The Betrayal of Maggie Blair - By Elizabeth Laird Page 0,101

arms outstretched.

She didn't look around but seemed to recognize him by his voice and went on stirring her broth.

"Oh, so it's you. I thought they'd have hanged you long ago. Where's that groat I lent you last time you came to sponge off a poor old woman?"

"What groat? You're thinking of some other fellow. Would I ever fail to return what I'd borrowed? I thought you'd be pleased to see an old friend and make a new one. Turn around, Virtue. See who I've brought with me. Look, isn't she a lovely girl? Wouldn't anyone be pleased to give her a bite of supper and a safe place to sleep?"

Mistress Virtue turned at last, and I saw her face. I had to stop myself from stepping back in horror. Her skin was as crumpled and snagged and pulled out of shape as one of her own old rags. One eye was white with blindness, and the other was hitched up at the edge by an old gash. Her nose was half missing, and her only remaining teeth were two or three black stumps.

"A girl?" she said, peering at me. Her voice was unexpectedly clear from such a hideous mouth. "What's her game? I won't have a light skirt in my house, Tam. You shouldn't have brought her here."

Tam tutted reproachfully.

"Maggie's no light skirt! Now what's that you're cooking, Virtue my old darling? It smells like a lifesaver to a starving man."

He had leaned forward over the pot to snuff up the aromatic steam, which was making my own mouth water so hard that I had to keep swallowing. Mistress Virtue pushed him away.

"If she's a good girl, what's she doing running around with the likes of you?"

"And why shouldn't she? I've known her since before she was born. She's here to help her uncle who's in prison in the tolbooth."

"In prison? What's he done? A murderer, is he? A thief? A pimp?"

"Virtue! Virtue! He's a respectable farmer. A man of property. A Presbyterian."

"Oh. A Covenanter. I suppose he's been running about the hills with one of those preaching mountain men."

"With James Renwick himself, the silver-tongued terror of the countryside!"

"Humph. You've come too late. The tolbooth was crammed with Covenanters until last week, but there's not one of them left in it now."

I felt the blood drain from my face.

"Too l-late? What do you mean?" I gasped. "He's dead, isn't he? They've hanged him already!"

Blackness prickled behind my eyes, and the room began to spin. I sank down on a heap of rags and put my head in my hands.

Chapter 27

The strange feeling passed before I had fainted completely, but hunger, exhaustion, and dread seemed to paralyze me so that I could barely move or speak. I was aware, though, of Tam hovering over me and the beaker of ale he was trying to press into my hand.

"Look at her! Gone as green as pond scum," observed Mistress Virtue from a distance.

"You would be green if you'd suffered half of what this lassie's borne this past year," said Tam, with unusual sharpness. "Drink up, Maidie. You'll be better in a minute."

I nodded to show that I was all right and took the beaker from him. He sat down on a bundle, stretched out his legs, and gave Mistress Virtue such a dramatic account of the witch trial in Bute, my escape from the tolbooth, my swim with the cattle, the Covenanters at Ladymuir, the hunting of Mr. Renwick, and the arrest of my uncle that even I listened, fascinated, as if the story he was telling had nothing to do with me. Mistress Virtue forgot her stew and stood still with the spoon suspended over the pot, her eyes never leaving Tam's face.

When Tam had finished, he turned his back on the old woman and winked at me, and I had to hide a smile. He knew what he had been doing, and it had worked. Without another word, Mistress Virtue filled two bowls to the brim with her savory stew.

"Here, girl," she said, passing one to me and handing me a hunk of wheaten bread to go with it. "If I'm to believe half of what this old fool says, you deserve a good dinner at least. And there's no need to look so miserable. Your uncle's not swinging from the gallows as far as I know. The Presbyterians were cleared out of the tolbooth here a week ago and taken up to the north. They're away across the Forth