The Banshee of Castle Muirn

by Sheila Currie

  “The sea has taken a terrible tax on life this year,” she said.

  He held her arm and whispered, “Your uncle didn’t drown—he was murdered.”

  She mouthed the word. “Murdered.”

  Morag appeared suddenly. “She will deal with that later. Now she must prepare for his leaving this world. Come, Shona.”

  “You worked hard to find him. Thank you.” Sadness roughened her voice as she took his hand and pressed it to her breast.

  “Come. You have work to do, a ghraidh,” said Morag.

  “The horse. I'll get him to you.” Alasdair said to Shona as she backed away from him.

  “Look to yourself first,” she said.

  “A murdered Campbell gentleman and a heap of MacDonalds nearby,” said Ruari. “Hurry! Let’s get him back to camp.”

  “And prepare to defend ourselves,” said Gillesbic.

  White heat flashed in Alasdair’s mind. His spirit shook loose from his body. He swirled away toward blackness.

  While the men searched, Shona had stood at the shore, her breath rasping in her throat, her hands curled into fists. She wanted to plunge into the water and find Myles herself. But she was only a woman. That’s what people would say. She could do nothing. They’d say that too. She calmed her breathing and waited.

  The men shouted they had found him under the water. Himself had gone over to the next world. The anchor of Clan Campbell, the eagle who protected them. The tànaiste was dead.

  Her breathing eased and her tears came. Stop lamenting. Time for that later. The care of the dead was women’s work. She’d not fail her people in that. Myles would be properly mourned. She stretched out her hands and shook them. Ready.

  Ruari brought Alasdair to shore. His face was as grey as a November sky and his conversation had not reassured her. But he was with his clan and she had work to do with Morag.

  When she saw Alasdair fall, she gulped in air and rushed back to him. The spectators crowded round him. First Myles and now Alasdair. No more sorrow. Her knees trembled and threatened to put on her on the sand beside him. She fought her weakness.

  Distorted faces and angry voices. She wrapped her arms around herself.

  Morag said, “You may help him. Try. See what you can do.”

  “What can I do?”

  Connington surfaced in the crowd like a rock in a stormy-tossed sea. “Verra suspicious, Myles’ death. This MacDonald had something to do wi’ it. Was he no’ close tae Myles in the race?” His men muttered their agreement. “Lift him and take him back tae the castle. We’ll find oot wha’ happened. This spawn o’ the divil will see oor justice!”

  His men shouted, “Awa wi’ him tae the dungeon!”

  “What is this man saying, Shona Iain Glas? We are ready to fight.” Ruari’s voice was iron-strong.

  Shona placed her hand on Ruari’s arm and addressed Connington. “You will not take this man to the castle. He needs care in the village.”

  She stood and walked into the middle of a crowd of Connington’s men, Campbells and MacDonalds. To the MacDonalds she said, “They want to put him in prison. They have no concern for hospitality or the protection we have sworn to give you.”

  Connington swung her around. His sword struck her on the leg. Iron. No strength in her body. She felt the anger growing in her. If she weren't a weak woman, she would march him back to the castle and throw him into the sea from the roof of the keep. She would watch him drown. She wanted to throw every one of Connington’s grey-coated men into the sea after him. But wishes were useless. She controlled the redness of anger and slowly she breathed.

  She said in the quiet voice her uncle used, “You will regret handling me in this manner.”

  The MacDonalds tried to rouse Alasdair. He lifted his head, then fell back unmoving.

  “Is he deid?” Connington asked. “God Almighty has judged him and sent him tae hell where he'll be met by the Deil himself!”

  Her heart flipped in a chest suddenly too small. He might be dead. Answer Connington. “Then he is of no further concern to you. Leave and take your men with you.”

  He looked around in that calculating way he had. The numbers against him were too great for him to do anything to Alasdair. Coward.

  Campbells joined them. Shona put on Myles’s voice of command. “We are honour-bound to give the Clan Donald hospitality. No harm will come to any of them.”

  “We are with you, Shona Iain Glas.”

  “Go and prepare yourselves for the funeral of a great man.” They shifted themselves while whispering about the tragedy and how it might affect them all.

