Black Richard's Heart (The MacCulloughs #1) - Suzan Tisdale Page 0,139
and whatever else she thought the healer might need.
“They are here!” Marisse called out from the hallway. “They’re bringing Raibeart up now.”
Anxiously, Aeschene waited by the small bed as she listened to the voices growing closer. Soon, the men were putting Raibeart into the bed while Marisse and Keevah flew into action.
“Is the healer here yet?” Aeschene asked to no one in particular as she knelt beside him.
“He’s comin’ up the stairs now, Keevah answered.”
She could hear linens being torn, someone carried in a bucket of hot water. “Raibeart, I am here,” she whispered into his ear. He groaned, but otherwise said naught.
“M’lady,” came Donald’s voice. “I need ye to move so I can tend him.”
She did as she was asked as he guided her to stand behind him.
“Raibeart, lad, can ye hear me?” Donald shouted. “Squeeze my hand if ye can hear me.”
God above, what she wouldn’t do to be able to see, to do more than stand in the corner praying. It hurt deeply to feel so useless. She wanted to do something, anything to help.
At some point, someone brought her a stool to sit upon whilst everyone else tended to her brother-by-law. Occasionally, Marisse or Keevah would give her updates. Donald is cleanin’ his wounds now, or, He is stitchin’ him up.
She sat in silence, listening to the worried whispers floating around Raibeart’s bed. He hadn’t spoken yet, hadn’t uttered a word. No one had come in with any word as it pertained to Richard, Colyne, or Rory.
The longer she sat, the more her mind filled with images of the man she loved more than her next heartbeat, lying dead in some ravine or dark forest. The images of poor little Colyne, terrified and dying alone, nearly cleaved her heart in twain.
It seemed hours had passed before Donald spoke to her directly. His sole focus had been seeing to Raibeart. “He is restin’ now, m’lady. He took an awful blow to his head.”
“But he is a MacCullough,” Marisse said. “I doubt ye could damage those hard heads of theirs with a bucket of bricks.”
Donald chuckled slightly and agreed.
“We should let him rest for now,” Donald told her.
Aeschene finally asked the question everyone else seemed to have been avoiding. “What of Richard or Colyne? Have we any news of them? Or Rory?”
“None as of yet,” Marisse told her. “But I am-”
She stilled her with a raised hand. “Please, Marisse, do nae say ye are certain they’re all fine. We ken that if they were, they would be here by now.”
The last thing she wanted was to avoid thinking about the inevitable. “If they had been found, we would have received word by now,” she said, doing her best to keep her tone even and calm.
“Ye need to rest,” Keevah said as she took her hand in hers.
’Twas true she was exhausted to her bones, but she didn’t want to leave Raibeart. “Nay, I cannae leave him.”
Keevah wasn’t having any of it. “Up with ye, now,” she said as she pulled her to her feet. “Ye need to rest, if nae for yerself then for yer babe.”
A thought struck her then, with such force it nearly sent her to her knees. If Raibeart didn’t survive, and if her husband and youngest brother-by-law were gone, then the babe she carried would be the last surviving MacCullough. ’Twas unbearable to think such, so she tried to push all those thoughts aside.
Too tired to argue, she allowed Keevah and Marisse to take her to her chamber. They helped her into a soft and warm night dress and put her to bed. “Promise me, if there is any change with Raibeart—”
Marisse smiled. “Of course. And if we hear anything about Richard or Colyne, we will also wake ye.”
As soon as she heard the door close behind them, the tears began to fall. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop weeping. Please, God, let them be safe.
’Twas difficult to still her mind, when she was so worried about her husband and Colyne, and Rory. Quietly, alone in her chamber, she prayed and cried, cried and prayed until at last she finally succumbed to the exhaustion.
Aeschene felt like she’d only just fallen asleep when Marisse awakened her. “Raibeart woke, but only for a few moments,” Marisse said as she sat on the edge of the bed.
Her eyes flew open and she struggled to sit. “Did he say anything?”
Tears pooled in Marisse’s eyes. “They have taken Richard, Colyne, and Rory.”