The last candle went out and the vision vanished.
* * * * *
I sat up in bed, awake, my heart pounding and my throat dry. There was nothing there in my house, just the faint glow of the smoldering peats from the hearth fire. Somerled snored unconcerned; whoever my ghostly visitor had been it had not disturbed my dog. I felt sure it had truly been my father’s shade that had visited me in my dream, for my father had been a great one for poetry, and the songs of Muireadhach Albannach had ever been favorites of his.
I rose, went to my door, raised the door-flap and peered outside. Darkness enfolded the world. All was still, and, except for the hammering in my chest and the rapid sound of my own breathing, quiet reigned.
I must have been riding the night mare, I told myself, brought on by too many spirits. I lay down and tried to force my breath to a slower pattern, and turned on my side to try and sleep, when I felt something under my fingers. I sat up again and looked at what I had found by the dim light of the hearth.
A small, smooth stone it was, of some quartz or crystal, round like a bird’s egg and clear as ice. And then I began to sweat cold, for it was the gift my father had said he would leave for me. But it seemed to sit warmly within my fingers, and, after some time, I lay down again and fell asleep, still holding the stone in my hand, and I had no more ghastly dreams.
Chapter 7
Aorig had left a bowl of stew for me the night before, when I had not come to eat with them, and I awoke later to the morning light, my head pounding and the sound of a banging and thumping filling my ears. Somerled had knocked the dish from the stool, and was nosing it around on the floor as he licked up the last vestiges of my supper. I looked in my hands and the crystal stone was still there. I had not dreamed it.
I threw a half-burned peat at Somerled and he fled outside, letting the sound of voices in to my house. I fingered the stone thoughtfully, unsure what to do with it, and finally placed it in the leather pouch I wore.
I straightened my léine, splashed some water on my face, and wandered outside. There stood Gillespic and the Beaton. Seamus lurked hopefully on the sidelines, and Aorig and Mariota talked while Aorig sat spinning in front of her cottage. The sun was well up in the sky, and I knew I had slept far too late.
“Hello, Uncle.”
“Eh, Muirteach. You are awake at last.”
“Aye,” I replied, not wanting to explain about the vision. “Where are you off to?”
“We were just coming down to see you,” said my uncle.
“What were you wanting?”
“Mariota and I are just going over to Kilchattan to speak with that Tormod,” Fearchar said. “I was wondering if you were wanting to come along.”
“Were you finding the stew?” asked Aorig, pleasantly enough. “I sent Seamus with it.”
“Aye, I found it, but so did Somerled.”
“He is a good for nothing,” said, Aorig, not for the first time. I noticed the Beaton looking curiously at me.
“You are looking pale this morning Muirteach. Were you sleeping well?”
I muttered something about waking in the night. The rest of the dream came back to me, including that final ghostly warning about Sheena. Had the spirit of my father been saying that Sheena had murdered him?
Well, it seemed I should at least go and visit her one more time. Sure enough I was that my seeing had been telling me something about Sheena. Perhaps when I arrived at her house I would know what it was.
I made some excuse or another, to the Beaton and my uncle, and set out on my way. Seamus accompanied me, along with Somerled. The day was sunny, and the breeze blew the scent of the sweet wildflowers past my nose. That put me in mind of Mariota, and for some reason my mood darkened as I walked along towards Sheena’s house. I found myself wishing I had accompanied them to Kilchattan. My dream was no doubt just a fey fancy.
Seamus chattered as we walked. I am afraid I paid little mind to what he was saying; something about the harper that was here from Islay, and what a fine musician he was, but I preferred to mull over the Beaton’s daughter, wondering why it was I could not get her out of my mind.
So what with one thing and another it was soon enough that we reached Sheena’s holding. Smoke curled out through the smoke-hole in the thatch, but all seemed quiet. I called but no one answered immediately. Sheena, it seemed, was not at home.
I called again, and heard an answering sound, a faint crying from the inside of the house, then another voice quieting the baby.
