Beneath a Winter Moon

Scotland
1852

Alastair McLeod awoke with a start at the myriad of loud voices. He squinted. The early morning sun was blinding. Indeed, the harsh rays were painful as his eyes tried to adjust to the bright intrusion. He squinted again and looked into a bright, blue sky bordered by the heads of men whose scowling faces stared down at him.

What is all of this,
he wondered. Where was he? What the bloody hell had happened to him? He propped himself up on his elbows, and the scowling faces moved back a bit, but still hovered. The talking heads spoke in a language he did not understand, but one that he realized he
should indeed know.

The language was Gaelic and was Alastair’s own native tongue. Had he been raised as a Scot, Alastair would have learned both English and
his own
language. As it was, he could not understand anything they said. He brushed aside the pang of guilt. He was His Majesty’s man, by God, and he spoke His Majesty’s language—as well as French and Latin. He needn’t feel embarrassed for not knowing the language of
peasants.

But…what was happening? He slowly stood up—his bones creaking in protest. The crowd of men parted and a lone voice interrupted a brief moment of silence.

“A bit of ale, for you, then, sir?”

Finally, a language he could understand. The man behind the voice, a scruffy, brown-toothed peasant, held out a wooden bowl. Ordinarily, Alastair, one of the king’s taxmen, would have slapped the bowl away with impudence—he did not drink from the bowls of mere peasants. However, this was different. He snatched up the bowl without so much as a word and drained its warm, gritty contents. Only then could he summon words from his own parched and sore throat.

“What…what is going on? What has happened and where am I?”

The crowd, now standing some distance away, lowered their voices at the sound of Alastair’s questions, but their unintelligible speech quickened and took on a more serious tone.

“You don’t kin what happened to you of the night past? Nay a thing?” the brown-toothed peasant asked.

“Of course not, you bloody fool!” Alastair snapped. “If I remembered…if I knew why I woke up here,” he stopped and looked around. “Wait—where am I, man? What is happening, here?” He paused and then shouted so that the huddled crowd would be sure to hear and know his anger, “Have I been waylaid?”

The murmurs grew more intense. One of the peasants pointed at Alastair. Alastair looked at the peasant and saw that the man was motioning to his shirt. Alastair looked down at the left side of the blouse to find it completely covered in blood and ripped open. He fainted.

He awoke—and again found that he was in an unfamiliar setting—lying on a straw mattress covered by a stinking wool blanket. He saw his clothes hanging on rafters above him. His shirt had been stitched, washed and hung, free of the gruesome bloodstains, from a rafter over the bed. A woman stoked a fire in a stone hearth, while a man—the same brown-toothed peasant from earlier, rocked back and forth in an ugly rocking chair made from knotted wood. The man stopped rocking and poked the woman’s hip.

She scowled at him, and then noticed that Alastair was awake. She quickly snatched the shirt from the rafters, and then a set of breeches—Alastair’s breeches. “Good God, woman…” Alastair muttered, realizing that he had been fully undressed. He liked the way the woman looked. She was tall, slender, and not at all ugly. In fact, he had to admit to himself, as he felt a slight tug at his loins…she was quite beautiful. Her jet black hair was striking, the length of it past her lower back. He suddenly longed to press his face into that hair...

“My apologies, sir’” the woman spoke in a soft, Scottish brogue. “I was told to wash and repair your things, and so I did.” She made a shooing motion at the man in the rocking chair, who nodded and opened the door to the small home. “We will step out now, so you can make yourself proper.” She lifted her tattered dress so that it would not drag the dirt floor as she hurried outside. She glanced back at Alastair and bowed her head as she closed the door behind her.

Alastair dressed in a hurry, putting the woman out of his mind while trying to recall anything that would help put the pieces of this puzzle together. He had been at the
Inn
, sitting across from the three village elders. They were short on the taxes that were due, and had been begging Alastair to give them another season to make up the debt.

Then, memories became blurry, and some were missing. As he pulled on his breeches, he stopped and looked down at his shirt. He took his right index finger and ran it along the stitching where a large, misshapen, ugly tear had once been. Then he stripped off the shirt, letting his breeches fall back to the floor, and checked his shoulder for injury. There was none. The blood he saw earlier must have been from someone else…and his shirt must have been torn during some event that took place in the
Inn
’s tavern—perhaps a brawl. God knew that these people were a wild, untamed bunch, as likely to go at one another, as they were to get along.

Something about the pattern of the new stitching bothered him. He stared at the shirt in his hands. The largest tear, which was shaped like that of an upside down horseshoe, seemed ordinary enough—but he looked in puzzlement at a series of holes below the horseshoe shape, six or seven in all. The woman had simply pinched each hole together and stitched them—but the pattern made his skin crawl. It resembled teeth marks.

Then, recollection lit up his mind like the flash of a musket. By God, he
had
been attacked by something…perhaps a large dog? He replayed the memory over and over, and each time recalled a bit more. The people in the Inn’s tavern began screaming and running about in a panic, some trying to get to the door behind Alastair’s table and some diving behind the small bar in the center of the room.

