I don’t remember much about that terrible night and the day which followed other than that it was raining, that I awoke a morning later with a heavy sense of foreboding which haunted me the entire day, and that I looked and felt even worse than I had after being trampled by hungry goats. To begin with I had almost convinced myself that I had drank ten-too-many and that the disquieting memories which swirled in my head were only dreams blurring the truth of an appalling night out and the hangover of immense proportions which followed- the thoughts and my battered body being the only indications as to what had happened- but it didn’t take too long for that fanciful wish to be scattered to smithereens.

According to my sisters, whose incessant interrogations I had been forced to endure from the moment I had hobbled down to break my fast, I had trailed home at night a day-and-a-half after they had watched me venture out, and that the stable Master was threatening to have my hide for returning short of a horse. To this day I’m still not entirely sure what had happened to Heddy- perhaps the hermit was hungry and fancied something other than putrefying fish for once- but I can tell you for a certainty that I was deaf in one ear for an entire week after receiving the Master of horse’s rage in the form of his incomprehensible bellowing. Not that I would have tried to make sense of his yells in any case, since I was far too focused on what excuse I was going to have to conjure up this time. I was thankful that he held back on the hiding, though it didn’t save me from the one I had at my father’s hand.

That first week was agonizing. Partly because I was still suffering from the fall of a few days before- which, I have to admit, I had come away from extremely lightly with only a few bruised ribs and a cut up face and pretty much everywhere else- but also because I was now quite sure that everything I thought had happened really had, and there was something extremely off about it all. Once in a while I would have unsettling flashes of memory which spiralled me back to that night, to the rotting room and the precious stone piercing my skin with a spurt of striking scarlet, and I would wait in anticipation for something to happen. Something. Anything, though I didn’t know what- and that just made it all the worse.

Yet a week passed, and with nothing arising out of the ordinary other than Lula having bacon for breakfast rather than mashed oats, I had persuaded myself beyond doubt that it had all been a ruse; that the hermit and the hag had worked together somehow to get something out of me, though why and the exact reasons for such an elaborate plan escaped me. I mean, if they had wanted my shoes or cloak then I could have pointed them to my nearest tailor. I wouldn’t have paid for them, but at least I wouldn’t have had to endure the kidnapping and subsequent trauma they put me through.

I put all of that behind me, though, and with my mind at ease I used my second week at the Crawford stronghold to focus on making further advances on the lovely Lily. With my siblings and I due to depart with my father at the beginning of the following week, I was more adamant than ever to flirt my way into the Crawford girl’s life, and to my great delight she finally submitted to my charm on our final night together. Apparently she was simply playing hard-to-get, and all it took was time and some hard-core wooing for her to willingly tumble into my lap. I don’t see how I had ever doubted my magnetic masculine allure, and it seems silly now to think that I had thought so little of myself that the girl would only like me for my money and a measly title.

We spent that evening tumbling in the wine cellar, where I caught up on some much-missed extracurricular activities which included draining her father’s store dry of his expensive yet extremely palatable wine well into the morning. I have to hand it to him, Lord Crawford wasn’t the most exciting of men to be around, but he sure had an excellent taste in expensive high quality alcoholic beverages, something which I always appreciate in a person. Mostly because I can bribe them into getting me happily drunk for free, rather than paying for stuff that tastes like it’s come from the dregs of someone’s chamber pot.

I am not sure the precise time, but I know that it certainly must have been nearing dawn when her father walked in on us. We had just been discussing the stories behind my few small scars- the one on my elbow that I got from falling out of a tree at the age of five I told her I received from elbowing a man in the face for insulting a woman’s honour and virtue, the pale gash on my shoulder which I had actually gotten from an extremely angry cat I assured her was the work of an assassin’s blade- when the fiery haired beauty had jolted into an upright position and urgently slapped her wine-scented fingers over my smirking lips. At first I merely peered at her in confusion through the concealing dark as she hushed me and stared over my shoulder in alarm, but after a moment or two I found the sense to follow her startled gaze. A finger of orange light was steadily widening upon the steps as the burning glow of lit wall sconces spilled through the opening doorway, hinges groaning inwardly as deep voices conversed amiably from without.

“-but I told him that if he wanted the McClintock boy to buy him a replacement horse then he would have to hash it out with his father himself. Malcin’s a good man, but I don’t fancy getting involved in any of his arguments. He has quite a temper, believe you me. Sometimes I feel sorry for his children, but I suppose that lot of his needs a firm hand to get them under control.”

A slipper-clad foot made itself visible, and in another movement the Lord of Harrowshiels had stepped into view in all his greying-haired splendour; I almost let out a yell of terror as I ducked behind the nearest set of casks, nearly tripping over a silently protesting Lilianna as she fumbled with her clothes in the dark, her father continuing with an oblivious sigh.

“Ah, well, I suppose you must be off- I can’t keep you waiting all day, what with the trouble down in the South. You make a head start towards the stables, Henry, and I’ll fetch you that vintage I spoke to you about. You simply cannot leave without trying it!”

