Part 7

Kelpie listened and said nothing. She didn’t like what she heard and began to hate Argyll on her own account. Indeed and it was true that he would take all freedom from all people if he could. Kelpie cared little enough about anyone else, she told herself, but her own freedom mattered more than anything at all, and she began to feel a personal enthusiasm for her task here. A hex was what he deserved, and she hoped that the Lowlander would make it a fine horrible one indeed.

It was lucky, she discovered, that himself was home at all now, for he spent much of his time these days heading his Covenant army, raiding the Highlands, and occasionally daring a small skirmish with other enemies. (Kelpie received the impression that he was not, perhaps, the boldest and most audacious leader when it came to fighting.) But now he was home, as no doubt the Lowlander had known.

Still, three bleak weeks had passed, and she still had never had a chance to lay her hands on any bit of his person or even come near his private rooms. Mrs. MacKellar kept a watchful eye out, and Kelpie’s duties were confined to all wings of the castle but that of Mac Cailein Mor. And so she watched and waited through June, tense, wary, inwardly chafing.

10. A Bit of Hair

It was an impossible errand they had sent her on! Kelpie realized it slowly, angrily. A bit of Argyll’s hair, indeed and indeed! Nobody at all would be so feckless as to leave a bit of his hair lying about, convenient to the hand of any witch who happened to be passing. And how much less Mac Cailein Mor, who was thrice as crafty, ten times as suspicious, and a thousand times more hated than most folk? Och, no; for him such carelessness would be altogether impossible. It was certain that he would stand over his barber while every last hair or fingernail clipping was safely burned. The best she could hope for was a bit of his personal belongings, which would be much less effective; and whatever Mina and the Lowlander would say she did not know. No doubt they would make an excuse to refuse to teach her spells, after all.

And so she seethed under the joyless Covenant mask which was becoming harder and harder to wear. How she longed for the freedom of the open! Her legs ached with the longing to run and leap and dance upon the hills, and her face ached with the need to laugh. And yet she stayed on, hoping for some miracle, reflecting sourly that Mrs. MacKellar and Argyll were very little improvement over Mina and Bogle.

It was in mid-July that it happened, during morning prayer.

Kelpie knelt with the rest of the household on the cold stone floor in grim endurance, for this long, twice-daily torment was nearly unbearable for an active young gypsy.

Her place was in the very back, among the meanest of the servants. Ahead, the bowed backs graduated in rank, with Mrs. MacKellar far up front, just behind meek Lady Argyll, Lord Lorne, and Ewen Cameron, whose red kilt blazed sharply alien amid all the blue and green of the Campbell tartan. And before them all stood Mac Cailein Mor’s long, stooped figure, telling of the anger, jealousy, cruelty of a God who could surely have nothing to do with the opal world outside. With cold satisfaction and in grim detail he described God’s will (which seemed indistinguishable from Argyll’s will); and his pale eyes were most disconcerting, for if one seemed fixed upon Siubhan or Peigi, the other seemed to stare straight at Kelpie, and who was to know what himself was really looking at, whatever?

“Behold, the day of Jehovah cometh, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it,” said Argyll. “He shall destroy the minions of Satan, those evildoers who are not of the Kirk, who blasphemously question the Covenant. For all those who are not with the Covenant are against the Lord and vile in His sight. They shall burn forever in Hell, and above all shall burn all witches and that servant of the Devil, Montrose. They shall be tormented—”

Kelpie felt the presence of the messenger in the open door behind her, but dared not turn to look. She saw Argyll’s eye flicker briefly in that direction and noticed the slight pause before he went coldly on with his orders to and from God. And something inside Kelpie stirred, and she knew that something was about to happen which would be important to her.

Dropping her dark head over clasped hands in an attitude of great reverence, she tried to think what it could be. There was nothing she had done. Unless—Had Ewen Cameron said something about yesterday?

For yesterday Kelpie had found her first opportunity to get away over to the wing which held the chambers of Mac Cailein Mor and his family. She had actually reached his door, and as she hesitated there, heart beating quickly, another door nearby had opened, and through it came a lad of about fifteen.

