A Promise for Tomorrow

by Michele Paige Holmes

  A door opened, and footsteps padded almost silently across the floor.

  “A fair blessing,” a woman’s voice whispered softly. “Gwen’s bairn is on its way, and she’s been tucked up in bed. Brann heard me send for the midwife, and he thinks I’ve come up to be with Gwen. We should be able to mask Katherine’s screams. Anyone below will think it’s the birthing, though that’ll be hours yet.”

  “Good, good,” another voice murmured. “Let’s give her a bit more of the laudanum just the same.”

  I opened my eyes as a spoon was brought to my mouth. Bridget leaned over me, eyes crinkled with a look of deepest concern.

  “Awake now, are you? Well, you’ll soon wish otherwise. The healer says we must set that arm afore it’s no good to you ever again.”

  Time rushed before my limited vision— the nightmare, the soldiers, Collin taken, Brann’s cruelty, my prison. I tried lifting my head to look at my arm but hadn’t the strength. Probably better, given how terribly it hurt.

  I trembled at the thought of anyone touching it at all, let alone trying to rearrange the bones to set them correctly.

  “Don’t,” I begged.

  In response Bridget pulled down on my chin, opened my mouth, and forced some of the bitter liquid in. “Swallow it now. There’s a good lass.” She left my side, walked across the room, nearly silent in her movement again, then returned.

  “Here.” She placed something in my good hand and curled my fist around it. “That’s one of your wee brushes. And you’ve paints over there just waiting to be used as well. But your arm must be mended first.” Her tone might have been matter of fact, but her eyes were sympathetic. “I’ll stay right here beside the whole time.”

  The other two women came forward. The man at the back of the room hovered near the door, twisting a hat in his hands. His face seemed familiar, and after a moment I recognized him as the one who had carried me from below the castle.

  He looked over at me, and I caught his eye and attempted a smile. Thank you. My tongue felt too heavy to speak.

  Bridget pulled up a stool near the head of the bed and settled on it. “Katherine, this is Mary Campbell— Alistair’s wife and a rare fine healer and bone setter. You won’t find better in Edinburg itself. She and her daughter are here to help you.”

  I understood that, but my heart pounded anyway. I’d never been so frightened, had never felt so vulnerable. Even out in the yard beneath Brann’s attack I had been able to move at first, to fight back and attempt to defend myself. But now the pain was too great, and the medicine traveling through my body only added to the feeling of helplessness.

  Mary rolled up her sleeves and took her position on one side of the bed while her daughter moved to the other. “I’ll not lie,” she said briskly. “This is going to hurt like the devil. We’ve to place the bone correctly and stretch the muscle around it.” Looking up at Bridget, she added, “Be ready to hold her, though I doubt she’ll stay with us long.”

  “Ready?” she asked, exchanging a look with her daughter. The young woman nodded, and two sets of hands descended.

  I screamed until, blissfully, I could no longer feel.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “I’m sorry for the dark. We dare not use any candles. Even a little light coming under the door might seem suspicious.” My companion, rescuer, and self-appointed protector— Earnan, I had since learned— stood stoically near the door for the long night ahead.

  “I don’t mind.” After the gloom I’d endured belowstairs, the room did not seem very dark at all, with moonlight seeping through the louvered window.

  “I should have brought you elsewhere. Being right under Brann’s nose was perhaps not the wisest.” Earnan studied the ground, as he tended to when he was embarrassed.

  It was endearing, and had I been well enough, I would have given him a kiss on the cheek, as I had to Finlay before his departure. Though perhaps that would not have been the best idea, given that Earnan appeared much closer to my own age and possibly wont to mistake my gratitude for something else entirely.

  “Why did you do bring me here?” My voice was returning in increments, my ability to speak short sentences coinciding with being able to swallow something other than broth or Bridget’s tea. “Why take such a risk?”

  “If we’d left the castle, someone might have seen you. That, and I didn’t know if you could make it beyond these walls. When you fainted I thought—”

  I was dead. I hadn’t been far off.

