by Dave Duncan
They had imprisoned women in this diabolical midden?
Nineteen years ago, six girls from the village?
He dropped the relic with a shudder and cracked his bonnet on the ceiling hard enough to make the darkness blaze with lights. Holding his scalp and moaning, he backed away until he slammed into a cold, damp wall. He had never really wondered where in the castle those women had been kept—in the house itself, he had assumed. He had never been higher than the ground floor, so he did not know what there was upstairs in the main house. The soldiers were not allowed upstairs either, so far as he knew, and if that was true now, it might have been true then.
Had those abused girls been kept here? Could this cesspool have been the castle brothel? No, no! Surely no men ever born would treat women like that?
Had he been conceived in this hellish dungeon? His guts churned. He felt sick. He needed fresh air. Dropping the shovel, he hurried around the heaps of filth he had gathered and began to feel his way up the stairs, to daylight and sanity and air.
"Women! They need women!"
The voice stopped him cold. Someone was speaking English in the guardroom. Another man replied. The gate was closed and they would not know Toby was there.
He dropped to his hands and knees and crept a little higher, just enough to peer around the curve of the stair. The guardroom, which he had thought so dim when he came through it, now seemed bright. The man standing by the window was the laird of Strath Fillan, Ross Campbell himself.
"You know that's impossible!" said the other, and Toby recognized the voice of Captain Tailor. He was addressing the laird in a way no one spoke to a laird. "I have few enough men here to hold the road. I can't be sending them off to Dumbarton to carouse."
Laird Ross waited a moment, then turned from the window. Toby had never been so close to him before. He was a small man, careworn and white-haired, his face lined and weather-beaten. He wore a belted plaid, like any Highlander, but he had a tartan shirt under it, and the pin holding the shoulder flap bore a shiny cairngorm. He had a chief's badge in his bonnet; he had shoes, woollen hose, a fur sporran, a long dirk with a silver handle at his belt. Old or not, he was a fine sight.
"Wet dreams never killed any man yet," he said wryly, as if trying to divert a conversation veering too close to argument.
Tailor ignored the remark totally. "So I can't grant furloughs. But if my men don't get access to women soon, they're going to mutiny, or start deserting. I know it! You can't keep healthy men cooped up like this without women. It isn't natural."
"Dunk them in the horse trough every night. If they desert, they're dead. Not a man of them would reach the Lowlands alive."
"Is that a threat, my lord?"
"Of course not! But make sure they know that."
"We can pay. Just pass the word that there's good money to be made. In a place this size, there's bound to be a few wives desperate enough for easy cash. Demons, by their standards, they'll be rich in a week!"
Campbell let out an exasperated snort. "You don't know the Scots! No woman here would lie with a Sassenach if you offered her a silver mark and her brats were starving. If any one of them did, the whole glen would know by morning. They'd brand the sign on her forehead and drive her out. The glen would rise, just like Queensferry did last month. Don't you know you're sitting on a powder keg, Captain?"
Boots thumped on the flags. Captain Tailor strode into view, garbed in his uniform doublet and breeches, festooned with sword, wheel lock pistol, bandolier, and powder horn. Below the brim of his helmet, his angular face was flushed scarlet. "I am responsible for the road, and I can't hold it with crazy men. You are to provide board for my men, and a woman is a necessary part of a soldier's board. If you can't find them locally, send to Glasgow for a few whores—else I'll loose my lads to courting. There's no shortage of spinsters hereabouts."
The laird raised a clenched fist, then lowered it reluctantly. "I understand your problem, Captain. See you understand mine. When I came here, I told them it would be a Sassenach garrison again, but I swore you'd leave their women alone this time. They swore allegiance—and I gave them my protection! They've kept their side of the bargain so far, but all it needs is one spark. You can't hold the glen against them if they rise. By the time help arrived, you'd be dead, all of you. Me, too, likely, but that's not important. They'll cut off the food. They'll shoot you down from cover. Be quiet and listen! I told the Campbell I would keep the glen quiet, and I—"
"Never mind what Argyll says!" Tailor roared. "This is the road to the northwest, and the rebels' gold and munitions—"
"They're my people, Captain, and I care for them! If one of your men lays a hand on a single woman, I'll hang you both on the same gallows!"
