Part 13

“That I will not!” retorted Kelpie firmly. “For every house in Lochaber is a danger. I’ll be away east out of trouble.”

He frowned and shook his head. “There is no shelter to the east of here, lass, and it too cold to be sleeping out. And I have just come from hunting a wolf that has been skulking upriver. You would be safer here, I am thinking, for my house is alone and well hidden. But if you’re feared to rest here, there is a bittie cave nearby, and you are welcome to my blankets and food. Follow the Spean along up for a mile or so, and where the Cour is entering it turn south for a bit and mark sharp the west bank. The cave is in a high bluff and well hid with juniper. But I’m thinking you’ll be safe enough the night here, whatever, and it nearly dark already. There’ll be no Campbells along this day, and ’tis no good for you to be freezing.”

“Aye, then,” agreed Kelpie, seeing the sense to this, and the man was off. Odd, she didn’t know the name of him, nor he hers, and yet he was away on a dangerous errand on her word. A purpose in common—or common danger—she decided, was like a spell, binding even strangers one to another.

The morning was heavy with clouds, the new snow a dead white beneath the gray of the sky. Kelpie put out the fire for fear of any betraying smoke and set out to locate the cave, wishing she dared stay in the warmth of the shieling. But as she trudged along the Cour River, watching the west bank, she stopped. Clear in the snow were footprints coming down the Cour—and stopping just ahead in a tumbled heap of snow. Kelpie stared, eyes narrowed. Footsteps didn’t just stop, unless someone had wings.

No, there were no wings. There the prints went, back the way they came. In a moment Kelpie had read the story. A man it was, by the size of the prints, and coming north along the Cour in a great hurry, so that he did not notice the treacherous slab of granite by the river, with ice under the snow. And there he had slipped and fallen; the mark was plain. Then, it would seem, he had made back the way he had come, limping sorely.

Kelpie straightened and looked up the glen cautiously. Where was he, then? And who was he? Warily she began to follow the retreating footprints.

They angled up the hill to the right presently, through a thick patch of pine and juniper. Kelpie hesitated, peering through it, her right hand reaching for the _sgian dhu_ in the front of her dress, feet ready to run. Nothing stirred. And then a tiny trickle of smoke floated up just a few feet away from behind the brush. _Dhé!_ It must be that he had found the cave and taken shelter there. Probably he was not a Campbell, then, but more likely hiding from them—though he would not stay hidden long, with the smoke giving him away. Kelpie grinned sourly and shrugged. This was no place for her, then. She turned and prepared to slip quietly away, back to the shieling.

“And have I taken the home of the water witch?”

It was a low voice with a mocking note that Kelpie could never mistake. She whirled. Alex! She could see him now through the brush, nearly invisible against the low winter sun. He sat at the mouth of a small, shallow cave, regarding her quizzically—but with a drawn look about the mouth of him. One foot, badly swollen, was propped up before him.

Och, then, wasn’t it her curse on him that had come at last to bear fruit? Moving thru the juniper, but keeping a safe distance away, Kelpie told him so with considerable relish.

Alex grinned wryly. “It may be so,” he conceded. “Sure it is you’ve cursed me enough. But have I not told you that such things are likely to fly back in the face of the one who curses? And if this is your curse at work, then ’tis not just me you’ve harmed, but Montrose and his army, and yourself as well. For Argyll is about, and I was on my way up the Great Glen to warn Montrose when I fell; and what will you do if Argyll wins and puts his witch-hunters over the whole of the Highlands?”

His tone was still mocking, but Kelpie could hear bitterness and despair in his voice. It made her feel most peculiar, for Alex was usually so infuriatingly self-assured—and much easier to hate that way. His distress was not quite as satisfying as it should have been. For a moment she toyed with the idea of leaving him to his worry, but she could not resist bragging. She gave him a pointed grin.

“You will always be thinking yourself the only clever body in the world,” she observed smugly. “I myself have already sent a messenger to Montrose.”

Alex stared, frankly unbelieving. “You?”

“And why not, whatever? Wasn’t I crossing Campbell land myself with the army, and you away safe out of it? Haven’t I the wits to see I’m not wanting Mac Cailein Mor king in the Highlands? It is I should be doubting you, for if Ian and his father are with Montrose now, I’m thinking you’d not be going near whatever.”

