Outlander aka Cross Stitch

Chapter 6. COLUM’S HALL

The small boy Mrs. FitzGibbons had referred to as “young Alec” came to fetch me to dinner. This was held in a long, narrow room outfitted with tables down the length of each wall, supplied by a constant stream of servants issuing from archways at either end of the room, laden with trays, trenchers, and jugs. The rays of early summer’s late sunlight came through the high, narrow windows; sconces along the walls below held torches to be lighted as the daylight failed.

Banners and tartans hung on the walls between the windows, plaids and heraldry of all descriptions splotching the stones with color. By contrast, most of the people gathered below for dinner were dressed in serviceable shades of grey and brown, or in the soft brown and green plaid of hunting kilts, muted tones suited for hiding in the heather.

I could feel curious glances boring into my back as young Alec led me toward the top of the room, but most of the diners kept their eyes politely upon their plates. There seemed little ceremony here; people ate as they pleased, helping themselves from the serving platters, or taking their wooden plates to the far end of the room, where two young boys turned a sheep’s carcass on a spit in the enormous fireplace. There were some forty people sat to eat, and perhaps another ten to serve. The air was loud with conversation, most of it in Gaelic.

Colum was already seated at a table at the head of the room, stunted legs tucked out of sight beneath the scarred oak. He nodded graciously at my appearance and waved me to a seat on his left, next to a plump and pretty red-haired woman he introduced as his wife, Letitia.

“And this is my son, Hamish,” he said, dropping a hand on the shoulder of a handsome red-haired lad of seven or eight, who took his eyes off the waiting platter just long enough to acknowledge my presence with a quick nod.

I looked at the boy with interest. He looked like all the other MacKenzie males I had seen, with the same broad, flat cheekbones and deep-set eyes. In fact, allowing for the difference in coloring, he might be a smaller version of his uncle Dougal, who sat next to him. The two teenage girls next to Dougal, who giggled and poked each other when introduced to me, were his daughters, Margaret and Eleanor.

Dougal gave me a brief but friendly smile before snatching the platter out from under the reaching spoon of one of his daughters and shoving it toward me.

“Ha’ ye no manners, lass?” he scolded. “Guests first!”

I rather hesitantly picked up the large horn spoon offered me. I had not been sure what sort of food was likely to be offered, and was somewhat relieved to find that this platter held a row of homely and completely familiar smoked herrings.

I’d never tried to eat a herring with a spoon, but I saw nothing resembling a fork, and dimly recalled that runcible spoons would not be in general use for quite a few years yet.

Judging from the behavior of eaters at other tables, when a spoon proved impracticable, the ever-handy dirk was employed, for the slicing of meat and removal of bones. Lacking a dirk, I resolved to chew cautiously, and leaned forward to scoop up a herring, only to find the deep blue eyes of young Hamish fixed accusingly on me.

“Ye’ve not said grace yet,” he said severely, small face screwed into a frown. Obviously he considered me a conscienceless heathen, if not downright depraved.

“Er, perhaps you would be so kind as to say it for me?” I ventured.

The cornflower eyes popped open in surprise, but after a moment’s consideration, he nodded and folded his hands in a businesslike fashion. He glared round the table to insure that everyone was in a properly reverential attitude before bowing his own head. Satisfied, he intoned,

“Some hae meat that canna eat,

And some could eat that want it.

We hae meat, and we can eat,

And so may God be thankit. Amen.”

Looking up from my respectfully folded hands, I caught Colum’s eye, and gave him a smile that acknowledged the sangfroid of his offspring. He suppressed his own smile and nodded gravely at his son.

“Nicely said, lad. Will ye hand round the bread?”

Conversation at table was limited to occasional requests for further food, as everyone settled down to serious eating. I found my own appetite rather lacking, partly owing to the shock of my circumstances, and partly to the fact that I really didn’t care for herring, when all was said and done. The mutton was quite good, though, and the bread was delicious, fresh and crusty, with large dollops of fresh unsalted butter.

“I hope Mr. MacTavish is feeling better,” I offered, during a momentary pause for breath. “I didn’t see him when I came in.”

“MacTavish?” Letitia’s delicate brows tilted over round blue eyes. I felt, rather than saw Dougal look up beside me.

“Young Jamie,” he said briefly, before returning his attention to the mutton bone in his hands.

“Jamie? Why, whatever is the matter wi’ the lad?” Her full-cheeked countenance creased with concern.

“Naught but a scratch, my dear,” Colum soothed. He glanced across at his brother. “Where is he, though, Dougal?” I imagined perhaps, that the dark eyes held a hint of suspicion.

His brother shrugged, eyes still on his plate. “I sent him down to the stables to help auld Alec wi’ the horses. Seemed the best place for him, all things considered.” He raised his eyes to meet his brother’s gaze. “Or did ye have some other idea?”

Colum seemed dubious. “The stables? Aye, well… ye trust him so far?”

Dougal wiped a hand carelessly across his mouth and reached for a loaf of bread. “It’s yours to say, Colum, if ye dinna agree wi’ my orders.”

Colum’s lips tightened briefly, but he only said, “Nay, I reckon he’ll do well enough there,” before returning to his meal.

I had some doubts myself, as to a stable being the proper place for a patient with a gunshot wound, but was reluctant to offer an opinion in this company. I resolved to seek out the young man in question in the morning, just to assure myself that he was as suitably cared for as could be managed.

I refused the pudding and excused myself, pleading tiredness, which was in no way prevarication. I was so exhausted that I scarcely paid attention when Colum said “Goodnight to ye, then, Mistress Beauchamp. I’ll send someone to bring ye to Hall in the morning.”

One of the servants, seeing me groping my way along the corridor, kindly lighted me to my chamber. She touched her candle to the one on my table, and a mellow light flickered over the massive stones of the wall, giving me a moment’s feeling of entombment. Once she had left, though, I pulled the embroidered hanging away from the window, and the feeling blew away with the inrush of cool air. I tried to think about everything that had happened, but my mind refused to consider anything but sleep. I slid under the quilts, blew out the candle, and fell asleep watching the slow rise of the moon.

It was the massive Mrs. FitzGibbons who arrived again to wake me in the morning, bearing what appeared to be the full array of toiletries available to a well-born Scottish lady. Lead combs to darken the eyebrows and lashes, pots of powdered orrisroot and rice powder, even a stick of what I assumed was kohl, though I had never seen any, and a delicate lidded porcelain cup of French rouge, incised with a row of gilded swans.

Mrs. FitzGibbons also had a striped green overskirt and bodice of silk, with yellow lisle stockings, as a change from the homespun I had been provided with the day before. Whatever “Hall” involved, it seemed to be an occasion of some consequence. I was tempted to insist on attending in my own clothes, just to be contrary, but the memory of fat Rupert’s response to my shift was sufficient to deter me.

Besides, I rather liked Colum, despite the fact that he apparently intended to keep me here for the foreseeable future. Well, we’d just see about that, I thought, as I did my best with the rouge. Dougal had said the young man I had doctored was in the stables, hadn’t he? And stables presumably had horses, upon which one could ride away. I resolved to go looking for Jamie MacTavish, as soon as Hall was over with.

Hall turned out to be just that; the dining hall where I had eaten the night before. Now it was transformed, though; tables, benches, and stools pushed back against the walls, the head table removed and replaced by a substantial carved chair of dark wood, covered with what I assumed must be the MacKenzie tartan, a plaid of dark green and black, with a faint red and white over-check. Sprigs of holly decorated the walls, and there were fresh rushes strewn on the stone flags.

A young piper was blowing up a set of small pipes behind the empty chair, with numerous sighs and wheezes. Near him were what I assumed must be the intimate members of Colum’s staff: a thin-faced man in trews and smocked shirt, who lounged against the wall; a balding little man in a coat of fine brocade, clearly a scribe of some sort, as he was seated at a small table equipped with inkhorn, quills, and paper; two brawny kilted men with the attitude of guards; and to one side, one of the largest men I have ever seen.

I stared at this giant with some awe. Coarse black hair grew far down on his forehead, nearly meeting the beetling eyebrows. Similar mats covered the immense forearms, exposed by the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. Unlike most of the men I had seen, the giant did not seem to be armed, save for a tiny knife he carried in his stocking-top; I could barely make out the stubby hilt in the thickets of black curls that covered his legs above the gaily checked hose. A broad leather belt circled what must be a forty-inch waist, but carried neither dirk nor sword. In spite of his size, the man had an amiable expression, and seemed to be joking with the thin-faced man, who looked like a marionette in comparison with his huge conversant.

The piper suddenly began to play, with a preliminary belch, followed at once by an ear-splitting screech that eventually settled down into something resembling a tune.

There were some thirty or forty people present, all seeming somewhat better-dressed and groomed than the diners of the night before. All heads turned to the lower end of the hall, where, after a pause for the music to build up steam, Colum entered, followed at a few paces by his brother Dougal.

Both MacKenzies were clearly dressed for ceremony, in dark green kilts and well-cut coats, Colum’s of pale green and Dougal’s of russet, both with the plaid slung across their chests and secured at one shoulder by a large jeweled brooch. Colum’s black hair was loose today, carefully oiled and curled upon his shoulders. Dougal’s was still clubbed back in a queue that nearly matched the russet satin of his coat.

Colum walked slowly up the length of the hall, nodding and smiling to faces on either side. Looking across the hall, I could see another archway, near where his chair was placed. Clearly he could have entered the hall by that doorway, instead of the one at the far end of the room. So it was deliberate, this flaunting of his twisted legs and ungainly waddle on the long progress to his seat. Deliberate, too, the contrast with his tall, straight-bodied younger brother, who looked neither to left nor right, but walked straight behind Colum to the wooden chair and took up his station standing close behind.

Colum sat and waited for a moment, then raised one hand. The pipes’ wailing died away in a pitiful whine, and “Hall” began.

It quickly became apparent that this was the regular occasion on which the laird of Castle Leoch dispensed justice to his tacksmen and tenants, hearing cases and settling disputes. There was an agenda; the balding scribe read out the names and the various parties came forward in their turn.

While some cases were presented in English, most of the proceedings were held in Gaelic. I had already noticed that the language involved considerable eye-rolling and foot-stamping for emphasis, making it difficult to judge the seriousness of a case by the demeanor of the participants.

Just as I had decided that one man, a rather moth-eaten specimen with an enormous sporran made of an entire badger, was accusing his neighbor of nothing less than murder, arson, and wife-stealing, Colum raised his eyebrows and said something quick in Gaelic that had both complainant and defendant clutching their sides with laughter. Wiping his eyes, the complainant nodded at last, and offered a hand to his opponent, as the scribe scribbled busily, quill scratching like a mouse’s feet.

I was fifth on the agenda. A placement, I thought, carefully calculated to indicate to the assembled crowd the importance of my presence in the Castle.

For my benefit, English was spoken during my presentation.

“Mistress Beauchamp, will ye stand forth?” called the scribe.

Urged forward by an unnecessary shove from Mrs. FitzGibbons’s meaty hand, I stumbled out into the clear space before Colum, and rather awkwardly curtsied, as I had seen other females do. The shoes I had been given did not distinguish between right foot and left, being in either case only an oblong of formed leather, which made graceful maneuvering difficult. There was a stir of interest through the crowd as Colum paid me the honor of getting up from his chair. He offered me his hand, which I took in order not to fall flat on my face.

Rising from the curtsy, mentally cursing the slippers, I found myself staring at Dougal’s chest. As my captor, it was apparently up to him to make formal application for my reception – or captivity, depending how you wanted to look at it. I waited with some interest to see just how the brothers had decided to explain me.

“Sir,” began Dougal, bowing formally to Colum, “we pray your indulgence and mercy with regard to a lady in need of succor and safe refuge. Mistress Claire Beauchamp, an English lady of Oxford, finding herself set upon by highwaymen and her servant most traitorously killed, fled into the forests of your lands, where she was discovered and rescued by myself and my men. We beg that Castle Leoch might offer this lady refuge until” – he paused, and a cynical smile twisted his mouth – “her English connections may be apprised of her whereabouts and due provision made for her safe transport.”

I didn’t miss the emphasis laid on “English,” and neither did anyone else in the hall, I was sure. So, I was to be tolerated, but held under suspicion. Had he said French, I would have been considered a friendly, or at worst, neutral intrusion. It might be more difficult than I had expected to get away from the castle.

Colum bowed graciously to me and offered me the unlimited hospitality of his humble hearth, or words to that effect. I curtsied again, with somewhat more success, and retired to the ranks, followed by curious but more or less friendly stares.

Until this point, the cases seemed to have been of interest chiefly to the parties involved. The spectators had chatted quietly among themselves, waiting their turns. My own appearance had been met with an interested murmur of speculation and, I thought, approval.

But now there was an excited stir through the hall. A burly man stepped forward into the clear space, dragging a young girl by the hand. She looked about sixteen, with a pretty, pouting face and long yellow hair tied back with blue ribbon. She stumbled into the space and stood alone, while the man behind her expostulated in Gaelic, waving his arms and occasionally pointing at her in illustration or accusation. Small murmurs ran through the crowd as he talked.

Mrs. FitzGibbons, her bulk resting on a sturdy stool, was craning forward with interest. I leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “What’s she done?”

The huge dame replied without moving her lips or taking her eyes from the action. “Her father accuses her of loose behavior; consortin’ improperly wi’ young men against his orders,” muttered Mistress FitzGibbons, leaning her bulk backward on the stool. “Her father wishes the MacKenzie to have her punished for disobedience.”

“Punished? How?” I hissed, as quietly as I could.

“Shhh.”

In the center, attention now focused on Colum, who was considering the girl and her father. Looking from one to the other, he began to speak. Frowning, he rapped his knuckles sharply on the arm of his chair, and a shiver ran through the crowd.

“He’s decided,” whispered Mrs. FitzGibbons, unnecessarily. What he had decided was also clear; the giant stirred for the first time, unbuckling his leather belt in a leisurely manner. The two guards took the terrified girl by the arms and turned her so that her back was to Colum and her father. She began to cry, but made no appeal. The crowd was watching with the sort of intent excitement that attends public executions and road accidents. Suddenly a Gaelic voice from the back of the crowd rose, audible over the shuffle and murmur.

Heads turned to locate the speaker. Mrs. FitzGibbons craned, even rising on tiptoe to see. I had no idea what had been said, but I thought I recognized that voice, deep but soft, with a spiky way of clipping the final consonants.

The crowd parted, and Jamie MacTavish came out into the clear space. He inclined his head respectfully to the MacKenzie, then spoke some more. Whatever he said seemed to cause some controversy. Colum, Dougal, the little scribe, and the girl’s father all seemed to be getting into the act.

“What is it?” I muttered to Mrs. Fitz. My patient was looking much better than when last seen, though still a bit white-faced, I thought. He’d found a clean shirt somewhere; the empty right sleeve had been folded and tucked into the waist of his kilt.

Mrs. Fitz was watching the proceedings with great interest.

“The lad’s offering to take the girl’s punishment for her,” she said absently, peeking around a spectator in front of us.

“What? But he’s injured! Surely they won’t let him do something like that!” I spoke as quietly as I could under the hum of the crowd.

Mrs. Fitz shook her head. “I dunno, lass. They’re arguin’ it now. See, ’tis allowable for a man o’ her own clan to offer for her, but the lad is no a MacKenzie.”

“He’s not?” I was surprised, having naively assumed that all the men in the group that had captured me came from Castle Leoch.

“O’ course not,” said Mrs. Fitz impatiently. “Do ye no see his tartan?”

Of course I did, once she had pointed it out. While Jamie also wore a hunting tartan in shades of green and brown, the colors were different than that of the other men present. It was a deeper brown, almost a bark color, with a faint blue stripe.

Apparently Dougal’s contribution was the deciding argument. The knot of advisers dispersed and the crowd hushed, falling back to wait. The two guards released the girl, who ran back into the crowd, and Jamie stepped forward to take her place between them. I watched in horror as they moved to take his arms, but he spoke in Gaelic to the man with the strap, and the two guards fell back. Amazingly, a wide, impudent grin lighted his face briefly. Stranger still, there was a quick answering smile on the face of the giant.

“What did he say?” I demanded of my interpreter.

“He chooses fists rather than the strap. A man may choose so, though a woman may not.”

“Fists?” I had no time to question further. The executioner drew back a fist like a ham and drove it into Jamie’s abdomen, doubling him up and driving his breath out with a gasp. The man waited for him to straighten up before moving in and administering a series of sharp jabs to the ribs and arms. Jamie made no effort to defend himself, merely shifting his balance to remain upright in the face of the assault.

The next blow was to the face. I winced and shut my eyes involuntarily as Jamie’s head rocked back. The executioner took his time between blows, careful not to knock his victim down or strike too many times in one spot. It was a scientific beating, skillfully engineered to inflict bruising pain, but not to disable or maim. One of Jamie’s eyes was swelling shut and he was breathing heavily, but otherwise he didn’t appear too badly off.

I was in an agony of apprehension, lest one of the blows redamage the wounded shoulder. My strapping job was still in place, but it wouldn’t hold for long against this sort of treatment. How long was this going to go on? The room was silent, except for the smacking thud of flesh on flesh and an occasional soft grunt.

“Wee Angus’ll stop when blood’s drawn,” whispered Mrs. Fitz, apparently divining my unasked question. “Usually when the nose is broken.”

“That’s barbarous,” I hissed fiercely. Several people around us looked at me censoriously.

The executioner apparently now decided that the punishment had gone on for the prescribed length of time. He drew back and let fly a massive blow; Jamie staggered and fell to his knees. The two guards hurried forward to pull him to his feet, and as he raised his head, I could see blood welling from his battered mouth. The crowd burst into a hum of relief, and the executioner stepped back, satisfied with the performance of his duty.

One guard held Jamie’s arm, supporting him as he shook his head to clear it. The girl had disappeared. Jamie raised his head and looked directly at the towering executioner. Amazingly, he smiled again, as best he could. The bleeding lips moved.

“Thank you,” he said, with some difficulty, and bowed formally to the bigger man before turning to go. The attention of the crowd shifted back to the MacKenzie and the next case before him.

I saw Jamie leave the hall by the door in the opposite wall. Having more interest in him now than in the proceedings, I took my leave of Mrs. FitzGibbons with a quick word and pushed my way across the hall to follow him.

I found him in a small side courtyard, leaning against a wellhead and dabbing at his mouth with his shirttail.

“Here, use this,” I said, offering him a kerchief from my pocket.

“Unh.” He accepted it with a noise that I took for thanks. A pale, watery sun had come out by now, and I looked the young man over carefully by its light. A split lip and badly swollen eye seemed to be the chief injuries, though there were marks along the jaw and neck that would be black bruises soon.

“Is your mouth cut inside too?”

“Unh-huh.” He bent down and I pulled down his lower jaw, gently turning down the lip to examine the inside. There was a deep gash in the glistening cheek lining, and a couple of small punctures in the pinkness of the inner lip. Blood mixed with saliva welled up and overflowed.

“Water,” he said with some difficulty, blotting the bloody trickle that ran down his chin.

“Right.” Luckily there was a bucket and horn cup on the rim of the well. He rinsed his mouth and spat several times, then splashed water over the rest of his face.

“What did you do that for?” I asked curiously.

“What?” he said, straightening up and wiping his face on his sleeve. He felt the split lip gingerly, wincing slightly.

“Offer to take that girl’s punishment for her. Do you know her?” I felt a certain diffidence about asking, but I really wanted to know what lay behind that quixotic gesture.

“I ken who she is. Havena spoken to her, though.”

“Then why did you do it?”

He shrugged, a movement that also made him wince.

“It would have shamed the lass, to be beaten in Hall. Easier for me.”

“Easier?” I echoed incredulously, looking at his smashed face. He was probing his bruised ribs experimentally with his free hand, but looked up and gave me a one-sided grin.

“Aye. She’s verra young. She would ha’ been shamed before everyone as knows her, and it would take a long time to get over it. I’m sore, but no really damaged; I’ll get over it in a day or two.”

“But why you?” I asked. He looked as though he thought this an odd question.

“Why not me?” he said.

Why not? I wanted to say. Because you didn’t know her, she was nothing to you. Because you were already hurt. Because it takes something rather special in the way of guts to stand up in front of a crowd and let someone hit you in the face, no matter what your motive.

“Well, a musket ball through the trapezius might be considered a good reason,” I said dryly.

He looked amused, fingering the area in question.

“Trapezius, is it? I didna know that.”

