‘No, I meant only … I might manage to deflect his anger.’
‘Right noble of ye! But I’ll thank ye nae to interfere, I’ve no need of yer assistance.’
Then, feeling a little mean, she added, ‘Da's turned real crabbit lately. With Rowena especially, but with me and most other folk too.’ The change in her father had bothered her for some time, had shamed her in truth, though she’d never spoken of it. Not to Rowena, not even to her mother. ‘Much of it's ower my learning from Rowena. I'm nae minded to stop, though.’ She looked directly at him, challenging him to oppose her. ‘’Tis Tomachcraggen I'm going to now wi’ these herbs. We could keep company if ye’re agreeable?’
The corner of his mouth twitched again. ‘That'd be verra agreeable.’
***
Robbie Grant could barely keep the smirk from his face as they climbed into the boat together. It dawned on her that he must have taken Jamie over the river earlier, and knew full well Jamie was at Druimbeag when he'd asked her if she was headed there. She groaned inwardly. Was she forever to be linked with Jamie in folk’s minds? Never allowed to forget the humiliation of the Beltane fire?
Jamie paid the man little heed but gazed up to the hills of Cromdale and away to the distant shoulders of Ben Avon, still snow-capped, with a wondrous look on his face. Satisfied the tables were now turned, Morven took the opportunity to do some studying of her own.
Jamie's was a face of contrasts, she judged. The boyish lines and downy shadow on his chin betrayed the fact that he could be no more than twenty-one or two, yet he wore the poise and possession of someone far greater in years. The strong jaw and dark eyes, deep and closely set, half-hidden by arched brows, added to the air of intensity he conveyed, and she could see that for all his youth he was serious and thoughtful. There was a dignity to the way he carried himself, a vein of good breeding that seemed to run through him, lending him confidence and influencing his manners. His size was quite shocking up close. He towered above almost everyone she’d ever known, yet for all his size there was a grace to his movements, an essence of flowing energy and lean muscle that was wholly central to him.
At the riverside, Jamie angled his body to block the boatman's prying gaze as she climbed out of the boat and gave the disgruntled man some snuff from his sporran in payment. As they made toward Cnoc Daimh, the wooded rise that concealed Tomachcraggen crofthouse, she looked back over her shoulder and saw the boatman standing on the riverbank staring after them.
The crofthouse at Tomachcraggen sat in a hollow, the heather of its roof and its old weathered stones almost indistinguishable from the ageless hills that encircled it. The cultivated land, what there was of it, was set out in traditional rigs and dreels and throughout the long winter months had been gnawed to the quick by Rowena’s cattle. Looking down on it from the rise, the pattern of human toil was clear to see – a poor scrape of land wrested from the whins and the heather.
They found Rowena in the sheepcote. On seeing them, she set her milking cog to one side and flushed with pleasure. ‘So, ye've met my nephew?’ She took Morven into her embrace.
‘At Druimbeag,’ Morven replied, then whispered, ‘I was that heart-sorry to hear…’
Rowena pressed her a little closer and drew a long breath. There was no need to say more. Comfort was given and touchingly received without need of words. Morven felt her friend draw another steadying breath, then they parted.
‘And at Beltane,’ she added. Had Jamie told his kinswoman of her ordeal? She thought not and was glad. Since hearing his sad news, Morven had kept away from Tomachcraggen, had allowed Rowena time to mourn her brother in peace. Looking at her now, she perceived new shadows beneath the older woman's eyes, although her expression was as enigmatic as ever.
Inside the cot-house, Rowena examined the contents of Morven's basket, exclaiming at the discovery of precious red clover. As always, her home was a delight – a rich collection of vibrant colours and aromas. Bright vials and flasks, oils, powders, and potions caught the eye while sheaves of dried roots and herbage hung from the crossbeams. The resultant aroma was one Morven had loved since childhood. Mingled with peat smoke from the fire, it lay thick and fragrant on the air.
‘Are my cousins not here?’ Jamie flicked his gaze around the room.
‘There's a dominie in the glen today, a schoolmaster,’ explained Rowena. ‘Teaching on the haughland of the Lochy Burn. I've sent them along to learn their lessons.’ She gestured for them both to sit down. ‘William was keen to go, but Sarah …’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Sarah wasna for it at all.’
