Corrag (9 page)

He had reiving tales in him, too. Not his own—for he said he had never reived in the true sense of it.
But my father, and his father, and his…Their times were brutal times—hiding, raiding, creeping in the dusk, fighting with March-wardens, breaking free from cells…They burnt all the farmsteads they reived from so the night sky was orange. Filled with sparks.

Like the sun had come early,
I said. But what I also thought was
why?
Why would a man choose such a life? To butcher and burn? To hurt other souls. It made no sense to my small ears, and had no good in it—I said so.
There are other ways to live.

He sighed.
Aye—perhaps. But it was always the way in these parts. Such hatred in the air…You could smell it in the wood-smoke, and hear it in the wind…Still can. A Scot may cut an Englishman down but he’d give his own life for the Scot by his side, and so it is in England, also. That hasn’t changed in my lifetime. Nor will it. There’s been too much fighting and slyness to ever clean the air of it.
He shook his head.
Politics…

This made me think. In the dusk and in the dripping trees, I said
Scotland
to myself. If it was not for their accents, this place felt like England to me.

Slyness?

He turned his eyes to look at me. He narrowed them.
You don’t know much of countries, do you? Of thrones? Loyalties?
He shook his head a little.
If you’re going north-and-west, my wee thing, you should know more than you do.

W
E SAT
by the fire, that night. I stitched at a jerkin which was half-undone, and as I sewed he told me what he called
must-knows
, and
truths.

Scotland is two countries.

I pricked my thumb.
Two? Scotland? Two?

England says one. But England’s wrong about that. Highland and Lowland,
he told me.
Like two different worlds.
He threw on a pine branch, and out came its smell—sweet, and like Christmas.

Which one is this? That we’re in?

These are the borders,
he said.
Which is its own country too, in many ways. But they lead into the Lowland parts not far from here—and the Lowlands are green, and lush. More people live in them. They are civil people, too, or so they like to say. They say they’re more learned, more wise of the world than the rest. They speak English as we do. ’Tis the regal part—the Queen Mary who is dead now rode to her Bothwell’s castle, near here, and there is Edinburgh which is reekie and tall but that’s a true city.
He shook his head.
I’ll never see it. Carlisle’s as big as I’ll see in my life.

That’s big. Cora said so.

But not like Edinburgh is. They say its castle is so high that you might see London from it. It’s where they hung a bishop from the palace walls, and every new king or queen rides the Royal Mile so the crowds may cheer and wave at them.

I don’t like kings
I said.

I’m not too fond myself. But most Lowlanders are favouring this new Orange king, and
—he pointed—
you should remember this.

I scowled. It was the Orange king’s wheezes that had helped to put
witch
on Cora, and I sewed very firmly. I tugged my needle through.

But the Highlands…

I glanced up.

They are another world. I have never seen them either—they are far, far to the north and I’m too old to see them now. But they say it’s a properly wild place to be. Wind and rain, and bogs, and wolves calling. And ’tis a fiercer folk who live in that wild land, for it takes a hardy soul to survive it.

Hardy?

Aye. Savage. No laws—or not the laws that Lowland folk live by. They have their own language. Their own faith.
He sipped from his broth. He found a bone in it, plucked it out, looked at it. Then he put it in the fire, said
they are hated.

By whom?

Lowland hates Highland like horses hate flies. You’ll see that, soon enough.

Why?

He shrugged.
For being lawless. For having their Catholic ways. They say the Highland parts weigh this nation down…That the clans are barbarous. They scrap amongst themselves, is what I hear—and there are many known rogues up there. Even I know of them—me! Down here! The MacDonalds, mostly.

Who?

A clan with as many branches as a tree has. The Glencoe ones are spoken of plenty—their flashing blades…Thieving.

I did a stitch. I thought of how little I knew of the world. Of how far away my old life was, with its holly, and frogs in marshes. It seemed a good life, briefly—that Thorneyburnbank one. I had known it, and its people. I’d not met a person who spoke a language of their own. This life, now, seemed harder. More shadows to pass by.

I was quiet for a time. Then I whispered
what of us? Of people like me? What does
witch
mean here? They hang them or drown them in pools, where I’m from. Or they try them by a judge, and do not kill them—but they are called
witch
for forever, then, and have stones thrown at them all their lives.

