Corrag

by Susan Fletcher

  Jane—what do I do? My head speaks of law—of the Bible, of God. It tells me not to expect a letter from Stair, nor to hope for a change in Corrag’s last few days. I should not want it. I should wish (as I once wished) for the world to be rid of all darkness, and what concern should it be, if that darkness is burnt away, in light?

  I should allow it to unfold as God intends it to. She is a prisoner of the law. If she dies, she dies.

  But—but!—I am troubled. Sleepless. Missing you. As I take off my wig in the evenings I look at the man it reveals and I barely know him—he is tired, and old.

  Pray for me. Pray that I may find guidance, and solace—that I may find the right, noble thoughts.

  Charles.

  IX

  “…the syrup helps much to procure rest, and to settle the brains of frantic persons, by cooling the hot distemperatures of the head.”

  of Water Lilies

  Tell me of the square. Of the Mercat Cross and how much wood is there—how much is built. It is this talk of death. It is this talk of the massacre, this remembering—it has frightened me, and has put terrible deaths in my head so that I want to think it was a dream, a fearsome dream. Did they die? I know they did. I saw their bodies. I saw their charred bodies with knife wounds in their backs, and sides—wounds like mouths, so that as I stumbled by them I thought they spoke to me. I thought they said my name, these wounds—like I could have stopped it. Like I could have saved more people than I did.

  It is remembering this, that has frightened me. And the man.

  A man came.

  This morning. I heard his footsteps by my door, and I thought it was you. I thought Mr Leslie has come early! And I was so hopeful, sir, I was so happy for I like your time—I like speaking to you, and how you nod, and it is a peculiar thing that I find a little comfort from a churchman when they have never offered comfort in my life to me, or to my kind. But all things change, I know that. And I do—find a comfort in you. I like you smiling. Not many smile, but you do. So I heard these footsteps by my door and thought it is Mr Leslie, and I stood up in my chains to greet you and I had my smile upon my face to meet your smile, which you give now.

  But it was not you. It was a man whose name I never got. But he is the one who does the tying up. When it is a hanging, he is the one who does the knot, and then who makes the horse walk forwards and pull the person up. When it is branding like they did to a man who defiled a creature in its stall, he is the one with the branding iron—he pushes it into the flesh, and hears it hiss. When it is a burning, he ties to the stake. He piles the barrels up and gathers the wood.

  So he was here. He came in, and laughed. He saw me standing in my chains with my bloodied skirts and laughed.

  I did not know what was worth a laugh. I watched him.

  He said we’ll be saving a pretty penny, then. Then he laughed some more. How did you thwart a plan? You? He put his thumb in his eye to press a tear of laughter away. I’ve seen bigger newborns! You?

  And then, when he was calmer, he spat. Of course. He spat at my face but it missed and caught my arm and I looked at it, very sadly.

  We’ll need half the wood I thought we would, he said, very properly—like there was a magistrate in the room who he was talking to. Quick. And cheap. But folk like a show so I’ll use even less wood—make it a longer thing. Yes.

  And then his eyes met my eyes, and he lost his proper tone. He hissed at me. He said you meddler…Mr Dalrymple wants you gone, oh aye.

  Then he went away. And if I had wished to hear your footsteps before, I wished for them twice as hard after, for this made me so frightened. It has made me know it was true—that they mean to kill me. That these bars are firm, and these chains won’t undo.

  I am glad you are here. I am so glad. My death will be a slow one, says that man, and I do not want to die, and I do not want to die that way.

  MY HANDS are lost in your hands. My hands are so small, and this was used once as a reason for witch—she is so small! The Devil’s taken part of her! Like that was our pact, the Devil and I. Like my hands are enough to condemn me when far less is enough—my grey eyes, or my curious name. They have always wanted me dead. I’ve only wanted others to live so where is the fairness? I’ve never seen any. Nor did Cora. Nor did her mother as she was drowned in her shift.

  My hands are so small in your hands. They have rubbed a grey horse and plucked rushes from boggy parts, and they have mended people. Little hands, but they have held his hands—his. Look? I cannot even see them. But the room is very dark.

