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.
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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.
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“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,”
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
she waded through the dripping tangle of heather and bracken and wondered what to do next. she was free of mina and bogle—unless they found her again. did she dare return to glenfern, having left the way she had? no, for they no longer trusted her, and alex was now her enemy. moreover, if mina ever found out, she would put a curse on wee mairi. it seemed she must give up her hopes of learning witchcraft from mina, and any other witches who still lived in covenant territory would be very canny and quiet indeed. she might try the highlands, but there was a problem too, for in order to get there without recrossing campbell territory, she must go far east and then north and through another danger zone, where there had been fighting and trouble since spring. and even in the highlands there was danger of meeting mina and bogle, and further danger that alex might have set all the camerons
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and macdonalds against her, as he had threatened.
dhé! indeed and it was a braw mess she had got herself into! she cursed the lowlander, mina, bogle, mac cailein mor, the kirk, and alex, with fine impartial vigor and in two languages. then, for good measure, she added antrim (for forcing her hand too soon), the king (for his general fecklessness), all religious bodies, god, the devil, and people in general.
when she had finished she felt no better, either mentally or physically. she had now traveled some twenty miles over thickly brushed and wooded hills, on an empty stomach, after a shattering experience, and even kelpie’s wiry toughness had its limits. had she reached friendly territory yet? how was she to know without seeing a clan tartan that would tell her? well, surely she was for the moment way ahead of any possible alarm out for her. she must have food, and there was a shieling hut below.
she sat down in the drenched heather and absently regarded a small twig of ling, already in bloom a month ahead of the ordinary heather. the tiny lantern-shaped blossoms were larger and pinker than heather too, not quite as charming, perhaps, but still tiny perfect things. plants were nicer than people, if less exciting. she stared at it while she thought up two stories; one to use on a campbell or a macfarlane, the other for stewart or macnab. then she stood up, brushed the wet from her skirts, and started slowly down the hill.
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an old woman stepped out of the low hut to empty a pail of water, and there was no mistaking the light and dark reds crossed with green on her plaidie. it was macnab. her husband, no doubt, would be out in the hills with the sheep or cattle. fine, that. women living alone in the hills were rather more likely to be sympathetic and motherly toward a forlorn wee lass than men. (on the other hand, women of the kirk towns were like to be dourly suspicious and hating.)
the old woman started to go back inside and then caught a glimpse of kelpie, who stumbled a bit because she was hungry and tired—and because it was her general policy.
“whoever is it, then?” the highland lilt of the gaelic was less marked here, near the lowlands, and the voice cracked slightly with age—and yet there was in it a note like a bell.
“och, forgive me, just.” kelpie’s voice was faint, and she swayed slightly. “i am weary and hungry, and could you be sparing just a crust?”
“seadh, the little love!” mrs. macnab was all sympathy. “come away in, then, and i’ve a fine pot of oatmeal on the fire. whatever will you be doing all alone and in the hills?” she looked at kelpie with wise old eyes as they entered the dark shieling, and frowned in puzzlement. “from your dress you would be a lass from a covenant home, but your face is giving it the lie.”
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kelpie instantly revised her story in the brief time it took to step through the low doorway under its bristling roof of rye thatch. she stood meekly on the earthen floor under the smoke-blackened rafters and noted at a glance that these folk were better off than some, for there was a real bedstead in the corner instead of a pile of heather and bracken, and four three-legged creepie-stools.
“eat now,” invited her hostess, handing her a big bowl of oatmeal from the iron pot over the fire. “and there are bannocks here, and milk. and then perhaps you will tell me about yourself, little one, for i confess i’ve a fine curiosity, and strangers are none so common here.”
kelpie made use of the respite to ask some questions and get her bearings, in between ravenous mouthfuls of food. “be ye covenant here?” she ventured around half a bannock.
“och, and can you no see my tartan?” demanded mrs. macnab. “we macnabs are loyal to our own stewart king, foolish darling. why, then, are you of the kirk?”
kelpie shook her head vigorously. “not i! ’tis a prisoner of the campbells i’ve been. they wanted me to be of the covenant and refused to tell me who my parents are, at all. and so i have run away—”
“dhé!” interrupted mrs. macnab with wide eyes. this was the most exciting thing that had happened in the braes of balquidder this many a year. she was ready to believe anything of the hated campbells. “oh, my dear!
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is it that they were stealing you, then? tell me all about it, heart’s love, every bit!”
and so, replete and comfortable, warm and very nearly dry, kelpie spun a wonderful long tale of truth and fiction mixed. the lonely old woman eagerly drank it in, with exclamations of indignation and sympathy. when callum macnab, looking like a twisted and weatherworn pine, came in at dusk, he had to hear it all over again, and by this time kelpie had thought up a few more interesting details. she fairly basked in their attention and tenderness, while the old couple glowed with kindness and the rare treat of company and news. and so, with one thing and another, kelpie spent the night and the next day with them.
