The Banshee of Castle Muirn

by Sheila Currie

  He smiled without looking at her face and carefully unwound her fingers. “I am well, Aunt.”

  The man was a soldier from morn till night. No softness or warmth in his greeting to his aunt.

  “My lieutenant, Matthew Rutherford, madame.”

  Rutherford bowed. He kept his eyes down and his mouth shut.

  “Yer friends are most welcome, Thomas. What shall I dae? Are we ready for him?” Priscilla looked from her maids to Myles.

  “I have a powerful hunger, madame.” He smiled with all his yellow teeth at Shona.

  Priscilla grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her to Connington. He wasn’t unpleasant to look at—strong wavy hair, sun-bronzed skin and lazy eyes. He took her two hands in his. His clothes stank like the sea at low tide. How could everyone else not notice?

  He drew her closer. Under his lazy eyelids, she saw a hardness that frightened her.

  “We shall become better acquaint.” He smiled, but his broken teeth ruined his good looks.

  Shona would rather jump off a cliff—or bathe in a pigsty. Probably cleaner.

  “Bring food!” Priscilla shouted, and her maid scurried off to the cookhouse. “Speak together with Joan while we prepare for ye.” Her stepmother looked heavenward. “Ma prayers are answered. Blessed are they forevermore that restore ma kin tae me.”

  Connington gripped her hand with bands of iron. Shona fought to free herself, and scowled at him. He laughed and let her go.

  Priscilla’s generosity was reserved for her favourite nephew. Shona positioned herself by the oriel window, as far away as possible, where Myles joined her.

  “So he’s no chance for marriage with you,” he said. “You should befriend him at least. If he decides to stay awhile, life will be easier for you.”

  “I’ve had enough of him.” She rubbed her wrist where Connington had held her. “I’ll stay clear of him as much as I can.”

  Myles’s green eyes searched hers. “You need not marry him. Your father is agreeable to your marrying one of our cousins.”

  He patted her arm, and she was reassured. She remembered the oppression she felt when Connington was near, and couldn’t imagine a long life with him. She couldn’t have the MacDonald, yet she could imagine a life with him.

  “I endure ma exile as best I can.” Priscilla pulled Connington to the hearth fire and sat him down.

  “Not for long, Aunt.” Connington’s voice was charming. He chatted with Priscilla while glancing frequently in Shona’s direction.”Tell me how ye hae passed the time.”

  “I am imprisoned here.” Priscilla’s shoulders drooped. “I am assailed at all times by barbarity and cruelty.”

  Who was cruel to her? Or barbarous? The people of Gleann Muirn had been towers of patience to her. Strange woman. That she did nothing but embroider in her chamber was her choice. At least she could do no harm there.

  “Ye work in oor interest. Suffering is a golden garment for which ye shall be rewarded.” As he adjusted his sword, he struck her with it. “Forgive me my clumsiness with my weapon, dear aunt.”

  An accident? He wouldn’t have any reason to dislike Priscilla, who made so much of him.

  “A small thing. After supper we’ll talk.” Priscilla glanced at Shona, then held her finger to her lips and giggled. “Ye can tell me the news frae Edinburgh. And what’s tae be done here.”

  Chapter 9

  Two months later

  “You want me to teach you Gaelic.” Shona had spent far too much time in Connington’s presence of late. “How long do you intend to stay? How shall you make use of the language?”

  “I will be required tae tend tae ma own estate, but I’ll be pleased tae come tae this country. Tae see my aunt and drink in yer great beauty.”

  “How charming you are.” At a great distance. The greater the better.

  He said a few words in Gaelic to Catriona, who laughed as she laid fruit and claret on the oaken table, then set out glasses from the sideboard. Shona prevented herself from groaning—he might break her grandfather’s most prized possession—Verzelini goblets, brought from London long ago.

  “No the right words?”

  “Say mòran taing, Thomas Connington.” Catriona exaggerated the words.

  “Moran tank,” he said.

  She taught him the names of things. He hadn’t any lightness of speech, but he managed some phrases, and made his teacher laugh. Connington turned his wolfish face to Shona and smiled.