  Alasdair! Shona bent over him. His eyes were unfocussed, their brilliance gone dark. She bent to listen to his breath. Nothing. No! Frustrated, she raised her hands and lowered them. He gasped and coughed. She shouted for Morag to come back. From no where the Crow appeared and settled on Morag's shoulder.

  “Give us room.” Morag made the crowd move back while she appraised his condition by passing her hand over his chest and head. “There was little I could do.”

  “He’ll die?”

  “No. You’ve done it all.” Morag exchanged a glance with the Crow and then said to Shona, “Do you understand what you’ve done?”

  “I did nothing. I didn’t touch him.”

  Crow said, Speak. There is no one close enough to hear but us three.

  “You lifted your hands over his heart and pushed down. It beat again. You still deny you have the powers of a banshee?”

  I am a witness. You expelled death from his body, said the Crow.

  Morag was right. Her future would be different. No time to think about that now. They had to deal with his injuries.

  The more you use the powers, the stronger you are, but the weaker in the presence of iron. Beware of iron.

  “I don’t want to hear about—”

  “Bi sàmhach. Hush!” Morag stopped talking as two MacDonalds approached. “A sad day for us all.”

  Ruari and Cailean greeted them. “We can take him back to camp.”

  Shona said to them, “He needs nursing and tranquility. Take him to Morag’s house.”

  “He’ll heal better with me,” said Morag.

  Anndru held Fear Mór’s reins. “The horse is uninjured. We’ll see he's all right and return him to the castle.”

  “Take him then.” Shona spoke with a voice that held no warmth or sadness. Crisp. Purposeful. So she hoped.

  She would go with Alasdair, and then deal with the funeral of her kinsman. Alasdair had said Myles was murdered. And who wanted that? Connington.

  The man who pestered her to marry him. Daily. Only Myles stood between her and a forced marriage. And now Connington was blaming Alasdair for his death. Two birds with one stone.

  “Take the tànaiste to Castle Muirn.” The Campbells knew exactly what to do.

  A fire of hatred spread out from her belly, filling her heart, burning away the grief. Tend to the living and put away your hatred just now. But she would keep the embers warm every waking and every sleeping hour.

  The MacDonalds looked at her in a peculiar way, as though she had done something frightening. Or looked dead scary.

  Ruari cleared his voice. “We’ll care for him.”

  “He must go to Morag’s house.” She put all her strength in her voice. He hesitated a moment. She gave him no time to argue. “She’s trained in ancient healing.”

  The MacDonalds looked at each other and the old man said, “Let the wise woman care for him.”

  “Her house is on the north side of the baile. Away from the castle.” She led the way and they bore him behind her. Alasdair groaned. Her chest tightened enough to make her gasp.

  “Where’s that buff-coated man?” asked Ruari. The others looked blank. “Where’s the whole crew of them?”

  “Who knows?” said Anndru. “Who cares?”

  “We have enough to do,” said Cailean.

  They passed the shaggy-haired man, who said, “You’ve killed the chief�
��s brother.”

  “We are sorry for your loss,” said Ruari. “It’s no fault of ours.”

  The Campbell man hadn’t seen her, she was sure. Shona stepped forward and he bowed. “Your wounding words make me mourn all the more.”

  “You should stay with your own,” said the man.

  “The MacDonalds are guests.”

  “I apologise, daughter of Iain Glas.” He bent his head and said no more. Others might think the same—that the MacDonalds had killed her uncle. Ridiculous. The MacDonalds had no reason to kill him and every reason to wish him well. Connington had done it, as Alasdair said.

  They returned to the business at hand. Muttering sympathetic words, people accompanied them from the shore and others emerged from the thatched houses as they passed. Shona led the MacDonalds to the wise woman’s house.

  Morag prepared a pallet by the hearth fire for the injured man and instructed them to lay him on it. The wise woman shooed out the men, except for Ruari, and told Shona to tear pieces of old linen into strips while she inspected his wounds. After removing his féileadh and léine, they washed him and were careful not to tear the spoilt muscle of his arm and chest.

