another swig of his bottle. "Crushed bones, lopped ears, turned out of their farms and houses—and all for the sake of a word or two! Fools, the lot of them, if you ask me."
"Fools and worse," growled Mistress Virtue. "They've set the whole nation at each other's throats and brought the English soldiers in to persecute us. Who are they, to think they're so perfect? They've done their share of executing and ambushing and murder. You know what they shriek when they go in to fight the soldiers? 'Jesus and no quarter!' It doesn't make it any better if you sing psalms while you're drawing blood."
Tam belched, and Mistress Virtue yawned. They drained their cups and lurched to their feet. I heard them settle themselves in different corners of the cavernous room, and then I turned over and fell back into a deep sleep.
***
Edinburgh by daylight was less alarming than Edinburgh by night, but I still had to stop myself from clutching at Tam's arm as we stepped up from Mistress Virtue's gloomy cellar into the racket of the crowded High Street. Among the brightly colored coats and gowns, the immense wigs of the men, and the long curled locks of the ladies, I felt as out of place as a dull brown sparrow in a crowd of squawking jays. The working women with their pails of milk and fish for sale might have been as poor as I had always been, but they looked smarter than me and sharper, fast in their speech and quick in their gestures.
They'll be laughing at me, I thought. They'll be thinking I look stupid.
I needn't have worried. In Rothesay or Kilmacolm, a stranger was never ignored. Curious eyes would be on them, and they would be greeted and questioned by everyone. I pinned a half smile to my lips and prepared responses to the curious inquiries I was sure would come, but to my surprise no one noticed me at all. Eyes slid past me. People called out to each other over my head. I might have been one of the dogs that lay and scratched themselves against the wall of the massive stone building that stood right across the road.
"What is it, this big place?" I asked Tam.
"The tolbooth, dearie. A grim old pile of stones, eh? I should know. I've passed a night or two in it myself. A good thing your uncle's off and away up in the countryside, wouldn't you say?"
The sinister fortress, with its small barred windows and heavy iron-bound door, made me shiver. I heard again the clang of the prison door in Rothesay as it slammed behind Granny and me and felt the clammy chill of its dripping walls against my skin.
I looked up toward the building's high roof. It took me a moment to recognize the blackened and grinning balls jammed on top of poles as heads that had once belonged to living men. Tam heard me gasp and looked up too.
"Are they Covenanters, Tam?"
He pulled at my hand.
"Come away from here. How should I know who the gentlemen are? Leave them to the crows. Let's go up the town and look at all the sights. A little caution, that's all we need, in case there are some who might be more pleased to see me than I am to see them."
I forgot to be self-conscious as we walked up Edinburgh's great street and felt even less so as I noticed, among the bright clothes, some plain brown coats and simple gray gowns like those my uncle and aunt wore. One of the Puritan men even bowed at me gravely, and I felt comforted, in an odd way, as if I'd received a sign from Uncle Blair.
"When are we starting out for Dunnottar?" I asked Tam. "How long will it take us to get there?"
He looked dismayed.
"Maidie, we've only just arrived in Edinburgh! This poor old man needs a little time to rest and recover himself. Old Virtue will keep us a day or two longer. She'll feed us well and set us up."
"And give you too much whiskey," I said severely. "How are we going to pay her?"
It was mean of me to ask, I suppose, when I'd heard him talk about the purse he'd stolen, but I knew Tam. If I gave him the chance, he'd settle down happily in Edinburgh to drink away all the money, and I'd never get him to help me find my uncle.
Tam had looked confused for a