Page 26 of The Highlander's Twisted Deal
And what if he discovers the truth?He willnae keep it to himself. And then what?
She cleared her throat, forcing a quick smile. “There’s nay need to come with me, Moira. Simply point me in the direction I must go, and I’ll find it meself.”
Moira hesitated, hospitality warring against practicality. “Very well,” she said, at last. “There are a great many stairs. It’s up on the third floor. I’ll draw ye a wee map—it’s hard to find if ye dinnae ken what ye are looking for. Our healer is gone from the Keep at the moment, so it’ll be empty. We usually have a few apprentices, but they’ve all gone to various villages. It’s odd having the healer’s chambers so quiet. Can ye find what ye are looking for alone?”
Ava flashed a quick smile. “Aye, I think so.”
* * *
Ava was glad of the quickly sketched-out map. A narrow door, half-hidden behind a tapestry, led up a narrow flight of spiral stairs, twisting up and up and up until her legs burned, and she was starting to think she would appear on the roof at any moment.
Finally, the stairs leveled out to a small, circular landing. There was only one door in the landing—a tall, arched doorway with an iron-studded door. Ava knocked, not really expecting a reply, and pushed open the door.
It was not locked.
She stood for a moment in the doorway, her breath stuttering in her throat.
Ava’s hut, which served as her own healing chamber, was nothing more than a dilapidated little cottage. It had served her purpose, of course. Everything had its place, and if bunches of dried herbs and plants constantly brushed her head whichever way she turned, and she risked bumping her head on the doorways, so what?
The healer’s chambers at Keep McAdair was something she had never seen before.
The door opened directly into a huge, circular room with a high, domed ceiling. The floor was paved with marble—no hard-packed dirt floors here—and worn smooth by decades, if not centuries, of shuffling feet.
In the center of the room was a selection of rectangular tables. Some tables bore boxes, piled books, tools, or half-dried out plants, others were empty and scrubbed clean. On one side of the circular room, bookshelves were built against the wall, books rammed into every available space. She saw huge, leather-bound tomes with writing picked out in gold, which must have cost a fortune, pushed haphazardly into the shelves beside handwritten manuscripts bound together with string.
Opposite the books were more shelves, these ones bearing glass vials or herbs, potions, powders, and more.
There were vials and bottles of every shape and size imaginable, each one sitting on a carefully labeled section of the shelf. The carelessness applied to the books was clearly not allowed in the medicines section.
That made perfect sense. Many plants looked similar, but one would send you to a peaceful, deep sleep, while the other would make you writhe in agony before it killed you. It was crucial for a healer to be well-organized.
There were more shelves beside the medicines, deeper, designed to let dried plants hang freely. Despite the huge space, the air still smelled delicious of savory herbs and the clean, strong scent of medicine.
There were tools everywhere she looked—scythes and scissors for gathering, wooden mallets for grinding, pestles and mortars, of course, gloves to protect the hands from spiky or poisonous herbs, and so on.
Almost dreamily, Ava drifted across the huge room towards the medicines. There were herbs here that were rarely found, available only in deep caves, by dangerous marshes, or on the tips of windswept hills. She found combinations of herbs, too, ones commonly used—a pinch of wolfbane, apple spice, and green mushrooms for colds, houndstooth and frog-bit for infection, and so on. There was evenpillowfriend,although the name used to describe it on the label was a little smudged, and Ava could not read it.
She sucked in a breath when she saw a vial of familiar, finely ground powder, a vivid orange-yellow which seemed to tint everything around it.
“Indian saffron,” Ava breathed. “I can make Moira her tea, after all.”
She picked up the vial, reminding herself that it was not stealing because it was for the lady of the Keep, and, anyway, she would only use a few spoonfuls of it.
Even so, the sound of footsteps running up the stairs made her jump, leaping away from the shelf of vials and clutching the powder to her chest.
The door flew open, slamming against the wall.
A man stood there, gasping for breath. He was somewhere between sixty and seventy, spry for his age, short and thin. He had a headful of pure white hair that stood out around his head like a halo, and he had white eyebrows to match. His eyes were a dark brown, a shocking contrast with all the white air.
His gaze, sharp and clear despite his age, raked over Ava and seemed to dismiss her as of no consequence.
“Who are ye?” Ava squeaked. She was still clutching the vial, and she forced herself to set it down casually as if she had every right to have it.
Well, shedid.
“No concern of yours,” the man retorted, and Ava was a little surprised to notice that he was English. Englishmen were rare in this part of the world.
He darted into the room, raking through the tools and medicines, forcing Ava to step aside.
