Corrag: A Novel

by Susan Fletcher

  Alasdair leant forwards to me. I am with you in this. I do not like them being here—eating our meat, and burning our fuel. But we have no choice. And my father prides himself on being a host, and a fine one too…Perhaps we’ll be rewarded for our kindness, in time? He winked, touched my hand. They’ll be gone with the first thaw, I promise.

  He left, a little later. The hazel tree was heavy with the snowfall, and it creaked, and all night I listened to it—creaking, in the dark.

  Sarah’s kin, sir. Write that down. Campbell of Glenylon. Sarah’s kin.

  Like me, she did not go far, in such weather. Unlike her man, she did not wander the snowy hills or leave their house for much more than fetching water from the streams. She cared for her guests very well. She cut the salted pork, and roasted roots in the fire, and one evening she took the pork bone out into the dark for their dog. She called his name. She called it twice, and he gave a low, throaty sound, and caught the bone as she threw it.

  I saw this. I stood near the river which was quiet with ice.

  Alasdair had been right. I did not judge—I never had. Or if I ever had, I’d been cross with myself for it. For I had been judged all my life and loathed it—how tangled hair or a high-note voice had made them stare and talk behind their hands, and how Cora’s wild beauty had made witch come out. I’d been so black for that, always. And when I’d found the plum-faced man and his Mossmen in the woods, I’d learnt how truly wrong it is—to judge too quickly, or to judge at all. He had been so kind to me. I’d thought Mossman, and trouble, and been scared, at first. But then I’d sat by their fire and mended their wounds. The plum-faced one told me tales of Scotland, and his life, and maybe that lonely thief was the kindest man I’d met, for years—yet Mossman was all he’d be known for. They’d say thief. Devil. None would remember him as part of the world, with a beating heart. A friend.

  SO I would not judge the soldiers. I told myself this. In a pail of water I reasoned with my ghostly eyes, my thin face. Only one ever hurt you. And that was years ago…There will not be trouble here.

  In a dark afternoon, I took out my herbs. I found elderflower and coltsfoot, and put them under my cloak. And off I set, passing through the boulders which hid my valley from the glen below. I skirted the burn, and the birches, and I sang an old song as I went through the knee-high drifts. It was a childhood song, which Cora would sing. She’d sing it under her breath as she stirred her pot, or brushed her long hair.

  The glen smelt of peat-smoke and men. Leather. Metal, perhaps—a cold, sharp smell. I passed Achtriochtan, and I moved beneath the Ridge Like a Church which glowed in the half-light and stared down at me. Some soldiers were by Achnacon. They watched me as I passed.

  It was evening, and dark, when I reached Alasdair’s house. It looked like homes do, or should—with smoke drifting up, and candlelight coming from it, and the low sound of voices. I heard a man’s laughter. Outside, a dog scratched his chin with his hind legs, and settled down. It was a good, human sight. I watched, from the shadows.

  Sarah came out. She was fire-flushed, with a bone in her hand. I heard her call and she threw the bone, and as she turned to go she said Corrag? Is that you?

  I came forwards. Yes.

  What are you doing? Standing in the dark and cold? Come in!

  I shifted. I only came with herbs. Alasdair said the soldiers had wheezes, so I’ve come with elderflower, which helps—

  Never mind what you came for—come in! Warm yourself. And she held out both her hands.

  Inside, there were many faces. It was a hot, peaty room which made my eyes prick, and I rubbed them. I took down my hood, for it was hot in there. And I saw four, young-faced soldiers sitting in a line, with meat which they gnawed upon its bone. I saw MacDonald men, also—two from Inverrigan, and the balding man of Achnacon who had said will you dance? to me once, at Hogmanay which felt like a long time ago. They also ate. There was whisky. The fire smoked, and in the dark corner I knew the baby slept, and Alasdair leant against a wall, away from the fire. His head was back, as if sleeping. When I came in, his head lifted up.

  Sarah said, Stay. Eat a little food.

  I only came with these…

  Like he knew what my herbs were for, a soldier coughed. He wheezed into his fist, swallowed hard. He blinked a little, and waited—for perhaps his lungs would wheeze again. But they did not, and he went back to his meat.

  I heard that they had coughs, and elderflower’s fine for that. And coltsfoot—bruise it and put in water, and drink it, and—

  She thanked me. She took the herbs, bustled. I shifted by the door with the soldiers looking at me.

