Author's Note: In the last chapter Gilbarta mentioned the possibility of drinking 'cordials' all night long to forget her memory of Penance. It's been brought to my attention that this is wrong, since apparently in the UK a 'cordial' refers to a non-alcoholic concentrate of fruit juice, unlike in the US where it typically means an alcoholic liqueur. Well, you learn something new every day.
I'm not changing it, mind you. We yanks fought a war with Britain for this very kind of thing (I think tea was somehow involved, too), and if I want my fictitious 19th century Scottish noblewoman to call it a 'cordial' then that's that.
I'll be honest: maybe I'm not getting enough sleep lately.
Hell, I almost included a sink with running water in this chapter...
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"The Just Man Injustices"
Achnacarry, Scotland – 1837
Notwithstanding the 'very fine' front door of the estate Penance decided to reenter the castle the same way he left it. Climbing up the uneven stone exterior was a fair bit more difficult than his journey down had been.
Still, it was less painful, or so he thought.
As soon as he gripped the shattered windowpane he impaled his palm on a jagged sliver of glass. Briefly he considered the absurdity of losing his footing here and falling out the window again, then trying to re-climb the wall, only for an owl or some other thing to distract him and make him fall again. The idea brought a perverse smile to his lips.
Everything else about his life was rather pointlessly Sisyphean, wasn't it?
The idea of making it even more literal somehow brought the boy to the point of laughter. Or maybe it was tears. Actually he couldn't quite tell the difference, when he thought about it.
And that made him consider the Cameron woman, again, and that peculiar, polite laugh of hers. The chuckle that threatened to devolve into 'something else'. It was an absurd thing, all things considered.
But if there was one thing Penance could understand it was the absurd.
The boy mantled into the room and removed the glass from his palm, casting it into the darkness outside. He glared at the dresser beside the window, giving Galabeg the stink-eye. For its part, of course, the fox head merely leered up at him, marble eyes empty.
"You..." Penance pointed a stern finger at the thing, growling. He curled his lips back down and took a slow breath, closing his eyes. When he opened them again he was a touch calmer.
"...you are aptly named," he whispered.
Penance considered his bloody hand; his eyes were drawn to a door opposite the oak bed. The boy stepped into an adjoining washroom, to his luck finding the basin filled with water. He stood before the mirror for a time, staring at his own reflection. He hadn't actually looked at himself in a proper mirror for some time, now. Not since he started working at the 'School', at least. All the other children there were pallid and cut-up little things, their ghost-white bodies rough and calloused from their time in the craggy, preternatural dark.
It shouldn't have been, but it was almost a surprise for him to get a look at himself: skin healthy and unbroken, rosy and fair, whole body bristling with life.
Another perverse smile wracked his lips, and the thought behind this one really was perverse. For all his outward 'healthiness', and for all the other children at the mine's 'frailties', the comparison really was only skin-deep. For all their rough lives and their poverty most of those children still owned things Penance could never really hope to possess.
Family.
Community.
These were things Penance had convinced himself he didn't need. They were certainly things he couldn't afford, not with how markedly they could threaten that one thing, above all else, that mattered to him.
Survival.
Wanting anything more, even in passing, would make a terrific opportunity for him to slip up.
And above all he could not slip.
Ever.
"No," Penance quietly agreed with himself as he washed his bloody hand in the basin.
He didn't need any of that stuff.
The boy walked over to the dresser and stared down at Galabeg. His eyes moved to the wardrobe and he inched open the door, looking over the old clothing inside.
"But you know something I want, at present?"
The boy looked over to the bedroom door.
"A fuller stomach..."
Instantly he looked down at the dresser, baring his teeth at Galabeg.
"And after what you just pulled you get no say in the matter!"
X
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Five minutes later he was inching open the bedroom door, crouched low and cautious. He moved as silently as possibly on a pair of well-oiled leather shoes, his bent knees girded in thin silk socks. They rode up a bit under the legs of ankle-length breeches, tied fast to his legs with bold, filigreed buckles. The pants were powder blue with delicate designs weaved in gold lace along the outside thighs. A stark white linen shirt covered his torso, with its high collar peeking out over a dark tartan waistcoat gracing his chest.
