by Amanda Scott
The hairs on the back of Elspeth’s neck tingled, and she could not seem to move or speak. Where had the odd creatures come from? She shut her eyes tight, and then opened them again. Both creatures were still there.
The little woman’s eyes twinkled.
“Mercy,” Elspeth said, finding her voice at last, “who are you?”
“I be Maggie Malloch, nobbut that’ll mean much tae ye.”
“It does not. How did that dreadful cat get in here?”
“I brought it wi’ me, o’ course.”
“But how did you get in?”
“I just popped in, as ye saw. The cat willna harm ye, but we shouldna waste time talking about that, for it takes a deal o’ energy for me tae stay visible.”
“Visible!” The tingling sensation increased. Her fingers felt numb.
The little woman nodded. “If ye’ll be kind enough tae listen, I’ll tell ye why I’ve come, and then I’ll pop off again.”
“Do you mean to say you can disappear?”
“Aye, but now if ye dinna mind—”
“Will the wildcat disappear with you?”
“Aye, o’ course it will. Didna I just say it takes a deal o’ energy tae remain visible? D’ye think it takes less tae show ye the wee cat?”
“He does not seem so wee to me,” Elspeth said. “Moreover, if it takes such a deal of effort to make the cat visible, why do you bother?”
“Aye, well, at least ye understand. Most mortals dinna see that.”
“Mortals?” The tingling at the back of Elspeth’s neck turned icy. Her stomach clenched, and she wished Patrick would return.
“Aye, mortals.” Maggie Malloch grinned at her. “I let ye see the cat, because if I first appear wi’out him, folks tend tae fear me. Since they fear wildcats more, when they see me control it, they fear me less. Ye’re no scared o’ me, are ye, lass?”
“No,” Elspeth said, realizing that her fears had vanished. “Are you…? That is, I have heard of wee people, but I have never met one before, so…” She paused.
“Aye, well, now ye have,” Maggie said cheerfully.
“Elspeth! Elspeth, are you still in here?”
Startled and recognizing Drusilla’s voice, Elspeth turned warily toward the bedchamber door as it opened, then glanced back at the bed.
Maggie and the wildcat had vanished.
“Martha said you might still be in here, but I did not believe it,” Drusilla said in her customary shrill, accusing tone. “I should think you had had enough trouble for one day. Why is that wardrobe door standing open?”
“Because I have not shut it,” Elspeth said. “What do you want, Drusilla?”
“My mother and Martha want you in the solar. Mother has decided she needs two more of her bodices let out before we leave.”
“Very well, I’ll come straightaway,” Elspeth said with a sigh.
“Did ye see the lass, Mam?” Brown Claud asked when he found Maggie pacing angrily back and forth in their tiny parlor. “What did she say?”
“Aye, I saw her,” Maggie said, “but I dinna ken what be the right thing tae do. She has enemies, as we ken, but some be more powerful than others, mayhap more powerful than we be.”
“Nae one be more powerful than ye, Mam,” Claud said confidently.
“Lad, ye’d best ken the truth of it,” Maggie said grimly. “Nae matter how strong a body or spirit be, there be always another more powerful. Never forget that, lest ye rue the day or cause harm tae them ye’re meant tae protect.”
“But the most powerful in our world all serve the Circle,” Claud said. Then, remembering, he exclaimed, “That Jonah Bonewits! Be he the one, Mam?”
“Aye, he has great power,” Maggie said. “Jonah be a great shape-shifter, so he could be in this room wi’ us now, and we’d never feel his presence.”
“But ye can change shape, too, Mam. I ha’ seen ye do it.”
“Aye, I can,” she agreed, “but I’ve no had as much practice as Jonah. I’ve other powers greater than his, but his shape-shifting makes him a fierce adversary.”
“Then ye’d better practice more,” Claud declared.
“Aye, well, I mean tae find out what mischief he be planning, but for a time I’ll keep me eye on our lass,” Maggie said grimly. “As for ye, Claud, I want ye tae learn more about that lass ye met, the one that told ye where tae find her.”