“Maire,” I called, for I had recognized my half-sister’s voice, “Maire, come out. It is only Muirteach. Where is your mother? I would speak with her.”
After another moment or so Maire emerged from the house, her arms full with the baby, who was quiet for the now, gumming what looked like a bit of a bannock.
“Mother is not here. She said we were to wait here for her. It was going to pick rush flowers she was, for dyeing the wool.”
“And when was she leaving?” I asked.
“Oh, it was a long time ago, it was. The sun was just over the mountains. I hope she comes home soon, indeed, for himself is hungry and starting to fuss.”
“And Sean?”
“He’s away. Fishing.”
The baby started to wail fretfully. Maire looked disgusted. “A silly thing he is,” she said, as she put him down, sounding far older than her years. “He has wet himself again.” Her nose wrinkled at the smell. “And something else as well, I’m thinking.”
“Well, Maire, I am needing to speak with your mother. I shall go looking for her, and send her home when I am finding her. Where did she go to look for her rush flowers?”
My half sister shrugged a bony shoulder. “I am thinking she went that way, towards Dun Cholla,” she said, waving a hand towards the northwest, behind the cottage. “But I am not knowing for certain.”
“Well, we will be looking for her, then. Take good care of your brother while you are waiting.”
“She left me plenty to do,” volunteered Maire, “what with the churning, and the corn to grind and all, and it is hard to be doing it while I am watching him.” Her face cleared. “Och, I know. I shall just be tying him to the loom. He cannot be getting into trouble then.” She hefted her brother back up into her arms, turned, and went back inside.
Seamus and I left the holding with the sound of the baby’s wailing wafting past us. We turned and headed northwest towards Dun Cholla, which was more or less the direction that Maire had pointed us to. I had no idea whether rush flowers grew there or not, but the turf was springy under our feet and the walking fine. We saw no signs of Sheena for a long while, although in the muddy track we saw some footprints, which made me think we were heading the right way.
We soon reached the ruins of Dun Cholla. No one had lived here for as long as I could remember, although there were stories that the Norsemen had used it in the past. Now it was sometimes used for cattle, but mostly it was abandoned. We saw no signs or anyone as we approached the ruins, the low stone walls toppled over like some giant’s discarded playthings among the heather and the gorse.
“She is not here, Muirteach,” said Seamus.
The sun suddenly went behind a cloud and Somerled started to whine. I felt a chill of a sudden, and shuddered.
“Let us just be looking behind the walls here,” I replied. “Perhaps herself is inside, resting a bit.”
We entered the ruins of the fort. The walls had tumbled to about chest height, but we had to duck through the narrow doorway. The lintel had remained in place, but the way in was so short that even the child Maire would have had to bend over to enter. I wondered who had built this place. The sìthichean probably. It had a dank and dangerous feel to it, overgrown inside with bracken and gorse.
“She’s no here, Muirteach,” said Seamus, after a cursory look around. “Let’s be going.”
“Wait a wee while, Seamus. I think I see something. Perhaps someone was leaving his good cloak up here.”
Behind some bracken was a tumbled heap of clothing, at least that was what I thought it to be at first. As I drew closer however I saw that it was not just someone’s old cloak. It was Sheena, and she looked to be dead.
Chapter 8
She lay on her back, her brat spread out on the ground beneath her. Her face showed pale against the dark green of the bracken and the cold gray of the stones. Her linen shift was rucked up around her legs, and that same thin cord mark wound around her neck that I had seen on my father. It seemed she had been throttled, and perhaps violated, as well.
Seamus came up beside me, saw the body, then turned away. I heard the sounds of him retching in the bracken nearby. Somerled tried to nose at the body. I hurriedly pulled him away, and set him outside, then I just stared for some moments, attempting to come to terms with what I saw. One thought flashed stupidly through my brain, repeating incessantly like an endless knot design. Sheena could not have murdered my father since she, herself, was dead now. Whoever had killed my father had murdered her as well.
