The Seeds of Sorrow
From the moment they left Mugdock, it began to pour, and by the afternoon, the rutted roads had dissolved into a sea of mud.
The overloaded cart creaked and groaned, sinking deep into the mire and slowing their progress to a snail’s pace.
Huddled between Gellie and Tinker under an oilskin to ward off the rain, Sorcha had nothing to do but think.
Lainshaw. From what she’d learned of Lady Margaret’s secret, tumultuous times were ahead.
And Hugh, once he’d secured his sister's freedom from her Montgomery husband, what then? Would he take Gellie and Sorcha to some Cunningham stronghold, or leave them behind? Surely, even Lady Margaret wouldn’t abandon them with an angry Montgomery earl … would she?
They’d just skirted the shores of a small loch when there was a loud crack and the cart collapsed, jolting to a complete halt.
“Can it get any worse now?” Gellie moaned, peering out from under the oilskin.
Relieved to be free of her thoughts despite the misfortune, Sorcha sent her a commiserating smile. “Dinna tempt fate, aye?” She jumped down from the cart only to have cold mud seep into her shoes, and within three strides, she felt her skirt already weighted with the stuff.
One of the cart’s wheels had nigh shattered, and a quick inspection revealed the other already cracked.
“’Tis fit only for kindling,” Sorcha murmured, exchanging a worried glance with Gellie.
“Can ye … can ye push it, lassies?” the old tinker struggled to call from the front. The effort induced a fit of coughing, racking his frail shoulders.
“He needs shelter,” Gellie stated the obvious, her face flooded with concern. “Night is near.”
Sorcha nodded grimly.
The old man’s dry-hacking cough had deepened during the day, and in the past hour, his skin had taken on an unhealthy pallor.
“Mayhap one of us should ride the horse on to Kilpatrick? ‘Tis not far,” she suggested, wading through the mud to confer with the tinker. It was messy business, each squelching step threatening to suck the shoes right off her feet.
“Nay, not necessary. I’ve kin in these parts,” the old man disagreed, raising a trembling hand.
The movement launched another bout of coughing.
Catching his breath, he added, “My cousin’s a peatcutter over yon hillock.
Gellie, hie ye there and lead him back, aye?
” He coughed some more, then continued, “He can house the Lady’s bed ‘till the cart’s repaired. ”
Sorcha arched a skeptical brow at the shattered wheel.
Gellie laughed and shrugged. “Aye, ‘tis a sight better than returning to Mugdock on morrow and facing the wrath of Lady Margaret.”
“Ach, but what can she expect? Truly!” Sorcha burst indignantly. The woman had been mad to send them on such a journey to begin with.
The raven-haired lass laughed and the tinker coughed again, but this time in amusement.
“She’s not one to think of others overly much,” Gellie said, and then without further ado, gathered her wet plaid about her and ran down the road in the driving rain, seeking the home of the tinker’s kin.
The tinker coughed again.
“Here, let me cover ye,” Sorcha offered, climbing up beside him to adjust the oilskin over his aged shoulders. He looked deathly ill, his pale face beading sweat which announced a fever. She twisted her lips uneasily. “Ye need elder tea. Angelica, too.”
“Aye, lass, aye,” he muttered, but the effort proved costly, sending his lungs into spasms once again.
Sorcha drew her lips in a thin line and glanced around. A small burn ran through the heather alongside the road, twisting its way around a clump of trees a short distance ahead. It was the perfect place for angelica to flourish. “I’ll be back soon,” she promised, hopping out of the cart once again.
The old man’s lack of response was worrisome, but it only spurred her on, and as the rain worsened, she followed the burn, wading through the mud and underbrush in search of useful plants—but found nothing.
The sun had almost set when she heard the jingling of bits accompanied by the sounds of a horse blowing through its nose.
Abandoning her fruitless search, she ran back to find that the peatcutter had arrived with a cart of his own and three strapping lads to help.
The peatcutter was an old man himself, and not much different in age or looks than the tinker.
But he was spry and strong, and he and the lads made short work of transferring Lady Margaret’s soggy belongings.
And after seeing Tinker safely resettled, they trundled away, over the hillock, past a peat bog, and around a bend in the road to a small cottage nestled on the edge of a burn, tucked under a canopy of tall pines and dark red maples.
