the wing which held the chambers of Mac Cailein Mor and his family. She
had actually reached his door, and as she hesitated there, heart beating
quickly, another door nearby had opened, and through it came a lad of
about fifteen.
Kelpie had not needed to look at the oddness of a Cameron tartan in the
Campbell stronghold to know that this was Ewen, the grandson of Lochiel.
Ian had told her about him, and she had seen him now and again about the
castle. And Peigi had told her proudly how fine it was that Mac Cailein
Mor was taking on himself the education of his nephew, for fear it should
be neglected or his own family should teach him to believe the wrong
things.
Kelpie had hidden a cynical smile at the time, but now, when the grave,
clear-eyed lad stood regarding her in the hall, she wondered briefly how
much this “education” would really mean. For he had about him the air of
one with a mind of his own.
“You’ll be Sheena, will you not?” he asked as Kelpie belatedly made a
stiff bob. She nodded. “Best not to linger here,” he went on. “If my
uncle should see you—”
“Aye,” Kelpie had murmured, and slipped away back to her own territory
with the odd feeling that he had seen through her mask—not, perhaps, that
he knew exactly what was under it, but that he knew she was alien to this
world of Inverary.
Could he have said anything, just? Kelpie wondered as she shifted her
knees ever so slightly on the painfully hard stone. The thing inside said
no. He was another of those strange people, like Ian and Eithne, who
seemed not to hate anyone or even wish them ill.
But still, something was about to happen, and she must find out as soon
as ever she could. When prayers were over, and the household rose and
respectfully made way for himself to go out first, it was easy enough
for her to slip nearest the door, for she had had a wealth of experience
at picking pockets and melting through crowds. And so she saw the
travel-weary messenger waiting outside, and heard the news when Argyll
did.
“Antrim of Colonsay and his clan of Irish MacDonalds have landed at
Ardnaburchen and taken the castle of Mingary, and will even now be taking
the keep of Lochaline, your Lordship!”
The Marquis of Argyll said something under his breath, and the freckles
suddenly stood out under the red hair that Kelpie coveted. “May the Devil
take his impudence!” he said aloud, and there was no doubt that he meant
it literally.
Kelpie tried to remember something she had heard at Glenfern.
Antrim—Colkitto, they called him—was chief of a branch of MacDonalds
that the Campbells had driven westward, over the islands, and at last to
Ireland. And now, it seemed, he had decided to bring his clan back to
Scotland to fight the Campbells and perhaps take back some land.
“Have messengers ready to ride,” Argyll said viciously to his son. “I’ll
have the army up and wipe him out once and for all!” By this time the
rest of the household had filtered out into the hall, and it didn’t seem
to matter if they all heard or no. But then, there’d be no keeping this
kind of news secret, whatever.
Kelpie clenched her fists. We? Then would Mac Cailein Mor be away with
the army himself?
“Isn’t there an English Parliament garrison at Carlisle?” ventured Lord
Lorne in English. “Why not send to them to take warships up the coast? If
they captured Antrim’s ships, there’d be no retreat for him.”
Argyll nodded brusquely and strode off toward his chambers to write the
necessary letters—taking his hair with him, of course. “Get my things
ready to ride,” he ordered one of his retainers, thus destroying Kelpie’s
last hope.
“_Dhé!_” she muttered, without changing the blank and sober expression
considered suitable for God-fearing people. Whatever could she be doing
now, at all, with him away?
Impulsively, she slipped out of the hall before Mrs. MacKellar or Peigi
should see her, and made her way to the tower next to Argyll’s wing.
There she hid her thin self partway up the steep, twisting stairs, where
with one eye she could see his door, and waited. Not that he would be
likely to be trimming his hair or fingernails now, but perhaps in the
flurry of his leaving she could just slip in and lay hold of some wee
personal item to be used instead, and it the best she could do.
It was a full half-hour before Argyll’s door opened. Kelpie glimpsed the
full tartan folds of his belted plaid and then pressed herself out of
sight as the halting steps assured her that it was indeed Mac Cailein Mor.
She waited until they had passed down the hall and out of hearing, and
then slipped out of the tower and across to the massive oaken door.
She paused an instant, hand lifted to open the door, but it was almost
certain there could be no one else in there, for the entire household
had been at morning prayer, and no one else had gone in. The door opened
heavily, with never a creak, and closed firmly behind her.