  From the oriel window, she gazed at the wide loch, and ran her hands along the worn stone of the window. The castle had sheltered the Campbells from many a storm. But now the enemy was within—battering down the defences of her faithful kinswoman and servant, Catriona.

  “Catriona, a piece of miel, if ye please.” Connington said the word for honey instead of fruit. Laughing, she went to fetch the fruit bowl. “Meas, Thomas Connington. Meas.”

  He had been sitting in the best chair with arms and a cushion—her father’s chair—but now he rose and leaned on the wall right next to Shona.

  “Why are you here?” Shona asked as calmly as she could. Weakness weighted her arms and legs. His sword dangling, he touched her hair. She shivered, and slid along the wall. “What you do is improper and unwelcome.”

  “Improper?” Laughing, he slithered along the wall behind her. “You’re safe in this crowd. Let me see. How many folk about? Four servants, six guards and your woman. And ma dear aunt and her maids.”

  The servants were used to his presence—he had charmed them all. He made her feel like a child—he kept things from her. Even the way he phrased his words made her wonder if something was wrong in Edinburgh. He ran his hand down her cheek. “And Myles is soon away tae his own house. Then ye must obey me.”

  Shona removed his hand—she’d leave as soon as she could and go to her chamber.

  “I am yer stepmother’s closest male relative. I am responsible for her and ye, in the absence of your faither.” He strolled to the table and poured himself claret wine. Then he lifted the foreign bottle and examined it. “Fine engraved glass—Venetian. Ye want some? No? Alas.” He poured himself another drink, drank it at once, and poured a third.

  In the quiet of the room, all she heard was Connington. She hated the sound of the liquid in his cheeks before he swallowed.

  “Ye’ll marry me.”

  “I think not.” She didn’t doubt that he was persistent. He didn’t fear the power of her father or uncle. Perhaps it was the bluff of a desperate man. He used physical strength because it was all he had. “My uncle says that I need not marry you.”

  “Ye wull marry me.” He carefully set the empty goblet down and strolled over to her, the stench of his unwashed body overpowering. “How safe might ye be withoot me? And yer kinfolk?”

  Her body stiffened. Threats? Much easier to give in and marry the man. But living with him would likely be no different. She’d still wage a war of wills with him.

  Footsteps sounded on the outside stair. “Nice fresh bannocks,” Catriona came through from the cookhouse.

  The smell of the baking diffused through a room full of threat. Shona controlled her voice as though her request were nothing unusual. “Catriona, please fetch me a messenger.” Her serving woman stood, baking in hand, confusion on her face.

  “Any messenger ye send,” said Connington sweetly, “might not find his way tae yer faither. Dangerous times.”

  Anger rose from the pit of Shona’s stomach, choking out her fear. “I’m going to request my father’s return. Perhaps he should clarify the nature of your stewardship.”

  “Calm yerself, ma dear.” He poured some claret and offered it to her. “Think on it. Rationally.” He indicated that Catriona sit. She continued to stand, but didn’t fetch the messenger.

  “I won’t drink.” She wouldn’t take anything from him if she were starving.

  “Is yer faither a stupid man?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Then he married my aunt and that was
a wise decision.”

  “Why did my father marry Priscilla?” She didn’t expect a straightforward answer.

  “Why do people marry? Security in these chancy times—when ye don’t know who tae trust.”

  She’d never marry him. Never love him and never trust him. “It sounds like a fine thing. It may not be—”

  He slowly traced the pattern of the silk brocade tablecloth up to the engraving on the Venetian glass. And tipped it over spilling the contents over the costly cloth. It rolled to the table's edge. He caught before it fell to the floor. He looked up at her. “Ye marry me and ye will be safe.”

  “Safe from what? Safe from whom?” He presented the worst danger she had ever known.

  He set down his empty glass and looked straight into her eyes. “You may learn what you don’t want to hear.”

  What could she possibly find out? Many old families in the district had resented the Campbells since they had acquired land and power. But her clan held no grudges. They rented land to whoever would pay the rent, and give them loyalty and service.

  “Ye will marry me.”

