Chapter 4 #3
Morrigan gave herself over to Isabella’s ministrations.
Her head was moved from side to side. Her mouth was opened gingerly, her teeth checked.
The bruise on her forehead touched. Maisie placed a towel and bowl of water at her sister’s elbow.
The care continued. The cut on her lip was cleaned.
She had a scratch on the side of her face that she hadn’t even been aware of, and there were other cuts and bruises on her wrist and hand, all from trying to control the fall.
“You’re going to need to keep cold compresses on your face to reduce the swelling.”
Looking up into Isabella’s focused and caring expression, emotions rose and filled Morrigan’s chest. There was so much she wanted to talk about and confide in these two women.
But she couldn’t. Before they came into her life, she had only her father.
He was a busy man, a dedicated radical and an activist who fought for the rights of common folk who were suffering from economic hardship.
He pushed for reform and a voice for the people in government through assemblies, marches, and protests.
When it came to issues of their own lives, however, he didn’t want any discussions.
He wanted their problems buried, and Morrigan had followed his lead.
She’d kept her own counsel and refused to wallow in past things she couldn’t change.
But he was gone now, and she’d been left to deal with the squalid aspects of life.
It had never been easy. But it was worse now, especially today, seeing that foul man standing a dozen steps away.
Robert Sparrow. Knowing he still lived and breathed brought back the same anger and hurt she’d felt at Maggot Green.
“You are hurting. And I’m not only talking of your bruises. Why don’t you tell me what’s wrong?”
Isabella’s soft voice pierced Morrigan’s heart. She wanted desperately to talk about the past, but the tightness in her throat wouldn’t allow the words to form.
Maisie’s voice cut into the momentary silence. “Are these the reason you were chasing after someone today?”
The flyers she’d stuffed into her coat. Maisie was unfolding them. One trouble was replaced by another. Morrigan shook her head once at the younger woman, but it was too late. Isabella saw the pages.
Ever since the first of these showed up in Inverness, Searc had ordered her and Blair and the men not to mention them to anyone at Dalmigavie Castle.
Especially to Isabella. With Cinaed traveling right now, he didn’t want her to worry about this nonsense.
Morrigan had seen the wisdom in his direction. It was too late now, however.
Isabella glided across the room to her sister, and the two stared for a long time at each sheet of paper. Inwardly, Morrigan cringed, recalling the images. She thought how difficult it must be for Isabella to see these horrible depictions of the man she loved.
“Where were these posted?”
“By Maggot Green,” Morrigan replied. “Not far from Searc’s house.”
“Does he know?”
She nodded. “Searc saw them. He said he and Blair will find out who’s behind it all.”
Isabella handed the flyers to Maisie and came back to the fire. Morrigan noted the rigid set of her shoulders, the fisted hands.
“They’ll put an end to it. Trust them.”
Isabella wrung the cold water from the towel.
Her eyes were clear and her chin high when she went back to tending to the bruises.
“The three of us know who is behind this. Sir Rupert Burney and his vile cronies. But I’d like to believe the folk these were intended to influence have seen enough English oppression to know it too. ”
Morrigan shot a quick glance up at her. Isabella had always kept herself so focused on medicine and her patients.
She didn’t know how persuasive these satirical images could be.
When people all over Britain thought of Napoleon, they saw Fores’s little “Corsican monkey” in a uniform, or Gillray’s jester-like figure in an oversize military bicorne hat.
The public’s view was formed by these caricatures, and their opinion was shaped in the same way.
Even in the days before Morrigan, Isabella, and Maisie left Edinburgh, Whig printers were carrying on a campaign against Queen Caroline, depicting her as a voluptuous, painted harlot chasing wildly after Italian men.
Luckily, the king was being portrayed in “Queenist” caricatures as a haughty and lustful fop bursting out of waistcoats and breeches with his current mistress fawning at his feet.
These images had shifted the favor of the people in the past, and they could do it now. But this was no time to worry Isabella about such things.
“I saw no mobs marching in the streets, cursing the son of Scotland,” she said. “And yet, tens of thousands, in every city, are raising their fists against Crown rule.”
Isabella nodded in agreement and caressed Morrigan’s face. “I don’t want you ever to do anything as foolhardy as this again. No chasing down rogues and villains. We don’t need another martyr in this family. Do you hear me?”
Morrigan would gladly fight anyone who spoke against Cinaed and what he was trying to do for the Scottish people. Today wasn’t the day for that, however. Isabella and Maisie misunderstood what happened in Inverness, but she wasn’t about to enlighten them.
“I shan’t,” she replied. “Unless I have you two beside me to chase down the blackguards.”