16th October 1102

Lochan curled his arm protectively around Cindra’s trembling shoulders, pulling her close to his body. He could feel how cold her skin was where it peeked shyly through the interlocking fingers of lacework that covered her arms.

“Lochan”, she moaned, clenching her fist into such tight balls that he saw tiny rows of red, where her fingernails, like claws had damaged her skin.

Lochan hugged her to him, gazing over to Hepsie who was examining Garrick with a concerned frown.

“I don’t understand what’s happening to him. I can’t be seeing anythin’ that suggests an illness an’ yet he’s covered in bruises and cuts. They’re all over his poor body. Are yew being that sure he didn’t fall badly or hurt hisself me Lady? He looks like he’s been taking a bad tumble down a big flight of stairs he does”, Hepsie asked in consternation.

“No, he didn’t say anything”, Cindra replied, choking back a sob.

“Are you sure honey?”, Lochan gently asked her, stroking her tangled hair, “Perhaps he hit his head and didn’t remember and only now are the bruises beginning to appear”.

“You don’t understand”, she cried, yanking herself from his grasp.

She turned to him, her catlike eyes shining with unshed tears, her cheeks flushed in distress.

“I saw them happen. The cuts! It was like someone was cutting him right before me with an invisible knife”.

“But love, maybe you weren’t quite awake. Are you sure it was like that?”

“It was. It was! I saw it. It’s Isabelle, I know it is. Lochan she’s killing him!”

“Lord sakes!”, Hepsie swore, recoiling back from Garrick’s limp body.

“What! What is it!?”, Lochan cried, startled.

“I seen it too… on his cheek. There’s being a whole new cut an’ it just flared up like that. It was slow, starting at one side an’ moving across in a line, just like a knife being drawn across his face. Just like Lady Tadghar was just saying’”.

“I told you!”, Cindra wailed, “Just like a knife! She’s killing him slowly”.

Lochan tried to remain rational, though it was difficult to collect his thoughts with his heart pounding as hard as it was.

“Have you ever seen something like this Goodwife Cade?”, Lochan asked calmly, though anyone listening carefully could have detected a faint waver in his voice.

“No, I never did”, Hepsie replied with a trembling voice as she tried to stem the flow of blood from the newest wound, “My Ma once seen a boy though, once he had a cut the blood just wouldn’t stop comin’. Even the smallest cuts they had to stitch ‘em. But I never heard nothin’ of cuts appearing out of the blue for no reason. I don’t know what to do. I can keep stitchin’ but if he’s bleeding on the inside it can’t be helped”.

Lochan glanced over at Cindra but she barely seemed to have heard what Hepsie had said. Lochan was relieved. It wasn’t like Hepsie to be so shaken. If she was then things were very bad for Garrick indeed.

Cindra was chewing thoughtfully on her fingernails, her brow creased in confusion.

“But if I…”, she was mumbling to herself, batting at her lips with the tips of her fingers.

She whipped around to face him, her round, pale face set into a look of fierce determination he had only seen once before, “I have to go to him. He needs me. I have to sleep”.

She had gone mad with grief, he thought, and his heart stuttered in his chest.

“Cindra love, if you need to sleep I’ll take you to my room and you can sleep next to Isaura. She’ll take care of you and we’ll watch Garrick”.

“No you don’t understand”, she pursed her pudgy lips in defiance as though he had demanded she take an afternoon nap, “I have to sleep here. I have to go to him in his dreams”.

“Cindra! What are you talking about! You can’t sleep here love. What if he has some contagious disease. I forbid you to go near him! Come away with me. Goodwife Cade is taking good care of him and you need some rest. At least have a seat”.

“I have to sleep and I will sleep here and now!”, she snarled at him, her teeth bared like a great cat. Beads of sweat were standing out on her pallid forehead.

She stalked towards him, with all the majestic grace of a lioness hounding her prey, “Both of you have to get out of here. I have to sleep”.

She pushed past him, lunging across the room. With a hiss she put out the candle that was tentatively perched on a chair beside the bed. She sprung into bed pulling the bedcovers firmly to her chin as he watched in dismay.

He went to go after her but he felt a gentle hand resting on his sleeve and turned to find Hepsie peering at him in the semi-darkness.

“Let her go Yer Grace”, she murmured, her eyes round, gleaming in the faint candlelight, “there ain’t much anyone can be doing fer that poor soul an’ she may as well be getting to say goodbye at least”.

“But Goodwife Cade!”, he hissed, his eyes flicking sideways to the bed where his young cousin was resolutely closing her eyes, lying stiff as a board, “what if she catches whatever it is he has?!”

She patted his arm in an attempt to comfort him, “Dear, I’m afraid if he’s got something then it’s already being too late fer her. But I don’t think it’s catchin’. I think it’s best fer her poor minds rest that we let her be doing this. I am feared that if we take her out of here it might damage her, so grief-stricken is she”.

“No love, I think it’s being best. Yew an’ I can stand watch, an’ I’ll keep stichin’ up the wounds that appear. But dear, yew saw the blood he’s been coughing up. There ain’t much we can be doing fer bleedin’ inside an’ I ain’t going to go pokin’ around with my needle an’ try”.

Lochan nodded briefly an affirmative. He trusted her opinion, but God it was difficult to watch as his cousin lay in bed beside her ailing husband and not fear for her too. He paced angrily back and forth, trying to tread lightly though he feared the scuffing of his boots would infuriate his cousin. He looked over at her and she appeared to be already sleeping.

“But what now Goodwife. Is there not something we can do”, he asked quietly.

“I’m sorry me Lord, but all we can be doing now is waiting an’ prayin’”.

His eyes fell on his cousin’s sleeping face. She looked peaceful, the harsh lines of anger softening with sleep, her brow smooth, her rosebud mouth relaxing into a soft smile. She was breathing steadily, her head laying heavily on the pillow. Her cheeks were flushed red, the skin around her eyes pink from crying. As he watched her eyelashes began to flutter, with each movement her eye opening a fraction to reveal a thin strip of white. It unnerved him and he began to imagine her dead, the colour draining from her cheeks and lips as she stared straight ahead, eyes dull and dead, her head lulling heavily on the pillow.

Her lips moved and she hissed, “Isabelle…”.

He began to pray.

Cade, Murchadh, Tadhgar