We rode out of the gates of Castle Leoch two days later, just before dawn. In twos and threes and fours, to the sound of shouted farewells and the calls of wild geese on the loch, the horses stepped their way carefully over the stone bridge. I glanced behind from time to time, until the bulk of the castle disappeared at last behind a curtain of shimmering mist. The thought that I would never again see that grim pile of stone or its inhabitants gave me an odd feeling of regret.
The noise of the horses’ hooves seemed muffled in the fog. Voices carried strangely through the damp air, so that calls from one end of the long string were sometimes heard easily at the other, while the sounds of nearby conversations were lost in broken murmurs. It was like riding through a vapor peopled by ghosts. Disembodied voices floated in the air, speaking far away, then remarkably near at hand.
My place fell in the middle of the party, flanked on the one side by a man-at-arms whose name I did not know, and on the other by Ned Gowan, the little scribe I had seen at work in Colum’s hall. He was something more than a scribe, I found, as we fell into conversation on the road.
Ned Gowan was a solicitor. Born, bred, and educated in Edinburgh, he looked the part thoroughly. A small, elderly man of neat, precise habits, he wore a coat of fine broadcloth, fine woolen hose, a linen shirt whose stock bore the merest suggestion of lace, and breeches of a fabric that was a nicely judged compromise between the rigors of travel and the status of his calling. A small pair of gold-rimmed half-spectacles, a neat hair-ribbon and a bicorne of blue felt completed the picture. He was so perfectly the quintessential man of law that I couldn’t look at him without smiling.
He rode alongside me on a quiet mare whose saddle was burdened with two enormous bags of worn leather. He explained that one held the tools of his trade; inkhorn, quills, and papers.
“And what’s the other for?” I asked, eyeing it. While the first bag was plump with its contents, the second seemed nearly empty.
“Oh, that’s for his lairdship’s rents,” the lawyer replied, patting the limp bag.
“He must be expecting rather a lot, then,” I suggested. Mr. Gowan shrugged good-naturedly.
“Not so much as all that, m’dear. But the most of it will be in doits and pence and other small coins. And such, unfortunately, take up more room than the larger denominations of currency.” He smiled, a quick curve of thin, dry lips. “At that, a weighty mass of copper and silver is still easier of transport than the bulk of his lairdship’s income.”
He turned to direct a piercing look over his shoulder at the two large mule-drawn wagons that accompanied the party.
“Bags of grain and bunches of turnips have at least the benefit of lack of motion. Fowl, if suitably trussed and caged, I have nae argument with. Nor with goats, though they prove some inconvenience in terms of their omnivorous habits; one ate a handkerchief of mine last year, though I admit the fault was mine in allowin’ the fabric to protrude injudiciously from my coat-pocket.” The thin lips set in a determined line. “I have given explicit directions this year, though. We shall not accept live pigs.”
The necessity of protecting Mr. Gowan’s saddlebags and the two wagons explained the presence of the twenty or so men who made up the rest of the rent-collecting party, I supposed. All were armed and mounted, and there were a number of pack animals, bearing what I assumed were supplies for the sustenance of the party. Mrs. Fitz, among her farewells and exhortations, had told me that accommodations would be primitive or nonexistent, with many nights spent encamped along the road.
I was quite curious to know what had led a man of Mr. Gowan’s obvious qualifications to take up a post in the remote Scottish Highlands, far from the amenities of civilized life to which he must be accustomed.
“Well, as to that,” he said, in answer to my questions, “as a young man, I had a small practice in Edinburgh. With lace curtains in the window, and a shiny brass plate by the door, with my name inscribed upon it. But I grew rather tired of making wills and drawing up conveyances, and seeing the same faces in the street, day after day. So I left,” he said simply.
He had purchased a horse and some supplies and set off, with no idea where he was going, or what to do once he got there.
“Ye see, I must confess,” he said, dabbing his nose primly with a monogrammed handkerchief, “to something of a taste for…adventure. However, neither my stature nor my family background had fitted me for the life of highwayman or seafarer, which were the most adventurous occupations I could envision at the time. As an alternative, I determined that my best path lay upward, into the Highlands. I thought that in time I might perhaps induce some clan chieftain to, well, to allow me to serve him in some way.”
And in the course of his travels, he had in fact encountered such a chieftain.
“Jacob MacKenzie,” he said, with a fond, reminiscent smile. “And a wicked, red auld rascal he was.” Mr. Gowan nodded toward the front of the line, where Jamie MacTavish’s bright hair blazed in the mist. “His grandson’s verra like him, ye ken. We met first at the point of a pistol, Jacob and I, as he was robbing me. I yielded my horse and my bags with good grace, having little other choice. But I believe he was a bit taken aback when I insisted upon accompanying him, on foot if necessary.”
“Jacob MacKenzie. That would be Colum and Dougal’s father?” I asked.
The elderly lawyer nodded. “Aye. Of course, he was not laird then. That happened a few years later…with a very small bit of assistance from me,” he added modestly. “Things were less…civilized then,” he said nostalgically.
