Chapter IV: Part 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“A thief, is it?” he rasped.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

11. Argyll’s Dungeon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sheena?”

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

“Sheena, are you awake?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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 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.

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.”

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! 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.

12. Meeting at Pitlochry

“’Tis sorry I am to see you away, wee dark love, but you must be putting more distance between yourself and the Campbells. And you must be searching for your own true family. To think of it! And you say Mac Cailein Mor was telling you himself that ’twas from a chief he stole you?”

“And I but a bairn,” agreed Kelpie firmly. Having Callum and Alsoon believe her tale so readily almost made her believe it herself—and, after all, might not some of it be true? She tucked the little bundle of oatmeal and scones into her belt, and hugged the rough warmth of her new plaidie about her shoulders, pleased that it was the neutral black and white of the shepherd’s tartan and would not associate her with any particular clan.

Luck was with her again, she reflected, that she had found these kind and simple people, willing to give her the food from their mouths and the clothes from their backs—much simpler, if less exciting, than stealing. It made her feel odd to be _given_ things this way. Perhaps if all folk were like these, or like Ian and his family, there would be no need to steal. Warm with a novel sense of gratitude, she was careful not to take anything from Callum and Alsoon that they had not given her.

They stood just outside the low doorway in the brightness of the summer evening. The rain had become mere clouds glowing to the northwest, where the sun would soon dip briefly below the hills. The old couple regarded her anxiously, not at all happy to see her set off in the white gloaming.

“Look you, now,” repeated Callum, “you must be going south and east for a bit, through Drummond and Stewart country, and then north through Murrays and Menzies, and when you reach Pitlochry, just be finding the home of my daughter Meg, at the tanning shop next the Tey River, and tell them I sent you, and they will care for you until you are away again.”

“Aye, then,” murmured Kelpie, anxious to be gone. She had heard these directions at least twice before, and in any case she knew the country far better than she dared to let Callum know.

“Haste ye back,” they said, and this Highland phrase was never used unless truly meant. No one had ever said it to Kelpie before. She caught her breath, turned her head away, and hurried off.

Traveling, she found, was easier without Mina and Bogle than with them, in one way. For folks had only to take one look at those two to know the worst. But Kelpie, as long as she kept her eyes lowered and her lip tucked demurely in, looked quite innocent, so that, even on the edge of the thrifty and Kirk-trained Lowlands, people were usually willing to give her food—and when they didn’t, Kelpie simply helped herself.

Now and then she picked up rumors about what was going on in the Highlands, particularly concerning Argyll, who was, it appeared, still away in the west, chasing an elusive Antrim.

As nearly as Kelpie could make out from bits here and there, Argyll had chased Antrim back to Ardnamurchen, where the latter had left his ships. But the ships had been spirited away by the English, just as Lorne had suggested, and since then the two forces had been playing catch-me-if-you-can all over the Highlands, with Antrim trying to rouse the clans against Argyll, the clans either afraid or quarreling among themselves, while Argyll tried to catch Antrim’s small army before it should become a larger army.

“Aye,” said an old man, chuckling, in a voice not meant to be overheard. “Argyll will never be fighting a battle against more than half his number if he can avoid it.”

“Dinna mock him!” whispered another. “Ye’ll no be wanting yon wild foreign Hielanders crossing the mountains wi’ their wicked screechin’ pipes and attacking us, will ye?”

“Dinna fret, they’ll no come. ’Tis too busy they are wi’ their own heathen fighting; Papists, the lot o’ them.”

“They might, if Montrose could stir them up tae fight for the King against the Covenant.”

“They would never do that. He’s a Graham from the East Coast, and those savages in the West would never stir a foot for any but their own chiefs. Anyway, they say Montrose is vanished altogether, and no doubt dead.”

They both bent lowering gray brows when they saw the shamelessly eavesdropping Kelpie. She scurried away hastily, lest they think her a spy.

She wandered on, begging, stealing, and listening, until she came at last to Pitlochry.

There seemed a braw lot of people in the narrow streets of the town, and, surprisingly, many of them seemed to be wearing Gordon or MacDonald tartans. Whatever were those clans doing here? And those two young men striding along the street toward her.... “_Dhé!_” said Kelpie, and they all stopped short.

