by Dave Duncan
"So what roused the wisp against you?" the acolyte murmured. "What provoked the robed man to try and put a dagger through your heart? He must be on Valda's side, so whose side did he think you were on? It's all very murky, my son! I have never met a more complex case. The best we can do is get you to a sanctuary as quickly as possible—preferably before you sleep again, although that does not seem possible, does it? A tutelary can detect possession and sometimes cure it. Even a spirit may be able to help, and the closest shrine happens to be in Glen Shira, whither we are bound anyway."
"We are? I thought we were going to Oban!"
"There is no tutelary at Oban, now," the acolyte said sadly. "There was once, but York sacked the town, remember."
More history ... the English army under the duke of York had rampaged through the west in one of the previous wars. Toby could not recall which one, and did not care. "Why does that matter? It was rebuilt, wasn't it?"
"The town was, yes. But a tutelary will not let you sack its town! It isn't just firearms that give the Sassenachs their victories, my son. They use gramarye, too. I suspect that this is why, er, Rory is so interested in you, because—" He stopped and caught at Toby's arm as he was about to scramble over a dry-stone wall. "I think we should wait here a minute."
A hundred paces ahead, Rory, Meg, and Hamish had been challenged by four men from the cottages. Trouble?
Toby's hand reached for the hilt of his sword.
"Wait? Why?"
The acolyte chuckled. He sat down on the wall and turned his face away from the wind. "Because it will be easier for them. If they are questioned, they can admit to speaking with a man and two children. They need not mention a friar and a young giant carrying a broadsword."
"Oh." Perhaps Rory was necessary, after all. The waiting men had obviously recognized him. They were pulling off their bonnets and bowing. What did that say about the self-styled Master MacDonald?
Toby turned back to Father Lachlan. "Why Glen Shira? I promised Meg's father I would guide her to Oban." What were these two up to—Rory and his pet acolyte?
The little man smiled reprovingly. "She might make it, my son, although she would be questioned. You cannot go that way—not directly. Remember, there are three groups hunting you. Laird Ross and his men will pretend to cooperate with the Sassenachs, while doing everything they safely can to frustrate them. The Sassenachs themselves are much more dangerous. They will have blocked the three main roads—north by Bridge of Orchy, south through Crianlarich, and west through Dalmally and Pass of Brander. We are not far from Lochy Castle, you know." He waved a chubby hand at Glen Lochy, which had now come into view.
Toby hitched his sword to a marginally less uncomfortable position and wished he could hear what was being said at that meeting up ahead.
"So how do we go to Glen Shira? And how do we get from there to Oban?"
"We go on down the Shira. When we reach Loch Fyne, we take a boat. Outwitting the soldiers will not be difficult."
"Who pays for the boat? Who will sail around the Mull of Kintyre at this time of year?" It must be nice to be a trusting sort of person, who did not see betrayal in every cock-and-bull story.
"Or we can cut inland to Loch Lomond."
"And Lady Valda?"
Father Lachlan sighed and studied Toby for a moment with a disconcerting stare. "If she is pursuing you also, my son, then I fear for you—body and soul."
The only comforting thought then was that he would not have said so if he doubted Toby's courage.
Rory had finished his consultation with the locals. They turned and ran off, one to the cottages and the other three in other directions. Father Lachlan rose to clamber over the dike. About to vault it, Toby remembered his sword and took a more cautious approach. He would rather not fall flat on his face with Meg and Rory watching.
"The hunt is on," Rory announced when they reached him. He looked annoyed. Hamish looked owlish. Meg was blue-lipped and shivering. "The Sassenachs have set guards on the Pass of Brander."
"Where did your friends go?" Toby demanded. "And where are they off to?" A stream of youths and leggy boys had begun emerging from the cottages and haring off over the pastures, one after the other. Six... seven...
Rory's silver eyes were as cold as the weather. "To make arrangements. Certain persons will be discouraged from seeing certain things. We will be advised when it is safe to cross the road. And so on." He obviously had no doubts as to who was in command of the expedition.