“Oh, were they?” I said politely. “And Colum, er, inherited you, so to speak?”
“Something of the kind,” Mr. Gowan said. “There was a wee bit o’ confusion when Jacob died, d’ye see. Colum was heir to Leoch, to be sure, but he…” The lawyer paused, looking ahead and behind to see that no one was close enough to listen. The man-at-arms had ridden forward, though, to catch up with some of his mates, and a good four lengths separated us from the wagon-driver behind.
“Colum was a whole man to the age of eighteen or so,” he resumed his story, “and gave promise to be a fine leader. He took Letitia to wife as part of an alliance with the Camerons—I drew up the marriage contract,” he
added, as a footnote, “but soon after the marriage he had a bad fall, during a raid. Broke the long bone of his thigh, and it mended poorly.”
I nodded. It would have, of course.
“And then,” Mr. Gowan went on with a sigh, “he rose from his bed too soon, and took a tumble down the stairs that broke the other leg. He lay in his bed close on a year, but it soon became clear that the damage was permanent. And that was when Jacob died, unfortunately.”
The little man paused to marshal his thoughts. He glanced ahead again, as though looking for someone. Failing to find them, he settled back into the saddle.
“That was about the time there was all the fuss about his sister’s marriage too,” he said. “And Dougal…well, I’m afraid Dougal did not acquit himself so verra weel over that affair. Otherwise, d’ye see, Dougal might have been made chief at the time, but ’twas felt he’d not the judgment for it yet.” He shook his head. “Oh, there was a great stramash about it all. There were cousins and uncles and tacksmen, and a great Gathering to decide the matter.”
“But they did choose Colum, after all?” I said. I marveled once again at the force of personality of Colum MacKenzie. And, casting an eye at the withered little man who rode at my side, I rather thought Colum had also had some luck in choosing his allies.
“They did, but only because the brothers stood firm together. There was nae doubt, ye see, of Colum’s courage, nor yet of his mind, but only of his body. ’Twas clear he’d never be able to lead his men into battle again. But there was Dougal, sound and whole, if a bit reckless and hot-headed. And he stood behind his brother’s chair and vowed to follow Colum’s word and be his legs and his sword-arm in the field. So a suggestion was made that Colum be allowed to become laird, as he should in the ordinary way, and Dougal be made war chieftain, to lead the clan in time of battle. It was a situation not without precedent,” he added primly.
The modesty with which he had said “A suggestion was made…” made it clear just whose suggestion it had been.
“And whose man are you?” I asked. “Colum’s or Dougal’s?”
“My interests must lie with the MacKenzie clan as a whole,” Mr. Gowan said circumspectly. “But as a matter of form, I have sworn my oath to Colum.”
A matter of form, my foot, I thought. I had seen that oath-taking, though I did not recall the small form of the lawyer specifically among so many men. No man could have been present at that ceremony and remained unmoved, not even a born solicitor. And the little man on the bay mare, dry as his bones might be, and steeped to the marrow in the law, had by his own testimony the soul of a romantic.
“He must find you a great help,” I said diplomatically.
“Oh, I do a bit from time to time,” he said, “in a small way. As I do for others. Should ye find yourself in need of advice, m’dear,” he said, beaming genially, “do feel free to call upon me. My discretion may be relied upon, I do assure you.” He bowed quaintly from his saddle.
“To the same extent as your loyalty to Colum MacKenzie?” I said, arching my brows. The small brown eyes met mine full on, and I saw both the cleverness and the humor that lurked in their faded depths.
“Ah, weel,” he said, without apology. “Worth a try.”
“I suppose so,” I said, more amused than angered. “But I assure you, Mr. Gowan, that I have no need of your discretion, at least at present.” It’s catching, I thought, hearing myself. I sound just like him.
“I am an English lady,” I added firmly, “and nothing more. Colum is wasting his time—and yours—in trying to extract secrets from me that don’t exist.” Or that do exist, but are untellable, I thought. Mr. Gowan’s discretion might be limitless, but not his belief.
“He didn’t send you along just to coerce me into damaging revelations, did he?” I demanded, suddenly struck by the thought.
“Oh, no.” Mr. Gowan gave a short laugh at the idea. “No, indeed, m’dear. I fulfill an essential function, in managing the records and receipts for Dougal, and performing such small legal requirements that the clansmen in the more distant areas may have. And I am afraid that even at my advanced age, I have not entirely outgrown the urge to seek adventure. Things are much more settled now than they used to be”—he heaved a sigh that might have been one of regret—“but there is always the possibility of robbery along the road, or attack near the borders.”
He patted the second bag on his saddle. “This bag is not entirely empty, ye ken.” He turned back the flap long enough for me to see the gleaming grips of a pair of scroll-handled pistols, snugly set in twin loops that kept them within easy reach.
He surveyed me with a glance that took in every detail of my costume and appearance.
“Ye should really be armed yourself, m’dear,” he said in a tone of mild reproof. “Though I suppose Dougal thought it would not be suitable…still. I’ll speak to him about it,” he promised.