“Muirteach,” said Seamus.
I turned to look at him. He looked pale under his freckles, almost as pale as Sheena herself.
“What shall we do?” he asked, the same question I myself had been asking.
“We should go and get the MacPhee, and the Beaton as well,” I answered. “Or one of us should,” I amended. “Seamus, you go, take Somerled back with you, and also be getting Mariota, or your mother. Someone will need to see to the bairns. But I’m thinking the Beaton will want to see her, before we move the body. I will stay here, to watch, to make sure no dogs or whatever disturb her. And do not go by her cottage yet.”
I dreaded having to tell my half-sister and brothers that their mother was dead.
“Aye.” Seamus looked relieved as he set off with Somerled. It was not long before he vanished from my sight and I was left alone with the dead.
It was cold and I wrapped my cloak around me, and shuddered, remembering the last words the vision of my father had said. “Before Sheena…” Before Sheena was murdered. I understood clearly now the meaning of his words, now, when it was too late.
Well, Father, I thought bitterly to myself, you now have yet another reason to be disappointed in your son, even from beyond the grave. For I have failed you yet again.
I knew I should be looking closely at the body but I could not bring myself to do it. Instead, I paced over the ground inside the fort, looking for any thing that might prove a clue.
In the path that led to the dun, in the mud and the cow dung, I found one. A few footprints, one a woman’s by the look of it, bare footed. That would be Sheena. And another print, a man’s brogue, smaller in size than my own foot. The tracks entered the dun as though the two people had been walking together, at a leisurely pace. So perhaps Sheena had known her killer. It did not seem that she had fled from him at any rate.
There was a depression in the growing bracken, the path the two had taken as they wandered inside the dun, that led eventually to the corner where the body of Sheena lay. Coward that I was I avoided that area, looking instead in all the other corners of the dun for whatever I could find. There was Sheena’s basket, with a bit of rush flowers in it, a partially eaten bannock, and a stoppered pottery flask. I opened it and sniffed. Uisgebeatha, praise be to God and all the saints.
I started to raise it to my lips, wanting some spirit in this doleful place, but stopped suddenly. With so much murder about, what if it was poisoned? I replaced the stopper and put the flask back in the basket, feeling the malice of the place even more as I resumed my search.
Circling, I finally could no longer avoid the corner where Sheena’s body lay. I gathered my courage and faced her, but I could not bring myself to touch her. I would leave that to the physician. Instead I looked. There were no bruises on her throat, just the mark of that thin string around her neck. The same as the one that had wound around my father’s neck. A bowstring, to be sure.
The depression in the bracken was larger in size than just her body. The green of the fern was matted next to her, as though two people had lain there together. I imagined it all, the two of them, coming into the isolated dun together, she clinging to him as they walked together, then sharing the flask, the love play, the lovemaking on the soft green fern.
And then he had strangled her, after, as she had lain next to him, with her back cuddled up against his, and her face turned away from him. That way he had not seen her eyes bulging from the sockets, her face as it reddened, then blackened, her hands as they tried, in vain, to loosen the choking cord against her.
I shivered and glanced up at the sun, halfway across the sky and starting its afternoon’s descent. It would take Seamus a long while to get to Scalasaig and back again, but surely he should be returning the now.
Unwilling to stay alone with Sheena’s corpse in that cold Dun, I walked outside, and sat down against the wall, hoping the sun would warm me. On impulse I fished the round stone out of my pouch and stared idly into the quartz depths of it while I thought.
Who had her lover been? For certain it had not been my father, dead and moldering in his winding sheet at the Priory. I had never heard of Sheena having another lover, but perhaps there was some talk of it among the women I did not know of. Seamus’s mother might know something of the matter.
And why had he killed her, then? From their footsteps it seemed they were familiar enough with one another.
Perhaps that is why my father struck her. He learned somehow of the other lover, and then, in anger, hit her. And perhaps then the other man had lain in wait for my father in his turn, and killed him as he tried to cross the strand.