‘She may need to read someday,’ Jamie told her earnestly.
‘Aye, mebbe. Did ye ken?’ She turned to Morven, ‘that young Jamie here can both read and write?’
Morven looked at him in astonishment, and he grinned back a little awkwardly.
‘I've something I must tell ye, though.’ Rowena pulled a chair up close. ‘I’d a wee visit this forenoon from Isobel McBeath.’ She turned to Jamie to explain. ‘She's wife to Hugh McBeath, the resident exciseman at Balintoul. She warned that redcoats are riding wi’ excisemen, orders from the king she said, to rid the Highlands of the scourge o’ whisky smuggling. They're patrolling the high passes.’ She held Morven’s gaze uneasily. ‘We must pray yer father and young Alec get through safe.’
‘Oh, they did,’ Morven replied. ‘They got hame just after dawn.’
‘And all went well?’
Morven nodded, repeating what her father had told her.
A muscle in Rowena’s jaw twitched, and she nodded thoughtfully, then reached for ale and drinking cups. ‘A celebration, then?’
‘Forgive me,’ said Jamie, frowning. ‘But why would this woman give away so much when her own husband is a gauger?’
Rowena nodded, pouring out the ale. ‘Isobel is one o' the glenfolk, ye see, and her kin were all smugglers afore her. Though she's marrit to that toad and I believe she must love him, her loyalties are sorely torn. Oft-times she warns the glen women of gaugers working in the area, and in return, they give her the friendship she sorely lacks and wee gifts o' fish, cheese, wool, and that.’ She nodded at the question forming on Jamie's lips. ‘Of course, McBeath knows nothing o' this and ’twould do no-one any good to tell him.’
‘I see.’
‘But she came here today, owing to being heavy wi' child again and desperate fer a healthy bairn. She hoped I could help her.’
‘Isobel has had eight pregnancies,’ Morven confided. ‘But no bairns – they’ve all been miscarried or stillborn.’
‘Dear Lord!’
‘Aye,’ said Rowena. ‘’Tis a shadow of herself she is. I've given her a tincture to strengthen her blood, but I fear fer her life this time.’
‘She’d have taken the greatest of care, though?’ Morven said. ‘Nae to be seen?’
‘I’m certain she was discreet … heedful to go unnoticed.’
Jamie’s interest was aroused now; he fixed Morven with a sharp look. ‘This McBeath, he's the man you spoke of, the Black Gauger, the exciseman the factor pays so much heed to?’
She nodded.
‘Then he'd not wish his wife to consult wi’ my aunt?’
‘Well, no, as I said, he speaks ill of Rowena, though he’s known fer his rabid preaching. He blames her I think, fer the infants that died, believes she's laid a curse upon him.’
‘A curse?’
‘To die childless.’
‘But that's ridiculous!’
Again, Morven nodded. She could see signs of alarm on Jamie's face now and felt the first stirrings of it herself.
‘That being so,’ he said slowly. ‘Should anything ill happen to this child, mightn’t he then believe my aunt had caused it?’
Morven frowned. ‘If he was to learn of her visit here, then aye, he’d likely be suspicious. And … and there can be little more hope of this bairn's survival than the others.’
Grim-faced, Jamie turned to his aunt.
Rowena had kept qu
iet during her kinsman’s journey to this conclusion, although her breathing had quickened a fraction and her lips had thinned to a fine line.
‘He'll nae hear of it, nae from Isobel.’ The lines of her face hardened. ‘But I'll not turn the poor soul away, no matter who she's marrit to. Let him think what he will – I'll not abandon her.’
‘But, Rowena,’ Jamie pressed. ‘I fear he'll do more than just think poison, he'll whisper it too, and into the ear of the factor – thon bigot McGillivray.’
Rowena struggled to meet her young kinsman's gaze. Swallowing, she stood and crossed to the window.
‘A plague on his poisonous tongue,’ she muttered. ‘But I’ve no wish to speak o’ that man.’
CHAPTER FOUR
The crashing of the cot-house door against the old stone wall jolted Morven from a shallow sleep. It was late, the darkness thick as ink, the fire smothered to a glow, yet her father carried no light. It seemed he blew in on a draught of pure whisky vapour, the potency of the drink he'd consumed, coupled with the sheer volume of it, protection against the cold dark night. Grunting, he reeled by her bed and pitched inelegantly into a chair, the timber groaning under his sudden weight.
