Vagrants, Rogues and Professional Deceivers
The bedchamber—or as their host, Bailey, referred to it, t' best room I'll gi' the likes of ye'—was the attic of the inn's newest addition. It was achieved by three steep flights clinging precariously to the outer wall and Adda was careful to duck as he entered, lest he brain himself a roof beam. He was sharing it with Walter, who had already claimed the choice side of the bed, under the peak of roof, and was currently availing himself of both bolsters.
"I suppose I should be grateful we don't have seven fart merchants quartered with us."
"Small mercies." Walter was squinting at a bug that he'd captured. "What kept you?"
"I felt someone walk on my grave," Adda said. Walter grimaced, but that might have been because he'd rendered the bug a red smear between his thumb and forefinger. "D'ye ken me?"
"I didn't fall off the hay-wain yesterday. Gah!" Walter flicked away the mess, put his hand inside his open cod and proceeded to give himself a luxurious scratching. "It wanted only that to make this a perfect tour."
"I'll call one of the 'ostler's boys and send for beer and bread."
"No, my bawcock." Walter extracted his hand and began to tie his ribbons. "We go will go down and face it out. And we go down with sober and peaceful miens. Father Martin… Did I ever tell you about Father Martin. No? He was my Mother's chaplain. He taught me Latin, 'mongst other things, and always said if you don't go looking for trouble, it won't find you."
"Your Father Martin was an ass."
"Yes, and a filthy old bugger, to boot. I don't give a fig if that bloody Muscovite sod is waiting to take our heads. If it's the rump of Methuselah's own goat in the stew, all I want is a wench and a hot meal. I'm that foundered."
Ribbons done, Walter sat.
"Bring your budget, my darling. May hap' we'll be vouchsafed a miracle, and you'll think of something we can manage the playing of."
He reached for the swept hilt rapier that lay on top of the pack that lay open beside the bed and stood up buckling the belt hanger at his hip.
"Hi-ho for Scotland!" he cried. "Where God provides the meat and the devil does the cooking!"
The yard below there was full of racket and confusion. A train of laden wagons had rolled in under the inn's arched gate. Mules were braying and drivers were calling for the 'ostler, who was shouting at his boys to get those bloody animals unhitched and stalled.
As they pushed their way through the crush, dodging hooves and horse shit, Walter grunted with satisfaction. "Come morning," he said, "send George and Ifans up and down the high street with the drum and the pipe."
"Ifans won't thank me."
"Needs must. I'll be doubling Richie's part, myself; I would kill the bastard, if he had not got the plague! What is this?!" A multitude of tiny flakes were suddenly swirling about like little white devils. The wind attempted to whip Adda's cloak away; he caught it and wrapped it tight. "Did you ever see such weather? Nothing but rain for weeks, and now snow! 'Od's love! It's August!"
"As you said a perfect tour."
"How do you want to play this?" They had reached the sheltered cover before the hall door. "Lead or follow?"
"Follow," said Adda. "I warn you, if he's six-foot-four and ugly as a baboon's ass, I intend to make like a hare and scamper."
"Don't get in my way," said Walter. "I am a poet and galliard, not a fighter. The last thing you will see of me is my heels." His weapon, on the hilt of which his hand was resting, belied his words. 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.
"There's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility," said Adda.
"Stealing from your betters, that's what I like to see."
Adda took hold of the iron door handle and pushed; a blast of heat and unwashed humanity assailed them.
The hall was high and the roof beams were black with ancient smoke. In the days before Henry VII's rough wooing, it had been the guest hostel of the nearby Abbey. There was a fire in the great fireplace and the benches were crowded. There were Bailey's usual customers—tradesmen, craftsmen, and the prosperous yeomen of the valley—tonight were combined with the cloth merchants, fleece buyers, peddlers, and drovers (as well as less savory characters, such as pickpockets, and players) here for the annual wool fair.
Their fellow players, at least Ifans and Edgar for Miles had vanished, had commandeered the end of a long table in front of the fire and were holding court. They had gathered around them a fellowship of all the men eager to complain about the uncanny weather, to drink and to trade news from the north for the gossip from the south.
