unseeing, her whole attention focused on her thoughts. The folk at
Glenfern, like Mrs. MacKellar, would remain loyal for always to a person
or ideal. This was part of the thing about them which she had sensed from
the first—the daftness, the difference. True they would be, whether or
not it was profitable or safe, aye, though it cost them their lives—all
but Alex. And it was this, perhaps, that had shocked her so. For Alex,
surely, would never change sides but would be true to an ideal—and how
was it, then, that he could betray a friend?
She leaned her forehead against one of the thick diamond-shaped panes,
dimming it even more with her breath, and remembered that Montrose had
talked of such things back at Blair Atholl. But neither he nor anyone
else had ever explained to Kelpie why this way of acting was desirable.
Was it possible that there was some strange kind of happiness in it? Did
they have things inside which would make them uncomfortable if they acted
otherwise?
Kelpie stopped trying to understand, for she found that there was an
argument going on within her. The thing inside her was saying that this
was a fine and proud way to be, but her common sense told her that it was
not at all practical, and had she not vowed to think of herself first,
last, and always? And surely if it was a choice between her own safety
and any other thing (and she forced the thought of Wee Mairi from her
mind), surely it would be only sensible to look out for herself, as ever
was!
18. The Black Sail
Kelpie awoke from a dream in which she was trudging along beside a loch
against blinding rain. She blinked a little as she remembered that she
was back at Inverlochy Castle—the same place she and Mina and Bogle had
spent the first night after leaving Glenfern. She shivered a little,
partly at the memory of Mina and Bogle, and partly from cold. Hugging the
stolen cloak and her old plaidie about her, she hurried down the tower
stairs and out to the central court, where Morag Mhor and the other women
were preparing breakfast.
“Slugabed!” Morag greeted her, and Kelpie grinned cheekily, knowing all
about Morag’s pretended fierceness by now. There were more men than ever
to feed, since the Glencoe MacDonalds and the Stewarts of Appin had
joined, and Kelpie was glad that they were in friendly Cameron country,
where it was safe to build fires and they could have hot porridge.
She had got heartily tired of a diet of oatmeal mixed with cold water.
She looked thoughtfully up at Ben Nevis, which looked larger and more
lowering under its quilt of snow than in the green and tawny blanket of
summer, and realized suddenly that she had had enough of army life.
Rab paused by the fire to sniff the oatmeal hungrily and announce that
he thought he would just go out and lift some cattle for breakfast. He
chucked Morag Mhor under the chin as he said it, and received a sound
clout on the ear as a reward. “Ouch!” he exclaimed, making a great show
of nursing his ear. “You will ever be bullying me, Morag _avic_, and I a
poor helpless man at your mercy.”
Kelpie giggled, and Morag shook her fist at the other ear. “This is the
day we go to ask Lochiel and the Camerons to join us, and you would be
lifting their cattle! _Amadan!_”
Rab began explaining that they didn’t really need the Camerons at all,
but Kelpie stopped listening, for she was thinking that this would be a
good time indeed to leave the army. She had had enough of battles. Just
a few miles up the Great Glen was the pass that led to Glenfern. Would
she be welcome there? Surely Ian would remember that she had warned him
against Alex, and so would forgive her for running away and leaving him
struck down and half dead. Would he and his father join Montrose? she
wondered. Or would Lochiel dare to raise his clan?
She turned to Morag Mhor, who had sent Rab, protesting, out to the river
for more water, and was now vigorously stirring the porridge. “Lochiel
would be daft to call out his clan,” she suggested. “With his grandson in
Campbell hands, he could not dare.”
Morag thought about it for a while, her lean face still and
expressionless. “There was a wise woman in our village long ago,” she
said at last, “who used to say to me, ‘Always dare to do what is right,’
and I am thinking Lochiel will say the same. Would you understand that,
Kelpie?”
“No!” said Kelpie forcefully and scowled. Ewen Cameron himself had used
those same words. So here again were those ideas that she did not want
to think about. She set her small face into a hard mask and dropped the
subject. “I am thinking I have had my fill of armies and battles,” she
announced. “I will stay behind when you go up the Great Glen, and perhaps
go to stay with friends here in Lochaber.”
“Well, then, and a blessing on you,” said Morag. “May you find a home
for your bones and your spirit—though I think you will never stay in one
place for long. I’m thinking I’ll go back to Gordon country myself soon.
No doubt there are orphans left by the Campbells who would be needing a
mother.”
