A MASS FOR THE DEAD

by Susan McDuffie

  I must have slept but a few minutes for the scene in the hall was barely changed when I felt someone tugging at the sleeve of my shift.

  “Muirteach,” whispered Mariota, “Muirteach, wake up.”

  “What is it then? Are they back yet?”

  “No Muirteach, but he is here. “

  I was suddenly wide-awake. I looked around, but Mary had left her loom. Mariota continued. “The bard. Mary was telling me of it. He came four nights ago.”

  I thought. That was not the day he had left Colonsay, claiming to be headed towards Mull.

  “Were you telling Mary it is him we are seeking?”

  Mariota shook her head. “No Muirteach. She is gone now, to see to something in the kitchens for a bit.”

  “Remember Mariota, he is not knowing we know of him. I can be fabricating some business of my uncle’s with Lachlan while we try and find out more information.”

  “But Muirteach, we have the pin. Does that not prove he murdered Sheena? Why not just take him the now?”

  “He will not run. He does not know that we have it. Let us wait awhile, and speak with the MacLean about it all, privately, like, for we may be needing some of his men.”

  Mariota acquiesced, but I could tell from the set of her mouth that she was not happy about my decision. It was just about then that the MacLean, followed by his tail of retainers, entered the hall. His wife greeted him, and then we came forward to meet him.

  Lachlan MacLean was a tall, broad shouldered man, with not a little of the Norse in his looks, from his blonde hair and beard and the angular planes of his face. A well-favored man he was, and I could see why Mary had insisted on her way when she wed him. They made a fine looking couple together, indeed, standing there together in the new hall.

  I scanned the ranks of his retainers. The MacLean’s own bard was there, easy to recognize from the small harp slung over his back, but I did not see Seòras. The gille mor, the bodyguards, looked to be a strong group of men, and I knew I would feel the better having them with us when the time came to take our man.

  I asked to speak with the MacLean in privacy, on the pretext of business from Uncle Gillespic, and when we were settled behind a carved wooden screen in a corner of the hall, I told him of our mission. He nodded.

  “Aye, the man is here. But are you sure he is a murderer?”

  “We have the proof, at least that he killed the woman.” I took the pin out of my pouch and showed it to him.

  “Where did you get it?”

  I told him the sad story. The MacLean nodded, and something glinted in his eyes.

  “It must be him. But I am not wanting to take him here in this hall, where he has played music for us and eaten my bread and drunk of my wine, for all that he may have murdered the Prior of Oronsay. We will get him outside, Muirteach, and then you shall take him, and you can cart him off to His Lordship and that will be the end of it.”

  I hoped so.

  “Where is he the now?”

  “I am not certain. The man has come here before, he is a fine harper, but he has the wanderlust in his feet, and keeps himself to himself. Seòras goes off alone in the days; he rambles in the moors and the forests. I always thought him fey, half-faerie, not one to do murder.”

  He drained his cup, and shrugged his broad shoulders. “Och well, most men will do murder. I am not knowing why I was not thinking he would do so.”

  And so we laid our plans while the summer afternoon drew to a close.

  The evening came, finally, and the feasting. The torches gave off a piney resinous scent as they flared, set in their iron holders in the stone walls, and a fine smell of food mixed with the smoke in the air. The Seneschal assigned the places, touching each seat with his white wand. There were no nobles to be placated, or argue over precedence, and all sat down agreeably to begin the feast.

  I was surprised to find myself at the head table, in fair proximity to the MacLean and his wife, and Mariota, who had been placed next to Mary. Their two heads bent close together, exchanging confidences in that manner women have.

  I scanned the assembly to find Seòras. He sat after the MacLean’s own bard and harper, at the far end of the table. He did not see me, although no doubt he would recognize me from Donald Dubh’s, or Aorig’s.

  He ate silently, not speaking much, but when the time for music came, after the MacLean’s own harper had entertained us, he played again with that great skill of his, with sounds of fierce, fleeting wildness. Such sadness I heard in it, so that my own hand shook as I drained the wine in my cup, listening.

