Chapter 21
We were still in the cellar when we woke up that morning. Kaylinn was crying again, with Mal and David trying to comfort her while clearly in need of some comfort themselves. In order to avoid the slight atmosphere of accusation, I went to see George.
He was packing a small saddle bag when I interrupted him in his bedroom.
‘Oh, it’s my demon.’ He smiled his twinkly smile at me again. ‘Come to ensure I’m not sneaking off to fight?’
I had, of course, been doing just that, so I muttered something vague.
He was wearing a frilled shirt, very much like the one Lachlan had on, although George’s didn’t have the tops of The Proclaimers’ heads poking out.
Combined with a pair of breeches, boots and a short jacket, it made him look very dashing indeed.
‘Where are you going, then?’ I finally asked as he swept up a pile of papers and folded them into the bag.
George looked down at his packing. ‘Oh, I’m heading back to Isobel and my wee girls.
If, as you say, it all goes wrong at the coming battle, I fear James will flee back to France.
In which case I want to be seen to be far away and living a blameless life.
’ He sighed and sat down on the bed. ‘Aye. I should be fighting for my principles, demon, but you talk a good talk. I need to keep my lands for any future sons. You’ve given me hope that Isobel and I might plan for many more children to come. ’
‘And I’ve given you the key to family riches,’ I said pointedly and he looked slightly awkward.
‘Aye, there’s that too. I should not be so venal and yet…’ He sighed. ‘My principles, it seems, are not as firm as I hoped.’
‘Find yourself someone who can decipher my writing – I’ve put in what you need to do.
It’s actually quite straightforward so I was always surprised it took them as long to discover the process as it did.
’ That was true. I’d spent many a lesson trying to explain to my students that all the Bessemer process did was to use air to increase the heat to the molten iron ore and burn off the impurities that had made it brittle and inflexible.
With the resultant steel so many more things became possible.
‘But try to keep it secret while you rake in the money. It’s not officially invented for a century or so. ’
George put his finger to his lips. ‘I shall pass it only to my sons.’ Then he added almost reflexively, ‘If we are so blessed, of course.’ The grin was back, along with a suggestive twitch of the eyebrows.
‘You don’t have any brothers? Or nephews?’ I asked idly.
‘No.’ The twinkle in his eyes faded to a shadowed and haunted look.
‘I had two sisters and a wee brother. Anne died of the ague at fourteen years, Mary and her baby died in childbed and our wee Malcolm was a sickly babe. He never thrived and was taken before he was three.’ George furtively crossed himself.
I murmured vague sympathies while quietly horrified. The eighteenth century must mean living with a permanent sense of horror at your back.
‘Well, I have my own family now. My wee girls, and hopefully boys to come.’ George seemed to shake himself out of the sadness.
‘And I shall ensure that steps are taken to keep us all out of any future battles. You were right, demon. It is important that the McKells keep their name and lands. James has many others to fight for him, but my bairns have only me to ensure their future.’
He stood up again and poked a few more things into the bags.
‘I’ll leave the castle to Jamie for now.
He can send the men home before the snows come in.
They’ll be glad to get back; we mustered after the harvest but there will be work to do to prepare for winter.
I may be called to court, if King George needs to be assured of my loyalties. ’
‘But you definitely won’t fight.’ I kept my eyes on him, in case he was showing signs of wavering.
‘No, lass. I’ve learned the polite art of saying naught but thinking much.’ George gave a half-laugh. ‘And they cannae prosecute you for what’s in your head. I’ll stay the right side of the line, never you fear.’
‘Thank you.’ I looked around the room. Nope, I was still here. Still very firmly in the eighteenth century. I sighed. ‘Right. I’ll leave you to it.’
George looked into my face. ‘Thank you,’ he said softly.
‘I don’t know who you are or where you came from or even whether you are demon or angel, but I do know that you are acting in good faith.
I shall try to do only good with the secret you have given me and I hope you find your rightful future, lass. ’
‘So do I,’ I said fervently, and pushed my way back out under the tapestry.
Perhaps I couldn’t go back until I was on the ground floor?
I didn’t want to take any chances, and galloped down the stone spiral stairs, passing straight through two of the soldiers heading up without much more than an instinctive shiver.
The atmosphere in the cellar was thick with anticipation. When I rattled back down the wooden stairs, everyone leaped up.
‘Well?’ David asked.
