The Road to Dundee Read online

  THE ROAD TO DUNDEE

  DAVE FREER

  About the author:

  Dave Freer is the author or co-author of some 17 novels (hard to keep track) including SLOW TRAIN TO ARCTURUS, which was listed as a Wall Street Journal sf bestseller. Various other books have been on Locus bestseller lists. He is also the author of a large number of shorter works. For a complete list and work which will be available nowhere else see http://davefreer.com/. He lives on a remote island off the coast of Australia. For more about this and links to other sites see his Amazon Author’s page.

  “The Road to Dundee” by Dave Freer Copyright © 2011.

  Electronic edition published by Dave Freer, December 2011.

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This short story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The road to Dundee

  Cauld winter was howlin’, o’er moor and o’er mountain

  And wild was the surge, of the dark rolling sea

  When I met about daybreak, a bonnie young lassie,

  Wha asked me the road, and the miles to Dundee

  Says I’ my young lassie, I canna’ weel tell ye,

  The road and the distance, I canna’ weel gie.

  Traditional Scots folk song

  Fuath:

  Mairi had sent him a message in their usual way, a note on a stolen piece of parchment, tucked into the fold of the ancient whitethorn tree that grew between the kirk and the dark pool of the burn. More superstitious folk would never have gone near the tree. It was older than the kirk itself, they said. Her father had been so proud that his daughter could cypher. He would have killed her if he had known what she wrote there. Yes, Malcolm had promised marriage, a gold ring on her finger. And she’d wanted him. Well, she’d always liked strong young men. She would smile at them, enjoying the power it gave her. They called her a wanton girl, when they thought she could not hear. But she’d never gone that far, until her trysts with him.

  And now… her courses did not run. She was two months late.

  Her father would surely kill her if there was not a wedding, and soon.

  She waited at their trysting place beneath the old stones. She was not afraid of village tales, and he was a laird’s son.

  And he was late in coming. She’d reached despair, twisting her hands, and biting her lips. Not, as in the past, to make them fuller, but in fear.

  At last there came the sound of a ridden horse, and the gleam of silver.

  He did not dismount. He stayed in the saddle, and held out a purse to her. Not knowing what else to do, she took it. “Best to make for Dundee. Aberdeen is too close.”

  She swallowed. The purse was heavy. Her mind and heart were in a turmoil. “What?”

  “You can’t stay here. You’ll bring shame and trouble to both of us.” His voice was harsh, unloverlike.

  She felt as if she was going to swoon. “But… but you promised you’d marry me,” she finally managed to say.

  He snorted. “Our stations differ. I would have told you I’d make you the Queen of the Scots to get your skirts up. Go to Dundee. You have what money I could find in that purse, to raise the child. There’s an old ring there too. I said I’d give you one to put on your finger, harlot. You can pretend you’re wed.”

  And he put his spurs to his horse, leaving her to stagger back against the stone. It was cold and hard too.

  Dundee. She’d once been as far as Aberdeen, with her father and brother. She had no idea even how far it was. She was not even sure of the direction, or which road to take.

  Mairi walked blindly, unaware of the rain and the lightning, not hearing the thunder. She could not bring herself to go home, to live with the shame and the rage.

  Dundee. The purse in her clawed hand, she walked on in the rain. And then, there was the burn, brimful and dark.

  The clothes she wore were wet and heavy. The water was a cold embrace and she felt the sheet of weed wrap around her, like a kirtle and cloak.

  And on the bank the whitethorn, old before the kirk was built, creaked, although the wind was still in eye of the storm. That which dwelt in the thorn, ancient even before the standing stones were raised, reached out to where line between spirit and flesh runs thin. It fed on Mairi’s bitterness and betrayal, her shame and hurt, and the sacrifice of her unborn babe, though she’d but thought to take her own life.

  It drew her to the place between.

  To lonely streams where the betrayed Fuath call young men to lie in their arms.

  Donald

  I had spent the night hungry and cold, and though it was not the first, I was wondering if it would be the last. Butcher Cumberland had used the summer well to hunt us like a blood-crazed wolf among the sheep.

  I’d come this far for Mary. Not that I had anything but my knife to give her. It had in been rage and bitter anger at her betrayal, when I’d got word of it, that had driven me from where I’d hidden. I’d taken up my sword, and my targe, hidden all these months in a cow-byre, and come to the lowlands.

  Married. To a gentleman of the Clan Forbes.

  And, I found, gone.

  Following a husband in the service of King George the second.

  I fondled the gold pin in my scarf and looked out from my shelter, trying to decide where I would go now.

  In the pale light of dawn I spotted the woman making her way down the glen, a frail figure, pale as the snow among the dead heather, her green kirtle whipped by the bitter wind. There were so many of them, since the rebellion. So many with no-one to care, or know if they ever reached what they dreamed might be a refuge

  She picked her way carefully across the stepping stones in the burn, and care was needed, I knew. The splashes of water froze and made them treacherous with ice. As treacherous as men.

  I stepped out of the shelter of the grey-stone ruin, a croft burned and abandoned here on the hills. There was nowhere, really, for her to run.

  She looked up at me, a young lass with blond hair. A beautiful face she had, but too pale and too thin. “Could you tell me the road and the miles to Dundee?” she asked, her soft voice quivering slightly.

