As we rodeI occasionally flexed and straightened, adjusting my position. My joints ached, all of them. My legs felt heavy in the stirrups and my skin felt prickly with an odd, creeping heat.
He asked, “Ye well, Princess?”
“It’s hot, are you hot?”
I flexed and straightened my left leg and said, “It’s really hot.”
He drew his horse back to come up beside me. “Are ye well? Ye sound weak and ye hae gone pale.”
I moaned. “I don’t think I feel well.”
Our horses took a couple more steps and then a wave of nausea hit me. “How much farther?”
“Another hour.” He brought my horse to a stop. “Ye can ride with me.”
I think I said, “That’s good,” but I wasn’t sure I said it out loud.
I dropped down from the horse to his waiting hands, but as soon as he gently put my feet on the ground, a true wave of nausea hit.
I swallowed and grimaced, my eyes closed trying to keep it down.
He searched my face.
I said, “It’s okay, I’m fine. Let’s go, we can’t stay here.”
He helped me onto Lambo and set our horses moving again, with me nestled between his arms. I leaned against his chest and half-dozed, my head aching, at one point forcing myself to stare at the landscape just to keep from feeling sick.
A tower rose ahead, stone walls glinting in the light. “What is that castle?”
“Edzell,” Torin said. “Another of the Lindsays’ strongholds.”
I said, faintly, “The same clan?”
He chuckled. “Aye, they hae many keeps in these parts, and pride enough for all of them.”
He bent his head closer. “Ye feel better?”
“No, my head is throbbing. How much farther?”
I think he said, “Soon.”
The restof the ride blurred. There was the uneven sway of the horse. I was too weak to stay centered, I listed against Torin’s right side. The smell of damp wool and manure turned my stomach. The last stretch into Kirriemuir seemed endless — the sun was low in my eyes, the air heavy with the scent of cattle.
Torin’s voice reached me as if from far away. “Nearly there, the inn is right ahead.”
I nodded, then clamped my hand over my mouth as a wave of nausea hit that I couldn’t swallow down. I leaned over. Torin drew the horse to a stop, as I threw up all over the side of the horse and onto the road.
“Och nae, and we are in sight of it.”
I tried to say, “I couldn’t help it,” but his strong arm was around me as he drove our horse train up to the front of the inn. I looked up at the hanging sign, a crude red boar head.
The tavern was stone and timber, even larger than our last lodgings and for a moment I thought —good, maybe there will be a doctor in the house.
It dawned on me that I might need a doctor.
Torin dismounted from the horse in one movement and held up his arms, his jaw tight. “Stay with me, Princess.” I all but fell onto him, and went into a semi-conscious state as he carried me toward the tavern door.
“Ye are hot tae the touch.”
