THE FAERIE HILLS (A Muirteach MacPhee Mystery Book 2)

by Susan McDuffie

  The rock on the cairn glistened damply after the rain. I dismounted and walked around the stones until I reached the far side of the rocks. I saw no faerie gold nor marks that anyone had found anything there, but then thought to inspect the top of the mound.

  On the top of the mound was a large broken stone and not much else. Somerled, who had clambered up shortly after we arrived, intently nosed around it, digging at the earth with his paws. I whistled for him, thinking some rabbit had made a burrow in the faerie mound, but the stubborn dog ignored me.

  I felt my heart beat faster with nerves, or perhaps it was fear. For all that I thought the sithichean had not taken Niall, I was not sure about traipsing over the top of the mound where they might dwell. And perhaps I had a presentiment of what I would find.

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm the pounding of my heart, and walked towards my dog. He came up to me, tail wagging with pride, holding a small arm, much decayed and gnawed at one end, in his mouth.

  * * * * *

  I got my dog to loose the arm, then followed him back to the stone. I pushed the rock aside a bit with effort, for it was large and heavy. I saw a shoulder, a bit of blond hair, and more of the body, stained with dirt and somewhat crushed. It looked very little like the boy I remembered, but Somerled had found Niall.

  My stomach turned and I shuddered, then retched twice. The sun, barely visible in the gray sky, was already lowering in the west. I watched it for a moment to avoid looking at the corpse. Although I now knew what had become of Niall, I could not face what I had found.

  Gillean lived not so far away. I carefully placed the arm with the rest of the body, and then I left that dreadful place. I rode my horse down the track towards his cottage, hoping for a torch and some human companionship to help me deal with the horror I had seen, but I did not find Gillean at home. I had forgotten that tonight was Samhain, when the spirits of the dead visited the living.

  I rode over to the huts near the Tràigh Bàn, where Àine lived. A bonfire blazed brightly there, livening the oncoming gray twilight while people gathered around it, talking and joking. They were telling fortunes with hazelnuts, but I think no one had divined that a corpse would be found that grisly evening. Everyone crossed themselves when I told them my news, and the crowd broke into excited talk. A messenger was sent to Dun Evin while some of the men followed me back up the hillside to the cairn with torches as the sun was setting.

  We moved the heavy stone atop the cairn completely aside, and found the body, or what remained of it, buried underneath. The skin, greenish and an unnatural red, sloughed loosely off the flesh, and the stench was fierce. Mold grew on the body, and we had to move the remains with great care. It had been some four weeks since the lad went missing. Now we had found Niall, but not his murderer.

  We had most of the body disinterred and wrapped in a plaid before my uncle and the Benbecula MacDonald arrived. By this time it had grown dark, although after a time a full Samhain moon rose and cast a pale light on the proceedings. Then we took the poor bundle back to the dun, in a procession lit by the moon and the light of torches.

  Sìne, Niall’s own mother, set up a wild keening, joined by my aunt Euluasaid. Dòmhnall took one look at the body and rushed out of the hall. Mariota sat white-faced, weeping silently, for all that she had not known the lad. Truly, it was as if the doors between this world and the other world were flung open that dark and deadly Samhain night, what with a corpse of a child lying in the dun and no human yet found to punish for the deed.

  After a time the women took the pathetic pile of flesh and bones to prepare it for burial and the wake that would precede it. I sat with my uncle and the MacDonald, drinking some uisgebeatha. It burned my throat but did little to numb the sense of failure I felt. Someone had murdered the boy, and I had yet to find the killer. Of a sudden a louder keening was heard from my aunt’s chamber, and one of Euluasaid’s maids came running in.

  “Muirteach, it is asking for you they are. And the chief himself. You must come at once.”

  We followed her to the door of my aunt’s chamber. The sounds of a woman sobbing and my aunt’s murmured words of comfort met us in the hallway. Mariota, white-faced, stood at the door and stopped the MacDonald from pushing his way into the room behind us.

  “Just wait a wee while, until he is ready to be seen. Please. Here, can you comfort your wife?” she added as Euluasaid led the woman out of the room.

