Kilts & Kraken

by Cindy Spencer Pape

  “I’m sorry.” Geneva took a small vial of laudanum from her bag and measured a modest dose in an eyedropper. “Can you hold him while I slip this in his mouth? I don’t want him to thrash on the trip.”

  “How did he come to be here, if you don’t mind me asking?” He held Magnus’s shoulders so Geneva could administer the medication.

  While they wrapped the patient in one of Hamish’s nightshirts and the kilt he’d been found in, Alice related the tale to MacAuley.

  “’Tis a good thirty miles or more across open seas that monster must have dragged him,” MacAuley said. “’Tis a miracle he survived at all. That was the biggest kraken we’ve seen yet. I thought we were all dead for sure.”

  “The largest?” Geneva set down the towel she’d been using to dry her hands and gawked. “You mean there have been more?”

  MacAuley nodded sadly. “They’ve been attacking Torkholm regular-like for almost a month now.”

  Geneva swallowed her panic. “I’ve got to teletext my father.”

  * * *

  Within the hour, she’d sent the teletext, and they boarded a steam-powered yacht for the Isle of Torkholm. Alice and Geneva took turns sitting in the small cabin with their patient, allowing each some time in the fresh air up on deck. The trip, heading into the prevailing winds, would take somewhere between three and four hours, she was told. The thus-far invisible Maggie sent along a basket with a cold supper, and Rannulf MacAuley promised to bring them back to Alice’s home first thing the following morning. Based on the way the older Highlander gazed at Alice as if she were an angel, he’d do everything in his power to make her happy. The only thing that made the dour Quentin smile was when Alice had turned over Lord Findlay’s sword. He held it as carefully as if it were a babe.

  Geneva sat on an overturned bucket on the deck, watching the island grow larger on the horizon. Smaller than Mull, or even Tiree, which they’d passed on the trip, it was still big enough to support a thriving village, a popular whisky distillery, numerous crofters and a lucrative fishing business.

  “It’s a nice village,” she said to Quentin, who stood beside her in the bow, his handsome face dour and disapproving as ever.

  “It was. Now half the buildings are damaged and any number of the boats reduced to splinters. We’ve lost twelve fishermen, and two innocent lasses who were just walking on the shore. Dozens more hurt. Cursed, is what we are.” It was the most words he’d strung together since they’d met.

  Here was her chance to find out what the islanders knew about the kraken. Unlike most modern, scientifically minded people, Geneva didn’t immediately discount the idea of a curse. Such things were certainly possible, if not particularly plausible. “Who would have—or even could have—cursed an entire clan?” That would be something the Order should know about.

  Quentin was silent for long moments. Finally he looked out over the water and shrugged. “Our fishermen have rivals on other islands.”

  “But fishing rivals with the kind of power required to cast such a curse?”

  Another shrug. “The gods, then. Our laird may have angered them with his modern technology.”

  “You really think that’s likely?” Geneva wasn’t particularly religious, but whether one believed in the Church, or the old ways, this didn’t seem right. If the gods were against technology, London, even Edinburgh and Glasgow would be naught but smoking ruins.

  A muscle twitched in his jaw. “It’s happened before. Magnus’s great-grandsire was killed by just such a beast, not long after he brought the first steam boiler to heat the castle. Magick and science are not meant to mix.”

  “Ridiculous. The two mix very well indeed.” At least they did for the Order. Pondering his words, she looked away, examining the shoreline as it came into focus. It was a handsome village, or had been once, with brightly colored shops and houses set gaily side by side on the rise of a hill. Closer to the water, a warehouse and pier fronted a small harbor, and here, the damages were clear to see. Three out of four docks had been smashed and several buildings sported boarded windows or other hasty repairs. Fires had destroyed several buildings, clearly spreading from the shoreline into the village. “Dear Lord, you have been ravaged.”

  “Aye.” The snarl in his tone made it sound as if she was personally responsible for that.

  “I’m sorry.” Perhaps he’d lost someone in the attacks. That would account for his surliness. Maybe he didn’t like doctors—or lowlanders. She wasn’t going to be here long enough to worry about it. A kilt-clad, pugnacious islander held no appeal for her. Give her a polite, educated urbanite any day of the week.