Kelpie had not needed to look at the oddness of a Cameron tartan in the Campbell stronghold to know that this was Ewen, the grandson of Lochiel. Ian had told her about him, and she had seen him now and again about the castle. And Peigi had told her proudly how fine it was that Mac Cailein Mor was taking on himself the education of his nephew, for fear it should be neglected or his own family should teach him to believe the wrong things.

Kelpie had hidden a cynical smile at the time, but now, when the grave, clear-eyed lad stood regarding her in the hall, she wondered briefly how much this “education” would really mean. For he had about him the air of one with a mind of his own.

“You’ll be Sheena, will you not?” he asked as Kelpie belatedly made a stiff bob. She nodded. “Best not to linger here,” he went on. “If my uncle should see you—”

“Aye,” Kelpie had murmured, and slipped away back to her own territory with the odd feeling that he had seen through her mask—not, perhaps, that he knew exactly what was under it, but that he knew she was alien to this world of Inverary.

Could he have said anything, just? Kelpie wondered as she shifted her knees ever so slightly on the painfully hard stone. The thing inside said no. He was another of those strange people, like Ian and Eithne, who seemed not to hate anyone or even wish them ill.

But still, something was about to happen, and she must find out as soon as ever she could. When prayers were over, and the household rose and respectfully made way for himself to go out first, it was easy enough for her to slip nearest the door, for she had had a wealth of experience at picking pockets and melting through crowds. And so she saw the travel-weary messenger waiting outside, and heard the news when Argyll did.

“Antrim of Colonsay and his clan of Irish MacDonalds have landed at Ardnaburchen and taken the castle of Mingary, and will even now be taking the keep of Lochaline, your Lordship!”

The Marquis of Argyll said something under his breath, and the freckles suddenly stood out under the red hair that Kelpie coveted. “May the Devil take his impudence!” he said aloud, and there was no doubt that he meant it literally.

Kelpie tried to remember something she had heard at Glenfern. Antrim—Colkitto, they called him—was chief of a branch of MacDonalds that the Campbells had driven westward, over the islands, and at last to Ireland. And now, it seemed, he had decided to bring his clan back to Scotland to fight the Campbells and perhaps take back some land.

“Have messengers ready to ride,” Argyll said viciously to his son. “I’ll have the army up and wipe him out once and for all!” By this time the rest of the household had filtered out into the hall, and it didn’t seem to matter if they all heard or no. But then, there’d be no keeping this kind of news secret, whatever.

Kelpie clenched her fists. We? Then would Mac Cailein Mor be away with the army himself?

“Isn’t there an English Parliament garrison at Carlisle?” ventured Lord Lorne in English. “Why not send to them to take warships up the coast? If they captured Antrim’s ships, there’d be no retreat for him.”

Argyll nodded brusquely and strode off toward his chambers to write the necessary letters—taking his hair with him, of course. “Get my things ready to ride,” he ordered one of his retainers, thus destroying Kelpie’s last hope.

“_Dhé!_” she muttered, without changing the blank and sober expression considered suitable for God-fearing people. Whatever could she be doing now, at all, with him away?

Impulsively, she slipped out of the hall before Mrs. MacKellar or Peigi should see her, and made her way to the tower next to Argyll’s wing. There she hid her thin self partway up the steep, twisting stairs, where with one eye she could see his door, and waited. Not that he would be likely to be trimming his hair or fingernails now, but perhaps in the flurry of his leaving she could just slip in and lay hold of some wee personal item to be used instead, and it the best she could do.

It was a full half-hour before Argyll’s door opened. Kelpie glimpsed the full tartan folds of his belted plaid and then pressed herself out of sight as the halting steps assured her that it was indeed Mac Cailein Mor.

She waited until they had passed down the hall and out of hearing, and then slipped out of the tower and across to the massive oaken door. She paused an instant, hand lifted to open the door, but it was almost certain there could be no one else in there, for the entire household had been at morning prayer, and no one else had gone in. The door opened heavily, with never a creak, and closed firmly behind her.

