In an instant, a flash of the eye, we were back on our steeds and flying. Through the sky and back to my bed I flew, a woman of power. I, who knew words and rhymes, the thread and straw and clay, the fruit of the corn, the sheaves of rye, and knew what use to make of them. And now I knew more . . . so much more.
MARGARET
Chapter 10
When the English soldiers had come, the young lieutenant seemed so enthusiastic and intent upon finding Henrietta. But how would he know where to look for her? Would he take his troops with him? Would they get caught in another battle?
After two days, Margaret could wait no more. She saddled Miranda and raced down to the strand, across the estuary and into Nairn and the English headquarters. Situated on the King’s Steps Road, the building stood tall and stately. Except for the old castle, this was the grandest building in town. The English had commandeered it from Hugh Campbell’s family, the hereditary sheriffs of Morayshire who’d been none too pleased about being displaced to one of their other homes. Of course, this was to show the Scots who was really in charge.
Margaret arrived in a flurry of skirts, her curls escaping from her cap. She jumped down and tied her reins to a post.
A soldier in full red coat over blue breeches stood guarding the door. He raised his eyebrows.
“I must see the major,” she demanded.
The soldier’s lips started to lift in a smile, and he shifted his weight. A leather belt was crossed over his chest to support the rifle protruding from behind his back. “And who might be asking?”
Margaret stood tall. “I am the Lady Margaret Hay, daughter of the Laird of Park and Lochloy, and I must see Major Walker on urgent business.”
The soldier looked confused. His face became stern, and he studied her as if considering. His brown hair was cut straight beneath the ear, and he had heavy brows and a dark complexion. “Wait here, my lady,” he said with a bow, turning and opening the heavy door behind him.
Margaret stood in the courtyard in the morning sun. The air was sharp and gusty with damp sea winds. On the road, women walked by carrying baskets or buckets as they headed to the center of the village.
Finally, the guard returned. Behind him was Major Walker, whose long black curls flowed over his shoulders from beneath a wide-brimmed hat. His small eyes looked down at her. “Good day, Lady Margaret. Has your father sent you?”
Margaret tucked back a strand of hair and hesitated. “No.” Under her skirts, she tapped her foot discreetly and looked up at him. “But we are all so distressed about the Lady Henrietta. I have come to inquire about the search. Is there any news?” She turned her head, searching the windows and door, hoping the young lieutenant would emerge.
“I told your father that we will notify him at the completion of our mission.”
“But where have you searched?” Margaret pleaded. “Have you found anything yet?”
“This is a military operation, young lady, and we do not discuss strategy with outsiders.”
Outsiders? How dare he call her an outsider, when he and his countrymen had invaded her country? “But is the young lieutenant searching, as he’d said?” She’d perceived a spirit of adventure in the young lieutenant and had felt sure he would go out looking.
“Lieutenant Massie has been dispatched to more important business.”
“What? Are you saying that you are no longer searching for Henrietta Rose?”
Major Walker was holding a large ring of keys, and he shook them as he glared, looking down his pointed nose at her. “Please give my regards to your father,” he snapped, turning and marching back into the building.
Margaret spun on her heels, mounted Miranda, and galloped back toward the castle. Her father had been right. These English only pretended to care about the local people. They were not going to continue searching.
At the estuary, she slowed down. The tide had risen since she’d come across, and she now had to find a shallow spot. Miranda lifted her hooves and splashed, but now the water was deeper, and Margaret led her back and forth into the shallower spots where the reeds grew. They started across, but soon, Miranda’s hooves sank deeper, and the water came up past the horse’s knees. Deeper still, and Miranda was swimming. Margaret’s shoes and gown were submerged, and her legs began to freeze. The North Sea never warmed up much, and it was still May, barely past the time of ice.
Margaret laughed. The cold was temporary, and she knew that Miranda liked to swim. Soon, they came up on the other bank. Her skirts would dry in the sun, and she’d think about her shoes later.
