There were more people in that single, oak-walled room with its fire and beeswax candles and whisky and glass than I’d seen in all of Hexham, or in all my travelling days. I could see nothing but people, at first—waists and bellies and forearms. I was brushed by their plaids, got trodden on, and they were laughing and drinking and I thought leave. You are not for here. Go back outside to the ice, and sharp air. But as I turned to go a fair-haired lady came by me, and smiled. She took down my hood. She said don’t hide those eyes… And she smoothed my shoulders, winked, moved on.
After this, I felt I was seen. With my hood down, I felt they were turning, and looking down at me. My cheeks grew hot. I gave a shy smile to the man from Inverrigan, but he only stared. A cup-eared boy called me faery, as I passed, and an elderly man smacked his toothless gums as I slipped by, like I was for eating, and I wished I hadn’t come at all—for there were so many people, and so little air, and why had I come? I wasn’t a MacDonald. I was dirty-nailed, small.
But the MacIain came. He strode through his people, gathered my cloak in his fist and said my Sassenach! My English doctor who has no king… And with one hand, he lifted me into the air.
All night, I sat by his side.
The other folk sat on the floors, or on chairs, or on the great table itself which brimmed with food and whisky cups. But he’d lowered me onto a stool by his side and said should I not feed my healer? Keep her well? Ha! From there, I peered. I looked upon the faces. The bear of a man whose egg I once stole carved up a leg of roasted deer, and laughed. There were children from Achnacon, squirming and fighting with sticks, and two women were whispering with linen curraichd on their heads, and Iain was kissing a rosy girl by the fire and a half-drunk man was playing a pipe and two men were quarrelling in Gaelic until their wives made them stop and Bran the dog was chewing a bone and a huge bear-man called MacPhail fought a man outside, so they both came in bloodied, but then they shook hands and drank. I stared and stared—because there was so much to see. So many lives.
Alasdair looked over the rim of his cup at me.
The MacIain said have you ever seen such a people? As these?
I said no. It was truthful.
No gatherings in England? No fine house like mine, to gather in? He was pleased at how I shook my head. He grinned, said there is no greater clan than this…We are small, but we fight with heart and honour. With his hand raised to silence the room, he said, we have always been a fighting clan…
And he told me of heather, and Fionn.
THERE were bannocks and barley-cakes and cheese and atholl brose. There was the hind, roasting, and more ale than I’d seen, and a cup of corn whisky which Lady Glencoe pressed into my hand and said drink. I nodded, brought it to my lips. But it made me cough from smelling it.
And there was music—the lively kind, which they danced to, and clapped to, and some pottery was broken to a cheer which made Bran bark out, and I saw Alasdair laughing with men, and children drowsed on their mothers’ laps. A bristly man came by me and said, a dance, wee beastie? He held his hand out. But I did not dance. I stayed sitting, with my whisky. I saw the colours whirl, and the plaids swing, and when the jig ended the MacIain called out Gaelic words which hushed the room down. They settled—on chairs, or on each other. And a softer music came. It came from the fair-haired lady who had said don’t hide those eyes to me. She stood in the half-shadows, held her hands across herself, and sang in such a frail, ghostly voice that it made my skin tighten, and my eyes felt strange. It made me think of Cora—for she had sung, once.
It was a Gaelic song. But it was a love-song, I knew that—from how she sang, and how they all listened with glistening eyes, like my eyes. Love of Scotland, I thought—not of a person, but of a place of air and wild land. Its rocks. I felt it was this, and when it was done, she seated herself by Alasdair. She pulled his arm about her, nestled against him. He kissed her hair.
I looked down. Bran put his head on my knee, and blinked, and I told him he was a very fine dog, a very fine dog indeed.
THE clock struck as I patted Bran, as the candles burnt low.
1691 was the year, now. And the MacDonalds of Glencoe raised their cups, and said a prayer—which I reckon was like how most prayers are. I reckon they asked for God’s help this year, for a good harvest, for health, for courage in war. All hearts ask for these things, in their way—no matter of faith, or language.
