Macbeth's Niece (29 page)

Miriam never even thought about it, from the
readiness of her response. “I am willing to help you, Sir Thomas.”
She flattered him, for he was no knight. And I will watch for the
three you describe. However, my captain has brought no word of
anyone’s passing. We are vigilant, but seldom see anyone in this
backward place. If Hamish had seen them, he would have told
me.”

“This man of yours is reliable?”

Miriam sensed Perth’s doubt. “Would you like
to ask him yourself?”

“I would, in case he neglected to mention
it.” The man’s tone hinted that in Hamish’s place he would not feel
compelled to keep this wreck of a woman informed of current
events.

Miriam made no comment, and there was a
period of silence during which Tessa assumed Ayla went to fetch
Hamish. Soon the sounds of his approach could be heard, and he was
introduced to the newcomer.

“Hamish,” Miriam said in a calm voice, “this
gentleman seeks three criminals who might have passed by on the
tarn. Two boys and an old man, you said?” Perth must have nodded.
“Have these people—or any others, for that matter—passed this place
in the last day or so?”

“No, milady. No one has passed this place at
all.” Hamish’s voice was clear and convincing though Tessa would
not have thought the stiff young man capable of a lie. Then it came
to her. Hamish sounded truthful because he was. Miriam had phrased
the question carefully. They had not passed by due to Hamish
himself.

Perth was reluctant to let it go. “And these
people did not stop here to ask for your help?” he tried.

“They did not,” Hamish replied, again
completely truthfully. Tessa prayed Perth would drop it, for if he
asked if those he sought were within the walls of the place right
now, how would Hamish react?

Perth, however, was no student of human
nature. He chose to proceed to the method he knew best. “We will
search the place.”

Tessa heard Miriam’s voice rise, but there
was no real fear in it. “I protest. Arleigh has always cooperated
with those who seek justice, and I would not hide criminals in my
home. However, if you insist upon searching, do so quickly. I
dislike having my routine disturbed.”

Tessa heard heavy feet moving through the
place, and there followed a long time of anxious waiting. It was
hours later when the curtain was pulled back and Ayla peered in.
“They have gone.”

Miriam sat in her chair, looking weary.
Hamish stood beside her, his hand on her arm as if to lend her some
of his strength. Behind him, Jamie and Banaugh entered the room,
and Tessa ran to them, hugging both at once. “They hid us i’ th’
space twixt the water an’ th’ floor,” Banaugh told her with some
delight. “We culd see Hawick’s slime as they left, bu’ they saw
nothing o’ us.”

Tessa turned to Miriam. “How can we ever
thank you? You have put yourselves in danger for us. If they
discover we were here—”

“My people are completely loyal,” the lady
responded with conviction. “No one will say a word. Only if you are
caught will your pursuers know where you have been.”

Hamish entered and whispered a few words in
the lady’s ear, at which she smiled ironically. “I did not think
they believed we had not seen you. Hamish had a man skirt the edge
of the tarn, following the direction Perth took. They have set
themselves at the mouth of the river, hoping to catch you when you
leave.”

Tessa’s mouth set in a grim line. They could
not go back, and if Perth was watching the tarn…

“You must leave at night, when darkness
hides your escape,” Miriam concluded Tessa’s thought, as if having
read her mind.

“But the moon is full. They will see us
coming.”

“They will see what they see,” the older
woman replied cryptically. Then she told them her idea.

Just after dark, a small boat left the water
entrance of the crannog, its oars dipping quietly. Three figures
inside were illuminated faintly in the moonlight. The craft skimmed
the calm water, heading toward the spot where the river flowed into
the tarn from the west.

As the oarsman maneuvered into the river’s
mouth, there was commotion in the shallows. Several men appeared
from either bank. One grabbed the prow, two others seized an oar
each, and among them they pulled boat and its passengers to the
shore. Thomas Perth looked smugly satisfied with his prediction of
events. As the boat was hauled up on the sand, one of the figures
broke and ran along the lake edge. It was no man, Perth guessed
with satisfaction, nor boy either, despite the clothing.

