Page 46 of The Trials of Neilina MacKai
“Good.I don’t think I can stand any longer.”Seona’s knees buckled.She fell hitting her head on the floor and blacked out.
When she woke, she howled.It was the pain of having the dirk removed from beneath her shoulder blade that revived her.
“I’m sorry that hurt,” said the young woman.“But I needed to bind your wounds.The dirk was in the way.”
Seona would have laughed if she’d thought it would not hurt.She cast a glance toward the middle of the chapel.The abbess lay nearby trussed like a pig.
“What did you tie her with?”
“Oh, these habits she forces us to wear have rope belts.I used mine to tie her hands and her own to bind her feet.”
“That was clever.”
“I need you to try to sit up.I made a dressing for your wound, and I must secure the dressing by wrapping the binding cloth around your torso.I also need to tend the wound on your chest.”
Seona had almost forgotten that injury.By comparison with the pain in her back, the earlier wound was a nit.Nonetheless, she sat up with a little help from her makeshift nurse.
“What are you using for dressing and binding?”She looked at the girl who’d moved around to look at Seona.
The girl’s face went bright red.She had the fair skin of a true red-head.
“I...uh...I cut strips from the altar cloth.There was plenty of cloth, so I have more than I need.I fear I’ll be doing penance for a long time, since I used blessed items for less than holy purposes.”
“I think any true priest would forgive you, since you used the candlestick and the cloth to save a life.”
“Do you truly think so?”The girl looked up from where she finished securing the bindings over Seona’s bandages.
“Absolutely.If need be, I will speak in your defense.However, we must now find a way out of here.What are you called?”
“Oh I’m Lady Labhra MacFearann.You must call me Labhra.””
“You are sister to Earl Rhuad MacFearann?”
“Earl Rhuad?What of our older brother Ranulf, and how are you acquainted with Rhuad?”
“I think Rhuad should explain what happened to Ranulf.As for how I know Rhuad, we are handfasted.My name is Seona.”
“Is Ranulf dead?”Lady Labhra asked soberly.
“Not that I’ve heard.Rhuad knows much more than I.”
“How come you to be handfasted with him?And how is it he permitted you to come here?MacFearann men make terrible husbands, for they ignore their wives completely and won’t permit them to go anywhere unescorted.”
Seona could only hope that Rhuad wasn’t a typical MacFearann husband.She was inclined to think he was not.Hadn’t he listened to her when she’d told him his original plan of attack would fail?Or had he just been indulging her?“We will have time for explanations later.First we must escape this abbey before the guards discover what we’ve done.”
“I can’t leave without my mother.She too is hostage here, but she is ill.Too ill, the abbess said, to be of good use to deceive an enemy.I did not know what the woman meant at the time.”The younger woman shivered.“Now I’m very glad she used me as a decoy instead of my mother or one of the other prisoners.”
Seona did not know whether to be happy or dismayed.Could she manage to free and help to escape the hundreds of prisoners the abbess had claimed to have?“How many other prisoners are there?”
“I don’t know.I only know the ones who are held in our prison corridor.”
“Do you think they might know of others and how to find them?”
“Possibly, most of them have been here longer than my mother and I.”
“I must get on my feet, if I’m to help you release your mother and find any other prisoners.”
Painful as moving was, Seona managed with Lady Labhra’s help.