Here must be his Lordship’s private withdrawing room. Kelpie had never
seen such a room, and she glanced around with interest. The clan crest,
a boar’s head, was carved over the large stone fireplace and on the back
of the high oaken settle that stood at one wall. A bulky armchair with a
triangular seat going to a point in back stood by a long table on which
quills, ink, sand, and paper still stood. But there was nothing personal.
His bedroom must be on through that other door.
She darted across the room silently, opened the door, and saw an enormous
four-post bedstead of inlaid walnut—a fine piece indeed, she thought
cynically, for an unworldly Covenanter! No less than three great-chests
doubtless held his clothing and perhaps Lady Argyll’s—but clothing would
be too bulky for Kelpie’s needs. A plaid-brooch might just do nicely,
though, and they should be in a cupboard, perhaps, or a wee box somewhere.
Kelpie began investigating. And then she nearly yelped with triumph. A
brush! A brush in which were tangled several long strands of red hair!
Och, and he _had_ been careless, then, perhaps with being upset from the
news of Antrim. Och, the fine luck of it! Chuckling, she pulled them
loose, looked around for something to wrap them in—and saw the bedroom
door swing inexorably open.
There he stood, Mac Cailein Mor, one eye regarding her balefully, the
other apparently fixed on the wall behind; and the thin lips were
pitiless. For once Kelpie’s quick mind and glib tongue failed her
altogether, and she just stood there while he crossed the room in three
strides and seized her wrist.
“A thief, is it?” he rasped.
Kelpie found her wits. “Och, no, your worship!” she cried. “I know it’s
no right I have to be coming here, but it’s the fine and godly man you
are, and leaving now, and I just wanting to see—”
He pried her hand roughly open, and the damning evidence of the hairs lay
exposed on her palm.
“A witch!” he said with savage glee. “A witch in my own household. Ah,
the Devil is trying hard to destroy me, for I do the work of the Lord.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for Thy name’s sake. Spawn of Satan,
do you know what we do with witches?”
“Witches?” faltered Kelpie with desperate innocence, though she knew by
now that pretense was hopeless. Far less evidence than this would have
been fatal, and even with a much less suspicious man than Mac Cailein
Mor. Sudden hot anger almost drove out her terror for an instant—not
so much at Argyll as at Mina and Bogle and the Lowlander, who had so
callously sent her on this errand. They had surely known how slim her
chances were, and that she would almost certainly be caught and burned.
And they would never have taught her the Evil Eye, even had she been
successful. She had been their tool and cat’s-paw, and she cursed herself
for being such a fool. Och, she would see to it before she died that
Argyll knew their names and the meeting place.
She didn’t once think of the _sgian dhu_ that rested within the bodice of
her sober gray dress.
Mac Cailein Mor was dragging her out of the room, baying for his
servants, the dangerous hairs safely in his own hand. Kelpie submitted
passively because it would do no good at all to struggle. Her mind darted
here and there, like a moth in a glass ball, finding no way out at all.
And now all the household was running, and two husky men took her from
Argyll and hustled her brutally through the castle and out to the
courtyard, while Argyll sputtered his tale to his son between bellows for
Mrs. MacKellar.
“Was it you hired her?” he demanded ominously of the cringing
housekeeper. “Could you not see the eyes of her, the teeth, the brows? Or
was it yourself plotting against me too? Are the minions of Satan filling
my own home?” He was working himself into a fine frenzy, and even through
her terror Kelpie found time to wonder briefly at the idiotic honesty of
Lorne, who spoke up then.
“’Twas my fault, Father. Mrs. MacKellar didn’t like the look of the
lass when she came to ask for employment, and I was fool enough to feel
sorry for her, and I said to take her in.” He met his sire’s black glare
straight. “’Twas stupid,” he said firmly, “but no plot against you by any
here.”
“The Devil addled your wits, then,” retorted Argyll, not to be deprived
of his martyrdom. “Could you not see the ringed eyes of her? No, do not
look into them! She’ll cast a spell!” He glared at Lorne, and then,
dourly, at Ewen Cameron, who stood near with an expressionless face.
Kelpie was again fervently wishing that she _could_ cast a spell! Och,
the plague she would be putting on the lot of them, and himself in
particular! Since she couldn’t, she tucked in her lower lip, lowered the
offensive eyes, hung meekly in the painful grip on her arms, and made one
last hopeless try for her life.
