He set her down at once, and a chill stole into the places his warmth had reached and enfolded. The wind was even stronger now, and she stumbled as a cross-blast battered against them. He steadied her with a hand beneath her elbow, and she murmured her thanks through chattering teeth as a bout of shivering took hold.
‘Ye’ve had a shock,’ he told her. ‘A powerful one. A drop whisky might ease the shivering, but I've naught but water.’ She felt the weight of a hide flask being pushed into her hands. ‘D’ye think we could sit a moment? ’Twould be useful, fer I've little notion where we are, nor where we should be headed.’
They sat in silence on what felt like a tree root, awkwardness creeping over them. The wind was a constant baying at their backs now, the cold feel of rain carried on it.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘your swoon was just yer mind’s way of taking ye someplace else, someplace safe, that ye might rest and recover.’
It was generous of him to say so, and she felt the tension in her body ease a little. Slowly, like an injured animal, she conducted a careful assessment of herself. Her tongue felt parched and dry, her throat too, her eyes smarted, and a grimy coating of soot covered her face and neck. She took a mouthful of the water and let it roll around her mouth, then swallowed it down. It made her cough, but it helped, though brought attention to a painful lump that seemed to be lodged in her throat. She drank some more, and at length, her shivering abated a little. Jamie sat patiently, allowing her the time she needed.
‘I owe ye my life,’ she managed at last. ‘You've no kinship with me and yet…’ she twisted toward him but could see little in the darkness.
‘I've seen enough death these last days,’ came his reply. ‘I’d no wish to stand idle witness to another. Not one I could prevent.’
‘You risked yer own life though. Fer mine.’
‘Och, I did only what any man would do.’
In the darkness, she pressed her lips together, and the silence fell thick between them. Intuitively she sensed the direction of his thoughts, felt his confusion.
‘Only,’ he said at last, ‘I believe none would have. Saved ye, I mean. I believe they'd have left ye to burn.’
‘No-one meant to harm me.’
‘No. But no-one meant to help ye either.’ He shifted restlessly at her side. ‘It seems to me, those folk were more anxious over their superstitions, over a rickle o’ kindling than with yer safety.’
She swallowed, considering his words. ‘It must seem that way, I see that, truly I do. But ’tis best nae to judge the glenfolk too sorely. They didna rightly know what to do, and it all did happened that quick.’
‘But surely, the right thing to do was clear?’
‘To you, aye,’ she said slowly. ‘And maybe to me as well.’ Only, was it so clear? He’d saved her life but in doing that, he’d destroyed the Beltane ring. What calamity might that bring? She swallowed. ‘’Twas nae so clear to those others, though.’
‘How so?’
She sighed. How best to explain it all to someone not brought up to the hardships of the glen? Not moulded by the beliefs and fears she was shaped by?
‘There are … are forces set loose on Beltane night,’ she ventured at last. ‘As I’m sure ye ken.’ A shiver coursed up her spine at her unguarded words on such a night and she swallowed. ‘Supernatural beings are abroad that folk are anxious nae to offend. ’Tis a faeryhill, Carn Liath, and the rite itself an enchantment. One we seek to weave each year in the hopes of a decent harvest and mebbe less trouble from the gaugers.’ The skin of her scalp began to prickle and a sensation of being watched crept over her. ’Twas unwise to put such sentiments into words, especially on the slope of the very faeryhill itself and on the cusp of an uncanny storm, but it couldna be helped.
There was silence for a moment, but for the whine and rush of the wind among the trees, then he gasped, ‘So ye’ve done this afore?’
‘No, never have I attended such a rite, nor did I ken what to expect. Only, I’m thinking no Stratha’an man, no cottar or herdsman would dare interfere wi’ the Beltane ring fer fear of the ills that might summon.’
‘Even to save a life?’
‘Aye, I think even fer that. Though I may be wrong to say so. In truth, they didna know what to do. And in the moment, fer ’twas decided in a moment was it not, they were sorely torn. In two minds whether to save me or save their livelihoods, and so mebbe ensure their hold upon the land, at least fer a time.’
‘Their livelihoods? I dinna understand?’
‘No, I’m forgetting.’ How could he understand when he’d been taken from the glen as a swaddler? ‘Forgive me.’
