He stared at the carved door again. She was in there. He wanted to ignore her, but couldn’t. He got to his feet to knock on that door, and said, “Caitrionagh.” There was no answer. He waited a spell, then knocked again and said, “A Chaitrionagh.”
There was no answer. He gave up and sat back down on the bunk. He loosened his leggings and set them on the floor, then his shoes. His kilt and outer shirt he draped over the headboard of his bed. Then he stretched out in the one shirt and pulled the dark wool blanket over himself. This mattress was thicker than the one in the barracks, and was almost comfortable. The warm fire, soft bed, and long day, not to mention all that ale after supper, conspired to make him sleepy. He drifted off.
But when the door hinge creaked behind him, he was wide awake in an instant. He didn’t move, but listened for every sound. There was none, until the door creaked again and the latch clicked. Then utter silence.
He rolled over on his bunk and watched his candle flicker and make dancing patterns of light and shadow on the walls. A wave of homesickness took him, and for a moment he thought he would die if he couldn’t return to the place where he’d grown up, where he knew everyone and knew the rules, and could be sure of where he stood at all times. A place where he might have lived his entire life without squeezing someone else’s life blood from his eyes.
He sighed, then blew out the candle.
CHAPTER 8
Dawn found Dylan in the Great Hall, performing his workout while the servant women of the castle prepared breakfast. The work at the hearth went slowly, for all were curious about the stylized movements and elaborate sword work of the formal kung fu exercise. The women stared from across the room and a gaggle of children crept in on him, also staring, until finally, for their safety, he had to stop and wave them back. The kids moved away, but they all still chattered to each other in Gaelic.
They thought he didn’t understand, but his comprehension had grown. As he returned to his exercise, he gathered they wondered whether he had a mental instability that caused him to engage in dance that was neither dance nor ceremony. At a pause in his form, in a low stance, sword to the rear as he stared down an imaginary opponent, he called to them in his stunted Gaelic, “I am learn at the fight.” That shut them up, and he continued in peace.
He concentrated on learning the weight and balance of his new sword, making it a part of him. Its previous owner had died for not knowing these things. Dylan would not make that mistake.
Sinann appeared. “So you’ve been moved to the tower, have you?” Dylan ignored her. Step, lunge, step, retreat, retreat, lunge. His shoes smacked the stone floor precisely, and rustled the straw and reeds scattered around.
“You’ll have to slip away at night, then, if there are no more Sundays when you can come take instruction in the Craft.”
Block, thrust, block, step, block. “No way, Tink.”
“You must.”
“I have a job. I’m not going to sneak away at night, and especially not to learn your Craft.” He slipped into a sarcastic, countrified voice. “You just find yourself another old boy to whup them Limeys. If you won’t send me home, I’ll just have to make the best of things, and I do got me some ideas.” He glanced at the door that led to the towers.
“You cannae have her, a Dhilein. She’s for a man with position. Money. Influence. She’s to solidify Iain Matheson’s power among the clans. She wouldnae marry another Matheson, let alone a poor one.” She leapt into the air to hover close and whisper in his ear as if others might hear, “Not to mention, laddie, what she did to ye last night in front of the entire glen.”
Dylan waved her away like a fly and gave her a hard look. “Quit spying on me, Tinkerbell.” He shook off a rising anger and his movements grew in force. Sinann sounded far too much like his mother. He stopped his exercise, panting with exertion and emotion, scabbarded his sword, and bowed to his imaginary opponent. Then he made for the tower door. Sinann followed.
“Be angry if ye like, lad, but it’s true. There’s no denying it.” The corridor made a T where, to the right, a door led to the North Tower where Malcolm lived and Iain kept an office. Dylan turned to the left and hurried past the doors of non-family living quarters. The kitchen help and other household menials lived in these rooms, crammed together in the wooden structure built against the north curtain wall. Stone was to his right, weeping with the damp, and to the left was musty wood. At the end of the corridor he hauled open the heavy door to the West Tower, and headed up the steps. Sinann followed, babbling on about how he wasn’t right for Caitrionagh, but he didn’t listen. It was about the same as tuning out his mother.
