Of course, the whole situation was farcical madness, and his cousin the most insane one of them all. Any reasonable man would refuse the task and return to his hearth in York before the winter set in.
“Cousin, you’ll do it?” Alasdair asked again.
“Aye,” Colin heard himself say. “At least I shall go to Noltland and meet this heiress and see what may reasonably be done to keep the castle from falling to your enemies.”
He picked up the plaid and draped it about himself, fastening it with his brooch. Then he selected one of the newly made clubs and, after addressing an imaginary ball, affected a brisk swing.
The MacLeod made an effort to look solemn but ended up hiding his face in his sark’s broad sleeve and pretending to cough. Colin doubted that Alasdair would be so amused when he discovered the alternative plans for the heiress of Noltland that were taking shape in his sassun cousin’s sneaky mind, but Colin saw no need to inform him of them just yet.
CHAPTER THREE
O forty miles off Aberdour
‘Tis fifty fathoms deep,
And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,
Wi’ the Scots lords at his feet.
—“The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens”
Colin took in the ragged coastline as he was rowed toward the shore in a tiny boat crowded with golf clubs, a large number of traps, four people, and two unhappy sheep. His nose was wrinkled clear to his forehead and he wished for a handkerchief so that he might cover his offended nostrils. The unpleasant briny smell of sea-damp ovine combined with the up-and-down motion of the boat was upsetting his liver.
Noltland’s gray zed-plan tower looked right at home among the other sea-swept boulders that littered that far northern coast. Much of the cliff face was red sandstone, which had split into giant fissures along its bedding plane and was now being invaded by sea wrack and destructive salt. He had no doubt that the tower, from its cellars to its attics, had been impregnated with the smell of the sea, which, on a good day, was bracing. And on a bad day—or any occasion when a shark was being butchered in the flensing shed—rather more pungent. It made him grateful that he resided inland at York.
As they drew closer, he could see that it was not a true wood that ringed the keep, but rather heaps of thistles that besieged the tower’s lower walls.
Colin frowned. Doubtless the vicious weeds helped secure the fortress against intrusion, a prudent precaution given the area and the circumstances under which the tower had devolved upon the heiress and new laird of the Balfours. However, as an emblem of warmth and hominess, the thorny wild flowers were sadly lacking in welcome. In fact, the entire precipitous slope where the tower sat failed to suggest any vestige of tranquility or bonhomie on the part of the builder. Frankly, he’d seen castle dungeons more agreeably appointed.
To be fair, there was little cause for optimism among the keep’s inheritors, and the builders may well have sensed its fate from inception. Noltland’s owners had all come to bad ends. There had been the Tullochs who built the place one-hundred-odd years ago, and then the Sinclairs who died out to a single female, and now the Balfours, whose northern branch was also becoming extinct with amazing rapidity. And if the MacLeod had his way, the tower would shortly be changing hands again. There were MacLeods in Harris and Lewis—and of course in Skye—why not the Orkney’s Noltland Castle as well?
It would, Colin knew, take a great deal to discourage his cousin from pursuing his chosen course of acquiring this keep; the only hint of unease he had shown was at the preposterous tale of a spectral hound that haunted the Balfours.
Colin exhaled slowly. It was not that he was entirely decided against the plan of seeing someone installed at Noltland—so much would depend upon what he found at the fortress. Mayhap it would be better to establish someone strong within the keep rather than permit a bloody massacre of defenseless innocents by the ravaging wolves who lived nearby. But whatever was eventually done with the heiress and young laird, he did not see himself playing the Trojan horse for the MacLeod. Murder and rape of the infantry was not his favorite method of securing political appointments, and he would not assist in that particular project even to win favor with blood kin.
A flash of now-familiar red caught his eye. A female and a lad were up on the cliff’s ragged edge, both clad in gay colors, which were an insult to the gray of sea and stone. A telltale plume of sand shot into the air, explaining their presence outdoors on such a blustery day. Obviously, they were taking exercise. At a guess, the boy was either beating a badger to death with a stick or else he was trying to get a golf ball out of a deep bunker.
