Amos and Richard first looked at each other, then looked at me and nodded at the same time. I nodded back. But before we could take a direction, a red-robed, huge figure turned the corner. The long iron spike sparkled in the moonlight.
"My God!" groaned Richard in panic. "That's all we need."
"We could fight him," Amos considered seriously for a moment.
"Are you insane? Can't you see the spit and how big the guy is?"
"We could fight," I interjected, "and I have a vague feeling the Lord God will protect me in this fight already, but I'm just as sure your hands are more than bad."
Dunter RedCap had approached us calmly and deliberately. It was Richard who made the final decision. He turned his horse. Paying no attention to us, he gave a short yell and blasted away. Only a few heartbeats later I had done the same. Amos followed with a grim face. The race was still on.
Chapter 35
We had left the gates of the city far behind us and were heading towards Perth under the sufficiently bright moonlight. Ahead of us we saw the range of hills of the Lomand Hills, their tops already covered in snow. Winter was just around the corner. No more leaves hung on the already sparse trees and the wind poked our faces inexorably and with cruel cold.
"Since you helped us, you can ride with us again, George," Amos said, who had come beside me on his trotting horse. Since he was on horseback and I was only on a donkey, he spoke down to me, which went against my grain. So, more upset than I had intended, I replied, "Oh, thank you for being so gracious."
"You'll have to earn back something like trust, though." Amos doesn't respond to my mocking tone.
"Don't you talk so pompously! If it hadn't been for me, you'd still be lying unconscious in that room and Rich would be tied up like a suckling pig on a spit. Why were you even naked when we found you?"
I looked up at Amos, who seemed embarrassed. I had caught him off guard and made him feel uncomfortable - how wonderful.
In Amos's place, Richard replied. "Because he couldn't keep his thing in check, of course."
Mairead, I thought bitterly, remembering how doggedly she had resisted being called a strumpet by me. "What happened anyway?", I now asked inquisitively.
Nothing was forthcoming from Amos, but Richard answered me. "When we left you in the marshes, we met this young man in Eyemouth. He explained that he was a student on his way to Aberdeen and whether we would not like to travel together, a not unusual request. Travelling alone has many dangers. One is an easy victim for henchmen and bandits. We didn't want to be rude, especially as the fellow had good manners and also had money, so was certainly not out to steal our purses.
Amos was the first to realise that we were dealing with a woman in disguise. We were camped in the forest, by a small river, and I could hear their bodies clapping under the blanket. They had foolishly assumed I was already asleep. So while I lie awake listening to the spectacle, I reach for my letter and look at it, studying the royal seal that seems to have so much power. That's when I notice that it has come off the paper. Whether due to constant friction or other reasons is unknown to me. The seal is still intact, but the glue on the letter has come loose - a problem that can be quickly fixed with a little candle heat. But I'm curious and want to distract myself from what's going on around me, so I reach into the envelope and take out the letter. What I have to read there, however, is anything but a letter of recommendation - quite the opposite. There are several sheets of letterhead scrawled all over with small print. Since my reading skills are not very good, it takes me half an eternity to read it, but Amos needs that too, so I have time. It is a detailed list of the changing of the guard at Whitehall Palace. It is meticulously written when the guards will rotate. On the next page is a plan of the palace. A kind of path has been marked with arrows. This path ends in a room marked with an X. It says 'royal bedchamber'. Gradually I begin to suspect what I am holding in my hand. The next page contains the name and address of a key smith in Finimore Lane. The password 'Dundee' is supposed to persuade him to hand over a replica of the keys needed to get into the palace and up to His Majesty's bedchamber. At the end of the letter was written: 'Good luck and royal is my race'.
So what I have in my hand is an elaborate plan to assassinate James Stuart. Of course, I would have preferred to share my knowledge with Amos now, but the lucky bastard was busy with our travelling companion in disguise. So I had to wait until the next morning to tell him."
"That's outrageous." I was stunned. "Do you know what that means?"
