Demon Sword

CHAPTER ONE

"Hey, bastard!"

The voice rang out in challenge from somewhere at Toby Strangerson's back. He did not look around. A defensive reflex made his right leg twitch, but he overruled it and brought his foot down firmly on the dirt. Without breaking stride, he continued his hurried walk along the road.

"I'm talking to you, bastard!"

It sounded like Vik Tanner. Women gossiping at their doors turned to see who was shouting, men stooped in their gardens straightened. Two youths up ahead were already looking this way, already grinning, standing with their feet apart and arms folded. So there was a rumble planned and they were in on it.

Having no choice, Toby kept on walking, wondering how many of them there would be. Didn't matter — there would be enough to do whatever they wanted to do. Then he recalled the warning Granny Nan had given him at dawn and his scalp prickled. This trouble had been prophesied.

"Oh, bastard? Can't you hear me, bastard?"

No question, that was Fat Vik Tanner yelling. The pair up ahead at the potter's house were Neal Bywood and Willie Bain, which meant Bryce Burnside and Rae Butcher would be involved as well, and perhaps two or three more he could call to mind with no effort. There were few young men left in the glen now.

The early morning wind was cruel, yet he was sweating. Granny Nan had kept nattering at him and getting in his way while he was doing the morning chores. So he'd had to run all the way to the castle, then right away Steward Bryce had sent him off back to Tyndrum. Again he had run most of the way, because he was expected to run when he was on the laird's business. Between the running and the weight of his plaid, he was sweating.

So what could a man do about it — explain? I'm sweating because I've been running, so please don't think I'm afraid of being maimed.

"Bastard? Are you deaf, bastard?"

The wind didn't mask the hateful taunts. The normal sounds of the village seemed to die away as people stopped work to listen — the click of the women's looms, metallic clinking from the smithy, the crack of a mason's hammer. Geese honked. A dog barked in the distance, shrill children chanted lessons in the schoolhouse, and a deep rumble of millstones told of flour being ground. Farther away yet, soldiers drilled outside the castle to a steady drumbeat.

"Bastard, I'm talking to you, bastard."

The voice was closer. Toby could hear stones rattle as his tormentors closed in behind him. They would time their approach to catch up with him as he reached Neal and Willie, closing the noose.

The street was part mud, part rock, part weeds — an uneven trail winding through the village. Vegetable patches were enclosed by low stone walls, and everything else was road or rock or pasture, where dogs sniffed, poultry foraged, tethered cows grazed. Tyndrum was less than a score of cottages straggled along the banks of the river: walls of rough fieldstone, roofs of sod, window slits closed by shutters. No one could tell where the village ended, for the cottages just spread out farther apart along the glen and up the hills until they blended into the scenery. There was nowhere to hide, and nowhere to run.

"Traitor! If you won't answer to bastard, bastard, will you answer to traitor?"

Vik was only a few paces back now, yelling so all Strath Fillan could hear. Toby was not afraid of Fat Vik. He was afraid of Vik plus four or five others. Granny Nan's warning echoed round and round in his head. She often acted strange these days, but this morning she had been stranger than ever.

She had come to him while he was milking Bossie. "Do not get into a fight!" She had repeated it over and over. "Evil comes to the glen. Terrible things will happen if you get into a fight today." Even as he'd fed the chickens and fetched water and chopped wood and done all the other usual morning chores, she'd been hobbling along behind him, waving her cane and talking about evil coming to the glen and how he must stay out of fights. Whatever she thought the hob had said, it had upset her greatly. She'd still been on about it when he ran off to report for work at the castle.

He hadn't paid much heed, for the idea of a fight today had seemed absurd. Next week at the Glen Games, yes. Then he would have to defend his title, if any man wanted to contest it. He had been thinking of an honest match, of course, man to man, which was not what Vik had in mind.

"Traitor, traitor! I'm talking to you, traitor. Sassenach bastard! Turn around, bastard!"

Snappy Fan Glenlochy stood at her door, yattering to big, blowzy Olga Potter. They had turned to stare disapprovingly at the drama, and he was going to pass right by them.

Without slowing his stride, Toby doffed his bonnet to the women. "Fine morning to you, ladies!"

They turned their backs and resumed their talk. His fast-moving feet took him past them and on toward Neal and Willie like a leaf in a stream.

"Fine mornings don't have bastards in them!" Vik crowed. "They don't have traitors in them. You're a Sassenach-loving traitor!"

It was a lie, but Toby Strangerson would dearly welcome a glimpse of an English uniform right now. He was within sight of the miller's house. He could see the cart outside, already loaded. That was where he was headed. He wasn't going to make it.

Neal and Willie unfolded their arms and sauntered across to block his path. Half the population of Tyndrum must be watching.

Terrible things will happen if you get into a fight today.

Fighting — not boxing. He was bareknuckle champion of the glen, but boxing was not what was planned. Terrible things sounded more like gouged eyes than just broken bones. He'd thought Granny Nan was having one of her strange turns when she'd started in about fighting this morning. He'd thought the hob didn't speak to her when she was strange, but perhaps this time she'd been normal until she learned whatever it had told her. Pity the hob hadn't explained how a man could avoid a fight when others insisted on it.

The pretense was over. There was no use trying a smile and a cheery greeting to Neal and Willie — not with the expressions they wore or the way they stood across his path. Toby marched straight at them and then made a quick feint to the right. They jumped to block him and he spun around in a swirl of plaid to confront Vik Tanner. As expected, he had Bryce and Rae with him, but he'd also brought Neal's brother, Colin. That was a sickening shock.

If it was just to be fists, Toby would take on any two of them and probably enjoy himself. All together they could certainly beat him, although he would do some damage. But it would not be only fists. There would be holding, and no time out when a man went down. There would be feet. There might even be blades, although the Sassenachs hanged any Highlander they caught wearing as much as a dirk.

Trash! Fat Vik was very nearly as tall as he was. His arms were thick and furry, but the meat on them was flab, not muscle. He looked dangerous on the outside and had nothing inside. Bryce and Rae were born followers, and still just gangly kids. Today they were two of six and could afford their excited, nervy smiles.

But Crazy Colin… Colin was older; twenty or more. Colin was wrong in the head, the one who killed sheep at full moon. Even as a child, he'd been odd. He had gone off to the war two years ago, and when he came back from Parline Field with the other survivors, he'd had even fewer wits than before. Now he was leering at Toby, eyes and mouth twitching eerily. He had both hands behind his back. If Vik had given Crazy Colin a knife, then there was murder in the air.

Six of them in a circle, the traitor in the center.

Toby concentrated on Fat Vik, the big one, the leader. His father had more money than most, which was obvious from the fancy pin in Vik's bonnet to the shoes on his feet. Even his plaid was bright, the green and black dyes of the tartan not yet faded, and his belt buckle was metal, not horn or bone — very grand was Vik the tanner's son. He wore a very confident sneer as he stood within his private army.

Evil is coming. Terrible things will happen if you get into a fight today.

Toby Strangerson was not the only man who worked for the English, but he was the only one without family to back him. Everyone knew he had been fathered by a squad of Sassenach soldiers, so roughing him up or killing him would be a gesture of defiance, a message to the Sassenachs and all their other hirelings. Nobody would remember who'd done it. Didn't see. Just a bunch of bairns… Would've stopped them if we'd realized…

He put his fists on his belt so they wouldn't shake; he swallowed the odious fear taste in his throat. Sweat raced down his ribs under his wool plaid.

"Was that you screaming, Vik?"

Vik's mouth twisted. "Oh, you can hear, can you, bastard?"

"You talk too much. I'm busy right now. You going to challenge at the games?" Toby had won his last seven fights. He could take Fat Vik in one short round.

"You won't be in the games. No traitors—"

"No? Then meet me at the ford tonight. Three rounds? Or no limit? I don't care."

Vik glanced briefly at his cronies. "And a gang of your Sassenach friends there to help you? Oh, no! We'll settle this right here and now, traitor."

The circle was closing, moving in very slowly, enjoying the suspense.

"Settle what?"

"Traitor, traitor!" Crazy Colin was already jittery, his face twisting in an idiotic leer. Demons! Had they given Curd-brain a knife?

"Traitor, is it?" Toby hardly minded being called a bastard — he'd worn that badge all his life — but he did mind being called a traitor. "Remember when you joined up, Colin, three years ago? When the laird called on the men of Fillan to back King Fergan? Remember that day, Colin? I was there, Colin, up at the castle. I tried to enlist with Laird Dalmally, too."

The laird had laughed. Toby had been one of many fuzz-faced boys trying to join up that day, but he'd also been the tallest man there, even then. The laird had called him the longest fishing pole in the glen. But he had tried! He'd been refused. He might have died on Parline Field. He might have come back maimed, or crazed like Colin, but he was not a traitor. He wouldn't work for the English now if anyone else could give him a job. Every one of these six would jump at a chance to take his place on the Sassenachs' payroll.

Crazy Colin leered. "Death to traitors!" There was nothing in his head to argue with.

Toby turned his attention back to Vik. "I don't recall seeing you at the castle that day, Fatso."

"I was there!"

"You must have been kneeling, then."

That won a chuckle from Rae and Bryce. Pale with fury, Vik stepped nearer and the others closed in also, tightening the belt one more notch. Conscious of the two behind him, Toby waited for the kick in the kidneys or the first flash of blades.

"So you're on your feet now. Why're you making so much racket?"

"You stay away from my sister, traitor!"

Stay away from my sister… Stay away from my daughter… Toby knew those words well enough, too. No family in the glen would let Big Bastard Strangerson near its unmarried girls. But in this case, the charge was absurd. Meg Tanner was only a child, with a bad habit of wandering around near the castle. Toby had seen her safely home the previous evening. That would be excuse enough for Vik.

