1. To Market
To Market
Twelve Years Later…
John grunted aloud, heaving himself into the cart seat and taking up the reins. Catriona pursed her lips.
“Da, you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep jumping up and down like that. Think of your poor joints,” she objected.
He chuckled, reaching out to pat her hand. “Don’t you worry about me, lass. I’ll need your help when we get to market sure enough, but I can still scramble up into a cart for now.”
Catriona forced a smile, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Her parents seemed to get more frail with each passing year. She twisted around, peering back at where Marion stood in the doorway of their little croft.
Marion had gotten noticeably thinner over the past year. The crops were poor again this year, and the price of everything was going up and up. The year before last, the yield had been poor too. This year would be leaner still.
Catriona wasn’t a fool. She’d seen her mother surreptitiously putting more food on the plates of her daughter and husband, insisting that she was not hungry herself.
As she watched, another fit of coughing racked Marion’s thin frame. She pressed a handkerchief to her mouth, turning away. Catriona pressed her lips together.
So far, there was no bloody spittle in Marion’s coughs, and John’s stiffness generally loosened up after a while, but things could get worse very quickly. Too quickly.
Removing the handkerchief from her mouth, Marion gave a quick, encouraging smile. There was no time for anything more, as John flicked the reins and the cart lurched forward, the goods clanking and rattling together in the back of the cart.
Catriona sat back in the seat, staring ahead of her. The familiar road unspooled before them, rutted and pitted as usual. No, not the same as usual. Worse, certainly. With every year that went by, the road grew worse and worse, out of repair, treacherous and almost useless.
In rainy weather, it was impassable. When the snows came, they were all stuck inside for weeks on end.
The sun came rarely, but occasionally there’d be powerful droughts and aggressive heat, withering crops and cracking the ground.
And then, when the rain inevitably came after, there’d be floods once more.
It was always the same, over and over again. And every year her parents grew poorer and more frail, and every year Catriona tried and failed to make things better.
Why keep trying? I can’t save them. I can’t make our crops grow better. I can’t seem to earn coin any other way.
“Cat, lassie? Ye seem downcast today.”
She cleared her throat, forcing a smile.
“Oh, I’m just tired, Da. And market day is always so busy.”
He clicked his tongue. “Ye work too hard, lassie. It pains me to see ye struggle. Ye are a young lass, ye should be off dancing and singing and attending festivals with lively young men. Ye should not be toiling with me and yer Ma.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Ye should mind. I tell ye what. Today, Fred’s going to come and help me with the stall, so there’s no need for ye to stick by my side for too long.
Take a little while to wander around the market place, and speak with some of yer friends.
Today, I’m certain that we’ll earn good coin, and ye can buy yerself something nice for once, eh? ”
He smiled encouragingly at her. Catriona smiled back, but they both knew it was an empty promise. They wouldn’t make more coin today, they never did. They’d make just enough if they were lucky. No coin to spare on nonsensical extras.
Not that Catriona needed extras, of course. If only Ma and Pa were healthy and strong, that would satisfy her. They were, after all, the only parents she had left.
That’s not true, though.
The little voice at the back of her head piped up, as always, and she firmly put it aside. There was no time for that now.
They reached the marketplace just as the sun reached its summit.
MacLeod market was not the thriving enterprise it had once been and now only reached full swing about midday.
Still, most of the stalls were up now. She nodded and smiled to a few neighbors and friends and leaped nimbly down from the cart.
The hem of her skirt caught on a splinter and tore. Cursing, Catriona snatched it free. Her gown was an old one, much patched and much darned. It was deep green, the color of the forest after rain. Marion loved to see Catriona in green, telling her that it matched her eyes.
Catriona didn’t much mind what color she wore, so long as it helped her blend in. Standing out never did anyone any good.
If I’d stood out that long night outside of Keep MacAlpin, with enemy soldiers trudging around, who only knew what might have happened?
Another worrisome thought she decided to put away.
“Leave me to unload this,” John insisted, lowering himself down stiffly. “I mean it. This isn’t exactly a holiday for you, but I’d like to see you have a little fun. Go and talk to some of your friends.”
Catriona wondered if she ought to tell him that she had no real friends, beyond some acquaintances she might chat to in line at the butcher’s.
No, that wouldn’t do any good. John’s face would fall if she said that, and he and Marion had tried so hard to make sure she had a good life.