They stared at one another with mixed feelings. “Why, whatever will ye be doing here, at all?” demanded Kelpie with astonishment.

Alex recovered his wits first. “Why,” he said with the old mocking grin, “we were missing you and your bonnie friends so badly that we had to come away to look for ye.”

“Sssss!” remarked Kelpie, concealing her pleasure at the old bantering and reminding herself that Alex was a treacherous enemy. Moreover, she was never again going to permit herself the dangerous luxury of caring for anyone at all. Having told herself this, she turned to look at Ian with delight. A braw lad! Did he carry a grudge against her? she wondered anxiously.

“And are you all right, Kelpie?” he asked kindly. “Mina and Bogle are treating you well?”

“Sssss,” she said again. “They are wicked _uruisgean_, and I have left them this long time ago. I did not want to be leaving Glenfern whatever,” she added hopefully.

Ian looked pleased, but Alex laughed. “Aye, it was a good enough life you were leading there, after all. But you seem to be doing well enough for yourself the now. Where were you stealing the gey sober gown and plaidie?”

“I was not stealing them whatever!” Kelpie was outraged more by his manner than by his words.

“But you would be saying the same thing even if you had,” encouraged Alex with a straight face.

Kelpie’s lips began to curve upward as she remembered the teasing at the loch-side at Glenfern. She tried to frown, for it was not right to be teasing with Alex when they were no longer friends. But she could not help it. “Of course,” she agreed cheekily and grinned.

“Och, the wicked wee lass!” Alex chuckled. “She’ll never change!”

“No, now, but she has changed!” Ian objected. “She could not laugh at herself when first she came to Glenfern.”

“Are you sure ’tis herself she’s laughing at?” gibed Alex. “Or is it ourselves, just, for being ready to forgive her so easily—and after she was breaking the ancient code of hospitality.”

“It was not my fault!” protested Kelpie. “Mina was threatening to put a curse on you all if I did not come with them.”

“Och, how tender you are of our welfare!” said Alex derisively. “And that, I suppose, is why you were so quick to tell her all about how Ian and I met the King and Montrose in Oxford?”

There was no use trying to explain, for he would never believe her—not that she cared a groat what Alex MacDonald thought, anyway. Perhaps she would be able to tell Ian about it some day, with Alex not around. An idea was growing in her mind. After glowering at Alex, she turned to Ian and looked up at him meltingly through long lashes. She had never before set out to beguile a lad, but Janet had put the thought in her head, and she might as well try now and see could she do it. Some deep instinct awoke, so that she seemed to know just how to go about it. “And what is it you are doing so far from Glenfern?” she asked softly.

Was it her fancy that Ian’s smile seemed a wee bit warmer than usual? “Why,” he said, “we are with Colkitto’s army, up at Blair Atholl, and—”

Kelpie forgot about beguiling him. “Colkitto!” she yelped. “You mean Antrim?”

“Aye, ’tis what we call him; Alistair MacDonald, Earl of Antrim, who has—”

“Fine I know that!” interrupted Kelpie. “But where will Mac Cailein Mor be, then? On your tail?” There was alarm in her voice, and both lads regarded her curiously.

“Na, na,” Ian said soothingly. “He’s away back to his own country, raising a larger army, no doubt, since some five hundred Gordons have joined us. Are you afraid of him, Kelpie? And what are you doing here, and where are you living?”

Kelpie looked wistful. “I am all alone, and nowhere to five.” She sighed and then smiled up at him brightly. “It is in my mind to come along with you,” she announced.

Alex laughed. Unprincipled little thing though she was, he did enjoy her shameless, incorrigible audacity! The workings of her mind fascinated him, and even though he could see through her so easily, he could never remain angry for long.

Ian looked thoughtful. “Well, and why not? We’ve nearly as many women and bairns as we have men, for Colkitto brought the whole of his clan over with him to take back their land from the Campbells. And Lachlan brought his wife Maeve along to be cooking and nursing and caring for us, for she does not trust Lachlan to do it properly. You’d be far safer than wandering alone. What about it, Alex?”

Alex shrugged and lifted a red eyebrow. “Ou, I’ve no doubt at all that she can look after herself,” he observed dryly. “But I’ve no objection; only, Ian _avic_, let us not be trusting her as far as tomorrow, for there is no loyalty in her.”