We passed the rest of the day in pleasant conversation, wandering among his reminiscences of the dear departed days when men were men, and the pernicious weed of civilization was less rampant upon the bonny wild face of the Highlands.
At nightfall, we made camp in a clearing beside the road. I had a blanket, rolled and tied behind my saddle, and with this I prepared to spend my first night of freedom from the castle. As I left the fire and made my way to a spot behind the trees, though, I was conscious of the glances that followed me. Even in the open air, it seemed, freedom had definite limits.
We reached the first stopping-place near noon of the second day. It was no more than a cluster of three or four huts, set off the road at the foot of a small glen. A stool was brought out from one of the cottages for Dougal’s use, and a plank—thoughtfully brought along in one of the wagons—laid across two others to serve as a writing surface for Mr. Gowan.
He withdrew an enormous square of starched linen from the tailpocket of his coat and laid it neatly over a stump, temporarily withdrawn from its usual function as chopping block. He seated himself upon this and began to lay out inkhorn, ledgers, and receipt-book, as composed in his manner as though he were still behind his lace curtains in Edinburgh.
One by one, the men from the nearby crofts appeared, to conduct their annual business with the laird’s representative. This was a leisurely affair, and conducted with a good deal less formality than the goings-on in the Hall of Castle Leoch. Each man came, fresh from field or shed, and drawing up a vacant stool, sat alongside Dougal in apparent equality, explaining, complaining, or merely chatting.
Some were accompanied by a sturdy son or two, bearing bags of grain or wool. At the conclusion of each conversation, the indefatigable Ned Gowan would write out a receipt for the payment of the year’s rent, record the transaction neatly in his ledger, and flick a finger to one of the drovers, who
would obligingly heave the payment onto a wagon. Less frequently, a small heap of coins would disappear into the depths of his leather bag with a faint chinking sound. Meanwhile, the men-at-arms lounged beneath the trees or disappeared up the wooded bank—to hunt, I supposed.
Variations of this scene were repeated over the next few days. Now and then I would be invited into a cottage for cider or milk, and all of the women would crowd into the small single room to talk with me. Sometimes a cluster of rude huts would be large enough to support a tavern or even an inn, which became Dougal’s headquarters for the day.
Once in a while, the rents would include a horse, a sheep, or other livestock. These were generally traded to someone in the neighborhood for something more portable, or, if Jamie declared a horse fit for inclusion in the castle stables, it would be added to our string.
I wondered about Jamie’s presence in the party. While the young man clearly knew horses well, so did most of the men in the party, including Dougal himself. Considering also that horses were both a rare sort of payment, and usually nothing special in the way of breeding, I wondered why it had been thought necessary to bring an expert along. It was a week after we had set out, in a village with an unpronounceable name, that I found out the real reason why Dougal had wanted Jamie.
The village, though small, was large enough to boast a tavern with two or three tables and several rickety stools. Here Dougal held his hearings and collected his rents. And after a rather indigestible luncheon of salt beef and turnips, he held court, buying ale for the tenants and cottars who had lingered after their transactions, and a few villagers who drifted in when their daily work was completed, to gawk at the strangers and hear such news as we carried.
I sat quietly on a settle in the corner, sipping sour ale and enjoying the respite from horseback. I was paying little attention to Dougal’s talk, which shifted back and forth between Gaelic and English, ranging from bits of gossip and farming talk to what sounded like vulgar jokes and meandering stories.
I was wondering idly how long, at this rate, it might take to reach Fort William. And once there, exactly how I might best part company with the Scots of Castle Leoch without becoming equally entangled with the English army garrison. Lost in my own thoughts, I had not noticed that Dougal had
been speaking for some time alone, as though making a speech of some kind. His hearers were following him intently, with occasional brief interjections and exclamations. Coming gradually back to an awareness of my surroundings, I realized that he was skillfully rousing his audience to a high pitch of excitement about something.
I glanced around. Fat Rupert and the little lawyer, Ned Gowan, sat against the wall behind Dougal, tankards of ale forgotten on the bench beside them as they listened intently. Jamie, frowning into his own tankard, leaned forward with his elbows on the table. Whatever Dougal was saying, he didn’t seem to care for it.
With no warning, Dougal stood, seized Jamie’s collar and pulled. Old, and shabbily made to begin with, the shirt tore cleanly down the seams. Taken completely by surprise, Jamie froze. His eyes narrowed, and I saw his jaw set tightly, but he didn’t move as Dougal spread aside the ripped flaps of cloth to display his back to the onlookers.
There was a general gasp at sight of the scarred back, then a buzz of excited indignation. I opened my mouth, then caught the word “Sassenach,” spoken with no kindly intonation, and shut it again.
Jamie, with a face like stone, stood and stepped back from the small crowd clustering around him. He carefully peeled off the remnants of his shirt, wadding the cloth into a ball. An elderly little woman, who reached the level of his elbow, was shaking her head and patting his back gingerly, making what I assumed were comforting remarks in Gaelic. If so, they were clearly not having the hoped-for effect.
