The Blood And The Barley

by Angela MacRae Shanks

  On both occasions, it was the sheriff he'd turned back to see, but on reaching the outskirts of town he'd shied away, Dearg's warning ringing in his head. The law, it seemed, would not help him, though Dearg had genuinely wished to, he sensed. But if Dearg was right, what use would he be to Rowena locked up in Elgin gaol? She'd have no way of knowing what became of him, and each day that passed her reckoning with McBeath drew closer. Yet to give up now seemed shameful and he spent another night racked in tortuous indecision.

  By the end of that night, he again turned his pony toward Strathavon, and as the first glimmer of dawn rose over Ben Rinnes, he drove his garron over the rough heather track with single-minded ferocity. Four days he'd wasted, his plan to bring McBeath to justice in shreds around him, but with all thoughts of magistrates and sheriffs thrust firmly from his mind, he knew what he must do.

  ***

  Tomachcraggen was little changed. The cairns of rock he'd cleared from the ground near three months ago were still piled high, and he looked on the oats he'd sown, well grown and ripe now, and prayed he'd get the chance to harvest the crop. When finally the familiar low-lying crofthouse came in sight, he still had no notion how he’d tell his kinswoman that he’d failed her.

  Rowena stood and watched Jamie from the whins where she gathered silverweed and bittercress and love for him filled her heart. Through him, her brother still lived, for Jamie was so like his father she oft-times had to pinch herself. He carried himself with the same poise, undertook every task with the same air of intensity, the gallant manner, prompting in her a fierce affection. Yet as he drew close, she could see the change in his bearing that drooped his shoulders and robbed him of vigour, and a crippling fear struck at her. He'd failed. The lines of defeat were etched on his face in bitterness, and she saw plainly how things stood with him. With them all.

  ‘Jamie!’ She pushed aside her trepidation. At least he was safe, his eagerness to protect her hadna brought him to harm and that was all that truly mattered.

  At her mother's cry, Sarah looked up from her toil among the tattie dreels and watched her mother embrace her cousin with affection. Once again, she was forgotten, but Sarah had long learned not to let such a minor detail deter her. She crept into a thicket of gorse and, wriggling as close as she dared, flattened herself into a natural hollow in the ground.

  Stiff with cold and close to exhaustion, Jamie unsaddled Rowena’s pony and put the animal to pasture. Silently, Rowena took the saddle from him. The skin of his face felt taut and grimy, and when he looked at his kinswoman, his eyes smarted with frustration.

  ‘Ye mustna blame yerself,’ she said. ‘Ye tried, and fer that I’m truly thankful.’

  He blinked and shook himself. ‘But how did ye –?’

  She gave a hint of a shrug. ‘It hardly takes the gift o’ far-sight to see from yer face it bodes ill fer us.’ She pushed the cottage door open. ‘But come and rest now, and then ye can tell me what it is ye've learned.’

  He passed a clammy hand over his face, over the rough growth of whiskers on his chin, the layer of grime around his eyes from his days spent in the saddle, then nodded and followed her inside.

  Sarah scowled as the door closed against her but soon realised it was not shut fully. Scrambling from her thorny nook, she settled herself by the crack in the door where she could see one side of Jamie's face, turned toward the fire, and hear quite comfortably his discourse with her mother.

  Rowena busied herself fetching broth and bannocks for Jamie, but the composure of her face belied the flush of alarm that rose in her breast at his leaden expression. Her heart beat dully against her breastbone and she watched his face, her eyes drawn to the sensitive lines of his mouth as he selected his words.

  ‘Ye mightna ken this, but not long after I came here an auld herdsman, speaking fer the glenfolk, branded me the instrument of yer undoing.’

  With a nod, Rowena acknowledged she knew of it.

  ‘Back then I didna care much fer superstitions …’ He stared into the fire. ‘But now I see I've brought affliction on everyone I've ever cared fer.’

  ‘Ye mustna speak like that,’ she said a little sharply. ‘Achnareave doesna speak fer the glenfolk, merely himself. Ye’ve brought no affliction. What was done to Duncan … what may yet happen to me, all the bad feeling, that was born long afore ye came here.’ She sat on the stool opposite and looked darkly at him. ‘Ye’ve doubtless heard the tales told of me?’