  “I owe you my life,” I said gratefully.

  Earnan shrugged and stared at the floor again. “It was fortunate Brann sent us to collect you in the middle of the night. Alistair and many others were already upset that he was holding you prisoner, so he did not want it widely known that you were dead.”

  “Which made it convenient for you to bring me here.”

  “Aye.” Earnan stepped away from the door and nearer to the empty fireplace.

  I wondered if he was cold. With the quilts piled on top of me I didn’t miss the fire but felt guilty that those attending me might not be so warm, particularly in the chill of night.

  “It was a good choice for other reasons too,” he said. “Everyone knows Brann won’t come into this room.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I don’t suppose you would,” Earnan said. “Not having lived here long. Many have heard the noises and seen the light coming from this room— when it had been both locked and unoccupied for months and then years.”

  “Did no one ever bother to see who or what was in here?” Not everyone in the Highlands believed in ghosts, did they?

  “Liam claimed it was his daughter— your mother,” Earnan added. “Said she was prowling the room, searching for you.”

  “And when my grandfather died, did this continue?”

  “Aye. Right up until the time you came home.”

  I recalled the maids’ reluctance to enter this room that first night Collin and I had stayed here. “If Brann believes it haunted, maybe we should have a lamp or two lit in here.” Why would my mother not resume her search, if once more I was absent from this chamber?

  Earnan shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to chance it, m’lady.”

  He had already chanced so much. I felt contrite instantly. “I am sorry to suggest it, to worry you. I promise not to light a single candle.” Not that I could, with my movement so severely limited. “I’ll not scream anymore either.”

  Earnan’s face split in a grin. “A good thing. And as well that Gwen’s bairn was so large. When the midwife brought him down, no one questioned all the wailing they’d heard up here.”

  I might have laughed, had the effort of breathing and normal speech not already been pushing my tolerance for pain.

  “Does it hurt much still?” Earnan nodded to my arm, encased in a wood splint and bandaged tightly.

  “Not as much as it did.” I didn’t know anything about bone setting, but Mary Campbell seemed to have been very thorough in her work. My arm was gradually returning to its normal size and lay straight. It still throbbed, but the piercing pain of bone misplaced was gone. I’d even been able to wiggle my fingers a time or two.

  My ribs were another matter, and breathing continued to be toe-curling labor. The less I moved, the better. Earnan was wise to be so cautious with light, noise, and anything else that might give us away. It would likely be many more weeks of hiding under Brann’s nose before I would be well enough to leave this bed.

  Weeks. I blinked back tears as I stared at the ceiling. Weeks before I might be well enough to make my escape from this place and begin the search for Collin. By then he might already be on a ship bound for the Colonies— or worse.

  I tried not to think of that, of him and what he might be suffering right now. Be grateful, I reminded myself. Patient. It was nothing short of a miracle that I was alive. And if I had been granted such, why should Collin not be as well?

  * * *

  “I don’t want any this
morning.” I turned my head from Bridget and her ever-present tea.

  “It rests the body, and that will get you well sooner.”

  “Trying to be rid of me, are you?” I kept my face averted, not willing to give in this morning. Alistair was supposed to attempt a visit today, and if he chanced to be successful in finding a way up here without notice, I did not wish to be asleep.

  “It’s not that.” Bridget clucked her tongue but at last removed the spoon and cup from my vision. “There’s matters downstairs is all, and no sense in causing you worry.”

  “What matters?” My chest tightened, anxiety that we had been discovered adding to my already great discomfort.

  “Brann’s found himself in a spot of trouble is all.” Bridget patted my good arm. “I’ve brought a book for you to read, if you’d like.” She withdrew a slender volume from her apron pocket.

  “Tell me.” I turned my head to look at her. “What sort of trouble?”

  “The sort he deserves,” she muttered crossly.

