by Susan King
“I will order a bath prepared for you later. I want you to be comfortable and at home here.”
“I would love a bath later,” Michael said. “Thank you for your hospitality. I know our visit was unexpected.”
“I was so happy to see my brother, I would not care if he brought the king’s army with him,” Sorcha answered, and laughed. She had the Dunsheen lilt in her smile, and lovely white teeth, large and square. Her braided hair, bright as polished copper, was tucked beneath a sheer white veil, and her skin had a pale, milky translucency. Michael saw that her eyes were gray and very much like Diarmid’s, though lashed in delicate gold. Slim despite her pregnancy, Sorcha had a fragile, gentle quality.
“But you are a much more welcome sight than the king’s army!” Sorcha continued, smiling. “I enjoyed staying up late last night to talk with Diarmid and Mungo, who tells such wonderful tales. He always did, even when we were children together at Dunsheen.” Her eyes glittered, and she sounded nearly giddy. “I confess I could hardly wait for you to wake, Lady Michael. Sometimes I yearn to talk to another woman.”
“Are there no women on Glas Eilean?” Michael asked in surprise. “Surely you have maidservants, and a midwife nearby to attend you.”
“Ranald keeps his garrison here with male servants, and only a female laundress and cook. I have no maidservant now, since she wed a fisherman a few months ago. Ranald’s elderly cousin Giorsal has a small house on the island and acts as my midwife.” She paused. “There are a few fisher wives here too, but I know them scarcely.” Her voice had a brittle, lonely note.
“I met your husband at Dunsheen a few weeks ago,” Michael said. Sorcha nodded pleasantly, her expression innocent, and Michael felt certain that she knew nothing of her dispute with Ranald over Glas Eilean. “I understand that he has gone to Ayr. His garrison must still be here at Glas Eilean, then.”
“He took several men with him to Ayr,” Sorcha said. “My brother Arthur went with them as well. Ranald’s garrison is always here. You will meet some of them. I keep to my rooms most of the time. Old Giorsal is something of a watchdog when she comes to visit and check on me.” Sorcha gave a sour little grimace, and Michael chuckled.
“Ranald must be glad that Diarmid is visiting you in his absence,” she said.
Sorcha looked somber. “Actually Ranald would not like to hear it. Diarmid times his visits to me when Ranald is gone. They have little liking for each other, although they are tied by the kinship of marriage on both sides, and they both have trade dealings that require cooperation. Otherwise I think they would have no tolerance for each other. Arthur is not bothered by whatever stands between Diarmid and Ranald, so he attends to most of the trade matters between Glas Eilean and Dunsheen.”
“What stands between them?” Michael asked curiously.
“It began when Diarmid tried to divorce Anabel, who is Ranald’s cousin. Their separation and Anabel’s retirement to a convent set the two of them in some silent battle. I think sometimes they hate each other, which distresses me.”
Michael carefully plaited strands of her hair. “I know only a little of it, but it is none of my matter.”
“Diarmid scarcely mentions it to anyone. He had only pain from his marriage. Ranald suffered too, for he is fond of his cousin.” She sighed. “How long have you been at Dunsheen?”
“Only a few weeks. I expect to go home to Galloway soon.”
“Diarmid told me last evening that you are a physician,” Sorcha said. “How wonderful! I did not know a woman could do that. You must tell me all about yourself. He said that your treatments have been helping Brigit. Thank you, Michael.”
She smiled. “Brigit does seem stronger lately. We have been working her muscles for her, hoping she will regain some strength. I think it is possible. We shall see.”
“Diarmid has faith in you, Lady Michael. Great faith.” Sorcha’s gaze was direct. “He has a high regard for you.”
Michael paused, then cleared her throat. “I have good training. My late husband was a gifted physician and scholar in Italy. He taught me much.”
“To hear Diarmid speak, you have much more than education. he says you are gifted. I would have thought he spoke of a saint last night, rather than a woman no different than myself.” Sorcha smiled. “All of the Dunsheen Campbells know the story of how he and Fionn met you years ago, and how you worked on Angus’s leg, though you were just a child. What a wonderful knowledge and talent you must have, to save Angus as you did.”
