Slowly they made it onto the opposite shore and stood, shaking and dripping. “Thank you,” said Robin.
Dylan nodded and watched the last of the cattle climb the bank. “It’s good we only lost the two head.” Robin nodded, and nothing more was said.
They stopped to sleep only once, and on the last day of travel made a hard, fast push into Glen Ciorram. As they passed just within sight of the barracks of the English dragoons, there being no other way into the glen with so many cattle, Dylan wondered out loud whether they would have any trouble from the Captain.
“I expect so,” said Malcolm, apparently not much disturbed by the idea.
“You figure the MacDonells will go to him?”
At that Malcolm laughed. “Nae. Some Lowland clans might, but by no means all of them, and it’s certainly not like the MacDonells to go running to Her Majesty for defense. More likely they’ll come after their cattle or steal ours. That’s why we must hurry, and put the spréidhe where they cannae be found. The day after Beltane, the young folk will be off to the high pastures with them. Come June or July, we make the trade with the MacGregors.”
As they made their way down the glen past the church, and the castle came into sight, Dylan’s thoughts turned to Cait and he felt less cold, tired, and hungry. It was like coming home, a feeling he hadn’t known in what seemed forever.
They drove the small herd across oat fields to a tiny track that cut behind the steep hills along the south side of the loch shore. The trail was seldom used, steep, thick with birches, oaks, and ferns that grew between the hills. The plan was to shelter the herd in a narrow glen deep in these hills. The cattle would spend the night, then half would be parceled out the next day to Matheson pastures and the other half taken south with the MacLeods.
The herd went in single file along the track; the men were spread even more thinly. One of the kine veered from the herd to bolt up a ravine, and Siggy cut out after it like a black and white streak. Malcolm turned back and gestured to Dylan, but it was unnecessary. He was already off, following the two animals up the steep ravine that narrowed quickly as it rose. A tiny stream of snow, melted from white peaks, trickled over rocks at his feet as he picked his way along.
The dog had cornered his charge against a boulder and was worrying and herding it back the way they’d come. Dylan had to climb to his right to let them pass. He caught a whiff of something that smelled horrible.
He’d encountered some rank odors since coming to this century. Poorly cooked food, piles of composted human excrement, pustulous sores, farts, and unwashed bodies were inescapable parts of daily life now. But this was a stench that set off alarms in his head. Something had died nearby, something big. Dylan climbed over the boulder and coughed as the sickly-sweet odor of rotting meat invaded, thick enough to taste.
Though his instinct was to get as far away as possible, instead of following Siggy back to the herd he went farther up the ravine to see what had died. Perhaps if it were a deer there might be antlers to salvage and sell for knife handles and spoons. A couple of the men in the barracks did pretty good work, carving antlers, horns, and hardwood. He pulled Brigid in hopes of finding something he could use, and climbed over another boulder.
What he found made him take several steps backward. He coughed and gasped to get the oily stink out of his chest and mouth. For a moment he thought he would vomit, but closed his eyes to calm his hitching stomach. Then he opened them. Wedged between two pieces of granite jutting from the ground, bloated and ghastly pale, was the body of Marsaili’s husband, Seóras Roy.
CHAPTER 11
He barely recognized the face. It was mostly by knowing the man was missing that he was able to connect the puffy, red-bearded carcass with the frightened man he’d seen the morning of All Saints’ Eve.
Something else caught his attention. Three fingers were missing from the corpse’s right hand, and one from the left. Taking shallow breaths, he reached down to pull back the ragged shreds of linen from over the chest and found an exposed rib cage crawling with squirming, scurrying bugs. Seóras had been missing since November but wasn’t very far decayed. No doubt he’d been frozen in snow all winter. His skin was gone and the flesh below fetid, but Dylan could still see how the man had died. The sternum and several ribs were busted all to hell. That, and the defensive wounds on the hands, told him death had come from stabbing. Furthermore, Seóras had probably been disarmed before his death.
