by Paton, Chris
“It's watching us,” I whispered.
“What?” Seffi turned around. She looked over my shoulder. “No it's not. That's just how you positioned the head. Don't be silly.” She reached out and grasped my shoulder. “Come on. We have to get up the mountain.”
Seffi pulled me along behind her until I stopped thinking about the emissary, concentrating instead on placing one foot in front of the other, on my breathing and each beat of my heart, pulsing in my temples. The rain increased, the granite clouds coaled black and the midgies lifted from the ground to pick and worry at our skin. All the while, the emissary watched.
Chapter 7
Lying in the course grass, my clothes heavy with rain, I shivered. The stone sky darkened and the mountain peaks were obliterated from view. The midgies, however, were undeterred. They didn't so much crawl as tickle their way across my skin, chafing at my eyes and lips. I would likely not have noticed one or two of the small beasts, but my skin was black with a blight of the tiny furies. Up there, at the tip of the spur on the slopes of Suilven, there was little to rejoice and plenty to remorse.
“Eat something,” Seffi opened her knapsack and handed me a sandwich, the smoked venison as thick as the crusts. “It'll take your mind off the midgies.”
“I don't believe anything could distract me from these monsters,” I brushed a layer of insects from my hand and took the sandwich. “How do you cope? They don't seem to bother you.”
“Try not to think about them, Karl. Eat your sandwich. Beatrice has spoiled us.”
She was right. That first bite of soft white bread and dark meat lightened, for a moment at least, one of the bleakest experiences of my life. I chewed as Seffi pulled a telescope out of the knapsack, slipped it out of its leather case and extended it.
“What's that there?” I pointed at the spindle screwed into the thicker end of the telescope.
Seffi placed the telescope on the ground before her and tapped the case into the palm of her hand. A length of cord slipped out of the case.
“I have heard about these,” Seffi wound the cord around the spindle. Gripping the telescope in her left hand she pulled the cord with her right. The telescope hummed in her grip. Seffi pocketed the cord and held the telescope to her eye. “Oh, yes.”
“Oh, what?” I took another bite of my sandwich as Seffi shuffled into a new position. Leaning her back against her knapsack, she rested the end of the telescope on one raised knee, steadying it with her left hand as she locked the elbow of her right into her chest and focused the eyepiece with delicate twists of her muddy fingers.
“This is a Severinson telescope. Often copied but never perfected. Whistlefish has been most generous. I can count the raindrops on the emissary’s head.” Seffi panned the telescope to the right, towards the bothy. “And the hairs of the dogs.”
“Dogs? Already?”
“Yes, I can see two at the bothy.”
“Only two?”
“Maybe they decided against bringing the whole pack? Too much hassle, perhaps?” Seffi twisted the dial of the telescope. “No sign of Macfarlane yet, but the men are pointing and shouting at the mattresses.” She laughed. Seffi twisted her body to the right. “Ah, there he is, Karl. Macfarlane and his dog.”
“How many men?”
“Still only four. Two at the bothy. The last man is coming up slowly behind Macfarlane.” Seffi stiffened. Handing me the telescope she took my half-eaten sandwich and pointed in the direction I should look. “Obviously I didn't hide the foot as well as I thought. Look at the man walking behind Macfarlane. Look what he has on his back.”
Shifting into a position similar to the one Seffi had adopted when spying through the telescope, I flattened the grass beneath me and tried to ignore the midgies fluttering their teeth around my eyes. I spied the man Seffi wanted me to see, and the emissary’s foot he had strapped to his back. The hum of the telescope faded and the man shrank from view.
“This changes things,” Seffi talked around a mouthful of venison. “Again. They'll be looking for the emissary next.”
“You don't think they will wait until morning?”
Seffi shook her head. “No.” She pointed at the bothy. “Macfarlane is sending them out already. He knows we can't have gotten far on one foot.”
“Then we have to move, too,” I pushed myself onto my knees.