"Meg? You're the one who messes with kids, Vik, not me." Toby raised his voice to shout down whatever was coming next. "You should look after her better. Keep her away from the soldiers."

"I'm going to keep you away from her!" Vik howled.

That should have been the cue for the action to begin, but it didn't. Obviously Vik did not trust his followers to back him unless Toby hit first.

Only Granny Nan's prophecy held Toby back. His heart thundered, his fists were clenched and shaking. Terrible things will happen… "You're a coward, Tanner. Tell you what: You meet me tonight at the ford, and I'll fight you with one hand tied behind my back." He could not hope to win, but the whole village would turn out to watch, so there would be fair play.

The others exchanged surprised glances, tempted by the chance of seeing a three-fisted fight.

"He's lying!" Vik shouted. "He's the bastard son of a Sassenach! He's a traitor and a bastard."

"Hit me, then!" Toby stuck out his chin. "What's the matter? You scared, Campbell?"

Vik Tanner was really Vik Campbell, and that was the root of Toby's trouble — they were all Campbells, every one of them except Willie Bain. Just about everyone in the glen was a Campbell, which was why they all had other names as well.

Vik grew desperate. "Colin! Do him, Colin!"

Crazy Colin giggled and produced a cleaver as long as Toby's forearm.

Rae shouted, "Wait! Hold it!" He grabbed the madman's wrist. Bryce rallied to his aid.

Toby became aware of jingling and clumping and a squeaking of axles behind him. The miller's cart was bearing down on the group, with Iain himself cracking the whip. The mob scattered out of the way — Colin gibbering and frothing and fighting against the others' efforts to control him.

Salvation!

"Oh, Miller, sir!" Toby said, forcing his throat not to shout. "I've got a message from the steward!"

"Whoa, there! Whoa, I say!" The fat man hauled briefly on the reins, slowing the rig. "Up here with you, lad! What's the old scoundrel wanting now?"

Neal made a grab for Toby, but Toby slipped by him and jumped for the cart. The miller's whip cracked in the air behind him, making his pursuers dodge back. He snatched hold of the boards and swung a leg up; was almost thrown off as Iain lashed the horse and the ramshackle outfit lunged forward, rocking and rattling over the uneven road, creaking mightily under its load of meal sacks. The gang yelled taunts as the miller bore their victim away to safety, and a moment later the horse was splashing across the ford.

CHAPTER TWO

For several minutes, Toby could only cling to the bench and sweat through a flurry of cramps as his stomach tried to empty. His whole body shivered, his heart thundered. There was a taste of acid in his mouth. He enjoyed a fight if it was honest and sporting and no hard feelings after; what he couldn't face was the thought of a rat pack — being held, knives, kicking, down on the ground, unable to fight back…

It hadn't happened. He was still whole. He had avoided the fight, so Granny Nan's prophecy did not matter anymore. He hoped the hob would tell her so and she wouldn't have to keep worrying until he got home tonight. It usually tattled to her about what was happening in the glen. Folk used to say if a child sneezed twice, Granny Nan would appear with one of her simples before it sneezed a third time. Women going into labor had always known that the midwife would arrive when she was needed. She couldn't get around much now, but when he came home in the evenings, she usually knew more of the news than he did.

"Thank you, sir," he mumbled eventually. Already the little cart had left the river behind and was climbing the gentle slope to Lochy Castle.

The miller had not said a word since his passenger embarked. In Toby's mind Iain Campbell was always linked with childhood memories of leading the donkey around and around the millstones, one of the chief joys of village youngsters. He saw now that the donkey probably enjoyed the company but would certainly manage equally well on its own.

The miller was the fattest man in the glen and bragged of it in a croaky, wheezy voice that never seemed to have enough air to function. He was not only short of breath, he was also insufferably long-winded, which hardly helped. His hair and beard were naturally sandy, but a permanent coating of flour made him a pale buff shade all over — under his nails and in his ears; even his plaid had faded to that same drab shade. He was a human meal sack. His eyes seemed tiny, but only because they were encased in folds of fat like a pig's; they were as sharp as a pig's, too.

"Well, now. And what did old Bryce have to say?"

"He wants another six loads of flour before you bring any more oats."

"Six loads, is it? Does that sound like a siege he's expecting? And it is far from a hint that the Sassenachs'll be taking their leave of us soon, I'm feeling. Well, it's oats I've got, so it's oats he'll get this time." The miller chortled a wheezy laugh. "Or do you want me to turn back?"

"If you do, I'll get off! I'm grateful for the rescue, sir."

The old man stole a narrow, inquiring glance at him. "They meant real mischief?"

"Just wind, I think, but I was glad to get away. Thanks."

"Was no more than a man should do for his kin."

Toby straightened up so fast he almost fell off the bench. There was not much room left with the miller there too. "Sir?"

Iain seemed amused. "Didn't know that? Your grandfather was my mother's cousin. I think that's right. You'd have to ask my sister — she can rattle off families like a chattering magpie."

His sister was a shrew.

"No, I didn't know. Granny Nan always told me I had no family."

The miller's laugh became a wheeze. "None close." He shot another glance under his snowy brows. "But maybe closer than you suspect."

Toby was already hanging on tightly; now his fists clenched on the cart hard enough to hurt. "You're talking about my mother, sir?"

The miller shrugged his bulky shoulders. "About both your parents, I suppose."

"I know what my name means, sir."

"It means your grandfather wasn't rich."

"Huh? I mean… What?"

The miller wheezed an oath at the horse, which ignored him, plodding doggedly up the long slope.

"Nineteen years ago, son, the cream of the hills fell at Leethoul."

The old man was embarking on one of his rigmaroles. Toby said, "Yes, sir," and prepared to be patient.

"The Battle of the Century, they called it, and the century won't likely see another like it."

What Toby recalled was that Leethoul wore that name because it had been fought in the year 1500. And the century had already seen at least two more like it — almost as bad anyway.

"A fine company we were!" The miller sighed. "Nigh two hundred of us marched off with the laird at our head — Kenneth Campbell, that was, the last of the real lairds of Fillan. His family had held Lochy Castle for hundreds of years. Not like these traitor puppets they put over us now." His porcine eyes turned to study the effects of this treason.

"No, sir."

"There's never been fighters to match the Campbells of Fillan. King Malcolm himself said so, when he inspected us on the eve of the battle. We tend to be small, he said, but we make up for that in enthusiasm. True that was! The best of the Highlander array, we were. Volley after volley the English fired, and our charge never wavered. Not forty of us came back to the glen, you know, lad. 'Twas a sad day for Scotland. King Malcolm himself fell, and two of his sons, and the laird of Fillan and both his sons, and the manhood of the Highlands was scythed like corn. The Sassenachs slaughtered us."

"Yes, sir." Leethoul had not been the first disaster, nor the last. It had been bloodier than most because King Edwin had grown tired of putting down rebellions every few years and had resolved to teach his Scottish subjects true obedience. Leethoul had been only the first lesson.

History was a very depressing subject. As taught in the Tyndrum schoolhouse, it comprised long lists of battles where Highlanders wielding spears or claymores faced Lowlanders or English — or sometimes both — armed with muskets and cannon. Result: massacre. In Toby's own lifetime there had been Norford Bridge and Parline, and Leethoul the year before he was born. There must be a limit beyond which raw courage became sheer folly. A boy learned not to say so in Strath Fillan.

Iain Miller bunched his thick white brows. "They put a garrison in the castle that winter. Soldiers need women — but you know this."

Toby knew only too well. "They rounded up six girls from the village."

"Aye, they did. Was shameful. And six women between so many men was more shameful yet. In the spring, when they marched away, they let the girls loose, every one of them with child. One of them was Meg Inishail. She wanted to call you Toby Campbell of Inishail, but your grandfather swore he wouldn't have his name hung on a… on an Englishman's bastard."

"I didn't know that! Inishail?" Family gossip was a new experience.

"Rae Campbell of Inishail. Och, lad, he was a bitter man even before, was Inishail. Two wives he'd had, and both dying young. He never found a third. Meg was all he had, and he couldn't forgive. Not that it was her fault, but he couldn't see that. He wouldn't let her under his roof again. He didn't have much to spare, nothing to offer anyone to care for her, too proud to accept help."

"My grandfather was a Campbell from Inishail?"

"Oh no, he was born here in the glen. I think it was his father came from Inishail, or his grandfather."

Granny Nan had always been evasive about Toby's mother. Now he could see why — unexpected answers brought more questions. A man's clan and kin were determined only by his father, of course, but he did have Campbell blood in him, which he'd never known before. Where had Iain Miller been while his kinswoman was being rejected by her own father? Why had she been forced to bear her babe in the witchwife's cottage, with no company but Granny Nan herself?

"She named me Tobias."

The miller shrugged and looked uncomfortable, as if he wished he had not brought up the subject. "Doesn't mean anything, does it? She couldn't know which of the Sassenachs had scored. Granny Nan took her in; Meg bore you, and she died. That broke old Rae's heart, if it wasn't broken already. He died two days after you were born. He never saw you."

His daughter had named her baby Toby with her dying breath — so Granny Nan said, and no one else could know. Tobias was not a Scottish name. Perhaps the Sassenach Tobias had been the one she liked best, or just hated least. Had he been a little kinder than the others? Didn't mean a thing about fatherhood, though. Just wishful thinking. Tobias Strangerson — Toby the bastard. Nobody could ever know who had been his father.

The cart was already high enough now that the village lay spread out below it. The sod roofs blended with the grass, but roads and walls showed like a cobweb. Farther away, halfway to Crianlarich, stood Lightning Rock, with Granny Nan's little hovel by its base — birthplace and home. Bossie would be grazing on her tether, but he couldn't see her at this distance. He could barely see the house. There was fresh snow on the summit of Ben More.