“Och, here ye are, lad! I see ye’ve found your healer already; perhaps I won’t be needed.” Mrs. FitzGibbons waddled through the narrow entrance to the courtyard, squeezing a bit. She held a tray with a few jars, a large bowl, and a clean linen towel.

“I haven’t done anything but fetch some water,” I said. “I think he’s not badly hurt, but I’m not sure what we can do besides wash his face for him.”

“Och, now, there’s always somethin’, always somethin’ that can be done,” she said comfortably. “That eye, now, lad, let’s have a look at that.” Jamie sat obligingly on the edge of the well, turning his face toward her. Pudgy fingers pressed gently on the purple swelling, leaving white depressions that faded quickly.

“Still bleedin’ under the skin. Leeches will help, then.” She lifted the cover from the bowl, revealing several small dark sluglike objects, an inch or two long, covered with a disagreeable-looking liquid. Scooping out two of them, she pressed one to the flesh just under the brow bone and the other just below the eye.

“See,” she explained to me, “once a bruise is set, like, leeches do ye no good. But where ye ha’ a swellin’ like this, as is still comin’ up, that means the blood is flowin’ under the skin, and leeches can pull it out.”

I watched, fascinated and disgusted. “Doesn’t that hurt?” I asked Jamie. He shook his head, making the leeches bounce obscenely.

“No. Feels a bit cold, is all.” Mrs. Fitz was busy with her jars and bottles.

“Too many folk misuses leeches,” she instructed me. “They’re verra helpful sometimes, but ye must understand how. When ye use ’em on an old bruise, they just take healthy blood, and it does the bruise no good. Also ye must be careful not to use too many at a time; they’ll weaken someone as is verra ill or has lost blood already.”

I listened respectfully, absorbing all this information, though I sincerely hoped I would never be asked to make use of it.

“Now, lad, rinse your mouth wi’ this; ’twill cleanse the cuts and ease the pain. Willow-bark tea,” she explained in an aside to me, “wi’ a bit of ground orrisroot.” I nodded; I recalled vaguely from a long-ago botany lecture hearing that willow bark in fact contained salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin.

“Won’t the willow bark increase the chance of bleeding?” I asked. Mrs. Fitz nodded approvingly.

“Aye. It do sometimes. That’s why ye follow it wi’ a good handful of St. John’s wort soaked in vinegar; that stops bleedin’, if it’s gathered under a full moon and ground up well.” Jamie obediently swilled his mouth with the astringent solution, eyes watering at the sting of the aromatic vinegar.

The leeches were fully engorged by now, swollen to four times their original size. The dark wrinkled skins were now stretched and shiny; they looked like rounded, polished stones. One leech dropped suddenly off, bouncing to the ground at my feet. Mrs. Fitz scooped it up deftly, bending easily despite her bulk, and dropped it back in the bowl. Grasping the other leech delicately just behind the jaws, she pulled gently, making the head stretch.

“Ye don’t want to pull too hard, lass,” she said. “Sometimes they burst.” I shuddered involuntarily at the idea. “But if they’re nearly full, sometimes they’ll come off easy. If they don’t, just leave ’em be and they’ll fall off by themselves.” The leech did, in fact, let go easily, leaving a trickle of blood where it had been attached. I blotted the tiny wound with the corner of a towel dipped in the vinegar solution. To my surprise, the leeches had worked; the swelling was substantially reduced, and the eye was at least partially open, though the lid was still puffy. Mrs. Fitz examined it critically and decided against the use of another leech.

“Ye’ll be a sight tomorrow, lad, and no mistake,” she said, shaking her head, “but at least ye’ll be able to see oot o’ that eye. What ye want now is a wee bit o’ raw meat on it, and a drop o’ broth wi’ ale in it, for strengthenin’ purposes. Come along to the kitchen in a bit, and I’ll find some for ye.” She scooped up her tray, pausing for a moment.

“What ye did was kindly meant, lad. Laoghaire is my granddaughter, ye ken; I’ll thank ye for her. Though she had better thank ye herself, if she’s any manners at all.” She patted Jamie’s cheek, and padded heavily off.

I examined him carefully; the archaic medical treatment had been surprisingly effective. The eye was still somewhat swollen, but only slightly discolored, and the cut through the lip was now a clean, bloodless line, only slightly darker than the surrounding tissue.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Fine.” I must have looked askance at this, because he smiled, still careful of his mouth. “It’s only bruises, ye know. I’ll have to thank ye again, it seems; this makes three times in three days you’ve doctored me. Ye’ll be thinking I’m fair clumsy.”

I touched a purple mark on his jaw. “Not clumsy. A little reckless, perhaps.” A flutter of movement at the courtyard entrance caught my eye; a flash of yellow and blue. The girl named Laoghaire hung back shyly, seeing me.

“I think someone wants to speak with you alone,” I said. “I’ll leave you. The bandages on your shoulder can come off tomorrow, though. I’ll find you then.”

“Aye. Thank ye again.” He squeezed my hand lightly in farewell. I went out, looking curiously at the girl as I passed. She was even prettier close up, with soft blue eyes and rose-petal skin. She glowed as she looked at Jamie. I left the courtyard, wondering whether in fact his gallant gesture had been quite so altruistic as I supposed.

Next morning, roused at daylight by the twittering of birds outside and people inside, I dressed and found my way through the drafty corridors to the hall. Restored to its normal identity as a refectory, enormous cauldrons of porridge were being dispensed, together with bannocks baked on the hearth and spread with molasses. The smell of steaming food was almost strong enough to lean against. I felt still off-balance and confused, but a hot breakfast heartened me enough to explore a bit.

Finding Mrs. FitzGibbons up to her dimpled elbows in floured dough, I announced that I wanted to find Jamie, in order to remove his bandages and inspect the healing of the gunshot wound. She summoned one of her tiny minions with the wave of a massive white-smeared hand.

“Young Alec, do ye run and find Jamie, the new horse-breaker. Tell ’im to come back wi’ ye to ha’ his shoulder seen to. We shall, be in the herb garden.” A sharp fingersnap sent the lad scampering out to locate my patient.

Turning the kneading over to a maid, Mrs. Fitz rinsed her hands and turned to me.

“It will take a while yet before they’re back. Would ye care for a look at the herb gardens? It would seem ye’ve some knowledge of plants, and if you’ve a mind to, ye might lend a hand there in your spare moments.”

The herb garden, valuable repository of healing and flavors that it was, was cradled in an inner courtyard, large enough to allow for sun, but sheltered from spring winds, with its own wellhead. Rosemary bushes bordered the garden to the west, chamomile to the south, and a row of amaranth marked the north border, with the castle wall itself forming the eastern edge, an additional shelter from the prevailing winds. I correctly identified the green spikes of late crocus and soft-leaved French sorrel springing out of the rich dark earth. Mrs. Fitz pointed out foxglove, purslane, and betony, along with a few I did not recognize.

Late spring was planting time. The basket on Mrs. Fitz’s arm carried a profusion of garlic cloves, the source of the summer’s crop. The plump dame handed me the basket, along with a digging stick for planting. Apparently I had lazed about the castle long enough; until Colum found some use for me, Mrs. Fitz could always find work for an idle hand.

“Here, m’dear. Do ye set ’em here along the south side, between the thyme and foxglove.” She showed me how to divide the heads into individual buds without disturbing the tough casing, then how to plant them. It was simple enough, just poke each clove into the ground, blunt end down, buried about an inch and a half below the surface. She got up, dusting her voluminous skirts.

“Keep back a few heads,” she advised me. “Divide ’em and plant the buds single, one here and one there, all round the garden. Garlic keeps the wee bugs awa’ from the other plants. Onions and yarrow will do the same. And pinch the dead marigold heads, but keep them, they’re useful.”

Numerous marigolds were scattered throughout the garden, bursting into golden flower. Just then the small lad she had sent in search of Jamie came up, out of breath from the run. He reported that the patient refused to leave his work.

“He says,” panted the boy, “as ’e doesna hurt bad enough to need doctorin’, but thank ye for yer consairn.” Mrs. Fitz shrugged at this not altogether reassuring message.

“Weel, if he won’t come, he won’t. Ye might go out to the paddock near noontide, though, lass, if ye’ve a mind to. He may not stop to be doctored, but he’ll stop for food, if I ken young men. Young Alec here will come back for ye at noontide and guide ye to the paddock.” Leaving me to plant the rest of the garlic, Mrs. Fitz sailed away like a galleon, young Alec bobbing in her wake.

I worked contentedly through the morning, planting garlic, pinching back dead flower heads, digging out weeds and carrying on the gardener’s never-ending battle against snails, slugs, and similar pests. Here, though, the battle was waged bare-handed, with no assistance from chemical antipest compounds. I was so absorbed in my work that I didn’t notice the reappearance of young Alec until he coughed politely to attract my attention. Not one to waste words, he waited barely long enough for me to rise and dust my skirt before vanishing through the courtyard gate.

The paddock to which he led me was some way from the stables, in a grassy meadow. Three young horses frolicked gaily in the meadow nearby. Another, a clean-looking young bay mare, was tethered to the paddock fence, with a light blanket thrown across her back.

Jamie was sidling cautiously up along one side of the mare, who was watching his approach with considerable suspicion. He placed his one free arm lightly on her back, talking softly, ready to pull back if the mare objected. She rolled her eyes and snorted, but didn’t move. Moving slowly, he leaned across the blanket, still muttering to the mare, and very gradually rested his weight on her back. She reared slightly and shuffled, but he persisted, raising his voice just a trifle.

Just then the mare turned her head and saw me and the boy approaching. Scenting some threat, she reared, whinnying, and swung to face us, crushing Jamie against the paddock fence. Snorting and bucking, she leapt and kicked against the restraining tether. Jamie rolled under the fence, out of the way of the flailing hooves. He rose painfully to his feet, swearing in Gaelic, and turned to see what had caused this setback to his work.

When he saw who it was, his thunderous expression changed at once to one of courteous welcome, though I gathered our appearance was still not as opportune as might have been wished. The basket of lunch, thoughtfully provided by Mrs. Fitz, who did in fact know young men, did a good deal to restore his temper.

“Ahh, settle then, ye blasted beastie,” he remarked to the mare, still snorting and dancing on her tether. Dismissing young Alec with a friendly cuff, he retrieved the mare’s fallen blanket, and shaking off the dust of the paddock, he gallantly spread it for me to sit on.

I tactfully avoided any reference to the recent contretemps with the mare, instead pouring ale and offering chunks of bread and cheese.

He ate with a single-minded concentration that reminded me of his absence from the dining hall the two nights before.

“Slept through it,” he said, when I asked him where he had been. “I went to sleep directly I left ye at the castle, and didna wake ’til dawn yesterday. I worked a bit yesterday after Hall, then sat down on a bale of hay to rest a bit before dinner.” He laughed. “Woke up this morning still sitting there, wi’ a horse nibbling at my ear.”

I thought the rest had done him good; the bruises from yesterday’s beating were dark, but the skin around them had a good healthy color, and certainly he had a good appetite.

I watched him polish off the last of the meal, tidily dabbing stray crumbs from his shirt with a moistened fingertip and popping them into his mouth.

“You’ve a healthy appetite,” I said, laughing. “I think you’d eat grass if there was nothing else.”

“I have,” he said in all seriousness. “It doesna taste bad, but it’s no verra filling.”

I was startled, then thought he must be teasing me. “When?” I asked.

“Winter, year before last. I was livin’ rough – ye know, in the woods – with the… with a group of lads, raidin’ over the Border. We’d had poor luck for a week and more, and no food amongst us left to speak of. We’d get a bit of parritch now and then from a crofter’s cottage, but those folk are so poor themselves there’s seldom anything to spare. They’ll always find something to give a stranger, mind, but twenty strangers is a bit much, even for a Highlander’s hospitality.”

He grinned suddenly. “Have ye heard – well, no, ye wouldna. I was goin’ to say had ye heard the grace they say in the crofts.”

“No. How does it go?”

He shook his hair out of his eyes and recited,

“Hurley, hurley, round the table,

Eat as muckle as ye’re able.

Eat muckle, pooch nane,

Hurley, hurley, Amen.”

“Pooch nane?” I said, diverted. He patted the sporran on his belt.

“Put it in your belly, not your bag,” he explained.

He reached out for one of the long-bladed grasses and pulled it smoothly from its sheath. He rolled it slowly between his palms, making the floppy grainheads fly out from the stem.

“It was a late winter then, and mild, which was lucky, or we’d not have lasted. We could usually snare a few rabbits – ate them raw, sometimes, if we couldna risk a fire – and once in a while some venison, but there’d been no game for days, this time I’m talkin’ of.”

Square white teeth crunched down on the grass stem. I plucked a stem myself and nibbled the end. It was sweet and faintly acid, but there was only an inch or so of stem tender enough to eat; hardly much nourishment there.

Tossing the half-eaten stalk away, Jamie plucked another, and went on with his story.

“There was a light snow a few days before; just a crust under the trees, and mud everywhere else. I was looking for fungas, ye know, the big orange things that grow on the trees low down, sometimes – and put my foot through a rind of snow into a patch of grass, growing in an open spot between the trees; reckon a little sun got in there sometimes. Usually the deer find those patches. They paw away the snow and eat the grass down to the roots. They hadn’t found this one yet, and I thought if they managed the winter that way, why not me? I was hungry enough I’d ha’ boiled my boots and eaten them, did I not need them to walk in, so I ate the grass, down to the roots, like the deer do.”

“How long had you been without food?” I asked, fascinated and appalled.

“Three days wi’ nothing; a week with naught more than drammach – a handful of oats and a little milk. Aye,” he said, reminiscently viewing the grass stalk in his hand, “winter grass is tough, and it’s sour – not like this – but I didna pay it much mind.” He grinned at me suddenly.

“I didna pay much mind to the thought that a deer’s got four stomachs, either, while I had but one. Gave me terrible cramps, and I had wind for days. One of the older men told me later that if you’re going to eat grass, ye boil it first, but I didna know that at the time. Wouldn’t ha’ mattered; I was too hungry to wait.” He scrambled to his feet, leaning down to give me a hand up.

“Best get back to work. Thank ye for the food, lass.” He handed me the basket, and headed for the horse-sheds, sun glinting on his hair as though on a trove of gold and copper coins.

I made my way slowly back to the castle, thinking about men who lived in cold mud and ate grass. It didn’t occur to me until I had reached the courtyard that I had forgotten all about his shoulder.

Chapter 7. DAVIE BEATON’S CLOSET

To my surprise, one of Colum’s kilted men-at-arms was waiting for me near the gate when I returned to the castle. Himself would be obliged, I was told, if I would wait upon him in his chambers.

The long casements were open in the laird’s private sanctum, and the wind swept through the branches of the captive trees with a rush and a murmur that gave the illusion of being outdoors.

The laird himself was writing at his desk when I entered, but stopped at once and rose to greet me. After a few words of inquiry as to my health and well-being, he led me over to the cages against the wall, where we admired the tiny inhabitants as they chirped and hopped through the foliage, excited by the wind.

“Dougal and Mrs. Fitz both say as you’ve quite some skill as a healer,” Colum remarked conversationally, extending a finger through the mesh of the cage. Well accustomed to this, apparently, a small grey bunting swooped down and made a neat landing, tiny claws gripping the finger and wings slightly spread to keep its balance. He stroked its head gently with the callused forefinger of the other hand. I saw the thickened skin around the nail and wondered at it; it hardly seemed likely that he did much manual labor.

I shrugged. “It doesn’t take that much skill to dress a superficial wound.”

He smiled. “Maybe not, but it takes a bit of skill to do it in the pitch-black dark by the side of a road, eh? And Mrs. Fitz says you’ve mended one of her wee lads’ fingers as was broken, and bound up a kitchen-maid’s scalded arm this morning as well.”

“That’s nothing very difficult, either,” I replied, wondering what he was getting at. He gestured to one of the attendants, who quickly fetched a small bowl from one of the drawers of the secretary. Removing the lid, Colum began scattering seed from it through the mesh of the cage. The tiny birds popped down from the branches like so many cricket balls bouncing on a pitch, and the bunting flew down to join its fellows on the ground.

“No connections to clan Beaton, have ye?” he asked. I remembered Mrs. FitzGibbons asking at our first meeting, Are ye a charmer, then? A Beaton?

“None. What have the clan Beaton to do with medical treatment?”

Colum eyed me in surprise. “You’ve not heard of them? The healers of clan Beaton are famous through the Highlands. Traveling healers, many of them. We had one here for a time, in fact.”

“Had one? What happened to him?” I asked.

“He died,” Colum responded matter-of-factly. “Caught a fever and it carried him off within a week. We’ve not had a healer since, save Mrs. Fitz.”

“She seems very competent,” I said, thinking of her efficient treatment of the young man Jamie’s injuries. Thinking of that made me think of what had caused them, and I felt a wave of resentment toward Colum. Resentment, and caution as well. This man, I reminded myself, was law, jury, and judge to the people in his domain – and clearly accustomed to having things his own way.

He nodded, still intent on the birds. He scattered the rest of the seed, favoring a late-coming grey-blue warbler with the last handful.

“Oh, aye. She’s quite a hand with such matters, but she’s more than enough to take care of already, running the whole castle and everyone in it – including me,” he said, with a sudden charming grin.

“I was wondering,” he said, taking swift advantage of my answering smile, “seeing as how you’ve not a great deal to occupy your time at present, you might think of having a look at the things Davie Beaton left behind him. You might know the uses of a few of his medicines and such.”

“Well… I suppose so. Why not?” In fact, I was becoming slightly bored with the round between garden, stillroom, and kitchen. I was curious to see what the late Mr. Beaton had considered useful in the way of paraphernalia.

“Angus or I could show the lady down, sir,” the attendant suggested respectfully.

“Don’t trouble yourself, John,” Colum said, gesturing the man politely away. “I’ll show Mistress Beauchamp myself.”

His progress down the stair was slow and obviously painful. Just as obviously, he didn’t wish for help, and I offered none.

The surgery of the late Beaton proved to be in a remote corner of the castle, tucked out of sight behind the kitchens. It was in close proximity to nothing save the graveyard, in which its late proprietor now rested. In the outer wall of the castle, the narrow, dark room boasted only one of the tiny slit windows, set high in the wall so that a flat plane of sunlight knifed through the air, separating the darkness of the high vaulted ceiling from the deeper gloom of the floor below.

Peering past Colum into the dim recesses of the room, I made out a tall cabinet, equipped with dozens of tiny drawers, each with a label in curlicue script. Jars, boxes, and vials of all shapes and sizes were neatly stacked on the shelves above a counter where the late Beaton evidently had been in the habit of mixing medicines, judging from the residue of stains and a crusted mortar that rested there.

Colum went ahead of me into the room. Shimmering motes disturbed by his entry swirled upward into the bar of sunlight like dust raised from the breaking of a tomb. He stood for a moment, letting his eyes grow used to the dimness, then walked forward slowly, looking from side to side. I thought perhaps it was the first time he had ever been in this room.

Watching his halting progress, as he traversed the narrow room, I said, “You know, massage can help a bit. With the pain, I mean.” I caught a flash from the grey eyes, and wished for a moment that I hadn’t spoken, but the spark disappeared almost at once, replaced by his usual expression of courteous attention.

“It needs to be done forcefully,” I said, “at the base of the spine, especially.”

“I know,” he said. “Angus Mhor does it for me, at night.” He paused, fingering one of the vials. “It would seem you do know a bit about healing, then.”

“A bit.” I was cautious, hoping he didn’t mean to test me by asking what the assorted medicaments were used for. The label on the vial he was holding said PURLES OVIS. Anyone’s guess what that was. Luckily, he put the vial back, and drew a finger gingerly through the dust on a large chest near the wall.

“Been some time since anyone’s been here,” he said. “I’ll have Mrs. Fitz send some of her wee lassies along to clean up a bit, shall I?”

I opened a cupboard door and coughed at the resulting cloud of dust. “Perhaps you’d better,” I agreed. There was a book on the lower shelf of the cupboard, a fat volume bound in blue leather. Lifting it, I discovered a smaller book beneath, this one bound cheaply in black cloth, much worn along the edges.

This second book proved to be Beaton’s daily log book, in which he had tidily recorded the names of his patients, details of their ailments, and the course of treatment prescribed. A methodical man, I thought with approval. One entry read: “2nd February, A.D. 1741. Sarah Graham MacKenzie, injury to thumb by reason of catching the appendage on edge of spinning reel. Application of boiled pennyroyal, followed by poultice of: one part each yarrow, St. John’s-wort, ground slaters, and mouse-ear, mixed in a base of fine clay.” Slaters? Mouse-ear? Some of the herbs on the shelves, no doubt.