Here must be his Lordship’s private withdrawing room. Kelpie had never seen such a room, and she glanced around with interest. The clan crest, a boar’s head, was carved over the large stone fireplace and on the back of the high oaken settle that stood at one wall. A bulky armchair with a triangular seat going to a point in back stood by a long table on which quills, ink, sand, and paper still stood. But there was nothing personal. His bedroom must be on through that other door.

She darted across the room silently, opened the door, and saw an enormous four-post bedstead of inlaid walnut—a fine piece indeed, she thought cynically, for an unworldly Covenanter! No less than three great-chests doubtless held his clothing and perhaps Lady Argyll’s—but clothing would be too bulky for Kelpie’s needs. A plaid-brooch might just do nicely, though, and they should be in a cupboard, perhaps, or a wee box somewhere.

Kelpie began investigating. And then she nearly yelped with triumph. A brush! A brush in which were tangled several long strands of red hair! Och, and he _had_ been careless, then, perhaps with being upset from the news of Antrim. Och, the fine luck of it! Chuckling, she pulled them loose, looked around for something to wrap them in—and saw the bedroom door swing inexorably open.

There he stood, Mac Cailein Mor, one eye regarding her balefully, the other apparently fixed on the wall behind; and the thin lips were pitiless. For once Kelpie’s quick mind and glib tongue failed her altogether, and she just stood there while he crossed the room in three strides and seized her wrist.

“A thief, is it?” he rasped.

Kelpie found her wits. “Och, no, your worship!” she cried. “I know it’s no right I have to be coming here, but it’s the fine and godly man you are, and leaving now, and I just wanting to see—”

He pried her hand roughly open, and the damning evidence of the hairs lay exposed on her palm.

“A witch!” he said with savage glee. “A witch in my own household. Ah, the Devil is trying hard to destroy me, for I do the work of the Lord. Blessed are those who are persecuted for Thy name’s sake. Spawn of Satan, do you know what we do with witches?”

“Witches?” faltered Kelpie with desperate innocence, though she knew by now that pretense was hopeless. Far less evidence than this would have been fatal, and even with a much less suspicious man than Mac Cailein Mor. Sudden hot anger almost drove out her terror for an instant—not so much at Argyll as at Mina and Bogle and the Lowlander, who had so callously sent her on this errand. They had surely known how slim her chances were, and that she would almost certainly be caught and burned. And they would never have taught her the Evil Eye, even had she been successful. She had been their tool and cat’s-paw, and she cursed herself for being such a fool. Och, she would see to it before she died that Argyll knew their names and the meeting place.

She didn’t once think of the _sgian dhu_ that rested within the bodice of her sober gray dress.

Mac Cailein Mor was dragging her out of the room, baying for his servants, the dangerous hairs safely in his own hand. Kelpie submitted passively because it would do no good at all to struggle. Her mind darted here and there, like a moth in a glass ball, finding no way out at all.

And now all the household was running, and two husky men took her from Argyll and hustled her brutally through the castle and out to the courtyard, while Argyll sputtered his tale to his son between bellows for Mrs. MacKellar.

“Was it you hired her?” he demanded ominously of the cringing housekeeper. “Could you not see the eyes of her, the teeth, the brows? Or was it yourself plotting against me too? Are the minions of Satan filling my own home?” He was working himself into a fine frenzy, and even through her terror Kelpie found time to wonder briefly at the idiotic honesty of Lorne, who spoke up then.

“’Twas my fault, Father. Mrs. MacKellar didn’t like the look of the lass when she came to ask for employment, and I was fool enough to feel sorry for her, and I said to take her in.” He met his sire’s black glare straight. “’Twas stupid,” he said firmly, “but no plot against you by any here.”

“The Devil addled your wits, then,” retorted Argyll, not to be deprived of his martyrdom. “Could you not see the ringed eyes of her? No, do not look into them! She’ll cast a spell!” He glared at Lorne, and then, dourly, at Ewen Cameron, who stood near with an expressionless face.

Kelpie was again fervently wishing that she _could_ cast a spell! Och, the plague she would be putting on the lot of them, and himself in particular! Since she couldn’t, she tucked in her lower lip, lowered the offensive eyes, hung meekly in the painful grip on her arms, and made one last hopeless try for her life.