"Wat!" Edgar looked up as Walter loomed over him. "T'was a ghaist that Ifans seen in the woods!"
"Told you so!" said Ifans.
"T'was naught but a pig, you blind fools. Shift your lazy bum." Walter waved at one of the girls, who were scurrying about with stew and beer, to bring both commodities his way, as he pushed a place for himself between Edgar and Ifans. That left Adda the end of the bench and the corner of the table where there was no room to write. "Who says it is a ghaist? Whose ghaist? And what is this 'ghaist'? I would have Adda write you better parts if you'd speak proper English."
Edgar gave him a cheeky grin. He knew his brogue grated on Walter, but he was a slight boy with the ability to affect a sweet high voice and no one else could play the girl so convincingly. It made him cocksure.
"Miller's daughter, in old Baileys' grandfather's time," said Ifans. "Miller wouldn't let her marry the man she loved, so she hanged herself. Naturally, they drove a stake through her heart and buried her at the three-way leet." There was a spreading hush as he spoke. There was, as well, a general signing against evil among those who heard him, not to mention surreptitious glances to see who might be making note of such a gesture. "But she was revenged. Father and lover were both afflicted with invisible fire. Their fingers and toes turned black, and they saw visions of devils and hell, and died raving insanely."
"I like this girl's style," Walter said. "Why does she haunt the woods, and not the high road? There's naught to affright in the greenwood-o except pigs and charcoal burners."
"That's where Miller found her body hanging from a white ash tree," a local said. "She haunts the scene of her death, as all ghosts must."
"'S not true!" a Tyneside merchant objected. "There's a green lady at Fyvie. T'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. She harms no one, other than giving a man a bad fright. I've seen her myself, and near jumped out of my skin."
"A pox on your green lady! She wants spirit!" Walter stood up, holding his beaker above his head. "I, Walter Graham, am Master of Lord Willoughby Brough's Players. I will stand the tab of any man who tells me a better tale!"
His trained voice touched every ear in the room. Instantly, there were cheers and a rising babble.
"A better tale that what?" A yeoman, a bolder man with a louder voice than his neighbors, roared, "What sort of a tale?"
"I want ghost stories!" said Walter. "I will have malignant specters, grim-eyed, fierce, and bloody. Give me vengeful spirits, seeking redress for their unjust murder! Give me dreamers of long lost dreams who haunt the world yet!"
"My neighbor's wife's mother's cousin met a 'lignant spec-turd," said the bold farmer.
"Hear him! Hear him!"
"Tell it man!"
Walter sat down and an expectant silence settled over the room. Bailey popped out of the kitchen to see what was amiss, but stayed to listen.
"She knew t' woman; t'was one of her gossips," the farmer said. "They'd fell out, and did not speak for a year, when t' one's husband killed t' other's husband…"
Every man, but one, gave the farmer their fullest attention. The one was a man in a blue plaid cloak, sitting alone in the shadows beside the fireplace.
Adda had sensed his presence well before he and Walter had entered the hall and had felt the full force of his pale gaze follow them across the floor.
At least he was no Slavic Goliath. He seemed young, and had watched Walter until he sat down and the farmer began his tale. Then he turned his regard to Adda. After a moment of mutual staring, they exchanged courteous bobs of the head.
"…then come Christmas Day, t' one sees her friend walking over t' snowy hill behind t' croft and, thinking she is come at last to visit, she invites her in. T' other says 'No, Annie MacKeel, I've just come from t' graveyard and I've a long way yet to go…"
"That's good foreshadowing," Walter hissed at Adda. He had caught the exchange between Adda and the stranger. "Make note of it."
Adda gave him a filthy look.
…"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, and there's nary a print in the snow to show where she was standing. T' woman crosses her saif in sudden fright.
