‘Ye’ve lied to me afore, Sarah. What was it ye said? You'd lied more than any. How do I ken ye’re nae lying now? How do I …?’ She shook her head. ‘I dinna ken what to think.’
Sarah’s face twitched and worked. ‘Aye,’ she hissed, ‘I've lied.’ Only, must she explain herself to Morven like some badly-behaved bairn up before the dominie? She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed out wearily. Aye, she must. Frowning, she pressed her quivering fingers against her eyelids.
‘If ye mind it, Morven, ’twas me made ye think Jamie had abandoned us all at Tomachcraggen. Me made ye distrust him so.’ She gave a snorting laugh. ‘And I had ye fair riled at him too. Had ye believing all sorts of him.’
Morven blinked as she remembered that dreadful day. It had been a day of rain, a gentle smurr that turned to an icy downpour by the time she left Tomachcraggen, the mounting wind whipping the rain away only to bring it blattering back against her. But on that day, it was more than her body took a pelting, for her faith in Jamie had been dashed to pieces and she'd believed he’d left his kin without a word. Her eyes moved slowly to Sarah's face. Sarah had known he’d gone to join the gaugers, had known precisely why, and yet she’d made her believe he’d fled the glen too gutless to stay and protect them. Tears stung the back of her eyes, and she blinked and felt the hot slither of them on her cheeks. She could see now just how Sarah had played her, just how easily she’d been led to all the wrong conclusions.
‘Why, Sarah? Why would ye make me think so ill of him?’
Sarah’s face contorting under the strain of keeping herself together. ‘Because I couldna abide losing him to ye as well.’ She blinked and made a little shrugging gesture with her head. ‘So, now ye ken.’ She sat down in the grass beside Morven and regarded her companion’s tear-stained face dispassionately.
‘Ye see, what reason had I to care fer you? What’ve ye ever done fer me but take my mother from me and now my cousin too? And I couldna let ye do that. I needed him more than you, I …’
She broke off, her face twitching, her eyelids fluttering. ‘Damn it!’ She squeezed the tears from beneath her lashes with her finger and thumb and wiped them on her gown. ‘I think ye can see how ’twas with me. I thought if you didna want him, better yet despised him, then maybe in time he’d come to noticing me.’
Morven’s mouth fell open. She stared at Sarah, the girl she’d known all her life, her childhood confidant – the girl she knew barely at all – and a terrible silence ached between them.
‘It’s nae me he wants though,’ Sarah said at last. ‘It’s you, and so ’tis only you can stop him leaving.’
Morven brushed a tear away. Her face felt cold, her fingers were stiff and nerveless. The dimensions of her world had buckled, the foundations she’d always been familiar with had cracked now, indeed crumbled more with each utterance Sarah made. Take her mother from her? Was that what Sarah truly believed? And Sarah had done all this – lied and schemed and twisted things because she couldn't abide losing Jamie to … to who? To someone she hated. Had maybe always hated.
‘Ye must hate me,’ she said slowly. ‘To do all this. I mean, to go to such lengths.’
Sarah's eyes smouldered, but she sniffed dismissively. ‘Does it matter? Will ye stop him then? Now that ye ken the truth, will ye make him stay? I mean, we need him. Nae just me, but William and Mam as well. We’ve no-one else, and I dinna ken what ’tis the Black Gauger intends fer us.’ She looked away. ‘I'm afraid.’
Morven felt as though she might never rise from that damp spot of heath again, her limbs were that leaden, and yet although she felt manipulated and betrayed, Sarah’s desolation was hard to look upon. The girl had learned the true manner of her father's death and the horror had plainly changed her, maybe even unhinged her a little. But then, was that so hard to understand?
‘I'm sorry,’ she offered.
‘Ye’ll not do it?’
‘I’ll do it, or at least I’ll try. What I mean is, I’m sorry fer nae seeing afore how much I’ve hurt ye.’
Sarah's eyes were wary now, still unconvinced but they flickered with a something like relief. ‘It’s me should be saying that to you.’
‘Then we’ll take it as said and speak no more about it. Where am I likely to find him? Jamie?’
Sarah's lips parted in surprise, and she rose to her feet, eyes wide, and waited awkwardly while Morven did the same.