The miller jiggled the reins. The horse ignored his impatience.

"Are you knowing what happened to the other five, lad?"

Not much. "I always heard that they left the glen."

Who would speak of such things anywhere near Toby Strangerson? All Granny Nan would ever say was that they'd been sent off to visit kin over the hills and bear their bastards out of sight and mind. She had never admitted that any of them had come back later. She had never admitted that there might have been refugees come to Strath Fillan in exchange, although the English behavior had been just as barbarous elsewhere in the aftermath of Leethoul. The Taming, they had called King Edwin's revenge. It had kept Scotland quiet for ten whole years, even the Highlands.

"Some went," said the miller. "Dougal Red lost his sons at Leethoul."

Dougal Who? Toby felt as if he'd dropped something and should turn around and look for it. "Sir?"

"Dougal wasn't like Rae. He welcomed his Elly back. Young Kenneth lost a leg at Leethoul, of course. Ploughman with one foot'd go in circles all the time, wouldn't he?"

Oh, so that's where the conversation was heading!

Kenneth the tanner was a gloomy man, heavy in body, dark in spirit. Being a cripple, he rarely left his house, and he drank too much. Toby didn't care for him, and could not imagine him as having ever been young. Being married to screechy Elly might excuse a lot, and having a no-good son like Fat Vik a lot more.

"A house and a trade — that's what Dougal paid to buy a husband for Elly and a name for her babe. We chaffed young Kenneth a lot about what he must be selling. That Vik of theirs was born just a few months after the wedding—'bout the same time as you."

"He's a week older than me, sir."

Iain nodded. "Well you're the biggest man in the glen now. He's but half a hand shorter. The two of you do stand out! I'm saying he'd no right to be calling you what he did, and I think maybe you have kin closer than me. You not know this?" he added skeptically.

"No, sir. I never guessed."

Did the miller really think he was that stupid? Of course he'd known. It was obvious. They were the same age and almost the same size. Fat Vik had straight black hair, Toby's was brown and curly, but at school their height had marked them out in their age row. They'd always been foes. The other boys had taunted them by calling them the Twins, until they'd learned better, for that had been the one way to unite them. No one could ever prove it, but it was a reasonable guess that they'd been sired by the same anonymous English soldier. Toby Strangerson had a half-brother who had just tried to get him killed.

Forget him. Vik Tanner was a liar, a lazy do-nothing, a bully who pestered young girls and already drank more than his stepfather. He wouldn't even make good pike bait.

Much more interesting was why Iain the miller was confessing his own kinship — now, after all these years. From what Toby could recall of the glen's complex lineages, if he was related to Iain, then he was related somehow to at least a quarter of Fillan, quite apart from the general Campbell connection. They could have said, couldn't they? So he wasn't a Campbell and never could be, would it have been so terrible to acknowledge a motherless, fatherless boy being raised by the local witchwife, who was older than anyone and out of her mind half the time? It wouldn't have needed much effort. Couldn't any of them have broken the wall of silence?

And why had one of them done so now? It was too late for a woman to play auntie and hug a toddler who had fallen and hurt his knee. It was too late for a man to take another boy along when he took his own sons to dangle worms in the loch or poach the laird's deer — which everyone tried, but few ever managed. None of them had ever said. Or done.

The miller had been kind enough. He had let little Toby lead the donkey around, but he let all the kids do that. He still dropped off a sack of meal to Granny Nan once in a while — but a lot of the villagers brought her gifts. They did that because she was the witchwife and kept the hob happy, not because she'd taken in a rejected, abused girl and saved her baby and managed to rear it without even the help of a wet nurse.

So why had Iain the miller let out the secret now? Was he testing Toby's loyalties? He took English silver, too. He probably made more money out of the garrison than anyone else did. He had just rescued Toby from a very nasty confrontation.

The old man was waiting for a response, and the cart was under the black walls of the castle already. On the open turf, the Sassenachs were at their drill, marching to the beat of a drummer. A brief moment of sunshine made their helmets and muskets gleam, then they were hidden as the track detoured around a spur of rock.

"You're telling me that Vik Tanner may be my brother, sir?"

"It's possible. I wouldn't say it to anyone else."

"Neither would I." Fat Vik wasn't worth the horse dung to turn him green.

Iain turned the cart into the archway. "You'll have to decide soon, Toby Strangerson. You've got no inheritance in the glen. Will you be going off to seek your fortune elsewhere, do you think, one of these days?"

Toby would like nothing better than to wipe the glen off his feet and begone forever, but he couldn't go yet, and what the miller seemed to be hinting was that the village was no longer safe for him.

"Granny Nan needs me."

The cart clattered through the gate and into the echoing yard. The old man reined in and the horse lumbered to a halt. He turned his clever piggy eyes to study his passenger. Now he was going to get to the point.

"You're a strapping lad, Toby," he wheezed. "Whose man are you to be? You won't have much time. Better to make a free choice than swear an oath with a blade under your chin. Both sides are recruiting that way now."

Meaning which side would the strapping lad choose? More than two years had passed since the rout of Parline Field, and Fergan was still at large — the fugitive king of Scotland was said to be hiding somewhere in the hills. The English king's puppet governor ruled in Edinburgh and, although the Lowlands were relatively quiet, rebellion still flickered in the Highlands.

Iain Miller had fought at Leethoul, the Battle of the Century; he had lost a son at Norford Bridge. He had proved his loyalty, surely? But he took the Sassenachs' money. He had just rescued their hireling, reminded him of his English parentage, and tried to turn him against the villagers with tales that might or might not be true.

If Toby gave the wrong answer it would get back to the wrong ears, and he did not know which was the right answer.

"Yes, sir. I know the problem. But my first loyalty is to Granny Nan. As long as she needs me, I'll stay in the glen."

Rescue or not, he would never trust his throat to a Campbell.

CHAPTER THREE

As a child, Toby had been taught that Lochy Castle was a great and fabled stronghold. The English soldiers had corrected him on that. It was just a tall stone house with a high wall around it, they said. It looked impressive enough in the glen, where there were no other buildings with more than two rooms. It had withstood sieges in olden times because it had a good spring, but modern cannon would knock holes through its battlements in minutes.

Bringing cannon to the glen in the first place would be another matter, but Toby knew better than to mention that.

Another odd thing he'd learned from the Sassenachs was that, man for man, they weren't all that bad. Take an English soldier out of his uniform, and a Highlander out of his plaid, and you wouldn't be able to tell them apart. The Sassenachs had funny names, like Drake and Hopgood, or Miller and Mason, although they were soldiers, not millers or masons, and certainly not drakes. They griped in drawly voices about their food, Sergeant Drake's unending drill, and this bleak mountain wasteland they had been stuck in. They were unhappy and homesick. More than anything they yearned for female company. Perhaps the Taming of eighteen years ago had been a failure, or King Nevil preferred different techniques from his father's, or perhaps King Fergan's long-festering rebellion made a difference, but this time the garrison had been forbidden to touch the local women. As a result, all the men were screamingly horny, except presumably Captain Tailor, who had his wife here with him.

The drill squad came marching in through the archway with Sergeant Drake barking like a dog. The drummer's beat echoed back and forth between the walls. Captain Tailor lurked on the sidelines, watching. If Toby Strangerson had notions of joining the Sassenachs' Royal Fusiliers, it would not be because he wanted to spend his days doing musket drill.

He sprang down from the cart. Steward Bryce was approaching, but there was no need to wait for orders. The load must be moved to the granary, and it would travel on Toby Strangerson's back.

Bryce of Crief had been steward in Lochy Castle since history began. He had served Kenneth Campbell, the laird of Fillan, before he went off to die at Leethoul, and probably his father before him. Lairds had come and gone, but Master Crief had remained like the battlements themselves. He was easily the oldest man in the glen, as ancient as Granny Nan. Although he must have been tall in his youth, now he was stooped and leaned heavily on a cane. Most the flesh and all of the hair had gone from his head, so it looked like a skull in a leather bag. Even in summer, he went around swathed in a fox fur robe, and his skeletal hands trembled all the time. Yet he still had eyes like dirks.

He had been here during the Taming. Once in a while Toby would feel a mad impulse to accost the dread old man and ask him if he recalled any of the garrison of those days. Did he remember an exceptionally big one — a virile young man, who had fathered two of the six children conceived that winter? Had there been a gentle, kindly one named Tobias?

He had never asked and never would.

He hauled a sack of oats from the cart, settled it on his shoulder, and turned to find the old man barring his path.

"You carry the sacks into the granary, Strangerson."

"Yes, sir." Did he think Toby had put one on his shoulder to run off with?

The disconcertingly sharp eyes stared up at him. "And come and see me right after."

"Yes, sir."

Toby headed for the granary. As he departed, he heard the old man's querulous complaint that he had ordered flour first, followed by the start of the miller's whining excuses. It sounded as if he would blame Toby for loitering on the way, and that would mean half a day's pay lost, at the least.

The sun never penetrated the courtyard. The main house formed one end, stables and guardroom flanked the arched gate opposite; high walls along each side connected them. Apart from a water trough and a couple of small sheds, that was all there was to Lochy Castle. Sentries paced the battlements, but it had no moat, no drawbridge, no cannons.

The granary was on the ground floor of the house, and the door opened as Toby reached it. "Over there!" said Helga Burnside.

He pulled a face at the heap she indicated, for it was shoulder-high already. "We've got a whole cartload, you know." He swung the sack into place with a great gasp of effort.