  “Kraken!” The shriek from one of the crew snapped her out of her thoughts. They were only about a hundred yards from the one remaining pier. If there was a giant squid in the water, surely they could reach shore before it attacked.

  The engines puffed as the boat steamed toward the wharf. In the town, a bell began to toll, accompanied by shouts and running feet. All the men on the deck, including Quentin, rushed to the side away from Geneva, leaving her unable to see. One man readied the harpoon gun mounted in the stern while others drew out repeating rifles. Unwilling to leave her fate in their hands, Geneva snatched a more basic buffalo rifle and a box of bullets from the open munitions box. She was a better shot than her brother. If the Order admitted women, she might have enlisted instead of going into medicine.

  “Where is it?” She elbowed her way between Rannulf and one of the crewmen.

  Rannulf pointed.

  She saw no sign of the squid itself, just a triangular wake beginning a few hundred yards out and closing fast. With a sharp nod, she deftly loaded her rifle and braced the barrel on the gunwale.

  They were almost to the pier when the point of the wake rose from the water, some fifty feet from the boat. All hands fired, including someone on the turret-mounted harpoon gun. The squid, larger than any she’d ever expected to see, reared back at the barrage, but only for a moment before it resumed its forward charge. The pointed head stood higher than the decks and based on the shape, less than half of it was exposed. She reloaded and fired right above the waterline, pleased when her bullet struck with a spurt of blue blood.

  The kraken still approached, apparently undaunted by the numerous holes piercing its rubbery hide. They’d almost reached the pier now, and more men stood on the wharf firing at the beast. Geneva reloaded yet again, her movements clumsy as the water churned beneath them and the small craft rocked.

  A tentacle surged up out of the waves and crashed down on the gunwale, sending shards of teak flying in all directions. Geneva and Rannulf each rolled to the side, she hampered by her corset and petticoats. The man on her other side dropped his rifle and pulled a sword from his belt, hacking down on the tentacle that tangled in the fabric of her skirt. It thrashed, dislodging itself from her skirt, but slamming Geneva into a bulkhead as it flailed.

  Her ears rang as her head impacted the sturdy wooden structure, and the breath was knocked from her chest. The boat bumped onto something, shuddering, and she hoped to heaven it was the pier rather than the squid. Suddenly, another noise rang in her ears, over even the sound of gunfire. A war cry in Gaelic burst up from the cabin below a moment before the hatch slammed open and her patient, pale but wild-eyed, emerged, claymore in hand.

  With a frenzy of strength he shouldn’t have possessed, the man attacked the tentacle, and a second that crashed into the deck a few feet farther toward the bow. Though he shouldn’t even have been able to stand on his injured hip, he moved with a speed that had to be magickal and his presence seemed to inspire his clansmen, who fought that much harder.

  Geneva caught her breath and stood, reclaiming her rifle and finding a new vantage point from which to fire. More men fought with swords, now that the beast was upon them, but she didn’t have one, so a firearm would have to do. An eye showed right at the waterline beside the boat and she fired at that, hoping it would be more vulnerable.

  Someone on shore t
ied the boat to the pier, steadying it somewhat. Magnus leapt over the gunwale into the shallows and, with a mighty blow, skewered the beast in the other eye. The creature thrashed and sank, the tip of its head falling onto the beach and two bleeding tentacles floating limply on the surface.

  “Is it dead?” She dropped her gun and turned to Rannulf.

  He tipped his chin. “I think so.”

  Geneva turned to stare at Magnus, who staggered up onto the rocky shore beside the pier. He gave one last war cry and laid his sword on the ground before he collapsed.

  “How did he do that?” Geneva set down her rifle and ran toward the pier. Rannulf leapt over the rail and lifted her with him. Together they hurried to Magnus’s side.

  “’Tis this land. It gives him his strength.” Despite being well into his middle years, Rannulf still outpaced Geneva and reached Magnus first. With gentle hands, he checked his nephew for breath and nodded to Quentin who’d also passed Geneva. “Take his feet.”

