The Betrayal of Maggie Blair (30 page)

"What kind of a man is Mr. Bannantyne? Do you know him?"

"I wouldn't say I
know
him." Tam inspected the bone and regretfully threw it away. "But he's a decent sort of body. He caught me once with a fat trout that I'd ... rescued ... from his stream, and he let me off with a cursing. In fact, as lairds go, he's not bad. Not bad at all. Mind you, he doesn't live in Bute most of the time. He's in Edinburgh, so I believe."

He slapped his greasy hands together as an idea occurred to him.

"A good thing you put me in mind of the gentleman, Maidie. Mr. Bannantyne would be just the kind of fellow to help your uncle. He's a laird, even if Keames is only a wee place on a far island. He'll be in with all the bigwigs. Wears a big wig himself, when he's in the city, I'll bet. But he's a Bute man before everything. If he refuses to help one of his own, he's a disgrace to his name."

The prospect of Edinburgh had cast me down so low that I would have seized anything to lift me up, and the idea of a great man taking me under his wing and helping me to free my uncle was so attractive that for a long moment I said nothing and allowed myself to daydream. Then reality struck me down again.

"You're forgetting, Tam, no one from Bute will want to help me. I'm a witch, remember? I've been sentenced to hang and burn. Mr. Bannantyne's more likely to have me arrested and sent back."

Tam waved a careless hand.

"That's all past and gone, darling. All that fuss and panic is over. They'll be ashamed of themselves by now—the better half of them, anyway. Plenty of questions were asked after your trial, I can tell you, about how hasty they were to carry out the sentence and whether it was legal at all. Even those who were sure about Elspeth had their doubts about you, and there was a lot of murmuring against the court and that raving minister from Inverkip. Annie scampering off the way she did will have made them wonder even more. I know how these things are."

He did too. If ever there was an expert in judging when it was best to lie low and when it was safe to return to the scene of old troubles, it was Tam.

"Well," I said doubtfully. "Maybe."

"You can't run and hide forever, Maidie."

By the time the sky had darkened, Tam had more or less convinced me that seeking out the Laird of Keames was the best way forward. One skinny hare doesn't make a whole day's eating for two hungry people, and I was famished and longing for some supper. I would have risked anything for a bowl of steaming porridge or an oatcake or two with a hunk of good cheese.

"Time to get going," Tam said suddenly, cocking his ear to listen. Even a mile away from the city, we had been able to hear the clamor of sounds that rose from it. Barking dogs, hammerings on metal, shouting voices, and the bellowing of cattle had made such a racket that I couldn't imagine how noisy it would be inside the forbidding walls. But now, above it all, came the jangling of bells.

"They'll be shutting the gates soon." Tam was already hurrying down the hill. "If we're not quick, Maidie, there'll be another night out in the heather and no supper."

Even now, I can barely believe Tam got us past the soldiers who stood, with their halberds and steel helmets, guarding the southern gate of the city. I followed him down a long lane flanked with houses and thickly spattered with fresh cow dung. It hadn't been easy to keep up with him. Tam had the gift of darting through a crowd with the speed of a fish through murky water, and the crowd was a big one. Some people were coming out—leaving the city, I supposed, to go to their homes outside—and others were hurrying in before the gates closed. I could see, as we came to the bottom of the hill, that there was a great holdup at the narrow gap in the high stone wall. The soldiers were checking everyone in turn, examining the papers waved impatiently under their noses.

"Tam!" I hissed, grabbing at his sleeve. "What'll we do? We haven't got any papers!"

"Never mind that." He was as taut as a fiddle string, and his eyes were dancing. "Stick close to me, darling. Be my little shadow."

And then, all of a sudden, the peaceful crowd was in turmoil, and Tam was everywhere, pointing, accusing, nudging, whispering, and calling out indignantly, "A thief ! A thief !"

And people were shouting, "Where? Who's been robbed?"

"I have! Look, he's there! The man in the red cloak. No, the one in the blue hood!"

"Hey! What are you doing? Let go of me! I'm no thief!"

And then there was such brawling and shouting and cursing that the guards began to panic and started trying to shut the heavy gates, pushing them against the mass of bodies.

"Hey, what are you doing, man?"

"Let us in! You can't shut us out."

"Look, will you? Here's my pass!"