She laughed scoffingly. "Ah, and you just a puny slip of a boy! It'll put some muscle on you."

"Double helpings at lunch, then!" he said, hurrying off to get another.

"That'll be a change from the triples you usually eat!" she shouted after him.

Everyone liked Helga, a big, cheerful woman from the village. Yet she took English money, too. Was there a difference between men and women working for the enemy? Of course there was — women were not expected to kill them. Men were.

He reached the cart and took up another sack. The miller had disappeared, probably into the kitchens. No one else had appeared to help the odd-job boy with the unloading — not that he cared. If he wasn't doing this, he'd be cleaning out the stable or the latrines, chopping brush, hunting rats, running errands. He might even be sent back down to the village for something or other, and he would rather not go there again in the immediate future — certainly not today, with the hob's prophecy still in effect. He would much rather heave meal sacks around.

The fusiliers were into musket drill, with Sergeant Drake barking as loud as ever and the drum beating:

"Shorten your scouring stick!"

Rat-a-tat-tat!

"Try your match!"

Tat-tatta-tat!

The lad with the meal sack was hardly more burdened than those poor sucker fusiliers. The guns alone were so heavy that the men must also carry rests to set them on when they fired. Each man was festooned with a sword, dagger, shot purse, smoldering match, powderhorn, scouring stick, and probably other things Toby had forgotten. Some had pistols tucked in their belts, as well. They wore spurred boots and white—white! — stockings. Their russet doublets and breeches were so padded and puffed that they weighed more than his plaid, and on top of it all went a spherical steel helmet with a brim that came to a point in front. They spent half the day drilling with muskets and the other half just cleaning and polishing their gear. He would rather be the odd-job boy any day.

Joking apart, hard work built muscles on the glen's bareknuckle champion, with a good chance to take the weight-lifting title from the smith this year. Maybe the caber tossing, too. If the previous laird of Fillan could come back from the grave, he wouldn't call Toby Strangerson a fishing pole now.

Would he call him a traitor? A dozen villagers toiled in the castle most days. There was no shame in wanting to eat, and precious few ways to earn a living in the glen. They worked for the steward, and the steward worked for the current laird, Ross Campbell of Gareloch.

That was another problem in loyalties. The ancient line of the Campbells of Strath Fillan had ended when Kenneth and his sons died at Leethoul, almost twenty years ago. The earl of Argyll, chief of Clan Campbell, had declared the estate in escheat and appointed a replacement, a Campbell from Dalmally. He had never won the loyalty of the glen.

His son and successor had done better. When Fergan had escaped from captivity in England in 1516 and raised his second rebellion, the Campbell of Argyll had supported him, at least for a while. So the laird of Fillan, his vassal, had switched sides also. The glen had answered his call enthusiastically and marched off to die for King Fergan at Parline — leaving one sad fishing pole boy behind.

Now there was yet another laird in Lochy Castle, Ross Campbell of Gareloch. Toby Strangerson worked for Steward Bryce. Steward Bryce served Laird Ross. Laird Ross was loyal to the earl of Argyll, who was back on the side of the English.

Were they all traitors? Two more sacks completed the layer on the pile. The next one would have to go higher.

If Fergan was rightful king of Scotland, then yes, they were all traitors: earl, laird, steward, odd-job boy. That was what the likes of Fat Vik thought — the English killed our fathers and brothers and so we must kill them.

On the other hand, Captain Tailor and his men had no doubt that it was Fergan who was the traitor, or that soon they would catch the rebel and hang him. Then the Highlands would be at peace again. So they said. In spare moments they lectured the odd-job boy on how the kings of Scotland had been sworn vassals of the kings of England for centuries — between all the suicidal rebellions, that was. You couldn't trust a Scotsman's word after the echoes stopped, they said.

Another layer of sacks in place, and Toby was enjoying himself — heart thumping strongly, sweat running, arms and back tingling pleasantly.

The miller's question drummed in his mind: Whose man was he to be? As long as he stayed in Strath Fillan, of course, he was the laird's man. The laird determined his men's loyalties, and the earl determined his. But when Granny Nan died, then Toby Strangerson would be gone over the hills like an eagle. Whose man would he be then?

And consider King Nevil himself, self-proclaimed king of England, Scotland, Wales, and now numerous other places also. Technically he was a vassal of the Khan, but he certainly had not been behaving like one. He had defeated the three previous suzerains in battle and seized their kingdoms and their allies', until he now controlled most of Northern Europe. Each time the Khan had appointed a successor suzerain, Nevil had immediately made war on him, and he made no secret of his intention of conquering the continent and then marching against the Golden Horde itself. He was reputed to have sworn he would clear every last Tartar out of Europe.

In other words, treason depended on how good you were at it.

Another layer. Now he was having to throw the bags up above head height. The exercise became an interesting challenge in itself, leaving little energy for worrying about loyalties. He did not solve the loyalty problem before he had emptied the cart and laid every sack tidily where it should be.

He emerged into the gray daylight of the yard and wiped his forehead with a corner of his plaid. The clouds were racing across the sky, but he could see a pair of eagles soaring. There were always eagles over Castle Lochy.

He headed off to the kitchens. It was too early for lunch, but Helga could usually find a snack for a growing boy. Still wolfing down a freshly baked bap liberally spread with goose fat, he located the steward crouched in his little office. The old man was poring over accounts, a litter of papers covering the table. He looked up with a familiar sour expression on his dried-apple face.

"Need another job, Master Crief," Toby said with his mouth full.

"What's this I hear about you getting into a fight?"

Toby swallowed. "I didn't, sir. Just got baited about… about a girl, sir. It was nothing. No fisticuffs."

The dirk-sharp eyes studied him for a moment. They did not reveal what their owner thought of that version of events. Iain had been blabbing, obviously.

"One of them was Crazy Colin?"

"Er, yes sir. He was there." Had the miller noticed the addlehead's knife?

Fortunately the steward did not ask about knives. He twisted his bony mouth in a grimace. "I wouldn't feed that one to pigs." For a man who never left the castle, Bryce of Crief was always uncannily well informed about events in the glen.

Bryce of Crief — Bryce Campbell had probably lived in Fillan for twice a normal lifetime, but he was still Bryce of Crief. A man was identified by his clan, of course, but then by his birthplace. When he was in his birthplace he was identified by his residence, or his occupation, or his father. If he had no clan, if his father wasn't known, he was called something like Strangerson.

"How is Granny Nan?"

Old Bryce was remarkably chatty today.

"She has good days and bad days, sir." She spends hours collecting pretty stones.

Crief nodded, but his expression still gave away nothing. "Look after her well, lad. Has she ever mentioned… a successor?"

"No, sir."

"I don't know who we'll get to keep the hob happy when she's gone."

Toby took another bite of greasy bap and mumbled, "No, sir."

"An unhappy hob could make lots of trouble in the glen."

"Yes, sir."

The old man leaned forward and bared a few yellow pegs of teeth in a sly and withered smile. "Who's going to take you on at the games, mm? Anyone crazy enough?"

He meant boxing, of course. Boxing had more glamour than weight lifting or caber tossing. Moreover, there was money to be made on boxing, bets to be laid, and that probably explained why the steward was wasting valuable time chattering with the odd-job boy.

"Dougal Peat's promised to go a few rounds with me, sir, if nobody else will. We'll put on a show for the crowd is all."

What the smith's son had said was, "We'll just bleed a little for 'em, right?" but what he had meant was, "You won't make me suffer too long, will you?" Dougal was enough of his father's son that he was incapable of faking; he would fight till he was fairly dropped.

"No chance of his father coming out of retirement?"

Toby shook his head sadly. "He could still beat me if he did." He had watched the blacksmith box — and win — at every games as far back as he could remember, but the year he had turned fourteen and been allowed to fight with the men, he had failed to make the finals. That had been the year Eric retired, so they'd never met in the ring. Somehow, Toby could not feel he was really champion, when he had never fought the smith.

"The Sassenach…" Toby corrected himself quickly. "Some of the soldiers, sir. Some of the captain's men, were talking about a challenge match in wrestling, Castle versus Glen, sir."

The steward scowled. "The laird forbade it! It might lead to trouble."

"Yes, sir."

"Besides, our lads know nothing about wrestling." The sharp eyes stabbed at him. "You tried wrestling with any of them?"

"No, sir."

"Those English have all kinds of sneaky holds and throws. Now, if they were to offer a challenge in boxing, I might be able to talk the laird into it — but they won't!" The steward shrugged, dismissing such frivolous topics. He leaned back and regarded Toby with a snaky intensity. "Just between the two of us?"

The odd-job boy blinked in astonishment. "Yes, sir?"

"If you lose in the boxing, I've got five shillings for you." The old man pulled back his lips in a skull-like leer.

Five shillings? That must be about a year's wages! But cheat? Toby could not do that! Half the glen would put a farthing or two on the boxing, and they would all come to watch the sport. They would expect a display of courage, not dishonesty. It was unthinkable. Never!

Yet for a man of his lowly station to refuse an order from the steward was equally unthinkable. He would be out on his neck in a minute, and lucky if he weren't beaten first. Faced with this impossible dilemma, Toby just stared at the old man. His throat, as it so often did, closed up completely and made not a sound.

The smile faded like a sunset into dark. "Think about it," the steward said coldly. "Come and see me later. Meanwhile, Himself wants the dungeon cleaned out. He thinks the rats are coming from there. I'll send someone to help you after lunch."

"Er?" Toby dragged his wits back to business. "I don't know where the dungeon is, sir."

"Off the guardroom. You'll need a lantern. Just one, mind, because there's no air down there. Move all the old straw outside the walls and burn it. And take a dog or two with you." The steward dismissed him by looking down at his papers.

