Chapter III: Part 3

“Because I am saying so!” she snarled. “And because I will put an evil curse on you if you do not obey.”

Kelpie prudently pulled in her smarting jaw and considered this. On one hand, Mina was not as powerful as Kelpie had thought, for she almost certainly could not read the crystal alone, and her magic message had failed to get through. But that was not to say she could not curse. Kelpie still had great faith in the power of Mina’s evil spells. And Mina’s curse would be even more disagreeable than her company. Kelpie brooded darkly over the unpleasant alternatives before her, almost inclined to risk the curse.

“Why would you not want to come?” demanded Mina, and her cursing changed to wheedling. “And here I have been to the trouble of arranging for you to learn witchcraft at last, ungrateful wretch that you are, then! What, would you stay to be a slave to arrogant fools such as these? Stupid sheep, spending their lives shut in a wee glen?”

“They do not, then,” muttered Kelpie mutinously. “Ian and Alex have been to school in England in a place called Oxford, and have seen the King and Montrose and know more than we about affairs. And they do not beat me, nor make me steal for them and then set the crowd on me. And I do not believe you plan to teach me witchcraft, whatever, for you are always promising it and never do it.”

Mina’s face darkened, and she raised a scrawny, strong arm again, but Bogle loomed over her and drew her aside to speak for a moment in a voice like distant thunder. Kelpie watched apprehensively. When Bogle intervened, it was never for motives of kindness and charity.

“Hah!” Mina cackled presently and turned back to Kelpie. “And what of the wee bittie lass we were seeing you playing with so tenderly this morning? Shall I put a curse on her, too? Aye, on all the glen I shall put the Evil Eye, so that they will all wither up and die horrible deaths!”

Kelpie’s defiance collapsed like a deflated bagpipe. Not Wee Mairi! She could not bear to risk harm for her bonnie bairn. But she must not let Mina know how vulnerable she was on this point, or she would be in slavery and Wee Mairi in danger forever more! Carefully keeping her face impassive, she shrugged indifferently. “Och, well, just do not be putting it on me,” she murmured, and noted that both Mina and Bogle looked disappointed. “And will you truly be teaching me witchcraft if I come?” she demanded, as if this were her only interest.

“Have I not said so?” Mina growled. “Was it trying to drive a hard bargain you were, then? I should beat you for it! Come away down, now, for we have wasted too much time already.” And she led the way down the hill.

It was the twins who first spotted the assorted trio approaching, and they began to shout excitedly.

“Kelpie, is yon your Grannie Witchie? Father, Ian, come and see!” they yelled in full voice. And then, short kilts swinging, they raced up the slope to stare at Mina and Bogle with frank, fearless curiosity.

“Are you truly a witch?” demanded Ronald, and, in spite of her gloom, Kelpie stifled a grin at the look on Mina’s face.

The old woman drew herself up and glared at them. “Best not be asking that!” she warned in an ominous croak that should have completely cowed them, but didn’t.

“Why not?” asked Ronald with great interest. “What will happen if we do? Do you not think, Donald, that she looks like a witch?”

“Ou, aye,” declared Donald judiciously. “But we have not seen her casting any spells yet. Can you cast spells, Grannie Witchie?”

Kelpie’s amusement changed to apprehension as the infuriated Mina spluttered speechlessly. It was probably only her speechlessness and the timely arrival of Glenfern that saved the twins from an awful fate. Mina gave them one last baleful glare—Kelpie fervently hoped it wasn’t the Evil Eye—and turned to the tall chieftain. Kelpie glanced at him, and at Ian, Eithne, and Alex, who arrived just then from down by the loch, and then stared sullenly at the ground. She dared not look straight at them, for if they were to read her eyes and guess how she felt, then they would refuse to let her go, and so Mina’s curse would be upon them. And now Kelpie found that her old misgivings were justified. She had recklessly given her affection and left herself vulnerable, so now she must suffer the consequences. Angrily she promised herself never to be so weak again.

“Well, then,” said Glenfern pleasantly at last. “And are you leaving us, Kelpie?” She jerked her head, not looking at him. “I am sorry to hear it,” he said gently, “for I think you were happy here, and we have come to like you well.”

“Oh, Kelpie!” Eithne protested, shrinking a little from Mina and Bogle. “Can you not stay?”

“Och, you cannot go!” clamored the twins in outrage. “Who will be telling us stories now?”

Kelpie scowled, chewed her lip, and wished herself a thousand miles away. And worse was to come, for a brief glance upward showed her that all of them, from Mina to the twins, were on the verge of guessing her true feelings. She tossed her head and gave a hard little laugh. “Och, I’m away,” she said airily, “for I’ve bided too long in one place.”

