Scotch Rising

by S. J. Garland

  “You know where they might be hiding?” I used long strides to catch up to the other man and we stepped back onto the road again.

  Logan turned towards Deoch and walked briskly forward. “I hae a guid idea, there is an auld hermit’s cave. A couple of miles through the bush and fens tae the north of the castle, it is hidden on one side by a waterfall and the other is protected by a steep, narrow road. If we surround it, the villains will not be able to escape. With the two of us.” Logan paused to scrutinise my face. “And yer obvious skill in fighting, we should be able tae take them both easily.”

  The other man halted in the road between the dark Deoch buildings, forcing me to stop abruptly. He turned to face me. “We are going intae the fens, tae face two of the most stubborn men in Markinch. The McGreevy’s are cattle thieves, their list of supposed crimes even longer. I suggest ye go back tae the cottage and arm yerself to the teeth. I heard the tomahawks ye carry are mighty ferocious. Perhaps the look of them will hae them surrendering.” Logan smiled for the first time in my presence, the same grin as Kieran’s when he was up to no good. “Meet me back here in nae less than an hour. We go straightaway, someone wanted ye dead tonight. We can nae risk they will move the still.”

  Nodding, I felt loath to take orders from a man with dubious loyalties, working as a spy for my own government. Under the supervision of Colonel Manners, I did not have many options. Logan presented a straightforward plan and we would follow it through. I started to jog back down the road. I heard doors closing in the distance. I passed a couple of early morning revellers on their way home from the evening’s entertainments. Oblivious of the danger an unknown marksman might pose.

  In my haste, I banged the gate off the fence, the noise following me as I wrenched open the door to the cottage. I picked up the oil lamp I had left burning for my return on the front table and quickly walked into the cottage. I took the first step and halted at a noise from the back of the house. I changed direction and went through the door leading to the dining room and set the lamp on the table. I might need both of my hands if an intruder waited beyond. For the second time, I reached down and pulled the knife from its holder at my ankle. Took a breath and lunged through the door into the kitchen.

  A quick scan revealed everything remained in order, except the back door lay open. The wind banging it into the frame must have been the noise I heard. I looked out into the darkened garden, the intruder well away. Escaping into the night. Turning on my heel. I went straight into the drawing room and lifted the light above my head. Papers lay scattered over the floor and chairs. The drawers to the desk lay fallen at awkward angles. Someone thoroughly searched all the room’s secrets.

  A sudden thought made me set the lamp down on the cluttered table between the sofa and my favourite chair. The table where I last set Mr Turner’s diary lay empty. In my haste I even looked under the chair.

  The diary was missing. I leaned down and picked up the pages of the cipher spread over the floor, whoever took it either already knew how to decode the book or did not care. I raised my eyes unseeing to the knot in the hangman’s rope above my head. Only three people I could be sure of knew of the diary’s existence. Freya, Phil and now Beathan, yet the possibility any of them would turn the place over to find it, remained slim. All three knew my habits well by now. They would only have to check the places where they often found me at work to find the book. Someone else must have come through, someone who might have heard of the existence of the diary by chance.

  For some reason my thoughts went back to Logan. He had been unusually quick to come upon the shooting site tonight. True he could not have fired the weapon, yet this this did not mean he could not have an accomplice, or two fugitive accomplices. Feeling duped I turned and ran up the steps two by two. In short order, I raided my trunk and changed my evening clothes for my more suitable tracking gear. Freya still believed the deerskin stank. Yet she had cleaned and sewed the bullet hole well enough.

  After pulling on my boots. I ran out the front door. Armed with my two tomahawks, the flintlocks my father gave me and my hunting knife strapped to my leg. I carried a stack of paper cartridges in a leather sack strapped around my back. This time I was prepared. I would be armed and ready to do my duty to the Crown as well as protect Markinch from trouble.

