Page 38 of Dorchad

“As you command, Seneschal,” Sheona said before she hurried out of his reach.

He waited until he could control his emotions before he made his way to his tower room. Once bolted inside he staggered over to crouch before the cold hearth. Sweat poured down his face in little streams, and he’d clenched his fists so tightly his knuckle bones appeared ready to pop through his skin. A small, orange and gold-striped furry creature leapt down from a shelf and rubbed against the side of his boot, mewling without a hint of fear.

“Fair evening, Piseag.” He stroked the cat a few times before forcing himself to start a fire.

So the laundry maid wished to make trouble for Rebecca, Dorchad, or perhaps both. She seemed a wretched, spiteful wench, perhaps envious of the wee healer. Females never made much sense to him, especially when they schemed against each other. Fortunately Lady Lucy had ever been as frank and honest as the laird, and Rebecca had demonstrated to him kindness and unexpected compassion.

Dorchad would be oblivious to all of this, of course. He never trifled with females, and while he’d seduced the healer, he only wished to use her for his own pleasure.

Sgathan got the fire stoked and stood to strip out of his damp garments. Running a dry cloth over his clammy flesh, he mopped up the sweat he could reach until the heat of the hearth dried away the rest. He sometimes imagined casting himself into the flames, allowing them to eat away at his cursed flesh until he collapsed in a pile of charred bone.

You cannae run from your burden, lad.

Long ago the flower-faced blond druid who had found him unconscious and grievously wounded in the forest had carried him over two leagues to his tribe’s settlement. There he had cared for him until the first fever ended and he came to his senses. He’d been horrified to find himself so far from the croft where he lived with his twin and the old couple that had found and taken them in. His injuries had also terrified him, especially when he saw how the druid had bound his torn muscles back to his bones.

“My name, ’tis Einar,” his savior said as he brought him some calming brew. “I’m the headman of our settlement. Dinnae try to speak or move, for you need more time to recover. You’re welcome to rest here until you heal and you’re able to travel.”

To Sgathan the young man looked hardly old enough to grow a beard, much less rule, but in time he’d learned not to judge the magic folk by their outward appearance. Einar was only the latest incarnation of the tribe’s most powerful auspex, a seer who received portents from birds. Hawks had led him to find Sgathan, who had been wounded so deep in the forest that otherwise he might have perished there.

“Why do you care for an outsider, Headman?” he finally asked him when he could speak again. “I’ve no kinship with your kind.”

“I should say no’.” Einar gave him an amused look. “You’re but half mortal, lad. Your dark blood didnae manifest until you came into your manhood, but now, ’twill shape your every moon.”

He had not been able to tell the druid what had happened to him, for his memories remained a black pit. He also noticed that the tribe didn’t have a great deal of food, and that Einar was probably feeding him his share of the scant rations. Dorchad had arrived five days later, finding him after searching through miles of forest. By then Sgathan had been able to walk again. His twin had offered the druids what coin he had carried, but Einar refused all payment.

“You must take care no’ to be away from your brother longer than a day,” he told him as he packed food and drink into a leather satchel for them to carry. “His presence, ’twill help you the next time you’re ill.” He hesitated before he touched Sgathan’s shoulder. “You cannae run from your burden, lad.”

Einar didn’t explain that or any of the other strange things that had happened to Sgathan, but he remained grateful to the druid and his tribe for caring for him. When he returned a month later with a cartload of food for the settlement, he found the entire tribe had vanished, taking everything but their homes with them.

“Likely they had to evade an enemy,” Dorchad had said as they walked through the empty encampment. “The Romans, they’re forever chasing the magic folk. Some say they’re gone to the islands now.”

Before leaving, Sgathan had entered Einar’s shelter, where he found on his table a tiny wooden bead carved in the shape of a dove. He never again saw the druid or his tribe, but he still carried the bead with him on a string around his neck.

Now he took out the dove, polished over the years by his stroking fingers. It reminded him of the kindness he had been shown, and what he promised himself he would do if he ever again awoke in the forest covered in blood.

He went to his trunk and pulled out a clean tunic and trews, and began to dress.

Lucy hadn’t spotted Rebecca since yesterday morning, so when the chambermaid came in she asked if she’d seen her.

“Aye, my lady. Earlier I spied the wee lass as she left Chieftain Dorchad’s stronghold chamber,” Garia said as she picked up the basket she used for carrying laundry downstairs. “She seemed happy. Seneschal left the chamber a few moments before her.”

“Seneschal was there, too?” Lucy stopped fussing with her hair and turned to stare at the maid. “Why would he be in his brother’s room?”

“I saw him fetch two buckets of hot water from the kitchens, likely as bathing water for the lady.” Garia wrinkled her nose. “’Tisnae like him to do such, but mayhap he bid the maids that bring wood and water in the morn to do other work.”

Suddenly Lucy grew suspicious. “How did you manage to see all this if you were doing your work?”

The maid hung her head. “Och, I dallied a wee bit there with Halley. He wished to greet me fair morning.” She glanced at her before she quickly added, “In the linen storage room with the gap in the door panels.”

“Make sure whatever he greeted you on gets laundered,” Lucy said as she finished weaving her hair into a long braid before securing the end with a bit of ribbon and tying it up to the top.

Once Garia left to clean up her mess in the linen room, Lucy headed downstairs to the kitchens, where Sgathan usually supervised the serving of the morning meal. She found the clan’s cook Ronan doing that, and trying to continue preparing food at the same time. Lucy stepped in to sort out the serving maids, food platters, trencher breads and brew pots.

“My thanks, my lady,” the cook said when everything was back under control, and covered the big kettle of pottage simmering over the hearth before telling the scullery, “Lad, fetch another sack of dried apples for our lady’s porridge.”

“Thanks.” Because sugar still hadn’t reached Scotland in the fourteenth century Lucy relied on fruit as a sweetener. “Where’s our seneschal this morning?”

“When last we spoke he said he’d depart the stronghold for a time.” Worry flickered across Ronan’s wrinkled features before he said, “Doubtless ’tis for some vital purpose.”