Gifted

Yuka

Alina was worried. While Jaime and Mairi enjoyed the joyful reunion full of hugs and kisses expected of newlyweds, Magnus barely looked at Alina before confronting his soldiers. He didn't yell. It was worse. He spoke low and even to them while all four looked increasingly stricken. She couldn't hear what he was saying but was about to intervene on their behalf when Magnus turned and strode off abruptly. He disappeared back into the village and the group hesitantly followed in his wake.

She reassured the four Sinclair soldiers that she would explain to Magnus that she gave them no choice. They were to guard her but they had no authority over where she went. Once she'd got Laird Campbell convinced to take her and Mairi up to Helmsdale, they could only follow. It didn't take much to convince the Campbell, either. The restless laird wanted to see how well his son was accounting for himself up in the highlands. Jamie was making them all quite proud. Add Mairi's tears about wanting to pay respects to her father and seeing her family again after such an abrupt departure, and he'd chartered a small galley from Glasgu and had them sailing north in a matter of days.

Winds howled across the frozen landscape. The fortified village held a rugged appeal that very much reminded Alina of her husband. There were no excesses but what was there was well-crafted and maintained. The palisades enclosing the entire village were the biggest structures and they included lookout towers and a gatehouse. She saw a stable and a forge. Most of the other buildings were smaller dwellings but the in the middle sat an imposing timber long hall. Banners of the wolf and bear flew on either end.

Jamie led the way in and offered everyone some mead. The Campbell's soldiers were very appreciative. The laird assured Alina that he'd speak to Magnus as well and let him know that he'd brought additional protections during their journey. He would not have let anything happen to her or Mairi. By now, everyone was aware of how obsessed Magnus was about Alina's safety.

They hadn't managed to catch sight of Magnus again since he strode off but Alina had other matters to attend. There was someone here she had to help. Mairi looked troubled after a serving woman pulled her aside and whispered in her ear. She beckoned both Jamie and Alina over and had them follow her to the barber's cottage. He doubled as the village's healer.

Rolf had a three-year-old daughter that had been sickly since her mother died last year but the child deteriorated significantly since Mairi left two months ago. Jamie had never even seen the girl as she'd been residing exclusively in this barber's dwelling for the last month. A robust older man ushered the trio to a backroom where a small girl with blue-black hair and half-moon eyes lay listless and staring blankly.

This was the room Alina foresaw in her vision with Mairi. The room was cold and spare but the bed was clean. A disinterested middle-aged woman did her sewing by a small window while she sat with the girl. Mairi was devastated by the sight of her niece. The barber explained that she was suffering from an excess of black bile, one of the four humors, and he'd done everything he knew to help: cold foods, ice baths, purging, leeches, even blood-letting. But nothing has improved. Alina was not surprised. Blood letting, in her opinion, only ever made things worse. The child mostly lay like this: not sleeping, barely eating. She hasn't said a word in weeks.

Alina asked if the child had any other symptoms like fever, rashes or convulsions but the barber denied any. He seemed to be doing the best he knew to do for the child but it was obvious he was out of his depth. Healing based on the four humors was the only thing he knew and he was not unique. Even in Islamic medicine, more modern physicians like Ibn Zuhr fought against the established humorism of people like Ibn Sina. Alina offered to take her off the barber's hands and bade Jamie to carry the girl out.

"What's her name?" Alina asked as they followed behind Jamie.

"Yuka," Mairi said. "Her mother was a Skraeling. It means 'bright star' in their language. What's wrong with her, Alina?"

"She needs to sleep," Alina said. "I think yer barber was partly right about what was wrong: she's melancholy. That's one of the things they blame on black bile. Unfortunately, none of what he's done for her helps with that. Medicine based on the humors is outdated. Yuka needs mothering, Mairi."

Mairi's eyes filled with tears.

"The child never even seemed tae like me much," she cried. "She shadowed me around sometimes but she rarely talked and was not particularly affectionate."

"Did she have a nanny?" Alina asked. "Was it that woman sewing by the window?"

"That was the barber's wife," Mairi answered, shaking her head. "Yuka did have a nanny but she'd recently been betrothed tae another clan. She was still here when I eloped but she might be gone now."

Jamie opened the door to the cabin where he'd been staying and put Yuka on the bed. He built up a fire and listened as Mairi described the nanny. He denied seeing anyone by that description in the month he'd been at Helmsdale.

The three-year-old girl lost her mother a year prior then, a couple months ago, she'd lost the other two women in her life within weeks of each other. Alina encouraged Mairi to let Yuka know that she was back, even if the girl didn't seem to respond. She'd prepared a sleeping draught prior to the journey but wanted the child to know there was someone familiar looking after her before she drifted off to sleep.

Yuka reached up and briefly touched Mairi's cheek before staring off again. It took some effort to get the girl to swallow the sleep medicine but it worked quickly and thoroughly once it was in. The child did not stir as the hinges to the door of the cottage strained under a barrage of banging.

Alina calmly opened the door to an enraged Magnus