Corrag: A Novel

by Susan Fletcher

  Such gifts, I thought, at the water’s edge. Every day.

  And in the evening I trawled my skirts back to my little hut, and found two chickens there. Two. Pecking the earth by the hazel tree.

  So I had my own eggs, maybe. A thank you, or a sorry—in brown-feathered form.

  I was made for places, as you know. I was asked by the MacIain what would you give your life up for? And I said nothing. But at that moment, sewing him, I would have said for this world, I think. For kindness. For the simple, daily moments that we stop seeing, but should not—a pan as it boils, or how a flower is more open than it was the day before. Because I truly love those moments. I love such places as a marsh, or a cave.

  I’d have said this, if I’d been brave enough. If the words had come.

  But I didn’t say them. I never did. What I said, in the end, was just one word—and later. By my fireside, I said it. Him.

  I KNOW. So soon, Mr Leslie—so sudden.

  But with my knees to my chest I knew, already—him. Him.

  Him.

  My love,

  We are fully in Glencoe now, the prisoner and I. It has taken seven nights, and I have sat upon a stool which plagues my back as I write, but now she unfolds the glen for me, and she unfolds the men and women who are maybe dead now, or maligned. No matter that I am in the half-dark, and she’s on wet straw—she has laid the glen out for me with all its mist and hillsides that I felt I was there, on its rocks. She does talk well. Once, I thought she talked too much—too richly, too carelessly. Certainly, she can talk at haste. But even here, Jane, at my bureau, I believe I can hear the rain.

  She speaks of the MacDonalds. Furthermore, she speaks of the MacIain, who is well-known in this country. If you have not heard his name (which I should think you haven’t. Why would you? Few men’s fame reaches our small village, does it? Long may it stay so—Glaslough, with its hedges and birds and its lack of trouble), then let me tell you he is the worst of them. He did butchering in the Campbell lands and took to raiding boats that were moored off the west coast, and I hear he was a man of such savagery that he drank from the skulls of his foe. Some rumours are truer than others, of course. But of his prowess in battle, and the loyalty he inspired there cannot be doubt. Nor that he was tall—I hear he was a giant.

  I have not met a soul here in Inverary who was not afeard of him.

  Yet—yet!—Corrag tells me that she saved his life, in a fashion. She told me, Jane, that she was summoned to stitch a wound on his head, after a skirmish. She tells me he said mend me or you will need mending—which are brutal words from a brutal man. He roared, it seems, on kings, and faith, and I have long heard (as all Scotland has heard) how fiercely Jacobite he was—he and his clan. I shall not recount how she mended him, for she spoke of these herbs that she lives by. But she did sew—and wasn’t I always astonished at how much can be saved or bettered by a stitch or two? I will call her brave, if nothing else. Small, and well-meaning, and brave.

  These herbs, Jane. How am I to see them? I have always seen a witchery in finding cures in plants. Yet she said, once, that if herbs are made by God, then their qualities are God-given and have no Devil in them. There is a sense in her words. She is yet to have hurt a living creature, save for those she takes for food—and she seems sorrowful each time she speaks of a fish she has smoked. I feel, in short, she is kind.

  In matters of duty, I am growing well-informed. My papers are many, now—for I write plenty of what she speaks of, and as you know (and see) my handwriting was never as small as my father might have hoped for. Before I retire each night, I read through the day’s words—for they all paint these men for me, and the Highlands, and her own life. She spoke of a raid at Glenorchy, and I know this is true for I have also heard it spoken of (in Stirling, I caught word)—it was a ripe and savage looting. It seems to be their way, as I know a Glen of Lyon suffered also, at their hands. Not a home was left unburned, as I hear it, in that glen—and it was done at the year’s close, too, so a perishing time to be mauled. The west Highlands seem brimful of tales of feuds, raids and misdeeds.

  I have written a little of the Glencoe sons. The MacIain had two, Jane—both red-headed, spirited men. I have written (I can see it, now, as I write this) “did they survive the night?” For who knows? None know, for certain. I am minded to think they both died, for would they not have been sought out? Struck down? For there can be no denying that William would want this clan stamped out, their bloodline gone.

