Page 55 of Dorchad

“How much longer must I wait for my hands to heal?” Sheona demanded. “Being locked away, ’tis driving me crazed.”

“It should only take a few more days,” Rebecca told her.

“The burns, they’re no’ as red as yesterday,” Garia put in. “Show her your palms, lass.” As Sheona held out her hands for Rebecca to inspect, the chambermaid finished tying the other girl’s laces.

“You are healing very well,” she assured the laundry maid, who scowled and muttered something under her breath.

The chambermaid surreptitiously rolled her eyes behind Sheona’s back before she said, “’Tis tedious, being kept idle. Mayhap she could visit her friends in the village today?”

“No,” Sheona said before Rebecca could reply. “I’m too weary. After you bandage me, Healer, leave me to sleep.”

Rebecca took over for Garia, who gave her a grateful look before she escaped. Gently applying more salve before winding clean strips of linen over her palms, she talked about having a pair of gloves made to protect her hands once the burns were healed. Sheona said nothing and wouldn’t look at her.

“There, you’re all set.” Maybe she needed to talk with the maid more to gain her trust. “Would you like to come and sit in the infirmary today? I can keep you company.”

“And watch you pull teeth and poultice arse boils? I’d rather gnaw on brambles.” The chambermaid flounced over to her pallet and dropped onto it, turning her back in a huff.

“If you change your mind, come and see me any time,” Rebecca told her, gathering up the old bandages and taking them with her.

As soon as she reached the infirmary she saw Ronan waiting, and thought for a moment of what the maid had predicted. Then she saw the bundle of blackened fur he was holding in his arms, and hurried over to him.

“Is it hurt?” Rebecca asked as soon as she realized it was a cat covered in soot, and opened the door.

“I dinnae ken, Healer.” He carried it inside and gently placed it on the treatment table. “It fell from the chimney into the roasting hearth as if hurled. ’Tisnae burned, for I’d yet to kindle the flames.”

She found a steady heartbeat, and then checked the feline’s body for impact injuries. The cat opened its golden eyes and stiffened, then relaxed under her stroking hand. It didn’t react in pain to her palpitations of its limbs, head, back and belly, discovering in the process that it was a male. She then inspected his long tail, and saw that half of it had been singed.

“He came close to being burned.” Knowing most cats didn’t care to get wet, she used a dry cloth to rub off the soot, and saw a few more singed patches. “This little guy was lucky. All he lost was some fur. Why would he climb inside a chimney?”

“Likely to escape Seneschal,” the cook told her. “The cat, ’tis his pet, but ’tis been missing of late.”

Rebecca thought of the singeing she’d seen on the cuffs on Sheona’s sleeves the day the maid had been injured. “Let’s give him something to drink, and then you can take him to Sgathan.”

As soon as she placed water in front of the cat he began to drink, nearly draining the entire bowl. Ronan thanked her and then carried the cat out of the infirmary, leaving Rebecca with an uncomfortable puzzle. Both Sheona and the cat had been exposed to flames, with the maid sustaining significant injuries. Had the maid tried to do something to the seneschal’s pet and got burned in the process? She didn’t want to believe the young woman was capable of such cruelty toward an animal, but it could explain why she had lied about how she’d been injured.

For now she’d have to keep it to herself until she had more evidence of what had happened.

A few minutes later the laird’s wife came in carrying a tray of food and a pot of brew. “Since you’re dodging me, I thought I’d bring you some breakfast.”

“Thank you, and I really wasn’t dodging you.” She tossed the soot-covered cloth in a soiled laundry basket and cleared a space on her work table for the tray. “I had the strangest experience last night, and I wanted some time to gather my thoughts.”

“Dorchad reported everything that happened to my guy,” Lucy said. “Sorry you had to go through that, and please, next time, grab the cluet.” She sniffed a few times. “Why does it smell like rotten eggs in here?”

“Singed cat.” Since the seneschal’s pet wasn’t human she told her about the cat’s condition, and added, “I’ve never seen this little guy around the stronghold, so it seems odd that he would come down the chimney in the kitchens.”

“I didn’t even know Sgathan had a cat,” the other woman said, sighing. “I wouldn’t have thought any animal would crawl into a chimney.”

“You’d be surprised,” Rebecca told her. “Bats, birds, raccoons and squirrels will take refuge in them, especially during winter. I’m just not sure that was where or how his fur was singed.”

“You treated Sheona for burned hands a few days ago, didn’t you?” Lucy frowned. “Maybe she knows how the cat got in the chimney.”

“Or she may have had nothing to do with it,” she countered. “She’s already very upset, and I don’t want to blame the girl without any evidence. I’m hoping in time I can persuade her to trust me, and perhaps even reveal what really happened.”

“All right, we’ll do a little more investigation.” The laird’s wife held up one hand. “As long as no one else gets burned.”

Chapter Fifteen

After a long day of treating admittedly minor ailments among the clan’s vassals, and trying to work out how and why Sheona and the cat had gotten burned, Rebecca yawned and finished tidying up the infirmary before leaving. She’d go and clean up first before heading downstairs to share the evening meal with Lucy and talk more about her rather radical idea for finding the cluet, and then she’d retreat to her private paradise with Dorchad in their chamber.