"Well then, Claire. Welcome to ye. Come wi' me and we shall find ye somethin' a bit more… mmm." She looked over my short skirt and inadequate shoes, shaking her head.
She was leading me firmly away when I remembered my patient.
"Oh, wait, please! I forgot Jamie!"
Mistress FitzGibbons was surprised. "Why, Jamie can fend for himself. He knows where to get food and someone will find him a bed."
"But he's hurt. He was shot yesterday and stabbed last night. I bandaged the wound for riding, but I didn't have time to clean or dress it properly. I must care for it now, before it gets infected."
"Infected?"
"Yes, that is, I mean, inflamed, you know, with pus and swelling and fever."
"Oh, aye, I know what ye mean. But do ye mean to say as ye know what to do for that? Are ye a charmer then? A Beaton?"
"Something like that." I had no notion what a Beaton might be, nor any wish to go into my medical qualifications, standing out in the chilly drizzle that had set in. Mistress FitzGibbons seemed of a like mind, for she called back Jamie, who was making off in the opposite direction, and taking him also by an arm, towed us both into the castle.
After a long trip through cold narrow corridors, dimly lit by slitted windows, we came to a fairly large room furnished with a bed, a couple of stools, and most importantly, a fire.
I ignored my patient temporarily in favor of thawing my hands. Mistress FitzGibbons, presumably immune to cold, sat Jamie on a stool by the fire and gently got the remains of his tattered shirt off, replacing it with a warm quilt from the bed. She clucked at the shoulder, which was bruised and swollen, and poked at my clumsy dressing.
I turned from the fire. "I think it will need to be soaked off, and then the wound cleansed with a solution for… for preventing fevers."
Mistress FitzGibbons would have made an admirable nurse. "What will ye be needin'?" she asked simply.
I thought hard. What in the name of God had people used for preventing infection before the advent of antibiotics? And of those limited compounds, which might be available to me in a primitive Scottish castle just after dawn?
"Garlic!" I said in triumph. "Garlic, and if you have it, witch hazel. Also I'll need several clean rags and a kettle of water for boiling."
"Aye, well, I think we can manage that; perhaps a bit of comfrey as well. What about a bit o' boneset tea, or chamomile? T'lad looks as though it's been a long night."
The young man was in fact swaying with weariness, too tired to protest our discussing him as though he were an inanimate object.
Mrs. FitzGibbons was soon back, with an apron full of garlic bulbs, gauze bags of dried herbs, and torn strips of old linen. A small black iron kettle hung from one meaty arm, and she held a large demijohn of water as though it were so much goosedown.
"Now then, m' dear, what would ye have me do?" she said cheerfully. I set her to boiling water and peeling the cloves of garlic while I inspected the contents of the herb packets. There was the witch hazel I had asked for, boneset and comfrey for tea, and something I tentatively identified as cherry bark.
"Painkiller," I muttered happily, recollecting Mr. Crook explaining the uses of the barks and herbs we found. Good, we'd need that.
I threw several cloves of peeled garlic into the boiling water with some of the witch hazel, then added the cloth strips to the mixture. The boneset, comfrey, and cherry bark were steeping in a small pan of hot water set by the fire. The preparations had steadied me a bit. If I didn't know for certain where I was, or why I was there, at least I knew what to do for the next quarter of an hour.
"Thank you… ah, Mrs. FitzGibbons," I said respectfully. "I can manage now, if you have things to do." The giant dame laughed, breasts heaving.
"Ah, lass! There aye be things for me to do! I'll send a bit o' broth up for ye. Do ye call oot if ye need anything else." She waddled to the door with surprising speed and disappeared on her rounds.
I pulled the bandages off as carefully as I could. Still, the rayon pad stuck to the flesh, coming away with a soft crackling of dried blood. Droplets of fresh blood oozed around the edges of the wound, and I apologized for hurting him, though he hadn't moved or made a sound.
He smiled slightly, with a hint perhaps of flirtation. "No worry, lass. I've been hurt much worse, and by people much less pretty." He bent forward for me to wash the wound with the boiled garlic decoction, and the quilt slipped from his shoulder.
I saw at once that, whether meant as a compliment or not, his remark was a statement of plain fact; he had been hurt much worse. His upper back was covered with a criss-cross of faded white lines. He had been savagely flogged, and more than once. There were small lines of silvery scar tissue in some spots, where the welts had crossed, and irregular patches where several blows had struck the same spot, flaying off skin and gouging the muscle beneath.