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Ailis turned away and started working on squeezing her mother’s milk out. While she was doing that, Jenny pressed her ear to Una’s rib cage. The baby’s breathing was shallow and there was a clear peeping sound coming from her little lungs. Not good.
Jenny laid the baby into the wooden crib, which looked more like a box for vegetables. With her hands free, she picked up firewood and threw the pieces into the dying fire. Ailis kept up her terrible, dry cough, which reached the point of almost retching. Una, too, coughed in her sleep, a dry cough that sounded almost like barking. Jenny took a clean cauldron and poured water from a bucket that stood by the fire, then set it onto a hook over the flames.
“Did Bhatair give you anything for the cough?”
“Aye. Honey and garlic. There’s still some coltsfoot root and foxglove leaves in the pouch there.” She pointed at the kitchen table. Jenny found the pouches, and once Ailis confirmed that they were right, she poured the leaves into the cauldron. For dry cough, she wanted to make sure both Ailis and Una could breathe over the steam with the leaves. Any warm vapors would help.
While the cauldron was heating up, Ailis finished expressing her milk and handed Jenny the bowl. Jenny gave a cup of water to Ailis, and she drank it thirstily, then she huddled up in the blankets on the bed and lay there shivering, no doubt from fever. She kept coughing and moaning a little.
Jenny gently woke Una up. She was whimpering and shivering and then started crying, her voice raspy. The poor baby didn’t even have enough moisture for tears.
Softly shushing, Jenny sat at the table. Using a small spoon, she fed Una the milk. Her mouth was wide open from crying, so it worked well. The tiny thing had to stop her wailing to swallow, and Jenny hated doing it, but this would keep her hydrated and allow for a chance to save her life.
By the time all the milk was fed to Una, she was a little calmer, and her eyes seemed a little brighter. She clung to Jenny and whimpered a little and kept coughing. Mother’s milk would give Una Ailis’s antibodies, which would help the little girl fight off this flu. Jenny sat with Una and rocked her gently, feeling the pleasant little weight of her body, inhaling the scent of a baby.
Finally, when the water boiled, Jenny put Una in her crib and went to take the cauldron off the fire. She put it on the ground, took a free blanket from the bed, then picked up Una once again. Holding the baby in one arm, she sat on the floor in front of the cauldron and covered them both with the blanket, making a sort of steam room.
It was dark under the blanket, and the vapors from the water brought the scents of herbs and flowers. “Don’t touch the cauldron,” Jenny said to Una. “It’s hot. Ouch…”
To her amazement, Una smiled, then coughed. As they sat together, steaming, sweating, breathing in the hot steam, and the little girl’s body shook and strained in her arms as she coughed, Jenny wondered if this was how it would feel with her own baby. Holding it like this, protecting it, fighting against the world for it if needed. To love this little being with its pouty mouth and snot and coughing little body.
She kissed the little head. Una’s soft curls that protruded from under the baby’s coif dampened from the steam.
Nine days… Nine days until her last chance to have it all…
And all that stood between her and that life was Aulay. Aulay, with his storm-cloud eyes and his high cheekbones and his lips, so full within his beard. He had such long, curling eyelashes. A brush of softness below his thick, straight brows.
When she thought about ten minutes had passed, she came out from under the blanket with Una.
“Ailis, there’s still enough steam. You should go and breathe it, too,” she said as she sat on the edge of the bed.
Ailis nodded weakly. “I dinna think I can, mistress.”
Una coughed, and it sounded a bit wetter, like she was almost coughing out some phlegm, which was a good sign. “Okay, but you should do it later. You both should breathe steam about two to three times per day. Look, Una is already feeling better.”
“Aye.” Ailis smiled weakly. “Thank ye. I’m glad ye came. I think they’re all wrong about ye. Bhatair especially. I am sorry I accused ye of witchcraft. But ye should stay away from the laird, mistress. Everyone notices how he looks at ye, but we all ken nae one would be good enough for our laird.”
The warning squeezed her stomach painfully. “Believe me, you’re very wrong, Ailis. He has no interest in me.”
“My deceased husband, Beathan, was one of Aulay’s closest friends and warriors. Aulay saved his life several times. He treated him like a brother and gave him this house for his service.”
The baby in Jenny’s arms was very sweet and held Jenny’s finger, and her heart melted. She was used to seeing many children in her practice, but there was something special about this girl.
“I’m sorry, Ailis,” Jenny said. “I’m so sorry about Beathan. He was kind to me.”
“Aye… He’s with God now.”
“You’re tired. Go to sleep. I’ll watch Una, don’t you worry.”
Ailis nodded and closed her eyes. The poor woman looked worse. In a few moments, she dozed off.
As Jenny kept playing with Una and rocking her, her mind drifted back to Aulay. He was clearly a great leader and a kind man, and she realized she’d never been so attracted to a man in her life, not even her ex-husband.
CHAPTER 16
“Sail!” came a loud call from Colum.
Though the sun shone overhead, the sea spread around them like a vast, gray blanket. Wind filled Tagradh’s sail and roared in his ears. Waves crashed hard against the hull. The horizon was clear, the dark gray blue of the sea a sharp line against the cerulean of the sky. In the midst of this vastness was a single piece of land. From a distance, it looked like a giant stone head popping out of the sea. This was where he’d found Jennifer.
