The Rogues (16 page)

There was no sign of any of our animals. I hoped they were running free among the hills, but it seemed more likely the laird had taken them to eat or sell.

I stepped over the broken walls of the cottage and stared about me. It was like looking down on my own skeleton in an open grave. In an instant, I went from being too cold to being too hot. My face burned, and I trembled all over. The whole glen began to spin around me. My stomach lurched, and I toppled forward onto the back wall. The weakened stones gave way beneath my weight, and I crashed down on top of the jagged heap. Pieces of flint dug into my ribs.

Pushing up, with weakened arms, I slid off and lay gasping for breath. For a moment I was struck with the fear that I might die here in this dead place and that it would be sheep that would come upon my corpse. All for the want of a thing in a story that even a bairn would have known was just a magic tale.

“Och, Da,” I whispered, “I'm sorry.” To die in battle would have been glorious. To die alone on a heap of stones because of a boy's foolishness was too awful to think about. I felt hot tears well up. Not only was I going to die, but I was also going to die weeping. It was the worst possible end I could imagine.

Then a glint of light caught my eye. I twisted about, trying to find it. Stones pinched me, scratched me, but I didn't care.

There, among the pile of stone, was something reflecting the feeble grey light. I was close enough that I could touch it if I stretched out my arm. And so I did, reaching out till my fingers closed around cool metal. I brought the thing close to my face and stared.

It was a jeweled brooch with the figure of a rampant lion on the top.

A brooch.

For a moment I couldn't think what it was. Ishbel had no such thing. Nor had Ma. It was like something out of Bonnie Josie's house, small and precious and beautiful.

I sat up, laughing. Of course, of course. It was the Blessing! How could I have doubted Ma or my dreams?

A surge of excitement made my head spin afresh. Ma's words had been true. Her gift had been waiting here for me, hidden in the walls, needing the factor's bullies to knock down the walls and free it.

In that moment of triumph, with my fingers clutched about my prize, exhaustion overwhelmed me. Dark night closed over me, though it had just turned day, and like some peely-wally girl, I fainted dead away.

16 ROBBED

I don't know how long I slept, but I was finally stirred by the sound of voices and a clopping, like hoofbeats. It was already twilight, the shadow-dark hills looming up over me. Not a bit of wind stirred. I had slept away the day.

At first I couldn't tell if the voices I was hearing were real or imagined, if I were awake or still asleep and dreaming. For a moment I even thought the voices were ghosts calling me to stay in this place of death.

Place of death
. I sat up, fully remembering where I was: inside the broken-down remains of my own house.

The hoofbeats were close, just outside the walls. I huddled down, trying to make myself small as a mouse.

“Could you salvage nothing from all this?” I recognized the voice, and my heart jumped in panic. It was the laird, his voice like butter spread thin on dry bread. “All the muddle of houses you have shown me, and this the last of them, and not one thing of value?”

“Value, my lord?” Ever faithful, Willie Rood answered him. “Not unless you put a high price on stale bannocks and rags. I tried to tell you ….”

The moon was overhead, though night had not yet pressed in. From somewhere close by, the doos were cooing. I inched back, pressing against the broken stones so hard they bruised me. If Rood found me, I was surely done for. We were all to have been off the land by this time, and Rood was never slow to use his cudgel, as I well knew.

“The cattle, then?”

“We've already gotten what was in the byres and in the fields, my lord.”

He meant stolen, as when he took our cows and Rob Roy. But how could I complain? I had to remain hidden or die.

Rood's oily voice went on, “But there's plenty still lost in the hills. My men are herding them together for market, though I doubt they'll fetch much. All hide, bones and fleas.”

“Aye, well, never mind,” the laird told him. “I'd hoped for better, but still, the estate's well rid of those wretched beggars and their half-starved beasts.”

Beggars
! We'd never begged from anyone, least of all from him. My right hand clenched at the shock, and my fingers closed on a hard edge of metal. Glancing down, I saw the golden brooch, and memory flooded back. The lion, the jewels—the Blessing!