‘There’s naught to forgive,’ he replied, puzzled.
She took a deep breath and a tightness knotted in her chest. ‘I shouldna have been there, my da forbade it. Only I went against him. I feared harm would come to my kinfolk if no-one from Delnabreck took part.’ She tugged at her arisaid, wrapping it closely around her. ‘And I thought of the winter past when the snows came wi’out mercy driven on a pitiless wind. The excisemen, they did stalk us through the snow demanding siller, then seized our whisky fer the Crown. The Crown,’ she made a scornful sound in her throat. ‘Fer themselves, most like. I thought on that, and on the sorrow; thirteen bairns died of hunger, and the beasts froze in the byres. So the reason I went was the same reason all those others did, and ’twas the same reason they didna rush to save me.’
‘Forgive me. I still don’t understand.’
‘I was afraid our harvests might fail. Afraid of another deadly winter, afraid o’ the gaugers, but most of all afraid we’d not be able to pay our rent.’ She stood abruptly and sensed him respectfully do the same. ‘Fear of eviction,’ she said with a quiver in her voice. ‘Is the darkest fear we all carry in our hearts. Fer land, this land, land that was our fathers’, is more precious to us than life itself.’ She steadied herself with a hand on a nearby sapling, thankful for the darkness that concealed the agitation in her heart, and that likely her face betrayed.
She sensed him lean instinctively toward her.
‘The Beltane rite is age-auld.’ She forced a calmness to her voice. ‘Though its origin is lost now to myth and legend. Rowena believes ’tis as auld as Carn Liath itself and nae to honour it is to beget trouble.’ She swallowed, trying to clear the lump still lodged in her throat. ‘To open the door to disaster.’
There was silence for a moment, then he said, ‘I think I do understand.’ A sudden squall lashed at their backs, and he helped her back down to the relative shelter of the tree root. ‘My father had that fear. He spoke of it only once, but I mind it still. He said … he said the sorrow of his eviction would stay with him always, and I believe it did.’
‘Then I’m heart-sorry, Jamie. D’ye see now why I canna condemn them?’
‘I think so.’ He exhaled softly. ‘Only, I believe ye must have a great heart, Morven, to forgive such a thing, and wi’ such grace.’
She tensed, feeling uncomfortable at his words and perhaps that she’d revealed too much of herself, for wariness was woven into her very fabric, though she didna much care fer it. ‘I went against my da,’ she said softly. ‘And so what happened I did bring upon myself.’
‘Nay,’ he said firmly. ‘’Twas a chance of nature, the rising o’ this storm. Though were I yer father, I’d not have let ye go either, nae to be shamed in thon vulgar display.’
Remembering that, Morven hunched down into herself, her humiliation a wretched grubby thing that clenched her belly. ’Twas something she’d like to forget.
‘I didna mean to reproach ye. And anyhow,’ his voice sank. ‘’Tis me they blame.’
That much was true, for with the wrecking of the Beltane ring desperate days had been foretold and Jamie's part in it, regardless of his motives, would be long remembered.
He made a rueful sound. ‘You heard that old herdsman, I'm the instrument of yer undoing.’
She winced, hating Achnareave's harsh words, yet understan
ding them too.
‘Ye must think us a godless and superstitious breed Jamie, and maybe we are, but we’re what our lives have made us. Our lives and our fathers’ lives afore. What ye did took courage,’ she said gruffly. ‘I see that, and I give ye my thanks. Give them time, and they'll see it too.’ But thinking of what he’d done, Morven couldn’t help feeling a twinge of bitterness. She was now beholden to him and being the woman she was, the feeling was far from welcome.
‘I hope so.’ He fell silent, and she sensed him fidget beside her. ‘What of thon other man?’ he said at last. ‘The one that spoke offensively of my aunt? He’s nae like the others, nae one o’ the glenfolk?’
‘That was the factor, William McGillivray, though why he was there I dinna ken, ’tis a mystery, and a troubling one at that.’
‘He called my aunt a priestess of the black arts. What was it, d’ye suppose, he meant by that?’
