Morning dawned clear with the green scent of spring and a crispness that would usually have been welcome. Instead, disorder and commotion filled the camp. Packs of looted supplies were ripped open and divided up. Horses were being saddled. Men shouted curses and questions.
In the midst of it all, Douglas handed out shares of the pathetic silver that our raid had gained. Everyone was frantic to be off. He motioned to Will, Duncan, and me and handed us our shares. “I am going to Holyrood Abbey. Monks go everywhere. They will be best to send the word out, and the abbey will find room in their guesthouse. Mayhap their prayers will protect me there, and…” He shrugged. “If it doesnae, nowhere else will be safe.”
“God go with you, my lord.” I could think of nothing else to say.
A flush crept across his cheeks. “You are welcome to join me.” He threw a glance at Will and Duncan. “All three of you, I mean.”
“We need to check on our family,” Will said. “Warn them nae to allow in strangers or peddlers. But I thank you and wish you God speed.”
When Douglas raised his eyebrows at me, I said, “I have friends I must warn as well. But when I can, I will join you there.” I would take Joneta with me to wed, and if he showed me scorn for her low birth, he could be damned. I should have had the courage to do so a year past.
Colban clapped him on the back before he mounted. “With Alan dead, his family needs me.” He mounted and rode away, all the men scattering like ashes in the wind. Gil and I stood alone.
I sighed, dread like a stone in my gut. “I am going to take water to Symon. Build up the fire.” I did not say that I would see if he still lived, but I thought about it and was unsure if I hoped he had lived or died.
A few embers still flickered in the fire ring, but I bypassed it, forcing my reluctant feet to step closer to where Symon lay. His eyes were sunken, and his face wizened as though he had aged into an old man overnight. “Sir…” he croaked. He gurgled. His back arched and his legs and arms flailed.
Dear God in Heaven! I reached to stop his flailing but jerked away. My stomach turned over.
His flailing stopped, and he gave a gasp. Then he was still.
“Is he…dead?” Gil asked from barely inside the entrance.
“I think so.” Leaning my head against the cool rock of the cavern wall, I took a deep breath. “We cannae chance taking his body, so a cairn will have to do.” There were plenty of rocks below, but it took hours lugging enough of them to be sure the cairn would keep scavengers away from his body. At last, sweat drip drenched, I crossed myself and said the same prayer I had repeated after the priest over my mother’s grave. “Réquiem æternam dona ei, Dómine. Et lux perpétua lúceat ei. Requiéscat in pace. Amen.”
My skin seemed contaminated with filth, so that I wanted to claw it off. I jerked my gambeson over my head and shed my wool chausses. After tossing them into the river, I waded in waist deep after them. They were sopping when I grabbed them and scrubbed my skin with them until I was nearly raw. When I heard splashing, I turned. Gil had waded in after me, still in his clothes and ducked under the water. He came up sputtering.
“I dinnae ken it will help the sickness, but my skin were crawling,” he sputtered.
That night I slept heavily, wrapped in a plaid made from wool spun by Joneta. Oblivious to the sounds of foxes in the undergrown and hunting owls, dreams flowed through my head like ghosts. My mother sang a lullaby, but the words drifted away like fog. Symon appeared in one, laughing as he raised his bow and loosed an arrow as he had only three days before.
A shaft of light on my face made me pry my eyes open to see Gil skinning a squirrel next to a small campfire. His forehead creased with worry. “I am afraid to go home. What if we take the sickness with us?”
I got up, kicking free of the plaid. “We cannae hide in the forest forever, frozen by fear. And what if they need us? “