III

There is always the thought in me that you will not return. Even now. Even now that we speak as friends do, or nearly. I no longer think you may prick me, or spit, and I trust you now, but I watched you put your coat on in the evenings and fasten your bag with its ink and good book, and think it may be my last sight of you. That you will not come back.

So I am glad when you do—come back to me. It is a good thing—and what good things are there, in the life of a thing that waits for its death? Not too many. I have my comforts, but they are memories, mostly. They are my own comforts which I must find, and bring back. How you duck into the room is a comfort to me, and I will confess that I never thought a churchman might bring a sense of ease to me, but you do. I want you to know that.

I thought it last night, and I said to the straw and the spider in its web that if you came back to me, I would tell you. That you are a comfort. That I am glad, when you walk in.

YOU are tired. I worry I tell you the wrong things—do I? Tell you the wrong things? Do I speak too much, or not enough? I can hurry to the end if you wish it, and then you may sleep or be on your way, and I will understand it and not see it as any broken vow—for I have learnt from the MacDonalds what passions can burn in a man. What eagerness is in them, for king, and faith.

When I knew them more, and felt to be one of them, or nearly, I heard the tacksman of Inverrigan pray for James to return before he prayed for his family’s health—like James mattered more. But maybe James did. For what we believe is what shapes us, and our lives, and Angus MacDonald of Inverrigan with his freckled face thought all the world would brighten with a Stuart on the throne. That James’s return would heal his family of shivers and aches. So restore James to his seat, and shine the light of the Stuarts back into Scotland so it may chase away the dark, he said, with his eyes closed, on his knees.

You ask what is Inverrigan?

It was a handful of houses. It was a few homes in the woods, by the Coe. That was how the MacDonalds of Glencoe lived, sir—not in one settlement, but in a few smaller ones. Each one had a name. Achnacon was the houses by the river’s bend, where they say the warrior Fiann once kept his hunting dogs. Achtriochtan was on the valley floor, by the loch where a water-bull slept, and this bull would creep out on full-moon nights to graze, and shake himself. It wasn’t true, of course. A water-bull? But myths can be so strong they feel like truth. And the men at Achtriochtan could tell a myth well. They were called bards and poets, and sat close to the fires. They had a Killiecrankie song and one for their kin who fought for Montrose, and ones against all Campbells, and ballads on where they came from—for all Highlanders know that. All were Gaelic songs. I could not sing one for you but maybe I could hum.

Carnoch, too. That was the biggest handful of homes. It was by the sea, and smelt salty, and faced the setting sun. The MacIain’s house was there. His sons lived near it. It was, Mr Leslie, a fine place to be.

I say was. It was a fine place. For none of them exist, now.

It makes me so sad to say it, and think it. But the last time I saw these homes, they were on fire. They were flaming in the snow, and blackened with smoke. Soldiers ran through them, saying any left? Any left? None must be left! In the woods, at Inverrigan, there were nine people outside it—trussed up and dead. Snow came down on freckles. Snow settled on their eyes.

WHERE was I with my telling? I had stitched the Chief’s face, I think?

I can still see it. His nose, and missing tooth. He is dead, now. They shot him in his bedchamber, as he dressed to meet his guests. He was calling for wine to be brought to them, for he always said am I not a good host, Corrag? and when he turned his back they shot him. So he is dead, and gone.

But two winters ago, he was living. And I was walking on the wintery peaks of Glencoe—using my hands to haul myself up onto rocks, and leaving my footprints and handprints in the thin snow. From the Three Sisters I could see the whole world, or it felt so. To the north, over the Ridge Like a Church, I could see peak after peak. Snow after snow.

I took myself to Carnoch with my cloak tied up, and my feet were bound with rabbit skin for the ice was sharp as knives. I had my herbs pressed to my body and my breath was like a cloud, and I had spent a whole night taking knots out of my hair. I’d combed it with a thistle, and scrubbed my face.

Be calm I told myself, as I went.

Be calm, and be kind.

The village was smaller by day. Smaller, with more mud in it. Through the mist, I saw faces which came to stare at me—at my grey eyes, my small ways. Dogs growled. Children called out.