Alex narrowed his hazel eyes at her, and Kelpie prudently moved a step farther away. “And why not?” he inquired lazily.

Kelpie laughed nastily. “I’ve eyes in my head!” she retorted. “Did you think I was not seeing? Aye, and I saw it before, as well, with the Second Sight, last spring.”

Alex’s eyes widened for an instant, then narrowed. He seemed about to say something, but changed his mind. Instead, the planes in his face became more angular than ever, and he gave Kelpie a long, hard, brooding stare that made her thankful for the hurt foot which kept him from moving. For surely he was thinking that he would like to silence her. He shrugged finally. “I wonder,” he said, “whether ’tis the truth you’re telling me about that messenger. If so, I could find it in my heart....”

He didn’t finish the thought, nor did Kelpie answer. Instead, she stared back at him, at the freckles and straight lines of his face, at the way the cheekbones stood out above the narrow strength of jaw, and at the tangled red hair which had not been trimmed or combed recently. He was thinner than he had been and pale under his freckles, and she could see a tiny pulse in his temple that was his life itself—so easy to stop, so small a thread of life. And was there not something she should be doing the now, to avenge Ian? But she could not think what. Alex was not asleep, nor by any means helpless, even with a sore foot; and she had no intention at all of risking her own life for Ian or anyone else. She pulled her thick brows together and regarded him darkly.

Alex laughed suddenly. “You cannot be planning to rob me, so it must be some other devilment you have in mind. Are you not satisfied yet, water witch? Is it another wee spell, or have you learned the Evil Eye by now?”

“Sssss!” said Kelpie earnestly.

“Well, and why will you not be going to Mac Cailein Mor to say that I am here?” he asked. “He would make short enough shrift of me, and would you not be liking that?”

“Aye so,” agreed Kelpie with enthusiasm. “But,” she pointed out regretfully, “he would be making even shorter shrift of me, and I’d not be liking that so well.” And then she bit her tongue in annoyance as Alex laughed again. It was a spell he had put on her, to be always telling him the truth she had never intended to say!

She scowled and lifted her lip in the old wolfish snarl, and then found herself grinning ruefully, though she had never intended that, either. It was not funny; it was _not_! She stamped her foot.

“Ou, aye!” said Alex. “Your sense of humor has slipped out again, and why will you be squashing it under? Laugh at yourself, Kelpie. ’Tis the cure for all ills, and it is in my mind that perhaps most evil is caused by folk who take themselves too seriously.”

“You’re daft,” said Kelpie and turned away uncertainly. She should be off about her business and leave Alex to his fate. But it seemed that the thing inside that had been pushing her for days against her will was pushing still. It was as if she were living a pattern, and it was yet unfinished, and the thing would not permit her to go off and leave it until it was complete. She paused, her back turned to Alex, who sat still and silent in the mouth of his refuge.

“What will you be doing now?” she asked against her will.

“Bide here,” he returned philosophically, “since I can do nothing else, and see what will happen.”

“They will be seeing your smoke,” she pointed out, still reluctantly.

“I will let my fire die during the day, and try to keep warm by moving about,” he returned, and the quizzical note was back in his voice. “And why do you warn me of that, water witch? Wouldn’t it please you just to see me captured?”

“It would that!” Kelpie’s eyes flashed. “I will be laughing that day, and not at myself either!” And this time she did leave, heading angrily back toward the Spean River.

20. The Campbell Lass

Kelpie went back to the hut, since there was no other shelter and it was better to risk Campbells than to freeze to death. But she found a hiding place on the river bank, just in case, and for three days she alternately huddled over the tiny coals which were all she dared have during the daytime and watched the path for signs of the invaders.

There was plenty of time to think. She wondered whether the message had got through to Montrose, and what he could do even if it had. For he was trapped in the Great Glen between two armies, and no way out except over mountains impassable with snow. She wondered about Alex and that long, inscrutable look he had given her, and it came to her that she had been a fool to tell him that she knew what he had done. For if he could strike down his foster brother, it would be nothing for him to silence her. She began to feel very trapped herself. Was no place in the world safe for her?

