The Winter Sea

The colonel placed a gentle hand beneath her, fingers warm against her hair, and then withdrew it. She could see his palm was wet with blood. Her blood.

‘Christ.’ He looked around and seemed to be deciding something, thinking quickly. Then he leaned in close again. ‘I need ye to be brave now for me, lass. We need to get ye home, and if I could I’d carry ye, but then the people that we pass would ken that ye’ve been hurt. There would be questions. Do ye follow what I’m saying?’ Just to make sure that she understood, he spelled it out more plainly. ‘No one saw this. No one kens Wick’s dead. And when they find his body, if they do, they will believe he fell by accident. And Ogilvie,’ he told her, ‘will believe it, too.’

He held her gaze a moment, making sure she took his meaning, and she knew that he had overheard Wick’s threat to her. For that at least, she thought, she could be grateful—Billy Wick had done what she could not. He’d given proof to Colonel Graeme by his words that Ogilvie, despite his years of service to King James, had come among them as a traitor and a spy.

She knew that Captain Ogilvie must never know the truth of what had happened on this hill, or he would know that he himself had been discovered.

Looking up at Colonel Graeme, she breathed deep and found her voice again to tell him, ‘I can walk.’

He helped her stand, and held her steady on her feet, and with the hands that had so lately killed a man he gently drew the soft hood of her cloak up so it hid the blood upon her hair. ‘Brave lass,’ he called her, with a trace of pride, and placed her hand upon his arm. ‘Go slowly now, and keep your head up. ’Tis not far to go.’

That was a lie, and well he knew it, for the walk was not a short one, but she managed it, and Ogilvie himself would not have known that she was injured, had he seen them coming up the path to Slains. She did not see him anywhere, but she could not be certain he was not against some window, looking out, and so she kept her head held high as Colonel Graeme had advised her, though the throbbing in it pained her and she felt at any moment she might faint.

The chills of shock had settled well upon her and her limbs were trembling, but the colonel’s strong arm underneath her hand was a support. They had not far to go now, to the great front steps.

‘How did you know?’ she asked him, and he turned toward her, with an eyebrow lifting.

‘What, that ye had need of help? I kent when I came back here and I saw the gardener setting out. I saw the way he marked that I was on my own, and I could see he had a mind for mischief. So I came,’ he said, ‘to fetch ye home.’

A few more paces, and he’d have accomplished that. She fought the rising blackness, and looked up at him in hopes that he could see beyond the pain that filled her eyes and know her gratitude. The words took effort. ‘Colonel?’

‘Aye, lass?’

‘Thank you.’

For an answer Colonel Graeme brought his free hand over and for one brief moment squeezed her fingers where they lay upon his arm, but they had reached the entry now and no more could be said, for Captain Ogilvie himself was waiting just inside the door, to bid them welcome.

‘Ye’ve been walking, so I see.’

‘Aye,’ Colonel Graeme answered smoothly, ‘but I fear I’ve worn the wee lass out, and given her a headache from the cold.’

She forced a smile and took the cue. ‘I can assure you, Colonel, it is nothing that a short rest will not remedy.’

‘Och, there, ye see?’ said Ogilvie. ‘The lassies these days, Graeme, are a stronger breed than those we lost our hearts to.’

‘Aye,’ said Colonel Graeme. ‘That they are.’ His eyes were warm upon Sophia’s. ‘Take your rest, then. I’ve no doubt Captain Ogilvie can take your place for once across the chessboard.’ And he raised an eyebrow once again to look a challenge at the older man and ask him lightly, ‘Can I tempt ye to a game?’

And Captain Ogilvie, not knowing that the rules had changed, accepted.

‘Right.’ The colonel clapped a hand upon his old friend’s shoulder, smiling. ‘Let me see the lass upstairs and find her maid to tend her headache, first. And then the two of us,’ he said, ‘can play.’

Dr Weir was pleased. ‘Well, that’s much better.’ He re-wrapped the bandage round my ankle, satisfied. ‘Much better. You took my advice and stayed off it, I see.’

Something in the way he said that prompted me to ask, ‘You didn’t think I would?’

Behind the rounded spectacles his sage eyes briefly twinkled. ‘Let’s just say you strike me as the sort of lass who likes to pipe her own tune.’

I smiled, because no one had so neatly put their finger on that aspect of my character since my kindergarten teacher in her end-of-year report had written: ‘Carrie listens to the ideas of other children, but likes her own ideas best’. I didn’t share that with the doctor, only told him, ‘Yes, well, every now and then I take advice. And it hasn’t been hard to stay off it. The book has been keeping me busy.’

‘That’s good. Are you still needing details on spies? Because I did some reading, and found you a good one. You mind how we were talking about Harley?’

Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford and a man of power in the government of England, who was also Queen Anne’s spymaster. I nodded.

Dr Weir said, ‘I was reading up on Harley, with a mind to finding out a wee bit more about Defoe for you, and I came across some letters from another agent Harley sent to Scotland at the time, and who was actually at Slains.’