The Blood And The Barley

by Angela MacRae Shanks

  With an effort, she assumed a detached manner. ‘So, will ye be bideing in the glen this time? Or can we expect ye to flee again at the first sign o' trouble?’

  He hesitated before answering, and she noticed for the first time how tired he looked, his face lined with weariness. She couldn’t be sure if it was exhaustion or just plain reluctance that made his answer sound grudging.

  ‘I'll nae be staying at Tomachcraggen, no, but I'll be … close by.’

  ‘Nae help to Rowena, then. And I wouldna say Inverness was close by, would you?’

  He looked blankly at her. It seemed he was going to accept her withering reproaches without a murmur. Not much of a man at all and certainly nae the man she'd once thought him.

  ‘Maybe belonging to Inverness,’ she continued, deliberately ignoring the fact of his birth at Druimbeag. ‘Ye're nae familiar wi’ the morals o’ Highland kinship. But here in Stratha’an, Highland clan customs hold strong, and kinsmen here protect their kinfolk or risk the scorn o’ the glen.’ She thought of Rowena's shame at his desertion and the lies she'd been forced to tell to protect his honour and a pulse began to throb in her throat. ‘Maybe those customs dinna hold in Inverness. Or is it just ye're nae the man o’ principles ye had us all believe?’

  Anger was putting bitter words in her mouth, and she wrenched her gaze from his face before she gave too much away. She’d not reveal how hurt and confused she was, she'd not give him the satisfaction, but recognised too late just how openly her anger betrayed it.

  A muscle along his jawline flexed, but there was no answering flash in his eyes. ‘I understand ye think badly of me. But … I didna appreciate just how much I disgust ye.’ There was a note of regret in his voice, and she shot him a puzzled look. His face was pinched and wretched-looking, though he still wore that air of quiet authority she’d once found so fascinating. He held her look with a disconcerting directness. ‘I wish to explain my leaving, but that's nae possible. As fer my kinfolk, I've not forsaken them, I’d never do that, and I do plan to bide in Stratha’an, only there's something I must do first.’

  ‘Oh aye, and what's that?’

  ‘That I canna tell ye.’

  She turned away, but something still bothered her. Without turning back, she said, ‘Why did ye come here, Jamie? And why were ye waiting fer me? Ye were waiting fer me, weren't ye?’

  His hesitation lasted so long she abandoned hope of receiving an answer and moved to walk away, when he said gruffly, ‘I wished to look at ye again.’

  The muscles around her heart contracted sharply, and a little shudder ran down her spine. Every fibre told her to walk away, not look back, but she couldn't help turning back to him.

  He was watching her intently, his dark eyes fixed upon her face. He looked neither cowardly nor dishonourable it struck her then, his expression more haunted than anything. For a moment it seemed her feet had grown roots into the mossy undergrowth and she was anchored fast, unable to break away.

  ‘Dinna hate me,’ he said softly. ‘Have faith, aye?’

  She stared at him.

  ‘And, I beg ye, have a care. I say this as ye mean that much to me, I’d not say it otherwise. I’d not come atween you and yer sire.’

  More confused than ever, she turned and stumbled her way out of the trees.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘Where are ye, woman?’ Malcolm roared, swinging his head ponderously from side to side. ‘I feel like haeing a wee fling.’

  The Gathering was in full swing now, the firelight leaping on the revellers and the shadows long upon the hills. Morven sat with Rowena and her mother listening to the silvery sound of a clarsach, a Highland harp, though her thoughts were elsewhere, scattered and confused. She threw her father a scornful look. Swollen with drink and the glory of winning the caber-tossing for the third year on the trot, he’d only remembered his wife now that the need to dance was upon him.

  ‘Dance wi' me, then!’ he bellowed, jerking Grace from the music's spell.

  ‘Away,’ she laughed, indicating her swollen abdomen. ‘Ye dinna want to be dragging this great side o’ a mountain about the dancing ground.’ The prospect appeared to bring her little pleasure; it had been a long day, and she’d complained of a nagging pain in her lower back.

  ‘I do that.’ He stood with bent arms on hips, his body leaning forward a degree as if he needed to weather some fierce gale. He squinted down at her, perhaps attempting to steady her image as the world reeled drunkenly by, or more likely dimly trying to mind what it was she referred to.