  Tell me of your wife? Or of your four boys. I mustn’t talk, I reckon. I reckon for a little while I must listen, calm my breath.

  I will sit.

  For a little while, let us fill this room with kinder words than meddling piece. Fill it with life.

  Maybe it was him—filling me. Maybe it was being on the Pap, and being close to him, and talking of hearts which took sleep away from me. Or maybe it was the first, blue frost which I crawled out of my hut to find about me—hushed, and bright. For this meant my weather, and I needed to be in it—I had missed it, and lay down on it. And I stared at the stars, and did not sleep.

  Or it was the roaring. For as I passed the slopes of Thistle Top in the afternoon, I stopped. There was a roar. It was a long, creaking sound, a broken roar, and I thought what is…? For it was lonesome, and determined. And when I looked up, I saw him—my stag. He was back, on the braes, and I was glad of it.

  What comforts. Winter. My stag, with his thick-furred neck and branches. His coat was still deep and whorled, and he would tread over the tops, eyeing me. One afternoon, as my fire smoked, I looked up to see him coming down the sides. There was a fine rain, and shook himself.

  I said do not go away! Stay! In my hut I found the apples I had saved for him, for weeks. I took one, rubbed it on my skirt. I saw its wrinkles, and flecks. I saw the small, crisp leaf on its stem, and when I stepped back out I held it in my hand. I stretched out my arm. Here.

  He was still, for a while.

  Then, slowly, he came. He had a world in his eyes—the reflected sky, the birds that flew through it. I saw myself. And I saw more than this—I saw all the hills which he’d walked upon, and all the lochs he’d drunk from. All his resting places. His hinds. His life, and age, and knowing.

  Here…

  He nearly took it. He nearly did. He stretched his neck, tilted back his head so his nose could smell the fruit. I watched his nostrils tremble. But he was afraid of me still, and wary—for his wildness did not yet trust my own, and so he came no further, and did not take the apple from my hand.

  Instead I laid it on the ground, nearer him. He took it, crunched, and stumbled back up the sides of Cat Peak.

  He drooled his apple drool. At the ridge, he looked back at me, briefly. Then he took himself south, into Glen Etive, and was gone.

  FROSTS, and snow—and they comforted the loving, wanting me. I roamed and wandered, blew and was blown. My skirts sailed the wind which came from the sea, so I was gusted, boat-like, and was salty-skinned. I sank knee-deep into peat bogs, and when the geese flew over I thought of Cora, and marshes, and I called out to the geese, as they flew.

  Him, too—whose heart was a fighting heart, but he was tired now.

  Down in the Coe, where there was no ice because of how fast it moved—hard, blue-cold water bursting over rocks, and logs—I bathed. I returned to the Meeting of the Waters where I had first washed myself, thirteen moons before. I undressed, and stepped in. I let my hair fill up with water, like I had done. I tried to be the girl I was. But I was a different girl, in some ways.

  It was here that I saw Sarah, with her son swaddled in hide and wrapped against her. She was bright-eyed, sniffing with the cold, and when she saw me she kissed my cheeks and grasped my hair at its roots like people do who have proper feelings for the person they kiss. This is how she kissed me. She said my name. She said you’ve not come to us, for too long. How are you?

  I said
I was very well. I said, and with you? How are your family?

  She lifted part of the goatskin to show her son to me, as warm and smooth-skinned as an egg freshly-laid. I smelt him. I remembered how he had fitted me—how he’d fitted himself against my neck, and mewled. Little thing. With his damp-fern hair.

  They are all well, thanks to God. We are sleeping more at night—she tickled her bairn, smiled—and there have been no quarrels with any clans, of late. We have salted pork and are smoking fish for the winter. She looked at me, narrowed her eyes. Alasdair left some dry peat for you. Did you find it?

  I did. I am grateful but do not need it. You have enough to care for, now.

  She frowned. I know. We both know. But you’re on your own up there. And Alasdair says the winter will be hard. He says the rowan berries are redder this year.

  The child gave a single wail, and she put her smallest finger in his mouth to suck upon. His one wail seemed to stay a while, in the air.

  What, I asked, of the oath?

  He told you?

