Page 65 of Bride of Ice
Mildly annoyed, Isabel asked, “You didn’t bring food too, did you?”
“Wait,” Gellir scowled. “Did you come here alone?”
“Aye.” Ian closed the door. “But I didn’t bring food. No one told me to bring food. Were we supposed to?”
“Whatdidyou bring?” Gellir nodded toward the wooden staff.
Ian hurried forward. “A crutch. ’Tis oak. It should be strong enough to support your weight,” he told Colban. “About half a sack, aye?”
Colban had no idea how much he weighed.
Ian handed him the wooden crutch. “Here. Try it. The length is three-quarters of your total height, which I estimate is seventy-four inches. So I set the crossbar at fifty-five and a half inches.”
“Ye made this?”
“Aye.”
Colban couldn’t imagine how the lad could have garnered so much information about him, things he didn’t even know himself. Nor how he could have fashioned the crutch so quickly. But his siblings seemed unimpressed. They must be used to Ian’s genius.
“I haven’t used a crutch before,” Colban said.
“Here,” Ian offered, setting his notebook on the table. “I’ll show you.”
He helped Colban to rise.
“Tuck it here, on the opposite side of the injured limb,” he instructed, slipping the crutch under Colban’s arm. It fit perfectly. “When you walk, instead of stepping on your foot, let the crutch take the weight.”
“Like this?” He took a stumbling step forward.
Ian caught his forearm so he wouldn’t fall. “Aye, that’s it.”
With Ian by his side, he made slow progress. When he reached the window, Isabel cheered as if he’d completed a pilgrimage.
“Now you try it alone,” Ian encouraged.
Colban limped back with the aid of the crutch, faltering only once and leaning on the table for balance. Ian rushed forward to help, but Colban warned him away with a quick, “I can do it.” He took two more steps, then collapsed back into his chair.
Brand and Isabel clapped in congratulations.
Colban grinned. “’Tis amazin’,” he told Ian. “This will be o’ great aid. Thank ye, Ian.”
The lad glowed with pride.
“I’ll need more practice,” Colban said. “In the meantime, who’s hungry?”
A few moments later, Ian was squeezing in between Brand and Isabel, consuming an apple tart. It seemed food was an effective way to silence the lad’s ongoing commentary. For a long while, the only sounds in the room were chewing and slurping while Colban practiced limping past the hearth on the crutch.
He wondered how long it would be before he wouldn’t require the thing. Before he’d be back in fighting form. Before he’d be well enough to escape to warn Morgan, should the need arise.
He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Glancing up at the four siblings seated in a row on the bed as they licked their fingers and smacked their lips, he couldn’t help but smile. They might be on the verge of adulthood, but in some ways they were still as innocent, honest, and trusting as children.
Getting to know them was a double-edged sword, because he was growing to like them. Betraying them would break his heart.
Chapter 18
Why the kitchens were so bereft of food this morn, Hallie couldn’t understand. The cauldron of frumenty had been scraped clean. There was no bacon. And not a crumb of a fruit tart remained.
Battling Sir Colban must have worked up the knights’ appetites, because they’d all but cleaned out the pantry as well. And now she didn’t know what to give the Highlander for breakfast.