She started off at a gallop along the strand, but then slowed to a walk. What about Mister Harry? Perhaps he could help to find Henrietta. Margaret would go to Auldearn.
She turned and rode back to the estuary. Staying on this side, she headed south along the river away from the sea and east onto the Auldearn Road. The sun was high, and the sky as blue and sharp as Aunt Grissel’s porcelain teacups. Margaret was alone on the open road.
As she came closer to the village, the Boath dovecote, a fat cylinder of stone like a giant loaf of bread, burbled and fluttered with sounds of doves.
A cloud passed over the sun, and the cold seeped up from her legs so that she was shivering again by the time she glimpsed the Auldearn Kirk high on its hill. She quickened her pace and raced up the steep hill to the kirkyard at its summit. Would Mister Harry be here? Perhaps she should have stopped at the manse first. She halted in front of the kirk and paused to think.
A sound, a low sound, was coming from within. Singing? No, not likely in this place.
Margaret dismounted and tied the reins to the post. The sound was a voice, low and plaintive, like a moaning or a keening. Hesitantly, she walked up to the door and knocked. Still shivering, she became aware of her gown, soaking wet at the bottom half.
The door opened with a sudden creaking, and there stood Mister Harry.
“I heard—”
Mister Harry’s red face was screwed up into a frown, but when he saw Margaret, he smiled. “Lady Margaret,” he said. “Please come in.”
She stood where she was. “But what was that sound?” She picked up her skirts and swished them around, trying to dry them and hoping the wetness would not be too visible.
Mister Harry stared and pointed at her gown. “What’s this then, lass?” he asked, answering her question with a question.
“I had to cross the estuary at high tide, Mister Harry. I have been in such a jumble-gut since my dear friend was captured by the MacDonalds, and the English are not helping at all.”
Mister Harry winced. “Lady Margaret. Where did you learn such language?”
She swished harder, pacing back and forth. Jumble-gut? Well, she’d heard it somewhere, but why would he care so much about language at a time like this? “Mister Harry, you must help me find Henrietta.”
He smiled again. “Of course, my dear. Mister Hugh’s daughter. It has been much on my mind, as well. How can I help?”
“You could use your influence with the English to insist they continue the search. I have just been to their headquarters and learned that they have abandoned the search for Henrietta! Such callousness is hard to believe.”
Mister Harry lifted an eyebrow. “My prayers are sent up daily for all in the parish here in Auldearn—for Lady Henrietta, Mister Hugh, and Lady Anne, especially in these weeks.”
“And the English?”
“Ah, ’tis a different thing entirely. The English do not honor our kirk and have made that known in so many ways. My influence with them is very small, I fear.”
Margaret had squeezed her cloak up into a ball and was clutching and worrying it in her hands as she fought back tears.
Mister Harry’s face softened. “But dear lass, I will try. I will talk to the English governor myself and plead the case. I am, indeed,
distressed about this situation. Mister Hugh’s daughter must be returned. And I will double my prayers.”
“Thank you, thank you, Mister Harry. And I thank you too for your prayers and hope the Lord will hear them.”
“The Lord hears all prayers.” Mister Harry went back into the kirk, and now that moaning sound came again. It must be Mister Harry. Perhaps this was his way of practicing the repentance of which Mistress Collace had spoken.
At home, Margaret couldn’t sit still. She paced back and forth from room to room in the castle, unable to concentrate on her lessons or the needlework of which she had been so proud.
Would Mister Harry help? Would he contact the English government? Perhaps she should try another avenue.
Chapter 11
Under a gray dome of sky, with the brown earth of early spring, a wet light, and the feel of the sea in the air, Margaret walked between castle and farmtown. Inshoch Castle, high on the hill with its stone keep and towers, dominated the land, while in the farmtown, the houses were low, made of mud and thatched with heather or peat. The people were too poor even to thatch with straw. They needed the straw to feed the animals.
