The Chieftain (10 page)

At last Hector gave the command to leave and the clansmen moved towards the door, the women following.

In the bay the ship that had brought them here two days ago waited expectantly. For the first time Isobel noticed what an odd-looking vessel it was, storm-battered, high at stern and prow, with its single mast and long row of oars; as strange and primitive as everything else at Ardshee.

On the shore the piper took up his position and began to play a solemn farewell. Women clung to their menfolk, children were lifted into their father’s arms for a parting kiss. Hector turned to kneel for his foster mother’s blessing, and then for her embrace.

Isobel looked away as he did so, for she could not bear to watch the tender little scene. It hurt her, emphasising her own isolation.
Not,
she thought,
that I want kindness from him. But it is hard to be loved by no one at all.

Mairi MacLean released her foster-son at last, her eyes bright with the tears she was too proud to shed, and held out her arms to Hugh.
 

And then Hector took Isobel’s hands in his, gravely, as if he wanted her to play out her part to the end.

‘Isobel MacLean, let me be proud of the wife I have taken. Then one day there may be kindness between us. Mairi will care for you. Comfort and cherish her as you would your own mother. And have courage.’

He bent then, and she felt his mouth brush her forehead. No passion, no fire, simply a chaste farewell—

She raised her eyes to his. ‘Goodbye,’ she said, because she could think of nothing else to say.

He released her hands and with a final call to his men strode towards the water. They carried him on their shoulders through the waves, and then Isobel saw him swing himself over the side and onto the ship. The men scrambled after him.

Later, when, oars flashing in the early sun, the ship slid out of the bay to the open water beyond and spread her sail to catch the breeze, Isobel saw Hector in the prow, his face turned unwaveringly to the shore. And she knew that it was not on her small solitary figure he gazed, as she stood a little apart from the other women; but at the line of mountain and wood and castle, and the brave figures of those others remained behind. It was there his heart lay, with this land and its people, and it was with them his thoughts would linger through the perilous weeks to come.

Chapter Seven

Long after the ship had sailed beyond the headland and the first sunlight had stretched long fingers into the bay, the watchers stood there, gazing out over the empty water. And then, without a sign or a word, they began in ones and twos to drift away. The sounds of daily life, the crying of a baby, a voice calling to the hens, the clatter as pots were scoured, had already begun to rise in the stillness, when Isobel felt her arm taken and heard old Mairi MacLean speak softly to her in Gaelic.

She turned sharply, stung out of the numbing chill that had descended upon her as the boat sailed away. The little drama was over, and her part with it. And she realised with deadly suddenness that Hector had left her to an isolation more terrible than total solitude. Only he amongst all his people spoke English - and he had gone. She felt a fierce desire to burst into tears. She longed to run into the woods and find some quiet place where she could give way to all her unhappiness unobserved.
 

But Mairi MacLean, Hector’s spy, was at her side, holding her arm, urging her towards the castle. Isobel bit her trembling lip and allowed the old woman to lead her back along the shady path.

In the hall of the castle Isobel turned automatically towards the stair leading to her bedroom. There, perhaps, Mairi would leave her by herself. Her own company would be better by far than that of all these people to whom she could not speak, who could not hope to bring her any comfort. But to her astonishment the gnarled fingers tugged at her arm, holding her back as she reached out to open the door. She turned her head, eyes wide.

Mairi tugged again, and gestured towards the tables still laden with the debris of that hurried breakfast.

She wants me to help clear up,
Isobel concluded, suddenly rebellious. Why should she? It was servants’ work, and she owed these people nothing. Angrily, she shook her head, pulling herself free from the restraining hand.

She had escaped as far as the door, and had it open, when Mairi caught up with her. She had an eager look, as if she were offering some pleasant choice to Isobel. In her hand, now, she held a piece of cheese. Isobel looked down, puzzled, as the old woman stretched out her palm, as if offering the cheese to a horse.