  He looked uneasily at her but made no comment.

  ‘I should’ve explained it afore.’ She took a deep breath. ‘But ye see, Jamie, I have gifts beyond the natural. Gifts I believe are from the Creator, though they did come to me by uncommon means. My healing, my … my sensing things. Yet it’s in my choice to use these gifts as I judge I should to benefit others, that McBeath has found the means to punish me.’ She narrowed her eyes as she spoke, seeing clearly the way of men, despairing of their intolerances. ‘Few men are wi’out prejudice, enlightened enough to recognise and understand my gifts. So in a way, I’ve brought this upon myself, nae you. ‘Twas never your doing.’

  He made a dismissive gesture with his head, and she sensed he was too weary to argue with her and would not be shaken from his convictions so easily. With a sigh, she asked, ‘Can ye tell me what it is ye've learned?’

  She listened in silence while he recounted the details, as he knew them, of the raid on the MacRae bothy and McBeath’s brutal attempt to force himself upon Morven. He didn’t look at her during his account but stared into the fire. His body quivered, a continuous shiver, and she sensed his impotent rage and the effort of will it took to suppress it enough to speak of what happened. She thought now of the signs of bruising she’d detected on Morven's face, carefully concealed but nonetheless plain to any with a perceptive eye, and her heart wept for the lass.

  On that calm market day in Balintoul, she’d endured only a fraction of the violence she sensed the gauger could unleash. As he described in gloating detail what he’d done to Duncan, she’d wept and keened, and, to silence her, he’d pressed a blade to her throat and tracing a finger over her breasts had excited himself, crowing of what he’d do to her once he’d made her his wife.

  ‘So, I know he still has yer ring,’ Jamie said gruffly. ‘I’ve seen it wi’ my own eyes. Only it's nae enough to condemn the man – Lord only knows what would be.’ In a grim voice, he told of Dearg's warning. ‘In the face of our desperate crimes,’ he said bitterly, ‘even murder can go unpunished.’

  ‘Then it’s as I feared. We are but common thieves to magistrates and sheriffs. Dross to be maligned and mistrusted.’ She looked hard at her nephew. ‘Ye did right, Jamie. He’s nae worth giving up yer freedom fer. And neither am I.’

  He glanced up sharply, and she saw his dark eyes were ablaze, his face haunted, and then she understood. Morven had not spoken a word of this. She had, Rowena supposed, felt there was no-one she could confide in now that Jamie was a turncoat. Not privy to their plan, the lass doubtless believed Jamie had betrayed his kin, brought unthinkable shame upon them all, and not wishing to heap more shame upon her dearest friend, had kept all this to herself. And suffered badly for it – as did the lad.

  ‘Ye love her, don’t ye? Morven. Ye love Morven.’

  He flinched as though she’d struck him, then closed his eyes in silent acknowledgement. ‘Only she thinks me a snake.’ He blinked slowly. ‘I dinna blame her, I do despise myself. Even supposing she knew the truth of what we planned and I did bring the Black Gauger to justice, I’d expose her father as a traitor. How could I expect her to love me after that?’

  Rowena sat back, her face as pale as bone. ‘Then, ’twas truly Malcolm betrayed us?’

  ‘I believe so.’

  ‘Oh, Jamie!’

  For a moment, she couldn’t face her nephew’s eyes and turned to stare into the fire, watching the shifting peats crumble and glow. In that glowing, she saw the bonds of kinship and affinity torn asunder, Duncan robbed of more than j
ust his life, but of his roots in the glen, his place in the land where kinship and whisky shaped their lives. The blood and the barley. It did flow in their veins, only Duncan’s had been opened by one of their own.

  ‘I’m truly sorry, Rowena.’

  ‘No,’ she managed. ‘Dinna be. Perhaps I already knew it. And yet …’ She swallowed, her face taut with pain. ‘Yet I feel such grief.’

  He groped for her hand.

  She squeezed it in return, losing her voice for a moment. ‘’Tis Grace I feel fer. And Morven. Dear Lord, Morven!’