"Then comes t' sexton, running from the church. He tells t' woman her husband is lying dead in the graveyard. 'Tis murder! 'How murder?' cries t' woman. 'Stabbed in t' back!' the sexton says. "Stabbed in t' back for revenge! And by her very same friend who she just seen go by! And, not only that…"
"Go on man!" Walter said. The farmer was into it now, glorying in his rapt audience, but milking the moment.
"Not only that, but afore he died, her man got his hands round t' woman's neck, and strangled her. Sexton says t'both of them are layin' cold on the grave of t' woman's husband." The farmer slapped his thigh. "True as I'm sitting here."
There was a general exhalation, and a deep sense of satisfaction settled over the room.
"This woman likes me," Walter said, after due consideration. He beckoned a girl with a foaming pitcher to refill the farmer's cup. Bailey sent his other girls around the room to refill all the other empty beakers. "Still," Walter said, "she took the low road to hell. I want ghosts who linger to haunt and howl!"
"There's a reiver haunts the Cheviot Hills," a peddler said. "Geordie Campbell's his name."
"Fuck the Campbells," said a man in a bottle green doublet. "They're papists to a man!"
"I would not care to say, my masters, but Geordie Campbell carried off the March Warden's daughter, and she was not fit for holy orders afterwards."
Amid the sniggering, some men began moving nearer the fire, the better to hear. There was space on the bench beside the man in the blue plaid and some men, obvious locals, gave him greetings, none sat beside him. No one took the place at the table opposite him. Not a companionable fellow then.
Finally, Adda sighed and picked up his bowl and cup, and claimed the space at the table. He could spread his things and work there.
As for the stranger, he had been young. His fair head was roughly cropped. The cloak had slipped off of one shoulder to reveal a stout leather jerkin over a plain smock, his hands were callused, the fingers and nails black with soot.
"Cry peace, Master Smith" said Adda.
The man did not deny his profession.
"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 nodded. His voice was soft, with a pleasing burr. His eyes, the outstanding feature of a face that gave away nothing away, were deep-set, grave and grey.
"Ga'dild you, Connor," said Adda, touching cup to cup.
His sudden smile caught MacLeod unaware. Returning the smile, he looked even younger, and shy.
"Your pardon, but I must amend these pages." Adda opened his wallet. He took out inkhorn, pen, and sides, and set to work, striking out lines and scribbling new ones.
MacLeod looked curiously. "You play here in town?"
"In this very hall tomorrow, if the Commendator accepts our warrant—which, so far, he hasn't seen fit to do—and approves my changes to the play."
"…Buccleuch tracked the reiver down, and slew him. They searched and searched, but found never no clue to where he'd hidden the gold…"
"What is the matter of the play?"
"It is a tale of witchcraft," said Adda. "Your King James has written a book about witches. Now the Commendator must have his play of witches."
The peddler hadn't the knack to tell a story that the farmer did, and a drover interrupted.
"…May hap it was fairy gold and turned into a heap of brown leaves by daylight."
Affronted, the peddler said, "Who's telling this story, you or me?"
At that moment, the hall door swung open. It had opened a few times as the farmer was telling his tale. Word of Walter's offer had slipped out the back, and made its way around the town. This time a blast of cold air and snow blew in with the newcomers and there were indignant howls. Fortunately, Bailey bellowed louder and his hands were the size of small hams; the room quickly settled down.
MacLeod leaned closer to Adda.
"This weather… Some are whispering that it is God's judgment for the Queen of England tolerates witches in her country."
"No more than she tolerates thee or me," said Adda. "I recall other times when it was this cold and uncanny."
"When was't?"
Adda deliberated between possible answers, and chose the most recent. "Justinian was emperor in Byzantium. It passed then and will pass now."
"In Byzantium!" MacLeod's grey eyes fixed hungrily on Adda's face. "You have been alive so long as that…"
"You have not met many others?"
"None, other than…"
"…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!' he vanishes, and leaves un a-sprawl 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," a man said. "T'wasn't a Campbell; t'was a MacLeod; everyone knows there's fairy blood in the MacLeods."
"S'truth! I heard that Ian MacLeod—"
Adda caught the flash in MacLeod's eyes. He dropped his pen and gripped MacLeod's wrist. "Forebare, child!"
