‘I should be searching fer my cousin,’ he said. ‘Young Sarah. Rowena only let her come because she’d be with me. Only I lost sight of her in the crowd, and then with the flames and all, I'm shamed to say she slipped my mind.’
‘She can be a mite headstrong.’ Morven smiled, thinking of some of the mischief Sarah had got up to in her short life. ‘But she kens these hills as well as any. Likely she's hame already.’
‘I pray ye're right,’ he muttered, and she silently prayed it too.
By the time the dark outline of Delnabreck crofthouse came into sight, low and squat on the haughland of the Avon, the sound of the river sliding over its stony bed was loud in their ears, and the piping cries of oystercatchers gave shrill warning of their approach. Most of the Beltane participants would be home now and likely discussing the events, particularly Jamie's part in the proceedings, over a stiff dram, a bough of rowan fixed over the door to ward off evil.
‘That's Delnabreck by the river there,’ she told him. ‘Tomachcraggen's two miles further on, though there's a decent enough track to follow.’
‘I’ll see ye safe inside, Morven.’ He led her across the infield rigs where the shadows of black cattle raised their horned heads to them, jaws stilled in surprise.
Inside, Grace MacRae sat alone at the fireside. Her face was tinged grey while her eyes and the tip of her nose were reddened and raw-looking. On seeing her daughter, she struggled to rise from her chair.
‘Thank the Lord.’ She crossed herself. ‘I've been that worried –’ She cut her outburst short and stared in astonishment at the young giant who ducked through the doorway behind Morven and stood, towering and uncertain, in the dark room.
The sudden warmth of the crofthouse brought a shiver to Morven’s flesh and her eyes watered, guilt at her mother's stricken appearance pricking her conscience and quickening her tongue. ‘This is Jamie Innes,’ she blurted. ‘Kinsman to Rowena. He's her nephew from Inverness – her brother's lad.’
Grace stared at Jamie as though she beheld a ghost. Her eyes widened, and a little puff of breath escaped from her lips, then she sat down hard, a hand raised to her throat.
‘An honour, Mistress MacRae.’ He swept her a bow, his sodden plaid dripping onto the flagstone floor.
Grace made wheezing sounds, struggling to find her voice, while her reddened eyes wrinkled and watered in delight. ‘Dearest lad,’ she managed. ‘I'd ken ye anywhere. You've the Innes eyes, yer father's eyes.’ She blinked and shook her head as if to verify he was real, that she’d not conjured his image from staring over-long into the fire. Remembering her manners, she dragged her gaze from his face and stood to greet him. ‘I’m that glad to meet ye, Jamie.’ Clutching at his wrists, she turned to Morven. ‘We didna know … that is, Rowena didna mention ye were coming.’
‘No. I came two days ago and brought ill news. Rowena's not left the cot-house since.’ He swallowed, regarding Grace tenderly. ‘You knew my father well, I think?’
She nodded with an eager smile. ‘Like a brother.’ Her smile widened, her eyes misting at the memory. ‘We were all brought up together ye see; yer da, Rowena, and me. Though I was a foundling of course, yet he never treated me as anything but a sister.’ She drew Jamie toward the fire, nudged him toward her husband's blackened rough-hewn chair. ‘Such a decent man, though you’ll not be needing me to tell ye that. I've nae seen him in years, not since he left the glen, though he's never far from my thoughts. I'm certain I'll ken him whenever I see him.’ Her eyes shone. ‘He's with ye, aye?’
Jamie's hesitation lasted a fraction too long. ‘I fear not,’ he said at last. ‘There was sickness came to Inverness. The morbid throat.’ He swallowed again, and Grace’s eyes fastened in horror on his lips, waiting for the terrible words to come. ‘He was one of the first to fall. Later my mother too was struck, she who nursed him, and then my sisters also sickened and died. My father was the last to lose the struggle, though I fear ’twas a broken heart, finally, that brought his end.’
‘Then they're all gone?’ Grace breathed in sharply and sank back into her chair.
He nodded.
At her mother’s stricken expression, Morven’s heart squeezed. She knelt at her feet and wound her arms around the frail body, pressing her cheek against her mother’s chest, breathing in the aroma of fresh-baked bannocks her mother always wore. ‘I’m heart-sorry,’ she whispered.
After a moment, she opened her eyes and glanced up at Jamie. He was still standing behind her father's chair, his face drawn and contrite. ‘Please,’ she indicated the seat. ‘Sit, and I will bring ye whisky.’
