Books: Highland Ballad
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Christopher Leadem >> Highland Ballad
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"Stealth, you say. And rope..... Aye. A grappling hook might be the
answer, if the window weren't as high as it's bound to be, and you had
all night to make the throw. But I suspect you don't, and the weight
of the attached line would make it all but impossible in any case."
"I'd thought of that," said Michael. "But I didn't know what else to
try..... Tell me the truth, John. Is it hopeless? I think another
prison cell would be the death of me. But if there's no other way. .
.I'll turn myself in along with Purceville, and try to reach the new
Secretary---"
The fisherman shook his head. "No. Your kin have turned themselves in
once already, and you see the result. And I did not say it was
hopeless. You were on the right scent. You're just not the crafty old
hound that I am." He gave the younger man a wink. "Where a rope won't
go, perhaps a bit of string will, to lead the way."
Michael set his horse at an easy gallop, as the road leveled and he
began the second, less arduous leg toward home. He felt heartened as
his leg brushed against the saddlebag, and he thought of the bundles
contained within. For the first time since the women had been taken
from him, he felt a tentative hope. There was a chance.
The last daylight faded behind him; but now the feared night wind was
less, and only urged his mount to greater speed. After a time he
looked up at the waning, but still formidable moon, wondering if its
light would be a blessing or a curse in the coming escape. For the
hard clear skies of mid autumn had begun, with ten thousand stars
looking down unobstructed. There seemed little likelihood of change by
the following night. Perhaps the fog would be a factor, though the
high promontory on which the Castle was set.....
It was no use worrying, he told himself, with less conviction than he
wished he felt. Again he fought off the familiar sense of dread which
had never fully left him since the morning of the Battle, but only
varied in theme and intensity. Familiar too was the dull, oppressive
ache of his affliction. How much longer he could deceive his body with
the promise of future rest, he did not know. He was worn, both
physically and emotionally, to the last thread of resilience. And yet
he could not rest. Still one more journey must be undertaken, before
he slept that night.
Perhaps an hour later he came at last into sight of the lonely
homestead. When he circled at a distance, to interpose the chimney
between himself and the moon, a faint trail of smoke could be seen
rising from it, and this encouraged him. Someone remained within. Any
trap set by the English, he felt sure, would be presaged by absolute
silence and stillness. But this did not rule out the possibility of an
ambush by Purceville, who had not yet made his intentions clear.
With this in mind, he dismounted several hundred yards from the house,
and wrapping the horse's reins about the branch of a sheltering tree,
advanced on foot.
Opening the back door soundlessly, he slipped inside with the pistol
cocked and ready. Nothing. Heart pounding, he advanced slowly down the
passage, toward the indirect glow of the hearth. He turned the
corner.....
Purceville sat motionless facing him, a drained goblet in his hand. He
evinced no surprise. Apparently his senses were sharper than the
Highlander guessed.
"I will do it," he said evenly. "On the condition that I am never
again left weaponless in an indefensible corner."
Michael came closer, unbuckled the dead officer's sword. He handed it
to Purceville in the English fashion, then straightened and looked him
square in the eye.
"I ask for no greater promise," he said, "than that you do what you
know is right. Now, if you will take it, here is my hand."
The Englishman took it in his own, with the same measured gaze that he
had worn since the Highlander's return. There was no time to wonder at
the thoughts that lay behind it.
"Come on," said Michael. "We've got a long ride ahead of us."
"Where are we going?"
"To find a more defensible corner."
Thirty
The Lord Henry Purceville lay alone in the heavy framed bed, with
sleep the distant memory of a child. And though he knew there were a
thousand contingencies which he must anticipate, and prepare against,
still a single question drove all others from his mind.
How had it come to this?
His own son, whose hatred now seemed assured, had turned against him,
and had to be bound and dragged away like a criminal. His beautiful,
melancholy daughter, who had dared to stand up to him, lay pale and
shivering in the Tower at his own command. And he himself, once a
proud and fearless soldier of the line, lying and hiding to protect
his pitiful gains from a withered aristocrat whose skull he could so
easily crush.
Feeling suffocated, frothing with rage at his helplessness, he threw
aside the covers and rose to pace about the room as if a cage.