The crowd put their shoulders to the gates and heaved them open, forcing the guards back, and then they surged up the narrow passageway ahead with the force of ale exploding from a shaken bottle.

"Ha-ha! An old trick, but it works every time!" chortled Tam, who had raced ahead of everyone else to the top of the steep alleyway, with me at his heels. "Aren't I the clever one, Maidie?"

"Yes, but won't they come after us?" I was looking fearfully back down toward the gate.

"Not them! They won't dare leave their post. Come on now. Supper and bed is what we're needing."

***

If it hadn't been for Tam, I do believe I would have been paralyzed with fright on my first sight of Edinburgh as we emerged from the top of that narrow wynd into the broad High Street. Dumbarton was the biggest town I'd ever been in, and it had no more than thirty or forty houses, only one or two of which had an upstairs part at all. I could never have imagined that so many people could be together in one place. I almost cricked my neck staring up at the vast height of the buildings, which soared six or even seven stories high on all sides. I took a step or two, still looking up, but then my feet slipped in the mush of human filth, and the stench of it hit my nostrils. I had to hold my plaid over my nose to stop myself from gagging.

The din was as bad as I'd feared. People shrieked at each other out of the open windows. Barrels rumbled as they were rolled over the cobblestones. Peddlers shouted. Hooves clattered.

Behind me came a rattle and a barking command.

"Tam! Soldiers! We've got to hide!" I cried out, my knees turning to water at the sight of a troop of red coats.

He seemed unworried but pulled me into the side of the reeking street.

"They're not on the hunt for us. But it would be best, maybe, to get on. It's a bit too open up here for me. Stay close now, while I find my way. It's down one of these long wynds, I know, but which one?"

I pulled my plaid up over my head and scuttled after Tam, though I couldn't help looking around at the astonishing sights of the city. I saw chair boxes being carried on poles by two men, with a lady sitting in the little room inside, jewels flashing, silk dress gleaming. And the next moment, I was gaping at the sight of a pair of gentlemen in wigs of flouncy curls so long they hung down below their shoulders, who were mincing between the piles of filth in high-heeled shoes.

I'd been staring open-mouthed at a man with a big bright green bird sitting on his shoulder when I came back to myself and realized that Tam was nowhere to be seen. I was about to shout for him when his long arm shot out from the shadows behind me. He tugged at me so hard that I almost lost my balance.

"We'll need to wait out of sight for a moment," he whispered in my ear. "There's a couple of fellows coming down the street that I'm not too keen to see."

He stepped farther back down the steep narrow passageway.

"Why, isn't that a stroke of luck! This is the very place. A little way down here, these steps, the old door—come on, Maidie! Here we are, at old Virtue's place. Aren't I a clever Tam? There's a welcome waiting, I promise you."

I tumbled after Tam down a short steep stair into a cave-like room that was lit only by a single rush flame. From lines stretched across the low ceiling hung a mass of old torn plaids, holed blankets, coats and gowns worn to shreds, and rags in the last stages of rot. Ducking under these, we came to the far end of the room where an old woman was hunched over a cooking pot in the small chimney place.

"Virtue, my sweetheart!" caroled Tam, dancing up to her with his arms outstretched.

She didn't look around but seemed to recognize him by his voice and went on stirring her broth.

"Oh, so it's you. I thought they'd have hanged you long ago. Where's that groat I lent you last time you came to sponge off a poor old woman?"

"What groat? You're thinking of some other fellow. Would I ever fail to return what I'd borrowed? I thought you'd be pleased to see an old friend and make a new one. Turn around, Virtue. See who I've brought with me. Look, isn't she a lovely girl? Wouldn't anyone be pleased to give her a bite of supper and a safe place to sleep?"

Mistress Virtue turned at last, and I saw her face. I had to stop myself from stepping back in horror. Her skin was as crumpled and snagged and pulled out of shape as one of her own old rags. One eye was white with blindness, and the other was hitched up at the edge by an old gash. Her nose was half missing, and her only remaining teeth were two or three black stumps.

"A girl?" she said, peering at me. Her voice was unexpectedly clear from such a hideous mouth. "What's her game? I won't have a light skirt in my house, Tam. You shouldn't have brought her here."

Tam tutted reproachfully.

"Maggie's no light skirt! Now what's that you're cooking, Virtue my old darling? It smells like a lifesaver to a starving man."

