The Blood And The Barley

by Angela MacRae Shanks

  ‘There’s nothing to forgive. I might’ve given ye a home these last months, Jamie, but you’ve given me far more. I’ve no wish to be yer keeper.’

  Watching the firelight play upon her nephew’s face, Rowena sensed the anger that still smouldered in him. Many hours had passed since he returned from Elgin with the news of his failure, yet where had he been? It wasna like him to linger in the Craggan Inn, yet she caught the whiff of pot-ale and tobacco on him. She shifted her gaze from his face, a little shamed at her prying. On this one night with his failure heavy upon him, she could hardly grudge him that. And if he’d no wish to speak of it, then she could understand that too, for neither one of them had need of words, the comfort was in each other’s presence.

  Jamie was glad of his aunt’s lack of questions. The long walk back from Balintoul had done nothing to cool his hot blood, and the heat trapped within the cottage made his head swim. He’d need to tell her what he’d done, but not yet. Not while his hands still itched to choke the life from the devil-gauger and the man’s mocking face still danced before his eyes. The morn would be time enough fer that, and by then he’d have found the right words.

  ‘Will I smoor the fire, aunt?’

  ‘Aye, thank ye.’ She slipped the cairngorm into a fold of her plaid. ‘I’ll lie down in a moment. And dinna worry yerself, Jamie, if I’m nae here when ye awaken, fer I’ve a notion I’ll be called away.’ A ghost of a smile touched her lips. ‘Something’s amiss the night, I can feel it. Nothing unchancy, mind.’ She kept her gaze on the flames. ‘’Just, oft-times I ken when I’ll be needed.’

  If Jamie sensed anything was afoot, he gave no indication of it. He rose and smothered the fire, then murmured, ‘Guid night to ye, then.’ And feeling the press of his hand on her shoulder, she nodded up at him.

  In the darkness, she sat on alone and listened to the sounds of his restlessness. Time seemed to creep by on leaden feet, but at length, all went still, and she could hear nothing above the crumble of peat in the grate and the soft scurry of mice among the thatch, and she knew that he slept.

  Rising, she stirred life back into the fire and put fresh water on to warm. In the dimness, she undressed and bathed, then put on a clean white shift. Her movements were quick and sure now. She poured juniper oil into a small bowl and heated it until it gave off a smoky vapour and a sharp, clean scent. Using a dove’s feather, she fanned the smoke all around herself, including the souls of her feet, until she was satisfied she’d cleansed herself of all possible taints. Only then did she push aside the loose stone in the cot-house wall and draw out the bundle she kept hidden there.

  Here she kept the objects she’d been given as a child, the talismans she planned in the fullness of time to pass on to Morven. Her hands were steady now. She shook off the layer of dust the years had gathered and laid out the objects upon the firestone. Before her lay a curious collection: a sizeable ochre-streaked stone marked with many coiled grooves that she knew was called a fossil, a clutch of glaine nathrach, serpent stones; these she fancied to be ancient stone spindle whorls from a distant time when the making of iron had still been a mystery. And there were three small faery-bolts. She turned the flint arrowheads in her hand, marvelling at their finely-honed edges and at the faery magic that had made them so. But the last item she left wrapped in its cloth.

  She could feel its malevolence reaching out to her, could taste it on her tongue, and knew she must wait until the last possible moment before uncovering it, lest its unwholesomeness infect her. Quickly she peeled three onions and placed one each upon the firestone, the windowsill, and upon the flagstone at the door along with a sprig of rowan. ‘To draw away evil,’ she murmured. That done, she placed her talismans in a heather creel along with a pot of salt, an iron trowel, and her cairngorm stone and covered them with a blanket. She took a last quick look around the room, then slipped out into the night.

  The darkness was dense and heavy, and her heart seemed to bound in her chest, struggling against her purpose, while her breath clotted thickly in her throat. She ought to feel chilled in her thin shift, but rather a swarm of hot blood surged around her heart, and a sheen of sweat broke out on her skin.

