A MASS FOR THE DEAD

by Susan McDuffie

  I resolved to ask Aorig about it, and see what she could tell me. But Aorig knew nothing, when I asked her later that day.

  “Sheena kept herself to herself,” she said, “living down there alone, as she did. So I am thinking that your father was wanting her close to the Priory. Poor love, she was not even that close to her own brothers’ house.” Aorig continued her weaving for a moment, thinking.

  “So no, Muirteach, I am knowing nothing of other men,” she finally continued, after winding some more yarn on her shuttle. “I would have been telling you, if I had known anything of it. I have heard nothing from the women here either, so I am doubting, if she had a lover, that it was a Colonsay man, at all, at all. Everyone knew she was the Prior’s hand-fasted wife. I am not thinking any Colonsay man would be risking your father’s temper over it all. And I am not thinking that your father would be needing such an excuse to hit her, either.”

  “You may be right,” I agreed glumly. “But then whoever was it my father was seeing that night, before he got to her house?”

  “I am not knowing, Muirteach. It could even have been Alasdair Beag, for all that, out digging oysters while the tide was low. For the sun was not setting until very late.”

  But Alasdair Beag had told me he had gone to sleep early that night. So I doubted that was whom my father had seen that night.

  But if Sheena’s lover had not been a Colonsay man, then who was it? Islay was the closest island, but that was a long way to go to meet a lover.

  Chapter 14

  I decided to go to Islay myself. It had been years since I had seen any of my Islay relations. Although in my soul I seriously doubted they had sailed across the sound, killed my father, and then returned to Islay with no one being the wiser for it all, I told myself I might as well go myself and check on it all.

  Especially since, as each long summer day passed, it grew clearer and clearer to me that I had no idea who had done these murders. Perhaps Mariota had discovered something.

  As for the possibility of running into His Lordship on Islay, I told myself that would be unlikely. The Lord of the Isles no doubt had other, weightier concerns. Although he had said he wanted to hear of my results soon, as yet, I had nothing to tell him. At least if he sent someone to look for me here, in Scalasaig, he would not be finding me.

  So I borrowed a small nabhaig of Uncle Gillespic’s, taking Seamus along for crew, and we set out for Islay. The day was fine and the sailing easy. I have always enjoyed sailing and the sense of freedom I feel in a small boat skimming over the waves, and the trip to Islay gave me pleasure.

  We sailed around to the Rhinns, and landed in Kilchiaran, where my mother and I had lived. I still had uncles and a great-aunt there, although it had indeed been a long time since I had visited. Once my mother had died and I had been fostered at my uncle Gillespic’s, I had not often returned there.

  Truth to tell, we had to ask directions from some local girls mending fishing nets on the sand, it had been so long since I seen the place. The girls giggled and blushed, and directed us inland, towards the village. We headed towards my Great-aunt Morag’s cottage.

  Great-aunt Morag sat spinning, on a bench outside her cottage. “And whoever is it then?” she wondered, as we approached her.

  “Great-aunt, it is Muirteach. Seonaid’s son.”

  “Eh, Muirteach.” She put down her spindle and stood to meet us as we approached. It seemed to me that she had shrunk since last I had seen her. Perhaps she had in fact, for age does that to a woman. But sure enough it was that I myself had grown since the last time I had seen her, as a boy of eleven.

  “Is it you indeed?” she wondered. “Let me look at you lad. Come close, for my eyes are not what they once were.”

  I went nearer and Great-aunt Morag touched my cheeks with her hand. Her old skin felt papery and cool as she ran her fingers over my face, peering at me closely with clouded blue eyes.

  “Sure, and we were thinking that the each uisge himself had been swallowing you, for all that we have heard of you these last years. You have grown, lad,” she added. “I would not have been knowing it was you, although now I can see a bit of your mother in you. Aye, and the look of your father as well. He was a handsome man, indeed, when he stole your own sweet mother’s heart away.

  “But what is it you are doing here, the now? We were hearing, awhile back, that you had left the Priory. We hoped to see you then, but you were not coming home at that time.”

