Chapter Two
I felt someone nudging my shoulder, awakening me. Spasms of pain shot down my back, and I cried out.
“Please stop. Please stop! That hurts!” I opened my eyes and looked into a pair of sapphire-blue eyes with white speckles close to my face. A red beard tickled my chin, and a shock of bright-red ginger hair ringed the face of the man kneeling at my side, peering at me.
He pulled something from my grasp, the metal rod that I’d caught, and he stowed it out of sight.
The pain in my back throbbed and pulsed, and when I tried to sit up, I fell back down in agony.
“Where are ye hurt, lass?” he asked, his voice gruff and deep, a baritone.
“My back. I hurt my back when I fell! Is it broken?”
“I dinna ken, lass. But dinna ye try to rise just now. I will send for her ladyship. She will ken what to do wi ye.”
“Her ladyship?” I tried to think through the pain, but I couldn’t. “I think I need a doctor!”
He turned and looked over his shoulder.
“Laddie, run and get her ladyship.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a young teenage boy run out the entrance, his kilt flying behind him. The entrance? To what?
“Where am I?” I whispered. It hurt even to breathe, much less to talk.
“At Dun Eistean, mistress, in the keep.”
“How did I get here?”
“I canna say. I heard ye scream, ran down the steps and there ye were, clutching—” He stopped short.
“What?” I breathed. Waves of pain lashed at my back.
“Naethin,” he said tersely.
“I need to sit up.” I felt so disoriented, so dizzy. I needed to right myself to see what I’d fallen into.
“Nay, ye best lay still for now.”
“Who are you?”
“Torq.”
“Are you a local? Or...” I had finally spotted the man’s kilt, a massive piece of cloth that dragged the ground behind him as he knelt beside me. Of a muted scarlet shade, the plaid pattern featured gray, black and hunter green. Belted at the waist and unhemmed, it was a beautiful reproduction. A once-white linen shirt, open at the throat, underlay a padded gray sleeveless vest. A length of the kilt draped over his shoulder like a sash, a pewter brooch holding it in place. The ornate basket hilt of the sword protruding from his belt looked lethal.
“I am a Morrison, aye.”
I looked at his wild curly mane of ginger-red hair again, darker-red beard and bright-blue eyes, and I thought of my father once again. He would have enjoyed this character.
“Mr. Morrison, can you please help me sit up? Is Debra here? Dylan? I think I need a doctor.”
“Nay, I will no be helping ye up till Lady Morrison comes.”
“Is Lady Morrison your wife?” I asked.
“Nay. I have none such.” I heard something in his tone, but I couldn’t make out the emotion.
A woman rushed into the doorway then, the boy following close behind her. She clutched her muted red tartan skirts and knelt at my side, studying me with hazel eyes. Gingerbread colored hair, caught up into a bun at the back of her head, reminded me of fall colors.
“Oh my word! I can’t believe this,” she breathed. She turned to Torq. “Where’s the dagger?”
“Beside me, yer ladyship. I will get rid of the cursed thing for once and for all.”
“No!” she exclaimed. “We can’t do that! Just keep it safe for now, but keep it away from me and from her.”
I watched the interaction in a blurry haze of pain, barely noting that her accent was American. She turned back to me.
“How are you? What happened? Are you hurt?”
“She claims her back is paining her,” Torq said.
“My back,” I whispered. “I fell down the keep. My back is killing me. I hope I didn’t break it.”
“Oh, I hope so too! Wiggle your toes.” She looked down at my hiking boots. “Well, I wouldn’t know if you were wiggling them or not. Can you move?”
“I’ve been trying to get Torq here to help me sit up, but he wouldn’t let me move until you came. Are you a doctor?”
“No, but I’m the best you’ve got. Here, let me help you.” She slipped her hand under my back, but the motion sent waves of pain and spasms into my back and down my legs.
“No. Stop! Stop! It’s hurts too much.”
She lowered me gently and sat back, biting her lip.
“I don’t know what to do. We don’t have any medical equipment here.”
“Can you send for a doctor or an ambulance or something? I can’t believe this. I just got here!”
“You mean, you just got to the archaeological site? To Dun Eistean?”