‘Is Mam a’right, Morven?’ A small voice spoke out from behind a curtain in the corner.
‘Aye, Rory, she's fine.’ She forced a normal tone. ‘Is Donald sleeping?’
‘Like the dead.’
Kissing her mother’s limp hands, she rose and pulled back the woollen drape that concealed the interior of the panelled box-bed where her young brothers slept. Inside, Rory lay on his side, his copper head pressed against the smaller darker head of his sleeping brother, six-year-old Donald. Donald's round untroubled face was turned up serenely. Rory, at thirteen, was hot-tempered and single-minded like his father and spent much of his day attempting to shake off the unwanted attentions of young Donald. Yet at night he always held him close, his arms enclosing and protective, while his face nuzzled the side of his brother's neck.
She tucked them in, stroking Donald's smoothly rounded cheek, and kissed Rory on the top of his head. Aware that Jamie was now standing beside her, gazing at the boys, she glanced up into his face. He met her gaze levelly, a tightness to his own, then glanced away.
‘Come, seat yourself.’ She guided him back to the fireside.
He accepted the offered dram and flicked his gaze around the room. The cot-house was humble, yet Morven had never considered it to be pitiably so. Her home was no different from the others scattered throughout the glen. Yet following the sweep of his gaze, she realised it might seem a poor hovel when compared with the fine townhouses of Inverness. The old stones of the hearth and the rafters above were crusted and polished black with peat smoke while blackened cooking pots and girdles hung from rusting chains suspended over the fire, a sliver of fir-wood thrust between the links to thwart wily faeryfolk that might steal down the chimney. In the shadows, a crude dresser displayed an array of turned bowls while an assortment of chairs, unmistakably made from large slices of tree trunk, faced the fire. The only other lighting in the room, other than from the fire itself, came from two fir-candles held in iron clips poking from cracks in the drystone wall. Beneath one a door led into a further room where her parents slept while her own bed, heaped with blankets, lay beneath the other.
Jamie appeared to notice nothing amiss. ‘It pains me to be the bringer of such news,’ he said gruffly.
‘When?’ Grace croaked. ‘When did this happen?’
‘Eight days past.’
‘And ye’d not the sickness yourself, Jamie?’
His face darkened, and he set his drink down on the floor. ‘I was untouched. Spared by the Lord in His infinite wisdom.’
Morven glanced at her mother. Almost imperceptibly, Grace shook her head; in the presence of such bitter grief ’twas best to say nothing, she seemed to say. After a moment, Jamie retrieved his whisky.
‘We're deeply sorry fer yer loss,’ Grace ventured. ‘Ye must treat us as kin, Jamie.’
Witnessing the strength of will her mother employed in keeping her own grief from showing, Morven’s heart constricted. For her mam wouldna be wishing to torment their already grieving guest by exposing how raw was her own pain.
‘I'm grateful to ye fer seeing Morven home,’ Grace continued. ‘She shouldna have gone to the Beltane fire, but Morven’s a mind unto herself.’
‘A privilege.’ A ghost of a smile flitted across his face. ‘And ’tis a pleasure to speak with another who knew my father well. To know he was well thought of.’
‘He wa
s loved … Rowena and I …’
‘I know. Rowena has told me. And has taken the news hard. What wi’ losing Duncan last year.’ He shook his head. ‘She’s struggling to cope – wi’ the croft, wi’ her heartache, with all of it. I hope to ease her burden any and every way I can.’
‘She’s fortunate to have ye, Jamie.’
He shrugged. ‘I’m the fortunate one. She’s given me a family again. She’s all the kin I have left now. She and her bairns. ’Tis sorry I am I never knew Duncan. I’ve heard such a lot about him. Though little of …of what became o’ him. He was killed in a skirmish wi’ excisemen, I believe?’
Grace nodded. ‘Shot defending his whisky. Trying to smuggle it south to the Lowland towns where he’d have sold it fer a tidy profit. A profit that’s needed fer the paying of rental on his land. On Tomachcraggen. He was alone that day,’ she said softly. ‘So we’ll never know what truly happened. We can only imagine a little.’
Morven glanced at her mother. She’d never heard her voice concerns over Duncan’s death before. Her mother’s worries were commonly for more mundane matters, domestic cares, yet shared grief had plainly loosened her tongue.