“Did Sarah MacKenzie’s thumb heal well?” I asked Colum, shutting the book.

“Sarah? Ah,” he said thoughtfully. “No, I believe not.”

“Really? I wonder what happened,” I said. “Perhaps I could take a look at it later.”

He shook his head, and I thought I caught a glimpse of grim amusement showing in the lines of his full, curved lips.

“Why not?” I asked. “Has she left the castle, then?”

“Ye might say so,” he answered. The amusement was now apparent. “She’s dead.”

I stared at him as he picked his way across the dusty stone floor toward the doorway.

“It’s to be hoped you’ll do somewhat better as a healer than the late Davie Beaton, Mrs. Beauchamp,” he said. He turned and paused at the door, regarding me sardonically. The sunbeam held him as though in a spotlight.

“Ye could hardly do worse,” he said, and vanished into the dark.

I wandered up and down the narrow little room, looking at everything. Likely most of it was rubbish, but there might be a few useful things to be salvaged. I pulled out one of the tiny drawers in the apothecary’s chest, letting loose a gust of camphor. Well, that was useful, right enough. I pushed the drawer in again, and rubbed my dusty fingers on my skirt. Perhaps I should wait until Mrs. Fitz’s merry maids had had a chance to clean the place before I continued my investigations.

I peered out into the corridor. Deserted. No noises, either. But I was not naive enough to assume that no one was nearby. Whether by order or by tact, they were fairly subtle about it, but I knew that I was being watched. When I went to the garden, someone went with me. When I climbed the stair to my room, I would see someone casually glance up from the foot to see which way I turned. And as we had ridden in, I hadn’t failed to note the armed guards sheltering under the overhang from the rain. No, I definitely wasn’t going to be allowed simply to walk out of here, let alone be provided with transport and means to leave.

I sighed. At least I was alone for the moment. And solitude was something I very much wanted, at least for a little.

I had tried repeatedly to think about everything that had happened to me since I stepped through the standing stone. But things moved so rapidly around this place that I had hardly had a moment to myself when I wasn’t asleep.

Apparently I had one now, though. I pulled the dusty chest away from the wall and sat down, leaning back against the stones. They were very solid. I reached back and rested my palms against them, thinking about the stone circle, trying to recall every tiny detail of what had happened.

The screaming stones were the last thing I could truly say I remembered. And even that I had doubts about. The screaming had kept up, all the time. It was possible, I thought, that the noise came not from the stones themselves, but from… whatever… I had stepped into. Were the stones a door of some kind? And into what did they open? There simply were no words for whatever it was. A crack through time, I supposed, because clearly I had been then, and I was now, and the stones were the only connection.

And the sounds. They had been overwhelming, but looking back from a short distance, I thought they were very similar to the sounds of battle. The field hospital at which I was stationed had been shelled three times. Even knowing that the flimsy walls of our temporary structures would not protect us, still doctors, nurses and orderlies had all dashed inside at the first alarm, huddling together for courage. Courage is in very short supply when there are mortar shells screaming overhead and bombs going off next door. And the kind of terror I had felt then was the closest thing to what I had felt in the stone.

I now realized that I did recall some things about the actual trip through the stone. Very minor things. I remembered a sensation of physical struggle, as though I were caught in a current of some kind. Yes, I had deliberately fought against it, whatever it was. There were images in the current, too, I thought. Not pictures, exactly, more like incomplete thoughts. Some were terrifying and I had fought away from them as I… well, as I “passed.” Had I fought toward others? I had some consciousness of fighting toward a surface of some kind. Had I actually chosen to come to this particular time because it offered some sort of haven from that whirling maelstrom?

I shook my head. I could find no answers by thinking about it. Nothing was clear, except the fact that I would have go back to the standing stones.

“Mistress?” A soft Scottish voice from the doorway made me look up. Two girls, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, hung back shyly in the corridor. They were roughly dressed, with clogs on their feet and homespun scarves covering their hair. The one who had spoken carried a brush and several folded cloths, while her companion held a steaming pail. Mrs. Fitz’s lasses, here to clean the surgery.

“We’ll no be disturbin’ ye, mistress?” one asked anxiously.

“No, no,” I assured them. “I was about to leave anyway.”

“You’ve missed the noon meal,” the other informed me. “But Mrs. Fitz said to tell ye as there’s food for ye in the kitchens whenever ye like to go there.”

I glanced out the window at the end of the corridor. The sun was, in fact, a little past the zenith, and I became conscious of increasing hunger pangs. I smiled at the girls.

“I might just do that. Thank you.”

I brought lunch to the fields again, fearing that Jamie might get nothing to eat until dinner otherwise. Seated on the grass, watching him eat, I asked him why he had been living in the rough, raiding cattle and thieving over the Border. I had seen enough by now both of the folk that came and went from the nearby village and of the castle dwellers, to be able to tell that Jamie was both higher born and much better educated than most. It seemed likely that he came from a fairly wealthy family, judging from the brief description he had given me of their farm estate. Why was he so far from home?

“I’m an outlaw,” he said, as though surprised that I didn’t know. “The English have a price of ten pounds sterling on my head. Not quite so much as a highwayman,” he said, deprecatingly, “but a bit more than a pickpocket.”

“Just for obstruction?” I said, unbelievingly. Ten pounds sterling here was half the yearly income of a small farm; I couldn’t imagine a single escaped prisoner was worth that much to the English government.

“Och, no. Murder.” I choked on a mouthful of bread-and-pickle. Jamie pounded me helpfully on the back until I could speak again.

Eyes watering, I asked, “Wh-who did you k-kill?”

He shrugged. “Well, it’s a bit odd. I didna actually kill the man whose murder I’m outlawed for. Mind ye, I’ve done for a few other redcoats along the way, so I suppose it’s not unjust.”

He paused and shifted his shoulders, as though rubbing against some invisible wall. I had noticed him do it before, on my first morning in the castle, when I had doctored him and seen the marks on his back.

“It was at Fort William. I could hardly move for a day or two, after I’d been flogged the second time, and then I had fever from the wounds. Once I could stand again, though, some… friends made shift to get me out of the camp, by means I’d best not go into. Anyhow, there was some ruckus as we left, and an English sergeant-major was shot – by coincidence, it was the man that gave me the first flogging. I’d not ha’ shot him, though; I had nothing personal against him, and I was too weak to do more than hang onto the horse, in any case.” The wide mouth tightened and thinned. “Though had it been Captain Randall, I expect I’d ha’ made the effort.” He eased his shoulders again, stretching the rough linen shirt taut across his back, and shrugged.

“There it is, though. That’s one reason I do not go far from the castle alone. This far into the Highlands, there’s little chance of running into an English patrol, but they do come over the Border quite often. And then there’s the Watch, though they’ll not come near the castle, either. Colum’s not much need of their services, having his own men to hand.” He smiled, running a hand through his bright cropped hair ’til it stood on end like porcupine quills.

“I’m no precisely inconspicuous, ye ken. I doubt there’s informers in the castle itself, but there might be a few here and there about the countryside as would be glad enough to earn a few pence by letting the English know where I was, did they know I was a wanted man.” He smiled at me. “Ye’ll have gathered the name’s not MacTavish?”

“Does the laird know?”

“That I’m an outlaw? Oh, aye, Colum knows. Most people through this part of the Highlands likely know that; what happened at Fort William caused quite a bit of stir at the time, and news travels fast here. What they won’t know is that Jamie MacTavish is the man that’s wanted; provided nobody that knows me by my own name sees me.” His hair was still sticking up absurdly. I had a sudden impulse to smooth it for him, but resisted.

“Why do you wear your hair cropped?” I asked suddenly, then blushed. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business. I only wondered, since most of the other men I’ve seen here wear it long…”

He flattened the spiky licks, looking a bit self-conscious.

“I used to wear mine long as well. It’s short now because the monks had to shave the back of my head and it’s had but a few months to grow again.” He bent forward at the waist, inviting me to inspect the back of his head.

“See there, across the back?” I could certainly feel it, and see it as well when I spread the thick hair aside; a six-inch weal of freshly healed scar tissue, still pink and slightly raised. I pressed gently along its length. Cleanly healed, and a nice neat job by whoever had stitched it; a wound like that must have gaped and bled considerably.

“Do you have headaches?” I asked professionally. He sat up, smoothing the hair down over the wound. He nodded.

“Sometimes, though none so bad as it was. I was blind for a month or so after it happened, and my head ached like fury all the time. The headache started to go away when my sight came back.” He blinked several times, as though testing his vision.

“Fades a bit sometimes,” he explained, “if I’m verra tired. Things get blurry round the edges.”

“It’s a wonder it didn’t kill you,” I said. “You must have a good thick skull on you.”

“That I have. Solid bone, according to my sister.” We both laughed.

“How did it happen?” I asked. He frowned, and a look of uncertainty came over his face.

“Weel, there’s just the question,” he answered slowly. “I dinna remember anything about it. I was down near Carryarick Pass with a few lads from Loch Laggan. Last I knew, I was pushing my way uphill through a wee thicket; I remember pricking my hand on a hollybush and thinking the blood drops looked just like the berries. And the next thing I remember is waking in France, in the Abbey of Sainte Anne de Beaupré, with my head throbbing like a drum and someone I couldn’t see giving me something cool to drink.”

He rubbed the back of his head as though it ached yet.

“Sometimes I think I remember little bits of things – a lamp over my head, swinging back and forth, a sort of sweet oily taste on my lips, people saying things to me – but I do not know if any of it’s real. I know the monks gave me opium, and I dreamed nearly all the time.” He pressed his fingers flat over closed eyelids.

“There was one dream I had over and over. Tree roots growing inside my head, big gnarled things, growing and swelling, pushing out through my eyes, thrusting down my throat to choke me. It went on and on, with the roots twisting and curling and getting bigger all the time. Finally they’d get big enough to burst my skull and I’d wake hearing the sound of the bones popping apart.” He grimaced. “Sort of a juicy, cracking noise, like gunshots under water.”

“Ugh!”

A shadow fell suddenly over us and a stout boot shot out and nudged Jamie in the ribs.

“Idle young bastard,” the newcomer said without heat, “stuffin’ yerself while the horses run wild. And when’s that filly goin’ to be broke, hey, lad?”

“None the sooner for my starving myself, Alec,” Jamie replied. “Meanwhile, have a bit; there’s plenty.” He reached a chunk of cheese up to a hand knotted with arthritis. The fingers, permanently curled in a half-grip, slowly closed on the cheese as their owner sank down on the grass.

With unexpectedly courtly manners, Jamie introduced the visitor; Alec McMahon MacKenzie, Master of Horse of Castle Leoch.

A squat figure in leather breeks and rough shirt, the Master of Horse had an air of authority sufficient, I thought, to quell the most recalcitrant stallion. An “eye like Mars, to threaten or command,” the quotation sprang at once to mind. A single eye it was, the other being covered with a black cloth patch. As if to make up for the loss, his eyebrows sprouted profusely from a central point, sporting long grey hairs like insects’ antennae that waved threateningly from the basic brown tufts.

After an initial nod of acknowledgment, Old Alec (for so Jamie referred to him, no doubt to distinguish him from the Young Alec who had been my guide) ignored me, dividing his attention instead between the food and the three young horses switching their tails in the meadow below. I rather lost interest during a long discussion involving the parentage of several no doubt distinguished horses not among those present, details of breeding records of the entire stable for several years, and a number of incomprehensible points of equine conformation, dealing with hocks, withers, shoulders, and other items of anatomy. Since the only points I noticed on a horse were nose, tail, and ears, the subtleties were lost on me.

I leaned back on my elbows and basked in the warming spring sun. There was a curious peace in this day, a sense of things working quietly in their proper courses, nothing minding the upsets and turmoils of human concerns. Perhaps it was the peace that one always finds outdoors, far enough away from buildings and clatter. Maybe it was the result of gardening, that quiet sense of pleasure in touching growing things, the satisfaction of helping them thrive. Perhaps just the relief of finally having found work to do, rather than rattling around the castle feeling out of place, conspicuous as an inkblot on parchment.

In spite of the fact that I took no part in the horsey conversation, I didn’t feel out of place here at all. Old Alec acted as though I were merely a part of the landscape, and while Jamie cast an occasional glance my way, he, too, gradually ignored me as their conversation segued into the sliding rhythms of Gaelic, sure sign of a Scot’s emotional involvement in his subject matter. Since I gathered no sense from the talk, it was as soothing as listening to bees humming in the heather blossoms. Oddly contented and drowsy, I pushed away all thoughts of Colum’s suspicions, my own predicament, and other disturbing ideas. “Sufficient unto the day,” I thought sleepily, picking up the biblical quotation from some recess of memory.

It may have been the chill from a passing cloud, or the changed tone of the men’s conversation that woke me sometime later. The talk had switched back to English, and the tone was serious, no longer the meandering chat of the horse-obsessed.

“It’s no but a week ’til the Gathering, laddie,” Alec was saying. “Have ye made up your mind what you’ll do then?”

There was a long sigh from Jamie. “No, Alec, that I havena. Sometimes I think one way, sometimes the other. Granted that it’s good here, working wi’ the beasts and with you.” There was a smile somewhere in the young man’s voice, which disappeared as he went on. “And Colum’s promised me to… well, you’ll not know about that. But kiss the iron and change my name to MacKenzie, and forswear all I’m born to? Nay, I canna make up my mind to it.”

“Stubborn as your Da, ye are,” remarked Alec, though the words held a tone of grudging approval. “You’ve the look of him about ye sometimes, for all you’re tall and fair as your mother’s folk.”

“Knew him, did ye?” Jamie sounded interested.

“Oh, a bit. And heard more. I’ve been here at Leoch since before your parents wed, ye ken. And to hear Dougal and Colum speak of Black Brian, ye’d think he was the de’il himself, if not worse. And your ma the Virgin Mary, swept awa’ to the Bad Place by him.”

Jamie laughed. “And I’m like him, am I?”

“Ye are and all that, laddie. Aye, I see why it’d stick in your craw to be Colum’s man, weel enough. But there’s considerations the other way, no? If it comes to fighting for the Stuarts, say, and Dougal has his way. Come out on the right side in that fight, laddie, and you’ll ha’ your land back and more besides, whatever Colum does.”

Jamie replied with what I had come to think of as a “Scottish noise,” that indeterminate sound made low in the throat that can be interpreted to mean almost anything. This particular noise seemed to indicate some doubt as to the likelihood of such a desirable outcome.

“Aye,” he said, “and if Dougal doesna get his way, then what? Or if the fight goes against the house of Stuart?”

Alec made a guttural sound of his own. “Then you stay here, laddie. Be master of horse in my place; I’ll not last so much longer, and there’s no better hand I’ve seen wi’ a horse.”

Jamie’s modest grunt indicated appreciation of the compliment.

The older man went on, disregarding such interruptions. “The MacKenzies are kin to ye, too; it’s not a matter of forswearing your blood. And there’s other considerations, too” – his voice took on a teasing note – “like Mistress Laoghaire, perhaps?”

He got another noise in response, this one indicating embarrassment and dismissal.

“Hey now, lad, a young feller doesna let himself be beaten for the sake of a lass he cares nothin’ for. And ye know her father will no let her wed outside the clan.”

“She was verra young, Alec, and I felt sorry for her,” said Jamie defensively. “There’s nothin’ more to it than that.” This time it was Alec who made the Scottish noise, a guttural snort full of derisory disbelief.

“Tell that one to the barn door, laddie; it’s no more brains than to believe ye. Weel, even if it’s no Laoghaire – and ye could do a deal worse, mark me – ye’d be a better prospect for marriage did ye ha’ a bit of money and a future; as ye would if ye’re next Master. Ye could take yer choice of the lasses – if one doesna choose you first!” Alec snorted with the half-choked mirth of a man who seldom laughs. “Flies round a honeypot would be nothin’ to it, lad! Penniless and nameless as ye are now, the lasses still sigh after ye – I’ve seen ’em!” More snorting. “Even this Sassenach wench can no keep away from ye, and her a new widow!”

Wishing to prevent what promised to be a series of increasingly distasteful personal remarks, I decided it was time to be officially awake. Stretching and yawning, I sat up, ostentatiously rubbing my eyes to avoid looking at either of the speakers.

“Mmmm. I seem to have fallen asleep,” I said, blinking prettily at them. Jamie, rather red around the ears, was taking an exaggerated interest in packing up the remains of the picnic. Old Alec stared down at me, apparently taking notice of me for the first time.

“Interested in horses, are ye, lass?” he demanded. I could hardly say no, under the circumstances. Agreeing that horses were most interesting, I was treated to a detailed exegesis on the filly in the paddock, now standing drowsily at rest, tail twitching for the occasional fly.

“Ye’re welcome to come and watch any time, lass,” Alec concluded, “so long as ye dinna get so close ye distract the horses. They need to work, ye ken.” This was plainly intended as a dismissal, but I stood my ground; remembering my original purpose in coming here.

“Yes, I’ll be careful next time,” I promised. “But before I go back to the castle, I wanted to check Jamie’s shoulder and take the dressings off.”

Alec nodded slowly, but to my surprise, it was Jamie who refused my attentions, turning away to go back to the paddock.

“Ah, it’ll wait awhile, lass,” he said, looking away. “There’s much to be done yet today; perhaps later, after supper, hey?” This seemed very odd; he hadn’t been in any hurry to return to work earlier. But I could hardly force him to submit to my ministrations if he didn’t want to. Shrugging, I agreed to meet him after supper, and turned uphill to go back to the castle.

As I made my way back up the hill, I considered the shape of the scar on Jamie’s head. It wasn’t a straight line, as might be made by an English broad-sword. The wound was curved, as though made by a blade with a definite bend. A blade like a Lochaber ax? But so far as I knew, the murderous axes had been – no, were, I corrected myself – carried only by clansmen.

It was only as I walked away that it occurred to me. For a young man on the run, with unknown enemies, Jamie had been remarkably confiding to a stranger.

Leaving the picnic basket in the kitchens, I returned to the late Beaton’s surgery, now dustless and pristine after a visitation by Mrs. Fitz’s energetic assistants. Even the dozens of glass vials in the cupboard gleamed in the dim light from the window.

The cupboard seemed a good place to start, with an inventory of the herbs and medicaments already on hand. I had spent a few moments the night before, before sleep overcame me, thumbing through the blue leather-bound book I had taken from the surgery. This proved to be The Physician’s Guide and Handbook, a listing of recipes for the treatment of assorted symptoms and diseases, the ingredients for which were apparently displayed before me.

The book was divided into several sections: “Centauries, Vomitories, and Electuaries,” “Troches and Lodochs,” “Assorted Plasters and Their Virtus,” “Decoctions and Theriacs,” and a quite extensive section ominously headed with the single word “Purges.”

Reading through a few of the recipes, the reason for the late Davie Beaton’s lack of success with his patients became apparent. “For headache,” read one entry, “take ye one ball of horse dunge, this to be carefully dried, pounded to powder, and the whole drunk, stirred into hot ale.” “For convulsions in children, five leeches to be applied behind the ear.” And a few pages later, “decoctions made of the roots of celandine, turmeric, and juice of 200 slaters cannot but be of great service in a case of jaundice.” I closed the book, marveling at the large number of the late doctor’s patients who, according to his meticulous log, had not only survived the treatment meted out to them but actually recovered from their original ailments.

There was a large brown glass jar in the front containing several suspicious-looking balls, and in view of Beaton’s recipes, I had a good idea what it might be. Turning it around, I triumphantly read the hand-lettered label: DUNGE OF HORSES. Reflecting that such a substance likely didn’t improve much with keeping, I gingerly set the jar aside without opening it.

Subsequent investigation proved PURLES OVIS to be a latinate version of a similar substance, this time from sheep. MOUSE-EAR also proved to be animal in nature, rather than herbal; I pushed aside the vial of tiny pinkish dried ears with a small shudder.

I had been wondering about the “slaters,” spelt variously as “slatters,” “sclaters,” and “slatears,” which seemed to be an important ingredient in a number of medicines, so I was pleased to see a clear cork-stoppered vial with this name on the label. The vial was about half-full of what appeared to be small grey pills. These were no more than a quarter-inch in diameter, and so perfectly round that I marveled at Beaton’s dispensing skill. I brought the vial up close to my face, wondering at its lightness. Then I saw the fine striations across each “pill” and the microscopic legs, folded into the central crease. I hastily set the vial down, wiping my hand on my apron, and made another entry in the mental list I had been compiling. For “slaters,” read “woodlice.”