Glenfern was looking at her keenly. “You are welcome to stay, you know,” he told her.

“Aye, to slave for you without pay!” whined Mina in her most put-upon voice. If she had been slow to the attack, she made up for it now. “We have come to have her wages.”

From under her lashes Kelpie saw the hurt on Eithne’s face, and something like pity on Ian’s. Only Alex wore a look of acid amusement that set Kelpie’s teeth on edge. And Glenfern was giving Mina the same stern look he used when the twins had been naughty.

“I think you must be joking,” he said quietly. “We have treated this lass far better than ever you have done. We have fed her properly, clothed her in decent, clean garments, taught her, given her affection and a roof over her head and a bed under her. What have you ever given her save harm and neglect?”

“She is ours!” Mina squealed angrily, but she must have seen that she would get nowhere, for she suddenly changed tactics. “Would you be wanting Mac Cailein Mor to hear things about you?” she hinted softly. “Things about how you are favoring King Charles, and what you think of the Covenant, and your own son associating with the King and bringing back messages from him, and from Montrose as well, perhaps?”

There was only one way Mina could have learned these things. Everyone looked at Kelpie, who stuck out her chin and grinned brazenly. Ou, the wicked, careless tongue of her, to be telling Mina that! Ian and Eithne were looking as if she had slapped them. There was a smile on Alex’s lean face and scorn in his eyes.

“And so you have not really changed at all,” he observed softly, and was surprised at the bitterness of his own disappointment. After all, what else had he expected? But his tongue went on scathingly. “Selfish, faithless, unscrupulous you are and always will be. You could never think of inconveniencing yourself for the good of another, could you, Kelpie?”

“Of course not,” said Kelpie defiantly, but the sweet face of Wee Mairi was warm and mocking in her heart.

“Let be, Alex.” Ian sighed. “She cannot help it. There was not enough time to change old habits.”

“Nor ever will be,” retorted Alex.

Kelpie hissed at him venomously. “Faithless yourself!” she spat. “Do not be forgetting what I told you, Ian!” And she turned away to Glenfern, who was laughing at Mina.

“By all means go to Argyll,” he said cheerfully. “Tell him whatever you like. He knows well enough where our sympathies lie. But leave the lass behind you when you go, for I should not like her to be burned as a witch along with the two of you. And now, farewell. I am sorry,” he added, turning to Kelpie, “that you could not stay with us, poor lass. Remember that we wish you well.”

That was really almost too much. Kelpie turned abruptly and started up the pass with Mina and Bogle, who knew when they were defeated. At least it was over, and she must just put it away out of her memory.

But it was not quite over. Halfway up the hill a small voice wailed after her. She turned to see Wee Mairi tugging at Eithne’s hand, one small arm stretched out and upward. “My Kelpie!” she shrilled. “Do not go away, my Kelpie!”

Mina’s pale eyes were upon Kelpie, narrowed, watchful, suspicious. Kelpie set her jaw, hardened her face, and deliberately turned her back on the broken-hearted little figure below.

* * * * *

The next few miles were blurred. Kelpie tramped mechanically behind Mina and Bogle, unseeing, trying to wipe three months out of her life and become the person she had been before. Och, she had been right to begin with! A feckless, foolish thing it was to care for anyone, and only hurt could come from it. From now on she would be hard as the granite sides of Ben Nevis, which now loomed ahead, snow still patching its sheer northern side. She would be what Alex thought her—and a pox on him, too. Nor would she even care that he would strike down that braw lad Ian, for Ian had had his warning, and it was his own fault if he was too stupid to heed it.

Scowling, she kicked at an inoffensive clump of bluebells and deliberately stepped on a wild yellow iris. She would become a witch, then; not a “coven witch,” either. She had seen them—silly people, who made a great ceremony of selling their souls to the Devil and met in groups of thirteen, called covens, and held Black Mass, and did a great deal of wild dancing. Mina said these were little more than playing at witchcraft and learned only a few simple spells. No, now, Kelpie would be a witch of the old sort, who needed no bargains with Satan, but who tapped a Power that was old before the beginnings of Christianity. A Power it was that could be used for either black or white magic, but Kelpie had seen little of the white, and black seemed much more congenial, especially in her present mood.

She drifted into her old dream of what she would do one day to Mina and Bogle. Aye, and perhaps she would just add Alex as well. They were over the pass and heading south along the side of Loch Lochy before she came back to herself and began to wonder about the present.