For a moment the two men glared at each other, but even the odd-job boy knew that the threat was wind. The soldiers held the laird's castle. Three major battles in twenty years had decimated his warband. Now it had been disarmed and the young men were drifting away to other lands and other lords.
Then the Englishman spoke—quietly, but biting off every word. "I remind you, my lord, that I take my orders from Edinburgh, my lord, not from you, my lord. This area is under martial law. I am in charge here, not you—my lord."
Toby shrank back down the stairs an inch at a time. He should not have overheard this! If they discovered him listening, they would lock him in and leave him there, at the very least.
Now his own loyalty problems seemed almost trivial. He had never thought to wonder how loyalty looked from the top down.
5
Most of the other dayworkers were clearing broom from around the castle, making what the fusiliers called dead ground. The women had taken lunch out to them, but Toby intercepted Helga on her way back and she took pity on a starving lad. He carried the resulting hamper outside and sat on the grass by himself to gorge and ponder his problem.
When the hob said he must not get into a fight, it must have meant a real fight, not a squabble with the steward. That would be no more of a fight than an ant arguing with a descending boot.
Whose man will you be? the miller had asked him. Never mind the future—whose man was he now? In Strath Fillan, he was the laird's man, beyond question. But if Bryce Campbell of Crief, the laird's agent, gave him immoral orders, what was he supposed to do about that? The laird might approve or not approve; he would certainly side with his steward against the odd-job boy. He might even be in on the fraud himself. If the smith did not come out of retirement, if Dougal was the only challenger, then the odds on the witchwife's bastard lad would be five to one at least. He was bigger now than he'd been when he took Dougal in three rounds last year.
Ironically, the Highlanders had far less to gamble with than the Sassenach soldiers, who were paid their pittance every week and had nothing to spend it on. That did not make wrong right, though. Would it be more ethical to cheat the crowd or cheat the steward, who was trying to cheat?
Could he throw a fight? Once he got going, would his fists stop if he told them to? Not likely. If Dougal couldn't take a dive, why should he expect himself to? Once the two of them started pounding each other, they would both just keep on pounding until one of them couldn't stand up any longer. That was what real men were like. So Toby must give the steward his promise, keep his job for another week, and then see what happened.
His head ached. He gave up worrying. He leaned back against a rock and watched the geese settling on Lochan na Bi and the eagles drifting in the sky. Lochy Castle stood at the foot of Beinn Bheag, facing south down Strath Fillan. Tyndrum lay just across the river and Crianlarich down at the far end, where the strath joined Glen Dochart. The villages were merely denser clumps of dwellings. Cottages were scattered all over the flats, summer shielings high on the hillsides. The fields were mostly rocks. The living was in the cattle.
The road ran south, too, but instead of turning east to follow Glen Dochart, it headed west, over the pass into Glen Falloch, and then down to Ardlui, on Loch
Lomond ... to Dumbarton on the Clyde, and thus the Lowlands, Glasgow, Edinburgh, England, Europe.
He'd been as far as Loch Lomond a couple of times. It was only fifteen or sixteen miles away, a half day's walk, there and back.
Tiny Lochan na Bi, beyond the castle, drained west into Glen Lochy. There was a local trail there, but the main road headed north, through the cleft between Beinn Bheag and Beinn Odhar, then on down to Bridge of Orchy and eventually to Fort William. Pondering what he had overheard in the guardroom, he remembered something from his long-ago schooldays. Neal Teacher had stressed that Lochy Castle was a strongpoint on the only real road to the northwest. That explained Captain Tailor and his men. There were few roads in the Highlands, and very, very few that were passable for wheels. Cannon traveled on wheels.
There was nothing left to eat; it was time to get back to work.