“What was it I was doing wrong?” she whimpered. “It was nothing valuable I was taking, but only a wee bit token to protect me from the Devil whilst yourself was away.”

It was no use at all. Everyone knew what hairs were used for, even children.

“Shall we burn her now, Mac Cailein Mor?” asked one of the men. Kelpie’s heart thudded sickly. But Argyll brooded.

“No time now,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll be wanting to test her for witch marks and get a full confession and the names of her accomplices. And there’s Antrim to deal with first.” He looked frustrated at having to delay, and Kelpie realized that here was a man who enjoyed cruelty for its own sake. She shuddered.

“Put her in the dungeon,” ordered Argyll, “the wee cell at the bottom, and with no blanket. And let no one open the door or speak to her until I return. Put bread and water through the grate, but nothing else. Is everything ready, Buchanan? My horse, then.”

He turned away, and Kelpie drew a small shaky breath. A wee respite, then, and perhaps a chance to escape altogether from the torture and burning, if they didn’t search her and take away the _sgian dhu_—and if she made up her mind to use it.

11. Argyll’s Dungeon

The cell was tiny, damp, cold, and inconceivably black. Within ten minutes after the solid door thudded behind her, Kelpie was cowering on the floor. Even an ordinary roof was oppressive to her, and this—Ou, the dark and the smallness were almost tangible things that seemed to press down and in on her, smothering and squashing! It was even hard to breathe, just with the thinking of it.

By the time half an hour had passed, it was all she could do not to shriek wildly and beat her head against the stone. She gritted her teeth, sensing that self-control was her only hold on sanity. How could mere darkness hurt the eyes so? Kelpie began fingering her _sgian dhu_ longingly. It was escape, escape from this torment and that to follow. She had no great fear of death, in spite of all she had heard of Hell, for at worst it was almost certain to be interesting.

And yet, the thing inside would not let her use the wee sharp dagger that nestled so temptingly in her hand. It gave no reason, except that this was a mean and shabby way to die.

For nearly the first time in her memory, Kelpie cried. On and on she sobbed, for as space was closing in on her, time was stretched into a long and empty void, and she was alone in chaos and terror.

Once she thought that perhaps if she did kill herself now, her Hell would be an eternity of this, and she shuddered at the thought. Argyll’s God might just do such a thing, and Satan’s fire was surely to be preferred—but which of them would be having the decision, at all? Her thoughts blurred off into confusion.

Some time later a grate in the door opened, a hand pushed a bit of bread through the pale oblong, and it clanged shut again. Kelpie roused herself to explore the spot with her long, sensitive fingers but found it small and solidly bolted. She took a few halfhearted bites of bread and lapsed again into a shivering huddle.

After more time she drifted up from a semi-sleep to hear another sound at the door. Was it the next day, then, and time for more bread?

_Dhé!_ The door was opening, when Mac Cailein Mor had ordered against it! Was he back, then? She shrank against the wall as an oblong of gray spread like a shaft of light into the thick black of the cell.

“Sheena?”

It was Ewen Cameron! She knew the voice of him!

“Sheena, are you awake?”

With a small gasp, Kelpie was at the door. “Och, it’s near dead I am! Will you no let me free? You wouldn’t see me burned, an innocent wee lass, and put to torment before it? I’ll—”

“Hist!” There was a hint of strain in his voice, with a thread of humor around it. “And what were you thinking I came for? ’Tis quite likely you _are_ a witch,” he added ruefully, “but for all that, I cannot abide cruelty. Come away, then, and like a mouse.”

Gasping with relief, Kelpie was out of the door before he had finished speaking. He groped to find her face in the dark that was to her almost light. “Wait, now. I must be bolting the door again. I cannot see.”

Kelpie moved beside him and helped. “Follow me,” he said when it was done. “I can put you outside the walls, and then ’tis up to you.”

It was all she asked. Scarcely able to believe her good fortune, she followed him through a dark, narrow labyrinth of stone corridors, most of them damp with being underground. Twice he unlocked doors for them to pass through, and finally they crept on hands and knees through a tunnel quite as black as her cell had been. It twisted on and on, and finally upward.