“Yes, and I mean just... I didn’t even get a chance to dig.”
“Where did you find the dagger?”
“Dagger?”
She shook her head. “Never mind.”
“Torq, can you pick her up and carry her into the keep? I’m afraid to take her to my croft in case the children disturb her, especially the bairns.”
“Aye, I will carry her.”
“Andrew, could you go get Mistress Glick and ask her to come with her pain medicine?”
“Aye, yer ladyship.” The boy fled the keep again on another mission.
“Pain medicine sounds great,” I mumbled.
Torq picked up the rod, which in truth appeared to be the hilt of a gleaming silver dagger, and he stowed it in his belt behind his back. The woman rose, and Torq slid his arms under my back and legs. I tried to bite my lip against crying out, but I couldn’t help it. Spasms of pain ripped through my back.
“There, lass, I dinna mean to hurt ye,” Torq soothed as he carried me slowly into an interior room. From my elevation above the ground, I realized that he was an extraordinarily tall man. Strong too.
“Where are we?” I asked again of the woman who followed. “You’re American, aren’t you?”
“We’re in the keep. Yes, the intact keep,” she said with a nod, as if she preempted my next question.
“And yes, I’m American...or was. Just take it easy for now. I’ll explain everything in a little bit, but the last thing you need is more shock. Just trust me.”
“I do,” I whispered, trying hard not to use any muscles around my chest, my back. “I trust Torq too.”
Torq glanced down at me, searching my face. He laid me down on top of a thin mattress of a narrow bed. I looked up to see a glassless window high in the stone keep.
“How is that window open to the sky? What’s left of the keep is buried under dirt and turf, isn’t it? I don’t understand how the walls can be so high. I thought only about five feet of stone remained.”
It hurt to talk, and I didn’t know why I was doing it. Perhaps to distract myself from the pain.
“Just relax now. I’ll explain everything in a minute,” the woman said, pulling up a stool and sitting down at my bedside to study my face. “I’m Ann Morrison, by the way. And this is Torq.”
“Morrison,” I said. “Are you two related?”
“Not by blood,” Ann said.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Cyn Dunnon.”
I heard a grunt from across the room where Torq leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, his height even more evident in the pose. He stared at me unsmiling, all garbed out like a Highland warrior and looking the part. I had no idea what his grunt meant, but it sounded like disapproval.
Unsure of what I had done wrong, I dropped my eyes and looked at Ann. She too looked the part of a Highland warrior’s wife, decked out as she was in the voluminous tartan skirt over a white linen shift and dark-blue bodice.
“You all are so dressed up! What’s the occasion?” I said with a faint smile, wishing I could chuckle.
“I know you must have a ton of questions, but you’re not going to like the answers, so I want to take it slow,” Ann said. “I promise I’ll explain everything soon. Is Cyn a nickname? That’s pretty memorable.”
I had heard the comments before. To my mother’s dismay, my father had called me Cyn as a child, and the nickname had stuck.
“Yes, for Cynthia.”
Across the room, Torq said something that I couldn’t make out. Ann replied in an equally unintelligible comment, a retort from her stern expression.
“What’s going on? What are you saying? What’s he saying?”
“Sorry. We’re speaking in Gaelic, though I only know a little bit. Torq is asking about your nickname. He thought he heard you say your name was Sin and says he won’t use such a name. I told him to chill, basically.”
I looked beyond Ann to Torq. So that was what the grunt had been about. His dark-red brows were drawn together in disapproval. She gave him a conciliatory crooked grin.
“Cynthia then,” I whispered.
He tilted his head and nodded.
The door opened, and a small elderly woman with wispy white hair entered, also dressed in traditional costume. Sharp pale-blue eyes in a rosy-cheeked face surveyed the scene as she set a brown glass bottle down on a small wooden table near the bed. I noted the table contained several pewter cups and a candlestick. Across the room, near Torq, a battered sideboard held a porcelain basin.
“Well, what have we here, Ann?” the older woman asked. “Is this someone ye ken? A friend of yers?”
“No, Mistress Glick. I’ve never seen her before, but she’s in a lot of pain. Somehow, she fell from a height, and I’m worried about her back. I don’t even have any ice for it. Should we treat her with the usual pain medicine?”
