down quickly to fetch your granny, even though he hated her, because he knew she'd be able to get the baby out. And then afterward he made such a fuss of Mrs. Macbean, calling her 'my dear' and 'my darling,' and he was in a good mood. So I told him I was going to have a baby too, and he turned on me and said I was nothing but a sinful slut, and it was all my fault for leading him into temptation, and he'd send me off back to my father if I didn't do what he told me. And then he said that it wouldn't be difficult, and if I did it he'd look after me and the baby, and give me everything I wanted."
"So you told all those lies," I said harshly. "You sent my grandmother to be hanged and burned, and you tried to have me murdered too, just to save yourself from going home."
"But I never thought it would happen!" she said desperately, managing this time to seize my arm, though I shook her off at once. "I never thought they'd kill her! I didn't know they'd take any notice of a story of mine. Anyway, it wasn't all lies. I saw them all up at Ambrisbeg, dancing and carrying on. The Devil might have been there. It looked as if he might have been."
"And what were you doing out in the middle of the night at Ambrisbeg?"
She hung her head.
"We used to meet outside, near the loch. That's where he ... I heard the music, and I went to look. I was curious."
I heard her smug little voice again in my head.
"Maggie took off all her clothes," I quoted, "and danced around a stone."
"Oh, Maggie, I wish, I wish I hadn't said it, because now I've committed another terrible sin, and the Lord Jesus will never forgive me, and it didn't even do any good because Mr. Macbean broke every promise he'd ever made and said I would disgrace his good name, and he'd deny he'd touched me, and I was to go back to my father without a penny in my pocket. And then I had to watch everything, what they did to your granny. It was so horrible. I thought I was going to be sick. I felt like a murderess."
"That's what you are," I spat at her. "A thief, a liar, and a murderess. Not many people can manage all that."
"At least I won't be a thief anymore," she said, and the sigh she let out was the sincerest sound I'd ever heard from her. She fumbled inside her bodice, and I saw a faint gleam of silver in her hand.
"Your buckle." She handed it to me. "I only took it because I was frightened. If I went home to my father, he'd beat me half to death. I thought if I only had a bit of money, I could manage on my own till the baby's born, and then I'd see. I'd try and find..."
I'd stopped listening to her. I'd suddenly realized the answer to the question that had been bothering me.
"Tam sent you, didn't he? That's how you knew where to find me. You cried all over him and told him all this, and he's so soft he was sorry for you and said he'd help you."
She sniffed, and I could tell that she was peering at me, trying to see my face in the growing dawn light.
"Yes, he did. He said he'd fix it with Mr. Lithgow. He said I could get across to the mainland with the cattle."
"Oh, he did, did he?"
I was enraged all over again, furious with Tam for saddling me with Annie, and jealous too. Tam was mine, my only friend. I didn't want to share him with anyone, especially not Annie.
A whistle sounded behind us, and we both jerked our heads up.
"Tam!" we said together.
He slithered down the rocks and collapsed onto the mossy bed I'd made for myself.
"I'm too old for running around the country in the middle of the night," he groaned, massaging his calves. "If you girls aren't grateful to old Tam, then I'll die a disappointed man. Now let's get you down to the bothy. Those drovers will have the fire lit and porridge cooking on it, or they're not the men I think they are."
Chapter 13
Tam was right. The smell of birch smoke wafted toward us as we approached the bothy, and we could hear the men