  His words rained down on her, but they did not dilute her will. She returned to the window to look on the green hills to the north of the castle. Why had her father married a Lowland woman? The answer lay in Edinburgh.

  “Some pears?” Connington offered her fruit from her castle garden.

  In the autumn of the year, Shona walked with two friends on a hill purple with heather above Loch Muirn. She saw people cutting oats and barley, ripe yellow in the sun, in the fields below, and beyond them, Castle Muirn brooded over the dark waters of the loch. She picked up her basket of herbs and patted them down, then stooped to pick more in the marshes that garlanded the Red Stream. She plucked the last flowers of meadowsweet, the strewing herb that would freshen the floors of Castle Muirn in the winter months to come—the normal pursuit of an ordinary person. That’s what she intended to be. Ordinary.

  She hadn’t tried to use the banshee power—she refused to speak of it to Morag. No other animals had died because of her.

  Her stepmother allowed her to escape the castle to “supervise” the village girls. Priscilla spoke as though her nephew and Shona were already betrothed, but her uncle Myles protected her. Every month that passed decreased her fear of marriage to Connington.

  Ròs Màiri, a girl never worn out with her daily tasks, lay on a smooth stone with only a few herbs in her basket. With her brown skin and black hair, she looked as though she belonged to the earth. “I want to get on with finding a man for myself. I’ll lie in the fields with Cailean Bacach during the Feast of Saint Michael. He's got a bad leg, but he works hard enough.”

  Her friend Una’s basket was already filled with the herbs. “Is your stepmother still keen on marrying you to that Connington man?”

  “I refuse him daily,” said Shona. “Thomas Connington is a danger to us all.”

  “You might try him out.” Ròs Màiri sat up with a dreamy smile. “He might change your mind.”

  Connington with Ròs Màiri? Surely not! “Have you ‘tried’ him yourself?” asked Shona.

  “A handsome Lowlander with castles and money galore?” said Ròs Màiri. “I haven’t, but why not? I could do far worse.”

  “I think he needs money. That’s why he eats our food and drink—and pesters me.”

  “If I marry him, I may become a titled lady. I’d give him lots of drink and lots of food. And lots of exercise in the fields.”

  She was reckless for sure.

  “He’s all yours,” said Shona. “Whatever his Lowland title.”

  “I dub him Sir Belch-a-lot,” said Una.

  Connington was less frightening when Una ridiculed him. Despite Catriona’s teasing, Shona pushed a chest against the door at night to keep him out.

  “What about a man whose clan was at feud with ours?” Ròs Màiri looked straight at Shona. “I wouldn’t mind lying with a certain MacDonald to test his moving parts.”

  “A MacDonald,” said Una, “is as unsuitable for a Campbell woman as a Barbary pirate.”

  “Indeed?” Ròs Màiri arched a well-fed eyebrow.

  Shona couldn’t help smiling as she glanced up Bealach nam Bò, the cattle pass where Alasdair MacDonald’s herd would come down from the west. Only a lazy eagle floated high above them when she lifted her face to the sun. She said a blessing for the day.

  “My grandfather thinks those MacDonalds might be coming through in a week or so,” said Una. “They’ll be with us for the Feast of Saint Michael.”

  Ròs Màiri scoffed. “The wild, wicked MacDonalds! Steal your cattle one day and sell them back to you the next!”

  “MacPharlans and MacGregors have that reputation, not MacDonalds,” said Shona.

  “Should I lie with an enemy of Clan Campbell if he were noble?” said Ròs Màiri.

  “Your family wouldn’t accept the child,” said Una.

  “They would if he gave her farmland to support her.” What if Shona were married to a landless man—trapped by poverty in a Lowland town?

  “If you can’t find anyone suitable,” said Una, “you can fall back on your parents’ choice. You can learn to get along with anyone.”

  No truth in that. None at all.

  “Una, meek and mild,” mocked Ròs Màiri.

  Shona didn’t want them snapping at each other. Nothing should mar her day of freedom. “Put a smile on your faces. I haven’t much time outside.” Shona envied these girls’ freedom to choose. She hoped that Alasdair would come soon—she’d see as much of him as possible. She thought him a good man, and he’d shown her what she should expect in a suitable husband.

