touch with them once she had completed her task. She even nodded when
the Lowlander suggested blandly that it might just be safest to send the
hair—or half of it—on to them by the messenger they would tell her of,
and then she herself could be bringing the rest later. Kelpie kept a
sneer from crossing her face. If they thought her so witless as that, let
them, then! But if and when she came to them, it would be with the hair
hidden in a safe place, and they having to fulfill their part of the
bargain before they saw it.
The Lowlander was very pleased with her, and Kelpie went to bed very
pleased with herself. But she awoke near dawn with the sense of something
bothering her.
The sky was a vast aching void, neither black nor light. The world was
a great shadow. Kelpie crept silently away from the camp and over the
crest of the nearest rise, still wrapped in the old woolen plaidie which
served as cloak and blanket. She seated herself against the thickness of
a rhododendron, so that she was lost in the black shadows of its great
leaves and blossoms. Then she stared down along the long, steely sheet of
Loch Etive and began to think.
Obey, the Lowlander had said—and clearly Mina and Bogle were obeying him.
But Kelpie had thought that to be a witch was to be free, to have power
to command others, never to _be_ commanded again by anyone.
Was it not so, after all? Did the Lowlander, in turn, obey someone—or
Something? For an instant Kelpie sensed something infinitely dangerous
and horrible. Was Satan merely another name for those ancient Dark
Powers? And was the price for invoking them to be a slave to them? She
shuddered, and cold droplets of sweat broke out on her short upper lip.
Then she pulled herself together. She must not give in to foolish
worries. The Lowlander was a fearsome man, but witchcraft was the only
way to be free of Mina, and when she had learned it she need fear neither
of them any longer.
All the same, the first seed of doubt had taken root, and it no longer
seemed quite so easy to become the most powerful witch in Scotland. It
was a rather subdued Kelpie who meekly cooked the fish and oatcakes for
breakfast, bade the Lowlander farewell, and followed Bogle and Mina on to
Loch Awe.
At a ruined old shieling hut by the loch they stopped and waited for a
day, until there came a round-faced young woman with a wealth of brown
hair and a slate-colored dress kilted up over a striped petticoat. She
seemed an unlikely person to be working with witches and warlocks, for
her bright-cheeked smile was quite artless.
“_Dhia dhuit!_” She beamed. “Is this the lass who will be fetching the
hair to hex Mac Cailein Mor, may the demons fly away with him? I am Janet
Campbell, who will take you to Inverary. I will call you Sheena at once,”
she added chattily, “so you can get used to it, for Mrs. MacKellar would
never be hiring a lass named for a kelpie.” She chuckled cheerfully.
Kelpie gave her an appraising look from under her thick black lashes, but
Janet didn’t seem in the least put out. “I could not be doing the task
myself,” she explained, “for I have my work, and no reason to be going
into the castle. And,” she added forthrightly, “I am not brave or clever
enough. But I will be your messenger, Sheena, when you need me.”
Kelpie, more and more resentful of being used by others, nodded sullenly.
But Janet’s next words cheered her considerably.
“She cannot be asking for work in such rags,” pointed out that young
woman matter-of-factly. “They would know her for a gypsy at once, and Mac
Cailein Mor has a fearful hatred of such. Best be giving her your blue
dress to wear, Mina.”
Bogle chuckled, and Kelpie hid her satisfaction behind a blank face.
Mina snarled and gave in. The string of epithets she flung at Kelpie
along with the dress hardly amounted to an objection at all, and Kelpie’s
earlier misgivings rose again briefly. If even the formidable Mina was so
meekly obeying, then what power this Lowlander must have!
She was still brooding on this as she and Janet set out on the last bit
of the journey, her cheek still stinging from Mina’s farewell cuff. On
down Loch Awe, and to the wild steepness of Glen Aray, and along that
gash in the hills toward Loch Fyne, Janet led the way sturdily enough,
although Kelpie’s wiry legs could have gone much faster. Part of the
time Janet left the thin path altogether and threaded her way along the
slopes, among great clumps of brilliant pink rhododendron, groves of oak
and hazel and rowan, patches of lavender-blooming heath and the mystic
white bog-cotton.
“Best not to risk meeting anyone,” she remarked with a trace of
nervousness. “I dare not be seen with you, in case....”
She left the sentence unfinished and went on in a new and brisk voice.