Because the question that truly galled him was not Why
, but Why now? If such a reversal had come when he was younger, with
his future still ahead of him, he might have seen some justice to it.
He would have known there was a difference between good and evil, and
all that this knowledge implied. He would have believed in something.
He could not lie, and say the knowledge would have changed him much.
But at least he would have known, as his daughter's plight had shown
him, that real people were the victims of his blind aggression, people
whose only crimes were not weakness and naiveté, but kindness and
compassion.
But he had not know, or so he told himself. His life had run on,
untaught and unobstructed, a raging beast crushing everything in its
path. And now, just as surely, that killing momentum would hurl him
from the brink of its dark height---down, down into the yawning abyss.
Of what lay at the bottom, he dared not even think.
And not only was it too late for him, but for his victims as well. How
many men had he killed in battle, or destroyed in the political arena,
to attain what he had once called power? How many women had he sucked
dry and then discarded? And for what? Only to learn when the damage
was already done that the actions of men, for good or evil, made a
difference. They mattered!
The bile rose in his throat, nearly choking him. For now the mindless
cruelty of life. . .was slowly turning back upon him. That same
unyielding blade, the heartless razor that he had served and become,
was proving to be double-edged.
But fear and a momentary helplessness were not to be confused with
impotent despair. The Lord Purceville was far from defeated. He let
the feelings run, because for the first time in many years he could
not stop them, and he knew it was unwise to try. Time enough to master
his emotions when the flood had died down. For now he must know where
personal weakness was likely to occur.
For as Anne Scott had already glimpsed, the truly frightening thing
about this man, was that he defied all the self-destructive traits of
the storybook villain. And though he had given himself over to evil,
he was still capable of a kind of wisdom. Though he lived on one side
of the boundary, he never ceased learning from the other. He
understood killing and healing alike.
Forcing all else from his mind, he looked back across the pages of his
life, trying to find some common thread, some shred of lost meaning
that would make him understand.
His childhood memories remained the most vivid of his life, and though
long suppressed, it took little effort to bring them back in sharp
detail. He shuddered as he sat again on the edge of the bed,
anticipating the grim scenes which had hardened him and made him cold,
but never lessened in their stark brutality.
He had grown, a wild weed, among the wharves of London. His mother was
a sometime prostitute, his father a man he had never seen. The only
thing she would ever say of him was that he had been a sailor, and had
left her destitute when she was but a girl. He wanted to hate the man
for it,
but he knew his mother too well to trust her version of the past, or
to feel much pity on her account. She fed him, sometimes, and gave him
a corner of the floor in which to sleep. In return for this he was
expected to steal, to warn her of the police, and to keep silent when
she brought home from the public houses the dirty, hardened wretches
who filled her cup and purse alike.
One evening she had returned with a particularly evil looking
Portuguese, a cut-throat pirate by the look of him, living like others
of his kind under the King's protection, so long as they terrorized
Spanish treasure ships and not his own. The man's dark eyes through
their narrow slits spoke of a malevolence that even his mother must
have felt. But she said nothing, gave him the wine he demanded though
he already stank of it, and led him up to her room, oblivious.
Through the poor ceiling he could hear the clothes tearing, the blows
and sharp curses of the man. But these meant little to him. The
rougher sort were like that, and if his mother minded, it never kept
her from bringing the same lot back again. So long as they paid in
gold and silver, it was all the same to her.
But then he heard an unfamiliar sound, and it brought him up short.
His mother had screamed in earnest. He could hear her pleading, while
the man before her had become deathly silent.
Trembling with sudden fear and concern, he reached under the
floor-boards to the place where he kept the stolen pistol. Then ran
with it up the doubling stairway. Again the woman screamed, the sound
cut short by a dull gasp of pain. He lifted the latch and burst into
the room. . .too late.
His mother lay bleeding on the bed, her eyes wide with uncomprehending
horror. The long knife had started in her womb, and jerked upward with
a vicious pull. The man, fully clothed, stood watching her die. He
turned toward the frozen child, the bloodied knife poised, ready to
strike again.