  Alasdair shivered with cold—he was pitiful to see. Shona told herself to be cautious. She had begun to love him, and could not bear to lose him. Morag had great powers, but there was a limit to them. In one way or another Shona had lost many people she loved. She had no experience of life except for loving people and losing them. Her mother and brothers had died of fever. Her uncle had just been murdered. Perhaps that was why so many women married men they didn’t love. It didn’t hurt so much to lose them. Still, she hoped for Alasdair’s recovery.

  “Will you bring in some peats?” Morag asked Ruari. Then she removed Alasdair’s trews and drawers. He had not come to his senses.

  Shona gasped and looked at Morag. Even with a sick man under her hands, a smile threatened to pull back the corners of her lips.

  Morag examined him. “His manly parts are of a good size. Good breeding stock, you might say.” Morag checked for injuries by wrapping her hands around his lower legs and proceeded along his thighs.

  “I wonder what size his rod will be when erect?”

  “Morag, what are you about? You sound like a horse dealer at a fair!”

  “A very nice comparison.”

  Shona felt her cheeks flame up like a whisky-fed fire. She’d seen horses and they all had an amazing ability to enlarge and elongate. And, amazingly, the mares were built to accommodate any stallion. Such thoughts for a virgin.

  “Every virgin has such imaginings.”

  Shona jumped. “Morag!”

  “Watch the left arm. The bone is exposed.”

  “How can you discuss his … male parts … when he is so badly hurt?”

  “He’ll live. You made sure of that. The shock to the head is his worst injury now. Whatever the state of his brain, at least he can make children.”

  “Do men suspect that women speculate about their members?”

  Morag laughed. “Some do and others never bother to think about it.” She felt his head. “Not broken. No splinters of bone in the head injury. Get the silk and bone needle ready for the cuts. Three broken ribs on the left.” She carried on with her examination and felt his ribs. “Odd. He has broken ribs on his left side, and a gash on his head. What you’d expect in this race. But he has two long cuts across his ribs. Clean cuts.”

  Like a knife. No one carried a knife in the race. No place to store it when they raced shirtless without saddles. No need for it. Alasdair had said he saw a knife and he might not have been raving.

  Connington. She thought that he’d worn a shirt to cover his chest out of ignorance and used a saddle from cowardice. No one questioned the peculiarities of a stranger, especially a Lowlander.

  “Hold his shoulders down if I touch something tender,” said Morag.

  Shona held him and stole glances at him while Morag worked. Shona felt a heavy sadness for her uncle, but if Alasdair’s heart stopped again, so might hers.

  Morag was the wisest woman in the whole of Argyll. Alasdair might yet be whole. The old woman felt his chest on the left and Alasdair jerked. He squirmed and turned to his other side. Shona quieted him with a murmuring charm as if he were an infant. He relaxed and they rolled him flat again.

  “We must deal with the arm and the chest cuts first. The abrasions we tend last.” His chest was turning blue with bruising. “The head bleeds freely, but the skull is least injured of all. Can’t say about the brain inside.”

  Morag glanced up when Ruari came in with the peats. “Hold him.” She showed Ruari how to hold Alasdair’s shoulder and upper arm while Shona pulled on his wrist. “Pull and don’t let go till I tell you.” As they stretched out the bones, Alasdair woke and screamed, then fainted again.

  Tears welled in Shona’s eyes. Fight them. Don’t let them fall.

  She pulled until the exposed bone slipped back under his skin. Morag ran her hands down his arm to make sure the bone was truly in position. “The arm should heal without fault—if you hold it till it’s splinted.”

  She wrapped more bog moss and healing herbs in a poultice and placed it on the wound, then wrapped it all in linen strips. Then she wrapped staves of wood round the arm to hold the bone in place while it healed. Morag exposed abraded flesh on his chest that seeped blood. “Pass me the linen.” She spread a poultice for the wound and then wrapped his chest in linen.

  She wrapped his head to stop the bleeding. Lastly she placed alla bhuidhe under his left arm. “You remember the healing plant is placed here, where it’s closest to the heart. Now let sleep heal him.”