“Where is it we are going now?” she demanded, moving up to walk beside Mina, half off the narrow path. “When will you be teaching me witchcraft? What are you planning?”

Mina cast a thoughtful eye at Kelpie’s blue dress, now kilted up through her belt for easier walking. “I think that would be fitting me,” she remarked casually. “We will be telling you what you will need to know when it is the right time for knowing it,” she added so mildly that Kelpie looked at her with dark suspicion.

Falling behind once more, she began again to brood over her life. It consisted of being pushed from one situation into another. It was other folk who acted, and herself who reacted, who was acted upon. Was she, then, such a spineless creature? Was her whole life to be molded by others? Rebellion once more rose in her, but then subsided as she remembered the two-pronged stick that Mina held over her—nay, three-pronged, really. She could curse Kelpie, and she could curse Wee Mairi and Ian and the other folk of Glenfern, and only Mina could teach Kelpie witchcraft. And witchcraft, now, had become the only goal in her life, the only hope of escaping the hateful mastery of Mina and Bogle. Kelpie set her teeth, and the look on her face was neither pleasant nor attractive.

Down to the tip of Loch Lochy and on down the river they plodded, past the home of Glenfern’s chief, Lochiel; and at last they made camp for the night in the old unfinished castle of Inverlochy. Roofless it was, and built four-square, with a round tower at each corner, and Kelpie narrowed her eyes thoughtfully as they went in. Mina and Bogle never looked for walls about them, except sometimes in the cold of winter. What was afoot?

For the moment there was no time to wonder. Mina nodded brusquely at the river, which flowed just outside the arched stone entrance. “Gather us firewood,” she ordered, “and then guddle us some fish—if you have not forgotten how.” Her pale eyes rested again on Kelpie’s dress, and Bogle chuckled.

An hour or so later, annoyed but not in the least astonished, Kelpie wiped her greasy fingers on the dirty rags which now covered her, and glowered across the fire at Mina. The hag and the blue dress were more or less the same size, but of far different shapes. The dress sagged across the front of Mina’s hunched shoulders and strained ominously across the back, and was at once too long and too narrow in the waist, and the cuffs reached in vain for those long bony wrists. Kelpie had a mental picture of bright hazel eyes dancing in wicked amusement in an angular red-topped face. For once she could have appreciated Alex’s sense of humor, and her own white teeth showed momentarily in a matching grin.

Mina glared at her suspiciously, and Kelpie hastily stopped grinning. _Dhé!_ Mina was almost as bad as Alex himself at seeing what she shouldn’t! And she mustn’t anger Mina too much—not yet! So she lowered her slanted eyes more or less submissively and waited.

“Hah!” said Mina suddenly. “You think I am not knowing what you are thinking?”

Kelpie devoutly hoped not. She had no desire to be turned into a toad or something equally unpleasant. Best to walk warily—neither too innocent nor too defiant. “I am wondering what you are about,” she retorted sullenly. “I have learned the things you were wanting me to, but you have not told me why, nor have you taught me any spells.”

“Hah!” said Mina again. “First we will read the crystal.”

And presently, under the ghost-light of the summer night, Kelpie sat again with her hand in Mina’s horny claw and gazed into the blank crystal ball. It remained still and empty. “I see myself,” invented Kelpie impudently. “It is in a place that I have never been, and I am wearing a blue dress—”

Mina turned on her in sudden suspicion, and Kelpie prepared to duck. But they were distracted by a small flicker of light that came from an upper window of one of the castle towers. For an instant, fear gripped Kelpie. Was it an uncanny creature of some sort? Then she noticed that Bogle was nowhere in sight, and she chewed her lip thoughtfully.

Sure enough, presently his shadowy figure emerged from the tower door. He came back to the fire and sat down without a word. But Kelpie thought she had seen him put something in his new leather sporran (recently stolen, without doubt), and there passed between him and Mina a long look and the tiniest of nods.

Kelpie pretended to notice nothing, but her mind was busy. It couldn’t have been magic he was up to, for Bogle did no magic except for ordinary curses. It must have been a message, then—a message left for him here, and they had known where to look for it. And that was why they camped in the castle instead of out in the open.

Och, there was something in the air, indeed and indeed! Kelpie went to sleep wondering what it might be—and how she might be turning it to her own advantage.

8. A Task for Kelpie

From Inverlochy Castle they headed southeast, around the tip of Loch Leven and into the lands of the Stewarts of Glencoe. Now they definitely turned southward. Kelpie frowned.