But the young man was not his mother. With the instinctive ferocity
re-taught him by the streets and quays of London, he stiffened his arm
and fired. The murderer fell at his feet. At the age of ten, he had
killed his first man.
He did not wait for the Law to decide his fate: he had seen too much
of its handiwork. And he had no intention of slowly starving like the
other orphans of the gutter. Instead he crept down to the docks, and
stowed away on the most imposing ship he could find, dreaming, in his
way, of a life of adventure at sea.
And when the vessel was well out in the Channel, he left his hiding
place and snuck into the captain's cabin, late at night as he paced
the deck. Once inside he worked his fingers to the bone, scrubbing,
polishing, and straightening the room.
The strategy worked. When the captain entered and saw what he was
doing, he beat him half to death, then ordered him chained in the
hold. But after three days he released him and set him to work,
performing tasks of the lowliest kind, with no other pay than a meager
share of salt pork and hard biscuit, and the constant threat of being
thrown over the side.
But to a boy who had never known or expected kindness, it was enough.
He never thought to complain or answer back, except to the cruder
sailors, who thought to use him as a girl. These soon learned that the
knife he carried was no idle threat, and that the boy could not be
cowed. They left him be.
Even the iron-willed captain had come to respect him. After a time he
made him his cabin boy, going so far as to teach him the rudiments of
sailing and navigation. He never showed affection, most probably did
not feel it. But he became nonetheless the closest thing to a father
that he would ever know.
The vessel was a slave ship, and it gave him his first confirmation of
life's inherent cruelty. For the strange dark men they transported
were no less strong, subtle, or determined than themselves. And yet
for no greater crime than being primitive, and unable to defend
themselves against the weapons and treacheries of Europe, they were
sold into a bondage from which there was no escape, ending only in
death.
He never thought to question whether this was right or wrong. And if
this captain and this ship did not carry their human cargo to the
colonies, some other would have, and perhaps not as safely or as well.
So at the beginning of each westward passage, he learned but a single
word of the tribe's native tongue. And when he went down into the hold
to bring them their gruel, when one of them would catch his eye and
make pleading gestures, bewildered at his lot, he used it:
"Accept." There was no other way to survive.
And so for five years he had lived, making the long triangular
passage: from London to the coast of Africa, carrying medicine and
supplies, from Africa to America, with the slave labor which helped
build it, then back again to England with raw materials, and the
profits that came from being aggressive, and willing to do what was
necessary. It was a lesson he never forgot: injustice there would
always be, and a man must look to his own advancement.
But then Captain Horne had died, strangled to death by a slave's chain
in a ship revolt. The huge, fierce black man had been oblivious to the
thrusts of his own knife from behind, his one desire to kill the man
in front of him before his own life was ended. This, too, was a lesson
he would long remember. The captain had grown less severe with age,
and had loosed his grip, just enough, for those he kept under his
thumb to rise up and take his life. The moral? Victory must be
consolidated by ruthless vigilance.
He had shed no tears when order was restored, and his Captain's body
returned to the deep. He was simply gone, along with the life that he
had come to know so well.
And though he might easily have found work on another ship, being then
a strong and tireless lad of fifteen, he decided that the rise to
power was too slow, and too limited at sea. Real opportunity, in his
eyes, lay in the military and political arenas.
So when the ship returned to Plymouth, he joined the army as an
infantryman, and later forged and sponsored his own commission as
officer. At every step he gained the reputation of a fearless soldier,
and of a fierce, unyielding leader of men. Such indomitable young
lions were much needed in those days of expanding Empire, and could
rise quickly to positions of prominence, especially along the
frontiers.
Nor was he to rise in rank alone, but also in station. After a
determined search, he at last found a noble family in ruin, ready to
collapse. And through a combination of bribes, extortion, and the
threat of violence, he forced the aging and childless Lord to
recognize him as his legitimate son, and rightful heir to his name and
property alike. The old man died but a few months later, his spirit
broken, his body racked by poison.
And so he found himself at twenty-nine, his implacable charge taking
him to the heights of his profession, swift and sure as an arrow's
flight. He had no illusions; he had no dreams; and he could not
conceive of anything that would alter his life's course in the least.