6
He had hardly returned to the dungeon before he gained a human assistant as well as the dogs. Between the gloom and the scraping of his shovel, he did not notice until a high-pitched voice exclaimed, "Zits!" in tones of deepest disgust.
Hamish Campbell was Neal Teacher's youngest and a recent addition to the dayworkers. He was dark, slight of build, currently growing a few inches every day. His arms hung at his sides like ropes and his ribs stuck out. He surveyed the cell and the filth around his toes with extreme disapproval.
"Uncivilized! What'd they catch you doing?"
Toby leaned on his shovel for a breather. "What'd you mean?"
"Old Bryce found me reading a book when I was supposed to be counting meal sacks." His teeth flashed in a grin.
Toby grunted, belatedly realizing that it wasn't anything he'd done that had landed him here, it was something he hadn't done: promise to cheat. Why hadn't he seen that sooner?
He could do worse for company. Hamish was bearable. He was clever, well-read, cheerful, and at times he would display a deadly sense of humor. Now he took hold of one of the sacks Toby had filled and lifted it. He put it down again quickly.
"Whew! Zitty heavy! Why don't I shovel and you carry out? Sooner we get it done, the sooner we'll be pardoned. Or do you think they'll lock us in here for years?"
"No, they'll hang us at dawn." Toby handed over the shovel, heaved a bag onto his shoulder, and left.
The shoveling took longer than the carrying out, and while the two of them were together, a boyish treble kept up a steady musket-fire of chatter.
"Can you lift two of those bags at arm's length?"
" 'Spect so." Yes, he could.
"How 'bout one of them?"
That was harder, of course___
"Wow! You shave every day now, Toby?"
"Yes."
"Why not grow a beard?" He was implying that real Highlanders had beards, most of them. Only pansy Sassenachs shaved, and not all of them, even.
"Because it's too curly. I'd look like a sheep."
Hamish sniggered. "Biggest ram in the glen!" Quieter: "How far have you gone with girls?"
Toby dared not even smile at a girl in the glen or he would get her in trouble—but why ruin the boy's dreams by saying so? "None of your business."
Hamish was undeterred. "You going to beat Dougal Peat? . . . Think the smith'll make a comeback? ... Can you carry two sacks? How many rounds to knock out Dougal?..."
The chatter was all right; the hero worship soon began to grate as much as the shovels. Toby had met it before. His size and fighting skill had made him the paragon of manhood for all the youngsters in the glen. There was nothing wrong with Hamish that another three or four months' growing wouldn't cure; he was just going through the stage when boys discovered they were turning into something different and worried what it would be.
Nonetheless, Toby found the adulation so unsettling that he was tempted to linger on his trips through the guardroom, gabbing with the soldiers. He didn't—it would have been unfair to the kid shoveling his heart out downstairs—but when they ribbed him about the stench that came with him now, he bantered right back at them. Often he found the Sassenachs easier to talk with than the folk of the glen, who had known him all his life. That might be because he was half Sassenach himself.
With two on the job, the work went faster. In an hour or so the dungeon floor had been scraped bare to bedrock and swept, the final toad of refuse had been thrown on the bonfire outside the gate, the last rodent hunted down. Nothing remained except the repellent chains and shackles.
"Well, they didn't lock us in after all," Hamish remarked, inspecting himself in the guardroom mirror on the way out. "You look zitty uncivilized!"
"You're not too smart yourself," Toby said. His nose and mouth were choked with rank dust, his head had acquired more bruises. "Let's report to old Bryce."
"Um. Why don't just you go?" Either Hamish was worried that he had not yet done enough penance, or he had thoughts of hiding out with his book again.
"No," Toby said firmly. "You come with me."
"Looking like this?" . "Why not? It's his fault if we stink up his office."
Hamish found that idea amusing and grinned again.
The steward was still busy at his accounts. He looked up, tightening the wrinkles around his nose in disgust. Doubtless his cramped little office had taken on unpleasant airs all of a sudden, but he might be more annoyed that his pugilist had brought a witness to the meeting.
