Dawn on a Distant Shore
Page 144

"Come on!" Jennet hissed, taking Hannah by the hand to pull her along. They passed through an open door into a hall and stopped. Jennet went up on tiptoe to whisper in her ear.
"The door makes an awfu' creak."
Hannah wanted to ask why they had to be quiet if no one was near to hear them, but Jennet was already working the latch with complete concentration, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth as she wiggled it ever so carefully back and forth. Finally the latch gave with a small squeak and the door opened just wide enough for them to slip through into Elphinstone Tower.
Stairs wound upward in a spiral, sunlight falling in dusty bars through a small window at the first turning. Their bare feet made no noise on the cool stone, but Hannah's heart beat so loud in her ears that she feared that the men in the courtyard might hear it, as she could hear their voices. She wondered if this was one of the places that the earl had been speaking of when he had fixed Jennet with his stern expression. But it could not be; she seemed so much at ease, and not at all afraid.
They came to a small landing with a single door, tall and rounded at the top with a candle sconce to either side, but they passed by and continued up the winding stairs. Another door just like the first, and then at the very top was a third and final door, and here Jennet stopped. She made a funny little bow as she worked the latch, and ushered Hannah in.
A large room, but almost empty. A few trunks and a lopsided chair, a rolled-up carpet. It was full of light, with windows on three sides.
"This is my secret place," Jennet said proudly. "Ye can see the whole valley frae here, and the courtyard and the dairy and the stables and everythin'."
It was a wonderful room, and Hannah told her so. "Does no one ever look for you here?"
A thoughtful look came over Jennet's face. "Did ye take note o' the first chamber we passed?"
Hannah nodded.
"It belonged tae the lady." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "When she died, he locked the door and put up the key."
"And since then you've never seen inside?" Hannah asked.
"She died afore I was born."
"And no one else has been inside since her death?"
"Naebodie drawin' breath," said Jennet, with a significant nod.
"Ghosts?"
"Aye," said Jennet. "They say the lady sits at the window at dusk, watchin', wi' her dog beside her."
"Who says this?" Hannah asked. She was perfectly willing to believe that the lady's ghost lived in the tower, but she was also very curious about the details.
"MacQuiddy."
MacQuiddy was the house steward, a crooked old man with a single tuft of white hair and a red nose. Jennet had pointed him out to Hannah when she showed her the kitchens, but he had been too deep in an argument with the cook to take note of them.
"Does he know about the ghosts, then?"
"MacQuiddy is aulder than the laird," Jennet said, fluttering her fingers. "He kens everythin'. Exceptin' my secret place." She said this very firmly, as if she expected Hannah to argue the opposite.
"My grandmother says that only guilty people are afraid of ghosts." And white people, Hannah might have added.
"Och, it's no' the ghosts that keep people awa' frae Elphinstone Tower--it's the laird. He has a devilish sharp way when a temper's on him."
Hannah could well imagine this--she had seen his face last night, when it was not clear how serious her father's injuries really were. But in spite of the fact that Jennet knew this side of the earl, she did not really seem at all worried about his temper. It was hard to know if this was foolhardiness, or simple faith in her own ability to charm.
"Come, look," she said, drawing Hannah to the window.
Jennet drew in a sharp breath, but it took longer for Hannah to make out what was happening in the courtyard below.
A group of men were gathered in a rough circle, and at their feet two men lay sprawled on the cobblestones. One of them stared up blankly into the summer sky, and even from this distance Hannah could see that his eyes were mismatched: the left was normal, and the right a bloody starburst. His mouth was contorted in a surprised O.
"Walter's men, the ones wha' shot yer faither. Baith deid," said Jennet calmly.
Hannah jerked back from the window. "How do you know that those are the men who shot my father?"
Jennet wrinkled her brow at such a strange question. "Because the laird ordered his men oot after the dragoons wha' kidnapped the pirate and shot yer da. Are ye no' glad they're deid?"
"Of course I'm glad," Hannah said. And wondered why she was not.
The earl came striding into the courtyard and into the circle around the bodies. He stood looking down while one of the men spoke for some time. He had a high voice for a man, and it carried to them in bursts. "The Moffat road," Hannah heard, and "Walter."
"Davie likes tae spin a tale," observed Jennet. "He took a wild boar the winter past and the tellin' o' it lasted longer than the hunt."
The earl seemed to have heard enough, for he walked away.
"What will they do with the bodies?"
Jennet shrugged. "Why, the men will drop them on Breadalbane's doorstep. A message, ye see, that yer faither and the rest o' ye are under the laird's protection."
Hannah thought of Thaddeus Glove, who had been hanged in Johnstown for shooting an exciseman in the back, and of the Kahnyen'kehâka woman called White-Hair who had suffered the same fate for stabbing a soldier, even though the man had survived. She thought of Runs-from-Bears, who might have gone to the gallows for putting the Tory with notched ears in his grave, where he could make no more moccasins. She wondered if no one would be arrested for the murder of the two dragoons, or if the feuding between clans was so common that others stood back and let them get on with it. It was an interesting idea, that the Scots might turn out to be like the Hodenosaunee when it came to blood vengeance, but somehow Hannah understood that this question should not be asked, at least not of Jennet.