Master of the Highlands

The laird cleared his throat. “Respectfully, Gormshuil, I’d have you speak your mind. I ’ve no head for songs clothed in riddles and rhymes. You know my plight. Aye, there ’s a lass, you’ve the truth of it there. But you don ’t know the weight of it. I ’m in want of your help if I ’m to return her to her rightful home, so I beg you brew the tea leaves or do what it is you do to see the way of it for me. ”



Ewen fought to mind his tongue with the old woman, but his patience was wearing thin. His grandfather once told him wise women spoke in mysterious riddles so that people not touched with the sight would be made to choose their own way. “Son ”, he’d told Ewen long ago, “the witch woman is but a torch on fate ’s dark path. Though she ’ll not guide the fall of your feet, she will light your step. ”



More than once she had favorably advised the lairds of his clan, and he knew the great risk it would be to ignore her words, but singing a song and insisting Lily was somehow his was not the sort of wisdom he sought from the old witch.



“My Lochiel”—the gravity in her voice roused Ewen from his thoughts—“’tis you who doesn ’t ken the weight of it. The star road lets but a few pass. Mind me, boy. ” The sternness of her words brought his eyes back to hers. “You neglect its signs at your peril. ”



“Are you saying” Ewen hesitated “that she ’ — — s meant to stay?”



“I’ll not say one thing or t ’other. ” She paused to consider her next thought. “Tell your lass, a person has but one present and best she open her eyes to it. ”



Ewen stared into the fire. He had just assumed Lily would return to her own time. That she could choose to stay suddenly seemed so simple, so obvious, but was nonetheless a revelation to the laird. In that moment, he experienced a flash of relief so profound, Ewen realized how his feelings for Lily had deepened. To hear Gormshuil tell it, those feelings might actually be ordained by a greater force that, in bringing Lily across time to him, played destiny’s own hand.



But then Gormshuil added in a voice once again thinned by age, “If you ’ve not the heart, boy, here ’s her path home.” She thrust a soiled sheet toward the laird. The paper was ancient, its creases nearly disintegrated from generations of folding and unfolding. He held it gently up to the firelight, studying the series of lines and points, surrounded by an ancient runic pattern. It was a crudely rendered star chart that Ewen recognized as integral to returning Lily to her own time.



“You ken Donald Dubh, aye?” Gormshuil asked, nodding toward the old parchment.



“And what Cameron doesn ’t ken their first laird? Black Donald led the clan over two hundred years ago. And what has he to do with this business?”



“Patience, lad, ” Gormshuil chastised, stabbing the stem of her pipe toward Ewen, “that’s my story, if you ’ll give me the telling of it.”



Exaggeratedly taking her time, the old woman settled her skirts, touched a stick to the fire to relight her pipe, took a few thoughtful puffs, then began, “There’s always been bickering betwixt Highlanders, oft times full war. And the earliest days of Clan Cameron saw no different. They’d the usual skirmishes over cattle and lands, and one day the chief Donald Dubh Cameron saw a friend become his enemy.



“Now”—Gormshuil paused to suck rapidly at the dying pipe as she considered “it isn’t like a Cameron— laird to shrink from battle, but for whatever reason, the Black Donald fled to Ireland.”



Ewen interjected, “And Donald ’s enemy took Cameron clan lands as his own.”



“Aye, lad, but something happened to Donald Dubh when he was in Ireland. Say what you will of the Irish”—she cackled softly “an Irishman may fritter the day, nose in — the trees on the hunt for elves, but they ’re a canny bunch. They’ve one foot in the world of the fae, and Donald Dubh Cameron, he returned from Ireland with tales of skiffling through the stars to other times. ”



“He returned with force, ” Ewen said, “taking his lands back, and beating his enemy handily. Woman, ” he chuckled, “are you meaning to tell me that Black Donald returned from Ireland with a fairy’s star chart and marshaled heroes of old to help him win his lands back?” Anger glinted in the old woman ’s eyes and she snatched the paper from the laird’s hand. She spat, “Those are your words, boy. I know not what transpired with the man, just that he returned with a bit of fae lore about the traveling through time. ” Her voice calmed, and she mused, “I don’t ken what manner of bargain the Donald struck, but this chart seems to have the good of the clan at its heart. You ’ve seen with your own eyes that the maze pulls people through, who knows what for.”



“Och,” Ewen interrupted, “Robert came through and it isn’t as though his role is clear as crystal.”