He replied tersely to a few questions from the men present. The two or three young girls who had come in to fetch their families’ dinner ale were clustered together against the far wall, whispering intently to each other, with frequent big-eyed glances across the room.
With a look at Dougal that should by rights have turned the older man to stone, Jamie tossed the ruins of his shirt into a corner of the hearth and left the room in three long strides, shaking off the sympathetic murmurs of the crowd.
Deprived of spectacle, their attentions turned back to Dougal. I didn’t understand most of the comment, though the bits I caught seemed to be highly anti-English in nature. I was torn between wanting to follow Jamie outside, and staying inconspicuously where I was. I doubted that he wanted
any company, though, so I shrank back into my corner and kept my head down, studying my blurry, pale reflection in the surface of my tankard.
The clink of metal made me look up. One of the men, a sturdy-looking crofter in leather trews, had tossed a few coins on the table in front of Dougal, and seemed to be making a short speech of his own. He stood back, thumbs braced in his belt, as though daring the rest to something. After an uncertain pause, one or two bold souls followed suit, and then a few more, digging copper doits and pence out of purse and sporran. Dougal thanked them heartily, waving a hand at the landlord for another round of ale. I noticed that the lawyer Ned Gowan was tidily stowing the new contributions in a separate pouch from that used for the MacKenzie rents bound for Colum’s coffers, and I realized what the purpose of Dougal’s little performance must be.
Rebellions, like most other business propositions, require capital. The raising and provisioning of an army takes gold, as does the maintenance of its leaders. And from the little I remembered of Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Young Pretender to the throne, part of his support had come from France, but part of the finances behind his unsuccessful rising had come from the shallow, thread-bare pockets of the people he proposed to rule. So Colum, or Dougal, or both, were Jacobites; supporters of the Young Pretender against the lawful occupant of the throne of England, George II.
Finally, the last of the cottars and tenants drifted away to their dinners, and Dougal stood up and stretched, looking moderately satisfied, like a cat that has dined at least on milk, if not cream. He weighed the smaller pouch, and tossed it back to Ned Gowan for safekeeping.
“Aye, well enough,” he remarked. “Canna expect a great deal from such a small place. But manage enough of the same, and it will be a respectable sum.”
“ ‘Respectable’ is not quite the word I’d use,” I said, rising stiffly from my lurking place.
Dougal turned, as though noticing me for the first time.
“No?” he said, mouth curling in amusement. “Why not? Have ye an objection to loyal subjects contributing their mite in support of their sovereign?”
“None,” I said, meeting his stare. “No matter which sovereign it is. It’s your collection methods I don’t care for.”
Dougal studied me carefully, as though my features might tell him something. “No matter which sovereign it is?” he repeated softly. “I thought ye had no Gaelic.”
“I haven’t,” I said shortly. “But I’ve the sense I was born with, and two ears in good working order. And whatever ‘King George’s health’ may be in Gaelic, I doubt very much that it sounds like ‘Bragh Stuart.’ ”
He tossed back his head and laughed. “That it doesna,” he agreed. “I’d tell ye the proper Gaelic for your liege lord and ruler, but it isna a word suitable for the lips of a lady, Sassenach or no.”
Stooping, he plucked the balled-up shirt out of the ashes of the hearth and shook the worst of the soot off it.
“Since ye dinna care for my methods, perhaps ye’d wish to remedy them,” he suggested, thrusting the ruined shirt into my hands. “Get a needle from the lady of the house and mend it.”
“Mend it yourself!” I shoved it back into his arms and turned to leave. “Suit yourself,” Dougal said pleasantly from behind me. “Jamie can
mend his own shirt, then, if you’re not disposed to help.” I stopped, then turned reluctantly, hand out.
“All right,” I began, but was interrupted by a large hand that snaked over my shoulder and snatched the shirt from Dougal’s grasp. Dividing an opaque glance evenly between us, Jamie tucked the shirt under his arm and left the room as silently as he had entered it.
We found accommodation for the night at a crofter’s cottage. Or I should say I did. The men slept outside, disposed in various haystacks, wagon-beds and patches of bracken. In deference to my sex or my status as semicaptive, I was provided with a pallet on the floor inside, near the hearth.
While my pallet seemed vastly preferable to the single bedstead in which the entire family of six was sleeping, I rather envied the men their open-air sleeping arrangements. The fire was not put out, only damped for the night, and the air in the cottage was stifling with warmth and the scents and sounds of the tossing, turning, groaning, snoring, sweating, farting inhabitants.
After some time, I gave up any thought of sleeping in that smothered atmosphere. I rose and stole quietly outside, taking a blanket with me. The
air outside was so fresh by contrast with the congestion in the cottage that I leaned against the stone wall, gulping in enormous lungfuls of the delicious cool stuff.
There was a guard, sitting in quiet watchfulness under a tree by the path, but he merely glanced at me. Apparently deciding that I was not going far in my shift, he went back to whittling at a small object in his hands. The moon was bright, and the blade of the tiny sgian dhu flickered in the leafy shadows.
