Catriona’s Secret

by Madeline Martin

  It was why Leila had turned to healing. In giving others life, she was repaying the one she had taken. It gave her purpose; an action she could perform in a situation she was otherwise helpless to change. As though her aid toward others might put the violence of her making to peace.

  “You put yourself at risk every day too,” Leila reminded the old healer.

  Isla snorted. “Death wants nothing to do with me, or I’d have been dead several dozen times over.”

  “Death will not come for me.” There was confidence behind Leila’s words, the same as there had been when she finally made the declaration of the incoming arrival of the pestilence to her family. “Not until I meet the Lion.”

  Isla slid her a wary look. The older woman didn’t like when Leila brought up her visions of him. For it would not be the pestilence that took Leila’s life, but the man with golden hair, bronzed skin and hazel eyes. A man who was as ferocious as he was beautiful. A man who would first steal her heart, then her life.

  It was preposterous, the idea that she would love a man she knew would kill her. But was it not equally preposterous that illness would consume the population of the world as readily as a spark set to dry tinder?

  Leila shuddered as they stepped into the empty village. Under normal circumstances, it would have been a market day. But now where once there had been the bustle of people, there was emptiness; save for several bodies strewn out for collection. Where once people called out to bring shoppers to their wares, now cries of anguish and mourning pitched through the chilly air.

  A woman moved on the ground as they passed, lifting her hand to them. “Water,” she groaned.

  It was not an uncommon sight, seeing those who dragged themselves to the filthy streets in search of water just before death claimed them. Before Leila could bring the flagon to her, Isla was at her side crouching with knees that popped in protest.

  The woman’s breath huffed in white puffs in the icy air. Her skeletal fingers clutched the flagon to her lips, and she drank greedily before finally releasing it with a gasping breath.

  “Thank you.” The woman struggled to sit up. “My neighbors. We must go to them.”

  Isla assisted her so that her back rested against the wall of the hut they stood near. “Is it the swelling?”

  From what Leila and Isla had gleaned from tales of travelers, there were two sorts of pestilence. One which caused swelling in the form of knobs of darkened skin that rose at the neck, armpit or groin, and one which covered the sufferer in a rash and made them vomit blood. Of the two, the latter was almost always fatal.

  “‘Tis the swelling.” The woman brushed aside her tangled red hair and touched the side of her neck where the skin remained flushed with infection beneath a bump that appeared to be diminishing.

  Leila breathed a sigh of relief. Thus far, they had only seen the swelling in the village. At least it was possible to survive, even if the chances were higher for death.

  “Ye shouldna be outside,” Isla chastised gently. “’Tis colder than a witch’s soul.”

  Rosiness colored the woman’s cheeks, and her pale blue eyes were bright with the effects of her fever. It was obvious she had not been outside long. If she had been, she would not have survived. Not in the bitterness of the winter.

  “There are children nearby.” The woman pushed up as though she intended to walk. “I could hear them crying.” She gazed out desperately to the small home beside hers. “I was trying to go to them.”

  That was all Leila needed to hear. She left Isla and the woman behind and hastened into the small cottage. The putrid odor of sickness within was like a slap, even with the facecloth of herbs covering her nose. Two skinny children lay side-by-side on the cot, their hands clasped together. Their wails did not cease as she entered, but instead continued even as they stared up at her with large, dry eyes.

  They were emaciated, filthy, and doubtless gone too long without water, if they were devoid of even tears. Leila rushed to them with her flagon of water. Fleas darted over the bedding, but she ignored them as she settled beside the children.

  She called out to Isla and bent to offer the children water. They parted dry lips and drank with a thirst that hurt Leila’s heart.

  Isla appeared immediately and together they were able to get the woman, a widow named Rose, as well as the children to the large hut that had been erected to assist those who had fallen ill with the plague. It was a way of containing the illness, not that it had done much good. But also, a means of having all assembled to offer the most care.