"No word of the lady?" Father Lachlan inquired.
"Not so far."
Toby had promised Kenneth Tanner that he would deliver Meg safely to her relatives in Oban, but to stick to the letter of his promise now would be to break it in spirit. He represented the greatest danger she would ever face. He must reconsider his duty in the light of circumstances, even though that meant putting trust in strangers—never Rory, but an acolyte ought to be reliable if any man was.
"Wait!" he said. "It's me the Sassenachs are after. They have no quarrel with any of you. You all go on. I won't—"
"Not a chance, Longdirk." Rory spoke softly but emphatically. "Firstly, that's not true. And we're all in this together, anyway."
"Don't be crazy! You all go on; I'll take to the hills. Father Lachlan, will you pledge to see Meg Campbell safely to her cousins' place? I promised her—"
"You're wasting breath, young man," the acolyte said, pulling up his hood and lacing it under his chin. "I am determined to find out what that Valda woman is up to, and I shall be much happier having you where I can keep an eye on you. Now let us be on our way."
Rory made an ahem! noise. "Can you give us a few general clues as to what's going on, Father?"
"I wish I could." The little man pondered for a moment, and then spoke with an authority and decisiveness he had not shown before. "I do think Hamish Campbell was right, and the mysterious woman is the infamous Lady Valda—" Hamish beamed. "There can't be many female hexers on the loose, and her appearance here may explain Oreste."
Rory nodded. "Ah!"
Toby said, "Oreste?"
"We are worried about Baron Oreste." We meant all the rebels, presumably. "He is one of Nevil's closest cronies and a notorious hexer, a most evil man. He arrived in Scotland a couple of weeks ago and is still lurking around Edinburgh, as far as we know. We have been wondering what could be so important as to require his attention here."
"Could he be hunting for King Fergan, sir?" Hamish said, looking as worried as if the Oreste problem were all his fault.
"We thought that," Father Lachlan murmured. "Now the timing suggests he may have come in search of the lady. As to what happened ... apparently she tried some sort of conjuration involving Master Strangerson, but I don't know what. It seems to have failed, or produced unexpected results—that's my guess. She may pursue him, and it is up to all of us to keep him out of her clutches. I do not believe he is possessed—if he were, you would be dead by now."
"I would, certainly," Rory said cheerfully, rubbing his chest. "I baited him a little this morning. He displayed remarkable self-control for one of such tender years— almost bovine."
That was what Rory had been up to—testing.
Hamish gulped. "Oh! You thought he might . . . Wasn't that rash of you, sir?"
The rebel shrugged. "As a mortal, he presented an interesting challenge. As a demon . . . Well, my father is always telling me I am destined to be roasted with hell-fire or ripped to pieces. I thought I could find out if he was correct."
Father Lachlan frowned disapprovingly. "You don't know what fear is, do you?"
Rory looked modest. Toby gritted his teeth and wished he could teach him.
"So how did our oversized friend escape from the castle, Father?"
"You must ask him. Anything he told me was in confidence."
Toby had been watching Meg's horrified eyes growing wider and wider. "Tell them, Father—I don't care. If I am a danger to them, they should be aware of it. They know about
the Sassenachs, they should hear of Lady Valda, too. Won't her powers enable her to track me down?"
"Powers?" the acolyte said disapprovingly. "I told you. She has no powers, my son, only evil skills that enable her to command demons. She herself has only knowledge—evil knowledge, and evil designs." The little man began to move away. "Pray that one day one of her demonic minions will turn on her."
Toby raised his voice. "Can her demons track me down for her, then?"
Father Lachlan stopped and looked around and adjusted his eyeglasses. "Well, yes. Of course they can. From what you told me, two of them are probably in poor condition at the moment, but one would be enough."
With a macabre chuckle, Rory slapped Toby on the back. "If they get within range, Longdirk, they'll nail your feet to the rocks. We must move."
"What is their range?"
"Good question! Father?"
