In that moment, Glenna overcame her self-pity and anger to feel shame for the way she had treated Harriet Cameron. If her father had been conscious to witness her behavior, she knew it would have shamed him, too. The woman had been naught but kind and apologetic from the first moment she’d arrived at Roscraig, and she was the only person left who seemed to genuinely care what happened to her and Iain Douglas.
“Forgive me, Harriet,” Glenna said quietly. “Please. I…I’m tired. And frightened.” She looked up at Harriet, who was tidying the bedside table, piling the bowl and used cloths in the center of the tray. Glenna couldn’t help but ask stiffly, “Are you not glad to now have a home such as Roscraig?”
The woman glanced at her with a smile as she leaned over Iain Douglas and slid her palm along his forehead, the sides of his face. “Aye. But I was glad of our home in Edinburgh, too. I will be happy anywhere that Tav is happy. I doona wish you or your da ill from it.” She straightened but still regarded Iain with a slight frown. “It wasna plague, then?”
Glenna sighed. “I don’t know what else it could have been. He fell ill a week ago, after everyone else in the village who’d been stricken had already died. He took to his bed and slept heavily that night. The next day he was weaker. The day after he didn’t wake at all.”
“Nae boils? Nae spasms of breath?” Harriet pressed her, reaching beneath the furs as if feeling along Iain Douglas’s arm.
Glenna shook her head. “None I was witness to. Why do you ask?”
“’Tis rare that the Death doesna show on the skin or in the lungs. It’s been known to happen of the verra old or young—the sickness shuts their insides down before the sign can show.” Harriet looked to Glenna. “How many did it take in the village?”
“Forty-seven.”
“Mercy,” Harriet breathed. “Took all your help, apparently. The signs on the road looked old.”
Glenna blinked; her pride wouldn’t allow her to admit to Harriet Cameron that there’d been warning signs on the Tower Road for as long as she could remember. And there had been no full staff in years.
The woman shook her head when Glenna failed to answer, but then turned back toward the table and went on briskly. “I’m going to fetch my bags for some freshening herbs and give the laird a good wash, with your permission, milady.”
Glenna shook herself. “You needn’t do that. It’s not your responsibility.”
“I know it’s nae. I wish to.” Harriet picked up the tray and bobbed in Iain Douglas’s direction. Then she gave Glenna a quick smile and made to quit the room, but paused, looking back with a wince. “But perhaps milady wouldna mention it to Master Cameron if she should happen to speak with him.”
Glenna huffed. “I intend to avoid the man completely. You’ve my word I shall not speak of whatever kindness you wish to bestow upon us, lest the mighty Tavish Cameron rain hell down upon us all.”
Harriet’s smile returned. “Just so, milady.”
It seemed very quiet after the woman’s departure; quiet and darker and colder, with the sound of the steady, heavy rain outside the keep. Glenna looked at her sleeping father and wondered what he would do if he were well enough to deal with Tavish Cameron’s invasion of Roscraig.
Perhaps sheshouldbe glad of the king’s visit. James would have found out the sorry state of the village sooner or later any matter. If she was going to be evicted from her home eventually, it would give her more than a little satisfaction to hope that the arrogant bastard from Edinburgh might never call the Tower his own.
But where would that leave her?
She rubbed absentmindedly at her arm where he’d bruised her; then her eyes went to the bodice of her ugly gray kirtle, where the tiny speck of brown reminded her how she’d lashed out at him as if he were naught but a common criminal.
Wasn’t he? Hadn’t he invaded her home? Laid hand to her?
For now, you have the privilege of choosing which battle you fight. Tavish never did.
Glenna didn’t entirely understand what Harriet Cameron meant, but for now she thought the woman’s advice was sound: She would stay by her father’s side and fight for him for as long as he lived.
And for as long as the rain held out.
* * * *
Tavish was soaked through to his skin as he came into the entry hall from the courtyard. The echo of the downpour beyond turned the corridor into a roaring cave, but he could still hear his mother’s strident voice above the cacophony as she stood on the bottom step of the west tower with tray in hand, apparently berating the large man before her.
He was tall and wide, with a head that appeared to be quite pointed beneath the shape of his coarse, wet hood. In one pawlike hand, he carried a basket, and Tavish recognized him at once as the figure he’d seen coming from the cliff that morning.
Tavish slid the heavy wooden chest from his shoulder and let it drop into the crook of his arm with a huff of exertion as he neared.
“…doona care who ye are, milady isna— Ooh, there you are. Thank the Lord.”
“What is it?” Tavish asked as he came to stand before the pair, swiping the rivulets of water from his forehead.
Mam’s mouth was set in the expression that warned Tavish she had made up her mind about one thing or another. “This man here is demanding entry to the east tower.”
