Happy Holidays elistaire!
Title: Vagrants, Rogues and Professional Deceivers
Author: El ratoncito Pérez
Written for: elistaire
Characters/Pairings: Adda Ad Piers (Methos), Walter Graham, Connor MacLeod. Adda/Connor
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ±5,400
Author's Notes: Anon, good friends, anon!
Summary: Ay band off itinerraunt playars att ay pervynchul Inne, ay Nyght of Ghaist Storyes & diurs Enterludyes, leedth strayte waye to Abomnible intemiseyes & Horid practicis’s b’tween tow Strayngers.
Vagrants, Rogues and Professional Deceivers
The attic or, as their host, Bailey, referred to it, ‘t’ best chamber I’ll gi’ the likes of ye’ was pitched so sharply that Adda had to enter stooped to keep from braining himself on the beams. He was sharing with Walter who had already claimed the choicer side of the bed, and now was availing himself of both bolsters to prop himself up, the better to examine the bug he was holding between thumb and forefinger.
“O’d’s blood!” he said, as Adda straightened to his full height. “What kept you? I’m foundered!”
“I felt someone walking on my grave,” Adda said. Walter grimaced at the news, although, that could as well have been because he was reducing the bug to a red smear. “D’ye ken me?”
“I didn’t fall off the hay-wain yesterday.” Walter flicked away the remains, then put his hand inside his cod, and proceeded to give his crotch a vigorous scratch.
Adda itched in sympathy. “It wanted only that to make it a perfect tour. I’ll call one of the ‘ostler’s boys; send for beer and bread.”
“No, my bawcock, we will go down and face it out, unless you want twelve onion and garlic farting merchants quartered with us. And we will go down with a peaceful mien. Father Martin-he was my Mother’s chaplain-taught me Latin, ‘mongst other things-said don’t go looking for trouble, and it won’t find you.”
“Your Father Martin was an ass.”
“And filthy old bugger, to boot. I don’t give a fig if it’s the rump of Methuselah’s own goat in the stew, or that bloody-minded Russian sod waiting to take our heads, tonight all I want is a wench and a hot meal. I am a peaceful man, a poet, and galliard, not a fighter.” He belied his own words by sitting up tying his ribbons, and then reached for the swept hilt rapier that lay with his pack open in the middle of the floor. The sheath was fine Spanish leather, the blade was excellent German steel, and the length of it exceeded the Queen’s regulations by three English inches.
Walter stood up, settling the belt hanger on his hip. “Hi-ho for Scotland,” he said. “Where God provides the meat, and the devil does the cooking! Bring your budget, darling. May hap’ we’ll be vouchsafed a miracle, and you’ll think of something we can manage the playing of.”
Below, more wagons and travelers were entering the yard under the inn’s arched gate and being greeted by ‘ostler and his boys. Walter grunted in satisfaction as they pushed their way through the crush of men and horses already arrived. “In the morning, send George and Ifans up and down the high street with the drum and the pipe.”
“Ifans won’t thank me for it.” Adda caught his wind-blown cloak about him.
“Needs must. I’ll be doubling Richie’s parts; I would kill the bastard myself, if he had not got the plague.” It had started to snow, a multitude of tiny flakes that the wind whipped into little white devils. “Rain, rain… nothing but rain for weeks,” Walter cried. “And now snow! In August! ‘Od’s love! Did you ever see such weather?”
“A perfect tour you said. It’s well we’ve secured the hall.”
It was well. A blast of heat and unwashed humanity hit them as they entered the central hall of what had once been the hostel of the nearby abbey. The room was long and high, and the roof beams black with ancient smoke. The taproom was crowded that afternoon. There were Bailey’s usual custom, the prosperous tradesmen, craftsmen and yeomen of the valley. But tonight, and for the week to come, there would be merchants, peddlers, drovers and cattle buyers, not to mention less the savory characters, such as themselves, all come together for the annual trysting fair. Bailey’s three girls were scurrying about with bowls of stew, and jugs of beer.
Their fellow players, or at least Ifans and Edgar, for Miles appeared to have vanished, were holding a court in front of the fire. They’d commandeered the end of a table and gathered about them a fellowship that was eager to complain about the weather and to trade news for gossip.
“Wat!” Edgar looked up as Walter loomed over him. “T’was a ghaist Ifans seen in the woods.”
“I told you so!” Ifans said.
“T’was a pig, you blind fool. Shift your lazy bum.” Waving at one of the girls to bring the stew and beer his way, Walter pushed a place for himself between Edgar and Ifans. That left Adda with the end of the bench and the corner of the table where there was no room to write. “Whose ghaist was’t? And what is this ‘ghaist’?” Walter said. “I’ll give you a speaking part when you learn to speak the proper English.”
Edgar grinned; he could affect a sweet high voice and played the girl well, and he knew it. “Miller’s daughter in old Boyles’ grandfather’s time,” he said. “When Miller wouldn’t let her marry the man she loved, she hanged herself. They drove a stake through her heart, and buried her at the three-way leet…”
There was a hush as he spoke, and a general signing against evil among all who could hear. There were, as well, surreptitious looks about to see who might have noted the gesture.
“…father and lover both, she afflicted with invisible fire. Their fingers and toes turned black, they saw visions of devils and hell, and died raving insanely. So she was revenged.”
“I like that girl’s style,” Walter said. “But why does she haunt the woods, and not the high road? There’s naught in the woods to afright but deer.”
“They found her body hanging from a white ash tree,” said a local farmer. “She haunts the scene of her death, as all ghosts must.”
“’S not true!” a merchant objected. “There’s a green lady at Fyvie. Was the old lord’s leman…’til he killed her and stuffed her up the chimney. She will not haunt the chimney, though; she walks the battlements crying for her lost bairn, and wailing piteously. Other than giving a man a bad fright-I’ve seen her myself, and near jumped out of my skin-she harms no one.”
“A pox on your green lady!” Walter stood up and held up his beaker. “I, Walter Graham, Master of Lord Willoughby Brough’s Players, and I will stand the tab of any man who tells me a better tale!”
Instantly, a babble of voices rose. The landlord popped out of the kitchen to see what was amiss. He stayed to listen, though, when a yeoman, a bolder man than his neighbors, called out, “What kind of tale?”
“A ghost story! Give me malignant specters, grim eyed, fierce and bloody. Give me vengeful spirits, seeking redress for their unjust deaths. Give me dreamers of long lost dreams who haunt the living yet!” Walter’s dramatic gestures attracted every eye. His trained voice carried to every part of the room.
“My neighbor’s wife’s mother’s cousin met a malignant spirit,” said the bold farmer.
“Tell it me!” Walter said. Others called out: “Hear him! Hear him!”