The lady answered when I knocked on the door—her hair greyer in the winter sun, and her face with more lines. She looked down on me. She tilted her head as if her mind was saying who is…? But then she knew. She smiled. At me. She smiled at me, and when had that happened? I could not recall a smile at me.

Corrag she said. He is better. Come.

He was in the chair like he’d never stood up, or left it. The dog still slept with its head on its paws. Still candles, and still a fire, so that I could think is this a dream? It is all the same.

There was Gaelic spoken.

Then he said in a deep barrel-voice, Ah! My nurse is here.

He had a colour to him that he’d not had before—a pinkness to his cheeks, and where his eyes had been red they were not now. I bowed my head. I almost did a curtsey, for how does one greet a man so tall and strong, and with such a voice?

Sit he said. Take this clot of nonsense off my head and tell me how mended I am.

I did. I nestled by the dog, by the MacIain’s knees. Reaching up, I unpeeled the poultice of rupture-wort and horsetail, and looked. The stitches were very black, and not very neat, but they had held. The skin about them was ink-blue from bruises, and still swollen up in parts. But there was no yellow or blackness. I could see and smell no infection there, and I sat back from him and did a smile.

It looks better I said, than it did.

Ha! Better? My head was cut in two. To look any worse would make me a dead man.

It is swollen, and sore-looking. But it smells as it should, and there is a crust coming.

A crust?

This is good. It will knit the skin together.

Lady Glencoe and I made a new poultice by the fireside. She pressed down the herbs so their juices came out. I wondered if she had ever had witch thrown at her, for she had a knowing look to her, and knew the way of plants.

The dog stretched itself, and turned, settled down.

Thank you for my hens I said.

Ah. The hens. You need not take my cousin’s eggs now.

I blushed. No.

I am the MacIain, he said, waving an arm, who butchers and bludgeons, as they say—but I have a heart, also. I am not without gratitude where gratitude is due. He let me lie the poultice down upon his wound, closed his eyes. I wonder if you saved me the other night, Sassenach. I know the wound was deep, and I’ve seen men die from less. I’ve had my rough dealings before, and survived them. But I’m not young, and that wound… He opened those eyes. I was also sharp-tongued with you. I know I was.

You have strong feelings.

I do. He straightened his back. Yes. But that was not the time to show them. The hens are a gift.

I nodded. I knew this was him saying sorry—a proud man’s way, which is not saying the word itself but treading about it. Thank you.

Ach, he said, thank my son. He took them to you. Went out in this weather with a flapping hen in each hand. Left his wife and fireside to climb the heights with a blizzard coming down…But that’s him. That was always his way—fiery, and foolishly so. He’ll learn, or he’ll die—one or both.

I heard this. As I did, I thought of Iain’s quickness with me, his fox-sharp eyes. I said I am grateful to Iain for it. I’ll care for those hens.

He shook his head, drank from his cup. As he swallowed he said, It was Alasdair who carried them. Am I mended?

I did not answer him. I put my herbs away, and told him I would return in a week or more to pick the stitches out of his skin, but he straightened his back in his chair—he was taller than me, just by sitting.

You will come back sooner, he said. You will eat here. Drink. I want to know more of my English nurse—of what she knows. You will come back sooner.

I backed away, and made noises like an unsure child does.

I am not asking, he said.

I thought be high, be wild. For I knew no other way. I had always been for places, and I knew how places were—so I took myself to the places I knew would soften me—air, rushing water. I sat very still in thin, wet snow and felt it fall upon me. I thought he left his fireside. He left his wife.

You are for places, Corrag—not people. Remember that.

But as I took a path back down towards my hut, I found some brown feathers drifting on the snow. I stopped. They rolled themselves slowly, and I thought from my hens—for they were the same brown, and softness. I knelt down, touched them. I pressed one to my hand. And I knew that Alasdair had come this way.

I CARED for those hens. I did. Their natures were gentle, and they tilted their heads when they looked at me. Their eggs were big, and cream-shelled.

