by Ken Hood
Would he call him a traitor? A dozen villagers toiled in the castle most days. There was no shame in wanting to eat, and precious few ways to earn a living in the glen. They worked for the steward, and the steward worked for the current laird, Ross Campbell of Gareloch.
That was another problem in loyalties. The ancient line of the Campbells of Strath Fillan had ended when Kenneth and his sons died at Leethoul, almost twenty years ago. The earl of Argyll, chief of Clan Campbell, had declared the estate in escheat and appointed a replacement, a Campbell from Dalmally. He had never won the loyalty of the glen.
His son and successor had done better. When Fergan had escaped from captivity in England in 1516 and raised his second rebellion, the Campbell of Argyll had supported him, at least for a while. So the laird of Fillan, his vassal, had switched sides also. The glen had answered his call enthusiastically and marched off to die for King Fergan at Parline — leaving one sad fishing pole boy behind.
Now there was yet another laird in Lochy Castle, Ross Campbell of Gareloch. Toby Strangerson worked for Steward Bryce. Steward Bryce served Laird Ross. Laird Ross was loyal to the earl of Argyll, who was back on the side of the English.
Were they all traitors? Two more sacks completed the layer on the pile. The next one would have to go higher.
If Fergan was rightful king of Scotland, then yes, they were all traitors: earl, laird, steward, odd-job boy. That was what the likes of Fat Vik thought — the English killed our fathers and brothers and so we must kill them.
On the other hand, Captain Tailor and his men had no doubt that it was Fergan who was the traitor, or that soon they would catch the rebel and hang him. Then the Highlands would be at peace again. So they said. In spare moments they lectured the odd-job boy on how the kings of Scotland had been sworn vassals of the kings of England for centuries — between all the suicidal rebellions, that was. You couldn't trust a Scotsman's word after the echoes stopped, they said.
Another layer of sacks in place, and Toby was enjoying himself — heart thumping strongly, sweat running, arms and back tingling pleasantly.
The miller's question drummed in his mind: Whose man was he to be? As long as he stayed in Strath Fillan, of course, he was the laird's man. The laird determined his men's loyalties, and the earl determined his. But when Granny Nan died, then Toby Strangerson would be gone over the hills like an eagle. Whose man would he be then?
And consider King Nevil himself, self-proclaimed king of England, Scotland, Wales, and now numerous other places also. Technically he was a vassal of the Khan, but he certainly had not been behaving like one. He had defeated the three previous suzerains in battle and seized their kingdoms and their allies', until he now controlled most of Northern Europe. Each time the Khan had appointed a successor suzerain, Nevil had immediately made war on him, and he made no secret of his intention of conquering the continent and then marching against the Golden Horde itself. He was reputed to have sworn he would clear every last Tartar out of Europe.
In other words, treason depended on how good you were at it.
Another layer. Now he was having to throw the bags up above head height. The exercise became an interesting challenge in itself, leaving little energy for worrying about loyalties. He did not solve the loyalty problem before he had emptied the cart and laid every sack tidily where it should be.
He emerged into the gray daylight of the yard and wiped his forehead with a corner of his plaid. The clouds were racing across the sky, but he could see a pair of eagles soaring. There were always eagles over Castle Lochy.
He headed off to the kitchens. It was too early for lunch, but Helga could usually find a snack for a growing boy. Still wolfing down a freshly baked bap liberally spread with goose fat, he located the steward crouched in his little office. The old man was poring over accounts, a litter of papers covering the table. He looked up with a familiar sour expression on his dried-apple face.
"Need another job, Master Crief," Toby said with his mouth full.
"What's this I hear about you getting into a fight?"
Toby swallowed. "I didn't, sir. Just got baited about… about a girl, sir. It was nothing. No fisticuffs."
The dirk-sharp eyes studied him for a moment. They did not reveal what their owner thought of that version of events. Iain had been blabbing, obviously.
"One of them was Crazy Colin?"
"Er, yes sir. He was there." Had the miller noticed the addlehead's knife?
Fortunately the steward did not ask about knives. He twisted his bony mouth in a grimace. "I wouldn't feed that one to pigs." For a man who never left the castle, Bryce of Crief was always uncannily well informed about events in the glen.
Bryce of Crief — Bryce Campbell had probably lived in Fillan for twice a normal lifetime, but he was still Bryce of Crief. A man was identified by his clan, of course, but then by his birthplace. When he was in his birthplace he was identified by his residence, or his occupation, or his father. If he had no clan, if his father wasn't known, he was called something like Strangerson.
"How is Granny Nan?"
Old Bryce was remarkably chatty today.
"She has good days and bad days, sir." She spends hours collecting pretty stones.
Crief nodded, but his expression still gave away nothing. "Look after her well, lad. Has she ever mentioned… a successor?"
"No, sir."
"I don't know who we'll get to keep the hob happy when she's gone."
Toby took another bite of greasy bap and mumbled, "No, sir."
"An unhappy hob could make lots of trouble in the glen."
"Yes, sir."
The old man leaned forward and bared a few yellow pegs of teeth in a sly and withered smile. "Who's going to take you on at the games, mm? Anyone crazy enough?"
He meant boxing, of course. Boxing had more glamour than weight lifting or caber tossing. Moreover, there was money to be made on boxing, bets to be laid, and that probably explained why the steward was wasting valuable time chattering with the odd-job boy.
"Dougal Peat's promised to go a few rounds with me, sir, if nobody else will. We'll put on a show for the crowd is all."