  That night Mariota was to sleep in Lady Mary’s bower, with the Lady herself and her serving-women, while I slept in the Hall. After the feasting ended, I looked for the chance to speak with her, but did not see her when I scanned the crowd. Instead, I heard the noise of her footstep, and again smelled that elderflower scent of hers. I turned, and again I felt that funny leap in my heart at the sight of her.

  “Ah, Muirteach.”

  I told her of the plan I had made with the MacLean.

  “What if he escapes?”

  “How could he be doing that, Mariota? Does the man have a boat? I am thinking, even if he were to have one, we could catch him easily, with the galley.”

  The set of Mariota’s chin made me think she had not been convinced, but she said no more. The torchlight flickered over her features, the oval face, and the blue eyes looking darker in the dim light.

  “So we will be taking him to Islay?” she asked.

  “I am thinking so. For himself was wanting to see to the matter.”

  “But Muirteach, suppose he did not kill your father? You yourself said so, that he came with you to Colonsay from Finlaggan that day. What if he only used the same method to kill Sheena?”

  “And how was he knowing of it?” I returned. “No, Mariota, do not be worrying about it. We are sure he killed Sheena, and for that he deserves punishment. And we must question him about the other affair; he may know something of it or perhaps have done the deed himself. Leave it to the MacLean and I, and we shall have him, and the affair will be ended. Then you can go back to your MacNeill.”

  I could see her eyes widen in the torchlight.

  “You were hearing about that? From who?”

  I wished I had not mentioned it. “My cousin on Islay, it was, that told me of it.”

  “Oh,” was all Mariota said, and smiled a little smile. “People talk, but perhaps they are not knowing all of the matter.” Just then Lady Mary rose from the hall, preparing to withdraw with her women. Mariota reached out to touch my sleeve.

  I yearned to jerk away, even as I savored her sweet touch, for was she not promised to another? But I did not move, and instead stayed still while she spoke, feeling the warmth of her hand where it rested on my arm through the linen of my sleeve.

  “I must go now, Muirteach,” she said. “I shall be seeing you in the morning, and we will pray things go as you think they will.” Then she left the hall, following after Mary and the others.

  Seòras sat, with the MacLean’s own bard and harper, drinking and eating a bit now that most of the feasting had ended. I walked over and joined them there.

  “And so it is Muirteach, is it not?” Seòras said. “The scribe from Colonsay. What is bringing you to Mull?”

  “Uncle Gillespic had some business with the MacLean and he was sending me about it,” I explained. “But we have finished and I shall be leaving tomorrow.”

  “Aye. The MacLean was asking me to play for you, when you leave.”

  “It is a fine hand you have for the music. It would be a privilege indeed to have you play for us as we cast off.”

  The next morning, early, we prepared to leave. The sun’s light was barely changing the darkness to a pearly gray color as we walked down to the pebbly beach in front of the rocky mass that held Duart. The mists looked to be coming in from the mainland, and wrapped the world in shrouds, making it all look like the ghostly underworld of the old stories
of the dawn of time.

  I swallowed, and my throat caught on the swallow, with a strange dry feel to it. I had gone over the plan with the crew. For all that I had spoken so confidently to Mariota, I wondered if things would go awry, and for sure this mist would not be helping matters if they did.

  Mariota stood where the jetty touched the shore, almost hidden by the fog, speaking with Lady Mary, while the MacLean and some of his men who had come down to see us off encircled the group. Seòras, at the MacLean’s asking, played on his harp while the Colonsay men prepared the boat to depart.

  I nodded and two brawny men of the crew came to stand by him, one on each side of him, yet still he continued to play, finishing the air. As his fingers fell away from the harp, they grabbed his hands and held them behind his back, and the harp fell to the stones of the beach. I heard the sharp sound of splintering wood and saw it lying there, broken.

