Willow smiled softly. “The cold brings the aches to your bones, doesn’t it?”
The old woman grinned and nodded. “A wise healer. It has been too long since I have met one.” She looked to Slatter standing in front of the closed door. “You did well. She will make a good and kind wife.”
Aye, she would, he thought, but not to me… some other man. Anger pierced him as sharply as the blade of a sword and he wanted to roar with fury. He got angrier over his reaction. What did it matter? She meant nothing to him. She had tended him gently and with kindness once and now he returned the favor, keeping her safe. It was nothing more than that.
Willow turned to her husband. “Why don’t you and Crofton wait outside while I see to his grandmother.”
Crofton was shaking his head, ready to object.
“Come, lad, we leave the women to themselves,” Slatter said in a tone that was meant to be obeyed, and Crofton obeyed, although reluctantly.
Corliss smiled as the door closed behind Crofton. “My grandson worries over me. I know he fears me dying and I pray I can last until he is a grown man and has found love. My passing would be less difficult if he had someone who loved him. We only have each other now. His mum, da, and sister lost to an illness that claimed all but five in the clan. I had been too weak to leave with the other three and though I urged Crofton to go with them, he wouldn’t leave me. Slatter came upon us and brought us here. It is a good man you wed.”
Willow was beginning to believe that, but it was hard to reconcile this good man with the man who had been called a whoremonger, a thief, and a liar.
“Have you tried a heather brew for your aching bones?” Willow asked.
“No, I haven’t, though I do recall my mum rubbing ‘the ache’, as she called it, from her limbs with ash leaves.”
“An ash bark poultice would work better,” Willow said. “I will teach Crofton how to prepare it.”
Corliss shook her head, her wrinkled-framed eyes filled with sadness. “A young lad doesn’t need to be tending his granny.”
Willow reached out and rested her hand over the old woman’s. “Let him do this for you. It will help him worry less about you.”
Corliss smiled. “You are a wise healer. You were taught well.”
“My mum,” Willow said with pride, realizing for the first time just how much her mum had taught her. She recalled her mum telling her that it wasn’t always the illness, the wound, or the injury that needed to be treated. And sometimes it wasn’t only the ill person in the family that needed tending. “I’ll fix you a heather brew and hopefully that will ease your aches some.”
Willow got busy preparing the brew while she continued to talk with Corliss.
Crofton stood quiet, staring at the cottage door.
“Women get lost in talk,” Slatter said, seeing the concern on the lad’s face. He’d been impressed with Crofton since he had found him and his grandmother alone in a village that had been ravaged by illness. His grandmother had insisted Crofton go with him, but the lad refused to leave her and Slatter had no intentions of leaving the old woman behind. The lad looked after his grandmother without a word of complaint. Slatter actually thought it was the old woman who had more to complain about, not that she did, since her grandson was forever on her to be careful, not to do this or that. But she just smiled at him and nodded at his loving orders and did as she wished.
“I don’t mean to be ungrateful, Slatter,” Crofton said a bit of a tremor to his voice, “but you did say you would be moving all of us to a safer and permanent home. Will that be soon? I fear our small cottage will not do well in a winter storm.”
“I agree with the lad,” Devin said, joining the two. “It’s time for you to leave here, time for you to return home, where it is safe.”
The door opened and Crofton hurried to Willow, concern drawing his brow together in deep lines for one so young.
“Your grandmother does well and I’m going to show you how to prepare a poultice to help ease her aches.” After Crofton entered the cottage, a smile of relief chasing his worry lines, Willow looked to her husband. “You need not wait. I will be a while. I will see you at the cottage.”
Slatter nodded and stood there a few moments after the door closed.
“My wife tells me she saw me kissing a woman in the market before chaos broke loose,” Slatter said.
“He slipped through your fingers again. He’s as good at vanishing as you are. This has gone on far too long. You’ve come close to losing your life because of him and almost losing your freedom. And damn Beck for getting hold of you before we reached you. This devil-in-disguise has to be found and made to pay for what he’s done. This has to end.”