I asked for them too. I sat on my stool and asked the world for food for my hens, and love, and good skies, and to keep these people safe—for they’d never thrown stones, or said hag at me.
For a while it was a quiet room. But then the pipe roared up, and the MacIain shouted more whisky, here! And there was more dancing, more songs.
I LEFT. I gathered my cloak about me, and slipped away. It was late, and I longed for my hut—its hush, the hens.
I ducked under the door and put my hood up. I heard my name.
Corrag?
He was in the doorway. He had come up behind me. One hand was on the eaves like he was testing them for strength, and he rested his forehead against that arm. His other hand was by his side. He said are you leaving?
Yes.
He looked very boldly at me—not blinking. We’ve never met, he said. Not in a proper way. Nor did I thank you for mending our father. We all thought that was his end, with that wound, but… He smiled. I’m Alasdair Og.
Og?
Aye. It means younger. Named after the MacIain. He is Alasdair, too?
He is. He put his head on one side, as he looked. He saw me trying out og, in my mouth. He said, you’re Corrag, I think?
I am.
There’s been plenty of talk about you, did you know?
I hadn’t known this but I wasn’t too surprised. Women like us cause tongues to chat in shadows, and always did. Maybe I blushed. I know I gathered my cloak about me, as if to leave, for my own tongue was unsure of what to say to him with his blue eyes on me.
But he spoke. He said, what brought you here? Of all places?
Your brother said I was summoned—
No. He smiled. Not here. What brought you to the glen?
I also smiled, at that. I nearly laughed. I looked away and shook my head, for it seemed like an old story, now, and a strange one—too strange to speak of. Not to him, with his hair like that.
A long tale? Too long?
Yes.
He nodded.
We shifted for a while. Alasdair looked up to the eaves, smoothed his hand across them. Then he brought that hand down. He leant against the doorframe, and I wondered if I should turn, and go, for there was a long silence between us. Behind him, they were dancing again.
Did you eat enough? he asked. There is plenty…
Yes.
More silence. He breathed in. So where did you spend your last Hogmanay? Not in a Highland glen, I reckon—not with that voice.
I straightened. I looked sternly at him. Was he teasing me? Did he know the true answer, and was mocking me? His brother could mock, I was sure of that. His father, too. I eyed him, and searched for a wry smile or a raised eyebrow—but found none. He was looking at me like he truly wanted to know.
So I said, I was on my grey horse in the Lowlands. We passed an inn at midnight, and heard them cheer. It was a full moon, and we galloped out across a low-tide beach that night, and did not stop till sunrise, and that’s what I did. I shrugged. We galloped. Under more stars than I’d ever seen.
He was very still. All the noise and dancing was behind him, and he was still. Just looking. He had the bright eyes which made me think that he could see it, in his mind—that beach. Its mirrored sand.
He opened his mouth to speak—but as he did this, an arm came about his waist so that he turned his head, and the fair-haired girl with the singing voice came to his side. She was taller than me, and more shapely. She had the shape a woman’s meant to, and she pushed herself against Alasdair, said you—prodding his chest with her forefinger, and smiling
—are letting the cold air in…
Then she turned to me. She beamed. She did not frown at my knotted hair or my ragged skirts. She said I am Sarah. And I am glad of any new woman in this place—too many men! All these men… Such a smile. Bright, and clear.
We all smiled. We smiled away, wished each other a fine, healthy year, and I tightened my cloak and turned, slipped away into the dark.
In the gully of birch trees I paused, briefly. I felt the night air. I breathed it.
I slept with a hen on either side of me.
This was winter, then—my season. My weather. And what a wild, Highland winter that one was. Ice creaked, and the flakes of proper snow did not fall, at first—they hung, mid-air. They drifted about my head as I walked back from the glen, with peat in my arms. When I saw myself in darkened pools I saw my snowy hair.
Seeing it, I thought this is the start.
