The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (32 page)

"That must have been why he was so keen to get me hanged with Granny," I told Tam. "He was afraid I'd find out what he'd done."

"Could be, darling. More than likely," said Tam, who was too busy looking over his shoulder to listen to me.

"Do you think Annie's still in Edinburgh, Tam? If she is, I'm going to find her, and when I do..."

I'd caught his attention now. We'd arrived at Mistress Virtue's cellar, and he was hurrying me inside.

"No, please, Maidie! No more fusses and botherations. Just think, if Annie finds out that you're here, she might report on you to the military, to that fancy fellow of hers. She'll get you taken up."

My stomach lurched.

"You're right, Tam. What'll we do?"

"Only one thing for it," he said dolefully. "We must take to the road again. I'm not sure that I trust Timmy Shillinglaw either. The man's a lawyer, after all, and his daddy was awfully sharp on any birds that went missing from his dovecote. We'll set off as soon as we can. There's to be no rest for poor Tam, after all."

We didn't set out for Dunnottar the next day or even the day after, because that night Tam fell ill. I couldn't rouse him from his pile of rags in the morning. He stared up at me unseeingly, his cheeks sunk, his lips cracked, and his tongue as dry as a piece of felt.

"Old fool," Mistress Virtue said crossly, standing with her hands on her hips as she looked down at him, while I knelt on the floor, anxiously holding one of his hot, trembling hands. "He'd better not die on me. I should never have taken the pair of you in."

But she pulled some old dried herbs from a niche in the cellar wall and made up a concoction with them. I expected her to mumble spells as Granny would have done, but she only held the bad-smelling mixture to Tam's lips. I was surprised to see how patiently, even tenderly, she helped him to sip, though all the time she was muttering, "Stupid old Tam. Daft old man. You think you can get around Virtue, but you can't."

When the beaker was empty at last, she noticed me watching and stabbed a finger at me.

"What are you staring at, miss? There's not much I don't know about him. He's done more sinning than half the prisoners in the tolbooth, but he's more of a saint than all your prating Presbyterians."

"I—yes, I know," I said, taken aback.

"Well, get on with it," she said, rising to her feet with a creak of bones.

"Get on with what, Mistress Virtue?"

"If you want to stay here till he's out of the fever, you'll have to earn your keep. Get up to the pump and fill these buckets. There's washing to be done, in case you hadn't noticed."

I hardly stirred from Mistress Virtue's dreary cave for the next two weeks, except to run up the wynd to the pump on the High Street to fill her buckets and carry them down to her cellar again. My back ached every night, and my arms felt as if they'd been stretched by inches, but the pains of my body were nothing compared to the worries in my mind. What was happening to Uncle Blair? Was he still alive? How were they all managing at Ladymuir?

At least after the first two dreadful days, I could feel easier about Tam. Whether it was Mistress Virtue's remedies, or the rest he so badly wanted, or his own willpower, he came back from what had seemed like the brink of death. At the end of ten days, he was sitting once more on a stool by Mistress Virtue's fire, drinking too much whiskey and spinning outrageous stories, accepting her scoldings with meek nods of his head.

***

In the end, it wasn't even I who got us on the road at last, but Tam himself.

"If I stay another day in this airless hole, I'll turn into a goblin," he whispered to me at the end of the second week. "I feel like a worm that's been too long under a stone."

We set off the next morning. There must have been more money in the purse that Tam had stolen than I had realized, because Mistress Virtue grunted with surprised gratitude when Tam pressed a yellow coin into her hand.

"And there's to be no more skulking about on the moors and mosses on this journey," he told me proudly as we walked, at a slower pace than usual, down the road out of Edinburgh toward the port of Leith. "We've no need to hide now. Presbyterians aren't so hot and strong over in Fife, and the soldiers won't be so keen to know everyone's business. And, anyway"—he patted the pocket of Uncle Blair's coat and winked at me—"we've money enough to pay for our food and our beds, like gentlefolk."