  Jane—a month ago, to call a mountain A Ridge Like a Church, as she does, would tread near blasphemy, in my eyes. I’d have condemned it. But she spoke very tenderly—her sight is very tender, in that she sees and feels what we have mostly forgotten to see. She says that she felt humbled by the ridge, as she feels humbled by a church. Grandeur, was her word. She may not know it, but she has her Godly ways—indeed, she speaks better than some men of my profession that I might write of.

  What a simple creature she is. How lonely.

  I feel that we walk by the ridge, her and I. On clear days, we see eagles.

  Charles

  III

  “[Its leaves are] broader at the bottom than they are at the end, a little dented about the edges, and a sad, green colour, and full of veins.”

  of Hedge Hyssop

  There is always the thought in me that you will not return. Even now. Even now that we speak as friends do, or nearly. I no longer think you may prick me, or spit, and I trust you now, but I watched you put your coat on in the evenings and fasten your bag with its ink and good book, and think it may be my last sight of you. That you will not come back.

  So I am glad when you do—come back to me. It is a good thing—and what good things are there, in the life of a thing that waits for its death? Not too many. I have my comforts, but they are memories, mostly. They are my own comforts which I must find, and bring back. How you duck into the room is a comfort to me, and I will confess that I never thought a churchman might bring a sense of ease to me, but you do. I want you to know that.

  I thought it last night, and I said to the straw and the spider in its web that if you came back to me, I would tell you. That you are a comfort. That I am glad, when you walk in.

  YOU are tired. I worry I tell you the wrong things—do I? Tell you the wrong things? Do I speak too much, or not enough? I can hurry to the end if you wish it, and then you may sleep or be on your way, and I will understand it and not see it as any broken vow—for I have learnt from the MacDonalds what passions can burn in a man. What eagerness is in them, for king, and faith.

  When I knew them more, and felt to be one of them, or nearly, I heard the tacksman of Inverrigan pray for James to return before he prayed for his family’s health—like James mattered more. But maybe James did. For what we believe is what shapes us, and our lives, and Angus MacDonald of Inverrigan with his freckled face thought all the world would brighten with a Stuart on the throne. That James’s return would heal his family of shivers and aches. So restore James to his seat, and shine the light of the Stuarts back into Scotland so it may chase away the dark, he said, with his eyes closed, on his knees.

  You ask what is Inverrigan?

  It was a handful of houses. It was a few homes in the woods, by the Coe. That was how the MacDonalds of Glencoe lived, sir—not in one settlement, but in a few smaller ones. Each one had a name. Achnacon was the houses by the river’s bend, where they say the warrior Fiann once kept his hunting dogs. Achtriochtan was on the valley floor, by the loch where a water-bull slept, and this bull would creep out on full-moon nights to graze, and shake himself. It wasn’t true, of course. A water-bull? But myths can be so strong they feel like truth. And the men at Achtriochtan could tell a myth well. They were called bards and poets, and sat close to the fires. They had a Killiecrankie song and one for their kin who fought for Montrose, and ones against all Campbells, and ballads on where they came from—for all Highlanders know that. All were Gaelic songs. I could not sing one for you but m
aybe I could hum.

  Carnoch, too. That was the biggest handful of homes. It was by the sea, and smelt salty, and faced the setting sun. The MacIain’s house was there. His sons lived near it. It was, Mr Leslie, a fine place to be.

  I say was. It was a fine place. For none of them exist, now.

  It makes me so sad to say it, and think it. But the last time I saw these homes, they were on fire. They were flaming in the snow, and blackened with smoke. Soldiers ran through them, saying any left? Any left? None must be left! In the woods, at Inverrigan, there were nine people outside it—trussed up and dead. Snow came down on freckles. Snow settled on their eyes.

  WHERE was I with my telling? I had stitched the Chief’s face, I think?

