A Matter of Principle Read online

  Logan faced her, incredulous. “Have ye lost your mind, woman?”

  “Not my mind, only my cloak.”

  Logan snorted and returned his attention to the window. He wiped the glass. “Oh, Lord.”

  “What?” Grier swooped her wool cloak from behind a bench and leaned against Logan’s broad shoulders.

  The wooden craft was pinned against a rock. As the cousins watched, the next swell snapped the hull in half like a pod of summer peas.

  “Are ye coming?” She dragged open the kitchen door of the keep leaving Logan little say in the matter.

  Grier gasped as shards of salty water stung her face. Pulling her hood lower against the driven rain, she left through the castle gate, crossed the wood-plank bridge over the dry moat, and stumbled down the embankment until she reached the saturated sand. The sated sea was already discarding shattered timbers.

  Before Logan reached her she saw the first body.

  “There!” she shouted, pointing at a tumbling splash of fabric. Roistering wind and water stole her voice; Logan couldn’t hear her. She waved and gestured, then threw off her cloak and waded barefoot into the wrestling waves. Logan pushed past her and grabbed the body. Together, they dragged the limp sailor from the thrashing sea. The man’s blond head flopped oddly onto his shoulder.

  Too late. His neck’s broken.

  Logan helped her haul him beyond the grasp of the waves and lay him on the sand. Grier made the sign of the cross and felt through her soaked woolen gown for the crucifix she wore. She squinted as rain ran into her eyes.

  “Grier!”

  The urgency in Logan’s voice bade her to turn. Another figure was washing closer. She ran into the sea, up to her waist, her teeth chattering in the frigid brine. She fought the aggressive advance of water and the suction of its retreat, as she and Logan struggled to reach the second body.

  The sea was jealous of its prize and pushed her down. Grier thrashed to regain her footing. She gagged on salt water. She rose defiantly, sand sucking at her ankles, and swooped her heavy, wet hair away from her face with the crook of her arm. She gulped air and rain, and curled her toes to gain hold in the shifting underwater ground.

  The body bumped hard against her.

  Grier twisted and her fingers clenched, but his shirt tore from her grip. On the next surge, she dug her nails past shirt into flesh. Logan appeared beside her and they dragged the second man out of the waves. Logan laid him by his shipmate.

  “Is he—” Before Logan could finish, the man shuddered. Grier pushed him onto his side and he vomited seawater onto the wet sand.

  “Might you get him inside?” Grier asked, retrieving her cloak with numbed hands. Wind snapped her tangled curls, stinging her eyes and cheeks.

  “Aye. I’ll manage.” Logan squatted and pulled the limp form onto his broad back. The stranger was substantially longer than Logan’s nearly six-foot frame but much leaner. Grier saw the angles of his shoulder blades through the tattered skin of his shirt.

  “Are there others, do you think?” Grier asked. Her gaze skimmed the churning waves. She shivered and clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering.

  “I don’t see anyone, but I’ll come back and look.” Logan grunted as he shifted the dead weight on his shoulders. He swiped dripping brown hair from his eyes. “For now let’s see to this one, and he’s alive yet.”

  Grier ran ahead and clambered up the rise toward the stone keep. Leaving the kitchen door ajar for Logan, she dragged an unused cot into that room, set it by the fire, and went in search of blankets. When she returned, Logan was inside with the sailor.

  “Put him on the cot.” Grier shrugged off her wrap and hung it by the blazing hearth. Steam rose from it, filling the space with the dank smell of wet wool.

  Logan lowered the man onto the pallet that proved shorter than he by several inches. The sailor moaned, but didn’t regain his senses. A gash on his cheek bled freely.

  “Undress him. I must see what else needs tending.” Grier reached for a linen towel. “Cover his lisk with this.”

  “That’s no’ proper!” Logan protested. “You’re no’ married!”

  Grier lifted one eyebrow. “And do you forget all the bodies I prepared for burial when the dying first began? The Black Death was no’ particular about that situation, either!”

  Logan groused that those persons were beyond caring about modesty, but did as he was bid even so.