Silence settled over the room, as every person in it gave the farmer their attention. Every person, but one-a man in a blue plaid cloak who was sitting alone in the shadows on the far side of the fireplace. Adda had felt the force of his regard from the moment he and Walter had entered the hall. His gaze had followed them as they crossed to Edgar’s table. Adda took the opportunity to return the man’s attention. There was, of course, no telling, but he appeared young. They exchanged discreet bobs of the head.
“She knew t’ woman; t’was one of her gossips,” the farmer said. “They’d fell out, and did not speak for most of a year, when t’ one’s husband killed t’ other’s husband. Then come Christmas Day, t’ one sees her friend walking over t’ snow by the croft and, thinking she’s come to visit at last, invites her in. T’ other says ‘no, Annie MacKeel, I’ve just come from t’ graveyard and must hurry on; I’ve a long way yet to go…”
“Good foreshadowing. Make note of it,” Walter hissed at Adda. He got a filthy look for his trouble.
“T’ one says ‘Mary, let me gi’ you some gingerbread to take w’ you,’ and goes inside to fetch it, but when she comes out, t’ other’s vanished, but there’s nary a print in the snow to show where. T’ woman crossed her saif in sudden fright.
“Then came t’ sexton running from the church and tells t’ woman her husband is lying dead in the graveyard. And t’is murder! ‘How murder?’ cries t’ woman. ‘Stabbed in t’ back!’ the sexton tells her. Stabbed in t’ back for revenge by the same friend who’s just been by! And, not only that…” The farmer was into it now, looking round at his rapt audience, and milking the moment.
“Go on man!” Walter said.
“Not only that, but afore he died, her man got his hands round t’ woman’s neck, and strangled her. True as I’m sitting here,” said the farmer. “Both of them were layin’ cold on the grave of t’ woman’s husband.”
As understanding settled over the crowd, there was a general exhalation of satisfaction. Walter beckoned a girl to refill the farmer’s beaker. The landlord sent the others to refill all other empty beakers.
“This woman likes me,” Walter said, “but she took the low road to hell. I want ghosts that linger and haunt and howl!”
“There’s a reiver haunts the Cheviot Hills,” a peddler said. “Geordie Campbell was his name…”
“Fuck the Campbells,” a man in a bottle green doublet said. “They’re papists to a man!”
“I would not care to say, but Geordie carried off the March Warden’s daughter, and I will say she was not fit for holy orders after.”
Amid the sniggering, men were getting up to move closer to the fire, the better to hear the peddler’s story. The man in the blue plaid kept his place in the shadows. Adda balanced his bowl and cup on top of his wallet, and carried the lot to a seat at a table that had just been vacated cattycorner of him.
Close to, deep-set grey eyes and full lips were the outstanding features of a face that was trying hard to give nothing away, and failing… As to profession-his fair hair was unfashionably long and roughly cropped, the cloak off his shoulder revealed a stout leather jerkin over a plain smock, and his hands were callused and discolored, the nails were black.
“Ga’ den, Master Smith” said Adda. The man did not deny it. “I am Adda ad Piers, and that dammed vile wight who will not keep silent yclept Walter Graham. We are Lord Brough’s Players.”
“MacLeod, yclept Connor, blacksmith of Melrose.” MacLeod’s voice was soft. It had a pleasing burr, and there was a hint of amusement in it. “Cry peace.”
“Ga’dild you, Connor MacLeod.” They touched cup to cup, and Adda smiled. The smile returned caused MacLeod to look suddenly very young, and very shy. “Peace,” Adda said. “Strewth, I’d no mind to find out if this place is still Godly.”
At he spoke, Miles, the missing member of the troupe appeared through a curtained back way. He was flushed and had his arm around the generous waist of a gap-toothed girl.
“Alack the day, I doubt it,” said MacLeod, “but the fair goes on.”
“It does,” Adda said. As it has for four hundred years.
“Do you play here tomorrow?”
“In this hall, if the Commendator accepts our warrant-which, so far, he hasn’t seen fit to do-and approves the changes. Your pardon, but I must amend these pages.”
He opened his wallet and took out inkhorn, pen, and paper. MacLeod watched him strike out lines and scribble new ones. With some surprise Adda observed that his lips were moving. “Who taught you to read?”
“A man named Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez. He was an Egyptian of great age, who taught me to read, and to win a swordfight. What is the play about?”
“Witches,” Adda said. “Your King James has written a book about witchcraft, and the Commendator must have his play about witches.”
“…Buccleuch tracked the reiver down, and slew him. They searched and searched, but found never no clue to where he’d hidden the gold…”
The peddler hadn’t the knack to tell a story that the farmer. A drover interrupted. “May hap it was fairy gold and turned into a heap of brown leaves by daylight.”
“Who’s telling this story, you or me?” said the affronted peddler.
Fortunately, the door of the hall blew open. It had opened a few times during the peddler’s tale; word of the storytelling and Walter’s offer, had slipped out the back, and was making its way around the town; this time there were indignant cries of complaint against the blast of cold air and snow that came with the new arrivals. There were louder cries for quiet, and the room quickly settled down.
They had been keeping their voices low, but MacLeod leaned closer and spoke more softly yet. “This weather…” he said. “Some whisper that it’s a judgment of God, because the Queen of England tolerates witches in her country.”
“No more than she tolerates you or me,” said Adda. “I recall other times when it was this cold and uncanny.”
“When was’t that?”
Adda considered a number of possible answers, and chose the most recent. “There was a time of cold when Justinian was emperor. It passed. This will pass.”
“…now he’s a dunnie what takes the form of a horse to trick riders into mounting him. He takes un for a gallop, and then ‘poof!’ vanishes, and leaves un asprawl in the muddiest part of the road…” There was laughter, as the tale concluded, but the audience was still skeptical.
“How does a man become one of the little people?”
“Was the reiver a dunnie a ’fore he was kilt?”
“I heard that story afore. T’wasn’t a Campbell; t’was a MacLeod; there’s fairy blood in the MacLeods.”
“S’truth! I heard that Ian MacLeod-”
“Who has another tale to tell?” Walter was quick to cut off any distractions. “Does no tragic monk haunt the ruined abbey? I reek Brother John is still sneaking into the dormer to bother the novices.”
An old man’s voice cackled with ribald glee. “I rek he’d pinch ain black and blue.”
“Peace, child!” Adda said. He spoke because MacLeod’s face had taken on its distant and remote expression. He was sear and dangerous, as a man in great pain is dangerous to all around him. “You must learn not to mind so much.”
“How can you learn not to mind?” demanded MacLeod.
“You’re teacher should have taught you.”
“Ramírez is dead.”
Ifans, the troupe’s resident comic, stood up and began to tell a tale of a watery ghost who haunted the lords of Cluceuch.
