by Faris, Fiona
She handed a beaker to each of them. Duncan immediately took a long sip of his and shuddered as the warm draught shot its fire through his veins. Elizabeth took a more tentative taste and swallowed. The fiery liquid burned her throat but spread a welcome golden warmth through her chest as it went down.
Mairi hunkered down and tended the fire with her stick. Outside, the storm raged against the sod walls and whistled through the turf thatch, swirling the smoke with its violent gusts. The steady patter of heavy rain drummed on the shingle beyond the door, and in the distance, the sea boiled and roared in the kettle of the bay.
“I must be getting back,” Elizabeth said, making to rise from her stool.
Mairi placed a firm hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down again.
“You’ll bide where you are,” she told her. “At least until your robes are dry an’ the storm’s past.”
“But they will miss me at the castle,” Elizabeth protested weakly. “They will be worried.”
“Then let them worry.” Mairi laughed. “The thing is no’ to gi’e ocht to the worry. I’m sure they’d rather find you safe and sound in the warm and dry than lyin’ droun’d at the foot o’ the cliffs. That would be a greater worry indeed.”
Elizabeth sank slowly back onto her stool. Across the fire, she could feel Duncan’s eyes upon her, and she gave another little shiver, conscious of the ill-fitting kirtle that hung off her like a sack and her nakedness beneath. He was, she admitted to herself, a fine handsome man, with dark curly hair and a shadow of stubble on his cheeks and jaw. She was suddenly conscious too of his nakedness beneath the plaid he clutched tightly around his throat, and she blushed, feeling a warmth rise in her chest that made her swallow.
She became aware that Mairi was watching the pair of them with an amused look in her eye.
“Aye, Maister Comyn,” she addressed Duncan, “are ye no’ feart that you might ha’e caught yourself a selkie?”
“A selkie?” Elizabeth inquired.
Being an inlander, born and brought up so far from the sea, she had no idea what a selkie might be.
Mairi grinned at her.
“Aye, a selkie; one of the seal folk. Whiles, a selkie maiden will come ashore and hide her selkie skin. Then a man will come along and find a bonnie naked lassie on the seashore and compel her to be his wife. But the wife will spend her time in captivity longing for the sea, her true home, and will oft be seen gazing longingly at the ocean. She might bear her human husband several bairns, but short or lang, she will retrieve her skin from where it is hidden and return to the sea, abandoning the man and the children she loves.” She turned and addressed Duncan. “The trick is, maister, to discover the whereabouts of the skin and keep it from her. Then she will be bound to him always.”
Duncan looked up with a wan smile.
“And is that what happened to you, Mairi Cullen, for your man is surely the master of you.”
Mairi raised her eyebrows in a knowing look.
“Oh, I ha’e my selkie skin laid by safe,” she assured him, “Don’t you ha’e any fear o’ that.”
A stuttering cry arose from the crib and Mairi went to lift the bairn. Cradling it in the crook of her arm, she slipped her kirtle from off one shoulder to uncover a heavy swollen breast. The baby fastened onto the teat and snuffled contentedly.
“Where is your man?” Elizabeth asked.
Mairi jerked her head in the direction of the sea.
“My Micheil’s out there, hopefully, amang the shoals of herrin’, fetching a fishie for me to turn into milk for this wee hungry mannie.”
“In the storm?” Elizabeth gasped.
“Aye, in the storm,” Mairi confirmed, her brow creasing with worry. “But he’s a cannie boatman,” she added. “I trust he will be safe.”
On the other side of the fire, Duncan stirred and shifted on his stool.
“And what about you, my selkie lass, do you have a man?” he asked.
Elizabeth’s eyes grew round, and she swallowed down a smirk.
“Heavens, no,” she replied.
Duncan tilted his head back and appraised her curiously.
“And why would that be such a strange idea?”
She raised her face nervously and ventured him a glance.
“Who would have me?” she murmured.
Aye, she thought; who would have me.
She was nineteen years old but still had a girlish look about her. She was as thin as a stick, with unruly red hair and tiny dimples for breasts. Her thin body was marked with scars and welts from the many beatings she had taken as a child, and she was not even a virgin – and had not been for many a year.
“Och, dinna say that,” Mairi objected. “You’re a winsome wee thing. True, ye’d never be able to haul a boat up the strand nor carry a creel fou o’ silver darlings on your back around the country, but you’d still break a chiel’s heart. Wouldn’t she, maister?”
Duncan did not reply. He just continued considering her thoughtfully across the flames.
Elizabeth considered him too, out the corner of her demurely downcast eye. Who was he, she wondered, and what was he doing here in this fisherman’s cottage? From his demeanor and bearing, she could tell he wasn’t of the class of men who worked; nor was he one who prayed. He must, therefore, be a warrior. So why was he here, in this humble shack, amid the squalor of ropes and nets, breathing the fetid air of an open hearth and of damp cloth and of a bare dirt floor?