I walked around the cottage, and a little way up the hill behind it, careful to watch for slumbering forms in the grass. I found a pleasant private spot between two large boulders and made a comfortable nest for myself from heaped grass and the blanket. Stretched at length on the ground, I watched the full moon on its slow voyage across the sky.
Just so had I watched the moon rise from the window of Castle Leoch, on my first night as Colum’s unwilling guest. A month, then, since my calamitous passage through the circle of standing stones. At least I now thought I knew why the stones had been placed there.
Likely of no particular importance in themselves, they were markers. Just as a signpost warns of rockfalls near a cliff-edge, the standing stones were meant to mark a spot of danger. A spot where…what? Where the crust of time was thin? Where a gate of some sort stood ajar? Not that the makers of the circles would have known what it was they were marking. To them, the spot would have been one of terrible mystery and powerful magic; a spot where people disappeared without warning. Or appeared, perhaps, out of thin air.
That was a thought. What would have happened, I wondered, had anyone been present on the hill of Craigh na Dun when I made my abrupt appearance? I supposed it might depend on the time one entered. Here, had a cottar encountered me under such circumstances, I would doubtless have been thought a witch or a fairy. More likely a fairy, popping into existence on that particular hill, with its reputation.
And that might well be where its reputation came from, I thought. If people through the years had suddenly disappeared, or just as suddenly appeared from nowhere at a certain spot, it might with good reason acquire a name for enchantment.
I poked a foot out from under the blanket and waggled my long toes in the moonlight. Most unfairylike, I decided critically. At five foot six, I was quite a tall woman for these times; as tall as many men. Since I could hardly pass as one of the Wee Folk, then, I would likely have been thought a witch or an evil spirit of some kind. From the little I knew of current methods for dealing with such manifestations, I could only be grateful that no one, in fact, had seen me appear.
I wondered idly what would happen if it worked the other way. What if someone disappeared from this time, and popped up in my own? That, after all, was precisely what I was intending to do, if there were any possible way of managing it. How would a modern-day Scot, like Mrs. Buchanan, the postmistress, react if someone like Murtagh, for instance, were suddenly to spring from the earth beneath her feet?
The most likely reaction, I thought, would be to run, to summon the police, or perhaps to do nothing at all, beyond telling one’s friends and neighbors about the most extraordinary thing that happened the other day.… As for the visitor? Well, he might manage to fit into the new time without arousing excessive attention, if he was cautious and lucky. After all, I was managing to pass with some success as a normal resident of this time and place, though my appearance and language had certainly aroused plenty of
suspicion.
What if a displaced person were too different, though, or went about loudly proclaiming what had happened to him? If the exit were in primitive times, likely a conspicuous stranger would simply have been killed on the spot without further inquiry. And in more enlightened times, they would most likely be considered mad and tidied away into an institution somewhere, if they didn’t quiet down.
This sort of thing could have been going on as long the earth itself, I reflected. Even when it happened in front of witnesses, there would be no clues at all; nothing to tell what had happened, because the only person who knew would be gone. And as for the disappeared, they’d likely keep their mouths shut at the other end.
Deep in my thoughts, I hadn’t noticed the faint murmur of voices or the stirrings of footsteps through the grass, and I was quite startled to hear a voice speak only a few yards away.
“Devil take ye, Dougal MacKenzie,” it said. “Kinsman or no, I dinna owe ye that.” The voice was pitched low, but tight with anger.
“Do ye no?” said another voice, faintly amused. “I seem to recall a certain oath, giving your obedience. ‘So long as my feet rest on the lands of clan MacKenzie,’ I believe was the way of it.” There was a soft thud, as of a foot stamping packed earth. “And MacKenzie land it is, laddie.”
“I gave my word to Colum, not to you.” So it was young Jamie MacTavish, and precisely three guesses as to what he was upset about.
“One and the same, man, and ye ken it well.” There was the sound of a light slap, as of a hand against a cheek. “Your obedience is to the chieftain of the clan, and outside of Leoch, I am Colum’s head and arms and hands as well as his legs.”
“And never saw I a better case of the right hand not knowin’ what the left is up to,” came the quick rejoinder. Despite the bitterness of the tone, there was a lurking wit that enjoyed this clash of wills. “What d’ye think the right is going to say about the left collecting gold for the Stuarts?”
There was a brief pause before Dougal replied, “MacKenzies and MacBeolains and MacVinichs; they’re free men all. None can force them to give against their will, and none can stop them, either. And who knows? It may happen that Colum will give more for Prince Charles Edward than all o’ them put together, in the end.”
“It may,” the deeper voice agreed. “It may rain straight up tomorrow instead of down, as well. That doesna mean I’ll stand waiting at the stairhead wi’ my wee bucket turned upside down.”
“No? You’ve more to gain from a Stuart throne than I have, laddie. And naught from the English, save a noose. If ye dinna care for your own silly neck—”
“My neck is my own concern,” Jamie interrupted savagely. “And so is my back.”