  While the swelling pestilence had some survivors, there was an alarming number of people who entered the structure and did not emerge alive. Rose, who had insisted walking herself, would doubtless be one of the survivors.

  Once she and the children were tucked into pallets near one another within the pestilence hut, Leila and Isla returned to the village in search of more souls to aid. Every day it seemed there were more in need. As well as more stacks of dead.

  An old woman scurried by them, her haste indicative of good health. “They’re here,” she hissed. “Hide yourselves.”

  Leila met Isla’s eye, but the old healer merely shrugged with equal confusion. The villager stopped and glared irritably at them. “The reivers.” And with that, she was gone.

  A hot wind of anger blasted through Leila. In this time of death and suffering, when all were losing so many souls, the marauders still thought only to take what belonged to others. She handed her basket to Isla and slid a pair of daggers from her belt. This was why she wore trews instead of a kirtle when she attended the ill, and why she was never without her weapons.

  Whoever sought to take advantage of those within the village would not leave unscathed.

  Niall Douglas cursed the day the Keeper of Liddesdale made him his deputy. Granted, it was a position Niall had coveted, but he hadn’t thought his duties would someday include stomping through a pestilence-ridden village in search of a witch.

  And it had been a witch responsible for the illness, of that Niall was certain. There was no better explanation for the disease that had ravaged the debatable lands. He brought only five men with him, men who joined him at the risk of death and disease solely because of his reputation.

  The Lion. Fierce and brave, honest and loyal, all things Niall had spent his adult life working toward. And it had led him to this stinking lot of land outside the opulence of Werrick Castle. The massive structure stood safe behind its protective curtain wall where the English West March Border Warden lived without fear of death, with his witch of a daughter who nine years before had cursed the Armstrongs.

  Niall put his arm to his nose to prevent the foul-smelling miasmas from transferring contagion to him. He had no dried herbs with him, or even a sponge of vinegar to protect himself from inhaling the illness. He would ensure he had at least that much next time. If there was a next time. If he survived this fool’s errand for information.

  He pushed his nose into the crook of his gambeson sleeve and breathed in the musty smells of worn leather and dirt. The five men following did likewise. Mayhap it would save them.

  He stepped around a body with a painful looking lump thrusting out from the skin of their neck and shuddered. Mayhap it would not.

  There was naught within the village but death. Prior to their arrival, he’d been so certain of his purpose, to seek out information on the dark-haired daughter of the Earl of Werrick. There would be many dark-haired lasses in the village. Most of them most likely either ill or dead.

  “Water.” A croaking voice pulled Niall’s attention to an old man sagging on a bench, wavering forward.

  Good sense told Niall to keep walking, but there was a deeper part of him, a thread of genuine kindness from his father that ran deeper through him and stilled his steps. He pulled the stopper of his flagon free. “‘Tis ale.”

  The man’s thin lips curled into a smile under the wispy strands of his beard. “All the better.”

  Niall ha
nded the skin to the man who accepted it and downed the flagon in great gulping swallows. The villager sighed in satisfaction and held it out to Niall with a shaking hand.

  “Ye can keep it.” Niall stepped back from the flagon and the man, both likely contaminated with pestilence now. But he did not leave. Not when the villager might be good for information.

  The five reivers with Niall held back, fear passing between them in side glances.

  Niall wouldn’t be cowed thus. Instead, he regarded the villager. “I hear ye had warning of the plague. Is it true?”

  The man’s gaze turned suspicious. “Ye want to steal our food stores?” He tightened his grasp on the ale.

  Niall shook his head. “Nay, we’ve plenty of food. We’re searching for the reason why the pestilence has swept upon us.” And they did have plenty of food. For the first time in decades, no one complained of an empty belly. There was more food than they could possibly consume, for there were too many people dying.

  “Tell me about the warden’s daughter,” Niall said. “Yer lord.”

  The villager blinked slowly, as though on the edge of sleep. “He’s got several daughters.”

  “Ye know which one I mean.” Niall spoke loudly this time in an effort to wake the villager.