She drew a long breath, then released it through her nose while she thought hard how to answer. ‘I’ve heard tell McGillivray’s a bigot and a fool, fer he listens ower-much to McBeath, the head of His Majesty’s excise in these parts. And McBeath,’ she snorted, ‘he’s naught but a maggot. But McGillivray’s the laird's man, Jamie, the Duke's eyes in the glen and the law, fer he's the local magistrate and ’tis best nae to rile him.’
‘A magistrate?’ Jamie made an incredulous sound in his throat.
‘Aye, though ’tis said he serves his own pocket better than any bench.’
‘But I'd not thought to finding a magistrate at the Beltane fire. Mixing wi’ herdsmen and wearing their garb.’
‘Nor I,’ Morven admitted. ‘No good will come o’ it. He'll be away tattling tales to his Grace, telling how we're all damn heathen savages!’ She bit her lip; likely Jamie was thinking that too. But she still hadn’t answered his question, and her heart gave a bitter twist. How to explain what she scarcely understood herself? Yet she must explain it somehow, for she owed him that much.
The wind was whipping around them, fingers of ice finding their way beneath her arisaid, the rain coming in earnest. She shivered, and he bent at once to attend her, pulling the woven wool up to cover her head and tucking it under her chin. There was little shelter on the hillside, but it was clear Jamie had no intention of moving until she’d given him an answer.
‘What he said of Rowena,’ she managed at last. ‘I dinna rightly understand it myself. Only…Rowena's nae like other women. She has gifts that do single her out, that mark her as different. The sight fer one thing and wisdom of the plants and their potions. She kens how to work charms, and she sees things others dinna. But I believe her greatest gift is her healing. She helps folk in their troubles. It canna be a sin, I'm certain, but …’ She faltered, almost afraid to go on. ‘But some folk call her ungodly and … and name her a witch.’
In the end, she stumbled over the word, the wind seeming to whip it from her lips and in the silence that followed she wondered if Jamie had heard her. She took a quick breath. ‘Most folk hold her dear, as I do, but there are others that miscall her, folk like McGillivray with closed minds and so-called pious ways. McBeath though, he's the worst of them. ’Tis he invents tales of her witchery, and the factor listens to it all and believes.’ She swallowed, her jaw sore from bracing herself against another bout of shivering, her heart sore too. The words felt like a betrayal, yet the factor's accusations needed some explaining. ‘I believe McGillivray turned on ye tonight Jamie, simply ower who ye are.’
‘As I’m Rowena’s kinsman?’
‘And being so puts ye under the same suspicion. To McGillivray, at least.’
He gave no answer, and the silence closed in again, Morven conscious he was battling his outrage and confusion, his anger only held in check by an innate sense of good manners. And he was angry, for she could feel the rage in him and quailed a little at its ferocity. What must he be thinking? Returned to the glen of his birth to find his kinswoman accused of witchery, his own selfless act turned upon and used to damn him too.
The rain turned to hail, a stinging squall, the rattling hiss of it echoing around them, although the banks of cloud had lifted a little and Morven could now see the gleam of his sark beside her in the darkness, the darker shape of his head bent and held in his hands.
‘Forgive me,’ she whispered. ‘It wasna my place to say those things, only I thought ye should ken. The spite though, ’tis my belief that comes from McBeath. We call him the Black Gauger, fer his soul’s as black as the excise garb he wears. As fer the factor, Da says he’s no more than a pompous windbag swollen wi’ the hot air McBeath feeds him.’
Jamie gave a short laugh.
‘Only McGillivray has sway ower the laird, so we must mind and not give him cause to remove us. He’s a respectable Kirk elder, a member of the Presbytery, and so has say ower our lives. Power to try cases – petty things that rile him. He and the Black Gauger are of the same faith, though the gauger does seek to profit from this connection fer his own advantage. Yet we’re fortunate here, truly we are, for His Grace has sympathy with the Roman faith.’ She sighed. ‘’Tis likely the only reason every last one o’ us has not been removed already.’
‘Lord,’ Jamie gasped. ‘What manner of place is this?’
Morven shook her head, at a loss for a moment, then a surge of stubborn pride swarmed around her heart. ‘’Tis our home,’ she said fiercely. ‘This Highland glen. It’s in my blood and yours, and I’m proud to call it hame.’
‘I meant nae disrespect.’ He lifted his head and stared at her.
