The daughters-in-law were both hostile, in very different ways. Hardly surprising, she thought, if it means the land must be further divided. I must check that with Lady Stewart. She considered the two women, Mòr tall and sardonic and simply, politely, hostile, with her prodding remarks designed to trip Davie into giving himself away as an impostor, none of which had yet succeeded; Caterin, oddly ambivalent, jealous perhaps of Davie’s effect on her son, and yet valuing his ability to soothe the boy, as well as wary of his claim on the estate. She thought again of the searing bitterness in the woman’s face as she watched Davie singing.
The door creaked thinly again, the latch clicked, those small movements reached her. Whoever it was, returning.
Turning all this over in her head, she must have drifted into sleep, because she dreamed about the shouting before she realized she was hearing it. Then there were dogs barking, and she was awake in a muddle of arms and legs. The girls were exclaiming in Ersche, and Socrates spoke urgently by the bed-curtains in the soft, embarrassed bark he used indoors.
‘What is it?’ she asked, and realized that some of the shouting was Steenie’s voice.
‘Fire! Fire! Rouse the ferm! Fire!’
‘Our Lady protect us!’ she said, and tumbled out of the bed after Ailidh, in time to see Mòr kindling a light which showed Jamie struggling into his huge sark. He pulled it down round his knees and seized his belt, fumbling with the buckle as he hurried out of the door. Alys identified her own kirtle by touch and dived into it, stepped into her shoes, and followed the other women out into the noise of the yard, the dog anxious against her knee.
It was the thatch of Mistress Drummond’s house which was burning, and it was well alight already. Bright flames leapt from the bundled bracken, smoke towered in their light, a red glow showed at the house door. Alys stood frozen in horror for a moment beside Mòr’s house, the ends of her kirtle laces in her hands, then collected herself, knotted the laces, tugged at the arm nearest her.
‘Buckets!’ she said. ‘Water — where is the water?’
‘The burn,’ said Ailidh, pointing. ‘Jamie is there now.’
The men were already running back and forth, but the water they threw made little impression. First Steenie, then Murdo, appeared with pitchforks and began tugging at the eaves with it, scattering burning bracken on to the cobbles, the wooden forks beginning to smoulder almost immediately. Ailidh ran to join them, and Alys went to help handle buckets, aware of Socrates still at her knee and of the tethered horses squealing on the grazing land, the cattle bawling in the fold by the byre. Hens squawked, the changeling boy screamed somewhere, once and not again, the farm dogs were barking madly in the leaping shadows. Caterin came stumbling up the yard into the firelight, and behind her two of the tenants arrived to help, joining the bucket chain. The water seemed to come from beyond the stackyard.
Agnes raised her voice with a shrill demand in Ersche. Something about the cailleach, and then Davie’s name. Alys realized she had seen neither since she stepped into the yard. Were they still within, below the burning thatch? she wondered in horror.
At that moment Davie appeared at the door of the house, coughing, gesturing, pointing back inside. Murdo, nearest to him, thrust the pitchfork into Ailidh’s hands and ran to join him, and they both plunged into the red glow of the interior. Ailidh screamed, several people shouted, but almost immediately they reappeared, carrying the old woman as an awkward bundle between them. Patrick reached them as they staggered, received his mother’s limp form, dragged her away from the flying sparks and flakes of burning thatch to the other side of the yard. One of the younger girls followed, patting ineffectually at the burning spots on the old woman’s striped kirtle.
Under Jamie’s direction, the bucket chain was now concentrating on bringing water to the roof of Patrick’s own house, where the drifting fragments had already started one or two small blazes. Someone freed the beasts from the cattle-fold at the end of the house, and they galloped off into the night, stumbling and bawling in their rush to get away, several goats bleating shrilly among them.
Mistress Drummond had been laid down on someone’s plaid, and Patrick and Davie were both kneeling over her in the firelight, more shadowy figures beyond them. Why not take her into the house? Alys thought, and answered herself: If the house roof caught, they would have to move her again. Standing in the middle of the yard she passed empty buckets, tubs, bowls one way, full ones the other way, water slopping on her feet and skirts, the heavy wooden vessels tugging at her arms and back, while she tried to see what was happening. Behind her Steenie was arguing with Murdo, I tell you I saw it! What had he seen? she wondered, peering anxiously through the leaping firelight. Caterin and Mòr were by Mistress Drummond, conferring anxiously with Patrick, and Davie was holding the old woman’s hands, talking urgently to her.
Patrick looked up, stared around. Elizabeth ran over and seized the next bucket.
‘She is asking for you, mistress,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Will you go to her?’ She dashed at her eyes with a hand momentarily free. ‘I think she will be leaving us.’
‘Leaving you?’ Alys hurried across to the anxious group, and Davie looked up as she arrived, tears glittering on his face in the leaping light.
‘She is not good,’ he said. ‘The smoke, and the fright. I did what I could, but — ’
‘Usquebae?’ Alys suggested.
‘We tried that,’ said Caterin in the shadows. ‘Will you be listening to her, mistress? She has a word for you.’
Puzzled, Alys knelt obediently on the hard stones. The old woman did indeed look deathly, her face fallen in, her white hair tangled and sticking to her brow. Her kirtle was ill settled and unlaced, as if she had collapsed in the midst of dressing herself. From the smoke? Alys wondered. The hand which groped for Alys’s was cold, and so was the usquebae-laden breath that reached her cheek.
‘Lassie? Lassie, will you tell your man?’
‘I will,’ she promised. Tell him what? she wondered.
‘This is — truly my bairn,’ said the laboured whisper. ‘Tell him. Davie is my bairn.’
‘I’ll tell him,’ said Alys. At the foot of the folded plaid Caterin, kneeling, was intoning prayers in Ersche on a strange low humming note. Quite irrelevantly, it occurred to Alys that the boy Iain had fallen silent some time ago.
‘Just as Patrick,’ Mistress Drummond’s gaze travelled to the man kneeling by her shoulder, ‘and Jamie, and Ailidh.’ She paused to draw breath. ‘Agnes. Elizabeth. Andrew, Bethag, David. All my bonnie bairns. My son James, and Caterin’s James, and Iain. Mòr, Caterin, my dear good-daughters.’
‘Mammy!’ said Davie in anguish. She opened her eyes again and smiled at him, and he leaned forward, made the sign of the Cross over her lips with his thumb, swallowed hard and began to sing. An expression of great peace came over the old woman at the first notes. It was a slow gentle song with a tune as ancient as the hymn to Angus, almost like another lullaby, but the only familiar word Alys could make out was anam, soul. It must be a prayer for the departing soul. Caterin ceased her chanting and stared, but Patrick joined in with Amen at the end of the verse. Davie went on, and one by one the family drew near until by the end of the fourth short stanza they were all close enough to sing the amen together, on two long-drawn notes.