Enraptured by the Highlander

At least some good food might change that.

Could she go and see him that evening, as Caelan had asked? She ate until the massiveness of the room began to become unnerving. She stopped a passing servant and bade her take the used pewter cup and plate back to the kitchen.

She went to her room to sit on a desk and stare blankly at the wall. She was bored to tears, which was admittedly strange. Most of the time her life was so routine and busy that she did not know what boredom was. So, feeling it now was strange and she began to wonder why.

Then she looked out and her eyes rested on the keep.

My days have changed because of the Scotsman’s arrival and what he said to me.

Caelan McLagen had disrupted her days, her thoughts and what she was believing. His words about Peter had her thinking hard about what to ask her father the next time she saw him. She would not dare say anything about the Scotsman to her father but she had to know more.

I pray to God there is some sense to all this. There must be something that connects both of their stories…Caelan seems so honest and forthright. Under it all he is a good person, and I don’t sense any lies from him. It cannot hurt to believe him, can it?

Chapter 8

What can I reveal to this lassie? I can see she’s in pain but again, I was sworn to keep it secret….

The question was going through Caelan’s mind, twisting and turning on itself as the hours passed by. Was there anything Peter had told him that he could tell her to ease her mind even a little?

He remembered the bowl that had held warm porridge and the cup of milk carried in by a jolly woman and smiled.

She kent of me and sent this to me. No wonder Peter spoke so highly of her.

A squire had come to collect the bowls and cup and had hurried out possibly half an hour after the meal had arrived. The day was waning but he was holding on to the hope that the lass would come and see him. With an arm cocked on his bent knee, he kept gazing out to the window to judge the time.

The cold was still seeping through the stone of the dungeon but it was not as bracing as when he was mostly naked. Again, this was another thing he had to thank the lass for. She might not know it but her simple gifts had made his dismal existence a little more bearable.

The harsh grate of the door had him smiling a little. There was no stomp of boots so it had to be the lass. He sat up a little straighter. He had already prepared for the questions the lass might have about her brother. There was not much he could tell, but he would tell her what he could if she asked.

Poor thing was so disheveled last eve, I could even see her hair coming out from the cap. And in her eyes was worry for me…

Her face, shadowed as it was, held a tiny frown and he began to wonder what was troubling her. He came close to the bars and she sat, folding her legs to the side. He was looking directly at her but she couldn’t see him fully from where she stood.

“Lass?”

“Can you answer something for me?” she said.

“What do ye need to ken?” he replied, bracing himself to speak on her brother.

“How is it that you can be a Laird, a soldier, and a doctor at the same time? A soldier is tasked with killing but a doctor saves lives. How can you reconcile those parts of yourself with the other? Doesn’t it bother you to see men dying but you have to kill anyway?”

Caelan had expected every other question but that one. No one had ever asked him that.

“It dinnae come easy, I can tell ye that. Lass, the English and me country havenae been the best of neighbors. We’ve never been and I ken ye ken it too. A hundred and six years ago on Piperdean, we were victorious over the English. That battle, lass, was the beginning of bad blood between us. Me grandsires, every one of them, was a soldier and in the years and wars that followed, me brother and I had no choice to be trained as such. Me heart though was nae in killing.”

His mind was on his younger self ten years before, barely twenty years old and on a battlefield of English-Scot border. King James had sent an army to capture the border reiver, Johnnie Armstrong. He had stood the middle of the field, strewn with dead bodies, his sword dripping blood and his cheeks dripping tears.

So many dead…

“I struggled lass, I hated meself for years and at one point I had begun to ken of losing one part of me in favor the other but I couldnae. Thankfully, the skirmishes that came after that fight dinnae involve me or me clan so I dedicated me life to saving others.”

Adelaine’s eyes were on his. “You really don’t like death, don’t you?”

“Nae if it can be stopped,” Caelan said. “People die for the most unnecessary reasons, things that can be treated and even reversed.”

“I don’t want to upset you but…but have you ever obeyed someone’s request to let them die?” Adelaine asked hesitantly.

“Only three times have I done that and it was when both of us could see that any treatment I or anyone else could give wasnae going to help,” Caelan said sorrowfully. “It’s hard to see a person suffer and you cannae do anything about it.”