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Conall was in a small cell with rough-hewn walls and a dirt floor. A stone shelf at one end served as a bed, and he looked at the meagre blanket thrown upon it with loathing, knowing it would be next to useless in keeping out the cold. At the front of his dungeon, thick iron bars blocked all hope of escape, but at least they let some light in from the torch lit along the far wall.
‘What is this place?’
‘Hell on earth for you,’ replied Euan.
‘Why, what is to be done with me?’
‘Whatever Ross and Bruce want, that’s if Laird Moncur will allow it, for no one, not even his sons, can cross him and live.’
‘I have not crossed him and nor has my father.’
‘It matters not to me what you’ve done or not done. I am simply here to make sure you are fed and watered for now, and none too well.’
Though Conall longed to smash his fist into the man’s slack, brutish face he tried to reason with him. ‘Listen, if you take word to my father, he will reward you handsomely, you can….’
‘It’s getting dark. I need to be gone, so shut your blather.’ Euan got up and lifted the torch from its sconce and took the candle from the table, and made as if to leave. ‘Can’t be here in the dark, for she will come,’ he smirked at Conall.
‘Who?’
‘The white lady. She haunts this place. She lurks in the dark, buried places of Sgathach Dun and rises up from the ooze by night, carrying her dead lover’s heart in her hands. Bloody it is, and she offers it to the unsuspecting in return for their souls, which she drags down into hell with her. Can you hear her wailing?’
Conall strained his ears, and yes, there was a low keening sound, like the wail of a woman in anguish, distant but growing.
‘Can you not feel the tang of death rising in the air,’ said Euan with a gloating smile. ‘’Tis the Devil’s brimstone.’
‘You people live like pigs. That is where the stench comes from,’ said Conall defiantly.
‘It is her body, still rotting after a hundred years of not finding heaven. She was strangled to death by her husband for cuckolding him and entombed in these walls. No one knows where exactly. But her corpse will never turn to dust and bone as she is not really dead and never will be.’
‘That wailing is the wind whistling in through all the nooks and crannies of your derelict pile of a castle.’
‘Tell yourself that if it gives you ease, but you are wrong. ‘Tis the spirits rising and ‘tis why no one will guard you at night, not even on threat of punishment from the Laird. Not that we need to, for these bars are thick, and there’s no way out for you. You’ll not be so brave when it’s pitch black. But at least tonight and every night, you’ll have the spirits for company if you don’t go mad first.’
‘Leave the dog for company.’
‘You have the pale lady. She will come to you.’
‘The candle then at least, have pity.’
‘Pity’s not my business. You can rot in the dark for all I care. This hole is your prison, and soon enough, it will be your tomb. Here at Sgathach Dun, we have a saying. Bury your secrets, bury them deep.’
‘Why am I here? If I am to die, then tell me why for God’s sake.’
‘You are here because you have offended the wrong person, and that person has paid us handsomely to have you dead and in a few months, or weeks if we are feeling merciful and you beg us to end you, that is exactly what you will be.’
‘Then why don’t you get on with it and just kill me?’
‘Where’s the sport in that?’
Euan went off sniggering to himself, the light and the dog following him. The sound of his heavy tread on the steps upwards faded until all that was left to Conall was impenetrable darkness, thicker in the silence, and broken only by the steady drip, drip of water somewhere around him and his own ragged breathing. He longed to sleep just for a few moments of respite from anger, fear and pain. But alone in the darkness, despite resisting the urge to believe his tormentor’s story, he did fear the unknown, the spirit world reaching out to drag him to hell. Or was he already there?
He calmed his fear, all through the night, by thinking of the pretty, blonde girl with pity on her sweet face. He imagined she smelled of sunlight and grass and flowers.
Chapter Six
Conall woke with a start. What sound had awakened him? Nothing. There was no sound, just a change in the pitch darkness, a light flickering, faint and terrifying. He could just about make out the archway leading to the stairs. He hadn’t been able to see anything before he fell asleep, so why could he see it now? It was still just a vague shape in the darkness, nothing more, but someone or something was up there.
No one had come down here for several days, so why come now, in the dead of night, unless it was a ghost?