“Bring her back,” he told his men, and three
of them took off down the beach. In minutes, he heard a scream, and
shortly they returned with their quarry. Perth, having ordered a
torch lit in the meantime, found himself face to face with a girl,
but his grin faded at the sight of her.

“This isn’t macFindlaech’s kinswoman!” he
snarled. “It’s the cripple’s daughter.”

“How dare you attack me?” Ayla spat at
him.

“What are you doing on the lake at this
hour?” Perth demanded. “And where is the girl I seek?”

Ayla’s usually sweet face contorted with
disdain. “My mother told you no such girl passed by our home or
sought our help. I have every right to fish on my own lake, and you
have no right to frighten me as you did. Thinking you brigands, I
ran for my life!”

Perth was at a loss, but it did not matter,
for Ayla seemed determined to give him a long lecture on her rights
and his sins. By the time she was finished, all he could do was
stammer a cold apology and order his men to ready her boat for her
departure. Ayla and the two young servants who accompanied her set
off for the crannog while Perth faced the grins of his companions
at the abuse he had taken. What none of them knew was that the
three they truly sought had skirted the edge of the tarn, portaged
their boat along the opposite bank while Ayla provided a diversion,
and were now above them on the river, heading upstream as fast as
they could row.

Once again dressed as a boy, Tessa had
hugged Ayla warmly before leaving, then taken Miriam’s twisted
hands in hers. “I have much to thank you for, and if all goes well
tonight there will be even more,” she remembered saying as she bent
to kiss the older woman’s cheek. “I hope someday to repay at least
a part of it.”

“Nonsense, girl,” the lady chided. “Kindness
is not to be repaid but to be passed on. Seek not to balance the
acts of others but to do as many good things as ever you can.” And
with that she had bade them goodbye.

The boat moved slowly up the river but
eventually, at dusk of the next day, they arrived at the hamlet of
Dunangus. There they were accepted stoically by Jamie’s parents, an
old couple who had served at the king’s castle until the year
before. The man was sinewy and gnarled as an old tree, the woman
rosy-cheeked and softly rounded. They let Tessa know that whatever
his faults, Macbeth had treated them with generosity, and they were
willing to repay him by hiding her. It warmed the girl’s heart to
find a second place where there was no hatred of her uncle. The
parents clucked and shook their heads at the tale Jamie told,
saddened to hear of the King’s death.

“Ye shall bide wi’ us,” the woman told
Tessa. “A band of Malcolm’s men ha’ already been here. I doot they
will return. When i’ is safe, ye can decide what ye will do.”

To herself Tessa wondered what that might
be. Where did she belong? She could return to her sisters and live
quietly if only Hawick would forget about her. Did he still believe
they were married? Did it matter? She wished she knew the
answers.

The people of the hamlet seemed only mildly
concerned with events at Scone. A new king was not such a novelty
in Scotland, even one steeped in blood. Their lives were taken up
with preparing for winter, gathering crops, repairing homes and
byres, and seeing to the provision of food and clothing necessary
for the months of cold.

For a week Tessa and Banaugh lived among the
villagers of Dunangus. When Jamie admitted rather shamefacedly he
had indeed ransacked Gruoch’s things before leaving the castle,
Tessa assured him it had been reasonable to take things no longer
useful to the dead queen but valuable to his people.

He offered Tessa the parcel, which he had
stuffed under the prow of the boat. She was pleased to find there
was one fairly plain dress she could use, several combs of which
she took one, and other small things that made her feel less like a
pauper. Most of the dresses she gave to the old woman. Although she
had no use for such finery, she could sell or trade them to make
life easier. Tessa told Jamie to spread the rest among the
villagers after she was gone. Maybe they would think well of the
macFindlaechs that way.

After a week Tessa and Banaugh decided
Malcolm no longer had time to pursue Macbeth’s niece. His way to
the throne was clear. Macbeth had no male kin to avenge his death
or lead people to rebellion. Stories of the final battle reached
them by way of a passing soldier loyal to Macbeth who had been
knocked unconscious in the fray and woke afterward to find himself
surrounded by corpses. The man told his story around the firelight,
still shaken from the experience.