Jamie looked from one woman to the other, his interest sharpened. ‘There is some doubt over the events?’ he said. ‘Some question regarding the true nature of his death?’
‘I didna say that,’ Grace said quickly. ‘I dinna ken, is the truth o’ it. I only know Rowena does believe so. And she’s rarely wrong.’
He sat back, a little frown creasing his brows, and examined his dram for moment, considering, before downing it and regarding the empty vessel with some respect. ‘So, it's true,’ he said. ‘What my father always told me. Ye do make the finest whisky here.’
‘That we do,’ Morven confirmed.
He handed her the empty vessel and rose with some reluctance. ‘Forgive me, but I must take my leave. I thank ye fer your kind words, Mistress MacRae.’
‘Please, call me Grace.’
He inclined his head.
‘We'll be seeing ye at the shielings, then?’ she asked. ‘Malcolm will be moving the beasts to the hills whenever he gets hame.’
‘Shielings?’
‘He's a town lad,’ Morven reminded her. ‘He'll nae ken what shielings are.’
He shook his head, and Grace explained.
‘Summer pastures in the high hills. Every holding has rights to shieling land where the cattle are taken fer fattening. That way we can sow our crops wi'out hindrance from straying beasts. Each year we've a ceilidh upon the hilltop, and all are welcomed. Alec can play the pipes fit to make yer heart break and Morven,’ she turned to her daughter, ‘can sing like one o' the Lord's angels.’
‘Away!’ Morven shook her head.
‘I believe I'd like to hear that,’ he said with a shy smile.
***
Outside, Morven stalled him with a hand on his forearm and thanked him for not mentioning the events of the Beltane fire to her mother. ‘She doesna keep well,’ she confided. ‘And would only fret ower what’s happened. ’Tis done and I'm still living, thanks to you. No good would come from telling her. My Da will hear o' it and may tell her, but I'm thinking even he’ll not dare.’
‘I understand. She'll nae hear of it from me.’
She thanked him again and watched his dark outline until it merged with the night, then returned to her mother.
Grace had picked up her spindle and was spinning wool, the distaff tucked in the crook of her arm. Her cheeks were wet with tears. Morven knelt by her side.
‘I’m heart-sorry,’ she whispered.
She knelt there for some time, quiet, watching her mother do battle with her grief. Hardship had blurred her mother’s features, and the pain of loss was marked deeply on her face, yet still, her gentle nature was plain to see. Morven recognised the high forehead and delicate heart-shaped face as features she’d inherited herself, although her own determined mouth and wary eyes, quick to anger but easily hurt, were undoubtedly from her father. Inheriting his single-mindedness had given her a restless nature that meant she could never be like her mother, no matter how hard she wished it.
At length, she said, ‘I didna ken Rowena's brother once held the tenure of Druimbeag. Such a beautiful place, and to lay empty so long. Ye’ve not mentioned it afore.’
Grace dried her face with a corner of her shawl. ‘’Twas long syne and folk have mostly forgotten. I'll never forget, but ’twas a strange business.’
‘Strange? How so?’
‘He was a handsome man and folk took notice o' him, especially the lassies. But ’twas puzzling only his beasts were driven off that night and none o' the others in the glen touched.’
‘What are ye saying, Mam?’
‘Only what folk were thinking at the time. Jamie’s father was an honourable man, a born leader, but there are always some that canna abide seeing others do well.’
‘Ye think it wasna reivers took his cattle?’
‘I canna say. But wi’ no cattle to sell, he couldna meet his rental and the factor had him evicted. He was a proud young man and didna wait fer the factor and his men.’ Her face darkened at the memory. ‘He took his wife and bairn and loaded their things onto his cart, and then he pulled it himself all the way to Inverness.’ Fresh tears brimmed in her eyes. ‘Folk came out to see them off, they were that well thought on. I wasna much older than you are now. He thanked them all fer their kind words and then…’ She swallowed, and Morven was unsure whether to ask her more or leave her with her thoughts, when she continued.
‘I didna learn he and Rowena werena my real brother and sister till later, nae till I was twenty and about to wed. But he’d kent all along. He kept the secret, hoping to shield me till I was auld enough to understand.’
The fir-candle on the far wall guttered and spat, then flared momentarily, throwing Grace’s face into long shadow and exposing a brief glimpse of her younger, open-hearted and vulnerable self. Love for her filled Morven’s heart, along with a desperate desire to always keep her safe.