Astonished and delighted, Claud said, “Aye, Mam, I’ll do that verra thing!”
Patrick was nearly ready to leave. He had hoped the lass would come to the mews to bid him farewell but was not surprised that she had not. Her duties were many and filled her time, and the screecher would doubtless be watching her.
He gazed around the shed, making sure he had forgotten nothing he would need. Sir Hector had given him sufficient funds and had written a letter that he was to give to his cousin, Oscar Farnsworth of St. Mary’s Wynd. Patrick would need the letter, because regardless of what his own plans required, he was committed now to delivering Zeus safely.
His gaze came to rest on the figure of Small Neddy slumped on a stool near the perches, and easily reading the lad’s emotions, he said, “Ye dinna want tae go wi’ me, do ye, lad?”
Neddy looked up. “I ha’ nae choice. The master said I were tae go.”
“Aye, but he’ll need someone here tae look after his other birds,” Patrick said. “Ye’ll do that better than anyone else, will ye no?”
“Aye, for ye showed me all I must do, but Sir Hector did say—”
“If I say ye’re tae stay, ye’ll stay,” Patrick said firmly.
Neddy straightened. “Aye,” he said. “Even Sir Hector wouldna think I could make ye take me. Nae one could make ye do summat ye didna want tae do.”
With a rueful chuckle, Patrick kept his thoughts about that to himself, saying only, “Come now, and help me finish lashing the pony’s pack.”
“Aye, I will, that!” The boy leaped up as if he had cast a heavy burden aside. In the yard, he yanked on the ropes that held the sumpter pony’s pack in place, checking each knot and pulling to be sure the load would not shift.
When the job was done to the boy’s satisfaction, Patrick clapped him fondly on the shoulder. “Perhaps someday ye’ll want tae see more o’ the world, lad.”
“Aye, but for now, I’m content.”
Patrick went in to fetch Zeus, checking to see that the hawk had not loosened his hood, a trick Zeus had deftly managed the day before. Outside again, with the hawk on his fist, he mounted and let Neddy hand him the pony’s lead rein.
“Go wi’ God, Patrick Falconer,” the lad said, waving as he rode away.
Ten minutes later, as he rode over the first hill with Zeus quiet on his fist and the pony clip-clopping behind, it struck him forcibly that he might never see the lass again. He had come to like her, even to depend on her help with Zeus, but he knew that was not the primary reason he would miss her. The deep sense of emptiness inside him had evolved from much more than that.
He felt as if he had known her for years instead of just a few days, and the realization struck him that the time he had spent in her company amounted to only a few hours. He could not count the nights she had walked with the bird, because he had slept while they walked.
It was his own fault, too, that he would not see her at Stirling. Not that he would have had much time for her there. His master awaited him. Indeed, both masters, because for the past eight months he had served two, with Sir Hector making a third if anyone were keeping an accurate count.
She probably blamed him—and rightly, too—for Sir Hector’s ordering her to stay at Farnsworth while the rest of the family enjoyed the delights of Jamie’s court. Patrick had not found the King’s court particularly delightful, but he knew that his opinion was tainted by the circumstances that had last taken him there.
Doubtless she was vexed, but at least she did not hate him. She had made it plain that she wanted to leave with him. Only her foolish loyalty had stopped her.
When Zeus cheeped, making a pathetic sound like a kitten’s mewing, Patrick shook himself from his reverie and began to talk to the hawk instead.
“Doubtless you think I’m a fool, but I feel as if I’ve known her forever.” Zeus made no comment, but his silence did not trouble Patrick.
“My sister Bab would think me a fool for letting my thoughts dwell at such length on a maidservant,” he went on, “but I’ve an odd, protective nature where lasses are concerned. That’s all this is, I’m sure. It is not as if there could be any grand future in the relationship. She is a maidservant, and I am a MacRae, sworn to serve the Mackenzies of Kintail. She owes her duty to Farnsworth and I owe mine to Kintail and my family, and I am expected to marry well. Moreover, I am dutybound to carry out this mission of mine before I give thought to aught else.”