  “Nothing like a loving man to lighten your step.” Ròs Màiri skipped ahead.

  From high in Bealach nam Bò, men’s shouts, the bellows of cattle and the barking of dogs rumbled down the slopes toward the women. At first the mountainside seemed to waver. Slowly the shapes of men and beasts emerged from stone and heather.

  Alasdair! He had arrived. Shona made up her mind to enjoy the festival of Saint Michael and the company of her friends in Baile Leacan. Visiting, singing and feasting would fill their days while every unmarried woman would look over the selection of available men.

  Except for her. She had wanted a marriage with a Campbell gentleman. Now she preferred Alasdair, but she couldn't have him. But she needed to marry soon to stop Connington's pursuit of her.

  “Time for me to return home.” Shona intended to be in the castle when her uncle welcomed the MacDonalds.

  “Keen to meet a certain MacDonald?” said Ròs Màiri.

  “Perhaps.” She had never shared her daydreams about Alasdair with them, but they had guessed anyway. She turned her face away from them. Betrayed by her own body.

  “More than perhaps?” said Una. “You look radiant.”

  “She’s embarrassed.” Ròs Màiri shined the pin on her earasaid. “I have a new brooch from a chapman. Should attract the eye of a lusty man. Will Alasdair join us tonight? Many a girl would love to be his friend for the night. How will you keep them away?”

  “I shall fight them off with cudgels for you.” Una put her arm around Shona’s waist.

  Shona yearned to be with her friends while they lay together in the fields, and chatted the whole night through with all the young men. She wasn’t sure how she’d see Alasdair, but she’d have a better chance of spending time with him if she were outside the castle keep, her stepmother’s realm.

  “Come on! Life awaits.” Ròs Màiri lifted the skirt of her earasaid to run.

  The girls ran down the hill toward the castle and village. The drovers and herd boys settled the cattle in temporary folds on the fields west of the castle. Five riders on ponies, the drovers, detached itself from the herd, and flew over the grass toward the village, their hooves barely touching the earth. They were dressed in trews and shirts in the heat of the day, yelled and waved again. Shona and her friends up on the hill waved in return. Shona saw
Alasdair among them.

  Her heart thrummed. Her whole body lightened with the thought of him.

  What could she say to escape Priscilla during the feast of Saint Michael? She needed a good excuse—an illness among the villagers. She had to help Morag. Not an outright lie. Someone must be sick and she’d visit and bring food gifts. That’d do for several days.

  Shona wanted to run over to the riders—to Alasdair—to ask how he had fared in the past three months and where he had been. She wanted to feast her eyes on his smooth skin and study the light of the sun shining on his face and dancing in his eyes. She wanted to reach up and touch his hair, watch his curls spring back, so unlike her own hair, which hung in long waves.

  But she couldn’t do that. Not any of it. So she’d simply wait for an excuse to be near him.

  When she returned to Castle Muirn, she found a chapman waiting at the outside stair to the keep, a regular visitor seeking hospitality for the night. “Welcome to you,” she said. “Have you had anything to eat?”

  The man stood to greet her. “Not yet, daughter of Iain Glas.”

  “Have you seen my stepmother?”

  “She’ll see me soon, so they say.” The man didn’t look her in the eye.

  “My stepmother looks forward to your visits.”

  “Would you like to see my wares?” He pulled his pack from his shoulders. “Lovely ribbons for your hair—red and white. Look—”

  Normally she would choose a smooth ribbon or two, but she was in a hurry. “Lovely. Has my stepmother paid you for the silks and canvas she bought last time?”

  “I’m sure she’ll pay this time.” He needed coin, more than a meal or shelter. If her stepmother took all his embroidery silks without paying, the man would never return again, and every village in Argyll would learn she was a genteel thief.

  “I’ll see to you. Come.” She led him up the stair and into the great hall past the curious guards. “Then you’ll get a good meal in your belly.”

  “You’ll be a good wife to a great man,” he said.