  If they were anywhere but on a rocky shore, Geneva would have told them to leave the fallen man be. Instead she called over her shoulder, “Someone bring my medical bag,” and hurried to keep pace with the Highlanders. When they reached the road, it seemed like the entire village had clustered around them. She’d have been shoved away from the wagon the men laid Magnus in, if Rannulf hadn’t hauled her up with one meaty hand. Moments later, he did the same to Alice, who had caught up at some point. Rannulf pulled Alice down to the straw beside him while Geneva dropped to her knees and laid her head against Magnus’s chest.

  “He’s breathing, and his heartbeat is stronger than it was on Mull.” None of this was medically possible. The man ought to be dead. More than ever, she was sure magick was at work. “Rannulf, you said he draws strength from the island itself?”

  Quentin cursed. While everyone in Britain knew magick existed, most managed to go through their entire lives without encountering it face-to-face, and here on the fringes, the possibility of witch-burning still existed.

  Rannulf held up a hand. “They need to know. The doctor kens the ways of magick, don’t you, lass?”

  “I do.” Geneva pushed aside Magnus’s shirt and applied pressure to one of the wounds on his chest, the worst he’d reopened. “I can keep a secret, too. If the magick isn’t evil, you’ll get no trouble from me.” Of course she’d inform the Order. Keeping track of such things was part of its purpose.

  Rannulf tipped his head gravely. “Being here strengthens the laird. Being away weakens him. With luck, we’ve gotten him home in time.”

  “You mean he can never leave Torkholm?” How sad, to be trapped, able to see nothing of the world.

  Quentin growled under his breath. “None of your business. First thing in the morning, it’s back to Mull with the two of you and good riddance.”

  “He can leave, for a little while.” Rannulf cast Quentin a quelling glance. “A few hours to Tiree, or a half day of fishing, but he’s worn out when he returns.” Tiree was the nearest inhabited island, perhaps an hour by boat according to the maps Geneva had studied.

  “Even here, he can die, can’t he?” She checked the wound beneath her hands, pleased that the bleeding had slowed. His skin still showed the ashen pallor of the critically injured.

  “Aye,” Rannulf said. “The power only does so much. He can take ill, or be killed outright in battle, same as any other man.”

  “Do you have a physician here on the island?” Others had been injured in the squid attacks, too. Did the island’s magick work for them? “What do the other residents do?”

  “We’ve healers.” Quentin’s glare burned like acid on the back of Geneva’s neck as she bent over her patient. “Better than any quack. We don’t need your kind here.”

  “Stubble it, lad.” This was obviously an old argument between the two men. “Your laird won’t thank you for chasing off the ladies who saved his hide. You think without care, he’d have survived until we found him?”

  “Sorry.”

  Geneva ignored the grumbled, grudging apology and caught her breath as they entered the bailey of a medieval castle at the top of the island’s central hill.

  Clearly, she’d stepped into a fairytale of local granite and blooming wildflowers, gaslights and well-oiled machinery side by side with architecture unchanged for centuries.

  Alice spoke the words caught in Geneva’s throat. “It’s beautiful.”

  Rannulf gave Alice a warm smile. “Aye. ’Tis home.”

  Chapter Three

  After she reset Magnus’s pelvis and restitched several of his wounds, Geneva left him under the watchful eye of a maid. Geneva and Alice followed Rannulf to a steam-powered lift that creaked and groaned its way back down to the great hall. A relic of the castle’s medieval origins, the giant stone-walled room was full of what must have been half the village. Long trestle tables were arranged in a U-shape, and in the center, a line of perhaps a dozen men and women sporting a variety of bandages waited, some standing, others on benches. The rest of the crowd, at least a hundred, gathered around the outside.

  “If you don’t mind, Doctor, I’d thought you might take a look at some of the other wounded men, since you can’t leave until morning.” Rannulf cast her a sheepish grin. “Our healers are good, but with the kraken attacks, there’ve been more wounded than two women can handle.”