Kelpie followed the army as far as Lochiel’s home at Torcastle, curious
to see whether or not Lochiel would raise his clan. He did. The
traditional cross was made of two sturdy sticks bound firmly together.
And according to the ancient ceremony the ends were set aflame,
extinguished in goat’s blood, then lighted once more: one of Lochiel’s
men held the cross proudly high and set off at a trot that carried him
deeper into Cameron territory. The torch would be passed from runner to
runner until the whole area had received the message of war.
The army stayed at Torcastle for two days while Camerons came flocking to
the call of their chief. If any had misgivings about Argyll’s possible
revenge on them, they did not show it; nor did Lochiel, that stern old
man who held his head so high. Kelpie did not wait to see the Glenfern
Camerons arrive, for she had sudden misgivings about seeing Ian again.
Instead, she went back to the tower room at Inverlochy Castle in a very
thoughtful frame of mind.
For several days she stayed at the castle, enjoying her solitude, and
getting her food from homes nearby with surprising ease. For the very
people who had once regarded her with deep suspicion were now delighted
to give food and hospitality to the wistful lass who had been a prisoner
of Argyll, who had been helped by Ewen Cameron himself, and who had even
got away with Lady Argyll’s fine cloak. Food, scanty though it might be
with the men away in the army, was shared, and there was not a home where
she was not urged to bide awhile.
But she shook her black head. Och, no, she said. She was away up the
Glen. But she would take her leave marveling at such openheartedness to a
stranger—even one who had not yet stolen anything. After thinking about
it, Kelpie decided not to take anything at all. Somehow the good will
seemed more valuable than anything she might steal.
Then the mild weather turned into sudden bitter cold. The night wind
hurled blasts of snow against the tower walls, crept up the winding
stairs, and whined outside like the banshee. It was so cold that Kelpie
thought she might put away misgivings and go to Glenfern after all.
Surely Lady Glenfern would not refuse her shelter in this cold!
She was heading back to Inverlochy in the early dusk when she decided
this. Her stomach was comfortably full of hot broth and scones from
a generous young Cameron wife, she was a trifle sleepy, and it would
be good indeed to sleep tomorrow night or the next in the comfort of
Glenfern, under the same roof with Wee Mairi.
It was fortunate that Kelpie’s senses remained alert even when her mind
was on other things. Even so, she had nearly walked up to the castle
gate before she realized that something was wrong, and she never knew
exactly what it was that warned her. But suddenly she stopped, alive to
the sharp feel of danger, her small figure dark and taut against the
faintly luminous patches of snow. An instant later she simply was not
there, and the Campbell soldier who came running out of the gate, under
the impression that he had seen something, shook his head and cursed the
weather.
Kelpie lay in the snow where she had thrown herself behind a small
hillock, not daring to raise her head but listening as if her life
depended on it—which it did. Soon there was no doubt. Inverlochy Castle
was being occupied—by Mac Cailein Mor and his army!
With sick dismay she pieced things together. Someone called for Campbell
of Auchinbreck. Then there was a harsh and authoritative Lowland voice.
And by crouching behind a thick clump of juniper and twisting her
head cautiously, Kelpie could just make out a galley with black sails
silhouetted against the gray waters of the Loch.
Oh, there was no doubt whatever! The Campbell had gathered his courage
and his army and had come after Montrose.
19. Footprints in the Snow
Kelpie spent the night at the shieling hut of Lorne Cameron, which was
nestled at the foot of Ben Nevis. Lorne had urged Kelpie to stay, for
she and her four bairns were alone since her husband had gone off with
Montrose and his army. Now her ruddy young face paled at Kelpie’s news.
“Campbells! _Dhé!_ and they will be murdering us all, then!”
“Perhaps not,” said Kelpie hopefully. “If Mac Cailein Mor is after
Montrose, perhaps he’ll not be lingering in Lochaber.”
But she slept with one ear well out of the folds of her plaidie, cocked
for any sounds of danger. The hut was only a mile or so from Inverlochy
Castle, and if Lorne had reason to fear Mac Cailein Mor, Kelpie had that
much more.
She had planned to be off the first thing in the morning, out of danger.
But somehow she found herself waiting, even after she had eaten the hot
oatmeal Lorne cooked, and tucked some food into her pouch. There was
Lorne here, and the wee ones, and none of Kelpie’s concern at all. But
Lorne was frightened and uncertain what to do, and they so helpless and
looking up to Kelpie—and after all, perhaps it would be wise just to take
a wee peek at what Argyll was doing, and see the size of his army.