“…she’d seaweed for hair, and you could see everything she had through her watery robes, and she always came at midnight on the second day of February. Candlemass that was. None knew why she haunted them. She’d enter the lord’s bedchamber at midnight and soak his sheets, and warp the wainscoting, and rot the tapestries off the wall. When she vanished at cock crow, the whole castle smelled of decaying fish…”
“If there was one thing Ramírez should have taught you,” said Adda, “it’s that a man’s feelings change in time. Always. And you can endure until that happens. In the meantime,” he patted the bum of the girl who’d come round to refill their cups, “there is great comfort in good work, good beer, and good company. You may pardon me for saying so, and I’m sorry he’s dead, but Ramírez was a blowhard. A fine swordsman, but he told you he was Egyptian?”
“He did.”
“He was born in Duns Tew in 1345, a sort of Egyptian, and called Robyn Hogge.” Adda thought. “I suppose you couldn’t blame the geck for fabulizing.”
MacLeod looked as if he’d been struck.
“…and the lords of Cluceuch, to a man, all died in their beds, of fright or pleurisy. All but Lord Robert, that is, the only one with the stones to engage her man to ghost. ‘Twas the year he inherited. He waited up, and when she appeared, he asked who she was and why she troubled them.
“The ghost said ‘Hoo,’ t’was her revenge on that lord of Cluceuch who had been her lover in Edward Longshank’s day. She’d drowned, see, and her lover moaned and sighed and harped by the shore where she drowned, all the live long days and the long cold nights, so that she got no peace in her watery bed. In her fury, she swore against him, saying he how knew she hated sad harping, and if he would haunt her so, then she would haunt the Lords of Cluceuch, until the end of time!
“Lord Robert sympathized for the poor spirit. He said it was a sin against nature that the living should haunt the dead, and not the other way round. She wept and said it was true. Lord Robert said you’ve cursed yourself as well. Two hundred and twenty-three years! Why not give over! But the ghost said ‘cursed is cursed,’ and she vanished as the cock crew, saying they would meet again next Candlemass. Now, Lord Robert was a close man and he felt that bearing the expense of all that damage, year after year, not mention the nuisance airing the castle in February… He had the year to think and plan. Next year when the ghost appeared…”
Walter appeared, throwing himself on the bench beside Adda. He had Miles’ whore with him. He sat with a self-satisfied expression on his face, critiquing Ifans’ performance. “He tells almost as well as I do. But when he says ‘Hoo!” he should lower his voice and draw it out. Hoooo…. it wants to convey the sound of a woman wailing for her demon lover.”
“I see you’ve paid for only one man’s pint.”
“How are the pages coming?” said Walter. “Do we have a play to act?”
“Yes. I’ve changed Gluttony, Envy, Sloth, and Lust to Witch One, Witch Two and Witch Three. Less dialog, and the Commendator has his witches.”
“Wonderful! There were three witches came a’ town, by one, by tow, by three-a… Three and seven, those are the numbers of power. By the by, I am Walter, the Captain of our fairy band.”
“Peace on you, Walter.” MacLeod clasped the hand that Walter had offered.
“The king’s friend, whom he murders, comes back as a ghost, and tells him-”
“Good! Write me bloody hand prints on the walls that cannot be washed away on the walls.” Walter said.
“-and tells him to shut up! Walter,” Adda said, dangerously, “will you go away leave the word-smithing to me!”
“I would, an’ I could.” Walter looked sad at having to deny him. “You do good journeyman’s work, but you lack the true fire, the essential flame…”
“Od’s me! Spare my blushes.”
“It has to be said, heartling. You’re no Marlowe, you’re not even…”
“Give over, Walter, and leave me to my work! I have to get rid of the wife. We’re still over-parted.”
“Perhaps not,” said Walter, who, even as he’d been talking, had been taking views MacLeod’s head between his hands from different angles. “Tell me sweetling, now that we are all three sworn brothers together, do you have the itch to travel? To see the world? Do you play?”
“Never, on my life!” said MacLeod.
“Would you like to?”
“I- My father held me between his knees to hear The Miraculous Apple Tree, but I have never heard a staged play, much less…”
“When was’t The Apple Tree?” said Walter.
“’24, in the kirk yard at Argyle.”
“Great days. Great play! This one wouldn’t know a good moral tale if it bit him on the arse.” Walter gave Adda’s shoulder such an affectionate buffet that his pen stuttered. “It’s all ‘Love’s Labours Won’ with him.” He addressed MacLeod. “Think about it. It’s a boy’s part; you wouldn’t have to speak any lines, just stand there and look pretty. Pay is sixpence a day. And beer. Sometimes. And, speaking of moral tales that minds me…”
“Oh, no. Let me guess.” Adda looked up as if the virtue of patience were lurking in the rafters. “You have just met the love of your life and would like the room to you and yourself for an hour?”
Walter clapped his hand to his side, as if he had been pierced to the quick; except, after examining the hand for blood, he merely wiped it slowly down the front of his doublet. “I still live,” he said. “I was going to say that half an hour will suffice. The fair maid beside me is called Alice and if you would like a ride after me, she has expressed an interest in expanding her business and charges very reasonable rates.”
“Thank you, no,” Adda said. “Take your time; I promised Ned that I would relieve him.” Adda leaned back so he could address Alice. “Our Neddy will accommodate you, Mistress Alice,” he said. “Likely twice.”
“Your loss.” Walter helped Alice to her feet. “Come fair maid and bide a while with me. If you were only a man, and included acting amongst your bountiful attractions.”
“I expect she does.” Adda turned back to his pages. “I expect she will be acting satisfied, very shortly.”
“Is he in earnest?” MacLeod said.
“Never in this world! Except when it comes to acting. His offer is in earnest, if that’s you’re asking. We can use an extra body, especially one who can fight. You would be a ghost, a witch, and a soldier and all you have to do is stand where Walter tells you, when he tells, and for how long.” Adda looked curiously at Connor, who was watching Walter and Alice go the back way out. “No more until you are ready.”
“I’ve never given thought of being a player?”
“What’s that to the point? Are you in such a tearing hurry to get where you’re going?”
“I’m not going anywhere!”
“Exactly my point.”
“…she froze stiff as a statue and as clear as glass. Quick as he could, Lord Robert hired a boat and loaded her on it. He sailed out the middle of the Irish Sea and dropped her in, saying that if she walked back from there and appeared next Candlemass, he would tear Cluceuch Castle stone from stone and move to Glasgow Town…”
“I can finish this in the morning.” Adda scribbled a last line, and began to put his writing things away. “I’ve left Ned too long. You may come with me, if you like,” he said. “We can talk about it.”
Ifans sat down, and a fiddler who had been waiting his chance struck up an old tune. …but the broken heart it kens nae second spring again, tho' the waeful may cease frae their greeting…
“I’ll come,” MacLeod said.
The music followed them out of the hall.
The inn yard was a sea of mud, though the snow was tapering off, and the covering clouds were glowing pink from the setting sun. The sweet smell of hay and the animal warmth of the barn were welcome.
