A Falcon for a Queen

by Catherine Gaskin

  ‘I’m trying!’ I snapped back at him. I was weary of it all myself. ‘I think it is coming plain.’ I looked at Morag. ‘It was meant for me, wasn’t it, Morag ‒ for Ailis? Margaret didn’t matter, not that much. Callum could never have married her, and she would be gone soon. But I was here ‒ and in your mind, I stood in the way of Callum having Cluain. Did you rush up the mountain that afternoon I told you I had seen Margaret out riding? ‒ knowing as well as I did where she would be going on an afternoon like that? Did you go to get the feed bag before her mare or Callum’s pony could get to it? You had not expected anyone there so soon ‒ she was supposed to be away at Cawdor. And it was too late. Margaret and Callum were there before you, and Margaret’s mare had eaten the oats. And Margaret fell with the mare.’

  ‘You are accusing me? You have not the slightest proof!’

  ‘No ‒ I haven’t. But are you as clever at getting the keys to Mistress Sinclair’s herb room as you were in getting the key to the Bible? It would have had to be a strong, prepared dose of hemlock ‒ the juice only, to mix with the oats. And a little digitalis, just to make sure? ‒ a little henbane.’

  ‘So, it’s hemlock from Mistress Sinclair’s room now, is it? Then why should it not have been Mistress Sinclair who put the bag of oats there? Why should it be me? Did she not have reason to dislike Margaret Campbell, who had led her son into what she calls the paths of unrighteousness? Does she not have the skill to mix such a compound ‒ and the keys to the herb room are hers, not mine.’

  ‘It was a very unskilful mix, the pathologist said. Too strong to be normal ‒ that is, if the mare had grazed on it,’ Callum answered. ‘Surely my mother knows better how to administer a poison if she is determined to do it. It does not fit.’

  ‘Nothing fits,’ Samuel Lachlan said. ‘It is a tangle of supposition. And what, Kirsty, do you mean by Morag intending you to follow William?’

  ‘It was thought, wasn’t it, that William had a good chance to live when he was found and brought back after the shooting accident? He was young ‒ strong. He had the best attention ‒ and the will to live?’

  My grandfather half rose from his seat. ‘What are you saying? My grandson had every care. Nothing was spared.’

  ‘No ‒ nothing. A surgeon from Inverness to remove the bullet, even a doctor from Edinburgh, a renowned nurse and herbalist to bring down the fever, to bring him back to health. But he died. I think … I think he died because Morag knew how to get the keys of the herb room. She had a little knowledge, picked up from Mistress Sinclair ‒ enough to be dangerous. And William’s name came before Callum’s in the Bible ‒ as mine does. No ‒ I don’t think it possible she could have planned the accident with the gun. It doesn’t seem possible. But she knew her opportunity when it came. Remember, Mairi Sinclair did not actually do much nursing of William. She prepared the food, and gave the medicine the doctors ordered, and her own remedies as well. But it was Morag who fetched and carried to him, who sat up there with him in the tower room. Mistress Sinclair herself told me that William did not like to have her by him. I think Morag added enough to those brews and medicines to turn the balance ‒ a little of this, a little of that ‒ to confuse the doctors and Mistress Sinclair. All of it deadly if given in too strong a dosage. Enough to defeat William’s struggle for life.’

  A wild laugh broke from Morag. ‘You are joking! You make these mad accusations against me, but there is not the least proof. Is all this come from the fact that one little pony was ill ‒ and recovered? ‒ and Margaret Campbell’s mare had eaten from a poisonous plant? It is all fancy ‒ all this about Ailis and Margaret Campbell’s mare. All about Master William’s death. Your grief and your thwarted love has sent your imagination reeling. I would have a care if I were you. Accusations like these must have a proof, and I will not sit still under them.’

  ‘There is proof. The proof that Callum has brought, serious enough for him to offer it at the inquest.’

  ‘That is no proof against me! I have already said that it would far more likely have been Mistress Sinclair who did that. That is what most will say. As for your brother … Do you know more than the doctors? Were you here when he died?’