  “What is the meaning of this?” he asked, but I thought he knew even as he spoke.

  “Seòras,” I replied, “are you remembering the woman Sheena that was killed on Colonsay. We have found her murderer.”

  “What is that to me?”

  I drew the pin from my cloak. “Are you not knowing this brooch?” I asked, holding it up before him. A shaft of sunlight somehow found its way through the mist and glinted on the silver of it for a moment, before the clouds covered the sun again.

  I watched him go pale underneath the weathered tan of his face. “How came you by that?” he asked.

  “It was found on your own mother’s body. On Islay. For she is dead, Seòras, she killed herself. But before that deed was done, this pin belonged to Sheena. I saw her wear it, often enough. And by that I am knowing that it was you who killed her, and later gave the pin to your own dam.”

  He laughed, with that same wildness in it I had heard in his harping. “Och, so you think you have solved it all as easy as that—” he cried. “It is little enough you are knowing of it all, Muirteach.”

  His words sent a chill down the spine of me, for were they not the exact some words that Sheena had said to me, that first day, when I had gone to speak with her about my father’s death?

  And then the harper turned into a wild thing, and twisted away from the men in the mist. They tried to restrain him but could not, such was the mad strength he possessed. He fought like the shape-shifter, and got free of them, and then, to my great sorrow, he lunged forward, and there was no man there to stop him. His hand reached out, faster than an adder, and grabbed Mariota, dragging her with him, atop the rock that served as the jetty below the castle.

  I saw the flash of steel and his dagger at her throat.

  “You will not be coming any closer,” he said.

  I watched Mariota’s eyes wide above his hand that covered her mouth, and as she twisted to get free he pricked her white neck with the dagger point, and the red blood dripped down on the fairness of her skin.

  Mariota grew still, and he let go of her mouth and held her arms behind her with his other hand, still keeping the knife to her throat. She stood quiet now, and did not struggle against him.

  “You have seen that I will do what I say,” he cried, walking backwards down the jetty, all the while holding her before him like a shield “So now we will just be getting into this fine boat here, and if any of you are following us, she will die. For if I am to die as a murderer, what matters one murder more?”

  He laughed again, that same horrible laugh, and pushed Mariota into a small boat tied at the end of the rough jetty. I heard the thud of her hitting the wood of the boat and tried to run forward, but Seòras, who had jumped in after her, grabbed Mariota up and held her before him, taking the knife and touching it to her neck in a warning. Her eyes were closed, and she hung senseless in his arms.

  “No closer, Muirteach,” he said. “Or she will die.” And I knew he meant the words he spoke.

  Then he let her fall back down into the boat while he hoisted the sail of the curragh. An archer could have taken him then, but to my sorrow and despair not one among the MacLean’s men, nor mine, had their bows ready that early morning, although swords and dirks we had in plenty.

  “No, Muirteach,” cautioned the MacLean in a low voice to me, “for we shall find him. He cannot get far in that small boat, and we shall overtake him.”

  “And then he will kill Mariota,” said Lady Mary. “There is no following him, Lachlan, or her death will be on your head.”

  And so the sail was hoisted, and caught in the breeze that even then blew through the mist, and the small boat left the harbor and disappeared into the sea.

  Chapter 20

  “I know where he will take her,” I said, the knowledge of it bitter as oak gall within me, and I told the MacLean about the small boat I had seen on Nave Island. “That is where he will go to ground, I am sure of it.”

  “At least that is the place to start. And won’t you be telling her father of this, as well? His Lordship himself will no doubt send men to find them. They can scour Islay for them.”

  “If he has not taken her some other place.” My certainty of a moment before had fled, and I felt only horror, mixed with self-recrimination and shame that the matter had gone so terribly awry. For Mariota’s safety had been my trust, and I had failed her, as I had failed Sheena before, blinded as I was by my own overconfidence and faulty logic.

  “I will send a messenger to Finlaggan,” said the MacLean.

