at last word went round that the army was to move, but not, as kelpie had expected, away from the danger of perth and lord elcho’s great army. quite the contrary. they were, it seemed, going to take perth.
recklessness and practical caution fought within kelpie. a fine, daft, gallant, and suicidal idea it seemed to her. if she had any sense in the head of her, she would take her leave now and head for safety. but she decided, instead, to go along but to stay with the women and children well behind the lines, once the fighting started, and then take to the hills when the battle was lost.
the small, poorly equipped army gathered itself together and started south to the sound of pipes playing valiantly. they had got no farther than the hill of buchanty when they ran into one of the enemy forces which
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had been surrounding them all the time. a full five hundred bowmen it must be, and kelpie looked around hastily for something to hide under.
but she had reckoned without montrose. he and antrim rode to meet the two leaders of the bowmen, and they talked. and, sometime during the talking, montrose cast his spell, for presently the two forces spread out over the purple masses of blooming heather and ate together, the leaders still talking over wine and food.
and then one of the enemy leaders sprang to his feet, and kelpie could hear his words clearly. “you’re wrong!” he shouted. “’tis not two thousand men ye have, but two thousand and five hundred! for we’ll never be fighting against montrose!”
kelpie shook her head wonderingly. why on earth did montrose fight at all, if he could do this? or did argyll and others have some kind of counter-magic? kelpie began to feel newly discouraged about her own prospects for magical powers, with so much competition about.
the newly expanded army moved on again, undisturbed by the news that, in addition to his seven thousand infantry, lord elcho also had some eight hundred cavalry and nine pieces of heavy artillery. the highlanders, like kelpie, put their faith in the magic of montrose. with him to lead them, no force on earth could beat them.
they spent the night on the moor of fowlis, and early in the morning were away down the small glen, and on
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to tippermuir. there stood the walled town of perth, some three miles away. and between stood the covenant army, spread wide, waiting to catch montrose’s impudent small army between its fierce jaws.
kelpie looked at it with awe, and some of her assurance left her. surely, now, montrose was stretching his powers too far! lord elcho would be wiping them out as easily as antrim might knock down herself. there they stood, six deep, every man protected by corselet and an iron headpiece, and the most of them armed with muskets, against one-third the number of highlanders, who wore only ragged kilts and rawhide brogans and had claymores and bows and arrows, or no weapons at all. it was a sad contrast.
the citizens of perth seemed to regard the coming battle as a fine new kind of sabbath sport, for they had turned out in great numbers to watch the fun. kelpie shoved through the palpitating crowd of women and children, now well behind the army, until she reached a spot on high ground which gave her both a good view and a quick escape route for when she needed it. and she expected to need it. she hoped that ian might escape the slaughter somehow, but she was going to be quite sure that she did.
ian, who had an even better view in his spot in the front row of the battle line, was not feeling very optimistic
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himself. he looked with resignation over the flaunting blue banners of the covenant ranks bearing the motto: for christ’s crown and covenant—and then back to the one brave royal banner—three golden leopards on a red background—floating above the highland rabble. the breeze rippled its folds and shivered across the purpled moors. it seemed too fine a day for men to die.
alex turned from chaffing his cousins among the small band of keppoch macdonalds and looked at ian. there was a touch of pallor beneath the sunburn of his angular face, but his eyes were bright.
“and are you frightened, ian?” he asked with a crooked grin.
“as ever was!” retorted ian forthrightly, and alex chuckled.
“and i too,” he agreed. “my cousin archie has just been saying it’s only a fool does not fear danger—in which case, i’m a wise man indeed!”
ian looked around him. most of the ordinary clansmen seemed not much worried. there was an almost supernatural faith in montrose, that he would bring victory at any odds. and antrim—the magnificent colkitto—strode down the line with confidence in every inch of him. his legs were pillars beneath the macdonald kilt he wore, and they were matched by the size of his shoulders.
“i think he isn’t afraid,” observed ian.
alex nodded agreement. “montrose is worried, though,”
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he murmured. “you can see it behind his eyes. what is happening now?” for one of montrose’s officers was going toward lord elcho, waving a white flag of truce.
“here’s ranald,” said archie. “he’ll know. ranald learns everything.” if archie was frightened, one would never know it. his black eyes sparkled wickedly from under his thick black hair, and he turned eagerly to make room for another keppoch cousin. “what is it ranald, avic?”