“What was it I was doing wrong?” she whimpered. “It was nothing valuable
I was taking, but only a wee bit token to protect me from the Devil
whilst yourself was away.”
It was no use at all. Everyone knew what hairs were used for, even
children.
“Shall we burn her now, Mac Cailein Mor?” asked one of the men. Kelpie’s
heart thudded sickly. But Argyll brooded.
“No time now,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll be wanting to test her for
witch marks and get a full confession and the names of her accomplices.
And there’s Antrim to deal with first.” He looked frustrated at having to
delay, and Kelpie realized that here was a man who enjoyed cruelty for
its own sake. She shuddered.
“Put her in the dungeon,” ordered Argyll, “the wee cell at the bottom,
and with no blanket. And let no one open the door or speak to her until
I return. Put bread and water through the grate, but nothing else. Is
everything ready, Buchanan? My horse, then.”
He turned away, and Kelpie drew a small shaky breath. A wee respite,
then, and perhaps a chance to escape altogether from the torture and
burning, if they didn’t search her and take away the _sgian dhu_—and if
she made up her mind to use it.
11. Argyll’s Dungeon
The cell was tiny, damp, cold, and inconceivably black. Within ten
minutes after the solid door thudded behind her, Kelpie was cowering on
the floor. Even an ordinary roof was oppressive to her, and this—Ou,
the dark and the smallness were almost tangible things that seemed to
press down and in on her, smothering and squashing! It was even hard to
breathe, just with the thinking of it.
By the time half an hour had passed, it was all she could do not to
shriek wildly and beat her head against the stone. She gritted her
teeth, sensing that self-control was her only hold on sanity. How could
mere darkness hurt the eyes so? Kelpie began fingering her _sgian dhu_
longingly. It was escape, escape from this torment and that to follow.
She had no great fear of death, in spite of all she had heard of Hell,
for at worst it was almost certain to be interesting.
And yet, the thing inside would not let her use the wee sharp dagger that
nestled so temptingly in her hand. It gave no reason, except that this
was a mean and shabby way to die.
For nearly the first time in her memory, Kelpie cried. On and on she
sobbed, for as space was closing in on her, time was stretched into a
long and empty void, and she was alone in chaos and terror.
Once she thought that perhaps if she did kill herself now, her Hell
would be an eternity of this, and she shuddered at the thought. Argyll’s
God might just do such a thing, and Satan’s fire was surely to be
preferred—but which of them would be having the decision, at all? Her
thoughts blurred off into confusion.
Some time later a grate in the door opened, a hand pushed a bit of bread
through the pale oblong, and it clanged shut again. Kelpie roused herself
to explore the spot with her long, sensitive fingers but found it small
and solidly bolted. She took a few halfhearted bites of bread and lapsed
again into a shivering huddle.
After more time she drifted up from a semi-sleep to hear another sound at
the door. Was it the next day, then, and time for more bread?
_Dhé!_ The door was opening, when Mac Cailein Mor had ordered against
it! Was he back, then? She shrank against the wall as an oblong of gray
spread like a shaft of light into the thick black of the cell.
“Sheena?”
It was Ewen Cameron! She knew the voice of him!
“Sheena, are you awake?”
With a small gasp, Kelpie was at the door. “Och, it’s near dead I am!
Will you no let me free? You wouldn’t see me burned, an innocent wee
lass, and put to torment before it? I’ll—”
“Hist!” There was a hint of strain in his voice, with a thread of humor
around it. “And what were you thinking I came for? ’Tis quite likely you
_are_ a witch,” he added ruefully, “but for all that, I cannot abide
cruelty. Come away, then, and like a mouse.”
Gasping with relief, Kelpie was out of the door before he had finished
speaking. He groped to find her face in the dark that was to her almost
light. “Wait, now. I must be bolting the door again. I cannot see.”
Kelpie moved beside him and helped. “Follow me,” he said when it was
done. “I can put you outside the walls, and then ’tis up to you.”
It was all she asked. Scarcely able to believe her good fortune, she
followed him through a dark, narrow labyrinth of stone corridors, most
of them damp with being underground. Twice he unlocked doors for them to
pass through, and finally they crept on hands and knees through a tunnel
quite as black as her cell had been. It twisted on and on, and finally
upward.
“’Tis an escape route in case of siege by an enemy,” Ewen explained
over his shoulder. “None but the family is supposed to know of it, and
even they have nearly forgotten it, because for the last hundred years
Clan Campbell has been too strong to be attacked in its own stronghold.