The lazy mockery of his voice had a whiplash in it, and Kelpie flinched, unexpectedly hurt by it. She lashed back, remembering the scene in Loch nan Eilean.

“You!” she fumed. “You, to be talking of loyalty, who would strike down a friend from behind!”

Alex gaped. It was the first time she had ever caught him out of countenance, and it gave her great satisfaction. Ian looked distressed. “Och, now!” he protested hastily. “Let you both be saving your fighting for the Covenant armies. Come away back to the camp, now, and we’ll talk as we go.”

They started back, out of Pitlochry and over the narrow road lined with tall blooming thistles. The heather, just preparing to bloom, glowed rustily under the patchy sunlight. Alex strode along frowning, still smarting and dumfounded over the outrageous flank attack. What could she have meant by it, the wee witch? She had seemed genuinely indignant, too. For once she was not acting; Alex had been matching wits with her long enough to be sure of that. Then what under the great heavens could he have done to draw such a denunciation, such withering scorn from an unprincipled gypsy lass who would doubtless betray her own grandmother for a bit of copper? It made no sense whatever. And although Alex reminded himself that the opinion of a wee witch could scarcely matter, he found that it rankled. “_Dhiaoul!_” he muttered under his breath and knit his brows in annoyance, leaving most of the conversation to Ian.

“And why is it you’re so concerned over Mac Cailein Mor, Kelpie?” Ian asked. “Have you been studying more politics since you left Glenfern?”

Kelpie hedged. “Is it likely I’d be wanting to run into the head of the Covenant army, and him death on gypsies and all who do not belong to the Kirk? No, now”—she shifted the subject—“tell me what has been happening, and why Colkitto has his army at Blair Atholl.”

“Well, so.” Ian thought for a minute, his sensitive profile clear and grave against the mauve and russet and olive of the August hills. Kelpie tilted her own face to look at him as she kept easy pace while Alex walked, brooding silently, behind.

“Did you know,” began Ian, “that Colkitto brought over his whole clan to fight for the King against Argyll and the Covenant, and perhaps take back some of the MacDonald land from the Campbells?”

“Fine, that!” murmured Kelpie, remembering that day at Inverary. “And Argyll away after him all over the Highlands.”

Ian nodded. “And the English burned Antrim’s ships, so that he must stay here, will he, nil he. So he has been trying to get the other Highland clans to join him. He’s not had much luck, for some of the clans fear the Campbells too much, and some others have decided that they hate the MacDonalds even more than the Covenant—for the moment, at any rate. Lochiel doesn’t dare call out our clan yet, with Ewen still in Argyll’s hands, and—more important—with Argyll’s army so near to Lochaber. Can you imagine what would be happening to our women and children at Lochaber if Lochiel took the men away to fight the Covenant?”

Kelpie could imagine, easily. Her blood ran cold at the thought of Wee Mairi in danger, and she nodded soberly.

“Some of us Camerons have come along anyway, and so have some five hundred Gordons who are wanting revenge against Argyll,” continued Ian. “But most on this side of the mountains think we Western Highlanders are a band of wild savages, like the Red Indians of America. And even Stewart of Atholl—although he hates Argyll and the Covenant—will have nothing to do with the Irish MacDonalds. So—” He grinned at Kelpie mischievously. “We have just borrowed Atholl’s castle from him, and now we sit and wait.” He sobered again. “I do not know what we will do next. There is a rumor that Graham of Montrose is still alive, and perhaps he is our hope. But to tell the truth, things do not look very good, and the Covenant armies will not sit still forever.”

Kelpie’s lip lifted in sudden anger. “Och, ye will be losing this war, just!” she predicted despairingly. “For yourselves, and for the folk like me who want only to be left alone. You cannot get together even to save your own lives, but must always be quarreling clan against clan, and so ye will lose!”

Ian looked depressed, but Alex came out of his black reverie with a laugh. “Listen to her, just!” he taunted. “The lone lass who lives for herself and no other will be giving us a lesson on cooperation! But even though you don’t practice what you preach,” he added somberly, “you’re right.”

A puffy cloud blew over the sun, darkening the bright hills, and the thistles waved in a sudden sharp breeze.