There were yellowish spots in each of MacLeod's cheeks, and his lips were as white as chalk. Adda was certain he didn't see the man who gripping his wrist, but what it was that he saw Adda could not guess. The man had gone to some far cold and remote place inside himself. Adda did know that he was sear and dangerous. A man in great pain is dangerous.
"Give over!" Adda said. "Before you make a scene."
"Let me go!" said MacLeod
Adda exerted all of his strength until a slight jerk told him that MacLeod felt it. Only then did he relax his grip and allow MacLeod to pull his away.
"You must learn not to mind so much."
MacLeod glared. "How do know what I feel?"
Adda did not answer that. Eventually, MacLeod lowered his eyes and looked ashamed.
"It's not possible."
"It is. A man's feelings change. Always. In time. You will endure."
"How?"
"That is up to you." Adda picked up his pen. "For myself, I often find comfort in good work, good beer, and good company." A girl was passing and offered to refill their cups. Adda gave her a pat on the bum. "Come back later."
"Who has another tale?" Walter was on his feet again, now that the peddler was done. "Does no tragic monk haunt the ruined abbey? I reek Brother John is still sneaking into the dormer to bother the novices."
As old man's voice cackled with ribald glee. "I rek he'd pinch ain black and blue."
Ifans, the troupe's resident comic stood up. "If no one else has a story," he said, "I'll tell of the watery ghost that haunted the lords of Cluceuch. She had drowned in the loch, see. And always she appeared at midnight on the second day of February—Candlemass that was—to the Lord of Cluceuch. No one could say why. She had seaweed for hair, and you could see everything she had through her deep blue robes, and she would 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 cockcrow, the whole castle smelled of decaying fish…"
"Who was your teacher?" said Adda. "He should have taught you better than he did."
"He was a man called Juan Sánchez Villa-Lobos Ramírez."
"I know him." Adda snorted. "He's great peacock and a blowhard."
"He taught me well enough to win my fight!" said MacLeod. "Before he was killed."
"Ah! I am heartily sorry to hear Ramírez is dead, and cry your pardon," said Adda. "Stand down, my cockerel. I do not wish to fight with you, but that does not mean I would not."
"I have no wish to fight with you," said MacLeod.
"Strewth," Adda said. "I've no mind to test if this ground is still Godly. Though, I doubt it. Alack the day."
Miles, the missing member of their troupe appeared through a curtained back way with his was around the generous waist of a gap-toothed girl.
"The fair goes on," said Adda. As it has for four hundred years. "Ramírez was a fine swordsman and, whatever his faults, he never sought a fool's fight. But if he ever told you that he was an Egyptian…?"
"He did."
"Say that he was a sort of an Egyptian. He was born in Duns Tew in 1345 and called Robyn Hogge. Therefore, I, for one, cannot blame the geck for fabulizing."
For a moment MacLeod looked as if Adda had struck him. Then, suddenly, for no reason, he was laughing.
When the fit was done and he was wiping his eyes, Adda said, "His brogue didn't give his game away."
"What do Egyptians sound like? He arrived in a thunder storm and I had never been more than ten miles from home. He was a thunder storm, and I had never met anyone like him before."
"How long have you been keeping the forge at Melrose?"
"These twelve years. I came here after my wife died."
And that, Adda reflected, explained the avoidance by his neighbors. Twelve years was long enough that, even keeping himself to himself, they would begin to sense that something was particular about their surly, brooding blacksmith. And an outsider? Especially keeping himself to himself.
"…The lords of Cluceuch, to a man, all died in their beds, of fright, or pleurisy. All but Lord Robert. He was the only one with the stones to engage her man to ghost. 'Twas the year he inherited. He read his bible and waited up for her in a chair. When she appeared, he asked who she was and why she troubled his house.
"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 he sighed and he harped by the shore where she drowned, all the long days and the longer 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…!