‘I thought I'd see him again someday,’ Grace whispered. ‘I've prayed fer him often enough. He was such a decent young man.’ She sat back in her chair, her face pale as bone. ‘’Twas a shock to learn he was dead, and seeing his lad so like him.’
Morven thought of Jamie’s father, tried to picture him in her mind. Did the first James Innes have the same powerful presence as the second? Likely he did. The thought of his son helping Rowena manage Tomachcraggen was reassuring. She’d seen the struggle Jamie spoke of, had felt Rowena’s growing anxiety over the rental due at Martinmas. Would all be well now?
‘Jamie will be a godsend to Rowena,’ she said slowly. ‘He’ll likely take ower the whisky-smuggling. After all, ’tis uisge-beatha that pays the rentals in this glen nae black cattle, and we all know it.’ For a year now, she’d fretted for Rowena. Now, at last, she saw her friend’s deliverance. Jamie's coming might secure Rowena’s hold on Tomachcraggen, might ensure the rental was met in full this year and hence deny the factor grounds to remove her. For the factor held no great love for Rowena, that much had been made clear tonight.
Yet something else now bothered Morven, something of long-standing. Though she’d never heard her mam voice doubts over Duncan’s death before, she’d long sensed Rowena was far from satisfied with the accounts given of the incident. And Rowena was rarely wrong.
‘Jamie's father tried to stay away from the smuggling,’ said Grace. ‘He thought it best to keep on the right side o’ the law. Believed he could manage wi' just the cattle and a few sheep, though he helped his own father with the whisky.’ She sighed. ‘If he'd smuggled like the rest he might still be living in the glen now, but he'd his pride, and I loved him fer that. I miss him,’ she whispered. ‘I miss him till it makes me sore.’
CHAPTER THREE
It was another two days before Morven's father and brother returned. Their trip had been successful, and the whisky had fetched a reasonable price in Per
th where a local distiller had bought up the entire consignment for resale under his own label. Yet her father was not overly pleased.
‘Two pound,’ he grumbled. ‘Two miserable pound, that's all thon rogue paid us fer each ten-gallon anker, yet I ken fine he means to re-barrel the lot in his own casks and sell it in Edinburgh at ten, mebbe even eleven pound a cask.’
‘Still, Da,’ Alec soothed. ‘’Twas a fair price fer country whisky and would've seen us bonny if it hadna been fer the pony.’
‘Aye, poor bugger.’ Malcolm shook his head. ‘I'll need to replace him.’
‘What happened?’ asked Morven. She’d seen the convoy's return from the riverbank where she was tramping blankets and realised at once a garron was missing. It was Firth, the black gelding, a willing wee pony. The loss of a garron signified trouble of some order.
‘We were fortunate.’ Alec accepted the bowl of barley-broth his mother passed to him.
‘Fortunate!’ Malcolm snorted. ‘Is that what ye call it?’
‘If we'd run into gaugers, Da, we'd have lost more than the pony.’
‘But what happened?’ Morven repeated.
‘Had to shoot him.’ Malcolm kept his gaze on his broth and spooned doggedly.
‘Aye, snapped his foreleg stumbling down a hillock wi' the heavy ankers on his back.’ Alec sighed. ‘We were making good time as well, following the drover’s route that snakes through Glenshee, keeping to the haughland o’ the Shee Water where it's fine and flat when we came on tinkers. A great band o’ them. And damned if they didna tell us gaugers were riding the route wi’ redcoats from Corgarff.’
‘Redcoats!’ Grace’s eyes widened.
‘Did ye see them, Da?’ Rory could barely contain his excitement. ‘Ye should've taken the claymore.’ His eyes darted to the far wall where an oak kist contained a huge two-edged broadsword.
‘No, lad.’ Malcolm ruffled Rory's copper hair with a giant hand. ‘I didna need yer Granda's sword.’ He chuckled gruffly at the youngster's keenness to do battle. ‘We led the garrons up into the foothills o’ the Cairngorms, tried to find cover amongst the forests and the braes. Only the lead pony slid doon a steep-sided bank, dragging the others down wi’ him. Each crashed into the other in a skelter o' rocks and rumbling kegs, and in the tangle, the poor beast was crushed.’ He rubbed a weary hand over the grizzled hair at the back of his neck. ‘Came doon hard, and his leg snapped under him like kindling.’
The Blood And The Barley Page 4