Margaret had never before come to this place, even though it was so close to the castle. Some time ago her, father had forbidden it, but she’d paid scarce attention because the place had sounded so unsavory. Why would she want to go there? The farmtown was just part of the landscape, like the barns, the fields, and the loch.
She stepped along the sandy path, entering a new land—a foreign country almost. The farmtown was a place of darkness and poverty, and yes, it was unsavory, but she would leave no stone unturned to bring back Henrietta.
Could Isobel’s magic help? Margaret herself was a Christian woman, but there was something mysterious and powerful about Isobel.
At the loch, a flock of eiders floated in silence and turtles sunned on a log.
Margaret crested the knoll, stepping over it and into the little hamlet. The wind rose, whipping her skirts as it scurried and lashed the sand up around her. Beyond the machair and over the dunes, the waves crashed . . . the constant sound of this place.
Wattle and daub huts formed a crescent around the yard, where a few scrawny cows stood motionless with little to chew. A man, stooped beneath his load of peat, walked across the yard.
She remembered Father’s words. “Those poor wretches,” he’d said, shaking his head. “You are not to go near them.”
“But why?” she’d asked. He looked at Mother, who turned away. Neither of them answered. If the wretches are poor, she thought, should we not help? It’s what we read in our Bible each night: the love, the charity of the Lord to give to the poor. It’s what the minister preaches, too.
Margaret walked slowly down the slope. Now the man with the burdensome load was upon her. It was Jack the Smith, the one-eyed man she’d seen in kirk. “Good morning, Jack.”
Jack the Smith glanced up with a mulish look in his one eye—a look of defiance. He was ignorant, she thought. Father had given him many a chance, and still, he reeked of resentment, wouldn’t answer when spoken to, and was even caught stealing a piglet. He should be hung, Father had said, but Mother put up a fuss and insisted that Jack could be redeemed. He was a human being, after all. So, Jack confessed, and Father relented.
And Father resented. We are a people of resentment, Margaret thought. We live in an endless cycle of wrongs done and wrongs avenged, a wheel that never stops turning.
“We are too lenient,” Father had grumbled. “But most distressing are those women, who consort with the fairies and even the devil.” When he spoke of them, there had been a look in his eyes like anger, but more like fear. Like a stallion who rears when startled and has to run from the terror. “When will these ungodly creatures rise up from the mud?” he’d said. “They don’t even listen to the minister of a Sunday.”
Margaret looked back, suddenly fearful. Inshoch Castle was far back, however. Surely, no one could see her here.
The “ungodly creatures” had risen up in anger that day when Mister Forbes preached against the fairies. The day the woman threw her shoe. Margaret chuckled at the memory, though it was a dry chuckle. Of course, the woman, too, would be punished, and the cycle of revenge would go on.
“The fairies,” Bessie had said, “dinna like to be preached against. They can do you mischief if you do not treat them with respect. If you don’t want them to steal your corn or milk, you must put out something to propitiate them, a bowl of porridge or the like, and leave it overnight. They will eat their fill, but in the morning, you won’t know it, because the food is still there. The fairies live and work as we do and have their homes under the ground in little green hills, though we canna see them. Except for the people with an da shealladh. They can see the fairies.” Like Isobel Gowdie. What else could Isobel see?
Jack the Smith passed in a cloud of unwashed cloth and man, and the stench was almost unbearable. Margaret averted her face as his one beady brown eye looked up at her with defiance, resentment, and something else—as if she were prey, a wild animal he meant to pounce upon given half a chance. Something to devour. It was the same look she had seen once in the eye of Mister Harry. It had been just a glance as she’d left the kirk, and she’d dismissed it, blaming her own skittishness. The other day, Mister Harry had been kind and gracious. Truly a man of God.
Now, here was Isobel Gowdie, a wisp of a woman coming out of a hovel where smoke escaped from holes in the roof and places where windows should be. She tossed some scraps from a bowl and glanced toward Margaret as chickens squawked and pecked.
