Chapter 27

27

“ W hy can’t she?” He’d finally found her at the smithy, delivering food to the hungry men working there. She’d tried to avoid his question but he persisted. Finally she grabbed his arm and dragged him outside into the frosty December afternoon. Gray clouds piled on each other to block the sun’s rays and warmth from making it to the frozen ground beneath his feet Occasional snowflakes blew through the air, adding their own chill to the cold.

“Ye are mistaken if ye think ’tis my own hand that guides this, Douglas. I hiv no say in who can pass through the gateway and who does no’.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No’ with yer words so much as the manner in which ye spoke them. The Fates control that archway—I can sometimes see their plans, but that is all.”

She was furious at him, he could see it in her face and the ways she nearly spit out her words at him.

“Do ye no’ think that sometimes I would like to be able to change the things I see? To save someone marked for death or to be able to do differently something that will harm or injure someone else? Sometimes this gift is a burden.” She gasped and covered her mouth with her hands, apparently just realizing what she’d said. “But ’tis mine and I will bear it.”

“It must be difficult to know and not be able to help or change what’s to come. Have you ever tried?” he asked softly, tamping his own anger down.

“Aye, I hiv tried more than once. ’Tis a hard lesson to learn.” Moira stared off into the clouds for a few moments, obviously remembering one of those times.

“So, Caitlin cannot return with me?” The solution had been there in front of him all the time. He would return when the winter solstice and full moon together reopened the door to his time and he would take Caitlin with him.

“’Tis no’ that it canna happen, Douglas. ’Tis just that I havna seen it in the bits of wisdom granted to me.”

“So it could, then?”

“I hiv seen her give birth to her husband’s child, Douglas. Here, in this time, in this village. I do no’ think she will be with ye in yer own time.”

“Do you think she would try to return with me?”

“Ask her yerself, for she stands over there.”

“Caitlin ?” he whirled around to see her standing near the smithy, listening in on their conversation. Her face had more color than earlier but her eyes still looked fatigued. “Would you try? Would you come back to my time with me next week?”

“Douglas.... ’tis no’ Caitlin’s choice, either,” Moira warned.

“I understand that,” he said through clenched teeth, “I need to know if Caitlin would be willing to try.”

Caitlin stepped closer, misery etched into her features. She reached for his hand but stopped and let her hands drop to her sides. The wind blew some of her hair free of its tether and the blackness next to her pale face just accentuated the dark circles under her eyes. He knew her answer already but wanted to hear it from her own mouth.

“I canna, Douglas, even though I’d like to see yer world in yer own time.” A sad smile lit on her face as she continued. “I canna go with ye, kenning that my people, my family will suffer wi’out me. My skills as a healer and my gift are all that my clan has to help them when they are ill or injured.” She did touch him then, she reached out and placed her palm against his cheek. “But I would go wi’ ye if I could.”

His eyes and throat burned at her words and at his sense of loss. So this was all a game? He’d been returned to this past to learn about himself and to gain a better hold on his reasons for becoming a doctor. And only to return to his life and be miserable? This didn’t make sense at all.

“Can I stay?”

The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. Would it be better to be miserable in his own time or to stay here and be with her? Her look never changed. He turned to Moira.

“I hiv seen ye under the arch on the night of the solstice.”

“And you are never wrong?”

“I see what is shown, what is set, I dinna always see how it comes to pass.”

“I would stay, Caitlin, if I could.” He wasn’t sure if his words made him feel better about this or not but she smiled at him.

“Yer words mean much to me, Douglas. I will keep them and you close to my heart forever.” She stepped back and then looked at her mother. Then, before he could saying anything else, Caitlin pivoted and ran away from them and the smithy. A sob carried back to him on the winds and tore at his heart again.

“So that is that? She cannot go and I cannot stay? It doesn’t seem fair.”

“Life and the Fates are rarely that, Douglas. Ye must ken that already. And all we can do is make our way through it all.”

He looked away, unable and unwilling simply to accept that this was the end of it, the final word. “Will I see her again before I leave?”

“Aye, ye still hiv work to do together.” At his look, she held up her hand to stop the question he was ready to ask. “I dinna ken more than that so dinna ask. ’Tis more of a mother’s feeling than true knowledge anyway.”