  Yes. A little. Not much, just—

  Sarah sighed, shook her head. We are waiting for news from France.

  France?

  From King James. Some of our men have gone to his court to ask that we may be released from our oath to him. Maybe she saw my frown, my tilted head. Too many oaths, is what I thought. We swore our allegiance to him, once. All the clans did.

  You must wait? You cannot swear an oath to William as well?

  Two oaths? To two enemies? Neither oath will hold true, then, and there’d be twice the danger. No…We wait to hear from France. We hope to hear soon. MacIain must pledge his allegiance by the year’s end, which is only a month—and the weather will only worsen.

  I listened to this. They felt like old words, like I knew them.

  Will he swear it? I asked.

  She rolled her eyes. With his pride? His fire? It will be hard doing—and he won’t make any pledge to a Campbell as long as he lives. But I think he will pledge it.

  I said good.

  Good? You wish him to?

  I nodded. I thought, I do.

  The child hiccoughed, and then gave a second wail. She shushed him. She put her nose against his nose and breathed upon him, spoke Gaelic words.

  We kissed our goodbyes, and I watched her walk away from me thinking, make the oath, now. I don’t know why, but I felt it very keenly.

  And then I was ill, that winter. I took on a fever, which I’d never done. I had swum in the loch, very bare, and brushed past ice as I did so—but hadn’t I done this before? And been well? In the evening, my hands shook as I lifted my pot from the fire. I grew hot, and pale, but when I stepped out into the frosty night I shivered—my teeth knocking against themselves, and my skin like a plucked hen’s, and I thought what is this? For I’d never shivered in all my days. I was winter-born. A hardy thing.

  I lay in my hut, breathed in the peat.

  In my dreams I said oath! Oath!

  And I knew that a little mallow would help, or some chervil pressed onto my throat, which was sore—but I was shaking, and tired. I rubbed my eyes at the herbs. I curled onto my side, with my knees to my chest, and I dreamt of Gormshuil’s weathered face, her pink gums, her voice saying now, then…And I smelt a green smell—herbs, and rot—and I longed for my stag, and my big-bottomed mare, and there were Mossmen twirling on their ropes which made me put my mouth to my knees, and I cried. I dreamed. I fevered.

  It passed, in time. And I woke to find her rotting smell in my hut, and all my henbane gone. Every last leaf of it. Thief—to have stepped over me, as I’d slept, and taken it.

  For a long while, I was weak. For a long time, too, I was fretful—the fever’s shadow on me, or the lack of hot food. I could not walk as far, or as fast. My head, too, spun on the braes so that I stumbled, and grasped onto rocks and old heather which shook off their snow, and I sent a white bird flying up saying oath! Oath! Oath! It called this out. I heard it—was sure. And when I cracked the ice on a pool with my hand, I thought it said oath, also.

  Down in the glen, I saw Iain.

  I knocked against the rocks as I went down to him. He heard this, and stopped. His horse snorted at me, and Iain stared down at me with his fox-bright hair, his moth-white skin. Corrag?

  I have not been well. But I’m better.

  You are?

  You must take the oath. Please. A bird flew up from the snow and said so. It said oath oath oath. And the crone through her pegs said Orange will not stay Orange, and this stays in my head. The ice said oath, when I broke it. Take it?

  He stepped back. You’re feverish. Rambling more than you tend to. Keep back—I’ve too much to think of and do, to get the fever from you.

  Will you make the oath?

  He said, we shall. We have heard from James, and he says we may. For our own sakes.

  I nodded. When?

  We must swear it by Hogmanay. The MacIain will ride out the day before. Now leave me—rest. Keep your sickness to yourself, woman. And he kicked the garron on.

  I backed away. I gave a quick smile, turned, and felt like the witch they had always thought me to be—dirty, half-mad—and I scolded myself as I ran through the dark, catching my skirt on thorns and bare branches. What a fool. Sassenach…Rambling…

  But by morning, my fever was done with. I woke, cool-skinned and hungry, and calm, and as I checked beneath my hens for eggs I thought it is Christmas Day.

  THE MacIain did leave, four days after it. I saw him.