‘I’m nae rightly sure. He’s nae at Tomachcraggen. He said as how ’twould be better fer us all if he took himself someplace else.’
‘He didna say where he planned to go, then?’
‘He said he’d failed us, that he was a scourge and he’d bring us only misery.’
Morven’s heart constricted; how could she ever have doubted him? ‘I might know,’ she said at last. ‘But I’ll need to be quick if I’m to catch him.’
She was already scrambling down the hillside, Sarah stumbling and breathing hard behind her, before she thought to consider what on earth she’d say to Jamie should she find him. Or if there was anything she could say to him now that would make any difference. But she must at least try.
When they reached the pastures at the foot of Seely’s hillock, she caught Sarah by the forearm. ‘Ye must tell them.’ She nodded toward the crofthouse. ‘What ye’ve told me, ye must tell it to them now, all o’ it, so they ken the truth.’
Sarah looked aghast. ‘What, ye mean Alec and yer da?’
Morven nodded grimly. ‘Or I’ll nae do it. Do we understand each other? And I’ll have ye know my father’s no traitor. He’s a fool, aye, and a drouth at times, but never would he betray yer father. He loved him as a kinsman. He did make a mistake. One he’s already punished himself fer more than ye’ll ever know.’
Sarah eyed her dubiously, but at last, miserably, nodded in agreement.
***
It was almost dark by the time Jamie reached Balintoul. Ten minutes of shouting and hammering on the heavy oak of McBeath's front door eventually flushed the same frightened maid he'd seen on his last visit to the house. In some agitation and clearly afraid to open the door to the bellowing demon she saw below, the girl leant from an upstairs window, a hand clutched to her chest, and in a quavering voice asked Jamie his business.
‘MCBEATH!’ he shouted. ‘WHERE IS HE?’
She shook her head. ‘Nae at hame, sir. Doon at the inn most like, the Balintoul.’
Jamie twitched his plaid respectfully to her, turned on his heel and stalked down the earthen road, a grim figure in the gloaming, his dark mood blackening by the moment. By the time he came to stand outside the grubby little inn, the night had gathered around him, and he was breathing hard, his mood almost as black as the night. The sour reek of tobacco mingled with pot-ale and raw whisky wafted out to him on the road, he could taste it upon his tongue, as bitter as his soul.
A bloodlust was upon him. He could feel the heat and itch of it in his heart and lungs and fought to master his breathing. It had come upon him as he left his young cousin, pale and fatherless by the banks of the Avon. It had mounted further with each mile he’d covered since, his mind returning again and again to the memory of Morven's bruised and bleeding face. Recoiling from that image and unable to control his fury at it, he’d thought instead of his own parents and their enforced exile, of Duncan’s savage death, of the plight of his aunt, and then, with more deadly focus, on the man responsible for it all and a pulse had begun to pound in his head.
He touched his fingers to the hilt of his dirk and felt the reassuring coolness of the blade. Another smaller blade, his sgian dhu, was tucked into his hose. He clenched and unclenched his fists, forcing his muscles to loosen, his mind to clear, and the blood to cease its infernal thrumming in his ears. He’d no wish to kill the man after all … nae yet at least, nae in front o’ so many witnesses.
He caught a fold of his plaid and pulled it forward to cover the dirk, to prevent his hand reaching it too easily, and pushed the door open. It was stifling inside the
inn. A fire roared in one corner despite the lingering warmth of the day, and the air was thick with peat-smoke and tobacco, foul with the rank odour of many drunken males herded together. After the silence of the last few hours when he’d had little more than the sound of his angry blood for company, the noise seemed unbearable and he felt prickles of sweat break out on his body.
He pushed his way further into the room. Many of the faces around him he recognised – cattle drovers and cottars mainly, men he remembered from visits they’d made to McBeath's home, occasions when he’d been obliged, as McBeath's assistant, to look on as these poor folk paid McBeath their passage. Many now eyed him warily from behind raised flagons and quaichs.
McBeath was sat at his customary table, Dougal Riach one of his hirelings sat at his side. Jamie raised his hand and steadied himself on a dusty crossbeam, then made his way over. He felt single-minded and centred now, his heart beating slower, his breathing under more rigid control.
McBeath looked up and gave a little start, then scowled sourly.
