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Je
She stirred a finger through the bright clutter, then as though picking up my thought, looked up and smiled at me.
“I keep thinking I must sort all these things one day. But when I was small, my mother would let me rummage in her box sometimes, and it was like finding magic treasure – I never knew what I’d pick up next. I suppose I think if it were all orderly, the magic would go, somehow. Daft, no?”
“No,” I said, smiling back at her. “No, it isn’t.”
We rummaged slowly through the box, holding the cherished bits and pieces of four generations of women.
“That was my grandmother Fraser’s,” Je
“And this-” She pulled out a slender gold band, with a ruby surrounded by brilliants. “That’s my wedding ring. Ian spent half a year’s salary on it, though I told him he was foolish to do it.” The fond look on her face suggested that Ian had been anything but foolish. She polished the stone on the bosom of her dress and admired it once more before replacing it in the box.
“I’ll be happy once the babe is born,” she said, patting her bulge with a grimace. “My fingers are so swollen in the mornings I can scarcely do up my laces, let alone wear my rings.”
I caught a strange nonmetallic gleam in the depths of the box, and pointed. “What’s that?”
“Oh, those,” she said, dipping into the box again. “I’ve never worn them; they don’t suit me. But you could wear them – you’re tall and queenly, like my mother was. They were hers, ye ken.”
They were a pair of bracelets. Each made from the curving, almost-circular tusk of a wild boar, polished to a deep ivory glow, the ends capped with silver tappets, etched with flowered tracery.
“Lord, they’re gorgeous! I’ve never seen anything so… so wonderfully barbaric.”
Je
The ivory was cool and heavy on my arm. I couldn’t resist stroking the deep yellow surface, grained with age.
“Aye, they suit ye,” Je
Murtagh was seated at the kitchen table, industriously eating ham off the end of his dirk. Passing behind him with a platter, Mrs. Crook dexterously bent and slid three fresh hot ba
Je
“Don’t stint yourself, man,” she remarked. “There’s another hog in the pen, after all.”
“Begrudge a kinsman a bite, do ye?” he asked, not interrupting his chewing.
“Me?” Je
When Murtagh saw me standing in the doorway, he promptly choked on a bite of ham.
“Mmmphm,” he said, by way of greeting, after Je
“Nice to see you too,” I replied, sitting down opposite him. “Thank you, by the way.”
“Mmphm?” The question was muffled by half a ba
“For fetching my things from the Castle.”
“Mmp.” He dismissed any notion of thanks with a wave that ended in a reach for the butter dish.
“I brought your wee bits of plant and such as well,” he said, with a jerk of the head at the window. “Out in the yard, in my saddlebags.”
“You’ve brought my medicine box? That’s wonderful!” I was delighted. Some of the medicinal plants were rare, and had taken no little trouble to find and prepare properly.
“But how did you manage?” I asked. Once I had recovered from the horror of the witchcraft trial, I often wondered how the occupants of the Castle had taken my sudden arrest and escape. “I hope you didn’t have any difficulty.”
“Och, no.” He took another healthy bite, but waited until it had made its leisurely way down his throat before replying further.
“Mrs. Fitz had them put away, like, packed up in a box already. I went to her at the first, ye ken, for I wasna sure what reception I’d get.”
“Very sensible. I don’t imagine Mrs. Fitz would scream at sight of you,” I agreed. The ba
“Aren’t they lovely?” I said. “Je
Murtagh’s eyes dropped to the bowl of parritch that Mrs. Crook had thrust unceremoniously under his nose.
“They suit ye,” he mumbled. Then, returning suddenly to the earlier subject, he said, “No, she wouldna summon help against me. I was well acquent’ wi’ Gle
“Oh, a long-lost love of yours, was she?” I teased, enjoying the incongruous thought of him entwined in amorous embrace with the ample Mrs. Fitz.
Murtagh glanced up coldly from his parritch.
“That she wasna, and I’ll thank ye to keep a civil tongue when ye speak of the lady. Her husband was my mother’s brother. And she was sore grieved for ye, I’ll ha’ ye to know.”
I lowered my eyes, abashed, and reached for the honey to cover my embarrassment. The stone jar had been set in a pot of boiling water to liquefy the contents, and it was comfortingly warm to the touch.
“I’m sorry,” I said, drizzling the sweet golden fluid over the ba
“They didna realize at the first ye were gone,” the little man said matter-of-factly, ignoring my apology. “When ye didna come in to di
I nodded thoughtfully. No one would have missed me, save those seeking medical treatment; I had spent most of my time in Colum’s library while Jamie was away.
“What about Colum?” I asked. I was more than idly curious; had he really pla
Murtagh shrugged. He sca
“When he had the news from the village, he had the gates closed at once, and forbade anyone from the Castle to go down, for fear of being caught up in the moil.” He leaned further back, eyeing me speculatively.
“Mrs. Fitz thought to find ye, the second day. She said that she asked all the maids if they’d laid eyes on ye. No one had, but one of the girls said she thought perhaps ye’d gone to the village – maybe you’d taken shelter in a house there.” One of the girls, I thought cynically. The one that knew bloody well where I was.