There were a number of more or less harmless substances in Beaton’s jars, as well as several containing dried herbs or extractions that might actually be helpful. I found some of the orrisroot powder and aromatic vinegar that Mrs. Fitz had used to treat Jamie MacTavish’s injuries. Also angelica, wormwood, rosemary, and something labeled STINKING ARAG. I opened this one cautiously, but it proved to be nothing more than the tender tips of fir branches, and a pleasant balsamic fragrance floated out of the unsealed bottle. I left the bottle open and set it on the table to perfume the air in the dark little room as I went on with my inventory.

I discarded jars of dried snails; OIL OF EARTHWORMS – which appeared to be exactly that; VINUM MILLEPEDATUM – millipedes, these crushed to pieces and soaked in wine; POWDER OF EYGYPTIANE MUMMIE – an indeterminate-looking dust, whose origin I thought more likely a silty streambank than a pharaoh’s tomb; PIGEONS BLOOD, ant eggs, a number of dried toads painstakingly packed in moss, and HUMAN SKULL, POWDERED. Whose? I wondered.

It took most of the afternoon to finish my inspections of the cupboard and multidrawered cabinet. When I had finished, there was a great heap of discarded bottles, boxes, and flasks set outside the door of the surgery for disposal, and a much smaller collection of possibly useful items stowed back into the cupboard.

I had considered a large packet of cobwebs for some time, hesitating between the piles. Both Beaton’s Guide and my own dim memories of folk medicine held that spider’s web was efficacious in dressing wounds. While my own inclination was to consider such usage unhygienic in the extreme, my experience with linen bandages by the roadside had shown me the desirability of having something with adhesive as well as absorbent properties for dressings. At last, I set the cobwebs back in the cupboard, resolving to see whether there might be a way of sterilizing them. Not boiling, I thought. Maybe steam would cleanse them without destroying the stickiness?

I rubbed my hands against my apron, considering. I had inventoried almost everything now – except the wooden chest against the wall. I flung back the lid, and recoiled at once from the stench that gusted out.

The chest was the repository of the surgical side of Beaton’s practice. Within were a number of sinister-looking saws, knives, chisels, and other tools looking more suited to building construction than to use on delicate human tissues. The stench apparently derived from the fact that Davie Beaton had seen no particular benefit to cleaning his instruments between uses. I grimaced in distaste at the sight of the dark stains on some of the blades, and slammed shut the lid.

I dragged the chest toward the door, intending to tell Mrs. Fitz that the instruments, once safely boiled, should be distributed to the castle carpenter, if there were such a personage.

A stir behind alerted me, in time to avoid crashing into the person who had just come in. I turned to see two young men, one supporting the other, who was hopping on one foot. The lame foot was bound up in an untidy bundle of rags, stained with fresh blood.

I glanced around, then gestured at the chest, for lack of anything else. “Sit down,” I said. Apparently the new physician of Castle Leoch was now in practice.

Chapter 8. AN EVENING’S ENTERTAINMENT

I lay on my bed feeling altogether exhausted. Oddly enough, I had quite enjoyed the rummage through the memorabilia of the late Beaton, and treating those few patients, with however meager a resource, had made me feel truly solid and useful once more. Feeling flesh and bone beneath my fingers, taking pulses, inspecting tongues and eyeballs, all the familiar routine, had done much to settle the feeling of hollow panic that had been with me since my fall through the rock. However strange my circumstances, and however out of place I might be, it was somehow very comforting to realize that these were truly other people. Warm-fleshed and hairy, with hearts that could be felt beating and lungs that breathed audibly. Bad-smelling, louse-ridden, and filthy, some of them, but that was nothing new to me. Certainly no worse than conditions in a field hospital, and the injuries were so far reassuringly minor. It was immensely satisfying to be able once again to relieve a pain, reset a joint, repair damage. To take responsibility for the welfare of others made me feel less victimized by the whims of whatever impossible fate had brought me here, and I was grateful to Colum for suggesting it.

Colum MacKenzie. Now there was a strange man. A cultured man, courteous to a fault, and thoughtful as well, with a reserve that all but hid the steely core within. The steel was much more evident in his brother Dougal. A warrior born, that one. And yet, to see them together, it was clear which was the stronger. Colum was a chieftain, twisted legs and all.

Toulouse-Lautrec syndrome. I had never seen a case before, but I had heard it described. Named for its most famous sufferer (who did not yet exist, I reminded myself), it was a degenerative disease of bone and connective tissue. Victims often appeared normal, if sickly, until their early teens, when the long bones of the legs, under the stress of bearing a body upright, began to crumble and collapse upon themselves.

The pasty skin, with its premature wrinkling, was another outward effect of the poor circulation that characterized the disease. Likewise the dryness and pronounced callusing of fingers and toes that I had already noticed. As the legs twisted and bowed, the spine was put under stress, and often twisted as well, causing immense discomfort to the victim. I mentally read back the textbook description to myself, idly smoothing out the tangles of my hair with my fingers. Low white-cell count, increased susceptibility to infection, liable to early arthritis. Because of the poor circulation and the degeneration of connective tissue, victims were invariably sterile, and often impotent as well.

I stopped suddenly, thinking of Hamish. My son, Colum had said, proudly introducing the boy. Mmm, I thought to myself. Perhaps not impotent then. Or perhaps so. But rather fortunate for Letitia that so many of the MacKenzie males resembled each other to such a marked degree.

I was disturbed in these interesting ruminations by a sudden knock on the door. One of the ubiquitous small boys stood without, bearing an invitation from Colum himself. There was to be singing in the Hall, he said, and the MacKenzie would be honored by my presence, if I cared to come down.

I was curious to see Colum again, in light of my recent speculations. So, with a quick glance in the looking glass, and a futile smoothing of my hair, I shut the door behind me and followed my escort through the cold and winding corridors.

The Hall looked different at night, quite festive with pine torches crackling all along the walls, popping with an occasional blue flare of turpentine. The huge fireplace, with its multiple spits and cauldrons, had diminished its activity since the frenzy of supper; now only the one large fire burned on the hearth, sustained by two huge, slow-burning logs, and the spits were folded back into the cavernous chimney.

The tables and benches were still there, but pushed back slightly to allow for a clear space near the hearth; apparently that was to be the center of entertainment, for Colum’s large carved chair was placed to one side. Colum himself was seated in it, a warm rug laid across his legs and a small table with decanter and goblets within easy reach.

Seeing me hesitating in the archway, he beckoned me to his side with a friendly gesture, waving me onto a nearby bench.

“I’m pleased you’ve come down, Mistress Claire,” he said, pleasantly informal. “Gwyllyn will be glad of a new ear for his songs, though we’re always willing to listen.” The MacKenzie chieftain looked rather tired, I thought; the wide shoulders slumped a bit and the premature lines on his face were deeply cut.

I murmured something inconsequential and looked around the hall. People were beginning to drift in, and sometimes out, standing in small groups to chat, gradually taking seats on the benches ranged against the walls.

“I beg your pardon?” I turned, having missed Colum’s words in the growing noise, to find him offering me the decanter, a lovely bell-shaped thing of pale green crystal. The liquid within, seen through the glass, seemed green as the sea-depths, but once poured out it proved to be a beautiful pale-rose color, with the most delicious bouquet. The taste was fully up to the promise, and I closed my eyes in bliss, letting the wine fumes tickle the back of my palate before reluctantly allowing each sip of nectar to trickle down my throat.

“Good, isn’t it?” The deep voice held a note of amusement, and I opened my eyes to find Colum smiling at me in approval.

I opened my mouth to reply, and found that the smooth delicacy of the taste was deceptive; the wine was strong enough to cause a mild paralysis of the vocal cords.

“Won – wonderful,” I managed to get out.

Colum nodded. “Aye, that it is. Rhenish, ye know. You’re not familiar with it?” I shook my head as he tipped the decanter over my goblet, filling the bowl with a pool of glowing rose. He held his own goblet by the stem, turning it before his face so that the firelight lit the contents with dashes of vermilion.

“You know good wine, though,” Colum said, tilting the glass to enjoy the rich fruity scent himself. “But that’s natural, I suppose, with your family French. Or half French, I should say,” he corrected himself with a quick smile. “What part of France do your folk come from?”

I hesitated a moment, then thought, stick to the truth, so far as you can, and answered, “It’s an old connection, and not a close one, but such relatives as I may have there come from the north, near Compiègne.” I was mildly startled to realize that at this point, my relatives were in fact near Compiègne. Stick to the truth, indeed.

“Ah. Never been there yourself, though?”

I tilted the glass, shaking my head as I did so. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the wine’s perfume.

“No,” I said, eyes still closed. “I haven’t met any of my relatives there, either.” I opened my eyes to find him watching me closely. “I told you that.”

He nodded, not at all perturbed. “So ye did.” His eyes were a beautiful soft grey, thickly lashed with black. A very attractive man, Colum MacKenzie, at least down to the waist. My gaze flickered past him to the group nearest the fire, where I could see his wife, Letitia, part of a group of several ladies, all engaged in animated conversation with Dougal MacKenzie. Also a most attractive man, and a whole one.

I pulled my attention back to Colum and found him gazing abstractedly at one of the wall hangings.

“And as I also told you before,” I said abruptly, bringing him out of his momentary inattention, “I’d like to be on my way to France as soon as possible.”

“So ye did,” he said again, pleasantly, and picked up the decanter with a questioning lift of the brow. I held my goblet steady, gesturing at the halfway point to indicate that I wanted only a little, but he filled the delicate hollow nearly to the rim once more.

“Well, as I told you, Mistress Beauchamp,” he said, eyes fixed on the rising wine, “I think ye must be content to bide here a bit, until suitable arrangements can be made for your transport. No need for haste, after all. It’s only the spring of the year, and months before the autumn storms make the Channel crossing chancy.” He raised eyes and decanter together, and fixed me with a shrewd look.

“But if ye’d care to give me the names of your kin in France, I might manage to send word ahead – so they’ll be fettled against your coming, eh?”

Bluff called, I had little choice but to mutter something of the yes-well-perhaps-later variety, and excuse myself hastily on the pretext of visiting the necessary facilities before the singing should start. Game and set to Colum, but not yet match.

My pretext had not been entirely fictitious, and it took me some time, wandering about the darkened halls of the Castle, to find the place I was seeking. Groping my way back, wineglass still in hand, I found the lighted archway to the Hall, but realized on entering that I had reached the lower entrance, and was now at the opposite end of the Hall from Colum. Under the circumstances, this suited me quite well, and I strolled unobtrusively into the long room, taking pains to merge with small groups of people as I worked my way along the wall toward one of the benches.

Casting a look at the upper end of the Hall, I saw a slender man who must be Gwyllyn the bard, judging from the small harp he carried. At Colum’s gesture, a servant hastened up to bring the bard a stool, on which he seated himself and proceeded to tune the harp, plucking lightly at the strings, ear close to the instrument. Colum poured another glass of wine from his own decanter, and with another wave, dispatched it via the servant in the bard’s direction.

“Oh, he called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl, and he called for his fiddlers threeee,” I sang irreverently under my breath, eliciting an odd look from the girl Laoghaire. She was seated under a tapestry showing a hunter with six elongated and cross-eyed dogs, in erratic pursuit of a single hare.

“Bit of overkill, don’t you think?” I said breezily, waving a hand at it and plumping myself down beside her on the bench.

“Oh! er, aye,” she answered cautiously, edging away slightly. I tried to engage her in friendly conversation, but she answered mostly in monosyllables, blushing and starting when I spoke to her, and I soon gave it up, my attention drawn by the scene at the end of the room.

Harp tuned to his satisfaction, Gwyllyn had brought out from his coat three wooden flutes of varying sizes, which he laid on a small table, ready to hand.

Suddenly I noticed that Laoghaire was not sharing my interest in the bard and his instruments. She had stiffened slightly and was peering over my shoulder toward the lower archway, simultaneously leaning back into the shadows under the tapestry to avoid detection.

Following the direction of her gaze, I spotted the tall, red-haired figure of Jamie MacTavish, just entering the Hall.

“Ah! The gallant hero! Fancy him, do you?” I asked the girl at my side. She shook her head frantically, but the brilliant blush staining her cheeks was answer enough.

“Well, we’ll see what we can do, shall we?” I said, feeling expansive and magnanimous. I stood up and waved cheerily to attract his attention.

Catching my signal, the young man made his way through the crowd, smiling. I didn’t know what might have passed between them in the courtyard, but I thought his manner in greeting the girl was warm, if still formal. His bow to me was slightly more relaxed; after the forced intimacy of our relations to date, he could hardly treat me as a stranger.

A few tentative notes from the upper end of the hall signaled an imminent beginning to the entertainment, and we hastily took our places, Jamie seating himself between Laoghaire and myself.

Gwyllyn was an insignificant-looking man, light-boned and mousy-haired, but you didn’t see him once he began to sing. He only served as a focus, a place for the eyes to rest while the ears enjoyed themselves. He began with a simple song, something in Gaelic with a strong rhyming chime to the lines, accompanied by the merest touch of his harp strings, so that each plucked string seemed by its vibration to carry the echo of the words from one line to the next. The voice was also deceptively simple. You thought at first there was nothing much to it – pleasant, but without much strength. And then you found that the sound went straight through you, and each syllable was crystal clear, whether you understood it or not, echoing poignantly inside your head.

The song was received with a warm surge of applause, and the singer launched at once into another, this time in Welsh, I thought. It sounded like a very tuneful sort of gargling to me, but those around me seemed to follow well enough; doubtless they had heard it before.

During a brief pause for retuning, I asked Jamie in a low voice, “Has Gwyllyn been at the Castle long?” Then, remembering, I said, “Oh, but you wouldn’t know, would you? I’d forgotten you were so new here yourself.”

“I’ve been here before,” he answered, turning his attention to me. “Spent a year at Leoch when I was sixteen or so, and Gwyllyn was here then. Colum’s fond of his music, ye see. He pays Gwyllyn well to stay. Has to; the Welshman would be welcome at any laird’s hearth where he chose to roost.”

“I remember when you were here, before.” It was Laoghaire, still blushing pinkly, but determined to join the conversation. Jamie turned his head to include her, smiling slightly.

“Do ye, then? You canna have been more than seven or eight yourself. I’d not think I was much to see then, so as to be remembered.” Turning politely to me, he said, “Do ye have the Welsh, then?”

“Well, I do remember, though,” Laoghaire said, pursuing it. “You were, er, ah… I mean… do ye not remember me, from then?” Her hands fiddled nervously with the folds of her skirt. She bit her nails, I saw.

Jamie’s attention seemed distracted by a group of people across the room, arguing in Gaelic about something.

“Ah?” he said, vaguely. “No, I dinna think so. Still,” he said with a smile, pulling his attention suddenly back to her, “I wouldna be likely to. A young burke of sixteen’s too taken up wi’ his own grand self to pay much heed to what he thinks are naught but a rabble of snot-nosed bairns.”

I gathered he had meant this remark to be deprecatory to himself, rather than his listener, but the effect was not what he might have hoped. I thought perhaps a brief pause to let Laoghaire recover her self-possession was in order, and broke in hastily with, “No, I don’t know any Welsh at all. Do you have any idea what it is he was saying?”

“Oh, aye.” And Jamie launched into what appeared to be a verbatim recitation of the song, translated into English. It was an old ballad, apparently, about a young man who loved a young woman (what else?), but feeling unworthy of her because he was poor, went off to make his fortune at sea. The young man was shipwrecked, met sea serpents who menaced him and mermaids who entranced him, had adventures, found treasure, and came home at last only to find his young woman wed to his best friend, who, if somewhat poorer, also apparently had better sense.

“And which would you do?” I asked, teasing a bit. “Would you be the young man who wouldn’t marry without money, or would you take the girl and let the money go hang?” This question seemed to interest Laoghaire as well, who cocked her head to hear the answer, meanwhile pretending great attention to an air on the flute that Gwyllyn had begun.

“Me?” Jamie seemed entertained by the question. “Well, as I’ve no money to start with, and precious little chance of ever getting any, I suppose I’d count myself lucky to find a lass would wed me without.” He shook his head, grinning. “I’ve no stomach for sea serpents.”

He opened his mouth to say something further, but was silenced by Laoghaire, who laid a hand timidly on his arm, then blushing, snatched it back as though he were red-hot.

“Sshh,” she said. “I mean… he’s going to tell stories. Do ye not want to hear?”

“Oh, aye.” Jamie sat forward a bit in anticipation, then realizing that he blocked my view, insisted that I sit on the other side of him, displacing Laoghaire down the bench. I could see the girl was not best pleased at this arrangement, and I tried to protest that I was all right as I was, but he was firm about it.

“No, you’ll see and hear better there. And then, if he speaks in the Gaelic, I can whisper in your ear what he says.”

Each part of the bard’s performance had been greeted with warm applause, though people chatted quietly while he played, making a deep hum below the high, sweet strains of the harp. But now a sort of expectant hush descended on the hall. Gwyllyn’s speaking voice was as clear as his singing, each word pitched to reach the end of the high, drafty hall without strain.

“It was a time, two hundred years ago…” He spoke in English, and I felt a sudden sense of déja vu. It was exactly the way our guide on Loch Ness had spoken, telling legends of the Great Glen.

It was not a story of ghosts or heroes, though, but a tale of the Wee Folk he told.

“There was a clan of the Wee Folk as lived near Dundreggan,” he began. “And the hill there is named for the dragon that dwelt there, that Fionn slew and buried where he fell, so the dun is named as it is. And after the passing of Fionn and the Feinn, the Wee Folk that came to dwell in the dun came to want mothers of men to be wet nurses to their own fairy bairns, for a man has something that a fairy has not, and the Wee Folk thought that it might pass through the mother’s milk to their own small ones.

“Now, Ewan MacDonald of Dundreggan was out in the dark, tending his beasts, on the night when his wife bore her firstborn son. A gust of the night wind passed by him, and in the breath of the wind he heard his wife’s sighing. She sighed as she sighed before the child was born, and hearing her there, Ewan MacDonald turned and flung his knife into the wind in the name of the Trinity. And his wife dropped safe to the ground beside him.”

The story was received with a sort of collective “ah” at the conclusion, and was quickly followed by tales of the cleverness and ingenuity of the Wee Folk, and others about their interactions with the world of men. Some were in Gaelic and some in English, used apparently according to which language best fitted the rhythm of the words, for all of them had a beauty to the speaking, beyond the content of the tale itself. True to his promise, Jamie translated the Gaelic for me in an undertone, so quickly and easily that I thought he must have heard these stories many times before.

There was one I noticed particularly, about the man out late at night upon a fairy hill, who heard the sound of a woman singing “sad and plaintive” from the very rocks of the hill. He listened more closely and heard the words:

“I am the wife of the Laird of Balnain

The Folk have stolen me over again.”

So the listener hurried to the house of Balnain and found there the owner gone and his wife and baby son missing. The man hastily sought out a priest and brought him back to the fairy knoll. The priest blessed the rocks of the dun and sprinkled them with holy water. Suddenly the night grew darker and there was a loud noise as of thunder. Then the moon came out from behind a cloud and shone upon the woman, the wife of Balnain, who lay exhausted on the grass with her child in her arms. The woman was tired, as though she had traveled far, but could not tell where she had been, nor how she had come there.

Others in the hall had stories to tell, and Gwyllyn rested on his stool to sip wine as one gave place to another by the fireside, telling stories that held the hall rapt.

Some of these I hardly heard. I was rapt myself, but by my own thoughts, which were tumbling about, forming patterns under the influence of wine, music, and fairy legends.

“It was a time, two hundred years ago…”

It’s always two hundred years in Highland stories, said the Reverend Wakefield’s voice in memory. The same thing as “Once upon a time,” you know.

And women trapped in the rocks of fairy duns, traveling far and arriving exhausted, who knew not where they had been, nor how they had come there.

I could feel the hair rising on my forearms, as though with cold, and rubbed them uneasily. Two hundred years. From 1945 to 1743; yes, near enough. And women who traveled through the rocks. Was it always women? I wondered suddenly.