“’Tis an escape route in case of siege by an enemy,” Ewen explained over his shoulder. “None but the family is supposed to know of it, and even they have nearly forgotten it, because for the last hundred years Clan Campbell has been too strong to be attacked in its own stronghold. Instead, it is they who attack other clans.”

The narrow tunnel picked up the faint note of anger in his voice, magnified and echoed it. Kelpie, engrossed though she was in her own important affairs, suddenly wondered how it felt to be fostered by a wicked uncle who was, in addition, enemy to one’s own clan, and to know you were being used as a hostage to control the actions of your own grandfather, your own people. It was the first time Kelpie had seriously tried to put herself into the mind of another person, and it felt most peculiar and disturbing.

“What if real war is coming to the Highlands?” she demanded. “Will Lochiel dare call out the Camerons to fight against your uncle and the Covenant, or—”

There was a brief silence in which their small scufflings seemed to shout aloud. Then: “Grandfather will dare to do what is right,” said Ewen tersely.

Another silence, and then his low voice reached back to her again, strongly earnest. “There are things more important than safety, Sheena. I wonder if you know about them. Was it for a principle you were wanting to put a hex on my uncle, or for something else?”

Kelpie didn’t answer this, for the simple reason that she was not at all sure what a principle was. Unless—Could it have anything to do with not using the _sgian dhu_ on herself when it seemed much easier to do so? Or had she not used it because the thing inside her had known that she was going to be rescued? Och, it was much too confusing to bother with now, for she could at last see a pale blob of night sky ahead.

They emerged in a shallow cave on the hill above Inverary, not far from where Kelpie had first looked down upon the castle.

“Now,” said Ewen, “be away out of Campbell territory as quickly as ever you can! Away around the tip of Loch Fyne, and then east is best, but be canny. You’ll not be safe with the MacFarlanes, either, but the Stewarts of Balquidder are hostile to the Campbell, and the MacGregors and MacNabs, and they are past Loch Lomond. Best to skulk low during the day, for you’ll not get so far this night—though I’m hoping you’ll not be found missing until Uncle Archibald is returned and the cell door opened.”

Kelpie nodded. The weight of horror was lifting (though she would never quite forget it), and she began to feel quite cocky again. Fine she was now, for who knew more about skulking and wariness in the hills? And yet through her cockiness crept an odd curiosity.

“Will _he_ be finding out ’twas you who freed me?”

“I think not,” said Ewen, and there was laughter in the lilt of his voice. “No one is thinking I know about the secret tunnel, and they will probably believe you escaped by witchcraft. Be careful, Sheena, the next time you’re wanting to hex someone,” he added and vanished back into the tunnel.

Kelpie stared down the blackness after him and shook her head wonderingly. He was another daft one, to take a risk for someone else, and with no profit to himself whatever! But she was grateful, for all that. She owed much to his daftness.

She left the cave, lifted her face to the infinite space of the open sky, and breathed deeply of the free air. The moonlit side of the hill was ghostlike, a pale glow without depth. The dark side was a soft, deep purple-black. Patches of glimmering mist rose from the loch, and there was a line of it behind the western hills. Kelpie laughed aloud and headed northeast.

* * * * *

Thick gray mist poured over the hills from the west, covering the world with a layer of wetness. A curlew gave its eerie call, the whaups shrilled, and presently it began to rain. Kelpie shivered a little, even though the gray wool dress was the warmest she had ever owned. She had got soft, then, living in houses. She must steal a plaidie somewhere—preferably one of plain color, or a black and white shepherd’s tartan. Wearing the tartan of a clan could get her into trouble.

By the time it was really light, she had passed the tip of Loch Fyne. She rested for a while, but it was cold sitting still, she was getting more and more hungry, and as there was little enough chance of being seen through the thickness of the mist she went on again. Once out of Campbell country she might risk stealing as well as begging, but she must be careful about telling fortunes or selling charms, for she would be getting near the Lowlands, where the arm of the Kirk was long and strong and people were narrow-minded about such activities. And Kelpie very much wanted to avoid any more trouble of that sort.