  “Muirteach,” Mariota said once they were away, “you must look at this.”

  The boy’s body lay facedown on the table where the women had been preparing the poor corpse for burial. Mariota held the candle close, and its flame illuminated the remains. On the boy’s back, despite the decomposition, we could see an ugly wound.

  “An arrow wound, it looks like,” I observed.

  “Indeed,” said Mariota. “And this is what was the cause of it.”

  She walked over to the table, picked up a small wooden plate sitting there, then brought it back to show me. On the plate rested a bloody arrow, roughly worked of flint.

  * * * * *

  “Dia, it is a faerie arrow!” The candle flickering in the room seemed to waver as I spoke.

  “Perhaps it is, Muirteach, but I have never seen the like of it before. This is not as finely worked as some are. And usually when folk are taken by the faerie they are not shot like this. They find the faerie arrow nearby after a person is stricken down.”

  “Aye,” I agreed. For it was often enough I had found faerie arrows as a child there on the machair. And never had one made a wound like this. “This is an arrow wound, and I think it was a man that shot him.”

  Gillespic, when he saw the arrow, grew grim. “Indeed it is a faerie arrow, Muirteach, but I am thinking that this is best kept among ourselves. If folk are thinking the sithichean are shooting us on their wild hunts, there will be no end of panic. They are already blaming the good folk for every sick bairn on the island. I also am thinking it was a man who drew the bow. But what man hunts with faerie arrows?”

  I did not know the answer to his question.

  Later that long night, Euluasaid asked Malcolm for Dòmhnall, but he was not to be found anywhere. And so, exhausted, we set out to search for him as the dawn slowly grew over the island.

  I thought I knew where to look, and again riding north towards Carnan Eoin, I eventually found Dòmhnall sitting in the ruined hut on the Beinn Beag. He sat with his knees drawn up, huddled into a ball, staring over the ruined walls and out over the hills. A wet rain drizzled down, and his plaid was soaked through.

  I approached slowly, but he heard my step and turned to look at me, then burst into sobs.

  “Muirteach,” he cried, “Why were they not taking me? Why did they have to take Niall? I killed him by leaving him here—”

  I sat down next to the boy on the wet ground but said nothing. I thought of my young orphaned half sister and half brothers, and felt I had spent far too much time lately trying to comfort children over deaths that were not their fault. In that case also I had not known what to say to them. And now I floundered, trying to find some words of comfort for my nephew.

  “No, no, indeed you did not kill him,” I finally said when his sobbing had diminished somewhat. “You must not be thinking in such a way. You did not shoot the arrow, Dòmhnall. You did not kill him.”

  “But I should not have left him there. It has all been my fault.”

  Nothing I could say could convince him otherwise. Dòmhnall in his grief and his guilt was as stubborn as his foster-brother had been in his search for the faerie. And I myself felt my own failure, and could find few words to convince the lad he was not at fault. Finally I gave up trying, and attempted to interest him in some food.

  “Here is a bannock and some speckled bread from the meal last night. Come, eat. It will not bring Niall back to starve yourself to death.”

  At the smell of the fresh baked bread, Somerled pushed his way over to us and sat looking hopeful, his ey
es glued to the bread in my hand and the hairs on his gray muzzle quivering in anticipation.

  “For if you are not wanting it, Dòmhnall, I am thinking that Somerled here will be willing to eat it for you.”

  At this the boy brightened a little. He asked for some bannock, which I was happy to give him, but then he offered it to the dog and did not eat it himself. Then, after the dog finished wolfing down the bread, the boy hugged the dog tightly and buried his head in Somerled’s wiry fur. I could see from the shake of his shoulders that the lad was grieving again.

  I patted his shoulder and the shaking eased a little, but I could still hear the muffled sound of sobbing.

  “Now, Dòmhnall, come.” I tried to sound authoritative. “Your mother is aye sick to think of you being lost, and your father has that glint in his eye.” I did not add that Gillespic looked sick with worry as well at the thought of his missing son. “We’d best be getting back to the dun and seeing them. It will not do to worry them so, not now.”

