Page 14 of I Loved You Then (Far From Home #12)

The Truth Will Come

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Ciaran paused outside the chamber door, feeling the weight of his own reluctance pressing down hard.

He hated to be wrong, hated even more to admit it aloud.

But three men had gone feverish that morning, their wounds no worse than half a dozen others who were already walking.

Claire’s words from yesterday echoed despite all his attempts to shove them aside.

Hot water. Clean linen. Sterilize everything.

Nonsense, he’d told himself then. Yet the memory of her certainty—standing up to both him and Diarmad, her voice never faltering—stayed with him. He had dismissed her too quickly, and now the price of that dismissal lay groaning in the infirmary.

He rapped once on the door to the chamber Alaric shared with Ivy Mitchell, Alaric having advised of Ivy and Claire’s location.

At the call for entrance, he pushed open the door and stepped inside—and immediately, he felt too large in the space, too rough-edged, as though his boots and sword didn’t belong among such quiet things.

The chamber was not what he expected. It had been softened since Ivy had claimed it. Chairs had found their way inside, cushioned and comfortable, a blanket folded neatly across one. The faint sweetness of lavender sat in the air. The bed was draped with several léines and kirtles.

Both women looked up as he entered. Claire stiffened, the smile she’d been showing Ivy’s bairn disappearing.

Ciaran swallowed.

Claire sat in one of those newly added chairs by the window with the swaddled infant in her arms. Ivy stood near the bed, folding garments strewn about there.

“Laird Kerr,” Ivy greeted him, quick to hide her surprise at his coming. “Come in. What can I do for you?”

He cleared his throat. “’Tis her I came for.” He turned his regard to Claire.

Claire blinked, surprise flickering across her features. “Me?”

“Aye.”

She looked natural there with the bairn, her posture easy, her hands steady as she shifted the babe against her shoulder and rose to her feet. The wee one made a small sound, and Claire soothed her with a gentle pat that seemed second nature. She swayed side to side in a rhythmic motion.

Ciaran’s throat tightened unexpectedly. He did not step further into the chamber and Claire did not stray far from the chair across the room.

“Aye.” He repeated, shifted his weight, then rested his hand on the door’s latch.

“I was...wrong yesterday,” he said, his gaze fixed on Claire’s hand on the bairn’s back, watching it pat lightly.

“Too quick to dismiss ye.” The words tasted like gravel, but he forced them out.

“And now, today, three lads burn with fever. Lads who shouldnae be laid so low.”

Claire’s expression softened—to her credit, she did not wear a smug expression, though surely she could have—but she didn’t speak, seemed to wait for him to say why he’d come.

The crease on his forehead deepened. “Ye said there was a reason for it, why fever would come. Something unseen, carried from one to the next. I dinna ken what ye meant, but...I’d hear it again.”

For a moment, Claire only stared at him.

“If ye’ll explain it,” he requested, as polite as he could manage while eating crow. “For their sake.”

Still swaying and patting, Claire said evenly, “What I meant is simple. The fevers come from dirt, from other blood, from bacteria—tiny things, alive but too small to see—that get into wounds when they’re touched with filthy cloth or tools. That’s what causes the infection.”

He listened, aware peripherally that Ivy had resumed folding the garments, though her attention was on Claire as well.

“I suggested boiling instruments and all the linen used there in...that place,” she went on, “ and boil the leather pouch the doctor keeps his instruments in. And the straw beneath the men should be changed daily—or better yet, get rid of it altogether. Lord knows what kind of bugs and debris are in there. Ideally, they would be kept on raised beds, simple cots are fine, but made of something or covered with something that can be cleaned. Essentially, everything should be sterilized—made clean. That’s what the boiling will do. ”

“And this will prevent fever from claiming lives?” He asked.

“It will reduce the risk,” Claire clarified firmly. “You probably won’t or can’t eradicate fever altogether, not in these conditions, with so many...variables. But you can reduce the risk. Maybe only one man would have developed a fever today instead of three if those practices were in place.”

He’d come because what she’d said yesterday had stuck with him, but it still seemed to him almost too...simple.

“I dinna mean to offend, but what ye say is...” He searched for the word, his brows pulling tight. “It’s too plain. Too small a thing to hold so much power.”

Claire held Ciaran’s stare, refusing to yield an inch. He looked ready to argue further when Ivy’s voice slipped into the pause, calm but certain.

“She’s right, sir. We’ve learned so much over the centuries, from now until when...well, when we come from.”