  The man’s eyes blinked open. “Lady Leila.”

  “The one with dark hair?”

  The villager nodded slowly.

  Leila. Such a benign name for one who had sent the pestilence streaming through Scotland. But Niall knew better than to trust benign.

  “’Tis rumored that she warned the castle, as well as the rest of her family, of the pestilence before anyone fell ill,” Niall said. “’Tis said she knew it all, for she brought it. Is she a witch?”

  The man’s mouth curled up in a smile, revealing yellow teeth. A low whimper sounded in his chest and grew into a chuckle.

  Niall folded his arms over his chest. “Ye think I jest?”

  The man tipped the flagon to his mouth and drained the ale as he slowly dipped to the side of the bench.

  Niall took a cautious step back, lest the man fall forward and touch him. Something flew in front of Niall’s face. Exactly where his head had been. It slammed into the wall at his right with a hollow thunk.

  A dagger jutted from the white-washed surface. A dagger?

  Niall darted behind a cottage and pulled his dagger free. His body acted before his mind fully wrapped around the idea that someone in this death-ridden village was healthy enough to fight them. He peered out in the direction the dagger had come from. A tingle at the back of his neck alerted him to danger, and he jerked back as the next blade sailed past him.

  He nodded to his men, motioning for them to go around the opposite side of the building. They would be a distraction while he moved closer. No villager would throw daggers at his head and live to laugh over it later.

  He dashed forward, ducking behind buildings and abandoned carts as his men obeyed his orders. The clash of steel told him his men had arrived. No longer needing to mind his back, he ran toward the hut and charged toward the whoreson seeking to attack.

  Except it was no bedraggled man fighting off all five of his warriors.

  It was a woman.

  A bonny woman at that, with streaming black hair and long, lean legs encased in red leather trews with a belt fastened over a loose leine. She kicked one of those lean legs high into the air and caught Argyle in the side of his head. The man dropped like a sack of grain.

  “Enough.” Niall spoke the word with booming authority.

  Everyone went still. Or rather, his soldiers did. The woman spun around to face him, twin daggers gripped in her hands.

  The fierce set to her face dissolved for a moment, letting him glimpse the softened expression beneath. Delicate muscles stood out at her neck and bright blue eyes widened.

  “It’s you,” she whispered.

  He lifted his eyebrow. While he wouldn’t mind knowing the lass for a bit of bedsport, he’d never met her before.

  He stepped closer and her face hardened.

  “Be gone from here.” There was a huskiness to her proper accent. English, of course.

  “We’re no’ here for theft,” he said.

  Argyle rolled to his side on the ground and slowly staggered to standing.

  She didn’t bother looking at Niall’s reiver. Instead she dragged her gaze over Niall as though sizing him up. “What are you here for?”

  “To find the warden’s daughter.” He crossed his arms over his chest in an attempt to appear at ease.

  The smirk of her rosy lips indicated she saw through the guise. “He has several.” She stalked closer to Niall, those daggers poised in her hands. Several more lined her belt; perfect for throwing, no doubt. Her hips swayed in a decidedly female manner as she stepped one foot in front of the other in his direction.

  His men tensed, but he shook his head. He would not be intimidated by this woman. “She is called Lady Leila.” His gaze remained trained on her to see if she reacted to the name. Mayhap she knew her. Mayhap she was her.

  After all, he’d heard the warden’s daughters were skilled in weaponry. But would the warden really send her to the pestilence-ridden village? And with no guard?

  If the woman recognized the name, she did not show it. She came to a stop and stared boldly at him. There was a sweet, fresh scent about her, like herbs. Sage and mint and lavender, mayhap. A kerchief was tied about her neck, no doubt filled with herbs, pulled down when she launched her attack. “Leave.”

  Niall squared his shoulders. “We want information.”

  “Are you not afraid?” She slid her daggers into her belt. “The contagion carries on the air. It’s breathed in as an odor. Do you not smell it?”

