The Intended

Chapter 6-1

6

Malcolm’s head jerked to the side as the smell of rotting meat invaded his senses. The world inside his head began to spin, and his stomach heaved as the fibers of his brain twisted under the pressure. There were noises—the sounds of wind and drums, pounding—jumbled in his head. He tried to open his eyes, but even that tiny movement brought on more pain, rushing through him with a sensation of bones straining, cracking, exploding inside. Indeed, Malcolm could feel his bones melting within a gelatinous casing of battered flesh.

A momentary fear...nay, terror...pushed into the fogged consciousness of his brain. The Highlander suddenly found himself afraid to breathe. He feared, for a moment, even the rise and fall of his chest. Surely in filling his lungs—if he could fill his lungs—his chest would burst, pierced by the thousand daggers that even now must be protruding from his perforated carcass. And then there was his burning throat—parched, tight. So dry that he thought it could never again open to the cool elixir of life.

Malcolm MacLeod prepared to give up his spirit.

* * * *

“My dear, this is no place for a lady of His Grace’s household. Why don’t you go and call for one of the serving maids to come and give me a hand with the lad.”

Jaime shook her head, putting down beside Malcolm’s head the potion she had been stirring for the Welsh physician. “I brought him here, Master Graves. Now I have to see to it that he lives.”

“It might be that his fate lies beyond the scope of our abilities, my dear. Surely beyond my skill. He’s lost too much blood already, and what we have left to do—”

“Won’t get done if all we do is simply stand and talk now, will it?” Jaime cut in decisively, pausing to gently raise Malcolm’s head and carefully lowering it onto her lap. “Tell me what we must do next, and let’s just get on with it.”

The aging physician stretched a rheumatic shoulder, wiped his hands on a clean rag, and scratched one of the tufts of red hair that adorned either side of his bald head. He studied the young woman sitting at his patient’s battered head. Even with her elegant gray cloak already stained with the Scot’s blood, Mistress Jaime Macpherson was totally out of place in the filthy cell that the duke kept for prisoners in the stable buildings. She’d stayed beside him since shortly after the prisoner had arrived from Norwich Castle, but they still had a long way to go with this one. Graves knew there would be a great deal more blood on that cloak before he was finished stitching the Scot back together.

He’d tried to send her away immediately; he didn’t need a hysterical woman swooning at his feet. But she’d held her own in the early going. She was a far cry from the rest of them. He glanced down at her firm but gentle hands as she coaxed the Scots lips open a bit, tipping the liquid preparation down his throat. Aye, she has her wits about her, Graves thought. I should always have such competent help.

* * * *

“Make him drink it all, if you can,” the physician ordered, watching the throat constrict in an effort to swallow. “His fever will surely kill him without more fluids in him, and this is the only liquid he’s taken at all.”

Jaime nodded to the man as she trickled more liquid past Malcolm’s cracked lips. All the anger she’d felt in the past toward the Highlander amounted to nothing now. Nothing compared to the reality of his suffering. It was almost too much for her to bear. Malcolm MacLeod may have caused her humiliation and hurt, but even in her wildest moments of fury and grief, she could never have wished this misery upon him. Her heart ached in her chest. Looking down at Malcolm’s bruised face, swollen to the point of being nearly unrecognizable, she wondered briefly if he knew who was making him drink this. At the core of her soul, she wished he had the strength to lash out at her for what she’d done, for bringing him here. She wished he would go after her the way he had at Norwich Castle. She would bear his wrath any time in lieu of this life-draining stupor, this battered daze, this shroud of oblivion.

A gurgle erupted in his throat, and the liquid she had been feeding him bubbled out. He was rejecting her even in his unconscious state.

“He’ll not make it,” Graves said under his breath, watching the Scot’s suddenly labored breathing. “Look at his chest, his scalp. He is bleeding again...more than before. Much, much more. Look, this gash on the shoulder has begun to open again.” The surgeon’s hands hesitated for only a moment, and then commenced to sew the wound on Malcolm’s shoulder with quick, sure movements.

* * * *

Malcolm thought the pain would drive him mad. But when his anguish was at its height, he drew back, realizing he had within his grasp the power to walk away from it all. So he did. Rising like a cloud, he moved away. At the sound of the voices, Malcolm turned—the words were murmured, indistinct, but the voices familiar somehow, as if they were a part of him. The Highlander was only mildly startled to see himself lying in a heap of straw, the dirty gold strands stained with his blood. Two heads bent over the motionless frame. Their voices wafted back to him, their words unintelligible, and he drifted weightlessly away from them. He had no pain now.

Somewhere far behind him a door opened, and as he turned, he felt himself slowly drawn toward it. Malcolm watched. Through the door he could see the bright light of a sun in a cloudless sky. He blinked his eyes and tasted the warmth. He could feel the presence of someone, something. It was so close. Within his grasp. A world beyond the door. A peace that pulled him onward.

* * * *

“Damn you, Malcolm MacLeod. You will not die.”

Jaime thought of all who loved this man—of all the hearts that would be broken to hear of his death—and the thought weighed like a stone on her soul. Fiona and Alec, losing the son they’d raised as their own. His wife...what was her name? And...oh, by the Holy Virgin, what if there was a bairn? So much Jaime didn’t know. Leaving Scotland, severing the lines. She’d never so much as allowed the mention of his name. But, now, fate bringing him here, to take his last breath at her feet. She couldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t.

“Do you hear me, you pigheaded beast? This is not the place for you to die. I won’t let you cause me more pain.” Jaime cursed him again under her breath and pressed a wad of clean bandages against the wound on the side of his head. The blood was everywhere and a panic tore through her soul.

* * * *

As he neared the crossing point, Malcolm felt the troubles of his life drop from his body like so many plates of armor. Like a snake shedding skin. He was so close now. Eternity. The sky opening up before him. The freedom of flight. Air, sweeter than any he’d ever tasted, filled his lungs. He continued to move toward the light. Toward its promise.