“Auch, I am so sorry to hear the lass suffers. Aye, dear, it must be the usual. That is all we have.”
Ann grimaced, and I broke out in a sweat. I threw a terrified glance toward Torq, as if he could help me. What was the usual pain medicine?
“How are the bairns?” Ann asked Mistress Glick. “Are they still asleep?”
“Aye, the bairns sleep, and Sarah plays wi her doll. I left Andrew to watch over them.”
“Good, thank you. John should be home soon with the boys and Archibald.”
Mistress Glick turned to her brown bottle and poured some amber liquid into one of the pewter cups on the table. She pulled up a high-back wooden chair from the table and sat down, extending the cup to me.
“Drink this now, dearie. It will help wi the pain.”
Ann lifted my head slightly as I obediently took the cup, seemingly with no will of my own.
“What is it?” I asked as I drank.
“Whisky,” Mistress Glick said...too late.
I sputtered as the whisky burned my throat. The coughing caused another lashing of pain down my back. Ann hastily grabbed the cup from me and lowered me.
“I’m sorry. I should have warned you that it was whisky,” Ann said.
Mistress Glick tsked sympathetically.
“I don’t drink!” I gasped, the liquid warming my throat and my stomach.
“You will if you stay here long enough,” she murmured. “Now, drink some more.” She lifted me again and offered the cup. “It’s all we can do for your pain right now. We have to take a look at your back. You don’t appear to be bleeding, and I’m not sure what we can do if your injury is internal, but we should look anyway.”
I drank another gulp of whisky, and Ann encouraged me to drink yet another before lowering me back to the bed.
“Can’t you just call the local hospital or...do you drive, Torq? Do you have a vehicle? Where is Debra? She has a car. She drove us here. What about Dylan?”
“No, honey. We can’t do any of that. Otherwise, Torq would be racing out of here with you in his arms. He’s just that kind of guy.” Ann threw a grin over her shoulder at the unsmiling relative.
He didn’t respond in kind but continued to watch everything, as if standing guard.
“Do ye think she is ready to be examined?” Mistress Glick asked.
“A few more sips, and she’ll be out like a light,” Ann said.
I protested weakly, but she lifted me again and held the cup to my lips. I eyed Torq over the edge of the cup. He didn’t drop his eyes, but continued to watch me. I didn’t know what was more intoxicating—the alcohol or the staring redhead.
The room swam, not the least because I was being turned on my side. Through the fog of whisky, I heard Ann call Torq’s name. His capable hands came around me, lifting me while Ann and Mistress Glick peeled off my jacket.
“Then ye dinna ken the lass, Ann?” he asked in a hushed baritone.
My eyelids slammed shut of their own volition, but I still heard fuzzy voices.
“No, but she must have found the dagger.”
“She is garbed as ye were.”
“I know. We all dress this way...dressed this way. It’s common.”
“It is wicked. I thought so then, and I think so now.”
“Oh, Torq.” Ann sighed.
“Ye can leave the room if ye wish to spout such nonsense, Torq Morrison!” Mistress Glick exclaimed. “We can manage wi’out ye.”
“Nay, I will stay.”
“Then keep yer judgements to yerself.”
“Verra well. I will keep my trap shut,” he growled.
“Lower her down now. Gently!” Ann said.
Torq lowered me slowly down onto the bed, and I felt Ann lifting the back of my T-shirt. I managed to pry open one eyelid to see that Torq knelt down on the floor beside the bed. His blue eyes swam in my face as the women poked and prodded my back.
Even through the dullness granted by the whisky, a sharp, hot pain tore through my back at one particular prod. I screamed...moaned. I thought I screamed.
Torq took my hands. “Have courage, lass!”
“I’m sorry, Cyn,” Ann said from behind me. “I’m trying not to hurt you. I don’t see any compound fractures or breaks in the skin, but I can’t tell if you have small fractures or anything. Your back is pretty red. In fact, I think it’s already starting to bruise along your lower back. I think the best thing we can do is keep you still for a day or two, then reassess you.”
“Call the doctor,” I said on a heavy sigh, expelling the rest of my waking air. Then I fell asleep, clutching the silky tendrils of a red beard.