I can't remember much about our slow progress to Dunnottar, only that I burned with impatience to hurry on, but often had to wait for Tam, who was still too weak to walk fast or go far in a day. It was already after the middle of July. The road, which must have been churned to a bog of mud in the winter, was thick with dust. It blew uncomfortably into our eyes in the east wind. There were many travelers going in both directions, mostly peaceful folk on foot, like ourselves, but an occasional troop of soldiers clattered by on horses. The first time I saw red coats, I dived down into the ditch at the side of the road, expecting Tam to do the same, but to my surprise he stood boldly in full view to let them past and even waved his bonnet.

"Weren't you scared?" I panted, scrambling back up the bank to join him.

He shook his head, unconcerned, and I was shocked to see how crumpled he looked, how worn and bent, with his old sharpness and springlike quickness gone.

He took my arm to lean on as we walked on.

"You think of them as enemies, Maidie, but every one's a mother's son. Think of that. Every one of them. A mother's son."

I was so irritated by his tolerance that I dropped his arm and hurried on ahead, and it was at the top of the next rise that I caught my first glimpse of Dunnottar Castle.

I had never seen, or could ever have imagined, a place so wild and cruel and desolate. I know that it was God's hand that had, in the days of creation, thrown up the mountains and poured forth the sea, but surely it must have been the Prince of Evil who had vomited up this vast black rock and cast it away from the land. It reared up out of the creaming waves with only one narrow spit connecting it to the land. And it must have been the sons of Satan who had chosen this place on which to build their castle, piling massive walls of stone above the edges of the rock, and making the only entrance at the bottom so steep and narrow that no one would dare to approach it. Even the screams of the gulls and kittiwakes circling around the dank black ledges were more mournful than any birds I had ever heard before.

Perhaps they're the souls of the damned,
I thought with a shiver,
or of poor prisoners who've died here.

Tam had caught up to me by now. He looked at the castle, then sat down heavily at the side of the road. He looked pale.

"Are you all right?" I said, worried by how ill he looked. "Is it the sight of the place? It scares me, Tam."

"Scares you, aye. It puts the fear of death into me."

"What do we do now?"

"We sit here for a moment so that I can get my breath back. I'm tired to my bones."

I felt guilty.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have hurried on. I shouldn't have made you come at all. You ought to be resting still."

He patted my knee.

"Time enough to rest in the grave, darling. I'd rather be out in the open, anyway, breathing the good air, than stifling to death in poor old Virtue's dungeon."

I was still feeling bad and defeated as well.

"I've made you hurry here and worn you out. And all for nothing. Look at this place. However could I get my uncle out of there, assuming he's still alive even? It's useless, Tam. We might as well go back to Edinburgh."

His lashless old eyes, red and sore from the dusty road, opened with astonishment.

"Go back? After we've traveled right across Scotland? Before we've even tried to find him? What are you thinking of, darling? When did Tam ever let you down? When did he ever fail to find a way?"

"It's true, you've been wonderful, but—"

"Did I or did I not get you out of the tolbooth in Rothesay under the nose of Donnie Brown?"

"You did, but—"

"Who got you in through the city gates of Edinburgh without a pass?"

"I know. It was you. But—"

"Who whipped you out from under your granny's nose that time when you broke her jug and she was going to beat you black and blue? Who hid you, till she'd calmed down, eh?"

I had to laugh. "I thought she was going to murder me."

"Not as much as I'll murder you if there's any more talk of giving up and going back to Edinburgh. Here, help me with this strap."

He was struggling to take off the sack that contained his bagpipes.

"What are you doing now?" I asked, as he removed the pipes lovingly from the worn old bag. "You're not going to play them here?"

"It's just what I'm going to do, girl. A lament. For the poor souls in that horrible place. Music solves many a problem. It'll make things happen. You'll see. And it'll help me clear my old head and think straight."

He stood up, walked across to the edge of the cliff, which fell away in a sickening drop to the crashing sea below, and put the chanter to his lips.

"No, Tam!" I cried, running after him. "There are soldiers down by the gateway. They're looking up at us. They'll hear you. They'll come and get you."

But it was too late. He had filled the bag with air, and the first notes of his wild, mournful lament were already echoing back to us from the grim rock walls. The music was so sad, so piercing and beautiful, so lonely and grand, that the breath caught in my throat and I stood unable to move.