Something else occurred to me. The women came back. Holy water, spell, or knife, they came back. So perhaps, just perhaps, it was possible. I must get back to the standing stones on Craigh na Dun. I felt a rising excitement that made me feel a trifle sick, and I reached for the wine goblet to calm myself.

“Be careful!” My groping fingers fumbled the edge of the nearly full crystal goblet which I had carelessly set on the bench beside me. Jamie’s long arm shot across my lap, narrowly saving the goblet from disaster. He lifted the glass, holding the stem delicately between two large fingers, and passed it gently back and forth under his nose. He handed it back to me, eyebrows lifted.

“Rhenish,” I explained helpfully.

“Aye, I know,” he said, still looking quizzical. “Colum’s, is it?”

“Why, yes. Would you like to try some? It’s very good.” I held out the glass, a trifle unsteadily. After a moment’s hesitation, he accepted the glass and tried a small sip.

“Aye, it’s good,” he said, handing the goblet back. “It’s also double strength. Colum takes it at night because his legs pain him. How much of it have you had?” he asked, eyeing me narrowly.

“Two, no, three glasses,” I said, with some dignity. “Are you implying that I’m intoxicated?”

“No,” he said, brows still raised, “I’m impressed that you’re not. Most folk that drink wi’ Colum are under the table after the second glass.” He reached out and took the goblet from me again.

“Still,” he added firmly, “I think you’d best drink no more of it, or ye won’t get back up the stairs.” He tilted the glass and deliberately drained it himself, then handed the empty goblet to Laoghaire without looking at her.

“Take that back, will ye, lass,” he said casually. “It’s grown late; I believe I’ll see Mistress Beauchamp to her chamber.” And putting a hand under my elbow, he steered me toward the archway, leaving the girl staring after us with an expression that made me relieved that looks in fact cannot kill.

Jamie followed me up to my chamber, and somewhat to my surprise, came in after me. The surprise vanished when he shut the door and immediately shed his shirt. I had forgotten the dressing, which I had been meaning to remove for the last two days.

“I’ll be glad to get this off,” he said, rubbing at the rayon and linen harness arrangement under his arm. “It’s been chafing me for days.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t take it off yourself, then,” I said, reaching up to untie the knots.

“I was afraid to, after the scolding ye gave me when you put the first one on,” he said, grinning impudently down at me. “Thought I’d get my bum smacked if I touched it.”

“You’ll get it smacked now, if you don’t sit down and keep still,” I answered, mock-stern. I put both hands on his good shoulder and, a little unsteadily, pulled him down onto the bedroom stool.

I slipped the harness off and carefully probed the shoulder joint. It was still slightly swollen, with some bruising, but thankfully I could find no evidence of torn muscles.

“If you were so anxious to get rid of it, why didn’t you let me take it off for you yesterday afternoon?” His behavior at the paddock had puzzled me then, and did so still more, now that I could see the patches of reddened skin where the rough edges of the linen bandages had rubbed him nearly raw. I lifted the dressing cautiously, but all was well beneath.

He glanced sidelong at me, then looked down a bit sheepishly. “Well, it’s – ah, it’s only that I didna want to take my shirt off before Alec.”

“Modest, are you?” I asked dryly, making him raise his arm to test the extension of the joint. He winced slightly at the movement, but smiled at the remark.

“If I were, I should hardly be sittin’ half-naked in your chamber, should I? No, it’s the marks on my back.” Seeing my raised eyebrows, he went on to explain. “Alec knows who I am – I mean, he’s heard I was flogged, but he’s not seen it. And to know something like that is no the same as seein’ it wi’ your own eyes.” He felt the sore shoulder tentatively, eyes turned away. He frowned at the floor. “It’s – maybe you’ll not know what I mean. But when you know a man’s suffered some harm, it’s only one of the things you know about him, and it doesna make much difference to how ye see him. Alec knows I’ve been flogged, like he knows I’ve red hair, and it doesna matter to how he treats me.” He looked up then, searching for some sign of understanding from me.

“But when you see it yourself, it’s like” – he hesitated, looking for words – “it’s a bit… personal, maybe, is what I mean. I think… if he were to see the scars, he couldna see me anymore without thinking of my back. And I’d be able to see him thinking of it, and that would make me remember it, and-” He broke off, shrugging.

“Well. That’s a poor job of explaining, no? I daresay I’m too tender-minded about it, in any case. After all, I canna see it for myself; perhaps it’s not as bad as I think.” I had seen wounded men making their way on crutches down the street, and the people passing them with averted eyes, and I thought it was not at all a bad job of explanation.

“You don’t mind my seeing your back?”

“No, I don’t.” He sounded mildly surprised, and paused a moment to think about it. “I suppose… it’s that ye seem to have a knack for letting me know you’re sorry for it, without makin’ me feel pitiful about it.”

He sat patiently, not moving as I circled behind him and inspected his back. I didn’t know how bad he thought it was, but it was bad enough. Even by candlelight and having seen it once before, I was appalled. Before, I had seen only the one shoulder. The scars covered his entire back from shoulders to waist. While many had faded to little more than thin white lines, the worst formed thick silver wedges, cutting across the smooth muscles. I thought with some regret that it must have been quite a beautiful back at one time. His skin was fair and fresh, and the lines of bone and muscle were still solid and graceful, the shoulders flat and square-set and the backbone a smooth, straight groove cut deep between the rounded columns of muscle that rose on either side of it.

Jamie was right too. Looking at this wanton damage, I could not avoid a mental picture of the process that had caused it. I tried not to imagine the muscular arms raised, spread-eagled and tied, ropes cutting into wrists, the coppery head pressed hard against the post in agony, but the marks brought such images all too readily to mind. Had he screamed when it was done? I pushed the thought hastily away. I had heard the stories that trickled out of postwar Germany, of course, of atrocities much worse than this, but he was right; hearing is not at all the same as seeing.

Involuntarily, I reached out, as though I might heal him with a touch and erase the marks with my fingers. He sighed deeply, but didn’t move as I traced the deep scars, one by one, as though to show him the extent of the damage he couldn’t see. I rested my hands at last lightly on his shoulders in silence, groping for words.

He placed his own hand over mine, and squeezed lightly in acknowledgment of the things I couldn’t find to say.

“There’s worse has happened to others, lass,” he said quietly. Then he let go and the spell was broken.

“It feels as though it’s healing well,” he said, trying to look sideways at the wound in his shoulder. “It doesna pain me much.”

“That’s good,” I said, clearing my throat of some obstruction that seemed to have lodged there. “It is healing well; it’s scabbed over nicely, and there’s no drainage at all. Just keep it clean, and don’t use the arm more than you must for another two or three days.” I patted the undamaged shoulder, signifying dismissal. He put his shirt back on without assistance, tucking the long tails down into the kilt.

There was an awkward moment as he paused by the door, seeking something to say in farewell. Finally, he invited me to come to the stable next day and see a newborn foal. I promised that I would, and we said good night, both speaking together. We laughed and nodded absurdly to each other as I shut the door. I went at once to bed and fell asleep in a winey haze, to dream unsettling dreams that I would not recall come morning.

Next day, after a long morning of treating new patients, rummaging the stillroom for useful herbs to replenish the medical supplies cupboard, and – with some ceremony – recording the details in Davie Beaton’s black ledger, I left my narrow closet in search of air and exercise.

There was no one about for the moment, and I took the opportunity to explore the upper floors of the castle, poking into empty chambers and winding staircases, mapping the castle in my mind. It was a most irregular floor plan, to say the least. Bits and pieces had been added here and there over the years, until it was difficult to say whether there ever had been a plan originally. In this hall, for example, there was an alcove built into the wall by the stairs, apparently serving no purpose but to fill in a blank space too small for a complete room.

The alcove was partly shielded from view by a hanging curtain of striped linen; I would have passed by without stopping, had a sudden flash of white from within not attracted my attention. I stopped just short of the opening and peered inside to see what it was. It was the sleeve of Jamie’s shirt, passing around a girl’s back, drawing her close for a kiss. She sat on his lap, and her yellow hair caught the sunlight coming through a slit, reflecting light like the surface of a trout stream on a bright morning.

I paused, uncertain what to do. I had no desire to spy on them, but was afraid the sound of my footsteps on the corridor stones would draw their attention. While I hesitated, Jamie broke from the embrace and looked up. His eyes met mine, and his face twitched from alarm to recognition. With a raised eyebrow and a faintly ironic shrug, he settled the girl more firmly on his knee and bent to his work. I shrugged back, and tiptoed away. Not my business. I had little doubt, however, that both Colum and the girl’s father would consider this “consorting” highly improper. The next beating might well be on his own account, if they weren’t more careful in choosing a meeting place.

Finding him at supper that night with Alec, I sat down opposite them at the long table. Jamie greeted me pleasantly enough, but with a watchful expression in his eyes. Old Alec gave me his usual “Mmphm.” Women, as he had explained to me at the paddock, have no natural appreciation for horses, and are therefore difficult to talk to.

“How’s the horse-breaking coming along?” I asked, to interrupt the industrious chewing on the other side of the table.

“Well enough,” answered Jamie cautiously.

I peered at him across a platter of boiled turnips. “Your mouth looks a bit swollen, Jamie. Get thumped by a horse, did you?” I asked wickedly.

“Aye,” he answered, narrowing his eyes. “Swung its head when I wasna looking.” He spoke placidly, but I felt a large foot come down on top of mine under the table. It rested lightly at the moment, but the threat was explicit.

“Too bad; those fillies can be dangerous,” I said innocently.

The foot pressed down hard as Alec said, “Filly? Ye’re no workin’ fillies now, are ye, lad?” I used my other foot as a lever; that failing, I used it to kick his ankle sharply. Jamie jerked suddenly.

“What’s wrong wi’ ye?” Alec demanded.

“Bit my tongue,” muttered Jamie, glaring at me over the hand he had clapped to his mouth.

“Clumsy young dolt. No more than I’d expect, though, from an idjit as canna even keep clear of a horse when…” Alec went on for several minutes, accusing his assistant at length of clumsiness, idleness, stupidity, and general ineptitude. Jamie, possibly the least clumsy person I had ever seen in my life, kept his head down and ate stolidly through the diatribe, though his cheeks flushed hotly. I kept my eyes demurely on my plate for the rest of the meal.

Refusing a second helping of stew, Jamie left the table abruptly, putting an end to Alec’s tirade. The old horsemaster and I munched silently for a few minutes. Wiping his plate with the last bite of bread, the old man pushed it into his mouth and leaned back, surveying me sardonically with his one blue eye.

“Ye shouldna devil the lad, ye ken,” he said conversationally. “If her father or Colum comes to know about it, young Jamie could get summat more than a blackened eye.”

“Like a wife?” I said, looking him squarely in the eye. He nodded slowly.

“Could be. And that’s not the wife he should have.”

“No?” I was a bit surprised at this, after overhearing Alec’s remarks in the paddock.

“Nay, he needs a woman, not a girl. And Laoghaire will be a girl when she’s fifty.” The grim old mouth twisted in something like a smile. “Ye may think I’ve lived in a stable all my life, but I had a wife as was a woman, and I ken the difference verra weel.” The blue eye flashed as he made to get up. “So do you, lass.”

I reached out a hand impulsively to stop him. “How did you know-” I began. Old Alec snorted derisively.

“I may ha’ but one eye, lass; it doesna mean I’m blind.” He creaked off, snorting as he went. I found the stairs and went up to my room, contemplating what, if anything, the old horsemaster had meant by his final remark.

Chapter 9. THE GATHERING

My life seemed to be assuming some shape, if not yet a formal routine. Rising at dawn with the rest of the castle inhabitants, I breakfasted in the great hall, then, if Mrs. Fitz had no patients for me to see, I went to work in the huge castle gardens. Several other women worked there regularly, with an attending phalanx of lads in varying sizes, who came and went, hauling rubbish, tools, and loads of manure. I generally worked through the day there, sometimes going to the kitchens to help prepare a newly picked crop for eating or preserving, unless some medical emergency called me back to the Skulkery, as I called the late Beaton’s closet of horrors.

Once in a while, I would take up Alec’s invitation and visit the stables or paddock, enjoying the sight of the horses shedding their shaggy winter coats in clumps, growing strong and glossy with spring grass.

Some evenings I would go to bed immediately after supper, exhausted by the day’s work. Other times, when I could keep my eyes open, I would join the gathering in the Great Hall to listen to the evening’s entertainment of stories, song, or the music of harp or pipes. I could listen to Gwyllyn the Welsh bard for hours, enthralled in spite of my total ignorance of what he was saying, most times.

As the castle inhabitants grew accustomed to my presence, and I to them, some of the women began to make shy overtures of friendship, and to include me in their conversations. They were plainly very curious about me, but I replied to all their tentative questions with variations of the story I had told Colum, and after a bit, they accepted that as all they were likely to know. Having found out that I knew something of medicine and healing, though, they grew still more interested in me, and began to ask questions about the ailments of their children, husbands, and beasts, in most cases making little distinction between the latter two in level of importance.

Besides the normal questions and gossip, there was considerable talk of the coming Gathering that I had heard Old Alec mention at the paddock. I concluded that this was an occasion of some importance, and grew more convinced by the extent of the preparations for it. A constant stream of foodstuffs poured into the great kitchens, and more than twenty skinned carcasses hung in the slaughter shed, behind a screen of fragrant smoke that kept the flies away. Hogsheads of ale were delivered by wagon and carted down to the castle cellars, bags of fine flour were brought up from the village mill for baking, and baskets of cherries and apricots were fetched daily from the orchards outside the castle wall.

I was invited to go on one of these fruit-picking expeditions with several of the young women of the castle, and accepted with alacrity, eager to get out from under the forbidding shadow of the stone walls.

It was beautiful in the orchard, and I greatly enjoyed wandering through the cool mist of the Scottish morning, fingering through the damp leaves of the fruit trees for the bright cherries and smooth, plump apricots, squeezing gently to judge the ripeness. We plucked only the best, dropping them into our baskets in juicy heaps, eating as much as we could hold, and carrying back the remainder to be made into tarts and pies. The enormous pantry shelves were nearly filled now with pastries, cordials, hams, and assorted delicacies.

“How many people customarily come to a Gathering?” I asked Magdalen, one of the girls with whom I had become friendly.

She wrinkled a snub freckled nose in thought. “I dinna ken for sure. The last great Gathering at Leoch was over twenty year past, and then there were oh, maybe ten score of men come then – when old Jacob died, ye ken, and Colum was made laird. Might be more this year; been a good year for the crops and folk will ha’ a bit more money put by, so a good many will bring their wives and bairns along.”

Visitors were already beginning to arrive at the castle, though I had heard that the official parts of the Gathering, the oath-taking, the tynchal, and the games, would not take place for several days. The more illustrious of Colum’s tacksmen and tenants were housed in the castle proper, while the poorer men-at-arms and cottars set up camp on a fallow field below the stream that fed the castle’s loch. Roving tinkers, gypsies, and sellers of small goods had set up a sort of impromptu fair near the bridge. The inhabitants of both castle and nearby village had begun to visit the spot in the evenings, when the day’s work was done, to buy tools and bits of finery, watch the jugglers and catch up on the latest gossip.

I kept a close eye on the comings and goings, and made a point of paying frequent visits to stable and paddock. There were horses in plenty now, those of the visitors being accommodated in the castle stables. Among the confusion and disturbance of the Gathering, I thought, I should have no difficulty in finding my chance to escape.

It was on one of the fruit-picking expeditions to the orchard that I first met Geillis Duncan. Finding a small patch of Ascaria beneath the roots of an alder, I was hunting for more. The scarlet caps grew in tiny clumps, only four or five mushrooms in a group, but there were several clumps scattered through the long grass in this part of the orchard. The voices of the women picking fruit grew fainter as I worked my way toward the edge of the orchard, stooping or dropping on hands and knees to gather the fragile stalks.

“Those kind are poison,” said a voice from behind me. I straightened up from the patch of Ascaria I had been bending over, thumping my head smartly on a branch of the pine they were growing under.

As my vision cleared, I could see that the peals of laughter were coming from a tall young woman, perhaps a few years older than myself, fair of hair and skin, with the loveliest green eyes I had ever seen.

“I am sorry to be laughing at you,” she said, dimpling as she stepped down into the hollow where I stood. “I could not help it.”

“I imagine I looked funny,” I said rather ungraciously, rubbing the sore spot on top of my head. “And thank you for the warning, but I know those mushrooms are poisonous.”

“Och, you know? And who is it you’re planning to do away with, then? Your husband, perhaps? Tell me if it works, and I’ll try it on mine.” Her smile was infectious, and I found myself smiling back.

I explained that though the raw mushroom caps were indeed poisonous, you could prepare a powdered preparation from the dried fungi that was very efficacious in stopping bleeding when applied topically. Or so Mrs. Fitz said; I was more inclined to trust her than Davie Beaton’s Physician’s Guide.

“Fancy that!” she said, still smiling. “And did you know that these” – she stooped and came up with a handful of tiny blue flowers with heart-shaped leaves – “will start bleeding?”

“No,” I said, startled. “Why would anyone want to start bleeding?”

She looked at me with an expression of exasperated patience. “To get rid of a child ye don’t want, I mean. It brings on your flux, but only if ye use it early. Too late, and it can kill you as well as the child.”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” I remarked, still stung by having appeared stupid.

“A bit. The girls in the village come to me now and again for such things, and sometimes the married women too. They say I’m a witch,” she said, widening her brilliant eyes in feigned astonishment. She grinned. “But my husband’s the procurator fiscal for the district, so they don’t say it too loud.”

“Now the young lad ye brought with ye,” she went on, nodding in approval, “there’s one that’s had a few love-philtres bought on his behalf. Is he yours?”

“Mine? Who? You mean, er, Jamie?” I was startled.

The young woman looked amused. She sat down on a log, twirling a lock of fair hair idly around her index finger.

“Och, aye. There’s quite a few would settle for a fellow wi’ eyes and hair like that, no matter the price on his head or whether he’s any money. Their fathers may think differently, o’ course.

“Now, me,” she went on, looking off into the distance, “I’m a practical sort. I married a man with a fair house, a bit o’ money put away, and a good position. As for hair, he hasn’t any, and as for eyes, I never noticed, but he doesna trouble me much.” She held out the basket she carried for my inspection. Four bulbous roots lay in the bottom.

“Mallow root,” she explained. “My husband suffers from a chill on the stomach now and again. Farts like an ox.”

I thought it best to stop this line of conversation before things got out of hand. “I haven’t introduced myself,” I said, extending a hand to help her up from the log. “My name is Claire. Claire Beauchamp.”

The hand that took mine was slender, with long, tapering white fingers, though I noticed the tips were stained, probably with the juices of the plants and berries resting alongside the mallow roots in her basket.

“I know who ye are,” she said. “The village has been humming with talk of ye, since ye came to the castle. My name is Geillis, Geillis Duncan.” She peered into my basket. “If it’s balgan-buachrach you’re looking for, I can show you where they grow best.”

I accepted her offer, and we wandered for some time through the small glens near the orchard, poking under rotted logs and crawling around the rim of the sparkling tarns, where the tiny toadstools grew in profusion. Geillis was very knowledgeable about the local plants and their medicinal uses, though she suggested a few usages I thought questionable, to say the least. I thought it very unlikely, for instance, that bloodwort would be effective in making warts grow on a rival’s nose, and I strongly doubted whether wood betony was useful in transforming toads into pigeons. She made these explanations with a mischievous glance that suggested she was testing my own knowledge, or perhaps the local suspicion of witchcraft.

Despite the occasional teasing, I found her a pleasant companion, with a ready wit and a cheerful, if cynical, outlook on life. She appeared to know everything there was to know about everyone in village, countryside, and castle, and our explorations were punctuated by rests during which she entertained me with complaints about her husband’s stomach trouble, and amusing if somewhat malicious gossip.

“They say young Hamish is not his father’s son,” she said at one point, referring to Colum’s only child, the red-haired lad of eight or so whom I had seen at dinner in the Hall.

I was not particularly startled by this bit of gossip, having formed my own conclusions on the matter. I was only surprised that there was but one child of questionable parentage, surmising that Letitia had been either lucky, or smart enough to seek out someone like Geilie in time. Unwisely, I said as much to Geilie.

She flung back her long fair hair and laughed. “No, not me. The fair Letitia does not need any help in such matters, believe me. If people are seeking a witch in this neighborhood, they’d do better to look in the castle than the village.”

Anxious to change the subject to something safer, I seized on the first thing that came to mind.

