The Betrayal of Maggie Blair

Chapter 26

It's no more than sixty or seventy miles from Kilmacolm to Edinburgh, so Ritchie told me, and if we'd been able to travel along the highway, with plenty of food to keep us strong and energetic, the journey would have taken three days at the most. But the whole country was in the grip of terror. There was a kind of madness in the air. The soldiers' bright uniforms stood out against the soft greens and browns of the May countryside in splashes of scarlet. They trotted on their jingling horses in bands of six or seven down the muddy lanes. They sang and swore and brawled in the village inns and appeared suddenly out of the remotest farmhouses, where they'd been planted to live with covenanting families, to harass them and eat up their supplies as punishment for refusing to swear the oath to the king.

I'd told Ritchie no more than the truth when I'd bragged about Tam's cleverness. Even in peaceful times he had avoided the main routes, wary of officials and ministers and lawyers and busybodies, who always seemed to want to arrest him for begging or drunkenness or being a vagabond. A lifetime's wandering about the south of Scotland had made him familiar with every burn and sheepfold and stand of trees. He knew which cottage housed an old companion who might be good for a meal in exchange for a tune or two on the pipes. He knew the back doors of every laird's house, which ones had a mean cook or a ferocious dog, and which had a kind housekeeper with a full storeroom. He could sniff his way as if by instinct to the lairs in remote glens and bothies where outcasts met to divide the gains of their thieving or to roast the meat and fish they had poached and comfort themselves with whiskey.

Tam showed his true colors when we had got no farther than the end of the track to Ladymuir, where it met the lane running up to Kilmacolm. I turned to the left, heading for the village.

"No, no, Maidie." Tam grasped my arm. "We'll not need to trouble the folk of Kilmacolm with our presence."

"But the troops aren't there. They're at Sorn. And the lane's easy walking," I objected.

"Aye, well." He grinned apologetically. "There's an awful irritable lady I'm not anxious to run into, and a couple of fellows..."

"Tam," I said accusingly. "What did you do?"

"Nothing! But we'll give the place a wide berth, if you don't mind."

My walk with Archie Lithgow on the drove to Dumbarton had seemed like a great adventure last year, but it had been nothing at all compared to my furtive progress over the hills and through the glens with Tam. I thought almost with longing of the cattle's gentle, ambling pace, the steady, reassuring click of Mr. Lithgow's knitting needles, and the hearty bowls of porridge morning and night. With Tam, there was haste, dodging and darting, and very little food. We would scurry over a high empty moor in the morning, ducking down to hide in the ditches of peat cutters if a farmer or a shepherd came by. Then we would creep stealthily past a highland farm, snatching a chicken from the yard as we went, and end the day in a high nook by a lonely crag, sharing our little bit of meat with a band of destitute old soldiers and highwaymen, while Tam entertained them with stories and music in return for some drink and a little of their food.

"Keep your silver pieces and your buckle out of sight," he warned me. "The temptation might be too much for these poor fellows."

I marveled at how he kept us both alive and fed from day to day, with the help of a little begging, a poached trout or two, and payment for his piping.

"And to think," he said sometimes, looking down at his new clothes, "that I could pass for a respectable man now and walk down the main street of any town raising my bonnet to the ladies like a gentleman."

I hadn't the heart to point out to him that after only a couple of days of sleeping out in the open, being drenched in constant showers, and hiding in stands of gorse, my uncle's old clothes were unrecognizably dirty, crumpled, and torn.

Seven days after we'd left Ladymuir, we came around the edge of a hillside and stopped to take in the awe-inspiring view. The city of Edinburgh lay along a raised spine that sloped down from the west to the east, where it crouched close to the ground. Along its back rose ranks of tall buildings, so closely crammed together that they seemed to squeeze each other thin. Church spires sprouted above the chimneys, and long gardens fell to the valley below, fenced in by the high wall that enclosed the whole city. At the far, lower end of the spine, I could see a palace of such size and magnificence that my mouth fell open.

"Aye," said Tam, enjoying my wonder. "You may well gasp, Maidie. That's Holyrood, the king's palace. There's enough jewels and furs and silver and gold in there to feed an army of poor bodies till their bellies burst, but never a bit of it comes to us."

Now I was looking at the great rock at the top end of the spine. It reared up, as forbidding as a monster's head, and was crowned by a castle whose massive stone walls made me shudder.

"Is that where my uncle is? In the castle?"

"No. They'll not have put the Covenanters in there. The place is buzzing with soldiers like bees in a jar. Your uncle will be in the tolbooth. See that tower halfway down the city? That's it. That's the prison. He'll be in there, for sure."

My knees felt weak, and I sat down on the ground. From the castle at the top to the palace at the bottom, with the bristle of houses in between, the city of Edinburgh seemed to glare at me.

You'll never get in here, its frowning walls seemed to say. And you'll never get your uncle out. Go away. Go back. Go home.

But I had no home to go to. I'd come this far. I had to go on.

"How do we get in?" I asked Tam. "And where will we go once we're inside?"

Tam had sat down beside me and was pulling from his pocket half the singed carcass of a hare, which he had trapped the night before. He tore it into two pieces and handed my share to me. He studied the city as he gnawed on the hare's bones, his eyes half shut in calculation.

"It's not going to be easy, Maidie."

"I can see that."

"We can't go through the gates like ordinary folk. Terrible strict they are these days, with all the panic on. It's permits and badges and letters you need before they'll let you in. But I have a trick or two. And I've some old friends who will help us out once we're inside the walls. You'll have to trust me, Maidie."

I felt a rush of love and gratitude for the wily old man.

"I do, Tam! I always will! You don't know how grateful I am. You always look after me. You always know what to do. I just wish I was rich. I'd give you lots to eat and plenty of whiskey, and you'd have a new coat every year, and a bed with a linen sheet like they have at Ladymuir."

His mouth opened in a hideous grin.

"That's very good of you, darling. I take that very kindly." He looked as pleased as if I really did have a comfortable home to offer him. "When you're settled, if you can find room in your house for poor old Tam, I'll end my days as happy as a king. It won't be long. A pretty girl like you can find a husband. That cousin of yours, Ritchie Blair, he seems a nice-enough young man. A bit serious, perhaps. But he likes you, I could tell."

He stopped. His sharp ears had caught the sound of footsteps above us, and he was already on his feet, creeping quietly into a crevice in the hillside. I followed him. We stood motionless until the lone traveler went past, then settled ourselves comfortably again for the long wait ahead.

Talking of the future had set a question nagging in my brain. Annie had talked of a letter. Of money owed to me from the Laird of Keames and Mr. Macbean.

The seed she had planted in my mind that day had grown like a weed at first. I'd thought and dreamed about having money of my own. I'd asked Annie again several times, but from the way she'd laughed at me, I'd decided that the whole thing had been just a malicious invention that she'd made up to torment me.

But if there's any truth in it, I thought, Tam might know. He's from Bute. He knew my father.

"Who's the Laird of Keames, Tam?" I asked.

"Mr. Bannantyne. Whatever made you think of him?"

"It was something Annie said. Months ago. She said he'd owed my father money. And Mr. Macbean did too."

"Did she, now?" Tam had cracked the bone he was chewing, and he was sucking out the marrow. "I wouldn't set any store by that, Maidie. Your father died a long time ago, God rest his soul."

"She said she'd seen a letter about it. At Macbean's."

"A letter, eh?" Tam looked impressed.

"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.