Old Mog, as she called herself, remained impossible to reason with or talk to.  She took his offerings ungraciously and put up with his periodic raiding of her garden, but complained loudly whenever she saw him, calling him Black Donald, along with a half-dozen other insults.  Once, when he mucked out the mare’s pen and hauled water up from the nearby creek after observing Mog groaning every time she bent to weed her vegetable garden, she complained that he had done a poor job of it because he hadn’t gone out and cut hay to cover the dirt, as well.

Still he kept coming back, whenever the lonely darkness of his cave became more oppressive than he could stand.  Their unacknowledged bargain about his supplying meat or pelts in return for vegetables gradually expanded as he used her axe to cut wood, supplying both himself and her.  He had hopes that it would allow him to get through the next winter with less of a struggle, and as tenuous as the human contact was, he sometimes wondered whether it was the only thing that kept him sane.  Although there were times when he doubted even that.

He had been chopping up a huge fallen oak into useable pieces, loading them on to a frame he had made from poles and hides, then dragging it to his cave, then returning for more, when the memory of his father teaching him how to use an axe began to play in his mind, over and over again.  He heard his father’s voice, correcting him, shouting at him when he didn’t angle the blade exactly right, didn’t swing it so it would split the logs in one stroke.  Again and again, he heard those instructions, and he found himself striking with more force, then harder and harder still, on and on and on until the handle slipped out of his grip and flew across the clearing, embedding deep in the ground with a vibration he could feel in his bones.

He was gasping for air and soaked with sweat, and looked down to find his dirty, rough, callused hands dripping with blood where he had worn them raw.  It was like waking from a dream, or a nightmare.  The sun was almost down and he had rendered the remains of the tree practically into splinters.  He felt the hot tingle in his palms as his skin healed itself, sank down on the ground and found himself sobbing for no reason at all.  It was stupid, incomprehensible and embarrassing even though there was no one to witness his absurd behavior.  It reminded him all too vividly of the mess with the boar, and sank him into a stuporous morass of confusion and anger.

It was weeks before he could bring himself to go back to the cottage, and this time he once again waited until after dark, leaving a portion of meat from a young doe he had recently brought down in trade for the late season vegetables still growing in the garden.  He stopped in to see the mare, having brought her some sweet grasses from a high meadow further up the side of the mountain.  He fed them to her by hand, enjoying the soft feel of her lips as they gently pulled the food from his grasp.

“What’d you leave me this time, beastie?” a voice called, and Duncan’s head snapped up.  Old Mog was leaning her arms on the top post of the pen, her watery blue eyes gleaming in the dark, watching him speculatively.

“Some venison,” he answered softly.  He had gotten unused to talking, and words no longer came easily.  And he didn’t really trust his voice, or his words, or even his own thoughts anymore. 

“Eeach, I be heartily sick of venison, lad,” she answered in disgust.  “But I’d give ye a kiss if ye brought me a nice, fat grouse or two,” Mog smiled her gap-toothed grin and winked at him.  She had gray, wispy eyebrows that matched the color of her braid that hung in a long, untidy rope all the way down her back.  She was always making obscene offers and bawdy remarks, ridiculing her own notion that he was some kind of demon predator who seduced and ravished women.  His experience with women had been limited to village girls and to Jean, and while some of them had been bold, they had never used the kind of language Old Mog seemed to delight in, who laughed with glee when her coarse words and offers made him stutter and blush.

“I bring what I have, old woman,” he mumbled, feeding the mare the last of the grass.  “It’s the best I can do.”  He let himself out of the pen and headed off back towards his cave, then stopped, remembering the other reason for his visit.  He pulled the borrowed axe from his belt and handed it to her.  “I thank you for the use of the axe.  If you need any more wood cut, I’ll be back before the first snow.”  He turned away.

“Wait, now!” Mog called petulantly.

“What!?” Duncan stopped and snarled back at her.  “That’s all I have.  It’s all I can spare, unless you want me to starve again this winter.  I am no’ a magician, no Black Donald who can conjure food from the air.  I’m just a man!”  The words escaped in a rush, leaving him trembling with unexpected emotion.

“Are ye now?” Mog asked softly after a moment of silence.  “Well, demon or no, ye can damn well wait there a spell.”

Duncan stood in the dark, watching as Mog shuffled inside her cottage, then returned with a cooking pot in her hand.  “Blacksmith’s wife came up last week, wanting a poultice for her man’s bad chest.  Gave me this in trade, filled with grain.  Don’t need the pot.”  She held the handle out towards him.  “Thought maybe you could use it.”

He just looked at her.