"Impossible to say, my son. Some demons are more powerful than others, or more biddable, perhaps—it depends on their training. A bottled demon... Well, I am sure than Baron Oreste in Edinburgh can communicate with King Nevil in London, if that is where he is. Demons incarnate, as Lady Valda's are presently, are much more restricted—but I don't think we should let them get any closer than we have to."
4
Rory called a halt for lunch in the lee of a dry-stone dike. If those were dry stones, Hamish remarked, then he had forgotten what the word meant. The five fugitives hunkered down to pool their remaining supplies. There were no trees to provide better shelter from the downpour, but why not a haystack or a cattle barn? Rory insisted on the wall. He wanted to keep an eye on the road.
He seemed oddly concerned about crossing the road. Some of the locals, he admitted, were unreliable, and Sassenach patrols had been sighted. The road itself, running from Glen Lochy to Dalmally, barely deserved to be called a track. It wandered from house to house, fording burns, detouring around bogs and peat cuts, frequently offering the traveler a choice of several ways, none of them appealing. Strath of Orchy was wide, flat, and marshy, but it was inhabited. No one could cross it by day unobserved.
"The rain helps, though, doesn't it?" Hamish demanded, wolfing the last of Annie Bridge's blood sausage—he had freely handed out his mother's stale baps in exchange. Rain was marching gray armies along the glen, ghostly giants.
"It helps blind the Sassenachs. I doubt it will stop demons."
Hamish gulped on a mouthful.
"So what are you planning, Master MacDonald?" Meg asked attentively.
"I've got patrols of my own out." He did not elaborate.
Just who was Rory MacDonald of Glencoe? Father Lachlan knew him by some other name, and although the younger man treated the older with diffidence, there was no question that the younger was the leader. The cottagers had doffed their bonnets to him, and Highlanders did that for few men.
What motivated these two? Meg and Hamish were here by necessity, but Rory and Father Lachlan would be far better off indoors, sharpening swords by the fireside, than struggling through storm-racked hills for no evident advantage. It was Strangerson whom Valda pursued, so why not just give the young bastard a head start and let him lead the hexer into someone else's shire?
The road—or the nearest branch of it—was only a few hundred paces away, and no one had come along it in the last quarter hour. Beyond it flowed the Lochy, which they would have to ford.
"That's where we're going, isn't it?" Hamish asked, peering into the murk. "That gap? The valley of the Eas a Ghail?"
"And the magnificent mountain to the left of it is Ben Lui," Meg snapped. "You can't see that, either."
"I can see the bottom of it. Going to be steep going, sir?" As Eas a Ghail meant "White Waterfall," he was making a reasonable assumption.
"Steep enough," Rory said. "Ah!"
Three men were approaching from the east, leading a pony loaded with broom, winter fuel. A few minutes later, two others came into sight from the west, with another pony similarly laden. The two groups paused for a brief word, almost opposite the watchers. Then they continued on their respective ways—having unobtrusively exchanged ponies.
"That's it!" Rory said with obvious satisfaction. "The all-clear signal. No patrols. Let's go."
Leaving only some crushed grass and not a single crust to mark where they had been, the travelers scrambled over the dike and hurried toward the road. The men with the ponies never looked around.
Toby found Hamish at his side.
"You don't mind if I use you as a windbreak?" His plaid was already sodden. His lips were blue, his fingers bone-white, but he was grinning happily. He was an outlaw and wore a black feather. Incredibly, the kid was actually enjoying himself!
"Be my guest." Toby suspected that the rain was starting to show signs of whiteness. "When we get higher, we're going to be in snow, and then we'll leave a trail."
"I d-d-don't think demons need snow to t-t-track people."
"Perhaps not."
After a moment, Hamish said, "Who do you think Rory really is?" He was shouting over the wind, but his manner implied that he was whispering. His dark eyes gleamed conspiratorially.
"I have no idea."
"He speaks the Gaelic like a Sassenach."
"Yes he does."
"You think he might have lived in England when he was a kid? Prince Fergan was a hostage in England during the Taming, after the Battle of Leethoul."
