The Blood And The Barley

by Angela MacRae Shanks

  ‘Beggin’ yer pardon.’ William regarded her gravely. ‘’Twas my mam sent me to fetch ye. Ye've to come with her to Balintoul, her and two women-folk, as quick as ye can.’

  ‘D'ye know what the matter is, William?’

  He frowned, unsmiling, though she knew his smiles were rare, even more so since his da died. ‘It has something to do wi' the Black Gauger. Mister McBeath, I mean. Two women rode out from Balintoul, in a fair lather they were, but,’ he shook his head, ‘I dinna ken what ‘twas ower. They’re waiting fer ye at Tomachcraggen now.’

  ‘Never heed.’ She’d find out soon enough if she didn’t know already.

  The bay mare, Shore, was tethered to an alder, scratching her rump, twitching her tail at the midgies that feasted on her haunches. Plainly William had called at the shieling in his search for her, and her mother had given him the pony along with wee Donald as a guide. Such was her father’s vigilance, even Rowena's lad was not privy to the whereabouts of their still. She cast a dubious eye over William's mount. Old Trauchle the beast was known as, a plodding flea-bitten old cuddie hardly built for speed; the beast was plainly spent already. Quicker to travel alone.

  ‘William here will take ye home.’ She lifted Donald up onto Trauchle’s back, settling him foremost on the pony, bare legs dangling from beneath frayed kilt. He squinted down at her but said nothing. He’d long learned that being the youngest of the family meant he was excluded from what he imagined were life’s adventures until he was judged old enough.

  ‘You be taking care,’ warned William, and she nodded and untied the mare. With a tight smile, she mounted and urged the pony into a canter, pressing the mare through thick heather and whin, then into a gallop as they made easier ground. The route was a winding one, and she’d to curb the mare’s enthusiasm through the birks and juniper scrub, avoiding the many rocks and great schist outcrops that patterned the land.

  By the time they picked their way down the ridge of Carn Meilich, the sun was well risen and the mist that lay in the lower reaches of the glen had begun to burn off in the warmth from a watery sun. Yet despite the day’s gentle warmth, Morven shivered, glad when the low outline of Tomachcraggen came in sight.

  Sarah was waiting by the sheepcote, cracking her knuckles. ‘They've gone wi'out ye,’ she cried. ‘Couldna wait any longer. What took ye so long?’

  Morven's heart sank. ‘I came as quick as I could, but was busy at the still and none too easy fer William to find.’

  Sarah nodded; she knew well the need for secrecy that surrounded illicit whisky-making.

  ‘I'll need to get after them. How long’ve they been away?’

  ‘A while,’ Sarah hazarded. ‘Ye ken it's McBeath's wife they've gone to?’ There was an ominous note in her voice. ‘’Tis her time and it’s nae to be an easy one by all accounts.’

  ‘I thought as much.’ There seemed little more to say; Morven wrested Shore from the scrape of herbage she’d found and urged the pony on again.

  ‘’Tis the grand house on the hill,’ Sarah shouted after her. ‘The one wi’ all the lum pots.’

  ***

  It was market day in Balintoul, the generally peaceful township a heaving mass of Highland cattle fussed over by anxious herdsmen and eyed in turn by shrewd buyers from the coastal lowlands. Morven looked on the scene with dismay. Suitably removed from the offensive odours of the marketplace and the general squalor of the rest of Balintoul, the exciseman's home stood on high ground at the far end of the settlement. She’d need to negotiate the milling beasts to reach it.

  ‘A bonny bit silk fer a bonny lass?’ A pockmarked man with livid drinker's nose clutched at her sleeve. Grinning, he fingered the rolls of gaudy French cloth he peddled from the back of a cart.

  She shook her head. ‘I need to get through.’

  He shrugged and gestured at the herds of cattle blocking the road. Granted they were noisy, but she judged them to be largely docile. Gritting her teeth, she drove the garron on into the crush, her words of reassurance to the pony swallowed by the din. The stench of dung rose in her nostrils and flies followed the beasts in swarms. Shore threw her head, showing the whites of her eyes, and Morven slid from her back stroking her neck and murmuring softly to her, then elbowed her way through, tugging the nervous pony behind her. The cattle bellowed their indignation, but she pushed their horns away with her free hand, and they tossed their heads at her. Then she was free, dusty and a mite jostled, but unharmed nonetheless.

