The Guardian by Diana Knightley

Twenty-eight - Kaitlyn

After breakfast, a week later, when Fraoch and James had gone off to intervene on cattle business, I was enjoying a sit and sigh with Hayley.

Today we had less interesting things to sigh about because her husband had been gone for a whole week.

She said, “What am I supposed to do when my husband isn’t here? He’s off gallivanting around.” She wrapped one of his awkwardly long scarves around her neck.

I pretended to be Fraoch. “I daena gallivant.”

She pulled it up over her mouth and inhaled. “I miss his smell — don’t tell him I said that, I prefer to have him doing his best.” She laughed. “He better get the cows back, he better come home soon. My bed is cold and he needs to be keeping me warm.”

“You’re just pissed you didn’t get to go.”

“Yeah! Why didn’t I get to go?”

“Because cattle-thief negotiations are no place for a lady?”

“And why not?”

I sighed.

Beaty rushed up. “Excuse me, Queen Kaitlyn and Madame Hayley.” Her face had a pallor.

Hayley asked, “What is it? Did ye see a ghost?”

“Nae, but the one I do often see in the upper hall was there last night, hae ye seen it? The woman who washes the stone walls?”

Hayley’s eyes went wide. “A ghost! Now this is interesting. What — is she floating or pale or...?”

I said, “We have plenty of time to talk ghosts, Hayley, it looked like, before she got sidetracked, Beaty was going to tell us something important.”

“She inna who she says she is.”

“Who?”

It was like stepping out into the street about to cross and a truck had wheeled down upon me and forced me to step back.

“Madame Sophie.”

“What do you mean? You know it?”

“Aye. I ken it, with certainty.”

My eyes went wide. “They have been married for almost nine months, these are serious charges. What is your evidence?”

“I was in the nursery with her and I started the kids on a nursery rhyme, a poem I heard many times when I was a bairn, and she dinna ken the words. Twas odd tae me, but I thought twas because she is from a different part of Scotland. Edinburgh is a many day ride from m’village, ye ken.”

Hayley said, “That’s not that far, Beaty, I think nursery rhymes travel farther than that, don’t they? I mean, do they? They do, right?”

“I daena ken, but I thought she ought tae ken it. So I waited for a few moments, we played something else, and then I asked her tae recite a nursery rhyme for the children. She said she dinna ken one. I said, and twas a lie tae say it, ‘Dost ye ken the one from m’youth, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star?’ And she said, ‘Aye,’ and recited it for the kids. I said, ‘Did James teach it tae ye?’ And she said, ‘Nae, I learned it from m’mother when I was verra wee.’”

She looked at us wide-eyed.

I said, “Well, that’s a very old poem right? Like as old as things get?”

“Nae, Emma taught it tae me, and when I asked where it came from we looked it up on the Google back at home, twas from the year 1806 — a hundred years from now.”

Hayley said, “Maybe she forgot that James taught it to her?”

I said, “You think her husband James taught her a poem about the stars and she forgot and gave credit to her mother?”

Hayley said,“Yeah, bullshit, you’re right, no way.”

I asked Beaty, “Will you go to the nursery, make sure Isla and Archie are—”

“I am already on m’way.”

* * *

I rushed out to the hall. To the guard I said, “Will ye please watch over Madame Sophie? Keep her from the nursery?”

The main guardsman said, “Of course, Queen Kaitlyn, we will add some guardsmen tae her.”

“Okay, thank you. And King Magnus is on the walls?”

“Aye.”

I took the stairs two at a time and found Quentin and Magnus on watch together. My husband had binoculars to his eyes, pointed in the direction of Ben Cruachan and the cave where the vessels were kept.

Quentin said, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“That’s what I just said to Beaty and of course, she had seen one,” I panted, “but I’m totally panicked.” I pulled my bodice trying to get in air. “Beaty said Madame Sophie isn’t who she said she is and told me her proof, and I just panicked. I think she’s a time traveler.” I doubled over. “Fuck.”

Quentin said, “Beaty said so? I asked her to keep her eyes open, something... I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

Magnus said, “Madame Sophie daena hae a vessel on her, how can she be a traveler?” He huffed. “She married intae the family, she haena given us any reason nae tae trust her. Ye saw something, Quentin?”

“Just a hunch, a lack of questions... I don’t know.”

Magnus said, “Master James inna here, he will be furious when he finds out we are suspicious about his wife during his absence.”

I said, “I get all of that, but also, Beaty is scared — shouldn’t Sophie be locked up?”

I looked at their faces.

“Why not, because she’s a woman, a wife? Because she is a lovely woman with all her batting eyelashes and soft smooth skin? And she hid it so well? For nine months! I’ll remind you of one thing, Magnus, your mother is a lovely woman. And the fact that she hid it so well for nine months is exactly the reason why she needs to be locked up. As far as I’m concerned Madame Sophie goes to her room right now, guards are stationed at her door.”

Magnus said, “Och,” and circled his fingers in the air as if to say, ‘round ‘em up’ to the men. Quentin whistled and began calling up and down the walls.

The men gathered and Quentin commanded them down to arrest Madame Sophie.

The whole thing gave me pause because it felt very much like something Lady Mairead would do.