"He tells it almost as well as I do!" Walter had appeared to throw himself down beside Adda. He wore a self-satisfied expression, and he had Miles' whore in tow, and proceeded to critique Ifans' performance. "When he says 'Hoo!' he should lower his voice and draw it out Hoooo…. Like that. It wants to convey the sound of a woman wailing for her demon lover. How are the pages coming?"
"I see you've only paid for one man's pint," said Adda.
"Do we have a play to act?"
"Soon. I've changed Gluttony, Envy, and Lust to Witch One, Witch Two and Witch Three. Less dialog, and the Commendator has his witches."
"There were three witches came a' town, by one, by tow, by three-a… That will work! Three and seven, are the numbers of power." Walter turned to MacLeod. "Good even friend, I'm Walter, the captain of our fairy band."
"G'den, Walter," said MacLeod, exchanging hand clasps.
"I think the king's good friend," said Adda, "whom he murders, will come back as a ghost, to tell him—"
"Excellent! Write me a floating dagger and bloody hand prints that cannot be washed from the walls." Walter said.
"—and tell him to shut up! Walter," Adda said, dangerously, "will you go and 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, heart. You're no Marlowe, you're not even…"
"Walter…" said Adda.
"…Lord Robert pretended to have sympathy for the poor spirit. He opined that it was a sin against nature; the living should no haunt the dead, and not the other way round. She wept and blessed him for his understand, but when Lord Robert said you've cursed yourself two hundred and twenty-three years, why not give over? The ghost said 'cursed is cursed.' 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 of airing the castle in February… He used the year to think and plan and next Candlemass when the ghost appeared…"
"Go away, Walter, and leave me to my work! I must kill you wife, or we'll still be over-parted."
"God a mercy!" said Walter, who was holding his hands up to form a view, the better for him to observe MacLeod's head from different angles. "Now that we are all three sworn brothers together, tell me, sweeting, do you have an ambition to play?"
"Never, on my life!"
"Would you like to? Travel? See the world?"
"I- My father once 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?" Walter demanded.
"Twas '24, in the kirk yard at Argyle."
"That was mine! Great days. Great tale! This one—it's all 'Love's Labours Won and Lost' with him—wouldn't know a moral if it bit him on the arse!"
To show that he did not mean the words, Walter gave Adda's shoulder an affectionate buffet, that caused his pen to spatter.
Adda looked up as if Patience were lurking in the rafters. "Walter!"
"You know we can use another boy," Walter said. Turning to MacLeod, he said, "You wouldn't have to speak lines, just stand there, and look pretty. We live healthily outdoors with the sky for our roof and pay is sixpence a day. And beer. Sometimes. Think about…ach!"
Miles' whore gave him another poke. "Wasting time, dearie."
"Thank you for reminding me." Walter addressed Adda. "Heartling…?"
"Let me guess, you have met the love of your life and would like the attic to you and yourself for an hour?"
Walter clapped his hand to his side, as if he had been pierced to the quick. But, after examining it for blood, he merely wiped his hand slowly up and down the front of his doublet.
"I still live," he said. "Half an hour will suffice. The beauteous creature beside me is called Alice. If you would like a gallop after, she charges very reasonable rates, and has expressed an interest in widening her..ah…aquaitance."
"No, thank you," Adda said. "I needs redeem my promise to Ned to relieve him." Adda leaned back and addressed Alice. "Our Neddy will accommodate you, Mistress Alice. Very likely twice."
"Your loss," said Walter. Gallantly he assisted Alice to her feet. "Come fair maid and bide a while with me. If only you were a man, and included acting amongst your manifold attractions."
"I expect she does." Adda bent over his pages. "I expect, very shortly, she will be acting satisfied."
"I heard that!"
"Is he in earnest?" MacLeod watched Walter and Alice as they went the back way out.
"Never in this world," Adda said. "Except when it comes to his art." He contemplated MacLeod's bemused expression. "The offer is in earnest; if that's what you're trying to ask. We can use an extra hand, especially one who can fight. Do you juggle or walk a slack line?
"No!"
"Then you will be a ghost, a witch, or a soldier. All you have to do is to stand wherever Walter tells you to stand, when he tells you, and for however long he. Nothing more until you were ready."