“Well?  Can ye use it or no?” she insisted.

“I…I don’t have any more food to give you for it,” he backed away.

“Did I ask for any, ye damn fool?  Here!  Take the bloody thing, I don’t want it.”  She shoved it at him, but he only stumbled further away.  “Well, suit yourself,” she finally snapped, then conspicuously dropped the pot on the ground and stomped inside, muttering to herself.

Duncan felt like some spell had been cast on him.  Maybe the woman was a witch, as she claimed.  He couldn’t move.  Having a cooking pot would be a wonderful convenience, but somehow dealing with kindness was much more difficult than dealing with the old woman’s complaint-edged hard bargaining, and he just stared at the pot, as though it had the power to do him harm.

He turned and walked away, his steps leaden and slow, his emotions churning.  He was a quarter mile away when he finally stopped, then turned and retraced his steps.  The pot was still there.  That it was pure charity galled him, that after living on his own for over a year he was yet in need of charity galled him even more. That she had cared enough, pitied him enough, to think about him seemed the most painful of all.  Finally he picked it up, half expecting it to break at his touch, like some malicious illusion.  When it didn’t, he tied the handle to his belt and headed back to his cave.

That winter was just as long, just as cold, as the previous one, and just as lonely.  He had worked out a better strategy for laying his snares, then finding them after a snowstorm, though.  He also knew the area well now, where and how to find game even in the dead of winter, and had accumulated a greater stock of grains and dried vegetables, partially thanks to his informal trading bargain with Old Mog.

It didn't make it easy.  He had a few confrontations with wolves, and had quite a battle with a sharp-toothed badger that kept stealing from his snares and traps, but sometime during the long, dark months, his mind settled into an uneasy acceptance of this life.  He didn’t like it anymore than he had before, but just got weary of wondering why, of worrying about what he was or whether he was good or evil, demon or man.  He never saw another person other than Old Mog, and found some small satisfaction, if not happiness, in tracking and hunting larger and more elusive game, of finally succeeding in spearing a fish or two in the fast running creek nearby, of refining the strength of his bow, the quality of his arrows and the accuracy of his aim. 

He also regularly worked through the disciplines with the sword his father and uncles had taught him from the time he had been big enough to wrap his hand around a hilt.  From the moment he had first picked one up, a sword had always felt like a natural extension of his hand, and he found the repetitive motions, pressing his endurance until his muscles ached and his lungs burned, somehow soothing and relaxing.  For a few moments, in the rush of blood through his veins, and the heat of overtaxed muscles and the burn of hard exercise, his mind would clear of the doubts and uncertainties that always seemed to hover there. 

Until the deep snows came just before Solstice and lasting almost four months, he made regular trips to the cottage, usually arriving just after dusk.  It was almost a game between them, to see if he could come and go without her noticing.  Sometimes she would leave a loaf of bread wrapped in a small cloth just outside her door, or maybe a block of cheese or a couple of eggs, but usually it was a few vegetables, maybe some grain.  Duncan was also sensitive to the possibility that his small offerings were of no real consequence, that Old Mog had taken care of and fed herself and her horse and the few chickens she had for many years before he came along. 

Then winter closed in for good, and Duncan sat out the weeks of blizzards and snow drifts that came up to his thighs by using his store of dried meats and grains, and staying close to his cave.  The long hours he had spent chopping and hauling wood provided a stockpile that kept him from freezing, and to counter the boredom, he took up drawing on the stone walls by the light of his flickering fire.  He used paints he had made from plant dyes, or sometimes his own blood, scoring his arms with his dirk, then dipping his fingers in the welling red fluid before the cuts healed.  The pain was its own distraction, and the blood dried into a dusty brown that soaked into the rock surface.  He drew animals, then a small representation of Glenfinnan, with its stone huts scattered around a large village center, with a fire pit there for village celebrations.  His skills as an artist were limited, but it was something to pass the time and made him appreciate the few real paintings, tapestries and works of art he had seen on the infrequent trips he had made with his father to the manor houses of local nobility. 

But the winter's numbing cold and boredom unexpectedly made spring almost harder to bear.

The melting of the snow and ice and the soft, gradual greening of the forest and the high, open meadows hidden within had always gladdened his heart, refreshed his hope with its promise of the sweet scent of flowers and the renewal of life.  But now he wavered between his old, ingrained reactions of pleasure and some new, dark bitterness that spoke of betrayal and hidden sin in his very existence. 