  She knew the exciseman's house at once. Impressively large, it was the only two-storeyed dwelling in the settlement and stood out conspicuously from the other humble homes. Built of butter-yellow sandstone with a slate roof and crow-stepped gables, she counted eight chimneys rising from its roof. Testimony, if any was needed, to the wealth the exciseman had accumulated from the simple crofting folk of Strathavon.

  Rowena's grey mare was tied to a post in the front courtyard along with another shaggy little garron; she tethered Shore alongside. The heavy oak door stood ajar. She knocked twice, then stepped quickly across the threshold, making her way down a dark hallway. Doors led off into further rooms, where amongst the lavish furnishings, she caught the gleam of well-buffed brass. Such finery was alien to her, and she felt her heart quicken in her throat. ‘’Tis only a house,’ she muttered to herself, yet even so, it took an effort of will to still herself, to quell the raggedness of her breathing, and she stood a moment listening for the sounds of a woman in childbirth and for Rowena's familiar voice.

  Small scuffling sounds came from the doorway at the end of the hall. She passed the curve of the stairway and made toward it. The door stood open; the room beyond seemed to be a large dingy kitchen. Swallowing, she poked her head around the door. A grey-haired woman stood with her back to the door and fretted aloud in Gaelic, opening cupboards and rifling anxiously through the contents. She seemed harmless enough. Morven cleared her throat. Whirling to face her, the woman's eyes flew open, and she made a startled sound in her throat.

  ‘Forgive me. I'm looking fer Rowena Forbes.’

  The woman steadied herself with a hand on a dresser-top and fanned her face furiously with the other. Her colouring was high, and she muttered, ‘Merciful heaven,’ under her breath. Then her face closed warily. ‘Ye're Morven, are ye?’

  ‘I came as quick as I could.’

  The woman hesitated, then her face seemed to crumple. ‘I doubt ’twoulda made a difference lass, however quick ye'd been. She's gone, poor soul, and God forgive me fer saying so, but I'm thinking ’tis a blessing.’ She crossed herself and dabbed at her reddened eyes.

  Morven’s heart lurched. ‘And the child?’

  ‘The bairn as well. ’Twas dead in her belly these last days. Likely Isobel kent it, but couldna bring herself to face the knowing. There's a … a deal o' blood, mind. Mistress Forbes said ’twas the bleeding that finished her – it wouldna stop and her that weak. She’s still up wi' Isobel now, making the poor soul as decent as can be expected. It wouldna do to go leaving her like that.’ She shuddered. ‘Looking as though some mischief had befallen her. Wouldna be wise, if ye take my meaning.’

  She glanced down at the items she’d taken from the top shelf of the dresser: jars of preserve, pots of salt, flour, spices, and such. ‘I was looking fer a tincture,’ she said in explanation. ‘A potion Mistress Forbes gave Isobel; one she'd nae be wishing the exciseman to find if ye understand me.’

  ‘Where is Mr McBeath?’

  The woman curled her lip. ‘Bending his elbow at the Balintoul Inn, most like.’ She turned to face Morven more squarely, and her chin rose a fraction. There was frankness in the faded grey eyes, a staunchness of character in the homely well-scrubbed face. ‘Isobel hadna many friends, nae real ones, but I liked her in spite of her choice o’ man.’

  ‘Was it you came to the glen to find Rowena?’ Morven asked.

  ‘Wi' my sister, Jessie Chatton. I'm Ellen MacPherson.’

  ‘Isobel was fortunate, I think, to have suc
h friends.’

  Ellen gave a shrug. ‘She was a goodly soul … aye bringin’ wee gifts, things fer our bairns. She loved bairns.’ Her lip quivered. ‘And her never to know the love o’ her own littlins.’

  Conscious of intruding on the woman's grief, Morven excused herself, then turned back to her. ‘He doesna know, then?’

  ‘Nae that she's dead, no, though he kent her pains were upon her. He'll need to be told, mind.’

  Morven nodded bleakly.

  The stairway curved delicately upwards, six doors leading off the expansive landing at the top. Instinctively Morven chose the first door, somehow reluctant to call out to Rowena in the hushed stillness of the house knowing Isobel lay dead somewhere close by.