Dylan returned to the herd and reported his find. Malcolm climbed the ravine to investigate, and came to the same conclusions Dylan had. He sent Dylan and the other Mathesons on with the herd, and returned quickly to the castle with the MacLeods, the body wrapped in his own kilt, carried gently by three men to keep it intact.
Once the herd was safely tucked away, the Matheson reivers returned to the Tigh, where the men of the clan were in an uproar over the murder. Torches dotted the bailey. The Great Hall swarmed with clansmen arguing about what to do and what must have happened. The women hovered at the fringes, mostly out of sight. Dylan looked for Cait, but failed to find her.
The stinking corpse had been put in a winding sheet and laid on a trestle table in the Great Hall, near the large doors that opened onto the bailey, which were now thrown open because of the stench. Nobody paid much attention to the body in any case. Iain Mór was in the bailey with Malcolm, Artair, and Coll, in tense discussion with several other men including Myles Wilkie. He was the father of the banished girl, Iseabail, whose baby by Seóras Roy had reportedly been born in Inverness in early January. The man stared at the ground and sucked on his lower lip.
Iain was saying, “Can ye deny there was a desire in you to do it?”
Wilkie said nothing but stared at the ground as tears filled his eyes.
“Can ye swear to me an oath ye dinnae do it?”
There was more silence, and the men waited. Wilkie finally looked up at Iain and said, “He shamed us all.”
Iain crossed his arms over his broad chest. “As did yer daughter. The entire business was an ugly and shameful one all around. I expect keeping a closer watch on your own responsibilities might have prevented it.”
Dylan’s gaze went to the ground as he wondered what the Laird would say if he knew his own daughter was secretly betrothed to her bodyguard.
There was another long wait for a reply from Wilkie, but none came. Iain then said, his tone pointed, “Do ye wish for a trial, then, Myles? To keep the English Captain happy?” Dylan gathered a trial wouldn’t have been offered if not for the presence of English authority, and Iain appeared angry enough to execute the wretch himself right there.
Wilkie shook his head. “Nae, Iain. Dinnae let the Crown have my kine. Please, I’ve little enough. Leave me to the judgment of God and let my wife keep her home.”
Iain nodded. “Ye’ll hang, then.” It was a request for agreement as much as a pronouncement. Wilkie nodded, as if a deal had been cut, and Dylan realized it had. A sort of plea bargain in which nolo contendere still meant death, but no conviction also meant no confiscation of property because no guilt had been found. The man would die, but his wife would live. Iain said to the men standing by, “Take him to the guardhouse and put an extra man to watch him.” To Malcolm he said, “Send a messenger to Inverness for the hangman.”
Myles Wilkie was led away to the barred cells in the gatehouse. The crowd of men dissolved, leaving Dylan alone, stunned at what he’d just witnessed. The body had been discovered only a few hours earlier, and the killer was already found and sentenced without trial. There was no doubt even in his mind the girl’s father had done it, and no doubt in anyone’s the man would hang without a fight.
As he made his way to his bunk in Cait’s alcove, he whispered to Sinann, who had also witnessed the scene, “Why didn’t he deny the murder?”
She fluttered backward as he walked and peered at him as if he’d said something unutterably stupid. “Should he rather burn in hell?”
“If he did it, wouldn’
t he go there anyway?”
“Swearing to a lie would only cause him to die unrepentant, whether he died now of hanging or later of something else. Now he can pay for his evil deed, repent, and perhaps be forgiven by your Yahweh.”
Dylan collapsed onto his bunk for some sleep, but instead lay awake, trying to get his twentieth-century mind around what had happened. When he finally slept, it was a fitful doze filled with nightmares of hanging.
The following day Dylan, in the midst of his workout, stopped cold with his sword raised when Captain Bedford strode into the Great Hall like he owned the place and made for the North Tower corridor. Two dragoons entered behind him and stationed themselves by the door. Dylan swallowed his shock in a hurry, then intercepted the Sassunach with the point of his weapon. “Where might you be going?”
