Rogue Highlander

by Sondra Grey

  Isla nodded mutely, because she did understand. She understood exactly the information Greer had imparted. Calum had returned, and he’d not sent for her.

  Isla had no trouble doing as Maire bid. There was much to be done in the kitchens and Maire hated anything that required tedious, repetitive labor, whereas Isla found the simpler tasks the most pleasant. When Maire left and the servants came back to the kitchens, Isla took a seat and began de-feathering one of the ducks they’d be eating for dinner.

  She was nearly done with the bird when Greer came into the kitchens.

  “Maire Campbell is so cruel, sticking you in here like a servant,” said Greer, smiling sunnily at Isla and taking the chair across the table from her. The servants pretended as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening, and Isla bit down the defense that had come to her lips. She didn’t need to defend herself to this woman.

  “Although I suppose there must be a bit of peace to be had, plucking a bird – so much easier than running a castle.”

  Isla glanced up, but Greer was smiling at her innocently. Reaching for a basket of mushrooms, the pale, blond beauty began removing their stems.

  “Certainly less harrowing than healing the sick,” Greer continued, and her tone was so light she might indeed have been having a pleasant conversation. Since she’d not asked Isla a direct question, Isla merely shrugged.

  “Should be a bad winter for illness too.” Greer examined one of the mushrooms closely, and placed it to the side. “Half the village of Banchor is come down with something. We tried to cross through on our way here and were told to head around it.”

  “What sort of illness?” Isla couldn’t help herself, she looked up to where Greer was shrugging, examining a mushroom a bit more closely than the fungus warranted.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Something terrible, I’m sure. Aren’t some of the servants here from round those parts? You girl!” she called to a young red-headed woman who’d been cleaning dishes in the corner. “Are any of you from Banchor?”

  “I’m from Dulsie, ma’am,” said the woman. “But Berta is from Banchor.” She nodded to the slender woman kneading bread over at another table.

  “Are you from Banchor? What’s the sickness there? It’s not a plague, is it?”

  The servant named Berta frowned at Greer and shrugged. “Happens some winters. When the traders come through on their way to Inverness. But it’s bad this year. We’ve had three of our young ones pass in the last three weeks.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Isla, her mind going back to the sickness that had come over Elleric. So many had died then, and a good half had been children. “What happens to them? Fever? Purging?”

  “Aye, the both. They claim to ache head to foot. They soil themselves. No marks, though. No pox or boils. Just hot and colds – and aches, and they can’t keep anything down. The ones who are hale, they’re bed ridden and then they get better. But the young and the old… they’re normally the worst afflicted.”

  Isla shook her head. She’d never found anything normal about sickness. Deirdre had always claimed that you could avoid getting ill by guarding the air you breathed – by keeping things clean and orderly, by taking certain herbs…

  “They must need help,” she said to Berta, noticing, from the corner of her eye that Greer had buried herself into her work again.

  “They’ve called in friars from Inverness, but only a few have answered. I fear many more will sicken before this is over.”

  Isla frowned. She could help, she knew, and if she was careful no harm would come to her or the baby.

  “Don’t bother yourself with it, Isla,” said Greer, lightly. “I suppose Calum wants you to stay with his sister, else he wouldn’t have sent you here. He’s doing brawly, by the way,” she said. “I think things have gone well with the Stewarts, for he seems much more at ease. I even heard him whistling the other morning. It’s why I felt it was all right for Fergus and me to visit Mrs. Allan. Calum has the castle well in hand. He needs for nothing!”

  Isla finished plucking the duck and stood, dusting her hands on her skirts and sweeping the features onto a waiting basket. “Here,” she said to Berta, placing the duck on the edge of the carving table. “I need to lie down for a bit.”