  ‘I only have what proof he sent me. I did not come to Cluain uninvited just to have a roof over my head. Something unnatural had happened to my brother. Something not explained. God knows, it was slight enough, the proof he gave ‒ but perhaps all that a man who felt he was dying had strength to provide. Something that would not be discovered and destroyed. It was sent to me in China. It was that which brought me to Cluain.’

  Now I had risked everything. The meaning of those words of William’s would never be plain. Had they been the last fevered thought of Margaret, of her terrible, though strangely innocent power to wreck and destroy? Or had they literally meant what they had tried to say, and as strength had waned, been left unfinished? Who could ever know what had been in William’s mind. And I was challenging Morag with them.

  ‘There is no proof ‒ no proof!’

  ‘It exists, Morag. It exists. But I had to come to Cluain to be certain. I had to find out many things I could not have known.’

  ‘None exists! ’ Her tone rose close to panic. ‘I made sure. There was no writing ‒ nothing.’

  ‘You made sure, Morag? Why did you have to make sure of anything, if there was nothing to hide? It is there in writing ‒ but something you couldn’t read, and not in a letter, which you might have suspected and destroyed. The words are written in Mandarin characters on a scroll ‒ a scroll with the drawing of a bird on a bare branch. You will remember that. You packed and sent that scroll to me in China. You brought me to Cluain.’

  Now my grandfather got to his feet. He walked towards Morag with slow steps, the heaviness of his body menacing. But she did not shrink from him.

  ‘My grandson. I entrusted him to you. Was there murder done so that you could secure Cluain for the man you wanted to marry?’

  ‘Murder, is it?’ Morag tossed her head. ‘Better ask that of Mairi Sinclair! I don’t know what proof your granddaughter imagines she has, but there is nothing to it, or why would she have waited this long time to bring it out? Oh, no, Master, I shall not be so easy. You may make your accusations until the breath has left your body, and I shall deny them. And I will point to Mairi Sinclair, who had equal, and more, chance than I to do any mischief that might have been done.’

  The slight flaring of panic had left her; her confidence grew with her argument. ‘After all, who am I? I merely do what I am told at Cluain. I carry out Mistress Sinclair’s instructions. I don’t care what is written or not written oh a heathen scroll. There will be no proof that I have done wrong. All I have confessed to is opening the Bible and knowing what it contained. That ‒ and the crime of loving Callum Sinclair.’

  ‘You confessed, before us all, that you made sure there was no proof of anything amiss before you packed William’s belongings,’ Callum said. ‘There is more than fancy in what Kirsty is saying.’

  Morag looked directly at me. ‘Does that writing name my name? Does it?’

  I could only shake my head. ‘It names no name.’

  ‘There! Now bring your proof. Shout it to the whole country. A fine business it will make. Will they dig up your grandson’s body from the kirkyard, Master, to see if it contains poisons? How will you like that? Your name and the Campbell name ‒ if Callum goes on with his nonsense ‒ linked in the courts by a servant girl who is accused of causing two deaths. Or will it be Mairi Sinclair who is finally accused? ‒ she who will then become known as your one-time lover? It will be a fine scandal to take into your declining years ‒ and it will not change anything ‒ not as you wish it changed. It will not bring your grandson back ‒’

  Samuel Lachlan interrupted her, speaking directly to me. ‘The nature of this proof you say you have, Kirsty? It is not definite? Has William made an accusation? ‒ of some specific thing ‒ named some specific person?’

  ‘No. Morag
is right. There is only a fragment … obviously written when he was in a high fever, to judge by the characters. There is no name ‒ no crime that a court of law could fasten on to. That is why I have not spoken of it. I hoped to find out for myself ‒ to be a little more sure. But in the cold light of day there is still so little. The pathologist’s report that Callum brought back ‒ but no bag of oats to go with it. There is William’s scroll with his few words splashed on it. “She has killed …” is what he wrote, and even what he wrote is open to question. Even my father’s translator was not quite sure …’

  I stopped, because Samuel Lachlan was shaking his head. ‘It will not do.’ He rubbed his nose pensively. ‘If ever there was enough evidence assembled to bring either of these women to trial ‒ and I doubt that ‒ you know what the verdict would be. Not proven. The Not Proven verdict is uniquely Scotland’s law. The question would forever remain, no matter how sure we are that Mairi Sinclair could not have done such a thing. But there is also little proof that this girl here did do it. Unless you can find a witness who saw her on the way to, or at the cottage that day, you will achieve nothing. And then, what did she do, but cause harm to a horse? The matter of William is more delicate still. Two doctors attended him, and neither suspected foul play. Doctors are notoriously conservative in these matters. They do not like their judgements questioned. You would find it difficult to get an exhumation order on the strength of those few words William wrote. Were they dated? ‒ were they signed?’