For weeks he found excuses not to go to Mog’s, somehow reluctant to reinitiate contact after his long isolation. He had grown used to his undisturbed isolation, and he could now find a better variety of plant life on his own.  As much as he craved the taste of cultivated food, and craved even more the sound of another human voice, he could avoid the shame he felt when around others by simply avoiding their company.  But somehow when he killed his first young buck of the Spring and found that the meat was particularly tender and tasty, he was loath to just salt and smoke the considerable amount he would be unable to eat before it rotted, so he packed the extra and set off for the cottage.

The old woman was swinging a hoe in the garden, turning the soil over in preparation for planting.  Her efforts made her wheeze for air, and not for the first time, Duncan wondered about Mog’s family.  She was well past the age when most parents were cared for by their extended clan.  The elders of the clan were generally expected to provide leadership, help with the raising of children, and to pass on the skills they had developed over a lifetime.  Hard labor was for the young.

She saw him approach and rested for a moment, leaning on the hoe and swiping away tendrils of wispy gray hair clinging to her face, leaving a trail of dirt behind as she did.

He held up the large haunch of meat he had carried slung over his back and she just nodded.  “Put it on the table in the house,” she instructed. “I’ll see what I can find to gi’ ye, though the cupboard is a trifle bare.”

The comment, the first he had heard in months, was grating in its content and delivery.  “Nay, stay where you are,” he answered.  “I don’t need yer charity.”

“Nor I yours,” she snapped, pushing past him and shoving the cottage door open a little too forcefully.

The interior was taken up by a large loom that took up about a quarter of the space, and baskets filled with looped yarn of various colors crowded the floor.  Now Duncan understood what Mog traded in the village besides his pelts.  She was a weaver, and a good one judging from the fine tartan that was currently in the loom. 

A small table with one chair was stationed near the hearth, with a narrow cot tucked up against the wall.  A lone chicken watched curiously from a safe corner, unbothered by all the human movement.  He watched in silence as Mog pulled out a rag and began to put in a few eggs, a half loaf of bread and some dried apples from the previous fall.  “I could use some salt, if ye’ve any to spare your next trip,” she muttered.  He had brought her pieces from the salt lick before and she had boiled it down and ground it, making it much more effective in curing. 

As Duncan watched her move stiffly around her small cabin, he realized he hadn’t really thought of her as “old” before, just older than he and difficult to get along with.  But he realized she was thinner than he had last seen her, and her skin had taken on a translucent paleness. 

“Are you well?” he asked hesitantly, knowing it was an odd question.  Between them, they had exchanged no personal information and few pleasantries.

“Well?” she laughed at his question.  “I’m old. My joints ache, my eyes water, my chest wheezes and my bowels grumble.  And what do you care, eh?”  She unfolded a cloth and hacked a piece off of a large round of goat cheese.

Good question.  Why should he care, other than that she provided him with provisions he needed from time to time?  But he realized he did. 

“You should'na be alone,” he murmured, leaning the venison up against the hearth, “with no one to care for you, no family to look out for you, no one to teach your skills to.”

“You should talk,” she aimed a lopsided, snaggle-toothed smile at him. 

“That’s different!” he answered hotly.  He almost blurted out that it was not he who had deserted his family, but they who had abandoned him.  But bringing up his outcast status seemed ill-advised, even if Mog seemed unperturbed at the notion of consorting with evil spirits.

“Oh, aye, that’s what they all say,” she nodded, her smile fading. “My own kin thought me a little too odd, too independent.  My son’s wife did'na like the cantrips my own ma taught me, and her ma before, to keep away deviltry and help with what ails you.  She made it plain enough I was’na wanted, and my Alisdair hadn’t the spine to tell her otherwise, so one day I just left.  We’re no’ so different, you and me, lad.”  She poured hot water out of a kettle near the hearth into a small ceramic pot, and put out two cups, finally settling into the lone chair with a sigh.  “Oh, stop hovering like some great beastie and sit down,” she snapped, waving at the corner, where he found a second chair covered with lengths of colorfully woven wool, as well as a few of the pelts he had previously left her.

“I’ll be taking those skins into town next week,” she offered as he cleared off the chair and moved it to the table to sit down.  It felt strange.  He hadn’t sat in a chair for over two years now.  “I expect they’ll fetch a few shillings.  The gossips do be wonderin’ where I’ve been getting all these fine pelts this last year.  Told ‘em I had seduced the devil!”  Her eyes gleamed with distant satisfaction for a moment before she turned her gaze to him again.  “I’ve been meaning to ask ye if there’s anything in particular you might need.”

“Need?”

“Don’t be dense, lad.  Perhaps ye need a shirt, or a few tools, even some soap to wash some of the stink off ye.”

