Bitter Magic

by Nancy Kilgore

  Bessie darted through the hall and down the tower stairs.

  “I come to see the laird.” Andrew’s clear voice (a pleasing tenor) echoed from the tower stairway, and he emerged into the great hall behind Bessie. She ambled away to fetch the laird, who soon came out of the library as Margaret stood unobserved in a corner.

  When he saw Andrew, Father stopped short.

  “My laird,” Andrew began. “I beg an audience.”

  “What matter brings you here?” the laird snapped. He stood straight and strong, his presence commanding, though he was a foot shorter than Andrew. “Is there a disturbance with the Royalists?”

  “No, m’laird, no disturbance. Another matter entirely.”

  Father studied Andrew as if debating whether to grant him an audience, then led him into the drawing room and closed the door. Margret crept up and put her ear to the wooden paneling. She could hear voices, but they were so muffled, she couldn’t understand the words—except for one from her father: “Impossible!”

  What was impossible?

  Finally, the door opened, and she hurried away before they came out. Father ushered Andrew to the tower doorway, but Andrew had seen Margaret in the shadows and gave her a quick smile before disappearing down the stairway.

  “An English soldier, John?” Mother stood at the foot of the stairs into the hall.

  Father cleared his throat. “Apparently, this young man wishes to court Margaret.”

  “Oh!” Margaret stepped back. Courting?

  “But, of course, I rejected that proposal out of hand.”

  “No, Father!” she cried and began to run towards him, but then stopped. Why did she say no? She didn’t want to marry, did she?

  Mother stepped into the hall.

  Father frowned. “You know I have spoken with the Duke of Gordon about one of his sons–”

  Margaret gasped. Not one of those Gordon boys. They had teased and laughed at her on too many occasions.

  “Did you inquire about this lad’s family, John?” Mother continued in her steady voice.

  “Of course not. He is English! ”

  “Perhaps we should consult Uncle Alexander.”

  “Brodie? But why?”

  Lady Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “If the family is respectable and has means, this may be to our advantage.” She winked at Margaret.

  Margaret took another step back and stumbled over a chip in the stone floor. Courtship. She knew that marriage was her fate but hadn’t thought so far ahead with Andrew. She’d just met him, and they’d had only the one evening together at the ball, though what a glorious evening it had been.

  A great elation, like a delicious bubble, arose in her chest. To ride the countryside with Andrew again! To fly across the land with the wind whipping her face. To see his smile and hear his laughter.

  But marriage? That meant childbirth and pain and drudgery. She wanted to read, study, go to court, and converse with educated people, not stay home and have babies. Babies who died.

  Chapter 35

  She had to tell Henrietta. Henrietta was still at Kilrock, which was farther away than Nairn, but Margaret persuaded her mother to let her take Miranda rather than the carriage. It was a longer ride for the horse, but Margaret knew when to stop or walk when Miranda was tired, and when to spur her into a gallop. She and Miranda had a rhythm. They were like one body, one being, as they flew along the road. On Miranda, Margaret was like an African warrior woman—the women Grissel had told her about who rode and fought more fiercely than the men.

  They had power. Women didn’t usually have much power.

  Isobel could call the dolphins and heal the sick. She had healed Henrietta and taught Margaret a healing charm. In kirk, Lady Anne now looked to Isobel with awe and respect, just like the plain folk. Isobel had power.

  Mistress Collace had power, too. She had education, intelligence, and influence in the kirk. Mistress Collace was respected by Mister Harry, Uncle Alexander, and even Father. The two women Margaret most admired were both independent and powerful.

  She turned down the drive to Kilrock and galloped between the fields. Castle Kilrock, with its smooth gray stone and pinkish tint in the sun, was a comforting sight, as welcoming as Lady Anne herself.

  Margaret’s peaceful mood, however, was soon disrupted. Henrietta’s maid, Jean, a slight lass with dark eyebrows, came out of the door, recognized Margaret, and shrieked.

