I bent over my bowl. “It’ll be my pleasure, Aunt Deirdre,” I answered obediently to her retreating back, careful to keep the sarcasm from my voice. Errant curls escaped and fell forward, hiding my face as I caught Hannah’s eye. Crossing my eyes, I stuck out my tongue. Hannah pressed her lips together but her eyes brightened with silent laughter as she too leaned over her bowl of oatmeal.
******
The scent of wildflowers took him back to Meara for a moment before the biting wind snuffed out her perfume and the smell of damp and mud again filled his nostrils. Duncan folded the square of cloth, careful not to let the grime from his hands stain the needlework, and returned it to his sporran, nestling it close to the small carved dolphin he carried.
They had left the home of the chimney sweep ten or was it eleven days past? The easy life had ended and food and heat were a memory as they made their way to Spain. Marching night and day, the cold extraordinarily great, Duncan and his men froze terribly. Duncan and Ranald stayed close and had befriended a solemn man from Aberdeen named Arthur Keith.
Arthur was as slender as he was tall, with a mournful look and long, slim fingers. A port-wine birthmark shadowed the left half of his face, giving him the appearance of having been splashed with burgundy wine. He had a habit of ducking his head down and to the left as though trying to hide the disfigurement, giving Duncan the impression Arthur had endured teasing most of his life. Quickly looking aside if he made eye contact with anyone, he did not engage in idle chatter though he whistled softly to himself, keeping time with hundreds of marching feet. Behind, in Aberdeen, he had left his wife and two wee daughters. Duncan had often seen Arthur slip a pocket watch from his sporran that held a tiny painted portrait of his lassies. It was then that Duncan saw a softening of the man’s face and knew without a doubt he loved his girls. His cousin Ranald had made it his personal mission to try and draw laughter from Arthur. Duncan had yet to see the man smile and thought Ranald had set himself an impossible task. But the young rascal, Ranny, would not be deterred and told raucous yarns and foul tales trying to coax a grin from their somber mate. Though Arthur never cracked a smile, the rest of the troop encouraged Ranald’s tomfoolery.
It was just before dawn. They had managed to cross a deep river and were marching quickly to keep their feet from freezing. As usual wee Ranny kept up a steady stream of banter. He clapped Arthur on the back and said, “Here’s one for ye Artie. Ye can ha’ my bread for the rest o’ the week if this one dinna make ye grin!”
Arthur kept marching, a soft whistle rhythmically playing across his teeth, his birthmark a dusky splotch in the pre-dawn light.
Ranald didn’t allow Arthur’s somber countenance to discourage him and began his tale, “A Scotsman walkin’ through the hills sees a lad drinkin’ water, with his hand, from a wee tricklin’ burn. ‘Away ye clarty dunderheid, that water’s full o’ the coos shite!’ The other lad shouts back ‘Speak English, man. I’m English. I don’t understand you.’ Well our Scots laddie hollers back, ‘Use both yer hands, ye’ll get more in!’”
Ranald slapped his bare thigh, supremely pleased with himself. Over the chatter of teeth several chuckles and snorts could be heard. The thought of an Englishman drinking river water filled with cow shit made even Duncan smile. Arthur’s eyes met Duncan’s for a brief second and Duncan was certain he saw a glint before he looked away and resumed his incessant whistling. “Och, Artie, ye ha’ to admit that was...” Ranny began. A sharp popping sound cut off his words and Ranald’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as he peered down at his arm. A gaping hole had appeared, as if by magic, just below his shoulder.
They’d stumbled right into an ambush. Duncan barked orders to his men as he pushed Ranald to the ground behind him. The popping continued as his men answered with shots of their own then the ground shook beneath their feet with the unmistakable rumble of cannon fire. Squinting against the grey, Duncan could just make out a line of gunners on a rise several hundred yards ahead. More men on foot moved toward them from both sides. Smoke from the cannon fire reached them then and Duncan knew they were in trouble.