Lost in brooding, she failed to keep her sharp watch, and on the third afternoon she heard, too late, the crunch of heavy steps in the crusted snow. Before she could do more than turn, a heavy-set Campbell flung the door open, two or three others looming behind him.

“Here’ll be another cursed Cameron or two,” he shouted, and his broadsword bore grim stains from the last house he had visited. “And where is your husband hiding, lass?”

Kelpie’s wits, well trained in crisis, worked quickly. “Husband indeed!” she retorted, staring boldly into the ruddy face. “Where are your eyes, man, that you cannot recognize a Campbell when you see one?” She snatched up Lady Argyll’s cloak and waved it at him, thankful for that particular theft. “Och, but I am glad that you have come,” she went on with a trusting upward smile through her lashes. “It was my wicked Cameron uncle who came by my home on Loch Awe with that devil Montrose and all the army, and stole me away to keep house for him, since his wife died, and he saying I must be his daughter now and some day marry a Cameron; and have I not been biding my time and waiting for warm weather to run away back home?”

The Campbells blinked and believed her. She was utterly convincing, and in any case, what Cameron would have claimed to be a Campbell, even at the edge of death? And had she not the once fine Campbell cloak, clearly given her by a lady of that clan? The sword went back into its sheath.

“Och, well,” said its owner with a sigh. “Naught to do here but burn the place. But at least you can be coming back the now.”

This was the last thing Kelpie wanted! “To another army?” she jeered, hiding her panic. “No, now, I’ve enough of armies and battles. Leave me be, just, and when ’tis warmer I’ll be finding my own way. Will you not be fighting Montrose soon?” she demanded. “Or is it only women and bairns you are after?”

They shuffled their feet. “We’ll be taking care of Montrose,” promised the stout one. “But we cannot leave you here, lass. You must just come along back to Inverlochy, and perhaps himself will be seeing you’re sent back home.”

Kelpie’s heart threatened to choke her. He’d be sending her back, fine enough! “_Dhé!_” she sputtered, knowing her life might depend on her next words. “Will ye be bothering the likes of him with a nobody, and him with a war on his hands? He’d no be thanking ye for it! Besides,” she confided beseechingly, “it is myself am afraid of Mac Cailein Mor, and he so great and all. No, now, just leave me here, and then it’s away back I’ll be by myself.”

The stout one was not unsympathetic. “Well, women have daft fears,” he observed. “But ’tis true enough that himself is an awesome man. We cannot leave you here, but perhaps we can be tucking you into a wee bit place near Inverlochy where you’ll not be noticed until we move on. There is a burned shieling just near the loch, with one end left untouched. Come along now.”

To argue further would be hopeless and perhaps fatal. This was a stubborn man, already close enough to suspicion. Numb with apprehension, Kelpie wrapped the cloak firmly around herself and let them lead her outside while they fired the thatch.

And then, just as they were climbing up the bank, a tall man pointed to a faint wisp of smoke to the southeast. “Another shieling,” he announced happily.

It was no shieling at all, of course. It was Alex’s fire, and now Kelpie’s curse would be well and truly fulfilled. Why hadn’t she thought of telling them herself? And why was it that she felt more dismay than elation? Frowning, she probed at the feeling, trying to figure it out. Och, of course; It was not for Alex’s sake she did not want him caught, but for her own. For he would be sure to tell them that she was no Campbell at all but a gypsy lass, and then they would take her straight to Argyll. She bit her lip as she silently followed the Campbells up the Cour in the direction of the telltale smoke, hoping passionately that Alex would either get away or be killed before he could betray her.

He nearly did get away. The cave, when they finally found it, was empty, the fire quenched with snow. The tangled footprints in the snow seemed to lead nowhere, and they might have given up but for the stubbornness of Hamish, the stout man. But at last someone saw Alex hiding high up amid the dark needles of a pine tree.

“A MacDonald!” Hamish peered upward. “Come away down, now, or we’ll shoot you there.”

“And what difference?” asked Alex mockingly from his high perch. “I’d as lief be shot here as on the ground.”

Kelpie set her teeth. She hoped they’d shoot him now, before he could see her and speak against her. She _did_! But again Hamish had other ideas. What was a MacDonald doing here at all, he wanted to know, and one, moreover, who was clearly well educated and therefore at least the son of a chieftain? It was a thing out of the ordinary and had better have the attention of his own chieftain, Campbell of Auchinbreck.