Morven watched him from the refuge of her blankets and caught the stale reek of the Craggan Inn upon him. He fumbled for more whisky and then gagged a little as the rawness of the spirit scorched the back of his throat. He knew. She sensed he was now thoroughly acquainted with every shameful detail of her ordeal on Carn Liath and the thought made her quail. Fortified by ale and whisky, there’d have been any number of cottars at the inn only too willing to recount it all. Yet watching him stare sightlessly into the hearth, there were no signs of anger, no explosion brewing, nae even a curse or bunched fist. Perhaps she now meant so little to him that he deemed her unworthy of his rage, yet that notion was somehow worse. Miserable, she curled herself into a ball beneath the blankets. The anger would come she sensed, and when it did, there’d be hell to pay.
At length, he rose with a mutter and made his tortuous way to the far side of the room, to the doorway and the tiny bedchamber he shared with her mother. In the darkness, Morven listened for the sound of their low voices. Would he tell her mother what he’d learned? Speak of the leaping flames, or, more shameful still, the consequences of her escape from them? But no, instead he roused her mother for another purpose, the need plainly upon him to indulge the baser appetites of his flesh.
She buried her head beneath the blankets, pressed her fists to her ears, but nothing could smother the sounds of his pleasure. In the end, she fell to reciting the words of the Lord's Prayer, over and over, in a bid to drown out his grunts and the wild creak of timber.
***
Come morning, they flitted to the shieling.
Morven walked beside the cattle with her brothers, watching the beasts sway on their hardy legs. The beasts were in a sorry state, months of hunger had so reduced them they could barely walk and the MacRaes were forced to match their slow pace. Despite the cattle’s thick coats, the hollow of flank and sharp outline of bone protruding at haunch and shoulder was plain to see. Yet still, they lowed joyfully, perhaps catching a sense of the occasion.
Despite herself, Morven’s spirits rose. The spring flit to the shieling heralded the end of the long dark days of winter, and all around her new life was emerging as the glen roused itself from winter’s grip, re-clothing the bones of the land. The hilltop ceilidh was a celebration of the land’s rebirth, an excuse to be carefree.
It was only a two-mile journey on foot or by pony, but with the cattle and laden cart, the Macraes were forced to wend a wide detour around the shoulder of Carn Odhar, avoiding the steep gorge where the Lochy Burn carved a gully through the hillside on its way to join the Avon.
At length, Malcolm helped Grace from the cart's board seat. ‘I'll be leaving ye to put the place in order.’ He nodded at the pile of goods Alec was heaping in the heather. ‘If there's to be a feast, ye'll be needing something fer the pot. Alec!’ He called his son to heel with a curt twitch of his head.
The bothy, no more than a simple stone hut, sat on a plateau of moorland a hundred feet or so below the granite crown of Carn Odhar. Hidden from the glen below, it afforded them a grand vantage point, a view of the mist-shrouded hills of Cromdale and, further west, the dark grandeur of the distant Monadhliath Mountains, the higher tors lost in cloud.
Morven disentangled a stool from the pile Alec had abandoned and set it down for her mother. In truth, there was little needed doing, the bothy was but a humble shelter and needed no more than a quick sweep-out. She sent the boys for water and kindling and soon had the place put to rights. Straightening, she eyed her mother's pale countenance.
‘I could make the bannocks fer ye,’ she suggested. ‘Ye look fair worn-out.’
‘Aye,’ Grace conceded. ‘I am. Ye'll mind and mark them the way Rowena likes, fer the offering, aye?’
‘I will.’
The seasons of the year – sowing, ripening, and harvest reap – were each celebrated and, as was Strathavon tradition, offerings were made on the hillside to ensure a prosperous year. The bannocks used were a deal larger than the daily kind and were marked with a cross on one side of the oat dough before being baked on a hot girdle.
‘Rowena will be away gathering greenery fer the offering.’ Grace began the slippery business of cleaning trout for the feast. ‘She’ll nae be here till later, wi’ young Jamie and the bairns.’
‘I doubt Sarah would thank ye fer calling her a bairn,’ Morven observed. ‘She’s sixteen now, remember.’
