The Years of Longdirk- The Complete Series Page 2

  Only Granny Nan’s prophecy held Toby back. His heart thundered, his fists were clenched and shaking. Terrible things will happen .. . “You’re a coward, Tanner. Tell you what: You meet me tonight at the ford, and I’ll fight you with one hand tied behind my back.” He could not hope to win, but the whole village would turn out to watch, so there would be fair play.

  The others exchanged surprised glances, tempted by the chance of seeing a three-fisted fight.

  “He’s lying!” Vik shouted. “He’s the bastard son of a Sassenach! He’s a traitor and a bastard.”

  “Hit me, then!” Toby stuck out his chin. “What’s the matter? You scared, Campbell?”

  Vik Tanner was really Vik Campbell, and that was the root of Toby’s trouble—they were all Campbells, every one of them except Willie Bain. Just about everyone in the glen was a Campbell, which was why they all had other names as well.

  Vik grew desperate. “Colin! Do him, Colin!”

  Crazy Colin giggled and produced a cleaver as long as Toby’s forearm.

  Rae shouted, “Wait! Hold it!” He grabbed the madman’s wrist. Bryce rallied to his aid.

  Toby became aware of jingling and clumping and a squeaking of axles behind him. The miller’s cart was bearing down on the group, with Iain himself cracking the whip. The mob scattered out of the way—Colin gibbering and frothing and fighting against the others’ efforts to control him.

  Salvation!

  “Oh, Miller, sir!” Toby said, forcing his throat not to shout. “I’ve got a message from the steward!”

  “Whoa, there! Whoa, I say!” The fat man hauled briefly on the reins, slowing the rig. “Up here with you, lad! What’s the old scoundrel wanting now?”

  Neal made a grab for Toby, but Toby slipped by him and jumped for the cart. The miller’s whip cracked in the air behind him, making his pursuers dodge back. He snatched hold of the boards and swung a leg up; was almost thrown off as Iain lashed the horse and the ramshackle outfit lunged forward, rocking and rattling over the uneven road, creaking mightily under its load of meal sacks. The gang yelled taunts as the miller bore their victim away to safety, and a moment later the horse was splashing across the ford.

  2

  For several minutes, Toby could only cling to the bench and sweat through a flurry of cramps as his stomach tried to empty. His whole body shivered, his heart thundered. There was a taste of acid in his mouth. He enjoyed a fight if it was honest and sporting and no hard feelings after; what he couldn't face was the thought of a rat pack—being held, knives, kicking, down on the ground, unable to fight back...

  It hadn't happened. He was still whole. He had avoided the fight, so Granny Nan's prophecy did not matter anymore. He hoped the hob would tell her so and she wouldn't have to keep worrying until he got home tonight. It usually tattled to her about what was happening in the glen. Folk used to say if a child sneezed twice, Granny Nan would appear with one of her simples before it sneezed a third time. Women going into labor had always known that the midwife would arrive when she was needed. She couldn't get around much now, but when he came home in the evenings, she usually knew more of the news than he did.

  "Thank you, sir," he mumbled eventually. Already the little cart had left the river behind and was climbing the gentle slope to Lochy Castle.

  The miller had not said a word since his passenger embarked. In Toby's mind Iain Campbell was always linked with childhood memories of leading the donkey around and around the millstones, one of the chief joys of village youngsters. He saw now that the donkey probably enjoyed the company but would certainly manage equally well on its own.

  The miller was the fattest man in the glen and bragged of it in a croaky, wheezy voice that never seemed to have enough air to function. He was not only short of breath, he was also insufferably long-winded, which hardly helped. His hair and beard were naturally sandy, but a permanent coating of flour made him a pale buff shade all over— under his nails and in his ears; even his plaid had faded to that same drab shade. He was a human meal sack. His eyes seemed tiny, but only because they were encased in folds of fat like a pig's; they were as sharp as a pig's, too.

  "Well, now. And what did old Bryce have to say?"

  "He wants another six loads of flour before you bring any more oats."

  "Six loads, is it? Does that sound like a siege he's expecting? And it is far from a hint that the Sassenachs'll be taking their leave of us soon, I'm feeling. Well, it's oats I've got, so it's oats he'll get this time." The miller chortled a wheezy laugh. "Or do you want me to turn back?"