* * * * *

The small army was spread over the hill and moor near Blair Atholl, looking somewhat dispirited. Some men were hopefully cleaning their gear, polishing the huge two-handed claymores and battle axes which struck such terror into Lowland hearts. Others just sat, or wandered, or gambled, or talked. Women were busy gossiping, sewing, cooking, arguing; but one tall, gaunt woman brooded alone. Children ran about playing tag or hanging about the men. A ragged, motley crowd it was, but fierce-looking enough, no doubt, to folk on this side of the mountains. Kelpie frowned suddenly. The whole scene looked familiar.

“We’ve set up our wee camp spot over yon, just near those rowan trees,” said Ian, pointing to a spot partway up the hill. But before they were halfway there a flurry of excitement near the edge of the moor turned into an uproar. Men began shouting, running. A single shot was fired, and then several more.

“It couldn’t be an attack!” Ian frowned, staring across the moor, “but what is it?”

“’Tis he!” shouted Alex. “’Tis Graham of Montrose! Look you there!”

“The King’s Lieutenant!” “He’s come!” “My Lord of Montrose!” The words were being shouted back and forth, and the sound swelled into a thunder of cheers. Kelpie found herself running with the lads toward the center of the excitement.

As nearly as she could see through the crowd, the Lord of Montrose seemed to be a slight young man in groom’s clothing, with brown hair and a bunch of oats stuck in his bonnet. _Dhé!_ She had seen him before! And now from the wooded hill a red-bearded giant in the MacDonald tartan—Antrim—rushed down to clasp the hand of the slight young man, and Kelpie remembered. She had seen it in the crystal, that first morning at Glenfern.

And so now they had come together, Antrim and Montrose, totally different and yet fighting for the King’s cause. What would be the outcome?

13. The Hexing of Alex

The immediate effect of Montrose’s arrival was that of a most powerful magic charm. It could not have been more telling had he come with a full army at his back instead of just one man, his cousin Patrick. The King’s standard was raised then and there on the hillside and saluted with a flourish of trumpets, and cheers, and triumphantly skirling bagpipes. And some of the clans who had been hovering about waiting to attack the Irish Highlander Antrim now came to join the King’s Lieutenant, Montrose—including Stewart of Atholl.

Kelpie decided to stay for a while. Things looked interesting. She was safer here than wandering alone. Besides, she liked Ian’s company, even if it meant putting up with Alex. She even thought that she just might persuade Ian to guard himself against his precious foster brother, though she had not much hope of this, Ian being so stubbornly trustful. Besides, since she had “seen” the thing in the loch, it would surely happen, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

For a while, staying with the army meant simply staying right there where it was. Nothing much seemed to be happening. Clans—or, more often, bits of them—drifted in. Kelpie roamed where she liked, usually with the lads and their watchful _ghillie_, Lachlan, exchanging insults with Alex and hostile silence with Lachlan and his wife Maeve, who had no use for her whatever and made no secret of it.

She also spent some of her time gazing speculatively at the tall, gaunt woman whom she had noticed the first day she arrived. The woman would stare for hours into space, a black, brooding look on her face, her hands twisting together as if she were wringing someone’s neck—or perhaps casting a new kind of spell. A bulky Gordon plaidie covered her broad shoulders, and, though she was not old, there was the beginning of gray at her dark temples, and there were strong, grim lines along her mouth. Her eyes were deep-set and a little alarming, and Kelpie wondered whether she might be a witch. She looked it. Perhaps she had been tortured by witch-hunters and had somehow escaped? Kelpie considered approaching her about learning the Evil Eye, but the woman’s fierceness made her hesitate. She might get a curse put on herself for her boldness, and she could do fine without _that_.

The coppery hills began to turn purple with the blooming of the heather. It rained. No more was heard of Argyll, but there were rumors that the enemy commander, Lord Elcho, was in Perth with an army of seven thousand and looking with considerable interest toward Blair Atholl. “And we with only two thousand men,” commented Alex cheerfully.

“Ou, aye,” agreed Ian with a grin. “But just think of our fine store of weapons!” Lachlan looked sour, and Kelpie raised a derisive eyebrow.

“Artillery?” mused Alex. “None.”

“Cavalry—three old horses, one of them lame,” chanted Ian.

“Guns—some old-fashioned matchlocks, and all the ammunition we could be needing to shoot a third of them for one round each.”

