Page 73 of Wild Highland Rose
"You saved him." Her voice still held traces of awe.
He pushed a hand through his hair. "Probably." There was a certain satisfaction in saving a life, but right now he wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking about his memory.
It called to him, waiting for him to open the doors and let it all back into his conscious mind. He felt panicked suddenly. Too much was happening too fast. He had to think. Alone. "Marjory, I need to be alone right now." His voice came out more harshly than he had intended.
Hurt washed across her face, but she quickly masked it. "Fine, I'll leave you then. I want to check on Fingal, anyway." Sherose and with a last worried look in his direction, hurried from the hall.
Cameron looked around him. The great hall was empty, food and drink abandoned on the tables. He vaguely recalled someone telling everyone to leave. With a grateful sigh, he buried his head in his hands and waited for the memories to come.
Marjory stoodin the doorway of Fingal's chamber. Firelight mixed with candle flames to cast dancing shadows across the walls, the effect making the events of the evening seem even more ominous. Grania sat on one side of the bed and Aimil on the other. Fingal lay sleeping, the rise and fall of his chest, exaggerated by the blankets covering him, giving mute testimony to the night's miracle.
"Is he all right?"
At the sound of her voice, both women looked to the door. Aimil's features were drawn, her face ragged and harsh.
"He's resting comfortably." Grania rose as she spoke, crossing the small chamber to Marjory's side. "'Tis naught that ye can do now, child. Let's leave Aimil with her brother. Come the morning I've no doubt that we'll find Fingal in fine form, asking fer his porridge."
Marjory allowed the older woman to draw her from the chamber.
When they returned to the great hall, it was empty, the remains of the feast looking like the carnage of a fierce battle. She stared at it all in a daze, her mind trying to take in the miracle that had saved Fingal's life. "What…what happened heretonight? Cameron tried to explain, but his words were strange and his manner even more so."
"I know, I know." Grania drew her across the vast hall to the bench by the fire.
Marjory sank down on the hard wood, her eyes falling on the discarded bagpipe. "Cameron said he was a physician."
"So his name is Cameron, is it? Appropriate in an odd sort of way." Grania frowned as she contemplated the thought. "Judging from what happened tonight, I'd say that he's no' only a physician, but a verra good one."
"But, Grania, physicians canna do what he did, surely." She reached for the older woman's hand, desperate for human contact.
"Well, if I remember correctly, there are some who can perform a tracheotomy, but none that can do it with accuracy and success. 'Twill be more than four hundred years before the procedure is perfected and another fifty or so before it is standardized."
She spoke quietly, almost to herself. "And quite truthfully, I'd have probably used that bit o' bagpipe." She pointed in the direction of the abandoned instrument. "It was too big and might have damaged the vocal cords, but I'm no' sure that I'd have thought to use the wee pipe." She trailed off, turning her face to the fire.
Marjory frowned, things suddenly coming clear. "You're more than a healer aren't you?"
Grania nodded, without answering.
Marjory pressed forward. "The pump, Bertram didn't bring it from England did he?"
"I never even knew Bertram."
Marjory felt dizzy as revelations came faster and faster. "Never knew Bertram?"
"Nay, I came after he died. Your father found me wandering in the woods. Yer sweet mother just assumed I was Grania. I saw no need to tell her the truth."
"Are you from Cameron's time, then? Is that how you know about pumps and trach-e-o-to-mies?"
"Aye. 'Tis true," the old woman admitted in a whisper hardly loud enough to hear.
But Marjory heard, her head spinning with the impact of the words. "Then you're a physician, like Cameron?"
"No' any more. There is too much I've forgotten, but once, a lifetime ago, I was a surgeon, too."
"You've traveled across time?"
"Aye."
"And nobody else knows?"