He believed he knew and understood all that the world held for a man,
and did not hold. He knew what he wanted, and he was willing to pay
the price.
Yet it was at the very heart of this emotional wasteland that the one
kindness, the one exception of his life had somehow found him. He had
just returned from southern Africa, where forces under his command had
crushed a native uprising before it could gather impetus and support.
In honor of this he had been decorated, and invited to a special
reception held for him at the summer estates of the Earl of Sussex.
Arriving in little-used dress uniform, making no attempt to hide his
disdain for this aristocratic gathering and all that it implied, he
had seemed, as he often did in society, a poorly disguised wolf among
dogs. His one desire was to make the acquaintance of those persons who
could advance his career, ignore those who could not, and get out
before his deep-seated hatred of the rich caused him to do or say
something he would later regret.
But during the meal he found himself seated across from a beautiful
and fragile young woman who for some reason looked down, blushing,
each time his eyes fell upon her. There was something in her face. .
.he had never been able to describe it. . .that made him curious about
her. He felt drawn to her somehow. He did not know why, nor did he
think to ask. Thinking and asking, outside the pale of his ambition,
were a thing almost forgotten.
So when the company moved to the ballroom he stayed on, and after
watching her for several minutes from a distance, approached her and
asked her to dance. She flushed more deeply than before, looked up at
him with pleading eyes. She started to say yes, then fell into a
swoon.
Oblivious to all else in the room, indeed, in all the world, he caught
her up and carried her to the freer air of the balcony. Those who
tried to follow were met with such a murderous glare.....
Sitting beside her in the gentle moonlight, he had felt such concern.
And when she came back to herself, when she opened her eyes and saw
him she said simply, to his astonishment:
"You know that I love you."
Knowing nothing else he embraced her gently, with such a surge of
tender emotion that for a time he did not know himself. The past fell
away. The future as he had planned it turned cold and barren in his
sight. Without so much as knowing her name, or even believing in the
possibility, he knew that he had found the love of his life.
There were many obstacles, not the least of which was Earl Arthur
himself, her uncle and guardian, who violently opposed their union.
But the newly empowered Lord Purceville was obsessed, and let nothing
stand in his way, until they were man and wife.
He remembered their wedding night, Angelica beside him in the moonlit
bed. Her virgin's blood ran softly, like a benediction, as he wept the
only real tears of his life. The world lay gentle and loving in his
arms, knowing him as even he did not. He could see no end to their
happiness.....
The pain of it became too much to bear. He tried to force himself back
to the present. But there remained one more memory, one more brutal
image that would not lie still---a savagery that went beyond simple
violence. For it was the cold, unfeeling hand of Death: death to the
young, who so desired life.
The vaginal blood ran again, as if in mockery of their love. His
second son, stillborn, lay beside her in the bed, as she clutched his
hand in uncomprehending pain and fear. The physician bowed his head in
resignation, and walked away.
No gentle and loving farewell was left to her, only life seeping out,
and death creeping in. She knew that it was over, and in the final
moments only begged him to go on, to love their living son, and try
not to hate. But as she died his hope died with her. The one love, the
one exception, had gone from his life.
And in time he grew harder and more ruthless than before, a meanness
added to the fire of his charge, as innocence enraged him, and naivety
invoked his wrath.....
How could she be gone, the one he held so close? There was no
justice..... God? If such a being had stood before him in that moment,
telling him the reason, he would have cursed him and tried to kill
him.
The Lord Purceville found himself alone, on the bed that he had made,
his eyes as dry as the desert of his life, the hateful emptiness of
the present. It was pointless: to look for meaning in a world where
none existed, to search for reason among the airless stones of a
ruined temple. He had never known such bitterness.
There was nothing left. Nothing but to destroy his enemies, and live
out his life in defiance, unvanquished and unawed. The soft light that
had tried to suffuse his soul, was snuffed out like an insolent candle
in ancient and unchangeable darkness.
He had made his choice. The night had wounded him, but not enough. He
had chosen the sword long ago, and by the sword he would die. He cast
aside worthless sentiment, and studied the end-game before him.
Because stone is hard---it does not change---and a stream will run to
its conclusion.
