The Sins of the Wolf (50 page)

“Aye, ye’ll be wanting to go over to the Black Isle, and then across the Cromarty Firth over by Alness and up
towards Tain. It’s a long way, mind. Can ye no do your business in Dingwall, maybe?”

“No,” Monk replied reluctantly. He could not even remember if he could ride a horse, and this was a harsh way to find out. His imagination punished him already.

“Oh well, needs must when the devil drives,” MacKay said with a smile. “That’ll be out Tarbet Ness way. Fine lighthouse that is. See it for miles on a dark night, so ye can.”

“Can I take a horse on the ferry?” Then the instant he had asked, MacKay’s face told him it was a foolish question. “Well, can I hire one on the other side?” he said before MacKay could answer.

“Aye, that ye can. And ye can walk to the ferry here that will take you to the Black Isle. Just yonder by the shore there. Ye’ll be a southerner, no doubt?”

“Yes.” Monk did not debate it. Instinct told him that a Borderer, like himself, from Northumberland, whose men had fought the Scots in raid and battle and foray for close on a thousand years, might be unwelcome, even as far north as this.

MacKay nodded. “Ye’ll be hungry,” he said sagely. “It’s a tidy journey from Edinburgh, so they say.” He pulled a face. It was a foreign land to him, and he was well content to leave it so.

“Thank you,” Monk accepted.

He was served a meal of fresh herrings rolled in oatmeal and fried, with bread still warm from the oven, butter, and oatmeal-covered cheese named Caboc, which was delicious. He went to bed and slept deeply, with barely the stirring of dreams.

The morning; was windy and bright. He rose immediately and instead of eating breakfast at MacKay’s hostelry, he took bread and cheese with him and set out to find the ferry across to the Black Isle, which he had been informed was not literally an island but a large isthmus.

The passage was not broad—it might at some stage conceivably
be bridged—but the tide was swift from the Moray Firth into the smaller Beauly Firth and the wide bay within swept around to the left far out of sight.

The ferryman looked at him dubiously when he asked to be taken across.

“There’s a fair wind, the day.” He squinted eastwards, frowning.

“I’ll help,” Monk offered instantly, then could have bitten his tongue. He had no idea whether he could row or not. He had absolutely no memory of water or boats. Even when he had gone back home to Northumberland, as soon as he was out of hospital after the accident, and woken in the night to find his brother-in-law with the lifeboat, it stirred no recollection of boats in him.

“Aye, well that’ll maybe be needed,” the ferryman agreed, still not moving from the spot.

Monk could not afford to anger the man. He had to cross the straits today; riding around the long coastline by Beauly, Muir-of-Ord, Conon Bridge and Dingwall would take him an entire day longer.

“Then shall we begin?” Monk said urgently. “I need to reach Tarbet Ness tonight.”

“Ye’ll be having a long ride.” The ferryman shook his head, looking at the sky, then back at Monk. “But ye might make it. Looks like a fair day, in spite of the wind. Might drop when the tide turns. Sometimes does.”

Monk took that as an acceptance and made to step into the boat.

“Ye’ll no be wanting to see if there’s anyone else, men?” the ferryman asked. “It’ll be half the fare if ye’re willing to lend a hand yourself?”

Monk might have argued, closer to home, that the fare should have been less if he were prepared to row, whether there was anyone else or not, but he did not wish to provoke ill feeling.

“Aye, well, come on then.” The ferryman extended his hand to help Monk. “We’d best be going. There’ll maybe
be someone on the Black Isle who wants to come to Inverness.”

Monk took his hand and stepped into the small boat. As soon as his feet touched the boards and the whole thing rocked with his added weight, he felt a wave of memory so sharp he hesitated in mid-motion, his balance spread between the boat and the quay. It was not visual, but emotional; a fear and a sense of helplessness and embarrassment. It was so powerful he almost withdrew.

“What’s the matter wi’ ye?” The ferryman looked at him warily. “Ye’re no seasick, are ye? We’ve no even set out yet!”

“No, I’m not,” Monk said sharply. He forbore from giving any explanation.

“Aye, well if ye are”—the ferryman was dubious—“ye’ll please throw up over the side.”

“I’m not,” Monk repeated, hoping it was true, and let himself down into the boat, sitting down in the stern rather hard.