‘Caise,’
she said urgently, pointing with her free hand to the cheese.
‘
Caise.’

Isobel wrinkled her brow again, shrugged, turned to go, one foot on the first stair.
 

The old woman pointed to herself. ‘Mairi,’ she said. Then, taking Isobel’s hand, laid it over the cheese.
‘Caise,’
she repeated again.

Isobel retraced the one step she had taken towards freedom, and faced Mairi. Understanding began to dawn on her. Was
caise
the Gaelic word for cheese? She waited, and Mairi, sensing that she had Isobel’s attention at last, touched her shoulder.

‘
Iseabal,’
she said, in a musical version of the girl’s own name. And then, pointing again in turn to herself and the cheese: ‘Mairi—
caise.’

Isobel was intrigued. So Mairi wanted her to learn some words of Gaelic, to try and break through the barrier that cut her off from those about her? Was that Hector’s idea, his parting instruction to her, or had some sympathy for Isobel’s plight told her that this was a practical way to help?

Then resentment overcame her surprise and curiosity. Hector had gone, to take part in a rebellion of which she could only heartily disapprove. She was deserted, far from home and friends and all that was familiar. She had suffered terrible wrongs at the hands of Hector and his people. All she wanted now was to be alone and weep. Why should she exert herself to learn the language of a people she hated and despised; why should she subdue her natural instinct to find relief in tears? She shook her head, fiercely, at the old woman and turned back towards the stairs.

And then she paused. After all, what point was there in tears? They could change nothing. She was here, a virtual prisoner, with no hope of escape. Even if by some miracle the failure of the rebellion brought her freedom and took her home again to her parents, there would be weeks, months even, to live through in this place; weary months, with no one to share her thoughts or comfort her, few books to read, little to do. Better, surely, to find some occupation. And what more absorbing, more demanding in this uncivilised place than to set her mind to master this barbaric and yet oddly beautiful language?

She came back to Mairi’s side and lifted a hunk of cheese from the table.

‘
Caise,’
she said.

In the weeks that followed Isobel found to her surprise that she had a quick ear and an apt tongue for learning a language. And Mairi was a good teacher. Each day she would add a few more words to Isobel’s growing vocabulary, whilst making sure that the words learned yesterday or the day before were carefully repeated. Soon, Isobel found that she could understand, now and then, something of the talk about her. And the moment when she greeted Hector’s foster mother in Gaelic as they met in the morning was one of real triumph, for both of them. She began to forget, very soon, that Mairi was Hector’s spy, and a warm affection replaced the suspicion of the early days.

The language was not all she learned. Mairi took her to the shieling, and there taught her to milk the cows and goats, to make cheese, to wash and mend and cook.

It was all so new, so far removed from her urban experience, that Isobel forgot it was ‘servants’ work’ and even began to enjoy herself.

Slowly, imperceptibly, she became part of the small community of women and girls, old men and young boys, accepted, one of themselves. She slept in a little hut at the shieling, ate in their company, gathered with them in the evening for the singing and talking and story-telling that went on far into the night.

They had no news at all of how the men were faring so far from home. Hector might almost never have existed, if his foster mother had not talked of him now and then, when she and Isobel were alone. There were tales of his childhood, of the long days when he and Hugh played barefoot and happy in glen and mountain, fishing and hunting, minding the cattle with the other boys, swimming and wrestling. And there were tales of Hector the chieftain caring for his people, respected and loved as a father and brother, who wanted their well-being above all.

Late in September the days grew short and squally storms blew over from the sea. The turf huts that had sheltered them all summer long were abandoned to the vagaries of the weather, the cattle and goats and delicate silken-coated sheep herded together and driven down to the sparser pasturage near the castle. Cooking pots, tools, the few clothes, the simple bedding, were gathered up and carried back to the settlement on the shore. Fires were lit on the raised stone hearths of the little houses, and smoke curled its way in a desultory manner through the ragged heather thatch, scenting the air with the acrid fragrance of burning peat. Isobel returned to the castle, and Mairi took up residence in her own small room beside the hall.