It wasn't really the kind of attire one went sneaking about in. It was the kind of attire one wanted to be seen in.
And, coincidentally, he was.
"Young sir..."
The boy hopped like a rabbit as a reedy old voice startled him, nearly whispering in his ear. An elderly man stood to one side of the door, his dour black clothing identifying him as domestic staff.
Penance could only stammer in surprise.
"I'm... uh—"
"A sight better dressed than last I saw you, at least."
The man turned ponderously, like a decrepit wooden ship fighting the water's flow, and then he moved down the marbled corridor on arthritic legs, absently waving a white-gloved hand for Penance to follow.
"You are also late to table, if that's your need."
"Want, not need," the boy grumbled.
Penance followed the elderly man at a distance, bearing a small frown under the pale light of the gas lamps lining the marble hall.
The butler led him through a corridor carpeted in fine fabric, thick as his wrists and soft as down. They descended the house's grand staircase, girded with fine oak banisters bearing delicate carvings all along the rails. The sweet, perfumed scent of the upstairs gave way to the rustic and dusty scent of thick, polished floorboards, mingling with trace savory smells from the kitchen off to the far left. Penance couldn't quite see it beyond the curves of elegantly papered walls bounding the foyer.
But his twitching nose could write a map straight to it, and it would put a bat's sonar to shame.
The butler instead ushered Penance to the right, past a well-appointed drawing room with silk curtains gracing two massive bay windows. They stopped at a heavy oak door and the butler knocked on it with impossible softness, barely brushing the fabric of his glove against the wood.
He quickly looked down at the boy and pointed at him with a stern finger, his weathered eyes intense.
"You are to mind your manners with her ladyship, little hob. You're already being rude for your kind, aren't you?"
The man again turned— again ponderously— and shuffled back through the drawing room.
"After all, I thought your ilk was supposed to bugger off when you were given nice clothes..."
Penance couldn't help but smirk at the comparison. He called after the old man.
"How'd you like me to turn your nose into a toadstool?"
"Mmm. It'd certainly make me a better wage at the freak-shows than I earn here..."
The door creaked open and an aproned young servant girl met Penance's gaze; she gestured for him to follow her into the dining room, leading the boy to a seat at one end of a large blackwood table. Places were set on either end, though only the far end was laden with servings of venison, potatoes and carrots.
Gilbarta sat here, staring at the flickering candelabra at the table's center, the fire rolling along her empty eyes like sunlight struggling through a fogbank. She hadn't even touched her meal, it seemed, and she barely looked up at Penance as he took the chair opposite, merely motioning for the servant girl to set his plate with food from the kitchen. In the meantime she took a long draught from a glass of blood-red wine, finally meeting the boy's gaze as she pulled it from her lips and returned it to the table.
Honestly, Penance thought she didn't really know what to say.
That was something they had in common, at least.
Only the din of a grand pendulum clock against the far wall of the room broke their silence, monotonously clunking out the time. Penance looked over at it only once, a cold fire in his narrowed eyes.
The servant girl finally broke the awkward quiet, bringing Penance's meal. First he looked to Gilbarta's plate, uneasy with the idea of starting when she hadn't even touched her food. His stomach, however, was less concerned with formalities, and the gamey venison before him taunted him with its tangy vapors. It was a pitched battle between social graces and the appetite of a very hungry 12-year-old boy.
The social graces didn't stand a chance.
He dug in, mouth nearly bursting with spit as he devoured his first few bites of the pan-seared venison. Gilbarta couldn't help but show a faint smile, and within another moment she, too, daintily took to her plate.
Penance looked over at her, cheeks distended like a chipmunk. He swallowed an inappropriately large chunk of the meat, his throat comically bulging as he downed it.
"It's the fallen woman," he said.
Gilbarta paused, fork to her lips, and she gently lowered it, looking over at the boy.
"Pardon?"
"Your question. 'When a fallen woman meets a devilish boy do, they get to argue over which one of them is the least human'? Remember?"