‘Why are we still here?’ Kaylinn was tear-streaked but seemed to have stopped crying for now.
Lachlan didn’t say anything. He glanced once at my face, then back down at Cellar Dog with a small smile. The dog was whining softly.
‘He’s going to Edinburgh, to his wife and daughters,’ I said. ‘He’s leaving Jamie to pack up the castle. I don’t know why we’re still here. Sorry,’ I added, with a quick glance at the grimy basement.
‘I don’t suppose Jamie is going to undo all our good work by promptly forcing everyone to ride to Sheriffmuir, is he?’ Mal asked, picking at his nails in a carefully arch way. As though this was a thought that everybody had had and he was only sorry to be the one to raise it.
‘It wouldn’t matter if he did.’ Lachlan spoke now. ‘Jamie isn’t a McKell, he’s only a relation by marriage. He can’t lose the castle, because it’s not his to lose.’
‘Oh. Right.’ Mal looked a bit disappointed now.
‘So good old heart-throb George…’ Mal threw a glance at Kaylinn, whose ears went slightly pink ‘…rides off into the sunset and fathers a few boys to keep the family name going. He sorts the family fortunes, the McKells keep the castle, job done.’ He looked around now at the sooty walls.
The dog whined again. ‘And yet, we’re still here. ’
I could see the questions in all their faces, but I had no answers.
‘Look, let’s all go topside and keep an eye out.
’ Lachlan threw me a glance that carried a potential conversation.
‘At the very least we can wave George off. There can’t be many people who get to meet a relation from eight generations ago or thereabouts, so you might want to make the most of the chance, Pax. ’
It was feeble but, yet again, everyone seemed glad that someone was telling them what to do. It was as though the fact of still being here had removed any independent thought and anything that stopped us dwelling on the horror of non-return was welcome.
And I didn’t like to admit it to anyone, but a horrible thought was beginning to creep into my mind. No more than a suspicion, just a flash of intuition lying under the surface of consciousness, but enough to dry my mouth.
Outside in the stable yard, the frost had made the rutted ground hard and difficult to negotiate.
The small boy, whose name I realised I had never learned, was carrying bits of horse tack around in a self-important way, while Fergus readied the big dark grey.
As soon as we appeared, the horse started swinging around with much snorting and threatened half-kicks.
‘Ah, calm down, ye wee beastie,’ Fergus said, not unkindly, patting the horse’s neck, which did little to soothe its fear that four invisible people were creeping up on it.
To one side of us, the women were beginning the milking of the cows, carrying stools and buckets into their enclosure, where the goat stopped chewing for long enough to stare our way in its caprine inscrutability.
Two kilted men, their feet bare and breaking the crust of frost on the mud, leaned on the wall to critique the women’s technique, and I was pleased to hear Kenna scold them roundly in a stream of unintelligible Scots.
‘So far, so bucolic,’ Lachlan murmured to me.
‘What are you expecting? Herds of wildebeest?’
‘Och, it takes something to work a Fawlty Towers reference into a “three hundred years in the past” situation, but I see you managed it.’ Lachlan gave me a sideways grin. ‘Are we going for a Monty Python turn, because I can do the whole of the French Knight’s speech?’
‘You do surprise me,’ I said dryly. ‘But really, what do we think will happen now? Do we get whisked away back to our own time? Because last night would have been the ideal time for that to happen.’
Lachlan pulled lightly at my arm and we walked away from the women, who were chatting away as they milked, gossiping about the men, from what I could gather. ‘What’s your theory?’ he asked once we were out of earshot of everyone except the goat.
‘I didn’t know I was meant to have one,’ I replied.
‘You’re not meant to, but I think you do.’ He’d stopped looking at me now and was picking lichen off one of the stones in a wall. ‘You think about things way more than you let on, Pax.’ Now I got a proper grin. ‘It’s a very attractive trait.’
I preened silently for a moment. I’d never been told I had any attractive traits before, as my abilities rested strictly more on the ‘setting homework and organising trips’ end of the scale and, with the exception of booking holidays, this did not translate well into non-teacherly life.
But the feeling that had been building in the back of my mind needed to come out, and Lachlan was the only person I could confess it to.
‘I’m wondering if there’s something else,’ I said, the words coming out rather faster than I had meant. ‘If it’s not just stopping George fighting in the battle we’re meant to be here for.’