The peatcutter’s cottage was a sparsely furnished, humble affair, lit only by a meagre fire struggling on the hearth. A fluttering of wings and soft coos greeted them as they stepped inside, and Sorcha glanced up to see several hens roosting in the rafters.
As the peatcutter carried his cousin to the bed, Sorcha knelt on the hard-packed dirt floor and poked the fire to life.
“I’ve sent a lad for the leech,” the peatcutter said gruffly, joining her. “But ‘twill take time. The burn’s flooded near his croft.”
Sorcha frowned. Time wasn’t a luxury she thought the tinker had. His skin was hot and his face now flushed.
“A wee bit of sage tea would do him good,” Gellie suggested from the bed as she tucked a plaid under the old man’s chin.
“Nay, we should find elder and angelica,” Sorcha replied. Christine had often treated such illnesses with those herbs, but hardly one so severe. She frowned with worry. What she wouldn’t give for mugwort, malt, and the wise-woman’s herbed oil to rub on the old man’s chest.
“He needs a good bloodletting,” someone said.
Sorcha glanced over her shoulder as a man entered the cottage wrapped in a dark cloak, the hood half-covering his face. She turned away to hide her disgust at the comment. One look at the tinker’s face should tell anyone that it was too late for bloodletting.
“There’s sage and a bit of mint left, in the garden,” the peatcutter offered before nodding a greeting at the newcomer. “’Evening to ye, bailiff.”
As the two men began to speak, Sorcha slipped out the door and into the cold, moist night air with Gellie close behind.
“There ‘tis,” the raven-haired lass said, pointing to a scraggly patch of herbs.
“Ach, not enough here to be of much use.” Sorcha frowned at the withered sage and mint. “An elder tea with honey would do him better.” Turning her attention to a tangle of plants growing on the banks of the burn, she added, “I’ll have a wee look for something better.”
“Then I’ll start the water boiling,” Gellie offered, disappearing inside.
Sorcha headed for the rushing burn, stepping gingerly over the moss-covered stones to inspect the thick patch of leaves. This time, she found what she sought almost immediately. Yanking the angelica up by its roots, she returned to the cottage.
The peatcutter and the bailiff were still talking as she joined Gellie as she watched a small cauldron over the fire.
“This might help,” Sorcha said with a hopeful smile.
Gellie replied only with a worried frown and returned to the tinker’s side, leaving Sorcha to push her sleeves past her elbows and set about peeling the roots.
After a time, the heated pitch of the bailiff’s voice intruded upon her thoughts.
“I dinna care the reason for it being there, ye’ll move the cart off the road at once!” The man’s tone reeked of impatience. “I’ll have order kept in my shire. Order!”
“Canna we wait until dawn, Seton?” the peatcutter protested. “‘Tis dark—”
“And just who did ye say ye were now?” Seton interrupted.
It took Sorcha a moment to notice the sudden silence and another to discover that the bailiff was addressing her.
Quickly, she dipped her head and answered, “Sorcha. Sorcha Cunningham.”
The man cocked his head to one side, the hood of his cloak still covering his face. “Cunningham,” he repeated in a neutral tone. “And what have ye there?”
Sorcha held the angelica root up. “A remedy—” she began, when Christine’s warning whispered through her mind: Be wary of healing others on the road, some are calling it witchery.
She hesitated and cleared her throat. “I’ve heard it eases the cough.
” When Seton only stared at her, she added, “I thought ‘twould help until the leech comes.”
“Cunningham, eh?” he said, seeming more interested in her name than anything else.
“‘Tis best ye stay away from the inn in Kilpatrick. Montgomerys arrived this night, rowdy men, not ones I’d trust with a Cunningham lass. I’m the bailiff here, and Montgomery-Cunningham trouble is on the rise in these parts.
I’ll have none of it in my shire.” He nodded and drew his cloak back over one hip to loop his thumb through his belt. “The lot of ye’ll stay here for now.”
“Aye, thank ye,” Gellie murmured from her post by the tinker’s bed.
Sorcha eyed the bailiff, finding him strangely repugnant, although she couldn’t have said why. But she lost interest as another bout of coughing seized the tinker and refocused her efforts upon finishing her brew. Once it was ready, she knelt by the old man’s side.
“Can ye take a wee sip?” she asked, holding a wooden cup against his quivering lips.