Gilbarta nodded.
"Usually it would be the fallen woman," Penance said, quickly secreting another chunk of venison in his mouth.
The woman tilted her head, curious.
"A fallen woman's had longer to think on her missteps than a devilish boy," Penance explained. "And longer to set herself in them. 'Devilish boys' are just impulsive; 'fallen women' are practiced at their wickedness. Usually."
Again Gilbarta's face played at showing two emotions, and this time neither was the 'something else' she threatened to show to him upstairs. Here it appeared to be both amusement and indignity, but Penance couldn't quite map the ratios.
"I must ask, little magician, whether you're in the habit of calling a host that would feed you the 'least human' thing at the table?"
Penance held up one finger, cutting her off.
"Usually, I said." He rested his elbows on the table, leaning forward in his chair. "A fallen woman has usually had longer to think on her missteps..."
Gilbarta took a moment to come to Penance's meaning, and when she did she merely nodded, as if silently approving of the wine.
"How old—"
"Oliver Cromwell and I could've been crib-mates," Penance stared down at his plate, and then a wicked little smile wracked his lips. "Me being Catholic, though, I presume he'd have tried to strangle me as I slept."
That prompted a small smile from the woman.
"Catholic, hmm? Does that not conflict with your 'devilishness'?"
"That I pay for," Penance mumbled. "Every single day, in fact."
Gilbarta took a moment to study the contours of the boy's face, watching as the candlelight flickered over his skin.
"You have Iberian blood in you, do you not?"
He looked up at her, then tilted his head with a mixture of curiosity and wariness.
He himself couldn't map those ratios, either.
"You, uh, you see very much," he whispered. "And you're impressed by very little."
The woman looked to one side, drawing a low sigh.
"My late husband was fond of a particular saying: 'each of us mans the course of our destiny, hands on the helm'." Gilbarta took another long draught of wine. "Fine sentiment for one born into the landed gentry, I suppose. Well, you could say that my ship's been thrown off-course, of late, and you— whatever you might be— are little more than rough waves on my stern, when my starboard's already been split open by the rocks."
The boy set down his fork, leaning back in his chair.
"I'm sorry about the Lochiel—"
Gilbarta also leaned back, chuckling with an unhealthy smirk.
"My 'ship' was floundering far before that, in truth. No, my son's death was... merely a culmination, I suppose, cruel as it is to say."
The woman slowly got up from the table, moving to one of the windows beside the pendulum clock, staring out into the bleak darkness.
"They tell me you tried to shield him when the rocks fell. Is that so?"
Penance swallowed. Not venison, this time, but a sudden lump in his throat.
"I— uh, yes, it is," he whispered after a pause.
"Well, thank you for that."
Penance nodded at the back of the woman's head, and again he felt a nagging, nasty tug: an instinct to be very stupid and ridiculous.
The desire to tell the truth.
And why?
Who knows: maybe all that time in the ice actually gave him brain damage?
Gilbarta walked over to a cabinet and poured herself a brandy; she knocked it back with one fell motion. Penance, meanwhile, slowly got up and crossed the room, standing by her side. She merely stared into a mirror over the cabinet, seemingly ignoring him.
"The Lochiel died because of me," Penance said.
"Oh?"
"He... uh, he was—"
"Beating one of the trapper children," Gilbarta nodded. "And you intervened, resulting in him doing something very foolish. Yes, I know."
The woman retrieved her pipe from the cabinet and lit it up, drawing a long puff. When she expelled the smoke she looked down at the boy.
"Do you want to know what my sisters and I used to do, when we were but lasses?"
Penance shook his head.
Gilbarta tapped the front of her pipe.
"We'd take my father's old pipes and rub soap water deep in the chambers. We'd sit on the stoop behind the house and blow brilliant patterns of bubbles out of them. Such a simple thing, but so grand a pleasure. We could do it for hours. Would that the world never tired of such trivial little miracles, but time passes, and people age..."
Gilbarta met Penance's gaze, holding up one finger to the boy.
