Demon Sword Read online

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  CHAPTER SIX

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  " 'Spect so." Yes, he could.

  "How 'bout one of them?"

  That was harder, of course...

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

  "Yes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Looking like this?"

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

  Hamish found that idea amusing and grinned again.

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

  "All done, is it?"

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

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

  Bryce Campbell of Crief shook his head. He leaned back, displaying his few remaining teeth in a surprising parody of a smile. "If you say it's done, Strangerson, then I know it's done and well done. There's few I would trust like that, but I t
rust you. You've never failed me yet."

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

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

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

  CHAPTER SEVEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Demons it isn't!"

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

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

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

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

  "You're the scholar. You tell me."

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

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

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

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

  Hamish prattled on about history.

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

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

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

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

  "It's mule's work, you mean!"

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

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

  Toby laughed aloud. The kid beamed.

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

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

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

  "Home!" Hamish sighed.

  "Love it, do you?"

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

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

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

  "When does courage become sheer stupidity?"

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

  "Am I?"

  "I remember my Pa telling you that."

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

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

  Toby did not comment.

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

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

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

  "I think it's worth a lot."

  Hamish brightened. "Really?"

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

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

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

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

  "This one or those two?"

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

  Honor satisfied, they scrambled from the pool.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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