“Now I will be giving you your story to tell the housekeeper when you ask
for work. You are Sheena Campbell, daughter to Sorcha and Seumas, who
lived in the old shieling hut where we met on Loch Awe. When they died,
you went in service with MacIntyre of Craignish, but now, with their
daughter wedded and away, there is no need for you. So you have come to
Inverary, to your own clan chief, to see is there a place for you.”
For the next two hours she fed Kelpie the details of her fictional life
and made her repeat them over and over, until Kelpie almost felt that she
was two people at once.
“Och, you’re glib, just!” said Janet at last, her round face admiring.
“I’m almost believing you myself. ’Tis a clever mind you have, and a
canny tongue.” She stopped and turned around to survey Kelpie’s face
searchingly. “Aye,” she went on, “and your face, though it is not bonnie,
just, is a face to beguile the lads. Have you a braw laddie who loves
you, Sheena?”
Four months ago Kelpie would have jeered at her in wonder and scorn.
What had the lass of Mina and Bogle to do with love, or lads either—save
to sell love-charms to the foolish? But though there had been no talk or
thought of romance at Glenfern (except on one teasing afternoon), some
sleeping thing in Kelpie had, perhaps, begun to stir. The face of Ian
leaped into her mind, with the fine dark eyes of him, and the sensitive
mouth curving downward and then up; and then she felt the strange,
warm-faced sensation of her first blush—and she felt again the pain of
her departure from Glenfern.
“No!” She spat so violently that Janet raised her eyebrows and gave
Kelpie another sharp glance before she turned to walk on.
“A pity, that,” she observed mildly. “And a great waste,” she added
presently, with a catch to her voice. “Had I your face and tongue, I
would not be in the service of witchcraft, perhaps.”
Kelpie kilted up her blue dress a bit higher and came even with Janet so
that she could see her face. “Why are you?” she demanded curiously. “I
think you could never be a witch.”
“Och, no!” agreed Janet instantly. “At first I was only wanting a wee bit
of a love potion to win the heart of the lad I loved. But before it could
start to work at all, Mac Cailein Mor took him into the army and off to
raid the MacDonalds. Och, my braw Angus.” She whimpered.
“He was killed?” Kelpie asked, and tried to push down the sympathy in her
voice. She had promised herself not to care for anyone again, but only
for herself.
“It was Mac Cailein Mor had him shot,” said Janet tonelessly. “He tried
to save an old woman from the house they were burning. And for that I
will help the Devil himself to destroy Mac Cailein Mor, my chief though
he be. I am afraid of yon Lowlander, for he is evil, but I hate Mac
Cailein Mor more than I fear the Lowlander.
“You must be very canny, Sheena! If you are caught—” She shuddered. “Have
you a _sgian dhu_?”
Kelpie nodded and drew the small sheathed knife from inside her dress.
Janet looked at it somberly. “If you’re caught, you’d do well to use it
on yourself. ’Twould save you torment and burning, more than likely, and
keep you from betraying the rest of us. You’ll say no word, ever, about
me, Sheena? Pretend you have never seen or heard of me! Promise, Sheena!”
Kelpie looked at her, and Janet’s eyes were humble and pleading. “I know
I am a coward,” Janet whispered, “but I cannot help it. I could not bear
the pain, and I would not dare to kill myself—but you would, for you are
brave.”
Kelpie looked at her _sgian dhu_ reflectively. It was the finest one
she had ever had, the one stolen last spring in Inverness. The wee flat
scabbard was darkly carved, and the four-inch blade, when she drew
it out, winked sharply in the sun. Would she use it on herself? she
wondered. Did she dare?
The beauty of the Highlands shimmered around her in pure, clear colors
never quite the same from one instant to the next. The sky was infinite
and tender; the sun beat warmly on her head; the air was delight to
breathe. The world was good—except for the people in it, defiling it with
hate and greed. It would be a pity to die, a waste of living. She found
it very difficult to imagine.
She looked again at the gleaming edge of the _sgian dhu_, frowning a
little. Dare? Yes, she thought she would dare, if it was to escape
torture and burning. That would not take much courage. On the contrary,
it would be the easy way—and she found that she did not like the taste
of the idea. A feeling within her protested that suicide was shabby,
debasing, a cheating of oneself. But Kelpie, who had never been taught
such things as morals and integrity, could find no words and no reasons
for this feeling. She shrugged and put the _sgian dhu_ back. Time enough
to think about it if the occasion came up.
Janet had been watching her with round eyes, guessing a little of her
thought. She shivered slightly. “You are very brave,” and said again. “I
think you will be getting away with the hair. And I am sure that whatever
is happening at all, you will not speak any names.”