  Lady Anne, now almost as wide as she was tall, appeared behind her. “What is this racket, lass?”

  The girl stared at Margaret, then back at Lady Anne. “Lady Henrietta said—she said she would see no one. No one!” She glared defiantly at Margaret.

  Why would Jean try to protect Henrietta from her?

  “Up the stairs with you, lass, and back to the kitchen.” Lady Anne pointed the way, and the girl scampered inside.

  Margaret dismounted, and a groom came to take Miranda.

  “Don’t mind her,” said Lady Anne. “Henrietta will be grateful to see you, Margaret. Come.” Lady Anne led her in the door and scurried through the great hall.

  “Lady Anne,” Margaret called from behind, stopping before an ancestral portrait. “Why did Henrietta not wish to see anyone?”

  “Ah, you can ask her that, Margaret,” she said, shaking her head and commencing the walk to Henrietta’s chamber.

  Henrietta was in bed again.

  “Henrietta!” Margaret called and rushed to the bedside. “I thought you had recovered. You taught me to dance, and we went to the ball!”

  Henrietta turned her face away.

  Lady Anne sat down on the other side of the bed. “We have had another misfortune,” she said, hanging her head.

  “Misfortune? What happened?” Margaret cried.

  Henrietta shook her head and looked back at Margaret. “George.”

  “Did something happen to George?”

  The room was silent. Margaret, confused, looked from mother to daughter.

  Henrietta’s voice came out like a sigh or whisper. “You can tell, Mother.”

  Lady Anne straightened in her chair, resting her hands on her pregnant stomach. “George’s father, the Laird of Cawdor, has withdrawn the offer of marriage.”

  “What? But, how can he? How dare he?”

  A low voice came from the bed. “I am a fallen woman.”

  “No, Henrietta! What happened to you was not your fault!” Margaret stood up and wrung her hands. “This is impossible! George and Henrietta are in love. What does George say about it?”

  “George has said nothing.”

  “Angus, the MacDonald laird,” Lady Anne sneered, “has publicly pronounced that Henrietta is now wife of his son, James. He threatens to come and claim her.”

  “But they can’t do that!”

  “They can, but we won’t let them.”

  Henrietta sank down further in the bedclothes, covered her face, and shouted, “I would die before I go with those brutes!”

  Lady Anne sighed. “Tis why we stay here at Kilrock with our troops, such as they are, rather than back in Nairn with Mister Hugh.”

  “And the English?”

  “They have pledged to watch for these villains, but—” Lady Anne shrugged.

  Margaret knew about those empty promises.

  On the journey back to Inshoch, she lay down on Miranda’s back. She hadn’t even thought to mention Andrew, and now the world seemed as black as it had bright when she arrived.

  What a sorry place this was, this country of Scotland. A land of savages. The Royalists kidnapped and raped, the Protestants murdering innocent women in the name of God, and both sides raging and killing.

  That charming English village came into her mind’s eye. Warm houses surrounded by flowers, gentle peo
ple bowing and smiling, no one scowling or cursing . . .

  Chapter 36

  Isobel was sitting on the grass when Margaret dismounted. Rising from the open fields, the symmetrical mound looked like it had been carefully placed in the land, and its grass, a bright and verdant green, was more vivid than anything else around it.

  “Good morning, Isobel. Is this the Downie Hill? They said ’twas between Inshoch and Brodie, and a lad pointed me to this place.”

  “Aye, ’tis here, the Downie Hill.”

  Margaret removed her cape, laying it across the saddle as Miranda searched out a spot where the grass was higher and began to graze.

  She sank down on the grass beside Isobel. There was something different . . . some special kind of quiet here on this level summit. The place was different from all that surrounded it, as if the wind itself was hushed in this one spot.

  She spread out her skirts. The deep green of the cloth seemed to blend in with the grass.

  “Thy gown, ’tis a color the fairy queen will favor,” Isobel pronounced.

  “Oh, will the fairy queen appear today?”