"I've never 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…!" MacLeod stopped in mid-thought.
"I didn't think so, and it's a useful skill." Adda scribbled one last line and began to put his writing things away. "I can finish this in the morning, but I've left Ned far too long. Come with me, if you like."
"…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 tossed her overboard, saying that if she could walk back from there and appear next Candlemass, he would tear Cluceuch Castle stone from stone and move to Glasgow Town!"
Ifans sat down amid applause, and a fiddler who had been waiting his chance struck up a tune.
"I'll come with you," said MacLeod. "You will tell me about the life of a player."
The music followed them out of the hall. It was an old tune.
…but the broken heart it kens nae second spring again, tho' the waeful may cease frae their greeting…
The inn yard was a sea of mud. It had stopped snowing and the hurrying clouds reflected the pink glow of the setting sun. It seemed colder. The sweet smell of hay and the animal warmth of the stable were welcome. As they entered, a sleepy voice floated down from the loft.
"Is it you Adda?"
"It is Neddy. Shift your bones! There is a woman waiting for you."
Ned climbed down from the loft and bolted for the hall, and his dinner, with not a word more said.
The 'ostler and his men had sloped off to the hall, and Adda took the time to assure himself that their mule, Genevieve, was still disposed in a clean stall with her bucket of sound corn. It paid to be careful in times like these, when moldy corn and foul straw were too often exchanged for what a man thought he had paid for. Such was the proper lot of naïfs, which Adda had not been for some time since; long before he had met Walter Graham.
"We cannot afford to have our props and costumes mislaid, so we leave a man with the gear. Should be two men, but we lost Richie in June to the plague. He had a knack for juggling and could walk the slack rope. As if that weren't enough, we broke an axel two weeks ago, up in the north that was, and nearly starved to have it fixed. We came down by hard hoof the last week, on cheese and butter-milk."
Adda lit the stub of the candle that was in a lantern hanging on a post.
"Come up and lie down."
They climbed into the loft, spread their cloaks on the hay, and bundled together for warmth.
"It's not an easy life and this tour has been harder than most, what with the weather, and the plague. Townsmen despise us as little better than vagrants and rogues, and when it comes to a trial between the word of a thief, no matter how well known his thievery, against the word of a player, the player will lose."
"Where do you travel?"
"Everywhere. York. Newcastle. Edinburgh. Wherever there is a demand for our services. We were by Loch Seille not long since!"
"You were by Glenfinnan?" Within their snug cocoon, MacLeod turned to face Adda. "Tell me if Ian MacLeod still lives!"
"The chief, himself? He lives. He and his wife are the parents of a bonny black boy. A good man. He sponsored our playing. The smith at Glenfinnan, though? That flay-flint would shear an ass." Adda showed MacLeod his clenched fist. "He's this tight."
MacLeod smiled, but it was a smile dreamy with memory.
"A boy…. Our Dugal would have been pleased."
"Who's Dugal?"
"My cousin; my father's heir, after me. Ian is his son."
"Ah," said Adda said. "You have not been home recently?"
"Why for? I was killed in a great bloody battle with the Frasiers. When I refused to stay dead 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 that I might as well be using my sword to chop down trees. He saved my Heather…"
MacLeod fell silent. Adda slipped an arm under his back, and pulled him close. "It is time you moved on."
"I have been thinking I would move south and buy a farm…." MacLeod let his head rest on Adda's shoulder. "But it's hard to think on it, and this weather is poor for cattle… Mmmm?"
MacLeod had turned his face up in response to a nudge. Adda meant the kiss for comfort, but need does not require words, and MacLeod answered him with matching hunger, and a frightful urgency.
Untangling their cloaks, Adda rolled MacLeod on top of him. He managed to get MacLeod's jerkin off of his shoulders, but the task of further undressing him was made impossible by MacLeod's insisting on attempting the fiddly little buttons of Adda's doublet.
And by their stopping for long, deep, brutal kisses
"You wear too many clothes," said MacLeod.
"Let me do it!"