Alastair had stood up to protest and to see what was happening—no—that wasn’t right. He’d stood up to make for the door when something—some massive, foul breathed thing, had slammed into his back with a huge snarl, forcing him to the floor. He recalled hot, foul breath and thick fur at his throat. He had felt the huge jaws of…the creature clamp down on his shoulder. Was it a wolf?
Good Christ
!
There hasn’t been a wolf in the
Highlands
for a century
! Still, that was his impression.

His mind was wiped clean of any memory short of waking up outside at dawn. He thought that he must have ran outside the Inn to get away from the beast, but then why had he not been taken back inside? And, why was he here in this man’s
hovel
when he should be in the comforts of his own room at the
Inn
?

He finished putting on his clothes and shoes and stepped outside into the cool morning to find the man and woman waiting. The young man looked at Alastair, and then at the ground. The woman, obviously his wife, never looked up. She avoided his gaze as she walked back into the house. Alastair waited for the man, who was still standing outside with him, to say something, but the peasant merely continued to stare at the ground. This annoyed Alastair, greatly, and so he said so. He wanted answers.

“What is your name, sir?” Alastair demanded.

The man finally looked up, trying not meet Alastair’s gaze. “I am
Camran
Shaw, sir.”

The peasant’s piercing blue eyes startled Alastair. He had never seen such blue eyes. “Ah, good. Well, then,
Camran
—can you tell me why I am here? I am grateful for your hospitality,” he coughed. “
Such as it is
…but why am I not in my room at the
Inn
? Where are my belongings? What of my servant and the officer assigned to me? Surely, he should be standing now, outside this very door.” Alastair paused, red-faced when
Camran
made no effort to answer. “I must insist that you tell me exactly what happened last night.” He paused, and when no answer came, demanded, “At once!”

“It weren’t last night, sir. It were the past night before.”

This revelation stunned Alastair. “Do you mean to say that I have been incapacitated for more than a day?”

“Inca…
incapas
…?”
Camran
stammered.

“Unconscious, asleep,” Alastair said gruffly.

“Yes, sir. That’s it sir, exactly. We took you in after you collapsed the past day’s morning. You’ve been here, sleeping, ever since.” He paused, looking frightened. “We took nothing from you, sir…and we made you to drink when you would, and we kept you warm.” He pointed at the closed door. “My wife stitched up your clothing and then boiled and cleaned them.”

Alastair settled a bit, looking back down at the repaired blouse, and then straightening it. “Yes, yes. I thank you,
Camran
, and I do not accuse you. I am merely looking for answers. I recall being attacked by a mongrel of some sort, though it must have been another poor soul that was injured…for I am healthy as an ox.” He didn’t give
Camran
time to answer, “Though I admit I cannot understand why I would have slept so soundly and for so long.” He looked around, trying to get his bearings and determine just where ‘this place’ was. “Now, tell me…what about my servant and my officer?”

“As for the sleeping, sir—it were a fever. It’s gone now, but it were bad this past day and night.” He lowered his eyes. “I should not be the one to tell you of your servant and officer, but I cannot deny your insistence, sir.” He hesitated, but saw that Alastair would not wait, so he continued. “They are dead, sir—killed by the same beast that attacked you.”

Alastair’s mouth dropped open. He did not know how to respond. He had known that something was amiss, else his officer would be here, and his servant as well, though undoubtedly the servant was less dependable.

“Killed? By an animal? In the
Highlands
?” Alastair was astonished. The nearest things to animal-related deaths up here in these lands were being trampled by cattle or perhaps falling off a horse. Could he take this man at his word?
No, no. of course not
. He would get to that
Inn
and learn just what was what. Now, however, he needed to keep calm and deal with what was currently in front of him.

“I see.” He paused. “Well, truly I do not, but I
will
come to understand, and so will
His Majesty
, of that I am certain.” He patted
Camran
on the shoulder. He believed the best course of action at the moment was to keep calm and remain in charge. “Your countrymen killed the animal, then?”

Camran
looked at the ground. “Old Thomas McRae put some holes in it just after it finished with your two officers—but no sire, it weren’t killed.”

“I see. How did I come to wake up outside the
Inn
and not inside—in the tavern where I recall being attacked?

“It drug you outside. It were as if it wanted you, especially. By then, your officers were
doin
their best to get it off you.”

“The beast killed no one else? Wounded no one else?”

Camran
shook his head.

“I see. Well, it almost appears as though someone purposely sent that thing to meet me.” He thought about that for a moment. If someone wanted him dead, then the sooner he got out of here, the better. “Well, then,
Camran
…can you escort me back to the
Inn
, where I can ask the Keep what the devil is going on with my property?”

“Aye, sir. I can.” He looked down at the ground again, and shuffled some dirt around with his foot. Alastair balked at the homemade leather shoe, and then saw
Camran’s
reluctance.