A MASS FOR THE DEAD

by Susan McDuffie

“And so, Muirteach, what can I be helping you with, then?” she asked. “You are not usually a one for the ale, and I see you have a full mazer of wine, so that cannot be why you are seeking me out here.”

  “I was hearing that you were thinking Sheena had a lover. I was wondering who you were thinking it might have been.”

  An unpleasant glint appeared in the woman’s green eyes. “Och, Muirteach, I am not knowing, not for sure. People were saying that perhaps it was Tormod, from Kilchattan, the same one that was injured. They were saying that your father told Calum to cheat on the scaffolding, to save time, and that Calum did so for blood’s sake, seeing as the Prior was family, and that Tormod fell, and that Sheena herself was killing your father out of revenge for it.

  “Well, so that is what they are saying,” I said. “And who would be saying all of this? What reason do they have to say it?”

  “Well, one of the women from near the chapel down in the glen was saying she had heard from her man, who also is over on Oronsay, working on the new construction, that he had seen Tormod walking towards, Sheena’s often enough before he took his fall.”

  That accorded with what Alasdair Beag had told me, but I did not mention this to Donald’s wife.

  “There are others that live in that same area.”

  Donald’s wife shook her head emphatically. “None so many, Muirteach. And why should he be walking in that direction at all?”

  “Perhaps he was just wanting to stretch his legs, after a day at work,” I suggested. “Or maybe he liked to fish, and took himself over to the water there.”

  “Fish for something else, more like,” returned Donald’s wife.

  “How could Tormod be killing her, what with his injuries from the fall and all that?”

  “I have heard he is doing much better. And perhaps he was not as injured as he let people think. That mother of his, she worships him, for all that she barely lets him wipe his own bum. She would do or say whatever he told her to.”

  “Still, it seems little enough to be concocting such a theory.”

  “Well, then, Muirteach,” she returned, “Are you knowing who did kill her? And who killed the Prior? I am done here,” she said, putting the cover back on the barrels of ale. “Will you come in and have another mazer? I see you have drained this one dry.”

  “I will think on what you are saying,” I told her finally. “As for the mazer, I will not take it now, as there is someone else I must be speaking with today. But I will be seeing you soon enough, and I will drink it then.”

  “Aye, Muirteach,” she said, “you are not a stranger here. We will be seeing you, I am sure of that.”

  I left gladly. There was something about that woman that I misliked. Perhaps it was the glint in her eyes when she spoke of poor Sheena, as though she could not wait to find fault with the woman, for all that she had never harmed Donald’s wife.

  Sheena had had few friends among the women here I was learning; she had lived as an outcast out there near Beinn Eibhne. And she had been an imposing woman for all that, caring little what people in the village said of her, and attractive enough to create jealousy among other women. I saw again Sheena’s body in my mind’s eye, lying there in Dun Cholla. She had not deserved the death she had received, nor had my father, whatever he had done.

  So perhaps Sheena’s lover had killed my father, and then killed her, once he had found out she was pregnant. Or because she had seen him kill the Prior. But the question still remained, who was Sheena’s lover? Was it Tormod, as Donald’s wife suggested? My father was not one to suffer rivals, in any arena.

  * * * * *

  I resolved to speak again with Tormod. Perhaps he would let slip something. I went without Seamus this time, as he was once more cutting the peat and I did not wish to wait. I borrowed a pony from my uncle and rode the distance to Kilchattan more quickly, arriving at Tormod’s in the early afternoon. He looked much improved, sitting out in the front of his mother’s cottage.

  “Tormod,” I said, “how are you faring?”

  The man still showed a sour expression on his face, but whether it was from pain or from dislike of me I could not be telling. “Well enough, Muirteach,” he answered. “And what is it that is bringing you to Kilchattan today?”

  “My neighbor Aorig was wanting me to check on you and see how you were getting along,” I lied. “And it being such a fine day and all, I thought to escape the peats. I left Seamus to work them.”

  I thought I saw a flicker of a smile cross his face.

