Frances blinked at the praise, pleased at the recognition but again feeling off balance. He was sly, this one!
“What I cannot understand is how you have managed to convince everyone that the castle is still inhabited by men.” Colin shook his head. “The MacLeod has no notion of your diminished population.”
Frances sucked in her breath, rather alarmed that she was unable to formulate her lie with those intelligent eyes gazing into her own.
“You needn’t answer if you prefer not,” Colin said kindly. “But the matter is an obvious one. There have been no men here for some time. There is a great deal of work that needs doing…Well, I should have to be blind not to see how things are, and though I have many faults, blindness is not among them.”
“Is it so obvious then?” she asked hollowly, again picking up her goblet and drinking down the sweet wine. It was far easier to look into the red depths than into Colin’s eyes.
“Aye, to anyone who has been inside the castle for any time. Thatching is an art that cannot be well-faked by inexperienced hands.”
“I see. And you do not think that I should ask the MacLeod for assistance?” she asked. Her mind was racing with ways to prevent Colin’s leaving, now that he knew their secret and was so obviously informed of northern politics. “How odd, as it was he who recommended you. I should think that you would be all admiration of him, even if he does not care to play gowff.”
“Alasdair has many fine qualities, though play at
sports that don’t involve bloodshed is not one of them,” Colin said diplomatically. “And by all means, ask the MacLeod to come to Noltland if you wish an outsider to manage your affairs. But I promise that you shall never be rid of him thereafter.”
“He cannot be bargained with?”
“No more than a beast,” Colin answered frankly.
“You see no difference between the two?” Frances didn’t, either, but was shocked that Colin would speak so bluntly of his kin.
“Aye, of course I do. A beast, though perhaps vicious, will not lie to you. Nor does it covet everything it sees.”
“This is very plain speaking.” Frances realized that she was whispering, her voice the thinnest of threads.
Colin, all apparent sympathy, poured her another goblet of wine. “Aye, it is.” He smiled suddenly. The creases in his cheek held her gaze riveted. “So will you not then be equally plain with me? I am most curious. How have you carried on this ruse? You move the pikes about at regular hours to suggest there are guards, I suppose?”
“Aye, and light watch fires at night.” She quickly drank down the deceptively sweet draught. It made her a bit light-headed; she had grown unused to wine. “And we keep watch as well. We are always prepared to lower the yett during the day if someone approaches, and it is down every evening before nightfall.”
“But that is not all, surely?” Colin asked, breaking off some bread and setting it on her plate.
“
Non.
Every score of days we take an old cow hide and smear it with the blood of a chicken or a hare and then hang it from the castle wall as though drying the pelt from a freshly slaughtered animal.”
“And so everyone outside believes that you are regularly slaughtering cattle. And where there are cattle, one supposes there are men to tend them. And you also use the forge so the smithy seems occupied.” Colin shook his head and added mostly to himself: “And that is why Tearlach is tolerated. None but a man with soldiers in his care would order the daily playing of those pipes. Mistress, you have my admiration. And these were all your stratagems?”
“
Oui.
Except Tearlach.” Frances frowned at her blunt admittance, and looked at her goblet as though blaming it for her loose tongue. “I have grown unaccustomed to wine. I did not mean to speak of that. You must not either if you value your safety. Your connection to the MacLeods would not save you from the MacKays. It would, in fact, condemn you if you were captured.” She turned stern eyes upon him and lifted a brow as she waited for his answer.
“You may be certain that I shall not speak of it to your neighbors,” Colin promised as he smiled down at her. “Truly, I’ve no wish to be invaded either.”
“No, you would not, would you?” she said slowly, some nervousness abating.
“Of course not. Now, why don’t you tell me who our enemies are? I know what Alasdair thinks, but it is plain that he has been rather misinformed about the situation.”
“Enemies?” Frances felt stupid.
“Aye. Why is everyone so fearful about nightfall? Every room is brightly lit with torches. The servants even go about in twos and threes, glancing worriedly at dark corners as though searching for assassins.”
