A MASS FOR THE DEAD

by Susan McDuffie

  “Och,” I replied, thinking madly, “why they were needing it for protection from the cailleach, the old hag that comes down from the northern mountains in the winter, with the snow swirling out of her white hair.”

  “Muirteach,” said Aorig, a worried look on her brow, “you will be frightening the bairns, with your tales.”

  I ignored her and continued with my storytelling.

  “And then, after he was finished, his chains fell away, for all that the sìthichean do not always keep their promises, they were keeping this one for the size of him, and they knew they could not be holding him forever, giant that he was. And so, as his chains fell away, as he was putting the last stone into place, he dove away into the sea, and swam away, and was never seen again on the land. But the faerie cursed him as he swam away and the magic of their chains grabbed onto him again, and held him at the bottom of the sea. It is said that he lives still in the Cailleach, between Scarba and Jura, just over there,” I finished, gesturing back in the direction of Jura. “He thrashes his legs, and kicks his feet to try and free himself, and that is what makes the whirlpool.”

  Maire’s eyes were wide with the story, while Sean danced around in excitement. Even their baby brother, whom Aorig had brought along for the ride, laughed and kicked his feet at the clouds from where he lay on his blanket on the grassy hill. And after we ate our bannocks and our white cheese we entered the realm of the sìthichean.

  Inside the walls kept the sun away, and it felt cooler, as if a cloud had obscured the sun, although when I looked up it was shining bright enough. Some smaller stone walls stood in the interior, dividing the space up into some dwelling places, I imagined. I kicked at the dirt and found a small fragment of black pottery, incised with faerie markings of a diamond shape, but I put it down and crossed myself. Just then Sean came running over saying he had found an elf-bolt. He showed it to me, a small point of finely chiseled flint, before he put it away in the pouch where he kept his treasures.

  Aorig looked uncomfortable, and the baby began to fret while Maire stood over at the western wall, staring at the sea with an intensity I found somewhat unnerving. After a bit I walked over to her and stood beside her, watching the gannets swoop over the waves. One dived into the waters for a fish while we watched it.

  “And what is it you are thinking, lass?” I asked her after a time.

  She did not look at me, but kept her eyes fastened on the waves, which pounded on the rocky beach below us. “I was thinking of Mother,” she finally said.

  “Maire,” I said, “you are knowing who His Lordship is, are you not?”

  “I have never seen him, but I am knowing he is a most powerful chief. Our father was always talking to my mother about him and all. He it is who set up our father at the Priory there.”

  “You have the right of it, Maire,” I replied. “And himself it is who is wanting me to find the person that killed your mother—and your father as well. He is wanting to see that justice is done about it all.”

  “I do not care about justice. I just want Mother back again.”

  I felt the tears in my eyes while I thought what to say to her. The sea itself gave me the answer I needed.

  “Och, white love, she is waiting for you in Tir Nan Og, the land of Youth, at the end of this very western ocean it is, they say. And after you have grown, and had your own wee bairns to mother, and then grown old with the mothering of them, then finally you will go and meet her there one day, a long, long time from now that will be. But I am thinking it would be making her very sad if she was to see you there anytime soon.”

  Maire said nothing, thinking on what I had said, I guessed.

  “White love,” I continued, “I am needing your help. Is there anything you can be telling me, anyone you might think of who had reason to harm your mother?”

  Maire shook her head.

  “And who would come to your house to visit there? Angus and Alasdair, your uncles?”

  Maire nodded yes.

  “And anyone else?”

  “Just my father. But he said little to me, although he liked speaking with Sean. You came once.”

  “Aye, so I did. No one else?”

  She shook her head no, but the movement seemed to have some doubt to it.

  “Sometimes at night I would hear my mother talking and singing,” she finally admitted. “And then I would think I heard another voice, a man’s voice, answering her back, and I would hear music as well.”

  “It was not your father’s voice?” I asked.

