now, she could remain here but that could not last for long. It would not take long before her inexperience at working or seeing to herself became apparent even to those people who were not looking too closely.
Sorcha walked along the river, trying to sort out her thoughts when the question occurred to her. When Coira came out to hang wet garments to dry, she approached and tried to help, following the woman’s example. After twisting and then shaking out a few pieces of clothing, she asked her questions.
‘How far are we from Skye?’ she began. ‘How many days to reach there?’
Coira paused in her work, placing her hands on her hips and staring off to the west as though she could see it from where she stood now.
‘’Twould take about three days to reach the shore. Then, across to the island and to your destination.’ She turned and looked at Sorcha. ‘Where on Skye do ye go?’
‘Nigh to Portree.’
‘Then add another day, and two if a storm blows in off the sea.’
Sorcha then thought on her other choice. Rather than rushing to the refuge of a convent, her mother had mentioned another cousin who’d married into the Mackintoshes. Mayhap she should go there and seek counsel about her choices?
‘Do you know far it is to the village of the Mackintosh clan?’
‘In Glenlui? Near Loch Arkaig?’ Sorcha nodded. There were other Mackintoshes further north, for they were a large clan with many septs, but that was the one she needed to find. ‘Not too far. Two days up the glen. Longer if ye go back out the way ye came in.’
She could not go back the other way. Padruig had explained that the Cameron lands sat between them and both the MacPhersons to the northeast and the Mackintoshes to the northwest. They had quickly, and with care, made their way around the Cameron lands to avoid any chance of her capture. Disguised as a merchant travelling with his daughter had shielded her from much scrutiny. The other factor that protected her was that no one knew The MacMillan’s daughter or, if they did, they did not expect to see her here or now.
‘Does anyone travel there?’ she asked. ‘My mother always spoke of her cousin who married a Mackintosh of Glenlui.’ She needed an escort, for truly there was no way for her to make it there alone. Although Sorcha might be tired and heartbroken and losing hope, she was not so lacking in wits to try such a thing. ‘I could hire them. Or exchange their escort for my father’s horse.’
She saw the interest spark in Coira’s gaze. Sorcha knew the importance of a horse, even if this one was a bit old and worn.
‘Aye, I may ken someone,’ Coira said.
* * *
Someone, indeed, for three days later, Sorcha bid farewell to the helpful people here and to Coira and rode north following Coira and Darach’s eldest son Tomas. The woman had promised to have the priest say prayers over Padruig when next he passed through the village and that gave Sorcha some comfort knowing his soul would be blessed even if he’d not been shriven before his death. He’d been a good man, a faithful servant to her mother and a brave friend to help her escape, knowing his fate if they’d been captured.
* * *
Just over a week after Padruig’s death, two months after her mother’s and three weeks after her own, Sorcha arrived in Glenlui and stood before the cottage of her mother’s cousin, Clara MacPherson, wife to James Mackintosh. After watching Tomas ride out of the village towards the glen, Sorcha knocked on the door and found Clara tending to her bairns inside.
At first, before Sorcha even had a chance to speak, Clara stared and blinked at her. Then she shook her head and examined her from head to toes before canting her head and shaking it once more.
‘For a moment, I thought ’twas my mother’s cousin Erca standing before me.’ Clara studied her closely and laughed. ‘You have her hair colouring and the shape of her face, but that chin is certainly not hers. Those eyes are a bit of both, are they not?’ It took but a moment more for her expression to grow guarded. ‘Why are you here, lass? Where is your mother?’
So, word had not spread yet? Out through the MacMillans to the MacNeills and MacPhersons? The Camerons surely knew it. Sorcha drew in a breath and tried to speak, but the words came not. The tears she’d somehow managed to control did though, breaking free and pouring down her face. Clara, bless her, did not need the words to understand. She drew Sorcha into her embrace and rocked with her, all the time murmuring words of sympathy and comfort.
‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘We can speak of her and the reason why you are standing at my door.’
It took some time to calm the torrent of tears once it had begun. Sorcha sat in a chair in the corner while Clara made some tea and tended her three bairns. Wee Jamie, Wee Clara and Robbie clung to their mother’s skirts, peeping at her from time to time as Clara gathered them together and led them into the chamber off this one for a nap.
This cottage was bigger than Coira’s, having three rooms that Sorcha could see. Clara’d taken the bairns into one of those and Sorcha listened to the soft words of love and comfort between Clara and her children as they went off to sleep. Memories of her mother’s voice, soothing and loving, echoed over her then. As her words did in that moment.
Honour. Loyalty. Courage.
Sorcha swallowed against the sense of loss and emptiness and searched for the courage she’d always sworn to her mother she would demonstrate. Sipping the fragrant brew, she let the warmth wash over and through her. She’d survived her father. She’d survived her mad flight into the night and the journey to this place. With several deep breaths in and released, Sorcha gained control over herself then and by the time Clara joined her there, she was ready to speak about her mother and her own future.
‘When did she pass?’ Clara asked. ‘I have not seen her since I was a lass, when she lived at Cluny Castle.’
‘She passed two months ago,’ Sorcha said. ‘She had been ill for some time.’ Sorcha frowned then. ‘So my mother was your mother’s cousin? I thought she was yours.’ Her mother had spoken of Clara in the last weeks of her life and Sorcha had thought their connection was closer.
‘Aye, our mothers were cousins and your mother stood as godmother to me,’ Clara explained. ‘Though your mother often spoke of you in her letters to mine, we never had the chance to meet you.’ Clara stood then and brought the pot of tea closer to fill her cup once more.
‘And your mother? Does she yet live?’ Sorcha asked. She had too little knowledge of her distant kin and needed to know it.
‘Nay,’ Clara said with a slight shake of her head. ‘She passed some years ago. Just after I married James and moved here.’ Clara smiled then. ‘I came to visit my brother here and met James. I never left.’
‘Ah, so your brother lives here as well?’ Sorcha asked. She’d had so few kin in Knap, mostly her father’s, and no siblings to call her own. How might it have been if she’d had brothers or sisters?
‘There was trouble here—the clan split in two as Brodie battled his cousin,’ Clara explained. ‘Conall died in the fighting. But his widow still lives here.’ Clara drank down the rest of her tea and put the cup down on the table. ‘I could spend hours telling you the Mackintosh and MacPherson clan histories and lay out all our relatives on either side,’ she began. ‘But that would