  “Ye do have the gift, but the sight does not come when bidden. Tis a matter of waiting.”

  Margaret sighed. “My friend Henrietta is ailing again, and we are so sad.” Her shoulders slumped as she whispered, as if the shame were hers to bear, as well. “Her betrothed, the young laird of Cawdor, has rejected her.”

  Isobel snorted.

  “Do you have a charm to change someone’s mind?”

  “Twould be a curse. A curse on the laird, on his cattle and sheep, on his house and hold, on his—”

  “No! No evil curses, please. I only wanted to help Henrietta and restore her to health again. I thought your magic was good magic, for healing and helping, not cursing.”

  “Magic is neither good nor evil.”

  The two women sat in silence.

  Margaret waited, but it appeared that Isobel would not offer an alternative for Henrietta.

  Isobel pointed to the ground. “This be the elf house. The elves are here today.”

  “Elves?”

  Isobel opened her hand and showed a small triangular-shaped stone.

  “Ah,” said Margaret. “A thunderstone. My Uncle Alexander has some of these. They come out of the sky with the thunder and lightning.”

  “Nay, these are elf arrows. I have been inside. And I have seen them whyting and dighting these. The elves are always busy.” She handed the stone to Margaret.

  Margaret examined the stone. Indeed, this was what her uncle had called a thunderstone, but she didn’t want to argue, and gave it back to Isobel. Margaret stood up, stepped down from the summit, and walked around the mound, touching the sides and stroking the fine grass turf. “How do you get inside?”

  “I go in the night with William, my fairy man, and Red Reiver, who doth keep me from harm.” Isobel stroked her fingers on the stone, turning it over and over. “And betimes, if ye’re passing by, ye can see the small man who stands guard. He is all green-like, an elf. And oft’times, the elf bulls be here as well, routing and skirling, and they will affright ye.”

  Margaret started and pulled back her hand. “But I am affrighted now! I thought this was the home of the fairy queen.”

  “It is her home, too. She is the ruler of all the fairies and elves. And the king of fairy, too, who is a brave man, well-favored and broad-faced, all clothed in blue.”

  “But there is no door,” Margaret observed. “How do you get in? I had hoped to see the fairy queen.”

  Isobel smiled up at the cloudless sky. “When I leave my bed to go with William, I take a windle-straw, or beanstalks, and put them betwixt my feet, and say thrice, ‘Horse and hattock, horse and go, Horse and pellatris, ho! ho!’ And immediately, we fly away wherever we will.”

  A light breeze lifted strands of Margaret’s hair as she gazed out over the fields. “It sounds like a lovely dream.”

  “Nay, ’tis not a dream. We fly in the other world . . . the world that is always present, just not seen by the most humans.”

  Margaret twisted a shiny dark curl that had fallen below her cap and looked at Isobel, who was rubbing her pockmarked cheek. “I know I have seen things in that world, because, as you say, I probably have the an da shealladh. But flying in the night? This is not something I can imagine.”

  “Then ye must come to the coven, and we will learn ye.”

  “The coven?”

  “We who have power.” Isobel looked up at the sky, then back at Margaret. “But this must never come to the ears of the minister.”

  “A secret.” Margret frowned. Would she go to Isobel’s coven, a group of people who had power, who flew in the night in the other world? She wanted to see the fairies and learn magic, but this sounded so strange.

  She stood up to leave.

  Isobel opened her hand. Grasping the elf arrow, she gave it to Margaret.

  “What—”

  “For the Lady Henrietta, for protection.”

  Margaret gasped and took the proffered stone. “This is an honor, I’m sure—that you would entrust this stone to me, and to Henrietta.”

  “But thou must be careful, as it can cause deadly harm.”

  “Deadly harm? These?” Margaret jumped and immediately handed the stone back to Isobel. “But how?”

  “We have no bow to shoot with, but spring them from the nails of our thumbs. Sometimes, we will miss, but if they touch, be it beast, or man, or woman, they will kill, though they have a coat of armor upon them.”