  "If you do, I'll get off! I'm grateful for the rescue, sir."

  The old man stole a narrow, inquiring glance at him. "They meant real mischief?"

  "Just wind, I think, but I was glad to get away. Thanks."

  "Was no more than a man should do for his kin."

  Toby straightened up so fast he almost fell off the bench. There was not much room left with the miller there too. "Sir?"

  Iain seemed amused. "Didn't know that? Your grandfather was my mother's cousin. I think that's right. You'd have to ask my sister—she can rattle off families like a chattering magpie."

  His sister was a shrew.

  "No, I didn't know. Granny Nan always told me I had no family."

  The miller's laugh became a wheeze. "None close." He shot another glance under his snowy brows. "But maybe closer than you suspect."

  Toby was already hanging on tightly; now his fists clenched on the cart hard enough to hurt. "You're talking about my mother, sir?"

  The miller shrugged his bulky shoulders. "About both your parents, I suppose."

  "I know what my name means, sir."

  "It means your grandfather wasn't rich."

  "Huh? I mean... What?"

  The miller wheezed an oath at the horse, which ignored him, plodding doggedly up the long slope.

  "Nineteen years ago, son, the cream of the hills fell at Leethoul."

  The old man was embarking on one of his rigmaroles. Toby said, "Yes, sir," and prepared to be patient.

  "The Battle of the Century, they called it, and the century won't likely see another like it."

  What Toby recalled was that Leethoul wore that name because it had been fought in the year 1500. And the century had already seen at least two more like it— almost as bad anyway.

  "A fine company we were!" The miller sighed. "Nigh two hundred of us marched off with the laird at our head—Kenneth Campbell, that was, the last of the real lairds of Fillan. His family had held Lochy Castle for hundreds of years. Not like these traitor puppets they put over us now." His porcine eyes turned to study the effects of this treason.

  "No, sir."

  "There's never been fighters to match the Campbells of Fillan. King Malcolm himself said so, when he inspected us on the eve of the battle. We tend to be small, he said, but we make up for that in enthusiasm. True that was! The best of the Highlander array, we were. Volley after volley the English fired, and our charge never wavered. Not forty of us came back to the glen, you know, lad. 'Twas a sad day for Scotland. King Malcolm himself fell, and two of his sons, and the laird of Fillan and both his sons, and the manhood of the Highlands was scythed like corn. The Sassenachs slaughtered us."

  "Yes, sir." Leethoul had not been the first disaster, nor the last. It had been bloodier than most because King Edwin had grown tired of putting down rebellions every few years and had resolved to teach his Scottish subjects true obedience. Leethoul had been only the first lesson.

  History was a very depressing subject. As taught in the Tyndrum schoolhouse, it comprised long lists of battles where Highlanders wielding spears or claymores faced Lowlanders or English—or sometimes both— armed with muskets and cannon. Result: massacre. In Toby's own lifetime there had been Norford Bridge and Parline, and Leethoul the year before he was born. There must be a limit beyond which raw courage became sheer folly. A boy learned not to say so in Strath Fillan.

  Iain Miller bunched his thick white br
ows. "They put a garrison in the castle that winter. Soldiers need women —but you know this."

  Toby knew only too well. "They rounded up six girls from the village."

  "Aye, they did. Was shameful. And six women between so many men was more shameful yet. In the spring, when they marched away, they let the girls loose, every one of them with child. One of them was Meg Inishail. She wanted to call you Toby Campbell of Inishail, but your grandfather swore he wouldn't have his name hung on a ... on an Englishman's bastard."

  "I didn't know that! Inishail?" Family gossip was a new experience.

  "Rae Campbell of Inishail. Och, lad, he was a bitter man even before, was Inishail. Two wives he'd had, and both dying young. He never found a third. Meg was all he had, and he couldn't forgive. Not that it was her fault, but he couldn't see that. He wouldn't let her under his roof again. He didn't have much to spare, nothing to offer anyone to care for her, too proud to accept help."

  "My grandfather was a Campbell from Inishail?"

  "Oh no, he was born here in the glen. I think it was his father came from Inishail, or his grandfather."