“Will we be going into Campbell country, then?” she asked, faintly alarmed. For the last time they had ventured into Argyll’s lands there had been an all too exciting witch hunt from which they had barely escaped, so it must be an important matter indeed that would bring Mina and Bogle back again into danger.

Mina just grunted disagreeably, but by the next day Kelpie’s question was answered, for they reached Loch Etive, which was well into Campbell land. Mina glanced around nervously, and Kelpie again wondered where they were going, and why. Bogle stood for a moment, staring down the loch, then turned and purposefully led the way to the precise spot where the River Etive entered the northernmost tip. Clearly he knew exactly where he was going. And then Kelpie saw what must be the reason for this journey. A man sat waiting for them in a copse of alder near the river, looking oddly out of place in the sober gray breeches of a Lowlander.

“Aweel,” he said and looked at them. Kelpie’s sharp eyes took in every detail of the stocky long-armed figure, with sandy hair cropped to its ears, and sandy eyebrows looking too thin for the broad face. She did not like what she saw, and even less what she felt. For there was no expression at all on the Lowlander’s face. His eyes were like cold pebbles, and there was a malignance about him that made her shrink inside.

Suddenly Kelpie knew that he must be a warlock. Mina and Bogle would not be merely working with him; they were under his orders. Probably it was he who was behind Mina’s interest in politics, Kelpie’s long stay at Glenfern, this hurried trip. Och, it was a powerful and evil man, this, and she would do well to fear him.

The small opaque eyes studied her for a moment and then turned to Mina, who looked small and shrunken before them. “Is yon the lass?” Their owner demanded in the burred English of Glasgow.

Mina nodded, and the eyes turned back to Kelpie. “Come here!” he commanded.

Kelpie had a passionate desire to assert her own will and refuse. But it would be daft to try to challenge his power now—and especially with Mina and Bogle watching her. Reluctantly, her own eyes smoldering with anger and foreboding, she went and stood before him, and he seemed to read her thoughts.

“So, ye’d like tae be a witch,” he said, his voice half a sneer, half a caress. “Tae hae sich power, ye maun learn tae obey. Obey! Ye didna ken that, eh? Weel—ailbins ye can prove yersel’ the noo, and earn the powers ye’re wanting.” He turned to Mina again. “Hae ye told her?”

Mina shook her head humbly. “Never a word.”

“Good. She’ll hear it the noo,” returned the Lowlander. He turned back to Kelpie, whose small face regarded him with wary intensity. His face became genial and fatherly. “Ye’re a lucky lass,” he began, “tae hae us a’ so concerned wi’ yer ain guid.”

Kelpie laughed aloud, and there was genuine amusement as well as derision in her laughter. Did they think her a bairn, and daft as well?

At once the Lowlander became brisk and businesslike. Very well, then, he conceded, perhaps it was not merely her own good they were after. But she would profit greatly. Who, he demanded, was her worst enemy?

Kelpie prudently did not name Mina and Bogle. Instead, she remembered Mina’s deep interest of late and made a shrewd guess at the answer he expected. “Mac Cailein Mor?”

“Aye, Argyll,” he said approvingly and went on to point out why. The Kirk of the Covenant was reaching farther and farther into the Highlands now, with its persecution of honest witches, and even of stupid old folk who were not witches at all, for that matter. And who was head of the Covenant? Who was spearhead of the persecutions, the pricking and torture and burnings? Argyll. If he was not stopped, there would be no safe place in all Scotland for such as they.

Kelpie nodded and found part of her mind thinking that on this one point only—Argyll and the Covenant—did her world and that of Glenfern agree.

Very well, then, the Lowlander continued. They must take steps to destroy Argyll. And what better thing than a hex? A wee image of him, in clay or wax, they would make. And then they would stick pins in it, roast it, freeze it, pour poison over it, and, by the black powers of witchcraft, all these things would happen to Mac Cailein Mor himself, until at last he would die in great pain.

Again Kelpie nodded warily. And how did she enter into all this, at all?

She found out soon enough. In order to make a really effective hex on Argyll, something from himself was needed to mold into the wax figure—hair or fingernail clippings, preferably. And who was to obtain them? Why, Kelpie, of course.

Now it was clear why she had been left at Glenfern to learn the ways of gentry and how to be a servant. She would hire herself as housemaid at Inverary Castle and, as soon as she managed to get the hair or fingernail clippings, just come away back here with them. And as a reward she would be taught all she wished to know about spells, potions, curses—even the Evil Eye itself.

As easy as that!