“Mmh, ” she grunted, chomping on the stem of her pipe, “and now it’s the lass, your Lily, who’s some purpose now.” Gormshuil gave an inscrutable shrug to her shoulders and handed Ewen the star chart.



“But what use are any of your papers, woman, when we can’t even find this maze?”



“The maze?” Gormshuil grinned, pipe clenched between her teeth. “Of course you can’t find the maze, lad, it’s not yet built, aye? ’Twill be built by one who comes later than you, who seeks retreat from his fate. ”



Ewen stared in impatient confusion.



“Worry not about the labyrinth, boy. It’s but a chimera concealing the true heart that lies beating within. The pattern, the lay of lines and symbols, that is the power. ” She waved dismissively to the paper in his hand. “Your lass will recognize the shapes, she’ll ken what to do. You only need to puzzle the when of it. ”



He stared at the chart, then looked at her, brow furrowed.



Gormshuil tsked. “Don’t put on the sour face with me, lad. For the nonce, the lass isn’t the only affair to vex you. You’ve ample troubles to come. Don’t be like that Irishman mooning at a tree, without eyes for the forest around you. Cromwell waits in England to set flame to tinder, and the hand he reaches into the Highlands is that coxcomb general. The man will soon bedevil you plenty, and right on your doorstep. ”



“Aye, ” Ewen sighed, “that would be Monk. ”



Gormshuil nodded. “He ’s got it in for you, boy, for some reason. ” She hooted suddenly with laughter, cut short by a racking cough. The woman spat into the fire and continued in graver tones, “Lochiel, you must heed the warning of one whose days grow short, who kens the pain of losing all to cowards in English coats. Don’t be mistaken, this Monk may be soft as uncooked pork, but he ’s tough as a withy. And he ’s taken a notion to you and that lovely spit of paradise you call Inverlochy. ”



Chapter 24



Ewen sat at his desk, absentmindedly twirling his uisgearound the heavy glass snifter. He wasn ’t a big drinker, but there was nothing like a dram of good, peaty malt to collect a man’s thoughts. He knew that first and foremost he should pay heed to her portentous prophesies about General Monk and his plans for Clan Cameron, but the laird couldn’t get Gormshuil’s words about Lily out of his mind.



Ignoring the sidelong looks of the castle staff, he ’d foregone dinner and went straight to his rooms upon his return. He didn ’t know what to make of the visit with the witch. She seemed to say one thing and then another. Or rather, sing one thing and then another. He knew she wouldn ’t tell him the path he was to take, but it certainly seemed as if she was trying to give him a hint. He just couldn ’t believe it to be true. Ewen hadn ’t considered that keeping Lily, truly keeping her with him for always, could be an option.



He looked down once again at the wee scrap the old woman had tucked into his hand with the star chart. She wrote in an aggravatingly elaborate hand, but her instructions were clear enough.



“When her today becomes tomorrow, When the hunter looks east in the sky ’s dark dome Where the jewel of the night rises bonny bright, Then can she return to yestreen’s home. ”



Many men might not have understood Gormshuil’s instructions, but she chose her words well for one such as Ewen, priding himself as he did on his knowledge of the sciences. With but a moment’s thought, he easily deciphered just what—and when—it was that the old witch directed. When today becomes tomorrow he readily understood to mean midnight. The sky’s braw hunter could be none other than Orion, the constellation named for the great hunter from Greek mythology. And, though they may not know it by name, many a Highlander would recognize their sky’s bonny jewel as the bright morning planet Jupiter.



And it was Jupiter that ruled the skies just now. From what he could tell by his last night spent under the stars, the planet was steadily closing in on Orion from the east. Which meant that Lily would soon be able to traverse what Gormshuil had called the star road to return to her own time. Her real home.



Ewen raked his fingers through his tousled black hair and once more played Gormshuil’s words through his head .



“Her fate, a hero long dead. ”



Was she not advising that Lily’s true place was by Ewen ’s side? Or was that merely the wishful thinking of a besotted wretch, for that is what he was beginning to fear of himself. The door to his study suddenly swung open and slammed against the wall with a force that belied its heavy weight. Lily stood in the doorway looking startled to see him. “What are you doing here?”



Pensive as he was from his current reading materials, Ewen ’s tone was gently playful. “Well, ’tis my room, lass. ”



“I know that. ” She began to get flustered. “I …it ’s just … I can’t find Finn and I thought he might be in here. But I guess not, thanks. ”



Lily began to edge her way back out the door but was stopped by an unusually talkative Ewen. “ So you ’ve lost the mongrel, is it?”