  Maire shook her head no. “Father’s voice was not like this one. This voice was like the rippling of the burn in the hills, so sweet it was. But when I would ask her of it she always told me I had been dreaming of the sìthichean singing, or that she had been crooning a lullaby to him.”

  She nodded her pointy chin towards where her brother lay, sleeping quietly now. As if he sensed the movement in his dreams he stirred a bit and whimpered in his sleep. Aorig went to him and picked him up, then joined us by the wall.

  “It is an ungodly place, this is,” whispered Aorig to me, and I heard her say a charm under her breath. “Have you children finished exploring?” she called out in a louder voice. “For we had best be getting back home now, before the sun is going down entirely. There are still the cattle to be seen to, as you are knowing well enough Seamus.”

  Even Seamus assented and only Sean seemed reluctant to leave the place. For myself, I felt eager to leave. The murders had cast a cloud over even this place that had been my refuge as a boy.

  When we reached Scalasaig it was already late. Aorig’s husband was back from the hunt, and hungry, and her family busied themselves with the evening chores of their holding. I wandered down toward the sea, accompanied by Somerled, picked up some pebbles on the stony beach and idly cast them into the water while I tried to piece together the puzzle. The ripples from one stone spread out, until they intersected another circular pattern, all orderly, unlike my own puzzle.

  Somerled, tired after the day’s excursion, did not even chase after the stones but curled up next to the large rock where I sat and left me to my thoughts.

  It did seem certain now that the voice Maire had heard had been Sheena’s secret lover. Whoever he was, most likely he had killed my father and then slain her as well, because she had seen the first murder or perhaps because of the child she was to bear. A fine tangle of mixed motives and black-hearted deeds it was, to kill one man for jealousy of a woman and then to kill the woman as well. But human hearts were full of evil, and stranger things indeed had happened in the world.

  The late evening sun shone on the sails of a galley as it came into the small harbor from the direction of Islay. I watched, idly, as the boat grew closer and closer to the shore. The sailors jumped into the water when the boat was close in, and pulled it up onto the beach, set up the gangplank and unloaded their cargo and passengers, one of whom, I realized with glad surprise, was Mariota. It put lightness in my heart to see her, but I wondered why she was alone.

  The noise of the unloading woke Somerled, and he barked excitedly at the sailors. Mariota turned her head at the noise, smiled when she saw me, and quickly walked over the rocky shore towards me.

  “Och, Muirteach, and how were you knowing I was coming?”

  “I was not knowing,” I protested, “I was just sitting here watching the bay when all of a sudden here is this galley from Islay with you yourself on it.”

  “Well, whyever it is that you are here I am glad of it,” she said, and at the words my heart gave a little jump, like the deer the moment it jumps over the rocks before it bounds away.

  “What was your father saying, about you coming alone?” I asked.

  “He was not knowing. He was away at Finlaggan and I came on.” She laughed, and the sound of it felt sweet to my ears, as sweet as the golden honey of the bees of Saint Brigit.

  “But should you not have a woman with you, for the sake of your reputation?”

  “Mui
rteach, I could not be waiting for him to come with me, and there was no one at Balinaby to accompany me, so I came alone. My father will understand, when I explain. And I myself will guard my reputation, I’m thinking.” The laugh went out of her face and she drew closer, speaking in a low tone of voice, “I have found the pin—”

  “On Islay?” Several of the sailors turned to look oddly at me. I had spoken more loudly than I knew.

  “Be quiet, Muirteach, and I will be telling you. Are you wanting all these men to hear of it? Let us leave this beach, and go someplace where no one is about and I will tell you.”

  So Somerled and I waited while she fetched her bundle from the ship, and then we set off walking, in the general direction of the village. But we turned and walked up by the cairn and the small stone circle, past the town, myself fighting my impatience with every step that we took.

  Finally she stopped and turned, and drew something from her pouch.

  “Look Muirteach. Is this not it?”

  I looked and indeed it was Sheena’s pin. There was no mistaking the engraving around the outer circle, the design of strange birds interspersed with circles of knotwork on it, or the smoky cairngorm on it, catching the dying light of the day in its smoldering depths. And the blood, stained and dried in the silver carvings.

