A MASS FOR THE DEAD (20 page)

* * * * *

I returned to Colonsay, and found Seamus waiting for me eagerly at my house.

“They are saying,” he announced, “that Sheena had a lover.”

“Who is saying it? And who are they saying it was?”

“All of the women. I heard my mother speaking of it with Donald Dubh’s wife.”

“What were they saying?”

“Just that she must have had a lover who killed her. For,” Seamus frowned a little, “some of them are saying she was with child. So they are thinking her lover killed her for that.”

Well, this gossip accorded with my own suspicions. And the women who laid her out would have known of the pregnancy. “Did you hear anything else?” I asked Seamus. “Were they saying who it was?”

Seamus shook his head. “Just then she was after me to finish turning the peats, and I had to pretend I had not heard what they were speaking of.”

“Well, what of Maire and Sean? Was your mother asking them about it at all?”

Seamus shook his head. “No. Ma was shaking her head when she left Donald Dubh’s wife, saying that they were foolish wives to be gossiping so, about a poor woman in her grave. Then she told me to keep quiet about it around the poor bairns, so I am not thinking that she would be speaking with them about it at all, at all.”

“No, I do not think so,” I agreed. “But I may just be asking her about it all.”

Chapter 17

I
found Aorig hard at work by the butter churn, while the baby slept nearby. Maire and Sean were not there, off with the cows, Aorig told me.

“It is just as well they are not here, Aorig, for there is something I wanted to ask you.” I told her what Seamus had reported. “Are you thinking it is true?” I asked her. “For if it is, whoever it was could have killed her, if she was to bear his child and he did not want the fact known.”

As I said the words I thought again of Gillecristus. Hard as it was to imagine him fathering a child, I could easily imagine him killing to prevent the child from being born.

“Och, I am thinking it is just the gossip, Muirteach.” Aorig stopped churning a second to wipe the sweat off her forehead, then went back to her churning. “The butter is just coming in,” she explained, “I cannot stop the now.”

I watched her work, and picked a blade of grass, chewing on it while I waited.

“I am not knowing who it could have been, Muirteach,” she continued, after a few more minutes of churning. “I am thinking there is nothing to it, myself. Sheena kept herself to herself. She was not so friendly with the other women, and people were not that kind to the poor lass.”

“But don’t you see, Aorig, it fits. Perhaps her lover met my father, and killed him out of jealousy, then for some reason killed Sheena when she told him she was with child.”

“Well, if a man is jealous enough to kill, I would be thinking he would not be killing the object of his desire so quickly.”

“Unless she threatened to tell what she had seen, if she saw the first murder. Or if he did not want her to have the child.”

Aorig looked troubled, and frowned a little. “Such wickedness as that would be,” she said. “Well, I still am not knowing who it could be.”

“Still,” I persisted, “Maire and Sean must know, if the person came to the cottage. I could speak with them about it.”

Finally Aorig relented. “If you must. But do not be upsetting that Maire. I had the devil’s own time getting her to sleep after you upset her that last time.”

I confess I was afraid to speak with Maire again. My half-sister unnerved me, with those sad eyes of hers, and after her last outburst I felt even less comfortable with the lass. So instead I went to Scalasaig, to Donald Dubh’s, to drink some claret and to speak with his wife.

I started on my second beaker of wine before I went to find her out in the brew-house. Inside the walls were neatly whitewashed and all looked clean and tidy, as she tended to her ale. The small building smelled of yeast and of barley, not unpleasant, and Donald Dubh’s wife herself was pretty enough to look at, with rosy cheeks and her kerch spotless white.

“And so, Muirteach, what can I be helping you with, then?” she asked. “You are not usually a one for the ale, and I see you have a full mazer of wine, so that cannot be why you are seeking me out here.”

“I was hearing that you were thinking Sheena had a lover. I was wondering who you were thinking it might have been.”

An unpleasant glint appeared in the woman’s green eyes. “Och, Muirteach, I am not knowing, not for sure. People were saying that perhaps it was Tormod, from Kilchattan, the same one that was injured. They were saying that your father told Calum to cheat on the scaffolding, to save time, and that Calum did so for blood’s sake, seeing as the Prior was family, and that Tormod fell, and that Sheena herself was killing your father out of revenge for it.

