Turn of the Tide (26 page)

‘He said . . .’ Munro was straining.

‘I heard what he said.’ Glencairn stood his ground, imprisoning William. ‘Offensive indeed, but the voice of a drunkard.’

‘You cannot expect me to ignore such conduct.’

‘Oh but I can.’ Glencairn’s voice hardened. ‘And I do. Go home Munro. Do not overstretch my sympathy. I will not contenance a brawl in my own house and damage to my
property on account of William, whatever he may say. Archie, take your brother to the kitchens and get him a drink to set him on his way.’

The kitchen was deserted. Munro took the proffered ale, downed it in one draught. ‘How can you stay? He is insufferable.’

‘He is dangerous.’ Archie drew a deep breath. ‘For myself, I would leave tomorrow, but there is Sybilla. I brought her here, and must remain to offer some protection. You go.
Look to Kate and the bairns. If anything should befall Glencairn, God help us all.’

In the end, though they were never to know it, it was a small thing. And in the months that followed, that lack of knowledge was the canker that burrowed into Munro like a worm
into an apple, a surface blemish become a gaping core.

It began with Maggie and a resumption of hostilities over the disputed ribbon. Anna, resentment simmering, took herself to the stable and perched precariously on a stool, brushing to an ebony
shine as much of the new horse as she could reach. Eddies of dust settled on her hair and in her nose and on the tip of tongue protruding between her teeth, each stroke containing, unchecked, all
the anger that her six-year-old frame could muster: her mother had promised and failed to deliver the ribbon back to its rightful owner. Her father, off on some errand of his own, had dismissed her
protest as if today and his promise mattered not at all. Outrage built in her: a kettle coming to the boil.

A particularly firm slap of the brush and the horse startled, wobbling the stool. Contrite, she leant her head into the neck, her reassuring babble a high, fluting version of Munro’s. The
horse quieted and Anna, determined, slid from the stool, backed around into the adjacent stall, climbed the slatted partition and, straddling the top, slid onto Midnight’s back. She gathered
in imaginary reins, clicked twice with her tongue and felt the willing power bunching under her.

And that was how Robbie found her, sent to cry her in for dinner. Stomach warred with pride and won, but, greatly daring, she ignored the partition and slung her leg over to drop onto the stool,
which Robbie obligingly held steady. At the door of the stable, she halted, her childish treble fierce with unshed tears.

‘He promised me a lesson.’

Robbie, awkward, looked up at the sky, ‘It’s gey like rain, he wouldn’t have let you out in the wet.’

Her look shrivelled him into silence, a reply the more cutting for its lack of words, so that he offered, ‘You looked fine and easy, with a good seat.’

An older child would have laughed at the pedantry of it. Anna, taking it at face value, was mollified. She jutted out her chin. ‘It won’t be a Sheltie I’ll be having,
you’ll see.’

Unfortunate that Maggie, nursing her victory over the ribbon, had wheedled Agnes into plaiting it through her hair. Doubly unfortunate that Kate, occupied with her own thoughts,
on Archie and Sybilla and how they fared at Kilmaurs and what fettle Munro might be in on his return, failed to notice, so that Anna, fixing on it, boiled afresh. And, most unfortunate of all, the
arrival of a knife-sharpener; so that Kate, who had intended to ride out to visit Mary and had ordered Midnight to be saddled to that effect; was occupied for a good hour or more.

Robbie, after a whispered debate with Anna, in which she stubbornly refused to give up his fishing line until he made her a promise, took himself off to the loch and settled to practising his
cast. Anna waited until the stable lad disappeared towards the kitchens with some of the more blunt of the outdoor implements, then unlatched the stable door and, tugging Midnight against the
partition, clambered onto his back. She would be back long before Kate was free and none the wiser. The horse needed little encouragement, walking on at Anna’s command, with only the merest
prick of his ears and a quick sideways shuffle to indicate his awareness of a new and less confident rider.

Once through the gate, Anna, unsure on the rough ground, turned to follow the line of gorse that stretched across the hillside, climbing crabwise towards the brow of the hill. At the top she
paused, pulling too hard on Midnight’s mouth, so that he began to toss against the bit. A kind of instinct led her to relax her hold, though not enough to stop his backwards lurch. Fearing to
slide, she dug in her heels, and misinterpreting the signal he sprang away, moving swiftly to a trot. Unable to find the rhythm, she was jolted with every stride, up when she should have been down,
down when she should have been up, the saddle bouncing firm and unyielding against her buttocks, so that she bit her lip with the pain of it. He moved from a trot into a canter and she found
temporary respite in the smoother flow, but only for a moment before he lengthened his stride to a full gallop. With the increased speed, she lost her hold on the reins and lunging forward was
forced to grab a fistful of mane.