Toby said, "Yes, sir," and hurried away. Cheat? Cheat so that the old bag of bones could clean up on the betting?

CHAPTER FOUR

He borrowed a lantern from the cooks, found a shovel, rounded up Spots and Nipper, and headed to the guardroom by the gate. He had never been inside it before, and the first thing he saw when he entered the gloomy place was a wall rack full of muskets. There were benches and a table, a couple of chests, a few cluttered shelves, but no guards. That seemed excessively careless, considering how much King Fergan's rebels would like to get their hands on those guns. They were chained, but Toby thought he could break them loose if he wanted to — besides, there were dozens of keys hanging near the window.

He walked forward and jumped as a big man appeared in a shadowed doorway — except it was a mirror. A full-length mirror! He had never seen such a thing in his life before. It must be there so the Sassenachs could inspect themselves before going out on parade. He glanced around the room again to make sure he was alone, then took a hard look at his reflection. His face was too boyish to be so far from the floor. He rubbed his chin, wondering yet again if he should let his beard grow in. He adjusted the hang of his plaid. He was certainly more man than Fat Vik. He took yet another glance around, moved back so he could not be observed through the door, then crooked an arm to see the muscle. His reflection grinned at the result and he scowled at its vanity.

At the far side of the room, a gate of thick iron bars led to darkness. It was unlocked and creaked loudly. Nipper rushed ahead down the stairs, with Spots following more circumspectly, nose busy, tail wagging. Narrow and treacherous, the staircase curved sharply into the ground, so the dungeon must underlie the guardroom. He pulled the gate shut behind him in case the dogs tried to defect. Then he started down. After about a dozen steps, he set a foot into something soft and squashy.

He waited there until his eyes adjusted. He was in a long narrow cellar, cold and creepy, stinking of rot. Most of it seemed to be carved out of the rock of the mountain. The ceiling was masonry — arched and short on headroom even in the center. There were no windows or air vents. What a nightmarish place! His skin crawled at the sight of the rusty chains and the staples set in the walls. The floor was deep in rotted straw, which the dogs were exploring with much interest. This job promised to be much less fun than heaving meal sacks, but the sooner he began, the sooner it would be done, so he hung the lantern on a staple and began.

He began by banging his head on the roof.

Cursing Bryce for not choosing a shorter man, he proceeded to the far end and set to work with the shovel. The dogs squirmed around underfoot, growling with excitement, lunging at the mice that came pouring out in all directions. The place was alive with them. The stench of decay became sickening.

Horrible, horrible place! How many wretches had been chained up here in ages past? He wouldn't keep pigs in such a hutch, let alone people. How long would a man stay sane shackled to the rock in a cell like this? He wondered uneasily about torture. He wondered how many of the victims had been innocent of whatever crimes they had been accused of… He wondered what he was going to do with the litter. Already he had raised two big heaps, and obviously he couldn't bring a wheelbarrow down those stairs. He should go and find some sacks — or a basket, perhaps.

Something flashed on the shovel. He peered at it, poked it… picked it up with finger and thumb. He took it over to the lantern. It was a comb of the sort a woman might wear in her hair, decorated with two or three glass spangles to make it pretty. The metal was corroded black, but the glass had stayed. Not a man's comb, certainly.

They had imprisoned women in this diabolical midden?

Nineteen years ago, six girls from the village?

He dropped the relic with a shudder and cracked his bonnet on the ceiling hard enough to make the darkness blaze with lights. Holding his scalp and moaning, he backed away until he slammed into a cold, damp wall. He had never really wondered where in the castle those women had been kept — in the house itself, he had assumed. He had never been higher than the ground floor, so he did not know what there was upstairs in the main house. The soldiers were not allowed upstairs either, so far as he knew, and if that was true now, it might have been true then.

Had those abused girls been kept here? Could this cesspool have been the castle brothel? No, no! Surely no men ever born would treat women like that?

Had he been conceived in this hellish dungeon? His guts churned. He felt sick. He needed fresh air. Dropping the shovel, he hurried around the heaps of filth he had gathered and began to feel his way up the stairs, to daylight and sanity and air.

"Women! They need women!"

The voice stopped him cold. Someone was speaking English in the guardroom. Another man replied. The gate was closed and they would not know Toby was there.

He dropped to his hands and knees and crept a little higher, just enough to peer around the curve of the stair. The guardroom, which he had thought so dim when he came through it, now seemed bright. The man standing by the window was the laird of Strath Fillan, Ross Campbell himself.

"You know that's impossible!" said the other, and Toby recognized the voice of Captain Tailor. He was addressing the laird in a way no one spoke to a laird. "I have few enough men here to hold the road. I can't be sending them off to Dumbarton to carouse."

Laird Ross waited a moment, then turned from the window. Toby had never been so close to him before. He was a small man, careworn and white-haired, his face lined and weather-beaten. He wore a belted plaid, like any Highlander, but he had a tartan shirt under it, and the pin holding the shoulder flap bore a shiny cairngorm. He had a chief's badge in his bonnet; he had shoes, woollen hose, a fur sporran, a long dirk with a silver handle at his belt. Old or not, he was a fine sight.

"Wet dreams never killed any man yet," he said wryly, as if trying to divert a conversation veering too close to argument.

Tailor ignored the remark totally. "So I can't grant furloughs. But if my men don't get access to women soon, they're going to mutiny, or start deserting. I know it! You can't keep healthy men cooped up like this without women. It isn't natural."

"Dunk them in the horse trough every night. If they desert, they're dead. Not a man of them would reach the Lowlands alive."

"Is that a threat, my lord?"

"Of course not! But make sure they know that."

"We can pay. Just pass the word that there's good money to be made. In a place this size, there's bound to be a few wives desperate enough for easy cash. Demons, by their standards, they'll be rich in a week!"

Campbell let out an exasperated snort. "You don't know the Scots! No woman here would lie with a Sassenach if you offered her a silver mark and her brats were starving. If any one of them did, the whole glen would know by morning. They'd brand the sign on her forehead and drive her out. The glen would rise, just like Queensferry did last month. Don't you know you're sitting on a powder keg, Captain?"

Boots thumped on the flags. Captain Tailor strode into view, garbed in his uniform doublet and breeches, festooned with sword, wheel lock pistol, bandolier, and powder horn. Below the brim of his helmet, his angular face was flushed scarlet. "I am responsible for the road, and I can't hold it with crazy men. You are to provide board for my men, and a woman is a necessary part of a soldier's board. If you can't find them locally, send to Glasgow for a few whores — else I'll loose my lads to courting. There's no shortage of spinsters hereabouts."

The laird raised a clenched fist, then lowered it reluctantly. "I understand your problem, Captain. See you understand mine. When I came here, I told them it would be a Sassenach garrison again, but I swore you'd leave their women alone this time. They swore allegiance — and I gave them my protection! They've kept their side of the bargain so far, but all it needs is one spark. You can't hold the glen against them if they rise. By the time help arrived, you'd be dead, all of you. Me, too, likely, but that's not important. They'll cut off the food. They'll shoot you down from cover. Be quiet and listen! I told the Campbell I would keep the glen quiet, and I—"

"Never mind what Argyll says!" Tailor roared. "This is the road to the northwest, and the rebels' gold and munitions—"

"They're my people, Captain, and I care for them! If one of your men lays a hand on a single woman, I'll hang you both on the same gallows!"

For a moment the two men glared at each other, but even the odd-job boy knew that the threat was wind. The soldiers held the laird's castle. Three major battles in twenty years had decimated his warband. Now it had been disarmed and the young men were drifting away to other lands and other lords.

Then the Englishman spoke — quietly, but biting off every word. "I remind you, my lord, that I take my orders from Edinburgh, my lord, not from you, my lord. This area is under martial law. I am in charge here, not you—my lord."

Toby shrank back down the stairs an inch at a time. He should not have overheard this! If they discovered him listening, they would lock him in and leave him there, at the very least.

Now his own loyalty problems seemed almost trivial. He had never thought to wonder how loyalty looked from the top down.

CHAPTER FIVE

Most of the other dayworkers were clearing broom from around the castle, making what the fusiliers called dead ground. The women had taken lunch out to them, but Toby intercepted Helga on her way back and she took pity on a starving lad. He carried the resulting hamper outside and sat on the grass by himself to gorge and ponder his problem.

When the hob said he must not get into a fight, it must have meant a real fight, not a squabble with the steward. That would be no more of a fight than an ant arguing with a descending boot.

Whose man will you be? the miller had asked him. Never mind the future — whose man was he now? In Strath Fillan, he was the laird's man, beyond question. But if Bryce Campbell of Crief, the laird's agent, gave him immoral orders, what was he supposed to do about that? The laird might approve or not approve; he would certainly side with his steward against the odd-job boy. He might even be in on the fraud himself. If the smith did not come out of retirement, if Dougal was the only challenger, then the odds on the witchwife's bastard lad would be five to one at least. He was bigger now than he'd been when he took Dougal in three rounds last year.

Ironically, the Highlanders had far less to gamble with than the Sassenach soldiers, who were paid their pittance every week and had nothing to spend it on. That did not make wrong right, though. Would it be more ethical to cheat the crowd or cheat the steward, who was trying to cheat?

Could he throw a fight? Once he got going, would his fists stop if he told them to? Not likely. If Dougal couldn't take a dive, why should he expect himself to? Once the two of them started pounding each other, they would both just keep on pounding until one of them couldn't stand up any longer. That was what real men were like. So Toby must give the steward his promise, keep his job for another week, and then see what happened.

