Finding Mrs. FitzGibbons up to her dimpled elbows in floured dough, I announced that I wanted to find Jamie, in order to remove his bandages and inspect the healing of the gunshot wound. She summoned one of her tiny minions with the wave of a massive white-smeared hand.
“Young Alec, do ye run and find Jamie, the new horse-breaker. Tell ’im to come back wi’ ye to ha’ his shoulder seen to. We shall, be in the herb garden.” A sharp fingersnap sent the lad scampering out to locate my patient.
Turning the kneading over to a maid, Mrs. Fitz rinsed her hands and turned to me.
“It will take a while yet before they’re back. Would ye care for a look at the herb gardens? It would seem ye’ve some knowledge of plants, and if you’ve a mind to, ye might lend a hand there in your spare moments.”
The herb garden, valuable repository of healing and flavors that it was, was cradled in an inner courtyard, large enough to allow for sun, but sheltered from spring winds, with its own wellhead. Rosemary bushes bordered the garden to the west, chamomile to the south, and a row of amaranth marked the north border, with the castle wall itself forming the eastern edge, an additional shelter from the prevailing winds. I correctly identified the green spikes of late crocus and soft-leaved French sorrel springing out of the rich dark earth. Mrs. Fitz pointed out foxglove, purslane, and betony, along with a few I did not recognize.
Late spring was planting time. The basket on Mrs. Fitz’s arm carried a profusion of garlic cloves, the source of the summer’s crop. The plump dame handed me the basket, along with a digging stick for planting. Apparently I had lazed about the castle long enough; until Colum found some use for me, Mrs. Fitz could always find work for an idle hand.
“Here, m’dear. Do ye set ’em here along the south side, between the thyme and foxglove.” She showed me how to divide the heads into individual buds without disturbing the tough casing, then how to plant them. It was simple enough, just poke each clove into the ground, blunt end down, buried about an inch and a half below the surface. She got up, dusting her voluminous skirts.
“Keep back a few heads,” she advised me. “Divide ’em and plant the buds single, one here and one there, all round the garden. Garlic keeps the wee bugs awa’ from the other plants. Onions and yarrow will do the same. And pinch the dead marigold heads, but keep them, they’re useful.”
Numerous marigolds were scattered throughout the garden, bursting into golden flower. Just then the small lad she had sent in search of Jamie came up, out of breath from the run. He reported that the patient refused to leave his work.
“He says,” panted the boy, “as ’e doesna hurt bad enough to need doctorin’, but thank ye for yer consairn.” Mrs. Fitz shrugged at this not altogether reassuring message.
“Weel, if he won’t come, he won’t. Ye might go out to the paddock near noontide, though, lass, if ye’ve a mind to. He may not stop to be doctored, but he’ll stop for food, if I ken young men. Young Alec here will come back for ye at noontide and guide ye to the paddock.” Leaving me to plant the rest of the garlic, Mrs. Fitz sailed away like a galleon, young Alec bobbing in her wake.
I worked contentedly through the morning, planting garlic, pinching back dead flower heads, digging out weeds and carrying on the gardener’s never-ending battle against snails, slugs, and similar pests. Here, though, the battle was waged bare-handed, with no assistance from chemical antipest compounds. I was so absorbed in my work that I didn’t notice the reappearance of young Alec until he coughed politely to attract my attention. Not one to waste words, he waited barely long enough for me to rise and dust my skirt before vanishing through the courtyard gate.
The paddock to which he led me was some way from the stables, in a grassy meadow. Three young horses frolicked gaily in the meadow nearby. Another, a clean-looking young bay mare, was tethered to the paddock fence, with a light blanket thrown across her back.
Jamie was sidling cautiously up along one side of the mare, who was watching his approach with considerable suspicion. He placed his one free arm lightly on her back, talking softly, ready to pull back if the mare objected. She rolled her eyes and snorted, but didn’t move. Moving slowly, he leaned across the blanket, still muttering to the mare, and very gradually rested his weight on her back. She reared slightly and shuffled, but he persisted, raising his voice just a trifle.
Just then the mare turned her head and saw me and the boy approaching. Scenting some threat, she reared, whinnying, and swung to face us, crushing Jamie against the paddock fence. Snorting and bucking, she leapt and kicked against the restraining tether. Jamie rolled under the fence, out of the way of the flailing hooves. He rose painfully to his feet, swearing in Gaelic, and turned to see what had caused this setback to his work.