“If young Hamish isn’t Colum’s son, whose is he supposed to be?” I asked, scrambling over a heap of boulders.

“Why, the lad’s, of course.” She turned to face me, small mouth mocking and green eyes bright with mischief. “Young Jamie.”

Returning to the orchard alone, I met Magdalen, hair coming loose under her kerchief and wide-eyed with worry.

“Oh, there ye are,” she said, heaving a sigh of relief. “We were going back to the castle, when I missed ye.”

“It was kind of you to come back for me,” I said, picking up the basket of cherries I’d left in the grass. “I know the way, though.”

She shook her head. “You should take care, my dearie, walking alone in the woods, wi’ all the tinkers and folk coming for the Gathering. Colum’s given orders-” She stopped abruptly, hand over her mouth.

“That I’m to be watched?” I suggested gently. She nodded reluctantly, clearly afraid I would be offended. I shrugged and tried to smile reassuringly at her.

“Well, that’s natural, I suppose,” I said. “After all, he’s no one’s word but my own for who I am or how I came here.” Curiosity overcame my better judgment. “Who does he think I am?” I asked. But the girl could only shake her head.

“You’re English,” was all she said.

I didn’t return to the orchard next day. Not because I was ordered to remain in the castle, but because there was a sudden outbreak of food poisoning among the castle inhabitants that demanded my attention as physician. Having done what I could for the sufferers, I set out to track the trouble to its source.

This proved to be a tainted beef carcass from the slaughter shed. I was in the shed next day, giving the chief smoker a piece of my mind regarding proper methods of meat preserving, when the door swung open behind me, sending a thick wave of choking smoke over me.

I turned, eyes watering, to see Dougal MacKenzie looming through the clouds of oakwood smoke.

“Supervising the butchering as well as the physicking, are ye now, mistress?” he asked mockingly. “Soon ye’ll have the whole castle under your thumb, and Mrs. Fitz will be seeking employment elsewhere.”

“I have no desire to have anything to do with your filthy castle,” I snapped, wiping my streaming eyes and coming away with charcoal streaks on my handkerchief. “All I want is to get out of here, as fast as possible.”

He inclined his head courteously, still grinning. “Well, I might be in a position to gratify that wish, mistress,” he said. “At least temporarily.”

I dropped the handkerchief and stared at him. “What do you mean?”

He coughed and waved a hand at the smoke, now drifting in his direction. He drew me outside the shed and turned in the direction of the stables.

“You were saying yesterday to Colum that ye needed betony and some odd bits of herbs?”

“Yes, to make up some medicines for the people with food poisoning. What of it?” I demanded, still suspicious.

He shrugged good-naturedly. “Only that I’m going down to the smith’s in the village, taking three horses to be shod. The fiscal’s wife is something of an herb-woman, and has stocks to hand. Doubtless she has the simples that you’re needing. And if it please ye, lady, you’re welcome to ride one of the horses down wi’ me to the village.”

“The fiscal’s wife? Mrs. Duncan?” I immediately felt happier. The prospect of escaping the castle altogether, even if only for a short time, was irresistible.

I mopped my face hurriedly and tucked the soiled kerchief in my belt.

“Let’s go,” I said.

I enjoyed the short ride downhill to the village of Cranesmuir, even though the day was dark and overcast. Dougal himself was in high spirits, and chatted and joked pleasantly as we went along.

We stopped first at the smith’s, where he left the three extra horses, taking me up behind him on his saddle for the trip up the High Street to the Duncans’ house. This was an imposing half-timbered manor of four stories, the lower two equipped with elegant leaded-glass windows; diamond-shaped panes in watery tones of purple and green.

Geilie greeted us with delight, pleased to have company on such a dreary day.

“How splendid!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been wanting an excuse to go through the stillroom and sort out some things. Anne!”

A short, middle-aged serving woman with a face like a winter apple popped out of a door I hadn’t noticed, concealed as it was in the bend of the chimney.

“Take Mistress Claire up to the stillroom,” Geilie ordered, “and then go and fetch us a bucket of spring water. From the spring, mind, not the well in the square!” She turned to Dougal. “I’ve the tonic put by that I promised your brother. If you’ll come out to the kitchen with me for a moment?”

I followed the serving woman’s pumpkin-shaped rear up a set of narrow wooden stairs, emerging unexpectedly into a long, airy loft. Unlike the rest of the house, this room was furnished with casement windows, shut now against the damp, but still providing a great deal more light than had been available in the fashionably gloomy parlor downstairs.

It was clear that Geilie knew her business as an herbalist. The room was equipped with long drying frames netted with gauze, hooks above the small fireplace for heat-drying, and open shelves along the walls, drilled with holes to allow for air circulation. The air was thick with the delicious, spicy scent of drying basil, rosemary, and lavender. A surprisingly modern long counter ran along one side of the room, displaying a remarkable assortment of mortars, pestles, mixing bowls, and spoons, all immaculately clean.

It was some time before Geilie appeared, flushed from climbing the stairs, but smiling in anticipation of a long afternoon of herb-pounding and gossip.

It began to rain lightly, drops spattering the long casements, but a small fire was burning on the stillroom hearth, and it was very cozy. I enjoyed Geilie’s company immensely; she had a wry-tongued, cynical viewpoint that was a refreshing contrast to the sweet, shy clanswomen at the castle, and clearly she had been well educated, for a woman in a small village.

She also knew every scandal that had occurred either in village or castle in the last ten years, and she told me endless amusing stories. Oddly enough, she asked me few questions about myself. I thought perhaps that was not her way; she would find out what she wanted to know about me from other people.

For some time, I had been conscious of noises coming from the street outside, but had attributed them to the traffic of villagers coming from Sunday Mass; the kirk was located at the end of the street by the well, and the High Street ran from kirk to square, spreading from there into a fan of tiny lanes and walks.

In fact, I had amused myself on the ride to the smithy by imagining an aerial view of the village as a representation of a skeletal forearm and hand; the High Street was the radius, along which lay the shops and businesses and the residences of the more well-to-do. St. Margaret’s Lane was the ulna, a narrower street running parallel with the High, tenanted by smithy, tannery, and the less genteel artisans and businesses. The village square (which, like all village squares I had ever seen, was not square at all, but roughly oblong) formed the carpals and metacarpals of the hand, while the several lanes of cottages made up the phalangeal joints of the fingers.

The Duncans’ house stood on the square, as behooved the residence of the procurator fiscal. This was a matter of convenience as well as status; the square could be used for those judicial matters which, by reason of public interest or legal necessity, overflowed the narrow confines of Arthur Duncan’s study. And it was, as Dougal explained, convenient to the pillory, a homely wooden contraption that stood on a small stone plinth in the center of the square, adjacent to the wooden stake used – with thrifty economy of purpose – as whipping post, maypole, flagstaff and horse tether, depending upon requirements.

The noise outside was now much louder, and altogether more disorderly than seemed appropriate to people coming soberly home from church to their dinners. Geilie put aside the jars with an exclamation of impatience and threw open the window to see what caused the uproar.

Joining her at the window, I could see a crowd of folk dressed in church-going garb of gown, kirtle, coat, and bonnet, led by the stocky figure of Father Bain, the priest who served both village and castle. He had in his custody a youth, perhaps twelve years old, whose ragged trews and smelly shirt proclaimed him a tanner’s lad. The priest had the boy gripped by the nape of the neck, a hold made somewhat difficult to maintain by the fact that the lad was slightly taller than his minatory captor. The crowd followed the pair at a small distance, rumbling with disapproving comment like a passing thunder cloud in the wake of a lightning bolt.

As we watched from the upper window, Father Bain and the boy disappeared beneath us, into the house. The crowd remained outside, muttering and jostling. A few of the bolder souls chinned themselves on the window ledges, attempting to peer within.

Geilie shut the window with a slam, making a break in the anticipatory rumble below.

“Stealing, most like,” she said laconically, returning to the herb table. “Usually is, wi’ the tanners’ lads.”

“What will happen to him?” I asked curiously. She shrugged, crumbling dried rosemary between her fingers into the mortar.

“Depends on whether Arthur’s dyspeptic this morning, I should reckon. If he’s made a good breakfast, the lad might get off with a whipping. But happen he’s costive or flatulent” – she made a moue of distaste – “the boy’ll lose an ear or a hand, most like.”

I was horrified, but hesitant to interfere directly in the matter. I was an outlander, and an Englishwoman to boot, and while I thought I would be treated with some respect as an inhabitant of the castle, I had seen many of the villagers surreptitiously make the sign against evil as I passed. My intercession might easily make things worse for the boy.

“Can’t you do anything?” I asked Geilie. “Speak to your husband, I mean; ask him to be, er, lenient?”

Geilie looked up from her work, surprised. Clearly the thought of interfering in her husband’s affairs had never crossed her mind.

“Why should you care what happens to him?” she asked, but curiously, not with any hostile meaning.

“Of course I care!” I said. “He’s only a lad; whatever he did, he doesn’t deserve to be mutilated for life!”

She raised pale brows; plainly this argument was unconvincing. Still, she shrugged and handed me the mortar and pestle.

“Anything to oblige a friend,” she said, rolling her eyes. She scanned her shelves and selected a bottle of greenish stuff, labeled, in fine cursive script, EXTRACT OF PEPPERMINT.

“I’ll go and dose Arthur, and whilst I’m about it, I’ll see if aught can be done for the lad. It may be too late, mind,” she warned. “And if that poxy priest’s got a hand in, he’ll want the stiffest sentence he can get. Still, I’ll try. You keep after the pounding; rosemary takes forever.”

I took up the pestle as she left, and pounded and ground automatically, paying little heed to the results. The shut window blocked the sound both of the rain and the crowd below; the two blended in a soft, pattering susurrus of menace. Like any schoolchild, I had read Dickens. And earlier authors, as well, with their descriptions of the pitiless justice of these times, meted out to all illdoers, regardless of age or circumstance. But to read, from a cozy distance of one or two hundred years, accounts of child hangings and judicial mutilation, was a far different thing than to sit quietly pounding herbs a few feet above such an occurrence.

Could I bring myself to interfere directly, if the sentence went against the boy? I moved to the window, carrying the mortar with me, and peered out. The crowd had increased, as merchants and housewives, attracted by the gathering, wandered down the High Street to investigate. Newcomers leaned close as the standees excitedly relayed the details, then merged into the body of the crowd, more faces turned expectantly to the door of the house.

Looking down on the assembly, standing patiently in the drizzle awaiting a verdict, I suddenly had a vivid understanding of something. Like so many, I had heard, appalled, the reports that trickled out of postwar Germany; the stories of deportations and mass murder, of concentration camps and burnings. And like so many others had done, and would do, for years to come, I had asked myself, “How could the people have let it happen? They must have known, must have seen the trucks, the coming and going, the fences and smoke. How could they stand by and do nothing?” Well, now I knew.

The stakes were not even life or death in this case. And Colum’s patronage would likely prevent any physical attack on me. But my hands grew clammy around the porcelain bowl as I thought of myself stepping out, alone and powerless, to confront that mob of solid and virtuous citizens, avid for the excitement of punishment and blood to alleviate the tedium of existence.

People are gregarious by necessity. Since the days of the first cave dwellers, humans – hairless, weak, and helpless save for cunning – have survived by joining together in groups; knowing, as so many other edible creatures have found, that there is protection in numbers. And that knowledge, bred in the bone, is what lies behind mob rule. Because to step outside the group, let alone to stand against it, was for uncounted thousands of years death to the creature who dared it. To stand against a crowd would take something more than ordinary courage; something that went beyond human instinct. And I feared I did not have it, and fearing, was ashamed.

It seemed forever before the door opened and Geilie stepped in, looking cool and unperturbed as usual, a small stick of charcoal in her hand.

“We’ll need to filter it after it’s boiled,” she remarked, as though going on with our previous conversation. “I think we’ll run it through charcoal in muslin; that’s best.”

“Geilie,” I said impatiently. “Don’t try me. What about the tanner’s boy?”

“Oh, that.” She lifted a shoulder dismissively, but a mischievous smile lurked about the corners of her lips. She dropped the facade then, and laughed.

“You should have seen me,” she said, giggling. “I was awfully good, an’ I say it myself. All wifely solicitude and womanly kindness, with a small dab o’ maternal pity mixed in. ‘Oh, Arthur,’ ” she dramatized, “ ‘had our own union been blessed’ – not much chance, if I’ve aught to say about it,” she said, dropping the soulful mask for a moment with a tilt of her head toward the herb shelves – “ ‘why, how would ye feel, my darling, should your own son be taken so? Nae doubt it was but hunger made the lad take to thievery. Oh, Arthur, can ye no find it in your heart to be merciful – and you the soul of justice?’ ” She dropped onto a stool, laughing and pounding her fist lightly against her leg. “What a pity there’s no place for acting here!”

The sound of the crowd outside had changed, and I moved to the window to see what was happening, ignoring Geilie’s self-congratulations.

The throng parted, and the tanner’s lad came out, walking slowly between priest and judge. Arthur Duncan was swollen with benevolence, bowing and nodding to the more eminent members of the assembly. Father Bain, on the other hand, resembled a sullen potato more than anything else, brown face lumpy with resentment.

The little procession proceeded to the center of the square, where the village locksman, one John MacRae, stepped out of the crowd to meet them. This personage was dressed as befitted his office in the sober elegance of dark breeches and coat and grey velvet hat (removed for the nonce and tenderly sheltered from the rain beneath the tail of his coat). He was not, as I had at first assumed, the village jailer, though in a pinch he did perform such office. His duties were primarily those of constable, customs inspector, and when needed, executioner; his title came from the wooden “lock” or scoop that hung from his belt, with which he was entitled to take a percentage of each bag of grain sold in the Thursday market: the remuneration of his office.

I had found all this out from the locksman himself. He had been to the Castle only a few days before to see whether I could treat a persistent felon on his thumb. I had lanced it with a sterile needle and dressed it with poplar-bud salve, finding MacRae a shy and soft-spoken man with a pleasant smile.

There was no trace of a smile now, though; MacRae’s face was suitably stern. Reasonable, I thought; no one wants to see a grinning executioner.

The miscreant was brought to stand on the plinth in the center of the square. The lad looked pale and frightened, but did not move as Arthur Duncan, procurator fiscal for the parish of Cranesmuir, drew his plumpness up into an approximation of dignity and prepared to pronounce sentence.

“The ninny had already confessed by the time I came in,” said a voice by my ear. Geilie peered interestedly over my shoulder. “I couldna get him freed entirely. I got him off as light as could be, though; only an hour in the pillory and one ear nailed.”

“One ear nailed! Nailed to what?”

“Why, the pillory, o’ course.” She shot me a curious look, but turned back to the window to watch the execution of this light sentence obtained by her merciful intercession.

The crush of bodies around the pillory was so great that little of the miscreant could be seen, but the crowd drew back a bit to allow the locksman free movement for the ear-nailing. The lad, white-faced and small in the jaws of the pillory, had both eyes tight shut and kept them that way, shuddering with fear. He uttered a high, thin scream when the nail was driven in, audible through the closed windows, and I shuddered a bit myself.

We returned to our work, as did most of the spectators in the square, but I could not help rising to glance out from time to time. A few idlers passing by paused to jeer at the victim and throw balls of mud, and now and then a more sober citizen was to be seen, seizing a moment from the round of daily duties to attend to the moral improvement of the delinquent by means of a few well-chosen words of reproval and advice.

It was still an hour to the late spring sunset, and we were drinking tea below in the parlor, when a pounding at the door announced the arrival of a visitor. The day was so dark from the rain that one could hardly tell the level of the sun. The Duncans’ house, however, boasted a clock, a magnificent contrivance of walnut panels, brass pendulums, and a face decorated with quiring cherubim, and this instrument pointed to half-past six.

The scullery maid opened the door to the parlor and unceremoniously announced, “In here.” Jamie MacTavish ducked automatically as he came through the door, bright hair darkened by the rain to the color of ancient bronze. He wore an elderly and disreputable coat against the wet, and carried a riding cloak of heavy green velvet folded under one arm.

He nodded in acknowledgment as I rose and introduced him to Geilie.

“Mistress Duncan, Mrs. Beauchamp.” He waved a hand toward the window. “I see ye’ve had a wee bit doing this afternoon.”

“Is he still there?” I asked, peering out. The boy was only a dark shape, seen through the distortion of the wavering drawing-room panes. “He must be soaked through.”

“He is.” Jamie spread the cloak and held it for me. “So you’d be as well, Colum thought. I’d business in the village, so he sent along the cloak with me for ye. You’re to ride back wi’ me.”

“That was kind of him.” I spoke absently, for my mind was still on the tanner’s lad.

“How long must he stay there?” I asked Geilie. “The lad in the pillory,” I added impatiently, seeing her blank look.

“Oh, him,” she said, frowning slightly at the introduction of such an unimportant topic. “An hour, I told you. The locksman should ha’ freed him from the pillory by now.”

“He has,” Jamie assured her. “I saw him as I was crossing the green. It’s only the lad’s not got up courage to tear the griss from his lug yet.”

My mouth dropped open. “You mean the nail won’t be taken out of his ear? He’s to tear himself loose?”

“Oh, aye.” Jamie was cheerfully offhand. “He’s still a bit nervous, but I imagine he’ll set his mind to it soon. It’s wet out, and growing dark as well. We must leave ourselves, or we’ll get naught but scraps to our dinner.” He bowed to Geilie and turned to go.

“Wait a bit,” she said to me. “Since you’ve a big, strong lad like yon to see ye home, I’ve a chest of dried marsh cabbage and other simples as I’ve promised to Mrs. FitzGibbons up at the Castle. Perhaps Mr. MacTavish would be so kind?”

Jamie assenting, she had a manservant fetch down the chest from her workroom, handing over the enormous wrought-iron key for the purpose. While the servant was gone, she busied herself for a moment at a small writing desk in the corner. By the time the chest, a sizable wooden box with brass bands, was brought in, she had finished her note. She hastily sanded it, folded and sealed it with a blob of wax from the candle, and pressed it into my hand.

“There,” she said. “That’s the bill for it. Will ye give it to Dougal for me? It’s him that handles the payments and such. Dinna give it to anyone else, or I’ll not be paid for weeks.”

“Yes, of course.”

She embraced me warmly, and with admonitions about avoiding the chill, saw us to the door.

I stood sheltering beneath the eave of the house, as Jamie tied the box to his horse’s saddle. The rain was coming down harder now, and the eaves ran with a ragged sheet of water.

I eyed the broad back and muscular forearms as he lifted the heavy box with little apparent effort. Then I glanced at the plinth, where the tanner’s boy, in spite of encouragement from the regathered crowd, was still firmly pinioned. Granted this was not a lovely young girl with moonbeam hair, but Jamie’s earlier actions in Colum’s hall of justice made me think that he might not be unsympathetic to the youngster’s plight.

“Er, Mr. MacTavish?” I began, hesitantly. There was no response. The comely face did not change expression; the wide mouth stayed relaxed, the blue eyes focused on the strap he was fastening.

“Ah, Jamie?” I tried again, a little louder, and he looked up at once. So it really wasn’t MacTavish. I wondered what it was.

“Aye?” he said.

“You’re, er, quite sizable, aren’t you?” I said. A half-smile curved his lips and he nodded, clearly wondering what I was up to.

“Big enough for most things,” he answered.

I was encouraged, and moved casually closer, so as not to be overheard by any stragglers from the square.

“And tolerably strong in the fingers?” I asked.

He flexed one hand and the smile widened. “Aye, that’s so. Happen you’ve a few chestnuts you want cracked?” He looked down at me with a shrewd and merry glint.

I glanced briefly past him to the knot of onlookers in the square.

“More like one to be pulled from the fire, I think.” I looked up to meet that questioning blue gaze. “Could you do it?”

He stood looking down at me for a moment, still smiling, then shrugged. “Aye, if the shank’s long enough to grip. Can ye draw the crowd away, though? Interference wouldna be looked on kindly, and me a stranger.”

I had not anticipated the possibility that my request might put him in any danger, and I hesitated, but he seemed game to try, danger notwithstanding.

“Well, if we both went over for a closer look, and then I were to faint at the sight, do you think-?”

“You being so unused to blood and all?” One brow lifted sardonically and he grinned. “Aye, that’ll do. If ye can make shift to fall off the plinth, still better.”