"I think so."
"Mairead ran into me too. She thought I was you. Probably because we'd swapped the buff coats. Someone set her on us and included a description of who we were. That you had this letter was part of a plan. She knew what you looked like and deliberately stole the letter from you."
"It's not about us now," Amos now interfered gloomily. "Our little race is of no consequence. We need to recapture the letter and stop someone from assassinating the King."
"Big words," I groaned contemptuously. "Where were these big words when you were on that little girl's tail?"
"What happened to your letter?" Of course, Amos could guess exactly how I had lost my document.
I bowed my head in dismay. "At least I didn't trust her, why did you?"
"Because he didn't listen to my advice." Richard looked very serious. "I told him that you can't trust a woman who shares a camp with you on the very first night."
"What can I say? She was very convincing, told me she was a merchant's daughter and was travelling in men's clothes to protect herself from advances. It happens all the time. What did you actually experience with her, George?"
I briefly summarised my encounter with Mairead. At the end of it, Amos grinned broadly. "Seems we all didn't cut too glorious a figure."
We rode side by side in silence for quite a while. I knew how unpromising our journey actually was. Only on the vague tip of a pub landlord did we set off for Loch Muick. What if there was no castle there? No secret clan shelter? What if the man had simply spread stories and legends? What would become of us then? Didn't it make more sense to go straight back to London to foil the assault?
The next day, however, we gained certainty that we were following the right path. At an old sandstone bridge over the river Earn, we had to pay a moderate toll. When asked, the talkative bridge guard described a man dressed in black, with red hair and a heavy rapier, who had passed the bridge on the very same day. He would have noticed the telltale soft facial features and the still complete rows of teeth.
Euphoric, we set about catching up with our thief.
Chapter 36
A few days' travel later, we found ourselves directly in the Highlands. The land was barren and rugged, just as Edwin had once described it to me. Icy winds blew over snow-covered hilltops, overgrown only with lichens, mosses and herbs. Only in the valleys were isolated shrubs to be found; trees were alien here. The rivers where we could fill our drinking hoses had crystal-clear water. We had not seen a soul for days. Our desperate glances at the map were of no use to us, because there were no indications of our location. We just stubbornly headed north in the vague hope that we were on the right track.
It was during a harmless water break that Amos' horse spooked. Amos, who was about to jump out of the stirrup, got his foot caught in the irons and was carried away by his horse. The bay mare galloped into the thicket and was stopped a little later by the dense shrubbery.
Startled, Richard and I ran to our companion. He was groaning heavily. A sharp branch had pierced through his shirt and into his right flank. The wound was bleeding heavily.
"It's not so bad. It's just a scratch," Amos said bravely and pulled the stick out of his body with stoic composure. The sharp point had penetrated him by half an inch. Now the wound was bleeding even more.
We hurried to tear Amos' shirt into strips and make him a tight bandage, which we succeeded in doing after a few attempts. The bleeding stopped and in the following d
ays we felt that Amos was getting better, but on the evening of the third day he suddenly developed a strong fever and shook himself on the back of his horse. We got him off his mount and opened his bandage, only to find that the wound had begun to fester. Amos' body felt boiling. We cleaned the wound with clear water and bandaged it again. Amos survived the night with difficulty. I actually felt sorry for him now. Richard seemed to have forgiven my betrayal by now and so we took care of Amos as friends would. However, there was no success. Amos got progressively worse. The following day, as we rode through a narrow valley with a small stream babbling away, he fell out of the saddle like a stone and remained lying in the ice-cold water.
We panicked and pulled him out of the water into the dry when we spotted a woman on the other side of the stream holding a fishing rod and looking at us puzzled.
"Can you help us?" I called to her desperately. "Our friend is sick. If we do nothing, he will die."
The woman hesitated. She seemed to be weighing whether it would be better to run away, but then reluctantly nodded and beckoned us to her.