Instead, it is they who attack other clans.”
The narrow tunnel picked up the faint note of anger in his voice,
magnified and echoed it. Kelpie, engrossed though she was in her own
important affairs, suddenly wondered how it felt to be fostered by a
wicked uncle who was, in addition, enemy to one’s own clan, and to know
you were being used as a hostage to control the actions of your own
grandfather, your own people. It was the first time Kelpie had seriously
tried to put herself into the mind of another person, and it felt most
peculiar and disturbing.
“What if real war is coming to the Highlands?” she demanded. “Will
Lochiel dare call out the Camerons to fight against your uncle and the
Covenant, or—”
There was a brief silence in which their small scufflings seemed to shout
aloud. Then: “Grandfather will dare to do what is right,” said Ewen
tersely.
Another silence, and then his low voice reached back to her again,
strongly earnest. “There are things more important than safety, Sheena. I
wonder if you know about them. Was it for a principle you were wanting to
put a hex on my uncle, or for something else?”
Kelpie didn’t answer this, for the simple reason that she was not at all
sure what a principle was. Unless—Could it have anything to do with not
using the _sgian dhu_ on herself when it seemed much easier to do so? Or
had she not used it because the thing inside her had known that she was
going to be rescued? Och, it was much too confusing to bother with now,
for she could at last see a pale blob of night sky ahead.
They emerged in a shallow cave on the hill above Inverary, not far from
where Kelpie had first looked down upon the castle.
“Now,” said Ewen, “be away out of Campbell territory as quickly as
ever you can! Away around the tip of Loch Fyne, and then east is best,
but be canny. You’ll not be safe with the MacFarlanes, either, but the
Stewarts of Balquidder are hostile to the Campbell, and the MacGregors
and MacNabs, and they are past Loch Lomond. Best to skulk low during the
day, for you’ll not get so far this night—though I’m hoping you’ll not be
found missing until Uncle Archibald is returned and the cell door opened.”
Kelpie nodded. The weight of horror was lifting (though she would never
quite forget it), and she began to feel quite cocky again. Fine she was
now, for who knew more about skulking and wariness in the hills? And yet
through her cockiness crept an odd curiosity.
“Will _he_ be finding out ’twas you who freed me?”
“I think not,” said Ewen, and there was laughter in the lilt of his
voice. “No one is thinking I know about the secret tunnel, and they will
probably believe you escaped by witchcraft. Be careful, Sheena, the next
time you’re wanting to hex someone,” he added and vanished back into the
tunnel.
Kelpie stared down the blackness after him and shook her head
wonderingly. He was another daft one, to take a risk for someone else,
and with no profit to himself whatever! But she was grateful, for all
that. She owed much to his daftness.
She left the cave, lifted her face to the infinite space of the open
sky, and breathed deeply of the free air. The moonlit side of the hill
was ghostlike, a pale glow without depth. The dark side was a soft, deep
purple-black. Patches of glimmering mist rose from the loch, and there
was a line of it behind the western hills. Kelpie laughed aloud and
headed northeast.
* * * * *
Thick gray mist poured over the hills from the west, covering the world
with a layer of wetness. A curlew gave its eerie call, the whaups
shrilled, and presently it began to rain. Kelpie shivered a little,
even though the gray wool dress was the warmest she had ever owned.
She had got soft, then, living in houses. She must steal a plaidie
somewhere—preferably one of plain color, or a black and white shepherd’s
tartan. Wearing the tartan of a clan could get her into trouble.
By the time it was really light, she had passed the tip of Loch Fyne.
She rested for a while, but it was cold sitting still, she was getting
more and more hungry, and as there was little enough chance of being
seen through the thickness of the mist she went on again. Once out of
Campbell country she might risk stealing as well as begging, but she must
be careful about telling fortunes or selling charms, for she would be
getting near the Lowlands, where the arm of the Kirk was long and strong
and people were narrow-minded about such activities. And Kelpie very much
wanted to avoid any more trouble of that sort.