  Geneva chuckled and exchanged wry glances with Alice. “In for a penny, right? Lead on, Mr. MacAuley.”

  He did, placing her bag on the head table and sending a maid for hot water and soap. Other supplies were already laid out. “Sure of us, wasn’t he?” she whispered to Alice.

  “Mmm.” The older woman shot a glance that bordered on indecent at Rannulf’s back. “Still, he seems like a good man.”

  “That he does.” Geneva had yet to see anything not to like in the burly older man.

  Rannulf, or someone at his direction, had lined the patients up in order of need, meaning they saw the worst wounded first. A man named MacRae, game warden for the laird, had a festering cut on his arm that had been stitched by his wife, but not before infection had set in. “Healer said it wasn’t worth bothering with,” he grumbled as Geneva and Alice painstakingly cleaned the wound. He held still, fortified with a dram from Rannulf when Geneva rebandaged it with a poultice of bread mold, unstitched to let the toxins drain. “Can’t get close to them since this damn kraken business started.”

  “Come by the castle first thing in the morning,” she said. “I want to look at that arm one more time before I leave. I’ll leave instructions with Mr. MacAuley. Someone will help you take care of it after I’m gone.”

  “Thank ye, miss. Yer an angel, to be sure.” With a little help from another man, he made his way from the room.

  “And who do we have here?” Geneva knelt in front of the next patient, a boy of perhaps eight. His leg was propped up on the bench, his face flushed with pain.

  “David, miss,” his mother said. “He got knocked from the pier by the squid this afternoon and I think his ankle’s broke.”

  “Let’s have a look.” Geneva peeled back the shawl covering the boy’s leg and studied the bent and swollen ankle. “Yes, it certainly does look as if it’s broken.”

  “Will he be able to walk again?” Tears leaked down the mother’s face.

  “I’ll do my best. I’d like to give him a few drops of laudanum. This is going to hurt something awful when I set the bone. Alice, can you prepare a splint?”

  “Already working on it,” Alice said. “Here’s the laudanum and a spoon.”

  Geneva carefully measured the dose. On such a young child, the stuff could be deadly. After she’d given the medicine a few moments to work, she set the broken ankle and bound it tightly in the splint. “No walking on that at all for at least six weeks.”

  The huge oaken door to the castle slammed open. Two women, one in her forties and one perhaps twenty-five, stood in the entry way. The younger, a stunningly beautiful brunette, screamed, “Wh
at is the meaning of this?”

  Rannulf left Alice’s side to confront the two women. “We brought someone to help the wounded. Not that it’s anything to you.”

  The older one, still attractive although her hair was streaked with gray, shoved Rannulf back. “I am the healer for Torkholm. How dare you bring some foreign slut to take my place?”

  “I wasn’t aware that Edinburgh is considered a foreign country.” Geneva stood and crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at the intruders, her body blocking her young patient from them. “If you’re skilled and want to help, by all means do so. I’m not interested in taking over your position.”

  “You? Ha!” The younger woman spat. “We don’t help the likes of you, and we don’t need you here, either. Leave now, before the island itself curses your very bones.”

  Geneva felt the air for magick, and found a trace. The healers had some power, it seemed. On the off chance that they could truly curse her, she tried to remain polite. “As I said, I’m only here to help. I’m leaving tomorrow at first light.”

  “Ye’ll be gone now.” The older woman’s hands clenched into claws.

  “You’re too busy already, Edda,” one man called. “Those of us you don’t like are last in line. I’ve waited three days for you to see me. Be off, and leave the doctor to do her work.”

  “Doctor? Is that what they’re calling whores nowadays?” The older woman sneered.

  A child in the crowd began to cry, and something in Geneva snapped.

  “I don’t give a damn what you think of me.” She advanced on the women until she stood toe-to-toe with the younger. “You’re disturbing my patients. Get out of this room. Right. Now.” She poked the woman’s shoulder with each of the last two words before turning to Rannulf. “Get rid of them.”

  “Aye, Doctor.” He grinned broadly and began to peel the older woman’s fingertips from the door jamb, to her screeching fury.