  A man from Inverrigan said, you have fuel enough? In that hut of yours?

  I smiled. I do. Thank you.

  Food?

  Enough.

  A soldier said, English? You’re English?

  I nodded. Alasdair rose then. He stepped over pots, and boots, and a cow-skin rug, and came to me. He said, you’ve brought herbs for them?

  Because you were right. About judging them. They’re people, and they have coughs, and not all folk like the winter months. I was wrong.

  Behind him, the Inverrigan men spoke Gaelic to each other. The soldiers spoke English. The baby gave a single, bird-cry.

  Stay for food. Come by the fire.

  I shook my head. I shook it once, quickly, as if a leaf had fallen on me. He understood. He knew I could not stay, and he knew why. When I looked past him, into the corner, I saw Sarah lift their baby up and heard her say little bird…—and I am hardy, but not always. I looked back at him and said I must get back now.

  Some things are hard, even if they are right. Even if you know they are the proper, decent way. I was glad to have left herbs for those men whose lungs and minds had not known Highland winters before. It was kindness. And kindness is worth showing.

  My hearth still glowed in my hut. This small, thatched home of mine smelt of chickens, and a soft herb-smell. It felt like I had been away from it for longer than I had.

  I TOOK herbs elsewhere, in those last days. I went to Achnacon, with lavender, for I knew the lady there was fond of its smell. In a thick blizzard I went to Inverrigan with rosemary—for it cleanses a room very well, and I knew they had plenty of men in there. The boy who had shared honey with me was asleep on the floor, mouth open, and there were muskets lined up by the parlour wall. The captain, this man called Glenlyon, was sitting at its table with Inverrigan’s sons, and they played cards amongst them. His eyes were button-dark. He looked up at me, as I entered, but I did not look back. Instead, I pressed the rosemary to the lady of the house and whispered its uses to her. She nodded. She looked tired, and old, and I thought be well as I left her. Cleanse the air. Be well.

  And I took eggs to Achtriochtan. The wife of Old Man Achtriochtan took them in her hands, nodded, and she ushered me into the heat of the room. I did not seek this. I did not hope for food—only to provide it, for I knew they had killed their last hen for these men, and Achtriochtan’s bones were old. But she pushed me to the fire, kissed me, said eat! I counted seven soldiers there. Achtriochtan took his pipe from his mouth. He boomed, clapped his hand on my shoulder. Sassenach!

  He smelt of oats. I remember that.

  He told his poems by the fire, and it did not matter that they were Gaelic words. I felt I understood them. I knew enough. I felt enough.

  I left a fistful of peat outside Iain’s house. It was not much to give, but it was a little—and little things can help more than we know.

  I WAS soothed, for a while. I looked at the wide, white, empty Rannoch Moor and thought yes. All is well. I found a comfort in the simple tasks—milking my goats, or stroking the oily coats of them—or in the simple beauty of short, winter days. Deer left their tracks. An eagle feather showed itself in the snow, and I lifted it, kept it.

  They are Sarah’s kin…

  I knew this. And I had seen their faces, heard their coughs.

  But still—despite it all—m
y heart felt unwell in the dark, silent nights. Still, I did not like these soldiers being in the glen. I did not mean to judge them, and I try to like all living things until they hurt me—for bitterness is a sad, pained thing. But I did not like how the beasts the clan had hoped to keep living for another year had been killed, to feed the soldiers, or how much fuel was being burnt. I did not like the redness of their coats against the snow.

  I liked the MacDonalds, though. So I gave them gifts—in their final days.

  Coltsfoot. Peat. An egg.

  One more thing you should know, sir. One more.

  It was late, late in the day. The snow was thick, with a crust upon it so that it glinted in the dying light. Like eyes, I thought. I had been by Loch Leven. I’d picked seaweed from the shorelines, slipped shells and razor-clams into my pockets, and I made a basket from my skirts which I filled up with weed. Gulls wheeled. I stood and looked, for a time—for the mountains were very black, against the sky, and the loch was silver-bright. Eilean Munda slept, and I thought of its buried people. For a while, I was peaceful as I stood there.

  I turned for home beneath a winter sky.

  Every window I passed was candle-lit. The air smelt of smoke, and the soldiers’ leather. Their horses shook themselves in the byres.