  ‘No.’

  He shook his head again. ‘It will hardly stand up. I doubt that any of it would get past a Court of Enquiry. And do you want it to? Do you want it, Angus?’

  ‘I want ‒’ Callum cut in. Samuel Lachlan silenced him with a lift of his hand.

  ‘You, Angus. You have everything to consider before you make a move. The reputation of Mistress Sinclair. The good name of Cluain. The scandal that must attach to such a hearing, when a name like Lady Campbell’s is involved. You would have every newspaper in England with its representative here. If once the accusation is made publicly ‒ if even the present facts are brought out, you will never know a moment’s peace again.’

  ‘You are suggesting,’ Callum said, ‘that the whole thing be ignored? For the sake of hushing up a scandal!’

  ‘Are you seeking vengeance, Callum ‒ or justice?’ Lachlan said. ‘Consider your own mother, and her position in this. Justice is an abstract thing ‒ but vengeance can become a monster that turns and consumes itself. The dead will not come back. The living will suffer, and, even so, the guilty may go unpunished. Think well about it. Perhaps it would be the better part of justice if your friend in Edinburgh were told that the mare had indeed grazed on poisonous herbage …’

  ‘Then you mean me to stand up at an Enquiry and say that before my eyes the mare stumbled at the middle of the ford, and pitched them both down. That is what you want me to say? ‒ and you call yourself a man of the law.’

  ‘That much would be the truth. And it is because I am a man of the law that I count myself also a man of sense. It is revenge that is senseless, Callum. You have lost your …’ He stumbled over the difficult words. ‘… the woman you love. Your natural instinct is to hit back. Think of those you will have to injure with that action ‒ and this girl, if she is guilty, I think ‒ yes, I think this girl would go free. Her kind do. She would make a most impressive witness in the hands of a good advocate. Juries are impressionable. Set her beside your mother ‒ I beg your pardon, Mistress Sinclair, but this must be said. Your mother will be spoken of as the one-time lover of Angus Macdonald. Set this girl beside the story of your liaison with Lady Campbell. Beside those facts, this girl will appear as innocent as a babe. I know juries, Callum. They judge ‒ but they do not always give justice.’

  ‘I will face what I must,’ Mairi Sinclair said. ‘Do not consider me in this. “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after justice, for they ‒” ’

  ‘It is the Bible that is abstract here, not justice,’ Callum said to her. ‘For God’s sake ‒ I must consider you, since you’ve never considered yourself.’

  Morag stepped away from my grandfather, and paused in the doorway. She raised both her arms until her hands rested on the doorframe. Her confidence was supreme. ‘Well, then, I will leave you to your considerations. And let us hope that you will hear the sense of what Mr Lachlan has said. For believe me, I will make it hard on all of you. I will be just as Mr Lachlan says I will be ‒ I will be that and more. And you will all rue the day you raised a voice against me.’ Then her contempt got the better of her control. ‘You are fools ‒ all of you! But you, Callum ‒ you are the greatest fool of all. You did not see what was before your eyes. You would not stoop to pick up what was under your hand. There was Cluain, which you could have demanded as a right. And there was me, whom you could have had for the asking. And what did you choose? Your wilful, prideful ways. Cluain was thrown away because it would have meant a few years of putting up with that old man there. I was not good enough for you ‒ you preferred that foolish woman who could give you nothing but her body. You did not see me beneath your feet, for gazing up at the sky. Like that hawk you fly. Well, your pride is like that bird’s, and you look too high. But you will fall to the ground, as she must, some day. Och, you will fall. Believe me, you will fall.’

  Then she lowered her arms, and very gently closed the door behind her.