On the cliff face the trees turned to fiery gold and bronze and copper, as if the woods were ablaze. Sometimes in the mornings mist lay on the sea, lifting hazily about midday to let in a dusty golden sunlight. All day the people, young and old, worked in the little fields low on the hillside by the settlement, gathering in the poor weed-ridden crops of oats and barley. Their singing, keeping time with the swish and bite of the sickle on the partly-ripened stems, echoed around the little bay and filled the daylight hours.

When it was too wet to work outdoors the women sat in the crowded one-roomed houses with the chickens roosting on the roof beams and the children playing in the mud at their feet. Hands busy with distaff and spindle, they spun yarn for the winter plaids from wool dyed with plants and roots gathered from shore and hillside and woodland. Isobel learned their skills and made soft shoes for herself from deerskin, and a blue woollen gown. With Mairi’s help she wove a fine plaid to drape around it, and the old woman murmured the customary blessing over it before she put it on.

Often after dark the people came to the castle, for the
ceilidh
- the gathering for singing and story-telling - for there was more space there than in the single cramped rooms of the little houses.

It was on just such an evening that they were raising their voices in a favourite song of light-hearted love, when the deerhounds suddenly leapt up from their somnolent position at Isobel’s feet and ran wildly barking towards the main door.

The singing faded at once, dying away to a silence broken only by the clamour of the dogs and the hiss of a damp log on the fire. It was raining tonight, but it was the soft insistent soundless rain that Isobel had come to realise was only too usual at Ardshee.

Then they heard what had aroused the dogs. Steps, and voices, approached the castle, just beyond the closed door. Isobel stood up, and Mairi with her. Fear of the unknown gripped them, for they knew that all the clan, young and old, were here with them. The door opened - and the dogs, as suddenly quiet, bounded out with delightedly waving tails.

Hector and Hugh stepped into the hall.

There was a moment of complete silence, and then Mairi gave a great joyful exclamation. She hurried to embrace first one and then the other and bring them to the fire. And then Hector stood before Isobel, and she experienced that strange, forgotten lurch deep inside her as his dark eyes met hers. She felt her colour rise under his gaze, but said quietly, through quickened breathing: ‘You are welcome, man of the house.’
 

She did not realise she had spoken in Gaelic, for she had grown used to speaking nothing else.
 

For a moment, too, Hector only gazed at her, and then took her hands in his. ‘Thanks be to you, woman of the house,’ he replied in the same language. His voice too sounded oddly breathless, a little unsteady.

At last he wrenched his eyes from her as if with an effort and turned to greet the others. And it was then that he paused, eyes wide, and gave a small gasp of astonishment.

‘What did you say?’ he asked in English. Isobel was astonished at how strange and unfamiliar the words sounded.

She repeated her greeting, her colour deepening still more, and saw him smile warmly, with real delight, as Mairi explained how she had passed the time in his absence. At the end of the old woman’s account he reached out and drew Isobel into his arms and kissed her long and tenderly. That sweet melting of the limbs flowed through her, and she held him close, her fingers looped in his springing hair. If they had been alone—

But they were not alone, and the waiting throng was hungry for news. Hector gently put her from him, though he retained her hand, and gave his attention to the women who had no men to welcome home.

The news, for all of them, was amazing, wonderful, almost too good to be true. The Highlanders had risen in impressive numbers - if not quite to a man - to support their Prince. Now after a bare two months of fighting, almost the whole of Scotland, but for one or two isolated garrisons, lay in their hands. Just a few days ago, at Prestonpans near Edinburgh, they had gained a magnificent victory against government troops. Now it only remained for them to gather all their strength for the march on England. There, the Prince had been assured, his Jacobite supporters would rise and opposition melt away like mist with the sun.