  Granny Nan had always been evasive about Toby's mother. Now he could see why—unexpected answers brought more questions. A man's clan and kin were determined only by his father, of course, but he did have Campbell blood in him, which he'd never known before. Where had Iain Miller been while his kinswoman was being rejected by her own father? Why had she been forced to bear her babe in the witchwife's cottage, with no company but Granny Nan herself?

  "She named me Tobias."

  The miller shrugged and looked uncomfortable, as if he wished he had not brought up the subject. "Doesn't mean anything, does it? She couldn't know which of the Sassenachs had scored. Granny Nan took her in; Meg bore you, and she died. That broke old Rae's heart, if it wasn't broken already. He died two days after you were born. He never saw you."

  His daughter had named her baby Toby with her dying breath—so Granny Nan said, and no one else could know. Tobias was not a Scottish name. Perhaps the Sassenach Tobias had been the one she liked best, or just hated least. Had he been a little kinder than the others? Didn't mean a thing about fatherhood, though. Just wishful thinking. Tobias Strangerson—Toby the bastard. Nobody could ever know who had been his father.

  The cart was already high enough now that the village lay spread out below it. The sod roofs blended with the grass, but roads and walls showed like a cobweb. Farther away, halfway to Crianlarich, stood Lightning Rock, with Granny Nan's little hovel by its base—birthplace and home. Bossie would be grazing on her tether, but he couldn't see her at this distance. He could barely see the house. There was fresh snow on the summit of Ben More.

  The miller jiggled the reins. The horse ignored his impatience.

  "Are you knowing what happened to the other five, lad?"

  Not much. "I always heard that they left the glen."

  Who would speak of such things anywhere near Toby Strangerson? All Granny Nan would ever say was that they'd been sent off to visit kin over the hills and bear their bastards out of sight and mind. She had never admitted that any of them had come back later. She had never admitted that there might have been refugees come to Strath Fillan in exchange, although the English behavior had been just as barbarous elsewhere in the aftermath of Leethoul. The Taming, they had called King Edwin's revenge. It had kept Scotland quiet for ten whole years, even the Highlands.

  "Some went," said the miller. "Dougal Red lost his sons at Leethoul."

  Dougal Who? Toby felt as if he'd dropped something and should turn around and look for it. "Sir?"

  "Dougal wasn't like Rae. He welcomed his Elly back. Young Kenneth lost a leg at Leethoul, of course. Ploughman with one foot'd go in circles all the time, wouldn't he?"

  Oh, so that's where the conversation was heading!

  Kenneth the tanner was a gloomy man, heavy in body, dark in spirit. Being a cripple, he rarely left his house, and he drank too much. Toby didn't care for him, and could not imagine him as having ever been young. Being married to screechy Elly might excuse a lot, and having a no-good son like Fat Vik a lot more.

  "A house and a trade—that's what Dougal paid to buy a husband for Elly and a name for her babe. We chaffed young Kenneth a lot about what he must be selling. That Vik of theirs was born just a few months after the wedding—'bout the same time as you."

  "He's a week older than me, sir."

  Iain nodded. "Well you're the biggest man in the glen now. He's but half a hand shorter. The two of you do stand out! I'm saying he'd no right to be calling you what he did, and I think maybe you have kin closer than me. You not know this?" he added skeptically.

  "No, sir. I never guessed."

  Did the miller really think he was that stupid? Of course he'd known. It was obvious. They were the same age and almost the same size. Fat Vik had straight black hair, Toby's was brown and curly, but at school their height had marked them out in their age row. They'd always been foes. The other boys had taunted them by calling them the Twins, until they'd learned better, for that had been the one way to unite them. No one could ever prove it, but it was a reasonable guess that they'd been sired by the same anonymous English soldier. Toby Strangerson had a half-brother who had just tried to get him killed.

  Forget him. Vik Tanner was a liar, a lazy do-nothing, a bully who pestered young girls and already drank more than his stepfather. He wouldn't even make good pike bait.

  Much more interesting was why Iain the miller was confessing his own kinship—now, after all these years. From what Toby could recall of the glen's complex lineages, if he was related to Iain, then he was related somehow to at least a quarter of Fillan, quite apart from the general Campbell connection. They could have said, couldn't they? So he wasn't a Campbell and never could be, would it have been so terrible to acknowledge a motherless, fatherless boy being raised by the local witchwife, who was older than anyone and out of her mind half the time? It wouldn't have needed much effort. Couldn't any of them have broken the wall of silence?

