The Last Rose

Sia

Annag spent every waking minute in the castle, tending to the laird with the help of Doctor MacRae.  Every few hours I would catch the tail end of her powering through the castle halls between the infirmary and the laird's chambers.  The gossip amongst the girls in the kitchen was rife as always, mentions of poisoning, contagious illness and supernatural curses floating around.

Maili refused to partake in the 'mindless chatting', but I couldn't help but be interested in it.  The laird hadn't looked deathly when I saw him; if anything he looked only a bit under the weather.  Yet Annag's frantic stressing had me guessing he was in much worse a condition than he looked.

There was an underlying tone with every comment made about the laird of uncertainty, but also of fear.  Fear of change; fear of a new leader; fear of a new era.  I heard every theory throughout the days and was thankful for the walk home with Maili to clear my head of it. 

With one last knead of pale dough into the floured table top I pressed it into an old tin and placed a thin cloth over it.  Wiping my course hands on my apron, I turned to Maili.

'Are you ready to go?'

Maili didn't even look.  'I've got to finish this cake for tonight.  Seonag's been at me all day to have it perfect.'

I looked over Maili's shoulder at the bowl of batter she was beating furiously.  'Do you want a hand?'

Maili shook her head with the same force she was moving my hand at.  'I'll be fine.  You go on home.  You've had a long week,' she said, and I didn't miss the hint of coddling in her words.

As much as I disliked being babied by Maili, I couldn't resist the thought of a quiet walk home by myself.  Company was nice, but walking through the tall birch trees in the evening while the birds narrated my thoughts was heaven.

'I'll see you tomorrow then,' I said as I took off my apron.  Crìsdean was nowhere to be seen.  He had been promoted to a sort of upstairs-downstairs go to boy.  Whenever someone needed something he would fetch it, and usually catch a bit of news everywhere he went.  I didn't want to bother my auntie by pestering her about the laird, so decided to seek out Crìsdean to see if he'd heard anything new.

With a quick goodbye to some of the other kitchen maids I ventured into the maze of the castle's winding corridors.  Footmen and maids rambled past, always looking busy.  I envied the maids who got to work upstairs, away from stuffy kitchens, sweaty foreheads and temperamental overseers.  I was even jealous of the nicer dresses they got to wear.  I stuck out like a sore thumb anywhere that wasn't dirty or busy.

I asked a passing man if he had seen Crìsdean around and he pointed my in the direction of the second floor.  Apparently he had been delivering some letters to Alasdair's third cousin, Coinneach Beag. He was a small young man, a few years older than Alasdair, who had lived in the castle for as long as I could remember.  People said he lived in the castle because he was kicked out of his own house when he was only a boy.

The evening rush of work was starting, and like a few mornings before I was forced to make way for rushing men getting their work done in the most boisterous way possible.  Their green kilts flicked at my skirt with every step they took, their shoes clapping throughout the halls.

I wandered into the south wing of the castle, further and further from the loch.  Through great rooms I went, adorned with paintings like a rich women in jewels.  Tweed rugs lined these wooden floors, muffling the pad of my feet.  This part of the castle was much less busy than the north where the laird and all the other important men in the clan lived upstairs and the kitchen and infirmary lived beneath them.

As I neared Coinneach Beag's chambers and the corridors became deserted.  They were pure stone like the oldest castles.  The sun was absent here, the halls lit instead by candles that hung periodically along the wall.  Murmurs dulled the air further down.