  Was this what lay at the root of Morven’s aloofness? The sense of hopelessness the lass seemed to weave around herself as though she were somehow set apart. Had she known? Had she suspected what her father was? What he’d done? Or was it that she cared for Jamie as much as the lad cared for her? Only, finding him to be something far less than she imagined the knowledge had brought her bitter torment. A torment she couldn’t reveal, nae wi’out shaming those she held most dear.

  ‘What’ve I done?’ she breathed. ‘We must tell Morven the truth. Make her see ye as ye really are.’ A thought struck. ‘Ye’ll nae ken o’ the bairn, then? Grace's bairn?’

  Jamie focused blankly on her.

  ‘Grace brought a wee lass into the world, sadly afore her time. Four days ago. The wee soul died in Morven's arms. I feared the worst fer Grace, but I believe now she’ll live, though ’tis nothing short of a miracle. Father Ranald couldna wait fer Malcolm’s return, we buried the wee soul yesterday.’

  When Jamie said nothing, gave no outward reaction to what she’d said, Rowena leant to shake him gently from his dark abstraction.

  ‘Ye see!’ he cried, rounding on her. ‘More affliction! Is there to be no end to the suffering I bring?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Sarah stumbled away from the cot-house. Glancing over her shoulder, she scrambled into the hollow she’d occupied earlier among the gorse. Her head reeled. Her breath came in quick spurts, unfamiliar sensations churning her belly. She dropped to her knees in the flattened grass and gasped, ‘Da! Oh God, Da!’

  Her plan had worked better than she imagined, for Morven couldna abide Jamie and how well he knew it. He’d not linger over-long on her now. But she hadn’t considered for a moment he might fail to have McBeath hanged. She’d expected her father’s murderer to swing, had dreamt night after night of his drop from the roof of Elgin's tollbooth. That wouldna happen now. She staggered under the knowledge. The gauger would go free, was free to carry on as before.

  Her face reddened, the soft lines of her mouth hardened, and she trembled as a blast of hatred coursed through her body. ’Twas her mother’s fault. Because of her, the Black Gauger had killed her da. And they’d be put out of Tomachcraggen now, she knew it. With a sob, she pulled herself up and raked her gaze over the meagre strips of land her da had cleared from the encroaching forests. Within a few years, ’twould all be forest again.

  Not prone to bouts of sentimentality, Sarah doubted she’d really miss it. It mattered little where she lived, for she’d have Jamie. Wherever they went, she and her kin, he’d go with them. There was no reason for him to stay here now; Morven didna want him. But with a shiver of longing, Sarah knew she most certainly did.

  She blinked away the tears that clung to her lashes, feeling the familiar sensations thoughts of her cousin lately stirred within her. The sensations grew, quickly migrating to her loins where they made her breathe hard and squirm with excitement. After a moment, she began to feel better, less powerless and overlooked and more in control.

  She liked to scheme. If the truth were told, she liked it more than anything. There was satisfaction to be had from observing a well-laid scheme bear fruit, and she'd been doing it, with varying degrees of subtlety, since ever she could mind. Of course, things didn’t always go her way. Guile was a quality her mam almost always recognised, and as a lass she'd been scolded for it. But Sarah was circumspect with her mother now and knew when to be wary. Yet she’d always managed to manipulate her da. She grimaced as a pang of grief struck her. It aye caught her like that. Just when she was savouring some triumph, the thought of him, the lancing pain as she minded he was gone, would come back to her and spoil it all.

  Her da had loved her. Not with the paltry measure of love her mother doled out after Morven and all those wretched sick folk had taken their share. Nae wi' a shrewd glint in the eye the way her mam looked when taking stock of the manner of woman her daughter was becoming. But with an unquestioning, unshakeable sort of love. There’d been no need to compete for her father's attention. He'd aye had time fer his daughter. Nor a need to feign interest in collecting bities of weed and learning how to identify them. He'd not cared if she could do that or not. Her da never worried that she lacked the gifts of healing and second sight her mam possessed; he'd not had them either. His love had been blind and altogether unstoppable. She scowled at the blank cottage door. Except it had stopped, and while she knew she'd never get it back, Sarah was aware her great need for it endured.