  “I was also bringing some uisgebeatha. Are you wanting some?”

  This time there was no mistaking the smile. I dismounted and secured the pony, a fine gray one of my uncle’s, sat down next to Tormod, and opened my flask.

  “My mother is away with the sheep,” said Tormod, “So she will not be back until the evening.”

  “A fine thing indeed that is,” I replied. “But how is it you are getting along, with that sore hand of yours?”

  “Och, it is not so bad the now. But I still cannot grasp the hammer. I must bide here, but my mother is seeing to me.”

  A black-haired young woman with a pocked face came walking back from the bay to her cottage across the path, and glared at us, sitting there taking our ease in the bright afternoon, before she spread some washing out to dry on some nearby gorse bushes.

  “Do not be minding Giorsal,” muttered Tormod. “She has a look on her that would sour milk. I am thinking she does not like to see me drinking so early in the day.”

  “And what is it to her?” I asked.

  “She is wanting to wed me.” Tormod took another swig from the flask. “But I am not of a mind to be marrying her, not with that look that she has.”

  I muttered something sympathetic, inwardly rejoicing that the conversation had taken such a turn so early. “And is there anyone you would be wanting to wed?” I asked. “Or have you stayed clear of such traps?”

  “I am not wanting to wed. A wife and bairns, squalling all the day—and with my hand as it is, how could I be thinking of it at all?”

  “What was the Beaton saying of it all?”

  “He is thinking it will heal. He says I must be patient.” Tormod spat on the ground then took another swallow of uisgebeatha. “But I am thinking it will never be like it was, and that Calum Glas will be paying for what he has done to me.”

  Tormod’s lip curled upwards in an unpleasant smile, which made me glad I was not Calum.

  Giorsal, who had been lingering in front of her cottage, finally went inside. A few minutes later, however, she emerged with her spindle and sat down on a stool outside.

  “Let us be going around to the back,” I suggested. “Surely there is a place we can drink without her watching us like the hawk.”

  Tormod agreed that that would be the thing. He rose easily enough and led us behind his mother’s cottage to a large stone that overlooked the small bay. “Aye, this is better,” he said, as he eased himself down on the seat.

  “You are walking more easily now,” I observed. Tormod nodded. “So you were hearing about the woman Sheena,” I continued, passing the flask back to Tormod.

  “Aye,” he replied. “They were saying, Muirteach, that you were finding the body.”

  “That I was,” I replied. “It was inside Dun Cholla, that I found her. She is leaving three bairns, Tormod. They are staying with Aorig the now. And were you knowing, the women who laid her out were saying she was pregnant again.”

  “No,” Tormod replied. “I was not knowing that. I did not know the woman, myself.”

  “She was a fine woman to look at, with that height, and that red hair she had.”

  “Och, she was a bitch, I am thinking. The Prior’s whore, she was.”

  “But perhaps pleasant to bed, for all that. She had a lusty look to her. Did she take other lovers, are you knowing?”

  Tormod took another drink but said nothing.

  “Some of the women were saying they used to see you walki
ng towards Beinn Eibhne. They were thinking you were Sheena’s lover.”

  Tormod laughed. “There is some good fishing over on that side of the island. That is why I walked there. And it was not so far from the Mason’s village on Oronsay, and not that hard to cross the Strand in that small coracle that they keep there. I could get away from the noise and the dust.”

  “But were you ever seeing Sheena, when you went there to fish?”

  “Yes, I was seeing her. A strange one she was, and no mistake. She was often out on the heath, wandering. I am not knowing what she was doing with her bairns.”

  “So she would go alone? You never saw others with her?”

  “No.” The drink had affected Tormod now, as it had myself, although I had tried not to drink overmuch. He now leaned towards me.

  “Were you knowing Muirteach, I was not telling you the truth, not entirely.”

  “Oh?”

