Chapter 23
Kitty Muirhead
HOLY CHRIST, EVERYTHING HURTS. I open one eye and have a keek around. It smells different, it looks different . . . and why is the whole side of my body afire with pain? Am I dead? Seems not, but I wish I was rather than put up with this agony.
I groan loudly as the room swims into focus.
Wait . . . I ken this chamber. I’m in Dunrobin Castle. I’m waking up in one of the soft beds at Dunrobin. Despite the dreadful pain in my body, this is braw. I used to dream of this, of being a rich woman waking up in a comfortable bed in a castle.
What happened? I went to Culmaily again.
I was in the kirkyard. The sun was low and the wolves were howling.
The wolves. Oh my God, the wolves. My breath comes in fast, panicked gulps and I’m crying.
My cries turn to screams. Their claws, pinning me down; their teeth, tearing into my flesh.
And he’s there. Why was I ever foolish enough to believe he would help me?
He’s urging the beasts on, directing them.
The meat is torn from my bones by the beasts . . . I scream and scream.
The door to the chamber is flung open and a woman rushes in. She comes to the bed and puts a cool hand on my forehead. Slowly, my screams subside.
I ken this woman too. She was there when I spoke to the countess. When that bitch refused to help me. The countess looked at me like something she’d stepped in, but this woman smiled with kindness – patronising, useless kindness, but at least it wasn’t contempt.
I look into her blue-grey eyes and another memory comes to me. She was there – she was in the kirkyard after the wolves attacked me too. She held me like a mother; she helped me. My breathing begins to slow.
But then, behind her, comes the Countess of Sutherland, Lady Jean Gordon. The woman who turned me out, the source of my greatest humiliation. I begged her for help and she turned me away. With everything she has, she can’t spare a bannock for a poor woman like me.
‘Kitty,’ the first woman, the kind one, says. ‘Kitty, what is it?’
‘It hurts. Everything hurts.’
‘You’re injured, Kitty. I’m so sorry.’ She turns to the countess. ‘The blood’s stopped now. But she’s suffering terribly from the pain – do you have any willow, or poppy perhaps?’
Lady Jean nods. ‘I have willow – I’ll make some tea. But I fear she may need something stronger. Relief from this kind of pain will only come with sleep.’ And she walks out.
She’s going to knock me out. She’ll give me one of her concoctions and I’ll never wake up again. ‘Don’t let her kill me,’ I say weakly.
The woman at my bedside looks shocked. ‘Lady Jean won’t harm you, Kitty.’
Even through the pain, I scoff. ‘You don’t know her. I’ve never seen you here afore last week – what’s your name again?’
The woman looks at the floor then meets my gaze with her clear grey eyes. ‘My name is Lady Alvah Gordon. Lady Jean is my guardian.’
‘I’ve never heard of you. I worked here, you know. And my mother worked here for many years.’
Lady Alvah is uncomfortable. ‘Lady Jean has only recently taken me under her wing. She’s been very kind.’
It doesn’t matter who she is. She’s the only person around here who doesn’t treat me like a mangy dog with fleas.
‘Did the wolves kill the bairn? Have they at least solved that problem?’ That would be one good thing to come out of the bloodshed in the kirkyard.
‘No,’ Lady Alvah says gently. ‘No, you’re still with child.’
I want to cry again – couldn’t I at least have been granted that small mercy? ‘More’s the pity.’
‘Kitty,’ Lady Alvah says, shifting in her seat. ‘This man, Jamie Bogge, the father of your child. He’s the one plotting against the King? Carrying out these rituals, leaving elfshot and bones in the kirkyards? You said that you met him here at Dunrobin?’
Suddenly, I’m on alert. Why is she asking about him? Why does she want to know? This is information that might be worth something.
The door into the chamber opens again, and the Countess of Sutherland walks back into the room carrying a jug of something fragrant and steaming.
‘I won’t tell you who he is,’ I say. ‘Unless you help me get rid of this infernal bairn.’ I may be answering Lady Alvah’s question – but it’s Jean Gordon I look at as I speak.