Zeus mewed again, clearly agreeing with him.
Elspeth was counting the hours, certain that if the family did not leave soon, she would commit murder.
She was not certain which of them she would kill first, but the thought of her ladyship stretched lifeless on the solar floor was a vision that made her cross herself quickly. Surely, it was a sin even to think such a thing, but that made the thought no less delicious. Even more delicious was the thought of Drusilla disappearing into thin air just as Maggie Malloch had. Indeed, she would much rather it had been Drusilla who disappeared. She wanted to talk more with Maggie.
All her life she had heard tales of the wee folk. One could not attend a Truce Day, a wedding, a market day, or any other gathering without hearing stories about them. The fairies and the brownies who tended kitchens through the night and took offense if someone offered them clothing—such characters filled song and story throughout the Borders, but she had not known before now that they were real.
She would not offer Maggie anything, because she did not want the little woman to take offense. Maggie was the most interesting thing that had happened to her at Farnsworth Tower except, of course, for Patrick.
As she toiled through chores that seemed unending and ten times more onerous than usual, she thought often of him and wished she had had the courage to leave with him. Although she told herself that it had taken greater courage to stay, she had begun to think that loyalty and obedience were highly overrated qualities.
Indeed, she doubted that Patrick’s loyalty to her, if he felt any, would last beyond his arrival in the busy royal burgh of Stirling. That thought was depressing.
“Elspeth, pay attention to what you are doing,” Drusilla snapped.
Recalled to her senses, she realized that she had carried a pile of laundered and ironed shifts and petticoats up to the young ladies’ chamber without giving a thought to what she was doing or where she was going. Drusilla sat on the bench in the window embrasure, sorting threads on a white cloth in her lap, and Elspeth had plopped the pile of folded laundry down right beside her.
“I beg your pardon, Drusilla,” she said. “I was air-dreaming.”
Drusilla folded the cloth with the threads inside and stood, saying, “I have decided that you should address me as Mistress Drusilla.”
“Why? I have never done so before.”
“Because it is the proper way for a maidservant to address her betters, that’s why. We are Mistress Drusilla and Mistress Jelyan. See that you remember.”
“I have called you Drusilla since I first came here,” Elspeth said, her voice rising as some hitherto unknown demon took possession of her tongue. In a tone nearly as sharp as Drusilla’s she said, “I will call you Drusilla until you marry, because you are not my mistress. If you desire any greater degree of respect from me, you should treat me more courteously.”
Drusilla’s angry slap nearly knocked her off her feet.
Clapping a hand to her stinging cheek, she felt a strong temptation to strike back, but even as her free hand flew up, Lady Farnsworth said harshly from the doorway, “Do not dare to strike her, Elspeth! Whatever is the meaning of this?”
As she spun to face her ladyship, the enormity of what she had said and nearly done silenced her and sent a chill of fear through her body.
Chapter 10
Her ladyship said, “I have no time to punish you now, Elspeth, but I shall certainly speak of this incident to Sir Hector, and I promise you, he will not be as lenient as he was over the business with that dreadful falconer.”
“No, madam,” Elspeth said. “I… I am dreadfully sorry.”
“Indeed, and so you should be. I have told Cook you are to be at her beck and bay whilst we are gone, but see that you do not shirk your own duties. Since you will not have to wait on Drusilla or Jelyan, it will be a nice holiday for you. Now, go and see if Martha has any additional tasks for you to attend to.”
“Yes, madam,” Elspeth said, thankful to escape immediate punishment. Nevertheless, she scarcely had a moment to herself for the rest of the afternoon or evening. Martha Elliot had numerous tasks for her, and Drusilla and Jelyan changed their minds almost hourly, demanding that things already packed be unpacked and that things they had been certain only an hour before they would not take, they would take, until Elspeth could cheerfully have throttled them all.