  Dòmhnall raised his face from Somerled’s flank. “Aye, Muirteach,” he finally agreed. He swallowed and wiped at the tearstains on his cheeks. “I will come with you.”

  And that, at least, was a great relief to me on such a bitter day.

  * * * * *

  All Souls’ Day was foggy, and my vision came to pass. The keening of the women filled my ears as I followed the sad procession down the beach to the boat that bore young Niall and his grieving parents back to his island home. I stayed on Colonsay, not wanting to return to Islay. I had found Niall, but not his murderer. I expected to hear from the Lord of the Isles regarding the matter—but no messengers or news came from Islay, although His Lordship’s men returned to Finlaggan. Perhaps the Shepherd of the Isles was too concerned with politics to be worrying over the death of a child on Colonsay, even his own grandson.

  With the MacDonalds gone back to Benbecula, things on the island and at my uncle’s dun quieted a bit. Aunt Euluasaid began to put her household back to rights after the upset His Lordship’s men had caused. The MacRuaris stayed on, seeming to be in no great haste to be leaving the island, and I puzzled over which woman Raghnall was courting.

  Liam MacLean also remained. I wondered querulously if he had any duties at all on Mull, such a man of leisure he seemed to be. He appeared in little hurry to return to his home there. But this wondering still left me on Colonsay with the mystery of who killed a young boy to solve.

  * * * * *

  The morning after this dawned fair, and Liam was all for hunting again. Apparently he felt that our sojourn to Donald Dubh’s had made us comrades, for he asked me to join him. I did, borrowing a mount from my uncle and bringing Somerled with us.

  “And how were you coming to own a deerhound?” inquired Liam, a bit jealously I thought, with some satisfaction.

  “My uncle was giving him to me.” I did not add that Somerled was a pathetic hunter. If we were lucky enough to find game today, Liam would discover that for himself.

  I was thinking we should try the south of the island, but Liam was all for heading to the north again. I wondered at that, but did not gainsay him, as I myself had my own interest in that end of the island. We turned our horses in that direction, but saw little enough game—or islanders, for that matter. The horses were eager for exercise, and soon enough we found ourselves at the far end of the island, a bit beyond the nunnery. There was a fine bit of open ground that led down to another sandy beach under the shadow of a large outcropping of rocks.

  We stopped to rest the horses and to eat some of the oatcakes and cheese we had brought with us. Somerled, after begging for some scraps, lay down and looked as though he would sleep. It did not sound like too bad a thought to me, for I had something of a headache, brought on by the drink last night and my unsettled sleep.

  “I’m thinking Somerled and I will wait here a wee while while you go on a bit,” I said, tethering my horse and arranging my cloak for a bit of a pillow in a hollow between two low hills. The early afternoon sun was warm enough, and I had no wish to see what was up on the north coast of the island. I’d been there often enough. Too often lately, I thought dourly. Liam assented with alacrity. I thought he was glad to be rid of me, and he set out over the rocks towards the standing stones past Cnoc Cnorr. I laid my head on my cloak and closed my eyes for a bit, the warm and lazy bulk of Somerled serving as a windbreak.

  I had not intended to sleep, but I did. I woke hearing voices, a man’s and a woman’s, carried to me on the breeze, but I could not catch their words. Then I thought I heard the sound of crying, then quiet, just the wind. I sat up, stretched and stood up to look, but could not see above the hollow. Curious, I climbed to the top of the hill, followed by Somerled, but no one was there, just an eagle circling overhead. Perhaps the noise of the mysterious speakers, whoever they had been, had disturbed the great bird.

  I walked back down, mounted my horse and set off towards Cnoc Cnorr with the thought in my mind of finding Liam. I had not gone far when I saw a lone rider—Liam. He had had no luck hunting, he said, and had seen no game. Just the same eagle who still circled in the sky.

  I wondered at the voices I had heard, and it was on the tip of my tongue to ask him of them. But as Liam denied seeing anyone else while he had been hunting, I did not ask him more of it.