  Whistling? Calum had been whistling? Isla didn’t want to believe Greer. She knew that Maire was right, that the woman was trying to goad her. But she knew that she had been a burden on Calum since their wedding, and so Greer’s description seemed plausible. Had he really been whistling? Pain flooded through Isla, so sharp that it was physical, and Isla put a hand to her stomach as the baby somersaulted. “It’s okay,” she said to it, realizing it was the first time she’d spoken out loud to her child. “I know that you’re with me.” She rubbed her bulging stomach and frowned at it. You need to think of our child.

  She shook her head. The child was in the womb, and was perfectly safe. But there were other children who weren’t. Other children who were sick and who were not getting better.

  What would Calum care if she went and visited sick children? He didn’t even have to know.

  She tried to locate Maire, but was told that Fergus had borrowed the Lady Campbell’s ear, and the two were enclosed in Lord Campbell’s study.

  Isla pursed her lips. It was only just past midday and it wasn’t too far of a ride to Banchor, it was one of those small towns that straddled Grant and Campbell lands. Isla decided to go. She had a few supplies that she’d brought with her from Dundur, and she placed them in a basket and headed to the stables.

  It was only the work of moments to get the groom to saddle one of the horses. The groom kept looking around for Isla’s escort but didn’t ask Isla, outright, if she was riding with someone else.

  “You may want to try and get back before dark, my lady,” the groom said, anxiously.

  “I’ll be back well before then,” said Isla. It was getting dark earlier, but she might have at least three hours to spend in the village, dispensing herbs and maybe teaching some of the local villagers how to help themselves.

  On her ride to Banchor, her thoughts ranged. She was second guessing her decision to go help, wondering if she shouldn’t take the risk. What would Calum say when he found out she’d broken her promise? Would he even find out? Would he even send for her again, or was she now in exile at his sisters’ home?

  It was the work of an hour to reach Banchor. The village was small with a kirk in the very center, sitting behind the town well. There were a few people getting water as Isla approached, but while some looked up, nobody hailed her.

  She tied her horse to one of the posts in front of the kirk and removed her bag of medicinal herbs and salves. The kirk was similarly sized to the one in Elleric, and she couldn’t help it when her mind flashed back to the floor of the Elleric kirk, to the body of Andrew Stewart, whom she could not help. She shook her head. She’d be helpful here. She was meant to be a healer, not a lady, and she found herself standing taller as she opened the doors of the kirk.

  Inside, they had moved away any chairs and turned chapel into a hospital, with cots, and tables, and buckets. The place stank. Like in Elleric, they’d kept the doors and windows shut. Isla’s sense of smell had become more acute in her pregnancy and she wrapped her arasaid around her head and nose, to keep the worst of the smells at bay.

  “Excuse me,” she said, flagging down a monk who was moving between the aisles of patients, looking worried. “Brother, I heard there was a call for healers. I came to offer my services.”

  The monk stopped when she addressed him and he crossed himself, quickly. Isla cocked her head, and pulled down her araisaid. Perhaps he was nervous that he could not see her face.

  “I’ve come from Cawdor,” she said, naming the town where the Lord Campbell’s castle sat. “I can help for a few hours – I thought I might be needed.”

  The monk shook his head, straightening his spine. He was shorter than she, and kept his distance from her. “Thank you, but we don’t requir
e your help. Please leave.”

  “Nonsense,” said Isla, waving her bag at him. “I’m a practiced healer, and I can help these people. Move aside.” She strode forward, and the monk backed away from her quickly.

  “You…you… will not! Be…be gone!” He sounded terrified. Isla stared at him. What sort of idiocy was this? Was it because she was a woman and he was sworn to chastity. Isla rolled her eyes and blew past him towards to where a young man of about Hugh’s age was vomiting into a bucket.

  Isla took up a sheath of linen from a stack on a nearby table and dipped it in water. “There, there,” she said, to the boy, helping him sit back. “Here, hold this to your head.” She placed the cool cloth there and the boy subsided. His skin was bloodless and his lips were cracked. He needed something to drink. Isla looked around to see if she could find anyone to grab water but, to her surprise, there was no one to be seen. The three monks she had noticed when she first walked into the kirk were gone.

