The Red Plaid #2
The matron eyed her up and down and then snorted loudly. “To be sure ye are. Lady Margaret’s a jealous one, tucking any lass bonnier than herself out of sight, but then that’s most now, aye?”
Gellie giggled.
That only drew the matron’s ire. Thinning her lips at the lass, the woman turned back to Sorcha and held up a warning finger to poke her emphatically on the shoulder.
“Heed me well, Sorcha, dinna follow this wee fool’s path.
Keep yourself away from Hugh Cunningham,” she said, accompanying each word with a vicious jab.
“He’ll ruin ye. When ye see him, run the other way, aye?
He may be the laird someday, but he’s not fit to be trusted, no more than ye can trust any of his own—the vipers. ”
It was Gellie’s turn to splutter, but the matron rolled her eyes and sailed out of the chamber, leaving them alone.
“Ach, dinna heed the auld biddy,” the lass muttered, coiling her black braid around her head like a wreath before giving Sorcha her full attention.
“Hugh’s different from other lairds. He’s loyal to me.
” She pronounced his name with a little sigh before declaring, “He’ll nae so much as even look at another lass. ”
Instinct told Sorcha otherwise, but she kept her opinion to herself.
Deducing the cause of her silence, Gellie turned defensive all at once. “Ach, he’s misjudged! Ye’ll see. He’ll defend us in Lainshaw, from the Montgomerys and their ravishing ways. They’re the vipers, and a brutal, treacherous lot.”
That much Sorcha agreed with. Her mother hadn’t been shy in expressing her opinion of the Montgomerys, calling them everything from a thieving band of highwaymen to a clan of half-witted fools. Vipers, indeed. “Aye,” Sorcha acknowledged. “My mother had naught but ill to say of them.”
Gellie relaxed. “When I tire of Lady Margaret, I remind myself that she has reason to be cruel,” she said with a sympathetic smile. “Forced to wed a Montgomery—‘twould drive any woman mad, aye?”
“Aye,” Sorcha granted. She hadn’t considered it before, but such a thing was truly a bitter fate. Mayhap the woman should be pitied.
“Well then, ‘tis right glad I am to have ye here,” Gellie said, her lively green eyes sparkling as she came to Sorcha’s side and looped arms. “‘Tis simple work, but a muckle load of it. Just stay where Lady Margaret canna lay eyes on ye, aye?”
Avoiding Lady Margaret hardly seemed a hardship. “Aye,” Sorcha agreed with a firmer nod than she’d planned.
Gellie grinned. “Ye’ll do well.”
Sharing a friendly laugh, they headed to the kitchens, chattering an ever-quickening exchange of information along the way.
The castle kitchens bustled with activity, and the occupants were undeniably irritable, but Gellie didn’t care.
After securing trenchers of fish and boiled cabbage—and pulling the ear of a lad until he agreed he would bring them a tub and buckets of hot water—she led Sorcha to a small, quiet storeroom, away from the hustle.
There they ate, and soon after, the tub was ready, and Sorcha found herself soaking in the comfort of hot water for the first time in days.
She’d just stepped out of the tub and had slipped a linen shift over her head when Gellie returned with a soft blue gown and the distinctive Cunningham red wool plaid. “The Graham sent these for ye as a gift,” the apple-cheeked lass announced. “In remembrance of your father.”
The dress was finer than any Sorcha had ever worn before, with laced sleeves and a strip of velvet adorning the bodice, but the plaid …
the plaid was a peculiar thing. The moment she draped it over her shoulders, everything else faded into the background, and she saw only the red and black stripes, a symbol of kinship.
All at once, she felt as if she truly belonged, as if her father had reached out from the past to welcome her home.
With tears stinging her eyes, she twirled where she stood, watching the material fan out in a circle.
On the third rotation, Gellie’s laugh snagged her attention. “Come, ye silly goose, ye’ll make yourself fall.”
Sorcha laughed along, feeling strangely lighthearted and less caught in a dream.
‘’Tis time we slept.” The lass pointed to several straw-filled pallets stacked by the barrels along the wall.
“’Twill be an early day for us on the morrow.