Kelpie fell back a step or two. She looked thoughtfully on a golden
patch of gorse blanketing the hillside ahead, and her smile was very
pointed. No, she would not betray Janet—not, she reminded herself,
because she was softhearted, but only because it would not help herself.
But—if she was so unlucky as to be caught, which she did not at all
intend to be—she would be very happy indeed to tell Mac Cailein Mor all
about Mina, Bogle, and the Lowlander.
9. Inverary Castle
Loch Fyne stretched long and narrow between its hills—as what Highland
loch did not? Glen Aray opened out into a meadow there, where the river
entered the loch, and from the top of her hill Kelpie had a fine and
leisurely view. There was the town of Inverary on the far side, nestled
right on the loch. And on this side, almost below her, rose the massive
stone bulk and towers of Inverary Castle, home of Mac Cailein Mor.
Kelpie wriggled a little deeper into her nest of tall harebells and broom
and stared down at it with interest. She had time to wait and think.
Janet had braided the black hair neatly for her, used the hem of her
own dress to wash Kelpie’s grimy pointed face, and then hurried on to
the head of the loch. From there she would return to the village as if
from her own home. And Kelpie was to bide here, out of sight, until the
next day, and then come down from the glen. Kelpie had agreed willingly
enough, not for Janet’s sake, but for one more night under the free sky.
She glowered at the brooding gray castle, for it was just occurring to
her that it would be much more like a prison than Glenfern. And would
they allow her to be out and away in the hills when her tasks were
done, as she had done at Glenfern? She doubted it. Och, it was a great
sacrifice she was making for those who had sent her, and she must see
that her reward was as great. And then.... She drifted into her favorite
daydream.
In the long white twilight she backed down the hill until she found a
tarn sheltered by birch, and settled herself for the night. The Dancers
were absent tonight, and the sky a pale shadowed silver in which only the
largest stars flickered feebly, for it was midsummer. Then the moon came
over the crest of the hill, and there were no more stars, and the tarn
became a pool of cold light. Deliberately Kelpie leaned over the bank and
stared into the tarn.
The reflected brilliance of moonlight glowed, closed in upon itself,
became a silver point, and then in its place there was a strange land—a
place with giant forests, dark and wild, and a crude house made of logs
in a rough clearing. She tossed her head with annoyance. What was this to
her? What of her future, her career as a witch? What of destruction of
those she hated? What of her enemies?
The tarn obeyed, as if with a malicious will of its own, and she saw
Argyll’s face, the eyes coldly burning, the mouth twisted in anger,
staring straight at her, and in her mind’s ear Kelpie heard the word
“witch.”
She threw herself backward and sat with beating heart for several moments
after the water stood clear and blank. Was she fey, then? Was it her own
doom she was seeing? Och, no, perhaps not. For she had not seen herself,
and surely Mac Cailein Mor had looked so to many a person accused of
witchcraft. She had asked to see her enemy, and the picture was telling
her, just, that here was a dangerous enemy—a warning to be canny, that
was all. She curled up comfortably in a patch of rank grass free of
nettles, and slept.
* * * * *
In the thin light of morning she smoothed back her hair and washed her
face in the cold, peaty water of the tarn. Then, wary but confident, she
made her way back to the glen and along the river to the castle.
As she approached the massive stone gateway, Kelpie put on the proper
face and attitude for this occasion as easily as Eithne might have put on
a different frock. The task was not so easy, really, for there was little
that could be done about the long slanted eyes and brows or the pointed
jaw. But the severely braided hair helped, and by tucking in her lower
lip and drooping the corners she added a helpless and wistful note. She
pulled her chin down and back and pressed her elbows to her sides for a
look of brave apprehension, and then she changed her free, fawnlike walk
for a most sober one.
Through the gate she stepped into a subdued world of drab colors. Her
blue dress looked insolently bright beside the grays and blacks of the
other women in the courtyard. Only the tartan—that proud symbol of the
Highlander—had failed to be extinguished by the decree of the Covenant
and Kirk. And even the tartans, being colored with vegetable dye, were of
muted shades.
A man leading a horse stopped and regarded her with little approval.
“What is it that you are wanting?” he asked.
“Could I be seeing Mrs. MacKellar, the housekeeper?” asked Kelpie, her
eyes lowered modestly.
He looked at her for a moment and then called over his shoulder,
“Siubhan, the lass is wanting Mrs. MacKellar. Take her away up to the
door.” And he went on about his business.