Duncan felt his face grow hot.  He had not shaved in over a year, and only bathed during the summer months when the water felt good on hot, sweaty skin.  His hair had grown almost to his waist, and was an unruly tangle of curls that he tried to tame with oil and braids, but its weight helped keep him warm in the winter.  He shrugged.  “The skins were in fair trade.  They’re yours to do with as ye wish.”

Mog snorted as she got up to tend to the herbal tea she had made and poured it in the cups.  She added a spoonful of honey from a pot on a shelf and brought the cups to the table, sitting again with a grunt.  Duncan sipped at his tea carefully so as not to burn his tongue.  It smelled and tasted wonderful.

“You’re as contermashious as an old mule,” she muttered into her cup.  “But I expect there might be a few pence left over when I’m done getting the things I need.  Come back in a fortnight and see,” she instructed, “and bring me some birds this time, or maybe some nice salmon from yon creek.  I be sick of rabbit and such.”

Duncan had to bite his tongue to keep from reminding the cantankerous old woman that she would have little meat at all at if it weren’t for him.  Contermashious indeed.  He finished his tea and stood, his head almost brushing the low ceiling beams.

“I’ll be back when I’m back, old woman, and not before.”  He picked up the napkin she had prepared for him and slammed out of the house, angry at himself and at her, uncertain why, but then he slowed and almost stopped in his tracks in sudden understanding.  He was embarrassed.  And jealous.  The notion of going to a village, of trading goods and gossip and laughs with its people, making friends, maybe sharing a meal, maybe even showing off some of the beautiful pelts he had made, was the stuff of his secret daydreams, ones he didn’t even acknowledge to himself anymore.  That he wasn’t fit to be seen by anyone, even if he dared show his face, was another measure of how low he had fallen.

He told himself he wouldn’t trot to Mog’s door the minute she came back.  He told himself he didn’t need her, didn’t need anyone anymore.  He could live out his life just fine in his cave. But somehow the fortnight slipped slowly by, the weather warm, the forest turning green and lush, and he found himself with several fresh salmon on his hands that he was sure Mog would be glad to see.

But the cottage was deserted, the horse pen empty.  With time on his hands, he took the opportunity to clean the pen out.  It was mid-afternoon before he finally heard the distant jangle and clop of a horse and rider.

Mog made quite a sight on horseback.  She was small enough that her legs were barely long enough to reach the stirrups, even shortened as far as they would go, and the poor mare was burdened not only with rider, but with a multitude of bulging sacks and bags and mysterious packages draped over her withers and her rump.  Duncan could have sworn the pony looked relieved when Duncan wordlessly pulled the extra weight of all those awkward burdens off so that her rider could finally dismount.  He would have helped her off, but it seemed far too personal a contact, especially since he had learned that people were fearful of his touch.

She slid off the pony with an ungraceful grunt, stumbling as she landed.  Duncan instinctively reached out a hand to help her but she jerked away. “I’m nay some helpless female to be coddled by any man!” she snapped.  “Just old and tired.  These old bones are getting too stiff to ride for so long.”  She jerked one of the cloth-wrapped bundles out of his arms and waddled stiffly into her cottage, leaving Duncan to put the mare in the pen.  He took the time to unsaddle her, wipe her down and fill her trough, then he stood outside Mog’s door indecisively.  He was uncomfortably caught by the trap of his own sorry, needy, conflicting desires.

He wanted someone to care about.  He wanted someone to care about him.  But he didn’t want pity.  He didn’t want charity.  Most of all, he didn’t want to start to care about someone who would only reject him when she knew who and what he really was.  And for all Mog's bluster about him being Black Donald, he didn't doubt that if she truly knew the truth of what had happened that she would  react with horror and disgust, just as everyone else had. 

The door opened with a jerk and he stepped back in surprise.  “Well, are ye going to just stand around looking like a daumert lad, or are ye going to come in?” Mog asked in obvious irritation.  She mumbled to herself about the stupidity of men in general and Highlanders in particular as she shuffled back into the room.  She bent over the hearth with a stiffness that radiated the pain she felt in her back and arms.

“I’ll start that,” Duncan offered, and Mog moved away without comment, letting him attend to the chore of getting a fire going.

While he worked, she untied the bundles, sorting them into various piles.  The largest were bags of wool yarn, the various bright colors wrapped together in large ropey masses.  Then there were packages of cheese, one of bacon, a large one of flour, a few small parcels he couldn’t identify from his viewpoint, and another large package she set aside without opening.

He turned his concentration to his task when she caught him staring, and in a few minutes he had a small flame started, which he fed carefully until the kindling had caught.  He turned and saw that she had sat, and was breathing a little fast, her eyes closed.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly.