In his alcove, he put his sword in the trunk then pulled out his sporran. “Hey, Tink, I got a question.” He shoved the trunk back into place and sat on his bunk.
She fluttered overhead and settled, perched on his headboard, and balanced by pressing her heels into the wood. “And I might very well have an answer, did I know what you would ask.”
“How much is this stuff worth?” He took out his napkin with the silver coins and spread it open on his blanket.
“Oh, he thinks he’s got a fortune for working in the fields, does he?”
He raised an eyebrow at her and curled his lip. “I’m crazy, not stupid. It’s winter. I need a coat, and want to know if I’ve got enough to buy one.”
“A waistcoat would be a good thing, as well.”
Dylan made a face. “I hate those things. We don’t wear them where I come from, but I tried one once and couldn’t breathe in it. Couldn’t hardly move, either, and that I can’t stand.”
“I daresay it must have been a poor fit.”
He shook his head. “I just don’t like them. An overcoat is all I need, thanks. So, do I have enough?”
She leaned over to peer at the spread of coins. “I’d say that depends on what sort of coat you mean. Those pieces with the queen, they’re threepence. The ones graced with William are one penny.” Dylan’s stomach flopped with alarm. Pence? Pennies? Four pence had been his daily wage, apparently. His accumulated wealth amounted to fifty-two pence. But Sinann continued, “You’ve got four shillings, four pence. Enough to buy a fine coat, or enough to buy a serviceable coat and another kilt.”
“Really?” Put in those terms, a penny didn’t seem so little. Dylan did some quick math. “So there are twelve pence to a shilling?”
Sinann nodded.
“How many shillings to a pound?”
She made an exasperated noise. “Have you nae money where you come from?”
He sighed. “We have different money. Like English money is different from Italian and French. Besides, where I come from even the English have finally wised up and gone to the decimal system. So, how many shillings to a pound?”
“Scots, or English?”
“These are English coins, right?”
She sighed. “Twenty, then.”
“How many in Scots?”
“Twenty.”
Dylan threw her an exasperated look.
She spread her hands. “But in Scots a shilling is only as much as an English pence. There are two hundred and forty Scots shillings to an English pound. A Scottish pound is worth one shilling and eight pence sterling. And . . . have you any merks? Nae, I see you don’t. In any case, a merk is worth thirteen and one-third pence sterling.”
Whoa. Overload, even for a former business major. He held up his palms and nodded. “Okay, whatever. Let’s stick with the English coins, because that’s what I’ve got right now. So a serviceable coat would cost . . . ?”
“Three English shillings if you’re wanting a good, heavy one but without decoration. You can get them less dear, but a thin one would be pointless to have in the winter.”
“And a new kilt?”
“Eleven pence. Maybe more, maybe less. Far less if you let Sarah make it for you.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think so.”
“And why not?”
“I probably wouldn’t come
through it with my virtue intact.”
She laughed. “A selling point, to my mind.”
He waved away the concept. “Forget it. I’ll find someone in the village to make me a kilt. And a coat.”
“Suit yourself.” Her tone made it clear she was not pleased with his decision.
The carved door to Caitrionagh’s room opened, slowly creaking, and she looked out. Her eyes were still bleary and her mouth soft from sleep. Dylan marveled she could be so pretty so soon after waking. He fell silent, and stood. She said, her voice groggy, “Oh. I thought I heard voices out here.”
Dylan glanced at Sinann, but said, “I was just wondering out loud where to buy a coat, and maybe a new kilt.”
“For a kilt you just weave a length of cloth and sew the ends. Almost any woman could weave one for you. But for the coat, there’s a woman in the village as does excellent work. I’ll take you there today.”
Dylan smiled and thanked her, and ignored Sinann’s scowl. The faerie said, “Yer wasting yer time, ye fool.”
