The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (35 page)

"Who's it all for? Who's coming?" I asked a scullion, without much interest.

"How should I know? Here, you've to gut this salmon."

But as I passed a pair of men bringing in fuel for the roaring kitchen fires, I heard one of them say, "It's the Lords Errol and Kintore, from Edinburgh. They've come about the prisoners."

My hand, already greasy with fish guts, slipped on the knife I was holding, and I almost cut myself. I strained to listen.

"Let's hope they're taking the fools away," grumbled the second man. "The way they drone on with their psalms gives me the creeps."

"Are you sure?" I dared ask. "Are they really coming about the Presbyterians? Are they going to take them away?"

"No point asking me," he answered. "Move, will you? How am I supposed to get these logs past with you standing there like a stone?"

***

They brought the prisoners out onto the castle green the very day after the banquet for the two noble lords. Mr. Haddo, exhausted by the effort of preparing the great feast, had relaxed his grip on the kitchens and didn't even try to prevent his minions from pouring out of the bakery, brewery, dairy, and storerooms to stare and wonder at the people they had only heard singing, and had smelled, until now.

The sight of the wretched crowd of skeletons, with matted hair and clothes that had become no more than filthy rags, silenced everyone. The whole castle had come out to look. Maids hung out of upper windows, grooms emerged from the stables, and even the soldiers stood quietly, looking almost ashamed.

The murmur of shocked sympathy died away almost at once to leave an uneasy silence. Then one of the stable boys shouted out, "Serves you right, you stinking traitors. God save the king!"

It was as if the others had been waiting for their cue. The lad's high-pitched voice had hardly died away when a chorus of jeers and catcalls broke out. Voices from all around the green yelled, "Get them out of here! String them up! Where's your precious Covenant now, you fools?"

Suddenly, I saw him. Uncle Blair was standing in the middle of a group of men who looked more like standing corpses than living people. He was shading his eyes, as if blinded by the daylight after so long in the darkness of the dungeon. He was as thin as a pike shaft, and as waxy-pale as a mushroom. I saw him stagger and clutch at the arm of the man beside him. I thought he was on the point of death.

I lost all sense of danger and threw away my weeks of caution in one scream of anguish.

"Uncle Blair! Oh, please! Uncle!"

I didn't even reach him. A soldier grabbed hold of me and clipped my arms tightly behind my back.

"Well, well! So the piper's little girl is a damned Presbyterian after all!"

His voice was grim. He fumbled at his waist, and I heard a rattle as something cold and hard snapped around my wrists. Then I knew what I'd done and shuddered with dread. The soldiers were working their way around the hundred or more prisoners, wrenching their bone-thin arms back, and clamping on heavy manacles. A few moments later, I found myself chained to a woman who was so weak that she could barely stand as we walked forward under the lash of a shouted command. I had to help her to stand upright, and as we were herded down the steep, rough-hewn steps to the narrow castle entrance, she leaned on me so gratefully that I ended up almost carrying her.

I managed to twist my head around as we turned the last corner and caught sight of Mr. Haddo in the middle of a group of kitchen workers. They were staring at me in shocked surprise, shaking their heads in disapproval, and making no effort to rescue me, though Agnes lifted her hand in a daring wave. I turned my back on them, lifted my chin, and marched out of that dreadful place with as much dignity as I could, though my throat was tight when I thought that Tam could not leave with me. He would lie in Dunnottar Castle forever, and I hadn't even stood by the little mound that marked his grave one last time to say goodbye.

***

Was it by sheer chance that Neil Sharpus was one of the soldiers sent to escort the prisoners on their long, miserable march back to Edinburgh? Uncle Blair would have thanked the guiding hand of Providence. Granny would have congratulated herself on the success of one of her lucky charms. At any rate, it was a good thing for me that he was there.

The prisoners were so weak with lack of food and their long imprisonment that many of them could barely walk, and we went only a short distance that day. Once we had been herded into a barn commandeered from a grumbling farmer, our manacles and chains were removed, so that we could at least ease the cramps in our shoulders and move around amongst ourselves. At last, I was able to go to Uncle Blair.