He had leaned forward over the pot to snuff up the aromatic steam, which was making my own mouth water so hard that I had to keep swallowing. Mistress Virtue pushed him away.

"If she's a good girl, what's she doing running around with the likes of you?"

"And why shouldn't she? I've known her since before she was born. She's here to help her uncle who's in prison in the tolbooth."

"In prison? What's he done? A murderer, is he? A thief? A pimp?"

"Virtue! Virtue! He's a respectable farmer. A man of property. A Presbyterian."

"Oh. A Covenanter. I suppose he's been running about the hills with one of those preaching mountain men."

"With James Renwick himself, the silver-tongued terror of the countryside!"

"Humph. You've come too late. The tolbooth was crammed with Covenanters until last week, but there's not one of them left in it now."

I felt the blood drain from my face.

"Too l-late? What do you mean?" I gasped. "He's dead, isn't he? They've hanged him already!"

Blackness prickled behind my eyes, and the room began to spin. I sank down on a heap of rags and put my head in my hands.

The strange feeling passed before I had fainted completely, but hunger, exhaustion, and dread seemed to paralyze me so that I could barely move or speak. I was aware, though, of Tam hovering over me and the beaker of ale he was trying to press into my hand.

"Look at her! Gone as green as pond scum," observed Mistress Virtue from a distance.

"You would be green if you'd suffered half of what this lassie's borne this past year," said Tam, with unusual sharpness. "Drink up, Maidie. You'll be better in a minute."

I nodded to show that I was all right and took the beaker from him. He sat down on a bundle, stretched out his legs, and gave Mistress Virtue such a dramatic account of the witch trial in Bute, my escape from the tolbooth, my swim with the cattle, the Covenanters at Ladymuir, the hunting of Mr. Renwick, and the arrest of my uncle that even I listened, fascinated, as if the story he was telling had nothing to do with me. Mistress Virtue forgot her stew and stood still with the spoon suspended over the pot, her eyes never leaving Tam's face.

When Tam had finished, he turned his back on the old woman and winked at me, and I had to hide a smile. He knew what he had been doing, and it had worked. Without another word, Mistress Virtue filled two bowls to the brim with her savory stew.

"Here, girl," she said, passing one to me and handing me a hunk of wheaten bread to go with it. "If I'm to believe half of what this old fool says, you deserve a good dinner at least. And there's no need to look so miserable. Your uncle's not swinging from the gallows as far as I know. The Presbyterians were cleared out of the tolbooth here a week ago and taken up to the north. They're away across the Forth to Angus. Held in Dunnottar Castle, so I believe."

Tam had been jabbing his bread into his stew and cramming the dripping pieces into his mouth with sighs of blissful contentment, but he jumped with a start and stopped chewing.

"Dunnottar? That's terrible! It makes you tremble just to hear the name." Then he saw my stricken face and said, "Oh, what am I saying? It was Dunvegan I was thinking of. Or Dunrostan, maybe. Dunnottar's a fine place, I'm sure of it, right beside the sea. But why did they shift them away from Edinburgh?"

"Where have you been these past months?" Mistress Virtue asked sarcastically. "Up with the man on the moon? You must have heard of the invasion?"

"Oh, that! The Earl of Argyll and his little army from Holland. But it was all over weeks ago. The man's head will be stuck up on a pole by now."

"It is." She nodded grimly. "Along with the other fools who followed him. When the big folks heard that Argyll was coming, they got in such a panic, they sent all the rabid Presbyterians out of the city. Marched them north to Dunnottar to get them out of the way."

"Has anything been heard of them?" I burst out. "Are they safe?"

"Safe?" jeered Mistress Virtue. "It depends what you mean by—" I saw Tam shake his head at her. "How would I know? I've no patience with preachifying and psalm singing.
Don't do this, don't do that, you're all sinners, and you're going to hell.
I've had enough of the lot of them."

I knew I should be standing up for Uncle Blair and the cause he cared so much about, but I was too hungry and too tired. Despising myself, I picked up my spoon and began to eat my stew, which had cooled to the point where it no longer burned my mouth. I could think of nothing but my ravenous hunger, and slurped and chewed and scraped around the bowl till every drop was gone. Then, with a full stomach for the first time in months, I lay down on a pile of Mistress Virtue's rags and fell asleep, utterly exhausted.