Sheena must have known he had murdered my father, and thus he had killed her here, to keep her from speaking of it, after pleasuring himself one last time. Irreligious though I was, I crossed myself, and prayed that the Beaton would come quickly, but he did not.
At length I could stand it no longer, and despite the rays of the sun I began to shiver and shake some. I stuffed the stone back in my pouch and continued my vigil.
It seemed an eternity of days, although the sun had scarcely moved westward, before I finally heard voices and footsteps. Seamus led the way, followed by the Beaton and my uncle. But before them, crying out like the hounds of Hell themselves, were Angus and Alasdair. They were already far gone with drink, I realized, a second before they reached me. Angus grabbed me first, his hands around my throat, as he questioned me, his voice thick with drink and tears.
“And were you killing her, yourself, you coward that you are, but no, no for she cannot be dead. She is just sleeping there, in the Dun, is she not?”
I knew not how to answer, nor could I, with his hands choking me so, and it was a relief when my uncle reached me and wrested Angus’s hands from my throat. I wheezed and gasped for breath, and shook my head, still unable to answer, while he continued his rant.
“Hold them back now, Gillespic,” ordered the Beaton, “while I go inside and see what’s amiss here.” He gestured me to come with him, and I was glad to, away from the raging bulls that were Sheena’s grieving brothers.
“Where did you find them?” I asked the Beaton when we were safe inside the Dun and away from their ears. “Could they have done it?”
“They were far gone with the drink at Donald Dubh’s,” replied the Beaton, “and had been, all morning. There are many who will vouch for them.”
“So they did not do this,” I said.
The Beaton scowled at me. “Muirteach,” he said patiently, in the way of someone explaining things to a child, “are you truly thinking they would do this to their own sister?” And I had to confess that I had not really thought they had done so. But then who had?
“Time enough to be dealing with that, later on,” he answered, “but first let us look at her, poor thing.”
The Beaton’s examination of the body was a hurried one; the sounds of Angus and Alasdair’s wailing outside made it so. I was glad to see him
gently straighten her clothing a bit, pulling her shift down over her legs and covering her body with her brat, thus giving her a more modest appearance, before Gillespic and Seamus could prevent her brothers from bursting in on us.
“Och, my white love, mo cridhe, my heart, you have gone from us, and whatever will your bairns be doing the now, without their mother and whatever shall we be doing without you as well?” Alasdair moaned. I was surprised to see him grieve so, which proved how little I knew the man at that time.
Angus, more stolid in his grief, just sat on the ground near his sister’s body, ramming his dirk into the ground nearby again, and again, and again. His face white, his upper teeth bit down hard upon his lower lip, so hard, indeed, that the blood trickled from it, while the little pile of disturbed black earth grew around the blade of his knife, dark like blood against the green bracken.
The Beaton looked grim, and reached in the satchel he carried for a small glass vial, which he handed towards my uncle. “Here, mix some of this with uisgebeatha. It is poppy juice, from the Levant. It will calm them, a bit, for the while.”
Gillespic nodded, and took the vial, pouring a good portion of it into his own flask of whiskey, then he handed Alasdair the flask, and Alasdair stopped his rant long enough to drink a long swig. My uncle then looked at Angus, holding the flask towards him, but the man stared right through him, still driving his knife into the ground.
My uncle shrugged his shoulders somewhat and seemed a bit at a loss, which was unusual for him. I could not remember ever seeing him in such a way before. But he collected himself, and said, as Alasdair finished his drink and before he could begin keening again, “Now, Alasdair you must be gathering yourself together the now, man. We cannot be leaving her here, but must be laying her out proper, like.”
“Aye,” said Alasdair, stopping his mourning a moment to consider. “We shall lay her out with candles, and masses, beeswax candles if we can get them. In the church it shall be. Angus, you, stop playing with your knife. We must be carrying our sister home. We cannot be leaving her here, in this place. Put your dirk away, the now, and be a man about it.”
A MASS FOR THE DEAD Page 8