‘Well, well, Lang! Ye’re back with yer tail between yer legs, are ye?’ He turned to Dougal and favoured him with a knowing wink. ‘I told ye, did I no? Did I no say he’d be back, once he got over his delicate sensitivities?’ He stressed the word with a scornful sneer and reached for his whisky.
‘And you’re quite yerself again too, I can see, after yer own wee turn.’
The unhealthy sheen to McBeath’s face and his slightly exaggerated movements betrayed the extent of his drunkenness, although whether it was accumulative, or the result of this one session Jamie couldn’t judge. He wondered if the gauger thought himself safer now, now that the summoning Morven had threatened him with had failed to materialise, or if the man’s sins still tormented him. He shifted his gaze to Dougal.
‘Find yerself somewhere else to sit.’
Dougal’s grin faded, and he glanced questioningly at his master.
‘Aye,’ McBeath grunted. ‘Young Lang here has some explaining to do.’ He snorted. ‘I for one just cannae wait to hear it.’ He dismissed Dougal with a twitch of his head.
Dougal rose, grumbling, to his feet and with a sharp glance at his employer, lifted his whisky and left McBeath to Jamie. As Jamie took Dougal’s place beside the focus of his hatred, his hand strayed unconsciously to the sgian dhu tucked inside his hose.
‘Well?’ McBeath lifted his drink. ‘What’ve ye to say for yourself?’
‘A fair bit, none o’ which ye’re going to like, but it’ll make me feel a damn sight better – though nae as good as sending ye to hell.’
The gauger choked on his whisky, sputtering and wheezing, and stared at Jamie out of watering eyes. ‘Ye insolent whelp!’ He groped for his pistol, but Jamie was quicker. One swift movement saw him bring his sgian dhu up to McBeath’s groin and press the blade against the bulge in his breeches.
‘I dinna think so. Move again and I’ll mak’ ye a eunuch.’ He leaned back in his seat and patted McBeath affably on the thigh. Hidden by the table, his other hand pressed a little harder. ‘Now sit bonny and drink yer whisky and I’ll try nae to let my hand slip. I’ve something to say – sit back and listen.’
The gauger’s face was flushed purple, he looked fair fit to burst. He lifted his drink and gulped wildly, slopping whisky into his lap and wetting Jamie’s hand.
‘You’ve lost your wits, Lang.’
‘It’s nae Lang. My right name’s James Innes. Ye’ll ken the name, I think? I’ve the same name my father had, the man ye had put out o’ Druimbeag. And of course, ye know my aunt as well. She used to be an Innes too, afore she wed and became a Forbes. But then, ye’ll ken all that. Ye’re well acquainted wi’ my aunt I believe, since ’twas you made her a widow.’
There was a rasping sound as the exciseman’s breath caught in his throat and he made a desperate attempt to shrink back, his eyes bulging.
‘Be still!’ Jamie gave him a sharp prod with the blade. ‘If ye value yer manhood, ye’ll be still, I’m nae finished with ye yet.’
McBeath’s countenance had paled, now a pasty grey, and it was a moment before he was able to suck in enough breath to croak, ‘What is it ye want?’
‘Satisfaction.’
‘What kind o’ satisfaction?’
‘The usual kind.’
Jamie saw the penny drop, and McBeath blinked, his whiskered jaw relaxing a fraction.
‘You? Ye werenae much of a gauger, no stomach for the work. I doubt ye’ll make much of an adversary, no to me.’ The gauger shook his head, feeling suddenly giddy with the realisation the fiend beside him didn’t plan to slit his belly there and then, he intended to settle things the honourable way. He almost laughed.
‘Ye’re naught but a clerk! A soft scribbler wi’ pens.’ Or was he? He wet his lips with a quick flick of tongue. The witch’s nephew, by God. The same fine dark features, the same poise, he should’ve seen it before, but on a man, the features appeared more … more commonplace somehow. He swallowed, realising he’d no idea what the cold-blooded fiend beside him was, and for the first time felt the stirrings of a nameless rage. A rage at the way he’d been so thoroughly duped.
‘One week,’ Jamie hissed. ‘Dawn seven days from now in the clearing in Mèilich Wood behind Tomachcraggen crofthouse. I'll be waiting.’
‘Oh, I'll be there. Depend on it.’ McBeath’s lips quirked in a mocking grin. ‘But lad, remember this: I was born with a sword in my hand, a pistol at my girdle. What chance dae ye think ye’ll have against the likes o’ me?’