  Shona prepared a hot drink of herbs for all of them. “I’m giving up thoughts of living with a man I love, and listening instead to the opinions of people older and wiser than I.”

  “Your stepmother? Older, yes, but wiser? Hah! I can’t tell you what to do—only advise you. Trust in your power to know.”

  Ruari added three peats to the fire.

  Alasdair moaned and moaned again.

  “Let’s check his ribs again.” Blood had seeped through the bandages. “Lift him while I add bandages to his chest.” The old man slipped his arms carefully under Alasdair’s chest and held him like a beloved child. Morag and Shona passed the bandages around his broken ribs.

  “Mind you tell him to be careful of the ribs. One could pierce his heart and bleed fiercely inside. I’ve seen it happen,” said Morag.

  Ruari said, “As have I.”

  The old woman sewed the cut in Alasdair’s forehead. “The cut will heal with little scarring. It’s the mind that causes the difficulties. It draws away courage.”

  “Can you fetch him a plaid and another shirt?” asked Morag. Ruari nodded and left for the MacDonald camp.

  “Eisd, a ghràidh, listen love, Crow and I have discussed this. We’ve decided we must tell you.”

  “Tell me what? What?”

  “Myles’s death changes what will be. I searched with the eyestone and this is your man. He will be a strength and a weakness for you.”

  “My man? But … you didn’t want me to spend time with him or be friendly. You wanted me to become a banshee to follow after you and practise the secret arts.”

  Morag winced. “Yes. But both things are possible. Especially for you.”

  After weeks of skirting the edges of that dangerous thing called love, she could let herself love him. But really, what might Alasdair say? He was friendly to a lonely lass as he passed through her country. Alasdair might not agree with the vision in the eyestone.

  “You and Alasdair will lie together … if you both live through your tribulations.”

  “He is kind and gentle. Yet I won’t. Loving is too painful for me.”

  Morag’s old face softened before she snapped back to her role as healer. “Enough chatter. We’ll nurse and heal him. You’ll have time to think.”

  They covered him and sat with him at the fire unti
l Ruari returned with the shirt and plaid. They dressed and covered him again, then allowed him to sleep. His clansman prepared a pallet for himself at the fire.

  “That Connington man will bring great misery.” Ruari lay on top of his bedding.

  “He has already! I live with his words and deeds every day.”

  Morag shook her head. “He will bring a withering on this glen.”

  Shona felt weak, as though her bones had no substance and would not hold her up should she attempt to stand. Were her banshee powers of no use? “Can nothing be done? Is Connington too strong?” Her uncle might not be avenged.

  Ruari snored gently and Morag put a plaid overtop him.

  “Battle him with all your strength and power. Connington will never know or understand love. But you won’t last long without it. This man under our care will love you.”

  “But I’ve seen too much death. I don’t want to lose anyone else.”

  “You will see more unless my sight fails me.” Morag put one arm around Shona’s shoulders. “Seek what joy you can in this life.” Then Morag spoke with the voice of prophecy, her words coming slowly at first, but then the rhythm increased with the passion of their meaning. “When I dream of Connington, I see dead children and sorrowing women. You’ll never know joy again if you go with that Connington man. Defeat him and crush his evil.” She took Shona’s two hands in her own. “You must do all you can to learn about your powers.”

  Shona couldn’t answer. Her chest jerked with short breaths.

  “Change will come, a ghràidh,” said Morag. “You become Connington’s toy … or a powerful banshee.”

  Shona knew that. Her mind knew. She needed to discipline her heart. It didn’t make walking into tomorrow any easier.

  “You’ll train in fighting Connington.”

  Fighting Connington. That was all she needed to know. “I agree.”

  “We'll go now and see to your uncle. We will mourn a great man.”

  After the mourning women left the great hall to rest, old people stayed the remainder of the day to guard his corpse from the evil beings who might steal his spirit and soul. Shona took her turn watching the body with her clan through the second night. They told stories about the tànaiste she hadn’t heard, and she cried, and they laughed at the good times. They knew his spirit was near listening to them. They assured Shona that he’d enjoyed the telling of them, although he was unable to reply.