“Well, so that is what they are saying,” I said. “And who would be saying all of this? What reason do they have to say it?”

“Well, one of the women from near the chapel down in the glen was saying she had heard from her man, who also is over on Oronsay, working on the new construction, that he had seen Tormod walking towards, Sheena’s often enough before he took his fall.”

That accorded with what Alasdair Beag had told me, but I did not mention this to Donald’s wife.

“There are others that live in that same area.”

Donald’s wife shook her head emphatically. “None so many, Muirteach. And why should he be walking in that direction at all?”

“Perhaps he was just wanting to stretch his legs, after a day at work,” I suggested. “Or maybe he liked to fish, and took himself over to the water there.”

“Fish for something else, more like,” returned Donald’s wife.

“How could Tormod be killing her, what with his injuries from the fall and all that?”

“I have heard he is doing much better. And perhaps he was not as injured as he let people think. That mother of his, she worships him, for all that she barely lets him wipe his own bum. She would do or say whatever he told her to.”

“Still, it seems little enough to be concocting such a theory.”

“Well, then, Muirteach,” she returned, “Are you knowing who did kill her? And who killed the Prior? I am done here,” she said, putting the cover back on the barrels of ale. “Will you come in and have another mazer? I see you have drained this one dry.”

“I will think on what you are saying,” I told her finally. “As for the mazer, I will not take it now, as there is someone else I must be speaking with today. But I will be seeing you soon enough, and I will drink it then.”

“Aye, Muirteach,” she said, “you are not a stranger here. We will be seeing you, I am sure of that.”

I left gladly. There was something about that woman that I misliked. Perhaps it was the glint in her eyes when she spoke of poor Sheena, as though she could not wait to find fault with the woman, for all that she had never harmed Donald’s wife.

Sheena had had few friends among the women here I was learning; she had lived as an outcast out there near Beinn Eibhne. And she had been an imposing woman for all that, caring little what people in the village said of her, and attractive enough to create jealousy among other women. I saw again Sheena’s body in my mind’s eye, lying there in Dun Cholla. She had not deserved the death she had received, nor had my father, whatever he had done.

So perhaps Sheena’s lover had killed my father, and then killed her, once he had found out she was pregnant. Or because she had seen him kill the Prior. But the question still remained, who was Sheena’s lover? Was it Tormod, as Donald’s wife suggested? My father was not one to suffer rivals, in any arena.

* * * * *

I resolved to speak again with Tormod. Perhaps he would let slip something. I went without Seamus this time, as he was once more cutting the peat and I did not wish to wait. I borrowed a pony from my uncle and rode the distance to Kilchattan more quickly, arriving at Tormod’s in the early afternoon. He looked much improved, sitting out in the front of his mother’s cottage.

“Tormod,” I said, “how are you faring?”

The man still showed a sour expression on his face, but whether it was from pain or from dislike of me I could not be telling. “Well enough, Muirteach,” he answered. “And what is it that is bringing you to Kilchattan today?”

“My neighbor Aorig was wanting me to check on you and see how you were getting along,” I lied. “And it being such a fine day and all, I thought to escape the peats. I left Seamus to work them.”

I thought I saw a flicker of a smile cross his face.

“I was also bringing some
uisgebeatha
. Are you wanting some?”

This time there was no mistaking the smile. I dismounted and secured the pony, a fine gray one of my uncle’s, sat down next to Tormod, and opened my flask.

“My mother is away with the sheep,” said Tormod, “So she will not be back until the evening.”

“A fine thing indeed that is,” I replied. “But how is it you are getting along, with that sore hand of yours?”

“Och, it is not so bad the now. But I still cannot grasp the hammer. I must bide here, but my mother is seeing to me.”

A black-haired young woman with a pocked face came walking back from the bay to her cottage across the path, and glared at us, sitting there taking our ease in the bright afternoon, before she spread some washing out to dry on some nearby gorse bushes.