  ‘Nae far now,’ she gasped as branch and briar clawed at her. The call of Dun Sìthean was strong upon her, and she knew she’d reach the faery glade that night supposing she were bound and blindfolded. But at length her way became easier, lit by the gleam of moonlight streaming through chinks in the thinning cloud, and the tangle of Sìthean Wood gave way to the glade she’d brought Jamie to almost three months before. A desperate sob broke from her lips, and she sank to her knees in the wet moss.

  But there was scarce time to catch her breath, for dawn was drawing close, and in the grainy light, she could see the outline of the old oak tree hung with its burden of cloots. She worked swiftly, knowing dawn was near upon her and the magic of the rite would be at its most potent upon the very moment of dawning.

  Facing toward the point in the east from whence the sun would rise, she drew a circle of salt around her on the ground. Inside it, she placed her talismans, then dropped to her knees, the wet moss staining her shift, and pressed her eyes shut. It was more than twenty-five years since she’d committed the words to memory, but they were still there, still as clear to her as they’d been the day she solemnly accepted their charge. Her voice came low and husky, but into the words, she breathed as much of her will as she could summon.

  ‘Glaistig, sluaigh, loireag an gruagach,

  duine o’ loorach even uaine.

  Syne skreich o’ bluid quat gien

  hallowit an thyne rioghachd

  elfin lown an hearken.

  Ilka sae lang trobhad te mise.’

  The ancient words would invoke the spirits and faeryfolk of the dun, and as she felt the earth begin to tremble beneath her knees, and the sudden rush of air about her head, she repeated them over and over. The charm came sure upon her tongue now, and she heard the deep ripple of water at her feet, and at once a vigour came to her through the earth, a vibrancy to her and a fittingly darker resonance to McBeath, the cursed affliction she wished removed from her life. With the enchantment strong upon her, she dug into the damp earth with her trowel.

  Dawn broke with a stain of red-gold streaming up over Dun Sìthean, gilding the sacred objects before her. Quickly she withdrew the final object from its wrapping. The gnarled curve of bone gleamed wickedly in her hands, and she dropped it into the hole she’d dug for it. A horned hare’s skull, she shuddered at the sight, then quickly flung earth down over it until it was completely covered.

  Rowena had no notion how the spirits of the sìthean would help her, how she would finally be freed from McBeath’s grasp, she knew only the secrets of the rite were the most elemental, the very highest magic open to her, and provided her heart was pure enough, she’d not be forsaken.

  ‘I ask that this ill-will be taken from me, that I and my kin might endure in peace.’ She patted the earth down hard on top of the object she’d buried, the symbol of her torment. ‘So mote it be.’

  What would be the fate of Hugh McBeath should she prevail, she tried not to think on. His soul, she deemed, was already forfeit for what he’d done to Duncan, and so it hardly seemed to matter. She took up her cairngorm and placed it atop the mound of freshly turned earth. A rite of this magnitude required an appropriate gift to be offered, a crystal was best, and she willingly gave up the dark gem. ‘To whence it came,’ she murmured.

  Then she gathered her remaining talismans into the creel, her heart hammering in her throat, and quickly broke the enchanted circle by brushing the salt away widdershins from the west. Rising to her feet, she stumbled away. As she left the glade behind, the boom and pulse of energy left her, and her limbs were struck with a terrible weakness, but she knew better than to look back.

  By the time she crawled, scratched and muddied, from Sìthean Wood the vigour had been sapped from her body, and she was giddy and shivering. Rocked by waves of na
usea, she lay curled in the bracken for a time until her sickness receded. Then she slept. When she awoke the sun had already climbed high in the sky, and she felt a little restored.

  ‘I’d nae choice,’ she whispered to herself, and she knew that had been the truth of it, but there was still something she needed to do.

  Half a mile to the south of Dun Sìthean, by a fork in the river, stood the stone that would serve her purpose. Badly weathered and canted at a drunken angle, the symbol stone still carried upon it the marks of an ancient Christian faith. There she would pray for forgiveness. There, among the intricate knotwork and the symbols of boar and eagle was inscribed the cross of Our Lord. There she would make her peace with the Creator, and she hoped He would be able to forgive her.