The horses seemed to shift and move off, perhaps down the road. I could hear the hooves clattering away from where I cowered behind the wall. I could wait till they were gone or try and sneak off now, in case they turned back.

Then I heard the hooves come closer again, as if they were circling the cottage. If they came to the side where I'd stepped over the wall, they'd see me for sure. I'd not a moment to lose, and I looked around for a place to hide. There was the fireplace, standing a few yards away. If I could crawl inside, I might just escape their eyes.

I set out slowly. Only then did I realize that my deep sleep had been from more than simple tiredness. I was exhausted, starving, feverish. When I pushed myself to my knees, everything whirled about me. I hadn't the strength to support my own weight. I fell back, rolled over, and ended with my face in the sooty ground, where I choked on the black dust and soot from the fire. The little I'd eaten the past two days came up in a loud, foul rush. I heaved again, then a third time until I was panting for breath and the ground beneath me stank of sick.

“What's that there, among the ruins?” the laird exclaimed.

“A scavenger,” said Rood, “looking for pickings?”

“That loud? That large?”

I could hear them ride right up to the ruined cottage. Could hear the horses' huffing breath.

“Look, man—that's no badger, no fox!” cried Daniel McRoy. “It's a damned crofter!”

“I'm sorry, my lord, I thought we'd driven them all off. I suppose this one might have hidden and died in the night.”

I was too sick to move and might as well have been dead. I held my breath. Not just from fear. The stink around me was unbearable.

“Died? He was scrabbling around in the dirt a moment ago and making enough noise to wake the dead.”

“You're right, sir. He's alive. I can see him breathe.”

And I thought I'd stopped breathing, but now I was gasping and afraid I was going to heave again.

“That's Murdo Macallan's boy, the one that gave us such trouble at the Lodge,” Rood said.

“So, was he left behind?” They talked about me as if I were a dead lump that couldn't speak for itself.

“Nae, I drove him off with the others after I'd taught his father a dose of respect.” I heard the creak of leather as Rood dismounted.

“Then why did he come back?” drawled the laird.

“To make trouble, that's for certain,” said Rood. “You don't suppose Mistress Josephine called him, do you? She took a liking to this whelp.”

“She's no time to spare from tending her mother,” said the laird. “I doubt she's given him a thought.”

For a moment I gave thought to Bonnie Josie and not myself. But then Rood advanced on me, warily, as if he were watching a coiled snake. I clutched the Blessing tightly and tried to hide it up my sleeve.

“For heaven's sake, man, show some backbone,” the laird chided him. “He's half dead.”

“He's sick,” Rood answered defensively. “I don't want to be catching anything off him.”

At this point I turned over and looked up, staring back at him defiantly. If I were going to be beaten to death, better to see it coming. But I saw Rood as if through a thick sheet of ice. The twilight shimmered around him as he bent over me, and my eyes blurred. As I turned, the brooch slipped down my sleeve and into my hand.

Rood reached out with a suddenness that made me flinch. Grabbing my right arm, he said, “He's got something here.”

He pulled my arm straight and I was too weak to resist. Then he ripped the Blessing from my grasp. I tried to cry out in protest, but the words only bubbled in my throat.

The laird stiffened in the saddle. I could see him there, a pale, blurred presence. “Give me that!” he ordered Rood.

Rood handed the brooch over immediately. “It's a pretty bauble and worth a goodly purse, I'll wager.” He spoke as if expecting a fee for the finding of it.

At last, I gathered what strength I had and poured it all into my voice. “It's mine!” I gasped. “Mine by right!”

“
By right
, is it?” the laird scoffed. “
Ha
! And how would a wretch like you come by such a thing except by thievery? I've a mind to have you flogged.”

“It was a gift to my grandfather from the Bonnie Prince.” Just saying the prince's name gave me strength.

This time the laird burst out laughing, and Rood dutifully added his own mocking bray. “A fine fairy story, but who'd believe it?”

“Let … let the law decide,” I challenged, wondering how I knew to say such a thing, then remembering how Rood himself had used the phrase when talking to Bonnie Josie.