“What kept you?” Ned said, climbing down from the loft where he’d been sleeping. He bolted for the hall, and his dinner, with not a word more.
The ‘ostler and his men were in the hall, so Adda took time to assure himself that their mule, Genevieve, had been disposed in a clean stall with a bucket of sound corn. Moldy corn and foul straw had always been the proper lot of naïfs, which Adda had not been for some time before he met Walter Graham. It paid to be especially careful in times like these.
“We leave a man with the gear,” Adda said, as they climbed the ladder to the loft. “We cannot afford to have our our props and costumes mislaid. Townsmen despise us as vagrants and sturdy rogues, and when it comes to a trial between the word of a thief, no matter how well known his thievery, and the word of players, the players lose. Every time. Come up and we’ll lie down.”
A lantern hanging from a nail in a post provided light to climb the ladder to the loft. They spread their cloaks on the hay, and bundled together for warmth.
“This tour has been harder than most, what with the weather. We lost Richie back in June, and the wagon broke an axel by Loch Seille not long since. We nearly starved to have it fixed. It is rough, beautiful country, but the smith at Glenfinnan is this tight.” Adda showed a clenched fist. “We came the last way by hard hoof, on cheese and butter-milk.”
MacLeod turned to face Adda within their cocoon. “You were by Glenfinnan?” he said eagerly. “Does Ian MacLeod live?”
“The Laird? He lives. A good man. He sponsored our playing. He and his wife are the parents of a bonny black boy.”
“A boy…? MacLeod’s smile was gentle with memory. “Our Dugal would have been pleased.”
“Who was Dugal?”
“My cousin; my father’s heir, after me. Ian is his son.”
“Ah,” said Adda said. “You haven’t been home?”
“Why for?” MacLeod sighed wearily. “I refused to stay dead and it was made clear to me that witches have no place in the company of Christians. I came away in ’36, met a good woman, my Heather, and married her. One day, Ramírez found me. He told me what I was, said that I swung a sword as if I were chopping down a tree. My wife…” MacLeod fell silent.
Adda slipped an arm under his shoulders and pulled him close. “How long?” He did not need to ask to know that Heather MacLeod was dead.
“Twelve years. I’ve kept the forge here since, but… I was killed in a great bloody battle with the Murdochs. You heard a remnant of the tale that was broadcast far and wide. I have thinking that I would move south and buy a farm.”
“It’s past time for you to go.”
“I know, but it’s hard to think of leaving.” MacLeod let his head rest on Adda’s shoulder. “And this weather is poor for cattle…”
Need does not want words to speak. Adda turned MacLeod’s face up for a kiss. It was meant for comfort, but MacLeod answered it with hunger.
Jerkins were eased off and MacLeod’s smock pulled over his head. His callused fingers fumbled with the buttons of Adda’s doublets and hose, a task Adda made more difficult by taking more and deeper kisses, and further ruffling his hair. But at last the stubborn buttons and ribbons were undone, and they found themselves on their knees in shirts and hose. Glistening fig-ends touched, reached to kiss, their naked pricks proudly to measure the one against the other, quite ready to try a passage of hands.
MacLeod took hold of Adda’s hand and folded it round the width of himself, folded his hand over Adda’s. He pushed and pulled, pushed and pulled, panting, rocked himself into wild release and fell back, ruined in the straw. His hand, though, knew its work. It drew Adda down to him.
Adda, using an arm to keep his weight off of Macleod, came closer and closer, bowing over him, dripping and straining as if he, and not MacLeod, were the smith. Eventually, he could not contain himself, and gave his release with a ragged crying.
He was slow to recover, resting with his head bowed on MacLeod’s breastbone, and the breath rasping in his ears. MacLeod’s fingers were in his hair. At last, when he could he rolled off of the man, and onto his back. “I was hoping,” he gasped, “to persuade you to join us. I think I’ve spent my whole argument!”
MacLeod burst out laughing. “It was a convincing one,” he said. “You said, sixpence a day, and beer?”
“Sometimes.” Adda pulled MacLeod into his arms.
“You’ve time to think on’t,” Adda said, when he realized MacLeod had become remote and thoughtful again. “Likely, we’ll be here three days more.”
“No, the smith at Roxbury will take my forge. I was thinking my Heather lived a full life, though I could not give her children. What if my yearning for her is keeping her from Paradise? It would be a comfort if I could pay for masses for her soul. What if…”
“Hush,” Adda kissed MacLeod’s forehead. “No more what ifs. It’s only the sadness after. There are still countries where Heather may have her masses.”
They lay together, exchanging gentle caresses, and listening to the mice skittering in the feed bins.
“You write the plays. Do you ever tell stories of ghosts and…the fair folk?” MacLeod said.
“Never,” said Adda. “I only know true tales. I have a true one for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes. It’s a about a Laird in Glenfinnan whose wife bore a stillborn child and she grieved and grieved until he thought she would die of grief. Up there some keep the ways. I don’t say the Laird of Glenfinnan was one of them, but it is possible that in his despair, he went for to wander by the old standing stones, and there found a baby boy a-lying in the grass.
“The child was newborn and naked, and would have died, but he brought it home and gave it to his wife to care for. He hoped it would ease her grief. And it did; his wife recovered her spirits; the baby thrived, and grew bonny and black. The Laird was glad no one came forward to claim it, and if, in the next five years, he thought anything at all about it, it was that some poor un-chancy girl had run away to bear her bastard, and left it to die.”
“This is a true story?” said MacLeod.
“It is. It’s an old story. If Walter were telling it, he would have it happen at the same time, that there was a woman in another village nearby who bore a child the same time that did not thrive. It would eat and grow, but it would not walk, and it would not talk; it would barely lift its head, just stare with its wide empty eyes. The woman would become exhausted with the care of it, and her husband angry and sullen.
“And it would happen that one day the woman would see the Laird of Glenfinnan’s son, and be overcome with the conviction that he was her true son. The Laird and his wife would be fair, and boy black. She would go to the priest and accuse the laird’s wife of conspiring with fairies to steal her child and leave a changeling in its place.”
“What would happen then?”
“Some people would believe her. Some people would not. The priest would try to reason with her. And her husband would come home one day, and find her rocking an empty cradle. When he’d ask her where the child was, she would say that she had thrown it off the bridge into the river, to force the fairy folk to protect their changeling, and bring the real child back. She was waiting by the cradle for her son.”
“It is a heartrending story,” MacLeod said.
“Yes, it is,” said Adda. “No one would blame her if Walter were telling it, and she would still be waiting for her bonny, black-eyed boy.”
“Wait on!” Macleod lifted his head. “How does the real story end?”
“Since I am the one telling it, it doesn’t. Not for the Laird, nor his wife, nor his son, whose name, by the by, is Duncan. Not yet.”
But for you, Kind Master and Gentle Mistress, this is The End.