We’ve the lady’s bed to pack. Ach, why canna she let it stay in Eglinton, aye?
It’ll only shorten the life of it to take it apart and move it about so.
She’s in love with the thing more than any person, I swear,” she groaned, pulling a pallet and tipping it flat on the floor.
“We’re to travel with Tinker. I doubt ye’ve met him yet.
Sweet auld man, but he’s nae help, truly.
We’ll be bone-weary afore we’re halfway to Lainshaw, I’ll warrant.
” With a yawn, she plopped down to stretch wide, heaving a prolonged yawn of contentment.
Stifling a yawn herself, Sorcha tugged her own pallet free, and retrieving her satchel from the corner, dropped down, grateful to be warm, clean, and to have found a place within her own clan—if Lady Margaret Montgomery could still be considered a worthy member of her own clan.
She gave herself a wry smile and then shrugged her shoulders.
It didn’t matter. When she reached Lainshaw, she’d find more Cunninghams and mayhap she’d discover the whereabouts of any close relations.
Silence fell.
This time, she yawned long and loud. The events of the past few days had left her feeling drained, and she was too exhausted to think of them anymore. Clearing her mind, she focused on nothing, save the mesmeric quality of Gellie’s deep, soft breathing, and gradually, her own eyelids grew heavy.
Sleep had nearly claimed her when a startling bright scene blazed across her mind:
“No!” Gellie screamed, tears pouring down her apple cheeks. “I’m nae witch! I swear it!”
A bald man with an angry red scar on his chin stood before her and laughed. “I’ll see ye burn, whore. I’ll see ye burn as the witch ye are.”
“Ye ken I’m nae witch!” Gellie choked.
“How can ye deny it?” the man retorted. “Ye, with your brews, and you’re always sneaking out at the dead of night.” Lifting his hand, he slapped Gellie across the face.
Sorcha sat up with a gasp.
At her side, Gellie grunted softly but didn’t wake.
“’Tis just a dream,” Sorcha choked gruffly, wiping her forehead with the back of her arm. “A dream,” she repeated as if merely saying it would make it true.
She felt the sweat bead on her brow as she crossed her legs, looking for a source of distraction.
Seeking comfort, she spied her satchel and reached out to smooth her hand over its soft, worn leather.
Could she prevent the dream from coming true this time?
How she wished she could ask Christine, if only to hear her reassuring voice once again.
Tears threatened. She couldn’t think about Christine. Not yet.
Something pricked her finger.
Jerking back, she spied the ancient kilt pin poking through the satchel’s leather flap. It took a bit of effort to work it free, but at last, she held the pin up into the shaft of light falling through the open storeroom door, subjecting it to a close inspection.
It was old, worn, but with a distinctive family crest depicting a woman holding an anchor in one hand and a man’s severed head in the other.
An ominous chill swept over her.
Clan Montgomery—the very clan she would soon meet in Lainshaw.
* * *
The tinker was a kind, portly, white-haired man wearing a dark plaid and a red-felt cap.
He welcomed Sorcha cheerfully, insisting she call him ‘Tinker’, and promptly took his place on a stool just inside the door and out of the reach of the fine whispering rain.
He was clearly too old to help, save the offering of friendly advice.
The actual packing of the linens, bed, and other household items fell to Gellie and Sorcha, and that included lugging it all down the steep, slippery steps and into the tinker’s rickety cart.
“I’ve told the lads to bring the oilskins and waxed wools to cover the lot,” Gellie said, catching her breath as she squinted at the threatening clouds above.
Walking to the back of the cart, she rattled off the list. “Curtains, counterpane, pillows, coverlet, rug. Aye, the chest with the tapestry, chair, the footstool, and of course, the bed.” Turning to Sorcha, she nodded with a weary smile. “That’s the last of it!”
Sorcha set Lady Margaret’s high-backed chair down and stretched her aching back.
The thing was heavy, and she’d bruised her shin more than once dragging it down the newel stair.
“Then we’re done,” she said, unable to stop a yawn.
Having failed to fall back asleep after her dream, she’d risen at dawn and had been moving ever since.