He didn’t look well. Instinct told her that it was already too late, and the look in his eyes as he gazed at her only confirmed it.
“Ach, now, lass,” he whispered weakly, turning his head away.
“Just a mouthful,” she coaxed, even as her heart sank. “’Twill soothe ye now.”
He tried, but it wasn’t enough, not even after she stubbornly spooned tiny mouthfuls between his dry lips. He only coughed the more. Still, she stayed by his side, gnawing her nails with worry.
At some point, she noticed the bailiff had disappeared.
Time passed.
As the old man grew even more feverish, Sorcha redoubled her efforts, patiently dribbling as much of the brew into him as she could.
The sky slowly turned gray, and a cock in the rafters crowed. Morning would come soon.
Suddenly, the cottage door flew back to startle them all, and the bailiff reappeared, escorting a cloaked mountain of a man with a ruddy complexion and jowls that reminded her of a hound.
“The leech,” Seton announced, clapping the man on the back and half-shoving him forward. “We journeyed nigh a league out of the way. The Clyde’s overrun its banks, flooding the roads to the west.”
The leech approached the bed with an arrogant stride, dropping his rain-sodden cloak to the floor along the way. Taking one look at the tinker’s face, he shook his head, his jowls shaking. “He must be bled without delay,” he judged, tugging at a drenched satchel looped over his shoulder.
“He’s too weak for it!” Sorcha objected, the words leaving her lips before she could stop them.
The leech’s steely gaze fell on her with open disdain. Plucking the wooden cup from her hands, he sniffed the contents and rolled his eyes. “And what would ye know? Yer but a lass.” He shrugged and tossed the cup over his shoulder.
It landed with a thud, the contents spilling as it rolled away.
“Leave the man to his work, lass,” Seton ordered gruffly.
Sorcha took a deep breath, knowing in her heart that the bleeding would only weaken the tinker more. She wanted to fight, to defend him, as he lay there, helpless and gasping for breath.
But fate chose to intervene, wresting the decision from her hands as Tinker’s lips fell open and his breathing changed—wheezing in the unmistakable gurgling sound of the death rattle.
The leech went still.
The peatcutter gasped. “Nay, dinna leave me, cousin!” the old man croaked, tears glistening in his aged eyes.
Abruptly, the leech turned on Sorcha. “What did ye give him?” he asked, suspicion coloring his voice.
Sorcha blinked, taken aback.
“Let me see the cup,” Seton said from behind her.
“’Twas only angelica…” Sorcha began, watching in surprise as the man brushed her aside to scoop the wooden cup from the floor.
The sudden silence from the bed and the peatcutter’s weeping informed her the moment the tinker died, but it was the exact same moment that the bailiff faced her the very first time, his hood drawn back to fully reveal his face.
Sorcha took one look at the man and choked.
The bald man. The bailiff was the bald man from her dream, the man who’d accused Gellie of witchcraft, and the man with the angry scar running across his chin. Stunned, she watched as he approached, his hand shooting out to catch her chin in a vice-like grip.
“Ye’ve odd eyes, lass,” he said, his thick brows forming a line. “I dinna recall seeing their like afore.”
Sorcha licked her suddenly dry lips. They had to leave. She had to grab Gellie and run.
Seton’s fingers dug into her chin. Shaking her head, he barked, “Where do ye hail from? Do ye have a tongue? Speak!”
Gellie stood by the tinker’s bed, wiping the tears of mourning streaming down her apple cheeks. But her eyes met Sorcha’s, and their expression changed, adopting the shade of suspicion now flagrantly obvious in the manner of both the bailiff and the leech glaring down at her.
The leech grabbed the cup from Seton and took a deep whiff. “Ach, for sure, the vile stench of witchcraft!” he announced pompously.
Witchcraft. The word struck terror in Sorcha’s soul.
She stole a quick look at Gellie, standing stiff, her eyes wide with more than just alarm and a frown wrinkling her forehead. There was doubt there. Distrust. There would be no convincing Gellie to run. Not now. Not yet.
The demeanor of the men around her had changed. They stood tall, threatening.
There was only one course of action to take. She knew it in her bones.
Twisting free of Seton’s grip, she darted past him and, grabbing her satchel near the cauldron, she bolted, escaping the gauntlet of grasping fingers as she ran.
She would come back for Gellie.
But first, she had to find help.