The Night Side

by Melanie Jackson

  As penitence for her lack of filial piety, she began listing her brothers’ names, but reached a dead end at sibling twenty-four. Disappointed but unsurprised at her lack of recollection, she sighed and said: “King James even outlawed the game, you know, because it distracted men from serious things.”

  They both knew that she was speaking of the fourth James of Scotland and not the recently deceased king, the father to the infant queen.

  “Nice shot,” George complimented, preparing to address his own ball. “You are still a good club length from the cliff, too. Mayhap the birds will leave your ball alone this time. They must be very stupid creatures to not know the difference between a ball and an egg.”

  Frances nodded, watching anxiously as George began his swing. He had a tendency to throw his head up at the last moment and many of his balls went astray. It was her hope that the new Master of the Gowff would be able to cure him of this habit. As a female, it was not her place to correct his form.

  Actually, though he needed a great deal of help and guidance, there was only so much that she could do to aid her young cousin in any aspect of life. She had no more experience at leading a clan than he did, and as little inclination for the job. All she had was money—and even that, only so she was told. She had not actually seen any of it. Had George been older they might have married, thus giving him the money needed to hire men to defend the tower. But as it was, he was too young to wed, and he would not take any money from her even if he had been confident of being able to control a band of mercenaries.

  Also, it was an unfortunate fact that her dowry might be needed to bribe a suitable husband into defending their home, provided that one could be found. Supposedly they were under the regent’s protection, but the seat of power was a long way away, with Mary de Guise probably very busy holding the throne for the infant Mary, and the MacKays, Keiths, Gunns, and MacLeods were very near. As long as the prize of her hand and fortune was still a possibility, Frances’s rapacious neighbors seemed content to woo and not war. But that would all change when her time of mourning was up and she still refused them entrance to the castle, or if she were to become betrothed to someone else.

  Unfortunately, it would also change if someone got impatient with her excuses. The most likely candidate for this dangerous irritation was the new MacLeod. Alasdair was ruthless and quite anxious to consolidate his power at this time when the new Scottish government was distracted by affairs in the South, and consequently he was pressing her hard.

  Her unease had grown daily since the laird’s last visit, and she was now often awake in the dark hours pondering their situation, and how she might escape marriage. So often was she awake in the dark hours that she had developed a routine of opening her shutters and watching the moon track across the sky. It was after she had started doing this that she had noticed some poor hound howling in the night, disturbing her lonely vigil at her bedchamber window. It began every night after the moon set and continued until dawn. It was not a comforting sound, bringing to mind as it did the tale of the spectral hound that was supposed to live in the dark hole beneath the main staircase. The Bokey hound, as it was called, always appeared whenever a Balfour was supposed to die. She had never seen the beast, but many of the castle inhabitants swore it had been about the night her father had died.

  George brought his club down hard, spraying Frances with sand. As with his previous ball, George’s latest efforts lofted it off of the true course and out toward the sea.

  “Damnation,” he muttered. “I think perhaps we need to play as they do in the Lowlands.”

  “And how is that?” Frances asked, dusting away sand as George pulled another ball from his bulging sporran and dropped it upon the ground.

  “Well, you are supposed to take a nip of whisky at the start of each hole. It keeps you warm and limber when you have to get things out of the water. Nor do you mind as much when you lose your ball.” A small dimple appeared in his cheek.

  “They don’t have cliffs in the Lowlands,” Frances said repressively. She did not care for whisky and did not want her cousin to develop a taste for it. Many who came to like the uisge beatha at a young age were immoderate in its consumption, and it made them drunken imbeciles in adulthood.

  “Fortunate Lowlanders,” George grumbled. “They may also play futbawe.”

  Frances began to tell him that football was a vulgar sport for common people. Then, seeing him again taking an improper stance and unable to resist any longer, she added: “Try keeping your head down when you swing and do step a little closer to the ball.”

  George swung a second time. The club connected with a satisfying whap and the ball shot over the thistle hedge.

  “There it goes!” he said excitedly.

  “Oui, into the great sand pile.”

  George’s face fell. “Do you truly think so?”

  “Je regrette, but yes. Do not worry, though. You may borrow my bunkard club.”

  “Thank you,” George replied, going to pick up their bag. Frances had devised it out of a pannier and a strap so it was not so burdensome to carry their different clubs about.

  Both cousins looked around carefully before leaving the shelter of the castle wall and venturing out to the cliffs. There were three sound reasons for this caution. The first was the stinging midges that rushed inland any time the wind abated. Secondly, there was always the possible danger of kidnap by their neighbors. And the third cause, which was by far the most pressing reason for caution, was to avoid a meeting with Tearlach MacAdam.

  Tearlach, the mad broganeer of Noltland, was a castle fixture. He had been around from the beginning of Frances’s time here, and there was no apparent hope of convincing him to go elsewhere to live. He had been a boon companion of the last Balfour and was, the castle staff assumed, basically well-intentioned in his infliction of company upon the new laird and heiress.

  But the two cousins did not care for him. George disliked him because of his bagpipes, and Frances because she found Tearlach’s often-obscene abstrusities impossible to tolerate. Frances called him homo absurdian when others could not hear, a bit of ill-natured name-calling that she did not direct at any other residents, however annoying their habits.

