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
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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?
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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?”
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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!”
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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!”
