Page 47 of Highlander’s Protector

Handing out the five clay cups, she asked, “Where do ye come from, good people?”

One of the women stopped chewing and looked at her. “Lass, ye shouldna talk to us.”

“Dinna fash about me,” Anna said and smiled. “I just want to ken about ye.”

“I am from Edinburgh,” the woman answered. “So is my father.” She pointed at the older man who held his bannock with only two fingers.

Anna sent a silent prayer to God to ease the man’s pain. Whatever God had planned for him, she hoped the man wouldn’t suffer much more.

“I come from Carlisle,” said the younger man with an English accent.

The other two were from Galloway.

“How did ye come together?” asked Anna as she watched the third man drink the ale thirstily.

“’Tis better we lepers stay together when everyone shies away from us,” said the woman. “Doesna matter if ye’re English or Scot when ye’re a leper. Nae one wants ye anyway. And everyone is equal to God.”

Anna nodded. She was so right. Everyone was equal to God and to his plan. David was as much an outsider right now as these lepers, even though he wasn’t sick. But he had called for faeries, and that scared folk. What kind of plan did God have for her and David, to have brought such disparate souls together in this seemingly cursed way?

As she watched the lepers eating and the people still avoiding them, she got an idea. She glanced at the shed where David was kept.

Aye, that might just work.

“Would ye good people be willing to help me?” She put four shillings in their cup, and the five of them stopped eating and drinking. That would buy them fresh bread for a month. “I promise, ’tis easy. I just need ye to move from here”—she pointed to the shed where two guards stood next to the door and chatted casually—“to there.”

The lepers exchanged glances, and the woman shrugged and looked at Anna. “Aye. I dinna see why nae. Doesna matter where we sit.”

Anna grinned, hope fluttering in her chest. “Thank ye. And if one of ye can steal the key ring”—she placed two more shillings into the cup—“I’d be most grateful.”

The woman nodded. “We can live for a year on this if we eat sparingly,” she whispered. “And if one of us doesna die before.”

Anna’s heart ached for them. She promised herself once she reached her father, she’d talk to him about creating more leper hospitals. There were several next to big cities, where lepers were taken care of, and their suffering was eased until they died one day. But there weren’t enough. Especially not after the Wars of Independence that devastated the country.

But she would change this. Even if she needed to spend some of her own dowry that her father had promised, she’d make her husband help.

She stepped away and nodded to them and blended with the crowd.

She watched them finish their food and gather their things and slowly make their way to David’s shed. The crowd shifted around them as they moved, always leaving a large gap between themselves and the sick. Then, to the guards’ surprise, the lepers sat right by the shed, leaning against its walls.

Anna moved closer and watched. One of the guards blinked rapidly; the other scratched one hand with the other. Both took several quick steps back.

The younger one eyed the streets leading out of the market square. The older one’s knee bounced. “Leave!” he yelled, making a clumsy gesture with his arm. “Ye canna sit here.”

“Make us,” said the old man, the one who looked the worst.

“Aye,” said the younger guard, taking a tentative step forward and putting his hand on the sword at his waist. “Ye think we’re afraid of ye? We’re nae afraid of ye.”

“Aye, ye’re afraid of us,” said the woman. “Canna ye smell the leper miasma? The corruption in our souls, the punishment God has sent us?”

“I will end yer punishment!” yelled the older guard as he took five decisive steps forward, drew his sword, and pointed it at the woman.

The young English leper was now behind the man’s back, and Anna held her breath as he reached out and took the key ring from the man’s girdle.

With every step heavy and her skin sweaty, Anna made her way to them.

“Try and ye will be drowned like that man ye’re guarding,” said the old man.

Anna came to stand by the young leper, who handed her the key. Both guards had their backs to her. But people were stopping to see what was going on. While the lepers and the guards argued, she went to the door. Her hands shook as she inserted the large, iron key into the hole.