“Not while ye travel with me, sweet lad,” said his uncle’s mocking voice. “If ye wish to hear what Horrocks may tell ye, you’ll do as you’re told, yourself. And wise to do it, at that; a fine hand ye may be wi’ a needle, but you’ve no but the one clean shirt.”
There was a shifting, as of someone rising from his seat on a rock, and the soft passage of footsteps through the grass. Only one set of footsteps,
though, I thought. I sat up as quietly as I could, and peered cautiously around the edge of one of the boulders that hid me.
Jamie was still there, sitting hunched on a rock a few feet away, elbows braced on his knees, chin sunk on his locked hands. His back was mostly to me. I started to ease backward, not wishing to intrude on his solitude, when he suddenly spoke.
“I know you’re there,” he said. “Come out, if ye like.” From his tone, it was a matter of complete indifference to him. I rose and started to come out, when I realized I had been lying in my shift. Reflecting that he had enough to worry about without needing to blush for me as well, I tactfully wrapped myself in the blanket before emerging.
I sat down near him and leaned back against a rock, watching him a little diffidently. Beyond a brief nod of acknowledgment, he ignored me, completely occupied with inward thoughts of no very pleasant form, to judge from the dark frown on his face. One foot tapped restlessly against the rock he sat on, and he twisted his fingers together, clenching, then spreading them with a force that made several knuckles pop with soft crackling sounds.
It was the popping knuckles that reminded me of Captain Manson. The supply officer for the field hospital where I had worked, Captain Manson suffered shortages, missed deliveries, and the endless idiocies of the army bureaucracy as his own personal slings and arrows. Normally a mild and pleasant-spoken man, when the frustrations became too great, he would retire briefly into his private office and punch the wall behind the door with all the force he could muster. Visitors in the outer reception area would watch in fascination as the flimsy wallboard quivered under the force of the blows. A few moments later, Captain Manson would reemerge, bruised of knuckle but once more calm of spirit, to deal with the current crisis. By the time he was transferred to another unit, the wall behind his door was pocked with dozens of fist-sized holes.
Watching the young man on the rock trying to disjoint his own fingers, I was forcibly reminded of the captain, facing some insoluble problem of supply.
“You need to hit something,” I said.
“Eh?” He looked up in surprise, apparently having forgotten I was there. “Hit something,” I advised. “You’ll feel better for it.”
His mouth quirked as though about to say something, but instead he rose from his rock, headed decisively for a sturdy-looking cherry tree, and dealt it a solid blow. Apparently finding this some palliative to his feelings, he smashed the quivering trunk several times more, causing a delirious shower of pale-pink petals to rain down upon his head.
Sucking a grazed knuckle, he came back a moment later.
“Thank ye,” he said, with a wry smile. “Perhaps I’ll sleep tonight after all.”
“Did you hurt your hand?” I rose to examine it, but he shook his head, rubbing the knuckles gently with the palm of the other hand.
“Nay, it’s nothing.”
We stood a moment in awkward silence. I didn’t want to refer to the scene I had overheard, or to the earlier events of the evening. I broke the silence finally by saying, “I didn’t know you were a lefty.”
“A lefty? Oh, cack-handed, ye mean. Aye, always have been. The schoolmaster used to tie that one to my belt behind my back, to make me write wi’ the other.”
“Can you? Write with the other, I mean?”
He nodded, reapplying the injured hand to his mouth. “Aye. Makes my head ache to do it, though.”
“Do you fight left-handed too?” I asked, wanting to distract him. “With a sword, I mean?” He was wearing no arms at the moment except his dirk and sgian dhu, but during the day he customarily wore both sword and pistols, as did most of the men in the party.
“No, I use a sword well enough in either hand. A left-handed swordsman’s at a disadvantage, ye ken, wi’ a small-sword, for ye fight wi’ your left side turned to the enemy, and your heart’s on that side, d’ye see?”
Too filled with nervous energy to keep still, he had begun to stride about the grassy clearing, making illustrative gestures with an imaginary sword. “It makes little difference wi’ a broadsword,” he said. He extended both arms straight out, hands together and swept them in a flat, graceful arc through the air. “Ye use both hands, usually,” he explained.
“Or if you’re close enough to use only one, it doesna matter much which, for you come down from above and cleave the man through the shoulder. Not the head,” he added instructively, “for the blade may slip off easy. Catch him clean in the notch, though”—he chopped the edge of his hand at
the juncture of neck and shoulder—“and he’s dead. And if it’s not a clean cut, still the man will no fight again that day—or ever, likely,” he added.
His left hand dropped to his belt and he drew the dirk in a motion like water pouring from a glass.
“Now, to fight wi’ sword and dirk together,” he said, “if ye have no targe to shelter your dirk hand, then you favor the right side, wi’ the small-sword in that hand, and come up from underneath wi’ the dirk if ye fight in close. But if the dirk hand is well shielded, ye can come from either side, and twist your body about”—he ducked and weaved, illustrating—“to keep the enemy’s blade away, and use the dirk only if ye lose the sword or the use of the sword arm.”
He dropped low and brought the blade up in a swift, murderous jab that stopped an inch short of my breast. I stepped back involuntarily, and at once he stood upright, sheathing the dirk with an apologetic smile.