"Usually," she added. "And some age more 'tumultuously' than others. My boy, well, he had a willfulness about him, and a strong fiery streak to his temperament. Now his father was a strong, sure hand— a very 'orderly' man— confident and... well, very in control of things. In control enough to manage raising a son well enough, but with him gone and me not up to the challenge, well..."
She shook her head, drawing and expelling another long mouthful from her pipe.
"All that I did for his upbringing seemed to backfire and sour the air. Every choice I made turned him further from me. And then I think to give him perspective: show him the calloused hands and hard backs that work to give him his station in life, and maybe humble him at least a little."
Penance cocked his brow.
"Like taking him to Sgàile Gaor Bheinn, you mean?"
Gilbarta nodded. She moved away from the cabinet and again stood before the dark window.
"Another failure, to join the rest. The story of my parentage: incompetence to the point of injustice. Oh, and it's gross injustice after injustice, how I handled him. Only this one got my boy killed."
Again Penance walked up beside the woman.
"'Each of us mans the course of our destiny', right? And your ladyship didn't pull that beam from the cavern wall."
"Spare me the niceties," she grumbled. "And didn't you just say 'the Lochiel died because of me?' Well, you Catholics are no strangers to feeling guilty, child, and if you can find an ounce of guilt in the small part you played in his death then it would certainly take a ship to carry the weight of mine. A ship that's weighted to sink with the heft of that guilt, and the burden of those injustices."
"You didn't frighten him into acting desperate—"
"You didn't raise him to pick fights with children half his size—"
"Neither did you, did you?" Penance came between the woman and the window, crossing his arms and looking up at her with stern eyes.
Gilbarta met his stern stare with one of her own, but then she laughed a particularly unpleasant laugh, carelessly tossing her pipe on the floor beside the pendulum clock.
"What are we doing, exactly, trading barbs to ease each other's guilt? That's a fool's work, for certain!"
She stormed off for the drawing room.
Penance called after her.
"I've been called worse than a 'fool', your ladyship. Really, that I don't mind."
Gilbarta stopped, then slowly turned around. Nascent tears were threatening to spill over the edges of her eyes, but in an instant she seemed to almost will them back into her head.
"It seems to me," Penance said, "that committing an injustice doesn't necessarily make a person unjust. Not always, at least."
"One might call that a fool thing to say, child."
"Maybe it is," Penance smirked. "Like I said: I've been called worse."
Gilbarta wiped her eyes with the back of one hand, calmly straightening her posture. Her voice took on a more even, 'regal' tone.
"No reasonable person would make the mistake of thinking you it, of course," Gilbarta gently smiled, "but a fool might just call you a proper young lad, Penance."
The boy couldn't help but match her smile.
"And another fool might call you a dignified lady."
The woman stared at the carpet beneath them for a time, then silently nodded at the boy, moving off for the drawing room.
"Time for a cordial or two before bed, I should think." She looked back at the boy. "Perhaps not quite enough to forget your face, I suppose."
Penance shook his head.
"Might not be the habit of a dignified lady."
Gilbarta looked to the window behind Penance,and the bleak blackness beyond.
"Seems to me, at least, that it might not be the habit of a proper young lad to venture out into the cold dark at such an hour..."
Penance only returned the woman's stare, his face entirely noncommittal.
Gilbarta shrugged.
"But then we only play at fools, don't we? And I suppose we're only fooling each other." She opened the drawing room door, briefly looking back at the boy. "All the same: those bed linens are fresh. Make of 'em what you will."
She left Penance alone in the dining room, and the boy slowly wandered over to where her pipe landed, at the foot of the big pendulum clock. He took it up and set his nostril over the chamber, greedily inhaling vapors straight out of the dying bowl.
He leaned against the clock, watching the smoldering pipe's fire die, and he shook his head.
That was quite enough of this foolishness, he thought. It was time to get back on the road.
The long road.
The quiet road.
The lonely road.
The clanking of the clock suddenly dug into his brain with full force, each hollow clunk like an earthquake. Penance gently set Gilbart's pipe down on the cabinet.