“We’re no for shooting you now,” he announced, “but will be taking you prisoner.”

Alex seemed to think it over for a moment. Then he laughed. “’Twill be a braw task for you, then,” he observed, “for I’ve a sore hurt ankle and can no longer set it to the ground—or else you’d not have found me here, whatever. Are you wanting to carry me all that way? For if not, you may as well shoot me here.”

This last clearly appealed to most of the Campbells, but Hamish stuck out his jaw. “Aye, then. Finlay and Angus will carry you,” he announced, to the displeasure of two of his men.

Alex shrugged and came down, leaning for an instant against the trunk of the tree as he reached the ground. His face was cool, although his ankle must be hurting him badly. But his lips tightened slightly when he saw Kelpie, and he stood for an instant, fixing her with another of those long, penetrating looks. There was more than mockery in it now. Kelpie flinched from it, and it came to her that Alex thought she had brought the Campbells to find him.

Of course he did! How could he suppose anything else? And he knew quite well that he held the power of vengeance in his own tongue. For although he could not know what was between Kelpie and Mac Cailein Mor, the mere word “witch” would be quite enough to destroy her.

She waited for it, head high, with the look of a trapped fox in her eyes, hoping they might kill her swiftly, for Argyll would do worse. But Alex did not say it. Looking into her eyes, he gave one short contemptuous laugh and turned away. And while he arranged himself in the hand-chair made by the reluctant Finlay and Angus, Kelpie stood quite still, hot and shaken by feelings she hadn’t known she possessed.

She tried to collect her thoughts during the long, slow trip back to Inverlochy Castle. Why had Alex not denounced her? He must be waiting, knowing she would be tormented by uncertainty. He would do it, doubtless, when they reached the castle. Och, then, she must forget the searing pain of his laughter, and try to get away!

Dusk was lowering as they neared Inverlochy, and she sidled up to walk alongside Hamish. “I am frightened,” she whispered pathetically. “There are too many men, and I used to the lonely hills and cattle. Can I not just be slipping away down the loch and home? I know the way well enough.”

He looked at her kindly. “No, ’tis much too cold for you to be traveling alone,” he said with firmness.

Kelpie’s lip trembled—and for this she required no great dramatic ability, either. He looked alarmed. “Do not be crying, now,” he said hastily. “I tell you, I know a place where you can bide, and no need to be going among the army at all. Just wait now until I’m turning the prisoner over to Auchinbreck. Fergus, run ahead a bit and see can you find out where he is the now.”

He clasped Kelpie’s cold hand firmly in his, no doubt thinking he was comforting her; and Kelpie had to trudge along beside him, her heart thudding with fear. It thudded harder when Fergus returned to report that Auchinbreck was away down at the loch with Mac Cailein Mor, seeing about the two cannon.

“Fine, then,” said Hamish. “For the wee bit placie for you to hide is down there too, and we need not be going near the castle at all but just deliver the prisoner and ask can you stay there at the same time.” And he beamed heartily upon the quaking Kelpie, who saw no escape now from a witch’s death by fire.

Setting her teeth hard upon her lower lip, she tried to remember that she had faced death before. But this time she seemed to have no courage in reserve. The long strain had drained it from her. She could only remember Mac Cailein Mor’s cruel face and unbearable dungeon, and think that this could not really be happening, and wish that she could drop dead on the spot and be done with it.

They were just past the castle now, and Hamish turned to watch a scattered group of soldiers come running from the slopes of Ben Nevis, cutting behind his group, in a great hurry to reach the castle. There was an air of alarm in their gray shapes in the dusk, and Hamish stared after them curiously.

“A fine hurry they are in,” he said. “I wonder what news it is they are bringing from the ben, and what they could be finding at all on that wild place.”

“Perhaps the water-bull of Lundavra has been straying north a bit,” suggested Alex, breaking his long silence. His voice dropped to an eerie whisper, and only Kelpie could hear the hint of laughter in it. “You’ll have heard of it, no doubt, with its broad ears and black hoofs and wild demon eye?”

