Highland Ballad Part 22

"You have been less than kind to her."

Stephen felt the color rising at the back of his neck. "I didn't know, until a few days ago."

"And how do you feel towards her now?"

"That's none of your affair!" he cried, whirling angrily. He would have advanced, but Michael straightened and pointed the gun squarely at his chest.

"That's enough. Save your anger for the digging." The other relented, but did not turn away.

"Very well," continued Michael. "I will a.s.sume from the heat of your answer that you care for her, and perhaps are not altogether happy that she has been locked away."

"Why in h.e.l.l do you think I'm here?" he snapped. "You b.l.o.o.d.y savages think you're the only ones to stand up for something? I stood up for Mary, and look what became of it." He threw down the shovel in disgust. "Do you think I'm glad at what's happened? I promised to protect her! My father will pay for what he's done to me."

Michael watched the younger man's face intently, searching for any sign of deceit. He found none.

It seemed almost too good to be true. Not only might this man's emotions be turned toward freeing the women. . .but by all appearances he was as shallow and guileless as his father was deep and cunning.

But he knew better than to hope too much, or to show his true feelings, at all.

"Well. Leaving 'b.l.o.o.d.y savages' aside for the moment, perhaps we are not as far apart as I feared." He lowered the weapon, leaned back against the tree. "Calm yourself, and perhaps we can talk as reasonable men.

"All right," he continued. "Here, then, is what I'm offering. Your freedom, in exchange for the safe deliverance of Mary and the widow Scott. In this you may serve me as ally, or hostage. The choice is yours."

"If you want them back," said Stephen, "then let me go now. Give me Stubb's horse, and a weapon to protect myself. All I have to do is reach Earl Arthur, and tell him my story. My father will lose all power over their fate, and a good many other things as well."

"You will forgive me," replied Michael, "if I am not as confident of English justice as you are. After they are rescued, you may do what you like to hurt your father. Not before."

Stephen looked hard at him, first in anger, then in disbelief.

"You're not serious. You can't expect to win them from the Tower by stealth? It's over two hundred feet high. Inside the castle are scores of armed soldiers, with a thousand more garrisoned less than two miles away. We don't even know which cell they're in, or if they're still together."

Michael grimaced, releasing a heavy breath. Though in his heart he knew the grim realities, to hear them spoken was still disquieting.

"I do not say it will be easy, or without danger. I only know that between you and I. . .we've got to find a way." He stiffened. "Look at me, Purceville, square in the eye. As you love your sister, and on your word as an Englishman, will you help me to free her? For I tell you, in the eyes of G.o.d we can do no less."

Stephen did not answer at first, but stood returning his captor's firm gaze. "Why do you ask me to swear as an Englishman? What makes you think any promise will bind me?"

"Because I know that's important to you. And because I believe that in spite of yourself, deep down, you are an honorable man." The other turned away. "Listen to me. Sooner or later you've got to choose between good and evil, right and wrong. There's no middle ground. And the line between them's got nothing to do with country, or birthright, but the way a man acts in the role, the place he's been given. I'm asking you now, not as a Highlander to a Red-coat, a commoner to n.o.bility, or any other distinction you care to draw. I'm asking you as a man, to another man.

Won't you help me, in what we both know is right?"

"You're very naive."

"No. G.o.d d.a.m.n it, Purceville, listen! No man has greater reason to hate and mistrust than I have. You've taken everything: my youth, my health, my home, and now the only ones I love in all the world. But I refuse to hate you. I refuse to stoop so low, to believe in so little, to sell my honor and my hope for that b.a.s.t.a.r.d emotion. There is no greater defiance than that.

"Think! Have you never loved someone you should have hated? Or held on to something you were told you must surrender? We share the same needs, the worst of us, as we share the same flesh. Stephen. You and I, we've got to trust each other. We've got to get them out."

"While you hold the gun, and I dig the grave?"