And then she suddenly remembered herself.
“I haven’t thanked you for saving my life,” she said with a start.
Duncan looked away modestly.
“I could not stand by and watch you drown,” he said simply. “It would have been against my nature.”
“But you risked your own life,” she insisted, looking him full in the face and meeting his look.
Duncan was the first to break their gaze.
“My life would be worth nothing had I not done the right thing.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly. His reply had confirmed her suspicion; the man was a knight. He had just evinced the knightly virtue of courage.
“Then I thank you, sir, for it would be ungracious of me not to acknowledge my gratitude and your worth.”
“My, what a pretty dance!” Mairi exclaimed, half-mockingly. She glanced around the squalid room in amazement. “I didna ken I was at court, in the presence of royalty.”
She gave an exaggerated curtsy, sweeping her baby in a wide arc before returning it to her breast.
Elizabeth laughed, and Duncan grinned. She liked that grin, she decided; it lit and transformed his otherwise dark, grim face. His brown eyes glinted in the firelight, and a dark thrill lanced through her body as his plaid fell away from his leg to reveal a pale and shapely muscled calf and a thigh lightly downed by dark hair.
“Listen!” Mairi broke the silence that had descended over them.
They listened. The only sound to be heard was the gentle crackling of the fire.
“The storm is over,” Duncan observed.
“I telt you it was just a squall,” Mairi said. “It didna ha’e the feel o’ a storm that was settlin’ in for the day. The wind has blown it over. It will batter itself out in the mountains.”
Elizabeth rose again from her stool. She seemed stronger, restored.
“I really must be getting back now,” she said, gathering her dry clothes from the line.
She held her gown against her face and wrinkled her nose.
“Aye,” Mairi confirmed apologetically, “they might stink a bit from the salt an’ the smoke, but they’ll get ye hame.”
Duncan rose too and reached for his breeks and sark.
“I’ll see you safely back.”
Elizabeth’s eyes grew round in alarm.
“No, no! There is no need,” she insisted hastily.
“But thon is some climb, up the cliff path,” Mairi observed in surprise. “And after your ordeal…”
“I’m quite al
right,” Elizabeth assured her, with a note of desperation in her voice. “Thank you, again, for your hospitality and… and… all that you’ve done for me, for helping…” She turned to Duncan. “Heavens, I don’t even know your name, sir.”
“Duncan Comyn,” he offered.
Elizabeth paled.
“Comyn?”
“Aye,” Duncan replied, inclining his head and looking at her curiously. “And yours, milady?”
“Bryce,” she told him. “Elizabeth Bryce.”
Duncan gave a little bow.
“I am honored to make your acquaintance, Elizabeth Bryce. I will take myself outside to dress and leave you a little privacy.”
He ducked through the door.
Elizabeth climbed out of the kirtle Mairi had lent her and into her own robes.
Outside, Duncan again took his leave of Elizabeth and watched her walk quickly along the high-water mark towards the foot of the path that wound its tortuous way up the cliffs. The sky had cleared and shone a deep azure blue. A stiff breeze was all that remained of the storm that had passed, and it whipped the calm surface of the bay into a field of little whitecaps. He contemplated the slight figure that picked its way across the shingle, the long red tresses that rose and fell in the gentle wind.
Mairi appeared at his elbow, her child still at her breast.
“And who is Elizabeth Bryce?” he wondered out loud.
Mairi shielded her eyes against the bright sunlight and watched the receding figure.
“All I know of her is that she bides at the castle. She has just lately arrived with the new earl and his wife.”
Duncan’s face contorted with a brief grimace of angry frustration at her reply.
“But what is her connection to the Hays?” he asked, a mild air of impatience inflecting his voice. “Is she a daughter of the house or just retained as a servant?”
“That I dinna ken, maister,” Mairi replied regretfully. “Though, if her name’s ‘Bryce’, I doubt she’ll be ony o’ the Hays’ ilk.”
Duncan watched as Elizabeth began to mount the path.
“I’m kind of glad she wouldn’t let me convoy her to the castle,” he remarked thoughtfully, “given that it would be like walking into the lion’s den. But I wonder at her reluctance…”
“Maybe she didna want ye to find her selkie claes,” Mairi said with a smirk, and she turned and passed back into the cottage.
A selkie, Duncan reflected, straining his eyes to make out the small distant figure trudging up the steep path. Something that is not quite what it appears to be.
Do you have any secrets, Elizabeth Bryce? And, if so, what might they be?
Chapter Three
Slains Castle
Solar
A week later
“And don’t forget, Elizabeth. Keep a close hand on these keys. They must never leave your belt.”
Margaret handed Elizabeth the keys to the castle’s storerooms with great ceremony. It was as if she were marking a rite of passage; it was the day that Elizabeth finally graduated to being in charge of a household.