Author: El ratoncito Pérez
Written for: elistaire
Characters/Pairings: Adda Ad Piers (Methos), Walter Graham, Connor MacLeod. Adda/Connor
Rating: PG-13
Word count: ±5,400
Author's Notes: Anon, good friends, anon!
Summary: Ay band off itinerraunt playars att ay pervynchul Inne, ay Nyght of Ghaist Storyes & diurs Enterludyes, leedth strayte waye to Abomnible intemiseyes & Horid practicis’s b’tween tow Strayngers.
Vagrants, Rogues and Professional Deceivers
The attic or, as their host, Bailey, referred to it, ‘t’ best chamber I’ll gi’ the likes of ye’ was pitched so sharply that Adda had to enter stooped to keep from braining himself on the beams. He was sharing with Walter who had already claimed the choicer side of the bed, and now was availing himself of both bolsters to prop himself up, the better to examine the bug he was holding between thumb and forefinger.
“O’d’s blood!” he said, as Adda straightened to his full height. “What kept you? I’m foundered!”
“I felt someone walking on my grave,” Adda said. Walter grimaced at the news, although, that could as well have been because he was reducing the bug to a red smear. “D’ye ken me?”
“I didn’t fall off the hay-wain yesterday.” Walter flicked away the remains, then put his hand inside his cod, and proceeded to give his crotch a vigorous scratch.
Adda itched in sympathy. “It wanted only that to make it a perfect tour. I’ll call one of the ‘ostler’s boys; send for beer and bread.”
“No, my bawcock, we will go down and face it out, unless you want twelve onion and garlic farting merchants quartered with us. And we will go down with a peaceful mien. Father Martin-he was my Mother’s chaplain-taught me Latin, ‘mongst other things-said don’t go looking for trouble, and it won’t find you.”
“Your Father Martin was an ass.”
“And filthy old bugger, to boot. I don’t give a fig if it’s the rump of Methuselah’s own goat in the stew, or that bloody-minded Russian sod waiting to take our heads, tonight all I want is a wench and a hot meal. I am a peaceful man, a poet, and galliard, not a fighter.” He belied his own words by sitting up tying his ribbons, and then reached for the swept hilt rapier that lay with his pack open in the middle of the floor. The sheath was fine Spanish leather, the blade was excellent German steel, and the length of it exceeded the Queen’s regulations by three English inches.
Walter stood up, settling the belt hanger on his hip. “Hi-ho for Scotland,” he said. “Where God provides the meat, and the devil does the cooking! Bring your budget, darling. May hap’ we’ll be vouchsafed a miracle, and you’ll think of something we can manage the playing of.”
Below, more wagons and travelers were entering the yard under the inn’s arched gate and being greeted by ‘ostler and his boys. Walter grunted in satisfaction as they pushed their way through the crush of men and horses already arrived. “In the morning, send George and Ifans up and down the high street with the drum and the pipe.”
“Ifans won’t thank me for it.” Adda caught his wind-blown cloak about him.
“Needs must. I’ll be doubling Richie’s parts; I would kill the bastard myself, if he had not got the plague.” It had started to snow, a multitude of tiny flakes that the wind whipped into little white devils. “Rain, rain… nothing but rain for weeks,” Walter cried. “And now snow! In August! ‘Od’s love! Did you ever see such weather?”
“A perfect tour you said. It’s well we’ve secured the hall.”
It was well. A blast of heat and unwashed humanity hit them as they entered the central hall of what had once been the hostel of the nearby abbey. The room was long and high, and the roof beams black with ancient smoke. The taproom was crowded that afternoon. There were Bailey’s usual custom, the prosperous tradesmen, craftsmen and yeomen of the valley. But tonight, and for the week to come, there would be merchants, peddlers, drovers and cattle buyers, not to mention less the savory characters, such as themselves, all come together for the annual trysting fair. Bailey’s three girls were scurrying about with bowls of stew, and jugs of beer.
Their fellow players, or at least Ifans and Edgar, for Miles appeared to have vanished, were holding a court in front of the fire. They’d commandeered the end of a table and gathered about them a fellowship that was eager to complain about the weather and to trade news for gossip.
“Wat!” Edgar looked up as Walter loomed over him. “T’was a ghaist Ifans seen in the woods.”
“I told you so!” Ifans said.
“T’was a pig, you blind fool. Shift your lazy bum.” Waving at one of the girls to bring the stew and beer his way, Walter pushed a place for himself between Edgar and Ifans. That left Adda with the end of the bench and the corner of the table where there was no room to write. “Whose ghaist was’t? And what is this ‘ghaist’?” Walter said. “I’ll give you a speaking part when you learn to speak the proper English.”
Edgar grinned; he could affect a sweet high voice and played the girl well, and he knew it. “Miller’s daughter in old Boyles’ grandfather’s time,” he said. “When Miller wouldn’t let her marry the man she loved, she hanged herself. They drove a stake through her heart, and buried her at the three-way leet…”
There was a hush as he spoke, and a general signing against evil among all who could hear. There were, as well, surreptitious looks about to see who might have noted the gesture.
“…father and lover both, she afflicted with invisible fire. Their fingers and toes turned black, they saw visions of devils and hell, and died raving insanely. So she was revenged.”
“I like that girl’s style,” Walter said. “But why does she haunt the woods, and not the high road? There’s naught in the woods to afright but deer.”
“They found her body hanging from a white ash tree,” said a local farmer. “She haunts the scene of her death, as all ghosts must.”
“’S not true!” a merchant objected. “There’s a green lady at Fyvie. Was the old lord’s leman…’til he killed her and stuffed her up the chimney. She will not haunt the chimney, though; she walks the battlements crying for her lost bairn, and wailing piteously. Other than giving a man a bad fright-I’ve seen her myself, and near jumped out of my skin-she harms no one.”
“A pox on your green lady!” Walter stood up and held up his beaker. “I, Walter Graham, Master of Lord Willoughby Brough’s Players, and I will stand the tab of any man who tells me a better tale!”
Instantly, a babble of voices rose. The landlord popped out of the kitchen to see what was amiss. He stayed to listen, though, when a yeoman, a bolder man than his neighbors, called out, “What kind of tale?”
“A ghost story! Give me malignant specters, grim eyed, fierce and bloody. Give me vengeful spirits, seeking redress for their unjust deaths. Give me dreamers of long lost dreams who haunt the living yet!” Walter’s dramatic gestures attracted every eye. His trained voice carried to every part of the room.
“My neighbor’s wife’s mother’s cousin met a malignant spirit,” said the bold farmer.
“Tell it me!” Walter said. Others called out: “Hear him! Hear him!”