“Wait, Karl,” Seffi placed a hand on my leg. She took the telescope from my hand. Returning the telescope and cord to its case, she nodded at the knapsack. “Eat another sandwich. Drink some of that awful tea. There's a thermos flask in your knapsack. We need to be ready to move as soon as it gets dark.”
“Where are we going to go?”
Seffi nodded in the direction of Suilven's steep slopes as she tightened the straps of the lid of the knapsack. “I saw something up there when I was running back and forth with the water. Some kind of shelter.”
“Another bothy?”
“No,” Seffi grimaced as I handed her a mug of Beatrice's tea. “Something smaller.”
“Macfarlane must know it is there. He has the lie of the land.”
“Yes, but he'll be too occupied with the emissary now. We'll get up there after dark. If it gets dark,” Seffi looked up at the sky. “We’ll dry out for a bit, and then figure out what we are going to do.”
“The plan's changing again, isn't it?”
“We have to stay flexible, bend with the shape of the land,” Seffi wiped a palm of rain and midgies from her face, “and the elements. Here,” she handed me the mug, “drink some tea.”
The tea cooled in the mug as I watched Seffi organise her clothes, tightening a strap here, a drawcord there. She untied her bootlaces, pulling on the collar of the boots as she pushed her feet further into them. The clouds crept down the mountainside, haunting along the grass as they enveloped boulders and entire spurs and ridges. Seffi retied her laces and gestured for me to finish my tea. I tipped it onto the grass.
“You'll be thirsty later.”
“But not for Beatrice's tea.” I screwed the mug back onto the flask.
“Are you ready to move?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Seffi pointed up the mountainside. “The clouds will help conceal us, as soon as we get inside them. Until then, keep low and move quickly.”
“All right.” I clipped the controller to the leather harness, nodding at Seffi when I was finished.
“Let's go, Karl.”
Seffi didn't make a sound as she stood up and jogged alongside the spur. The cool cloud drained the warmth from my face as I followed Seffi inside it. The midgies retreated into my hair and worried my scalp. We moved without a break for what seemed like an hour, following Seffi's intuition towards the shelter she had spied from our last position. I stopped, glad of the chance to rest, when Seffi held up her hand and motioned for me to lie low on the grass. As I dropped down onto all fours, I spotted a beehive-like shelter just beyond where Seffi crawled in front of me.
Lowering herself to the ground, Seffi stopped twenty yards from the entrance to the shelter. A shape inside flickered past the open doorway and I held my breath. Seffi, cat-like, crept forwards. Sliding her left hand behind her back, she drew one of the three knives from her belt.
“You don't need that,” the shape appeared once more in the doorway. “Put the knife away, lass.”
“Bhàtair?” I stood up and walked towards where Seffi lay.
“Karl,” Seffi cautioned as I approached. “You don't know whose side he is on. Macfarlane might have sent him on ahead.”
“Macfarlane? Pish,” Bhàtair laughed as he strode out of the shelter. The hunting kilt he wore beneath his wool jacket blended with the mountain in a sedge and stone tartan pattern. He buttoned the jacket, drawing the peat-coloured fronts together. He brushed his fingers through his hair and strolled down to join us. The pale skin above his worn boots and thick socks was bare of midgies and in that moment I envied him.
“What are you doing up h
ere?” Seffi stood up. She pushed the knife into its sheath and let her hand fall to her side.
“This is my house,” he nodded at the shelter. “One of them anyway. Come inside, out of the rain.” Bhàtair turned and walked back up to the shelter. He stopped at the doorway, waiting for us to join him.
“Come on, Seffi.” I tapped her arm as I walked past. “Let's see what he has to say. We can at least dry off while we think about what to do next.”
Seffi muttered something behind my back as she followed me to where Bhàtair waited. He gestured for us to enter and I bent low to pass through the doorway.