“You might just be getting food and blankets together in case you need to
hide,” she suggested. “And I’ll go have a look around.”
“Och,’tis both good and brave you are!” said Lorne gratefully. Kelpie
left the house hurriedly, feeling oddly embarrassed.
She moved cautiously around the flank of the ben, skulking behind
masses of juniper and pine clumps, until she could see the castle.
_Mise-an-dhui!_ It was an army indeed and indeed! Highland Campbells and
Lowlanders too, and well more than twice what Montrose could have, even
with his new recruits. But Argyll seemed to be making no move to follow
him up the Great Glen, even with this advantage.
Kelpie’s heart sank as she watched groups of men forming before the
castle. It was what she had expected in the heart of her. Mac Cailein
Mor had no heart for battle but would be about his usual practice of
wiping out women and children. Even now one of the groups of soldiers
was setting off toward the little cluster of homes on the edge of Loch
Linnhe, and another was turning west along Loch Eil.
She watched no longer but headed back around the northern side of Ben
Nevis. In a way this might be fortunate for her, giving her time to be
up the Great Glen ahead of them. But suppose they penetrated as far as
Glenfern? Perhaps she ought to be heading eastward, and out of the way
altogether. In any case she would be passing Lorne’s home on the way,
and it costing only a few minutes to warn the lass. Nor was this just
profitless foolishness, she told herself, for who knew when she might be
needing a friend under obligation to herself?
An hour later she was laboring up the side of the mountain with a bundle
of food in one arm and the next-smallest bairn in the other; Lorne, with
the baby, and the older children panting behind. “Mind ye stay clear of
soft snow,” she warned over her shoulder. “It could be putting them on
your trail.”
Another hour saw them settled in a well-hidden shepherd’s shelter, cold
and uncomfortable and not daring to have a fire, but at least safer than
at their home.
“Will you not be staying too?” begged Lorne, her dark eyes anxious for
the safety of this generous new friend. But Kelpie shook her head. She
wanted to be farther than this from Argyll. And besides, a new thought
was beginning to hound the fringes of her mind. Montrose, all unknowing,
was now between two armies, for was not Seaforth at Inverness with
five thousand men? And if he should be caught in a trap and wiped out,
it would put Argyll altogether in control of the Highlands as well as
Lowlands—and what would happen to Kelpie then? For her own safety, it
seemed, she must try to warn Montrose.
It was a sore uncomfortable thought, filled with hardship and danger.
She tried to put it out of her mind as she picked her way down the gaunt
wintry slope, but it wouldn’t leave. And with it were thoughts of Morag
Mhor and Rab and Archie and Montrose himself lying slain in the snow, and
all the comradeship and merry teasing silenced forever. A pity that would
be. With a sigh she headed up the glen, a sharp eye out for any movement
that might spell danger.
Och, then, but it was cold! Her feet were icy in their hide shoes, even
with the woolen hose, and it was threatening to snow again. However could
she catch up with the army at all? Perhaps it had already met Seaforth.
But she kept on going.
She saw nothing but hares and deer and a lone eagle, until she reached
the River Spean. Then a short, wiry figure came from the brush just
ahead, and Kelpie sank swiftly to the ground for a tense moment before
she saw he was not a Campbell. He was alone and in a faded Cameron kilt.
Kelpie followed him to a dilapidated hut on the bank of the river and
watched him enter. A drift of smoke began to rise. Might not he help
himself and his clan by taking the message for her? And then she would be
free to seek safety. She walked up to the door boldly.
“Come away in,” came the expected lilt of Gaelic when she knocked, and
the man’s face turned to her in surprise as she entered. “_Dhia dhuit_,”
he greeted her politely. “And what is a wee lass doing alone in the cold?
Will you no have a sup of hot food?”
“I will, then,” agreed Kelpie promptly. “And give an important word to
you, and also a task if you will do it.”
The man listened while she talked and ate, his face growing graver and
grimmer. “Aye so,” he agreed. “’Tis the hand of destiny that I live alone
here and knew nothing of the clan rising, or I would be with them, and a
bad time of it you would be having alone and in this weather. Eat your
fill, then, whilst I fill my pouch, and I’ll be away before you’re done.
You can be biding here whilst I am gone.”
“That I will not!” retorted Kelpie firmly. “For every house in Lochaber
is a danger. I’ll be away east out of trouble.”
