Page 21 of Highlander’s Claim

Unreachable.

Was it just her or did the walls seem to shrink and narrow around her? The main keep was rectangular and six floors high, with tiny slit windows cutting the surface like eyes.

Unease washed over her. She was on a very thin ice. They thought she was a whore, a faerie, an English enemy. What did she really know about the medieval world? And even if she could diagnose Una without a thermometer, a stethoscope, and an otoscope, she had no access to modern medicine. There were no antibiotics, no syringes, no acetaminophen. So she wouldn’t be able to treat her in the way she knew would work.

And yet, she’d sworn the Hippocratic oath, and she couldn’t stand by and do nothing when she saw a sick baby. Even if she was putting herself in danger, she had to try.

“I’m going to touch her now,” she said to Ailis, and a murmur went over the gathered crowd.

She laid the back of her hand on the baby’s forehead. Scalding. Through the coarse, linen folds of the swaddling blanket, she found the baby’s little hand. It was small, soft, and burning. She needed to measure the pulse on her wrist, but the girl kept shuffling her hands and feet as she cried.

One good thing about the crying was that Jenny could easily see the throat. “Does Una nurse?” she asked as she looked deep into the baby’s mouth. The tonsils were red and inflamed. Una had a fever, a dry cough, and was fussy. Her upper lip was wet with mucus.

“Oh, nae,” Ailis said weakly. “Poor wee thing hasna the strength.”

Una must have a sore throat. Most babies ate and drank less if they had a cold, ear infection, or flu.

Una needed some way to stay hydrated. Jenny would normally prescribe an oral rehydration therapy drink from a drugstore. There was also a homemade version with a bit of refined sugar and salt mixed in water. But refined sugar wasn’t available in the Middle Ages. She could ask Aulay for salt; he had offered her some when they ate in the great hall.

“We need to keep her hydrated and find a way to lower her fever,” said Jenny. “How long has she been like this?”

“A sennight. What is hydra…?” asked Ailis.

“Keep her drinking liquids, it’s very important for her to get better.”

She needed her otoscope to properly check for an ear infection, but she looked into the child’s ears, anyway. There was no fluid oozing out, thankfully.

“How long has her nose been congested?” she asked.

A strong, dry cough exploded from Ailis’s chest. Just like Una’s. “Oh, a few days,” Ailis said once her coughing fit stopped. “The healer thinks ’tis too much phlegm, ye ken. ’Tis why she needs to be outside.”

This could be the flu, too. The influenza virus was much deadlier without modern medical care.

“Nonsense,” Jenny said. “Cold wind will make her lungs worse. What she needs is a warm and humid space to ease the dry cough, something to help with the fever, and plenty of fluids.”

Ailis shook her head. “Nae.”

Being aware of Aulay’s heavy stare, Jenny licked her lips nervously. She didn’t remember the last time she’d had to work so hard to convince a patient to take the treatment. “Please, Ailis. At least let me help you get her to take some milk…or even water.”

“Nae. I thought mayhap ye kent something Bhatair didna. But what ye’re suggesting is what he said to nae do. And he said she’d get worse first. ’Tis the sweating sickness.”

“I did say she has an excess of sanguine humor,” said a man as he made his way through the crowd.

She turned her head. Coming to stand next to Aulay, the man was dark blond and of average height, which, next to Aulay, made him look short. He wore a long, brown tunic that fell to the edges of his pointy shoes. A wide leather belt wrapped around his waist. He didn’t have a cross on his chest, but there was something monk-like about him. He had a basket in his hands and watched Jenny with a frown in his intelligent, piercing blue eyes.

Ah. This must be Bhatair, the physician. Jenny stood up. He eyed her up and down, puzzled.

“And to balance the sanguine humor, Una needs to go outside into the cold, dry environment. So ’tis working.”

Humors…what were the humors again? She did remember something about that from the history of medicine classes.

“Laird,” Bhatair demanded, “why is a whore looking at my patients and talking nonsense?”

Jenny opened her mouth to say something, as did Aulay, but Ailis interrupted, “She said she is a physician, and she touched Una. Then she said Una needs some hydra…”

“Liquids,” said Jenny firmly. “Una needs her mother’s milk or water. She also needs to have her fever reduced, and she needs to have some sort of a steam—”

Bhatair raised his hand. “Silence.”