We loaded the soaked Amos onto my donkey and crossed the ford. Up close, the woman seemed quite old. Her hair was white as a sheet, her face weather-beaten, as was often the case with peasant women. An ugly scar adorned her cheek. She wore a fur blanket over her shoulders and rose, not forgetting the wooden bucket with the fish she had caught. "Follow me! Follow!" she spoke in a croaking voice.
Her words sounded kind of creepy to our ears, but what choice did we have? If there was even the slightest chance of help, we had to take it.
We followed the stream around the next bend and spotted a small shelter. Five sheep were grazing in a fence next to it. Several poor clothes were hanging on a clothesline, flapping in the cold wind. We followed the old woman into her dwelling and helped her make a fire. As the embers in the open fireplace were not yet completely extinguished, this was quite easy and soon an inviting fire was flickering in the hut.
The old woman now took care of our friend without being asked. She developed the bandage and looked at the worsening wound. She gave me the pus-stained bandages and instructed me to put them in a pot of water and hang it over the fireplace. I was quite disgusted by the damp cloth, but I followed the instructions without argument.
"Our names are George and Richard," I explained to the woman in between. "Our sick friend's name is Amos. We are on our way to Loch Muick. Are we lost or are we on the right track?"
"Aye!" the old woman replied as she took some herbs from a bag and spread them on the wound.
"Aye, what?", I inquired.
"Loch Muick is to the north beyond the next ridge of hills, not six hours' walk from here."
My heart beat harder with excitement. So we were not lost, in fact we were almost there.
"Your friend needs rest and a specific brew. Yarrow, plantain, mugwort and bellflower. All this will be boiled and must be steeped vigorously. I will soak his new bandage with this and he will have to drink it too. That is all I can do for him. Everything else is in God's hands."
We watched in admiration as the woman put her words into action and helped her where we could. As evening finally fell, I spotted a chequered panel of fabric on one wall of the croft that looked very familiar.
"What is that?", I asked the old woman with interest.
She eyed me sceptically and seemed to be considering whether to tell me. "My husband's Belted Plaid, God rest his soul."
"Clan of MacGregor?"
The woman looked me in the eye and seemed to wonder if there was any danger from this young lad. Apparently, then, she thought me sufficiently harmless to answer. "Aye! The name of the clan is forbidden. They call us the Children of the Mist."
I wanted to take advantage of the woman's loquacity. Maybe we could find out why the MacGregors wanted to kill the King. "Why was the clan banned in the first place?"
"Well, it all started with two MacGregors who were travelling on the Campbells' land and asked for an accommodation for the night. They were hungry and frozen through. The law of hospitality is clear on this matter. Any man who asks for it is to be granted a place to sleep for the night. But the door was slammed in our men's faces. They knew no other way but to kill and eat a sheep. When the Campbells got wind of this, they executed them both. The MacGregors' honour had been trampled on. In revenge, they stole hundreds of sheep and cattle from the Campbells, which incited them to take up arms. After a skirmish in which some Campbells had been killed, they appealed to the King in Stirling. They knew that King James had a weak stomach and could not stand the sight of blood, so they presented him with an example of the blood-stained shirts of their dead, which they had previously soaked in sheep's blood. The King was furious and henceforth supported the Campbells. Only this cowardly fraud had tempted him to do so.
When the MacGregors won the Battle of Glen Fruin a little later, the King was furious and ostracised the entire clan. Dozens of our leaders ended up on the gallows. We were hunted with dogs. Anyone who bore the name MacGregor was considered an outlaw and killed. Our property was confiscated, the women were branded." With that, she pointed to the right side of her face. "My husband was lucky enough to fall fighting the cursed Campbells. They let me get away with this disfigurement. I have lived here ever since, far from the land of my birth."
"Why are you telling us this so freely?" asked Richard. "Aren't you afraid of being betrayed?"