“an envoy of courtesy,” reported ranald, shaking his fair head wonderingly. “montrose has sent to ask is it against their principles to fight on the sabbath, and would they rather wait for tomorrow. only montrose would think to make such a gesture!”
archie, who seemed to have a low opinion of covenant principles, shook his head disapprovingly. alex opened his mouth for a jesting remark, and forgot to close it again. for, incredibly, outrageously, the envoy was being taken prisoner! he was seized, bound, hustled off through the covenant ranks.
incredulous anger rippled through the highland army. ian stood aghast. “he couldn’t!” he whispered. “he couldn’t violate a flag of truce!” and for once even the more cynical alex shared ian’s feelings.
oddly, kelpie’s face came to alex at that moment. her narrow, slant-eyed, impudent face would be wondering what was so awful about violating a white flag. was it any
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worse than killing a man in battle? and the envoy wasn’t even dead—yet, anyway. to his disgust, alex found himself, in his own mind, trying to explain it to her. “dhiaoul!” he muttered and turned his attention to the matters at hand.
it was quite possible that lord elcho had done himself an ill service, for a flame of celtic rage had engulfed the highland army. alex found that he had shifted forward an inch or two without knowing it, and the rest of the army with him. those without weapons had picked up stones. for a moment it seemed that they would all break into a wild charge, but montrose achieved the minor miracle of holding them back. “wait!” said his outflung arm. “wait!” boomed antrim. “be patient a wee while, men of my heart, and we soon will be giving them cold steel for it.”
and they waited, only inching forward a toe at a time, as the covenant army moved closer, until not a hundred paces separated them. a long wait it seemed, long enough for all the army to hear lord elcho’s answer to the message of the unfortunate envoy. “the lord’s day,” he had said, “is fit for the lord’s work of exterminating the barbarous irish and highlanders.”
“when we charge,” muttered archie, who had been in battles before, “keep just one thing in mind. choose your enemy and kill him, and then a second man if you can.”
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“very well so,” agreed alex mildly. “and what will i do with my third man?” he was pleased that his voice had just the nonchalance he wanted for it.
ian’s was equally cool. “just be leaving him to me,” he said. “i’ll have had my three by then.”
another inch forward, and the covenanters closer yet, and still no signal to charge. and now came the covenant battle cry for the day. “jesus and no quarter!” they yelled, and ian shuddered at the blasphemy.
and then suddenly came a shrill wild skirl from the gaunt woman at the back of the battle. a voice lifted and pealed savagely. “wolves of the north! let the fangs bite!”
and the signal was given, and as they rushed forward ian’s voice answered with his own clan battle cry. “sons of the dogs, come hither, come hither, and ye shall have flesh!”
“god and st. andrew!” answered the keppoch macdonalds, and the air was thick with the wailing menace of pipes and clan cries, until the pipers abandoned their pipes for the claymores, and the slogans became scattered and mixed with mere yells.
neither alex nor ian remembered the rest clearly—only a wall of armed men ahead, and then the smashing, tearing impact of battle. there was archie’s fighting laughter, and the blazing red beard of antrim ... someone yelling “a gordon, a gordon!” the whole of the fight. and then there was no wall of armored men, but only
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fleeing backs, and the charge went on and on—until they were at the gates of perth.
when kelpie reached perth, some time later (and a messy three miles it was too, littered with covenant casualties), she fully expected to find it being thoroughly sacked and looted, and to be in time to pick up a few wee things herself. it was just for this that she had managed to get slightly ahead of the rest of the women and children.
but there was unexpected quiet and order. kelpie paused inside the gate, frowning. a few citizens peered fearfully from windows, waiting for the worst, but the worst did not seem to be happening. instead, highlanders stood about, glaring at the frightened heads and at a shouting preacher on the near corner, and looking disgruntled.
“he shall rain snares upon the sinners,” screamed the preacher, “and fire and brimstone and storms of wind shall be the portion of their cup!”
kelpie joined a group of ragged highlanders who were standing there listening. “now will he remember their iniquity and visit their sins!” the preacher was suggesting hopefully. “i will consume them by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence! i will pour their wickedness upon them!”
“is it ourselves he means?” asked kelpie of the nearest highlander.
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he nodded, looking disgusted. “and we not even allowed to feed his words back to him,” he growled. “and,” he added regretfully, “i am thinking that the fine coat of him would be fitting me, whatever.”