A sad-faced woman put down her basket of laundry, regarded Kelpie without
curiosity, and jerked her head. Kelpie followed with great meekness and
waited obediently at the castle door until Siubhan had gone inside and
reappeared with a tall, gaunt woman in black.
Once again there was the disapproving look. “And who may you be?”
“I be Sheena Campbell.” Kelpie launched into her story, not too glibly,
with downcast eyes and humble voice. “And it’s hoping I am to serve Mac
Cailein Mor,” she finished earnestly.
“Mmmm,” commented Mrs. MacKellar. “We’ve lasses aplenty in Inverary
Village.”
“Och,” protested Kelpie, “but ’tis experience I’ve had! And,” she added
pitifully, “they will be having homes, and I with nowhere to turn.”
Mrs. MacKellar softened, but only slightly. “To tell the truth,” she said
bluntly, “there is something—I’m not altogether liking the look of you!
How am I knowing you are what you say?”
“But and whyever else would I be coming to Mac Cailein Mor?” demanded
Kelpie artlessly.
“Mmmm, that will be the question,” retorted Mrs. MacKellar. “No, now, I’m
thinking—”
What she thought was never said, for from the corner of her eye Kelpie
saw a tall figure just passing the foot of the stairs—not Argyll, but his
tallness, his long face, red hair, and manner of dress suggested that he
must be Argyll’s son. Kelpie took a chance.
She turned away blindly from the imminent refusal, carefully stumbled a
bit, and tumbled herself neatly down the steps to land in a pathetic heap
in front of the startled young man.
“My sorrow!” he ejaculated.
Kelpie swiftly decided against being injured, as this might prove
inconvenient. So she gave a small scared glance upward at the faint frown
above her and shrank back against the wall. “Och, your pardon!” she
whispered. “Please do not be beating me!”
The young man—she was quite sure now that he must be Lord Lorne, son of
Argyll—gave a short laugh. “Whatever you may have heard, I am no beater
of bairns.”
Kelpie drooped her lip at him. “Sir, I would not mind a beating, if only
I could be staying here to work for Mac Cailein Mor.”
“What is this? Who is she?” Lord Lorne switched to English, and Mrs.
MacKellar replied in the same tongue.
“She iss saying her name iss Sheena Campbell from Loch Awe, and that
she iss an orphan who hass peen working in the home of MacIntyre of
Craignish who iss not needing her any more.” Mrs. MacKellar’s English,
sibilant with the soft Gaelic sounds, was really not nearly as good as
Kelpie’s—but Kelpie was careful to keep her face blank, as if she did not
understand. “But sir,” went on the housekeeper, “I am not liking the look
of her whateffer. Her eyes—”
Lord Lorne bent and looked at them. Kelpie tried to make them wide and
pleading.
“Oddly ringed, aren’t they?” he observed. “Well, she can’t help that. You
could use her, I think. Why not try her out?” And he went on to wherever
he had been going.
“_Seadh._” Mrs. MacKellar shrugged and washed her hands of the decision.
“You can be staying a bit, then, until I see can you do the work. We will
see does Peigi have an old dress you can be wearing, of a proper color.
You’re of the Kirk, are you no?” she demanded suddenly, turning to cast a
suspicious eye on the blue of Kelpie’s dress.
Kelpie wasn’t quite sure what that meant, and, even with Janet’s
tutoring, she dared not bluff too far. She took an instant to think as
she rose slowly to her feet. “I am wanting to be a better Christian,” she
said, temporizing, with an earnest face. “And that is one reason I was
coming here, for the house of Mac Cailein Mor is surely the most godly of
all.”
“Well—” Mrs. MacKellar looked somewhat appeased. “Come away in, then.”
And Kelpie came.
* * * * *
Life in Inverary Castle was quite different from life at Glenfern, even
though Kelpie’s duties were similar. There was a coldness here—and not
only physical, although the castle was chill enough, with draughts
constantly blowing down the halls and pushing out against the wall
tapestries. But the chill of spirit was even more depressing. Laughter
was near sacrilege, and a smile darkly suspect. Dancing simply didn’t
exist, and singing was confined to dour hymns regarding hellfire and
damnation. If Kelpie had ever chafed at the restrictions of Glenfern, she
now realized what a free and happy life that had been. Och, that people
could live like this! Worse, that they seemed to approve it! One could
hardly say they _liked_ anything.
And here Kelpie heard the other viewpoint regarding Mac Cailein Mor.
Everyone seemed to fear him, even his rather mousy wife and sullen son.