“And then,” finished Ian in triumph, “just in case we’re needing them, there’s a few swords, claymores, and battleaxes—not to mention the _sgian dhu_” he added, reaching down to tap the wee dirk where it nestled in his stocking, just on the outside of his right knee.

“And”—Alex chuckled with ironic optimism—“Montrose has been saying that the enemy has plenty of weapons, and those of us without can just help ourselves once the fighting has started.”

Kelpie looked at them. There was, she felt, a definite limit to the things a body should be joking about. She said so. And Lachlan, who felt personally responsible for the safety of Ian and Alex, for once agreed with her.

And now came Maeve, whose loyalty was all toward Mac ’ic Ian, heir to Glenfern (for Master Alex, although a foster son, was not actually a Cameron at all). Her orange hair gleamed even in the cloud-filtered sun, and she addressed herself to Ian.

“Food will be ready,” she said and crossed herself as she looked at Kelpie. As they all started toward the rowan tree they called home, she added, half under her breath, “Herself eats enough, whatever, but will never be doing any cooking.”

“You were not liking my cooking,” observed Kelpie complacently. It was no accident that the one meal she had produced, at Alex’ insistence, had been perfectly awful.

“_Dhé_, no!” Ian agreed, laughing. “You said she was trying to poison us, Maeve. You’d not be wanting to try that again, would you?”

“’Tis gey queer,” retorted Maeve, “for a gypsy not to be able to cook over an open fire.”

Ian looked at Kelpie, his keen mind as usual fighting with his desire to believe the best of people. Alex began to laugh. “Och!” he exclaimed ruefully. “And I the one who was never going to be fooled by her again!”

Kelpie saw an opening. “Gypsy taste will be different from yours,” she announced blandly. “When I was first stolen, it was a dreadful time I had getting used to gypsy food! It was nearly starving I was, for a while.” Her blue ringed eyes widened with the picture of a poor wee bairn pining away with hunger.

Lachlan snorted.

“Ou, the pity of it!” said Alex mournfully, his angular face looking almost tender. “And you used to royal food, and all. I’ve wondered, just, whether ’tis yourself was the princess stolen from our King and Queen all those long years ago when they visited the Highlands.”

For a minute Kelpie was fooled. Her eyes were a smoky blue blaze as visions of royal grandeur hurtled through her mind. Of course! Why not?

“For shame, Alex,” said Ian reproachfully. “She’s nearly believing it.”

Kelpie jerked out of her dream and hissed venomously at Alex, who chuckled impenitently and wondered how she would try to get even this time.

The next day Kelpie went down to the burn, where she had noticed that the soil had a sticky, claylike quality. There she sat for some time, screened by broom and high bracken, and slowly shaped a small clay figure—not that it looked much like Alex, she being no artist. In fact, she admitted, a body could barely tell that it was supposed to be human at all. But perhaps the intent was the main thing. If only she could get hold of a bit of his hair or a fingernail—but Kelpie had had enough of hair-stealing for a while, particularly red hair. Anyway, Alex was much too canny. She had never yet managed to steal anything from him without being caught. No, she would just have to be trying her hex without it.

There were brambles conveniently near. Kelpie picked a long thorn, regarded her clay figure thoughtfully, and then plunged the thorn deep into the area where the stomach might be expected to be.

Then she wrapped up the hex figure, went back to the rowan tree, and began to watch Alex hopefully.

Two days passed, but if he had any pains in his stomach, he concealed them very well. Kelpie added a second thorn to the figure, this time in the head, and again waited. By rights, his brains ought to start melting away, but she must not be doing it right, for Alex’s brains remained as uncomfortably keen as ever. He didn’t even get a headache.

Kelpie began looking wistfully at the tall, gaunt woman again. If she _was_ a witch, she could undoubtedly help. And yet—Kelpie noticed that the men of the army did not treat her at all as a witch. Far from shunning her, they went out of their way to be kind, to bring her choice bits of food, to talk to her. Once again Kelpie decided not to risk trouble. She would manage her own hex, impotent as it seemed to be.