“Diarmid repaired Angus’s wound, but he says little of his part in it. I helped him, but most of my training came later. I decided, the day that I met Diarmid, that I would learn to heal others as he did.”
Sorcha tilted her head. “Is that all you decided that day?”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “I remember seeing Diarmid shortly after that battle, when he and Fionn brought Angus back to Dunsheen. I will never forget that when he spoke of you, his eyes would shine. I thought at the time that my serious brother, who took on so many cares as the laird, had fallen in love forever. I hoped he would ask for your hand when you were older.”
Michael felt a deep blush heat her cheeks. She looked away. “Oh! I am sometimes too quick to speak my mind,” Sorcha blurted. “And I have too much imagination. Forgive me.”
Michael shook her head to dispel Sorcha’s discomfort. “I have always admired your brother, Sorcha. But we followed different paths.”
“I wish he had not followed the path he took. He would have been happy, wed to you. Or anyone else but her. Forgive me,” she said hastily. “Diarmid is a stubborn man, and clings to his unhappiness like a penance. Enough, I chatter on when you must be hungry. Come to the windowseat. I brought some food up here for you.”
Sorcha went to the window niche and sat on a cushioned bench, and Michael sat beside her. Soon she sipped watered wine and ate baked fish and oatcakes spread with honey. While she ate, her thoughts whirled over what Sorcha had said.
Sorcha nibbled a cake and some fish, then rested her hands on the upper curve of her abdomen. “Sometimes I am so hungry,” she confided, laughing. “If you knew how much I ate through the day, you would be appalled.”
“You should eat what you like,” Michael said, smiling. “If all is in moderation, all will be well, as my husband often said. When is your child due?”
“Two months, I think. Sometimes it is hard to be sure.”
“When was the last time you were in your flowers?”
Sorcha frowned, trying to recall. “The last week of March.”
Michael counted back three months on her fingertips. “Then your child will arrive in January.”
“Sooner than that. My babes always come too soon.”
Michael watched her soberly. “Diarmid said something to me of your trouble. But not much.”
Sorcha looked down at her clasped hands. “I have lost six,” she murmured. “Each one born too early.”
“That is a hard burden to bear,” Michael said softly.
Sorcha nodded, her eyes slick with tears. “I hope someday God will reward me rather than punish me. I think of them as my seal children,” she added in a quavery voice. “I sometimes imagine that they are mer-children, half human, half magic. They are happy here inside the water of my womb”—she placed a hand on her abdomen—“but they cannot survive on the earth. So God takes them back. I love them while they are in me, but I know that they will not stay. I know that I must let them go.”
Michael’s eyes filled with tears. Sorcha’s unquestioning love was heart-wrenching, without blame or bitterness, Michael watched her silently, awed by her acceptance, and her bottomless, endless capacity for love.
“I know my fancy about the seal children is foolishness, but it helps me to endure,” Sorcha said. “God understands why this happens. I do not question it any longer.” She looked up. “Diarmid thinks you can help me.”
“I am well-trained in women’s matters,” Michael an
swered. “I cannot promise you”—she almost said “a miracle”, but held back the word—“that you will have what you most desire. But I will try.” She realized that she would do anything to help this gentle, courageous woman.
Sorcha nodded. “What will you do?”
“I need to examine you, outside and inside, if you will allow it. I will be very careful, but there are some signs I want to look for. Then I will know better what to tell you.”
Michael frowned slightly as she washed her hands of the almond oil she had used during her thorough examination of Sorcha. She sat down beside her on the bed, thinking. She judged the babe to be healthy and good-sized, but the entrance to Sorcha’s womb had already begun to open. Even if large, the child was not yet ready to be born. According to the calendar, the child needed at least ten more weeks.
She smiled at Sorcha. “Your babe is active and quick, and his heartbeat is strong.”
“She,” Sorcha said.
Michael blinked, then nodded. “She is fine. But your body is too eager to deliver. Do you have childpangs? Have you seen any signs of labor?”