“Oh.” Frances dropped her eyes. The urge to confide her worries to Colin warred with the church’s
teachings that Protestants were the tools of Satan and often in league with demons who were sent to corrupt and murder good Catholics. Such Godless men, with their rationalism, would not understand about spirits of evil. They would sneer and possibly even laugh at tales of spectral hounds and evil hauntings.
“Come! Surely it is not so bad a thing that it cannot be named,” Colin said.
“But it is,” Frances assured him. “For three nights now someone has heard the Bokey hound in his hole beneath the stairs. Always this hound bays when there is to be a death in the house.”
Colin sat back in his chair, his mobile face at last arrested. “Have they now? But what unusual timing.” The words were said aloud, but Frances knew that he wasn’t really speaking to her.
“
Oui.
”
“This is most interesting.”
“It is more than interesting, monsieur,” she said with a touch of indignation. Discretion was abandoned as anger licked through her, though she kept her voice pitched low as she answered. “The hound always appears in the flesh when the master of the castle is to die. I am very afraid for George and do not know how to protect him from this evil.”
“
Pshaw!
I shouldn’t be too alarmed yet. A hound, or something, has been heard but not seen. It is likely some beast living on the heath, kept by a cruel master, and it howls at night because it is lonely. We shall have to make an effort to find it and see to its liberation. However, in the interest of avoiding panic until we determine which is the shrieking beast, I think you should put aside these stories of the hound and instead set about discovering how many of your human enemies
are lurking about the castle environs and spying upon you.”
“How are we to discover the spectral hound if he is outside the castle?” she demanded, then, considering Colin’s other point, added thoughtfully: “Or an enemy that controls such a one?”
“I doubt we shall have to. I am fairly certain that the hound—spectral or otherwise—shall discover us in the fullness of time,” he said calmly.
“
Oui,
and so am I certain of this.” Her tone was tart. “It causes me much alarm, this threat of discovery. I do not wish George to die. I have a great fondness for him.”
“Have some more wine,” Colin said, resuming his soothing air. “You should eat. Have some of this excellent chicken and you shall feel better presently.”
“Have you no fear of evil and its minions?” Frances asked, baffled by Colin’s attitude of calm.
“Oh, aye, a lively fear. But I do not think it is true evil we are facing here. I have some experience with the supernatural realm in my own country, and so far I have seen nothing to suggest that George is endangered by anything spiritual or demonic.”
Colin smiled slightly as he heard Frances mutter something beneath her breath. Her French was growing slurred, but it sounded like:
The sisters were correct. All Englishmen are mad and blind to the true nature of evil.
“We are agreed then? I shall write to Sir William Kirkcauldy on the morrow, and we will begin seeking out this suspicious rustling beneath the stairs.” He knew that he was being a cad, overpersuading Frances to cooperation when she was the worse for wine, but did not desist.
“You may write all the letters you wish,” she told him waspishly. “But there is no one to deliver them.”
“Of course there is. MacJannet loves to travel in the autumn. He has not ever visited Sir William, and will enjoy himself immensely out in the fresh air.”
“
Vraiment
?” Frances leaned over and looked down the table at Colin’s faithful factotum. As calm as his master, MacJannet spoke easily with George, illustrating some point with a wave of his hand. All about him, women stared with vaguely worried eyes, but the weight of their gazes seemed not to disturb his conversation or demeanor. Perhaps this phlegmatic obliviousness was part of being English.
She turned back to Colin. “If your man actually wishes to make a perilous journey to go see Sir William, then I fear that your poor MacJannet is
un cretin.
”
Colin laughed. “No, mistress, I assure you that MacJannet is not an imbecile.”
Perhaps hearing this, MacJannet turned his head and looked up the table.
“
Non
? Then he must also be mad,” Frances whispered sorrowfully, making an effort to enunciate her words. She was feeling very tired. “And we have enough madness in Tearlach MacAdams.”
Instead of denying the accusation, Colin actually chuckled. Frances thought muzzily that it was a great pity one so handsome should also come from the land of the blind and insane.