Margaret proceeded across the dooryard, holding up her skirt and stepping over droppings and the chickens that fluttered around her feet. “Mistress Gowdie,” she called.
Isobel looked up with an air of suspicion, but then a smile transformed her face, which changed from pinched and drawn to wide and bright. A pretty woman, really she was, with her blonde hair drawn up into a braided bun and her vivid blue eyes, though clearly the weather had beaten her into an older look. Voices of children came from the hovel behind her, and a thin line of smoke streamed out of the roof.
“Lady Margaret,” she said in a voice quite mellifluous and pleasant, with a lilt and rhythm to it. Again, Margaret’s impression of her was transformed, and she felt something magnetic, something that drew her toward Isobel. Could this be a part of the magic? Isobel beckoned her to follow and stepped through the door.
The room was so dark and smoky, Margaret couldn’t see a thing at first. She stumbled along the mud floor toward the fire, which smoldered and filled the room with smoke. A child of three, and another, six perhaps—two scrawny girls—sat on the floor piling sticks into houses. They looked up with the blank stare of poverty.
This place was forbidden to her. But why? Did her father not want her to see the deprivation, the poverty, the bone-thinness of mother and children, the clothes that found no soap throughout the winter? Isobel kept her plaid wrapped tight, as did Margaret in this chilly place. The children were also wrapped up, though their noses were red. There was but one chair, where Isobel gestured for Margaret to sit. She remembered that in this bleak village, most of the furniture was gone—burned for warmth when firewood was scarce.
Margaret took some cheese from her basket and handed it to Isobel. At least she’d thought to bring something. Isobel accepted it with a look of awe. “I thank you Mistress.” She bowed her head, saying, “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” Immediately Isobel broke it and gave it to the bairns, who ate as if they’d never eaten before. Now Margaret saw why her father had called them “poor wretches.”
“And what can I do for you, my Lady?” Isobel asked with a gleam in her eye, as if she already knew the answer. She was standing at the table carding, drawing the comb across a fuzzy ball of wool, over and over. Such a slow process these people went thro
ugh, with no spinning wheels—all hand carding, each laborious section, one by one. The carding was something Margaret hadn’t done and had no wish to. Spinning at the wheel and weaving at the loom were her tasks, and the making of the plaids; the tighter the weave, the better. She’d been weaving since she was five.
Across the room, the animals moved in their stalls with a moo and a snort—one scrawny cow and two goats. Isobel watched Margaret.
Margaret felt in her pocket for the shell and ran her fingers over the ridges. She cleared her throat. “It’s about my friend Henrietta.”
“Oh, aye, the one who was caught by the MacDonalds. Is she back home, then?”
“No!” Margaret cried. “She is gone! It’s been over a week now!”
“And they’ll be raping her and keeping her, no doubt,” Isobel said in a matter-of-fact way.
Margaret fell back onto the chair, no longer able to control the weeping. No one else had used that word. How could this woman be so heartless? “No, not Henrietta!” She made herself stop crying and sat up straight. “I know those brutes kidnap girls from the lowlands, but—”
“And keep them as prisoners and wives, which amounts to the same thing,” Isobel snorted.
“But we can’t let this happen to Henrietta!”
Isobel stared at her. The two children ran back and forth between Isobel and a dark corner of the hut. Now that her eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, Margaret could see someone in the corner. A hunched-over bundle on the dirt floor, motionless except for her hands moving. Ah, she was slowly teazing—combing a tangle of wool into separate strands.
Margaret wiped her eyes and stood up. “You can find her, Mistress.”
“I?” And now Isobel’s eyes narrowed. Her expression changed to keen alertness.
“You can use your second sight.”
“An da shealladh.” This in a scratchy voice from the corner. In a gurgled undertone, the voice continued in Gaelic. Isobel listened.
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