  I waited a minute, watching her inner dilemma as she worried her lip and wrung her hands. Bridget was not the sort to keep secrets from me. I had already learned from her, in the days following my nighttime conversation with Earnan, that it was she who had been responsible for the haunting of my room. It had been my grandfather’s idea, and she had readily complied, trading off with him a time or two when he was still alive, so that no one would suspect either of them.

  “It’s not only Brann’s trouble,” she said suddenly, searching my face with a strange sort of plea. “Others may be harmed because of him. But you could—” She broke off suddenly and took up the cup again. “You need rest. Drink this.”

  At great expense to my pain level, I lifted my uninjured hand and pushed hers away. “I could what?”

  “Nothing. It would only bring you harm.” She moved away from the bed and went to stand at the window.

  “How much worse can it be than what I’ve been through?”

  “You tell me.” Bridget’s face was stony as she stared out the window. “The MacDonalds have surrounded the keep. Ian MacDonald says he’ll attack tonight unless Brann sends you to meet him.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “A fine kettle, this,” Mary Campbell, a formidable woman herself, squared off with Bridget, blocking my way to the door.

  “I am fine,” I insisted, taking two steps to prove it. Thankfully, nothing was wrong with my legs. The sling Bridget had fastened from one of Collin’s shirts held my arm in place nicely, so it was only the stabbing pain from my ribs that made me see spots with every move.

  “If you couldn’t keep your mouth shut, you oughtn’t have tended her today.” Mary shook a finger at Bridget, then swung around, pointing the appendage at me. “Back to bed, lass. You’ve no reason to be up.”

  “I’ve every reason.” My gaze swung from Mary and Bridget to Earnan, standing tense at the window. “You cannot expect that I’ll lie abed and let others be harmed when it’s me Ian wants.”

  “Did he not try to kill you once already?” Mary demanded. “And did you not shoot him with a pistol since? You’ll be going to your grave, and after Earnan risked his hide for you, and I’ve worked so hard to mend your arm proper. Was not an easy task, gone near a week out of place like that.”

  “I am grateful to you both.” I took another shuffling step, and a cold sweat broke out along my forehead. “Which is why I have to at least try to appease Ian. If I can save even one Campbell from harm...”

  “You’re a braw lass, just like your mum.” Bridget stepped toward me, as if she wished to give me a hug, but I tensed and held up my good hand.

  “And your ribs all mussed too. You ought to have told me,” Mary scolded.

  I hadn’t been conscious to tell her when she’d finished her torture session with my arm. In the two times she’d come to check on me since, I had been too cowardly to mention it. I supposed I knew she might be able to do something to make the pain better. But I’d also guessed that the process of getting to that point would make things worse before.

  “Will you fetch my cloak, please?” I asked Bridget.

  Her face fell. “We burnt it,” she said. “And all the clothes you were wearing when Earnan brought you up. “They were foul beyond cleaning, plus we wanted Brann to see their remains and to assume...”

  That I had burned too. “Never mind the cloak.” I took more halting steps toward the door. “A sheet will do, if you have one.”

  Bridget pulled one from the bed and tied it carefully around my shoulders, covering my sleeping gown as best she could. I’d declined her offer of assistance to get dressed, the thought of my ribs being encased in a corset or of moving my arm through the sleeve of a gown being simply too much.

  “I’ll help you down the stairs,” Earnan said.

  “No.” My tone was sharper than I’d intended. “I don’t want any of you coming out of this room. You’re not to reveal yourself to Brann. Let him think I’m a ghost crawled from the pyre. I don’t know what will happen out there, but I don’t want any of you suffering repercussions for my sudden return to life.”

  “He ought to thank us,” Bridget muttered. “If up to him, you’d be dead, and he would be facing Ian MacDonald on his own.”

  “It’s tempting to let him.” I reached the door and clung to the bar a moment, steadying myself. “If I believed for a minute that Ian would harm no other than Brann, I would not go.”

