An Anne Perry Christmas_ Two Holiday Novels - Anne Perry [29]
“Och, I'm that sorry to tell ye, but Mistress Naylor left Ballachulish nigh on a year ago!” he told them with chagrin.
“Left?” Isobel could scarcely believe it. “But she can't! Her household in Inverness told us she was here!”
“Aye, and so she was,” he agreed, nodding. “But she left a year ago this Christmas. Grand lady, she was. Never knew any lady of such spirit, for all that she was as English as you are.”
Isobel swallowed. “Where did she go? Do you know?”
“Aye, I do. Up through the Glen and over the moor to the Orchy. You'll no be going that way, though, till May or so. Even then it's a wild journey. Horses you'll need. The High Road passes right around there, and then south.”
Isobel looked at Vespasia, the first signs of defeat in her eyes.
Vespasia felt a rush of pity, first for Isobel, knowing what awaited her in London if she failed. They would not care what the reason was, or if they could or would have done differently themselves. They were looking for excuses, and any would serve. Then she felt for Mrs. Naylor. However mad she was, whatever reason had brought her here and then driven her to go up into Glencoe and beyond, she still deserved to be told about her daughter's death face-to-face, not in a letter half a year late.
“I accept that it may be difficult,” she said to the landlord. “Is it possible, with good horses and a guide?”
The man considered for several seconds. “Aye,” he said at last. “Ye'll be used to riding, I take it?”
Vespasia looked at Isobel. She had no idea of the answer.
Isobel nodded. “Certainly. I've ridden in London often enough.”
“Ye'll be needing a guide,” he warned.
“Naturally,” Vespasia agreed. “Would you arrange one for us, at whatever you consider a fair rate?”
Isobel blinked, but she made no demur.
o it was that the next morning they set out in the company of a grizzled man by the name of MacIan, with a strong Highland pony each to ride, and three more to follow with luggage, water, and food.
“Keep close!” MacIan warned, fixing them in turn with a skeptical eye. “I'll no have time to be nurse-maiding ye, so if ye're in trouble, call out, don't just sit there and hope I'll be noticing, 'cause I won't. I've my work to keep these ponies on the track, not to speak of finding it mysel’, if the weather turns.” He cocked his head to one side and looked up at the wild sky with clouds racing across it casting the hills in brilliant light one moment, then shrouded in purple, and then black the next. The water in the loch was white-ruffled. The wind was laden with salt and the sharp smell of weed. It was ice-cold on the skin, whipping the blood up.
Isobel looked at Vespasia. For once they understood each other perfectly. Pride kept them from turning back. “Of course,” they both agreed, and when MacIan was satisfied that they meant it, they set out of the village on the rough road through ever-steepening mountains toward the great Glen of the most treacherous massacre in the history of Scotland. In the winter of 1692 the Campbell guests had risen in the night and slain their MacDonald hosts—man, woman, and child—all in the cause of loyalty to the Hanoverian king from the south.
They rode in silence, because no conversation was possible. The wind tore their breath away, even if the labor of riding in single file along the track and the grandeur of the scenery had not robbed them of the wish to frame words for it.
At about one o'clock they stopped for something to eat, but primarily to rest the ponies. They were slightly sheltered by a buttress of rock, and Vespasia leaned against it and stared around her. On every side jagged mountains soared into the sky. Some were dark with heather on the lower slopes, the peaks like white teeth in the giant, upturned skull of some vast creature left behind from the beginning of time. The smell of the snow whetted the edge of the wind. It was a land of golden eagles and red deer, pools of peat-dark water, avalanches, and blizzards. There was a majesty, a terror, and a beauty that burned itself into the soul.