  And with my clinking shells and wet skirts, with a few frail snowflakes drifting through the air, I thought of Cora. I thought of my birth, in such weather—how she must have steamed, and hissed, and how she heard the church folk singing as she roared, so that her voice split. I had come out. And she’d looked down, said witch before my true name.

  I held my skirts up, with the weed in them. And as I went, I heard a voice. Not Cora’s. I was past the Carnoch woods, and near the river’s bend. The light was nearly gone, but the farm at Inverrigan was high on the hillside, bright with life, and candles, and soldiers’ songs. I stopped. I listened to it. Was the voice from there? But it came again—much nearer.

  It is here. To my left.

  I stood very still. I waited.

  The voice came again. It was a man’s voice—a frail, singing voice, so frail that I wondered if it was a dead man’s soul, as I’ve heard they can whisper.

  I heard branches rustle near me, and a clap of water like a foot had tripped into the Coe. I heard a curse. A hiccough. A Lowland voice.

  Not a soul. A real person.

  And I thought go, Corrag. Get home.

  But as I hitched my skirts a little more and set off towards my hut, he called to me. He heard the crunch of my feet, and said who is there? Who is in the dark? He spoke plaintively, like a child. He struggled as he spoke, for I heard the trees shifting, and snow came down from them. I stood very still, did not speak. I held my breath, half-frightened.

  Are you a spirit? he asked. Are you here to mock me? Are you here to punish me further in this—he tripped—snow?

  We were both silent, for a moment or two.

  Then I heard a branch break, and he stumbled, made a boyish cry of pain. There was the soft, heavy thud of a person sitting down. A sniff. A sigh.

  You’re a ghost… he said. I cannot see you, but I can feel you…

  And as I stood in the darkness, he cried. I heard him sob a deep, drunken sob—a heartfelt sob, and it had loss in it, and sorrow. Those were the sobs of a lonely man, a drunk, and we listened to it—the snow, the rocks and I. We heard him say Glenlyon… We heard him say maul, and fire.

  I took a step to him. I peered into the dark, and saw him—his clouded hair, his button-eyes. In his left hand was a bottle. In his right, I saw a parchment—dark, amongst the snow, and in a spidery hand.

  I left him.

  I crept away. I trod through the whiteness with his song in my ears—his drunk, mournful song and his heavy breath. There are old songs which Cora said the last of people sing—the last, the lonesome. It is their way of grieving, of soothing their cold hearts. And I thought he sings such a song, I was certain. I pitied him, as I made my way up to my hut. I pitied him, and his heavy song. I thought keep him safe. Calm him.

  But it was more than pity.

  In my hut, I could not sleep. I still heard his song. My heart sang it, over and over, and I stared at the fire thinking why am I still troubled? Why does it not leave me, this feeling?

  I had heard maul… I had seen his bright, black eyes.

  OH THERE is always sadness. Always grief. I have heard folk say this life could be all hardship and sorrow, if we let it be. If we let our hearts seal over.

  I should have stayed, perhaps. Nestled by Glenlyon and spoken with him, for a while. But what might it have changed?

  Men have their orders.

  LATER, a wolf howled.

  I stood in the snow, and closed my eyes. It sounded so sad to me. And the howl echoed. It came from Bidean, to the south, and yet it rang about the Coire Gabhail as if the wolf was with me. It echoed inside me, somehow. I felt it. I widened my eyes.

  Gormshuil. Once she had said come to me. When the wolf calls.

  Listen to your heart’s voice, little thing. And I knew I had to be with her. I knew that she was the one to see—so I left my seaweed drying in the eaves, and my goats sleeping with their heads upon each other, and I ran, and ran.

  Is it not all there? Are the signs not all there, Mr Leslie? Oh they are now. They are clear as rainwater to the backward eye. The wolf’s call, and the stirred heart. The silence of a snowfall, and the black ink in his hand. My stag had gone—he had taken his branches and wise eye and he’d left across the tops, trod out across the moor, and hadn’t the bats streamed out from their roosts under a half-moon bridge in the days before my mother was taken, and tied thumb-to-thumb? And when did I last hear the owl? It had not called for nights and nights.

  The world whispers, and we must hear. And when we don’t hear, we find ourselves running through waist-high snow, with a drunkard’s mourning song in our ears, and I knew what the truth was—I was certain of it. And the morning star was shining, and the trees had broken their boughs with the weight of the snow and you will come to me, after the wolf. You will.