But they also saw him (except possibly Lord Lorne) as the Right Hand of
God, fighting the battles of righteousness against such enemies of Heaven
as witches, King Charles, Papists, Anglicans, everyone else who was not
of the Covenant, and, most particularly, Lord Graham of Montrose, who was
supposedly leading the King’s army in Scotland. But no one seemed to know
where Montrose was now, at all. He had started north to raise an army for
the king and then vanished altogether, and it was to be fondly hoped that
the Devil had snatched him away to Hell where he belonged.
Kelpie listened and said nothing. She didn’t like what she heard and
began to hate Argyll on her own account. Indeed and it was true that he
would take all freedom from all people if he could. Kelpie cared little
enough about anyone else, she told herself, but her own freedom mattered
more than anything at all, and she began to feel a personal enthusiasm
for her task here. A hex was what he deserved, and she hoped that the
Lowlander would make it a fine horrible one indeed.
It was lucky, she discovered, that himself was home at all now, for he
spent much of his time these days heading his Covenant army, raiding the
Highlands, and occasionally daring a small skirmish with other enemies.
(Kelpie received the impression that he was not, perhaps, the boldest and
most audacious leader when it came to fighting.) But now he was home, as
no doubt the Lowlander had known.
Still, three bleak weeks had passed, and she still had never had a chance
to lay her hands on any bit of his person or even come near his private
rooms. Mrs. MacKellar kept a watchful eye out, and Kelpie’s duties were
confined to all wings of the castle but that of Mac Cailein Mor. And so
she watched and waited through June, tense, wary, inwardly chafing.
10. A Bit of Hair
It was an impossible errand they had sent her on! Kelpie realized it
slowly, angrily. A bit of Argyll’s hair, indeed and indeed! Nobody at
all would be so feckless as to leave a bit of his hair lying about,
convenient to the hand of any witch who happened to be passing. And
how much less Mac Cailein Mor, who was thrice as crafty, ten times as
suspicious, and a thousand times more hated than most folk? Och, no; for
him such carelessness would be altogether impossible. It was certain
that he would stand over his barber while every last hair or fingernail
clipping was safely burned. The best she could hope for was a bit of his
personal belongings, which would be much less effective; and whatever
Mina and the Lowlander would say she did not know. No doubt they would
make an excuse to refuse to teach her spells, after all.
And so she seethed under the joyless Covenant mask which was becoming
harder and harder to wear. How she longed for the freedom of the open!
Her legs ached with the longing to run and leap and dance upon the hills,
and her face ached with the need to laugh. And yet she stayed on, hoping
for some miracle, reflecting sourly that Mrs. MacKellar and Argyll were
very little improvement over Mina and Bogle.
It was in mid-July that it happened, during morning prayer.
Kelpie knelt with the rest of the household on the cold stone floor in
grim endurance, for this long, twice-daily torment was nearly unbearable
for an active young gypsy.
Her place was in the very back, among the meanest of the servants. Ahead,
the bowed backs graduated in rank, with Mrs. MacKellar far up front, just
behind meek Lady Argyll, Lord Lorne, and Ewen Cameron, whose red kilt
blazed sharply alien amid all the blue and green of the Campbell tartan.
And before them all stood Mac Cailein Mor’s long, stooped figure, telling
of the anger, jealousy, cruelty of a God who could surely have nothing to
do with the opal world outside. With cold satisfaction and in grim detail
he described God’s will (which seemed indistinguishable from Argyll’s
will); and his pale eyes were most disconcerting, for if one seemed fixed
upon Siubhan or Peigi, the other seemed to stare straight at Kelpie, and
who was to know what himself was really looking at, whatever?
“Behold, the day of Jehovah cometh, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger;
to make the land a desolation, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of
it,” said Argyll. “He shall destroy the minions of Satan, those evildoers
who are not of the Kirk, who blasphemously question the Covenant. For
all those who are not with the Covenant are against the Lord and vile in
His sight. They shall burn forever in Hell, and above all shall burn all
witches and that servant of the Devil, Montrose. They shall be tormented—”
Kelpie felt the presence of the messenger in the open door behind her,
but dared not turn to look. She saw Argyll’s eye flicker briefly in that
direction and noticed the slight pause before he went coldly on with his
orders to and from God. And something inside Kelpie stirred, and she knew
that something was about to happen which would be important to her.
Dropping her dark head over clasped hands in an attitude of great
reverence, she tried to think what it could be. There was nothing she had
done. Unless—Had Ewen Cameron said something about yesterday?