  “No, Auntie,” I replied, surprised at how good it was to see the old woman. “I have been with Uncle Gillespic, on Colonsay. I scrive for him, when he is needing things written.”

  She smiled. “Och, and so you can be reading and writing then, Muirteach. It is a grand thing, the reading and writing.”

  It crossed my mind to tell her that it was all I could do, since I could not run like other men, but I gentled my tongue, and merely agreed with her, that indeed it was a fine thing.

  “But now sit you down, and we must be getting you some refreshment.” She called inside. “Eilidh, be bringing out some refreshment for your cousin Muirteach who is just coming. Some cheese, and milk, and some of the oatcakes from this morning.”

  And so my cousin brought us some refreshment, and we ate our fill. The milk was creamy, rich with the taste of the good grass of the Rhinns, the oatcakes still fresh and crumbly, fair melting on the tongue.

  “And where are Uisdean and Dougall?” I asked, after eating my fill of the oatcakes. These were my uncles, whom I dimly remembered as teen-aged boys with little time to spare for their crippled nephew.

  “Eh, they’re away the now. Uisdean is with His Lordship for a time, and Dougall is away to Antrim, fighting for the Sweeneys. He was leaving Eilidh with me, for the company. I am thinking he is trying to save enough money for a bride price. He is wanting to marry again. A girl from Kilchioman, it would be, that he is wanting to marry.”

  Eilidh listened silently. Dougall, my uncle, was her father. Her mother, Dougall’s first wife, had died some twelve years back in childbirth, along with Eilidh’s infant brother.

  “Are you liking the girl?” I asked my cousin.

  “Well enough,” replied Eilidh, evasively, “but she is not that much older than I am myself.”

  “And how long have they been away?” I asked my aunt.

  “Eh, Uisdean was leaving some two months ago, in April it was. And Dougall, well, he has been in Antrim since March. But whatever is it that is bringing you back to Kilchiaran at this time, then?”

  “You were not hearing of it, then, Great-aunt?”

  “Heard of what? It has been little enough the news we’ve heard here the past few weeks.”

  And so I told her and Eilidh of my father’s death. Great-aunt Morag seemed suitably shocked, making horrified little murmurs and crossing herself, particularly when I came to the part about the Sanctuary Cross and Sheena’s death.

  “Eh, Muirteach,” she said when I had finished the grisly tale, “sure and it is not surprised I am that your father should come to such an end. A godless man he was, for all that he was of the Church. And it is glad I am that someone finally revenged themselves on him. I am thinking your mother is resting more easily in her grave now, the white love.”

  From the little I remembered of my mother I felt sure she would not have approved of my father’s death, but, for myself, despite my mixed feelings about the matter, I still felt some sympathy with Aunt Morag’s point of view. I went on to tell her of Sheena’s death.

  “And wasn’t she just no better than she should have been, the sly harlot.”

  “Well, whatever Auntie, I am not thinking that either of them deserved to die in such a fashion,” I finally said. “And himself in Finlaggan is not thinking so either, certainly not a prior of the Church. It will make trouble with the King in Edinburgh, and with the Holy Father himself, and surely he will not be wanting that.”

  My great-aunt grudgingly agreed that that was so.

  “In fac
t,” I continued, speaking with some sense of self-importance, “he is wanting me to solve the mystery.”

  “And so it was for that you were looking to know where Uisdean and Dougall had gone? Shame on you Muirteach, to be thinking of that at all.” I felt abashed.

  “There seems to be no one on Colonsay or on Oronsay who could have done it, Auntie, so I thought at least to check here,” I said, by way of excuse.

  “Uisdean and Dougall were already young men when their sister, your mother, was put aside by that black-hearted snake. And I am not thinking they would be waiting until now to be taking revenge, if that is what they were going to do about it all. But they have done nothing about it, Muirteach, for what with your father being His Lordship's Prior and all, they were not wanting to get on the wrong side of himself.”