When he saw who it was, his thunderous expression changed at once to one of courteous welcome, though I gathered our appearance was still not as opportune as might have been wished. The basket of lunch, thoughtfully provided by Mrs. Fitz, who did in fact know young men, did a good deal to restore his temper.
“Ahh, settle then, ye blasted beastie,” he remarked to the mare, still snorting and dancing on her tether. Dismissing young Alec with a friendly cuff, he retrieved the mare’s fallen blanket, and shaking off the dust of the paddock, he gallantly spread it for me to sit on.
I tactfully avoided any reference to the recent contretemps with the mare, instead pouring ale and offering chunks of bread and cheese.
He ate with a single-minded concentration that reminded me of his absence from the dining hall the two nights before.
“Slept through it,” he said, when I asked him where he had been. “I went to sleep directly I left ye at the castle, and didna wake ’til dawn yesterday. I worked a bit yesterday after Hall, then sat down on a bale of hay to rest a bit before dinner.” He laughed. “Woke up this morning still sitting there, wi’ a horse nibbling at my ear.”
I thought the rest had done him good; the bruises from yesterday’s beating were dark, but the skin around them had a good healthy color, and certainly he had a good appetite.
I watched him polish off the last of the meal, tidily dabbing stray crumbs from his shirt with a moistened fingertip and popping them into his mouth.
“You’ve a healthy appetite,” I said, laughing. “I think you’d eat grass if there was nothing else.”
“I have,” he said in all seriousness. “It doesna taste bad, but it’s no verra filling.”
I was startled, then thought he must be teasing me. “When?” I asked.
“Winter, year before last. I was livin’ rough—ye know, in the woods—with the…with a group of lads, raidin’ over the Border. We’d had poor luck for a week and more, and no food amongst us left to speak of. We’d get a bit of parritch now and then from a crofter’s cottage, but those folk are so poor themselves there’s seldom anything to spare. They’ll always find something to give a stranger, mind, but twenty strangers is a bit much, even for a Highlander’s hospitality.”
He grinned suddenly. “Have ye heard—well, no, ye wouldna. I was goin’ to say had ye heard the grace they say in the crofts.”
“No. How does it go?”
He shook his hair out of his eyes and recited,
“Hurley, hurley, round the table,
Eat as muckle as ye’re able.
Eat muckle, pooch nane,
Hurley, hurley, Amen.”
“Pooch nane?” I said, diverted. He patted the sporran on his belt.
“Put it in your belly, not your bag,” he explained.
He reached out for one of the long-bladed grasses and pulled it smoothly from its sheath. He rolled it slowly between his palms, making the floppy grainheads fly out from the stem.
“It was a late winter then, and mild, which was lucky, or we’d not have lasted. We could usually snare a few rabbits—ate them raw, sometimes, if we couldna risk a fire—and once in a while some venison, but there’d been no game for days, this time I’m talkin’ of.”
Square white teeth crunched down on the grass stem. I plucked a stem myself and nibbled the end. It was sweet and faintly acid, but there was only an inch or so of stem tender enough to eat; hardly much nourishment there.
Tossing the half-eaten stalk away, Jamie plucked another, and went on with his story.
“There was a light snow a few days before; just a crust under the trees, and mud everywhere else. I was looking for fungas, ye know, the big orange things that grow on the trees low down, sometimes—and put my foot through a rind of snow into a patch of grass, growing in an open spot between the trees; reckon a little sun got in there sometimes. Usually the deer find those patches. They paw away the snow and eat the grass down to the roots. They hadn’t found this one yet, and I thought if they managed the winter that way, why not me? I was hungry enough I’d ha’ boiled my boots and eaten them, did I not need them to walk in, so I ate the grass, down to the roots, like the deer do.”
“How long had you been without food?” I asked, fascinated and appalled.
“Three days wi’ nothing; a week with naught more than drammach—a handful of oats and a little milk. Aye,” he said, reminiscently viewing the grass stalk in his hand, “winter grass is tough, and it’s sour—not like this—but I didna pay it much mind.” He grinned at me suddenly.
“I didna pay much mind to the thought that a deer’s got four stomachs, either, while I had but one. Gave me terrible cramps, and I had wind for days. One of the older men told me later that if you’re going to eat grass, ye boil it first, but I didna know that at the time. Wouldn’t ha’ mattered; I was too hungry to wait.” He scrambled to his feet, leaning down to give me a hand up.
“Best get back to work. Thank ye for the food, lass.” He handed me the basket, and headed for the horse-sheds, sun glinting on his hair as though on a trove of gold and copper coins.