I had in fact felt a bit squeamish about looking, but it was not so daunting a sight as I had feared. The ear was pinned firmly through the upper flange, close to the edge, and a full two inches of the nail’s square, headless shank was free above the pinioned appendage. There was almost no blood, and it was clear from the boy’s face that while he was both frightened and uncomfortable, he was in no great pain. I began to think that Geilie perhaps had been right in considering this a fairly lenient sentence, given the overall state of current Scottish jurisprudence, though this didn’t alter by one whit my opinion as to the barbarity of it.

Jamie edged casually through the fringe of lookers-on. He shook his head reprovingly at the boy.

“Na then, lad,” he said, clicking his tongue. “Got yourself in a rare swivet, have ye no?” He rested one large, firm hand on the wooden edge of the pillory, under pretext of looking more closely at the ear. “Och, laddie,” he said, disparaging, “yon’s no job to be making heavy weather of. A wee snatch o’ the head and it’s over. Here, shall I help ye?” He reached out as though to grasp the lad by the hair and wrench his head free. The boy yelped in fear.

Recognizing my cue, I stepped back, taking care to tread heavily on the toes of the woman behind me, who yipped in anguish as my boot heel crushed her metatarsals.

“I beg your pardon,” I gasped. “I’m… so dizzy! Please…” I turned away from the pillory and took two or three steps, staggering artfully and clutching at the sleeves of those nearby. The edge of the plinth was only six inches away; I took a firm hold on a slightly built girl I had marked out for the purpose and pitched headfirst over the edge, taking her with me.

We rolled on the wet grass in a tangle of skirts and squeals. Letting go of her blouse at last, I relaxed into a dramatically spread-eagled heap, rain pattering down on my upturned face.

I was in truth a trifle winded by the impact – the girl had fallen on top of me – and I fought for breath, listening to the babble of concerned voices gathered around me. Speculations, suggestions, and shocked interjections rained on me, thicker than the drops of water from the sky, but it was a pair of familiar arms that raised me to a sitting position, and a pair of gravely concerned blue eyes that I saw when I opened my own. A faint flicker of the eyelids told me that the mission had been accomplished, and in fact, I could see the tanner’s lad, napkin clutched to his ear, making off at speed in the direction of his loft, unnoticed by the crowd that had turned to attend to this new sensation.

The villagers, so lately calling for the lad’s blood, were kindness itself to me. I was tenderly gathered up and carried back to the Duncans’ house, where I was plied with brandy, tea, warm blankets, and sympathy. I was only allowed to depart at last by Jamie’s stating bluntly that we must go, then lifting me bodily off the couch and heading for the door, disregarding the expostulations of my hosts.

Mounted once more in front of him, my own horse led by the rein, I tried to thank him for his help.

“No trouble, lass,” he said, dismissing my thanks.

“But it was a risk to you,” I said, persisting. “I didn’t realize you’d be in danger when I asked you.”

“Ah,” he said, noncommittally. And a moment later, with a hint of amusement, “Ye wouldna expect me to be less bold than a wee Sassenach lassie, now would ye?”

He urged the horses into a trot as the shadows of dusk gathered by the roadside. We did not speak much on the rest of the journey home. And when we reached the castle, he left me at the gate with no more than a softly mocking, “Good’ e’en, Mistress Sassenach.” But I felt as though a friendship had been begun that ran a bit deeper than shared gossip under the apple trees.

Chapter 10. THE OATH-TAKING

There was a terrific stir over the next two days, with comings and goings and preparations of every sort. My medical practice dropped off sharply; the food-poisoning victims were well again, and everyone else seemed to be much too busy to fall sick. Aside from a slight rash of splinters-in-fingers among the boys hauling in wood for the fires, and a similar outbreak of scalds and burns among the busy kitchen maids, there were no accidents either.

I was excited myself. Tonight was the night. Mrs. Fitz had told me that all the fighting men of the MacKenzie clan would be in the hall tonight, to make their oaths of allegiance to Colum. With a ceremony of this importance going on inside, no one would be watching the stables.

During my hours helping in the kitchens and orchards, I had managed to stow away sufficient food to see me provided for several days, I thought. I had no water flask, but had contrived a substitute using one of the heavier glass jugs from the surgery. I had stout boots and a warm cloak, courtesy of Colum. I would have a decent horse; on my afternoon visit to the stables, I had marked out the one I meant to take. I had no money, but my patients had given me a handful of small trinkets, ribbons, and bits of carving or jewelry. If necessary, I might be able to use these to trade for anything else I needed.

I felt badly about abusing Colum’s hospitality and the friendship of the castle inhabitants by leaving without a word or a note of farewell, but after all, what could I possibly say? I had pondered the problem for some time, but finally decided just to leave. For one thing, I had no writing paper, and was not willing to take the risk of visiting Colum’s quarters in search of any.

An hour past first dark, I approached the stable cautiously, ears alert for any signs of human presence, but it seemed that everyone was up in the Hall, readying themselves for the ceremony. The door stuck, but gave with a slight push, its leather hinges letting it swing silently inward.

The air inside was warm and alive with the faint stirrings of resting horses. It was also black as the inside of an undertaker’s hat, as Uncle Lamb used to say. Such few windows as there were for ventilation were narrow slits, too small to admit the faint starlight outside. Hands outstretched, I walked slowly into the main part of the stable, feet shuffling in the straw.

I groped carefully in front of me, looking for the edge of a stall to guide me. My hands found only empty air, but my shins met a solid obstruction resting on the floor, and I pitched headlong with a startled cry that rang in the rafters of the old stone building.

The obstruction rolled over with a startled oath and grasped me hard by the arms. I found myself held against the length of a sizable male body, with someone’s breath tickling my ear.

“Who are you?” I gasped, jerking backward. “And what are you doing here?” Hearing my voice, the unseen assailant relaxed his grip.

“I might ask the same of you, Sassenach,” said the deep soft voice of Jamie MacTavish, and I relaxed a little in relief. There was a stirring in the straw, and he sat up.

“Though I suppose I could guess,” he added dryly. “How far d’ye think you’d get, lassie, on a dark night and a strange horse, wi’ half the MacKenzie clan after ye by morning?”

I was ruffled, in more ways than one.

“They wouldn’t be after me. They’re all up at the Hall, and if one in five of them is sober enough to stand by morning, let alone ride a horse, I’ll be most surprised.”

He laughed, and standing up, reached down a hand to help me to my feet. He brushed the straw from the back of my skirt, with somewhat more force than I thought strictly necessary.

“Well, that’s verra sound reasoning on your part, Sassenach,” he said, sounding mildly surprised that I was capable of reason. “Or would be,” he added, “did Colum not have guards posted all round the castle and scattered through the woods. He’d hardly leave the castle unprotected, and the fighting men of the whole clan inside it. Granted that stone doesna burn so well as wood…”

I gathered he was referring to the infamous Glencoe Massacre, when one John Campbell, on government orders, had put thirty-eight members of the MacDonald clan to the sword and burned the house above them. I calculated rapidly. That would have been only fifty-some years before; recent enough to justify any defensive precautions on Colum’s part.

“In any case, ye could scarcely have chosen a worse night to try to escape,” MacTavish went on. He seemed entirely unconcerned with the fact that I had meant to escape, only with the reasons why it wouldn’t work, which struck me as a little odd. “Besides the guards, and the fact that every good horseman for miles around is here, the way to the castle will be filled wi’ folk coming from the countryside for the tynchal and the games.”

“Tynchal?”

“A hunt. Usually stags, maybe a boar this time; one of the stable lads told Old Alec there’s a large one in the east wood.” He put a large hand in the center of my back and turned me toward the faint oblong of the open door.

“Come along,” he said. “I’ll take ye back up to the castle.”

I pulled away from him. “Don’t bother,” I said ungraciously. “I can find my own way.”

He took my elbow with considerable firmness. “I daresay ye can. But you’ll not want to meet any of Colum’s guards alone.”

“And why not?” I snapped. “I’m not doing anything wrong; there’s no law against walking outside the castle, is there?”

“No. I doubt they’d mean to do ye harm,” he said, peering thoughtfully into the shadows. “But it’s far from unusual for a man to take a flask along to keep him company when he stands guard. And the drink may be a boon companion, but it’s no a verra good adviser as to suitable behavior, when a small sweet lass comes on ye alone in the dark.”

“I came on you in the dark, alone,” I reminded him, with some boldness. “And I’m neither particularly small, nor very sweet, at least at present.”

“Aye, well, I was asleep, not drunk,” he responded briefly. “And questions of your temper aside, you’re a good bit smaller than most of Colum’s guards.”

I put that aside as an unproductive line of argument, and tried another tack. “And why were you asleep in the stable?” I asked. “Haven’t you a bed somewhere?” We were in the outer reaches of the kitchen gardens by now, and I could see his face in the faint light. He was intent, checking the stone arches carefully as we went, but he glanced sharply aside at this.

“Aye,” he said. He continued to stride forward, still gripping me by the elbow, but went on after a moment, “I thought I’d be better out of the way.”

“Because you don’t mean to swear allegiance to Colum MacKenzie?” I guessed. “And you don’t want to stand any racket about it?”

He glanced at me, amused at my words. “Something like that,” he admitted.

One of the side gates had been left welcomingly ajar, and a lantern perched atop the stone ledge next to it shed a yellow glow on the path. We had almost reached this beacon when a hand suddenly descended on my mouth from behind and I was jerked abruptly off my feet.

I struggled and bit, but my captor was heavily gloved, and, as Jamie had said, a good deal larger than I.

Jamie himself seemed to be having minor difficulties, judging from the sound of it. The grunting and muffled cursing ceased abruptly with a thud and a rich Gaelic expletive.

The struggle in the dark stopped, and there was an unfamiliar laugh.

“God’s eyes, if it’s no the young lad; Colum’s nephew. Come late to the oath-taking, are ye not, lad? And who’s that wi’ ye?”

“It’s a lassie,” replied the man holding me. “And a sweet juicy one, too, by the heft of her.” The hand left my mouth and administered a hearty squeeze elsewhere. I squeaked in indignation, reached over my shoulder, got hold of his nose and yanked. The man set me down with a quick oath of his own, less formal than those about to be taken within the hall. I stepped back from the blast of whisky fumes, feeling a sudden surge of appreciation for Jamie’s presence. Perhaps his accompanying me had been prudent, after all.

He appeared to be thinking otherwise, as he made a vain attempt to remove the clinging grip of the two men-at-arms who had attached themselves to him. There was nothing hostile about their actions, but there was a considerable amount of firmness. They began to move purposefully toward the open gate, their captive in tow.

“Nay, let me go and change first, man,” he protested. “I’m no decent to be going into the oath-taking like this.”

His attempt at graceful escape was foiled by the sudden appearance of Rupert, fatly resplendent in ruffled shirt and gold-laced coat, who popped out of the narrow gate like a cork from a bottle.

“Dinna worrit yourself about that, laddie,” he said, surveying Jamie with a gleaming eye. “We’ll outfit ye proper – inside.” He jerked his head toward the gate, and Jamie disappeared within, under compulsion. A meaty hand gripped my own elbow, and I followed, willy-nilly.

Rupert appeared to be in very high spirits, as did the other men I saw inside the castle. There were perhaps sixty or seventy men, all dressed in their best, festooned with dirks, swords, pistols, and sporrans, milling about in the courtyard nearest the entrance to the great Hall. Rupert gestured to a door set in the wall, and the men hustled Jamie into a small lighted room. It was one apparently used for storage; odds and ends of all kinds littered the tables and shelves with which it was furnished.

Rupert surveyed Jamie critically, with an eye to the oatstraws in his hair and the stains on his shirt. I saw his glance flicker to the oatstraws in my own hair, and a cynical grin split his face.

“No wonder ye’re late, laddie,” he said, digging Jamie in the ribs. “Dinna blame ye a bit.”

“Willie!” he called to one of the men outside. “We need some clothes, here. Something suitable for the laird’s nephew. See to it, man, and hurry!”

Jamie looked around, thin-lipped, at the men surrounding him. Six clansmen, all in tearing high spirits at the prospect of the oath-taking and brimming over with a fierce MacKenzie pride. The spirits had plainly been assisted by an ample intake from the tub of ale I had seen in the yard. Jamie’s eye lighted on me, his expression still grim. This was my doing, his face seemed to say.

He could, of course, announce that he did not mean to swear his oath to Colum, and head back to his warm bed in the stables. If he wanted a serious beating or his throat cut, that is. He raised an eyebrow at me, shrugged, and submitted with a fair show of grace to Willie, who rushed up with a pile of snowy linen in his arms and a hairbrush in one hand. The pile was topped by a flat blue bonnet of velvet, adorned with a metal badge that held a sprig of holly. I picked up the bonnet to examine it, as Jamie fought his way into the clean shirt and brushed his hair with suppressed savagery.

The badge was round and the engraving surprisingly fine. It showed five volcanos in the center, spouting most realistic flames. And on the border was a motto, Luceo non Uro.

“I shine, not burn,” I translated aloud.

“Aye, lassie; the MacKenzie motto,” said Willie, nodding approvingly at me. He snatched the bonnet from my hands and pushed it into Jamie’s, before dashing off in search of further clothing.

“Er… I’m sorry,” I said in a low voice, taking advantage of Willie’s absence to move closer. “I didn’t mean-”

Jamie, who had been viewing the badge on the bonnet with disfavor, glanced down at me, and the grim line of his mouth relaxed.

“Ah, dinna worrit yourself on my account, Sassenach. It would ha’ come to it sooner or later.” He twisted the badge loose from the bonnet and smiled sourly at it, weighing it speculatively in his hand.

“D’ye ken my own motto, lass?” he asked. “My clan’s, I mean?”

“No,” I answered, startled. “What is it?”

He flipped the badge once in the air, caught it, and dropped it neatly into his sporran. He looked rather bleakly toward the open archway, where the MacKenzie clansmen were massing in untidy lines.

“Je suis prest,” he replied, in surprisingly good French. He glanced back, to see Rupert and another large MacKenzie I didn’t know, faces flushed with high spirits and spirits of another kind, advancing with solid purpose. Rupert held a huge length of MacKenzie tartan cloth.

Without preliminaries, the other man reached for the buckle of Jamie’s kilt.

“Best leave, Sassenach,” Jamie advised briefly. “It’s no place for women.”

“So I see,” I responded dryly, and was rewarded with a wry smile as his hips were swathed in the new kilt, and the old one yanked deftly away beneath it, modesty preserved. Rupert and friend took him firmly by the arms and hustled him toward the archway.

I turned without delay and made my way back toward the stair to the minstrels’ gallery, carefully avoiding the eye of any clansman I passed. Once around the corner, I paused, shrinking back against the wall to avoid notice. I waited for a moment, until the corridor was temporarily deserted, then nipped inside the gallery door and pulled it quickly to behind me, before anyone else could come around the corner and see where I had gone. The stairs were dimly lit by the glow from above, and I had no trouble keeping my footing on the worn flags. I climbed toward the noise and light, thinking of that last brief exchange.

“Je suis prest.” I am ready. I hoped he was.

The gallery was lit by pine torches, brilliant flares that rose straight up in their sockets, outlined in black by the soot their predecessors had left on the walls. Several faces turned, blinking, to look at me as I came out of the hangings at the back of the gallery; from the looks of it, all the women of the castle were up here. I recognized the girl Laoghaire, Magdalen and some of the other women I had met in the kitchens, and, of course, the stout form of Mrs. FitzGibbons, in a position of honor near the balustrade.

Seeing me, she beckoned in a friendly manner, and the women squeezed against each other to let me pass. When I reached the front, I could see the whole Hall spread out beneath.

The walls were decked with myrtle branches, yew and holly, and the fragrance of the evergreens rose up into the gallery, mingled with the smoke of fires and the harsh reek of men. There were dozens of them, coming, going, standing talking in small groups scattered throughout the hall, and all clad in some version of the clan tartan, be it only a plaid or a tartan bonnet worn above ordinary working shirt and tattered breeches. The actual patterns varied wildly, but the colors were mostly the same – dark greens and white.

Most of them were completely dressed as Jamie now was, kilt, plaid, bonnet, and – in most cases – badges. I caught a glimpse of him standing near the wall, still looking grim. Rupert had disappeared into the throng, but two more burly MacKenzies flanked Jamie, obviously guards.

The confusion in the hall was gradually becoming organized, as the castle residents pushed and led the newcomers into place at the lower end.

Tonight was plainly special; the young lad who played the pipes at Hall had been augmented by two other pipers, one a man whose bearing and ivory-mounted pipes proclaimed him a master piper. This man nodded to the other two, and soon the hall was filled with the fierce drone of pipe music. Much smaller than the great Northern pipes used in battle, these versions made a most effective racket.

The chanters laid a trill above the drones that made the blood itch. The women stirred around me, and I thought of a line from “Maggie Lauder”:

If not daft, the women around me were fully appreciative, and there were many murmurs of admiration as they hung over the rail, pointing out one man or another, striding about the Hall decked in his finery. One girl spotted Jamie, and with a muffled exclamation, beckoned her friends to see. There was considerable whispering and murmuring over his appearance.

Some of it was admiration for his fine looks, but more was speculation about his presence at the oath-taking. I noticed that Laoghaire, in particular, glowed like a candle as she watched him, and I remembered what Alec had said in the paddock – Ye know her father will no’ let her wed outside the clan. And Colum’s nephew, was he? The lad might be quite a catch, at that. Bar the minor matter of outlawry, of course.

The pipe music rose to a fervent pitch, and then abruptly ceased. In the dead silence of the Hall, Colum MacKenzie stepped out from the upper archway, and strode purposefully to a small platform that had been erected at the head of the room. If he made no effort to hide his disability, he did not flaunt it now either. He was splendid in an azure-blue coat, heavily laced with gold, buttoned with silver, and with rose silk cuffs that turned back almost to the elbow. A tartan kilt in fine wool hung past his knees, covering most of his legs and the checked stockings on them. His bonnet was blue, but the silver badge held plumes, not holly. The entire Hall held its breath as he took center stage. Whatever else he was, Colum MacKenzie was a showman.

He turned to face the assembled clansmen, raised his arms and greeted them with a ringing shout.

“Tulach Ard!”

“Tulach Ard!” the clansmen gave back in a roar. The woman next to me shivered.

There was a short speech next, given in Gaelic. This was greeted with periodic roars of approval, and then the oath-taking proper commenced.

Dougal MacKenzie was the first man to advance to Colum’s platform. The small rostrum gave Colum enough height that the brothers met face to face. Dougal was richly dressed, but in plain chestnut velvet with no gold lace, so as not to distract attention from Colum’s magnificence.

Dougal drew his dirk with a flourish and sank to one knee, holding the dirk upright by the blade. His voice was less powerful than Colum’s, but loud enough so that every word rang through the hall.

“I swear by the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the holy iron that I hold, to give ye my fealty and pledge ye my loyalty to the name of the clan MacKenzie. If ever my hand shall be raised against ye in rebellion, I ask that this holy iron shall pierce my heart.”

He lowered the dirk, kissed it at the juncture of haft and tang, and thrust it home in its sheath. Still kneeling, he offered both hands clasped to Colum, who took them between his own and lifted them to his lips in acceptance of the oath so offered. Then he raised Dougal to his feet.

Turning, Colum picked up a silver quaich from its place on the tartancovered table behind him. He lifted the heavy eared cup with both hands, drank from it, and offered it to Dougal. Dougal took a healthy swallow and handed back the cup. Then, with a final bow to the laird of the clan MacKenzie, he stepped to one side, to make room for the next man in line.

This same process was repeated over and over, from vow to ceremonial drink. Viewing the number of men in the line, I was impressed anew at Colum’s capacity. I was trying to work out how many pints of spirit he would have consumed by the end of the evening, given one swallow per oath-taker, when I saw Jamie approach the head of the line.

Dougal, his own oath completed, had taken up a station to Colum’s rear. He saw Jamie before Colum, who was occupied with another man, and I saw his sudden start of surprise. He stepped close to his brother and muttered something. Colum kept his eyes fixed on the man before him, but I saw him stiffen slightly. He was surprised, too, and, I thought, not altogether pleased.

The level of feeling in the hall, high to start with, had risen through the ceremony. If Jamie were to refuse his oath at this point, I thought he could easily be torn to shreds by the overwrought clansmen around him. I wiped my palms surreptitiously against my skirt, feeling guilty at having brought him into such a precarious situation.

He seemed composed. Hot as the hall was, he wasn’t sweating. He waited patiently in line, showing no signs of realizing that he was surrounded by a hundred men, armed to the teeth, who would be quick to resent any insult offered to The MacKenzie and the clan. Je suis prest, indeed. Or perhaps he had decided after all to take Alec’s advice?