They were standing in the solar of Slains Castle, their new home. A large log crackled in the grate, the wind outside drawing the flames roaring up the chimney. Gusts of rain pattered on the small painted panes of the leaded windows, and never was Elizabeth so glad of being indoors. The scent of the freshly strewn herbs on the flagged stone floor, her mistress’ perfume, and the occasional waft of woodsmoke escaping the broad canopy of the mantelpiece mingled to give her a deep sense of contentment and comfort. She did not envy her mistress’ journey.
“You must be excited that you are finally going to Court,” Elizabeth enthused.
Truth be told, she was more excited about it than her mistress was.
“As long as I can be confident that the household at Slains will not go to wrack and ruin while I am away,” Margaret said, glancing around the solar, certain that something had been forgotten, some final arrangement, some last-minute instruction.
“You may rest assured.” Elizabeth smiled indulgently. “I have the measure of the business.”
Margaret smiled at her fondly and made a face. “I know, I know. I am finding difficulties where none exist. I know you are a capable mistress, Elizabeth. Heavens! I have taught you myself.”
Elizabeth beamed.
“Only…” Margaret added, despite herself.
Elizabeth cocked an inquiring brow and smiled, indulging her mistress’ groundless anxieties. She was fond of her benefactor; she loved the little crease that appeared at the bridge of Margaret’s nose when she was pensive like she was then. Margaret was still the striking beauty that she had been when they had first met, six or seven years earlier, in a place and in circumstances very different from the ones they found themselves in that rainy morning on the Formartine coast. Their fortunes had certainly risen, Elizabeth reflected: Lady Margaret was now a countess and wife to one of the most powerful men in the realm, and Elizabeth was a lady’s maid and no longer an abused mawkin.
“Only, remember to keep Nicholas on a short leash,” Margaret continued in a rush. “Do not give him any liberties or he shall take more. You are his keeper, Elizabeth, and do not let him think otherwise.”
As if on cue, Nicholas scampered into the solar, a lanky six-year-old with startling blue eyes, a mop of blond curls, and his mother’s pellucid complexion. He was dressed in a plain belted kirtle, his feet and legs bare. He pulled up short when he saw his mother.
“Oh, you are still here,” he said, his face falling. “I thought you would be gone.”
“And I shall miss you too,” Margaret said ironically.
“Lizzie, can I go down to the beach with Tam?” Nicholas inquired, ignoring his mother’s pointed sarcasm.
“‘Lizzie’? ‘Lizzie’? Do we have a scullery maid called ‘Lizzie’? I do not recall. It is ‘Elizabeth’ now, Nicholas,” Margaret corrected him. “Show your mistress some respect. Elizabeth is to be in charge of the household while I am away.”
Nicholas scuffed his heels and shrunk his head into his shoulders, chastened. He reminded Elizabeth so much of his father, with his dark coloring and mischievous nature.
“‘Elizabeth’,” Nicholas tried. “So… can I, Lizzie? Please, can I?”
Margaret gave a long-suffering sigh.
Elizabeth tittered.
“Very well,” Elizabeth told him. “Providing you are back in good time for your lessons with Father Martin and providing you give no trouble to Tam, who has his work to do.”
Nicholas turned on his heel to dash from the room, a huge grin splitting his face.
“And providing,” Elizabeth stayed him, “you bring me back a rope of mussels for supper. Do you hear me?”
Nicholas nodded impatiently.
“Alright, you may go.”
Nicholas clattered from the solar and down the turret stairs, chased by the fond smiles of his mother and adopted sister.
Elizabeth’s smile froze on her lips when she turned her attention back to Margaret.
“You see?” Margaret remarked. “That is just the sort of thing I fear. You are too indulgent of the boy, and he is far too familiar with you. You need to be stricter, more mindful of your position and your authority. You should have insisted that he finished his lessons with Father Martin first and made that a condition of his liberty. Now he has got what he wanted without first having to pay the price. I doubt you will now see him back before dine. It is the same with the servants; you are too deferential to the older, more senior, servants in the house and overfamiliar with the potboys and drudges in the kitchen. I doubt you can command either them or their respect.”
Elizabeth’s smile faded, and her eyes dropped slowly to contemplate the pointed toes of her slippers. She looked so forlorn and downcast that Margaret relented.
“I know; this is all so strange and new to you, even after these past years. I am only saying that, perhaps, you are not ready yet to assume responsibility for the
household. Perhaps I should leave my husband’s steward, Sanderson, in charge. The other servants fear him, and he has no good nature for them to take advantage of. Your only fault is that you are sweet and kind. Those are maidenly virtues that become you, but they are not the virtues of a mistress.”
Elizabeth raised her eyes.
“I am capable of doing this,” she said in a clear, steady voice.