  Idiots she fumed. No wonder people here were dying. She got up and tried to find water herself.

  The sickness here was bad, but not as bad as the one in Elleric. Most of the people here were weak with fluid loss from purging and defecating. Their bodies were dry from fighting fevers, and so Isla did her best to dispense her yarrow, white willow, and black elder, to get them all clean water to drink, and mint to chew so they might keep their nausea at bay.

  She’d finished seeing to her fourth patient when the doors of the kirk were thrown open with so much force that they bounced against the stone walls with a mighty crash.

  The sound startled Isla who gasped and stumbled to her feet. There were three men accompanying the three monks. Isla’s first thought was: thank goodness! They went and got help. But then she realized that the men walking with the monks were some of the biggest she’d seen. That the largest rivaled Calum for height and was a good two-stone heavier.

  As the party approached, the monks raised their crosses, as if to ward off evil. To ward off her.

  “Are you the Witch of the Hills?” The largest man asked. He was older than the other two, with streaks of grey in his black hair and beard.

  “No,” said Isla, heart hammering. “No. I’m the Lady Campbell’s sister-in-law. I’ve come from Cawdor Castle…”

  “She’s lying, MacLeish. Remember, that woman warned that the witch would try and lie to us.”

  What woman? Who had said?

  “There must be a misunderstanding,” said Isla, striving for calm. “My husband is the Laird of Dundur.”

  “So, you are from the hills?” Said the man.

  “I’ve come here from Cawdor,” she said. “I came to help, and the lady Campbell will be expecting me back…” She took a placating step forward.

  “Come no closer!” barked the tall man.

  Fear, Isla saw. He was afraid too.

  “I mean no one any harm. I’m just… they’re ill. I can help. I’m a healer.”

  “You’ve been charged with witchcraft,” said the man. “And I am here to take you into custody until such time as you can be tried.”

  Isla’s heart leapt. “No!” she cried out before she could stop herself. The other two men were approaching now and Isla tried to back up, but there were patients in the floor, staring at her now with that same fear as the monks. “Who has charged me! I will face my accusers! I’m not a witch. I’m a guest of the lady Campbell!”

  The men were upon her now, grabbing her arms and forcing them behind her back. “No!” Isla screamed, struggled, and kicked.

  “Careful!” the man ordered. “She’s with child!”

  But they held her firmly all the same. One man’s arm came and banded about her chest, and it took two of them to drag her from the kirk.

  CHAPTER NINE

  T hey kept Isla in the town prison, not in the cell above ground, but in one of the cellar cells, where there was no light, and only a small bucket in which to see to her needs. The guard who hauled her in tried to ask her a series of ridiculous questions – about whether she personally knew the devil, and whether she performed acts of witchcraft on the holy days. Isla turned her back to him and stared at the wall, refusing to answer any more of his preposterous questions. She’d seen the way he turned her phrases on her in the kirk.

  The man gave up, finally, and told Isla that she’d not eat until she gave them answers. Isla didn’t care. She was sure that Maire would come for her, or that Hugh or Geordie would show up any minute. But the minutes dragged on, and then the hours, and then it grew dark. No one came for her.

  Alone, in the underground cellar, Isla’s told herself stories. They probably thought Isla would come back by nightfall, and they wouldn’t think to go looking for her yet. Or maybe they rode all the way to tell Calum, and he was on his way to retrieve her. Or maybe they had to go and get Lord Gordon…

  But Isla counted the minutes. And the guards came back again and again. And finally, two older gentlemen came in. One had a severe face and wore the black robes of a priest. The man besides him was even older, more well-dressed. It was the first time Isla had seen him but he walked into the prison halls as if he owned the place, and Isla was willing to bet that he was a local husbandman, for a town this size wouldn’t have a magistrate on hand, would it?