  Possibly this malice was reserved for the broganeer because Tearlach also had the infuriating habit of stripping down to a dirk and boots and then wandering about so that he might “air his pores.” He would then take up his bagpipes—which he played so very ill that others referred to him as Agonybags—and join George and Frances out on the heath as they attempted to play golf.

  His nakedness and awful playing were equally hard to endure.

  And of course, though no one else realized it, Frances knew his talk of the healthful benefits of airing the pores was all a lie. She had seen the wicked glint in his eye when he watched her. Like most Scots, he probably thought her a woman of low morals because she wore the forbidden silk of France and played a man’s sport—and played it well. She thought it stupid to equate female competence with immorality, but the church had proclaimed it truth, so truth it now was.

  Tearlach claimed, when pressed by an angry George, that he followed Frances about so that he would be at hand to protect her if any enemy tried to seize upon her while they were outside the castle walls. Frances did not believe this, either. A naked man armed with only a dirk would be of no assistance in a battle—unless, of course, the glimpse of his bony shanks had the effect of a Medusa upon a raider. Frances’s first glimpse had very nearly paralyzed her. The thought of facing such male ugliness on her wedding night was enough to end all aspirations of marriage. She could only hope that other men were less repulsive.

  No, Tearlach had other reasons for following her and George, and she had soon discovered that they were not polite.

  Though some effort had been made to preserve her innocence when she returned from the convent, Noltland was a small castle and its occupants not immune to the sin of gossip. Frances soon discovered Tearlach’s unsavor
y history. He had, in his youth, been a rather dissolute person and a great fancier of those of lower classes who wore the kirtle. Doubtless that was why he had been such fast friends with her father. There was no sin of the flesh to which he had not turned a hand—or worse body part.

  Now that Tearlach was old and unable to “dance a mattress jig,” as he so colorfully phrased it, he was in the habit of following young people about in the hope of catching them in the act. He believed it would reanimate his “hanging Jimmie.” His organ had been useless since the old laird’s death. Guilt at his own survival, when all others had died at Flodden, had appeared in the form of a grievous ghost, a specter that no one except Tearlach could see. The vengeful spirit had removed his ability to copulate. He was desperate to try anything that would again make him able to enjoy a sexual connection with a woman.

  Unfortunately, when he could not find anyone to watch, he liked to ask personal questions. The coarse people who lived at Noltland thought this amusing and did not understand Frances’s distaste for the man. They excused his behavior because he was one of the few men left near the castle and a piper. They asked: Was he not as impotent as a capon? Why should she fear him and try to escape his watchful eye? She did not have a lover who she wished to keep secret, did she?

  He might well be a human capon, but impotent or not, she did not like the man. And now that she had relearned more of her native tongue and comprehended the true meaning of his words, the thought of some of Tearlach’s impudent inquiries caused a flush to mantle her cheeks. So angry and embarrassed had they made her that she had, in a fit of rage, accepted the visiting MacLeod’s offer to supply her with a young—and strong—Master of the Gowff who might serve as her guard and protector when she and George went out to play.

  She had also finally told Tearlach that if he again raised the subject of bollocks, pillicocks or membrum virile in her presence she would have him whipped. Further, she had told him that his air-bathing must be done away from her or she would see that his hanging Jimmie was castrated from his body, making him a capon in fact and not metaphor. She would have said more, but the man was fouler than the limitations of the English language would allow her to express. All of her available insults were agricultural, and one could not very well ask what sheep had spawned him without being insulting to perfectly innocent animals that provided them with much-needed wool.

  Unfortunately, these threats to his person had only increased Tearlach’s interest in her, and until the new Master of Gowff arrived, she did not know whom she could get to beat or castrate the privy-mouthed broganeer. George was too young, and the other castle inhabitants regarded him as some sort of combination of buffoon and lucky talisman—and Frances was not yet prepared to welcome any of her suitors into Noltland’s affairs, though she did not doubt that any one of them would be only too pleased to commit acts of violence on her behalf. That was the sort of men they were.

  “Are you quite well, Frances?” George asked solicitously, seeing the heat that flushed his cousin’s cheeks. “The sun is not too warm for you? If you are feeling howish we may retire.”

  “Non. I am well, mon cousin. Let us play on through before we are discovered. Then you must go to practice archery and I must go to my loom.”

  George grimaced and they exchanged a sympathetic look. Neither of the cousins cared for these assigned chores, but in the present circumstances they were necessary and one could only shirk so much of one’s duty in one day.

  “Do you know, Frances, I truly wish that my father or grandfather was still alive.”

  “Why, petit? Other than the obvious reasons, of course.”

  “Because then I needn’t become a laird, and practice archery, and live in this drafty old castle. I could have remained in the South and attended university.”

  Frances sighed in sympathy. “I understand, mon cousin. I understand. I do not like living in a drafty castle either. But be of good cheer. Our new Master of the Gowff shall be here soon. That will be pleasant, oui?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  In behint yon auld fail dyke,

  I wot there lies a new slain knight;

  And naebody kens that he lies there,

  But his hawk, his hound, and lady fair.