They were making her their tool again, of course, to do what they dared not do themselves. If she were caught, her life would not be worth a farthing. Still—Kelpie thought quickly behind narrowed eyes and an impassive face. It was a chance to get away from Mina and Bogle and perhaps take a hand in managing her own life. Once away in Inverary, she could decide whether or not to carry out the errand. Perhaps she would prefer Mac Cailein Mor to Mina and just stay for a while. Or perhaps.... Well, she would see.

She listened with great docility as they explained how she could get in touch with them once she had completed her task. She even nodded when the Lowlander suggested blandly that it might just be safest to send the hair—or half of it—on to them by the messenger they would tell her of, and then she herself could be bringing the rest later. Kelpie kept a sneer from crossing her face. If they thought her so witless as that, let them, then! But if and when she came to them, it would be with the hair hidden in a safe place, and they having to fulfill their part of the bargain before they saw it.

The Lowlander was very pleased with her, and Kelpie went to bed very pleased with herself. But she awoke near dawn with the sense of something bothering her.

The sky was a vast aching void, neither black nor light. The world was a great shadow. Kelpie crept silently away from the camp and over the crest of the nearest rise, still wrapped in the old woolen plaidie which served as cloak and blanket. She seated herself against the thickness of a rhododendron, so that she was lost in the black shadows of its great leaves and blossoms. Then she stared down along the long, steely sheet of Loch Etive and began to think.

Obey, the Lowlander had said—and clearly Mina and Bogle were obeying him. But Kelpie had thought that to be a witch was to be free, to have power to command others, never to _be_ commanded again by anyone.

Was it not so, after all? Did the Lowlander, in turn, obey someone—or Something? For an instant Kelpie sensed something infinitely dangerous and horrible. Was Satan merely another name for those ancient Dark Powers? And was the price for invoking them to be a slave to them? She shuddered, and cold droplets of sweat broke out on her short upper lip.

Then she pulled herself together. She must not give in to foolish worries. The Lowlander was a fearsome man, but witchcraft was the only way to be free of Mina, and when she had learned it she need fear neither of them any longer.

All the same, the first seed of doubt had taken root, and it no longer seemed quite so easy to become the most powerful witch in Scotland. It was a rather subdued Kelpie who meekly cooked the fish and oatcakes for breakfast, bade the Lowlander farewell, and followed Bogle and Mina on to Loch Awe.

At a ruined old shieling hut by the loch they stopped and waited for a day, until there came a round-faced young woman with a wealth of brown hair and a slate-colored dress kilted up over a striped petticoat. She seemed an unlikely person to be working with witches and warlocks, for her bright-cheeked smile was quite artless.

“_Dhia dhuit!_” She beamed. “Is this the lass who will be fetching the hair to hex Mac Cailein Mor, may the demons fly away with him? I am Janet Campbell, who will take you to Inverary. I will call you Sheena at once,” she added chattily, “so you can get used to it, for Mrs. MacKellar would never be hiring a lass named for a kelpie.” She chuckled cheerfully.

Kelpie gave her an appraising look from under her thick black lashes, but Janet didn’t seem in the least put out. “I could not be doing the task myself,” she explained, “for I have my work, and no reason to be going into the castle. And,” she added forthrightly, “I am not brave or clever enough. But I will be your messenger, Sheena, when you need me.”

Kelpie, more and more resentful of being used by others, nodded sullenly. But Janet’s next words cheered her considerably.

“She cannot be asking for work in such rags,” pointed out that young woman matter-of-factly. “They would know her for a gypsy at once, and Mac Cailein Mor has a fearful hatred of such. Best be giving her your blue dress to wear, Mina.”

Bogle chuckled, and Kelpie hid her satisfaction behind a blank face. Mina snarled and gave in. The string of epithets she flung at Kelpie along with the dress hardly amounted to an objection at all, and Kelpie’s earlier misgivings rose again briefly. If even the formidable Mina was so meekly obeying, then what power this Lowlander must have!

She was still brooding on this as she and Janet set out on the last bit of the journey, her cheek still stinging from Mina’s farewell cuff. On down Loch Awe, and to the wild steepness of Glen Aray, and along that gash in the hills toward Loch Fyne, Janet led the way sturdily enough, although Kelpie’s wiry legs could have gone much faster. Part of the time Janet left the thin path altogether and threaded her way along the slopes, among great clumps of brilliant pink rhododendron, groves of oak and hazel and rowan, patches of lavender-blooming heath and the mystic white bog-cotton.

“Best not to risk meeting anyone,” she remarked with a trace of nervousness. “I dare not be seen with you, in case....”