Bedford halted and peered at him. His expression was neutral, but the contempt in his voice wasn’t disguised at all. “Get out of my way.”
“I can’t let you go in there. Furthermore, the guard is going to be in deep trouble for even letting you past the gatehouse.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Let me by before I have you arrested.” A smile curled his lip and he sounded like he relished the idea.
“I don’t think so.” Though he knew the American concept of privacy didn’t wash in this time and place, there was still no way he was going to have this limey wandering around loose in the castle.
Malcolm came from the North Tower corridor, his lips pressed together at sight of Bedford. He turned to Dylan and said, “Let the Captain make himself comfortable by the fire, Dylan. The Laird will be with him shortly.”
Dylan scabbarded his sword, then pointed with his chin to the rickety armchair by the hearth at the other end of the room. Bedford hesitated a moment, then gave a curt nod and strode across to the chair.
It was a short wait, then Iain Mór burst from the corridor door and bellowed as he crossed the hall, “What on God’s earth do you want now?”
Bedford stood, and waited for Iain to approach. He stopped before the Englishman with his arms crossed and his chin out. “Well?” The contrast between the two men, one bulky but fit and one slender but fit, was striking.
“You’ve sentenced a man to hang.”
“I have.” The underlying tone also said, So, what?
“He’s not been tried.”
“He asked for the judgment of God.”
Surprise flickered over Bedford’s face. When he replied, it was with a new tack. “The punishment, then, is peine fort et dur, not hanging.”
Dylan had no clue what that meant, but Iain’s next words set him straight. “Piling stones on a man until he’s crushed to death is not an English custom I care to allow into my glen. A quick hanging will do. You can arrest me if ye like and carry me off to Ft. William, and ye can confiscate my prisoner, but the man will be executed regardless. Unless ye’re willing to have a number of your men die trying to take me from here, just for the sake of making sure one Scot dies like an Englishman, you’d be well advised to let this one go. Captain.” The hatred in the Laird’s eyes gleamed, and his cheeks were ruddy with rage. Iain was talking to the man who had killed his father. Most likely he would have murdered the Captain on the spot if he might have gotten away with it. Dylan noted that Iain was unarmed, and thought the Laird must have left his dirk behind as a precaution against his own unleashed temper.
Bedford said nothing for a long moment, then seemed to come to a conclusion. He sighed and said, “All right, Ciorram, have your hanging. But mark me, there will come a day when your inherited jurisdiction will no longer be held valid by the Crown.”
“When that day comes, Captain, then you may stop me from hanging murderers. But until then, I’m the Laird of this glen and I shall rule my people as I see fit.” The Captain opened his mouth to speak, but Iain Mór overrode him. “And even then, Captain Bedford, the English had best have a care for the kinsmen themselves. For I dinnae rule by simple authority. I rule by their will.”
“Thank you, I’ve read Machiavelli.”
“I expect ye have.”
There was a long silence as the men stared at each other with palpable hatred. It was the Sassunach who spoke next. “Very well. Hang your kinsman. While you can.” With that, he turned and marched from the hall.
Iain stood where he was for several minutes, staring into the fire. Malcolm and Dylan said nothing. Finally, Iain said, “Dylan, ’tis a good thing you found poor Seóras Roy. Now the Captain has something to occupy his mind other than the MacDonell cattle you drove past his barracks yesterday.”
Malcolm laughed, and even Dylan had to chuckle.
Over the next couple of days the sheep were shorn of their winter wool. The ground was still too cold and soggy for plowing, but slowly the village of Ciorram shook off its winter sleep.
In the midst of the awakening of life, a wooden gallows was built in the castle bailey.
A week after the discovery of Seóras’s body, a man rode in with a large pack slung across his saddle. The hangman from Inverness had arrived. Dylan watched people fall silent as the man passed, keeping to his path without a glance at anyone until he dismounted, stopped Marc Hewitt, and asked to see the Laird. The gallows had loomed over the lives of the Mathesons for days, and even Dylan felt a sense of relief it would soon be gone.
