The shouts and noise grew louder. Now she could see them: a mob of mounted Highlanders with plaids flapping, wild hair flying every which way, swords and pistols waving. They howled and grimaced, their faces smeared black and horrible.
They were headed toward Inshoch Castle.
Miranda began to whinny and prance about on her tether, and Margaret hastily went to calm her down. “There, there, my love,” she cooed, “we are safe here.” But were they? She cowered and shrank back, crouching behind a fallen log. And what of the castle? Out there were close to twenty mounted men.
Now she heard a sound that terrified her most of all. A shriek. That voice. She knew it.
And there she was—Henrietta—crying and struggling, forcibly held on horseback by a villain with dirty blond hair and a mangy brown beard. He laughed as he crushed both Henrietta and the reins against himself with one arm, waving his sword with the other. The horse stomped and reared.
“Henrietta!” Margaret cried, and started to run out to stop them. Then stopped herself. They would only capture her, she realized, and turned back before she revealed herself. All she could do was crouch behind the log, shaking and sobbing as her dearest friend was taken away.
After they were gone and all was quiet, Margaret tore off her cap, pulled at her hair, and cried again. This was her fault. She should have insisted that Henrietta go home straight away, or that she come with her. She should never have left her on the strand by herself.
And now what was she to do? She couldn’t go home. They were heading straight for Inshoch. Would they take over Inshoch Castle and harm her family? Would they use those pistols? Margaret’s father hated the Royalists so. Would he do something dangerous and get himself shot?
Miranda had quieted down and was nibbling at something on the ground. Margaret needed to think. When she stopped trembling, she decided to steal through the wood to the other side, where she could see the castle from a closer spot.
She took the reins in her hands and walked as quietly as she could. The villains were gone, but still, she had to stay hushed. She knew there was a path through here, and she stumbled along, taking several different ways; but the wood was so dark, she couldn’t find it. She’d known this wood since she was a child, but everything looked different in the night. An owl hooted overhead, and something squawked and fluttered away as branches snapped underfoot.
When Margaret came out into the twilight, she was on the west side, looking in the direction of Nairn instead of south toward the castle. No one was in sight, so she walked Miranda around to the south, where she could see the castle. There it stood in the last light of day, rising on the hilltop with its keep and towers, a majestic silhouette against a rose-tinged sky.
What should she do? As she gazed at her home, the castle that was now under siege, Margaret hugged Miranda, as much to comfort herself as to soothe the horse. Her home was so far away. Suddenly, the sounds came again— pounding of hooves, rattling of wheels, and shouts of men’s voices. Now, from the direction of the castle, the noises were less frantic and more subdued. Into her sight rolled the wagons and carts pulled by oxen, all piled high with sacks. A herd of cattle plodded behind.
Margaret yanked at a strand of hair that had come loose from her cap and jumped from one foot to the other. Those are our cattle. Our oxen. And that is our grain in the carts. As the men came alongside, she shrank back into the trees. Where was Henrietta? There she was, still held on the horse by the blond-haired villain; but now, her head was bowed in despair. Ah, woe. Margaret buried her face in Miranda’s mane and sobbed. If only she could take back the last few hours.
Margaret watched and listened as this horrible cavalcade headed toward Nairn—where, no doubt, they would take the road to the south and the mountains. When all was quiet, she mounted Miranda, and they trudged home in the deepening dark. The wind had died down, and all was still but for the lonely lass and the horse moving slowly across the land. Margaret put her hand in her pocket and pulled out the shell Henrietta had given her. Round and conical, with radiating ridges from the tip of the cone to the edge, the shell was a chalky white, and just fit in her palm. A limpet shell. She put it back in her pocket, running her fingers over the rough ridges. Where would they take Henrietta?
“Margaret. Margaret!” Mother, Bessie, and Lucy all ran up to her when she came into the Great Hall. Mother enfolded her in her arms as the three of them wept. “I thought you were gone,” she wailed.