She left the sentence unfinished and went on in a new and brisk voice. “Now I will be giving you your story to tell the housekeeper when you ask for work. You are Sheena Campbell, daughter to Sorcha and Seumas, who lived in the old shieling hut where we met on Loch Awe. When they died, you went in service with MacIntyre of Craignish, but now, with their daughter wedded and away, there is no need for you. So you have come to Inverary, to your own clan chief, to see is there a place for you.”

For the next two hours she fed Kelpie the details of her fictional life and made her repeat them over and over, until Kelpie almost felt that she was two people at once.

“Och, you’re glib, just!” said Janet at last, her round face admiring. “I’m almost believing you myself. ’Tis a clever mind you have, and a canny tongue.” She stopped and turned around to survey Kelpie’s face searchingly. “Aye,” she went on, “and your face, though it is not bonnie, just, is a face to beguile the lads. Have you a braw laddie who loves you, Sheena?”

Four months ago Kelpie would have jeered at her in wonder and scorn. What had the lass of Mina and Bogle to do with love, or lads either—save to sell love-charms to the foolish? But though there had been no talk or thought of romance at Glenfern (except on one teasing afternoon), some sleeping thing in Kelpie had, perhaps, begun to stir. The face of Ian leaped into her mind, with the fine dark eyes of him, and the sensitive mouth curving downward and then up; and then she felt the strange, warm-faced sensation of her first blush—and she felt again the pain of her departure from Glenfern.

“No!” She spat so violently that Janet raised her eyebrows and gave Kelpie another sharp glance before she turned to walk on.

“A pity, that,” she observed mildly. “And a great waste,” she added presently, with a catch to her voice. “Had I your face and tongue, I would not be in the service of witchcraft, perhaps.”

Kelpie kilted up her blue dress a bit higher and came even with Janet so that she could see her face. “Why are you?” she demanded curiously. “I think you could never be a witch.”

“Och, no!” agreed Janet instantly. “At first I was only wanting a wee bit of a love potion to win the heart of the lad I loved. But before it could start to work at all, Mac Cailein Mor took him into the army and off to raid the MacDonalds. Och, my braw Angus.” She whimpered.

“He was killed?” Kelpie asked, and tried to push down the sympathy in her voice. She had promised herself not to care for anyone again, but only for herself.

“It was Mac Cailein Mor had him shot,” said Janet tonelessly. “He tried to save an old woman from the house they were burning. And for that I will help the Devil himself to destroy Mac Cailein Mor, my chief though he be. I am afraid of yon Lowlander, for he is evil, but I hate Mac Cailein Mor more than I fear the Lowlander.

“You must be very canny, Sheena! If you are caught—” She shuddered. “Have you a _sgian dhu_?”

Kelpie nodded and drew the small sheathed knife from inside her dress. Janet looked at it somberly. “If you’re caught, you’d do well to use it on yourself. ’Twould save you torment and burning, more than likely, and keep you from betraying the rest of us. You’ll say no word, ever, about me, Sheena? Pretend you have never seen or heard of me! Promise, Sheena!”

Kelpie looked at her, and Janet’s eyes were humble and pleading. “I know I am a coward,” Janet whispered, “but I cannot help it. I could not bear the pain, and I would not dare to kill myself—but you would, for you are brave.”

Kelpie looked at her _sgian dhu_ reflectively. It was the finest one she had ever had, the one stolen last spring in Inverness. The wee flat scabbard was darkly carved, and the four-inch blade, when she drew it out, winked sharply in the sun. Would she use it on herself? she wondered. Did she dare?

The beauty of the Highlands shimmered around her in pure, clear colors never quite the same from one instant to the next. The sky was infinite and tender; the sun beat warmly on her head; the air was delight to breathe. The world was good—except for the people in it, defiling it with hate and greed. It would be a pity to die, a waste of living. She found it very difficult to imagine.

She looked again at the gleaming edge of the _sgian dhu_, frowning a little. Dare? Yes, she thought she would dare, if it was to escape torture and burning. That would not take much courage. On the contrary, it would be the easy way—and she found that she did not like the taste of the idea. A feeling within her protested that suicide was shabby, debasing, a cheating of oneself. But Kelpie, who had never been taught such things as morals and integrity, could find no words and no reasons for this feeling. She shrugged and put the _sgian dhu_ back. Time enough to think about it if the occasion came up.

Janet had been watching her with round eyes, guessing a little of her thought. She shivered slightly. “You are very brave,” and said again. “I think you will be getting away with the hair. And I am sure that whatever is happening at all, you will not speak any names.”

