“Aye, and why not? It answers questions simply enough.”
“One thing more, lad. There are those about who are no lovers of the Irish, so if I were you I’d be the son of a Scottish soldier who was killed in Ireland, fighting for the Queen, and you were raised there. Now you are returning to your own.”
We walked on into the morning, and Angus Fair talked of Ireland, repeating some of the tales I’d had first from my father. “Ah, lad, the trouble with the Irish is that they fight best when fighting for others, and among themselves there is no common cause, no unity. In all the lands of Europe you will find Irishmen, often in command, and always fighting well while their own poor country is occupied by the British.
“Mind you, lad, I am not a hater as some are, but a patriot, a lover of his own land. I wish for its freedom, but do not blind myself to its faults. If the British would stay in their own land we’d love them well, for we’ve much in common, but freedom we must have. How we will use it … ah, ‘tis another question, lad, another question!”
As we walked he rambled on, talking of many things, and I listened, having much to learn. He was a man who had traveled, had known many lands of men under all sorts of conditions.
The clouds were low and gray, heavy with rain. About us the grass was a deep, deep green and the distant mountains were somber. We walked steadily on, each with a stout staff for easier walking. Twice we passed farmsteads not far off the road, houses of gray stone walls and thatched roofs. Once a big dog stood watching us until we were safely by, but it did not bark.
Soon we saw no more people, no dogs, no distant houses, but only the stark and empty grassland and then the forest. It was a lonely land, and we talked not at all, each alert for we knew not what. Out here a man seemed to stand out, and there seemed no place to hide.
“Yet there is,” Angus replied, “you have simply always to be alert. You and me, we must never forget that. So look about you … there are low places in the ground, rocks and sometimes clumps of heather. The thing to remember is to lie still … movement draws the eye.”
And I did look, and from time to time did see places where a man might hide, if he lay still.
Now the land took on a wilder aspect and there was almost continual rain. It was with relief that we saw a cluster of houses before us, and smoke rising from several of them.
“There’s a bit of an inn,” Angus Fair said. “If the weather were not so gloomy I’d say to pass on, but we’ll stop. A warm meal will do us well.”
He lifted the latch and swung open the door, and we stepped in. As we shook off the rain and looked up, we knew we had done the wrong thing.
There were five men in the room, three of them armed like soldiers.
It was too late to draw back. To return to the night in such weather was enough to arouse suspicion of us.
” ‘Tis a heavy dew,” Angus commented. “A good night for a draught of ale and a warm fire.”
They did not smile, but simply stared at us, nothing friendly in their eyes.
13
There was no place by the fire so we went to a rough board table and sat down on benches that faced it on either side. Angus pulled his bench around so he could sit with his back toward the wall and his face to the door. I sat around the corner of the table from him, facing the fire and the men who sat before it.
It was a good blaze, but there was chill at our backs, and not from the cold only.
This was a wild land where we now were, and few were the travelers who ventured to cross it. There were outlaws in the forest or lurking in the glens for unwary travelers, but these were not such.
Mine host brought us a slab of meat, good venison, too. Along with it he brought a loaf and then he drew two mugs of ale.
The inn, if such it might be called, was ancient. The stone-flagged floor underfoot was worn and polished by much use and a corner of the wall was old, too. Someone at a much later date had added the rest.
Angus stamped a foot on the floor. “Old!” he said.
“Aye,” the innkeeper said. “Roman, they say. Not many came this far. They found the Scots too hard for them. Too hard by far.”
We ate, straining our ears to make out the muttered conversation between the others. From time to time they looked at us, but in no friendly or curious fashion. Rather, it was suspicion. We could make out nothing of what they were saying, but when the chance came I eased my staff across my knees, ready to hand.
One whom we took to be a soldier stared hard at us and then said suddenly, ” Tis not many come this way.”