Margaret lay her weary head on her mother’s shoulder. All of her tears had been spent. She was emptied out, a hollow shell of herself.
“We thought you were captured,” Lucy shouted as Bessie wrung her hands. “They stole our oats and hay, and twenty head of cattle.”
“I saw them,” Margaret said, and sank down into the nearest chair. She wanted to tell them about Henrietta, but the words wouldn’t come. It was as if saying it out loud would make it true, and it didn’t seem true. It couldn’t be true.
No one mentioned that Margaret had broken the rule again and stayed out after dark. After this catastrophe, that would be far from her father’s mind.
He stood at the window, his face a furious red, and didn’t even look at her. “MacDonalds,” he growled, and his hand gripped the pistol at his side as if he would like to go out and chase the villains. “Those stinking papists.”
Finally, Margaret managed to speak. “They took Henrietta.”
“What?” her mother cried. “Henrietta? Where was she?”
“She was with me on the strand, Mother. But I left to come home while it was still daylight. They came from the west, and when I heard them, I hid in the wood. But Henrietta stayed on the strand, and they captured her.” Her head fell down in desolation.
Her father placed his gun on the table beside the fireplace. The silver pistol, with its carved designs and curved hammer, had always made Margaret think of a seahorse. It was the gun he had captured from a Royalist in the Battle of Newburn. And as much as he hated the Royalists, this gun was John Hay’s most treasured possession. Gleaming in the firelight, the pistol lay on the oak table beside the Bible.
The family remained in a stunned silence until Father picked up the Bible and gestured for all to gather round.
“I will lift up mine eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help,” he read, standing tall before the fire. “My help cometh from the Lord, who made Heaven and Earth.”
He read the whole Psalm, and they bowed their heads, murmuring, “Amen.”
“But the Lord did not protect Henrietta tonight,” Margaret whispered to Lucy, who looked up, startled. Father frowned at her, but he hadn’t heard, and Lucy poked Margaret with an elbow.
“Tis time for bed, lassies,” Mother said.
“But I can’t go up the stairs!” Margaret implored, looking towards the stone stairway. It was so dark and gloomy that even on a normal night, she imagined ghosts and demons that might jump out at her. “You must sleep with me tonight, Bessie!” she sobbed, and Bessie looked at Mother, who nodded.
“I must sleep with Margaret, too!” Lucy pleaded, and Mother consented again.
Margaret took her candle and started to mount the stairs, then turned around. “But Father,” she wailed, “what if they come back?”
“They won’t,” he assured her. “They have their plunder, their ill-gotten gains.”
Reluctantly, Margaret climbed the ominous stairwell, followed by Lucy and Bessie.
As Bessie unhooked her stays and Lucy huddled in bed, Margaret began to weep again. “What will they do with Henrietta?”
Bessie’s eyes filled, and she bowed her head. “I don’t know, dearie. We can only trust in the Lord.”
Chapter 6
Over the next few days, the castle felt even gloomier than usual. Everyone walked about in silence, glancing sideways at the laird, whose misery accompan
ied him like a sickly vapor. When he spoke, it was only to curse the MacDonalds and moan about his losses. “I am ruined!” he cried. “Ruined!” When Margaret interrupted these tirades to plead for Henrietta’s rescue, he told her not to worry. He’d sent word to the English army in Nairn for assistance. As the governing body in Morayshire, the English were obligated to search out the marauders. Would they find her? Perhaps there was something Margaret could do.
After dinner she and Lucy sat at their sewing in the drawing room. “You mustn’t go out roving again, Margaret,” said Lucy, as if she knew that her sister was scheming about something. Lucy had a way of raising her eyebrows in the center, so that she looked innocent and vulnerable while she was scolding. “You know how much it burdens Mother.” Margaret loved to rove and ramble, as Lucy was well aware, while she distinguished herself by being proper and good.
Margaret sighed. “But I can’t help thinking of Henrietta, sister. She must be rescued!”