Kelpie fell back a step or two. She looked thoughtfully on a golden patch of gorse blanketing the hillside ahead, and her smile was very pointed. No, she would not betray Janet—not, she reminded herself, because she was softhearted, but only because it would not help herself. But—if she was so unlucky as to be caught, which she did not at all intend to be—she would be very happy indeed to tell Mac Cailein Mor all about Mina, Bogle, and the Lowlander.

9. Inverary Castle

Loch Fyne stretched long and narrow between its hills—as what Highland loch did not? Glen Aray opened out into a meadow there, where the river entered the loch, and from the top of her hill Kelpie had a fine and leisurely view. There was the town of Inverary on the far side, nestled right on the loch. And on this side, almost below her, rose the massive stone bulk and towers of Inverary Castle, home of Mac Cailein Mor.

Kelpie wriggled a little deeper into her nest of tall harebells and broom and stared down at it with interest. She had time to wait and think. Janet had braided the black hair neatly for her, used the hem of her own dress to wash Kelpie’s grimy pointed face, and then hurried on to the head of the loch. From there she would return to the village as if from her own home. And Kelpie was to bide here, out of sight, until the next day, and then come down from the glen. Kelpie had agreed willingly enough, not for Janet’s sake, but for one more night under the free sky.

She glowered at the brooding gray castle, for it was just occurring to her that it would be much more like a prison than Glenfern. And would they allow her to be out and away in the hills when her tasks were done, as she had done at Glenfern? She doubted it. Och, it was a great sacrifice she was making for those who had sent her, and she must see that her reward was as great. And then.... She drifted into her favorite daydream.

In the long white twilight she backed down the hill until she found a tarn sheltered by birch, and settled herself for the night. The Dancers were absent tonight, and the sky a pale shadowed silver in which only the largest stars flickered feebly, for it was midsummer. Then the moon came over the crest of the hill, and there were no more stars, and the tarn became a pool of cold light. Deliberately Kelpie leaned over the bank and stared into the tarn.

The reflected brilliance of moonlight glowed, closed in upon itself, became a silver point, and then in its place there was a strange land—a place with giant forests, dark and wild, and a crude house made of logs in a rough clearing. She tossed her head with annoyance. What was this to her? What of her future, her career as a witch? What of destruction of those she hated? What of her enemies?

The tarn obeyed, as if with a malicious will of its own, and she saw Argyll’s face, the eyes coldly burning, the mouth twisted in anger, staring straight at her, and in her mind’s ear Kelpie heard the word “witch.”

She threw herself backward and sat with beating heart for several moments after the water stood clear and blank. Was she fey, then? Was it her own doom she was seeing? Och, no, perhaps not. For she had not seen herself, and surely Mac Cailein Mor had looked so to many a person accused of witchcraft. She had asked to see her enemy, and the picture was telling her, just, that here was a dangerous enemy—a warning to be canny, that was all. She curled up comfortably in a patch of rank grass free of nettles, and slept.

* * * * *

In the thin light of morning she smoothed back her hair and washed her face in the cold, peaty water of the tarn. Then, wary but confident, she made her way back to the glen and along the river to the castle.

As she approached the massive stone gateway, Kelpie put on the proper face and attitude for this occasion as easily as Eithne might have put on a different frock. The task was not so easy, really, for there was little that could be done about the long slanted eyes and brows or the pointed jaw. But the severely braided hair helped, and by tucking in her lower lip and drooping the corners she added a helpless and wistful note. She pulled her chin down and back and pressed her elbows to her sides for a look of brave apprehension, and then she changed her free, fawnlike walk for a most sober one.

Through the gate she stepped into a subdued world of drab colors. Her blue dress looked insolently bright beside the grays and blacks of the other women in the courtyard. Only the tartan—that proud symbol of the Highlander—had failed to be extinguished by the decree of the Covenant and Kirk. And even the tartans, being colored with vegetable dye, were of muted shades.

A man leading a horse stopped and regarded her with little approval. “What is it that you are wanting?” he asked.

“Could I be seeing Mrs. MacKellar, the housekeeper?” asked Kelpie, her eyes lowered modestly.

He looked at her for a moment and then called over his shoulder, “Siubhan, the lass is wanting Mrs. MacKellar. Take her away up to the door.” And he went on about his business.

A sad-faced woman put down her basket of laundry, regarded Kelpie without curiosity, and jerked her head. Kelpie followed with great meekness and waited obediently at the castle door until Siubhan had gone inside and reappeared with a tall, gaunt woman in black.

Once again there was the disapproving look. “And who may you be?”