It was. These thin flurries did not last. Five days after Hogmanay, a wind blew in. It threw snow against the northern ridge, and howled up into my valley so that my roof shook. Skies swelled and raced, like sea-skies do. And I wandered—for wasn’t winter always too magick to go unseen? I had never feared it. So I wandered where I knew there would be beauty—to half-frozen water, or to the heights where deer were. They sat against rocks, blinked in the wind. I saw a white hare running—so fast and snow-coloured it was like wind, or a flurry of flakes, and only its black eye and the pads of its feet showed it was not these things. A snow-hare… I had never seen one. I looked at its tracks when it was gone. I was spun in the wind when I crested peaks, and when I lay down I caught flakes on my tongue. These things. Small, and safe things.
But day by day, there was less snow. Slowly, there became more water noises, and the falling burn in my valley grew loud, and strong. I drank from it—not on my knees, or with cupped hands, but by clutching a rock, leaning in and opening my mouth. I smiled as I drank. I tasted old winter. I drank new spring.
Day by day, green shoots showed themselves. The snow grew dimpled and up they came—comfrey, and motherwort. To see them was like seeing friends again. I crouched to them, thought who needs people? People aren’t always like this—by which I meant meek, and kind, and soft to touch. I gathered them, dried them. Or I powdered them up, or put them in salt. Or I let them grown on, in the earth.
It was in these watery days that Gormshuil came back to me. She appeared like a tree on the top of a peak—very thin and straight. I watched her come down, and as she drifted nearer I saw her thinness, the deep-blue veins beneath her skin. Despite her smell, I worried. She was dead-looking, so that I said will you stay? Have an egg or two? It’s right to offer kindness to a soul less well than us. But she did not want eggs, or warmth, or a friend. In a frail, girlish voice she said henbane… And I freely gave it. I asked nothing, in return.
Gormshuil, I said, if you ever need food…
But she shook her head. She smiled, for the henbane was in her hand now, and her skin was as thin as a moth’s wing, and she said you are like a wife to me—a wife! A wife! And she whispered to herself as she walked over the rocks, as if her mind was gone. I am no wife.
It was not just her that came.
The birds sang and sang. They perched on the hazel tree and sang, or they washed themselves in the snowmelt, and as I was washing my cloak in the burn one afternoon I realised that I’d missed such music. In the snowy depths, I’d only heard an owl. But spring was near, and here the birds were. I sang along with them. I scrubbed my cloak, and hummed.
And as I wringed my cloak of water, I noticed the birds had stopped. No singing.
I thought Gormshuil is back. But no.
On the north slopes, where the snow still was, I saw the stag. He was very still, and looked like a rock. But his branches were very broad, and pale, and I could see his tracks which came down from the tops. He stood, watching. I also stood and watched.
Are there no others with you? I asked.
He seemed alone. He seemed thin too, from the winter. His fur had the mottled look that comes with age, or thinness. He heard my voice, and one ear went back. I thought he is beautiful, for I had not seen a living deer so close, and here he was—thick-coated, and his mouth steamed with heat, and grass. There were a hundred colours in his fur, and his stare was hard, and his crown was held high. For a while there was nothing but him and me, and the burn.
Then both ears went back. His chest and forelegs moved themselves, and he turned neatly in the snow. He surged up, away from me and back to the safe, high parts, and I said where are you going? Why? For I had not moved, or spoken.
He saw me, I think.
I stumbled. I had not heard a person coming across the grass. All that water noise, and the swaying trees, and my own talking to the deer had meant I had not heard his feet, or his plaid against his legs. I steadied myself, put my hand on a rock.
Sorry, he said, one hand held up. I disturbed you?
I shook my head.
He waited. He waited until I had smoothed my skirts, and caught my breath.
Here, he said. He held a basket out. A cloth was upon it, and when I peeked beneath it I saw meat—dark, and salted.
Venison. We had more than enough left from Hogmanay. He smiled at how I must have looked—there was so much of it. But maybe don’t show your friend.
I frowned. Friend?