  Grier went up to her sleeping chamber on the second level of the keep. She lifted a dry kirtle and chemise from her kist, changed into them quickly, and left her wet clothes in a heap on the floor. She grabbed some clean linen rags and hurried back downstairs to the warm kitchen.

  The puny afternoon light weakened outside the leaded windows. Grier pulled her basket of healing supplies from a shelf and, fresh candle in hand, approached the stranger, now lying naked but for the linen towel.

  “His leg’s broke. See, there? Hold this.” She handed Logan the candle. He paled a little as she prodded the man’s shin. “’Tis a clean break, and only the one bone. That’s good.”

  Her experienced hands skimmed over the stranger’s mortally cold skin. The left side of his chest was already darkening.

  “His ribs are bruised, might be cracked. But nothing’s loose.” Grier punctuated that assessment with a nod of her head. “A sharp bit o’ broken rib can poke a man’s lungs, so he’s lucky again.”

  Logan glanced at her. “If he’s lucky, I would mislike seeing him on a bad day.”

  Grier grunted and lifted his arm. “This wrist is swalt. I can no’ tell if it’s broke, but the bones are where they belong.”

  “Lucky?”

  Her lips twitched. “Aye.”

  Blood pooled under the man’s left eye, most likely from a knot on his forehead. Though his body was marked with random scars that seemed the extent of his new injuries.

  “Stitches or burning?” she mused, not really asking.

  “What?” Logan’s brown eyes widened.

  “The gash on his face. How might I close it.” Grier lifted her basket. “I’ll do it first afore he comes sensible. If he comes sensible.”

  The cousins considered the limp form stretched naked by the fire. Tall he was, but too thin. Grier had no trouble feeling his bones through pale blue skin.

  “Stitches. It’ll take more time, but will scar him less,” Grier decided, and pulled out a needle and thread.

  “I’ll take that wee look at the water.” Logan backed away. “To be sure, ye ken?”

  “Aye. Go on then,” Grier muttered and threaded her implement.

  By the time Logan returned, the gash was closed. Grier dressed it with honey and a strip torn from one linen rag.

  “None else washed ashore,” Logan confirmed and pushed a stool close to the fire. He sat and pulled his soaked doublet and shirt off over his head. “I’ll wrap the other’n and prepare his cairn in the yard when the storm blows over.”

  Grier nodded her agreement and pointed at the man’s left heel. “Will you pull a bit there?”

  Logan blanched and turned to face the patient. He gingerly grasped the man’s heel and swallowed audibly. “Here?” he asked.

  “Aye. Hold it just so.” She leaned over the man’s leg and listened to his bones as she pressed them into alignment. “Do no’ move!”

  She laid wool wadding over the break and wrapped a layer of linen around his calf. After a quick perusal of the kitchen, Grier selected two long-handled wood spoons. She laid them along either side of the man’s leg with the bowls of the spoons cupping his ankle and wrapped the shafts with strips of linen until his leg was secure.

  “Might I move now?” Logan whispered.

  “Aye. So long as his leg does no’!” Grier arched her back and stretched.

  After she extended the cot with a wooden box to support stranger’s feet, she covered him in blankets and added peat to the fire. Logan went to put on dry clothes. Outside the sky darkened as, somewhere beyond t
he storm, the sun made her daily departure.

  Also available from Goodnight Publishing:

  A Woman

  of Choice

  The Hansen Series:

  Nicolas & Sydney

  Book One

  A Prince

  of Norway

  The Hansen Series:

  Nicolas & Sydney

  Book Two

  A Primer for Beginning Authors

  What you don't know that you don't know.

  Kris Tualla is pursuing her dream of becoming a multi-published author of historical fiction. She started in 2006 with nothing but a nugget of a character in mind and absolutely no idea where to go from there. She has created a dynasty - The Hansen Series - with six novels currently in line for publication.

  For more information and release dates visit:

  www.GoodnightPublishing.com

  For inquiries about publication, contact:

  [email protected]

  Kris Tualla is an amusing, enthusiastic presenter and

  available for workshops and speaking engagements.

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