“Sometimes, but when I rest for a day, the signs go away. But they come back again, now and then.”
“Did this happen with each child?”
Sorcha nodded. “When the pains get strong, I take to bed. Giorsal gives me a potion, and the pains go away. But I have never carried to the end of my time.”
“What does she give you?” Michael asked.
“Herbs to relax me. She tells me I must not complain, and Ranald agrees with her. Giorsal says I can deliver a healthy babe if I will just be stronger. Ranald thinks this would not happen if I were a heartier woman. So I try to be strong.”
Michael stared at her in disbelief. “Sorcha, you should complain. And make certain Ranald hears it,” she said sharply. “I want you to take to your bed and stay there for the rest of your time. Your body prepares too early to give birth, but we can delay it some.”
Sorcha looked shocked. “I cannot lie in bed for months! Ranald would be angry with me. He is displeased with me already because he has no son. He has threatened to set me aside and take another wife.”
Michael scowled but refrained from direct comment. “You must rest for as long as you can. Is there a wise-wife on the island who can make up some herbal medicines for you?”
“There is one on the mainland. We can send someone there to collect what you need.”
“Good. Now you will go to your chamber and rest.” Michael stood, helped Sorcha to her feet, and led her out of the room.
Diarmid stood near the cliff edge, watching gulls wheel and dip over the sea. On a cluster of rocks that extended out into the water, a colony of gray seals scampered playfully. He watched their antics, then turned and saw Mungo coming toward him.
“I spoke with the captain of Ranald’s guard,” Mungo said. “He would not allow me in the storage room on the ground floor. Ranald’s orders are that no one touches it until he returns. A valuable load of spices, he said.”
“Pepper and cloves come at a high price, I know, but that sort of caution is reserved for port towns, not remote Hebridean islands.” Diarmid frowned. “Come on.” He strode quickly toward to the castle, entering by a small postern door at the back.
A dim corridor divided the ground floor into two parts, comprising garrison quarters and an enclosed byre for sheep. Walking past the guards’ chambers, Diarmid and Mungo encountered a few of Ranald’s men, exchanged nods, and moved past. Mungo might be unknown to some of them, but Sorcha’s brother was well-known at Glas Eilean.
Diarmid quickly decended a few steps to a door, which was locked. He glanced at Mungo. “This must be it. Go back and ask about the breed of Ranald’s sheep,” he said. “Make a jest or two, and laugh loudly. Tell them I’m interested in breeding my sheep with his stock.” Mungo nodded and went back up the steps.
Diarmid kicked at the latch. When it gave, he lifted the torch from the wallsconce near the stairs and went inside the room. A summary glance showed him an assortment of items—coils of rope, armor, equipment for horses, and several barrels, wooden chests, and sacks heaped along one wall. He crossed the room and took out his dirk, prying loose the nails on a barrel lid.
He had always had an excellent memory for numbers and information, and used it now. As he searched the barrels and crates one after another, taking off the lids and replacing them, he recalled the account rolls that Arthur had given him.
Stored away were folded lengths of silk, gleaming splashes of color in the torchlight, along with coarser cloth woven from flax. He paused over that, fingering the humble fabric thoughtfully. Then he opened a few wooden barrels and found peppercorns and clove buds in abundance, as well as cinnamon sticks, nutmeg kernels, saffron and dried ginger roots; two barrels held raw sugar from the East, ground to a fine powder; small casks held almond and olive oils, and several wooden tuns, marked with French stamps, contained wines and claret.
Four crates contained gleaming pieces of worked iron and steel, made into an assortment of weapons: swords, lances, dirks, axe blades and caltrops. Diarmid looked at them and moved on.
Finding a pile of canvas sacks hidden in the corner, he slit one open. Pale, milled grain spilled into his hand. He sniffed at it, then swore under his breath. Hearing a scrape, he turned to see Mungo enter the room.
“I’ve found enough goods to stock every larder and weapons chest in the Highlands,” Diarmid said. “Most of it was listed on the accounting sheets that Arthur gave me.”
“Most of it?”