Angus wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Aye! Nor would I, but the lad returns home, and I am showing him the way. It was a promise made in an ill-thought moment,” he added, smiling. “His father did me a kindness more than once, and now he is gone.”
“Dead?”
“Aye! Killed in the Irish wars. He was a Scot whom they settled there, and there the lad was born and raised until his family were killed. We escaped together, and now when he is safely among his own folk, I shall off to the sea again.”
“You be a sailorman?”
“Sailed with Hawkins. Two voyages to the Indies, trading and fighting, and the last time a prisoner in Spain. But Sir John looks after his own and ransomed me out, and now when I’ve taken the lad north I shall be off to join him again.” He paused, gulping down a swallow of ale. “There’s talk that the Spanish are readying a great fleet of ships to go against England, so the fighting may be here, along our own coasts.”
This was news indeed, and for a while we were forgotten in the talk bandied back and forth. Many in Scotland were not at all friendly to England but most of them liked the Spanish even less. Yet the comment had done what Angus intended and taken their minds from us.
They argued the effects of such an attack. Some thought Spain was too mighty for England to stand against, but others mentioned Hawkins, Martin Frobisher, and mariners noted for their skill at sea fighting.
“There’s another, too,” Angus Fair suggested. “The name is Drake, Francis Drake. He sailed with Hawkins and made a name for himself among Hawkins’s men. He is a man to be reckoned with.”
“Ah,” the innkeeper said gloomily, “England is but a small nation, and Spain is the greatest upon the world’s seas. England will have no chance, none at all!”
We finished our meal, and I listened to the fury of the wind outside and the rain lashing against the shutters. It was a bitter bad night without, and the walls and fire were a comfort.
We finished our meal and I looked longingly at the floor near the fire, but knew it was not for me. Others had come first. Yet I drew my coat about me and huddled closer, fighting the chill at my back.
From outside there suddenly came a clatter and a banging and then the door was thrown open in a gust of howling wind that set the flames a-roaring on the hearth. In the wide open door stood a huge man wrapped in a sheepskin cloak, the leather side outside, and a great fur cap now sodden with rain. He had a red beard and bushy brows of red, and there was a great scar on his cheekbone partly hidden by the beard. He stepped into the room, and even against that mighty wind he slammed the door so it shook the house. Without a word he strode to the fire. The men pulled back abruptly, although he said no word. He swept off his sheepskin and dropped it over a cask in the corner.
“Ale!” he said, and his voice boomed harshly in the small room.
Then he sat down with his back to the room and extended his big hands to the fire.
I stared at those huge hands. A finger was missing from one, two nails were gone from another. There were scars upon both hands, yet their power was obvious. The soldiers, who had appeared so threatening a few moments before, huddled back from him, eyes averted.
He carried a claymore, which was a huge two-handed sword, and a dagger as well. Seeing some apples on the table, he reached over and took one of them, turning it in his fingers. Then he drew the blade, lay the apple upon the back of his left hand and with a
single deft stroke, hacked it in two without scratching his hand. That blade was obviously razor-sharp. But it was not the sharpness that drew my eyes but the serrated back edge of the blade. The blade itself was wide and strong, but that serrated edge made the knife what was known as a sword-breaker, for a blade caught in the notches could with a deft twist of the wrist be broken, snapped right off. I had heard of such knives, but never seen their like. My father had told me of fighting men skilled in their use.
The big man—and he would have made two of Angus—ate his apple, the crunching loud in a room where, but for the fire, a silence had fallen.
The innkeeper came with a great mug of ale, and the big man took it and drank it half-empty at a draught. He glanced around the room then, impaling each of us with a glance that told him all he wished to know. His eyes lingered longest upon me as if for some reason I struck a discordant note. It frightened me, for it was as if he saw all that I was and who I was with that single glance. He said nothing, finishing his ale and calling for food.
He looked around suddenly at the innkeeper. “What distance to Ayr? I have gone that way but it has been long since.”
“By the track … belike thirty mile. I have not gone so far, m’self.”