  The road remained empty, most of the revellers having reached their intended destination for the morning of New Year’s Day. I reached the buildings of Deoch and found them standing cold, grey and, for once in the early morning frost, eerily silent. Glancing at my pocket watch, Logan still had five minutes to join me. Whether he would or not, remained pure speculation, even though he had revealed his involvement with Colonel Manners and justified his reasons, I still did not trust him, especially with his political leanings.

  I walked in a circle, and stamped my feet while I waited to keep warm. Always trying to stay in the shadows, the marksman might be around, hoping for a second chance. Logan could have betrayed my position to the enemy. The hour ticked over and I waited another ten minutes, the only sounds remained the settling of the buildings, creaking in the snow and ice. After another five minutes my impatience won out and I stalked back down the road and found the small lane leading to Tavish and Logan’s cottages.

  An inspection of the imprints in the frost made it easy to spot Tavish’s drunken swagger. One leg appeared not capable of keeping up with the other. The old man had shuffled home as best he could. On top of these prints, lay ones at least a couple sizes smaller from worn boots. I would not have to guess and say they belonged to Kieran, which meant it unlikely Logan came this way when he went home.

  Anger and frustration propelled me forward. I felt the fool, Logan surely double crossed me, even though at the time I thought his words true, he obviously retained a talent for a lying, a talent I would not be duped by again. I banged on the door for a full three minutes before a bleary-eyed Kieran unlocked the portal and opened it. His eyes still held sleep and he wore a long nightshirt, dirty at the hem.

  “Where is your father, boy? Has he come in from the festivities?” I infused my words with authority in the same manner I did when instructing my soldiers in important operations. It affected Kieran in the same manner, and he promptly stood straighter and stepped back to let me into the small cottage.

  The room remained dark, and I took a candle from the mantelpiece and used my pocket flint to bring it to life. It sputtered a few times before growing stronger and revealing the remnants of a once great family. Not sure what I expected when I entered Logan’s home. I never would have imagined this, all of his family’s heirlooms and treasures. Jumbled together, one on top of another, stored until one day when they might return to their proper place in the castle. The Markinch coat of arms hung on the wall opposite the fire. I walked over to inspect it further. The design simple, a depiction of the church where Father Tadhg held his services, no arms or plumes distracted from the central image.

  Kieran found me frowning over the material. “Faither never returned home this evening, bed’s untouched, dinnae know where he might be.” The boy’s brow furrowed in thought and he took in my costume. “Sometimes he stays late at his office.”

  I could tell by the growing light in the boy’s eye he was gathering up numerous questions to ask over my appearance and I wanted to answer them. Now, however, was not the time. “Where is his office located?”

  “In the building with the mash tuns. I can take ye down there if ye wait a minute.” Kieran turned to head back into the room he came from.

  With a marksman on the loose who nearly took my own life. I would not put the boy in danger too. “Kieran, it is nothing serious. I will find the office myself. Go back to bed and I will see you soon.” As an afterthought, I added. “Happy New Year, boy.”

  Logan did not return home to fetch his supplies after we parted. I cursed myself and him for believing his story. I walked back up the darkened road and found the mash tun barn. The main doors remained chained shut and
I walked around looking for an entrance, anything, an open window or a loose board. A door near the rear stood open. No need to break into the premises, someone, Logan probably had gone through earlier in the evening. I was surprised he would not have closed and locked up the barn before leaving. I did not believe any of the villagers might cause trouble. The McGreevys still wandered the fens and his obvious lack of worry over their presence only fuelled my own speculations over his loyalty.

  I looked over the room quickly before stepping through the door. No obvious signs of knaves hiding in the dark. I remained alert. Straining for any noise indicating danger. I would be ready this time. Light shone through the row of windows near the top of the wall where it met the ceiling. The moon’s light waned as dawn approached. I hardly felt tired even though I had remained awake for an entire day and night. I spied an open door at the far side of the barn. Near to where the large doors might be open on workdays. I cautiously walked over, using the large, silent mash tuns as cover for my progress.