“Well, if ye’re going to help, ye’ll no do it there.” The ferryman frowned at him. “Have ye never been in a wee boat before?” He looked as if he doubted it severely.

Monk stared at him. “It was remembering last time that made me hesitate. The people I knew then,” he added, in case the man thought he was afraid.

“Oh, aye?” The ferryman made room in the seat beside him and Monk moved over, taking the other oar. “I may be daft doing this.” The ferryman shook his head. “I’m hoping I’ll no regret it when we’re out in the current. But I don’t want you trying to move over then, or we’ll likely both end up in the water. An’ I canna swim!”

“Well, if I have to save you, I’ll expect my fare back,” Monk said dryly.

“No if ye’re the one that upsets us.” The ferryman looked him squarely in the eye. “Now hold your hush, man, and bend your back to the oar.”

Monk obeyed, principally because it took all his attention
to keep in rhythm with the ferryman, and he was intent not to make more of a fool of himself than he had already.

For more than ten minutes he rowed steadily, and was beginning to be satisfied with himself. The small boat skimmed over the water with increasing ease. He began to enjoy it. It was pleasant to use his body for a change from the pent-up anguish of mind over the previous weeks, and the necessity of sitting in the crowded courtroom, completely uselessly. This was not so difficult. The day was bright and the sunlight off the water almost dazzling, giving the sky and water a unity of blue brilliance which was curiously liberating, as if its very endlessness were a comfort, not a fear. The wind in his face was cold, but it was sharp and clean, and the salt smell of it satisfied him.

Then without any warning they were out of the lee of the headland and into the current and the tide sweeping in from the Moray Firth and into the Beauly, and he almost lost the oar. Involuntarily he caught sight of the ferryman’s face, and the wry humor in the man’s eyes.

Monk grunted and clasped the oar more firmly, bending his back and heaving as powerfully as he could. He was disconcerted to find that instead of shooting forward and outrowing the ferryman, turning the boat on a slew, he merely kept up and the boat plowed through the water across the current towards the far distant shore of the Black Isle.

He tried to compose his mind and consider what he might find when he arrived at Mary Farraline’s croft. There did not seem many possibilities. Either there was no resident tenant, and therefore there would be no rents, and Baird McIvor had merely been either lazy or incompetent, or there was a tenant, and Baird had never collected the rents—or he had, and for some reason not given them to Mary.

Presumably he had kept them, or used them to pay some dishonorable debt, which he could not pay openly out of the money he was known to have. Another woman was the
answer which leaped to mind. But surely he could not love anyone beside Eilish? Was it a past indiscretion he was paying to keep silent, both from Oonagh and Eilish? That had a ring of truth to it that was curiously unwelcome. Why, for heaven’s sake? Someone had killed Mary. Proof that it was Baird McIvor would clear Hester beyond shadow.

They were halfway across and the current was more powerful. He had to pull with all his strength, throwing his weight into each stroke, driving his feet against the boards across the bottom of the boat. The ferryman was still rowing easily in a long, slow rhythm which made it look like a natural, almost effortless movement, while Monk’s shoulders were already aching. And he still wore the same very slight smile. Their eyes met for a moment, then Monk looked away.

He began to develop a rhythm within himself, to block out the pain across his back with each stroke. He must be getting soft for this to cause him such discomfort. Was that recent? Before the accident, had he been different: ridden horseback perhaps, rowed on the Thames, played some sport or other? There had been nothing in his rooms to indicate so. Yet there was no surplus fat on him, and he was strong. It was just that this was an unaccustomed exercise.

Unwittingly he found himself thinking of Hester. It was quite unreasonable, and yet even while he knew it, he was angry. The loss of her would have hurt him far more than he wished. It made him vulnerable, and he resented it. He could think of courage with power and clarity; it was the one virtue he admired above all others. It was the cornerstone on which all rested. Without it everything else was insecure, endangered by any wind of fortune. How long would justice survive without the courage to fight for it? It was a sham, a hypocrisy, a deceit better unspoken. What was humility unless one possessed the courage to admit error, ignorance and futility, the strength to go back and begin again? What was anything worth—generosity, honor, hope,
even pity—without courage to carry it through? Fear could devour the very soul.