Colin watched the boy’s wild swings with a critical but sympathetic eye. The lad had a bad habit of throwing up his head just before he struck. He would have to be cured of that or he would never be able to control his ball. Colin knew this from painful experience. He had finally broken himself of the habit by tying a stone about his neck. The weight of the rock, and a few blows to the chin and nose from the heavy pendulum, had finally convinced him that he needed to stop jerking his head up when he took his shot.
Colin’s brows drew together. The two youngsters stood perilously near the ocean, a most insalubrious locale, and with the wind as strong as it was—
Even as the thought was conceived, a wad of brown leather, hurled by a furious hand, shot over the cliff and headed for the rowboat. Colin leaned out quickly and snagged the sack before it hit the choppy water, but his rescue lowered the gunwales sufficiently that he was splashed with freezing brine for his troubles. Neither of the other human occupants uttered a word of reproach, but the two sheep bleated pathetically and began to mill about in their tight quarters.
“Oh, hullo!” a young voice called down from the cliffs. Arms waved violently. “Did you get it?”
“Aye! And right sorry I am, too,” Colin shouted back, as he wrung out his plaid, which he had draped carelessly around himself. The boatman, another giant MacLeod, and MacJannet—both of whom had only had their boots wetted—grinned at him. Colin ignored them. “You’re throwing your head up before the shot and pulling to the left.”
The lad laughed. “So Frances says. You must be the new Master of the Gowff. Frances! Come meet your new—” The boy turned his head away and the words were lost to the wind.
At that moment the boat pulled up against the only bit of available sand, and Colin quickly alighted, leaving the snickering MacJannet to cope with their traps, and Olaf MacLeod to deal with the transfer of livestock. The other sheep, he had been told, would be brought in from the larger vessel a few at a time by rowboat, the cattle lowered into the ocean and forced to swim for the shore. It seemed a certain way to lose the valuable animals, but he had to assume that his seagoing cousins knew what they were doing. Ponies could swim, perhaps cattle could, too, and to be fair, he could not see how they would convince a large bovine to stand still in a rowboat with the sea heaving up and down.
Colin looked up from his wet knees to see two spots of bright red hurrying down the gray cliff face, and he moved swiftly to intercept the children. The scree looked treacherous and such haste did not suggest a mature degree of caution.
“Bonjour!” called a softer, sweeter version of the voice that had hailed him earlier.
Dark hair had slipped its modest arisaid and whipped about in the wind. The lady skidded to a halt only a handsbreadth from Colin’s outstretched arms. Her clothing, accent, and very air declared her as French, whoever her father might have been.
The lady was also not a child.
She said breathlessly: “We did not expect you so soon.”
“We’ve had favorable winds,” Colin answered in French, returning the ball to the lad and then making his obeisance to the lady. “Colin Mortlock, at your service, Mistress Balfour.”
Delightful eyes, the color of Highland whisky, moved over his face. Colin noted that though she wore a traditional leine, the delicately pleated garment was fashioned of silk rather than linen or wool, and it draped
most gracefully over her bosom. Her embroidered kirtle was long, but not so great a length as to drag upon the ground—a sensible precaution as the rough terrain would quickly shred the delicate material.
She also had small pearls for teeth and a lovely smile to accompany that softly accented voice, which he wished to hear speaking his name in tones of solicitude. But before she could address him a second time, the first of the sea-traumatized sheep ran bleating past them, distracting her from more pleasant conversation.
“What is that?” Mistress Balfour demanded, startled and dismayed, as she pulled her skirts aside before they were wetted by the sopping animal.
“That is a sea-sickened sheep.”
The seaweed-draped creature ran straight up the hill and into the recently vacated sand pit. It complained mournfully and began to roll about, kicking up the sand and sending gritty showers down upon them.