“I’m sorry. I’m showin’ off. I didna mean to startle ye.”
“You’re awfully good,” I said, with sincerity. “Who taught you to fight?” I asked. “I’d think you’d need another left-handed fighter to show you.”
“Aye, it was a left-handed fighter. The best I’ve ever seen.” He smiled briefly, without humor. “Dougal MacKenzie.”
Most of the cherry blossoms had fallen from his head by now; only a few pink petals clung to his shoulders, and I reached out to brush them away. The seam of his shirt had been mended neatly, I saw, if without artistry. Even a rip through the fabric had been catch-stitched together.
“He’ll do it again?” I said abruptly, unable to stop myself.
He paused before answering, but there was no pretense of not understanding what I meant.
“Oh, aye,” he said at last, nodding. “It gets him what he wants, ye see.” “And you’ll let him do it? Let him use you that way?”
He looked past me, down the hill toward the tavern, where a single light still showed through chinks in the timbers. His face was smooth and blank as a wall.
“For now.”
We continued on our rounds, moving no more than a few miles a day, often stopping for Dougal to conduct business at a crossroads or a cottage, where
several tenants would gather with their bags of grain and bits of carefully hoarded money. All was recorded in ledgers by the quick-moving pen of Ned Gowan, and such receipts as were needed dispensed from his scrap-bag of parchment and papers.
And when we reached a hamlet or village large enough to boast an inn or tavern, Dougal would once more do his turn, standing drinks, telling stories, making speeches, and finally, if he judged the prospects good enough, he would force Jamie to his feet to show his scars. And a few more coins would be added to the second bag, the purse bound for France and the court of the Pretender.
I tried to judge such scenes as they developed, and step outside before the climax, public crucifixion never having been much to my taste. While the initial reaction to the sight of Jamie’s back was horrified pity, followed by bursts of invective against the English army and King George, often there was a slight flavor of contempt that even I could pick up. On one occasion I heard one man remark softly to a friend in English, “An awfu’ sight, man, is it no? Christ, I’d die in my blood before I let a whey-faced Sassenach to use me so.”
Angry and miserable to start with, Jamie grew more wretched each day. He would shrug back into his shirt as soon as possible, avoiding questions and commiseration, and seek an excuse to leave the gathering, avoiding everyone until we took horse the following morning.
The breaking point came a few days later, in a small village called Tunnaig. This time, Dougal was still exhorting the crowd, a hand on Jamie’s bare shoulder, when one of the onlookers, a young lout with long, dirty brown hair, made some personal remark to Jamie. I couldn’t tell what was said, but the effect was instantaneous. Jamie wrenched out of Dougal’s grasp and hit the lad in the stomach, knocking him flat.
I was slowly learning to put a few words of Gaelic together, though I could in no way be said to understand the language yet. However, I had noticed that I often could tell what was being said from the attitude of the speaker, whether I understood the words or not.
“Get up and say that again,” looks the same said in any schoolyard, pub, or alley in the world.
So does “Right you are, mate,” and “Get him, lads!”
Jamie disappeared under an avalanche of grimy work clothes as the rents- table went over with a crash beneath the weight of brown-hair and two of his friends. Innocent bystanders pressed back against the walls of the tavern and prepared to enjoy the spectacle. I sidled closer to Ned and Murtagh, eyeing the heaving mass of limbs uneasily. A lonely flash of red hair showed occasionally in the twisting sea of arms and legs.
“Shouldn’t you help him?” I murmured to Murtagh, out of the corner of my mouth. He looked surprised at the idea.
“No, why?”
“He’ll call for help if he needs it,” said Ned Gowan, tranquilly watching from my other side.
“Whatever you say.” I subsided doubtfully.
I wasn’t at all sure Jamie would be able to call for help if he needed it; at the moment he was being throttled by a stout lad in green. My personal opinion was that Dougal would soon be short one prime exhibit, but he didn’t seem concerned. In fact, none of the watchers seemed at all bothered by the mayhem taking place on the floor at our feet. A few bets were being taken, but the overall air was one of quiet enjoyment of the entertainment.
I was glad to notice that Rupert drifted casually across the path of a couple of men who seemed to be contemplating joining the action. As they took a step toward the fray, he bumbled absentmindedly into their way, hand lightly resting on his dirk. They fell back, deciding to leave well enough alone.
The general feeling appeared to be that three to one was reasonable odds. Given that the one was quite large, an accomplished fighter, and obviously in the grip of a berserk fury, that might be true.
The contest seemed to be evening out with the abrupt retirement of the stout party in green, dripping blood as the result of a well-placed elbow to the nose.
It went on for several minutes more, but the conclusion became more and more obvious, as a second fighter fell by the wayside and rolled under a table, moaning and clutching his groin. Jamie and his original antagonist were still hammering each other earnestly in the middle of the floor, but the Jamie-backers amongst the spectators were already collecting their winnings. A forearm across the windpipe, accompanied by a vicious kidney punch, decided brown-hair that discretion was the better part of valor.
