Triallaire

Half a Man

17 September, 2149

St. Catherine the Red Hospital, Isle of Barra, Scotland

CATRÌONA POV

It was strange working in a hospital that had been named after me. Of course, no one but me knew that it had been named after me, but it was still strange. The St. Catherine the Red Hospital was built sometime after 2131 as a military hospital and named for a famed Scottish healer from the Jacobite era who was also a saint and was a Barra native - that was me. When the war had ended, the hospital stayed, and quite a few people moved out to the Hebrides while the mainland recovered from the war, so there were plenty of patients to see.

"Hello, there, I'm Dr. Fowlis," I said to my next patient after opening the curtain. "I understand ye've got a bit of a twisted wrist?"

"Oh, yes. I was visiting Kisimul Castle when I fell down the stairs leading up to the entrance hall," said the girl in an American accent.

"Oh yes, I ken exactly what stairs yer speakin' of," I said, recalling the few times I'd taken a tumble down those very same steps in my days as a resident of Cìosamul Castle. "So yer name is... Amanda Fowlis?"

"Yup, that's me, but I prefer Amy," she said. "I heard you say your name is Fowlis, too? Are you from here?"

"Aye, I am," I said to her with a smile. "What brings ye here? Yer from America, are ye?"

"Yup! I wanted to visit my ancestral lands. My grandfather was sent to America during the first rebellion and he grew up there. Then he had my dad who had me. My grandfather was always so interested in our family history and our family tree and we wanted to take this trip together, but unfortunately, he died of colon cancer a couple of years before the war ended," Amy told me.

"Oh, I'm verra sorry te hear tha'," I told her as I examined her wrist. "Well, it doesnae seem te be broken, but we'll get an x-ray just te be sure. Can I get radiology in here?" I resumed looking at Amy's wrist while I waited for the radiology tech. "So, Amy, what's yer family tree look like? Were ye and yer grandsire able te track back verra far?"

"All the way back to the eighteenth century," said Amy. "I mean, I'm sure it goes further, but around that point is when my family tree gets a bit muddy... My grandfather thought that we were descendants of one of the Lords of Kisimul."

"Ye mean Laird," I told her. "Here in Scotland, we're Lairds, no' Lords," I told her kindly. "Do ye ken which? There were three, I believe, in the eighteenth century."

"You know your history," said Amy, and I smiled and nodded.

"Aye, my own father was the same. Always wanted us te make sure we kent where we came from. I'm a direct descendant of the 7th Laird of Cìosamul, Eairdsidh Ruadh," I told her, and Amy's pretty grey eyes widened.

"Really? Oh, well, I guess we are, too, if the document we found was right," said Amy. "We think that our branch of the family tree stems from an illegitimate son of one of the Lords - I mean Lairds - the one after Archie, I think." I froze and adjusted myself so I didn't look too visibly uncomfortable.

"Ye mean... Cailean Fowlis?" I asked her.

"Uh huh, that's him! There's really only one document to back that claim, though, and we aren't sure how true it really is," said Amy. "It was a letter written I think by Cailean's nephew. His name was..."

"Archie," I said, pretending to busy myself by testing the capillary refill of Amy's fingertips by giving them a gentle squeeze.

"Oh, yeah, that's right! It was an interesting article. It said that the letter was written by Archie to his aunt - but I guess not Cailean's wife - and it was found stuffed in a tight space in a desk that they were restoring in the castle. It said something along the lines of 'Uncle Cailean has a bastard son' and then he talked about how much he missed his parents," Amy told me. "Here, I can pull it up." She pulled out her mobile phone and searched in Google, then found the article in question. "It says that the historian thinks that Archie was a child and was the son of Cailean's sister, but his surname was never mentioned so they don't know who the sister married. They think the aunt must be the father's sister. They also say that this is the only document that confirms that Cailean Fowlis had an illegitimate son, which was suspected."