  —“The Twa Corbies”

  Colin entered Dunnvegan through the sea gate that waited silently at the end of the deep fosse where the lightly-crewed galley was moored. Given a torch by one of the sailors, he was sent up alone to the castle gate, a matter he and the silent MacJannet found most curious and even a bit alarming. But ever a slave to curiosity, he waved his concerned servant away and took the long, dark climb up the curving, rough-hewn stairs at a brisk pace without checking to see that his sword and dirk were still in place beneath his cloak. An angry ghost with a cloven head and a bloody hollow in his chest where a heart once resided followed him closely. Barely ashore and already the ghosts were gathering.

  It struck Colin as more than odd that he was not to receive the welcome of the prodigal son, Highland hospitality being what it was. But except for a lone man with a lantern at the top of the stairs, there was no one living to greet him as he stepped into the castle.

  So, his visit was clandestine. This added another layer to the mystery of his summons.

  His nocturnal welcomer—if such was the man—was elderly and seemed to understand only Norwegian. Fortunately, Colin had a facility for language and still retained his native tongues of Gaelic and Norse, so he was able to answer the garbled greeting politely. This earned him a certain level of approval, though not so much approbation as to cause the oldster to actually smile upon him.

  They traveled down a deserted corridor, which felt especially cold and dark in its loneliness, though the evening was not at all chill and the torch shed adequate heat and light about them as they walked. Perhaps it was the unhappy ghost that cast a pall over the passage.

  The old man knocked once upon a heavy, ironstrapped door, and then opened it without a word. He jerked his head, indicating that Colin should enter, and then backed away, taking his lantern and the ghost with him.

  Colin wondered if perhaps the man’s tongue had been torn out. If so, by whom? Probably not Alasdair. His cousin was capable of cruelty, but he tended to simply kill people who annoyed him. He hadn’t the patience for torture that his father had possessed.

  The room beyond was well lit by a large fire burning on the deep flags and several torches set in sconces in the wall. There were two large wooden chairs pulled up near the hearth, neither presently occupied. Above the hearth was a stone carving, a bull’s head embedded into the rock of the wall. As art, it was not appealing. As a reminder of the MacLeod’s absolute power within the castle walls, it was most effective.

  Heavy footsteps approached, and Colin turned to greet his cousin. He had only a dim memory of his time with Alasdair, but the memorable features of a prematurely stern face and the scar at the corner of his left eye were easily recalled.

  “Greetings, cousin,” Colin said softly, watching as the big man closed the heavy door behind him and set a bolt in place. It was confirmation of the MacLeod’s desire for privacy, had Colin truly possessed any doubts about the nature of his visit.

  “Health upon you, cousin,” Alasdair responded, finally smiling. “You had a good journey?”

  “Favorable winds all the way.” Colin shed his cloak, partly because the room was warm. Partly to be better able to reach his sword.

  “That is a good omen. Freya is with us.”

  The two men approached one another and embraced cautiously. Both were armed with swords and dirks and had sgian dubhs tucked into their boots. Thanks to their other silver ornamentation, they clanked when they took one another’s arms.

  “I am glad that life among the sassuns did not stunt your growth overmuch,” Alasdair said.

  Colin found himself glad of his extra inches. Though he did not expect to be molested, and was counted a deadly swordsman thanks to his ambidexterity, he had come as a n
ear-stranger to a land of giants, and it would not do to be the only dwarf among these chesty, arrogant leviathans.

  “Let me pour you a glass of the Lowland wine they tell me you favor, and tell you why I have brought you here when winter is approaching.”

  “Certainly,” Colin said with a smile, but inside he was lifting a brow. Such haste and lack of pretense—even with a stranger—was unseemly, and a violation of all manners and protocol. To use it with a family member only just returned home was unheard of. The situation had to be most urgent and secretive.

  That usually meant that someone—typically the laird—was in circumstances inimical to his health and or power. Someone or something had to be threatening the new MacLeod. And whatever it was, it couldn’t be removed with a battle-axe or broadsword, or else Colin felt sure it would have been dealt with already.

  This knowledge, rather than providing a sensible notice of alarm, only served to further whet Colin’s curiosity.

  “We are the sons of Frey,” Alasdair began, handing Colin a goblet and waving him toward a chair. The chalice was made of silver, not gold, but beautifully crafted. Most MacLeods favored silver because of their connection to—and fear of—the faeries. “All MacLeods have a blood tie that cannot be broken. There are neither mountains so hard, nor seas so vast that these bonds will ever be sundered. I reckon my kin to the hundredth degree.”

  He drank. The MacLeod managed not to shudder at the wine, but plainly he did not care for it. He probably considered it an effete, womanly drink.

  Colin sipped politely to acknowledge the toast, enjoying the fine Madeira his cousin despised. He waited while Alasdair took his seat. He tactfully did not mention his mother being cast out of the bosom of her family for marrying a foreigner and also for having The Sight. Perhaps the ties of blood “to the hundredth degree” did not extend to the females of the line, especially if they were suspected of being witches.