"No." Michael opened his coat, and tucked the pistol once more beneath his belt. "Come back to the house with me now---don't try anything foolish---and I'll find you something to eat. By rights I should dig this grave myself."

"And the horse?"

"I will use it to bear the body, and keep it close to me at all times.

I said trust, Stephen, not stupidity. Trust isn't blind, any more than faith is, if it's real."

"Faith in what? In G.o.d? You're dreaming."

"Call it G.o.d, or Life, or anything else you like. I haven't given up on it. Because no matter how close I've come to it, Death has never had the final word. My flesh still lives, and therefore my hope. Maybe I am dreaming. But without dreams a man's got nothing, nothing at all."

Stephen looked down, undecided.

"So what's to keep me from walking out, except the threat of a shot in the back?"

"I won't shoot you. If you want to walk out into hostile country, a wanted man, that's up to you. But I wouldn't give a ha'penny for your life, if you run afoul of that man Ballard. At least you know, or you should, that I'm an honorable man."

"You speak of honor," said Stephen, "and trust. And yet you won't even tell me your name. Don't I deserve that much?"

"I will tell you that when we have set them free, along with anything else you like. I don't ask you to understand that, just accept it.

Anonymity is my one defense. That's the way it is."

... "I need time to think," said Stephen finally.

"And you shall have it. After I finish here I've got a long ride ahead of me, to make preparations. You shall have most of the day. But whatever you decide, we must be gone from here tonight. If I know human nature, your Ballard won't send anyone to relieve his comrade, or come himself, till tomorrow at least. Be we can't take that chance."

"And what if he comes back today? You're not going to bind me, and leave me here without a weapon?"

"I'm not going to bind you at all. As for a weapon, you've got surprise. And you've got something far more lethal. The human mind, and will to survive, are not to be underestimated." He shaded his eyes and looked up, saw the sun already approaching the noon. "Enough of this. You've got to eat, and then think. I've got to work."

Without further speech, they set out for the cottage. But as Stephen pa.s.sed the grave of Michael Scott, he could not help but wonder at the ident.i.ty of his worn but indomitable deliverer. And looking back to the place where Stubb would lie, who but a day before had walked and breathed, been proud, and stubborn, and afraid like himself, he felt a cold shudder run through him.

For he, too, had been given a taste of Death.

Twenty-Nine

Michael rode in full daylight toward the sea. It was a little used road, linking the fis.h.i.+ng village of Kroe to the uplands; and if what Purceville said was true, he was, for the moment, no longer a wanted man. But he had little choice in any case. Riding against the sea-winds at night would be the death of him, and plans must be laid for the twilight after next.

Even so, he could not help feeling apprehensive as he slowed his horse to a canter, and turned down the single brick street of the town, overlooking the bay, then the sea beyond. As he pa.s.sed through its center---small shops, a public house, plain, two story homes joined at the shoulder---he found himself looking down and straight ahead, subconsciously drawing his shoulders together as if to fade into every shadow, afraid of every eye. James Talbert's phrase, "skulking thieves," came back to him. At the same moment he pa.s.sed a st.u.r.dy lad of fifteen or thereabouts, who looked up at him with a fearless eye, almost mocking.

And all at once his fugitive life became intolerable. For in the boy he had seen himself, half a lifetime before.

With sudden resolution he checked his horse, and sat up straight and proud in the saddle. Shading his eyes he looked out to the sea, and beyond. Somewhere, across the unfathomable waters, there had to be a better life: a new land, where he could start again.

He would never submit to Imperial rule; this he knew with absolute certainty. And he would not live like this. What had begun in his mind as a means of short-term escape---fleeing the Castle by sea---now branched out into thoughts of a new home, a new world, where the skies were freer and a man could still dream.

He turned back again to the hills of his beloved Scotland, the land of his birth. A great sorrow filled him, and an ache that was almost physical gripped his chest, for a dream that had died, and a home that was lost.

But the past was gone, and there was no returning. He must look to the future. He must live free or die.