Lifeless.
There’s no life left.
My aunt cries. My uncle holds her. My mother speaks to us all quietly and gives us hugs. Franklyn appears with tea that no one will drink and the sky starts to darken because it’s February and it’s Scotland and it always goes dark here early.
My father doesn’t move.
He doesn’t speak.
He won’t do either again.
He may have gone to join Lennox in the next world over or that may be it – I haven’t decided yet. All I know is that this day has no bookends, there’s no way to prop this story up.
The door opens and my cousin Lachlan arrives, already wearing black and a sombre expression on his face, as if he’s already at the funeral and maybe he’s the celebrant who doesn’t really know the deceased that well.
The Deceased.
The dead.
My father.
Paden.
King.
So many names.
Lachlan goes to my father’s bedside and kneels down, bows his head and says a few words that we’re all meant to hear and that we all understand and I want him out of there.
I stand like I’m guarding a pharaoh’s tomb or a dog at its owner’s grave, refusing to give up hoping that their owner may come back.
Lachlan stands up, turns to me. He offers me his hand and then pulls me in for a kiss.
“I’m sorry for your loss. For our country’s loss.” His words aren’t soft and I can read underneath them, all that he isn’t saying.
I hold my breath. I can save these words for another day.
“Thank you.”
He nods. His look is pointed. Piercing. “You’re welcome. Your majesty.”
Ben
My least favourite sight is Isaac’s back.
It means he’s leaving. It means that he’s probably going back to Blair and it’ll be another few days before I see him again.
Isaac arrives while I’m chopping wood with the sound of the axe echoing in the air. The cabin I’m living in is on the outskirts of the Stewart estate, way beyond the perimeter that’s patrolled. When I was a teenager, and I’d fallen out with my father, this was one of the places I’d escape to, hidden deep in the trees, away from the loch and undisturbed because there was nothing there. The Stewart family no longer participated in hunting game, so this place had no purpose. It was a relic of a former time, maybe like the crown itself.
I can use the stove to keep warm and Isaac has made a delivery of food and cured meats that can be kept cold while I stay here, for an undetermined length of time. To go back to the castle now would be foolish, however much I want to be there for Blair. I’m a suspect in Lennox’s assassination and considered a traitor to the crown. Going back now, however much Micky believes I’m not how I’ve been painted, would be stepping straight into a prison cell.
It wouldn’t be wise.
Living here isn’t a problem: I’ve spent longer in worse conditions. The problem is what Isaac’s just told me.
Blair’s father has died.
This isn’t about my grief or my loss for the man who over the years has been kind to me and certainly to my own father. This is about her.
