Page 10 of Leila’s Legacy

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After a day and night of laying abed, Leila could not stand it a moment longer. Her back had begun to ache and every part of her was restless. If nothing else, she could at least help Isla sort items to make teas, or grind up herbs, or mayhap even work on the book of remedies she had been writing. Anything but this inertia.

She sat up slowly, her muscles weak after over a sennight of inactivity while she’d been ill. Rose was there in an instant.

“I must get out of this room.” Leila pulled her feet to the side of the bed. “Please help me dress.”

“Where do you intend to go?” Rose was already aiding her, despite her apparent concern.

“To assist Isla.” Leila put up a hand before the woman could protest. “Not to the village, but to the small room she keeps in the castle. To assist with preparing what she’ll need on the morrow for the village, as well as organizing other herbal remedies.”

Rose’s slender face had filled out some now that she was fully recovered from the pestilence. There was a lovely rosiness about her cheeks and her hair shone like copper with threads of white running through. She was a lovely woman, Leila realized for the first time, with pink apple cheeks and a kind smile.

She helped Leila first by running a cool, damp linen over her skin to clean her thoroughly, and then helping her into a blue wool kirtle with a red surcoat. The belt at Leila’s waist needed to be linked more tightly to compensate for how the fashionable attire hung on her frame after the weight she’d lost during her illness. Over the gown, Rose had insisted on putting a thick fur mantle.

While Leila had protested initially, she was grateful for Rose’s persistence once she was in the hall. The winter chill permeated the stone and left the halls icy cold. She kept a brisk pace, eager for the fragrant warmth of Isla’s small room, where the woman usually had a small fire in the hearth to keep a pot of water set to boiling. The door to the room, however, was closed.

Leila leaned her back against the opposite wall while she waited and caught her breath. The journey down to Isla’s healing room had been more laborious than Leila had expected. Not that she would ever admit such a thing.

The door opened, and Bernard stepped out.

Leila straightened in an effort to appear as though she had not been panting from overexerting herself. Bernard glanced at her, then immediately lowered his head and mumbled something she could not make out. With that, he quickly strode down the hall with an awkward gait.

A tsking sound turned Leila’s attention back to the open doorway where Isla regarded her with a frown. “Ye shouldna be out of bed.”

“I couldn’t stand to lay there a second longer.” Leila stepped past Isla and into the room.

“Ye and yer sisters are a heap of mischief. Ye know that, aye?” But Isla was not looking at Leila when she spoke. Instead, she stared off after Bernard, her face pinched into a map of wrinkles.

“Is Bernard unwell?” Leila popped her head out of the room to peer at the priest’s departing form. It was strange to see him meeting with Isla of his own volition. He’d always been cautious of the healer, assuming her to be a witch, or figment of evil or something of the like. Every time she was near, he crossed himself and muttered a quick prayer. Isla had found it a great source of entertainment and took joy in goading him.

She was not smiling now though as she led Leila into the room. “The reivers took him. Armstrongs.” She spit into the fire, where it sizzled amid the flames.

“Bernard?” Leila asked in horror. The poor man had always been deathly afraid of reivers.

“Poor bastard pissed himself.” Isla shook her head, looking as regretful as she sounded. “Those robes of his chaffed his arse the whole ride back to Werrick Castle. I gave him a balm to ease the discomfort, but there’s only so much I could do.” She cast another sad stare back toward the empty doorway from where he’d waddled off. “’Tis his soul that weighs most heavily on him.”

Leila covered her mouth. The poor priest; frightened to the point of making a mess of himself in front of the people who scared him most.

“He lied on the Bible, he said,” Isla continued. “Fears his soul belongs with the devil now.” She scoffed. “If every holy man who lied ended up in hell, there wouldna be room for the rest of us. Bernard is one of the few good ones, I tell ye.”

Isla must truly feel bad for the priest if she was saying such kind things for a man she’d always reveled in tormenting. Leila discreetly lowered herself to a stool to ease the burden of her body weight on her tired legs. “What did he lie about?”

“Ye.” Isla turned to Leila. “They asked him if he thought ye were a witch, and he said on the Bible that he dinna.”

Upon hearing such news, Leila was glad she was sitting. “He thinks me a witch?”

“Bah, he thinks I’m one too.” Isla waved without concern. “But they werena asking about me. They were asking about ye.” She lifted an empty basket to the tabletop. “I dinna want ye going to the village anymore. No’ even when ye’re fully well, and even then, it would be best no’ to go. There are mad men about, my lady.”

Leila’s hands went to work stuffing herbs into linen bags. “When I’m fully well, it will be the best time for me to go. I cannot get the pestilence again. We’ve never heard of a second bout.”

“I’m no’ talking about the illness,” Isla said. “I’m talking about the man asking about ye. Bernard said the Armstrongs pulled him from the bedside of a dying man and put him in the dungeon to be questioned. They dinna even let the man get his last rites. Bernard shouted them as they dragged him off but worried it hadna been heard. The poor bastard.”

Leila didn’t know which man Isla referred to as “poor bastard” but didn’t bother to ask. Not when it seemed quite applicable to both men.

“Bernard was questioned,” Isla’s voice was soft in the way people did when they wanted to be heard, “by a man called the Lion.”

Leila sucked in a breath. The weakness she’d experienced earlier buzzed in her mind and made her suddenly dizzy.