“But if no one knows where she is?”
“Father saw the MacDonalds, so surely there is a way. Someone must know—”
A scream resounded through the castle.
“John! John! Come quick!” Lady Elizabeth’s cry carried from her chamber in the northwest tower. Margaret and Lucy jumped up, picked up their skirts, and ran through the Great Hall and up the tower to their mother’s chamber.
Mother was standing at the open window as they rushed in, their father close behind. She was pointing out the window, and they all crowded in to look. On a distant rise marched a line of horsemen with a blazing fire leading them on. The fire was rising from a cross—a burning cross held high, screaming red, yellow, and white flames into the blackness of night. Behind it, the troops paraded in silhouette like a procession of devils.
“Who are they?” Margaret cried.
“Let me see!” Lucy pushed her aside to look through the narrow window, and Margaret pushed her back.
“The fiery cross,” The laird said with reverence. “Tis our men. The Covenanters.”
Mother’s face was angry. “Why are they carrying the fiery cross like that?”
“Tis a call to battle.”
“But there is no battle now!” shouted Margaret. “The battle was over when I was two!”
Lucy clung to her mother’s skirts. “What does it mean?”
Their father stroked his beard and spoke in a thoughtful tone. “They are heading to Inverness to stop the Royalists.” He smiled grimly. “Our men have learned of our losses, and they will avenge us.”
“But they will frighten the plain folk,” Mother protested.
“That is the intent.” Father stood taller and lifted his chest. “To remind the ignorant ones, those who care more about their bellies and their hearth, the next harvest and the next milking, than the light of God. To inspire the fear of God in them. They will see that the fire of Christ and Covenant is a power far greater than all papist hypocrisy.” His manner was solemn, as though he were in church.
Silently now, they watched the movement of the burning cross. As the rider flew, the cross of fire streaked across the dark land through farmtown and village.
“Like the burning bush,” Father said. “The voice of God calling them to join the cause.”
As Margaret stared, her body grew still. Without warning, something else came into her view: more fires, on the hillside and in the town. Fires burning on the road, men marching. Throngs of men, barely human-looking creatures in scraps of clothing. They staggered and fell, their faces smeared with soot and blood. Their heads were wrapped in bloodied cloths. Some had no arms, and others were missing a leg. They lurched and stumbled into the night.
A log dropped in the fireplace, and a word escaped Margaret’s lips. “Malcolm.”
“What?” Mother turned, her wide with fear. “What about Malcolm?”
“I saw him. He was with the troops.” Malcolm, her older brother, had died in the Battle of Auldearn when she was two; but now he was there, with the soldiers.
Mother broke into tears, and Father hit his fist against the wall. “Malcolm is dead!” he shouted. “And you need not bring these ghostly dreams into our home.” His face shone red in the candlelight.
“But I did see him, Father. Perhaps he is dead, but I saw him.”
“Are you well, Margaret?” Mother put a hand on her forehead, and Margaret realized that she was hot and feverish. “Your imagination is running amok again.”
“Malcolm would go with them,” Margaret continued in a dreamy voice, her words emerging unbidden. “He would don his cloak and scabbard and boots, and he would plead with Father to go with the troops, to fight in the battle.”
Father’s head fell as he leaned on the table. “That is what Malcolm did.”
In her own chamber, Margaret cranked the window open and looked out at the night sky. No fiery cross. Only millions of stars . . . the lights God put into the night. She could see across the rolling fields and farmtown, almost to the sea, with Loch Loy a glimmering reflection in between.
She breathed in the night air, cold and fragrant with the faintest whiffs of the sea. She had been protected, shielded from the wars and battles which, even after the Battle of Auldearn—the biggest battle of all—continued in skirmishes, raids, and all manner of fighting between her people, the Catholics, and the English. But her father could not protect her from what she had seen tonight.
Bessie knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Margaret answered. Bessie unhooked Margaret’s stays, and Margaret donned her nightdress. “I had a vision, Bessie.”
