The Saint: A Highland Guard Novel Read online

  The placement of this arrow left no room for error. It had pierced through the mail coif and entered the front left side of MacGregor’s throat at an angle, coming to a stop at the back of his neck. The arrowhead was lodged inside.

  Magnus had managed to stop the bleeding, but he knew if he attempted to pull the arrow out, one wrong move would kill MacGregor.

  “Can you remove it?”

  He lifted his head from his extensive examination of the wound to look over at Arthur Campbell. He stood with the rest of the Highland Guard around the trestle table they’d requisitioned from the Great Hall and set up in the adjoining laird’s solar. The only other people present were the king and Campbell’s new bride, who was coordinating water, fresh linens, and whatever else they might need with the servants.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s in a dangerous location. I fear that if I try to pull it out …”

  He didn’t need to finish.

  “What other choice do you have?” MacLeod said somberly.

  “None,” Magnus admitted. “It has to come out.” He just didn’t know if he had the skill to do it. “Perhaps the healer will have another idea,” the king added.

  But the old woman who arrived a few hours later had no more expertise than he. Nor did the priest, who advocated bleeding the opposite side of MacGregor’s neck to restore his humours, praying for his soul, and then leaving it to God’s will.

  To hell with God’s will! Magnus wasn’t going to let him die.

  “Is there anyone else?” MacRuairi asked Lady Anna. Campbell’s wife was a MacDougall and had been raised at Dunstaffnage. “Perhaps you know of someone in the area?”

  Magnus stood. “I know someone.”

  Helen. She wasn’t a surgeon, but she seemed to have an unusual gift for healing. He’d seen her perform a miracle once. God knew, MacGregor was in need of another one.

  So Magnus swallowed his anger and asked Lady Anna to send for her.

  After the way he’d lashed out at her, he knew he had no right to ask for her help. But he would, just as he knew she would give it.

  Only a few minutes passed before he heard the door open. He felt a stab of guilt, seeing her red-rimmed eyes and blotchy, tear-stained face. If his harsh relating of Gordon’s death had been intended to make her conscience suffer, it appeared to have worked.

  He felt a second stab, this one more of a cinching in the region of his heart, when he saw the caution in her eyes as she approached.

  He clenched his jaw and met her gaze. “My lady, I’m sorry to disturb you in your grief, but I thought … I hoped you might be able to help.”

  She looked so tiny and young in the room crowded with the big warriors. For a moment, the fierce urge rose inside him to protect her. To tuck her under his arm and tell her everything was going to be all right the way he’d used to do. But it wasn’t. And it never would be again.

  Though her chin trembled, she lifted it determinedly and nodded her head. For the next few minutes the room was deathly silent as she examined the fallen warrior.

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said, when she’d finished. “It’s a miracle he survived.”

  “Can you take it out?”

  Without killing him. Their eyes held; the unspoken words passed between them in silent understanding. “I don’t know, but I can try.”

  The quiet note of determination in her voice did much to soothe the frayed edges of his tightly wound nerves.

  She straightened, shedding the pale, uncertain, griefstricken girl as easily as she would shrug a cloak from her shoulders. And just as she’d done the first time they’d met, when she’d boldly stopped him from ending his dog’s life, she snapped into action. Claiming the room was too stuffy, she ordered everyone from the small solar—even the king—except for Lady Anna, whom she sent about procuring her the items she would need.

  When Magnus started to follow the rest of the guardsmen out, she stopped him. “Not you. I may need your help.” She looked at his arm. “But if I do this, you must promise to let me see to your arm as well.”

  He bit back the automatic refusal, knowing he was in no position to argue, and nodded. Curtly. He didn’t like being coerced.

  She murmured something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “stubborn ox” and resumed her tending of MacGregor.

  “I need you to lift his mail coif, while I look at the entry wound.”

  Magnus came up to stand beside her, ignoring the soft scent of lavender that rose from her hair. It had dried, he noticed. He’d seen the group of children sliding down the hill from the water, and somehow had known she was involved. It was something she would do. His suspicions had been confirmed when she’d appeared in the bailey, drenched with snow. Her unrelenting joy in the face of his own misery didn’t seem so wrong now. She hadn’t known. Every day is May Day, he recalled her brother saying. Sometimes he envied her that.

  “The entry wound is small and round, so I think it must be a needle bodkin.”

  He nodded, returning to the moment. “Aye. That’s what I thought as well.” To pierce mail at such a close distance, the long, thin, pointed arrowhead was more effective. The flat, broadhead arrowhead would have done much more damage, particularly had it been barbed.

  “Do you have an arrow spoon?”

  He shook his head. He’d seen them used before, but had never had need of one himself. It was a thinned piece of shaft with a wooden spoonlike end to cup around the arrowhead and help ease it out in one piece.

  “Then we shall hope the English soldier glued this arrowhead on with something stronger than beeswax. But if not, I shall need something to pull it out.”

  “I have a few instruments.” He unfolded the items he carried with him in a piece of leather that he’d fashioned with pockets and held them out for her inspection.

  She looked pleased by what she saw and removed a long, thin pair of iron pincers. “These will work well.” She paused. “All right, here it goes.”

  He knew from the way her cheeks flushed and her hand shook as she grasped the shaft that she was much more nervous than she appeared. But her concentration was as fierce as any warrior’s on the battlefield as she unhesitatingly started to pull the shaft out.

  She’s good at this, he realized. She seemed suited for this and more comfortable in her own skin than he’d ever seen her before.

  The arrow came out easily. Unfortunately, it was without the tip. But the removal of the shaft didn’t appear to have caused any extra bleeding.

  The small frown between her brows was her only reaction to the dangerous complication. “I would use a trephine to make the entry wound wider, so that I might be able to see the arrowhead. But with this location, I’m reluctant to try.” She picked up the pincers. Their eyes met. “Be ready to press that cloth on the wound as soon as I have it out.”

  He nodded.

  She inserted the pincers into the hole created by the arrow shaft. MacGregor moaned, but Magnus didn’t need to call for help to hold him down. The wounded warrior was so weak, he was able to keep him still with one hand. She bored the instrument steadily through his neck, taking care to follow the exact path of the arrow. Magnus heard the strike of iron on iron. With a deft, delicate touch she squeezed the pincers, attempting to grasp the arrowhead. It took a few tries, but finally, she stopped. Slowly, she began to pull it out.

  Each second was agony. He kept waiting for the telltale burst of blood that would indicate something had gone wrong. That she’d struck one of the deadly veins that ran through the neck.

  Even when he saw the arrowhead, he still didn’t believe she’d done it.

  “Now,” she said, “Press the cloth to his neck.”

  They both stared at MacGregor, watching for any sign of a change.

  “It’s Gregor MacGregor,” she said suddenly.

  He frowned. “You know him?”

  She gave him a bemused look. “From the Highland Games. But I shoul