  I went. I ran to Gormshuil. And I was fast, that night—fast, as if the wolf’s call had woken me, so that I ran down my gully over the rocks and frozen pools. I ran east, with my heart going thump thump and my breath going in and out, in and out, in and out, and I ran onto the lower slopes of the Dark Mount thinking be there, be there—for what if she was not? What then?

  I hauled myself onto stones. I slipped, cut my knees.

  But she was there. She was sitting neatly. Waiting.

  Ah, she said.

  I fell down. I fell before her, and put my hands on her knees, not caring for their scabs or her clotted smell, and I said, Gormshuil, I heard the wolf—I heard it call. It called, and it sounded so mournful, and so wise…And I came to you—

  She smiled. Why did you come? To me?

  Because you told me to!

  No—she shook her finger at me. Because you know it is time, do you not?

  Time? For what?

  I looked very earnestly at her. I looked, and thought, briefly, that I could see beyond her, beneath her skin—that I could see the truth of her. Mistreated, lonesome, haunted thing. Wise. Half-lost.

  I looked about me, then. The peak was so quiet, so I said where is Doideag? Laorag of Tiree?

  The snow was thin, small. It hovered in the air. It did not fall—it hung about her face, and caught itself on her pale hair. Gone.

  Gone where?

  She pressed her lips against themselves, half-smiled but with lonesome eyes. Fled.

  Fled? Why have they fled?

  Gormshuil breathed out, shook her head. You know. All your talk of second sight, and how you think it’s my henbane that talks when I speak as I do. All sour. All green-handed…’Tis not the herb that’s speaking.

  I don’t understand, I whispered.

  She wiped her nose on her arm and looked away. She looked across the top of Dark Mount, across the empty hearth and
animal bones, and the rags, and the dirt, and for a moment she looked so very sad that I wanted to touch her arm, to comfort her heart. But I did not, for she turned. She licked her teeth. Blood comes, Corrag. It is coming. The girls spread their wings and flew from it—for it’s more blood than they know, or wish to. It comes. A man comes.

  Blood? A man?

  Oh aye. A man. He’ll write a word or two on you. You with your shiny iron wrists…

  I looked at my wrists. My wrists were fine—flesh, not iron.

  He’ll come, he will. And it won’t be cold too long, for you. It will grow hot. It will grow fiery hot…

  I did not understand. I did not know her talking, and stepped back from her, and gave a small, single wail, for I could feel the snow in the air, and the truth I could not grasp, the strangeness, and I said I am lost with this! I can’t understand…

  She took my hand. She held it.

  I stared at this—my small hand in her blue claw.

  You can. You do. Haven’t you always listened to your heart’s voice, bairn? Did it not bring you here? She leant forwards. Listen to it now. Listen to it now…

  I looked upon her. I looked upon her human face, with its hollows, its bruises. I saw the sorrow, the hard living, and I saw my own eyes reflected in her eyes. And as I looked at my own eyes, I saw grass, and a dandelion day, and as the dandelion seeds drifted through the air a man was drowning kittens, and I knew. I had known. My heart had said run! Save them! And I had listened to my heart, and run across the grass, and I had saved five grey cats which had been meant for drowning—but they lived! They lived. And I blinked, and kept looking at my eyes in Gormshuil’s eyes. And I saw my mother, then—not twirling on a rope but standing in her skirts, her hands behind her back and her hair blowing out, and in the last moment before the door went bang she’d seen the autumn skies and thought of me—of me. I’d been her last thought. I’d been her one, all-feeling love—and she smiled as she died, because she was thinking of me. I knew this. I was sure. I had crouched in the dank, border wood and thought she is about to die, and I’d sent so much love to her from those woods that she’d felt it, on her scaffold—she’d felt her daughter’s love. I knew she had! And what else? As I knelt before Gormshuil I saw the Mossman’s face, his plum-mark, and his mouth, and I saw the shape his mouth took when he said Highland at me. Highland… And my heart had said yes as he’d said it. Yes! There! That is the place… And I’d heard my heart speaking, and I’d kicked the mare on. And when I’d breathed the night air of the mountains, and knelt down to feel the cold, sucking peat in my hand, hadn’t my heart and whole being said yes to it? At last. Here. Hadn’t I wept, as I knelt? Hadn’t I always known Glencoe? It had called me. It had sung my name for all its years and years, waiting for me to walk onto its earth with moths in my hair, and thorns on my skirts. It had waited, and called for me—and I came.