  When she was gone, Mairi Sinclair moved, almost mechanically, to build up the fire. In silence we all watched her poke the embers and lay on more peat and wood. Then she went to where the Bible still lay open; she closed it with great care, locked it, and then she took the bunch of keys to my grandfather.’

  ‘The keys, Master.’

  It was as if she were indicating that the ritual of Cluain would continue, must continue. It was more enduring than the present storm. Then she went back to her place at the end of the table, and waited.

  Callum turned and said quietly to me, ‘Kirsty … Kirsty, you have come all the way from China for this … for this.’

  I stretched out my hand to him and once again touched him. It was not the touch of desire, but of knowing, of loving and knowing the love returned. It was not now desire; I knew I had his trust.

  ‘Yes, for this. And worth it ‒ for this.’

  How does one mark the end of one relationship, and enter another? With no further words, Callum and I did in those moments. They were the last moments of grace we had.

  My grandfather went slowly back to his place on the settle. For long minutes he stared into the fire. ‘That is your true opinion, Samuel ‒ that we should leave things be. Not attempt to prosecute the girl …’

  ‘It is.’

  He sighed. ‘William is gone. Better leave him in peace.’ The sigh was like a faint echo of the wind outside, a gusting, moaning sound. ‘Perhaps it might be the better thing to leave ourselves whatever peace we may yet be permitted. Perhaps better to forget it all. Forget Ferguson, forget Cameron’s and Macquarie’s. Perhaps Kirsty is right. Expansion is just to become another Ferguson. Perhaps peace is what we need. There are not so many years of Cluain left to me. We will try to hold on to our senses ‒ and perhaps to gain our peace. Honour ‒ honour I let slip from me many years ago. I could have had a son. I have no son …’ His great eyebrows hooked together as he looked at Callum. ‘That is so, is it not? I have no son?’ It was the final question.

  Callum got to his feet, and went to the decanter and poured for himself. He drank at one gulp. ‘That is so, Mr Macdonald. You have no son. I will go, when I am permitted to. I must. I will live only so long as I can live freely ‒ come freely, go freely. My falcon is mine only so long as she chooses to be. The day she chooses to go on the wind, to fly on, and never return, then she is mine no longer. We live together on those terms. I can live no other way. And when I fall, I will fall hard, as Morag said. I know it ‒ I accept it. I can be no permanent part of Cluain. That burden must fall on Kirsty.’


  He replaced his glass. ‘And now, Mr Macdonald, I am going up to my cottage. I will wait to hear from you. It is you who must go to Gavin Campbell and give him your reasons for proceeding or not proceeding with this thing. I have told him what I know. And whatever you say, whatever your arguments, it must ultimately be he who decides in the matter. If he says I am to tell the whole story at the Enquiry, then I will. And all of us must bear the consequences. If you want to preserve this peace you suddenly crave, for once Cluain will have to make common cause with Ballochtorra. It rests with him ‒ and with you. Good night, Mr Macdonald.’

  When he reached the door he turned and looked at me. ‘Good night, Kirsty. Good night!’ The way he spoke, it might just as well have been good-bye.

  He still hesitated in the doorway, as though there was something he had still to say. Then the door of the kitchen passage crashed open, and banged against the wall. The wind of it swept through the room, and sent the candle flickering wildly.

  Neil Smith, red-faced and frantic, glared in upon us. ‘Is it deaf you all are? Are you so gone in your drink you cannot hear or see? Get out of here and get the place roused. Can you not hear the screams of the horses? The stable’s afire!’

  I suppose we all cried or shouted something in that first second: I knew only my own word, ‘Ailis …!’

  II

  We should have heard the horses ‒ except that their screams seemed almost part of the wind, the howl of its gusts. The tumult of our hearts inside that room had been too great to allow other sounds, perhaps we had, as Neil Smith said, been too far gone ‒ but not in drink. He had seen, he shouted back to us as we ran through the kitchen passage, the glow from the window of his cottage. And the high garden wall had kept the same sight from us.

  ‘Never mind water ‒ the horses first,’ Callum shouted. He seemed to have taken charge; my grandfather was momentarily bewildered. ‘And you, Kirsty, run up to Farquharson’s cottage and rouse them out. Have them send the lads, on to the other cottages. We need every man here.’