Him. He smiled, nodded at the stag who was a shape against the sky, still watching us, one ear forwards and one back.
Alasdair Og MacDonald. That was his whole name.
But I have others, he said. Red—for the hair, but also in battle, for I’ve been bloodied by the ones I’ve killed. I can fight well. I reckon it’s what I’m best at, in most ways. Down in Argyll they call me a scrapper, for a brawl I had with some Campbell men when I was a boy. I broke my bones, but I broke theirs too. Scrapper…I’ve heard that enough. Pup. Spare.
I tended the fire as he spoke. It was mid-afternoon, with the January light growing old outside. He sat by the doorway to my hut—half-in, half-not. The hens pecked near him.
Pup?
My mother says I answered less to a name than a whistle, as a boy. Said the dog knew Gaelic better.
I liked that.
We have many names, as a clan. The MacIains, or the Glencoe men, mostly—but if you ask a Lowlander… He grimaced. Then there are names which have hatred in them. A papist tribe. That gallows herd… He rubbed the heel of his cuaran into the ground.
I said, I know.
Our names?
How names can be. I have plenty. I am Corrag, firstly. But I’ve been called other things more often than I’ve been called that. Hag. Witch. Devil’s piece.
Sassenach.
I eyed him. I don’t know what that means.
English, he said, smiling. He looked up from his cuaran, met my look. It means English. Which aren’t you?
Yes, I said. I’m from Thorneyburnbank. It’s a village with a half-moon bridge and a cherry tree. There was the Romans’ wall near it, and such wind…I was born there. I was born on a very frosty night. I saw that frost, and other frosts.
But you are here now, he said.
I WARMED some meat in the pot, and put herbs in. I had a little stale bannock, and added this, and I had no way of serving it but to pick from the pot with our hands. Why might I have dishes? It was only ever me.
I said I have no dishes. But he did not frown, or mind.
How is your father?
Alasdair ate. He ate like men do—quickly, and without looking up, and using the bannock to dig into the meat. I watched his hands, as he did this. He is well. He is sore-headed, I think—but more from Hogmanay than the wound. Still his fiercesome self.
I looked at the fire. Gently, I said I heard stories.
Of him? Oh aye. There are plenty of them. He’s the best-known Highlander since Bonnie Dundee, most likely. ’Tis his height and how he looks, firstly. Then there is his fighting. You’ve seen an old man in a chair with a dog by his fee
t, but the MacIain has scalped a dozen men in one fight, on his own—it’s true. He raided Glenlyon so quickly they all escaped barefoot, if they escaped at all. Some burnt in their homes. Alasdair eyed me. He fought some English, too.
English? Because they were English?
Because they moved with the Campbells, down in the south. We’ve always been hated by that clan, and seen as foe. Seen as trouble.
As thieves?
They’ll say that. But all clans steal, see? Even Campbells do. No—he chewed—it runs deeper than that. It runs into God, and politics. Into how we see Scotland, and what we hope for it. Feuds, he said, don’t die quickly in these parts.
I was quiet. I thought a while, then said quickly, beneath my breath, so much hatred here.
He glanced up. No more hatred here than elsewhere. You know this. You’ve been running from it, have you not? Feared for your life?
This was true. But I’ve never hurt a person. I’ve never fought.
Never fought? At all?
I shrugged. Not with my hands. Not with blades.
He blew out his cheeks at this, sighed. That’s fair. They are little hands, and would not do well at fighting.
Not like his. I looked across at them. I knew his right hand—its half-moon scars, its marks. I saw how it tore the bannock, and remembered how I had spread its fingers out upon the poultice and said press. Like that. It felt a long time ago.
Maybe, I said, there will be no hatred, one day. No dark. No fighting.
You believe that? He shook his head. For as long as there is envy, or greed, there’ll be hatred. For as long as William sits on the throne.
William? You hate him?
He hates us just as much! For we won’t call him king. We won’t bow to him, or be ruled by him, and he knows it.
Corrag: A Novel Page 17