'Toby! Toby!' Hamish came staggering over the moor, slim and stooped under a pack almost as large as himself. 'You keep your promises, Toby!' The boy's dark-tanned face was an excited gleam of eyes and teeth. He was panting with exertion or excitement.
No monster heartbeat; no sinister glow brightening the twilight… the sword stayed in its scabbard. Toby breathed again.
'I'll keep the one about the gallows, too.' They fell into step, Toby shortening his stride. 'I take it you're looking forward to this?'
As a friend, little Hamish would be less use than the broadsword. Hamish didn't want a friend, anyway; he wanted a hero. The sort of friend Toby needed was…
He didn't. Some men were strong enough to manage by themselves, so they had no need of friends. He was one of those men. He'd gotten along well with Hamish's brother Eric, but even they had never been close — no boy had wanted to be seen consorting with the bastard very often. Toby Strangerson had been a loner all his life, and he would stay that way.
Mustn't upset the kid, though. 'Friends,' he agreed.
With a sigh of relief, Hamish heaved his monstrous pack higher on his shoulders. 'You worried about the bogy?'
'Not as long as you're with me.'
Hamish chuckled with jittery glee, not realizing that Toby was serious. If the Campbells wanted to dispose of him by feeding him to the bogy, they would not have sent Hamish along.
'Where're you going, Toby?'
'I promised I'd see Meg as far as Oban. And you?'
'Pa says I must go and stay with Cousin Murray.'
'Who's Cousin Murray?'
'Murray Campbell of Glen Shira. I'm to stay with him until Pa sends word that it's safe to come home. He sounds old and cranky, but Pa says he should have books. Pa met him once, years ago. Where are you going after Oban, though?'
'Try to get a boat there, I suppose.' Toby tried to shrug, but the sword wouldn't let him and Hamish wouldn't see anyway. 'After that, I don't know. Travel the world.'
'You're not going to join the Black Feathers?' The boy sounded both shocked and disappointed.
Not if he could help it, Toby wasn't. The rebellion had been dragging on for years and showed no signs of success. The first thing he needed was an exorcism, and a town like Oban must have a sanctuary — but would the demon let itself be exorcised? If he tried to go there, would his feet obey him? Would his tongue explain the problem?
'The Sassenachs will be putting a price on your head, Pa says. How much do you think they'll… Not that anyone will take their silver, of course,' Hamish added hastily, 'but—'
'But it would be nice to know what I'm worth, you mean?'
'Pa says it might be as much as ten marks!' He sounded quite impressed that a friend of his would command a price that high. It was certainly more than the five shillings the steward had offered yesterday.
The moon was rising at their backs. The wind had fallen strangely silent. Glen Orchy was ominously still. Toby listened for the music he had been told to head for, but all he could hear was a trickle of the burn and Hamish's endless prattle…
'What?'
'Cousin Murray's the keeper,' Hamish repeated.
'Keeper of a shrine? A holy man, then? An acolyte?'
'Sort of. A shrine isn't a sanctuary.'
'But it has a tutelary?'
'Just a spirit.' Hamish heaved his pack higher on his shoulders. He chuckled. 'More than a hob.'
The night was already cold. The ground was squashy underfoot. Not a breath of air moved, yet there was a sound… right at the limit of hearing, a lute was playing a plaintive melody. That was the sign they had been told to listen for, where they would meet with Meg Tanner and their unnamed guide. He veered toward it. If Vik was there with her, Toby would let his demon try out the sword. He shivered at his own black humor.
He was being unfair. He had been entrusted with two youngsters' lives, and he wasn't trustworthy any longer. He could not even rely on himself, so why expect them to? He ought to warn Hamish…
But he had not killed the boy on sight. He had not harmed those pompous village elders in the night, nor old Annie. So far his private demon had behaved itself when in well-behaved company. It had acted only when he was in danger — a curiously helpful and nonaggressive demon! If he told Hamish about it, Hamish would flee. He would run back and tell the whole glen. Then every man's hand would be against Toby Strangerson, not just the Sassenachs'. Did all traitors rationalize their betrayals so easily?
'What sort of work will you look for, Toby?'
'Needlework.'
'You mean swords?'
'I mean needles. Embroidery.'
'Eric used to say you had no sense of humor.'
'That's not true! He did not say that!'
'He did,' Hamish muttered, 'but I think only when he'd just done something especially stupid that you hadn't joined in. I know he said you were the last man to take to a party and the first one to want in a tight spot.'
Thinking that would make a fair epitaph, Toby said, 'Ah! Listen!'
In the darkness ahead a woman was singing 'The Flower of the Hill,' with the lute weaving rainbows of music around her voice. It was a strangely moving sound in this lonely, haunted glen.
Wee Hamish Campbell was a walking library. Toby Strangerson was a muscle-bound dolt…
'You know, this must sound funny. I mean, I was raised by a witchwife, but I don't really know the difference between an adept and an acolyte, or a keeper of a shrine. Granny Nan never spoke of such things.'
'Don't suppose she knew. I mean, I'm not trying to—'
'Granny Nan never read a book in her life.'
'And reading is all I have ever done!' Hamish's laugh was a nervous twitter of sparrows. 'An adept is someone who has studied the occult. I suppose acolytes are adepts, too, but usually 'adept' is used in the bad sense, like the black arts. A witchwife like Granny Nan wouldn't know any ritual or gramarye. She just kept the hob happy. Self-taught. A natural.'
Like Toby Strangerson swinging a broadsword, as opposed to a trained fencer like Captain Tailor. 'You mean a spirit is a hob, but bigger, sort of?'
'Sort of.' Sounding uneasy, Hamish dropped his voice. 'A hob's an elemental — mischievous, unpredictable. The books say that a spirit is… bigger, I suppose. Benevolent. A tutelary has a sanctuary, with acolytes and worshipers making offerings. A shrine is in between, with a keeper or two. People make pilgrimages to shrines, though, if the spirit is well thought of.'
Toby sounded them in his mind: hobs, spirits, tutelaries. Witchwives, keepers, acolytes. Grotto, shrine, sanctuary. Elementals, adepts. Demons, hexers… were these all just words in the night? Could they ever mean anything to an ignorant country lad?
'And demons?'
'They're bad!'
'I know that. Are they much the same, though? Bad spirits?'
Still the woman and her lute sang of sorrow and loneliness in the night. She had a gorgeous clear voice. Toby had never dreamed that his guide would turn out to be a woman.
Hamish had been thinking, anxious to impress his big friend, flattered by his attention. 'There's differences. An acolyte worships and tends a tutelary, just like a witchwife and her hob — serves it. Hexers compel demons
