Page 41 of Highland Hero
“Yes, thank you.” She hadn’t really had a chance to get her bearings yesterday. They’d arrived late, spent some time in the library explaining their situation, and then she’d been shown to her chamber on the second floor. Sima had ordered a hot bath for her—which had thawed out her bones and felt heavenly after the cold they’d endured—and had a tray sent up. Juliana had been almost too tired to eat and had gone to sleep within minutes.
“Come along, then.”
Juliana followed the sisters out of the small family dining room at the back of the castle and down the hall to the main entrance. She remembered climbing the steps to it yesterday, although pretty much everything else had been a blur. Now she noticed narrow slits on either side of the heavy oak door.
“What are those?”
“Shot holes for arrows,” Aileen answered. “This is the old part of the castle that wasn’t blown up by the Duke of Cumberland after Culloden.”
She didn’t remember seeing anything like that at Strae Castle, although it had an old section, too. She wasn’t sure how old, though.
“When was this built?”
Aileen shrugged. “I think about one hundred seventy-five years ago. There were two other castles before this one.”
“There are shot holes in the tower wall as well as in the staircases below,” Greer added.
As was common, the main floor was elevated above the ground floor that housed the kitchens, pantries, laundry, and such. “The servants were trained in weaponry?” Juliana asked.
“Aye. To hear our uncle tell it, and ourseanairbefore him—”
“Who?”
“Grandfather,” Greer filled in.
“To hear them tell it,” Aileen continued, “every servant was trained to use a bow.”
“Even the women?”
She nodded. “And any girl old enough to help in the kitchen.”
“The boys were trained even earlier,” Greer said.
“Every pair of hands had to be counted on in the days when the English would attack or even when rival clans would declare war.” Aileen wiggled her own fingers. “Everyone had to know how to defend the castle.”
Juliana thought of how different her own childhood had been. Her father had been an eccentric baron, pretty much throwing the family fortune away on worthless inventions. While he may have been able to load and fire a musket, he was by nature a gentle, peaceful soul. They had teetered on the edges of genteel poverty more than once, but Papa had always protected his daughters. She couldn’t imagine him expecting his daughters to defend themselves, let alone teaching them how to do it. Juliana grimaced. Perhaps if he had, she wouldn’t have been raped.
Aileen must have noted her expression, because she lifted an eyebrow. “Ye doona approve of women handling weapons?”
Juliana quickly shook her head. “No. I mean, yes. I do not think women should be defenseless. In fact, I would like to learn how to do just that. Defend myself, that is.”
Greer smiled. “Ye could ask Rory to teach ye. All the MacGregors are grand fighters.”
Aileen nodded. “They’ve had to be.”
Juliana had already gathered that from living at Strae Castle these past six months. Their proscription had just been lifted by the king two weeks ago. Before that, the MacGregor name had been banned and they’d been banished, their lands forfeit. At one time, other clans had even been forbidden to help them upon threat of hanging. They’d been forced into hiding and scavenging and came to be known as Children of the Mist for their ability to disappear as quickly as they appeared. They had to fend for themselves. She could well imagine the women and girls being trained, just to survive.
“I do have a knife.”
“Do ye ken how to use it?” Greer asked.
“Well…” She remembered how easily Rory had taken away the knife she’d purloined off the Cameron table. “Not very well, I admit.”
“Since ye willna be going anywhere for a bit, we could arrange some training sessions,” Aileen said.
Greer nodded. “And it will give Rory something to do. He already looked restless when he left the room earlier.”
He was probably restless because he wanted to get her back to Strae Castle as fast as possible. Not that she didn’t want the same thing. Or, maybe, he was restless because Morag was not here and he had hoped to see her. Juliana tsked at that. She needed to turn her thoughts elsewhere.