Toby shrugged, feeling the wet plaid rubbing his skin under the weight of his sword. "You think Rory is King Fergan?"
"No," Hamish said reluctantly, obviously wishing that he did. "He's too young. A lot of chiefs' sons were taken, too. He may be a chief's son, or even . . . No, he mentioned his father, so he's not a chief yet. He may be a chief's son!"
"What if he is?" He probably was.
Hamish stumbled along in silence for a while. They crossed the muddy trail, then waded across the foamy brown Lochy, following Rory and Father Lachlan and Meg, who was chattering as if they were all old friends.
"Toby ... do you like Meg?"
Toby looked down coldly—which was not difficult under the circumstances. "She's a nice kid."
The boy grinned impishly. "She's madly in love with you!"
"No, she's . . . Well, she may think she is, but she's not old enough to be really in love."
"She's older than I am!" Hamish said indignantly. "Girls grow up faster than boys do, and she's only a few months younger than you are."
"She is? But ... "Toby thought for a moment and then said, "Oh." School memories were no help, because boys were taught in the morning and girls in the afternoon. Meg had been around for as far back as he could remember. She might not be much younger than he was, after all.
Maybe that did make a difference.
Hamish grinned triumphantly. "She's in love with you!"
"How do you know?"
"Everyone knows. The other girls all tease her about it, because she's so little and you're so big."
Did that explain some of her brother's enmity? "I'm also an outlaw, and I'm probably bewitched. She ought to find a better prospect."
"Tell her that!"
"You tell her, if you think it's any of your business."
Hamish shot Toby a wary look. "Father Lachlan's a Galilean, did you know? He was telling me some of their teachings and he says they don't contradict what Pa taught in school, which is mostly Stoic, because there's more Stoics in Scotland than any others—Pa uses some of their tracts—but I know the Socratics have a chapter in Glasgow, and of course the Tartars favor the Arabic ..."
Toby listened to the prattle with less than half an ear and mulled over the implications of what he had been told about Meg. The idea was oddly worrying. He liked little Meg. He did not want to hurt her feelings, and he had probably done so already. A man could tell a woman that he loved her and risk being rejected—that was part of the burden of being male. A woman must be more careful, lest she seem brazen. If she dropped a few hints and the man was too s
tupid to notice, what more could she do? That must make things very difficult for her. He had never really thought of that before.
He certainly couldn't start failing in love now—not with Meg, not with anyone. Until he had been purged of his demon, or hex, or whatever Valda had done to him, he was not fit for human society. And even after that, he would still be an outlaw, and a homeless wanderer with no trade, no money, no prospects. Love would have to wait a long time.
Besides, he had promised Kenneth Tanner that he would treat Meg as a sister.
"Down! Rory shouted. "Down, you big oaf!"
Hamish grabbed Toby's plaid and tugged. Hamish was already down—they all were. He had been daydreaming. He dropped to the wet moss.
They had come about half a mile from the road. A band of riders had emerged from the mist, heading east, coming fast.
"Toby!" Hamish squealed. "It's them! It's Valda!"
They were too far off to be certain, of course, but horses like those were rare. It was not a military patrol, certainly. Six... the lady, her maid, four demons... ? If Valda had used Toby's dreams to locate him, then she would have had no need to detour around by Bridge of Orchy. She could cut him off by taking the Glen Lochy road.
Then what? What could demons do? Could they smell his tracks like bloodhounds? With sick apprehension he watched the sinister cavalcade draw near the point where he had crossed, expecting any minute to see the horses reined in, the hunt turn south in pursuit.
It seemed unfair that demons could travel the world while benevolent spirits like tutelaries remained in one place. Why should forces of evil have such an advantage over the good?
But the riders kept going, onward to the west, and in a few more minutes the rain hid them from sight. Hamish released a loud gasp of relief, speaking for all of them. He scrambled to his knees.
"What happens when she gets to Pass of Brander and finds out Toby can't have gone that way? She'll turn back!"