“But it is an unfair hazard,” Frances objected, stepping away from the granular rain. A second ewe ran past, apparently no happier than the first and every bit as determined to cover herself in sand. “I was preparing to take my shot. How shall I manage with these creatures milling about?”
“Now, be not so downcast. That, mistress,” Colin said with amusement, “is no hazard. That is our dinner. Speak kindly to them, for they are not long for this world. In any event, they add sport to the game.”
“Vraiment? They are dinner? I suppose they are another bribe from the laird of the MacLeods?” Her pretty lips curled disdainfully.
“Aye, they are. One I absolutely insisted on. There’s wine, too,” Colin said unrepentantly.
“How generous.” A dimple appeared briefly in one cheek. Frances’s eyes held his for a moment and then shifted, looking past his shoulders at the beach. The lovely lids widened. “And what are those?”
Colin turned. The first of the unhappy cattle were being lowered into the water over the side of the galley.
“That, mistress, is a Highland cow.”
“I do not refer to the beast, sir. What are those clubs in that basket?”
Colin hadn’t the first inkling. The MacLeod, not knowing anything of golf or the type of club required, had made several in varying styles and heights. There were enough clubs for a score of men and a great many of them looked like farming implements.
However, it would not do to appear ignorant of his tools, so he lied glibly: “Different angles of head of the club allow varying degrees of loft in the ball. Not knowing what sorts of terrain we should be facing, I brought them all.”
“Truly?” George breathed. “I did not know there were so many kinds of clubs. I have never seen half so many in one place.”
The young laird of the Balfours sounded impressed. But a look at Frances’s countenance showed that she was still skeptical.
“It is the same principle as is applied to shooting a cannon,” Colin went on bravely, hoping that this would prove true. It seemed that the principles of trajectory should relate equally to both things, and there was a very good chance that Mistress Balfour would not be able to contradict him on this subject.
“And that ridiculous thing with leather wrapped about its head?” Frances demanded as MacJannet and the overstuffed pannier drew abreast of them.
“That is for use in sand,” Colin explained, removing the club and inventing an explanation spontaneously. “The hood is removable, as you see, but it has been found that when playing with a leather ball that leather will cling to leather and it assists the ball out of deep dunes.”
“That does not sound entirely fair play,” Frances said slowly, stepping closer to inspect the ungloved head.
No, it didn’t sound entirely honest, Colin had to admit. But there was no way to take back the statement, so he added mendaciously: “King Henry himself uses just such a club.”
“You have played gowff with the English king?” Finally, Mistress Balfour sounded impressed.
“Indeed,” he said, feeling virtuous at finally telling some truth. He had in fact played with the king. Twice. The first time, he had been greatly reviled for his play. It had been his initial attempt at the game since leaving Scotland as a boy, and he had suffered the misfortune to twice hit Bishop Moore’s broad arse with wooden balls. Doubtless he would have been asked to desist from play, or arrested for assault, but the king had been vastly amused at the bishop’s rough treatment and insisted that Colin remain with them.
Fortunately—since Colin did not enjoy appearing the butt of jokes, nor the bishop the butt-as-target—the king’s gout had flared up soon after crossing the stream into which he so improvidently waded, and they abandoned play before Colin committed the unforgivable sin of striking his monarch with either club or sphere.
The second time he had played with the king, he had put in some practice in anticipation of the event, and his game was greatly improved. He had not once struck another player.
Of course, he had split three balls by cannoning them off the castle wall, and lost any number of them in filthy water hazards—for which he had been penalized at double the usual fine, privy streams being so devastating to the pages’ velvet livery. But for all the destruction of clothing, and the king’s disappointment at his improvement in the sport, Colin still considered the match to have been a success.
“Well, shall we play on?” Colin asked of his new mistress. For himself, he would have preferred a few hours’ rest to regain his land legs and some dry clothing. However, such an inclination was probably not what was expected of a true Master of the Gowff.