The following morning, before dawn, the clan gathered in the bailey for the execution. Dylan didn’t want to go, but also didn’t want to explain why he didn’t want to go. Cait was determined to witness the hanging, so he went with her and told himself he wouldn’t watch, though he knew it was an impossible vow to keep.
The gallows was nothing more than a high wooden piling set in the ground, with a cross beam bolted to it and a ladder leaned against it directly under the beam. The rope had been slung the night before, measured against the gallows and the man to be hung. From the noose it ran up through a hole in the cross beam, then down to the upright where it was tied to a cleat. Mathesons gathered around the contraption, huddled in plaids and cloaks against the morning chill, all of them nervous and some of them near tears for the man who was their neighbor and cousin. Dylan was appalled to see children had been brought to the spectacle. The only Matheson that seemed to be missing was Ranald, and that was a relief.
As the sky lightened to blue, the crowd parted to let through the hooded hangman and his charge. The condemned was ashen-faced, but otherwise calm and under control. He climbed the flimsy ladder until his head was higher than the noose. The hangman climbed up behind to tie Wilkie’s hands, then up a couple more steps to place the noose around the man’s neck. The ladder sagged beneath the weight of two men. The noose was pulled snug, then the hangman backed down the ladder. Wilkie looked over to where the ladder rested against the upright, and bounced on it a little. It jumped and banged against the upright.
Iain Mór stood nearby and said in a voice to carry across the gathering, “Have ye anything to say, man?”
The condemned looked down at the hangman who was ready to pull the ladder from under him. He said, “Nae,” and jumped on the ladder so that it bounced off the upright, as he kicked it. It fell, and so did he. He reached the end of his rope just before his feet would have touched the ground, and the snap of his neck was audible. He dangled, twisting slowly, and all the air seemed to leave the witnesses. The man’s neck stretched, and one shoe tip touched the ground, which stilled the twisting.
Dylan finally looked away when he saw urine drip down Wilkie’s legs. It made a dark puddle in the dirt.
Cait whispered to Dylan, “Have ye never seen a hanging before?”
He shook his head.
“They let murderers live where you come from?”
“Sometimes.”
Her shocked look at that made him realize there were some things about this century he would never understand.
CHAPTER 12
Once the executed body had been buried, the hangman paid, and the gallows removed, life in Glen Cior
ram lurched back to normal for a few days, then moved on to the festive. In the castle kitchen preparations began for a festival which Dylan gathered would be on May 1, two days away. Some called it May Day, others Beltane. The entire glen was abuzz. He could sense an infectious excitement in Cait, and she gave him long looks as if she didn’t care who saw. He returned them. She often found excuses to touch him, a hand on the arm or a shoulder against his chest. The excitement rose in him, and he wanted to shout to the world that she would be his wife.
The celebration of spring took place among the thin stand of pine trees at the crest of the wooded hill just north of the village, where a gigantic bonfire was lit at sundown. Everyone in the glen went, even the crippled and ill who were carried miles to the festivities by relatives and sat, bundled, on stools and chairs brought for them. Pipers raised lively song to the heavens, loud even in the open under the spreading crowns of the tall, gnarled trees. Drums recalled the pagan, almost savage origins of the festival, and stirred something deep in Dylan’s belly.
Ranald was his raucous, annoying self, but nobody seemed particularly annoyed by him tonight for his chatter fit right in with the spirit of the party. Ever-present and underfoot children ran and squealed with laughter at the outskirts of the crowd, and it was still hard to tell which kids belonged to which villagers, even though he could now put a first name to every face in the glen.
Dylan’s heart soared, and he realized this was what he’d always sought but could never find in the Games in Tennessee. He and his friends had never accomplished more than a dabble in semi-familiar culture, and had never fully understood why many of those traditions had ever existed. But now he was among people for whom this celebration was part of the collective soul. He watched the dancing and singing and felt something of his own soul settle into its proper place, as if the missing piece of his heritage had finally been found and put back. He felt whole.
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