  That wasn’t entirely true, but at least I also had an unselfish motive for sacrificing myself. I had no doubt Mary was right. There was every possibility Ian would end my life at first opportunity.

  But somehow before, I would make him listen to me. If the MacDonalds he’d brought with him were truly as Earnan had described them, I had little chance of saving anyone here. My best hope was that Ian cared enough for his brother that he would go after him, and Collin might be rescued before a ship carried him far across the sea.

  Bridget pulled open the door, and I stepped into the dark hallway. “Close and bar it,” I whispered, then made my way over to the wood rail overlooking the hall below.

  Brann and his council huddled around a table, arguing one with another about what must be done.

  “Find another lass who looks like her, and send her to meet him,” one suggested.

  “There is no need for that.” My voice was not loud, but carried nevertheless in the high stone chamber.

  A chorus of gasps and a flurry of Gaelic sounded as the men looked up at me. I left the rail and started toward the stairs, moving carefully to spare my ribs, and with the draped sheet floating around me, as if I really was a spirit.

  Perhaps I would be soon. Bridget, at least, would see that my brief legacy here lingered long after I was gone.

  No one moved as I descended the stairs, my eyes locked on Brann’s. His face had drained of color, and a tiny part of me gloried in the tables being somewhat turned, at seeing him frightened. But I couldn’t focus on that for long. Just putting one foot in front of the other took all of my concentration, and beneath my thin nightrail it felt as if my heart might leap from my throbbing chest.

  Facing one of the men who wanted me dead was terrifying enough. Facing them both made for impossible odds. I didn’t want to die. But more than that, I wanted to save Collin. Ian was my best, my only, chance.

  I reached the main floor and stopped, looking directly at the table containing the council and Brann. “Collin warned you,” I said. “He told you his brother would come if you did not produce the dowry.”

  “Appease him,” Brann hissed, rising from his seat, leaning forward. I saw through him, that he would not dare do more than that, not when he was unsure if I was real or spirit.

  I held my ground. “There is no appeasing Ian MacDonald.”

  “Find a way, or there will be consequences.” Brann’s head tilted back, looking up to the stairs behind me and my room beyond, his eyes sharp with suspicion. It would not take much to confirm my ti
mely resurrection had been aided by others.

  “Because of you, there will be consequences for all of us,” I said. “Prepare yourselves for battle.”

  I turned from him too quickly and paid for it in a wave of pain that temporarily blinded me. I continued walking, skirting the tables widely, hoping they wouldn’t see the sheen of sweat across my forehead. No doubt I looked as white as the sheet cloaking me. I hadn’t moved this much in over two weeks and each step was excruciating. It would be a miracle if I could make it all the way outside the gate to meet Ian.

  Reaching the front doors without stumbling or crying out seemed a victory. At Brann’s command, two men hurried to open them for me. I continued my gliding walk outside into a gloomy afternoon beneath a drizzle of rain.

  More stairs. These were uneven and unkempt, with weeds growing up between. Wet now too. I wasn’t certain I could manage without a rail to cling to. Alistair ran across the courtyard toward me, rubbing his eyes as if he, too, could not believe what he was seeing.

  “What are you doing?” he whispered as he came up beside me.

  I placed a hand on his arm for steadiness and took the first step carefully. “You were late. I came to see you instead.” I attempted a jest, though neither of us smiled.

  “This is madness,” Alistair said. “You can’t go out there. It will be suicide.”

  “Your wife said as much already.” I made it down the second stair. Two to go. The doors closed behind us. Brann had let me walk away. One evil man passed. My odds at coming out alive were perhaps slightly better than they had been when I’d teetered at the top of the stairs.

  “I need a horse. Ian’s preferably, if it is still here.” Or might that anger him more? A reminder that Collin and I had stolen it from him.

  “And how are you supposed to seat a horse in this condition?” Alistair caught my elbow, keeping me from falling on my face when my foot missed the third stair but hit the fourth with a jarring step. I cried out and clenched my teeth.