“Oui! But perhaps you are fatigued? I would not have you exhaust yourself while travel-tainted,” the beauty suggested politely, clearly hoping that he would not claim weariness.
“Not at all. If you will overlook my ceremonial nudity, I should be happy to begin at once,” Colin replied with a deprecating gesture. He was not wearing the scarlet brat Mistress Balfour had provided, but rather one of the MacLeod’s hunting tartans. He did not plan on wearing the violently red cloth a great deal unless the lady insisted. “Let us proceed. MacJannet will bring the clubs.”
Colin turned to the young laird and smiled. “We shall have to work on your form before all our balls end up in the sea. I brought a great many with me, but the supply is not endless.”
“I think the matter is hopeless,” George confided shyly. “We are between the hawk and buzzard here at Noltland, and I cannot seem to make the ball fly straight.”
“You shall,” Colin promised. “To begin with, I suspect that you are standing somewhat behind the ball. And it may be that your club is of an improper length.” This was a fairly universal bromide and he felt safe offering it.
“Oui, he is behind the ball,” Frances agreed. “And there is—”
A sudden hideous wailing split the air, making Mistress Balfour break off abruptly and assume a ferocious scowl.
“That sounds almost like pipes,” Colin commented, squinting up at the battlements from whence the ghastly noise came. “Are you slaughtering pigs to-day?”
Frances and George both grimaced.
“That is Agonybags,” George explained. “He likes to play the pipes when we are out gowffing.”
“Agonybags?”
“The creature’s name is Tearlach MacAdam—and if he approaches us with his man-staff I wish you to beat and castrate him,” Frances said.
“I beg your pardon?” Colin asked, exchanging a puzzled look with MacJannet, who was playing respectful ghillie and standing a pace back with the pannier of clubs. Surely man-staff could not be a vulgar name for a club?
“If he comes down from the wall without his clothing I wish you to beat and castrate him,” Frances repeated. “The MacLeod said that you would assist me in every possible manner to improve my game. This would assist me. Who can play well with that monster about?”
“Is he apt to come down without his clothing?” Colin asked, a frown forming between his brows. He did not relish having to inform Mistress Balfour that his assistance with h
er game would likely stop short of perpetrating grievous bodily harm upon anyone—especially not the insane.
“Oui. It is most annoying. How am I to play with that filthy man about, torturing the dead skin of an animal? And he is not a fit sight for my cousin, who is still most young and innocent.”
“Have you considered taking away his pipes?” Colin suggested. “That would be less drastic than actually destroying them or him. Pipes are quite expensive, you know.”
“That is a most clever idea,” Frances agreed. “And perhaps we should remove his tongue as well. He could not speak without a tongue.”
“His tongue?”
“Oui! His tongue and man-staff and pipes. I want them gone from my presence.”
Colin stared, quite dumbfounded. The woman, he was certain, was not jesting. But surely she could only suggest such a spleenful thing because she had never seen someone tortured.
Disturbing as her speech was, it did partially explain the MacLeod’s attraction to this female. Her expressed sentiments were very much after his own heart.
“It is on account of his handstaff not working anymore that he bothers Frances,” George innocently explained.
“His…handstaff?” Colin echoed again, feeling foolish but still hopelessly adrift. The only meaning he had ever heard applied to handstaff was one that a lady would never speak about, nor a gentleman in her presence.
“Aye,” George explained. “His pillicock, the baldheaded hermit, his—”
MacJannet coughed. “If I may? To be delicate, I believe the lad is speaking of Polyphemus, the one-eyed Cyclops of Greek legend.”
“George!” Frances scolded. “I do not wish to hear of this again. Tearlach speaks enough about such things!”
“Quite!” Colin agreed, frankly shocked at the conversation. “But I am still rather puzzled. What has this creature’s, er, impotence to do with you?”
The Night Side Page 4