"Maggie," he croaked, laying a trembling hand on my shoulder. "Dear child. I hoped you'd escaped from that dreadful place weeks ago."

"I found work, Uncle. In the kitchens. I was never far away, but I couldn't find a way to speak to you again."

He looked around vaguely.

"Where's your friend, the piper? He should have looked after you better. He should have gotten you away."

I frowned at the criticism in his voice.

"Tam's dead, Uncle. He—I didn't realize how sick he was. I shouldn't have made him come with me. He was good to me. Always."

"I'm glad to hear it. The man didn't seem up to much to me. A lightweight kind of a fellow."

I was stung.

He came to save you,
I wanted to say.
It was for you he died.

But I could see that Uncle Blair's mind had moved on.

"Is there news from home? Have you heard from Ladymuir?"

As I shook my head, there was a buzz of voices from the big barn doors. Someone even laughed.

"They've brought fresh water for us, Hugh!" a man called out. "Without charging for it. And there are oatcakes and even cheese, at a reasonable price."

"Praise the Lord!" said Uncle Blair, his face lighting up with childlike delight. "Today has brought such happiness! To smell fresh air again, and to see the green grass and the sky, and to see you again, my dear girl, so well and bonny. I've been tormented with fears for you! And on top of all this, a real supper!"

I swallowed my disappointment. The two halves of my life would never be brought together, I could see that clearly now. I felt in my pocket for my precious hoard of coins and threaded my way through the exhausted Covenanters toward the soldiers lounging by the door. Musketeer Sharpus caught hold of my arm and spun me around.

"So, piper's girl, you're a traitor after all. And to think I put myself out to help you. A fine fool you've made of me."

I shook my head earnestly.

"I didn't mean to make a fool of you, sir. It's true that Tam and I came to Dunnottar in search of my uncle, but I'm not a Covenanter, not really. I don't understand about all that. I don't know what I am. I wish I did. I just want to do what's right."

He loosened his grip.

"There's no making you out, girl. I keep tripping over you all the time."

He sounded more perplexed than angry. Encouraged, I smiled at him.

"Please, will you let me walk free tomorrow? I won't run away. I want to stay near my uncle, that's all." An inspiration came to me. I felt in my pocket again and pulled out the pouch of stolen money. "You can have this if you'll let us both go, me and my uncle."

He snorted with scornful laughter.

"What do you take me for? I'd never let a prisoner go. He's an enemy of the crown. His name's written down on the list. I'd be arrested too."

But his eyes were on the money. I began to return it slowly to my pocket.

"Tell you what." His fingers were reaching out to twitch it away from me, and I snatched it back just in time. "I could get
you
freed. It should be easy. Your name's not down on the charge sheet. A word with the captain should do it."

"If it's so easy, it's worth less than all this money," I said, jingling the coins, and thinking out the bargain. "Look, I'll give you half the money now, if you can free me, and the rest when we get to Edinburgh, if you'll make sure that my uncle's not driven too hard and gets some decent food."

He laughed.

"You're a one, you are. Give me a kiss, and I'll throw in some wine for the man as well."

I drew back.

"I don't sell kisses," I said, my cheeks on fire with blushes as I dropped the coins into his outstretched palm.

I was afraid, as I went back through the throng of exhausted prisoners, that my uncle might have seen me talking to the soldiers and would question me. He would have been disgusted, I knew, by my attempt to win him special treatment with the help of stolen money, and, in fact, my conscience did prick a little as I saw the desperate state of some of the other prisoners.

To my relief, someone started to sing before I'd reached our corner of the barn, and by the time I'd arrived, Uncle Blair was already joining in:

"
But blessed be God
Who doth us safely keep
And hath not given
Us for living prey
Unto their teeth
And bloody cruelty.
"

Some people were already asleep, their mouths open, making vacant, black holes between their hollow cheeks. Others were too weak to make a sound, but they were mouthing the familiar words, and I saw tears slide out from under closed eyelids.

