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CHAPTERFOUR
Three rats made the dungeon cell their home. They would appear at the first sign of food whenever the clinking of the jailer’s keys could be heard along the passageway, accompanied by the thud of his boots. There was no light in the underground prison, save for that of a distant torch which burned above the steps leading to the courtyard above.
His eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness so that even in that tiny glimmer of light, he could now make out the shapes around him. He had spent hours observing the rats, never seeing more than three at a time, and counting them among the furnishings of his cell–a wooden board to serve as a bed, a bundle of damp straw on which he would sit, and a flagstone floor, cold and hard.
It had been a miserable three days, punctuated only by the arrival of the meager rations–stale bread and putrid water–brought to him by the jailer, whose abusive words were the only company he had enjoyed since the beginning of his imprisonment. He wore only the clothes he had been captured in and had not even been given a blanket to cheer the long, cold nights he had spent lying awake on the hard and unforgiving board. His body ached, the injuries he had sustained untreated, and his resolve gradually weakening.
Try as he might, and despite his defiant air, he was beginning to despair. It was not his situation which brought about such feelings–he was strong and knew he could survive–but the fact of his memory, or lack thereof, was beginning to take its toll. He could remember nothing of who he was or who he was meant to be. He did not know if his captors were friend or foe if he had been sent with a message to them or on a mission to destroy them. Either way, his cause was lost, and he sighed to himself as the rats made their customary appearance at the sound of the jailer’s footsteps.
“Stand up, step back from the door,” the jailer called out.
He was a heavyset man, gruff, and with a long beard. There were no other prisoners in the dungeons at that time, and the jailer’s chief occupation seemed to be the taunting of his only captive.
“More bread?” he asked, and the jailer snarled.
“If it were up to me, ye would be starved to death in here, but the laird wants ye alive. He thinks ye will remember somethin’ in the end,” he said, turning the key in the lock.
The cell door swung open, and one of the rats ran out into the passageway as the jailer tossed the stale piece of bread to the floor.
“Tell the laird I want to speak to him,” he said, falling on the piece of bread lest the rats should take it in the darkness.
“Tis’ nae yer business to tell me what to dae. The laird will see ye when he chooses,” the jailer said, and he aimed a well-placed kick which sent him reeling backward with a cry of pain.
The door was slammed shut, the key turned in the lock, and he was left alone, gnawing on the stale piece of bread. With a sigh, he lay back against the bale of straw, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. He had spent many hours lost in thought, trying desperately to remember something–anything–about himself.
“Tell me what you know,” he said to himself, listing the facts as he remembered them.
He knew he had been involved in a shipwreck and was held captive on the Mull of Kilchurn. From his accent, and the conclusion of his captors, he knew he was an Englishman, and he knew something of the conflict in which the country was plunged into–that between the monarch and the Jacobite cause. But his own place in all of it was unknown. He knew he had arrived with a key and a coin, along with a letter his captors had not found. But in the darkness, there was little point in retrieving it from its hiding place in his waistcoat, and with no knowledge of what it meant–or could mean–the mystery remained. He sighed, willing himself to remember, but without success. It was as though a mist had descended over his mind, one which prevented him from seeing anything in his memory, and the frustration of it caused him to cry out, throwing the half-eaten piece of bread across the cell, as the rats scurried to their pickings.
“Why can I not remember?” he cursed, pulling at his hair, desperate for something–anything–to come to him.
* * *
“I have nay doubt he is an English spy,” Murdina’s father said.
She had joined him and her sisters in the great hall that morning for breakfast, and her father was boasting of the interrogation he had carried out the day before.
“But if he can remember nothing…” her sister, Ella, said, but their father only shook his head and laughed.
“Aye, tis’ a likely story–a man who can remember nothin’ comes spyin’ on us. Aye, ye may believe him, Ella, but ye are naïve and foolish,” he said, and Murdina’s sister fell silent.
“But if he will nae talk, then what can ye dae?” she asked, addressing her father across the table.
He looked up and smiled. It was an unpleasant smile, one which suggested he already had an answer, and he sat back in his chair, pushing aside his bowl of porridge, and laughed.
“I will hang him as an example to those who will nae doubt follow. An English spy against our cause… the Hanoverians believe they have the divine right to rule over this land, but that will never be the case. Send an army against us. Let us fight for our cause. Then they shall see we are nay cowards,” the laird replied, and he banged his fist down on the table.
For the past three days, Murdina had been curious to learn more about the man her father had locked in the dungeons. She knew he might have been a spy, but there remained a chance he was telling the truth, and she had wondered how she might learn more about him without rousing her father’s suspicions.
“I am takin’ a walk along the mull today with Cillian,” she said, rising to her feet.
Her father looked up at her, his narrowing.
“And why might ye and Cillian be walkin’ together?” he asked.
Murdina knew her father disliked Cillian. He thought him to be beneath her, and though he was a fine swordsman and a brave warrior, he was not considered a man whose attentions Murdina should be drawn to.
“Well, as ye consider me so helpless that I cannae dae anythin’ alone, Cillian will escort me,” she replied, and without waiting for her father’s response, she left the great hall.