Bessie was hanging her gown in the wardrobe. “What kind of vision?”
“I saw the Battle of Auldearn. I saw Malcolm leaving the house, and then I saw the soldiers coming home. Bloodied and maimed, with the English after them, chopping and hacking them to pieces.”
Bessie dropped down on the chair and looked up puzzled. “How—?” Then she sighed. “Ah, yes.”
“And Father said it was true. That is what happened.” Margaret wiped a tear of anger from her cheek. “But why did no one tell me?”
Bessie heaved a sigh. “No doubt you’d not remember, but you had a vision when you were a wee one.” Her eyes went faraway and upward, as if to the heavens. She gave Margaret a kindly smile that let her know she was loved. “Thou hast the gift, Lady Margaret.”
“The gift?” Margaret punched the bed. “If this be a gift, I do not want it! To see such horrible things. I will give it back!”
“Indeed. Tis a dangerous gift.” Bessie sighed again and shook her head. “Yet you may find it of use some day.” She stood up and went to fetch her blankets from the great hall, where she usually slept near the fireplace with the other servants.
Of use? How could these awful visions be of use?
Chapter 7
When the English soldiers arrived, Margaret was sitting with Mistress Collace, tatting a collar. On the table before them lay linen thread, bobbins, and a pink satin pillow, all aglow in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the high window.
How could she continue with her usual chores, tatting and spinning, and Scripture lessons, when Henrietta had been captured? Where was her dearest friend? In some dingy dungeon below a MacDonald castle? Lying on cold stone, hungry, thirsty, or worse? Was Henrietta even alive?
Margaret forced those thoughts away and stuck pins in the pillow to hold the thread tight. When she’d started it, she had pictured herself at a ball or an elegant castle in London, wearing a red velvet dress topped by this very collar; but her mother declared that this would be a collar for her trousseau. And red would be unsuitable for a Covenanter lass, she’d said. “We don’t want to look like the courtesans in London, those shameless women with no modesty at all.”
Margaret squeezed the lace in her hand. She and Henrietta had often t
alked of balls and gowns, but her trousseau? She winced at the thought. To be beholden to a man, serving and birthing, carding and spinning and weaving, with hardly a moment to read . . .
She ran her fingers across the lace, feeling the bumps and smoothness of the tight pattern and allowed herself a brief moment of pleasure in her own creation. The lace was fine and white.
She held it up to show Mistress. “I believe ’tis more beautiful for its simplicity.”
“As we should strive to be,” Mistress Collace replied, “the way God made us, without richness or luxury.” Mistress had lost a child and was always dressed in black. Her gowns were simple, but she still looked beautiful, with her thick blonde hair pulled back under a beaded cap. She raised her clear blue eyes to the light. “Lacemaking requires practice and discipline, just as the mind needs to ‘pray without ceasing,’ as the Apostle Paul tells us, so we can attune to God and the path of righteousness.”
“I should aspire to such righteousness, I know, but my thoughts so often go in other directions.”
“Ah, this is the human state,” said Mistress with a sympathetic smile.
“And how can I pray without ceasing when so much killing and death comes into our lives? We prayed for my brother Malcolm, but he was killed by the English. And you, the most pious lady I know—your child was taken.”
Mistress Collace’s face turned cloudy and dark. “Aye, and it was more than one child of mine who died.”
“More than one? But how many?”
Mistress hesitated, then spoke so softly that Margaret had to lean in to hear. “Nine.”
“Nine?”
The erect body of her dignified mentor slumped, and a tremor shook her.
It was common for at least one infant in a family to die. One of Margaret’s brothers had died in infancy, and it was the worst thing she had ever experienced. She had been eleven, and so excited about a new baby coming. But one day, when she saw him in his little bed coughing and wheezing, his wee body suddenly turning whiter and whiter, then blue, she had screamed for the nurse and her mother.
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