The Highlander's Redemption. Marguerite Kaye

      Calumn set off at a brisk pace with Madeleine hurrying along breathlessly at his side, buoyed up by the prospect of making progress at last. The Grassmarket was the disembarkation point for most coaches coming in and out of Edinburgh. At the far end stood the gallows, and towering high above it, perched on its plug of volcanic rock, stood the castle.

      ‘Everything here is so tall.’ She gazed up in wonder at the lofty buildings climbing four, five, some six storeys high. To one whose experience of a metropolis was limited to the small Breton market town of Quimper, the Scottish capital, with its crowded thoroughfares and bustling populace, was like an alien world. The houses were packed so tightly against one another it seemed to her that they, like the people on the street, were jostling for space and light. Inns and coaching houses took up most of the ground-level accommodation, separated from each other by the narrowest of alleyways. The skyline was a jumbled mass of steeply gabled roofs and smoking chimneys, with washing lines strung out on pulleys from the tenement windows, fluttering like the sails of invisible ships. ‘So many people living on top of each other, I don’t know how they can bear it. It’s like a labyrinth,’ Madeleine said.

      ‘Aye, and a badly built one at that, down in this part of town,’ Calumn replied. ‘Some of these wooden staircases are treacherous. The problem is there’s too many people and nowhere to build except up, because of the city walls.’ He pulled her adroitly out of the path of a dray loaded with barrels of ale.

      ‘Where are we going?’

      ‘To see a friend of mine.’ He led the way through a wynd, which rose sharply between the two streets it connected, then turned left into a small courtyard where more rows of laundry took up most of the cramped space, flapping on lines stretched between poles across its width. ‘Mind these stairs. See what I mean about treacherous?’

      The staircase wound up the outside of the building, almost like a wooden scaffold attached rather precariously to the stone tenement. Madeleine lifted her petticoat and climbed nervously, relieved when they stopped at the first floor.

      ‘Jeannie,’ Calumn called, rapping briskly on the door.

      A young woman answered, her pretty face lighting up with pleasure when she saw the identity of her visitor. ‘Calumn, what a surprise.’

      Her vibrant red hair was caught up in a careless knot on top of her head. Her figure was lush, with rather too much of her white bosom on display through her carelessly fastened shift, Madeleine decided prudishly.

      ‘I brought Mademoiselle Lafayette to meet you. Madeleine, this is Jeannie.’

      ‘Good day to you, mademoiselle,’ Jeannie said, bobbing a curtsy. ‘Come away in, the pair of you, before we have the rest of the close wanting to know our business.’

      Despite the fact that she was obviously not a respectable female, Madeleine warmed to her. Jeannie ushered them into a room which seemed to serve for living, sleeping and eating all at once. A huge black pot simmered over the fire, suspended on a hook which hung from a complicated pulley-and-chain device inside the chimney breast. A large table and an assortment of chairs took up most of the space, all covered with piles of neatly folded clothing. In the far corner a recess in the wall, like a cupboard without a door, was made up as a bed. Jeannie bustled about clearing some chairs and bade them sit down. ‘I’m sorry about the clutter,’ she said to Madeleine.

      ‘Jeannie takes in laundry,’ Calumn said, leaning comfortably back on a rickety wooden chair, clearly quite at home in the crowded room. ‘She washes my shirts and I give her young brother fencing lessons in return. She also does the washing for some of the prisoners up at the castle.’

      ‘Those that can afford it, any roads. I’m up there most days. It’s a sorry sight, I can tell you. Some of those poor souls have been locked up there for years.’

      Realisation finally began to dawn on Madeleine. ‘You mean you can talk to the prisoners,’ she exclaimed.

      ‘Aye, of course.’

      ‘Mademoiselle Lafayette is looking for someone who may be held there,’ Calumn said, responding to Jeannie’s enquiring look. ‘A Frenchman called Guillaume de Guise.’

      ‘What does he look like?’

      If only she possessed a miniature! Madeleine screwed up her eyes in an effort to picture Guillaume’s face, but after so long without seeing him it was as if his image had blurred. She could remember things about him—his smile, the way he strode across the fields, the sound of his voice calling to his dogs—but she couldn’t see his face clearly. Instead, she described his portrait, taken for his twenty-first birthday and a good likeness. ‘Tall, though not as tall as Monsieur Munro. Slimmer too, with dark hair, though he usually has it cut short, for he wears a wig. Blue eyes, though not like Monsieur’s either, paler. And he is younger, he will be twenty-three now.’ She looked at Calumn, lounging with careless grace on the chair next to her. He had such presence, an aura of power, of—of maleness—that she could not imagine ever forgetting what he looked like. In contrast, the memory of Guillaume appeared boyish, disappointingly ephemeral.

      Jeannie shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t recall having seen anyone like that.’

      ‘Wait a bit though, did you not say that Lady Drummond’s being held in the Black Hole?’ Calumn asked.

      ‘Aye, she’s there with her two daughters, and a damn shame it is too, to see such a proud woman brought so low. I have some of their shifts to take back today. Beautiful stitching on them.’

      ‘Lord Drummond was the commander of the Écossais Royeaux, the regiment for which de Guise fought,’ Calumn explained. ‘He was executed some months ago now, but they don’t have the right to send his wife the same way. She’ll be worth talking to.’

      ‘You can’t expect me to take her there, Calumn, it’s a terrible place.’

      ‘I’m not afraid,’ Madeleine declared determinedly, ‘and I would be very, very grateful if you would help me. Will you, please?’

      Jeannie pursed her lips disapprovingly. ‘We’ll have to do something about those clothes of yours, they’re far too fine for a laundry maid. I’ll give you an apron to put over them, and you can wear a cap, but you’ll need to keep your hands out of sight. Anybody with a wheen of sense can see those have never done a day’s washing.’

      ‘Thank you!’ Madeleine leapt to her feet and impulsively pressed a kiss on Jeannie’s cheek. ‘You have no idea how much this means to me.’

      ‘Don’t be daft, I just hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for. Away with you just now. Meet me at the bottom of Castlehill at two.’

      ‘She’s nice, I like her,’ Madeleine said to Calumn as she once again found herself executing a little running step to keep up with his pace. ‘She’s your chère-amie, isn’t she?’

      Calumn laughed. ‘Lord, no, Jeannie’s a grand lass, but she’s a friend, that’s all.’