Caitrionagh withdrew to her room and her door clanked shut, leaving Dylan free to whisper to Sinann in rising irritation, “Ask me if I care. It’s my time to waste, and if you’re so unhappy with it why don’t you send me home? But, oh, that’s right . . . you can’t undo what you’ve done.”
Sinann had no reply, but snapped her fingers and disappeared.
Dylan’s job was to accompany Caitrionagh everywhere she went, and his charge had business in the village that day to take a basket of food to a distraught family whose mother was dying. Dylan accompanied her from the castle grounds, and had to take care not to look too pleased to do so.
Snow had come the night before, and it lay in a thin white blanket through which rocks and weeds poked in dark contrast. Dylan hugged his plaid around his shoulders against the cold air. He would be glad to have a coat soon.
Caitrionagh wore her heavy woolen traveling cloak and scarf, and seemed quite comfortable as she gossiped to Dylan, “Marsaili was nurse to Artair and Coll and myself, until her marriage to a man in the village.”
“You mean that guy who knocked up . . .” Dylan blanched. “I mean, the one who disappeared shortly after that girl was banished? Seóras Roy?”
Cait’s eye darkened and she scowled. “Aye, the one who went to Inverness after his whore, leaving Marsaili and their children alone to face her dying. Her sister works in the kitchen still, and comes to help, but the woman needs her husband and the children their father. Such a coward, he is. It’s a wasting thing she has, and some even say she’s possessed. My father would fly into a rage, were he to know where I’m going.”
Dylan stopped dead in the track, and she paused to look back at him. “Then we’re not going,” he said.
She smiled and started again on her way. “Indeed, we are. And you willnae stop me.”
He hurried to take her arm. “No. If your father doesn’t want—”
“He’s not the one who has a starving family, is he?”
“Then let me take the basket to her. But you can’t—”
“Dylan . . .” She gave him a look that said he was being silly. He knew what she meant, that the gift wouldn’t mean the same if he took it.
He said, “Is this why you were so upset last night? You thought I wouldn’t let you go see Marsaili?”
A puzzled look came over her, then it cleared up and she said, “No. That was nothing.” The early winter wind blew her scarf tail over her face and she moved it aside with her finger. “You should ignore it.” She went on her way again, slogging through the snow in the lane, and he followed.
“Nothing? It didn’t feel like nothing. Why are you being this way?”
“What way?”
He fell behind for a moment, sighed, then caught up to her again. “You can go, but don’t you dare touch anything while you’re there. And keep away from her. Don’t let her get in your face—”
“In my face?”
“In front of you. Close.” He shook his hair from his eyes and demonstrated by placing a palm in front of his nose. “If you promise that, you can go.”
“And if I dinnae promise, I suppose you’ll throw me over your shoulder and carry me back to the Tigh like a great, hairy Viking?”
He looked at her white-blonde hair and wondered how many of her ancestors had been actual Vikings and done that very thing. “I might.” A smile played at the corners of his mouth, though he tried to keep it down.
A big smile lit up her face, but she said nothing and went on her way. He shook his head and chuckled to himself, and kept by her side.
The peat house where Marsaili lived was well down the glen and backed up against the steep southern slope, a dark and depressing place at this time of year even with the sun fully risen. There were two daughters in their early teens and a little boy, and the oldest girl had the worn look of a child who had grown up entirely too fast. Dylan had seen a lot of kids like this over the years, ones that wanted kung fu lessons to defend themselves from adults as well as bigger kids.
He stood by the door to do his bodyguard thing, and entertained himself with idle thoughts of Mafia gunmen alert to danger from rival families, while Caitrionagh visited with the sick woman.
Marsaili sat before the fire in a high-backed chair, her legs covered by a wool blanket. Even in the dimly lit room Dylan could see her face was gray and dry, and her lips were the same shade as her face. There was no coughing, which made him think it wasn’t tuberculosis, and that was a relief. But he was no doctor, so the illness could have been anything. All he knew of fatal disease was what he’d seen on television, and he could only guess at what was killing Marsaili. He thought it might be cancer, and hoped it was at least as noncontagious as that.