‘I know. And I meant none in return. I meant only our laird hasna seen fit to follow the lead of so many others and dispossess us all merely fer following the auld faith. The Jacobite faith.’
A glimmer of moonlight had slipped between the banks of cloud and she could see a little more of his face now, cast in light and shadow, staring intently at her.
‘My aunt Rowena,’ he said slowly. ‘She’s judged sorely, then?’
Morven smiled, love for the woman spreading a warmth around her heart. ‘There's scarce a soul in the glen that's not felt the tenderness of Rowena’s hand and known the value of it,’ she said softly. ‘She’s set bones, calmed fevers, and healed more wounds than I can count. She’s even cured madness.’
‘How does that make her a witch?’
‘’Tis a word that slips a mite too easily off the tongue if ye wish my opinion. Rowena does nothing but live her life in harmony wi' the wild places, the forests and the hills, the spirits and the magic. ’Tis the way of her. She’s blessed wi’ the gift of stillness and so can listen to the melody of the heavens, seeing things others miss. She teaches that this earth, this land that we all have the care of, can provide the cure fer every ailment ever suffered if we would but open our eyes to see it.’ A familiar sense of wonder excited her heart at the thought, and she struggled to keep her voice level. She’d no wish to shock Jamie, only to make him understand.
‘’Tis those like the factor that live a lie,’ she went on. ‘Shut in their mighty houses wi’ their fancy things about them – their book-learning and their grand notions. ’Tis they deny the laws of nature, thinking instead to shun it all and cry it wicked!’ She was breathing hard now, trembling inside. ‘But I ken who I'd sooner follow. I'm Rowena’s student. Her apprentice and she's teaching me all that she knows.’ Her voice cracked a little over the admission, and she breathed in, calming herself. ‘So, if ’tis a witch ye're thinking her, well, ye may as well be thinking me one too.’
He was staring intently at her, and even in the bitter cold, she felt herself flush. What must he be thinking now? That the smoke had addled her wits? But she was unrepentant; what Rowena knew she knew, no matter the means of it, and what she did for others she did so without questioning the rights or wrongs, for what explanation did the easing of suffering need?
‘You misunderstand me,’ Jamie said in a tight voice. ‘I believe nothing ill of my aunt. She's been a true kinswoman, given me a
home, a family again, and I'm more indebted than I can say. She and my cousins are now my responsibility, and, God willing, I intend to keep them safe.’
He was still staring at her, unsmiling, and she saw the tightness in his jaw, the smoulder in his dark eyes and felt oddly affected by it. He blinked suddenly as if banishing some sorrow and she remembered what he'd said; that he’d lost his entire family. She shivered. He rose abruptly and slipped a hand under her elbow, helping her to her feet.
‘I've kept ye out on this foul night long enough. Can you walk, d’ye think?’
***
It was difficult negotiating the descent in the darkness without a moon to light their way. After its brief appearance, the moon slunk back behind a dense layer of cloud leaving them in near blackness. Morven stumbled, made clumsy by the chill in her limbs, although beneath her arisaid she was dry, the tightly woven wool having saved her from the worst of the rain and hail. She glanced sidelong at the dark shape of her companion, squelching through the sod and the heather.
‘Forgive me, d’ye wish my arm?’ Misreading her glance, he extended his hand. ‘Cold can stiffen muscles.’
‘Thank ye,’ she replied. ‘But I can manage.’
In truth, she knew the slopes of Carn Liath well, far better than Jamie, who'd been following a winding deer trail she realised, down the steepest slope of the hill where the descent was strewn with treacherous scree. She chose to take them north, straining her ears in the darkness for the sound of the river, stopping often to confirm her bearings and to leave the reek of burnt heather behind. Jamie seemed content to follow her lead, trusting her ability to steer them clear of perilous burn-cut gullies, avoiding the worst of the whins as they descended, and taking the easiest path through the dense lower forest. Even so, they were forced to hold onto each other as they negotiated the steepest part, which was cobbled with slippery moss-covered stones, and she felt uncomfortable at the feel of his firm muscles beneath her fingers.
Her earlier climb felt like a lifetime ago now. Sarah's odd behaviour came to mind, and she turned to ask him about it, though plainly he was thinking of her too.
The Blood And The Barley Page 3