She waded through the dripping tangle of heather and bracken and wondered
what to do next. She was free of Mina and Bogle—unless they found her
again. Did she dare return to Glenfern, having left the way she had? No,
for they no longer trusted her, and Alex was now her enemy. Moreover, if
Mina ever found out, she would put a curse on Wee Mairi. It seemed she
must give up her hopes of learning witchcraft from Mina, and any other
witches who still lived in Covenant territory would be very canny and
quiet indeed. She might try the Highlands, but there was a problem too,
for in order to get there without recrossing Campbell territory, she must
go far east and then north and through another danger zone, where there
had been fighting and trouble since spring. And even in the Highlands
there was danger of meeting Mina and Bogle, and further danger that Alex
might have set all the Camerons and MacDonalds against her, as he had
threatened.
_Dhé!_ Indeed and it was a braw mess she had got herself into! She cursed
the Lowlander, Mina, Bogle, Mac Cailein Mor, the Kirk, and Alex, with
fine impartial vigor and in two languages. Then, for good measure, she
added Antrim (for forcing her hand too soon), the King (for his general
fecklessness), all religious bodies, God, the Devil, and people in
general.
When she had finished she felt no better, either mentally or physically.
She had now traveled some twenty miles over thickly brushed and wooded
hills, on an empty stomach, after a shattering experience, and even
Kelpie’s wiry toughness had its limits. Had she reached friendly
territory yet? How was she to know without seeing a clan tartan that
would tell her? Well, surely she was for the moment way ahead of any
possible alarm out for her. She must have food, and there was a shieling
hut below.
She sat down in the drenched heather and absently regarded a small twig
of ling, already in bloom a month ahead of the ordinary heather. The tiny
lantern-shaped blossoms were larger and pinker than heather too, not
quite as charming, perhaps, but still tiny perfect things. Plants were
nicer than people, if less exciting. She stared at it while she thought
up two stories; one to use on a Campbell or a MacFarlane, the other for
Stewart or MacNab. Then she stood up, brushed the wet from her skirts,
and started slowly down the hill.
An old woman stepped out of the low hut to empty a pail of water, and
there was no mistaking the light and dark reds crossed with green on her
plaidie. It was MacNab. Her husband, no doubt, would be out in the hills
with the sheep or cattle. Fine, that. Women living alone in the hills
were rather more likely to be sympathetic and motherly toward a forlorn
wee lass than men. (On the other hand, women of the Kirk towns were like
to be dourly suspicious and hating.)
The old woman started to go back inside and then caught a glimpse of
Kelpie, who stumbled a bit because she was hungry and tired—and because
it was her general policy.
“Whoever is it, then?” The Highland lilt of the Gaelic was less marked
here, near the Lowlands, and the voice cracked slightly with age—and yet
there was in it a note like a bell.
“Och, forgive me, just.” Kelpie’s voice was faint, and she swayed
slightly. “I am weary and hungry, and could you be sparing just a crust?”
“_Seadh_, the little love!” Mrs. MacNab was all sympathy. “Come away in,
then, and I’ve a fine pot of oatmeal on the fire. Whatever will you be
doing all alone and in the hills?” She looked at Kelpie with wise old
eyes as they entered the dark shieling, and frowned in puzzlement. “From
your dress you would be a lass from a Covenant home, but your face is
giving it the lie.”
Kelpie instantly revised her story in the brief time it took to step
through the low doorway under its bristling roof of rye thatch. She stood
meekly on the earthen floor under the smoke-blackened rafters and noted
at a glance that these folk were better off than some, for there was a
real bedstead in the corner instead of a pile of heather and bracken, and
four three-legged creepie-stools.
“Eat now,” invited her hostess, handing her a big bowl of oatmeal from
the iron pot over the fire. “And there are bannocks here, and milk. And
then perhaps you will tell me about yourself, little one, for I confess
I’ve a fine curiosity, and strangers are none so common here.”
Kelpie made use of the respite to ask some questions and get her
bearings, in between ravenous mouthfuls of food. “Be ye Covenant here?”
she ventured around half a bannock.
“Och, and can you no see my tartan?” demanded Mrs. MacNab. “We MacNabs
are loyal to our own Stewart King, foolish darling. Why, then, are you of
the Kirk?”
Kelpie shook her head vigorously. “Not I! ’Tis a prisoner of the
Campbells I’ve been. They wanted me to be of the Covenant and refused to
tell me who my parents are, at all. And so I have run away—”
“_Dhé!_” interrupted Mrs. MacNab with wide eyes. This was the most
exciting thing that had happened in the braes of Balquidder this many a
year. She was ready to believe anything of the hated Campbells. “Oh, my
dear! Is it that they were stealing you, then? Tell me all about it,
heart’s love, every bit!”