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Jenny gasped. “How dare you silence me? This baby needs help, and all you’ve been doing is making her worse. She may have the flu. And if she has an ear infection, being outside in the cold is dangerous.”
Bhatair shook his head. “Ear infection,” he scoffed. “There’s nae such thing as an ear infection. Ye say ye’re a physician. But if ye kent anything about medicine like an educated physician, ye’d ken the baby and the mother have the sweating sickness, and need to be outside to cool down the hot humor of sanguine. Ye should keep out of my way and do yer womanly duties… Which”—he swept his disgusted gaze over her clothes—“ye are clearly interpreting as whoredom.” He turned to Aulay. “She needs to be punished like any whore should.”
Jenny took a shaky breath. She’d never been so insulted in her life. Her hands shook as he approached Ailis and Una, pushed Jenny to the side, and sank to his knees in front of them. Tears burned Jenny’s eyes as helplessness swept over her. She should say something. She should keep fighting. But the strength was sucked out of her with every breath she took. The medieval world was cruel and unfair and so misogynistic.
They thought she was a whore. They thought she should be punished, kept in a prison…perhaps even killed. What could she do to make them change their minds when it would take centuries for humanity to evolve?
Something felt warm on her skin, and she realized Aulay was staring at her with a mixture of confusion and empathy. A big jump from his usual “one wrong word and I’ll kill you” glare.
Bhatair took a clay cup with a closed lid out of the basket and handed it to Ailis. “’Tis for the pain. Mead mixed with willow bark and some uisge.”
Jenny opened her mouth in shock. As she was thinking about how to stop this, he took out an empty animal horn with some sort of a nipple attached to its pointy end…made of leather, she thought. Ailis inserted the nipple into the baby’s mouth, and Bhatair poured the liquid from the cup.
The baby became quiet and sucked. It was like watching a car accident. She knew it was a disaster but couldn’t look away.
Once Una drank the liquid, she only fussed for a bit, and in a matter of minutes dozed off.
“I have the same for ye,” said Bhatair and gave Ailis another cup.
While Ailis drank, Jenny couldn’t stand back anymore. “How could you give a six-month-old baby alcohol and honey? You must want to kill her.”
Bhatair sighed and stood up, his fists on his waist. “And why are they bad for a bairn, pray tell?”
“The bacteria in honey can lead to infant botulism, which can be deadly. Willow bark has acetylsalicylic acid and can cause Reye’s syndrome. And mead and uisge are both alcohol! Alcohol is toxic. You’re damaging the baby’s brain.”
Silence fell over the crowd, and in a moment, Bhatair as well as the people gathered around them burst out laughing. Humiliation washed over Jenny like heavy rain.
It seemed like his treatment had helped. The baby was knocked out from the alcohol. And, of course, she knew chances were slim that the bacteria was in this honey and for acetylsalicylic acid, otherwise known as aspirin, to cause real harm. And she supposed in medieval conditions, this was probably one of the best available treatments…
So maybe they were right to laugh, and she should let the healer who knew this time do his job.
“Now, Ailis, let us go inside, and I’ll let yer blood,” Bhatair said.
CHAPTER 8
Aulay watched Jennifer with a sort of regret and anger that he didn’t understand himself. He saw the hurt and humiliation in her big amber eyes as everyone laughed at her. He didn’t. He supposed he’d always been soft-hearted to the rejected and the misunderstood. And her humiliation, her anger had been sincere.
He could see she wasn’t used to being treated this way, and he remembered that she’d run her husband’s practice for years. He couldn’t help but respect a strong woman who managed her husband’s affairs. As a loyal man himself, he felt sorry for her and angry with her husband who’d been a whoremonger while she worked for him.
If Aulay was honest, he’d always thought Bhatair was a wee bit of a fool about himself. He was a Highlander who had gone to Paris to study modern medicine, and when Aulay had hired him to stay in Islay and work for the MacDonald clan, he’d asked an immoderate amount of money. Which Aulay was happy to pay to keep his people healthy. But the man could be harsh and arrogant.
Aulay realized, against his better judgment, he’d been cheering for the feisty wee fox.
Until her advice had made no sense, and Bhatair had actually helped the baby like he was supposed to.
Aulay had wanted her to be right and to be able to heal the baby with her strange notions.
But after she’d said some words that made no sense at all, he’d realized she was just lying. Inventing things. Trying to fool everyone.
And he’d had enough. What was that word, “bacteria”? What did that even mean?
No, she must have lied all along about being a healer. She was trying to charm them, like some charlatans did, selling miraculous remedies that never worked. And if she had lied about that, she may be lying about what ship she was on when she was crossing the sea to Ireland.
He couldn’t stand charlatans. Seven years ago, about three weeks after he’d returned to Dunyvaig with Robert the Bruce, one such “healer” had come to Islay. He’d had a cart full of potions and exotic roots. Dried bat wings. Amulets. Potions that smelled like heaven and hell mixed together.
Leitis had been in pain for months by then. She was weak. And she desperately wanted that child because she knew how much Aulay wanted an heir.
Aulay had seen how every time the tiny body of one of their dead babies had been buried, the light in her eyes grew dimmer. She’d taken it as a sign from God that this man had come to Islay, and she’d bought a potion from him for a healthy labor and delivery.