You crave one kiss of my clay-cold lips;
But my breath smells earthly strong;
If you have one kiss of my clay-cold lips,
Your time will not be long.
—
“The Unquiet Grave”
“Bloody hell,” he muttered. Too late to rouse MacJannet and trap their intruder before he escaped, Colin leaned forward and peered through the narrow opening that passed for a window and assessed the heavens and what little he could see of the world below. The sky beyond the niche was sullen, the moon blotted out to a faint halo as the clouds began to release their heavy burden of rain over Noltland. The only other light came from the failing and abandoned watch fires, which would shortly be drowned. He could not see anything more than the shadowy yett below, which was an annoyance, even though he had no real hope of catching their late-night visitor leaving by so obvious an exit.
Frustrated, Colin drew back from the warped and ill-fitting panes and drummed his chilled finger upon the thick stone sill. He stared into the rain as he considered what next to do.
The already inauspicious view of lowering sky was further impeded by ugly iron links that hung from the
parapet above. Mist and rain had condensed on the thick chains until it fell in heavy drops, which were blown against the poorly fitted glass. The iron bands swung in a gentle but heavy arc, pushed along by the boisterous eddies, or maybe the ghostly hands of one of the poor wretches who had died in the cages that had once been suspended from them.
George had confided to Colin as they passed this way on their tour that the first order he had given—at Frances’s urging—was for the removal of those ghastly cages and the bones of the poor wretches who had perished in them. The dead, regardless of estate or crimes, were interred in the castle’s ossuary—which Colin had declined to see, in spite of his young host’s enthusiastic invitation. There would be time enough to meet the castle ghosts later. The chains themselves would have been removed as well, but they and the gibbet had been embedded into the walls at the time of construction and no one could decide how to take them down without dismantling the castle itself.
Colin frowned in distaste and wondered at the architect who would have planned such an abysmal prospect for the rare castle windows. Who would want to look at a starving man when there was the ocean to consider? It must have been at the request of someone with a vengeful soul, he decided, turning finally to go down the stairs. Probably someone without a wife. He could not imagine any mistress tolerating such a ghastly view. Of course, he could not picture any wife submitting to the housing of thirty illegitimate sons either, yet that was what the last Balfour had done.
Colin peered down at the deserted and drafty hall where he knew he needed to search for clues to their
intruder’s identity. As he was debating whether to waken MacJannet, a slightly paler shade of darkness glided up to Colin’s right side. He was not alarmed. The shadow smelled faintly of lavender and walked with soft, feminine feet.
“Is it the Bokey hound?” a soft voice whispered, as the shade leaned over the balustrade and peered at the now-empty hall. “I thought I heard a wail.”
“No, it was not a spectral hound.” Colin answered, also speaking at a hush. It was dark, but he could feel Frances looking at him. He had a momentary and insane urge to explain to her about his ability to see real ghosts.
“Then, there is no danger?”
“I would not say that,” Colin answered slowly, then added: “What a bloody nuisance. It is not as if we did not have enough difficulties besetting us. Now we have this jester trying to sow seeds of panic.”
“A nuisance?” Frances repeated, tasting the word. Then: “Panic?”
“Aye.” Colin flipped open the lantern’s door, setting free the caged light, and proceeded down the steep stairs at an unhurried pace. “Come along. It is too late to capture our unwanted prowler, but we had best investigate what was done.”
“You wish me to go down there?” Frances asked softly, but no longer whispering since Colin was not using any more silence than one would to be courteous of those sleeping. She hurried after the lantern’s comforting light, preferring its protection to that of the small dagger she carried clutched in her fist.
“Let us first have some better illumination,” he said, going to the large fireplace and stirring up the peat. It
took a bit of coaxing, but embers eventually responded to the fresh fuel he fed it. “There is less chance of having specters visit us with the hearth well lit. Look about while I tend to the fire, but have a care not to stray far.”
Reluctantly, Frances complied, though she was uncertain of what to look for and did not wish to drift too far into the wavering shadows.
Light flared up suddenly, illuminating the room. Frances sucked in her breath and murmured a shocked and horrified exclamation at what was lying immediately before her slippered feet.