In disgust, she took it out again, plunged thorns all over it, rubbed it with nettles, burned it, and then watched again. After five days Alex did twist his wrist slightly, but somehow Kelpie failed to feel much satisfaction. She was quite sure that she had never put a thorn in the left wrist. So she gave up trying to hex him. Either she didn’t have the power at all, or else—which seemed quite possible—Alex had a greater power.

Lord Graham of Montrose had a great power too. Kelpie found herself more and more interested in him. The look of him was not that of a strong leader at all. Slight, he was, with gentle dark gray eyes and a quiet and courteous air that hardly seemed to belong in an army at all, much less at the head of one. Now, Antrim looked like a leader indeed, massive red giant that he was, with a great roar of a voice. Yet there was no doubt that Montrose was the heart and soul of the army. Everyone, even Antrim, listened to him with respect amounting almost to worship, and everyone said that he had a genius for warfare.

Was it magic? Quite likely, Kelpie thought. She took to watching and listening whenever he was among the men. But she never saw him make any magic signs, and his words were about such things as honor and loyalty and why he was fighting for the King. Ian had said Montrose wanted no power for himself, but only for right to be done, but Ian was gullible. Skeptical, Kelpie kept her ears open.

“Loyalty is the great thing,” Montrose remarked one day, sitting at ease in a misty drizzle, kilted Highlanders all around him. They listened with eagerness and respect, but Kelpie, at the edge of the group, narrowed her eyes mistrustfully.

“Loyalty to your clan and your King, to an ideal, to a friend, to a thing you believe,” he went on. “This is integrity; and it is loyalty also to yourself.” Kelpie frowned. It was only loyalty to oneself that paid. She had found that out. Montrose was like Ian, then, too generous and trusting. They would both suffer for it, no doubt, unless they learned to care only for their own welfare.

“You see,” said Montrose, “King Charles is a Stewart, and so we have a double loyalty to him—as our King, and as a Stewart and a Highlander. The English Parliament and the Scottish Covenant wish to rule the King and all of us as well. I think I need not tell you that.”

There was a growl from the group. “Aye, Mac Cailein Mor would be King Campbell with the help of the Covenanters!” “A plague on the lot of them!”

“And so,” urged Montrose, “we must put aside lesser loyalties and quarrels amongst our own clans, and stand together.”

“Aye!” shouted the men, but Kelpie privately thought that Montrose’s magic would fail at this point. Who ever knew a Highlander to give up his clan feuds for anything at all—except a greater clan feud?

She did learn one thing about Montrose. He used different words with different kinds of people—just as she herself did, in a way. She was eavesdropping one evening as he sat by his campfire with Antrim and Patrick Graham of Inchbrakie, and his words to them were less simple and certain than those to the untaught clansmen.

“No,” he said, “I do not fight for what people call the Divine Right of Kings. I don’t believe there is such a thing, Alistair. A king must be subject to the laws of God, nature, and the country that he rules. But as long as he stays within those laws, then he should _be_ the ruler.”

“And if he doesn’t?” It was Patrick Graham, called “Black Pate.”

The youthful face looked troubled in the firelight. “It’s true King Charles hasn’t always obeyed the rules,” murmured Montrose. “That is why I supported the Covenant at first. But then I saw the greater danger we courted. If a group of subjects takes over the king’s power, they may become a far worse tyrant than ever a king could be, and that is what happened. You see yourselves how the Covenant oppresses the people; and I think those who are fighting for the Parliament in this war may find that they’ve used their own blood and their own fortunes to buy vultures and tigers to rule over them. To tell you the truth, my friends, I don’t know the right way to handle a king who abuses his power, but I do know that this is the wrong way. Perhaps there should be some limit set to the amount of power that one man or group can have.”

Kelpie chewed her lip thoughtfully. Och, now, and there was a good idea. She could think of several such whose power should be limited to nothing at all. She would begin with Argyll and the Covenant, and go on to the Lowlander and Mina and Bogle. But how would one set about arranging this?

In her preoccupation, Kelpie forgot that she was hiding and carelessly shifted her position so that a twig cracked. A small twig it was, and most folk would never have noticed, but these men were well schooled in danger. Three heads turned as one, and an instant later Antrim’s huge hand was plucking her from her hiding place as he would a puppy.

“_Dhé!_” He chortled, holding her up in the orange light of the fire and looking her over with interest. “Here’s a fine dangerous enemy in our midst.”