The words dropped into the chamber like a stone into still water.

Ciaran’s entire frame went taut, his eyes snapping toward Ivy with a piercing glare.

Color rose swiftly in Ivy’s cheeks. She pressed a hand to her throat, her smile twisting into something rueful. “I shouldn’t have said that,” she murmured, voice thin with embarrassment.

“What in God’s name do ye mean by it?” Ciaran’s words were low and gruff, but they carried the weight of a hammer striking iron. He leaned forward slightly, his eyes narrowing. “Centuries? Where ye come from?”

Ivy winced, and glanced between a likewise shocked Claire and Ciaran. “I...I thought Alaric would have told you.”

“You told me not to say anything!” Claire hissed at Ivy, likely not shouting in deference to the babe.

Ivy flushed deeper, eyes darting nervously between them. “I know,” she rushed out, her voice breaking with regret. “But I thought,” she said again, a desperateness to her tone, “I thought Alaric would have at least told Ciaran.”

Ciaran stood rooted, bewilderment tightening around him like a net.

His gaze shifted to Claire. She had turned toward him, her lips parted as if words had fled before they formed, her eyes wide and glinting with alarm.

Color drained from her face, and he read in it the expectation that he would explode, that fury would follow at once.

Yet he could not summon it—not when he still had no clear grasp of what had just been laid bare.

Rage required certainty, and all he had in this moment was confusion.

“Of what do ye speak?” He asked.

Claire clamped her lips stubbornly refusing to answer. Ivy still looked stricken and strained, regretting she’d opened her mouth at all.

What in God’s name were they speaking of, that Alaric knew and he did not?

“Neither of ye leaves this chamber,” Ciaran said, his voice low but hard, to advise they should not dare to disobey him. Claire’s eyes widened, her mouth parting as if she might protest, but she said nothing. Ivy still clutched at her throat, looking absolutely miserable, her face drained of blood.

Ciaran held their gazes a heartbeat longer, making certain they understood, before turning and striding out.

Fury pounded in his chest, each step feeding it as he stomped down the stairs and through the hall.

Honest to Christ, they probably could have pawned him off with any number of reasons to explain what Ivy had said, and he might have been only confused, but would have ignored it.

It was their reaction to his simple query, asking what Ivy had meant that alarmed him.

Apparently, he had been left in ignorance, in his own hall, and that he could not abide.

Secrets and whispers, about something seemingly so significant that Claire had been as horrified by Ivy’s slip as Ivy eventually had been.

Ivy’s revelation gnawed at him, words he could not yet make sense of, but which rang too strange to ignore. But damn, he knew it. He knew it! There was something not right about her, something he’d not been able to put his finger on.

He shoved through the doors into the yard.

The clang of hammer on iron drew his eye to the farrier’s shed, where sparks leapt with every strike.

Alaric stood close by, his destrier tethered, one great hoof lifted as the farrier fitted new shoes.

The stallion stamped, tossing his dark mane, and Alaric soothed him with a steady hand on his neck.

Ciaran crossed the yard without slowing. “Come with me,” he said flatly.

Alaric looked up, his brows pulling together. “I’ll finish with the horse first,” he stated flatly, not taking kindly to Ciaran’s tone.

“Now.” Ciaran’s tone assured him that compliance was his only choice.

The farrier froze mid-swing, eyes flicking between the two lairds.

Alaric’s jaw set, his gaze heavy on Ciaran as if he weighed whether to take offense.

For a long moment, neither man moved. Then, with a brooding exhale, Alaric jerked his chin to the farrier.

“We’ll finish later.” He handed Maynard the reins before turning to fall into step beside Ciaran.

As they crossed the yard, Alaric’s voice rumbled low, dark with anger. “What is it, then? Ye storm about and speak to me thus—if it’s some quarrel, say it plain.”

Ciaran didn’t slow. “Ye’ll hear soon enough. Best keep yer questions till we’re before the lasses. I want their answers and yers at the same time.” His hands curled into fists as they passed beneath the arch of the keep.

“Ivy?” Alaric questioned, his reserve diminished. “If ye’ve—”

“Settle,” Ciaran snapped over his shoulder. “Tis nae me to question but ye and she.”

Within two minutes of vacating Ivy’s chamber, Ciaran returned, Alaric directly behind him, entering without delay as the door had remained open.

The chamber erupted all at once.

“Alaric, I didn’t know—” Ivy began, her voice breaking.