And yet the loneliness and the pain were so real. A
nd
time was a dimension too easy to overlook. What was bearable for a day, two days, became monstrous when faced without end. Damn Hester!

Suddenly there was water in his face.

“Caught a crab,” the ferryman commented with amusement. “Getting tired?”

“No,” Monk said tersely, although he was nearly exhausted. His back was aching, his hands were blistered, and his shoulders felt like cracking.

“Oh, aye?” the ferryman said dubiously, but did not slacken his pace.

Monk caught another “crab,” skimming the oar over the top of the water instead of digging in, and sending the spray up into their faces, tasting it cold and salty on his lips and in his eyes.

Suddenly memory returned like a blinding moment of vision, except that the actual sight portion of it—the gray, glimmering sea and light on the waves—was gone almost before it registered in his mind. It was the cold, the sense of danger and overwhelming urgency that remained. He was frightened, his shoulders had hurt just as they did now, but he had been younger, far younger, perhaps only a boy. The boat had been bucketing all over the place, tossed on heavy waves, their crests curling white with spume. Why on earth would anyone be out in such weather? Why was he frightened? It was not the waves, it was something else.

But he could not find the memory. There was nothing more, just the cold, the violence of the water, and the terrible overwhelming sense of urgency.

Suddenly the boat shot forward. They were in the lee of the Black Isle and the ferryman was smiling.

“Ye’re a stubborn man,” he said as they slid into the shore. “Ye’ll no be doing this tomorrow, I’ll be thinking. Ye’ll be hurting sore.”

“Possibly,” Monk conceded. “Maybe the tide’ll be on the turn, and the wind not so hard against us.”

“Ye can always hope.” The ferryman held out his hand and Monk paid him his fare. “But the train to the south will no wait for ye.”

Monk thanked him and went to hire a horse to take him the several miles up over the high hills of the Black Isle, almost due north towards the next ferry across the Cromarty Firth.

He obtained the animal, and rode steadily. It was a comfortable feeling, familiar. He found he knew how to guide the animal with a minimum of effort. He was at home in the saddle, although he had no idea how long it was since he had last ridden.

The land was beautiful, rolling away to the north in soft slopes, some heavily wooded in deciduous trees, some in pines, much of it in meadows dotted with sheep and occasional cattle. He could see at least fifteen or twenty miles, at a guess.

What was the memory that had troubled him in the boat? Was it one he even wanted to find? There was something else at the back of the other matter, something uglier and more painful. Perhaps he would rather leave it lost. There could be mercy in forgetfulness.

It was hard traveling up the rise of the hill. He had used his back to exhaustion rowing across the Firth, but walking would not be unpleasant. He dismounted and gave the horse a break in its labor. Side by side they reached the crest and saw the mass of Ben Wyvis ahead of them, the first snows of winter crowning its broad peak. With the sunlight on it it seemed to hang in the sky. He walked gently, still on foot, while the hill to the left fell away, and he could see mountains beyond mountains, almost to the heart of Scotland: blue, purple, shimmering white at the peaks against the cobalt sky. He stopped, breathless, not with exhaustion but with the sheer wonder of it. It was vast. He felt as if he could see almost limitlessly. Ahead of him and below was
the Cromarty Firth, shining like polished steel; to the east it stretched out of sight towards the sea. To the west were range after range of mountains lost in the distance. The sun was strong on his face, and unconsciously he lifted it towards the wind and the silence.

He was glad he was alone. Human companionship would have intruded. Words would have been a blasphemy in this place.

Except he would have liked to share it, have someone else grasp this perfection and keep it in the soul, to bring back again and again in time of need. Hester would understand. She would know just to watch, and feel, and say nothing. It was not communicable, simply to be shared by a meeting of the eyes, a touch, and a knowledge of it.

The horse snorted, and he was returned to the present and the passage of time. He had a long way to go yet. The beast was rested. He must proceed downwards to the shore and the Foulis Ferry.

It took him all day, with many inquiries, to reach Portmahomack, as Saint Colmac was now called, and it was long after dusk had deepened into true night when he finally reached the blacksmith’s forge on Castle Street and inquired where he could stable his horse and find lodgings for the night. The smithy was happy to keep the animal, knowing the beast from previous travelers who had hired it at the same place, but he could only suggest Monk go to the nearest inn a few yards down the hill by the shore.