In the evenings, I lay a little grain down for them. And one evening, as I watched them go peck and stretch their wings, I thought grain… I did not have very much of it. I’d gathered seed-heads all autumn, and these were feeding them well. But it would not last. I did not have very much at all—only my herbs, which were for curing, not eating. I looked about myself. A few fish smoked in the eaves and I had some mushrooms. An old berry or two. I was not worried for myself, for I could live on air pretty well—but these hens were a gift. They were mine to care for, now. And I did not want them hungry.

I’ll look after you, I told them.

I talked to the hens for a while. And because I was talking, I was not listening. I was thinking of the hens, and nothing else.

I smelt a smell. There was my peat-smoke, and herbs—but there was another smell. It came in quickly, as if it had been blown in, and the hens flinched as I did. We all turned around.

I thought rotting.

It was the odour of a rotting plant, or even meat that worms had found.

I moved to my door, thinking maybe a creature had died outside in the early frost and I was smelling its death, and if so I must tend to it in some way. I went out.

A woman stood there.

I made a sound, I think, for I had heard no footsteps or skirts on the ground. And in frost, all sounds are heard! Even a leaf falling down. A bird cleaning its wings. I said how…?

Say your name she said.

I stared. I stared at her height, and her thinness. I stared at her, and I wondered her age, but could not tell it—she was weathered and lined, but this can belie an age. It says more of the manner of living than of how long one has lived, and so I stared, then, at her hair to look for some greyness. But she did not have much hair. I saw a shawl of filthy wool. Also, she had a very tight mouth, as if made for spitting. I knew her kind—or thought so. Sour piece.

Say yours I told her.

She narrowed her eyes. Her nails were all tangled in that shawl of muck and grime. I didn’t see her teeth, for her lips were so puckered—but I put a penny on them being pegs. Oh yes I knew her kind. She was what all folk see, when they hear witch—unclean, ill-mannered, fearful things. She is what brought the word witch in.

I would not give my name. I waited.

I know you she said. Beady-eyed bird.

And I know you. Which was a lie of mine. I did not know her—yet I thought that I had sensed her, had thought in my bones that I could not be the only hiding soul in these parts. She does not live with the others, Iain had said to his father, in the beeswax candlelight. I’d heard this, as I’d stitched. I remembered this. The others. This woman.

This bony creature with her privy smell walked towards me, then. She passed me, bent down and crept into my hut.

I squawked. I followed her, saying this is my home! You cannot walk into my home like it’s your home!

She could not straighten herself inside it, she was so tall. But she tried. She lifted herself until her hair with its leaves brushed the roof. The fish I was drying shed a few scales.

Ah…she said. Herbs.

Like Iain had said. Like the only thing that mattered to any person in this glen was herbs. Yes. I said it sharply.

Which?

Which?

Herbs, she said. Which herbs? I heard her voice properly then. It was a soft Scottish voice, and she spoke like the MacDonalds did—like English was not the tongue she was born with. Like she had learnt these English words.

Where are you from? I asked.

Do you have henbane?

Where, I said, are you from? Tell me. Where are you from, and where are you now living?

She eyed me. Maybe it was the firelight on her, or how she stooped as an old woman would, but she looked less fearful then. More human. I saw a sadness in her, briefly. Like a bird’s shadow it flitted over her, and was gone.

Moy. ’Tis not near here.

I nodded. And now?

On what they call the buachaille. The pointed rock at the east.

I knew it. It was the black, pointed mountain at the east of the glen. It was where I had trodden on an arrowhead, and where I’d seen an eagle preen its feathers on an alder branch.

I did not ask why she was in the glen. Not why she wasn’t in this place called Moy, these days. I thought she is hiding. For most folk I’ve met in my life that live alone are hiding, from other people.

Do you have henbane?

I said ha. Folk only want henbane because of what it does—which is that it stupefies their heads, and makes them dream whilst they’re awake, and I’ve never wanted that. Cora told me. She said it owns you, once you try it—that you seek it again and again.