Thirty-One
Michael woke with a sense of foreboding that was almost physical. He
often felt uneasy after too short a sleep, as if hearing the distant
thunder of inevitable death. But this was more immediate, more
intense.
The knowledge of what he must do that day had never left him, but had
woven itself in and out of his dreams. It was not that.
Something was wrong. Where was Margaret MacCain, and why had she left
the hut deserted? Looking across at Purceville's empty bed, he felt
his throat tighten and his heart beat heavily. Pulling on his boots
and long coat, he walked as calmly as he could to the door of the
ancient dwelling, afraid what he might find on the other side. He
opened it.
The horse was still there, grazing unconcerned in the place where he
had left it. So the Englishman had not deserted him. This, and his
bent form not far off, calmed him. But not for long. First his eyes
made out the shovel in his hands, then the newly dug grave at his
feet. The red, clay-like soil piled around it called to mind images of
an unhealing wound. What did it mean? His mind flashed back to their
conversation the night before, as they reached the high narrow pass,
and approached the witch's hut. It was not so much what Purceville had
said that troubled him, but what he had not said.....
"You'd best stay back and out of sight until I've spoken to her," had
been his own words. "The widow MacCain has no love for the English,
and your father..... Well. Let's just say I may have spoken too soon,
when I said that no one has greater reason to hate you." Nothing.
"I'm not even sure how she feels about me," he continued. "But when
she learns that Mary is in trouble, and that we are trying to help
her, I think she will see things as they are." Still no reply. "You
don't seem overly concerned, Purceville. She's a hard old woman, and
as determined an enemy as you're ever likely to face. I'm not one to
fear her for a witch, but there are other weapons she might employ."
"She won't resist us," said the other strangely. ".....she's not as
hard as you think."
"What makes you so sure?"
Again no answer. He had been too weary to press the point; he only
thought it curious. And when they reached the dark shelter and found
the woman gone, the night's small rest assured, he had been far too
relieved to wonder at it. For in the clinging darkness he had not seen
the charred tree above, or the withered bones that shrank away from
it.
Walking stiffly now in the early morning cold, he approached the
Englishman. Stephen heard him, but did not turn. One last ashen limb
projected above the rising level of earth in the hole. He began to
hurry himself to cover it, then stopped.
"Stephen? What are you doing?"
Purceville straightened. He said, without turning. "I am burying the
mother of my sister, and the woman who cared for me as a child."
At that moment a flock of ravens spoke behind, an evil sound that
seemed to mesh the rising web of horror about him. Turning toward the
summons Michael saw the tree, as a gust of wind shook its blackened
limbs in a dull rattle of death. Then whirling back in shock, he saw
the bones.
"What happened here?" he cried. "What have you bastards done!
"
In a flash it came to him: the party of horsemen riding hard from the
west, the soot-marks of their boots upon the threshold. Anger and
hatred overwhelmed him, as before he knew what had happened the pistol
was in his hand, and pointed at the back of his enemy.
But then Stephen turned to face him, and he lowered it again. Because
there were standing tears, and real shame in the Englishman's eyes.
"It's not what you think," he said weakly, head down. "What we did,
was bad enough. But she was dead when we arrived." He put one sleeve
to his eyes. "She left a note, which I gave to Mary, asking her to
forgive..... My father. . .burned her body as a warning, and to
frighten his own men into action. I hate what we've become. I hate
it."
... "I believe you," said Michael slowly. "And I'm sorry."
"Please don't say any more."
The Highlander started to walk away. "No, wait," said Stephen. "I want
you..... I want someone to hear this."
"I'm listening."
Purceville shifted uncomfortably, resisting to the end. Then spoke
what he truly felt: the only eulogy the woman would ever have.
"She was my governess, and treated me kindly. But I never told her. .
.that I loved her, too." He started to lower his head in despair, then
raised it again in sudden resolution. "We've got to get Mary out, and
away from all of this. She deserves so much more, than this."
"We will, Stephen. Tonight." A pause. "Would you like me to help you?"
"No. It is my responsibility. Mine....." The realization stunned him.
He fought back a sob. "Dear God, I am weary of graves."
"Then let us vow to do the work before us well," said Michael, "that
there may be no more."
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