My nails were digging into my palms by the time it came his turn.

He went gracefully to one knee and bowed deeply before Colum. But instead of drawing his knife for the oath, he rose to his feet and looked Colum in the face. Fully erect, he stood head and shoulders over most of the men in the hall, and he topped Colum on his rostrum by several inches. I glanced at the girl Laoghaire. She had gone pale when he rose to his feet, and I saw that she also had her fists clenched tight.

Every eye in the hall was on him, but he spoke as though to Colum alone. His voice was as deep as Colum’s, and every word was clearly audible.

“Colum MacKenzie, I come to you as kinsman and as ally. I give ye no vow, for my oath is pledged to the name that I bear.” There was a low, ominous growl from the crowd, but he ignored it and went on. “But I give ye freely the things that I have; my help and my goodwill, wherever ye should find need of them. I give ye my obedience, as kinsman and as laird, and I hold myself bound by your word, so long as my feet rest on the lands of clan MacKenzie.”

He stopped speaking and stood, tall and erect, hands relaxed at his sides. Ball now in Colum’s court, I thought. One word from him, one sign, and they’d be scrubbing the young man’s blood off the flags come morning.

Colum stood unmoving for a moment, then smiled and held out his hands. After an instant’s hesitation, Jamie placed his own hands lightly on Colum’s palms.

“We are honored by your offer of friendship and goodwill,” said Colum clearly. “We accept your obedience and hold you in good faith as an ally of the clan MacKenzie.”

There was a lessening of the tension over the hall, and almost an audible sigh of relief in the gallery as Colum drank from the quaich and offered it to Jamie. The young man accepted it with a smile. Instead of the customary ceremonial sip, however, he carefully raised the nearly full vessel, tilted it and drank. And kept on drinking. There was a gasp of mingled respect and amusement from the spectators, as the powerful throat muscles kept moving. Surely he’d have to breathe soon, I thought, but no. He drained the heavy cup to the last drop, lowered it with an explosive gasp for air, and handed it back to Colum.

“The honor is mine,” he said, a little hoarsely, “to be allied with a clan whose taste in whisky is so fine.”

There was an uproar at this, and he made his way toward the archway, much impeded by congratulatory handshakes and thumps on the back as he passed. Apparently Colum MacKenzie was not the only member of the family with a knack for good theater.

The heat in the gallery was stifling, and the rising smoke was making my head ache before the oath-taking finally came to an end, with what I assumed were a few stirring words by Colum. Unaffected by six shared quaichs of spirit, the strong voice still reverberated off the stones of the hall. At least his legs wouldn’t pain him tonight, I thought, in spite of all the standing.

There was a massive shout from the floor below, an outbreak of skirling pipes, and the solemn scene dissolved into a heaving surge of riotous yelling. An even louder shout greeted the tubs of ale and whisky that now appeared on trestles, accompanied by platters of steaming oatcakes, haggis, and meat. Mrs. Fitz, who must have organized this part of the proceedings, leaned precariously across the balustrade, keeping a sharp eye on the behavior of the stewards, mostly lads too young to swear a formal oath.

“And where’s the pheasants got to, then?” she muttered under her breath, surveying the incoming platters. “Or the stuffed eels, either? Drat that Mungo Grant, I’ll skin him if he’s burnt the eels!” Making up her mind, she turned and began to squeeze toward the back of the gallery, plainly unwilling to leave administration of something so critical as the feasting in the untried hands of Mungo Grant.

Seizing the opportunity, I pushed along behind her, taking advantage of the sizable wake she left through the crowd. Others, clearly thankful for a reason to leave, joined me in the exodus.

Mrs. Fitz, turning at the bottom, saw the flock of women above and scowled ferociously.

“You wee lassies clear off to your rooms right sharp,” she commanded. “If you’ll not stay up there safe out o’ sight, ye’d best scamper awa’ to your own places. But no lingering in the corridors, nor peeping round the corners. There’s not a man in the place who’s not half in his cups already, and they’ll be far gone in an hour. ’Tis no place for lasses tonight.”

Pushing the door ajar, she peered cautiously into the corridor. The coast apparently clear, she shooed the women out the door, one at a time, sending them hurriedly on their way to their sleeping quarters on the upper floors.

“Do you need any help?” I asked as I came even with her. “In the kitchens, I mean?”

She shook her head, but smiled at the offer. “Nay, there’s no need, lass. Get along wi’ ye now, you’re no safer than the rest.” And a kindly shove in the small of the back sent me hurtling out into the dim passage.

I was inclined to take her advice, after the encounter with the guard outside. The men in the Hall were rioting, dancing, and drinking, with no thought of restraint or control. No place for a woman, I agreed.

Finding my way back to my room was another matter altogether. I was in an unfamiliar part of the castle, and while I knew the next floor had a breezeway that connected it to the corridor leading to my room, I couldn’t find anything resembling stairs.

I came around a corner, and smack into a group of clansmen. These were men I didn’t know, come from the outlying clan lands, and unused to the genteel manners of a castle. Or so I deduced from the fact that one man, apparently in search of the latrines, gave it up and chose to relieve himself in a corner of the hallway as I came upon them.

I whirled at once, intending to go back the way I had come, stairs or no stairs. Several hands reached to stop me, though, and I found myself pressed against the wall of the corridor, surrounded by bearded Highlanders with whisky on their breath and rape on their minds.

Seeing no point in preliminaries, the man in front of me grabbed me by the waist and plunged his other hand into my bodice. He leaned close, rubbing his bearded cheek against my ear. “And how about a sweet kiss, now, for the brave lads of the clan MacKenzie? Tulach Ard!”

“Erin go bragh,” I said rudely, and pushed with all my strength. Unsteady with drink, he staggered backward into one of his companions. I dodged to the side and fled, kicking off my clumsy shoes as I ran.

Another shape loomed in front of me, and I hesitated. There seemed to be only one in front of me, though, and at least ten behind me, catching up fast despite their cargo of drink. I raced forward, intending to dodge around him. He stepped sharply in front of me, though, and I came to a halt, so fast that I had to put my hands on his chest to avoid crashing into him. It was Dougal MacKenzie.

“What in hell-?” he began, then saw the men after me. He pulled me behind him and barked something at my pursuers in Gaelic. They protested in the same language, but after a short exchange like the snarling of wolves, they gave it up and went off in search of better entertainment.

“Thank you,” I said, a little dazed. “Thank you. I’ll… I’ll go. I shouldn’t be down here.” Dougal glanced down at me, and took my arm, pulling me around to face him. He was disheveled and clearly had been joining in the roistering in the Hall.

“True enough, lass,” he said. “Ye shouldna be here. Since ye are, weel, you’ll have to pay the penalty for that,” he murmured, eyes gleaming in the half-dark. And without warning, he pulled me hard against him and kissed me. Kissed me hard enough to bruise my lips and force them apart. His tongue flicked against mine, the taste of whisky sharp in my mouth. His hands gripped me firmly by the bottom and pressed me against him, making me feel the rigid hardness under his kilt through my layers of skirts and petticoats.

He released me as suddenly as he had seized me. He nodded and gestured down the hall, breathing a little unsteadily. A lock of russet hair hung loose over his forehead and he brushed it back with one hand.

“Get ye gone, lassie,” he said. “Before ye pay a greater price.”

I went, barefoot.

Given the carryings-on of the night before, I had expected most inhabitants of the castle to lie late the next morning, possibly staggering down for a restorative mug of ale when the sun was high – assuming that it chose to come out at all, of course. But the Highland Scots of Clan MacKenzie were a tougher bunch than I had reckoned with, for the castle was a buzzing hive long before dawn, with rowdy voices calling up and down the corridors, and a great clanking of armory and thudding of boots as men prepared for the tynchal.

It was cold and foggy, but Rupert, whom I met in the courtyard on my way to the hall, assured me that this was the best sort of weather in which to hunt boar.

“The beasts ha’ such a thick coat, the cold’s no hindrance to them,” he explained, sharpening a spearpoint with enthusiasm against a foot-driven grindstone, “and they feel safe wi’ the mist so heavy all round them – canna see the men coming toward them, ye ken.”

I forbore to point out that this meant the hunting men would not be able to see the boar they were approaching, either, until they were upon it.

As the sun began to streak the mist with blood and gold, the hunting party assembled in the forecourt, spangled with damp and bright-eyed with anticipation. I was glad to see that the women were not expected to participate, but contented themselves with offering bannocks and drafts of ale to the departing heroes. Seeing the large number of men who set out for the east wood, armed to the teeth with boar spears, axes, bows, quivers, and daggers, I felt a bit sorry for the boar.

This attitude was revised to one of awed respect an hour later, when I was hastily summoned to the forest’s edge to dress the wounds of a man who had, as I surmised, stumbled over the beast unawares in the fog.

“Bloody Christ!” I said, examining a gaping, jagged wound that ran from knee to ankle. “An animal did this? What’s it got, stainless steel teeth?”

“Eh?” The victim was white with shock, and too shaken to answer me, but one of the fellows who had assisted him from the wood gave me a curious look.

“Never mind,” I said, and yanked tight the compression bandage I had wound about the injured calf. “Take him up to the castle and we’ll have Mrs. Fitz give him hot broth and blankets. That’ll have to be stitched, and I’ve no tools for it here.”

The rhythmic shouts of the same beaters still echoed in the mists of the hillside. Suddenly there was a piercing scream that rose high above fog and tree, and a startled pheasant broke from its hiding place nearby with a frightening rattle of wings.

“Dear God in heaven, what now?” Seizing an armful of bandages, I abandoned my patient to his caretakers and headed into the forest at a dead run.

The fog was thicker under the branches, and I could see no more than a few feet ahead, but the sound of excited shouting and thrashing underbrush guided me in the right direction.

It brushed past me from behind. Intent on the shouting, I didn’t hear it, and I didn’t see it until it had passed, a dark mass moving at incredible speed, the absurdly tiny cloven hooves almost silent on the sodden leaves.

I was so stunned by the suddenness of the apparition that it didn’t occur to me at first to be frightened. I simply stared into the mist where the bristling black thing had vanished. Then, raising my hand to brush back the ringlets that were curling damply around my face, I saw the blotched red streak across it. Looking down, I found a matching streak on my skirt. The beast was wounded. Had the scream come from the boar, perhaps?

I thought not; I knew the sound of mortal wounding. And the pig was moving well under its own power when it had passed me. I took a deep breath and went on into the wall of mist, in search of a wounded man.

I found him at the bottom of a small slope, surrounded by kilted men. They had spread their plaids over him to keep him warm, but the cloth covering his legs was ominously dark with wetness. A wide scrape of black mud showed where he had tumbled down the length of the slope, and a scrabble of muddied leaves and churned earth, where he had met the boar. I sank to my knees beside the man, pulled back the cloth and set to work.

I had scarcely begun when the shouts of the men around us made me turn, to see the nightmare shape appear, once more soundless, out of the trees.

This time I had time to see the dagger hilt protruding from the beast’s side, perhaps the work of the man on the ground before me. And the wicked yellow ivory, stained red as the mad little eyes.

The men around me, as stunned as I was, began to stir and reach for weapons. Faster than the rest, a tall man seized a boar-spear from the hands of a companion who stood frozen, and stepped out into the clearing.

It was Dougal MacKenzie. He walked almost casually, carrying the spear low, braced in both hands, as though about to lift a spadeful of dirt. He was intent on the beast, speaking to it in an undertone, murmuring in Gaelic as though to coax the beast from the shelter of the tree it stood beside.

The first charge was sudden as an explosion. The beast shot past, so closely that the brown hunting tartan flapped in the breeze of its passing. It spun at once and came back, a blur of muscular rage. Dougal leapt aside like a bullfighter, jabbing at it with his spear. Back, forth, and again. It was less a rampage than a dance, both adversaries rooted in strength, but so nimble they seemed to float above the ground.

The whole thing lasted only a minute or so, though it seemed much longer. It ended when Dougal, whirling aside from the slashing tusks, raised the point of the short, stout spear and drove it straight down between the beast’s sloping shoulders. There was the thunk of the spear and a shrill squealing noise that made the hairs stand up along my forearms. The small, piggy eyes cast to and fro, veering wildly in search of nemesis, and the dainty hooves sank deep in mud as the boar staggered and lurched. The squealing went on, rising to an inhuman pitch as the heavy body toppled to one side, driving the protruding dagger hilt-deep in the hairy flesh. The delicate hooves spurned the ground, churning up thick clods of damp earth.

The squeal stopped abruptly. There was silence for a moment, and then a thoroughly piggish grunt, and the bulk was still.

Dougal had not waited to make sure of the kill, but had circled the twitching animal and made his way back to the injured man. He sank to his knees and put an arm behind the victim’s shoulders, taking the place of the man who had been supporting him. A fine spray of blood had spattered the high cheekbones, and drying droplets matted his hair on one side.

“Now then, Geordie,” he said, rough voice suddenly gentle. “Now then. I’ve got him, man. It’s all right.”

“Dougal? Is’t you, man?” The wounded man turned his head in Dougal’s direction, struggling to open his eyes.

I was surprised, listening as I rapidly checked the man’s pulse and vital signs. Dougal the fierce, Dougal the ruthless, was speaking to the man in a low voice, repeating words of comfort, hugging the man hard against him, stroking the tumbled hair.

I sat back on my heels, and reached again toward the pile of cloths on the ground beside me. There was a deep wound, running at least eight inches from the groin down the length of the thigh, from which the blood was gushing in a steady flow. It wasn’t spurting, though; the femoral artery wasn’t cut, which meant there was a good chance of stopping it.

What couldn’t be stopped was the ooze from the man’s belly, where the ripping tushes had laid open skin, muscles, mesentery, and gut alike. There were no large vessels severed there, but the intestine was punctured; I could see it plainly, through the jagged rent in the man’s skin. This sort of abdominal wound was frequently fatal, even with a modern operating room, sutures, and antibiotics readily to hand. The contents of the ruptured gut, spilling out into the body cavity, simply contaminated the whole area and made infection a deadly certainty. And here, with nothing but cloves of garlic and yarrow flowers to treat it with…

My gaze met Dougal’s as he also looked down at the hideous wound. His lips moved, mouthing soundlessly over the man’s head the words, “Can he live?”

I shook my head mutely. He paused for a moment, holding Geordie, then reached forward and deliberately untied the emergency tourniquet I had placed around the man’s thigh. He looked at me, challenging me to protest, but I made no move save a small nod. I could staunch the bleeding, and allow the man to be transported by litter back to the castle. Back to the castle, there to linger in increasing agony as the belly wound festered, until the corruption spread far enough finally to kill him, wallowing perhaps for days in long-drawn-out pain. A better death, perhaps, was what Dougal was giving him – to die cleanly under the sky, his heart’s blood staining the same leaves, dyed by the blood of the beast that killed him. I crawled over the damp leaves to Geordie’s head, and took half his weight on my own arm.

“It will be better soon,” I said, and my voice was steady, as it always was, as it had been trained to be. “The pain will be better soon.”

“Aye. It’s better… now. I canna feel my leg anymore… nor my hands… Dougal… are ye there? Are ye there, man?” The numb hands were blindly flailing before the man’s face. Dougal grasped them firmly between his own and leaned close, murmuring in the man’s ear.

Geordie’s back arched suddenly, and his heels dug deeply into the muddy ground, his body in violent protest at what his mind had begun already to accept. He gasped deeply from time to time, as a man who is bleeding to death gulps for air, hungry for the oxygen that his body is starving for.

The forest was very quiet. No birds sang in the mist, and the men who waited patiently hunkered in the shadow of the trees, were silent as the trees themselves. Dougal and I leaned close together over the struggling body, murmuring and comforting, sharing the messy, heartrending, and necessary task of helping a man to die.

The trip up the hill to the castle was silent. I walked beside the dead man, borne on a makeshift litter of pine boughs. Behind us, borne in precisely similar fashion, came the body of his foe. Dougal walked ahead, alone.

As we entered the gate to the main courtyard, I caught sight of the tubby little figure of Father Bain, the village priest, hurrying belatedly to the aid of his fallen parishioner.

Dougal paused, reaching out to stay me as I turned toward the stair leading to the surgery. The bearers with Geordie’s plaid-shrouded body on its litter passed on, heading toward the chapel, leaving us together in the deserted corridor. Dougal held me by the wrist, looking me over intently.

“You’ve seen men die before,” he said flatly. “By violence.” Not a question, almost an accusation.

“Many of them,” I said, just as flatly. And pulling myself free, I left him standing there and went to tend my living patient.

The death of Geordie, hideous as it was, put only a momentary damper on the celebrations. A lavish funeral Mass was said over him that afternoon in the castle chapel, and the games began the next morning.

I saw little of them, being occupied in patching up the participants. All I could say for sure of authentic Highland games is that they were played for keeps. I bound up some fumble-foot who had managed to slash himself trying to dance between swords, I set the broken leg of a hapless victim who’d got in the way of a carelessly thrown hammer, and I doled out castor oil and nasturtium syrup to countless children who had overindulged in sweeties. By late afternoon, I was near exhaustion.

I climbed up on the surgery table in order to poke my head out of the tiny window for some air. The shouts and laughter and music from the field where the games were held had ceased. Good. No more new patients, then, at least not until tomorrow. What had Rupert said they were going to do next? Archery? Hmm. I checked the supply of bandages, and wearily closed the surgery door behind me.

Leaving the castle, I trailed downhill toward the stables. I could do with some good nonhuman, nonspeaking, nonbleeding company. I also had in mind that I might find Jamie, whatever his last name was, and try again to apologize for involving him in the oath-taking. True, he had brought it off well, but clearly he would not have been there at all, left to his own devices. As to the gossip Rupert might now be spreading about our supposed amorous dalliance, I preferred not to think.

As to my own predicament, I preferred not to think about that, either, but I would have to, sooner or later. Having so spectacularly failed to escape at the beginning of the Gathering, I wondered whether the chances might be better at the end. True, most of the horses would be leaving, along with the visitors. But there would be a number of castle horses still available. And with luck, the disappearance of one would be put down to random thievery; there were plenty of villainous-looking scoundrels hanging about the fairground and the games. And in the confusion of leaving, it might be some time before anyone discovered that I was gone.

I scuffed along the paddock fence, pondering escape routes. The difficulty was that I had only the vaguest idea where I was, with reference to where I wanted to go. And since I was now known to virtually every MacKenzie between Leoch and the Border, thanks to my doctoring at the games, I would not be able to ask directions.

I wondered suddenly whether Jamie had told Colum or Dougal of my abortive attempt to escape on the night of the oath-taking. Neither of them had mentioned it to me, so perhaps not.

There were no horses out in the paddock. I pushed open the stable door, and my heart skipped a beat to see both Jamie and Dougal seated side by side on a bale of hay. They looked almost as startled at my appearance as I was at theirs, but gallantly rose and invited me to sit down.

“That’s all right,” I said, backing toward the door. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your conversation.”

“Nay, lass,” said Dougal, “what I’ve just been saying to young Jamie here concerns you too.”

I cast a quick look at Jamie, who responded with a trace of a headshake. So he hadn’t told Dougal about my attempted escape.

I sat down, a bit wary of Dougal. I remembered that little scene in the corridor on the night of the oath-taking, though he had not referred to it since by word or gesture.

“I’m leaving in two days’ time,” he said abruptly. “And I’m taking the two of you with me.”

“Taking us where?” I asked, startled. My heart began to beat faster.

“Through the MacKenzie lands. Colum doesna travel, so visiting the tenants and tacksmen that canna come to the Gathering – that’s left to me. And to take care of the bits of business here and there…” He waved a hand, dismissing these as trivial.

“But why me? Why us, I mean?” I demanded.

He considered for a moment before answering. “Why, Jamie’s a handy lad wi’ the horses. And as to you, lass, Colum thought it wise I should take ye along as far as Fort William. The commander there might be able to… assist ye in finding your family in France.” Or to assist you, I thought, in determining who I really am. And how much else are you not telling me? Dougal stared down at me, obviously wondering how I would take this news.

“All right,” I said tranquilly. “That sounds a good idea.” Outwardly tranquil, inwardly I was rejoicing. What luck! Now I wouldn’t have to try to escape from the castle. Dougal would take me most of the way himself. And from Fort William, I thought I could find my own way without much difficulty. To Craigh na Dun. To the circle of standing stones. And with luck, back home.