“There’s always the chance of it, isn’t there?” she said. Her head was bent so that the hood of her cloak shielded her face from my gaze. “There’s a chance that my telling would make a difference. It has, now and then, ye know. I told Lachlan Gibbons when I saw his son-in-law wrapped in seaweed, and the eels stirring beneath his shirt. Lachlan listened; he went out straightaway and stove a hole in his son-in-law’s boat.” She laughed, remembering. “Lord, there was the kebbie-lebbie to do! But when the great storm came the next week, three men were drowned, and Lachlan’s son-in-law was safe at hame, still mending his boat. And when I saw him next, his shirt hung dry on him, and the seaweed was gone from his hair.”
“So it can happen,” I said softly. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” she said, nodding, still staring at the ground. Lady Sarah Fraser lay at her feet, the lady’s stone surmounted with a skull atop crossed bones. Hodie mihi cras tibi, said the inscription. Sic transit gloria mundi. My turn today, yours tomorrow. And thus passes away the glory of the world.
“Sometimes not. When I see a man wrapped in his winding sheet, the illness follows – and there’s naught to be done about that.”
“Perhaps,” I said. I looked at my own hands, spread on the stone beside me. Without medicine, without instruments, without knowledge – yes, then illness was fate, and naught to be done. But if a healer was near, and had the things to heal with… was it possible that Maisri saw the shadow of a coming illness, as a real – if usually invisible – symptom, much like a fever or a rash? And then only the lack of medical facilities made the reading of such symptoms a sentence of death? I would never know.
“We aren’t ever going to know,” I said, turning to her. “We can’t say. We know things that other people don’t know, and we can’t say why or how. But we have got it – and you’re right, it’s a curse. But if you have knowledge, and it may prevent harm… do you think it could cause harm?”
She shook her head.
“I canna say. If you knew ye were to die soon, are there things you’d do? And would they be good things only that ye’d do, or would ye take the last chance ye might have to do harm to your enemies – harm that might otherwise be left alone?”
“Damned if I know.” We were quiet for a time, watching the sleet turn to snow, and the blowing flakes whirl up in gusts through the ruined tracery of the Priory wall.
“Sometimes I know there’s something there, like,” Maisri said suddenly, “but I can block it out of my mind, not look. ’Twas like that with his lordship; I knew there was something, but I’d managed not to see it. But then he bade me look, and say the divining spell to make the vision come clear. And I did.” The hood of her cloak slipped back as she tilted her head, looking up at the wall of the Priory as it soared above us, ochre and white and red, with the mortar crumbling between its stones. White-streaked black hair spilled down her back, free in the wind.
“He was standing there before the fire, but it was daylight, and clear to see. A man stood behind him, still as a tree, and his face covered in black. And across his lordship’s face there fell the shadow of an ax.”
She spoke matter-of-factly, but the shiver ran up my spine nonetheless. She sighed at last, and turned to me.
“Weel, I will tell him, then, and let him do what he will. Doom him or save him, that I canna do. It’s his choice – and the Lord Jesus help him.”
She turned to go, and I slid off the tomb, landing on the Lady Sarah’s slab.
“Maisri,” I said. She turned back to look at me, eyes black as the shadows among the tombs.
“Aye?”
“What do you see, Maisri?” I asked, and stood waiting, facing her, hands dropped to my sides.
She stared at me hard, above and below, behind and beside. At last she smiled faintly, nodding.
“I see naught but you, lady,” she said softly. “There’s only you.”
She turned and disappeared down the path between the trees, leaving me among the blowing flakes of snow.
Doom, or save. That I cannot do. For I have no power beyond that of knowledge, no ability to bend others to my will, no way to stop them doing what they will. There is only me.
I shook the snow from the folds of my cloak, and turned to follow Maisri down the path, sharing her bitter knowledge that there was only me. And I was not enough.
Old Simon’s manner was much as usual over the course of the next two or three weeks, but I imagined that Maisri had kept her intention of telling him about her visions. While he had seemed on the verge of summoning the tacksmen and tenants to march, suddenly he backed off, saying that there was no hurry, after all. This shilly-shallying infuriated Young Simon, who was champing at the bit to go to war and cover himself with glory.
“It’s not a matter of urgency,” Old Simon said, for the dozenth time. He lifted an oatcake, sniffed at it, and set it down again. “Perhaps we’ll do best to wait for the spring planting, after all.”
“They could be in London before spring!” Young Simon glowered across the dinner table at his father and reached for the butter. “If ye will not go yourself, then let me take the men to join His Highness!”
Lord Lovat grunted. “You’ve the Devil’s own impatience,” he said, “but not half his judgment. Will ye never learn to wait?”
“The time for waiting’s long since past!” Simon burst out. “The Camerons, the MacDonalds, the MacGillivrays – they’ve all been there since the first. Are we to come meachin’ along at the finish, to find ourselves beggars, and taking second place to Clanranald and Glengarry? Fat chance you’ll have of a dukedom then!”
Lovat had a wide, expressive mouth; even in old age, it retained some trace of humor and sensuality. Neither was visible at the moment. He pressed his lips tight together, surveying his heir without enthusiasm.
“Marry in haste, repent at leisure,” he said. “And it’s more true when choosing a laird than a lass. A woman can be got rid of.”
Young Simon snorted and looked at Jamie for support. Over the last two months, his initial suspicious hostility had faded into a reluctant respect for his bastard relative’s obvious expertise in the art of war.
“Jamie says…” he began.
“I ken well enough what he says,” Old Simon interrupted. “He’s said it often enough. I shall make up my own mind in my own time. But bear it in mind, lad – when it comes to declaring yourself in a war, there’s little to be lost by waiting.”
“Waiting to see who wins,” Jamie murmured, studiously wiping his plate with a bit of bread. The old man looked up sharply, but evidently decided to ignore this contribution.
“Ye gave your word to the Stuarts,” Young Simon continued stubbornly, paying no heed to his father’s displeasure. “Ye dinna mean to break it, surely? What will people say of your honor?”
“The same things they said in ’15,” his father calmly replied. “Most of those who ‘said things’ then are dead, bankrupt, or paupers in France. But I am still here.”
“But…” Young Simon was red in the face, the usual result of this sort of conversation with his father.
“That will do,” the old Earl interrupted sharply. He shook his head as he glared at his son, lips tight with disapproval. “Christ. Sometimes I could wish that Brian hadna died. He may have been a fool, too, but at least he knew when to stop talking.”
Both Young Simon and Jamie flushed with anger, but after a wary glance at each other, turned their attentions to their food.
“And what are you looking at?” Lord Lovat growled, catching my eye on him as he turned away from his son.
“You,” I said bluntly. “You don’t look at all well.” He didn’t, even for a man in his seventies. No more than middle-height, slumped and broadened by age, he was normally still a solid-looking man, giving the impression that his barrel chest and rounded paunch were firm and healthy under his linen. Lately he had begun to look flabby, though, as if he had shrunk a bit within his skin. The wrinkled bags beneath his eyes were darkened, and his skin had a sickly pallor to it.