Arthur stood to his right, his musket ready. But when he didn’t advance, Duncan realised Arthur was using his body to shield Ranald who lay just behind him. Ranny’s face was white next to the dark of the ground but his huge hand was outstretched to his musket that lay just out of reach. As Duncan hollered out orders to retreat an ominous whistling filled the air. Arthur reached into his sporran for a round of shot as an eighteen pound cannonball smashed into him and blew apart his body from the waist down. Something rammed Duncan in the chest, knocking him from his feet. It took a moment for him to find his breath then his mouth dropped open in silent horror as he stared at the severed leg lodged in the muck in front of his face. He crawled through the cold mud and found what was left of Lieutenant Keith. Arthur lay on his back, his mouth wide as he sucked for air. His legs were gone and his eyes were huge in his narrow face as he stared up at the sky.
Duncan ripped his plaid from his shoulders and covered the mangled body of his officer. Then he felt the heat of Arthur’s blood as it pooled by his legs. He stared down at the puddle of red and a rushing sound filled his head as a grainy memory took him back.
******
Duncan hurried through the corridors of Dunvegan, searching each room for his mother. It was her birthday and behind his back he carried a small dolphin that he had carved from a chunk of silver birch. His mother loved to swim in the loch and play with the dolphins and had taught him to swim before he could walk. His father had always told him his mother was an enchanted mermaid that he had rescued from a cave beneath the loch and he claimed to have been bewitched ever since. At twelve Duncan knew it was just a tale but all the same he recognized the connection his mother had with the dolphins that frolicked in the waters below Dunvegan. The carving felt smooth and cool in his hand as he raced through the castle. He had checked every room but her chambers. It was already midday and he guessed she was still in bed. She hadn’t been feeling well for the days and he hoped his birthday present would bring her some cheer. She was due to have the baby soon and he knew his father was worried. Out in the cemetery three white crosses marked the graves of three wee sisters he had never seen. Though his father remained silent, Duncan sensed his disappointment and knew he wanted more sons but his mother had not been able to deliver a healthy bairn since he had been born. He knocked softly at his mother’s door. Getting no response, he quietly stepped into the room. He peered up at the watercolour his mother had painted; at the vivid blues and greens of the loch. Then he heard a soft groan. Icy dread filled his young body as he rounded the corner. Then his legs jerked him across the room to where his mother lay on the floor beneath the window. Her black hair fanned out around her beautiful face and as he knelt down beside her and took her hand, she opened eyes the colour of the Scottish sky and peered up at her son.
“Ah, my sweet laddie, I’m sorry ye’ve found me like this,” she whispered through lips an impossible shade of blue.
“Mother, let me carry ye back to yer bed!” His voice was thick as he struggled not to cry. Then he felt something warm wet his bare leg and he stared down at the growing pool of his mother’s blood.
“What have ye got there, Duncan?” she asked.
Duncan pulled his eyes from the blood and felt the dolphin, slippery in his cold fingers. “I carved it for yer birthday, Mother,” he managed. Then he placed it in her trembling hand and she cradled it to her chest and closed her eyes.
“It’s so bonnie, lad. I love ye more than anythin, ye ken. Ye are my heart.”
“I love ye too, Mother. Now I must get ye back to bed.” But he knew it was too late. Too much blood had left her body and her face was too pale.
“I just want to hold ye, laddie. I just want to feel ye in my arms.”
Duncan had laid his head on his mother’s shoulder and silently wept into her breast as her life ebbed and the dolphin fell from her hands.
“Dinna leave me, Mother.”
******
A harsh gasping pulled Duncan back and he felt a bullet whizz past his head.
“Will ye do something for me, Captain?” Duncan realised the thready voice was coming from Arthur. He swallowed hard and leaned close to take his officer’s hand.
“Anything, lad,” he said as the battle raged overhead.
The gasping grew louder and more urgent and Duncan watched Arthur’s blood seep into the black muck in which he lay. Arthur held out a trembling hand and Duncan saw the chain of his pocket watch dangling from his long fingers. “Will ye open it for me?” Arthur rasped.
As the sun slipped over the horizon and painted the sky with strokes of burnt orange, Duncan opened the watch so Arthur could see his girls one last time. With quivering lips, he kissed the tiny portrait then peered up at Duncan with eyes that could no longer see, “Will ye tell my lassies I love them?”
“Aye lad, I promise ye. I’ll find them for ye.”
He closed his eyes and smiled for the first time, “And tell wee Ranny he’s a funny lad.”