“Do not be minding Giorsal,” muttered Tormod. “She has a look on her that would sour milk. I am thinking she does not like to see me drinking so early in the day.”

“And what is it to her?” I asked.

“She is wanting to wed me.” Tormod took another swig from the flask. “But I am not of a mind to be marrying her, not with that look that she has.”

I muttered something sympathetic, inwardly rejoicing that the conversation had taken such a turn so early. “And is there anyone you would be wanting to wed?” I asked. “Or have you stayed clear of such traps?”

“I am not wanting to wed. A wife and bairns, squalling all the day
—
and with my hand as it is, how could I be thinking of it at all?”

“What was the Beaton saying of it all?”

“He is thinking it will heal. He says I must be patient.” Tormod spat on the ground then took another swallow of
uisgebeatha
. “But I am thinking it will never be like it was, and that Calum Glas will be paying for what he has done to me.”

Tormod’s lip curled upwards in an unpleasant smile, which made me glad I was not Calum.

Giorsal, who had been lingering in front of her cottage, finally went inside. A few minutes later, however, she emerged with her spindle and sat down on a stool outside.

“Let us be going around to the back,” I suggested. “Surely there is a place we can drink without her watching us like the hawk.”

Tormod agreed that that would be the thing. He rose easily enough and led us behind his mother’s cottage to a large stone that overlooked the small bay. “Aye, this is better,” he said, as he eased himself down on the seat.

“You are walking more easily now,” I observed. Tormod nodded. “So you were hearing about the woman Sheena,” I continued, passing the flask back to Tormod.

“Aye,” he replied. “They were saying, Muirteach, that you were finding the body.”

“That I was,” I replied. “It was inside Dun Cholla, that I found her. She is leaving three bairns, Tormod. They are staying with Aorig the now. And were you knowing, the women who laid her out were saying she was pregnant again.”

“No,” Tormod replied. “I was not knowing that. I did not know the woman, myself.”

“She was a fine woman to look at, with that height, and that red hair she had.”

“Och, she was a bitch, I am thinking. The Prior’s whore, she was.”

“But perhaps pleasant to bed, for all that. She had a lusty look to her. Did she take other lovers, are you knowing?”

Tormod took another drink but said nothing.

“Some of the women were saying they used to see you walking towards Beinn Eibhne. They were thinking you were Sheena’s lover.”

Tormod laughed. “There is some good fishing over on that side of the island. That is why I walked there. And it was not so far from the Mason’s village on Oronsay, and not that hard to cross the Strand in that small coracle that they keep there. I could get away from the noise and the dust.”

“But were you ever seeing Sheena, when you went there to fish?”

“Yes, I was seeing her. A strange one she was, and no mistake. She was often out on the heath, wandering. I am not knowing what she was doing with her bairns.”

“So she would go alone? You never saw others with her?”

“No.” The drink had affected Tormod now, as it had myself, although I had tried not to drink overmuch. He now leaned towards me.

“Were you knowing Muirteach, I was not telling you the truth, not entirely.”

“Oh?”

“I was walking to fish one day, and she was there on the beach. She had been gathering shellfish, I am thinking, but she had taken off her shift and was in the water, for it was a hot day. She thought no one could see her. She was a fine woman, with the large hips on her.”

“What did you do?”

“I hid behind the rocks, and I watched for awhile. She came out, and spread out her mantle on the sand, and then laid herself down upon it to dry in the sun. Her hair was shining like a river of bronze in the light. Like a selkie, she looked, there, the fine hips of her and her white breasts spread out sunning in the warmth of the day. The nipples of them, so pink and round they were, I yearned to suckle on them like a child.”

I said nothing, repelled, yet excited despite myself, at his speech.

“Och, it is a fine woman she was, Muirteach,” Tormod said. The drink was in him and he was not watching his tongue. I listened, like a rabbit entranced by an adder, while he continued.

“The thighs of her, and where they came together, the fine garden that was there. A feast for the eyes, it was, and I grew hard to see her there. After a time, she slept.”

“And you?”

Tormod flushed red, took another drink, and then spat on the ground. “I spilled my seed onto the black stones, watching her from behind the rock there, and then I left the place.”