  “Aye,” I agreed, in a sense relieved. Things could get quite touchy for my uncles if their clan chief was against them, especially if that chief happened to be the all-mighty Lord of the Isles. I had not seriously believed that my uncles would have taken all that upon themselves, all for a wayward older sister who had been too headstrong to keep herself out of trouble.

  “Himself is aye anxious to have this affair solved,” I continued after a minute, by way of making conversation. “He was sending his own physician, Fearchar Beaton, to help with it.”

  “I know the man,” said my aunt. “A fine physician, he is indeed. Were you knowing, Muirteach, that when he travels a far way they are sending his medical book by land, or on another boat, so that it will not be getting lost if his ship founders in the sea?”

  I had not known of that. He had not been bringing that text with him to Colonsay, I guessed. He had not come there to examine the living, after all.

  “I hear they have land here in the Rhinns,” I said.

  “Aye, they do,” said my aunt. Over the other side of Loch Gorm. In Balinaby, it is, near to the standing stone.

  “What was the Beaton finding, when he looked at the corpse?” my aunt asked after a pause, her curiosity getting the better of her.

  “It was a grisly murder, Auntie. Whoever killed him hit my father on the head from behind, then strangled him with a bowstring. And then, finally, stuffed his mouth with sand from the Strand.”

  Eilidh had listened quietly to all this discussion. Finally she spoke. “I am knowing Mariota, the Beaton’s daughter.”

  “Aye?” I asked. “Where are you knowing her from? Balinaby?”

  Eilidh nodded, the brown plaits of her hair swinging a little with the motion. “She was here, a day or so hence, was she not, Auntie? But she did not speak of the murders, at all. She is to be married soon. To a MacNeill, it is. From Mull.”

  “Is that so?” I answered, trying to sound unconcerned. Mariota had not mentioned a betrothal, but then, I had not asked her. I told myself that I was surprised anyone was wanting to marry her, with that sharp tongue she had. But apparently someone did.

  “And what was she wanting here?” I asked, although privately, I realized she had been investigating, as she had promised to do.

  “Och, she was just visiting, that was the whole of it, Muirteach. We were speaking of women’s concerns.”

  And that was all Eilidh or my aunt would say of that matter.

  * * * * *

  Seamus and I spent that night and the next day with my great-aunt. It was not possible, after not seeing my Islay relatives for so long, to leave abruptly. For my part, I enjoyed the time we spent there. There were no other close relations there to query. The plague had hit my mother’s family hard, that same time that she herself had died, and so, after ascertaining that Uisdean or Dougall could not have committed the crime, I relaxed for a time, and basked in the loving attentions of my great-aunt. I felt unencumbered, freer than since before my father’s murder, for all that I had not yet solved it.

  And I am thinking that Seamus enjoyed his time on Islay as well. At least, it seemed he greatly enjoyed taking the time to flirt with Eilidh, as she went about her tasks. I heard him humming the words to “Nut-Brown Maiden” quietly when he thought I would not be hearing.

  One thing nagged at my memory, and finally, the last afternoon of our visit, I remembered what it was.

  “Were you knowing, Auntie, of a boy who went to the Priory a little before I did, and then did not like it, and left?”

  My aunt’s fingers never stopped picking the fleece she was preparing for carding, but her rheumy blue eyes took on a faraway look as she thought.

  “An Islay boy, you are saying? How old would he be being?”

  I tried to remember what Donal had said. “A bit older than myself. I am thinking he may have come from Islay, but perhaps he was not coming from the Rhinns.”

  “Wait now, Muirteach, I am remembering something. I am thinking that one of those MacKerral’s from over near Kilchioman, sent a boy to the Priory a bit before you yourself were going there. It was a long time ago, but I am remembering because I was thinking, at the time, that perhaps the lad would prove to be company for you. Now was it a MacKerral? Or a MacCrimmon? Aye, I am thinking it would have been a MacKerral.”

  “From Kilchioman?” That was not so far away, after all, and on the way to Balinaby. Perhaps we would stop by there before returning to Colonsay.

  “Was I not just saying as much?”

  “Do you remember his mother’s name?”