He frowned and shook his head. “There is no shelter to the east of here,
lass, and it too cold to be sleeping out. And I have just come from
hunting a wolf that has been skulking upriver. You would be safer here,
I am thinking, for my house is alone and well hidden. But if you’re
feared to rest here, there is a bittie cave nearby, and you are welcome
to my blankets and food. Follow the Spean along up for a mile or so, and
where the Cour is entering it turn south for a bit and mark sharp the
west bank. The cave is in a high bluff and well hid with juniper. But I’m
thinking you’ll be safe enough the night here, whatever, and it nearly
dark already. There’ll be no Campbells along this day, and ’tis no good
for you to be freezing.”
“Aye, then,” agreed Kelpie, seeing the sense to this, and the man was
off. Odd, she didn’t know the name of him, nor he hers, and yet he was
away on a dangerous errand on her word. A purpose in common—or common
danger—she decided, was like a spell, binding even strangers one to
another.
The morning was heavy with clouds, the new snow a dead white beneath the
gray of the sky. Kelpie put out the fire for fear of any betraying smoke
and set out to locate the cave, wishing she dared stay in the warmth of
the shieling. But as she trudged along the Cour River, watching the west
bank, she stopped. Clear in the snow were footprints coming down the
Cour—and stopping just ahead in a tumbled heap of snow. Kelpie stared,
eyes narrowed. Footsteps didn’t just stop, unless someone had wings.
No, there were no wings. There the prints went, back the way they came.
In a moment Kelpie had read the story. A man it was, by the size of the
prints, and coming north along the Cour in a great hurry, so that he did
not notice the treacherous slab of granite by the river, with ice under
the snow. And there he had slipped and fallen; the mark was plain. Then,
it would seem, he had made back the way he had come, limping sorely.
Kelpie straightened and looked up the glen cautiously. Where was
he, then? And who was he? Warily she began to follow the retreating
footprints.
They angled up the hill to the right presently, through a thick patch of
pine and juniper. Kelpie hesitated, peering through it, her right hand
reaching for the _sgian dhu_ in the front of her dress, feet ready to
run. Nothing stirred. And then a tiny trickle of smoke floated up just a
few feet away from behind the brush. _Dhé!_ It must be that he had found
the cave and taken shelter there. Probably he was not a Campbell, then,
but more likely hiding from them—though he would not stay hidden long,
with the smoke giving him away. Kelpie grinned sourly and shrugged. This
was no place for her, then. She turned and prepared to slip quietly away,
back to the shieling.
“And have I taken the home of the water witch?”
It was a low voice with a mocking note that Kelpie could never mistake.
She whirled. Alex! She could see him now through the brush, nearly
invisible against the low winter sun. He sat at the mouth of a small,
shallow cave, regarding her quizzically—but with a drawn look about the
mouth of him. One foot, badly swollen, was propped up before him.
Och, then, wasn’t it her curse on him that had come at last to bear
fruit? Moving thru the juniper, but keeping a safe distance away, Kelpie
told him so with considerable relish.
Alex grinned wryly. “It may be so,” he conceded. “Sure it is you’ve
cursed me enough. But have I not told you that such things are likely to
fly back in the face of the one who curses? And if this is your curse at
work, then ’tis not just me you’ve harmed, but Montrose and his army, and
yourself as well. For Argyll is about, and I was on my way up the Great
Glen to warn Montrose when I fell; and what will you do if Argyll wins
and puts his witch-hunters over the whole of the Highlands?”
His tone was still mocking, but Kelpie could hear bitterness and despair
in his voice. It made her feel most peculiar, for Alex was usually so
infuriatingly self-assured—and much easier to hate that way. His distress
was not quite as satisfying as it should have been. For a moment she
toyed with the idea of leaving him to his worry, but she could not resist
bragging. She gave him a pointed grin.
“You will always be thinking yourself the only clever body in the world,”
she observed smugly. “I myself have already sent a messenger to Montrose.”
Alex stared, frankly unbelieving. “You?”
“And why not, whatever? Wasn’t I crossing Campbell land myself with the
army, and you away safe out of it? Haven’t I the wits to see I’m not
wanting Mac Cailein Mor king in the Highlands? It is I should be doubting
you, for if Ian and his father are with Montrose now, I’m thinking you’d
not be going near whatever.”
Alex narrowed his hazel eyes at her, and Kelpie prudently moved a step
farther away. “And why not?” he inquired lazily.
