“Thank you for seeing me,” he said, keeping his focus on Gaira and not the woman ready to split his skull. “I am not sure how to start this conversation, so I will simply come out with it. You were in the chamber when Worcester was speaking of finding his brother, an officer who perished at Culloden.”
Gaira was listening closely but cautiously. “Aye,” she said. “I was there.”
“You heard the entire conversation.”
Gaira wasn’t quite sure what he meant. “I heard him speaking,” she said. “I dunna know if it was everything he spoke of.”
Rafe paused, trying to determine the best way to direct the conversation and not upset her in the process. “As he was speaking, I could see your face,” he said. “It seemed to me that Culloden has affected you also. Was I wrong?”
Gaira looked at him for a moment, growing uneasy. “It affected all of us, m’laird,” she said. “The battle was a great tragedy.”
Rafe could see from the look on her face that he’d hit a nerve. “Balthazar told me about Carrie’s Chamber of Sorrow,” he said. “He told me that she collected many things from the battle and put them there for safe keeping.”
Gaira nodded, averting her gaze as if suddenly unable to look him in the eyes. “I… I know,” she said. “I’ve been in the chamber, many a time.”
“Then you know what is in there?”
She nodded.
He hesitated. “Gaira, forgive me for asking, but have you seen something from Worcester?” he asked, almost gently. “I know you heard Worcester speak of his brother, and it occurred to me that you might have seen something from the English. Perhaps something… belonging to his brother?”
Gaira began to blink rapidly, as if blinking away tears. “I… I dunna know…” she stammered. “There are a great many things in that chamber. Men have been bringing them since the battle ended because they’ve heard of Carrie’s treasures. There are many things there.”
“Some from the English?”
“The English were at the battle.”
“They were,” he agreed. “Only fifty Englishmen lost their lives. Surely something of theirs ended up in that chamber.”
“Why should ye ask me? Ask Carrie.”
She was growing agitated and he realized he was going to lose her because the woman with the ax was about to chase him out. But he made one last plea.
“Imagine if you were searching for your brother, Gaira,” he said, making sure he was close to the door should that ax come hurling at him. “If you know something about Worcester’s brother, it would be the merciful thing to tell him. This is the season of our Lord, after all. It is the time when Christ was born and angels walked the earth. If you know something, give Worcester that gift. Help him find some peace. He needs you.”
That was about all Rafe could say because the old woman with the ax had moved out of the shadows and was coming for him. He quickly opened the door and bolted out into the gently falling snow, slamming the door in his wake.
When he was gone, the old woman with the ax threw the bolt on the door before turning to Gaira.
“Sassenach,” she muttered with distaste. “He’s brave coming here tae ask such questions.”
Gaira was struggling to compose herself, struggling not to appear too unnerved to her mother, who could be a hard woman at times. She simply wouldn’t understand what was in the tender heart of her daughter.
She never had.
“There’s a man at the inn who has come tae look for his brother,” she said, realizing her voice was trembling. “His brother was killed there.”
“English?”
“Aye.”
“Then it was God’s will,” the old woman said. “Send him tae the church in Inverness. ’Tis where they buried them.”
Gaira simply nodded. As her mother went to put the ax away, Gaira headed up to her chamber, up the small, spiral stairs and into a room that was dark but for the soft glow of the hearth.
Shutting the door, Gaira stoked the fire to bring a little more light and heat into the chamber before she went to a wardrobe against the wall. Pulling open the sticky door, there were neat rows of clothing folded inside, with still other clothing hanging on pegs on the door and inside the cabinet. It looked like any other wardrobe.
But this one was different.
It was one of the few things passed down by her ancestors, something salvaged from the Earl of Forth’s properties and brought to this tiny village on the outskirts of Inverness. This particular wardrobe had a false bottom to store valuables in secret and Gaira opened the trap door that exposed the contents of the secret compartment.
There was only one thing there.
Carefully, Gaira pulled out a tattered, stained haversack. But it wasn’t just any haversack – it was one she’d found in Carrie’s Chamber of Sorrow, back in the early days when Carrie was still accumulating her collection.
Gaira had been there when the chamber started to gather shields and sabers and the memories of the lost. This particular haversack had come from a local tradesman who’d gone looking for metal to salvage. He’d brought it to Carrie, trading it for some drink and a meal. Carrie went through it for anything valuable before putting it aside with the other haversacks from the nameless, faceless dead. That was when Gaira had found interest in this particular haversack.
It contained letters.
Gaira could read. Her mother had taught her how and she found more interest in the letters of the dead than in their actual possessions. Several of the haversacks contained letters, and she’d read all of them, but this haversack had been different.
Through those carefully scripted letters, a story unfolded.
It was the story of two brothers.
Carefully, she unbuttoned the three brass buttons holding the haversack closed and opened the flap. Inside were bundles of letters wrapped in hemp twine and she pulled out a bundle to look at it.
Fidelis Semper.
Ever Faithful.
It was the motto of the House of de Lohr.
Gaira could hardly believe the man who had written these very letters had come looking for them. Or, more correctly, looking for the man for whom the letters were intended. She hadn’t thought much of the British visitor to the inn until he started talking about his missing brother. She listened more carefully. And then, the name…
De Lohr.
Gaira sank to her buttocks, sitting on the floor with the letters clutched to her breast. She had read every single letter, more than once. Something about them spoke to her in a way she couldn’t fully grasp and she had stolen the haversack, keeping it hidden away in her chamber. Carrie didn’t even know it was missing because she’d taken anything of value out of the haversack and put it aside, but these letters… they were the only thing of value as far as Gaira was concerned.
From the words on the yellowed paper, she’d come to know James de Lohr. There were letters written by James when he was a young lad, all the way until most recently before Johnathan went to war. The earlier letters were from a sensitive, somewhat spoiled young boy, upset with the way his brother had spoken to him or made demands of him. It was usually the same thing, fighting over the way Johnathan had behaved or making mention of a speech impediment.