Verse of the Vampyre (20 page)

“When the time was right I would have.” He looked at her ringless left hand.

“I am sorry,” she said again because there wasn’t much else she could say. She knew, if Chaz did not, that the time would never have been right.

He sighed heavily. “Then I guess I’ll head back to London tomorrow. My plane leaves Saturday.”

“I’ll miss you,” Grace said. And it was true in a way.

Chaz leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead.

“Sweet dreams,” he said. She couldn’t blame him for emphasizing the word “dreams.”

While waiting for the taxi to take him and Monica to the airport, Calum spent the morning instructing Grace in the fine art of lock picking.

“Of course it’s theory, not practical application,” he admitted, studying the array of shiny picks and jimmies spread out on the table before them.

“Hopefully I won’t have to use them,” Grace said, and Calum looked crestfallen.

“Calum, what else do you think she may need to break in?” Monica, sounding like a mother sending her only child to summer camp, was occupied putting together a “nice little workbox” with what she considered—probably from reading Calum’s books—to be the burglary essentials: screwdriver, Instamatic camera, rope, etc.

“This is an awful lot of rope,” Grace objected, joining her in the kitchen. “I don’t actually plan on scaling any walls.”

“You have no idea what you may end up having to do,” Monica said rather direly.

“Well, I probably won’t be having dinner with them,” Grace pointed out, pulling a black silk stocking out of the toolbox.

“Ha. Funny. Anyway, you look good in black.” Monica tossed the stocking back in the metal box.

When she reached the village of Eacharnach, the fitful Scottish sun was shining, glittering on the loch’s blue water. There was a tang in the air that reminded her of the sea. Gulls whirled overhead.

The tiny village made Innisdale look like a bustling metropolis by comparison. Grace was the only visitor, and the fact that they could keep track of visitors said something about how isolated Eacharnach was.

The village boasted three pubs and one inn. Grace booked a room at the little inn, which looked out across the sun-dazzled loch. The room had sloping ceilings, and four-poster twin beds with paisley quilts. A sampler on the wall read: “Ae fine thing needs twa to set it off.”

She lunched downstairs in the taproom.

“Is there a history to the castle on the island?” she asked Donnie MacInnes, the publican, doing her best to sound like an innocent American tourist.

“Aye, there’s a verra fine legend about the castle if it’s legend you’re wanting.”

“It’s called the Thieves’ Den, is that correct?”

“The Den of the Thieves, that is true. Och, but the castle was not always belonging to the Ruthvens! There is a story about how it came to be known as
A’ Mheirlich Saobhaidh
. It was back in the days when the castle was a stronghold of the Menteiths. After the trouble between the clans—” Grace opened her mouth to ask which trouble, then closed it again, realizing the foolishness of the question.

“There was a kinsman of the Ruthvens who came to stay with the chief of the Menteiths. He dined and drank with his host as an honored guest, he slept beneath the Menteith roof, protected and sheltered by the sacred tradition of Highland hospitality.”

Grace had read up on some of the sacred traditions of the warlike Highlanders, but she didn’t interrupt.

“The next morning the gentlemen of the house rose to go hunting, and this son of the Ruthvens went with them. When the gentlemen reached the mainland, Ruthven’s own men were waiting. The Menteiths were slaughtered to the last man. Their heads were mounted on pikes and displayed on the galleys that sailed to the island.”

“Oh my gosh,” Grace said, truly horrified.

“When the chief of the Ruthvens reached the island, he gave his ultimatum to Lady Menteith. If she would agree to marry him, he would spare her life and those left on the island. But she would not, and so he locked her and all her ladies in the tower. Lady Menteith’s Tower they call it, for it was the mistress of the house and her ain guid ladies and the wee girrrrls that they left to starve there.”

He slapped Grace’s plate down on the table. “Eat up!”

Grace realized her mouth was open. She began to eat her fish and chips.

“Did none of the women escape?” she asked after a time, when there was nothing left on her plate but the inevitable molehill of green peas.

“Not one. They would have had to swim, you see. And the loch is a mile across. And there was the
each uisage
to consider.” He winked at her.

A mile across and probably cold as outer space. “I’ve heard about the
each uisage
. And how long have the Ruthvens held the castle?”

“Ever since,” Donnie MacInnes said cheerfully. “And right good lairds they’ve been.”

Grace finished her drink in thoughtful silence and went out to rent the boat from Donald MacLeod for the next day.

This took a bit of bargaining, for the old man was clearly skeptical when Grace told him she planned to row the boat herself.

“And why would you be wanting to paddle about the loch?”

“For exercise,” Grace answered promptly. “I have to work off all the wonderful food I’m eating on my vacation.”

“Vacation? A wee lassie by herself?” The old man’s suspicion deepened.

The only solution seemed to be for the wee lassie to pay a rental fee that was more than the boat was worth. As she left the man of the boats mumbling darkly to himself, Grace knew word of her odd behavior would be all over the village—and probably to the castle before long. She would have to move quickly.

She spent the remainder of the afternoon walking around Eacharnach, learning what she could about the castle on the island and its history.

It appeared that while there were many stories of the old days and Ruthvens long dead, no one had—or was willing to admit to—any information on the current residents.