"All done, is it?"
Toby wanted to ask how often people were shut up in that underground kennel. He wanted to ask if that was where his mother had been confined when she was a prisoner of the English, being systematically raped, night after night. He wanted to ask if that was why he had been sent there today. He dared not ask such impertinent questions; he feared what the answers might be. So all he said was:
"Yes, sir. You want to come and see?"
Bryce Campbell of Crief shook his head. He leaned back, displaying his few remaining teeth in a surprising parody of a smile. "If you say it's done, Strangerson, then I know it's done and well done. There's few I would trust like that, but I trust you. You've never failed me yet."
Toby squirmed and mumbled thanks for the compliment, wondering if the words meant more than they said.
The steward's bony fingers twitched like dying spiders amid the clutter on his desk. "Now, what else... Aye. Take a donkey. They need a sack of oats at Bridge of Orchy. Mind you have a wash in the burn on the way, too!"
Toby and Hamish exchanged astonished glances and made themselves scarce before the old man changed his mind.
7
At the granary door, Hamiah asked doubtfully, "You think he meant both of us?"
"Yes, but stay and read your book if you want."
That won a guilty start. "No. I'll get the donkey."
"Phooey! Just one sack? We don't need a donkey for that."
"What? You can't carry a meal sack all the way to Bridge of Orchy!"
Toby snapped, "Watch me!" before he had seriously considered what he was letting himself in for. Then it was too late to back out, of course. He must be getting caught up in the hero role.
"Don't expect me to help!" Hamish said, wide-eyed.
"It's not much more than the soldiers hump around all day."
"Demons it isn't!"
"You can carry me back, then." Toby hauled down one of the sacks he had placed there before lunch and strode off across the courtyard with it slung over his shoulder. He set off up the road, his companion scurrying along at his side and muttering that it must be seven miles or more, and he was crazy.
"Beats shovelling zitty manure, though!" he added, cheering up. "Why do you suppose he gave us a nice jaunt like this to do?"
Toby had worked that out. He was being shown how much power the steward had to make his life pleasant or miserable. Vinegar and honey—cooperate or else. He didn't explain.
His companion's butterfly mind flitted to other topics. "Why do they need a post at Bridge of Orchy anyway?"
"You're the scholar. You tell me."
After a moment, the youngster said, The castle looks south. . . . Advance warning of enemies coming from the north?"
"That's my guess." It was something to ask the soldiers.
"That's possible isn't it? MacGregor's History of the West lists eight times armies have attacked Lochy and four times they came by way of Bridge of Orchy. When evil comes to the glen, it often comes by that road."
Evil comes to the glen! Toby shivered, recalling the hob's prophecy. Suppose he found rebels in control of the post? That wasn't very likely, though, because couriers brought Captain Tailor reports twice a day.
Hamish prattled on about history.
The cottages were few up here, and there was no one else in sight. A few dogs barked from a distance; shaggy, long-horned cattle watched the travelers suspiciously. A flock of ravens had found a feast beside a dry-stone wall and were quarreling noisily over it.
The road headed upward, stony and steep, and the hills closed in on either hand. Soon torrents of sweat were washing the dirt from Toby's pores. The sack of oats grew steadily heavier on his shoulder. He wasn't doing this just to impress the kid. He hoped he wasn't. He was doing it because it was good for him.
"Wish I had your muscles," Hamish gasped. His shorter legs were having trouble keeping up.
"This is how you get them. This is real work, man's work!" No one would call Toby Strangerson a fishing pole now.
"It's mule's work, you mean!"
"There are worse things to be than a mule. Mules are tough and strong and they know their own minds." They were also low on romance, of course, and perhaps that was another point of resemblance. Toby wondered if girls saw him as a mule.
"You be a mule if you want. I'm going to be an owl."
Toby laughed aloud. The kid beamed.
At the top of the saddle, Toby stopped and lowered the sack to a flat-topped boulder, gasping like a stag turning to face the hounds.