  ‘Ye're well fou, Da,’ Alec warned.

  But Grace rose heavily and without a murmur and submitted to his riotously drunken attempt at a highland fling, the typically solo dance transformed into a vigorous duet lacking any elegance or form. It was once she’d sank gratefully onto the grass again that the extent of her distress became apparent.

  ‘Merciful Lord!’ she gasped, stiffening in pain.

  ‘What is it, Mam?’ Morven took fright at her ghastly appearance, seeking out her father in silent accusation.

  Rowena took immediate charge of the situation, ordering Malcolm roughly out of the way and sending Alec to Inchfindy Hall for blankets and pillows that Grace might lie flat and rest. A hand placed on her belly confirmed the worst. ‘Her pains,’ she said grimly.

  ‘But, ’tis still ower three months till her time.’

  Rowena nodded and pulled Morven to one side. ‘There’s naught I can do to stop her pains, ye’ll ken that, we must pray that lying down still-like they'll maybe cease o’ their own accord.’

  Morven gave her father a long hard look. Yet she’d made no attempt to stop him herself, hadna given her mam's safety a second thought, her thoughts squandered on Jamie. She joined Rowena by her mother's side, and together they watched in silence as Grace writhed and whimpered, then, as the contraction released her, lay limp and breathless. Morven longed to weep but with fierce concentration quashed the feeling – what good would that do anyone?

  After a moment, the pain slackened its grip and her mother could speak. She clutched at Rowena’s sleeve. ‘Dinna let me lose this bairn,’ she pleaded. ‘I'm begging ye.’ The widow nodded with a tight smile.

  As the night wore on, they were able to move Grace to Delnabreck; a painfully slow journey with her stretched out flat on the back of Father Ranald’s rickety old cart. Malcolm sat on the board-seat, hunched and silent while Alec guided the pony over the rough track by the light from two oil lamps grudgingly lent them by McGillivray's manservant. In the back, Morven watched the shadows skulk back, swaying and pitching before their advancing light, and felt for her mother's clammy hand.

  ‘Nearly there,’ she reassured her, but the answering fear in her mother’s eyes extinguished further talk. She glanced at her younger brothers huddled silent and miserable in a corner and felt for the knotted bulge in her plaid that was the blossoms from earlier. She prayed she’d get the chance to use them.

  Grace survived the night, the pains that gripped her gradually loosening their hold, the child still living Rowena assured her, but she was on no account to leave her bed. As Rowena prepared to return to Tomachcraggen pale and weary the following morning, she tackled a tense and ill-tempered Malcolm.

  ‘If ye wish her to live, ye must let her do nothing now till she's delivered of the bairn – nothing at all. D’ye understand me? Any movement could bring her pains on again and next time ’tis likely nothing will stop them.’

  He nodded, avoiding her eyes.

  ‘Ye must share out the work, make certain she doesna leave her bed on any account.’

  Malcolm turned away, his shoulders hunched, but Rowena persisted.

  ‘D’ye nae see how the child's sapped her strength? Her body wants rid of this burden, should she not lie still and rest it will rid her o’ it. Only her own life will likely bleed away too.’

  ‘We'll make sure there's nothing she need do,’ Alec assured her, white-faced. ‘Won't we, Da?’

  Ma
lcolm nodded curtly, his expression rigid with loathing, though whether it was of himself or the inferred blame that thickened the air, Morven couldn’t tell.

  ***

  They all carried out their extra duties willingly, even her father, though Morven found the endless round of chores utterly exhausting. There was no time to enjoy summer's brief burst of bounty, nor, thankfully perhaps, time to linger over Jamie and his parting words to her. Her days were swallowed by the unending pattern of daily tasks. Sleeping at Delnabreck now to be near her mother, there was the twice-daily trek up to the shieling and back to milk the cattle and sheep and to churn butter and press cheese in the tiny dairy room. There were eggs to be gathered, oats to grind, broth to make, and bannocks to bake, not to mention the skinning and cleaning of hare and trout now supplied chiefly by Rory.