Suddenly the laird was no longer amused. “I'll not see the likes of you call in the law against me,” he said. “Whatever is found on my land is mine by right, and you are no more than a trespasser here now.”

“Then take me to the magistrate,” I said. “I'll tell my story there.”

He made a snorting sound through his nose. “I'll not waste his time with your lies nor soil his hands with your punishment.” I could see him clearly now, though the light was almost gone. His face was sour and his lips were pursed.

Rood looked away from me for a moment, addressing the laird. “Even weak as he is, he might find his way back to Miss Josephine.…”

The laird pondered this. “All the more reason he should be on his way.” Then he added grimly, “And you'll oblige me, Mister Rood, by ensuring he never shows his face here again, if you take my meaning.”

“I take your meaning, sir,” Rood replied slowly. “In his condition, if he was to take a bad fall and break a leg, I doubt he'd make it through the night.”

And then I understood. They meant for me to die. I pushed myself to my feet and turned to run. At least I would not go down easy.

But Rood was too quick for me, grabbing me by the collar and spinning me around. Then before I knew what was happening, he rammed his fist into my nose, making my skull ring. Barely conscious, I felt him hoist me up and fling me over his saddle.

“It must be clear to any that find him that he has died through his own misadventure,” said the laird.

“I know a spot that will suit,” Rood answered.

He climbed up behind me, and the horse started moving. At that point my thoughts were little more than the flicker of a guttering candle. I hadn't even enough strength left to be afraid.

17 TAKEN

The laird set off—toward Kindarry House, I supposed—while Rood rode in the other direction, with me slung across his saddle like a sack of oats. I couldn't lift my head high enough to check where we were going. All I could see was the damp turf and heather passing beneath the horse's hooves, the tracks of small animals by the side of the path, and the roots of trees.

All the while we traveled, I refused to think about what was surely going to happen. I didn't
dare
think of it. Instead I worried about my poor family. How they'd never know my fate or how I'd found—and then lost—the Blessing.

My stomach heaved again. This time I'd nothing left to bring up but bitter-tasting bile.

At last we stopped, and Rood grabbed the back of my shirt. With one swift yank, he pitched me to the ground. I landed on my belly with a thud that jarred my bones and made crimson sparks shoot across my eyes. I managed to turn onto my back and stare up at the sky, where the stars were already coming out.

Goodbye, stars
, I thought. For a moment I thought they dimmed in answer. Or else it was my eyes playing tricks. Then Rood's flushed face loomed over me, an ugly, disfigured moon.

“Now ye'll get payment in full for all yer trickery,” he said. “Come on, get up, ye gowk! I'll not carry ye.” He bent over and put an arm under my shoulder, dragging me to my feet.

My knees started to buckle right away, and he had to support me.

“Just a few steps,” he said, heaving me forward, one hand locked on my upper arm, the other clutching the front of my shirt.

I hadn't the strength to struggle or the voice to protest. Squinting through the twilight, I saw bare, craggy hills ahead, rising like a row of badly carved tombstones. Before them yawned the rocky edge of a steep precipice.

Fuzzily, I thought:
I know this place. One of our lambs strayed here last year and fell to its death
. Recalling that frail, broken body, some last flash of resistance sparked in me. I wouldn't—I
couldn't
—go down like a lamb.

Twisting away from Rood, I tried to wrench my arm free. He looked surprised, then angry at this last show of resistance.

“Damn you, Highland scum,” he cursed, punching me hard in the belly, then chuckling as I doubled over. He gave me a contemptuous shove and I stumbled forward, trembling with pain and fever. “That will teach you to hold out on the laird.”

Perhaps
, I thought,
perhaps it might not be such a bad thing to die, to meet my mother again
. Perhaps in spite of all the Reverend McGillivray had told us, there was a small chance I might sneak into heaven through some back door kept open for daft boys.

“Nearly there now, lad,” Rood said, his voice strangely low, cozening, even sweet, as though he'd heard me musing on heaven. “Don't worry. Ye willna even have to jump. I'll give ye a good push to see ye on your way.”