Seer of Sevenwaters by Juliet Marillier Read Free Book Online Page B

like to help look after him,” I said. “That would feel right.”
    “There’s nothing you can do to help, Sibeal,” Muirrin said bluntly. “Maybe you don’t realize how sick he is. There’s the immersion in water—that’s affected his lungs. He’s weakened by cold and exhaustion. And I think there’s something else wrong. I must be honest. Even with the attention of skilled healers, he may not get through the next few days.”
    There was something deeply wrong in saving a man’s life only to see him perish soon after. How could I let that happen? For a little, I listened to the low voices of Gull and Evan as they went about their work, calm and methodical. Then I said, “Muirrin, I may not be a healer, but I am a druid, or will be as soon as I get back to Sevenwaters and make my pledge. If this man is dying, what I have to offer may be what he needs most.”
    There was a lengthy pause. Muirrin moved to sit down on the bench by the fire, and I saw that there were tears in her eyes. My calm, competent sister, the one who always coped with everything. “I’m sorry, Sibeal,” she said, scrubbing a hand across her cheek. “You scared us. We hadn’t realized you weren’t somewhere here in the settlement, and when Cathal suddenly jumped up and said you were out there in the dark . . . You did a very brave thing. I can’t understand how you can be so calm and collected about it.”
    “It didn’t feel dangerous at the time,” I said. “As for the man, I thought I could sit by him sometimes and say a prayer or tell a story, to remind him he’s among friends. I think Clodagh would take a turn, too. We won’t get in your way.”
    “Of course,” Muirrin said. “Tonight, if you like. Sibeal, we won’t let him die if we can possibly prevent it. Evan and I will tend to him during the day. Gull’s offered to take the night watch for as long as it’s needed—there’s a pallet in the corner there that we use sometimes.”
    “Won’t Biddy object?”
    Muirrin smiled. “Biddy will probably appreciate a few nights’ unbroken sleep.”
    “Oh?” I queried, perplexed.
    “Gull gets up three or four times every night to go to the privy,” Muirrin said. “He can’t hold his water; it’s a common enough problem for older men. It’s a standing joke among the fellows here, but not so amusing for him. You may as well know, since you’ll probably hear him coming in and out when he’s sleeping here.”
    “It won’t bother me,” I said. The privy was out the back door, beyond a particularly lush bed of medicinal herbs. “If I wake, I’ll soon fall asleep again.”
    I sat by the fire for some time. I would not retire to bed until I had taken a closer look at the man I had wrested from the sea’s grip. Eventually Evan took away the screen, and he and Gull started cleaning up the area around the pallet where the survivor lay. They’d propped him up on pillows. He was conscious, his eyes open to slits. His skin was a blanched gray-white. His hair, which I had thought black, had proven on drying to be of a deep chestnut hue. It was an interesting face, though so thin as to be almost gaunt. The brow was broad, the nose straight, the mouth generous. In health, perhaps his features would be handsome. Right now he looked wretched.
    “I’ll sit by him awhile now, if that suits you.”
    Gull had no qualms; he placed a stool by the pallet for me, smiling. I wondered what the survivor would make of this nursemaid, who looked every inch the warrior with his night-black skin, his powerful build, his hands with less than their full complement of fingers. Before the incident that had seen him maimed thus, Gull had been a fighter of exceptional skill. Afterward, when he could no longer hold a sword, he had continued to prove his worth on Inis Eala as an herbalist and healer. He had been the closest friend and confidant of Johnny’s father, Bran, in the early days, and was viewed with special respect by all on the