  The room was a dim sparsely furnished bedchamber, a stone fireplace at the far end. An iron bedstead filled the space at the window; Morven’s eyes were drawn there. The bedclothes had been stripped – if indeed that's what they were. Soaked in blood, they’d been tied in a dripping bundle on the floor. A figure lay stretched out on the bed, still and pale as parchment. With a sickening jolt, she recognised the lax contours of Isobel's face. The woman had been dressed in fresh linens and lay on a clean sheet, although the scent of blood still swam in the air, metallic and offensive.

  Rowena arose from the corner behind the door where she attended a small blackened object. She showed no surprise at Morven's silent arrival, but her eyes were full of pitying regret. ‘I could do nothing,’ she said bitterly. ‘The child plainly died some days ago.’ She laid the object on the bed. Morven recoiled; it was a tiny shrunken infant, its face dark with contused blood.

  ‘Lord!’ she gasped.

  ‘She might’ve lived but fer the bleeding. ’Tis the scourge o’ childbed, the bleeding. Oft-times there's nothing can be done. ’Twas as though every one o’ her veins opened and wept fer this wee soul.’ Rowena dipped a rag into a pail of water and began to dab at the blood and scum clogging the tiny nostrils and laying thick among the folds of lip and eyelid.

  ‘Did she speak?’ Morven whispered.

  ‘Only to say what she wished Hugh to ken – that she was sorry.’ Her voice hardened. ‘She was too fine a body fer the likes of him.’

  ‘I dinna doubt it. But Rowena, I’m thinking he’ll be fearful riled now, will wish to lay blame fer this. And … and we both ken where he’s laid it in the past.’

  ‘Aye, he's cried me witch and child-killer. As if I'd cause this. As if any woman would.’ Rowena put a hand out to touch the still figure on the bed, almost in apology.

  Morven looked again at the pitiful form on the bed. Isobel Gow, she’d been before she wed the exciseman. A handsome young woman, plump and brown as a dunnock before the endless years of childbearing took their toll. The figure stretched out on the bedstead, thin and sunken-cheeked, bore no more than a passing resemblance to the blithe young woman she’d once been. With a shiver, Morven banished a sudden vision of her own mother similarly laid out.

  ‘Ye did all ye could,’ she croaked. ‘But I'd not wish yer assistance to be misunderstood.’ A small bronze charm was tied around Isobel's neck, a likeness of Brigid, the ancient guardian of childbirth, and a flask of a pale-yellow liquid stood by the bed. She picked it up and sniffed at it.

  ‘Hawthorn flower and mustard seed,’ said Rowena. ‘An infusion we've spoken of afore. A remedy to bring the blood together, most especially after childbed when the bleeding’s loath to diminish. But this,’ she reached out and touched Isobel’s hand, her voice aching and wretched. ‘This was unstoppable.’ Meeting Morven’s gaze, she pushed a wayward coil of dark hair back under her kertch. ‘I sent Jessie Chatton to fetch silvered water, but she's nae back yet.’

  Silvered water, Morven had been dispatched to collect it on many occasions and had witnessed astonishing results from its use. She knew it to be water taken from a ford through which both the dead and the living had passed, one containing a silver coin. ’Twas generally drawn from the ford at Achnareave on the way to Strathavon chapelyard. The woman would be some time returning from there.

  ‘Rowena,’ she said, gripping the older woman’s forearm. ‘Ye shouldna linger here. I sense a … a danger in this place.’ She’d felt it since entering the house, a malignancy hanging in the air, its charged presence crackling along her nerves, pressing her to get away. ‘’Twould be wise to be gone from here afore the exciseman returns, d’ye not think?’

  ‘I've no wish to meet wi’ the man either,’ Rowena replied. ‘But I've done nothing wrong, nothing that wasna my Christian duty. The man needs to be told, but ’tis only proper to wash and wrap the bairn afore we go to him, and to cover them both decent-like.’

  ‘Quickly, then.’ The desire to get away was almost unbearable, but dutifully Morven rolled her sleeves.

  There was no more clean water, Rowena had used it all, and neither woman wished the delay of traipsing to the township well to fetch more or waiting while Ellen did so. They cleaned the infant as best they could with the foul pink-stained water, their hands and fingernails discoloured with it, and then searched for linen to use as a winding sheet. The wee body was still supple, though the tiny features had begun to collapse in.

  ‘A boy,’ Morven observed. ‘’Twas likely a son the gauger was wanting.’