Silence settled over the room, as every person in it gave the farmer their attention. Every person, but one-a man in a blue plaid cloak who was sitting alone in the shadows on the far side of the fireplace. Adda had felt the force of his regard from the moment he and Walter had entered the hall. His gaze had followed them as they crossed to Edgar’s table. Adda took the opportunity to return the man’s attention. There was, of course, no telling, but he appeared young. They exchanged discreet bobs of the head.
“She knew t’ woman; t’was one of her gossips,” the farmer said. “They’d fell out, and did not speak for most of a year, when t’ one’s husband killed t’ other’s husband. Then come Christmas Day, t’ one sees her friend walking over t’ snow by the croft and, thinking she’s come to visit at last, invites her in. T’ other says ‘no, Annie MacKeel, I’ve just come from t’ graveyard and must hurry on; I’ve a long way yet to go…”
“Good foreshadowing. Make note of it,” Walter hissed at Adda. He got a filthy look for his trouble.
“T’ one says ‘Mary, let me gi’ you some gingerbread to take w’ you,’ and goes inside to fetch it, but when she comes out, t’ other’s vanished, but there’s nary a print in the snow to show where. T’ woman crossed her saif in sudden fright.
“Then came t’ sexton running from the church and tells t’ woman her husband is lying dead in the graveyard. And t’is murder! ‘How murder?’ cries t’ woman. ‘Stabbed in t’ back!’ the sexton tells her. Stabbed in t’ back for revenge by the same friend who’s just been by! And, not only that…” The farmer was into it now, looking round at his rapt audience, and milking the moment.
“Go on man!” Walter said.
“Not only that, but afore he died, her man got his hands round t’ woman’s neck, and strangled her. True as I’m sitting here,” said the farmer. “Both of them were layin’ cold on the grave of t’ woman’s husband.”
As understanding settled over the crowd, there was a general exhalation of satisfaction. Walter beckoned a girl to refill the farmer’s beaker. The landlord sent the others to refill all other empty beakers.
“This woman likes me,” Walter said, “but she took the low road to hell. I want ghosts that linger and haunt and howl!”
“There’s a reiver haunts the Cheviot Hills,” a peddler said. “Geordie Campbell was his name…”
“Fuck the Campbells,” a man in a bottle green doublet said. “They’re papists to a man!”
“I would not care to say, but Geordie carried off the March Warden’s daughter, and I will say she was not fit for holy orders after.”
Amid the sniggering, men were getting up to move closer to the fire, the better to hear the peddler’s story. The man in the blue plaid kept his place in the shadows. Adda balanced his bowl and cup on top of his wallet, and carried the lot to a seat at a table that had just been vacated cattycorner of him.
Close to, deep-set grey eyes and full lips were the outstanding features of a face that was trying hard to give nothing away, and failing… As to profession-his fair hair was unfashionably long and roughly cropped, the cloak off his shoulder revealed a stout leather jerkin over a plain smock, and his hands were callused and discolored, the nails were black.
“Ga’ den, Master Smith” said Adda. The man did not deny it. “I am Adda ad Piers, and that dammed vile wight who will not keep silent yclept Walter Graham. We are Lord Brough’s Players.”
“MacLeod, yclept Connor, blacksmith of Melrose.” MacLeod’s voice was soft. It had a pleasing burr, and there was a hint of amusement in it. “Cry peace.”
“Ga’dild you, Connor MacLeod.” They touched cup to cup, and Adda smiled. The smile returned caused MacLeod to look suddenly very young, and very shy. “Peace,” Adda said. “Strewth, I’d no mind to find out if this place is still Godly.”
At he spoke, Miles, the missing member of the troupe appeared through a curtained back way. He was flushed and had his arm around the generous waist of a gap-toothed girl.
“Alack the day, I doubt it,” said MacLeod, “but the fair goes on.”
“It does,” Adda said. As it has for four hundred years.
“Do you play here tomorrow?”
“In this hall, if the Commendator accepts our warrant-which, so far, he hasn’t seen fit to do-and approves the changes. Your pardon, but I must amend these pages.”
He opened his wallet and took out inkhorn, pen, and paper. MacLeod watched him strike out lines and scribble new ones. With some surprise Adda observed that his lips were moving. “Who taught you to read?”
“A man named Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez. He was an Egyptian of great age, who taught me to read, and to win a swordfight. What is the play about?”
“Witches,” Adda said. “Your King James has written a book about witchcraft, and the Commendator must have his play about witches.”
“…Buccleuch tracked the reiver down, and slew him. They searched and searched, but found never no clue to where he’d hidden the gold…”
The peddler hadn’t the knack to tell a story that the farmer. A drover interrupted. “May hap it was fairy gold and turned into a heap of brown leaves by daylight.”
“Who’s telling this story, you or me?” said the affronted peddler.
Fortunately, the door of the hall blew open. It had opened a few times during the peddler’s tale; word of the storytelling and Walter’s offer, had slipped out the back, and was making its way around the town; this time there were indignant cries of complaint against the blast of cold air and snow that came with the new arrivals. There were louder cries for quiet, and the room quickly settled down.
They had been keeping their voices low, but MacLeod leaned closer and spoke more softly yet. “This weather…” he said. “Some whisper that it’s a judgment of God, because the Queen of England tolerates witches in her country.”
“No more than she tolerates you or me,” said Adda. “I recall other times when it was this cold and uncanny.”
“When was’t that?”
Adda considered a number of possible answers, and chose the most recent. “There was a time of cold when Justinian was emperor. It passed. This will pass.”
“…now he’s a dunnie what takes the form of a horse to trick riders into mounting him. He takes un for a gallop, and then ‘poof!’ vanishes, and leaves un asprawl in the muddiest part of the road…” There was laughter, as the tale concluded, but the audience was still skeptical.
“How does a man become one of the little people?”
“Was the reiver a dunnie a ’fore he was kilt?”
“I heard that story afore. T’wasn’t a Campbell; t’was a MacLeod; there’s fairy blood in the MacLeods.”
“S’truth! I heard that Ian MacLeod-”
“Who has another tale to tell?” Walter was quick to cut off any distractions. “Does no tragic monk haunt the ruined abbey? I reek Brother John is still sneaking into the dormer to bother the novices.”
An old man’s voice cackled with ribald glee. “I rek he’d pinch ain black and blue.”
“Peace, child!” Adda said. He spoke because MacLeod’s face had taken on its distant and remote expression. He was sear and dangerous, as a man in great pain is dangerous to all around him. “You must learn not to mind so much.”
“How can you learn not to mind?” demanded MacLeod.
“You’re teacher should have taught you.”
“Ramírez is dead.”
Ifans, the troupe’s resident comic, stood up and began to tell a tale of a watery ghost who haunted the lords of Cluceuch.