Angus spoke quietly, almost as if to himself. “It is our road, too.”
The big man stared at him.
“We seek a boat there,” he said, “to the high coast of Scotland, or to the Isle of Lewis.”
“We shall go together, then,” the big man said, and thrust his mug out for more ale. “Before the break of day, if you walk with me.”
Sweet was the walking in the gray time of dawning, sweet the smell of rain-fresh grass and the dark loom of gray granite above the green, with here and there a darker shrub. It was the land I loved where no people were, only us walking and no talk among us for a long time.
The rain had gone but the clouds hung low, heavy with promise and warning. We walked on, matching our strides to his as well as we could, leaving the inn behind us and pleased that it be behind. A dark bird flashed across flying low, and a moor stallion lifted his heavy-maned head and stared at us from a quarter of a mile off, then tossed his head and walked a few steps toward us as if in challenge. I had no trouble for him; he was a noble beast and understood the sweet wine of freedom, which he drank deep on these lonely moors with the Highlands rising up nearby.
When we had walked a good hour into the morning the big man looked over at me and said, “You seek Fergus MacAskill?”
Surprised, I looked at him. “I do.”
“And for what reason?”
“I have trained with the sword. I wish to be the best swordsman in the world, and I once thought I had been well taught by my father and a gypsy named Kory. Then I fought a lad but four years older than myself, and he beat me badly. He bested me at every turn. I would learn more, and they have said that Fergus MacAskill comes of a long line of fighting men, and that he is the greatest of swordsmen.”
“You wish to go back and beat that one who bested you?”
“Yesterday I did. Today it is less important. What I wish is that it not happen again, with another than he, or even with himself, if we should meet again. And I think we shall.”
“He had a name?”
“Leckenbie, Rafe Leckenbie.”
“Ah!”
“You know him?”
“I do not. But Tuesday he killed a man at Kirkcudbright. I saw him there, and he was good, he was very good, and he was fighting a man whom I knew.”
He looked at me. “You are alive; therefore you are no novice.” We walked on. “It was said that he had killed four men before this, one of them a soldier at Carlisle, another a Danish swordsman at Berwick-upon-Tweed.”
We walked along. “You are very young, but you are strong for a lad. I will see what we can do.”
“You will teach me?”
“Is it not what you want? I am Fergus MacAskill.”
14
We set out for Ayr with the sun not yet up, and I doubt not there would have been trouble had it not been for Fergus MacAskill, for there had been those about the inn who liked us not.
Now he strode out upon the path and we walked beside or followed, as the way permitted. The man had massive shoulders, not only broad but thick with muscle, yet I hesitated over his swordsmanship. A claymore is a cut-and-slash blade, and a man with such power in him would be mighty indeed with such a blade. Yet it was the art of fence in which I was interested, as it was taught in the Italian towns or France, and somewhat in Spain. Could such a man have the delicacy to handle a rapier or a thrusting sword?
Ayr was a bustling place when we arrived, and it was nightfall when we came into the streets. Sore tired we were, and hungered, too, for it had been little enough we’d had in the dawning and naught throughout the day.
Angus Fair was a careful man, and in this town I saw him more so. He came to a halt inside the town. “Best I leave you here,” he said. “There may be those about who seek me, and I would not involve you in my troubles.”
“Aye,” MacAskill agreed. “I would not have the lad embroiled in troubles not of his seeking, and I think he does not need questions now. The inn to which we go will ask no questions, but do you come along, after we enter. Do you speak quietly to Murray, who is host there. Speak for the room at the back. He will know at once what you wish, and it will cost you a bit more. But if those come who seek you there is a window over the back and an easy way down. Beyond that there is a narrow place between the stable and the brewing room and you may go through into a lane. Hold to it. Below lies the Doon, and not far off, is the Brig o’ Doon, but if you wish there are boats. Take one, but do you leave it at Dunure. Yon’s a fishing village, a small place with the harbor silting now. There’ll be an old place by the waterside with two lanterns, one high, one low. Do you tie the boat below the high lantern and go your way.”