‘Chance enough wi’ justice and the Lord on my side.’
‘The Lord?’ McBeath snorted, shifting back in his seat, the better to ease the pressure on his tender loins. ‘With a witch in the family? I doubt ye can expect much help from that direction.’
‘A sight more than you, I think.’ Jamie’s blood was rising again, it pounded in his head, clouding his judgment, and the urge to finish it now came powerfully upon him. He swallowed and took a deeper breath. ‘What weapon do you choose?’
McBeath eyed him for a moment. ‘Swords,’ he said with a spreading smile. ‘Swords, I think, will suit me fine. And come to that, the day will suit me even better, for I was planning a wee visit to Tomachcraggen anyhow. Ye see, that’ll be three months been and gone, and I’ve dealings with your aunt.’ He gave Jamie a pitying look. ‘Shame ye’ll no be there to see us wed.’
Jamie’s face paled, and he stood abruptly, knocking his chair over with a clatter and quivering with rage.
‘I’ll see ye in hell first!’
He turned on his heel, then as suddenly whirled back and struck at the exciseman with the blade. He caught him across the cheek, a mere nick, but a gasp went up from the neighbouring table, every head now turned in their direction.
McBeath hissed, his hand flying to his face as dark blood welled from the gash beneath his fingers. ‘You’re a dead man, Lang.’
‘Nae Lang. Know it ye all.’ Jamie’s voice rose, and he turned to glare about him. ‘My real name’s Jamie Innes – Innes of Druimbeag. Aye,’ he said, seeing the widening of eyes. ‘Son of the man put out of Druimbeag on account o’ this maggot, this … this murdering scum. The gauger I've duped all this time. The devil ’twill be my pleasure to send on his way – straight to hell!’
There was not a sound in the inn now, save for the crackle of the fire burning in the far corner. A muscle flexed along Jamie’s jawline, and he slid the blade back into its place.
‘Seven days,’ he hissed, then ruthlessly shoved his way out of the inn.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rowena sat on by the fire long after she would typically have gone to bed. The fire was in full blaze, and combined with the lingering warmth of the day should have kept her more than comfortable, yet still she shivered. The chill was not in her bones or flesh but in her very soul. She closed her eyes and tried to quiet her mind, tried to send her consciousness out from the calm place within her, out of worldly perception into other realms se
arching for answers and guidance.
Every day since that dreadful one in Balintoul, she’d made this journey. She’d quietened her mind to a deep state, then in her mind’s eye had drawn a healing white light around herself. Cocooned in this way, she’d made her inner journeys, searching always for wisdom, for some connection with the Creator, for council from Him or from the guidfolk o’ the sìtheans, the faeryfolk, for were they nae His children too?
Her route led her through a mountain pass and dense woods, past waterfalls, but always ended at a faery knoll. There she would see herself standing before a dark pool and would cast her troubles into the water, watching the ripples close over Hugh McBeath’s head as he sunk from sight with a resounding splash.
Now, following Jamie’s revelation that the man was beyond the reach of the law, she knew in her heart deeper magic was demanded, and the knowledge made her tremble. There was only one course left to her, and thus far she'd shied away from it, so fearful was it to think on. She rose and paced the room, then took her cairngorm from its box and rubbed the gemstone between her palms. It must be done though, and inside she agonised. ’Twas a terrible thing … aye, even fer him, and so she tormented herself.
Sitting down again, she tried to chase all hatred from her heart. No hatred must she harbour, no bitterness allow, for only humility and absolute faith would render her pure enough. Else what she evoked would be visited back upon her a hundred times over.
A draught scattered the flames in the grate, and she looked up to find her nephew standing in the doorway.
‘Jamie!’ She started guiltily. ‘I’ve been worried about ye.’ She looked at him again, seeing a strange light in his eyes, a grim look of melancholy and despair, and a rush of tenderness flooded her heart. ‘Will ye join me?’
He nodded to her, his dark mood reflected in his eyes, and sat down by her side. ‘Forgive me. It wasna my intention to stay away so long, but there was … was something I needed to do.’ He turned toward her with a grave expression, and she saw the strain etched in his face and sensed he was keeping something from her. Frowning, he turned back to the fire.
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