His head ached. He gave up worrying. He leaned back against a rock and watched the geese settling on Lochan na Bi and the eagles drifting in the sky. Lochy Castle stood at the foot of Beinn Bheag, facing south down Strath Fillan. Tyndrum lay just across the river and Crianlarich down at the far end, where the strath joined Glen Dochart. The villages were merely denser clumps of dwellings. Cottages were scattered all over the flats, summer shielings high on the hillsides. The fields were mostly rocks. The living was in the cattle.

The road ran south, too, but instead of turning east to follow Glen Dochart, it headed west, over the pass into Glen Falloch, and then down to Ardlui, on Loch Lomond… to Dumbarton on the Clyde, and thus the Lowlands, Glasgow, Edinburgh, England, Europe.

He'd been as far as Loch Lomond a couple of times. It was only fifteen or sixteen miles away, a half day's walk, there and back.

Tiny Lochan na Bi, beyond the castle, drained west into Glen Lochy. There was a local trail there, but the main road headed north, through the cleft between Beinn Bheag and Beinn Odhar, then on down to Bridge of Orchy and eventually to Fort William. Pondering what he had overheard in the guardroom, he remembered something from his long-ago schooldays. Neal Teacher had stressed that Lochy Castle was a strongpoint on the only real road to the northwest. That explained Captain Tailor and his men. There were few roads in the Highlands, and very, very few that were passable for wheels. Cannon traveled on wheels.

There was nothing left to eat; it was time to get back to work.

CHAPTER SIX

He had hardly returned to the dungeon before he gained a human assistant as well as the dogs. Between the gloom and the scraping of his shovel, he did not notice until a high-pitched voice exclaimed, "Zits!" in tones of deepest disgust.

Hamish Campbell was Neal Teacher's youngest and a recent addition to the dayworkers. He was dark, slight of build, currently growing a few inches every day. His arms hung at his sides like ropes and his ribs stuck out. He surveyed the cell and the filth around his toes with extreme disapproval.

"Uncivilized! What'd they catch you doing?"

Toby leaned on his shovel for a breather. "What'd you mean?"

"Old Bryce found me reading a book when I was supposed to be counting meal sacks." His teeth flashed in a grin.

Toby grunted, belatedly realizing that it wasn't anything he'd done that had landed him here, it was something he hadn't done: promise to cheat. Why hadn't he seen that sooner?

He could do worse for company. Hamish was bearable. He was clever, well-read, cheerful, and at times he would display a deadly sense of humor. Now he took hold of one of the sacks Toby had filled and lifted it. He put it down again quickly.

"Whew! Zitty heavy! Why don't I shovel and you carry out? Sooner we get it done, the sooner we'll be pardoned. Or do you think they'll lock us in here for years?"

"No, they'll hang us at dawn." Toby handed over the shovel, heaved a bag onto his shoulder, and left.

The shoveling took longer than the carrying out, and while the two of them were together, a boyish treble kept up a steady musket-fire of chatter.

"Can you lift two of those bags at arm's length?"

" 'Spect so." Yes, he could.

"How 'bout one of them?"

That was harder, of course…

"Wow! You shave every day now, Toby?"

"Yes."

"Why not grow a beard?" He was implying that real Highlanders had beards, most of them. Only pansy Sassenachs shaved, and not all of them, even.

"Because it's too curly. I'd look like a sheep."

Hamish sniggered. "Biggest ram in the glen!" Quieter: "How far have you gone with girls?"

Toby dared not even smile at a girl in the glen or he would get her in trouble — but why ruin the boy's dreams by saying so? "None of your business."

Hamish was undeterred. "You going to beat Dougal Peat…? Think the smith'll make a comeback…? Can you carry two sacks? How many rounds to knock out Dougal…?"

The chatter was all right; the hero worship soon began to grate as much as the shovels. Toby had met it before. His size and fighting skill had made him the paragon of manhood for all the youngsters in the glen. There was nothing wrong with Hamish that another three or four months' growing wouldn't cure; he was just going through the stage when boys discovered they were turning into something different and worried what it would be.

Nonetheless, Toby found the adulation so unsettling that he was tempted to linger on his trips through the guardroom, gabbing with the soldiers. He didn't — it would have been unfair to the kid shoveling his heart out downstairs — but when they ribbed him about the stench that came with him now, he bantered right back at them. Often he found the Sassenachs easier to talk with than the folk of the glen, who had known him all his life. That might be because he was half Sassenach himself.

With two on the job, the work went faster. In an hour or so the dungeon floor had been scraped bare to bedrock and swept, the final load of refuse had been thrown on the bonfire outside the gate, the last rodent hunted down. Nothing remained except the repellent chains and shackles.

"Well, they didn't lock us in after all," Hamish remarked, inspecting himself in the guardroom mirror on the way out. "You look zitty uncivilized!"

"You're not too smart yourself," Toby said. His nose and mouth were choked with rank dust, his head had acquired more bruises. "Let's report to old Bryce."

"Um. Why don't just you go?" Either Hamish was worried that he had not yet done enough penance, or he had thoughts of hiding out with his book again.

"No," Toby said firmly. "You come with me."

"Looking like this?"

"Why not? It's his fault if we stink up his office."

Hamish found that idea amusing and grinned again.

The steward was still busy at his accounts. He looked up, tightening the wrinkles around his nose in disgust. Doubtless his cramped little office had taken on unpleasant airs all of a sudden, but he might be more annoyed that his pugilist had brought a witness to the meeting.

"All done, is it?"

Toby wanted to ask how often people were shut up in that underground kennel. He wanted to ask if that was where his mother had been confined when she was a prisoner of the English, being systematically raped, night after night. He wanted to ask if that was why he had been sent there today. He dared not ask such impertinent questions; he feared what the answers might be. So all he said was:

"Yes, sir. You want to come and see?"

Bryce Campbell of Crief shook his head. He leaned back, displaying his few remaining teeth in a surprising parody of a smile. "If you say it's done, Strangerson, then I know it's done and well done. There's few I would trust like that, but I trust you. You've never failed me yet."

Toby squirmed and mumbled thanks for the compliment, wondering if the words meant more than they said.

The steward's bony fingers twitched like dying spiders amid the clutter on his desk. "Now, what else… Aye. Take a donkey. They need a sack of oats at Bridge of Orchy. Mind you have a wash in the burn on the way, too!"

Toby and Hamish exchanged astonished glances and made themselves scarce before the old man changed his mind.

CHAPTER SEVEN

At the granary door, Hamish asked doubtfully, "You think he meant both of us?"

"Yes, but stay and read your book if you want."

That won a guilty start. "No. I'll get the donkey."

"Phooey! Just one sack? We don't need a donkey for that."

"What? You can't carry a meal sack all the way to Bridge of Orchy!"

Toby snapped, "Watch me!" before he had seriously considered what he was letting himself in for. Then it was too late to back out, of course. He must be getting caught up in the hero role.

"Don't expect me to help!" Hamish said, wide-eyed.

"It's not much more than the soldiers hump around all day."

"Demons it isn't!"

"You can carry me back, then." Toby hauled down one of the sacks he had placed there before lunch and strode off across the courtyard with it slung over his shoulder. He set off up the road, his companion scurrying along at his side and muttering that it must be seven miles or more, and he was crazy.

"Beats shovelling zitty manure, though!" he added, cheering up. "Why do you suppose he gave us a nice jaunt like this to do?"

Toby had worked that out. He was being shown how much power the steward had to make his life pleasant or miserable. Vinegar and honey — cooperate or else. He didn't explain.

His companion's butterfly mind flitted to other topics. "Why do they need a post at Bridge of Orchy anyway?"

"You're the scholar. You tell me."

After a moment, the youngster said, "The castle looks south… Advance warning of enemies coming from the north?"

"That's my guess." It was something to ask the soldiers.

"That's possible isn't it? MacGregor's History of the West lists eight times armies have attacked Lochy and four times they came by way of Bridge of Orchy. When evil comes to the glen, it often comes by that road."

Evil comes to the glen! Toby shivered, recalling the hob's prophecy. Suppose he found rebels in control of the post? That wasn't very likely, though, because couriers brought Captain Tailor reports twice a day.

Hamish prattled on about history.

The cottages were few up here, and there was no one else in sight. A few dogs barked from a distance; shaggy, long-horned cattle watched the travelers suspiciously. A flock of ravens had found a feast beside a dry-stone wall and were quarreling noisily over it.

The road headed upward, stony and steep, and the hills closed in on either hand. Soon torrents of sweat were washing the dirt from Toby's pores. The sack of oats grew steadily heavier on his shoulder. He wasn't doing this just to impress the kid. He hoped he wasn't. He was doing it because it was good for him.

"Wish I had your muscles," Hamish gasped. His shorter legs were having trouble keeping up.

"This is how you get them. This is real work, man's work!" No one would call Toby Strangerson a fishing pole now.

"It's mule's work, you mean!"

"There are worse things to be than a mule. Mules are tough and strong and they know their own minds." They were also low on romance, of course, and perhaps that was another point of resemblance. Toby wondered if girls saw him as a mule.

"You be a mule if you want. I'm going to be an owl."

Toby laughed aloud. The kid beamed.

At the top of the saddle, Toby stopped and lowered the sack to a flat-topped boulder, gasping like a stag turning to face the hounds.

"Spirits!" Hamish said, flopping to the turf. "Thought you'd never take a break!"

Toby wiped his face with the shoulder of his plaid. He stood within a tunnel, flanked by walls of Beinn Bheag on one side and Beinn Odhar on the other, roofed by low cloud. He peered out at Strath Fillan as if from a window. There was hardly a tree to be seen anywhere. Grass and scrub coated the slopes, interspersed with patches of bare rock, or heather, and bright green broom here and there, and even brighter specks of bog. The little copse around Lightning Rock was too far off to see, even the rock itself hard to make out. The castle was hidden, Tyndrum's shaggy cottages invisible unless one knew exactly where to look.