  “I was walking to fish one day, and she was there on the beach. She had been gathering shellfish, I am thinking, but she had taken off her shift and was in the water, for it was a hot day. She thought no one could see her. She was a fine woman, with the large hips on her.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I hid behind the rocks, and I watched for awhile. She came out, and spread out her mantle on the sand, and then laid herself down upon it to dry in the sun. Her hair was shining like a river of bronze in the light. Like a selkie, she looked, there, the fine hips of her and her white breasts spread out sunning in the warmth of the day. The nipples of them, so pink and round they were, I yearned to suckle on them like a child.”

  I said nothing, repelled, yet excited despite myself, at his speech.

  “Och, it is a fine woman she was, Muirteach,” Tormod said. The drink was in him and he was not watching his tongue. I listened, like a rabbit entranced by an adder, while he continued.

  “The thighs of her, and where they came together, the fine garden that was there. A feast for the eyes, it was, and I grew hard to see her there. After a time, she slept.”

  “And you?”

  Tormod flushed red, took another drink, and then spat on the ground. “I spilled my seed onto the black stones, watching her from behind the rock there, and then I left the place.”

  Chapter 18

  “Och it is a sad, sad thing it is, Muirteach, to think of that beauty laying dead and cold in the earth,” continued Tormod, after another swig of the whiskey.

  “Did you ever see her again, like that?” I asked. “Sure and it is no wonder you were going there to fish.”

  And it was no wonder, I thought to myself, that Eogain had shown such shame when he spoke of it as well. No doubt he had not gone down to the strand to fish but to spy on Sheena himself.

  “Aye,” Tormod replied. “She did not come every day, but she did sometimes, and I would hide and watch her. Sometimes I would come in the evenings, after the work was over.”

  “Aye, Alasdair Beag was saying he saw you walking there often. He even swears he saw you going that way the day Prior Crispinus was murdered. But I was thinking that was the day you fell from the scaffolding, and how could you be walking there that day?”

  “Och, no my arm hurt so badly that I just lay in that small house in the mason’s village the whole afternoon, for it was not until the next day that my mother brought me home. I slept all that day, I am thinking it was the medicine they were giving me, for the pain of it, that made me sleep.”

  “But you had told your brother of it, did you not?”

  Tormod nodded.

  “So I am thinking perhaps he borrowed your cloak that day and went down to the strand himself.”

  “He was back when I woke up, fixing some broth,” insisted Tormod, and that agreed with what Eogain had told me.

  Tormod’s eyes filled with tears. “How did she die, Muirteach?”

  “You are not knowing, then?”

  “I have heard dreadful things, Muirteach. I have heard they gutted her like a fish. It is a sad thing that, to think of that white belly—”

  Either Tormod was a good dissembler or else he truly was not knowing how Sheena had died. “No, Tormod, she was not cut with a knife,” I interrupted before he could go on. “She was strangled.”

  “Ah.” He sighed then, a long deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was hard, all the drink gone out of it. “Find her killer, Muirteach, find the black-hearted nathrach and I will cut his heart out with my own dirk. I will bleed him like the cattle are bled in the winter, and I will drink his blood.”

  * * * * *

  Tormod’s mother returned home shortly after that, and I soon left to ride back to Dun Evin, troubled by what I had heard. Tormod, for all his nastiness, seemed genuinely to mourn Sheena. I did not know whether of not he was speaking the truth when he said he had not lain with her, and he had said he wanted no bairns. But I did not think he had the courage in him to kill a prior, or Sheena, for all of his fine talk. I found myself satisfied, now, that it had been Eogain, not Tormod, that Alasdair Beag had seen that evening.

  Which left Gillecristus, as unlikely as that seemed. Surely Maire or Sean would have known if their mother had regular visits from someone, not the Prior. So, whether Aorig liked it or no, I had to speak with them again. Perhaps the expedition to the fort of the sìthichean would yield a chance to speak with Sean, away from Maire. Or perhaps Maire herself would speak with me, without hysterics, now that some time had passed since her poor mother’s death.

  Aorig, providentially, was away at her sister’s and had taken Maire with her when I arrived back in Scalasaig, and I found Sean out behind the byre trying to ride my dog. Somerled took it all in good humor, perhaps for the bits of old bannock which Sean was bribing him with.