“Auld sins breed new sairs,” sniffed the woman in the butcher shop. “Not much worrrk to be had there, not like the auld days. In those days they needed a full staff. These days it’s only that rascal Hood to tend the place when she’s away.”

“She?”

A Highland sheep couldn’t have stared more stolidly at Grace.

“Is Lady Ruthven here much?”

“This is her home.”

No contradiction about Catriona’s title. Interesting though not conclusive.

“Hood is the piper we heard on our trip to the castle?”

The woman snorted. “That would be Donnie MacDhomnuil. He must be back.”

Grace finished paying for her soup bone.

Besides Catriona and Peter there was the bald man who was probably Donnie MacDhomnuil, and a redheaded hood. Four and possibly more.

Her next stop was the chemist shop.

The proprietor was a small, jolly man by the name of Donnie MacLean.

“Is everyone here named Donnie?” Grace inquired, puzzled.

The man burst out laughing. “Not the lassies!”

“Are you all related?”

The little man laughed all the harder. Was this an example of the subtle wit of the Gael?

The sun was sinking when Grace trudged up the road back to the inn, passing houses on the hillside where lit windows and smoke from chimneys indicated the citizens of Eacharnach were settling in for the night.

The sudden clatter of hooves sent her to the side of the road. Shaggy Highland cattle trotted down the street accompanied by a small boy and a black-and-white Border collie. The boy called a greeting to her in Gaelic.

Back at the inn Grace enjoyed a hearty supper, eating alone before the roaring fire. She skimmed a book on Scottish castles, paying close attention to a chapter devoted to mediaeval architecture, while sampling Cullen Skink, which the menu assured was classic Scottish soup. Despite the name, the hearty soup of smoked haddock, potato and leeks was delicious.

“What does the word
‘Eacharnach’
mean?” she asked Donnie MacInnes.

“It’s an old word in the Gaelic meaning a thing that is like a park for horses.”

The soup was followed by an unimaginative but unquestionably delicious prime fillet garnished with mushrooms, potatoes and french fries. Grace drank several cups of the strong, peaty-flavored tea.

“We’ll have snow before the fortnight,” the innkeeper told her, drawing the curtains against the night.

Stars were flung across the night sky like grains of silver sand; their reflection sparkled on the water as Grace dipped the oars in the inky loch.

Sweat beaded her forehead. It might not be poetry in motion, but Grace was beginning to get the hang of rowing. Granted, it was taking about twice as long to travel across as it should have, the oars scooping and splashing in choppy rhythm.

She paused, resting on her oars. The lights of the village looked very far away. The water lapping against the hull of the rocking boat stretched black and bottomless as far as she could see.

She remembered the story of the
each uisage
. Perhaps even now he galloped miles beneath the surface, hooves pounding the floor of the loch as he searched for fresh human fodder.

Grace wiped her forehead on her sleeve and returned to rowing. Her hands were sweating inside the gloves that Monica had supplied. From her angle of approach she could not see any lights on the island. There was no sign of life except the occasional drift of woodsmoke on the breeze.

At last the boat scraped bottom in a tiny cove on the far side of the island. Grace hopped out, with more alacrity than grace, splashing through icy water onto the rocky beach. Though her eyes had had plenty of time to adjust, the deep shade of the towering pines made the night even blacker.

Dragging the boat into the trees, she stopped a moment to catch her breath. It had been harder than she expected to row across the water. She dreaded the thought of rowing back, but perhaps by then she would be running for her life, and that might supply the necessary adrenaline.

She abandoned the rock she rested on. The night was pungent with the spicy scent of the pine trees; her breath hung in the smoky moonlight.

Leaving the skiff safely hidden, she scouted around until she found what appeared to be a rocky path leading from the beach to the castle. Noiselessly, she followed the trail up the hillside and through another cluster of trees.

After a time the path disappeared into what seemed to be a rocky hillside. Grace spent a few minutes exploring the rough face of lichen-encrusted granite, until with a feeling of triumph she found a fissure wide enough to pass through.

She guessed, based on her recent reading, that it must lead to an underground passage, which would have served as a hidden or secret entrance in past centuries. She switched on her flashlight and continued walking.

Sure enough, a few feet farther the natural formation of the hillside gave way to what was obviously man-made architecture, and Grace found herself in what appeared to be a long underground tunnel. She could see smoke marks on the glistening walls where torches had burned for centuries. She could just make out marks in the stone that suggested primitive drawings of horses.

The tunnel smelled dank and slimy, if slimy had a smell. It smelled like a fish tank. Something scurried out from under her foot.

To the bats and to the moles
…

Her flashlight beam picked out pools of oily water and the debris left by animals. At the far end pallid moonlight illuminated a narrow flight of steps leading up and out.

Picking her way through the rocks and water, she at last reached the far end of the tunnel. She switched the flashlight off and started up the steps. In the distance she heard barking, and froze.

The dog. She retreated back into the tunnel, and fumbled into her backpack for the soup bone. Her heart thudded hard against her ribs. This kind of thing worked in fiction but probably didn’t stand a chance against a well-trained guard dog. Not that Catriona’s dog was a well-trained guard dog so much as a four-footed thug.