Chapter 1 #4
Aye, she lived with her cousin Archibald, but they were not close.
He would pay for her ransom, but more out of duty than fondness.
He’d allowed her to remain at Lochurkie when he assumed the earldom in November, and they sat next to each other at the high table for meals, but she could not have named his favorite food, nor he hers.
Strangely, though, Isabail had never thought her life lacking until this very moment.
She pushed to her feet again and held out her hand. “Come on, then. Another hundred paces for Fearghus.”
Muirne shook her head. “I’m too cold.”
“Is that how you intend to meet him in the afterlife? By telling him you could not return to him because you were too cold?” Isabail grabbed her maid’s hand and tugged hard.
“Actions speak louder than words, Muirne. If you truly love him, you will strive until the your last breath to be with him. To your feet now.”
The other woman rocked to her feet, her face a reflection of utter misery. “Every part of me is numb.”
Isabail was exhausted and cold as well, but she suspected her fur shoulder wrap offered protection the other woman’s woolen brat did not.
The fur was her just due as a noblewoman, but the stark hopelessness on Muirne’s face called for uncommon action.
A practical act, not one based on right.
All that mattered was encouraging Muirne to move again.
Isabail unpinned the beaver fur, wrapped it around her maid’s shoulders, and fastened it at her throat. “The bothy is just ahead,” she lied again. “You can make it.”
The other woman’s face eased noticeably as the heat from Isabail’s fur seeped through her clothes. “Another hundred paces.”
“Aye.”
They set off again, hobbling through the drifts.
The wind tore at Isabail’s cloak, sapping what little warmth she had left.
She supported Muirne’s weight, and they made slow and steady progress, right up to the moment they ran into a snow-plastered standing stone.
Wet snow had encased the stone’s gray facade completely, making it impossible to see against the background of white drifts.
Isabail’s heart thumped with excited fervor. They were indeed close to the bothy. A little to the left and through the trees and they would be there. Her legs strengthened. “I can see the door, Muirne. Don’t falter now.”
They pressed on.
It look longer than Isabail could’ve imagined to bridge the gap, but they eventually arrived at the door.
Isabail unlatched it, and they fell inside.
The bothy was a primitive one-room abode with a dirt floor and no bed, but Isabail viewed the open chamber with a huge grin. Against all the odds, they had made it.
But the struggle had sapped Muirne’s last reserves. She collapsed just inside the door, sinking to the floor without uttering another word.
Isabail shut the door against the blowing snow and checked to make sure Muirne still breathed. To her relief, the woman was alive, just bone weary. Brushing the snow from her clothes, she tried to make her maid as comfortable as possible. Then she took stock of their surroundings.
A table, two chairs, and a fieldstone hearth.
Some blankets and an iron kettle, but no food and no kindling.
When her brother had been earl, the bothy had been well provisioned because he had enjoyed the hunt and had spent every spare moment in the saddle.
Archibald took more interest in political affairs and spent much of his time in Edinburgh.
A fact Isabail regretted at that moment.
No fire, no food, no water. The sorry truth was, although they had succeeded in reaching their goal, they were as likely to die here as they were in the snow. Only more slowly.
Isabail gathered the blankets and a small pile of rabbit pelts.
She covered Muirne with most of them, but kept two for herself.
Unfortunately, the snow had left her clothing damp, and the chill in her flesh remained in spite of the extra layers.
In desperate hope that she would find some forgotten tidbit, Isabail searched every corner of the bothy, every box and every tin.
Nothing. Not even a crumb.
She sat on a chair and glared at the empty hearth. A cruel twist of fate to be so tantalizingly close to safety. A few logs and a piece of flint would have worked a miracle.
Muirne murmured something unintelligible, shifting beneath the blankets.
Some color had returned to the older woman’s cheeks, but the tip of her nose remained bone white.
Isabail was familiar with basic healing remedies, such as willow bark tea for pain and mint for nausea, but her skills did not extend to treating severe cold.
She had a sense she ought to do something more for her maid.
But what? A sense of helplessness tugged at her shoulders.
Not a common feeling for a woman who typically had three dozen gillies at her service.
She was chewing her bottom lip, contemplating her very limited options, when the door to the bothy burst open. A very large, snow-covered figure stepped across the threshold, nearly filling the room with his broad shoulders. He shoved back his hood and stared silently at Isabail.
She swallowed.
Dear God. It was MacCurran. And judging by the dark glitter in his eyes, cold and hunger were the least of her problems.