  Rowena made a scornful sound in her throat. ‘He’d nae even the time o’ day to give to his wife, never heed a child.’ She sighed and moderated her tone. ‘I believe he wished a son fer his own conceit, a symbol of his manhood, a feather in his bonnet to boast of to the factor.’

  Morven tore off a strip of linen with her teeth and glanced sidelong at Rowena. The widow, normally so even and composed, appeared stricken by the fate of Isobel and her infant, saddened to the point where her fingers trembled as she worked.

  ‘Isobel was already taken wi' her pains afore he even left fer the inn,’ Rowena expanded. ‘Yet still he left her here wi’ only a maid. The girl ran off in fright and ’twas Ellen found Isobel here in childbed. She'd to pay the girl to come back and stay with her mistress while she and Jessie went fer help. The girl made flight again the moment we returned, such is her fear of her employer.’

  Morven could well imagine that fear; the thought of dragging the Black Gauger from the Balintoul Inn to tell him that his wife and child were dead filled her with horror.

  At last, Rowena laid the swaddled infant down by his mother’s side. ‘’Tis sometimes possible to save the bairn's life ye ken, even after its mother's death,’ she said softly. ‘By quickly cutting it from the womb afore it dies too. I've done it successfully only once, but ’twas already too late fer this wee soul.’

  Morven opened her mouth to voice her abhorrence at such a proposal, but the words froze on her tongue. A dark shape rose in shadow on the far wall. She spun around and her heart near burst from her chest. Hugh McBeath stood in the doorway – he filled it – dark in both garb and countenance. He nodded slowly, knowingly, looking from one woman to the other. The hair rose on her scalp.

  Armed with sword and a pistol at each hip, up close he was bigger than she remembered. Unconsciously she measured the distance to the door and the small gap his bulk left in the doorway for them to escape by unscathed, and didn’t rate their chances. His whiskered face twitched, fox-like, as he assessed them. Looking down, she saw that a flask swung from his right hand, a spherical brightly-coloured flask like those Rowena bartered from the tinkers. He glanced down at it, slowly rolled the liquid inside, then cocked his head back up at them.

  Instinctively both women edged backwards, partly concealing the bed.

  Again his mouth twitched, and he inhaled, nostrils flaring. Morven sensed an unaccountable surge of triumph in him, a perverse sense of excitement. He’d expected this, had deliberately left his stricken wife knowing full well Rowena would come.

  He raised one eyebrow at Rowena, then stripped her down in a slow scornful examination. ‘Well, well, Mistress Forbes, you must be acclaimed throughout these lands. You attended the most r
emarkable recovery from smallpox this side of the Highland line.’ He grinned mirthlessly and advanced into the room. ‘But I dinnae take kindly to being duped.’

  Faced with such acute danger, Morven's senses were heightened, her thoughts achingly clear. He'd nae even looked at his wife, she scarcely seemed to matter to him, his entire attention was focused upon Rowena, a trembling eagerness in him.

  ‘I tried to save her, only the bleeding …’

  The twitching at his mouth ceased, and all trace of amusement left his eyes. He glared from one woman to the other, then seized Morven by the wrist and yanked her roughly aside.

  ‘Holy God!’

  He stared at the lifeless forms of his wife and wizened infant, then turned and levelled a murderous glare at Rowena.

  ‘She was beyond saving,’ Morven blurted. ‘Though Rowena did try her verra best.’

  ‘It's nae as ye're thinking,’ Rowena said. ‘The bairn was already dead in her belly. I listened fer its heartbeat …’ She picked up the tiny trumpet she’d fashioned from a ram’s horn. ‘But there was nothing and … and I could do naught to stem the bleeding.’ She lifted her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘Oft-times it happens that way, more times than ye might think and … and Isobel was terrible weak already.’

  He made an animal sound in his throat. ‘Who gave ye the right to come here? With your witchery.’

  ‘Isobel did. She asked fer my help. But I've used no witchery.’

  ‘No?’ He lifted the flask. ‘Two days ago I found this hidden in the chimney breast.’ He snared Rowena with his eyes. ‘Poison it is. Sorcery. Used to murder my wife, to kill my child. I know it's yours, or are ye going to deny it?’

  Morven stared in horror at the flask. Beside her, Rowena spoke mildly, a little wearily. ‘Not poison. I gave Isobel that tincture but ’twas to fortify her fer her labours, nothing more. ’Twas likely fear of you made her conceal it.’