A Love Unveiled

Chapter Six

Alana couldn't have been more relieved to escape the confines of her cottage. Something about the Norman with his golden eyes made her heart palpitate in a way that left her breathless and shaky. The rough baritone of his voice, seemed to produce estranged emotions that she had never before encountered.

Willing all thoughts of the golden Norman aside, she focused on the matter at hand as she followed closely at Rowan's heels. Agatha's husband had taken a turn for the worse. The illness had spread rapidly throughout his withered body and Alana feared there was naught more she could do for the village elder.

As she and Rowan approached the hut that Agatha and her ailing husband shared, she was immediately shaken by the putrid smell of death. Her heart quivered apprehensively in her chest as her eyes sought the frail body laying on a corner pallet, an ample woman bent over the incredibly pale man as her sobs resonated through the quiet.

Alana gasped as fear gripped her coldly as feelings of anguish and failure merged painfully to realization.

Hugh was dead. She had failed Agatha. She had failed Hugh. She was a healer was she not? How could she have let this happen?

She felt a strong hand at her elbow, not realizing she had staggered until Rowan steadied her. She shook his hand away and rushed to put as much distance between she and the overwhelming flood of incompetence.

"Alana-" Rowan called from behind.

"Let me be!" she heard herself cry from some isolated part of her mind.

Rowan's hand circled her arm, tugging her to a halt and she rounded on him with anger in her eyes as she shoved roughly at his chest. "Leave me!" she cried loudly.

"Alana, you don't understand-" he started, attempted to dodge her aimless flailing. "-Agatha is relieved."

She froze, suddenly confounded. "Relieved?"

He nodded, "Aye, don't you see? Hugh no longer suffers. You did all you could."

Alana drew in a steady breath, "I could have prevented his suffering."

Rowan shook is head, "Only for a time, my love."

She stiffened at this as the Norman's taunting came back to induce a crimsoned face as his words replayed within her head.

The boy may fancy you but only a man could love you.

She quickly dismissed the taunt and sought an escape. "Where is Nettie?"

Rowan frowned, "I know not, why?"

Alana felt a sudden worry for Nettie was one never to go missing. "When last did you see her?"

Just than, a shrill scream broke piercingly through the village; both Alana and Rowan froze as a woman came fleeing from the trees, her face noticeably pale and her eyes wild with an unmasked fear as she came running toward them.

"Kinsley?" Alana stepped away from Rowan to intercept the frightened girl and gently grasped her trembling shoulders to steady her. "What is amiss?"

"Normans!" the girl cried, "They come, just over the hill!"

A collected amount of gasps sounded as a crowd of curious villagers gathered around them, their eyes growing round with knowing, instilling a look of terror as comprehension settled.