  “Where did you find it?” I asked.

  “On Alsoon’s corpse. She opened her own wrists with it.”

  Chapter 19

  “But where was she getting it? And why did she kill herself?”

  “It is a awful thing, Muirteach, and a tragic one. But as for where she got it, I am thinking her son came and left it with her.”

  Some of the tangled threads of a sudden formed an interlacing pattern in my mind, clear and orderly at last. The harp pin little Sean had saved so carefully. The other voice Maire had heard, sweet like the singing of the sìthichean.

  “The bard. He must be Alsoon’s son. And Sheena’s lover. He killed Sheena, and took her pin.”

  “Yes.”

  “But Mariota—he could not have killed my father.”

  Mariota looked puzzled. “Why not?”

  “Are you not remembering the day you and your father came to Colonsay with me, the day after himself had told me to solve the murder. The bard rode with us in the boat to Colonsay. So he must have been on Islay when my father was murdered, as well. He would not have had the time to return to Finlaggan so quickly, I am thinking.”

  “Perhaps not. Although with a boat of his own, he could have returned to Islay before you arrived. You did not leave for Islay until late that morning, that day after your father was killed.”

  “But why?”

  “Jealousy perhaps? Over Sheena?”

  “Then why kill her?” That part of it still made no sense to me.

  “Perhaps Sheena was not so happy with what he had done. She did grieve for your father, Muirteach. Mayhap Sheena threatened to betray the bard, and then he killed her to protect himself.”

  “But then why did Alsoon kill herself?” My blood ran cold in my own veins at the thought of what the crazed old woman had done.

  “That I am not knowing,” said Mariota. “She was not right in her head. She claimed to hear voices, and often said she heard her husband coming for her. Perhaps she went to join him.”

  “What of her son?”

  “I am not knowing when he was there, or when he left her, or why she would do such a thing, such a sad sin as it is. But she did kill herself. It was clear to see from the way the cuts were placed and how the blood ran.

  “All I am knowing for sure is that one of the neighbors went by her house, to complain that her cow had gotten into his corn, and found her there, inside. So when I was summoned to look to the body, I recognized the pin. She held it in her own hands, stiff as they were.”

  “When did all this happen?”

  “Her body was found the day before yesterday. The burial was yesterday and it was not until today that I was able to find a ship coming from the Rhinns to Colonsay. I did not want to send word, but wanted to tell you of it myself. And so here I am.”

  “Where is her son the now?”

  “I am not knowing. None of us knew that he ever came to see his mother at all; we had not seen him for some years. Her cottage is isolated, and you can beach a boat on that wee beach there and make your way to Alsoon’s house with no one being the wiser. Sometimes she would talk about her son, but none of the villagers thought she was speaking the truth. It had been so long since any there had seen him.”

  “And where has he gone?”

  “We are not knowing that either. He is not at Finlaggan, and I am not thinking he is on Islay at all.”

  “When he left Colonsay he was speaking of going towards Mull.”

  “Well,” said Mariota, all efficiency, “it should not be too difficult to find out if he took passage on a boat from here to Mull, or if he went to Islay first.”

  Mariota paused. “We are knowing he must have killed Sheena, to have brought the pin to his mother. We must find the harper, Muirteach. The two deaths are related, Alsoon’s and Sheena’s.”

  “Fine I am knowing that,” I returned sourly. “Where are you suggesting that we be looking first?”

  “Robbie is searching for him on Islay, with some of the other men. They had found nothing when I left. I am thinking perhaps he would go on to Mull. He was speaking of the MacLean of Duart, was he not? The one that married His Lordship’s daughter?”

  “Aye.”

  “Well then,” Mariota returned, “we must get a galley. You can be seeing to that Muirteach, while I check on those poor bairns of Sheena’s staying with Aorig. I am thinking we had best leave as early tomorrow as the sun is up.”