"Home!" Hamish sighed.

"Love it, do you?"

The boy flinched. "I know it's not much of a place in itself, of course," he said hastily. "Pa says it's not rich. Other glens can raise more men for war and drive more cattle to the sales, he says. But it's our home, so we love it. The Campbells of Fillan are the bravest fighters in the Highlands and that means the whole world."

"Yes," Toby said, and pulled the sack onto his shoulders again. He strode off along the road. The glen was his birthplace, but he did not love it. He had no family here and nothing to inherit — no land or trade or herds, not even a sixteenth share of an ox. He had only one asset, a powerful body, and he must make the most of that. As others might seek to nurture flocks or perfect a talent, so he would work to build strength. What he would do with it remained to be seen.

Hamish came scrambling after him. "What's the matter?" He was staring up at his hero with a very worried expression.

"When does courage become sheer stupidity?"

About thirty paces later: "You're very cynical, Toby."

"Am I?"

"I remember my Pa telling you that."

"Just before he birched me, I expect. I think courage is good, but it can be overdone. If you're going to risk your life, then you ought to gamble it for something worthwhile. Just throwing it away to show you're brave doesn't make sense." He was probably ruining the boy's faith in everything he'd ever believed in.

"We have other virtues, too! We're honest and we work hard and we take care of our own."

Toby did not comment.

After another hundred paces or so, Hamish said, "But no one works harder than you do, and I suppose you haven't seen much love or care, have you?"

Toby felt thoroughly guilty now. "We mules never complain."

"You don't think Strath Fillan's worth much?"

"I think it's worth a lot."

Hamish brightened. "Really?"

"Really." Strategically it might be. The people weren't much.

As the trail descended the northern slope, it began skirting puddles of brown, peaty water. In another fifteen minutes, it was accompanied by a chattering burn, splashing over rocks and plunging into pools. Toby headed for one he knew.

Leaving the sack on a rock, he dropped his plaid and plunged in, with Hamish shadowing every move. The cold mountain water was agony and yet thrilling. They clowned a little and splashed. Hamish chattered all the while like a flock of starlings.

"How long have you had hairs on your chest, Toby?"

"This one or those two?"

His questions became more impertinent and finally he called Toby "Longdirk." That was a common enough nickname for growing lads, one that had been thrown at Toby often in the past, and one that Hamish himself must be starting to hear now. Addressed to a grown man, though, it could have more personal implications, especially in certain circumstances. As these were such circumstances and that was the way Hamish meant it, Toby roared and went for him. Hamish scrambled ashore and scampered off over the moor, squealing with glee; Toby caught him, carried him back to the pool by his ankles and dunked him head downward until he could stop laughing and choking long enough to beg for mercy.

Honor satisfied, they scrambled from the pool.

"You going to wash your plaid? Ma says August is the only month to wash plaids."

"No. Let's just give them a good shake."

Both shivering now, they shook out each plaid in turn and prepared to dress. A belted plaid was a simple length of woolen cloth — usually checkered in black and green in these parts — and up to nine feet long. Toby's was more than six and a half feet wide. He laid out his belt and spread the plaid over it. With the sureness of a man doing something he has done every day of his life, he pleated it across its width, leaving unpleated flaps at either side. He lay down on the pleats, the hem behind his knees, folded the right flap over to his left hip, the left side over that to make a double thickness in front. He buckled his belt, took hold of the corner beyond his left arm, and stood up. He pulled the left edge over his shoulder to support the weight and fastened it to itself with his pin, thus covering most of his back and half his chest. He tucked the long right end into the front of his belt and arranged all the folds to his satisfaction. With his bonnet on his head and his sporran on his belt, he was ready to go.

So was Hamish. Toby swung the meal sack onto his shoulder and set off.

"You do love the glen, don't you, Toby? Really, I mean?"

Toby sighed. The world must have more to offer than this barren gorge. It would be his home as long as Granny Nan needed him, but he felt no fondness for it. "How can I tell? I haven't seen the rest of the world yet."

"You going to?" Hamish asked wistfully. "Going off to seek your fortune?"

Again the same question: Whose man will you be? "Maybe. Heard any more from Eric?"

"Just what you know — he's working for a printer in Glasgow."

Hamish's brother was Toby's age, and the closest he had ever had to a friend. Like him, Eric had been too young to fight at Parline. He'd gone off to seek work, a few months ago, as so many others did nowadays — dispossessed young Highlanders whose laird had no more land to offer and no need of fighting men. Eric had been lucky, for most seemed to end up as coal miners or mercenary soldiers. None could be more landless than Toby, but he could not imagine himself as a miner. He would jam in the tunnels. As for soldiering, he would certainly offer a tempting target.

He had other ambitions. The soldiers said there was good money to be made in the prize ring in England. He was going to find a wealthy sponsor and be a prizefighter — but he couldn't leave while Granny Nan needed him, and he wasn't about to tell Hamish anyway.

"Toby?"

"Mm?"

"If you do go… would you take me with you?"

Startled, Toby laughed. "Why? Where?"

"Anywhere. I want to see the world, too." Hamish scrunched up his sharp features in a scowl. His father was in poor health. Everyone knew that Hamish would be the glen's next schoolteacher. Fighting men did not read books, and he already had more learning than he would ever have need to teach.

What use would a prizefighter have for a skinny bookworm companion? None. To say so would be unkind. This was the worst case of hero worship he'd met yet — complicated by too much reading of romantic books, likely. "Sure you can come! I need someone reliable to hold down the horses while I hold up the stage. We'll hang together, on the same gibbet." No matter what happened to Granny Nan, he would not likely be leaving before spring at the earliest, and by then the lad would have more confidence in himself. Toby thumped his shoulder. "That's a promise."

Hamish's eyes widened before he decided this was a man-to-man joke and required a smile. "Long as I get half the loot!"

On they went.

Strictly speaking, they had come down into Glen Orchy now, with cottages scattered around the flats and Loch Tulla a couple of miles ahead. The main length of Glen Orchy, though, stretched off to the southwest, between Beinn Bhreacliath and Beinn Inverveigh. No one lived there. It was too marshy, for one thing.

Hamish twisted his head around to study the glen. "You ever seen the bogy?"

"Never went to look for it."

"My grandfather's uncle went hunting in Glen Orchy and never came back!"

"He probably sank in the bog."

"If Strath Fillan has a hob, then Glen Orchy can have a bogy."

True, but Toby was not interested in the bogy of Glen Orchy. The sack weighed much more than it had when he set out. He plodded grimly. His feet hurt. Tomorrow he would ache as if he'd been beaten all over, but it would be worth it — more muscle! He felt proud of himself and at the same time ashamed of his pride. He'd made it. The hamlet and the guard post weren't far now.

"Who can they be?" Hamish gasped.

Toby looked up. A line of riders approached at a trot. He made out six of them. Who could they be?

When evil came to the glen, it often came this way.

His skin shivered. He told himself not to be a superstitious idiot.

Soon he could see that these were not soldiers, then that their mounts were of far better stock than the shaggy ponies of the glens. That meant English, almost certainly. The leader was a woman, riding sidesaddle on a truly magnificent black. Another woman followed her, and then four… four people muffled in dark robes with hoods hiding their faces. They bore swords, so they must be men, and either Sassenachs or rebels.

Toby had no idea who these intruders might be. He cursed himself for a craven fool, but the hob's prophecy ran around in his mind like a cat after a rat and he felt a foolish urge to run away and hide somewhere. He stepped well clear of the trail, slid his burden to the ground, and just panted.

"Hexers!" Hamish said hoarsely. "The ones with cowls? Adepts!"

He was the teacher's bairn. He read books. Didn't mean he didn't talk stable-washings sometimes, though.

"And the lady?"

Hamish shook his head, eyes wide. "A lady!"

Now he made sense. Only wealthy gentry could afford a horse like that, or the tack studded with shiny metal, perhaps even gems. The lady herself wore a robe of deep purple and a matching high-crowned hat with a black plume. Her collar was black fur, and the trim on her robe, too. When she drew nearer, Toby saw the aristocratic pallor of her complexion, her dark eyes and black arched brows. She was tall, she rode with grace; a haughty beauty, a great lady.

As she went by, he pulled off his bonnet and bent his head respectfully.

She did not go by. She turned her horse aside and rode over to him, while her followers came to a halt and waited. She reined in and looked down at him and Hamish. No, she was just looking at him. Heart hammering, he bowed and awaited her pleasure, staring at the jeweled buckles on her tiny boots, the sable trim on the rich fabric of her robe. He had never seen a real lady before.

"Look at me."

He raised his head. Her eyes were shiny black, and terrifying. Her features were noble, beautiful, deadly, framed by the lappets of her hat and the ruff under her chin, so he could only guess that her hair would be black and beautiful, too. Her smile touched only the scarlet lips and not the fatal eyes. She was appraising him like meat in a market. No one had ever looked at him quite like that before. Evil comes to the glen. It had arrived. He was certain that it had arrived, and told himself not to be a fool.

"Do you speak English?"

"A little, my lady." Actually, he spoke it better than most, because he practiced with the soldiers, even though they laughed at his accent.

"Your name?"

"Tobias Strangerson, my lady."

Again her lips smiled, but they smiled at him, not to him. They indicated satisfaction, not humor. "Are there many more like you around?"

He stammered. "M-my lady?"

"Your size? Highlanders are notoriously big."

"I'm bigger than some, my lady."

Her chuckle made the hair on his neck stir.

"Well, you are certainly adequate." She wheeled her horse and rode back to the trail. She spoke to one of the black-robed men, who turned his head in Toby's direction. The inside of the cowl was dark, as if there were no face there…

Idiot! How can a man not have a face?