“I be Sheena Campbell.” Kelpie launched into her story, not too glibly, with downcast eyes and humble voice. “And it’s hoping I am to serve Mac Cailein Mor,” she finished earnestly.

“Mmmm,” commented Mrs. MacKellar. “We’ve lasses aplenty in Inverary Village.”

“Och,” protested Kelpie, “but ’tis experience I’ve had! And,” she added pitifully, “they will be having homes, and I with nowhere to turn.”

Mrs. MacKellar softened, but only slightly. “To tell the truth,” she said bluntly, “there is something—I’m not altogether liking the look of you! How am I knowing you are what you say?”

“But and whyever else would I be coming to Mac Cailein Mor?” demanded Kelpie artlessly.

“Mmmm, that will be the question,” retorted Mrs. MacKellar. “No, now, I’m thinking—”

What she thought was never said, for from the corner of her eye Kelpie saw a tall figure just passing the foot of the stairs—not Argyll, but his tallness, his long face, red hair, and manner of dress suggested that he must be Argyll’s son. Kelpie took a chance.

She turned away blindly from the imminent refusal, carefully stumbled a bit, and tumbled herself neatly down the steps to land in a pathetic heap in front of the startled young man.

“My sorrow!” he ejaculated.

Kelpie swiftly decided against being injured, as this might prove inconvenient. So she gave a small scared glance upward at the faint frown above her and shrank back against the wall. “Och, your pardon!” she whispered. “Please do not be beating me!”

The young man—she was quite sure now that he must be Lord Lorne, son of Argyll—gave a short laugh. “Whatever you may have heard, I am no beater of bairns.”

Kelpie drooped her lip at him. “Sir, I would not mind a beating, if only I could be staying here to work for Mac Cailein Mor.”

“What is this? Who is she?” Lord Lorne switched to English, and Mrs. MacKellar replied in the same tongue.

“She iss saying her name iss Sheena Campbell from Loch Awe, and that she iss an orphan who hass peen working in the home of MacIntyre of Craignish who iss not needing her any more.” Mrs. MacKellar’s English, sibilant with the soft Gaelic sounds, was really not nearly as good as Kelpie’s—but Kelpie was careful to keep her face blank, as if she did not understand. “But sir,” went on the housekeeper, “I am not liking the look of her whateffer. Her eyes—”

Lord Lorne bent and looked at them. Kelpie tried to make them wide and pleading.

“Oddly ringed, aren’t they?” he observed. “Well, she can’t help that. You could use her, I think. Why not try her out?” And he went on to wherever he had been going.

“_Seadh._” Mrs. MacKellar shrugged and washed her hands of the decision. “You can be staying a bit, then, until I see can you do the work. We will see does Peigi have an old dress you can be wearing, of a proper color. You’re of the Kirk, are you no?” she demanded suddenly, turning to cast a suspicious eye on the blue of Kelpie’s dress.

Kelpie wasn’t quite sure what that meant, and, even with Janet’s tutoring, she dared not bluff too far. She took an instant to think as she rose slowly to her feet. “I am wanting to be a better Christian,” she said, temporizing, with an earnest face. “And that is one reason I was coming here, for the house of Mac Cailein Mor is surely the most godly of all.”

“Well—” Mrs. MacKellar looked somewhat appeased. “Come away in, then.” And Kelpie came.

* * * * *

Life in Inverary Castle was quite different from life at Glenfern, even though Kelpie’s duties were similar. There was a coldness here—and not only physical, although the castle was chill enough, with draughts constantly blowing down the halls and pushing out against the wall tapestries. But the chill of spirit was even more depressing. Laughter was near sacrilege, and a smile darkly suspect. Dancing simply didn’t exist, and singing was confined to dour hymns regarding hellfire and damnation. If Kelpie had ever chafed at the restrictions of Glenfern, she now realized what a free and happy life that had been. Och, that people could live like this! Worse, that they seemed to approve it! One could hardly say they _liked_ anything.

And here Kelpie heard the other viewpoint regarding Mac Cailein Mor. Everyone seemed to fear him, even his rather mousy wife and sullen son. But they also saw him (except possibly Lord Lorne) as the Right Hand of God, fighting the battles of righteousness against such enemies of Heaven as witches, King Charles, Papists, Anglicans, everyone else who was not of the Covenant, and, most particularly, Lord Graham of Montrose, who was supposedly leading the King’s army in Scotland. But no one seemed to know where Montrose was now, at all. He had started north to raise an army for the king and then vanished altogether, and it was to be fondly hoped that the Devil had snatched him away to Hell where he belonged.

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?