  “Aye,” I said again, resigned, for there was no reasoning with her. In fact, I grudgingly admitted to myself that she was probably right. And so, while Mariota walked briskly to Aorig’s I trudged up Dun Evin in the twilight to see Gillespic about the galley and the crew.

  * * * * *

  We set sail early the next morning, on my uncle’s smaller, six-oared bìrlinn, with some of the Colonsay men for crew and a fine wind to speed us to Mull. It was not long, a few hours only, before we saw the tower house MacLean of Duart had built atop the ancient foundations to house his fine bride, the daughter of His Lordship.

  There was a fine story that went with that, for Lachlan MacLean had kidnapped His Lordship himself and held him there until the man agreed to marry his daughter to the MacLean, only about six years past, it had been. A fine love match it was, and for all that himself had been wanting his daughter Mary married elsewhere, the two lovers had their way in the end, and were getting dispensation from the Holy Father himself in Rome to allow their wedding.

  I thought to tell Mariota of the story, for most women love a fine romantic tale like that, but then I decided against it. Surely she knew of the tale, for all the isles had heard the story when it had happened six years earlier. And, at any rate, was not she herself promised to some MacNeill? Let him tell her romantic tales, like some French troubadour of foreign courts.

  Duart Castle stands at the end of the Black Point, on a high crag at the end of a peninsula that oversees the Sound of Mull, where it meets the Firth of Lorne, Loch Linnhe, and even Loch Etive. A fine strategic site it is, indeed, and a beacon lit there can be seen miles away, even at Dunollie Castle near Oban on the mainland.

  So I am thinking it was no wonder that His Lordship had assented, finally, to the marriage, in order to keep the MacLeans on the good side of him. And the whole affair had had the advantage of killing off the Chief of the MacKinnons, so that the MacLeans now held almost the whole of Mull, as himself was giving those lands to his daughter for her dowry.

  Well, whatever the outcome of that match had been, we had other business here the now. We drew closer to the rocky beach and disembarked at the stone jetty, explaining to the sentries posted there our business. There were other boats moored there, a small one that
I thought I had seen before, and the MacLean’s own galleys. Then we climbed the rocky path leading to the entrance of the keep. I showed my letter to the sentries, who were suitably unimpressed as they could not read it, but they let us enter once they knew we were from His Lordship.

  The great hall of the keep had high timbered ceilings, brightly painted, and a large fire burned on the hearth. It took some time for my eyes to adjust to the smoky darkness inside. There were some fine tapestries on the walls, and obviously Lachlan Lubanach MacLean had spared no expense in fitting out this hall for his wife. I saw a woman, speaking with some other women by the looms set up in front of the narrow slit windows, and from the fine bearing she had, and the great pin she was wearing, I took her to be the wife of the MacLean.

  Mary MacDonald MacLean was a tall woman, with large dark eyes set in a thin face. She had the look of her father in her, but somewhat of her mother as well, I guessed, that Amie MacRuairi whom His Lordship had set aside when he married the daughter of the King. I could not see her hair for the white kerch she wore, but her eyebrows were dark. She walked forward briskly to greet us.

  “Mariota! Is it indeed you!”

  The two women embraced like sisters and I was left wondering. But I should have known the two would have known each other, both being from Islay, for all that Mary was some years older than Mariota.

  “Welcome,” she said after we had introduced ourselves, “And what is bringing you to Mull today?”

  “We are needing to speak with your husband. It is a matter of some urgency,” I replied.

  She raised those fine eyebrows of hers a bit, but asked no questions, although she must have wondered what her childhood friend was doing here in the company of these Colonsay men. She merely told us that her husband was off with some of his men seeing a galley he was having built over at the town nearby, and would be back soon. Then she brought us some claret, and food while we men settled ourselves down to wait for him to return.

  Mariota spoke with her longer, and the two were soon in deep conversation about people and places I knew little of, and cared less for, if the truth was known of it. Mary returned to her weaving, and Mariota helped her while she worked by winding some yarn onto the shuttles for our hostess. I leaned my back against the stone wall, and dozed off.