Again I might have yielded to a load of Lasher’s memories if I had allowed myself to do so. Hurriedly, I put my questions:
“But by the time of the witch, the Cathedral was long burnt,” said I, trying to get my bearings.
“Yes, everything was pretty much gone. Only sheepherders up there. But do understand, some historians do believe that the witchcraft persecutions were a last bit of Protestant-Catholic feuding. There may be some truth to it. What they say specifically is this-life became very dull under John Knox, what with stained glass and statues gone, and all the old Latin hymns banned; and colorful Highland customs abandoned; and the people went back to some of their pagan ceremonies just to put some fancy in their lives, you know, some color.”
“Do you think that was the case in Donnelaith?”
“No. It was a typical trial. The Earl of Donnelaith was a poor man, living in a dreary castle. We hear nothing of him in that century, except that he later died in the fire that killed his son and grandson. The witch was a poor cunning woman from the village, called to account for bewitching some other humble person. We hear of no Sabbats. But God knows, they were held in other places up there. And this woman had been known to go to the pagan circle of stones, and that was used against her.”
“The stones themselves. What do you know of them?”
“Big controversy. Some say they are as old as Stonehenge, maybe older. I think they have something to do with the Picts, that at one time there were carvings on them. They’re very rough, those stones, and all of different sizes. They are remnants of what was once there, and I think at one time, they were deliberately defaced-all the inscriptions chipped off or worn off, and then the rest of the work was done by the weather.”
He opened a small book of drawings. “This is the art of the Picts,” he said.
I felt a terrible moment of disorientation. I don’t know what it meant. I shall never forget it. I looked at these warriors, rows and rows of crude little profile figures with shields and swords. I didn’t know what to make of it.
“I think the stones were their worshiping place. To hell with Stonehenge. But who will ever know? Perhaps the stones belonged to one of these strange tribes, or even the little people.”
“Who owns this valley?” said I.
The man wasn’t sure. All the land had been cleared up there by the government, the last starving settlers driven out for their own good. Pitiful. Just pitiful. Many had gone to America. Did I know of the Highland clearances?
“I’ve told you all I know,” he said. “I wish I knew more,”
“You will,” I said. “I will leave you the means to make a study.”
Then I begged him to join me on my trek to Donnelaith, but he swore he wasn’t up to it. “I love that glen,” he said. “I did go there many years ago with a man from the Amsterdam order. Alexander Cunningham was his name, a brilliant fellow. He paid for everything, and what a picnic we took with us. We stayed in the glen for a full week. I tell you I was glad to get back to civilization. But he said the strangest thing when he left me here, after our final dinner.
“?‘You didn’t really find what you wanted up there, did you?’ I asked him.
“?‘No, indeed, I didn’t, and thank God for that, if there is one.’ He went out of the house and then he came back. ‘Let me tell you something, old friend. Never make light of the legends of those glens,’ he said. ‘And never laugh at the story of Castle Glamis. The little people are still to be found, and they’d bring the witches to the Sabbat if they could for the old purpose.’
“Naturally I said to the man, ‘What purpose?’ But he wouldn’t answer on that, and seemed to be sincere in his silence.”
“But what is the Glamis Castle story?” asked I.
“Oh, that there is some curse in that family, you see, and when they tell the new heir he never smiles again. Many have written of that. I’ve been to Glamis Castle. Who knows? But this man from the Talamasca, he was a studious and passionate sort. We had a splendid time up there, in the glen, looking at the moon.”
“But you didn’t see the little people.”
He fell silent, then: “I did see something. But it wasn’t fairies, I don’t think. It was just a smallish man and woman, rather misshapen, same unfortunates you see begging in the streets. I did see those two once very early in the morning, and when I told my Talamasca friend he was in a perfect fury that he himself had not seen them. They didn’t come again.”
“With your own eyes, you saw them. Were they frightening?”
“Oh, they gave me the shivers!” He shook his head. “I don’t like to tell that tale,” he said. “Remember, to us, my friend, fairies aren’t merely humorous little beings. They are demons of the wild; they are powerful and dangerous and can be vengeful. I’ll tell you this, there are fairy lights in that glen. Fairy lights, those flames that rise up in the night on the distant horizon without explanation. I wish you luck in going there. I really wish I could go. We’ll begin collecting these research materials for you immediately.”
I went home to our fine lodgings in New Town.
Mary Beth had still not come back. I sat alone in our suite, a comfortable pair of bedrooms and a sitting room in between, and I drank my sherry and wrote down all that I could remember of what the man had told me. It was cold in these rooms. It would be cold in the glen. But I had to go there. The saint, the fairies, it’s all mixed up, I thought.
Then, in the silence, a feeling stole over me. Lasher was near. Lasher was in the room, and he knew my thoughts, and was close to me.
“Are you there, beloved?” I asked casually as I jotted down the last few words.
“So they gave you his name,” he said in his secret voice.
“Petyr van Abel, yes, but not the name of the saint.”
“Aye, Petyr,” he said softly. “I remember Petyr van Abel. Petyr van Abel saw Lasher.” His entire demeanor seemed tame and thoughtful. His secret voice was at its most resonant and beautiful.
“Tell me,” I coaxed.
“In the great circle,” he said. “We will go there. I have always been there. I mean that you will go there.”
“Can you be there and with us at the same time?”
“Yes,” he said with a sigh. But there seemed some doubt in his mind. It was, again, the limits of his thinking.
“Be clever, spirit, who are you?” I asked.
“Lasher, called by Suzanne, in the glen,” said he. “You know me. I have done so well for you, Julien.”
“Tell me where my daughter Mary Beth is, then, spirit. I hope you did not leave her somewhere in this dark city to her own devices.”
“Her devices are very good, Julien, allow me to remind you. But I left her to her own vices rather than devices.”
“Which means what?”
“She found a Scot who would be the father of her witch.”
I shot out of the chair in a protective rage! “Where is Mary Beth?”
But even then I heard her singing as she came down the corridor. She opened the door. She was very red- cheeked and beautiful from the cold, indeed, sort of glistening, and her hair was loose. “Well, I have done it at last,” she said. She danced into the room, and then put a kiss on my cheek. “Don’t look so stricken.”
“But who is the man?”
“Don’t give it another of your precious thoughts, Julien,” she said. “I shall never again lay eyes on him. Lord Mayfair is a good name, don’t you think?”
And so that was the lie that was written home, just as soon as we knew she had conceived. Lord Mayfair of Donnelaith had fathered her child. Indeed her “marriage” had been held in that “town”-though of course there was no town at all.
But I jump ahead of my story. I had the keen feeling at that moment that she had mated with success, and as she described this man to me, pure Scots, and black-haired and wicked and charming and very rich, I thought, Well, perhaps this is as good a way to choose a father for one’s child as any.
Any pain I felt, jealousy, shame, fear, whatever, I buried it inside me. We were committed libertines, she and I. I would not have her laughing at me. Besides, I was too eager to go to Donnelaith.