He asked no more questions of her. Moira turned from him and reentered the smithy but not before giving him a sympathetic glance. An overwhelming sense of powerlessness surrounded him, something he’d never felt in his years as a physician. There was always something to try, something to do before giving up hope. Here, now, he had no clue of what to do.

He walked back through the village ignoring the cold winds that pulled at his cloak and his hair, ignoring the greetings called to him, ignoring his heart that clenched in pain in his chest. He could not stand by idly but he just didn’t know what to do.

She stumbled along the path, the wind and tears stinging her eyes as she sobbed. Coming to a group of close trees, she stopped and leaned against one for support.

She wanted to go with him. She had, for a single moment, in the deepest part of her being, decided to leave this village and its people behind to accompany him to his world.

Caitlin wanted to be with him, live as his wife, give him children, be part of his world. She’d never desired anything in her life as much as she wanted this man and what he offered.

Not to be alone anymore. Douglas understood how her gift held her separate from others, how it made her different in ways the others couldn’t understand. But Douglas did.

Could she go through the arch with him? Even her mother didn’t know if it was possible. And her mother had seen Douglas in her visions enter the arch on the night of the solstice. As much as Caitlin believed in her own gift, she had faith in her mother’s. Douglas would pass through the arch and return to his own time in less than a week’s time and be gone from her life.

Except in her dreams. He still lived there. The cave dreams had returned, now made more vibrant, more real because they had been there, doing everything she saw. There was a new one in these last few nights. She felt the heat in her cheeks as she remembered all they did together in the steaming cave, both in her dreams and in their true experiences.

In the new dream, he’d arrived first and was in the deeper pool. She watched as he dipped under the water and then stood, sluicing his hair and face and opening his eyes. His body glistened with the wetness and in the steam and she ached to run her hands over his chest and to feel his muscles ripple beneath her touch. He’d hold out his hand to her, inviting her in to be with him and inviting her to something else. Something more. Something different.

His gaze would become hungry as she shed her clothes before him, he would watch every movement she made until she stepped into the pool and into his embrace. Then, as they kissed for that first time, he would dip them both under the water and they would come up wet and hot and together.

Caitlin shook herself free of the lethargy of the dream. She yearned for nothing more than him, in her life and she in his. But, as the Fates had decided, it was not meant to be.

She could no more give up her place in the clan than she could stop breathing. She could not ignore the gift bestowed on her long ago, not even for Douglas and her own dreams. Even as much as she’d like to at times like these. The gift was part of her, it was her.

The frigid wind finally battered its way through the heavy cloak she wore and reminded her of a task left undone. She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands and pulled the hood shawl down tighter on her head. Looking around, she found the right direction to take her home and she walked the short distance to the cottage.

After wiping the rest of her tears away with the corner of her tartan shawl, Caitlin opened the door to the cottage and held onto it as the wind threatened to pull it from her grasp. Winter storms were on their way, these winds told her. The clouds grew thicker and darker by the minute. Winter was full upon Dunnedin and the nights were now longer. She longed for the warmer days and colors of spring and summer.

Once inside, she hung her heavy cloak by the door. The smell of meat and vegetables stewing wafted across the room to her. Caitlin picked up some of the cooking herbs her mother had left on the table and added them to the cauldron over the fire. Stirring to check the consistency, she added two more ladles of water and then pushed the pot back to steep some more. At least a hot and filling meal was promised at the end of this day .

A knock interrupted her kitchen work. Pushing on the door, a small girl crept inside.

“Cora, what brings ye out in this cold wind?” The girl had only six years but was a bright lass.

“My maither said to tell ye ’tis time.”

Beitris, Aindreas’ young wife, was carrying for her sixth time in as many years. She had become Caitlin’s friend the year before.

“I will gather what I need and come to yer cottage. Does yer faither ken yet?”

“No,” the little girl shook her head as she answered, “Mam said no’ to tell him until the bairn comes.”

Caitlin laughed. Aindreas, for all his bulk and strength, was helpless at the sight of his wife in labor. He’d even fainted at the last birth. No, ’twas best if he was not there until the end.

“I will join you shortly. Will ye hiv someone put a pot of water on to boil?”

Caitlin opened the door to let the child out. Cora nodded and scouted under her arm and out the door. It now looked as though the night would be even longer for her than the day had already been. Caitlin picked up her bundle of herbs and a few other supplies and left for Beitris’s home.