In addition to these annoyances, she had to endure their discussions of the entertainments the ladies expected to enjoy during their sojourn at Stirling, for all three were excited about returning to the King’s court. They had visited the court each spring for several years and enjoyed themselves enormously. Elspeth had also enjoyed those trips, and she was disappointed that she would miss Stirling this year. She would miss Sir Hector, too, but she would not miss Drusilla or Jelyan.
“I warrant even the King himself will take note of your red court dress,” Jelyan said to her sister as Elspeth repacked their sumpter baskets for what seemed like the hundredth time.
“Aye, and mayhap we shall find knights of our own at the celebration ball,” Drusilla said, laughing. “It is high time for Father to choose husbands for us.”
“It is well past time,” Jelyan said sweetly. “You are nearly twenty, Drusilla. You should have married years ago.”
Drusilla shrugged. “You are but a year younger, Jelyan. Moreover, I have yet to meet any gentleman who interests me, and our father will not force me to wed just any man who asks for my hand. In truth, I am content here for the present.”
“Aye, because you know that no husband will be as kind as our father or as willing to let you do as you please,” Jelyan said shrewdly. “I do want to marry, however, and until now, the only such eligible men I have met are those we have met at Stirling, but Mother will not allow us to be alone with any of them.”
Elspeth knew that Jelyan had set her cap at more than one young man the previous year, but Lady Farnsworth had high notions of what her daughters required in the way of husbands, and her ideal suitor had not yet presented himself.
The rest of the day passed quickly despite the extra work, or perhaps because of it, and if she had little time to think, she spent nearly all of it thinking of Patrick and wondering where he was now and what he was doing. When at last she made her way to her bedchamber, she paused to look into his empty one. The hearth was cold, the straw pallet bare. Doubtless Cook or the kitchen maid had taken his blankets as extras for themselves.
With a sigh, she carried her taper into her room and shut the door.
“At last, lass, we can talk a bit!”
Although she had been hoping that Maggie Malloch would appear again, the voice startled her. Holding the candle high, she said, “Where are you?”
“Here,” Maggie said, and peering into the shadows, Elspeth saw her nestled in a fold of the quilt on her pallet. The little woman appear
ed to grow then, right before her eyes, until she was the same size she had been earlier. This time she held an odd implement in one plump hand. It looked like a tiny white bowl on the end of a slender, round, white stick. White smoke curled upward from the bowl.
“What is that thing?” Elspeth asked curiously.
“ ’Tis called a pipe, and it comes from a distant land, but one day they will be as common as dirt hereabouts, ’cause puffin’ on one gives a body pleasure.”
Eyeing the implement warily, Elspeth said, “You did not bring the wildcat.”
“Nay, I dinna need him now. Set your candle in the dish and sit ye down.” Maggie patted the quilt with her free hand. “Ye must be nigh asleep as ye stand.”
“Aye, I am.” Dripping wax into the dish, Elspeth stood the candle in it and held it until the wax set. Still wary, she moved to stand by the pallet, looking down at the little woman. “You won’t disappear if I sit by you?”
Maggie put the pipe into her mouth, drew on it, took it out, and blew a stream of smoke into the air. “Ye said ye ha’ nae fear o’ me, lass.”
Elspeth nodded. “I said that.”
“Then sit.” As she spoke, Maggie seemed to float to the head of the little bed, where she leaned comfortably against the wall, looking slightly smaller.
“How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
Wondering if her odd visitor would ever answer a simple question, she sat down on the pallet and leaned against the other wall, gazing at her in wonder.
“Are ye fond o’ the name Elspeth?”
Blinking, Elspeth said, “What an odd question.”
“Will ye answer it?”
“Elspeth is my name.”
“Be it the only name ye ken?”
“What other name should I know?” It occurred to her that Maggie might be trying to learn her surname, but in that same moment a memory stirred.
“Tell me,” Maggie said, as if she could see right into her mind.