It wasn’t their fault they led such isolated lives.
“Well, if you’re sure, Da,” she said at last, standing up on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.
Both John and Marion were tall, both of them nearly six feet tall, whereas poor Catriona was barely five feet two inches. It occasionally made her feel more like a child than ever.
I’m nineteen, she reminded herself furiously. I’ll be twenty at the end of the year. Twelve years I’ve been here now, and I am an adult.
Some adult. She couldn’t even earn any coin to help John and Marion live a little more comfortably.
Da and Ma, she corrected herself in her own mind. They’re Da and Ma, remember?
Gritting her teeth, she plowed through the growing crowds, barely sparing a glance for the stalls. She knew exactly who manned each stall and what they sold.
There was Jim and his sons Sammy and David, bloody-knuckled behind their butcher’s stall.
Maggie and her three sisters—Marie, Margaret, Mary, and Marigold—ran several fabric stalls, all connected, and offered mending into the bargain.
Finn Fletcher sold books, paper, and ink.
The blacksmith, Tam, was here with his wife, both grimy from the forge.
Rudolph the fishmonger and his ever-growing family occupied two stinking stalls, piled high with fish and seafood of all kinds.
At the very end of the stalls, there was always an old woman whose name Catriona had never quite caught, selling jewelry. Hagstones, mostly, as if anybody liked to wear those chunky, ugly things.
As if reading her mind, the old woman stood up, hooking a gnarled finger in Catriona’s direction.
“Nice bit of jewelry for you there, my dear?” she rasped, holding up a blocky, sand-colored hagstone suspended from a bit of braided twine.
“Nay, thank ye, lady,” Catriona responded politely.
“Not this one. This one?” the woman queried, gesturing to a leaf-colored stone. “It’ll match yer eyes, that one.”
Catriona pursed her lips. “Sometimes I feel as though I’m drowning in green.”
Peering down at the woman’s stall, she found herself reflected imperfectly in the still, polished surface of a round copper mirror. It struck her as a strange thing to have at a market stall. Did people really want to stop and admire themselves after donning a hagstone necklace?
A harried, tired girl stared back at her, long-nosed, not exactly pretty but certainly not plain, her sharp green eyes muted in the rippling copper. Biting her lip, she glanced away.
“I’d best get going,” she said carefully, not meeting the woman’s eye.
“Aye, if ye like, lassie,” the woman responded pleasantly. “But there’s gossip to be had in the market today.”
Catriona glanced back at her, curious despite herself. “Oh?”
“Oh, indeed. The Daughters of the Glen have returned at all. The MacAlpin lassies, that is. Ye know the prophecy, don’t ye? How when all four have returned, the Highlands will be righted again?”
Catriona swallowed. “I’ve not heard that, no.”
The woman sniffed. “Well, perhaps that’s why the other lairds are so keen to keep the girls locked up and away from home. They say it’s for politics, to keep Laird MacAlpin in his place, but I don’t buy that. Lairds are superstitious, and for good reason.”
“I suppose so.”
“I’m sure ye heard the story, how three of those poor lassies were stolen from their Keep on that fateful night.
The eldest daughter married the Cunningham heir, and now the second is found and returned.
The next one’s story was a wee bit vague, but it’s considered certain that she is alive and well, at the very least. A story out of legend, eh? ”
A lump lodged itself in Catriona’s throat, threatening to choke her. She swallowed, glancing back at the woman.
“Ye sure?”
“Aye,” the woman continued blithely. “They are all together again.”
“Not all of them,” Catriona snapped, with more venom than she’d intended.
The woman only smiled at her, tilting her head just a little. “Nay, not all,” she responded quietly. “Not yet.”
Catriona gave a tight smile and turned away abruptly. She had to get away, had to put distance between herself and the old woman with her knowing expression.
She didn’t know, of course.
Nobody did.
In the village, everybody knew that Catriona was the adopted daughter of John and Marion, and that was all anybody needed to know. Lots of people took abandoned children in, after all. Why investigate further? Why bother?
The truth didn’t matter when a person got down to it. No, it didn’t matter at all.
Tightening her jaw, Catriona put her head down and walked fast, desperate to move, to get away. If she could get out of the crowds, she could clear her head, she could think, she could…
Thump.
She walked into a wall. No, not a wall, too warm and with a little give in it. Walls didn’t say ouch, either.