  “Hungry lass?” said the well-dressed man, folding his arms across his chest and staring at Isla as if she were a child who’d been naughty. He was medium height and stout in a way that suggested he had been a strong, good looking man when he was younger.

  Isla looked up at him and tried to look haughty, rather than frightened.

  “Are you ready to answer some questions?”

  To be fair, Isla was incredibly hungry, but she wasn’t sure answering questions was in her best interest.

  “Unlock the door,” said the priest. His voice was paper thin and raspy, his skin looked delicate, as did his constitution. Only his hair looked hearty. Thick and iron grey it stood out from his head in an unkempt mane, giving him the look of a barely contained madman. He gave Isla the shivers, and she tried not to look at him longer than she had to.

  The husbandman, or magistrate, or whatever he was took out a set of keys and unlocked the door.

  “Up you get, girl, and you’ll sit there.”

  Isla realized that the two men who’d dragged her through the kirk were standing in the back of the room, near a crude table. It was dark enough in the cellar that she hadn’t seen them, and she wondered how long they’d been standing there watching her. Not wanting to be manhandled again, Isla stood, swept past the men standing at the door of her cell, and took a seat at the table, putting her back to the two men who’d been sent to guard her. She stuck her chin in the air, waiting to hear what ludicrous questions about the devil and black magic they would ask her next.

  “Are you Isla Macleay of Elleric? Who was accused of witchcraft by the locals not six months ago?”

  Isla nearly gasped, but stopped herself. How had they… who had come here?

  She drew herself up. “I am the Lady of Dundur, wife of Calum the Black, Wolf of Dundur, sister in law to the Campbell of Cawdor, and niece to the Earl of Huntly. You’ve made a grave mistake imprisoning me and will let me out before my husband learns of this.”

  The well-dressed man glanced at the priest, who removed a small wooden case from beneath his robes and set it on the table. Isla stared, wondering what was in it.

  “We have it on good authority that you are Isla MacLeay of Elleric. A witch parading as a wise woman. We’ve been warned that you carry the devil’s own child and that it is in our best interest to put you both to death.”

  Isla felt the blood leave her face. She sat back in her chair, her body losing its control of her muscles. “You can’t.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  “Are you Isla MacLeay…”

  “Have you written my husband, my sister in law? Do they know I am here?”

  “Were you a wise woman in the town of Elleric?”

  �
�You need to write to them. You cannot hold me here without their knowledge…”

  The man stopped speaking and made a small gesture with his head. Before Isla could react, the two men standing behind her approached. One grabbed her shoulders and one of her arms, twisting it behind her back. The other grabbed the other arm, holding it flat on the table. Isla didn’t realize she was screaming, that she was writhing in their grips until she realized they were bruising her, that her struggle was hurting her more.

  But the priest had opened his wooden case, and had taken out a long, wicked looking needle.

  “The test is a simple, if inconclusive one,” he was explaining to the magistrate figure. “The usual ritual is to strip the witch to find her witches mark. But if the lady is who she says she is, that might not be our best course of action. Instead, we will do a simple pricking test.”

  “If she bleeds?”

  “We shall see.”

  Without much warning, the priest struck. Grabbing her forearm in a hot, dry grip and jerking the needle into her skin.

  Isla cried out at the force, at the depth to which the needle sunk and then was pulled out. Blood welled at the puncture wound and spilled down her arm.

  “She bleeds. Is she not a witch then?” asked the magistrate, frowning. Isla was panting, tears streaming down her face.

  “The test in inconclusive, as I said. Perhaps she is not a witch; perhaps she is a very good witch and was able to get her guard down in time…”

  “If it’s inconclusive you imbecile than why did you jab me!”

  “Quiet!” The priests’ hand came up and struck Isla across the cheek so sharply that her head jerked back. She felt her cheek start to swell immediately and knew it would be raised and bruised the next day.