"Hurry then!"
That gave the advantage to MacLeod. To be naked to the waist, he had only to pull a smock over his head. He only had to loosen two ribbons to release his burgeoning prick.
Seeing it spring from its nest of brown curls, Adda discovered that his own fingers had become inexplicably clumsy. But, at last, the fiddly buttons were undone, his breeches were open, and his prick was thrusting its head up.
Adda pulled MacLeod down and kissed him. Their pricks found each other and the feeling as the glistening acorn-tips touched was a sweet dissolving pleasure. The message of the throbbing flesh was that they were more than ready for a passage of arms. Taking hold of MacLeod's hand, Adda folded it round their doubled width and folded his own hand over all.
The hand knew its work. Pushing and pulling, panting and pushing, it drew MacLeod into a wild, crying release. The heat that issued over Adda's balls triggered his own brief, velvet death.
They were slow to recover.
Bow backed, MacLeod dropped his head to Adda's chest. His breath tickled the muscles of Adda's stomach until he rolled off into the hay, at last, and lay there gasping.
Adda reached to ruffle his fingers threw MacLeod's hair.
He said, "I was hoping, I could persuade you to join us, but I think I've spent my whole argument!"
MacLeod grinned. "It was a convincing one," he said. "Sixpence a day, and beer, you said?"
"Beer. Sometimes."
Adda gathered their cloaks and pulled MacLeod into his arms. He had become remote and thoughtful.
"You've time to think on't, Likely, we'll be here three days more."
"No, the smith at Roxbury will take my forge. I was thinking of the last story, the one your fellow told. My Heather lived a full life, though I could not give her children. What if my yearning for her is keeping her from heaven? It would be a comfort if I could pay for the 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 for Walter," MacLeod murmured. "Do you ever tell stories of ghosts and haunts and…the fair folk?" MacLeod said.
"Never," said Adda. "I only know true tales. I have one for you."
"For me?"
"Yes. It's a about a lord in Glenfinnan, much like Ian MacLeod, whose wife had born him a stillborn child. She grieved and grieved until he thought she would die of grief. Up there some keep the old ways. I don't say this MacLeod was one of them, but it is possible that, in his despair, he went for to wander by the old standing stones by the sea, and there found a baby boy in the grass.
"The child was newborn, bloody and naked. It would have died, but he brought it home and gave it to his wife to care for, hoping that it would ease her grief. And it did. His wife recovered her spirits; the baby thrived, and grew bonny and black. The lord was glad when one came forward to claim it, and if, in the next few 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."
"Is this is a true story?" said MacLeod.
"It's an old story. If Walter were telling it, he would have it happen that at the same time there was a woman in another village nearby who had born a child that did not thrive. It ate and it grew, but it did not walk, and it did not talk. It could barely lift its head and just lay there staring with its wide empty eyes. The woman became exhausted with the care of it, and her husband angry and sullen. The old people said it was a changeling."
"One day the woman saw the lord of Glenfinnan's son. The lord of Glenfinnan and his wife are fair, and boy is black. Overcome with the conviction that he was her true son, she went to the priest and accused the lord's wife of conspiring with the fairies to steal her child and leave one of their own in its place. The priest tried to reason with her, but she would not be reasoned with. And some people believed her."
"What happened?"
"Her husband came home one day, and found her rocking an empty cradle. He asked where the child was. She said that he would be home soon, but she had thrown that horrid changeling off of the bridge into the river. An old woman had told her that would force the fairy folk to protect their changeling, and to bring the real child home. She was waiting by the cradle for her child to appear."
"It is a heartrending story," MacLeod said.
"Yes, it is," said Adda. "If Walter were telling it, no one would blame her and she would still be waiting for her bonny, black-eyed boy…"
"Wait on!" Macleod lifted his head. "You said it was a true story! How did it end?"
"Since I am the one who is telling it, it hasn't. Not for the MacLeod, nor his wife, nor his son, whose name, by the by, is Duncan. Not yet."
But for you, Good Master and Gentle Mistress, this is The End.
1/11/2014