leg had swelled as well. “God’s teeth!”
“Aye. ’Tis bad,” the doctor’s wife said. “I can put some moldy bread on it to keep the infection down, but ye should stay here and let me send someone for my husband.”
“How long would that take?” Annie asked.
“He could probably be here by tomorrow afternoon, if he can get away.”
“If he can get away?”
The woman looked uncertain. “Usually when he travels to an outbreak, he waits a few days to return home to make sure he doesn’t bring the disease with him.”
“That makes sense,” Niall said, “but ’tis better we travel on and find a physician in another town.”
“The nearest would be Fort William,” she answered, “but ’tis a two-day ride. Three or maybe more, in your condition.”
Niall grimaced. “’Tis a better choice than waiting for your husband to return home.”
“Ye do have a point. I will do what I can with a poultice and clean bandage.”
After the doctor’s wife left to retrieve the bread from the kitchen, Annie gave Niall a worried look. “Two days or more to Fort William? And how far from there to Arisaig?”
Niall shrugged. “Probably another two days.”
“Ye can nae ride for four days wounded! I think ye should stay here,” Annie said. “I can go with whoever is sent to Killin. I will persuade the doctor to come back one way or another.”
“I have nae doubt that ye would.” Niall tried to smile. “But ye heard what his wife said. We cannae risk spreading the typhus. ’Tis too deadly.”
“People die from infected wounds, too,” Annie said. “Ye can nae ride for four days with that festering.”
“Ye are probably right.”
“Good.” Annie gave a relieved sigh. “Then we will stay here.”
“Nae.”
Annie stared at him. “What do ye mean, nae? Has the fever taken hold of ye?”
Niall shook his head. “We will cross to Oban. We can get there by nightfall.”
“And then what?”
“We catch a boat north on Loch Linnhe.”
Annie frowned. “That is nae going to get us to Arisaig.”
“True. But it will get us close to Loch Shiel,” Niall answered. “Bridget’s brother Ian MacLeod has a holding there.”
“And he will welcome ye?”
“Of course. Even if Alasdair were nae Ian’s brother by marriage—which makes him mine in a way—we are in the Highlands now. ’Tis an unwritten code of hospitality that rules.”
“’Tis still a long way to go.” Annie was not totally convinced. “I think we should wait here.”
“Nae. We will nae wait.” Niall said as the doctor’s wife reentered the room with the bread. “We will go.”