  An assailant did not need to look far for a weapon. Anyone could transform one of the tools into a killing device. I could not tell if any might be missing, I looked around cautiously before pushing open the door to a small room with my moccasin-clad foot. Darkness greeted me, this room did not have high windows to let in the light, I could not even make out any shapes. Turning back towards the mash tuns, I spied an oil lamp on one of the work desks. I quickly went to fetch it. For the second time in the evening, I pulled my flint from an inner pocket and lit the wick. It flashed and created more shadows over the room. I closed my eyes and opened them again to adjust to the new brightness.

  No attackers yet and I had given them a large signal of my presence. I still used caution as I went back to the office door. Too many times I had taken my safety for granted or the word of someone up here in the Highlands. I needed to trust in lessons Hania taught me. I thrust the light into the office and found a desk covered in scattered papers. Glass lay broken over the floor and a chair fallen over. My eyes could not, did not want to register as I looked up. Logan hung by his neck, face horribly purple, eyes protruding.

  I turned away from the scene gagging and coughing. As an army man, I had seen worse corpses. The sudden impact of Logan’s distorted face provoked such a weak response. I could not be getting soft. After collecting my nerve, I forced myself to raise the light again. To inspect the man’s corpse, his broken nose bruised in the light. I looked at his hands, scraped and red.

  His bloodied hands made me frown. He did not land a single blow on my person. He must have been fighting with someone else. I studied the knot in the rope. I recognised it as the one in my own drawing room. It could not be a coincidence, a man from the south of England with little or no experience in survival. Let alone tying ropes would not have the skill to make the same knot as one born to a workman’s life, who probably worked with rope often. The striking similarity between the two gave me enough evidence to shoulder the belief that perhaps one man consigned both these men to death. The possibility Mr Turner’s death may not have been a suicide as everyone believed, hung suspended just as Logan’s corpse now slowly revolved in the night air, filling the space between hypothesis and reason.

  Chapter 15

  A guttural cry erupted from behind me and Kieran bowled through the door temporarily knocking me off-balance and upsetting the oil lamp. The boy stared up at his father and screamed again. The shadows moved crazily around the room.

  Setting the lamp down on a shelf near the door. I grabbed Kieran’s shoulders and forced him to turn and face me. His mouth still open, though no sound emerged. Eyes staring he looked as though he could see something I could not. I shook his shoulders, not knowing what to do. “Kieran, boy, look at me.”

  I dragged him from the room, his feet moving sluggishly and automatically. As a soldier, I had dealt with men who went into shock after their first battle. Some even went into a dumb state after years of military action. The mind was a complicated engine. I forcefully shook Kieran’s shoulders once again and he blinked. He did not focus on my face. Instead he let out a high-pitched keening noise. The unearthly sound tracked its way down my back and I shivered in response. Wrapping my arms around him. I tried to press the shock from his small body, to take it into myself. Watching his pain for his father’s death, made me relive the terrible morning I found Onatah dead. Our child gone with her, his grief made tears streak down my face.

  With a force I did not think he could possess. Kieran pushed away from me and tried to run back into the office. I grabbed the back of his coat with one hand, abruptly halting his progress. “Kieran, do not go back in there. It’s not something you should see.”

  “My faither, we could save him. We only need tae get him down from the rope.” Kieran’s pleading eyes turned to me. “Ye can help. I saw it once with a coney, I thought it dead with a broken neck in one of my snares, but when I released the wee thing. It came back tae life fur a moment.”

  The boy eagerly pulled against my hold and I gripped tighter. “Kieran, it does not work the way you believe. What you saw was some sort of muscle spasm. The rabbit did not come back to life, and neither will your father. I’m sorry, lad.”

  Kieran began to fight harder and it became tougher to hang onto his wiry body. “Yer lying, a filthy lying Englishman. Ye dinnae want tae help him cause he’s a Scot. Ye hate us, please only get him down.”

  Logan’s body would by cut down in time. I would have to get help from somewhere and the lad did not need to witness it. I looked up at the windows, weak light indicated dawn fast approached. Unceremoniously picking Kieran up. I walked past the mash tuns and out of the door.