The old woman shrugged her shoulders. "That was all a long time ago. Twenty years have flown by since then and I have not been afraid of death for a long time. I've lost my husband, watched my children grow up and die, and don't really know what else to do here in this wasteland anyway. The Lord sometimes has strange tasks in mind for us. Perhaps it was my destiny to help your friend."
We fed Amos as well as we could and then got a big bowl of the old woman's stew to eat. Since we were famished, it tasted fantastic. A little later we were asleep. I dreamt of the MacGregors - the Children of the Mist. I felt the deep sadness of a clan condemned to an existence in the shadows.
The next day, Amos' fever had already abated noticeably. He no longer shook, but breathed calmly. He slept through the whole day and the following day as well. I had a bad feeling. There was no way to halt Mairead's lead. She had certainly already passed the letter on to her patrons. That meant the King was in great danger. I conferred with Richard and we decided to depart the next morning, leaving Amos behind.
Chapter 37
"There it is!" Amos breathlessly exclaimed, pointing his finger in the direction of the small castle, which fitted the inhospitable surroundings like a glove. Grey stone walls, a dilapidated, holey roof and a half-ruined stone wall marked it out as a ruin.
Amos had accompanied us in the morning after all. Risen from the dead, he still looked very pale, but he was able to ride his horse. And that was all that mattered!
Our ride had lasted only a few hours, then we had discovered the majestically shimmering lake in a wide valley. Now we were perched on a rocky outcrop above the castle walls, overlooking the inner courtyard. There was a bustle of activity. Some men were tending to the horses, which were stabled under a shed roof. Others were fighting with swords, probably for exercise or diversion. Still others were practising target shooting with crossbows at straw targets. All the men wore belted plaids in the MacGregor clan colours. Now and then we saw women in simple grey dresses and white bonnets carrying bundles of firewood or offering drinks or food to the men. We also spotted a few small children climbing around the inner castle walls. Only Mairead was nowhere to be seen. Had we actually been faster than her? The delay caused by Amos' accident made this unlikely, but on the other hand she could have been delayed. Or maybe it was already too late. Mairead had delivered the letter, then left again and the assassins were already on their way to London. This uncertainty was really getting to us.
The day wore on and we thought again and again about how we could infiltrate the castle, but all consideratio
ns yielded nothing. Firstly, we were not dressed appropriately and secondly, the castle's occupants consisted of no more than thirty men and the same number of women and children. With such a small crowd, everyone knew every face. If we wanted to enter the castle, we could only do so secretly at night. But the gate was always locked. If someone left the castle, the gate was closed again behind him. A gatekeeper looked out of his window on their return and checked the new arrivals - a very suspicious behaviour, considering what a godforsaken area we were actually in.
Nevertheless, we decided to use the night to spy. The castle walls had a breach on the north side. We had seen that during the day some men had been busy closing it up again with vestal stones and mortar, but the procedure was tedious. If we managed to climb over this breach at night, we could get inside the castle ruins.
When the last lights in the windows went out, we thought the time was right. Under cover of darkness, we ran down into the valley and crept to the breach. The brickwork felt damp, cold and porous. It consisted of hundreds of field stones that had simply been piled on top of each other and roughly cemented with mortar. Modern buildings have not been made in such an archaic way for a long time. Quickly Richard offered me the robber's ladder. I climbed into his clasped hands, got onto his back and pushed off. It wasn't quite enough to cross the breach, but I found a foothold in the porous masonry, climbed up another two feet and then pulled myself up to the top of the wall. Here I caught my breath, because the last pull-up had been quite a challenge. Cautiously, I peered down into the courtyard, where an extinguished fire was producing white smoke. A few horses were snorting restlessly under the shed roof. I could not see any people. Apparently they were sleeping in the warm comfort of the residential tower. I now helped Richard onto the wall, who had climbed onto Amos' shoulders. As he lay panting next to me, Amos was already looking over the wall. Despite his injury, he had managed to climb the wall without help. Of course.
The Caledonian Race: A Pulp Adventure (George Glen Series Book 2) Page 21