Lilianna was now fully clothed, staring wild-eyed between her father and myself, fervently hurrying me up as I struggled to find the right hole in my breeches though which to stick my legs. The man’s soft footsteps scuffed closer, and in no time he was pestering a cask for wine only a few feet to our right. I turned back to Lilianna to see whether she had any brilliant plan to get us out of the mess we were currently in, to which she began agitatedly miming something about her father and I dancing some sort of elaborate jig…

“That’s strange… it appears to be empty,” The Lord was mumbling in perplexion as he fiddled with the cask while his daughter and I played a fruitless game of charades, “I was so sure it had been full only last night…”

Upon finally receiving my refined look of 'I don’t have a single clue what it is you’re trying to say’, Lily rolled her eyes in intense exasperation before dragging me to my feet and hurtling me into the open. After catching myself on a pillar before I could land on my face in a drunken sway, her father and I stared at one another in bewilderment; he in his night gown with an empty wine glass in one hand, and I with my trousers on back to front looking, as I can only imagine, like a lunatic freshly escaped from the dungeons.

“Corliss McClintock?” He ogled me in stupefaction as I caught sight of a flourish of flaming red hair bouncing slyly toward the exit- ah, so she was using me as a distraction… dammit, that was my job! “Why in the worlds are you down in my wine cellar?”

“Uh, well, you see…” My mind raced, searching for the most likely explanation it could summon which was as far away from the truth as possible without losing credulity, a mean feat when drunk off your arse and caught in the spotlight after ‘dancing’ with the man your confronted with’s only daughter, “I was taking a walk to the kitchens for a small snack and… there was… this… big rat.”

My hands involuntarily began shaping the creature, for apparently I was still in the mindset of charades as I tried to physically mould my story from thin air into something real. Crawford- a big man, but more in width than height, portly with a bristling moustache and red hair scattered with snow- was watching me with an expression unreadable in the dim light.

“A rat, you say…?”

“Yes! A rat. A bloody humongous one, with ghastly yellow teeth, scabby skin, greasy fur positively writhing with fleas! Hideous! By far one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen in a long time-“ Just before she had sneaked through the door, I glanced over Crawford’s shoulder to witness a scathing look being thrown my way from Lily which was so deadly it could have dropped an elephant into its grave. I carefully rethought my next few words, acutely aware of the dark looks burrowing into me from both individuals, “…but, ah… with such beautiful, stunning eyes…?”

Despite being unable to read most of the Lord’s expression, I could tell from his bemused silence that my lies were not going quite to plan. I carried on in a rush.

“So anyway, I saw it scuttling off into the cellars and bravely decided to take it upon myself to rid you of the fiend before it could give harm to any of your lovely household.”

“And I suppose you took it upon yourself to rid me of my best wine while you were at it, hm?" His voice was so chilly it almost gave me the shivers.

“Um…” I attempted a confident chuckle, but it sounded more like the highly strained wheezing a person might make while slowly suffocating, “Well, after chasing the darned thing around for an hour I had worked up quite a thirst, so I thought I might repay my kindness of trying to capture the rat by helping myself to some of your delectable beverages…”

I think to say ‘this isn’t going well’ would be a bit of an understatement. I could sense the weight of the man’s animosity building, and I could feel myself slowly buckling under it, sure that he intended to shrink me to the size of a flea so that he might crush me under his silky slippers. I found myself darting fervid glances at the door, a threatening twitch away from summoning my inner Pegasus and flying out of there to somewhere far, far away. Ideally a different continent, where a man isn’t persecuted for drinking to excess or having some fun with the locals.

“Corliss McClintock, if I hear one more lie out of your mouth I swear I will-“

“Mi’lord!” Oh, thank the Gods. I could have kissed the servant who walked through the door right then, for he wasn’t hard on the eyes and the mousey young man’s arrival had temporarily relieved me of my persecutor’s displeasure, but I didn’t want to seem too pleased as the page continued, “Lord Crawford, sir! I bear some grievous news regarding Sir Malcin McClintock…”

There it was. That ominous twinge which had been lurking dormant in my subconscious for the past week, that disquieted apprehension that I had assured myself was unfounded, stirring inside me and squirming into my gut.

“What?” The displeasure in the Lord’s voice could hardly be ignored as he peered at the one to waylay him, and though the page’s presence had initially filled me with relief I, too, was now sinking quickly into despair, though I as of yet could not pinpoint why. The young man was casting queer looks between the two of us, though it appeared to me that his jittery gaze was lingering longest upon myself, fingers fidgeting nervously with the hem of his robes.

“Perhaps… it would be better should we speak privily, mi’lord.”

That peaked my interest, the agitation soaring alongside it, and I stepped purposefully forth with a limp confidence which I hoped would appear authoritative.

“Whatever you have to say regarding my father, it can be said in my presence,” I declared, trying to present myself like I meant business… although my current state of appearance definitely wasn’t helping, “Come on, then! Is he dead? Did he stub his toe? Out with it!”

“Well, actually, it is the former…” A timid pause, “It grieves me to inform you, sir, that Sir Malcin McClintock is dead.”