I added a mental translation of “That’s enough, I give up,” to my growing Gaelic/English word list.
Jamie rose slowly off the body of his last opponent to the cheers of the crowd. Nodding breathlessly in acknowledgment, he staggered to one of the few benches still standing, and flopped down, streaming sweat and blood, to accept a tankard of ale from the publican. Gulping it down, he set the empty tankard on the bench and leaned forward, gasping for breath, elbows on his knees and the scars on his back defiantly displayed.
For once he was in no hurry to resume his shirt; in spite of the chill in the pub, he remained half-naked, only putting on his shirt to go outside when it was time to seek our lodging for the night. He left to a chorus of respectful good nights, looking more relaxed than he had in days, in spite of the pain from scrapes, cuts, and assorted contusions.
“One scraped shin, one cut eyebrow, one split lip, one bloody nose, six smashed knuckles, one sprained thumb, and two loosened teeth. Plus more contusions than I care to count.” I completed my inventory with a sigh. “How do you feel?” We were alone, in the small shed behind the inn where I had taken him to administer first aid.
“Fine,” he said, grinning. He started to stand up, but froze halfway, grimacing. “Aye, well. Perhaps the ribs hurt a bit.”
“Of course they hurt. You’re black and blue—again. Why do you do such things? What in God’s name do you think you’re made of? Iron?” I demanded irritably.
He grinned ruefully and touched his swollen nose. “No. I wish I were.”
I sighed again and prodded him gently around the middle.
“I don’t think they’re cracked; it’s only bruises. I’ll strap them, though, in case. Stand up straight, roll up your shirt, and hold your arms out from your sides.” I began to tear strips from an old shawl I’d got from the innkeeper’s wife. Muttering under my breath about sticking plaster and other amenities of civilized life, I improvised a strap dressing, pulling it tight and fastening it with the ring-brooch off his plaid.
“I can’t breathe,” he complained.
“If you breathe, it will hurt. Don’t move. Where did you learn to fight like that? Dougal, again?”
“No.” he winced away from the vinegar I was applying to the cut eyebrow. “My father taught me.”
“Really? What was your father, the local boxing champion?”
“What’s boxing? No, he was a farmer. Bred horses too.” Jamie sucked in his breath as I continued the vinegar application on his barked shin.
“When I was nine or ten, he said he thought I was going to be big as my mother’s folk, so I’d have to learn to fight.” He was breathing more easily now, and held out a hand to let me rub marigold ointment into the knuckles. “He said, ‘If you’re sizable, half the men ye meet will fear ye, and the other half will want to try ye. Knock one down,’ he said, ‘and the rest will let ye be. But learn to do it fast and clean, or you’ll be fightin’ all your life.’
So he’d take me to the barn and knock me into the straw until I learned to hit back. Ow! That stings.”
“Fingernail gouges are nasty wounds,” I said, swabbing busily at his neck. “Especially if the gouger doesn’t wash regularly. And I doubt that greasy-haired lad bathes once a year. ‘Fast and clean’ isn’t quite how I’d describe what you did tonight, but it was impressive. Your father would be proud of you.”
I spoke with some sarcasm, and was surprised to see a shadow pass across his face.
“My father’s dead,” he said flatly.
“I’m sorry.” I finished the swabbing, then said softly, “But I meant it. He
would be proud of you.”
He didn’t answer, but gave me a half-smile in reply. He suddenly seemed very young, and I wondered just how old he was. I was about to ask when a raspy cough from behind announced a visitor to the shed.
It was the stringy little man named Murtagh. He eyed Jamie’s strapped- up ribs with some amusement, and lobbed a small wash leather bag through the air. Jamie put up a large hand and caught it easily, with a small clinking sound.
“And what’s this?” he asked.
Murtagh raised one sketchy brow. “Your share o’ the wagers, what else?” Jamie shook his head and made to toss the bag back.
“I didna wager anything.”
Murtagh raised a hand to stop him. “You did the work. You’re a verra popular fellow at the moment, at least wi’ those that backed ye.”
“But not with Dougal, I don’t suppose,” I interjected.
Murtagh was one of those men who always looked a bit startled to find that women had voices, but he nodded politely enough.
“Aye, that’s true. Still, I dinna see as that should trouble ye,” he said to Jamie.
“No?” A glance passed between the two men, with a message I didn’t understand. Jamie blew his breath out softly through his teeth, nodding slowly to himself.
“When?” he asked.
“A week. Ten days, perhaps. Near a place called Lag Cruime. You’ll know it?”
Jamie nodded again, looking more content than I had seen him in some time. “I know it.”
I looked from one face to the other, both closed and secretive. So Murtagh had found out something. Something to do with the mysterious “Horrocks” perhaps? I shrugged. Whatever the cause, it appeared that Jamie’s days as an exhibition were over.
“I suppose Dougal can always tap-dance instead,” I said.
“Eh?” The secretive looks changed to looks of startlement.
“Never mind. Sleep well.” I picked up my box of medical supplies and went to find my own rest.