  At the sound of voices, she dropped onto her belly and watched Jamie leave the cot-house and make across the rigs toward the river. There was a grace to the way her cousin moved, a mesmeric quality about the sway of kilts about his lean legs, and she sensed, as she always did when she secretly watched him, that strange alchemy he possessed, that odd mix of both danger and dependability he seemed to meld about him. After a moment, she rose and followed him.

  Jamie paid little heed to the flitter of thistledown carried on the warm air. Nor did he care much for the scent of wild thyme among the heather or the drone of bees. He thought only of escaping Rowena’s dreadful acceptance of his failure and washing away the grime of his journey. He’d taken the flask of whisky she’d silently pushed into his hand and took several mouthfuls of it now. ’Twas fierce liquor and warmed a passage through his innards but brought him no comfort. He doubted an entire keg could do that. He tried to find a word to adequately describe how he felt but could find nothing to encapsulate his utter despondency and, weary of thinking, gave it up.

  At the riverbank, he stripped off his clothes and slipped naked into the icy water. The current was stronger than he expected, and he near lost his footing before bracing himself against the pull of the undertow. The shock of icy water made him gasp, but it sloughed away some of his lethargy, and he felt some spark of his former self return. Tilting his head back, he let the stinging cold seep up his scalp, invading every follicle until his hair was all submerged and streamed away from his body, dark on the surface of the water. With handfuls of sand from the riverbed, he scrubbed at his skin until it stung and glowed pink, then, satisfied with his efforts, he stood and waded to the bank.

  He sat on a rock, shivering, and let the breeze raise the gooseflesh upon his chilled skin. Slowly, the air's warmth pervaded and the tiny hairs on his body, strangely golden against the dark tumble upon his shoulders, lay flat again. Had he been wrong to come to Stratha’an? In such a place, he sensed the teachings and opinions of lettered gentlemen, the so-called enlightened of the day, were as so many leaves fallen upon the ground; they made no impression, were soon blown away. ’Twas the land that endured, the hills and stones and forests, and clinging to them, the enchantments of the past, their secrets well kept. In his mind, he heard a snatch from an old rhyme his mother used to repeat and shivered at its words.

  He wha tills the faeries' green

  Nae luck again shall hae.

  An’ he wha spills the faeries’ ring

  Betide him want an’ wae.

  He’d always thought it idle superstition, but in the dark mood of the moment wasn’t so sure. He took another mouthful of whisky, the taste and scent bringing back a fleeting memory of Morven and her father's bothy, then thrust the flask away and began the painstaking business of pleating his plaid ready to belt about his waist.

  It was the muffled giggle that made him freeze. There was no-one obvious among the rocks and bushes of the riverbank, but
conscious of his vulnerability, he snatched up his sark and sgian dhu.

  ‘There's nae need to blush on my account.’ Sarah emerged from behind an aspen tree. ‘And I liked ye far better wi’out that,’ she added, as he pulled the sark over his head and hastily tucked the tail between his legs.

  ‘Sarah! I’m nae decent. Ye shouldna go creeping up on a man like that!’

  ‘Ye look decent enough to me. But if it makes ye feel better, I’m more than willing to join ye.’ With a slow smile, she began to unfasten the front of her gown.

  ‘Faith, cousin! Whatever are ye thinking on?’ Jamie had to squint into the sun to see Sarah clearly, and she seemed like some fey sprite, newly sprung from the trees and peeling away the mantle of her other life. The rattle of her feet on the shingle heralded her even closer approach.

  ‘I imagine I’m thinking much the same as you.’ She eyed him with unashamed appreciation. Even without the splendid plaid he was accustomed to wearing and with his hair soaked and dripping down his back, he was still quite magnificent. Only partly clothed, he appeared startlingly vulnerable, and the urge to make him hers was so intense her head swam with it. She stood directly in front of him, looking into his startled eyes, and with a deep breath laid open the front of her gown.

  Scandalised, Jamie leapt to his feet and attempted to draw together the pieces of her bodice. ‘Have ye taken leave o’ yer senses, cousin?’ But Sarah merely caught a hold of his hand and pressed it against the thin stuff of her undergarment.

  His hand met the swell of her breast for the briefest of seconds before he snatched it away, but Sarah's breath caught in her throat. ‘No,’ she said with a spreading smile. ‘I believe I’m acquainted wi’ all my senses.’