Colin looked questioningly at her, and she pointed a shaking dagger at the large paw prints revealed by the fire’s renewed brightness. “It was the hound! He has come to claim the Balfour!” Her voice shook.
Colin glanced once at the floor and then returned his gaze to Mistress Balfour. The lady’s nightwear was elegant and foreign. He could see the embroidered cuffs of a silk chemise peeping out from under a velvet robe of a mulberry shade called Murrey, which was presently popular at court. The chemise itself seemed to be a popinjay green sometimes referred to by the appalling but accurate description of goose-turd green. Whatever it was called, the combination was striking by firelight. He had to put the night rail, and its wearer, firmly out of mind before he was able to speak as a rational man intent on business.
“It was
a
hound,” he said finally. “A large one, about the size of a two-year-old heifer.” He walked to the marks and knelt down, comparing the print with the palm of his hand. They were a good match. He grunted and then took out his handkerchief and began scrubbing the prints off the floor.
“What are you doing?” Frances asked, clearly appalled.
“Cleaning up the floor. Have you a broom?” he asked. “That would make the task easier.”
“But…” Frances tried to protest his lack of awe in the face of evil, but couldn’t find the proper words while he was so deliberately scrubbing out the hound’s markings.
“It is just crushed lime,” Colin told her. “Someone covered the beast in powder and sent him in to scare everyone. It was a stupid trick and not likely to terrify anyone who had a good look at the thing. Our villain is not the most intelligent of beings.”
“No?” Frances asked, not prepared to admit that the prints scared her, and that the hound that made them doubtlessly would have, too.
Colin looked sharply at her pale face and was moved from annoyance to sympathy. Once, as a young man, he had been confronted by what he thought was a ghost in the company of a spectral hound. In the moments before he realized that it was only a caped and masked figure with a white dog seeking the anonymity of darkness while reporting to his father, it had felt as though his mind was plucked smooth of every thought and emotion save fear. It was as though the strands of reason had been torn out at the roots, and all that was left was blank, terrifying dread that made one gibber and freeze. And once terror took hold there was no reasoning with it. Bolting horses maddened by lightning were more discerning than a panicked human mind. The trick, he had discovered, was to cut off the flower of fear before it ever blossomed in the brain.
“Anyone who is at all acquainted with spectral hounds could tell you that this beast is not one of
them. We have a few that haunt where I live. They fall into two varieties. One is thought to be a devil that enjoys making mischief for travelers. The other is a cu-sith, a faerie dog that guards the entrance to fey strongholds. They are protective. This is neither devil nor faerie, but rather
a damned trick.”
He spoke with studied scorn, which he knew would serve as a restorative to Frances’s nerves. His father had perfected the tone, and Colin knew that such a reasoned, unemotional manner could not help but banish cowardice and send timid ghosts fleeing.
“How can you tell this for a certainty?” she demanded, finally putting down her dagger and then looking about for the hearth broom so that she could assist Colin in his housewifely endeavors. Her hands barely shook.
“As I said, we have a great many spectral beasts and faerie dogs in York—the black Shuck and the Barghest being the most famous of them,” he said matter-offactly. “Anyone could tell you that the hounds after a soul always travel in a straight, purposeful line. Look at this mess! The beast wandered about everywhere.”
Frances looked at the multitude of messy crisscrossed prints. “They always travel a straight path?” she asked, feeling more hopeful.
“Always, even if it means passing through walls,” Colin averred. “Secondly, the beast howls three times and three times only—and it is clamorous howling, not whining. And lastly, I had a look at our canine in the flesh. It was no spectral hound.”
“You actually saw it?” Frances nearly dropped her broom. “And lived?”
“Aye, I did see it, from the top of the stairs.”
“What did the beast look like?”
“It looked like a large dog covered in chalky lime,” he said. “And I think you should know, only rarely are spectral hounds white. Faerie dogs are pale green. Hellhounds are black. I have heard of only one white hound and it was headless. And none of them leave paw prints.”