He then rammed his fist straight through the glass casing of the device, grabbing the metal bob on its iron pendulum, and forcibly yanked those guts right out of the clock, casting the bent metal down on the carpet.
The servant girl quickly skittered into the room, her face full of concern. When she saw Penance standing before the ruined clock, cradling his un-ruined hand, the boy merely shrugged.
"Sorry," he mumbled, casually walking past the girl. "I must've slipped..."
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Almost every fiber in his being tugged at Penance, ordering him to leave immediately. Only a sliver of 'something else' urged him to say.
And it was that 'something else' that found the boy sitting cross-legged on that fine, soft bed one hour later.
He didn't even have the courage to look over at Galabeg on the dresser. Not for that hour, at least. At last the boy dropped back onto the bed, head hitting the pillow, and he sighed with exasperation.
"Yes, I know, damn it." He snarled at the fox head. "And I agree. We can get across the loch well before daylight, I think, and from there wherever we want..."
Still, when he thought about that phrase 'wherever we want'...
The boy sat up, snarling.
"I agree!" He glared at Galabeg. "Yes, it's ridiculous! And we are going..."
The boy slowed his breathing and tried to calm himself; he realized he hadn't done a 'spot check' since going down for dinner, and he might as well do another one now. To help calm his nerves, if anything.
Penance closed his eyes and went down into that cold, dark place, letting his mind drift through the ether.
To his surprise it did not drift far.
A blast of colors met his face: lights burning in the dark, feet tromping up a stone path, a body swaying with a quick, purposeful stride.
But the view is what stopped Penance's breath short: Achnacarry Castle, and not a half-mile from the grounds.
He pulled his mind from his meditation in an instant, a heavy weight tugging at his heart and sinking down into his stomach.
"G— god damn!" Spit flung from his mouth as he spoke. "Can't be ten minutes away!"
Penance bolted off the bed and grabbed Galabeg, stuffing him into his shirt, then he leapt up on the window and prepared to jump.
But before he did he had a thought.
Who was coming?
What kind of immortal were they?
And just what would they do, exactly, if they didn't find Penance here?
Almost every fiber in Penance's being screamed the same answer to him: that wasn't his problem! His problem was to run!
His problem was to survive.
Only 'something else' said different, in a weak and tinny voice.
But it was enough to bring Penance's feet back from the ledge.
He still stared into the night, not sure whether he'd gone insane or not. Galabeg certainly had some words for him, but Penance had only one reply.
"No," he whispered. "I'm doing this. And if you want out..." he stared down into the ruffles of his shirt, looking at Galabeg's black marble eyes, "then I can toss you into the woods and you'll be safe. So what say you?"
Penance stared up at the night sky, his face ineffable. After a moment he gently nodded.
"Fine. Then this is what we're gonna do..."
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He managed the window easy enough, moving silently and with perfectly practiced stealth. With little effort he was up the stairs and at the former Lochiel's room with little fuss, but he found it empty.
Of course.
Moving on near-silent feet he skulked along the rest of the upstairs, eventually finding the hallway leading to the master bedroom, the door bordered by a small sitting area bathed in cold shadows.
He crept to the door, gently testing the knob, and he found it open. Before he could twist it open, however, the harsh flare of a match exploded in the darkness. He spun about to see Penance lazily sitting in a chair behind him, one leg dangling over the armrest.
The boy wore only those starched breeches and nothing else, his little knife tucked in the waistband off to one side. As he lit a candle beside his chair the flame highlighted Gilbarta's pipe sticking out of his mouth; he gently blew into it.
A mess of soapy bubbles exploded from the far end.
The corners of the boy's mouth twisted apart from a serious scowl to a playful smirk.
"Good evening," he whispered.
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Author's Note: ...the running water thing was actually kind of a quandary, since the White House, for example, got running water four years prior to this chapter, but even then only on the first floor. I've concluded that it would be highly unlikely for a Scottish baronial castle to have it as a retrofit at this time, no matter the wealth involved.
You know, a few more historical 'fun facts' and I'll bet I could apply for some kind of educational grant for this thing.