  My aunt’s fingers stopped picking the fleece a moment as she thought. “Alsoon was his mother. She was married to Iain, I am thinking. And they lived a way out from the village, not as far as Dun Chroisprig, but in that direction.”

  So it was that the next day we left Kilchiaran and sailed a bit up the coast, beaching the boat on the sands of Traigh Mhachir. A young boy taking cattle to pasture was happy enough to point us in the direction of Alsoon and Iain’s steading, which sat in the shadow of Dun Chroisprig, not too far from the end of the beach.

  So intent were we on looking back at the beauty of Mhachir Bay, that we nearly missed the house. A tiny holding it was, the weathered gray stones of the walls of the house blending in so well with the stones on the green slopes of the hills, that we nearly walked past the place, until the noise and movement of a woman turning peats by the side of the house alerted us to the dwelling. She was an old woman, with gray strands of hair hanging down about her face. She wore no kerch and had a suspicious look to her eyes. Her clothing hung about her, somewhat ragged, and the wet peats had stained her hands and feet a dark brown.

  “Who is it, then?” asked the woman.

  Guessing that this might be Alsoon, I introduced myself as Morag’s nephew. Alsoon knew of my aunt, and she invited us to sit down and refresh ourselves. The ale she served tasted somewhat sour on the tongue, but I drank all of it despite that, for the heat of the summer day.

  “I am looking for your son,” I finally said. “Is he here?”

  Alsoon looked puzzled. “You are knowing my son?”

  “I knew him long ago,” I lied. “At the Priory on Oronsay.”

  The old woman spat on the ground. “Be away with you, then, if you are from that place.”

  “Mistress,” I tried to calm her, “I left the place. Do you take me for a monk?”

  “You do not have the look of the monks,” she grudgingly admitted, after a moment.

  “When were you last seeing your son?” I asked. “What became of him?”

  “Och, he stops now and again, when he is in the area. But he has the wanderlust in him, he does, and someday he will leave and when he returns I will be in the ground, with never a son to mourn at my wake or wrap me in my shroud. But he was just here, oh, a week or so ago, it was.”

  “And how long was he staying?”

  “For a few days. Then he was away again. What are you wanting him for?” she asked, her voice suspicious.

  “I am wanting to speak with him. Can you tell me where did he go?”

  “You are not knowing him at all, are you?” she suddenly turned and stared at me, h
er eyes sharp and hard. “Whyever are you looking for him, then? And to think I was giving you drink, and all—get yourselves gone from here,” she sputtered. “I’ll be telling you no more of him!”

  Chapter 15

  After that dismissal Seamus and I sailed a bit further up the coast to Balinaby, around Carn Mor, and beached the small boat on Saligo Bay. We then walked the short distance inland to Balinaby, past the old standing stone. The old abbey of the culdees had been abandoned after the Norse raids, and now the Beatons held the land. It was easy to find the Beaton’s house, surrounded as it was by a fine herb garden. A grand enough house it looked to be, the garden enclosed by a low stone wall, the thatch neatly held down and all in fine order. I wondered if Mariota remained here, or if she had gone back to Finlaggan.

  We found out soon enough, for of a sudden someone stood up from behind the wall. Mariota had been weeding, apparently, for her skirts were kilted up around her waist, revealing her pretty calves, and her hands were full of some plant or another. She wiped her hands on her apron and greeted us. She smiled, and I grinned foolishly in return to see her there.

  “Muirteach—whatever is it that is bringing you here to Islay? And Seamus—”

  “I had it in my mind to visit my relatives here for myself, to see where they were during the murders,” I muttered, suddenly self-conscious.

  She nodded. “Aye, and were finding out just what I did. Your uncles were away and could not have been doing it.”

  “Well, why were you not sending word and saving me the trip, then? And why did you not mention the murders to my Aunt?”

  She smiled a little. “Perhaps I was wishing to see you, Muirteach. But if you have already been on the island here with your relatives for two or three days, how are you to know I was not sending you word? ‘'Tis you who are the impatient one.”