  “And we shall follow after them. With a crew of twelve perhaps we shall overtake them, if he is not recognizing our boat.”

  We went then, the MacLean and I, into the village of Craignure. No one had seen the small boat pass that way, and it appeared they had not gone to ground in Mull. The MacLean commandeered a boat from one of the merchants there, that Seòras would be less like to recognize, and said he would send word to Finlaggan with my uncle’s more recognizable galley and that crew. So later that morning I found myself again sailing for Nave Island, trying to ignore the sick dread that griped at my bowels.

  Suppose he killed Mariota? And wasn’t it I, with my foolish pride and false certainty, that had put her in danger?

  I cursed the wind for not blowing faster, and cursed my leg, and physical weakness, that had prevented me from tackling the man as he had stood there, his knife against that beautiful throat, and cursed my own lack of wisdom for putting her in danger at all, at all.

  I should have sent her packing back to Islay from Colonsay, where she would have been safe, for all that she had not wanted to return. And what would her father be saying to me about it all, how could I tell him what had happened to his beautiful and much loved daughter?

  Just north of the Garvellachs we saw a sail ahead, and proceeded cautiously, thinking it might be Seòras, but the sail proved to be just a fishing boat. We hailed them, and found that they had indeed seen the small boat earlier. But it had not gone south towards Colonsay and Islay. They had seen it turn east, between Luing and Lunga, towards Scarba and the Strait of Corryvreckan.

  “Dia,” muttered the captain of my boat, “He’d never be trying to take such a small ship through her. Not alone, with no crew.”

  “Perhaps he does not mean to,” another of the crew suggested. “He could just be heading for the mainland by going this way.”

  I did not think so, remembering the man’s fey laughter, as he held the knife to Mariota’s throat.

  “It is not a bad tide,” the captain said, thinking out loud. “Perhaps they will make it through the Cailleach.”

  The Cailleach, they call her, the old hag, the whirlpool that, it is said, killed Prince Brecan of Norway so many years ago. He dared to anchor his boat for three days and three nights in the whirlpool, and all for love it was, to win the hand of the princess of the island.

  He brought three ropes with him to anchor the boat, one of hemp, one of wool, and one of maiden’s hair. But the last rope did not hold, for one of the women was not virgin, and the brave prince drowned, his body dragged do
wn to the bottom of the sea, to be the old hag’s bridegroom.

  “On a fair day, with the wind is from the southeast, or from the north, one can make it through, with luck,” the captain was saying. “But one must know the strait. What of that man?”

  “I am thinking he is a good sailor,” I said, remembering the boat on Nave Island, the same small boat he sailed in now. Good enough to sail to Colonsay and back to Islay, without being noticed. “I am thinking he knows the waters in these parts.”

  “As do I, myself” returned the captain. “Well, we shall follow them through, then.”

  And he turned the boat through the narrow passage between Luing, on our left, and the grassy hill that was Lunga to our right. I heard a dull roaring sound and asked the captain about it.

  “That will be the Cailleach, making her howl,” he answered.

  At the south end of Lunga the water poured and churned in a narrow passage. “The Bealach a’ Choin Ghlais, the gray dogs,” said the captain. “If you have the nerve, they are a short passage to the Garvellachs from here.”

  We passed them by on our right, those growling dogs that poured out in a torrent from Lunga, and followed the coast of Scarba on our right until the tip of Jura appeared, and the strait of the old hag between the two islands. The noise of the roaring grew louder in my ears.

  “I am thinking,” I said, “that he means to take the boat in through the Cailleach, and perhaps anchor along the coast, thinking that no one will be looking for him there. On Jura he can hide well enough, there are not so many people on the western side of the island.”

  “Aye,” agreed the captain, as he turned our boat into the strait. “Say a prayer, if you’ve a mind to. For we shall be needing the help of God and his Saints to get through this. The tide is turning, and the wind looks to be shifting. Here, we will be needing everyone to row.”