  ***

  Sarah woke later than her usual hour and lay still, listening, unsure what had woken her. Something felt wrong. From outside came the familiar sounds of forest birds calling, the soft ‘hooeet’ of warblers above the twitter of siskins and redpolls, sounds that were so much a part of the fabric of her life, she rarely noticed them. But today there was nothing to overlay those sounds, and they seemed overly loud and insistent. She sat up and cocked her head, frowning. She could hear none of the sounds she usually woke to: the scrape of porridge spurtle against heavy pot, the thump of dough, or her mother’s familiar tread crossing and re-crossing the hardened floor. And no aroma of fresh bannocks either.

  Faintly alarmed and remembering with a tightening in her belly the events of the day before, she struggled out from beneath a pile of blankets. She pushed open the door to the main room of the crofthouse. It was empty. She crossed to the hearth. Nothing bubbled at the crook, nothing hung there at all but a pot of cold water, and the fire was all but out, stale and choked with ashes. She moved quickly to the door and threw it open. An onion sat on the flagstone, peeled and naked as an eyeball, a sprig of rowan placed beside it. Her heart gave a queer lurch, and she turned back to examine the rest of the room. Another onion sat on the firestone and a third squatted upon the window ledge.

  She ran out to the yard, the byre, the steadings. Nothing. Her chest felt tight now, and her breath came ragged in her throat as she tried hard to think. What did it mean? And where was her mam? She took a deep breath to concentrate her thoughts. ’Twas only yesterday Jamie told her he did mean to leave Stratha’an, and damned if he didna tell her that after she all but threw herself at him. Offered herself like a common strumpet. A bitter taste came to her mouth. And she’d begged Morven to stop him, had told her everything and then been forced to repeat it all to Alec and his kin.

  She shrank into herself now, remembering the horror of that, the burning of her cheeks, the thumping of her heart, and worst of all, the look on Alec’s face. Fair broken he’d been, fair crushed wi’ disappointment. And Jamie. She leaned heavily against the grained oak door. But she couldn’t think on Jamie, not without the shame of her humiliation rising to choke her.

  She swallowed and broke into a sweat. Where was her mam? Had she gone to stop Jamie too? Or gone to console Morven, more like? She grimaced. But instinctively she knew her mother wouldn’t leave like that, not without a word, not unless she had to. She cracked her knuckles and massaged her brow. Could she be at the shieling then, wi’ William? She pulled her gown on over her shift and made off through the tattie dreels barefoot with her hair loose and tousled about her shoulders.

  At the shieling, William looked blankly at her, and a trace of alarm flickered in his eyes.

  ‘Och well,’ she reassured him. ‘She’ll be oot at a birthing most like. Or seeing to a bairn wi’ the croup, that’s all it’ll be.’ But she wasn’t so easily convinced. A queer panic overtook her. The onions and the rowan, that had been her mother’s doing, but what did it mean? ’Twas something to do with McBeath she sensed, but what?

  It was as she stumbled, half-dazed, back to Tomachcraggen that she came upon her cousin. Recognising the towering figure, she pulled up with a start, her breath catching in her throat. He was swinging a pick with murderous effect on a great outcrop of rock. She ducked back behind a clump of broom. She should speak with him, see if he knew where her mother was. But even as those thoughts were forming, something held her back. Her humiliation was a shameful thing that coiled and gripped in her belly, and as it reaffirmed its hold upon her, she knew she couldn’t possibly face him. Nae after the things she’d said to him at the riverside, the feelings she’d admitted to, and especially nae after the way he’d rejected her. She could barely look him in the eye. Yet at least he was still here, still in the glen and showing no signs of leaving, and for that she was thankful. Morven had plainly found him, thank God, and convinced him to stay.

  Only … she frowned, if she was to rise from the broom now Jamie would see her, and there’d be awkwardness. Awkwardness for them both. Trapped in the bushes, she plucked at the tiny broom leaves and flicked them to the ground. ’Twas out looking fer her mam she should be, not crouched here like a frighted rabbit. Yet despite herself, her panic slowly abated, and her breathing slowed to a more comfortable rate. Watching him did that to her, though she sensed there was something changed about her cousin, he appeared … incensed almost. Certainly his blood was up, he seemed to be working out his ire upon that great mountain of rock.