“…she’d seaweed for hair, and you could see everything she had through her watery robes, and she always came at midnight on the second day of February. Candlemass that was. None knew why she haunted them. She’d enter the lord’s bedchamber at midnight and soak his sheets, and warp the wainscoting, and rot the tapestries off the wall. When she vanished at cock crow, the whole castle smelled of decaying fish…”
“If there was one thing Ramírez should have taught you,” said Adda, “it’s that a man’s feelings change in time. Always. And you can endure until that happens. In the meantime,” he patted the bum of the girl who’d come round to refill their cups, “there is great comfort in good work, good beer, and good company. You may pardon me for saying so, and I’m sorry he’s dead, but Ramírez was a blowhard. A fine swordsman, but he told you he was Egyptian?”
“He did.”
“He was born in Duns Tew in 1345, a sort of Egyptian, and called Robyn Hogge.” Adda thought. “I suppose you couldn’t blame the geck for fabulizing.”
MacLeod looked as if he’d been struck.
“…and the lords of Cluceuch, to a man, all died in their beds, of fright or pleurisy. All but Lord Robert, that is, the only one with the stones to engage her man to ghost. ‘Twas the year he inherited. He waited up, and when she appeared, he asked who she was and why she troubled them.
“The ghost said ‘Hoo,’ t’was her revenge on that lord of Cluceuch who had been her lover in Edward Longshank’s day. She’d drowned, see, and her lover moaned and sighed and harped by the shore where she drowned, all the live long days and the long cold nights, so that she got no peace in her watery bed. In her fury, she swore against him, saying he how knew she hated sad harping, and if he would haunt her so, then she would haunt the Lords of Cluceuch, until the end of time!
“Lord Robert sympathized for the poor spirit. He said it was a sin against nature that the living should haunt the dead, and not the other way round. She wept and said it was true. Lord Robert said you’ve cursed yourself as well. Two hundred and twenty-three years! Why not give over! But the ghost said ‘cursed is cursed,’ and she vanished as the cock crew, saying they would meet again next Candlemass. Now, Lord Robert was a close man and he felt that bearing the expense of all that damage, year after year, not mention the nuisance airing the castle in February… He had the year to think and plan. Next year when the ghost appeared…”
Walter appeared, throwing himself on the bench beside Adda. He had Miles’ whore with him. He sat with a self-satisfied expression on his face, critiquing Ifans’ performance. “He tells almost as well as I do. But when he says ‘Hoo!” he should lower his voice and draw it out. Hoooo…. it wants to convey the sound of a woman wailing for her demon lover.”
“I see you’ve paid for only one man’s pint.”
“How are the pages coming?” said Walter. “Do we have a play to act?”
“Yes. I’ve changed Gluttony, Envy, Sloth, and Lust to Witch One, Witch Two and Witch Three. Less dialog, and the Commendator has his witches.”
“Wonderful! There were three witches came a’ town, by one, by tow, by three-a… Three and seven, those are the numbers of power. By the by, I am Walter, the Captain of our fairy band.”
“Peace on you, Walter.” MacLeod clasped the hand that Walter had offered.
“The king’s friend, whom he murders, comes back as a ghost, and tells him-”
“Good! Write me bloody hand prints on the walls that cannot be washed away on the walls.” Walter said.
“-and tells him to shut up! Walter,” Adda said, dangerously, “will you go away leave the word-smithing to me!”
“I would, an’ I could.” Walter looked sad at having to deny him. “You do good journeyman’s work, but you lack the true fire, the essential flame…”
“Od’s me! Spare my blushes.”
“It has to be said, heartling. You’re no Marlowe, you’re not even…”
“Give over, Walter, and leave me to my work! I have to get rid of the wife. We’re still over-parted.”
“Perhaps not,” said Walter, who, even as he’d been talking, had been taking views MacLeod’s head between his hands from different angles. “Tell me sweetling, now that we are all three sworn brothers together, do you have the itch to travel? To see the world? Do you play?”
“Never, on my life!” said MacLeod.
“Would you like to?”
“I- My father held me between his knees to hear The Miraculous Apple Tree, but I have never heard a staged play, much less…”
“When was’t The Apple Tree?” said Walter.
“’24, in the kirk yard at Argyle.”
“Great days. Great play! This one wouldn’t know a good moral tale if it bit him on the arse.” Walter gave Adda’s shoulder such an affectionate buffet that his pen stuttered. “It’s all ‘Love’s Labours Won’ with him.” He addressed MacLeod. “Think about it. It’s a boy’s part; you wouldn’t have to speak any lines, just stand there and look pretty. Pay is sixpence a day. And beer. Sometimes. And, speaking of moral tales that minds me…”
“Oh, no. Let me guess.” Adda looked up as if the virtue of patience were lurking in the rafters. “You have just met the love of your life and would like the room to you and yourself for an hour?”
Walter clapped his hand to his side, as if he had been pierced to the quick; except, after examining the hand for blood, he merely wiped it slowly down the front of his doublet. “I still live,” he said. “I was going to say that half an hour will suffice. The fair maid beside me is called Alice and if you would like a ride after me, she has expressed an interest in expanding her business and charges very reasonable rates.”
“Thank you, no,” Adda said. “Take your time; I promised Ned that I would relieve him.” Adda leaned back so he could address Alice. “Our Neddy will accommodate you, Mistress Alice,” he said. “Likely twice.”
“Your loss.” Walter helped Alice to her feet. “Come fair maid and bide a while with me. If you were only a man, and included acting amongst your bountiful attractions.”
“I expect she does.” Adda turned back to his pages. “I expect she will be acting satisfied, very shortly.”
“Is he in earnest?” MacLeod said.
“Never in this world! Except when it comes to acting. His offer is in earnest, if that’s you’re asking. We can use an extra body, especially one who can fight. You would be a ghost, a witch, and a soldier and all you have to do is stand where Walter tells you, when he tells, and for how long.” Adda looked curiously at Connor, who was watching Walter and Alice go the back way out. “No more until you are ready.”
“I’ve never given thought of being a player?”
“What’s that to the point? Are you in such a tearing hurry to get where you’re going?”
“I’m not going anywhere!”
“Exactly my point.”
“…she froze stiff as a statue and as clear as glass. Quick as he could, Lord Robert hired a boat and loaded her on it. He sailed out the middle of the Irish Sea and dropped her in, saying that if she walked back from there and appeared next Candlemass, he would tear Cluceuch Castle stone from stone and move to Glasgow Town…”
“I can finish this in the morning.” Adda scribbled a last line, and began to put his writing things away. “I’ve left Ned too long. You may come with me, if you like,” he said. “We can talk about it.”
Ifans sat down, and a fiddler who had been waiting his chance struck up an old tune. …but the broken heart it kens nae second spring again, tho' the waeful may cease frae their greeting…
“I’ll come,” MacLeod said.
The music followed them out of the hall.
The inn yard was a sea of mud, though the snow was tapering off, and the covering clouds were glowing pink from the setting sun. The sweet smell of hay and the animal warmth of the barn were welcome.