  The morning felt different, not only because the rays of the first dawn of the New Year brushed across the barren hills, but also because something fundamental had changed overnight in Markinch. His father’s death would change Kieran's life forever. Whether they wanted to acknowledge him or not, the Laird of Markinch was dead. Kieran’s fight did not relent as we walked into the main road. I think he screamed, hit, kicked and bit all the harder the further we walked from the office. I needed help fast and Tavish came to mind immediately. He knew the boy and he would know what to do.

  “Och, shut yer damned gobs down there! Dinnae ye know its Hogmanay morning, people are dying!” I looked up at a window in the waterwheel building. Angus leaned out of the mantel with a nasty look on his face, shaking both fists.

  I needed all the help I could get this morning. “Listen, I need some help with the boy. Are you well enough to come down?”

  Kieran quieted for a moment and I heard a loud sniff from above. “It’s the first day of the New Year, gauger, surely this means something even tae ye heathens down south? Whatever the boy has done, surely can be mended at the appropriate hour, in fact why not give the boy a clean slate, New Year and all?”

  “I am afraid the situation is much more serious than some schoolboy prank.” I did not want to upset the boy by shouting his father’s fate into the world. Instead I tried to impress the importance on Angus. “It involves the future of Deoch. The whole village will be affected.”

  The mention of Deoch gained the man’s undivided attention and he disappeared from the window. Five minutes later, he appeared at the front door wearing his tartan over his nightshirt, the effect much more modest than his usual shirt and skirt.

  “Now, what is all this serious talk?” Angus strode over and watched curiously as I kept hold of Kieran. Who tried to escape every few seconds. I did not want to speak in front of him, yet I had no choice.

  “The boy and I found Logan this morning.” I paused and Angus raised his eyebrows for me to continue. “He’s dead in his office.” Looking down at the squirming boy. “I did not want him to keep looking and I need to alert the proper people.”

  “Och, I dinnae believe it. Man’s strong as an ox, drinks like a king. Knows how tae handle himself when drunk.” Angus rubbed his whiskery chin. “Probably passed out in there, ye
probably missed the snoring. I will go in and rouse him, shall I?”

  Frustrated with the other man’s belief I could not tell if a man were dead. “I think you will have a rather hard time of it, as he went the same way as Mr Turner.” I immediately felt like a churl for letting my temper get the better of me, the other man’s eyes widening in understanding.

  In a halting voice, “If this is the case, I ought tae go up tae the castle and rouse Beathan. He will need tae inspect the body and so forth,” the old man stared down at Kieran, pity coloured his gaze. “Poor wee mite, Freya would probably be the best fur him. Take him back tae the cottage and I will make sure someone sends fur her from the castle. Might as well wake up my brither.” The word spat from his mouth.

  I watched as the other man hurried up the road, the tail of his nightshirt flapping out behind him. I sighed and turned as he disappeared over a rise. Kieran gave up the fight for now. Instead he stood motionless. At least the screaming had stopped. We trudged slowly back to the lane and down towards the two cottages, but instead of steering him towards his own place. I directed him with a hand on his shoulder towards Tavish’s. I needed someone to help me with him.

  The door opened and I stepped through, regretting my choice as I looked around the chaotic room. Tavish did not have time to tidy up after his at home the previous evening. I shouted into the stillrooms. “Tavish. You have visitors!”

  I sat the boy on a stool by the fire and used a pair of metal tongs to get the blaze going again. I added a couple more squares of peat onto the ashes and watched as they caught fire. A rustling noise from the back indicated Tavish heard my call.

  Tavish appeared in the doorway leading to the rest of the cottage, hair tangled and wearing his kilt over his nightshirt, same as his brother. If the situation were not so serious, I might have laughed at the comparison. Hand on hip, he growled. “What in the name of the devil riding on horseback is going on, Captain?” He looked down at Kieran who stared woodenly into the fire, ignoring both of us. “Listen, if he has been up tae nae good. It’s only a spot of Hogmanay fun. I am sure ye can let the lad off with a warning and let the rest of us suffer our hangovers?”