“It seems,” I said, “you have been this way before.”
“Aye, lad, and not even a mouse trusts himself to one hole only. The inn is a safe place, with a half-dozen ways for a man to escape without being seen. There are smugglers an’ such come there, and many who would not be seen too well, and I among them.”
“But you are a man who could not be unseen!” I protested. “There are not two like you in the world!”
” ‘Tis a broad place, the world. I doubt not there’s a double for every man, somewhere about. But ‘tis true. Not many have my size, and I am a known man. All I can do is keep myself from sight, for there be those who hunt me down.”
He put a hand on my shoulder. “We’ve enemies, you and me, and not a few that seek us. I’ve a place yon on Lews … the Isle of Lewis some do call it, but Lews to me. I’ve a place there, and we will go there and listen to the gulls of a morning, and perhaps a lark in the afternoon, and we’ll work a bit wi’ the blades, you an’ me.”
He looked at me suddenly. “You’ve a face not to be forgotten, lad, so we must do something about showing you how to make it different. Although you’ll find few enemies in Scotland, I’m thinking.”
“Tatton Chantry! What a name it is! Someday you must tell me how you came by it, but there’s no need now. Although,” he added, “I’d have believed you had enemies enough without adding to them.”
What he meant by that I did not know, but we’d come to the door of the inn, so I asked no question then.
We went down four steps and then took a turn to the right. Down three more he opened a heavy door and we entered.
It was a wide room, long and low-beamed. All was dark except for the fire upon the wide hearth and a low candle burning here and there. A dozen folk were in the place, men mostly but a woman or two also, and they looked around as the wind guttered their candlelight and the fire.
There was an empty table near the fire and I wondered if they had known he was coming, but he crossed and seated himself on the bench by it. A man brought ale for each of us, and then came again with slices of th
ick meat and bread which we broke in our hands.
Nobody spoke to us although all looked, and then they went on with their eating, drinking, and gambling. It was not a place where men wished to be remembered.
As we ate I looked about. The floor was of stone flags, the walls were of stone also, and there were several doors, all closed but that to the kitchen and taproom. Some pots were on the fire, and there was a good smell of broiling meat, too, as a chunk of beef turned on a spit.
He who brought the bread leaned over and whispered, and I dimly heard. “Tammy is by the boat this hour, Fergus,” he whispered. “He stands ready.”
“We will be there.”
The man put the bread over a bit toward me and took a quick glance at me. “Remember the lad well,” Fergus said. “He is my friend.”
“Aye … there have been some about not your friends, too.”
The door opened again and I looked around, as did the others. It was Angus Fair. He looked not our way but went to a corner away from the fire.
We ate, and I had not known how hungry I was. Fergus looked at my hands. “You’ve good hands, lad. I think we will make a swordsman of you.”
“MacAskill?” I said. “Are you not allied to the MacLeod?”
“That we be! And when the clan goes to battle there’s ever a MacAskill in the forefront. Do you know the clans then?”
“Only a bit. My father knew of them and had some connection … I know not what.”
“Y’ know then the story o’ the Fairy Flag? Many a way has it been told but the one I like the best is that the fourth Lady MacLeod, hearing a sound in her baby son’s room, went in to find a lovely lady in filmy green who was lulling the baby to sleep. The lady in green vanished but left behind the flag. It was said to be a gift from Titania, queen of the fairies, and to be flown but three times, when the MacLeod’s were in dire need. By flying it they can call the fairies and all the powers of sky and forest to their aid.”
“And have they ever?”
“Twice … at the battle of Glendale in 1490 and Waternish in 1580 … just a few years back, that one. Each time the MacLeod’s needed a victory and each time they won. Some say they have one more time, then the flag will vanish as it came.”
Fair Blows the Wind (1978) Page 11