  I can still see it. His nose, and missing tooth. He is dead, now. They shot him in his bedchamber, as he dressed to meet his guests. He was calling for wine to be brought to them, for he always said am I not a good host, Corrag? and when he turned his back they shot him. So he is dead, and gone.

  But two winters ago, he was living. And I was walking on the wintery peaks of Glencoe—using my hands to haul myself up onto rocks, and leaving my footprints and handprints in the thin snow. From the Three Sisters I could see the whole world, or it felt so. To the north, over the Ridge Like a Church, I could see peak after peak. Snow after snow.

  I took myself to Carnoch with my cloak tied up, and my feet were bound with rabbit skin for the ice was sharp as knives. I had my herbs pressed to my body and my breath was like a cloud, and I had spent a whole night taking knots out of my hair. I’d combed it with a thistle, and scrubbed my face.

  Be calm I told myself, as I went.

  Be calm, and be kind.

  The village was smaller by day. Smaller, with more mud in it. Through the mist, I saw faces which came to stare at me—at my grey eyes, my small ways. Dogs growled. Children called out.

  The lady answered when I knocked on the door—her hair greyer in the winter sun, and her face with more lines. She looked down on me. She tilted her head as if her mind was saying who is…? But then she knew. She smiled. At me. She smiled at me, and when had that happened? I could not recall a smile at me.

  Corrag she said. He is better. Come.

  He was in the chair like he’d never stood up, or left it. The dog still slept with its head on its paws. Still candles, and still a fire, so that I could think is this a dream? It is all the same.

  There was Gaelic spoken.

  Then he said in a deep barrel-voice, Ah! My nurse is here.

  He had a colour to him that he’d not had before—a pinkness to his cheeks, and where his eyes had been red they were not now. I bowed my head. I almost did a curtsey, for how does one greet a man so tall and strong, and with such a voice?

  Sit he said. Take this clot of nonsense off my head and tell me how mended I am.

  I did. I nestled by the dog, by the MacIain’s knees. Reaching up, I unpeeled the poultice of rupture-wort and horsetail, and looked. The stitches were very black, and not very neat, but they had held. The skin about them was ink-blue from bruises, and still swollen up in parts. But there was no yellow or blackness. I could see and smell no infection there, and I sat back from him and did a smile.

  It looks better I said, than it did.

  Ha! Better? My head was cut in two. To look any worse would make me a dead man.

  It is swollen, and sore-looking. But it smells as it should, and there is a crust coming.

  A crust?

  This is good. It will knit the skin together.

  Lady Glencoe and I made a new poultice by the fireside. She pressed down the herbs so their juices came out. I wondered if she had ever had witch thrown at her, for she had a knowing look to her, and knew the way of plants.

  The dog stretched itself, and turned, settled down.

  Thank you for my hens I said.

  Ah. The hens. You need not take my cousin’s eggs now.

  I blushed. No.

  I am the MacIain, he said, waving an arm, who butchers and bludgeons, as they say—but I have a heart, also. I am not without gratitude where gratitude is due. He let me lie the poultice down upon his wound, closed his eyes. I wonder if you saved me the other night, Sassenach. I know the wound was deep, and I’ve seen men die from less. I’ve had my rough dealings before, and survived them. But I’m not young, and that wound… He opened those eyes. I was also sharp-tongued with you. I know I was.

  You have strong feelings.

  I do. He straightened his back. Yes. But that was not the time to show them. The hens are a gift.

  I nodded. I knew this was him saying sorry—a proud man’s way, which is not saying the word itself but treading about it. Thank you.

  Ach, he said, thank my son. He took them to you. Went out in this weather with a flapping hen in each hand. Left his wife and fireside to climb the heights with a blizzard coming down…But that’s him. That was always his way—fiery, and foolishly so. He’ll learn, or he’ll die—one or both.

  I heard this. As I did, I thought of Iain’s quickness with me, his fox-sharp eyes. I said I am grateful to Iain for it. I’ll care for those hens.