  Unbidden, Niall’s thoughts wandered to the man he’d left on the bench. The villager had smelled terrible, of illness and rot.

  “The man you spoke with is already dead.” Her cold stare held his, ice-blue and veiled with thick, long black lashes, slightly tilted at the corners like a cat. “Do you know how the pestilence strikes?”

  Niall held his ground, as any warrior worth his merit would.

  “As it works its way into your humors, it will heat your blood and carry a fever.” The woman tilted her head in a pitying manner. “’Tis quite uncomfortable. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were already growing warm…”

  Niall gritted his back teeth against her words. His body had begun to heat after speaking with the man. His pulse raced with intensity.

  “Your heart will bang in your chest like a drum.” She curled her hand into a small fist and bumped it over her own heart. “Dum,” she intoned. “Dum. Dum. Dum.”

  The pounding was in his head now, thrumming an unmistakable rhythm of fear.

  “An aching head comes next.” She kept her ice-blue stare on him and pressed her slender fingers to her temples. “Roaring in your ears until you can scarcely hear.”

  He said nothing as her husky voice wound around him like a spell, saying aloud every symptom as he felt them.

  “If you leave, you might still be safe.” She turned on her heel and Niall’s men’s eyes went wide. “Otherwise, you will all soon be dead. Go.” She tossed a glance over her shoulder at Niall. “Now.”

  He jerked his head toward the direction they’d come from, and his men immediately scrambled to obey his silent order to retreat.

  “How do ye know me?” Niall asked. The woman said nothing.

  “Do I know ye?” he demanded.

  She smirked at him. “Stay, then.” She turned, putting her well-formed backside toward him, and strode casually away. “’Tis your death.”

  Damn her. And damn the whole bloody mission he’d had to accept in coming to the village.

  He spat out a curse and went after his men. If they weren’t on English soil right then, he would have hauled the woman off with him. For he knew without a shadow of a doubt in his mind that the woman was Lady Leila. Just as he knew with certainty that
she was indeed a witch.

  Purchase LEILA’S LEGACY

  Author’s Note

  Catriona’s story presented me with a tricky scenario I didn’t expect when I outlined the idea for this book: alcohol and pregnancy. Firstly, I’d like to clarify that the idea that no one drank water during the medieval days is a myth. People did drink water, though it was more common among the peasants than it was among those of wealth. Additionally, wine during the medieval days did not have the potency of the wine we drink today. My research indicates that not only did women drink wine during Cat’s time, it was encouraged as a means of balancing the woman’s humors and fortifying her body. Even juice was instructed to be diluted with wine for pregnant women as a means of minimizing the acidity. I guess they had heartburn woes then too – ladies, I feel ya!

  * * *

  The idea that alcohol was bad to drink during pregnancy was never a though that crossed anyone’s mind. In fact, there was nothing even documented about the potential hazards until the late 19th century. Even then, it wasn’t until the 1970’s that serious research ensued. In the 1980’s, the surgeon general put warnings on wine and that is when people really became aware of the true dangers of drinking while pregnant.

  * * *

  That said, it can sometimes be difficult to separate what we know in our modern world from what they did not know in the medieval world. I did not want to write Cat drinking wine, because the mother in me couldn’t stop worrying about her baby. However, the historian in me could not simply have her not drinking wine when it would have been frankly odd for her to no longer drink it all of a sudden. In my research on drinks in the medieval days, I discovered that ale was consumed not only by men and woman, but also by children. And for breakfast no less! Ale then was not like you think of as ale today. In the medieval days, it was a nutritious drink that had similar ingredients to bread and had a light fermentation to it. Essentially, it was like drinking bread that sated hunger and thirst in one fell swoop. I can’t attest for the taste, but accounts have indicated it was healthy and, well, a little gritty. As I did not want Cat to drink wine, I knew I could have her drink ale and not only keep with historical accuracy, but also be true to my mother’s soul in having her consume something that would be healthy for her baby and not at all harmful.