  Dundee. I’d been considering making for the town myself. And scant welcome I’d find there, I knew. I’d nothing left but her gold scarf-pin, and the clothes on my back and my targe, broadsword and dagger. There’d be no work for those or for the likes of me. No shelter, no food, no women or strong ale either for that matter. There were too many of us. The roads were full of fleeing men. And it would be likely the Provost would have my name and know my features.

  She looked at the weather-beaten man. He was young yet, but his plaid was worn, frayed slightly at the edges. It had been good cloth once. He was plainly yet another duniwassil who had lost all. She liked young men, they were full of hot blood, and eager. There were so many of them, ravening across the lonely trails, hunted like the beasts they were. He looked a bit taken aback that she did not flee.

  “I can’t tell you, my young lassie,” he said, voice gruff.

  She gave him the benefit of her best smile, hiding the hunger. “Oh. I am not sure of the way. I have no knowledge of these parts.”

  “I can’t really help you. I’m a stranger here mysel’.”

  He paused and she gave him her smile again, as she stepped closer towards him. Closer. One more step to her embrace.

  “If you’ll permit me lass, I’ll convey you there.” And he held out an arm to her.”

  So willing. They always were.

  If she hadn’t appeared to stumble. Or mayb
e if she hadn’t looked so hungry… he might not have done that. She was so trusting, linking her arm with his. It was a long time since he’d as much as touched a woman. And despite the pallor, she was very beautiful. Donald shook his head. She’d never have made it all the way to the town anyway. The hills were thick with those that would rape her, rob her of the little she had, and kill her. Another body abandoned to the crows, now that they’d done their feasting at Culloden field.

  It was best not ask who she was. Best not to speak. Best to keep a distance.

  But walking all those miles it came to him that this might easily have been his Mary, alone, and seeking shelter. Afraid and friendless.

  She’d chosen another course.

  She wondered why he was so silent. Those who did not simply think to take her by force, tried their charm, not silence. She pointed to the trees. “There’s a little copse over there that might give us some shelter. I’m a little tired. My feet are sore,” she said, looking up at him with her inviting smile.

  He seemed not to see it, for he shook his head. “Lean on my arm, lass. It would not be safe.”

  And they walked on.

  The trail brought them to a neck just above the main road to the town. He could see the spires of Dundee now. And in the weak winter light he could see there were other travelers on the road beside the dark water of Loch Tay. A troop of redcoats were marching. A man and his children were driving some stirks to the town. A woman was herding some geese to market.

  And doubt began to assail him. He could not just walk into the town. Someone would recognize him. But she could and must. He’d dared this far because he knew what she’d face alone out there. Dundee… she might have kin there, or friends who would see her safe, or get her away to the low countries. And she’d not be attacked just being there. He pointed to the road: “It’d be about a mile from here, lass. I’d best not go on. You’ll be safe now. Well, safer than you’d be out here. It’s no place for a woman alone.”

  The Fuath girl knew they had walked past other men, hidden. Mile after mile, he’d escorted her, past those who were afraid, as she was, of his sword. Not because it was cold iron and pain to those cursed as she was, but because it was a sword, and he was a man used to using it. Not worth fighting for a woman.

  She’d used her art, the curse bestowed on the betrayed, on the drowned, on the spirits fated to play out their hatred in vengeance, to seduce and drink the blood of men.

  And finally, after all these years, she had failed.

  Or succeeded. There was redemption in this too.

  She took from her bosom the gold ring her false lover had given her so long, long ago. And then, looking to the spires of the town, also the purse of silver he’d given her to take the road to Dundee.

  Then she’d not known the miles or which road to take. And she’d had no-one to show her. She held out the purse and the ring to him. “Take these, gentle sir. I am grateful, more than you would know.”

  He looked shaken, but did not reach out a hand. Shook his head. “You’ll need that, lassie.”

  She shook her head. “No. It is behind me now. But give me something to remember you by, Donald. A simple token.”

  I gave her the gold pin from my scarf. It was all I had to give. It was the last thing Mary gave me before I rode out with our Prince. But that too was behind me now. Yes, I’d loved her, loved her too much to have her face what this lass must have. I’d even rather see her married to one of our foes, than raped and butchered in some lonely glen.

  She took it, and I took from her the ring and the small purse. The leather of the purse was rotten, as if it had been wet for years, and it broke into my hand spilling silver thalers from King David’s time. The ring was a man’s signet.

  It bore a crest of a clan: mine own.

  Tears blurred my eyes, briefly, as I looked at her. She was not smiling anymore. Instead, through the blur she looked tranquil, and like an angel.

  I leaned forward and kissed her cold lips.

  “You don’t even know who I am,” she said, sadly. “and still you want to kiss me.”

  “I do, Mairi,” I said, looking into her eyes. “The story of this ring came down, from father to son, across the long generations. It all came out when your body was lifted from the water. I’ve but done what that distant kinsman of mine should have done.”

  She smiled now, finally, right to the eyes, and then the sunlight broke through the clouds, shining across Dundee, shining on her. And she faded into it, like the drifting smoke.

  So I laid down my targe and my sword in the heather, and followed the road into Dundee.

  Connect with Me Online:

  Twitter: http://twitter.com/davefreersf

  Facebook: http://facebook.com/Freer.Dave

  My webage: http://davefreer.com/

  My blog: http://flindersfreer.blogspot.com/

  Table of Contents

  THE ROAD TO DUNDEE

 

 

  Dave Freer, The Road to Dundee

  Thanks for reading the books on GrayCity.Net