“It's no much, but it has everything I need.” Bhàtair stepped inside and pointed at the low benches shaped to fit around the curve of the wall on the far side of the interior. Taking off our knapsacks we sat down. I unclipped the control box and set it between my feet as Bhàtair sat on the low cot opposite us. “Don't mind them,” he lifted his eyes to the ceiling from which hung three pairs of eagle wings, twisting just above my head in the growing breeze peeling down the mountain. “They were a young pair, caught out in an unexpected cold snap. The mother,” he pointed at the larger set of wings hanging between the two shorter ones, “died of a broken heart surrounded by the food she brought them to eat, long after their bodies had cooled beyond hope. Tragic,” Bhàtair shook his head.
“Why do you keep them?” I reached up to touch the feathered tips of the wings closest to me.
“Oh, I have lots of such things,” Bhàtair pushed himself further onto the cot and leaned his back against the wall. “Just look around.” Fixing his gaze on Seffi, Bhàtair pointed at a variety of glass jars and bottles filled with various combinations of liquids, boiled eyes and desiccated birds eggs, stoppered with tufts of pressed grass, bound with leather, sinew and wax.
“What do you do with it all?” I nudged Seffi and pointed at the hollowed trunk of a tree, a foot high, embedded with black jet and bound with strips of birch bark. A pair of small antlers from a female deer were tucked inside the bark.
“These are my kists. They hold my thoughts, my emotions, my treasures,” Bhàtair winked. He leaned forwards on the cot. “Where do you put your treasures, lass?”
“I don't know what you mean?” Seffi frowned.
“Ach, maybe, maybe not.” Bhàtair nodded. He waved his hand around the room. “This is a shieling. Used by shepherds when they roamed with the sheep in these parts. They would shelter up here, out of the storm, but with one eye on the sheep to ward off the wolves when they came. And they would come sure enough.” He paused. “As sure as the wolf down there in the bothy.”
“Macfarlane,” I scratched at a grubby patch of skin swelling beneath the midgie bites at my temples.
“Aye, him. It didn't take him long to catch your beastie, eh?”
“Beastie?”
“That machine of yours.”
“He hasn't got it yet,” I shivered at the chill creeping through the open doorway.
“Cold, lad? I can remedy that.” Bhàtair slipped off the cot and lifted the wooden lid of a barrel pressed into the floor of the shieling. With a match he lit the small fire laid in the stone-circled hearth cut into the floor. “I'll fix something warm to drink, too.”
Seffi pressed her lips close to my ear as Bhàtair busied himself with a billy of water he hung over the fire.
“Be careful, Karl. We still don't know whose...”
“It's not in your nature, lass, I know, but you are going to have to learn to trust me.” Bhàtair looked up from where he crouched over the fire. “Master Whistlefish reckoned you might need some help. He was no happy with the arrangements made by your masters in Germany. And you, lad,” Bhàtair's cheeks dimpled in the firelight. “You pleased him with your dancing machine, and not least for putting such a beautiful smile on poor Abi's face. She fights so with her lungs,” Bhàtair shook his head. “But Whistlefish won't forget how you brightened her day.” The water began to boil. Bhàtair stood up and reached for a square tin from a shelf made of antlers. “Tea,” the contents of the tin shushed as he shook it. “Good tea,” he smiled.
“Like Beatrice's?” I asked.
“No lad,” Bhàtair grimaced. “Nothing of the sort.”
Seffi moved off the bench and crouched by the fire. “What kind of help did Whistlefish have in mind?”
“Do you trust me now, lass?”
“I might have to.”
“Well then,” Bhàtair dumped three wooden spoonfuls of bristly black tea leaves into the billy can. Returning the tin to the shelf he opened a wooden cabinet built into the wall of the shieling at the end of the sleeping cot. Bhàtair set a small clay jug of milk to one side of the fire. “The mugs are behind you, lad.”
Turning to unhook three tin mugs from the rack above my head, I passed them to Seffi. Bhàtair poured the tea into the mugs, adding milk and a spoonful of honey he took from a small crock on top of the cabinet. Handing us each a mug, Bhàtair sat on the ground with his back against the cot. Watching us over the lip of his mug, he cooled the tea with short gusts of breath that rippled the surface.
“Master Whistlefish has a curious notion that your machine might be able to fly.” Bhàtair took a long sip of tea.
“Did you say fly?” I snorted.