The soldiers shivered, and one made a gesture, quickly halted, of crossing himself. For though the Campbells were now all good members of the Kirk, old habits remained from many generations past and were likely to pop up in a crisis.

They went on, with occasional furtive glances over their shoulders at the brooding shape of that giant mountain Ben Nevis—the highest, it was said, in all of the British Isles, and therefore an apt place for uncanny and ungodly things. Kelpie too would have been glad to scurry from its menace, had there not been a greater one facing her. As it was, she would gladly have fled to Ben Nevis for protection, even if there were a dozen water-bulls there.

They had circled below the castle now, to the river, and were perhaps a mile from Loch Linnhe. If only Hamish would relax his hard, reassuring grip on her hand, she might be able to dive into the surrounding dusk and lose herself. But when she gently tested his grip, he merely tightened it.

Perhaps if she should suggest to him that she could walk better with both hands free? Or was it already too late? There was a group of dark shapes in the gloom just ahead now. If that was Argyll, this was her last chance! “Please,” she began in her softest voice, and got no further.

From behind came the pound of running footsteps, and an excited voice raised. “Mac Cailein Mor! Mac Cailein Mor!”

A soldier rushed past them to the figures a few yards ahead, and the cold voice of Argyll answered. “Here. What is it, then?”

“Montrose!” The soldier gasped. “Some of our scouts have just come back. They say Montrose is on Ben Nevis!”

21. Vengeance

In the shocked silence which followed, Hamish forgot his comforting grip on the poor wee frightened lass for an instant, and in that instant the poor wee frightened lass vanished.

She crouched on the far side of a rhododendron bush, tensed and ready for further flight. For the moment, it was best not to move again, for there was silence beside the river, and she dared make no noise that might call attention to herself. Och, the good luck of it! And a fine chance there was that, with this news, no one would think of her again at all.

“Impossible!” said Argyll. His voice was thin.

“It is true, Mac Cailein Mor!” insisted the messenger. “On the north slope of Ben Nevis it was, his army ran into our outpost, and some of our scouts escaped and came to warn us.”

“Impossible,” repeated Argyll more thinly yet. “He couldn’t. He went up the Great Glen, and he hasn’t come back down it. And there’s no other way he could have come in this cold and snow—not with an army and horses and cannon. It’s not humanly possible.”

There was a good deal of sense in this. Even Kelpie, still as a bogle behind her bush, frowned in puzzlement. How _could_ Montrose have come so quickly, and _not_ through the Great Glen? Over the bitter impassable mountains, then? Och, Glen Roy, it must be! Argyll didn’t know this country as she did, and as the Camerons and MacDonalds would. Through Glen Roy, then—and it was next to impossible even then, but if anyone at all could do it, then it would be Montrose and his Highlanders, and she the cause of it all, with her message! She hugged herself silently.

“It couldna be the army,” said an Edinburgh voice soothingly. “Gin ’tis Montrose at all, which I doot, ’tis a mere handfu’ o’ wild Hieland thieves he could ha’ brought, and we’ll wipe ’em oot the morn.”

“Still and all,” came another voice, “it might be best for you to be going on board your galley, your Lordship. You’ve an injured shoulder, remember, and you’re too valuable to risk your life in a mere skirmish.”

“You may be right.” There was unmistakable relief in Argyll’s voice, and Kelpie lifted her short lip in contempt. “I can put you in charge, Auchinbreck, and send commands from my galley. Who is that over there?”

His voice rose sharply, and Kelpie’s hair stood on end until she heard Hamish’s apologetic answer. “Hamish Campbell, just, with a MacDonald I found skulking up near the Spean River, and I thinking you might be wanting to see him.”

“A MacDonald?” Auchinbreck’s voice was incisive. “Aye, he’s likely a scout for Montrose and may be able to tell us something. Will you speak to him, your Lordship?”

“Later,” said Argyll. “Take him down to the shelter by the loch and stay there yourselves on guard. See that no one goes near the galley, and I’ll question the prisoner before I go board.”

There was a crunch of snow as Argyll and his party started back toward the castle, and then a pause. “Why isn’t he tied?” came Argyll’s voice accusingly.

“Och, your Lordship, he has a hurt foot, and it would be too hard to carry him this whole way if—”