Kelpie laughed nastily. “I’ve eyes in my head!” she retorted. “Did you
think I was not seeing? Aye, and I saw it before, as well, with the
Second Sight, last spring.”
Alex’s eyes widened for an instant, then narrowed. He seemed about to say
something, but changed his mind. Instead, the planes in his face became
more angular than ever, and he gave Kelpie a long, hard, brooding stare
that made her thankful for the hurt foot which kept him from moving. For
surely he was thinking that he would like to silence her. He shrugged
finally. “I wonder,” he said, “whether ’tis the truth you’re telling me
about that messenger. If so, I could find it in my heart....”
He didn’t finish the thought, nor did Kelpie answer. Instead, she stared
back at him, at the freckles and straight lines of his face, at the way
the cheekbones stood out above the narrow strength of jaw, and at the
tangled red hair which had not been trimmed or combed recently. He was
thinner than he had been and pale under his freckles, and she could see
a tiny pulse in his temple that was his life itself—so easy to stop,
so small a thread of life. And was there not something she should be
doing the now, to avenge Ian? But she could not think what. Alex was not
asleep, nor by any means helpless, even with a sore foot; and she had
no intention at all of risking her own life for Ian or anyone else. She
pulled her thick brows together and regarded him darkly.
Alex laughed suddenly. “You cannot be planning to rob me, so it must be
some other devilment you have in mind. Are you not satisfied yet, water
witch? Is it another wee spell, or have you learned the Evil Eye by now?”
“Sssss!” said Kelpie earnestly.
“Well, and why will you not be going to Mac Cailein Mor to say that I am
here?” he asked. “He would make short enough shrift of me, and would you
not be liking that?”
“Aye so,” agreed Kelpie with enthusiasm. “But,” she pointed out
regretfully, “he would be making even shorter shrift of me, and I’d not
be liking that so well.” And then she bit her tongue in annoyance as Alex
laughed again. It was a spell he had put on her, to be always telling him
the truth she had never intended to say!
She scowled and lifted her lip in the old wolfish snarl, and then found
herself grinning ruefully, though she had never intended that, either. It
was not funny; it was _not_! She stamped her foot.
“Ou, aye!” said Alex. “Your sense of humor has slipped out again, and why
will you be squashing it under? Laugh at yourself, Kelpie. ’Tis the cure
for all ills, and it is in my mind that perhaps most evil is caused by
folk who take themselves too seriously.”
“You’re daft,” said Kelpie and turned away uncertainly. She should be
off about her business and leave Alex to his fate. But it seemed that
the thing inside that had been pushing her for days against her will was
pushing still. It was as if she were living a pattern, and it was yet
unfinished, and the thing would not permit her to go off and leave it
until it was complete. She paused, her back turned to Alex, who sat still
and silent in the mouth of his refuge.
“What will you be doing now?” she asked against her will.
“Bide here,” he returned philosophically, “since I can do nothing else,
and see what will happen.”
“They will be seeing your smoke,” she pointed out, still reluctantly.
“I will let my fire die during the day, and try to keep warm by moving
about,” he returned, and the quizzical note was back in his voice. “And
why do you warn me of that, water witch? Wouldn’t it please you just to
see me captured?”
“It would that!” Kelpie’s eyes flashed. “I will be laughing that day, and
not at myself either!” And this time she did leave, heading angrily back
toward the Spean River.
20. The Campbell Lass
Kelpie went back to the hut, since there was no other shelter and it was
better to risk Campbells than to freeze to death. But she found a hiding
place on the river bank, just in case, and for three days she alternately
huddled over the tiny coals which were all she dared have during the
daytime and watched the path for signs of the invaders.
There was plenty of time to think. She wondered whether the message had
got through to Montrose, and what he could do even if it had. For he was
trapped in the Great Glen between two armies, and no way out except over
mountains impassable with snow. She wondered about Alex and that long,
inscrutable look he had given her, and it came to her that she had been a
fool to tell him that she knew what he had done. For if he could strike
down his foster brother, it would be nothing for him to silence her. She
began to feel very trapped herself. Was no place in the world safe for
her?
Lost in brooding, she failed to keep her sharp watch, and on the third
afternoon she heard, too late, the crunch of heavy steps in the crusted
snow. Before she could do more than turn, a heavy-set Campbell flung the
door open, two or three others looming behind him.
“Here’ll be another cursed Cameron or two,” he shouted, and his
broadsword bore grim stains from the last house he had visited. “And
where is your husband hiding, lass?”