Then the lady rode on. Her entourage clattered after her — the nondescript woman who must be her serving maid, the four men in the spooky robes. They trotted off up the hill to the pass.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The fusiliers at Bridge of Orchy were just as bewildered as Toby, for they did not know who the lady was either. They had rushed out to present arms for her and she had ridden past without even looking at them. They had certainly not dared challenge her — she was gentry at the least, probably nobility. This sudden intrusion of excitement into their monotonous vigil did not stop them noting that Toby had carried their bag of oats all the way on his back. That now seemed like a very foolish feat of showing off.

"Couple of the men bet me I couldn't," he said. "They sent Hamish along as a witness — didn't they Hamish?"

Hamish blinked and then agreed, but an impish gleam in his eye hinted that the story was now certain to be put about.

About a mile back along the homeward road, Toby realized that his companion was being unnaturally silent.

"Tired?"

"No."

There was certainly something wrong when Hamish Campbell kept his mouth shut for more than five minutes. Bubonic plague?

"What did you mean about hexers and adepts?"

"Nothing," Hamish muttered. "We go to the sanctuary in Dumbarton every summer, and last year Pa took me to Glasgow, too. The acolytes wear robes. That reminded me. That's all."

It was not all, obviously. After a moment, he added, "Saw a picture in a book once of an adept conjuring a demon, and he was wearing a robe like that."

Toby scoffed. "Proves nothing! You're saying all I have to do is put on a flouncy robe with a cowl and you'll believe I can conjure demons."

Hamish told him he was a cynic and fell silent again.

The light was failing, cut off by cloud and mountain. They would not be home until after dark. Poor Bossie would be howling to be milked. There would be water to fetch, more wood to chop. Toby would sleep well tonight. They would be too late getting back for him to have any more nasty interviews with the steward. If Granny Nan was in her wits, he could ask her advice — although he was pretty certain she would tell him to stay honest. It was what she'd taught him all his life. Easy for her to say, but an old woman who could survive on half a bap a day might not understand a young lad's interest in regular wages.

Almost as if Hamish were listening to his thoughts…

"Toby?"

"Mm?"

"Don't go back to the castle tonight."

Toby took a hard look at the kid. Was this what he had been building up to? Hamish had sense when he chose to use it, more learning than Toby the bastard would ever have, and lots more brains.

"Out with it!"

"The lady. Did you see the emblem on her horsecloth?"

"No." Toby vaguely recalled the horse's gear, but he had been much more intent on the rider.

"It wasn't obvious. A black crescent. It was on the back of her glove, too."

"You're an expert in heraldry?"

"Of course not." Hamish stalked on in silence.

"Sorry. Tell me, please. Whose arms?"

The boy shot him an anxious look. "Pa borrows books from the castle sometimes. There's hundreds there. Old Bryce lets him borrow them and Pa lets me look at them too if I'm careful."

Toby had absolutely no interest in books, but he suspected that Hamish worshiped them so dearly that he probably couldn't ever lie about them. "And?"

"About a year ago, I suppose it was… I was reading one and I found a poster in it. Somebody had folded it up as a bookmark. It was a Wanted Dead or Alive poster. It didn't have a picture, but it described a woman just like her, and it mentioned a black crescent."

"Who is she, then?"

"Lady Valda."

"Who's Lady Valda?"

"I asked Pa. She was a lady at King Nevil's court. His, er, consort. They weren't married, but she was sort of first lady, even so."

She had certainly looked like the sort of lady who would grace a court. "And she was wanted dead or alive? For what?" Nobility did not indulge in crimes like theft, and murder they usually got away with. "Treason?"

Hamish frowned in thought. "It didn't say what for. The reward was ten thousand marks!"

"What? You're joking! That's more than they've got on Fergan's head. It must have been some sort of a joke!" There wasn't that much money in the world.

"Maybe. I'll ask Pa tonight." Hamish did not seem convinced. "But it was nine years ago… The poster was dated 1510. She must have been pardoned since then, or she wouldn't be riding around with her black crescent showing, would she?"

Toby tried to estimate how old the lady was and realized that he did not have the flimsiest notion. She could be any age. She was very beautiful, that was all he knew — beautiful in a sinister sort of way. Why would a former royal courtesan from London be roaming the cold Highlands of Scotland? Women might see romance in this: the exiled beauty now forgiven and making her way back home.

Hamish was talking again. "She'll certainly be staying in the castle tonight, Toby. Let me fetch your money from the steward. You wait outside."

"I appreciate the offer, but why you and not me?"

Hamish mumbled inaudibly. Then he said, "I didn't like the squirmy way she looked at you!"

A man could make a funny response to that, but the kid was obviously serious. "It was like she was thinking of buying you!"

That was the exact impression Toby had. "Perhaps she has some heavy boxes to move."

Hamish pouted at the mockery. "Do you think she'll take no for an answer?"

"I doubt she would." The lady looked as if she had never been denied anything in her life.

"Don't go into the castle tonight, Toby. Please?"

"I have to see Steward Bryce."

"Then let's go slow, so we get there too late to get in!"

"We will anyway."

By the time they arrived, the sky was almost dark, and the moon hung over the shoulder of Ben Challum. As they started down the final slope, they heard the drum tattoo that meant the gates were being closed. No Highlander would be admitted before tomorrow's dawn. The last of the day workers were already disappearing down the road in twos and threes. A lantern glinted in the shadows, revealing the two sentries at the gate.

Toby carried on along the road, heading for the bend through the rocks.

"The postern's still open!" Hamish said. "We could ask."

"Not a hope."

"They may have left it open because they know we haven't been paid, and—"

"Dreamer!"

"Cynic! Why do you suppose it's open, then?"

"If certain persons weren't always in such a rush to be first out of there every night, they would know that the postern's usually left open for an hour or two. The laird may be out riding, or men have gone fishing, or something. A blanket wearer like you would have to fight his way in."

"Blanket wearer?" Hamish said in outrage. "Blanket wearer?" he screeched. "Is that what they call us?"

"Haven't you heard them? It's no worse than—" But Toby was already running.

Someone had cried out in the shadows ahead where the road bent. He could not see what was there, but he had heard enough — a deep voice angry, a shriller one being cut off suddenly… His feet pounded on the dirt. It might just be two boys telling each other dirty stories, in which case he would just look foolish and no harm done. Or it might be dirty deeds, in which case the quicker the better.

Fast as he ran, his mind raced faster. Everything was sharp and clear. It was not going to be boys telling stories. It was going to be rape and it was going to be a Sassenach doing it. Even as he came around the corner, the man forced the woman to her knees. Her efforts to scream were muffled by his hand over her mouth. He had his back to Toby, but was starting to turn to see who was coming. Moonlight flashed on his helmet.

How did an unarmed man fight a soldier? Those doublets were so thickly padded they were virtually armor. Even Toby could punch at that until his knuckles fell off and not damage his opponent much. Fusiliers' helmets lacked face pieces, so there would be a chin to aim at, but that would be about all.

How did an unarmed man fight a soldier? One thing he did not do was argue. Give the man a moment and he could draw his pistol or his dagger or his sword, and that would be the end of it. Toby did not have as much as a stick, but he could put his fist through a plank door. He must knock the man down with his first punch and hope to run off into the night with the woman. It was not a very noble prospect, but a safe flight into the darkness was the best he could hope for.

The soldier was still partly stooped over her, but his head was coming around and Toby knew him. He also knew he outweighed Fusilier Godwin Forrester considerably. He shot a straight left to the jaw.

It didn't work as planned.

Meg screamed, "Toby! Get him, Toby darling!"

Meg? He half-turned to her voice. Forrester ducked his head to offer his helmet. Toby pulled the punch before he smashed his knuckles. He careened into his opponent like a runaway wagon. They went down together. Although Toby was on top, he was winded more than his victim, landing on powder horn, pistol, bandolier — innumerable hard and sharp things stabbing at his chest. From helmet to breeches, Forrester was well padded. He was also a veteran fighter. His free hand clawed at Toby's face, fingers reaching for eyes. That tactic was not in the rules recognized by the glen.

To save his sight, Toby had to bring up his hands. Forrester butted them with the metal brim of his helmet and jerked up his knee — a move that would have disabled a smaller man completely. Fortunately he misjudged and struck Toby's hipbone instead. One moment Toby had been on top and the aggressor, half a second later, he was rolling free, struggling to defend himself. He was a boxer, not a wrestler.

Forrester lunged to his feet, his sword screeching out of its scabbard. Toby scrambled to rise, and his hand touched the musket lying on the grass. Before he was upright, the blade flashed at his head. He ducked under the stroke and sprang up holding the matchlock by its barrel. To fire it was out of the question — he did not know how, he had no powder and shot, he lacked the time. All the same, it was a usable weapon, a massive club of wood and steel longer than the saber. He parried the second slash: clang! The soldier had not expected that. The impact must have jarred his arm just enough to throw him off balance. Using his greater reach, Toby rammed the butt into the man's chest. The Sassenach went over like a weed.

Forrester's limbs thrashed, but even flat on his back he could aim a slash at Toby's legs. Fortunately, it was slow and clumsy. Toby dodged it. His only hope now was to stun his opponent, grab the woman, and run like demons.

The soldier rolled over, began to rise. Toby aimed at the helmet, swung with all his strength. At the last moment, pulling his legs under him, Forrester bent his head. The butt struck his neck with an impact that jarred Toby's teeth. Had he been using an ax, he would have cut the man's head clean off and buried the blade in the turf — but his victim would have died no faster.

Evil had come to the glen. He had gotten into a fight, and terrible things were going to happen.