  Poor Donald, at six he was keen to hunt with his older brother, but it was he who was now saddled with most of the washing, drying, and cleaning; tasks he despised as woman's work, though he did them nonetheless. Morven's heart squeezed to see his wee face alight on the washing tub with a quiet resignation far beyond his tender years. Rory now tended the crops; weeding, spreading muck, and cutting peat while Malcolm and Alec saw to the selling of calves at trysts in Crieff and Falkirk, the buying of quantities of barley from McGillivray and the secret malting of it in readiness for Morven's work at the still. Alec worked especially hard, even learning to handle a spindle and mend clothes by the fireside of an evening while they each took turn at story-telling to keep Grace's spirits up. Morven was as busy as ever at the still and crawled home too tired and drowsy from whisky fumes to think straight. It seemed her father, however, preferred the company he kept at the Craggan Inn.

  Rowena visited Grace at some point every day, often bringing Sarah, and Alec would contrive to be there whenever he could. Morven watched her brother's efforts at pleasing Sarah with a heavy heart. It seemed he gave such a lot of himself to receive so little in return. But Sarah's presence, even the mention of her name, brought him such unmistakable joy that she could say nothing – what right had she to blight his happiness?

  Grace fretted over how idle she’d become, guilt at the extra work she'd given her family weighing heavy. Attempting to ease her mind, Alec confessed to falling asleep in the byre one day when Morven knew full well he'd been hours there bundling great lengths of heather in readiness to re-thatch the roof. But as Grace's belly grew, so the rest of her seemed to shrivel. The delicacy of her finely boned features became a brittle frailty, her eyes the only part of her to retain any spark of her former self. Morven sensed her mother would need these weeks of rest to rebuild her strength if she was to stand any chance of surviving the birth ahead of her. But her great need to give Malcolm another child, specifically the lass he reputedly wanted so badly overrode all else – it did consume her. Atonement for the two wee crosses in the chapelyard, though why Grace should need to make amends, Morven scarcely knew, though the pity of it wrung her heart.

  By the time the middle of August was upon them, Morven had a batch of twenty ankers ready for smuggling out of the glen. It had been the best year for the uisge-beatha she could remember, and she knew her father had a buyer for them in Aberdeen, a wine and spirit merchant by the name of Joseph Skene who shipped the whisky on by coastal smack to the port of Leith where rich Edinburgh merchants awaited it.

  ‘I'll warrant the man's a rogue,’ Malcolm grumbled. ‘Tricking me out o’ my whisky fer a piffling four pound an anker and nae doubt selling it on to them dupes in the Lowlands at ten, maybe even eleven pound a cask.’

  ‘It canna be helped,’ Alec soothed. ‘He's taking a risk as well, mind. There'll be gaugers at Leith the same as there are here and he'll be carrying mair than just oor casks.’

  ‘Aye.’ Malcolm acknowledged this with a curt nod and stashed the kebbock of cheese Morven handed him into his pack. ‘They tell me at the Craggan he's a muckle fish, this Skene. All the more reason to pay decent prices, I say.’

  Grace rose on one elbow from her bed. ‘Just come hame safe to me, Malcolm, never heed the price this Skene gets in Leith. Faith, it hardly matters to us here in the glens!’

  Malcolm considered her for a moment, his beard quivering with some unspoken emotion, then muttered to no-one in particular, ‘But I'd plans fer that money. Seeing it snug in Skene's pouch wasna one o' them.’

  ‘What plans?’ Morven queried. Supping it at the Craggan Inn seemed the most likely plan.

  He shook his head irritably and continued his packing. Without looking up, he moved onto another course, neatly deflecting her interest. ‘There's fresh word in the glen of the Black Gauger.’ The ease of his manner belied the seriousness of this news. ‘They're saying he's active again. Craigduthel saw him the other day in Glenlivet, and he'd a Riding Officer wi' him, a big brute by all accounts – seems to have shaken the bloodsucking leech from his sloth.’

  ‘Damnation!’ swore Alec. ‘Just when we were doing so well, that cursed snake had to slither from his nest!’

  ‘It had to be, lad,’ Malcolm said softly. ‘Ye didna think he'd aye be in mourning, did ye? Nor that fou he'd never crawl from his bed again? He might be fair vexed though I'm thinking, kenning we've all had a free hand – might wish to make an example, ye could say.’

  Grace rose from the bed again, her eyes round with fright, and crossed herself. ‘Ye should be taking the greatest o’ care then, Malcolm. Should be waiting fer nightfall, surely.’