He watched me. How he looked at me made me wonder if he’d ever had a child at all—for it was the kind of gentle look a parent gives. It was partly sad. Maybe he wished I might have more than this—more than
witch,
and sewing jerkins in a wood. He rubbed his plum-red patch with the heel of his hand.
There were fevers in my youth, I’ll say that. Witch-hunting times—as there were in the south. They burnt a woman in Fife and in the market square they trod on a wetness that must have been her. Her body.
Maybe he saw my face, for he said very quickly
that was east. That was out in fishing villages, where it’s been worst. So don’t go east.

How is north-and-west?

He drank, chewed his broth. He swallowed.
Aye. That might be best. You may be safest in the wild parts—for Highlanders are hated more than you’ll ever be, I think.

I nodded.

I wanted blowing skies. To be where wolves still called.

R
IDE
north-and-west,
Cora had said. She’d had the second sight, maybe, and knew.
Don’t come back. North-and-west.

Aye,
I said, like he did. And I mended the jerkin, so he looked smart in it.

Sir, I tell you these things so you know, too. You need to know—how Scotland is. Maybe you do know—how it is two countries, with low parts hating high. Civil hating savages. Cities hating glens.

Highland and Lowland
. Write that down.

Write also, of this.

That it was as I lived with those Mossmen that my mother died. I saw it in my head. I was knelt by a pool, drinking from cupped hands, when I saw my reflection and I thought briefly it was her. The water flashed about her. Light flashed about her neck, so I knew. I knew her time was done.

Here is what I think. That a rope was placed tenderly over her head, by tender hands—like the hangman half-loved her, and did not want her gone. Her hair blew about her. Her thumbs were tied neatly behind her back, and in the last few moments she looked up at the sky and thought
it is so beautiful…
I also looked up. I saw the swaying trees, and the grey clouds rolling by. I breathed in, as she breathed in. I closed my eyes.

Mr Leslie, I sent all the love I’d ever had to her. I sent it to England, wanting it to find her so that she might die on the scaffold feeling loved. By me.

Tell her I am living. Tell her I am safe.

That night, I saw her ghost.

She came into the clearing with her thumbs untied, and her red skirts rustled as she came. She was in the realm, where no harm is. She looked across, and smiled.

S
O YES
, I know she is dead. I know the river claimed her cottage in the months that followed, that all traces of her life are gone—except for me.

I was with them for three months—for three moon-turns. Three times, I saw it grow from a thin, pale crescent through the trees above my bed to a heavy fruit-like moon, which I might pluck, and hold. I mended those eyes in September; it was frosty by the time I left, with my belly full of meat and their songs in my head. For they sang old thieving songs by that fire—of love, and lost love.

He taught me many things. Scotland was two countries—two faiths, two tongues. How to skin a rabbit with one pull. He gave me a dirk, for keeping. He gave me
the MacDonalds are a savage sept,
to also tuck away.

But maybe the best thing I learnt was this: that we cannot know a person’s soul and nature until we’ve sat beside them, and talked. For
Mossman
once meant
trouble
. Now, it means sadness, and goats.

What if I had not met them? We can always ask those things. If they had not seen me and my purse, what now? I might have been bolder in Lowland parts, and found my death that way. I might have not found the Highlands—not ever. Not found
him,
or Glencoe.

Alasdair.
There he is, now. In my head.

Did I know he was waiting? Did my heart feel him, even then? That is fanciful talking, I know. But as soon as the plum-faced Mossman said
Highland
to me, I thought
there…There! That is the place!
Where the people are wild, and the trees are wind-buckled, and there are lochs which mirror the sky. Where men live crouching down, waiting. Where I might live as I am.

Go there. Move on.

A
ND
I did. In the end, I slipped away.

A quiet night-time wind moved the trees, and made me think
north-and-west.
Of my mother’s eyes.

I knew I had to go. So as the first frost settled, I rose up. I pulled my cloak about me, beckoned to my mare. I looked at the four men sleeping on the ground. They were under their cloaks, breathing—and I listened to their breath for a time. I said
thank you.
I put
thank you
in the air, and hoped it would hang there, so they might hear it when they woke to find me gone.

I laid heartsease by him with the plum-coloured face—for it is rightly named, and strengthens the heart, and comforts it. He was the best to me.

And we galloped.

I had no reins for her, so I clutched her mane, said
go!
Out of the forest, over white-crusted fields, and under a sky of so many stars that I smiled a little, as I held tight. I felt her warmth, heard her snorting as we went, and I knew that this was a true witch’s leaving—by night, and secretly.

Sometimes we have so much to say, we cannot say it. Sometimes it is best we do not say goodbyes.