As he watched her with Caitrionagh, he was appalled at the pain he saw in Marsaili’s face. Where he came from, dying people were given the mercy of anesthetic, but here there was nothing more than whiskey or willow bark tea. He glanced around and saw a stone jug sitting on a trestle table, and was glad to see someone was keeping her in whiskey, at least.
Caitrionagh spoke in a low voice, which seemed to soothe Marsaili. Dylan let them have their privacy, but he watched Caitrionagh’s eyes. There was sincere caring in them. This was far more than a gesture of noblesse oblige; she was tending to a friend. Though her voice stayed light, over the course of the visit he saw small lines appear in her face, showing the stress of watching her friend die. They stayed through most of the afternoon.
Done visiting, Caitrionagh stepped outside the house and stood for a moment to stare at the mountains surrounding the glen. She took deep breaths, and for a moment looked like she might cry. But she shook it off and turned to Dylan. “Now to order you a coat before your thin colonial blood freezes and we have to prop you in front of the fire to thaw you out.” She giggled at her own joke, but he wasn’t entirely certain it wasn’t true.
She guided Dylan to a house among the cluster near the castle, where she asked the seamstress for a price on a coat and kilt. The front living area of the house was set up as a shop, the walls festooned with rolls of plaid wool and linen fabric, some natural colored and some dyed yellow, and patterns of coarse brown paper. Boxes of raw wool and balls of yet undyed yarn stood near a large, wooden chair. A pillow on the chair constituted the first thing he’d seen resembling upholstery since his arrival last month.
The woman, who Caitrionagh introduced as Nana Pettigrew, was short, dumpy, and the most sunny personality he’d met in Scotland. She chattered away in a kind of speed-Gaelic he couldn’t begin to sort out, but his lack of reply didn’t seem to bother her. She looked him up and down, then indicated he should turn around for her to take measurements. A few quick touches with a string marked with knots, and she announced in English as if she’d known all along he couldn’t understand her Gaelic, “Four shillings, three pence for the coat, a shilling and two for the kilt.” She spoke so fast and with such a thick brogue he almost couldn’t understand her Englis
h either.
Dylan blanched. Five shillings, five pence, total. He didn’t have it.
Caitrionagh saw his reaction, and said to the woman, “He’s not the Prince of Wales, you know, and needs naught of style. Besides, he’s only got three shillings to spend.” Dylan opened his mouth to correct, but she threw him a warning glance and he shut up. She said, “Both items for three shillings, or we let someone else do the work.”
The sunny smile never faltered. “Then let them.” Caitrionagh took Dylan by the arm and made to leave, but the woman stopped them. “All right, three shillings eight. I can have it done in four days.” Four days? It took that long to sew a coat? The woman was still smiling.
“Three shillings four,” said Caitrionagh.
There was a long, thoughtful pause, then, “Only as your father is who he is, then done. Half in advance.” Dylan pulled out his napkin filled with money, and counted out twenty pence. It was hard to get his mind around the value of these coins. As pennies, forty of them was the least he’d ever spent on clothing. But calculated in terms of days worked, he was handing over five days of his life, with five more in the balance. That was one bloody expensive coat and kilt.
The already cold day waned as they crossed the drawbridge to the island where Tigh a’ Mhadaidh Bhàin stood. But instead of going straight through the gatehouse, she veered off toward the shore where the willow tree hung over the water.
“Where are you going?” He said it in Gaelic because he could, and he followed her.
“Just to the tree.”
“What for? It’s freezing out here.”
“It’s barely nippy. Come.” She ran down the slope, and he followed. The leaves had all gone from the tree, and bare branches dangled to the ground. Caitrionagh parted them as she moved, playing as if she were a child under department store clothing racks, with Dylan right behind. The ground underfoot crunched with ice. Then she hopped up onto the remnant of the castle’s outer curtain wall, no more than a low strip of rubble a few feet wide that circled the island at the water’s edge.
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