‘Aye, I know. But she’s still a bairn in my mind.’ Grace stopped what she was doing, and her face took on a distant, wistful look. ‘I remember the day she was born, Rowena was that proud. She was the sweetest child, an angel I thought, wi’ silken silver hair and eyes like a summer sky.’ She swallowed and looked down at her hands, bloodied and shiny with fish scales. ‘Losing her da has brought many a cloud to that blithe sky.’
‘For Rowena, too.’
‘Aye, fer them all. Only Sarah tries most especially hard to hide her hurt, is what I think.’
‘D’ye think she minds her mam teaching me the healing? I mean, d’ye suppose she’s hurt by it?’ Morven had often wondered about this, had sensed she might feel so in Sarah’s place.
Grace considered for a moment. ‘I dinna believe Sarah has a notion to be a healer. Nor do I believe she has the disposition fer it. Ye’re different, you and her. Besides, she still has that selfish streak all bairns are born with.’ Grace chuckled. ‘And can be a peacock at times, though dinna go saying I said that!’
‘So, wouldna be the best choice?’
‘Rowena chose you fer a reason.’ Grace filleted a fish with a deft stroke. ‘She does naught wi’out careful thought. Duncan’s no longer here to keep a firm rein on his daughter, God rest his soul, and though Rowena sees many things and I love her dearly, when it comes to Sarah she doesna aye see what’s beneath her own nose.’
Morven had known Sarah all her life, and there was no doubting she could be a braggart. But she was also charmingly naïve, and the combining of this charm with a degree of swaggering boldness always made Morven smile. When they’d been younger and more carefree, they’d shared secrets together, dreaming of romantic Jacobites who’d sweep them up and defend their honour with sword and dagger. Remembering that, a wistful glow dispelled her doubts.
By midday, hill-folk had begun to drift up Carn Odhar from all directions, word of a ceilidh spreading quicker than that of an excise raid. The MacPhersons of Lochy Mill were first to arrive; Alastair, a cautious and serious man, with his wife Elspeth, a ruddy-cheeked woman carrying a brace of grouse. John Chisholm, the cooper, arrived next, along with his wife and eldest lad, also John, and then Donald Gordon and his family from Craigduthel croft. When her da and Alec returned with a dozen or more hare skewered on a birchwood switch, the McHardy clan had made their appearance, every one of them it seemed, and all in all i
t was a fair-sized gathering that settled itself on the hillside.
Alec and the boys cut armloads of whin and kindled a fire on a patch of bare ground. Once the first flare of flames had quietened, folk gathered around to toast their fingers, feeding the blaze and watching a pale trail of smoke curl skyward. Not one to be forgetting the proprieties of a Highland welcome, Malcolm rolled out a keg of whisky and doled it out to all and sundry.
Come early afternoon, when Rowena appeared with Jamie, Sarah and young William, Malcolm's face was far from the only one flushed with the intoxication of that welcome. The sound of bluff laughter rang out over the hills, and the aroma of country whisky, bannocks, and fresh hare roasting on a spit had stirred the conversation to a rowdy pitch. The welcome extended to Jamie, however, was more cautious.
Alexander Grant of Achnareave, the old herdsman who accused Jamie on Carn Liath, hadn’t thought to grace their ceilidh with his presence, though plainly the superstitious sentiments he’d voiced that night were alive and well among some of the others gathered.
‘Innes, is it?’ scowled John Chisholm, not bothering to rise from his recumbent position. ‘I've heard tell of ye.’
‘My nephew,’ answered Rowena with a tight smile. ‘From Inverness.’
‘Yer brother’s lad?’
‘Aye. The lad was born at Druimbeag.’
‘Was he now?’ He sat up with renewed interest.
Although there were signs of wariness evident in many a face, above all it was a keen sense of curiosity Morven detected in her neighbours. James Innes was plainly a name well-known and well-respected hereabouts. Yet from the furious whispering and furtive exchanges she intercepted, Jamie’s character was clearly a matter for debate. As she helped serve whisky to her neighbours, she couldn’t help overhear snatches of conversation. It seemed being the son of James Innes didn’t necessarily mean he was anything like his father. He’d wrecked the Beltane ring after all, without a second thought. Strangers were oft-times treated with suspicion, yet Morven couldn’t help feeling one who’d saved her life deserved a sight better treatment.
The Blood And The Barley Page 6
