Free Queen of Flowers by Kerry Greenwood

a tint of this, now,’ he said, and offered Ian the glass. ‘And let’s see your face. We’re Vikings, here,’ he said as he gently unwound the bandage. ‘Not them 56
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    KERRY GREENWOOD
    soft Scots Jessies. We’ve seen battle wounds before. And if you cover your mouth,’ he continued, ‘you can’t drink and that would be the pity of the world with a bottle of Highland Park on the bar.’
    Phryne was touched. James Murray’s grandmother was being paid, probably very well, to hide this disfigured man from the civilised world. James had no need to be gentle, but he was: so gentle that the bandage was gone before Ian really noticed it. He looked around at the fishermen and the crofters.
    They looked back at him. No one seemed affected. Finally someone spoke.
    ‘You’ll still have the sight of that eye, then?’ asked one gnarled old man. ‘Welcome, Mr Hamilton. My son came back blind. And he’s out on the boats with me. Ye must not despair.’
    The conversation returned to a gentle murmur. Like all fishermen, they were not talking about fish. Phryne took a deep sip of the whisky, a single malt of great subtlety and strength. James Murray refilled her glass.
    ‘Good, eh? It’s the water. Filtered through a lot of peat and then through a lot of rock. We’ve got a lot of rock, hereabouts.
    He’ll be all right, your young man. Grandma won’t let nothing happen to him.’
    ‘He’s not my young man,’ said Phryne. ‘He’s a friend. Are you a fisherman, too?’ she asked.
    ‘No, I’m a teacher,’ he said. ‘Of music. And a fine fiddler.
    You must come tonight,’ he added. ‘We’re having a dance.’
    ‘Will anyone dance with Ian?’asked Phryne.
    ‘Surely,’ said James Murray. ‘Unlike a lot of our young men, he’s got both arms and both legs.’
    And so it had proved. Mrs Murray was not a soft, cuddly nurse. She was an upright, thin, stern old lady who had borne five children and raised three, then gone off to be a wet nurse 57
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    QUEEN OF THE FLOWERS
    to a lot of Hamiltons. She had only left when the last of them was grown, and had brought her savings back to her own country, where they had bought her a house and would provide for her old age. Therefore she did not need to take Ian. It was, she explained to Phryne, her duty. And he was her favourite among the children, though she had never told him so.
    She allowed Ian to take her arm up the cobbled street to her clean, warm house, where the kitchen stove never went out. He had a room of his own with a new feather mattress and Orkney woollen blankets. Behind them trailed half of the population of Stromness, most carrying something to save their countenances and acquit them of nosiness. Mrs Murray threw them out when the goods were all stowed to her liking, with handfuls of boiled sweets for the children. When they were all gone she stared Ian straight in the eye. Her voice was not gentle but entirely sure.
    ‘This is your chair,’ she said to him, sitting him down.
    ‘Here, before the stove. Here is your place, and you need never depart from it.’
    And then she had left him to cry for ten minutes, after which she said, ‘And here is your pup. She’s a good lineage but she’s no sheepdog with that broken leg which healed short.
    Isaac was minded to put her down, but I saved her for you.’
    She laid in his London tailored lap a scruffy puppy, barely weaned, black and white with a patch over one eye. Ian laughed as she licked his scarred face.
    ‘Your name is Sally,’ Ian whispered to the puppy.
    Then old Mrs Murray looked at Phryne. ‘He’ll do,’ she said sharply. ‘Now James will take you back to the inn. You’ll want a rest. This will have been a great strain. But I can see you are a good-hearted girl. Not like some these days.’
    Phryne found herself out on the front step as the door closed with a soft thump.
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