Sunlight pushed the night aside. It promised to be a beautiful autumn day as Duncan hoisted the unconscious body of his cousin to his shoulders and trudged from the battlefield.
EIGHT
The Prisoner
It may have been high noon or it may have been midnight. The slit window was covered well and the darkness within the room gave no hint as to the time of day.
He pulled his chin from his chest and with eyes that had sunk deep, he peered around. It was a struggle and his lids fought to close. Lank strands of hair hugged his brow. He ran his tongue over his lips and felt the cracks in his skin. A rat waddled across the floor but the man took no notice. His eyes had settled on the shadow of a woman hunched over an open hearth across the room. He stared at the outline of her mouth, at the lips that moved fitfully. She bent and tossed a slice of peat on the fire. Pungent smoke reached out. The fetid air found the man’s nose and mouth and his frail body closed in on itself as a coughing took hold. The copper taste of blood seeped into his mouth, leaked from his lips and slid down his chin.
Pain knifed through his chest. The sour of his own body rose from the collar of his shirt. He tried to wipe his mouth but gradually understood that he could not. His eyes dropped to his hands and he saw that he was tied to the wooden slats that caged the bed in which he lay. He tugged at his bindings. The chafing on each wrist told a story he could not remember.
Realisation dawned. He was a prisoner.
Dancing flames drew his eyes. The woman poked at the fire, coaxing the blaze higher. With a deep groan, she straightened and stirred something bubbling in a pot that hung from a chain. Steam rose then faded into shadows that hungrily reached from the corners. The woman straightened her skirt then turned.
Her face rushed at him and the man recoiled in horrified recognition.
“Deirdre!” he croaked, his voice a rusted scrape.
The woman stared at him for a moment then threw back her head. Her laughter rent the still, clawed at his ears.
“Och, if I’m Deirdre that would make ye my mannie, surely!” Again the woman chortled, a gleeful, unsettling shriek. She lifted a blackened lamp and shuffled to the man’s side.
Bending close, she peered into his face. He pulled back as rotting breath crawled from between the stumps of her teeth. The lamplight played across her features and the man saw his error.
This was not Deirdre.
This woman was much older. Black eyes blinked at him from amidst grooves that crisscrossed her face like the weaving of a spider’s web. Grey, matted hair hung from a head that jutted oddly from her neck. As she turned to set the lamp down, he saw the hump that sat between her shoulders. She yanked and tightened the strips of cloth that bound his wrists and he stared at her bent fingers. Then she pushed a pillow behind his head and propped him up. Standing back, she peered at him; dark eyes alight with something vaguely familiar. Then reaching up, she snagged a few strands of her own hair. Twirling them round and round her finger, she stared down at him, a tremor passing through one eyelid. Her tongue snaked to the corner of her mouth and back.
“Och, yer the mannie my Deirdre fancied, are ye?” She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “Yer no much of a man the now are ye, Robert MacDonald?” she said with a sly smile.
Robert. Robert MacDonald. The holes in Robert’s mind slowly began to mend, the frayed edges stitching together.
The old woman turned to a shelf and retrieved a bowl cracked with repeated use. Robert watched as she trudged back to the fire and scooped some of the pot’s contents then moved back to his side. A rocking chair sat by his bed and she dragged it close then stirred at what appeared to be watery porridge, sloshing some over the side and onto her arisaid, adding to the stains that marred the plaid.
“Och, now yer wife’s father... aye... yer father-in-law, now he was a mannie. Weren’t no other lad in all o’ Scotland who compared to Rory McQueen.” The gravel voice lowered while the feverish eyes grew distant.
Robert gripped the sides of the bed at the mention of Jessie’s father.
She nodded her head as she stirred the porridge. “Aye, Rory McQueen. He loved me, ye ken.” Her eyes darted back and she fixed Robert with a fiery stare, as though daring him to disagree. When he remained silent, her gaze drifted away. “I worked hard for his family. They took no notice o’ course but Rory... well Rory was different... he was kind to me, ye ken.” The chair creaked as she rocked, keeping rhythm with the stirring. “And me just a servin’ lass.”
The room was silent save for the creak of the chair and the hiss of the old woman’s breath. Robert could not take his eyes from her face. Questions formed and quickly broke apart in his scattered mind.