She lay along Midnight’s neck, pressing herself into him, bone and muscle etched along her length, so that on the following day, a mottle of bruises showed blue-black through her skin. Her
breath came in gasps and sobs, the scent of horsehair laced with salt and sweat lying in her mouth and nose, half-choking her. She had no thought but to hang on, no sense of where she headed, no
idea of how to stop. Her hair was plastered to her face, a pulse pounding in her head. Had she been older, or unloved, she might have recognized the sensation as fear. As it was, she knew only that
she thought her head might burst.

They reached a long incline stretching towards a ring of trees and their pace decreased, the gallop become a canter, the canter a trot, the trot a walk, until, finally, Midnight stopped. For
what seemed a long time Anna didn’t move, pressed down by the weight of her head, powerless to unfurl her fingers from the tangle of mane, fighting the urge to be sick. When she did open her
eyes, it was to see that lather striped Midnight’s neck and lay in flecks along his nose, white against black.

Contrite, she whispered, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to stop.’ She smoothed Midnight’s glossy coat with her trembling hand, trying to reassure herself as much as
the horse. ‘You shall have all the grooming you want when we are home.’ Then, raising her head a fraction, noting the unfamiliar ground, questioned, ‘Do you know the way
home?’ Her voice wobbled to a sob, ‘For I’m not sure that I do.’

For a few minutes more she lay motionless, resting her cheek against Midnight’s neck, feeling the slowing of his breathing; aching for her mother. It was, though she didn’t know it,
the best thing she could have done in the circumstance, for herself and for the horse. Finally, cautiously, she sat up. She had no idea how far she had come, and nothing around her provided any
clue to her whereabouts. She shut her eyes against a renewed impulse to be sick, allied now to a need to relieve herself and forced herself to concentrate on teasing out strands of mane with her
fingers, until the twin urges subsided. A whisper in her head, told her that if she did get down she wouldn’t be able to get up again. Then as she looked towards the far away ground, she
realised that she couldn’t even get down. She was close to tears and knew it, knew too that tears wouldn’t take her home. And so she sat up straighter in the saddle and focused fiercely
on thoughts of the horse that she wanted, the promise she had extracted from her father, her boast to Robbie. She chided herself – that she wouldn’t get anything at all if she
couldn’t get Midnight back safe . . . and how Robbie would crow. Deep inside herself, she knew that to be unjust, but some instinct made her nurse the thought, while she took a second, more
careful sweep of the surroundings.

Failing a second time to find any familiar landmarks, her mind turned to rehearsing what she could remember of their flight through the heather. Which was almost nothing and of no use at all.
Her right hand, lying on Midnight’s mane, turned warm. Surprised, she saw that the sun had sailed from behind a cloud, and again tears pricked her. But this time ‘good’ tears, for
Anna knew the sun and where it shone at Broomelaw and hence the direction she should take.

Had she been on the ground, she would have danced a jig. As it was, she gathered the reins and careful not to tug at his mouth, turned Midnight and clicked softly to him. Under her breath she
repeated the mantra, ‘Sun to the right, shadow to the left’ and feeling the heat on her right shoulder, began to relax. Midnight began to move more confidently, his head up and eager,
but submissive to the direction of her choosing.

In the end it was a small thing.

They were within a mile of Broomelaw, on the top of the rise, the familiar sea of gorse stretching up to meet them. Anna had regained a measure of confidence and, no longer having to concentrate
so hard on keeping her touch light, had begun to think instead, and with apprehension, of the reception she would receive on her return. The sun was behind her now, their joint shadow almost twice
their length, so that she knew with certainty that not only had she failed to return in time for her mother’s excursion but had probably missed supper as well. But reckoning that an extra
half-hour was unlikely to increase her punishment, while returning with Midnight in poor shape likely would, she was careful not to push him, so that they jogged along comfortably, the gable of
Broomelaw’s garret firmly in her sights.

The grouse burst from the heather under Midnight’s hooves and flew straight up at him, calling her protest. Munro would have known to a nicety the degree of pressure to exert with hand and
knee to steady the horse; Anna, jolted out of her thoughts, reacted to the lifting of Midnight’s front hooves with a sharp pull that jerked his head up and back. A small thing, but the worst
possible. The horse was vertical, flipping backwards, casting her over the rump, his tail flailing her face. She landed on the flat of her back, the mass of horse above her toppling, blocking out
the sun.

They had been searching for three hours when they found her, laid out on the heather, limp and crooked. And when they lifted her, her head flopped, her hair swinging behind her
like a rope, her eyes wide open and staring as if caught by surprise, much like the raggedy doll that Kate had made for Maggie out of scraps. Kate, who had refused to remain indoors, was right on
the heels of the lad who caught first sight of her and so it was Kate who, dropping to her knees, placed her fingers on Anna’s forehead and drawing them downwards, shut her eyes for the last
time.

She too, moving ahead of the small procession that wound down the path to the tower, gathered Robbie and Maggie close and, hugging them fiercely, told them that Anna wouldn’t be learning
to ride a pony at Broomelaw after all; that she had gone away, that they would miss her, and here she choked, but that they must try not to be too sad, for she had gone to heaven and heaven was a
beautiful place. And when Maggie, tugging at the ribbon in her hair, asked,