What the smith's son had said was, "We'll just bleed a little for 'em, right?" but what he had meant was, "You won't make me suffer too long, will you?" Dougal was enough of his father's son that he was incapable of faking; he would fight till he was fairly dropped.
"No chance of his father coming out of retirement?"
Toby shook his head sadly. "He could still beat me if he did." He had watched the blacksmith box — and win — at every games as far back as he could remember, but the year he had turned fourteen and been allowed to fight with the men, he had failed to make the finals. That had been the year Eric retired, so they'd never met in the ring. Somehow, Toby could not feel he was really champion, when he had never fought the smith.
"The Sassenach…" Toby corrected himself quickly. "Some of the soldiers, sir. Some of the captain's men, were talking about a challenge match in wrestling, Castle versus Glen, sir."
The steward scowled. "The laird forbade it! It might lead to trouble."
"Yes, sir."
"Besides, our lads know nothing about wrestling." The sharp eyes stabbed at him. "You tried wrestling with any of them?"
"No, sir."
"Those English have all kinds of sneaky holds and throws. Now, if they were to offer a challenge in boxing, I might be able to talk the laird into it — but they won't!" The steward shrugged, dismissing such frivolous topics. He leaned back and regarded Toby with a snaky intensity. "Just between the two of us?"
The odd-job boy blinked in astonishment. "Yes, sir?"
"If you lose in the boxing, I've got five shillings for you." The old man pulled back his lips in a skull-like leer.
Five shillings? That must be about a year's wages! But cheat? Toby could not do that! Half the glen would put a farthing or two on the boxing, and they would all come to watch the sport. They would expect a display o
f courage, not dishonesty. It was unthinkable. Never!
Yet for a man of his lowly station to refuse an order from the steward was equally unthinkable. He would be out on his neck in a minute, and lucky if he weren't beaten first. Faced with this impossible dilemma, Toby just stared at the old man. His throat, as it so often did, closed up completely and made not a sound.
The smile faded like a sunset into dark. "Think about it," the steward said coldly. "Come and see me later. Meanwhile, Himself wants the dungeon cleaned out. He thinks the rats are coming from there. I'll send someone to help you after lunch."
"Er?" Toby dragged his wits back to business. "I don't know where the dungeon is, sir."
"Off the guardroom. You'll need a lantern. Just one, mind, because there's no air down there. Move all the old straw outside the walls and burn it. And take a dog or two with you." The steward dismissed him by looking down at his papers.
Toby said, "Yes, sir," and hurried away. Cheat? Cheat so that the old bag of bones could clean up on the betting?
CHAPTER FOUR
He borrowed a lantern from the cooks, found a shovel, rounded up Spots and Nipper, and headed to the guardroom by the gate. He had never been inside it before, and the first thing he saw when he entered the gloomy place was a wall rack full of muskets. There were benches and a table, a couple of chests, a few cluttered shelves, but no guards. That seemed excessively careless, considering how much King Fergan's rebels would like to get their hands on those guns. They were chained, but Toby thought he could break them loose if he wanted to — besides, there were dozens of keys hanging near the window.
He walked forward and jumped as a big man appeared in a shadowed doorway — except it was a mirror. A full-length mirror! He had never seen such a thing in his life before. It must be there so the Sassenachs could inspect themselves before going out on parade. He glanced around the room again to make sure he was alone, then took a hard look at his reflection. His face was too boyish to be so far from the floor. He rubbed his chin, wondering yet again if he should let his beard grow in. He adjusted the hang of his plaid. He was certainly more man than Fat Vik. He took yet another glance around, moved back so he could not be observed through the door, then crooked an arm to see the muscle. His reflection grinned at the result and he scowled at its vanity.
At the far side of the room, a gate of thick iron bars led to darkness. It was unlocked and creaked loudly. Nipper rushed ahead down the stairs, with Spots following more circumspectly, nose busy, tail wagging. Narrow and treacherous, the staircase curved sharply into the ground, so the dungeon must underlie the guardroom. He pulled the gate shut behind him in case the dogs tried to defect. Then he started down. After about a dozen steps, he set a foot into something soft and squashy.
He waited there until his eyes adjusted. He was in a long narrow cellar, cold and creepy, stinking of rot. Most of it seemed to be carved out of the rock of the mountain. The ceiling was masonry — arched and short on headroom even in the center. There were no windows or air vents. What a nightmarish place! His skin crawled at the sight of the rusty chains and the staples set in the walls. The floor was deep in rotted straw, which the dogs were exploring with much interest. This job promised to be much less fun than heaving meal sacks, but the sooner he began, the sooner it would be done, so he hung the lantern on a staple and began.
He began by banging his head on the roof.
Cursing Bryce for not choosing a shorter man, he proceeded to the far end and set to work with the shovel. The dogs squirmed around underfoot, growling with excitement, lunging at the mice that came pouring out in all directions. The place was alive with them. The stench of decay became sickening.
Horrible, horrible place! How many wretches had been chained up here in ages past? He wouldn't keep pigs in such a hutch, let alone people. How long would a man stay sane shackled to the rock in a cell like this? He wondered uneasily about torture. He wondered how many of the victims had been innocent of whatever crimes they had been accused of… He wondered what he was going to do with the litter. Already he had raised two big heaps, and obviously he couldn't bring a wheelbarrow down those stairs. He should go and find some sacks — or a basket, perhaps.
Something flashed on the shovel. He peered at it, poked it… picked it up with finger and thumb. He took it over to the lantern. It was a comb of the sort a woman might wear in her hair, decorated with two or three glass spangles to make it pretty. The metal was corroded black, but the glass had stayed. Not a man's comb, certainly.
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 sw
ord, 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.