  ‘Hush, woman. Ye're meant to be resting. Ye'll have Rowena scolding me again. I ken what I'm doing.’ He scowled at her until she slumped back on the bed. ‘We've a wee coaster to meet at midnight two days hence, eh Alec. We dinna want to be entering the town in daylight. But ’twas more Morven I was thinking on.’

  Morven nodded uneasily. Her father was right. McBeath's absence from the glen had been welcome, but they could hardly expect it to last. ’Twas Rowena's safety that worried her. What if he still wanted revenge fer his wife and bairn? What might he do now?

  ‘I can look after myself,’ she said curtly. Her father's misplaced concern had stifled her all her life; she now recognised it made them both uncomfortable.

  ‘Mak’ sure ye do, then.’

  By the time the ponies were laden and the men ready to leave, dawn was spreading its milky lustre from the east, burnishing the top of the in-field dyke and silhouetting the crown of Carn Liath. Malcolm was several minutes taking his leave from Grace, their voices surprisingly tender, while Rory and Donald clustered around Alec, their eyes bright with envy. But they knew full well they couldn't come; even if they weren't needed at home, their father would never allow it, not until they reached manhood.

  ‘Be on yer guard, Morven,’ Alec called to her as she checked the ponies for the umpteenth time. There were ten ponies in all, each rigged with a timber harness from which two ten-gallon ankers were slung, one on either side of the ponies’ flank.

  ‘’Tis you needs yer wits aboot ye,’ she answered him lightly. But as he came to kiss her softly on the cheek, she whispered, ‘God protect ye, Alec. Mind and come hame safe, aye?’

  He nodded, his jaw tightening a fraction, and they shared a brief look that spoke of Alec's anguish at leaving his mother and Morven's unspoken promise to look after her.

  When Malcolm appeared in the doorway, the boys scuttled inside, and he shook Rory briefly by the hand, a small acknowledgement to his growing maturity, and patted Donald fondly on the head. With a brusque nod in Morven's direction, he led the convoy away. They’d take the Ladder Trail to Glenbuchat, then follow the river Don on its way through the Grampians and eventually down into the old town of Aberdeen.

  It was almost mid-day by the time Morven reached the Lochy Gorge and the still. The milking up at the shieling was done, and fresh butter and eggs were stored in the aumry for supper. As she lugged the mash-tun through from the cave, her belly rumbled softly. Being up so early she was ahead of herself today, at the still already and nothing in her stomach
since the porridge she'd eaten before dawn, but it couldn't be helped. She paused for a moment as a thought struck her: she'd meant to warn Donald not to come to the bothy with food for her now that McBeath was patrolling again, but it had slipped her mind. Maybe he'd realise the danger himself and stay away. After all, a wee bit hunger would do her no harm.

  But later, as she was draining the first batch of worts into the fermentation cask, Donald dropped onto the rocky ledge in a tangle of kilt and beamed in at her, a bundle of food slung over his shoulder.

  ‘Did ye think I was never coming?’ He tossed the bundle of food over to her and took hold of the rope again. ‘I've tinder and kindling fer ye at the top o’ the gorge, I'll shin back up and get it. It's lichen and birch bark, bonny and dry like ye showed me –’

  ‘Wait, Donald.’

  ‘Aye?’ He looked curiously at her, green eyes peeping from beneath a fringe of dark lashes.

  She shook her head. ‘Never heed.’ He was here now, and the tinderbox was nearly empty.

  Half an hour later though, as they were eating their meal together, she warned him of the reasons he was not to come here again so openly, and he nodded at the wisdom of that, his eager wee face downcast. ’Twas likely the high point of his day, she thought meanly, and she'd now deprived him of even that, but he convinced her he didn't really mind, and she watched him go with a tight little feeling in her chest.

  ***

  Jamie pressed his knees into his mount’s flank, edging the twitchy mare closer to McBeath's mount. He didn't like McBeath any more than the animal did and understood the creature’s desire to shy away, nostrils flared and eyes rolling. The man was utterly noxious, a thoroughly foul example of humanity and it had taxed Jamie’s endurance these last few weeks not to show his loathing of the exciseman in any way. Rigid self-control had paid off, however, and he felt sure McBeath had no notion how much he despised him.