The Betrayal of Maggie Blair - By Elizabeth Laird Page 0,108

this strap."

He was struggling to take off the sack that contained his bagpipes.

"What are you doing now?" I asked, as he removed the pipes lovingly from the worn old bag. "You're not going to play them here?"

"It's just what I'm going to do, girl. A lament. For the poor souls in that horrible place. Music solves many a problem. It'll make things happen. You'll see. And it'll help me clear my old head and think straight."

He stood up, walked across to the edge of the cliff, which fell away in a sickening drop to the crashing sea below, and put the chanter to his lips.

"No, Tam!" I cried, running after him. "There are soldiers down by the gateway. They're looking up at us. They'll hear you. They'll come and get you."

But it was too late. He had filled the bag with air, and the first notes of his wild, mournful lament were already echoing back to us from the grim rock walls. The music was so sad, so piercing and beautiful, so lonely and grand, that the breath caught in my throat and I stood unable to move.

Can you hear it, Uncle? He's playing it for you, I thought.

The path that ran from where we stood down to the castle entrance was so steep and winding that most of it was hidden, so neither of us saw the two men coming up it until they were right in front of us. I stepped back, my heart pounding in fright.

They were a savage-looking pair, their hair long and rough, their leather jerkins open in front, their legs bare from the knee down and streaked with mud. I stepped back, nearly stumbling over a stone, but Tam played on regardless.

To my relief, the men didn't seem interested in me. They stood listening to Tam, frowning with concentration. Tam finished his lament on a sudden cut note, and the echo died away from the castle walls.

"He's a good piper, isn't he, Wully?" said one.

"He is that. Play us a jig, Granddad."

I could see that the effort of playing was making Tam even more exhausted. He gasped for each breath needed to fill the bag, and sweat beads formed on his dreadfully white face, but his fingers flew over the chanter holes as fast as the feet of scampering mice, and the tune was so lilting and catchy that the two men began to hop about, and even I, scared as I was, couldn't stop my foot tapping.

When at last the jig was finished, one of them took Tam by the arm.

"Come on," he said. "You're just the man we need."

Tam gently shook him off.

"Hold on, son. What do you want me for?"

"We need you in there." The man lifted his chin toward the castle. "Our stupid piper went so hard at the bottle he fell halfway down the cliff. Broke his head and his right arm. He'll be weeks mending. The Earl Marischal needs piping into his dinner, and the lads are down without a note of music. There's not even a fiddle in the whole lousy place."

"Well," said Tam, with a show of reluctance that made me hide a smile, "I don't know. What terms would you be offering me?"

"Terms?" They both burst out laughing.

"A drafty old hayloft to sleep in," said one.

"Your food, and it's not bad either. There's meat every day and venison sometimes."

"And we won't throw you off this cliff."

There was a pause, as the menace of this threat sank in.

"Plenty of whiskey. It's good stuff too."

Tam grinned with what I could see was real pleasure.

"Now you're talking, lads. But I'm not going anywhere without the lassie."

Both men turned in my direction, and I felt hot at the way their eyes crawled over me.

"She's my granddaughter," Tam said hastily, "and if any harm comes to her, I'll play 'The Unlucky Soldier.' Last time I had to do it, the plague struck the camp within the week. I felt bad about it, as a matter of fact. Twenty. Dead. In days."

The tune of "The Unlucky Soldier" was a new one to me, as I was sure it was to Tam, but the two men's mouths had fallen open, and they were looking at Tam with respect.

"It's a deal," one of them said. "We'll warn the boys. The girl's not to be touched. They'll find a job for her in the kitchen."

And so Tam and I walked boldly under the portcullis, through the archway, past the throng of guards, and into