“What kept you?” Ned said, climbing down from the loft where he’d been sleeping. He bolted for the hall, and his dinner, with not a word more.
The ‘ostler and his men were in the hall, so Adda took time to assure himself that their mule, Genevieve, had been disposed in a clean stall with a bucket of sound corn. Moldy corn and foul straw had always been the proper lot of naïfs, which Adda had not been for some time before he met Walter Graham. It paid to be especially careful in times like these.
“We leave a man with the gear,” Adda said, as they climbed the ladder to the loft. “We cannot afford to have our our props and costumes mislaid. Townsmen despise us as vagrants and sturdy rogues, and when it comes to a trial between the word of a thief, no matter how well known his thievery, and the word of players, the players lose. Every time. Come up and we’ll lie down.”
A lantern hanging from a nail in a post provided light to climb the ladder to the loft. They spread their cloaks on the hay, and bundled together for warmth.
“This tour has been harder than most, what with the weather. We lost Richie back in June, and the wagon broke an axel by Loch Seille not long since. We nearly starved to have it fixed. It is rough, beautiful country, but the smith at Glenfinnan is this tight.” Adda showed a clenched fist. “We came the last way by hard hoof, on cheese and butter-milk.”
MacLeod turned to face Adda within their cocoon. “You were by Glenfinnan?” he said eagerly. “Does Ian MacLeod live?”
“The Laird? He lives. A good man. He sponsored our playing. He and his wife are the parents of a bonny black boy.”
“A boy…? MacLeod’s smile was gentle with memory. “Our Dugal would have been pleased.”
“Who was Dugal?”
“My cousin; my father’s heir, after me. Ian is his son.”
“Ah,” said Adda said. “You haven’t been home?”
“Why for?” MacLeod sighed wearily. “I refused to stay dead and it was made clear to me that witches have no place in the company of Christians. I came away in ’36, met a good woman, my Heather, and married her. One day, Ramírez found me. He told me what I was, said that I swung a sword as if I were chopping down a tree. My wife…” MacLeod fell silent.
Adda slipped an arm under his shoulders and pulled him close. “How long?” He did not need to ask to know that Heather MacLeod was dead.
“Twelve years. I’ve kept the forge here since, but… I was killed in a great bloody battle with the Murdochs. You heard a remnant of the tale that was broadcast far and wide. I have thinking that I would move south and buy a farm.”
“It’s past time for you to go.”
“I know, but it’s hard to think of leaving.” MacLeod let his head rest on Adda’s shoulder. “And this weather is poor for cattle…”
Need does not want words to speak. Adda turned MacLeod’s face up for a kiss. It was meant for comfort, but MacLeod answered it with hunger.
Jerkins were eased off and MacLeod’s smock pulled over his head. His callused fingers fumbled with the buttons of Adda’s doublets and hose, a task Adda made more difficult by taking more and deeper kisses, and further ruffling his hair. But at last the stubborn buttons and ribbons were undone, and they found themselves on their knees in shirts and hose. Glistening fig-ends touched, reached to kiss, their naked pricks proudly to measure the one against the other, quite ready to try a passage of hands.
MacLeod took hold of Adda’s hand and folded it round the width of himself, folded his hand over Adda’s. He pushed and pulled, pushed and pulled, panting, rocked himself into wild release and fell back, ruined in the straw. His hand, though, knew its work. It drew Adda down to him.
Adda, using an arm to keep his weight off of Macleod, came closer and closer, bowing over him, dripping and straining as if he, and not MacLeod, were the smith. Eventually, he could not contain himself, and gave his release with a ragged crying.
He was slow to recover, resting with his head bowed on MacLeod’s breastbone, and the breath rasping in his ears. MacLeod’s fingers were in his hair. At last, when he could he rolled off of the man, and onto his back. “I was hoping,” he gasped, “to persuade you to join us. I think I’ve spent my whole argument!”
MacLeod burst out laughing. “It was a convincing one,” he said. “You said, sixpence a day, and beer?”
“Sometimes.” Adda pulled MacLeod into his arms.
“You’ve time to think on’t,” Adda said, when he realized MacLeod had become remote and thoughtful again. “Likely, we’ll be here three days more.”
“No, the smith at Roxbury will take my forge. I was thinking my Heather lived a full life, though I could not give her children. What if my yearning for her is keeping her from Paradise? It would be a comfort if I could pay for masses for her soul. What if…”
“Hush,” Adda kissed MacLeod’s forehead. “No more what ifs. It’s only the sadness after. There are still countries where Heather may have her masses.”
They lay together, exchanging gentle caresses, and listening to the mice skittering in the feed bins.
“You write the plays. Do you ever tell stories of ghosts and…the fair folk?” MacLeod said.
“Never,” said Adda. “I only know true tales. I have a true one for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes. It’s a about a Laird in Glenfinnan whose wife bore a stillborn child and she grieved and grieved until he thought she would die of grief. Up there some keep the ways. I don’t say the Laird of Glenfinnan was one of them, but it is possible that in his despair, he went for to wander by the old standing stones, and there found a baby boy a-lying in the grass.
“The child was newborn and naked, and would have died, but he brought it home and gave it to his wife to care for. He hoped it would ease her grief. And it did; his wife recovered her spirits; the baby thrived, and grew bonny and black. The Laird was glad no one came forward to claim it, and if, in the next five years, he thought anything at all about it, it was that some poor un-chancy girl had run away to bear her bastard, and left it to die.”
“This is a true story?” said MacLeod.
“It is. It’s an old story. If Walter were telling it, he would have it happen at the same time, that there was a woman in another village nearby who bore a child the same time that did not thrive. It would eat and grow, but it would not walk, and it would not talk; it would barely lift its head, just stare with its wide empty eyes. The woman would become exhausted with the care of it, and her husband angry and sullen.
“And it would happen that one day the woman would see the Laird of Glenfinnan’s son, and be overcome with the conviction that he was her true son. The Laird and his wife would be fair, and boy black. She would go to the priest and accuse the laird’s wife of conspiring with fairies to steal her child and leave a changeling in its place.”
“What would happen then?”
“Some people would believe her. Some people would not. The priest would try to reason with her. And her husband would come home one day, and find her rocking an empty cradle. When he’d ask her where the child was, she would say that she had thrown it off the bridge into the river, to force the fairy folk to protect their changeling, and bring the real child back. She was waiting by the cradle for her son.”
“It is a heartrending story,” MacLeod said.
“Yes, it is,” said Adda. “No one would blame her if Walter were telling it, and she would still be waiting for her bonny, black-eyed boy.”
“Wait on!” Macleod lifted his head. “How does the real story end?”
“Since I am the one telling it, it doesn’t. Not for the Laird, nor his wife, nor his son, whose name, by the by, is Duncan. Not yet.”
But for you, Kind Master and Gentle Mistress, this is The End.