“Aye, that I did.”
“And how might we fly, Bhàtair?” Seffi flicked her eyes at the wings twisting in the thin smoke curling up towards the small chimney in the thatched roof. “The emissary does not have wings.”
“No, it doesnae, but Master Whistlefish has something better.” Bhàtair curled the fingers of both hands around his mug. “He has a ship of the air.”
“An airship?” I spluttered a mouthful of tea onto the front of my jacket. “But was he not forbidden, by law, from building things by the English.”
“Lad,” Bhàtair smiled, “we are a long way from England.”
“And how do we get the emissary aboard the airship?” Seffi crossed her legs and moved closer to the fire. “Macfarlane will have found it by now.”
“Well now,” Bhàtair poured more tea from the billy into his mug. “That is a fine question, one that will have to wait for the cloud to fall. In the meantime, we'll eat and you can dry your clothes. Let Macfarlane struggle through the night with your machine. Come the morning, it will be yours again.”
“He won't give it up without a fight.”
“No, he won't,” Bhàtair looked from me to Seffi. “But don't you worry about that none. This young lass is no stranger to fighting.”
Chapter 8
If it wasn't for the rain clouds, it would never have gotten dark that night. Seffi and I forgot that Inverkirkaig was so far north it shared a corner of Arctic light each summer. As we followed Bhàtair out of the shieling we emerged into a half-light, the peaks of Suilven above us hidden in cloud stone, the activity in the valley below poorly lit but visible. We crouched at the top of the spur and watched as Macfarlane and his men crowded the emissary.
“They'll be wondering how to claim their prize,” Bhàtair whispered. He nudged Seffi. “How many men do you see?”
“Three,” she paused, turning to look at the bothy and the track leading away from it, back towards the estate. “Four. There's one man and a couple of dogs on the track.”
“Macfarlane will have sent him back for the horses.” Bhàtair pointed at Macfarlane's men building something by the side of the emissary. “They will be building a travois.”
“A what?” I looked in the direction the old man was pointing.
“A frame for pulling loads behind horses. They cannae walk your machine out of here. They are going to drag it behind my poor ponies. It's an old Indian trick.”
I turned at the hum of the Severinson telescope as Seffi held it to her eye. She studied the men below for a moment before handing the telescope to me. The eyepiece buzzed against my skin as I zoomed in on the men lashing lengths of wood together by the side of the emissary. I recognized the wood from the bunks I had
ripped out of the bothy.
“I don't believe it,” I lowered the telescope. “I prepared the wood for them.”
“It won't be enough,” Seffi took the telescope, slipped it inside its case and packed it away. “They'll need more than a few bed frames to drag the emissary out of here.”
“Yes,” I pointed at one of Macfarlane's men as he picked up the axe and started walking back to the bothy. “And he is probably going back for the staircase.”
“He's a cunning old fox is Macfarlane,” Bhàtair reached inside his jacket, fishing an oatcake the size of a kettle lid from his pocket. Breaking it into three jagged pieces, he handed a piece to Seffi and I before nibbling his own. “He's just keeping his men busy. They will no love him for it, but they will no complain either.”
“They will be tired,” Seffi nodded. “We had better get started. Karl?”
“Yes?”
“Can you control the emissary all the way from here?”
“I have never tried. But in theory, yes.”
“Then I need you to wait until I am closer before you test your theory.” Seffi lifted her knapsack and set it on the grass beside me. “The new plan is for you to pull the emissary’s strings and put the fear of God into Macfarlane and his men. Fight them if you can. Between the two of us, if we can put them out of action, then I can get the emissary’s foot,” she pointed in the direction of the bothy, “and bolt it back onto its leg. It will be up to you to march the emissary up the mountainside, and follow Bhàtair's trail to the airship.”
“Aye,” Bhàtair nodded. He pointed further up the mountain to a swathe of boulders between the two peaks of Suilven. “There's a path to the side of the scree slope. You'll want to climb the northern slope, that's where Whistlefish will land the airship. It's a good position to defend if Macfarlane decides to play rough.”