  We started back towards Dun Evin, passing no one for some time, although closer to Balnahard one of the sisters walked, carrying a basket of something and headed towards the nunnery.

  On the way back to Dun Evin, Liam began to talk of the hunting on Jura and how fine it was. I let him ramble on, still puzzling over the voices I thought I had heard. Perhaps they had only been a dream, some fancy. As we reached the point where the path branches off towards Brìde’s well, Liam turned his horse in that direction.

  “And where are you off to?” I questioned, sounding like a shrewish wife. But the dark was growing, and it did not seem to me to be the time to be off riding.

  “I am just wanting a short ride to be clearing my head,” returned Liam. “It will be bright enough for an hour or so yet.”

  So I left him there and made my way up to the dun, while Liam rode his horse up along the trail.

  That night I enjoyed the feasting at my uncle’s dun, but Liam did not return.

  “Och, perhaps he got lost and slept out in the open,” said my uncle, little concerned when Euluasaid pointed this out to him. “Or took shelter someplace. He’s a grown man and can find his way back here again right enough.”

  Chapter 11

  That same night in the hall Fergus began to talk about our trip to the witch-woman on Jura, and Mariota listened avidly.

  “I have heard of old Gormal,” she said. “People on Islay visit her from time to time. I have heard she is a good healer, with a fine remedy for the falling sickness, and other things as well.”

  “But you were never seeing her over there?” I asked, curious. I had thought that Mariota and her father knew every healer in the Hebrides.

  “I was never going, but I am thinking my father did visit her once or twice. But I can not be remembering what he was telling me of her—just, I think, that she kept the old ways. There is certainly nothing of the black witchcraft about her. Perhaps she is a white witch. And I think he was saying that she knew some good remedies, but he could not be getting her to share them with him.” Mariota’s brow furrowed as she thought. “Aye, that was it. He was saying she was the guardian of a well and a suicide’s skull. And that the water of the well, if it is drunk from that skull, can cure the falling sickness.”

  She paused, then said a minute later, with a brighter look to her eyes, “Muirteach, perhaps we should be going to visit her again. I am curious about her and her medicines.”

  It felt good to see Mariota interested in something and not speaking of shutting herself up in a nunnery, so I agreed readily. And I had my own reasons for wanting to visit the woman again.

  “Aye. And although her scrying was not successful bef
ore, perhaps now that we know poor Niall is dead, she might scry again and see the killer. For I am not thinking the sithichean killed him, but with all the clues I’ve been finding, they might as well have.”

  So we made our plans to visit Jura again. Why my uncle was willing to lend me a boat I could not understand, but he seemed perfectly happy with the arrangement, only warning me “not to sink this one.” Seamus wanted to go and so did Aorig, and so the four of us set out in a small boat of my uncle’s for the trip to Jura the next morning with fair, although cold, weather.

  The brisk wind pushed our boat across the strait, and we approached the same cove we had visited before. There was another boat beached there, with a distinctive carved prow on it, and I wondered if some other folk were visiting the witch. For I myself, unlike Mariota, felt that there was something uncanny about old Gormal, and I was glad I did not have the falling sickness. The thought of drinking from the skull of a suicide did not appeal.

  As we climbed up the narrow track, I saw some rowan growing by the sides of the walk. Surely a black witch would not have rowan growing so close to her home, I thought. Although Mariota had suggested the trip and was enthusiastic about it, I myself found I had some worries about possibly putting her into harm’s way yet another time. If indeed Gormal was a witch.

  We neared the door and knocked, but no one answered. So we found ourselves some fine large rocks to sit on and waited for her return.

  It was not Gormal, but a man who came around another path leading down to the cave from the top of the hill. He had a deer slung over his shoulder, carrying it easily despite its weight, and looked to be just returning from the hunt. He stared at us a moment but said nothing, just let the deer down onto the earth as he stood in front of the witch’s doorway. His eyes flicked at us and then he looked at the ground, glancing sidewise at us from time to time.

  “We are wishing to see Gormal,” Aorig finally spoke when the man did not. “Can you understand me?”