“Headless? As in, it has had its head removed?” Frances asked, appalled but fascinated.
“Aye. And I shall tell you something more since you are so ignorant of Scotland’s ghosts.” Colin’s lips twitched as though he were suppressing a smile, but Frances found that she did not take umbrage at either the lecture or his amusement. “Spectral hounds come in two varieties. There are those that have no tails and those whose tails curl up over their backs. What they do not have are long tails that wag. And never, under any circumstances, do they turn their leg up upon furniture,” Colin said wrinkling his nose and gesturing with a languid hand.
Frances finally grew aware of the smell of urine that flooded the room.
“Ah,
mon Dieu
!” She dragged a chair away from the spoiled table leg. Her housewifely instincts were plainly revolted. “Then it is all a disagreeable trick and George is in no danger?”
“He was quite well when I looked in on him,” Colin answered, evading her question for the moment. “However, this must be investigated fully.”
“Now? But why? If it is only a dog—”
“Because the castle should be sealed tight, yet somehow the hound—and perhaps his keeper—got inside. I do not believe that it was an accident, either. Someone
brought the dusty beast here to try to cause fear among us. If a beast can get in, so may others. We must find where it retreated and close the doors against it.”
“Ah! We can follow the tracks,
oui
? And discover this weakness in our safety?” Faint enthusiasm showed in her voice. “That would be most wise.”
“Aye. We’ll find tomorrow how they got past the perimeter walls,” Colin promised. “It is a pity that it has begun to rain, for MacJannet and I might have followed the beast outside this evening and discovered where it is being kept. Now we shall have to content ourselves with making the keep itself safe from further visitations.”
“This now seems like a…” She hunted for a word. “A stupid jest. A child’s game. But you think it is something more than wicked sport?”
“I do not know why it should be anything more than a jest designed to frighten you into the arms of one of your neighbors,” Colin told her in a wonderfully frank tone, meeting her eyes as he answered. His father had also taught him how to sound earnest when he lied. “But we should not take chances, should we?”
“
Non.
” Frances was sober. She had grasped the implications in spite of his reticence. “If someone wished to harm George by stealth, they could pretend it was the hound that killed him, could they not? And if I were taken away by my husband, there would be no one to look after him when I was gone.”
Colin nodded reluctantly. “Aye, someone could do exactly that. And no one would look too closely at the facts of the matter if the story of the spectral hound were widely believed.”
Frances swallowed, but she did not panic at the
news that her cousin might be in danger. Colin’s comforting presence and prosaic manner forbade any hysterics.
“Do you know who is doing this?” she asked him.
“Know? Nay. It could be anyone. There are many who might want young George gone.” This was truth, as far as it went. Suspecting that his cousin might be behind the clumsy effort was not the same as
knowing
that Alasdair was directing a campaign of misdirection so that he might kill the young heir and have the castle all to himself if Colin failed to soften the heiress. And it was also unfortunately true that the Balfours had other neighbors—many of them—just as determined to win the heiress and the castle for themselves. They made as reasonable suspects as his superstitious cousin, and were closer in proximity.
And there is also Tearlach,
Colin realized suddenly. Or someone else within the castle who might want to see Frances removed. That explanation made rather more sense. Some longtime resident could very well know about a secret passage or hidden staircase. And it might be that they did not wish George any mortal harm, but merely wished to drive Frances into marriage with some wealthy, outside party before siege and starvation were brought upon them.
Colin shrugged off his fruitless speculations and returned to the task at hand. They would clean up the hall before the others arose, thus depriving the malefactor of the spectacle of a dawn panic among the servants. Then, after everyone had broken their fasts, he and MacJannet—and Frances, if she were of a mind to join him—would search out the place where the hound had gained entrance to the keep.
With luck they would also discover some clue to the mischief-maker’s identity. Anyone desperate enough to employ such means to force Frances into seeking outside protection might also be willing to act as spy or traitor in other ways to an outside clan when this plot failed. Treason happened in small steps and often ended in bloody murder, even when it wasn’t the perpetrator’s first intention.