  “I don’t see how that little stone could kill someone.”

  “Tis magic.” Isobel gave the stone back to Margaret, who hurriedly put it in her pocket.

  “She must say the words, as well.”

  “The words?”

  “When we shoot these arrows, we say, ‘I shoot you, man, in the devil’s name. You shall not ever go hame.’ And this shall be always true. There shall not be one bit of him left alive.” Isobel stared at Margaret, her eyes intense and challenging.

  Margaret’s stomach was churning, and she cast her eyes about as if to find something familiar to focus upon. She was in a place where the footing was unsure, where she might stumble and fall at any moment. How could she give this stone to Henrietta? “But Isobel,” she stammered. “In the devil’s name? I thought your charms were like prayers. In the name of the saints, the Trinity, and so on?”

  Isobel waved her hand, dismissing this as unimportant. “Different charms require different names. This one needs the help of the devil.”

  ISOBEL

  Chapter 37

  I scooped up an armful of straw from the corner and hefted it into the byre—some for the cows and some for the goats. Humped in the far corner sat Hugh’s mother, who rarely spoke, but watched everything as she carded the wool. The bairns ran outside as soon as they had finished their porridge.

  Why was I helping Lady Margaret? She was sincere and sweet-natured. She had the an da shealladh, though she didn’t yet know the power of it. She was eager to learn, and she could learn. She was strong-willed enough to defy Mister Harry, if called upon. And I needed her on my side. Margaret need never know about the curses on Mister Harry. Had I gone too far with the elf arrow?

  I poked the fire and stepped outside into a day that was unusually warm for mid-May. I removed my plaid and lay it on the hitching post. No one was about in the farmtown yard. The men were out in the fields, what was left of them—raking sand away from the crops that remained. The flax was ruined, but there was still hope for the barley and oats, which had been planted on higher slopes.

  Hugh, when he’d left this morning, had grumbled a prediction. “Hardly any harvest will come,” he said, pointing his finger at me. “And this be your fault.”

 
They all blamed me for the sandstorm. I’d only wanted to blow Mister Harry down, not cause a disaster. I gazed out into the distance, where the edge of the dune met sky. The wind was coming softly now.

  Was I sorry? Yes, I was sad about the crops, though I did not cause that damage. And, in spite of Hugh’s dire predictions, we did have some stores for the winter.

  I was glad, though, that I had laid Mister Harry low. He had killed my mother, after all, and now he was trying to catch me, too. I smiled a grim smile. Mister Harry was still abed and would stay there if I could help it.

  I took a load of straw from the rick and made my way toward the cattle yard behind the houses. It was Hugh Gilbert’s responsibility to care for the cattle in the farmtown barns, and mine to take them their daily straw.

  But now a commotion arose from the direction of the castle, and the sound of stomping hooves carried into the barnyard. Here was the laird himself, John Hay, with several men leading four draft horses yoked to two large sledges.

  The men drove into the yard and began loading sacks of oats and barley from the storehouse onto the sledges.

  “What do ye think yer doing?” I shouted.

  The laird said something to one of the men, young Able Watson, a sinewy, ruddy youth, who sauntered over and stared at me in a scornful way. “These are needed now for the laird,” he said, “as he’ll have to sell it all to make up for the raid and the crop failure.”

  “But these are for the farmtown!” I cried. “The cattle will starve, and the bairns will be starvin’ now, too. What else do we have but the corn to feed them all winter?” There was fish, of course, but as Able knew perfectly well, there’d be nothing now to trade the fishermen for it.

  Able didn’t answer, as he had already turned back to his task. I watched, mouth agape, as the men cleared out the barns and loaded the sledges as full as possible. They left a small portion, but not near enough to go round.

  Our stores for the winter. After the sandstorm, there wouldn’t be much of a crop, and now it would be so much less, not nearly enough to feed everyone—to say nothing of selling at market.