“Such a braw lad, Rory was, wi’ the fairest hair and the bluest of eyes. He talked my lugs off while I tidied his chambers and always insisted on carryin’ my basket of laundry.” A veil slipped down, muddying her eyes as she stared into her past. As though in a trance, her fingers stirred the porridge, her eyes drawn to the hypnotic movement of the spoon.
Robert struggled to stay awake as the woman’s face drifted in and out.
“Each mornin’ I’d wake an’ hurry to begin my chores. I couldna wait to get to Rory’s chambers. If I was verra blessed, he’d be there and hurry to take the fresh linen from my arms. Ah... such a gentleman he was!” She nodded, her eyes burning as she continued, “I was a plain lass, ye ken, but Rory didna mind. He made me feel bonnie. ‘Lizzie McBain, he told me, I dinna ken another wee lass that works so hard as ye. What would I do without ye?’ “I loved him more than anythin’, ye ken, and I kent I could make him love me back.”
She smiled, a feather-soft smile, and her eyes glowed with remembered love as Lizzie offered a spoonful of the oatmeal to Robert.
He gulped at the gruel, slurping it across his torn lips. The oatmeal warmed his shrunken belly and he leaned as far as his bindings would allow and opened his mouth for more.
Lizzie watched, her lips curled in a ghastly parody of a smile. She held the spoon just beyond reach, lightly swinging it to and fro. Robert followed the spoon back and forth, like a baby bird tracking a worm. When she tired of the game, she shoved the spoon into his mouth. Drops of crimson oozed from the cracks in his lips.
“Hungry are ye, lad?” she purred with a nasty smirk. “I dinna ken what my Deirdre could ha’ saw in ye.” She shook her head, nostrils flared wide in her cobwebbed face. “Och, yer pitiful, but my clever lassie figured that out on her own. I guess mebbe her mother taught her a thing or two after all.” She shook her head thoughtfully, her mouth crimped in resignation. “There’s no help for it. Men canna be trusted. Yer no but a weak and foolish lot. Aye, even my Rory,” she said mournfully.
A rut parted her brows as she scratched at the hair that sprouted from her scalp. Releasing the spoon, she brought her fingers to her eyes and inspected the dirt and dander that lay beneath each jagged nai
l. Then she wiped her hands on her lap and picked up the spoon, the network of lines on her face softening a little as she slid back to her past.
A flame somewhere deep inside sputtered and worked its way through Robert’s emaciated frame. The swirling in his head thinned and he understood that the creature before him was Deirdre’s mother. He listened to Lizzie’s story with growing interest, fixing his mind on the meandering tale, holding his head still as any movement sent the room into a spin.
“Aye, I kent Rory was fallin’ in love wi’ me, just had that look in his eyes, ye ken? Course this wasna so bad back then,” she said pointing to the lump on her back.
“One morn I knocked at his door but he didna answer. I thought as he might ha’ left early so I went in to tidy. When I opened the curtain I heard him groan from his bed. Well I didna want to disturb him so I closed the curtains agin. I thought mebbe he were ill and I was worrit for him so I felt his forehead for the fever but he was cool enough. Then he rolled over and breathed into my face and I kent what really ailed him. He was blutered right enough; too much of the ale. I tucked his quilt around him so he could sleep it off and that’s when he took hold of my hand and said, “Ah, my bonnie lass, do ye ken how much I love ye? I kent ye’d come to me.”
Lizzie released a long breath that slithered up Robert’s nostrils and he turned his face away, his escape aborted by the grimy pillow.
The old woman did not notice, lost as she was in her yesterday. “It were as though I was dreamin’. Rory McQueen loved me! He truly loved me! I heard it wi’ my own lugs. He thought I was bonnie and didna care I was no but a servant. That mornin’ he took me into his bed and loved me. He was so gentle and kent just how to touch me.”
Lizzie’s eyes blazed while she smoothed her hair with quivering fingers. Her breath quickened and burst in short gasps. Her fingers crept slowly down her neck and slipped below the collar of her dress. Robert watched, repulsed, yet unable to tear his eyes away, while Lizzie fondled one empty breast then the other, seemingly unaware of Robert’s presence.
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