"
Ev'n as a bird
Out of the fowler's snare
Escapes away,
So is our soul set free.
Broke are their nets
And thus escaped we.
"

Uncle Blair and I were lucky to have a good corner, beside a pile of hay bales against which we could lean our backs. He put up his hands to rest them on the front of his filth-encrusted coat, and I saw with a shock that they were roughly bandaged with strips of torn linen.

I put out my own hand and he flinched, as if afraid that I would touch him.

"What happened, Uncle?"

He shook his head.

"It's best forgotten."

"No! Let me see."

He hesitated but allowed me to unwind the bandages, biting his lip hard with the pain. I had to suppress a gasp of horror. His fingers were a pulpy mass of raw flesh, deeply ulcerated. Yellow pus oozed out.

"How did this happen?"

He had lain back against the hay as if the sight of his own hands had exhausted him.

"It was one of their punishments," he murmured. "I spoke out in anger when one of our sisters was forced to give birth in that—that place. She died under their cruel neglect, with the babe. They put lighted splinters of wood between my fingers and blew on them till they had burned away. Oh, don't look so upset, my dear. The Lord has been good to me. One of the brethren lost all his fingers that way. As the Lord Jesus said,
'Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you for my sake.'
If he asks me to suffer, I must do it gladly. Only think of his sufferings for us on the Cross! How little this is to bear for his sake."

"It seems rather a lot to me," I muttered crossly under my breath, then bit my lip, afraid that such a thought was sinful.

Aloud, I said, "You must let me care for them, Uncle. I know how to treat this kind of injury."

He smiled at me.

"Thank you, my dear. If you would add your prayers to mine, they will rise as a sweet odor to the throne of the heavenly grace, and surely the Lord will hear us."

I nodded but thought, with another little spurt of rebellion,
Prayers are one thing, but healing herbs are another.

My poor uncle would have recoiled from any remedy if he'd known it had been learned from my grandmother. He would have feared enchantments and spells, and sniffed the sulfurous presence of the Prince of Darkness.

He had closed his eyes. I watched him for a few moments, till I was sure he was deeply asleep. Then I got up and tiptoed through the now-silent prisoners to the barn door. Luckily, the man on guard duty was Musketeer Sharpus.

"Let me out for a little while," I begged.

To my surprise, he didn't look at me and seemed embarrassed.

"You'll run away."

"You know I won't. I told you. I'm here to be with my uncle."

He hesitated, then jerked his head.

"Away you go, then. But don't be long. My time's up in an hour. The next fellow mightn't look so kindly on comings and goings."

I wished with all my heart, as I darted away into the twilight, that I'd taken more notice of Granny's work with herbs. It was true that she had never tried to teach me. In fact, if I'd looked too closely at anything she was doing, she'd driven me off with a curse. But I could remember some things and knew now what I was looking for.

When I was eight or nine years old, I'd burned my foot badly, stumbling into the fire. Granny had said nothing to comfort me but had gone outside, coming back a while later with burdock leaves, which grew near the path on the way to Kingarth. She'd broken an egg, grumbling at the waste, and had crushed the burdock leaves into the slimy white before spreading it on the burn. I'd never forgotten how cool and good it had felt on the painful place, and how fast it had healed.

But my burn was a small one and fresh,
I thought anxiously.
And there wasn't any pus coming out of it. Anyway, I don't know where to look for burdock. And how can I possibly get hold of an egg?

I'd been walking too fast and aimlessly, and forced myself to slow down and think. In Scalpsie Bay, there had been clumps of burdock growing along the track underneath a stone wall. I'd seen a wall not far back along the way we'd come. Perhaps there would be burdock growing there too.

I found my quarry more quickly than I'd expected and pounced. Then, as I'd seen Granny do, I studied the plant and chose carefully from the leaves, only picking the big, healthy-looking ones.

Success gave me a jolt of confidence. God must have guided me to this precious plant. Perhaps he had listened to Uncle's prayers. Perhaps he would put an egg in my hands too.

Eggs meant hens, and hens meant farms, and farms meant people and dogs and trouble. Tam would have known what to do. I'd seen him many times, slipping shamefaced from a farmstead with a couple of oval bulges in his pocket.