“Who’s Mari? For that matter, who’s Ken.” And what the fluff did he just say?
Cameron bursts out laughing, taking both Gertie and me my surprise, judging by her woof and my splutter.
“Great. Just great. I haven’t even gotten there, and I’m already making friends. And you know what? I have no idea what you just said.”
“It’s no’ so bad as all that.” His guffaws switch down a few gears to a chuckle, his gaze sliding from the road ahead to meet mine. “Mari is your assistant. High doh is like . . . her knickers are twisted,” he adds with a totally cute roll of the r. “She’s riled, y’ken?”
I find myself shaking my head. The gist I get, kind of like understanding a song without knowing all the words. But that rolling r—knickerrrrs—that was something else.
“You’ll get there. It’ll take you no time at all.”
“To understand the accent?”
“Aye. Just don’t go asking people to talk slower.”
“Why?”
“They’re likely just to tell you to think faster.”
Just great.
“I’m just pullin’ your leg,” he says. “We get a lot of Americans visiting during the season, and they get by just fine.”
“Well, that’s good to know. I guess a lot of them visit because of the movie stuff.”
“Aye, and it’s not always wee ones that want to take a walk in Tollbride School of Enchantment and Sorcery,” he says, using the name of the biggest kid’s movie franchise which was partly filmed in Kilblair Castle. “We get a lot of American’s coming to visit the home of Rory Roy, the romantic highlander.” This is a popular Netflix series, Kennedy tells me. “Maybe you should watch it. You might pick up a bit o’ the brogue.”
I smile noncommittally.
“You can see the castle up ahead.”
The road rises to meet us, darkened heather-covered hills either side before a coastline appears in the distance. Craggy hills and a stretch of sandy beach, and between the car and coastline, there appears to be a cluster of grey, hemmed in by a wall then wrapped in towering fir trees.
“It doesn’t look like a castle.” I silently curse myself for saying so, knowing people can be protective of their homes.
“Aye, that’s because it’s more like a fortress.”
Ten minutes or more later, we round an ancient-looking hedge to be met with an equally ancient looking gatehouse that looks like it wasn’t built for show, but for fortification. The masonry above the arch is carved with a weather-worn shield and crest, dappled with lichen.
“A fortress?” A nervous sort of anticipation swirls in my stomach.
“Almost.” He shoots me a grin as we turn into a driveway lined with huge trees.
“This is some driveway. And this is a lot of garden to keep.” Lawns roll left and right, their expanse dotted with trees that mostly look like skeletons, only one or two showing the first bloom of spring.
“This is just front lawn,” he says dismissively. “Wait until you see the formal gardens, the maze, and the orchard. Then there are the family’s private gardens and a few other bits to care for.”
“How many gardeners are there?” Surely, he can’t take care of all that on his own.
“There are three others who work the land full-time and we get other people in to help from time to time.”
“Can I expect to see peacocks roaming about the place? And deer?” It looks like that kind of place. At least, the gardens do.
“Peacocks, aye.” He nods. “But there’s no deer park. There are deer out on the estate, though. Mostly red deer. Some roe.”
“The estate?”
“It’s no’ just pretty gardens. His grace owns thousands of hectares of land to the west. Land that he has stewardship of, that needs to be maintained. Thankfully, that’s no’ in my remit.”
His grace. That’s what you call a duke, if you happened to come upon one, so the internet says. Hello, your grace. Excuse me, your grace. Let me introduce you to his grace, the duke of . . . I’m not even sure. Kilblair Castle? No, I don’t think that’s it.
I had time to kill on the train and had googled the current family, including the duke. There wasn’t much that came up. Just the date the future duke took over the title, the family’s names and the like. The duke has some long-assed name, let me tell you! Henry Charles Alexander Theodore something or other. Must be a pain to fill out forms for him.
Then, just ahead, I spy the place itself. Kilblair Castle.
Before my google search, the name had conjured up images of fairy-tale turrets and buff-coloured walls covered in climbing roses. But I can’t blame Disney. I’d watched a documentary on TV recently, a behind-the-scenes look at some Scottish country estate. But what I’m looking at is far from a fairy tale and far from what the castle’s website depicts. Like the man says, it’s a fortress. Four storeys high, it has turrets, and battlements and looks like the kind of place you’d expect to see soldiers pouring boiling oil down onto the heads of marauding invaders. In short, this castle is anything but quaint.
As we drive past the entrance, I notice a round tower with a Disney-esque roof and another entrance that seems to have been bricked up at some point long ago, as well as windows that seems to be set back into walls at least two feet thick. We drive along the building and around another corner, and then I’m looking at a part of a building that’s less castle and more palace than anything else.
“We came in through the west gate.” Cameron slides me a wry look. “It’s no’ the best view of the place.”
“It doesn’t look like one building. More like a few of them,” I murmur, mostly to myself.
“Built in different time periods, aye? The foundations go back to the eleventh century. What we just passed? That was built in the thirteenth century and heavily fortified. This part of the castle was added in the seventeen-hundreds after the family did the king o’ England a wee bit of political work. Or so goes the tale. The place has been added to every century in between.”
“Even now?”
“The current duke has poured a fortune into repairs after the previous two let it go to rack and ruin. Spent their money on other things. Expensive hobbies, they had.” Debauching must be an expensive business. For a minute, I worry I might have said that aloud as his brow creases in a frown, but it’s gone just as quick. “I reckon I could get a job as a tour guide if I get sick of the gardens,” he adds with a laugh. “And in case you did’nae notice, we’re here.”
By now it’s almost fully dark as Cameron stops the car in a little courtyard. Lights burn from inside buildings to my right, which look like a row of terraced cottages. To the left, the windowless walls of the Castle loom cold and dark.
“The staff cottages,” he says, nodding his head in the direction of the lights as Gertie’s tail begins to thump.
“But you don’t live here.” From the back seat comes a disgruntled snort before Gertie’s bulky form turns a circle on the back seat before flopping back down.
“No.” He pushes back his cap, ruffling his hair, his teeth shining white in the gloom. “I’ve got a place in the village. It’s very convenient for the pub.” Then he does that thing that men everywhere seem to have perfected; a sweeping glance that scans the whole of me yet leaves me wondering if I’d imagined his appraisal. “Once you get settled, I’ll take you there, if you like.”