Minna often looked at him and saw their father, a man who was loving when it suited him and quite callous when it did not. Jamie had the same way of looking at things as their father had. He would see problems where there were none, and fail to see problems when they were staring him in the face, which was the situation in Cairndene. Or perhaps he was facing the issue, but cared nothing for it.
Minna sighed and threw herself on the bed.‘Stop thinking,’she told herself. Perhaps if she stopped chewing over the problem it would go away. She stood up and returned to the window, too restless to lie down, and looked down on the woods below, wondering what it would be like to live inside the shelter of the trees. Somehow it looked cozy, she thought, then laughed at her own foolishness. Living in the woods was for elves, fairies, wolves and wild boars!
She started to pace the room, back and forth, back and forth, and the rhythm of her paces began to soothe her and chase away the headache. Presently, however, when she heard a loud rumble from her tummy realized that she was ravenously hungry, and had not eaten since early in the morning. Where was the food she had asked for?
She was just about to knock the door and ask for it again when she heard the key turn in the lock, and in came Emily Morrison, the last person Minna needed to or wanted to see. However, she had brought a tray of food with her , but not the kind of food Minna was used to. There were three thick slices of bread, a bowl of thin stew, an apple, and a glass of ale. It was servants’ food, and although Minna knew it would fill her stomach, it was not exactly appetizing.
“Thank you, Emily,” she said, trying to be as pleasant as she could. Minna disliked Emily as much as Emily disliked her, and she was not going to let the cook know how disappointed she was with the meal. “It looks delicious. I thought he might have sent you up with bread and water.”
“No, mistress,” Emily replied. “He said ye must have plain food, no’ tae starve ye. Her voice said one thing, but Minna could read between the lines.‘I would have given ye bread an’ water.’
“I am sure I will enjoy this.” Minna sat down, determined not to give Emily the satisfaction of seeing how angry and frustrated she was. She gave the cook a tight smile then began to tuck into her food with gusto, breathing a sigh of relief as she heard the door closing behind her. Two minutes of Emily’s company was always two minutes too long.
She imagined she was eating some succulent roast chicken, a mound of vegetables and some freshly baked bread and butter then following with a dessert of raspberry pie and cream. As she conjured up the feast in her mind, she sipped red wine with appreciation. When she had finished both the plain food and the imaginary feast, she wondered what the people of Cairndene were eating.
She could only hope that whatever she had provided them with the night before would last until she could tell them that there would be no more nightly visits. Perhaps some other solution would come up. She was not a religious person but she began to pray now, begging whoever oversaw the affairs of the world to help the people of Cairndene and poor people everywhere to find a way to help themselves.
When she had finished she looked out of the window and saw that it was clouding over again, and presently it began to rain in great sheets, the kind of rain that filled up lochs but beat down crops. It was just the kind of weather they could not afford.
Angry and depressed once more, she threw herself onto the bed, and despite all her turbulent thoughts, she fell asleep, fully clothed and with a deep frown on her face.
* * *
Minna was woken next morning by Jamie’s hand shaking her roughly by the shoulder. She jerked into wakefulness, startled, then looked up into her brother’s face, which wore an expression of peevish annoyance. He threw some fresh clothes onto the bed for her.
“Lorna said I must give you these,” he informed her. “She is worried about you.”
“Then let me see her!” Minna yelled. “Why are you keeping me here?”
“To stop you embarrassing both me and yourself!” Jamie was once more absolutely furious for no reason. “I am not having my sister behaving like a nun, giving out alms to all and sundry. It is embarrassing.”
Minna felt as though she was banging her head against a brick wall.
A maid set a tray of breakfast on her table and brought in some washing apparel before giving Minna a sympathetic look and hurrying away with the supper dishes. She sighed. At least she could be thankful that the staff were on her side.
“Are you going to let me out?” she demanded. “Because if you do not, I will find my own way out.”
She looked at the window. The walls on this side of the castle were covered with thick-stemmed ivy, and Jamie knew that his sister was as agile as a monkey. If she said she would climb out of a window she would do it; he had no doubt of it.
Jamie sighed irritably. “If you give me your word you will not leave the castle,” he said sternly. “Because if you do I will send the guards after you and I really will put you in the dungeon this time.”
“I will not leave the castle.” she promised solemnly. The words were meaningless to her, since she had already planned to make her escape as soon as she could, but she could see that her brother believed her. He always did, since he had never known her to tell a lie.
“Eat your breakfast,” he ordered. “After that you may go as far as your bedroom and no further. You will not go down to the village or anywhere else.”
Minna nodded. She ate and washed quickly then went to her room to change. As soon as she opened the door she saw Lorna standing by the window with a cup of ale in her hand, her face a mask of anxiety.
Lorna turned at the sound of the door opening, dropped her cup, then came rushing over to Minna and threw her arms around her. “Oh, Minna, I was that worried about ye!” she cried, burying her face on Minna’s shoulder.
It was not lost on her that Lorna had called her by her given name, something Minna had always asked her to do, but which she had always steadfastly refused to, saying that it was not her place.
Minna held her friend in her arms while Minna wept, and after a few moments, when she had calmed down a little, Lorna looked at her mistress, studying her face minutely for a few moments while she cupped it in her hands.
“Did he hurt ye, hen?” she asked anxiously.
Minna decided not to worry her friend more by telling her about Jamie’s slap. “No, he just angered me beyond endurance,” Minna replied as she stroked a tendril of Lorna’s hair behind her ear and smiled at her. “I think the whole exercise was meant to intimidate me, Lorna. If that is so, then it has not worked, since I am more determined than ever to do what needs to be done.”
“Please dinnae dae anythin’ dangerous, Mistress,” Lorna begged, gripping Minna’s hands tightly.