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“Thank you,” I say, and he blushes, looking around my room and anywhere but my eyes.
“Course, m’lady,” he murmurs. “There’s a bit of breakfast waiting, I saved you a bowl.”
“Most kind of you. Gair?”
“Aye?” He darts his eyes to my face for only an instant.
“Where is Drever? I saw him after the battle. Is he not around?”
The darkening of his face tells me everything I need to know. Drever didn’t make it. I touch his arm and squeeze. There are no words, and I don’t try to come up with any.
“He was scouting,” Gair says, his voice tight. “I’ve nae seen him since.” He clears his throat. “You’ll not want to let your food get cold.”
He moves to the door, and I follow. He leads the way down the stairs to where a makeshift kitchen has been set up on the main floor. The breakfast is some form of gruel, but it’s filling. I eat quickly while focusing my thoughts on what the next step is.
Rescue Duncan, of course, but that’s a very broad idea and I have no idea how I’m going to go from the idea to an actionable plan. Dugald knows more than I do, and I wish he was here, but at the same time he’s the least forthcoming with information of anyone I know.
“Ma’am?” Gair asks, shaking me out of my thoughts.
I hadn’t realized he’s standing behind my shoulder, waiting for me to eat.
“Yes?”
He clears his throat and shifts his weight from one foot to the other.
“I don’t mean to be, uhm, forward, but…” He trails off, eyes darting to my face and back to the floor.
“Go ahead, Gair. We’re well past the point of impropriety.”
“Aye, I reckon we are, ma’am,” he says. He’s young. Younger than I’ve taken time to notice. Staring at his face, waiting for him to ask his question, I realize he’s not yet even old enough to grow a proper beard. I’d lay odds he’s mid-teens at the most. No wonder he’s so nervous. “What happened, back there, at Inverness…”
“Aye?”
“That was, uh, not natural.”
“No, no it wasn’t.”
“Is that what the Fae are really like? Is that what the Old Ways are about?”
I shake my head, suppressing an urge to sigh. So much confusion and misinformation.
“No, Gair, that wasn’t the Fae. That was something way worse.”
“Ma’am, I’m a good Christian,” he says, “but what I saw, what happened to some of the others. That was the devil’s work if I ever saw it. How do we stand against that?”
“I’ll be honest with you, Gair,” I say, acutely aware that other ears are listening. Dozens of men are in the area eating or doing whatever and all of them are paying attention, openly or not. Whatever I say next will spread like wildfire among the camp, so I better make it good.
No pressure.
“We believe,” I say. “We believe in ourselves. Believe that this world can be better. What we fought yesterday was the embodiment of evil. That was, if you will, the Devil set free. All our darkest impulses, the bad things we do, given shape and form.”
“Belief won’t stand against a demon,” a grizzled British soldier says, and others call their agreement.
I stand and climb onto my chair. On it I can see the entire room in a glance. Gair stands at my side, and I use his shoulder to keep myself steady as the rickety chair sways.
“You’re not wrong,” I say. “We’ll need a lot more than belief.” Murmurs of agreement. “But more than anything, we must learn to forgive.”
“I’ll nae be forgivin’ any of those demons, even if’n they were once me friend,” a Scotsman I don’t know says, standing up.