I made my way slowly back to the castle, thinking about men who lived in cold mud and ate grass. It didn’t occur to me until I had reached the courtyard that I had forgotten all about his shoulder.
7
DAVIE BEATON’S CLOSET
To my surprise, one of Colum’s kilted men-at-arms was waiting for me near the gate when I returned to the castle. Himself would be obliged, I was told, if I would wait upon him in his chambers.
The long casements were open in the laird’s private sanctum, and the wind swept through the branches of the captive trees with a rush and a murmur that gave the illusion of being outdoors.
The laird himself was writing at his desk when I entered, but stopped at once and rose to greet me. After a few words of inquiry as to my health and well-being, he led me over to the cages against the wall, where we admired the tiny inhabitants as they chirped and hopped through the foliage, excited by the wind.
“Dougal and Mrs. Fitz both say as you’ve quite some skill as a healer,” Colum remarked conversationally, extending a finger through the mesh of the cage. Well accustomed to this, apparently, a small grey bunting swooped down and made a neat landing, tiny claws gripping the finger and wings slightly spread to keep its balance. He stroked its head gently with the callused forefinger of the other hand. I saw the thickened skin around the nail and wondered at it; it hardly seemed likely that he did much manual labor.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t take that much skill to dress a superficial wound.”
He smiled. “Maybe not, but it takes a bit of skill to do it in the pitch-black dark by the side of a road, eh? And Mrs. Fitz says you’ve mended one of her wee lads’ fingers as was broken, and bound up a kitchen-maid’s scalded arm this morning as well.”
“That’s nothing very difficult, either,” I replied, wondering what he was getting at. He gestured to one of the attendants, who quickly fetched a small bowl from one of the drawers of the secretary. Removing the lid, Colum began scattering seed from it through the mesh of the cage. The tiny birds popped down from the branches like so many cricket balls bouncing on a pitch, and the bunting flew down to join its fellows on the ground.
“No connections to clan Beaton, have ye?” he asked. I remembered Mrs. FitzGibbons asking at our first meeting, Are ye a charmer, then? A Beaton?
“None. What have the clan Beaton to do with medical treatment?”
Colum eyed me in surprise. “You’ve not heard of them? The healers of clan Beaton are famous through the Highlands. Traveling healers, many of them. We had one here for a time, in fact.”
“Had one? What happened to him?” I asked.
“He died,” Colum responded matter-of-factly. “Caught a fever and it carried him off within a week. We’ve not had a healer since, save Mrs. Fitz.”
“She seems very competent,” I said, thinking of her efficient treatment of the young man Jamie’s injuries. Thinking of that made me think of what had caused them, and I felt a wave of resentment toward Colum. Resentment, and caution as well. This man, I reminded myself, was law, jury, and judge to the people in his domain—and clearly accustomed to having things his own way.
He nodded, still intent on the birds. He scattered the rest of the seed, favoring a late-coming grey-blue warbler with the last handful.
“Oh, aye. She’s quite a hand with such matters, but she’s more than enough to take care of already, running the whole castle and everyone in it—including me,” he said, with a sudden charming grin.
“I was wondering,” he said, taking swift advantage of my answering smile, “seeing as how you’ve not a great deal to occupy your time at present, you might think of having a look at the things Davie Beaton left behind him. You might know the uses of a few of his medicines and such.”
“Well…I suppose so. Why not?” In fact, I was becoming slightly bored with the round between garden, stillroom, and kitchen. I was curious to see what the late Mr. Beaton had considered useful in the way of paraphernalia.
“Angus or I could show the lady down, sir,” the attendant suggested respectfully.
“Don’t trouble yourself, John,” Colum said, gesturing the man politely away. “I’ll show Mistress Beauchamp myself.”
His progress down the stair was slow and obviously painful. Just as obviously, he didn’t wish for help, and I offered none.
The surgery of the late Beaton proved to be in a remote corner of the castle, tucked out of sight behind the kitchens. It was in close proximity to nothing save the graveyard, in which its late proprietor now rested. In the outer wall of the castle, the narrow, dark room boasted only one of the tiny slit windows, set high in the wall so that a flat plane of sunlight knifed through the air, separating the darkness of the high vaulted ceiling from the deeper gloom of the floor below.
Peering past Colum into the dim recesses of the room, I made out a tall cabinet, equipped with dozens of tiny drawers, each with a label in curlicue script. Jars, boxes, and vials of all shapes and sizes were neatly stacked on the shelves above a counter where the late Beaton evidently had been in the habit of mixing medicines, judging from the residue of stains and a crusted mortar that rested there.