  He shook his head, drank from his cup. As he swallowed he said, It was Alasdair who carried them. Am I mended?

  I did not answer him. I put my herbs away, and told him I would return in a week or more to pick the stitches out of his skin, but he straightened his back in his chair—he was taller than me, just by sitting.

  You will come back sooner, he said. You will eat here. Drink. I want to know more of my English nurse—of what she knows. You will come back sooner.

  I backed away, and made noises like an unsure child does.

  I am not asking, he said.

  I thought be high, be wild. For I knew no other way. I had always been for places, and I knew how places were—so I took myself to the places I knew would soften me—air, rushing water. I sat very still in thin, wet snow and felt it fall upon me. I thought he left his fireside. He left his wife.

  You are for places, Corrag—not people. Remember that.

  But as I took a path back down towards my hut, I found some brown feathers drifting on the snow. I stopped. They rolled themselves slowly, and I thought from my hens—for they were the same brown, and softness. I knelt down, touched them. I pressed one to my hand. And I knew that Alasdair had come this way.

  I CARED for those hens. I did. Their natures were gentle, and they tilted their heads when they looked at me. Their eggs were big, and cream-shelled.

  In the evenings, I lay a little grain down for them. And one evening, as I watched them go peck and stretch their wings, I thought grain… I did not have very much of it. I’d gathered seed-heads all autumn, and these were feeding them well. But it would not last. I did not have very much at all—only my herbs, which were for curing, not eating. I looked about myself. A few fish smoked in the eaves and I had some mushrooms. An old berry or two. I was not worried for myself, for I could live on air pretty well—but these hens were a gift. They were mine to care for, now. And I did not want them hungry.

  I’ll look after you, I told them.

  I talked to the hens for a while. And because I was talking, I was not listening. I was thinking of the hens, and nothing else.

  I smelt a smell. There was my peat-smoke, and herbs—but there was another smell. It came in quickly, as if it had been blown in, and the hens flinched as I did. We all turned around.

  I thought rotting.

  It was the odour of a rotting plant, or even meat that worms had found.

  I moved to my door, thinking maybe a creature had died outside in the early frost and I was smelling its death, and if so I must tend to it in some way. I went out.

  A woman stood there.

  I made a sound, I think, for I had heard no footsteps or skirts on the ground. And in frost, all sounds are heard! Even a leaf falling down. A bird cleaning its wings. I said how…?

  Say your name she said.

  I stared. I stared at
her height, and her thinness. I stared at her, and I wondered her age, but could not tell it—she was weathered and lined, but this can belie an age. It says more of the manner of living than of how long one has lived, and so I stared, then, at her hair to look for some greyness. But she did not have much hair. I saw a shawl of filthy wool. Also, she had a very tight mouth, as if made for spitting. I knew her kind—or thought so. Sour piece.

  Say yours I told her.

  She narrowed her eyes. Her nails were all tangled in that shawl of muck and grime. I didn’t see her teeth, for her lips were so puckered—but I put a penny on them being pegs. Oh yes I knew her kind. She was what all folk see, when they hear witch—unclean, ill-mannered, fearful things. She is what brought the word witch in.

  I would not give my name. I waited.

  I know you she said. Beady-eyed bird.

  And I know you. Which was a lie of mine. I did not know her—yet I thought that I had sensed her, had thought in my bones that I could not be the only hiding soul in these parts. She does not live with the others, Iain had said to his father, in the beeswax candlelight. I’d heard this, as I’d stitched. I remembered this. The others. This woman.

  This bony creature with her privy smell walked towards me, then. She passed me, bent down and crept into my hut.

  I squawked. I followed her, saying this is my home! You cannot walk into my home like it’s your home!

  She could not straighten herself inside it, she was so tall. But she tried. She lifted herself until her hair with its leaves brushed the roof. The fish I was drying shed a few scales.

  Ah…she said. Herbs.

  Like Iain had said. Like the only thing that mattered to any person in this glen was herbs. Yes. I said it sharply.