  I crouched on the eastern Sister, with a thin snow coming down onto my cheeks and the backs of my hands. I clutched my cloak to me. I saw him below, in the white—his plaid, his thick white hair which was whiter, even than snow.

  He left on his horse, and three other men followed on foot.

  To the rocks and grey sky, I said hurry him there. Lessen the snow to let him pass.

  Thinking all was better now, I made my way down, told my heart to hush itself—for I was tired of it talking, tired of its ache. I lay on my front, on my deerskin rug.

  More snow came down, in the night.

  Well. The MacDonalds of Glencoe saw the old year die away in snow, with a half-moon showing through the clouds. They drank, and kissed each other. In Carnoch, Inverrigan, Achnacon and Achtriochtan they slept by their husbands and wives with their children also dreaming, and thought they were safe. That their chief had written his spidery name on paper, and all would be well. 1692 is a famed year for us, now. For the Highlands. For all who whisper Jacobite.

  Me? Corrag?

  The English one? The witch? The black-haired faery? The Spey-wife? The herb girl who lived in Coire Gabhail?

  On New Year’s Eve, I was on a rock, not far from my hut. At midnight, I was with the stag. I had hoped for him, and he had come. It calmed me, to see him. Like he was waiting for the oath to be sworn, he came back down, and eyed me. I smiled and thought friend.

  And maybe his heart was tired, too. Maybe he was cold, or done with being wild—for how many wild things can be wild, all the time? I held my last apple out. I held it, said come to him. And as the old year died, and a new one came in, he came closer to me than he ever had before. The snow shone. It crunched beneath his hooves. I held my breath, but his breath steamed, and he stretched out his neck very slowly. When it was stretched, he pushed his antlers back. It meant his mouth was near me, and like two hands grasping, his nostrils smelt the fruit. I saw his phlegm, and wetness. His body leant a little more. He smelt, and smelt, and I saw his mouth begin to move.

  There was a moment. We both knew it, and saw it—this one, small moment where he had all his trust in me. He was, briefly, tame. Briefly, he was mine—for as he opened his warm mouth and leant in, and steamed, there was no strength in him. He could not have run. He was bare, tired, and he longed for the apple which I’d saved for him, all this while.

  I felt the sudden weight of his teeth upon its skin. There was a crush as he bit it. It broke in half, and he
stumbled, took his half away. In that stumble, in how he dropped away, he was wild again, and he clattered on the rocks, up onto the slopes of Beinn Fhada with his heart saying run! Run! I held the other half. I had his dampness on it, and I looked at the apple with its small brown pips. I ate that half. For I was hungry, too. It was winter, and the apple would not keep.

  He clattered away. He was fire-hearted again.

  I saw his outline on the tops, and thought it was fine Hogmanay. Me and a deer. Stars. Deep snow. All this love, and beauty in the world.

  1692. It will be marked down, for always.

  I think I knew it would be.

  You know what happened, I think. You know.

  The chief of the MacDonalds of Glencoe was six days late. Six.

  He rode to the wrong place. Colonel Hill at Inverlochy said but I cannot help you! The parchment is south of here. You lost sheep…You poor man. Or so I imagine, when I imagine it.

  MacIain did sign the oath, in the end. Here, in Inverary to a man called Ardkinglas. But yes, he was six days late.

  He returned with reddened cheeks and good news. He called me to tend to his chilblains, and as I crouched at his feet with dock, and warm cloth, he said I was late, yes, but I signed it! It was made, so bring me a whisky, for that journey has frozen me up—and he sat by the fire, and told his tale. Of Colonel Hill. Of the ferryman at Connel who said are you the MacIain, and trembled as he rowed. Of Barcaldine Castle, in the dark.

  It was ripe with trouble, that journey. There are scoundrels out there. Is there meat, woman? But—he sipped his whisky, sighed—I made the oath. I was there. Tis done now—and we are safe from the King’s wrath…

  WHAT is six days? It is so little.

  Never mind that he had written his name—for can’t a name be scored out? Six days made it nothing. Six days meant that all who hated the name Glencoe could look up from their bureaus, smile at the news. Late? By six days? Then they must be punished…