And please notify me as soon as Torquil arrives.”
***
Night had fallen and Ailish continued her vigil at James’ bedside, no matter how much he grumbled. “Just a bit more salve,” she said, applying the concoction provided by the monks.
Laying on his side, the big knight blindly lashed out with an arm, only to jerk it back and grimace in pain.
“You’ll not do yourself a whit of good by fighting me.” She set the pot of salve on the washstand, picked up the cup of willow bark tea, and stirred it with the wooden spoon. “You are still fevered.”
But James did not hear. His eyes closed, his chapped lips parted, he slept fitfully on his side, shivering now and again.
Ailish coughed into her elbow. By the saints, she was exhausted. “You must drink a bit more tea,” she said loudly.
His eyelashes didn’t even twitch. She tilted his chin upward and held the spoon to his mouth and ladled in a bit. His Adam’s apple bobbed, followed by a cacophony of coughing. No matter how much she wanted to set the cup aside and let him sleep, she persisted until he’d swallowed four spoons.
“If that doesn’t set you to rights, there’s no hope for you.” As soon as the words left her mouth, Ailish wished she could take them back. He’d risked his life for her more than once. He even shaved his head to disguise his thick black hair—hair that identified him as the Black Douglas.
She sat on the stool and swirled her fingers through the soft bristles that had grown in. “You look more menacing with your hair shorn,” she whispered. In her eyes, he was as braw as the first time she’d seen him standing atop Moot Hill behind the Bruce. “And the shadow of beard on your cheeks and chin makes ye look like a pirate come to take your plunder.”
She kissed his overwarm temple. “But you’d never attack without cause. Just as I would not.”
She sat for a time, mulling over all that had transpired since the coronation.
“Have I ever told you about my da?” Though her eyelids were heavy, she smiled while warmth spread through her. “He was a fierce man, but fair. And he ardently supported King Alexander and his heir, the Maid of Norway. Though he kent it was a sham when Balliol took the throne. Your own father paid with his life for that mistake.”
As her voice trailed off, Ailish resumed swirling her fingers around James’ crown. “Da always told me I would marry into a noble family—told me it was my duty. That I was born of fourteen generations of Maxwells, owners of lands on both sides of the border.”
She sighed. “So many families did—still do. And those who opposed Edward have lost all, those who have joined him have become more powerful. I just wonder when it will end. I’m told Longshanks’ son is as ruthless and bloodthirsty as his father.”
Ailish brushed her lips across James’ temple. “I believe in Robert the Bruce with all my soul, but how will we rise above the armies Edward has amassed along the border? Just like Caerlaverock, your keep, Berwick, Edinburgh, Roxburgh, Hermitage, Dunbar…good heavens, there are so many castles taken over by the English, I cannot possibly name them all. Even the Bruce’s lands at Annandale have been taken.”
Her heart grew so very heavy. “And now the king is in hiding. Certainly, your army is growing, but how will we retake what is ours so that Scotland may return to the peace she enjoyed when Alexander was on the throne?”
“Fight like Wallace?” he asked.
Ailish’s breath caught as she leaned over James’ face. “Are you listening?”
He said nothing, as if the words had come from above and not from his lips.
“I ken you’re listening,” she whispered, though he seemed to alternate between wakefulness and nothingness.
Overcome with weariness herself, she closed her eyes and rested her head on the edge of the mattress. Suffering a sore throat and a stuffy nose, she needed a bit of rest to keep the sickness at bay.
It took only to close her eyes and she drifted into a deep dreamless sleep.
When morning came, a ray of light shining through the window bid Ailish to open her eyes. “James, are you awake?”
He shivered as if he’d been out in a snowstorm for hours without a cloak.
“James?” she asked, running her hand over his forehead. Drenched in sweat, his skin was burning.
She picked up the cup and tried to spoon it