Can you hear it, Uncle? He's playing it for you,
I thought.

The path that ran from where we stood down to the castle entrance was so steep and winding that most of it was hidden, so neither of us saw the two men coming up it until they were right in front of us. I stepped back, my heart pounding in fright.

They were a savage-looking pair, their hair long and rough, their leather jerkins open in front, their legs bare from the knee down and streaked with mud. I stepped back, nearly stumbling over a stone, but Tam played on regardless.

To my relief, the men didn't seem interested in me. They stood listening to Tam, frowning with concentration. Tam finished his lament on a sudden cut note, and the echo died away from the castle walls.

"He's a good piper, isn't he, Wully?" said one.

"He is that. Play us a jig, Granddad."

I could see that the effort of playing was making Tam even more exhausted. He gasped for each breath needed to fill the bag, and sweat beads formed on his dreadfully white face, but his fingers flew over the chanter holes as fast as the feet of scampering mice, and the tune was so lilting and catchy that the two men began to hop about, and even I, scared as I was, couldn't stop my foot tapping.

When at last the jig was finished, one of them took Tam by the arm.

"Come on," he said. "You're just the man we need."

Tam gently shook him off.

"Hold on, son. What do you want me for?"

"We need you in there." The man lifted his chin toward the castle. "Our stupid piper went so hard at the bottle he fell halfway down the cliff. Broke his head and his right arm. He'll be weeks mending. The Earl Marischal needs piping into his dinner, and the lads are down without a note of music. There's not even a fiddle in the whole lousy place."

"Well," said Tam, with a show of reluctance that made me hide a smile, "I don't know. What terms would you be offering me?"

"Terms?" They both burst out laughing.

"A drafty old hayloft to sleep in," said one.

"Your food, and it's not bad either. There's meat every day and venison sometimes."

"And we won't throw you off this cliff."

There was a pause, as the menace of this threat sank in.

"Plenty of whiskey. It's good stuff too."

Tam grinned with what I could see was real pleasure.

"Now you're talking, lads. But I'm not going anywhere without the lassie."

Both men turned in my direction, and I felt hot at the way their eyes crawled over me.

"She's my granddaughter," Tam said hastily, "and if any harm comes to her, I'll play 'The Unlucky Soldier.' Last time I had to do it, the plague struck the camp within the week. I felt bad about it, as a matter of fact. Twenty. Dead. In days."

The tune of "The Unlucky Soldier" was a new one to me, as I was sure it was to Tam, but the two men's mouths had fallen open, and they were looking at Tam with respect.

"It's a deal," one of them said. "We'll warn the boys. The girl's not to be touched. They'll find a job for her in the kitchen."

And so Tam and I walked boldly under the portcullis, through the archway, past the throng of guards, and into that fearsome place as easily as if we'd walked out onto the beach at Scalpsie Bay. I looked back when we were through the entrance, across the narrow land bridge, and up the cliff beyond. It had been almost too easy, getting in. It might be much harder getting out.

There were steep steps rising from the gatehouse. Halfway up them, Tam stopped and clutched at my arm for support.

"It'll end here, Maidie," he said hoarsely.

"What will end? What do you mean?"

He seemed to give himself a shake. "Your search for your uncle! He's here, I'm sure of it. Admit it, darling. Clever Tam got you in here as easy as a flying bird."

I squeezed his arm and smiled, but a knot of dread was tightening my throat.

"I do admit it. I can never manage anything without you."

He gave me a quizzical look, then struggled on up the steps.

It was easy to forget, once you were inside the castle, the terrifying rock on which it stood. The enclosing walls surrounded dozens of buildings, so that it felt almost like a town. There was a noble-looking keep and grand lordly houses, stables, pigsties, hen coops, workshops, open grassy spaces, stairways, passageways, and men everywhere. Some, in their shirtsleeves, were going in and out of the bakers and cellars and kitchens. Some, in leather aprons, were shoeing horses at the forge. Many, in soldiers' gear, were leaning against doorways, yawning and picking their teeth. There were men mending cartwheels, men sawing timber, men carrying baskets of fish on their heads.