  ’Twas the outcrop her da had long wanted rid of. Wi’ that gone, he’d said, they could grow near half as much oats again, though he’d aye said ’twould take canon-fire to shift it. She snorted. Canon-fire! It looked as though Jamie would manage it wi’ little more than his own hands.

  The sound of his low rhythmic grunts carried clearly to her in her hiding place, and she watched as he tore off his sark and hurled it to the ground. He attacked the rock again, ruthlessly hacking and hewing, tearing boulders out with his bare hands and piling them into colossal cairns. His back was slick with sweat, the muscles at his shoulders glistening, and watching, she could do nothing but stare at him, entranced.

  It was an impressive display, a glimpse at the powder-keg Jamie truly was, and, watching him, she recognised it was not so much the edge of danger he possessed that drew her, but more a sense of the deep passion that fired it. She shivered. Damn him fer nae wanting her! Damn him fer being so utterly out o’ her reach.

  Yet despite the longings that raged in Sarah’s heart, and the injured pride that chafed her still further, she found his actions and appearance, uncommonly savage, left her more than a little unnerved. With an angry cry, he hurled the pick into the ground, and she watched him snatch up his sark and then turn toward the clump of broom she was hidden behind. With a muffled gasp, she flattened herself to the ground. His expression was fiercer than she’d expected, and she held her breath as his eyes skimmed over her hiding place. Then he turned, and with long driving strides made toward the river. She sat up and took a grateful gulp of air. Trembling now, she knelt and watched the retreating figure until he was but a dark smudge and her eyes began to water, then she crept away and returned to the crofthouse.

  She was cold now, and felt small and lost and very much alone. ‘Where are ye, Mam?’ she whispered. She picked up the feather and the bowl of oil that lay on the hob and examined them, sniffing at the pungent preparation. It nipped her eyes and stung her nostrils, but it told her nothing. She laid them down again and looked around at the bundles of dried herbs, the powders and potions that cluttered every surface. They’d never interested her; to her they were but a means for her mam to earn wee gifts of hide and cloth, ale and maybe a leg of mutton along wi’ a reputation fer dabbling in the black arts. She pulled down a bundle of some herb that hung from a crossbeam. She didna even know what it was, she reflected, never heed what it could do.

  But Morven would know, a voice in her head jibed. ‘Aye, and mebbe I’d ken myself,’ she said aloud, ‘if I’d paid more heed.’ She sat down and stared at the remains of the fire. If she’d paid more heed, she might know where her mam was. She picked up the poker and stirred the cold ashes. Beneath the smoora
ch of ash, she found a feeble glow still lived. Leaning forward, she blew upon it, pleased with the little blaze that burst forth. If her mam were here, there’d be a roaring fire in the grate. She cracked her knuckles. ’Twas ill luck to let it go out. She rose and stalked to the window, staring out at the ripe oats and barley, the dreels of tatties, then made a disgusted sound in her throat and turned back to rummage for tinder and kindling.

  It took longer than she expected, but with perseverance, she managed to coax a flame from the pile of ashes. Quickly, she slipped a peat beneath the fledgeling flame and sat back, pleased with her efforts. It wasna right but ’twas better than nothing.

  She was hungry now and with a sigh realised she’d have to bake the bannocks herself. A mite put out but thankful for anything that took her mind off her mother’s disappearance and the turmoil within her, she rolled her sleeves and set to work.

  It was more than an hour later, when the oatcakes were cooling on the stone hob and a pot of broth bubbled at the crook, that she heard the creak of the door and turned to find her mother swaying in the doorway. She was dressed in nothing but her underlinen, torn and muddied, and clutched a heather creel in her hands. She looked so utterly unlike herself, so weak and shaken and wild about the eyes, Sarah’s heart stalled in her chest before a surge of relief rolled over her.

  ‘Thank God,’ she gasped. ‘But … wherever have ye been?’ Her gaze dropped to her mother’s scratched and muddied shins, rose to take in her hair, uncovered and snagged with bits of twig and leaf. ‘And whatever’s happened to ye?’

  Rowena sank into a chair. Her face was drawn and clammy and her hands, grimed with the dark earth of Sìthean Wood, trembled and jerked. She closed her eyes. ‘’Tis naught ye need worry yersel’ ower.’