The night was even longer than she expected. By dawn, in spite of intense laboring, the babe was still nowhere close to being born. Caitlin had summoned Moira since her mother’s child-birthing skills were far superior to her own. Not even that helped Beitris’s bairn move from her womb. Now, as dark approached for another long night, she faced the prospect of losing both mother and child.

Aindreas stood before her, arms crossed over his chest and grim-faced. What could she say to him? I’m sorry but your wife and babe will die soon? Even her mother’s attempts to turn the babe to allow it passage through the birth canal met with failure.

“What can ye do?” he asked, his strong voice quivering with unspoken love for his young wife.

“Aindreas, I dinna ken what else there is to do. The babe haes turned the wrong way and canna come out. My maither haes tried to turn it to get it in the right position for birth but twice the bairn has slipped her grasp.”

The big warrior whitened at mention of what her mother had done. If he’d seen it, Aindreas would have been on the floor in a dead faint. Beitris had held on through the painful attempt, screaming only at the very worst part, but she’d made sure her husband had been sent on an errand before allowing it.

“There is nothing else ye can do? Do ye sit and wait for her to die?”

“Please don’t say that where she can hear ye. Beitris needs all her strength and all the fight she haes left to birth this bairn.” She pulled him away from where his wife lay exhausted from the last two days of labor. She wasn’t ready to give up and didn’t want Beitris to, either.

“Mam has gone to talk with the other midwives. Mayhap she will hiv a plan when she returns.”

Caitlin walked over to sit near Beitris. Aindreas paced back and forth, making their small cottage seem even smaller. Beitris touched her arm and struggled to lean up.

“Nay, Beitris, save yer strength.”

“I must tell ye, Caitlin,” she whispered. “Ye must save this bairn. I ken I’m to die but ye must save the babe.”

The ailing woman clutched her sleeve and pulled her closer. “’Tis the son he’s always prayed for, yer mam saw him. Ye must save the babe.”

“Aindreas loves ye,” she whispered back. “He wouldna want to lose ye for a bairn, even a son.”

“But I want him to hiv a son. I’ve been able to bear him only daughters and just three still live. This... is... a... son... for... him.” The words were barely out when another strong contraction was on her. Too tired to fight it or work with it, she lay back, moaning in spite of her efforts to remain quiet.

Aindreas lost what color he had left and started to sway on his feet. Catching himself, he strode to the door and opened it, taking big gulps of fresh, cold air to revive himself. Caitlin watched, helpless to do anything for either of them.

Her mother came through the open door and closed it behind her, taking in both Aindreas’ complexion and his wife’s condition. She gestured to Caitlin to join her away from both of them.

“And what hiv ye found?”

“No one haes any other ideas that we hivna tried already.”

“There must be something left to try!” Caitlin would not, could not lose another friend this way. After watching Mildread die just weeks before, Beitris’s death would be unbearable.

“Ye canna heal this, Caitlin. We canna take the bairn until she dies or is close to it and ye canna heal her if she dies.”

“I ken, Mam.” Desperate, she searched for another idea, another plan—something they hadn’t thought of to use to save her friend’s life. Douglas. He could help, he could do something with his skills. She would go to him and ask for his help.

“He is at dinner wi’ the family now.”

She smiled at her mother and at her mother’s other gift, the one she rarely talked about, the ability to read someone’s thoughts. “I will go to him now.”

She stopped Caitlin from leaving. “Everyone will see ye going to him. Mayhap I should send someone to get him?”

“Nay, I need to speak to him first. He still haes the new tools Da made for him.”

“Go, then, and hurry. Her strength is fading and the babe canna wait for much longer.”

Caitlin grabbed for her cloak and ran the entire way through the village and through the castle gate. Not even the biting wind slowed her steps. Soon she reached the stairs into the keep and was in the great room. Douglas sat with the family this night on the dais where all could see. Craig, pale but recovering, sat at the other end of the long table.

She hesitated only to catch her breath before walking quickly to the front of the hall. Douglas had caught sight of her just after she entered and kept his gaze on her the whole way up to the dais. She went directly to him, never stopping or noting anyone else at that table.

He could not refuse her request, at least she hoped she knew him well enough to know he wouldn’t. Of course, with everyone watching, the very act of approaching him was inviting trouble to befall him and her. For her friend and her friend’s life, she would risk the anger of the entire clan if that’s what it took to save them.

Everyone in the hall watched her in silence as she leaned over to Douglas and held out her hand to him.

“Come with me?”