  And why had one of them done so now? It was too late for a woman to play auntie and hug a toddler who had fallen and hurt his knee. It was too late for a man to take another boy along when he took his own sons to dangle worms in the loch or poach the laird's deer— which everyone tried, but few ever managed. None of them had ever said. Or done.

  The miller had been kind enough. He had let little Toby lead the donkey around, but he let all the kids do that. He still dropped off a sack of meal to Granny Nan once in a while—but a lot of the villagers brought her gifts. They did that because she was the witchwife and kept the hob happy, not because she'd taken in a rejected, abused girl and saved her baby and managed to rear it without even the help of a wet nurse.

  So why had Iain the miller let out the secret now? Was he testing Toby's loyalties? He took English silver, too. He probably made more money out of the garrison than anyone else did. He had just rescued Toby from a very nasty confrontation.

  The old man was waiting for a response, and the cart was under the black walls of the castle already. On the open turf, the Sassenachs were at their drill, marching to the beat of a drummer. A brief moment of sunshine made their helmets and muskets gleam, then they were hidden as the track detoured around a spur of rock.

  "You're telling me that Vik Tanner may be my brother, sir?"

  "It's possible. I wouldn't say it to anyone else."

  "Neither would I." Fat Vik wasn't worth the horse dung to turn him green.

  Iain turned the cart into the archway. "You'll have to decide soon, Toby Strangerson. You've got no inheritance in the glen. Will you be going off to seek your fortune elsewhere, do you think, one of these days?"

  Toby would like nothing better than to wipe the glen off his feet and begone forever, but he couldn't go yet, and what the miller seemed to be hinting was that the village was no longer safe for him.

  "Granny Nan needs me."

  The cart clattered through the gate
and into the echoing yard. The old man reined in and the horse lumbered to a halt. He turned his clever piggy eyes to study his passenger. Now he was going to get to the point.

  "You're a strapping lad, Toby," he wheezed. "Whose man are you to be? You won't have much time. Better to make a free choice than swear an oath with a blade under your chin. Both sides are recruiting that way now."

  Meaning which side would the strapping lad choose? More than two years had passed since the rout of Parline Field, and Fergan was still at large—the fugitive king of Scotland was said to be hiding somewhere in the hills. The English king's puppet governor ruled in Edinburgh and, although the Lowlands were relatively quiet, rebellion still flickered in the Highlands.

  Iain Miller had fought at Leethoul, the Battle of the Century; he had lost a son at Norford Bridge. He had proved his loyalty, surely? But he took the Sassenachs' money. He had just rescued their hireling, reminded him of his English parentage, and tried to turn him against the villagers with tales that might or might not be true.

  If Toby gave the wrong answer it would get back to the wrong ears, and he did not know which was the right answer.

  "Yes, sir. I know the problem. But my first loyalty is to Granny Nan. As long as she needs me, I'll stay in the glen."

  Rescue or not, he would never trust his throat to a Campbell.

  3

  As a child, Toby had been taught that Lochy Castle was a great and fabled stronghold. The English soldiers had corrected him on that. It was just a tall stone house with a high wall around it, they said. It looked impressive enough in the glen, where there were no other buildings with more than two rooms. It had withstood sieges in olden times because it had a good spring, but modern cannon would knock holes through its battlements in minutes.

  Bringing cannon to the glen in the first place would be another matter, but Toby knew better than to mention that.

  Another odd thing he'd learned from the Sassenachs was that, man for man, they weren't all that bad. Take an English soldier out of his uniform, and a Highlander out of his plaid, and you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. The Sassenachs had funny names, like Drake and Hopgood, or Miller and Mason, although they were soldiers, not millers or masons, and certainly not drakes. They griped in drawly voices about their food and So-and-so Sergeant Drake's unending drill and this bleak mountain wasteland they had been stuck in. They were unhappy and homesick. More than anything they yearned for female company. Perhaps the Taming of eighteen years ago had been a failure, or King Nevil preferred different techniques from his father's, or perhaps King Fergan's long-festering rebellion made a difference, but this time the garrison had been forbidden to touch the local women. As a result, all the men were screamingly horny, except presumably Captain Tailor, who had his wife here with him.