“Be it a hard winter, it might be Kerrs or Armstrangs oot a-rieving, but y’ll be seeing nae Scotts other than in peace. Nor eke a Elliot riever, either, y’ ken, for Sir Andrew bears great love and respect for His Grace and the most o’ his gillies gae in stark fear that it might be some o’ His Grace’s wild galloglaiches abiding at Whyffler Ha’ yet.”
Musgrave nodded. “What o’ the Lindsays an’ the Hays, d’ y’ think, Michael Scott?”
Sir Michael shrugged. “As to the Hays, I canna say one way or t’other, what wi’ the auld laird dead an’ the new still in Edinburgh, some hotheaded toiseach might tek it intae his mind tae ride doon on a rieving, but I’d think not, not sae harsh as the new king has been on rievers sich as Clan Johnston, of late times. An’ the Laird o’ Lindsay is one o’ the chiefest supporters of King James, so y’ll be seeing nane o’ his ilk ride acrost the border save on the high road tae York or London.”
At sight of Sir Geoffrey, the bailey-wall gates were gapped wide and the bridge over the ditch came rumbling down, and he. Sir Michael, and the Whyffler Hall Lancers clattered across it, followed shortly by Scott’s remounted party of servants and retainers.
As most of the lancers and Scon troopers peeled off the cavalcade to make for the stables and see to their mounts, while the gentry, officers, and servants followed their betters up to the hall itself, one-armed Oily Shaftoe, the groundskeeper, could be seen to render Sir Geoffrey a military hand salute, where he stood watching the labors of his men. Solemnly, Sir Geoffrey returned the salute of the former cavalryman, one of the few survivors of the troop that Sir Francis Whyffler had taken to the king’s service, the same troop that had been commanded also by Bass Foster when he still was only a gentleman-captain under command of Sir Francis.
Most of Shaftoe’s busy workers paused from their toil long enough to raise an impromptu cheer for Sir Geoffrey; only one old man, his thinning white hair showing clearly the jagged scars furrowing his scalp, his face all but hidden in a dense white beard, failed to make a sound, but he looked up and smiled to display a less than full complement of broken, rotting teeth and fingered the place where once there had been a forelock of hair.
Sir Geoffrey reined up beside the aged worker and spoke down from his saddle. “Hoo be y’. Will? Be the work too hard for y’?”
His only answers were a wider smile to the first question and a shake of the head to the second.
Oily Shaftoe, when he came striding over, was asked, “Oily, cannae y’ find Auld Will a pair o’ breeks o’ some kind? Auld bones ache muir nor y’ youngsters’ in oor cauld dews o’ mornings.”
“An” it please y’. Sir Geoffrey, sir,” replied Shaftoe, “Will hae been given two breeks, but he maun allus wear his kilt, a shairt and sometimes brogan-shoon. Cauld does nae seem tae plague him.”
Musgrave nodded. “Weel, let him bide as he will, then. But be y’ sartain sure that he owns an overthick mattress tick and a blanket o’ nichts. An’ a pot o’ brown ale for him that nicht. Oily.”
A gentle slap of the reins set his horse back in motion, and they proceeded on up toward the hall.
“Who be that auld Highlander, Geoff?” asked Sir Michael. “Cannae he speak?”
Musgrave shook his head. “He come tae the ha’ a-begging, not tae lang after His Grace last left, whilst His Grace of York and Master Rupen, his servant, still abided here. He were naught save skin an’ bones, then. An’ nae, he cannae speak eke ane word.”
“So, being the mon y’ be, y’ took him in.” said Scott. “Who give him the name Will? Y’self?”
Again Musgrave shook his head. “Not so, Michael. He cannae speak, but he can write . . . well, his name, anyhow, ‘twould seem. Tae do sich, for sartain sure he once were muir than a mere gillie. But how knew y’ he be a Highlander? The kilt, ainly? Yet Lowlanders wear it, too, some o’ them.”
This time, Scott’s head shook. “Not the kilt, Geoff, but the sett. Auld an’ wore doon an’ faded oot as be that tartan, I cannae be sartain o’ the sen, but I ken it be either Mac Ghille Eoin or Mac Neacail, both o’ them clans o’ the West Highlands an’ the isles. Be Will the ainly name he writ?”
“Nae,” answered Musgrave, “he writ ‘Uilleam Bheiihir,” he did, wi* charcoal on a flat stane. But I ne’er heared o’ sich a family.”
“Nor hae I,” said Scott, “That word, in Scots, means ‘monster’ or ‘wild beast.’ Belike the puir auld soul be but a addled mon oot o’ King Alexander’s hosts, who either cannae find his way back tae his name … or does nae want tae go back in his shame o’ defeat an’ degradation an’ e’en unable tae say his name. God in His heaven wi’ bless y’r charity to the auld wretch, Geoff Musgrave.”
At the front of the hall, grooms were waiting to take and lead away the horses. Within the foyer, other servants helped the two knights and the lancer officers to remove buffcoats, helmets, bits of armor, and weapons, offering soft, comfortable felt shoon to replace heavy jackboots, along with mugs of spiced ale to lay the dust of the ride.
The luck that William Collier had enjoyed on the night he had strangled the too gullible Abbot Fergus, slashed the throat of a sleeping gillie and despoiled him of all his clothing and effects, then managed to saddle the dead abbot’s big riding mule and creep from out the sleeping camp of monks and Highland warriors undetected, had been the last he had been destined to know for some little time.
On only the second day of his new-won freedom, the hard-ridden mule had turned up lame, so he had had to take to his feet, leading the limping beast as fast as it could progress, still fearing that the inevitable pursuit might result in his recapture and a return to that foul, stinking bear cage and a continuation of seemingly endless miles of jolting, bone-bruising travel in that ox wain, this time with no simple-minded Scottish abbot to cozen with tales of spells and curses and witchcraft practiced by kings. And where would the end of that journey find him? Imprisoned in another tiny, stone-walled cell on a wind-swept island, to wallow in his own filth and howl away the freezing nights until death finally claimed what would by then be left of him. It might be easier to just let the Mac Ghille Eoin gillies take the blood price from all the blood he owned—at least that kind of death would be quick.
At length, he had rounded a bend in the road to come upon a crofter gnawing on black bread and hard cheese under a stunted tree, while an ass laden with wicker panniers of root vegetables and a brace of live chickens grazed the tiny patches of grass sprouting from between the twisted, knobby roots of the same tree.
Collier had bespoken the man, first in English, then, recalling just where he was and what he was supposed to be, in Scots Gaelic. But the crofter had been most unwilling to make the trade of his ass for the lame mule, and, after arguing a bit. Collier had been beset with one of his black rages, and when he once again was in his right mind, his stolen sword was in his hand and running fresh blood, while the crofter lay hacked and gory and very, very dead at the base of the tree.
Once he had dragged the crofter’s body well away from the road and hidden it in a mass of prickly bushes, he returned to the site of his most recent murder, removed the panniers and chickens from the back of the placid, still grazing ass, and mounted the beast, taking his seat well back on the crupper, as he had seen men ride asses. Within seconds after he had mounted, he was on his back on the hard ground, his head spinning from rather violent contact with a lump of hardwood root. By the time his head had cleared enough for him to sit up, groaning, the ass was back to grazing, its long ears twitching. And a second attempt to mount and ride the small beast produced almost the same results, save that that time. Collier landed facedown and the pommel of his stolen dirk took him so hard in the solar plexus that he had to gasp for air and thought that he surely would smother before he was again able to breathe with great and painful effort.