  “Charge,” Sean ordered his steed, which instead wriggled around to bite at his own tail, dumping his rider to the ground in the process. The noble steed then nosed his rider, licking him in the face, while Sean struggled to sit up. I whistled, and Somerled left his tormentor and came to me, followed closely by Sean.

  “I was thinking,” I told Sean, “that tomorrow might be just the day to go to the faerie fort. Are you wanting to go?”

  Sean beamed. “But what of my sister?” he asked at length.

  “I will speak with her. Perhaps she can go along as well.”

  Sean looked less pleased at this news. “She is a girl.” He scowled. “Forts are for the men.”

  “Well, that may well be, but I am thinking that she will not be wanting you to come along unless she goes herself. And we can bring Somerled, too.”

  Sean, mollified at this, began asking me questions about the fort, who had built it, and when, all questions I did not know the answers to. And thus, when Aorig returned in the twilight, she found me with my half-brother, a map drawn in the dirt of the yard of the island, with the fort marked on it.

  “Maire,” Sean called, “He is saying he will take us to the fort tomorrow!”

  Maire looked less pleased than her brother at the news but she did not protest. Aorig looked dubious. “I am just thinking, Muirteach, that I might be coming along with you when you go, just in case.” She glanced significantly at the girl. “I am thinking it would be a good idea.”

  “Aye,” I agreed gratefully. “Perhaps we should all go.”

  And so it was that early the next morning Aorig, Maire, Seamus, Sean and myself set out for Dun Gaillain. None knew who had lived there, the fort had been there past all memory, but it was sure enough that the Norse raiders had tried to storm it, when they took the isles, but their weapons did not work there for the fort was of the faerie. I had found there, as a child, a faerie knife blade of worked flint buried in the dirt floor. It was said that no iron could be found in the fort, as it still belonged to the faerie, and that if someone unknowing brought the iron into the Dun it would be the worse for him. And so we were all careful to have no iron on us when we went to the fort that morning, although we had fresh bannocks baked by Aorig and some fr
esh cheese with us.

  It was a fine day, with the sky blue, with wisps of white clouds strewn across it like fleece from some giant spindle. The wind blew briskly, making it cooler than usual for the summer day. As it was some distance to the Dun I had borrowed two horses from my uncle, one for myself and one for Seamus, while Aorig had taken their one horse. Her husband had declared his intention to hunt all the day, but Seamus had wished to visit the fort and his father had not gainsaid him.

  I sat Sean before me on my horse and Maire, her eyes wide with it all, sat with Aorig and held the baby. Somerled loped along beside us, and we were a merry party as we rode along, like some chief with his retainers. Aorig told the children stories of the sìthichean, the one of the hunter and the fairy flax, that gave his wife an easy birth, and then she told the story of the faerie husband, who had spent just one night under the hill with a beautiful faerie queen. When he returned to the world of men, he found that seven long years had passed away. Then we sang the song of the squirrels and the three little mavises, and before we well knew it the journey had passed, along with the sun climbing higher into the sky, and we were arrived at Dun Gaillain. We tethered the horses at the bottom and climbed up to the dun.

  A fine fort it still is, sitting on the rocks overlooking the Western Sea. An oval wall encloses a large area, and in some parts one can see the outer wall still standing as well. I sat down to take my breath, and rest my leg a bit, for the muscles of the bad one were quivering with the climb. Sean flopped himself down on the grass like a young puppy while Maire sat quietly next to Aorig, and at length I told the children a story.

  “It is said the faerie stole a giant away, in the early days of the Dal Riata, when the world was still so young that the dew had not yet melted from the grass, and that this giant was kept in Fingal’s cave, over on the island of Staffa. Kept in chains he was, by faerie magic, until he roared so that the sìthichean swore they would release him after he had built them a fine fort. And this is the fort that he built for them.”

  “A fine big fort it is, too,” piped up Sean. “But what were they needing it for, if they were the faerie?”