Page 36 of Highlander’s Claim

She nodded, picked up the box of instruments, and walked towards the bucket of water. “Do you have soap?” she asked.

“Nae, dinna be silly.”

“Right. What about alcohol…uisge?” she asked.

“Cleaning instruments with uisge?” He frowned at her and shook his head.

“How do you usually clean them?” she asked.

“Fire.” He shrugged.

She raised her eyebrows. She shouldn’t be surprised. Fire was everything in the Middle Ages. It meant food. It meant heat. It meant protection. The gruel or oatmeal she got every morning for breakfast, the coarse bread was baked using fire. Even in her tiny bedroom, where she had the luxury of being alone, there was a small brazier that kept the chill of Scottish nights away.

“You’re right. That will work, too.”

He gave a victorious “hmm,” plugged the jar with a large cork, and started working on the next jar.

“You know,” she said as she picked up a large bowl and dipped it into the bucket. “I’m really not a charlatan. I did learn medicine.”

“All right. I will listen. Where and how?”

How could she put it into terms he would understand and that wouldn’t get her into trouble? “Books,” she said. That was true and safe enough. “Observing other doct—healers. Listening to them.”

“Ye can read?” He threw a curious glance at her.

She put the bowl of water on the reed-covered floor before her, wondering how many dead mice lay underneath. “Yes, I can read.”

“’Tis unusual for a woman…” he said. “Did ye also learn astrology?”

Jenny picked up a clean cloth from the chest near her and ducked her head as she tried to force down laughter. “Astrology?”

“Aye, of course, ’tis how you determine how to heal the patient.”

Jenny dipped the cloth into the water and carefully rubbed the sides of a knife blade. The water turned dark brown. Who had Bhatair used it on last? It wasn’t even that sharp. “I admit,” she said, “I didn’t learn astrology to cure patients.”

“Aye, of course ye didna. What did I expect from a woman?”

Anger shot through her, but before she could say anything, the door opened, and Mhairi came in.

“Ah, Jennifer…Bhatair…are ye busy?”

He wiped his hands on his apron and turned to her. “Nae. What is it?”

Boiling the instruments would have been more effective, but Jenny didn’t want to argue with him. Baby steps. As she held the knife she’d just cleaned in the open fire of the fireplace, Mhairi came closer to him. “’Tis my legs again, Bhatair. They swell so much. Last time, yer wee leeches helped greatly.”

“Aye,” he said and gestured at a chair. “Sit. Let me take a look.”

Mhairi slowly lowered her heavily pregnant body into the chair, and Bhatair rolled the skirt of her dress higher, exposing her legs. They were swollen, and varicose veins bulged from her calves. Even a young woman like Mhairi could get varicose veins during pregnancy, depending on a variety of factors, and medieval conditions weren’t helping anyone.

“Aye,” Bhatair said with a concerned nod. “Leeches.”

Jennifer didn’t deal with varicose veins in her practice, but she sometimes had heard new mothers complain of them. She’d also heard that leeches had recently made a comeback in modern medicine. Plastic surgery as well as cardiology used them more and more. New research suggested that there was something in the saliva of the little beasts that helped with healing and preventing clots.

While the knife was in the fire, she watched Bhatair find a dark clay jar, open the lid, and use a large pair of tweezers to pick up a small, wriggling dark leech and place it on the raised vein. Jennifer shuddered but forced herself to watch. One by one, he used about a dozen of them.

“Do they really get better, Mhairi?” she asked. “Your veins?”

“Oh, aye,” Mhairi said. “Wee disgusting buggers, but they are a miracle. The swelling gets better. Nae more pain.”