Despite her puckered mouth, and her stink, I felt for her, then. I thought poor her. Being as she is. Plucking her shawl and looking for that herb.

I have henbane.

And her eyes grew wide, and a peg-toothed smile came.

So, Mr Leslie, in my hut, on a winter day, I gave a woman called Gormshuil a fistful of henbane so that she shook as she took it, and whispered to it as if it could hear. Yes… But I did not give it freely—no, sir. I gave her a price for the herb. I asked for some grain to feed my hens upon, and which I might make a broth from.

She flinched. Grain?

It is a fair bargain, I said. Henbane is harder to find than grain, I can promise you.

I watched her go. She made no sound, and the mist soon took her and she was gone. I thought I will get no grain for this—for what was trustworthy, in her? I doubted that she ate. I doubted that she found much joy in the world, or beauty, or that she treated people well. I half-doubted she had ever been there, in the mist—for she had been so ghost-like. But her smell lingered.

I did get grain.

Two days later, she came to me with a sack and her fish-eyes. Grain was in it. I peered in, smiled, and when I looked back to thank her she was gone, and a crow was in her place. Some folk say witches shift their shapes into new creatures, when it suits them, and I know this is a lie. I know it can’t be done. It is only when bones misbehave themselves, or when the falling sickness comes and women twitch. But the crow had a look to it. It tilted its head, cawed at me twice, and I fancied it was thank you, or see? Grain for you.

It flew. I watched it fly. And when I looked down at her footprints in the snow, I wished they were not her footprints. I wished they were someone else’s.

Say what you will. Say old hag. She looked it, and smelt like one. She was an old half-human creature who suited the winter weather—not in the way I suited it, for Gormshuil was not winter-born and saw no beauty in a naked tree. No. She suited winter for she had no green shoots in her—no hope, no love, no dreams. She was as thin as sleet can be. As sly.

I told myself, sometimes, that she had been a child once. A daughter, and a wife.

Once, I told my hens, she was happy—once. I must remember that. But like it is hard to see a winter field and remember it in flower-time, so it was with Gormshuil.

WHY do I speak of her? Because she lived. Because by living, she altered the world as we all do, and who is there to speak of her? So I speak of her. And in time, perhaps you will—for she played her part in the murders, sir. Her name is worth writing down.

We all have our stories, and we speak of them, and weave them into other people’s stories—that’s how it goes, does it not? But she did not speak of hers. She was reeky and lonesome, and when I think of her I see henbane in her teeth. She lived on a pointed mountain. She crouched by a fire with two other women whose minds were half-gone, and whose hearts were sealed up. And what life is that? A sadder one than mine was. Far more so. Full of winter nights.

Gormshuil of Moy. You will hear many things said of her, and all bad. But not many people, sir, are all bad.

Those winter nights. I’d look out at the huge sides of snowy rocks which grew about me, and I’d see their eerie colours—grey, black, blue. Then I would go inside, where my fire spoke to itself. But still, I felt them. In my hut, I was still aware of the mountains looking down on me. I could feel their height, and darkness. I thought of their age, of what they had seen, and as I tucked up by my fire I thought they glow…Like living things. Their frost glinted on me, and their breath was icy-cold.

Some people hate such thoughts. They stay away from mountains like mountains mean them harm. But what I say to myself when I see a mountain or a starry sky, or any natural thing which feels too much to bear, is what made this, made me, too. I am as special. We are made by the same thing… Call it God, if you wish. Call it chance, or nature—it does not matter. Both the mountains of Glencoe and me are real, and here. Both the moon which is full tonight and you, Mr Leslie, are here, and shining.

IN THE days that followed Gormshuil, and her sack of grain, I saw Alasdair again. I was high up, looking down. He was by my hut, and then he circled it as if I might be hiding there. For a while he was still, thinking. He had no blades with him, and no hens. Just him—with his plaid, his dark-red hair.

From my hiding place, I watched him go. He trod down through the gully and back into Glencoe, and I could see his marks left in the snow.

I went down.

I touched the rock I’d seen him touch. I heard the sounds he’d heard—the stream, my hens—and I thought, come back to me.