Diarmid gestured. “That large chest holds cloth—see what you think of its quality. And the sacks over there contain this.” He trickled dry grains into Mungo’s palm.
Mungo tasted the grains, then scowled. He knelt by the largest wooden chest to finger the cloth inside. “English flax and English weave. And the grains are wheat.”
“English wheat,” Diarmid emphasized.
“Ranald prefers bread to oatcakes, just as he likes an English cut to his tunics. He leans a bit too much to the English side, I think.”
“Dangerously close. He apparently has a source for English goods. Neither the lengths of English linen nor the wheat was listed on those inventories.”
“But the English refuse to sell their wheat and cloth to Scotland,” Mungo said. “The English king has imposed penalties against it. Could he have traded for it in Ireland?”
“Possibly,” Diarmid said. “But I doubt it.”
“If Arthur is one of the pirates who have broken through the English blockade to harass English ports, perhaps he took this.” Diarmid shook his head. “Arthur would have listed them on his inventory of goods kept at Glas Eilean. He said he wanted me to know everything that was kept here. Now I know what he meant. Ranald is the one who knows best about this matter.”
“Perhaps Sorcha knows something of it,” Mungo said.
“I doubt my sister is a willing accomplice in a smuggling scheme.”
“I doubt it too,” Mungo said. “And I am loathe to leave her here alone. When you go back to Dunsheen and contact the king about this, as you must, I will stay here.”
Diarmid nodded. “I will not leave until I have learned more about where these English goods came from,” he said. “But I would appreciate it if you watch over Sorcha when I depart.”
“I would lay down my life for her,” Mungo said quietly.
“I know,” Diarmid said. “I have long thought that. I wish I had known it years ago, when Ranald offered for her hand.”
Mungo said nothing, looking down at his feet. After a moment, he turned and left the storage chamber, and Diarmid followed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Tell us another tale, Mungo,” Sorcha said. She reclined in her bed, propped on pillows, her body sunk deep in the feather mattress. Near the hearth, Diarmid and Mungo sat on stools, while Michael occupied a carved chair with a leather sling seat, a borrowed harp leaned against her left shoulder as she played.
The four of them had gathered again in Sorcha’s room for a light supper, a practice that had become a comfortable routine over several days. Often they stayed together for an hour or more, talking and laughing companionably. Mungo and Sorcha told legends and tales, or chatted with Diarmid about escapades in their shared childhoods. Sometimes Michael spoke about her childhood in the hills of Galloway, or about her experiences as a student and physician in Italy.
At other times, she played soft melodies on the old harp that Diarmid had taken down from its customary place on the wall in the great hall. She discovered that Diarmid had a rich, deep singing voice, soothing and sensual, and she listened with dreamy pleasure as she plucked tunes that her mother had taught her.
Sometimes Diarmid smiled at her so kindly, so intimately, that her fingers stumbled on the strings until she focused carefully on the music. She had come to treasure their evening circle, but knew that the peace and joy was temporary. She would leave Glas Eilean and leave Dunsheen and its laird. The thought made her mood melancholic as she played the harp.
Mungo spoke and startled Michael from her thoughts. “I am not as good at telling tales as Gilchrist,” he said to Sorcha.
Sorcha smiled, her eyes dancing with silvery lights. “Ah, but I like your stories best of all. Gilchrist is a fine harper and has a feel for a tragic or a brave story, but he lacks your sense of humor. You always make me laugh.”
“Then I am honored,” Mungo said quietly. “I liked to make you laugh even when you were a pesky little girl in long orange braids following after your brothers and me.” He grinned. “But I still like your best. Tell us one now, if you will.”
Michael, strumming the harp strings in a soft rhythm, looked from Sorcha to Mungo with a sense of astonishment. She watched Sorcha blush, saw Mungo’s brown eyes linger fondly on her face. And then she knew what she had not seen until now: a well of love existed between them. Unexpressed, unfulfilled, their feelings had settled into a warm friendship.
Michael glanced at Diarmid, and saw him watch them keenly; he knew it, too. Then he looked at Michael, and she smiled slightly, sadly, as if to tell him she understood. But he looked away again without changing his somber expression.