“I lay on the battlefield when I came to
myself, but it was over by then. There was blood in my eyes from
this gash on my head, and those who sort things out took me for
dead.” Groups of soldiers checked the field after a battle,
rescuing their own men and often as not putting an end to the
enemy’s wounded. It was not an altogether unkind thing to do.

The man went on, fingering the cut on his
scalp that had been stitched together by a village woman. “I
thought to myself perhaps I was dead and in hell, it was that bad.
All my comrades lay dead around me, and the king’s head—” He
stopped, unwilling to put words to the memory. Tessa, whose
identity was unknown to most of those around, bit her lip to keep
from sobbing.

“I crawled ever so slowly into the wood,
afraid every moment Malcolm’s troops would find me and finish me
off. But they paid little attention by then, for they celebrated
their victory. Once I was hidden, I rested and watched for a while.
Young Malcolm took two swords, his own and one he’d taken from a
man he killed, and crossed them on the ground. With pipers playing,
he danced in celebration of his victory over the two swords, with
his men cheering him on and the English watching coldly like the
curs they are. I didna stay long, but crept away in the dark and
began my way upriver.” He rubbed a beefy hand over several day’s
growth of beard. “My home is in Glencoe. They will take me in
there, and I will be safe.”

The soldier feared Malcolm’s revenge, even
on lowly troopers, but word reached them a few days later he would
take a middle road, dealing fairly with those who had served
Macbeth. The image of boyish enthusiasm created by Malcolm’s “sword
dance” had pleased many among the Scots, causing them to whisper
that this young man would be a welcome change from the dour
Macbeth.

Word also came that a coronation ceremony
would be held soon. Tessa hoped she could quietly travel north to
her home and take up life in the Cairngorms again. Hawick would be
too busy trying to curry favor with Malcolm to worry about her
whereabouts.

Chapter Twenty-Four

As she once more donned boy’s clothing,
Tessa wondered if she would ever be able to dress as a woman again
and wear the silks and laces that made her feel beautiful. Rolling
what necessities they could carry into tartans bartered from
Jamie’s kin, she and Banaugh bade the old couple and the boy
goodbye, starting yet another trek.

They followed the track of the river, which
bent to the northeast. Their host had given Banaugh directions to a
ford where they could easily cross and start on their way due
north, toward home. As they walked, Tessa wondered idly whether the
Cairngorms were truly home anymore. Did she belong there? Did she
belong anywhere? She had been in many places over the last year;
which was home?

Ahead of them a steadily growing roar
indicated a fast-flowing river, and the thought of a cool drink
made them hurry forward toward the noise. Tessa drew a few paces
ahead as Banaugh stopped disentangle his clothing from some
brambles. Tessa had thrown back the uncomfortably hot leather hood
that hid her bright mane of hair. Therefore it was she alone, and
quite recognizable, who stepped out from the trees to find herself
gazing across the river at a small hunting party standing over a
stag.

They had evidently tracked the deer to the
spot where it had fallen dead. Tessa silently cursed herself for
carelessness as she took in a dozen faces surprised at seeing a
young woman in breeches opposite them. English troops! She had only
time to turn and signal Banaugh to stop before a man pointed and
shouted something and the chase was on. She ducked back into the
woods, stopping just long enough to call, “Banaugh, hide yourself.
They will think I am alone. If I am caught, you must return home.
If not, I will circle back here by morning.” With that she was off
running. Half a dozen men had already mounted their horses and were
crossing the ford after her. Banaugh melted into the trees as the
horsemen sped by, praying they would not harm the lass if they
caught her.

Tessa ran desperately, turning and twisting
among the trees to avoid capture, but her bright hair was like a
beacon in the dull autumn woods, and they were too many. They saw
it as sport to capture this strangely dressed girl, shouting to
each other and laughing at her efforts to elude them. Twigs lashed
her face and the sharp thorns of berry bushes dragged at her
clothing, slowing Tessa’s progress. After only a few desperate
minutes, she was scooped up by a grinning soldier and hauled across
his saddle. The man’s comrades congratulated him heartily while
Tessa heaped on him all the curses she could remember. It made no
difference, though, and he splashed across the river to the main
party, dumping his prize on the ground before two men. A soldier
put a hunting horn to his lips and blew two short and two long
notes, a signal to the rest that the quarry had been captured.