“but why? why not be silencing him and taking it?” demanded kelpie. he shrugged, looking aggressive. montrose, it seemed, had ordered no sacking, no looting, no harm to the citizens.
several highlanders turned from the preacher, who was now informing them that they were to be cast forth from the land, and chimed in. an unheard-of thing, that! and they half-starved and in rags, and counting on food, clothing, and a fine wee bit of loot from these overfed, psalm-singing heathen hypocrites! and what was montrose about, then, to be depriving them of their just reward? and yet, not a man suggested disobeying.
the preacher, a gaunt, long-faced man in a fine black coat, was working himself up into a fine passion of covenanter christianity. “they shall die grievous deaths,” he announced. “they shall not be lamented, neither shall they be buried; they shall be as dung upon the face of the earth.”
“is it his own friends he’s speaking of?” came alex’s mocking voice. “’tis a fine burial service you’re preaching, my friend, but shouldn’t you be helping to dig the graves first?”
the preacher stopped, glared, and began to launch forth
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with more bible verses. but the highlanders had got the idea.
“now then,” one of them called, chortling. “’twould be no harm to the bonnie man if we just see to it that he helps bury his friends, now, would it? come away out, now, and be useful!” and in a moment the preacher was being propelled firmly out of the gate, protesting loudly that yon muckle redshanks were gang to murther him. alex and ian, archie and ranald were left, grinning after them.
kelpie spared them no more than a glance and then returned to her grievance. no looting! and she had been wanting a nice silver belt and perhaps a silken purse.
disgustingly, ian and alex agreed with montrose. “’tis a barbaric practice, sacking cities,” said ian with quiet intensity. “why should soldiers war on civilians, especially women and bairns? if there were more leaders with the principles of montrose, war would be less evil than it is.”
“there’s no use one army stopping, and the others going on doing it,” argued kelpie.
“someone must be stopping first,” alex pointed out. odd how he kept trying to explain principles to this little witch, who could no more understand them than could his cousin cecily’s wee and wicked yellow kitten. “if montrose shows mercy, perhaps the covenanters will do the same.”
kelpie sneered audibly, and archie made a rude noise.
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alex shrugged. “to be more practical,” he pointed out, “perhaps montrose is hoping that these towns near his own home may be turned to our side if we treat them well.”
“i think he would do so anyway,” insisted ian, “’tis a point of integrity, kelpie.”
kelpie looked blank, and alex laughed. “do not be trying to explain integrity to her, ian!” he pleaded. “begin first on a creature with more capacity—like cecily’s kitten, for example—and then dubh, perhaps, and after that you might be working up to a kelpie.”
at the mention of cecily, ian saw in his mind a heart-shaped, mischievous face in a halo of tawny hair. and then he put it away from him, for alex had said fifty times that he was going to marry his cousin one day; and if his foster brother wanted cecily, then she was not for ian to think of. so he thought instead of kelpie, who was tossing her black head scornfully.
“well, whatever integrity is,” she announced, “this is daft. for,” she predicted with gloomy relish, “all the towns around will be thinking they may do as they please, with no fear of punishment. just wait you now, they’ll be shouting more loudly and burning more witches than ever before.”
surprisingly, alex nodded. it was ian who was about to argue. but at this moment lachlan and maeve arrived, shouting that at last they had found mac ’ic ian, and
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would he be coming away this minute to have his sore wound tended.
ian laughed, faintly embarrassed, and began to protest. and kelpie, with a pang of concern, noticed for the first time that his plaidie was wrapped oddly about his left arm and that a stain of red was creeping along the sleeve beneath it.
“dhé!” she cried. “it may be only a wee bit cut as you say, ian, but yon orange-top”—she glared at maeve—“has not the sense to be tending it for you, and it will surely mortify if you let her. i,” she announced firmly, “will bind it myself, with bread mold and cobwebs on the cut, and a wee charm or two over it, and ’twill heal overnight, for i know about such matters.”
maeve promptly screamed that the wicked little witch would poison mac ’ic ian only over her dead body. kelpie retorted that it was a fine idea, that last. ranald said that he had known mold and cobwebs to work very well. archie’s black eyes sparkled with amusement, and it fell upon alex to arbitrate.
firmly, with the masterful air that kelpie usually resented hotly, he declared in favor of her bread mold but against her charms. he pacified maeve by allowing her to supervise and to put the sign of the cross upon ian’s arm. and because both maeve and kelpie were genuinely concerned over ian’s welfare a truce of sorts was declared—for the moment.