She nodded tiredly.  “Aye,” she finally answered.  “But I’m fair forfochen and wouldn’t mind a cup o’ tea, and that’s no lie.”

He reached for the same pot and cups she had served him with before, and copied her motions to prepare the brew.  When he stood up from putting the kettle on the fire, he found Mog had fallen sound asleep in her chair, snoring slightly.  She looked pale and wan, and a light sheen of sweat covered her face.  He moved quietly around the room, scooting the chickens out the door and cleaning a little of the mess they had left behind from having been kept in the house during her absence, fed from a pile of grain in the corner.  Finally, he prepared the salmon he had brought, using her knives and pans and some lard he found in the cupboard.  He also found some dried onions and turnips hanging on a string and cooked them all in the same pan. 

“Well, ye’re no prize as a cook, that’s for certain,” Mog growled behind him, startling him into almost dropping the food as he transferred the hot, heavy pan to the table.  She then gave him a lecture on the use of spices and the blending of ingredients, and offered up some wild blackberry compote she had stored away to go with the fish.  She took over, putting the food onto plates and pouring water into cups.  They ate in silence.  Whatever her opinion of his cooking, he relished every bite, scraping his knife on the bottom of his plate.

He looked up when he was done to find her staring at him.  “What?  Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

“Other than eat most of my fish?” she replied with a twist of her mouth.

“Your fish?” he snapped.  “I caught them.”

“Oh, aye.  And I suppose you brought them here because it was on your way back to your dark little den.”

He stood and bowed stiffly.  “Then please accept my deepest apologies for bringing you food, fixing your dinner, and unloading and grooming your damned horse!”

“Och, the lad has a temper!  Is that what got ye into such trouble?” she cackled.  “Dinna fash yersel’, now.  I was just having a little fun wi’ ye.  Have ye forgotten how to laugh, then?”  Her smile was sad and tired and Duncan was ashamed of himself for not recognizing when he was being teased. 

“Of course not!” he insisted, but the smile he forced onto his face felt stiff and unnatural and he realized it had, indeed, been a very long time.  “But I really should be going, it will be dark afore long.”

“Oh, sit down, lad,” she sighed.  “What?” she added with a grin when he hesitated.  “Are ye afraid for yer virtue?”  She pushed herself to her feet with a grunt and went to the large parcel she had left unopened, and untied the string.  “Here.”  She turned and handed him a block of brown substance.  It took him a moment to recognize it.  Soap.

“I…thank you,” he murmured, although he felt both insulted and embarrassed by the gift.

“Don’t thank me,” she grinned her gap-toothed smile.  “Ye will be a mite easier to put up with in a small space if you bathed from time to time.  Besides,” she added, her eyes narrowing, eying him up and down, “You might not be quite so ugly to look at washed up proper and in a decent plaid.”  She turned back to her last package.  “I figured those skins will get right uncomfortable with the hot months coming on, and no proper Highlander should be without one.”  She lifted out a fold of cloth and the colors caught his eye.  Its pattern was a familiar blue and green and plaid favored by the MacLeods.

“Pretty, is it not?” she said, rubbing her knobby fingers over the colors.  “There was a tinker in the village this last week, full of gossip and nonsense, but he had this, which he couldn’t sell because we don’t have many MacLeods or Harris in these parts, so we did a little trading.”  Her eyes gleamed at the memory, and she tilted her head at Duncan as a triumphant smile wreathed her face weathered.  “Got a whole set of new shuttlecocks, several soaps, some fine China tea and this in trade for that badger pelt o’ yorn.”

Duncan’s eyes had fastened onto the vivid colors of the tartan, and the hands that stroked it were, in his mind’s eye, his mother’s.  Mog held the tartan out to him.

“For me?” he whispered.

“Well, ye don’t think I’m going to wear it, do ye?” Mog snapped.  “And if you aren’t a MacLeod, I’ll eat yon chicken, feathers and all.”

He reached out a hand to feel the cloth, but Mog slapped at him and he snatched his hand back, stung at the rejection.  “If ye’re going to take it, you’ll have to at least take a wash a’fore ye put it on,” she insisted.

“Is it mine, or is it no?” Duncan growled.  “And where and how am I supposed to take a wash, woman?” he growled.  Damn her anyway, to offer, only to take it away, hitting him in the process.  She was no different from any of the others, after all.

“Well, there be a creek right down the path, you know,” she growled right back at him. 

“Fine!”  She wanted him to wash, well she’d get more than she bargained for.  He snatched up the soap and the tartan and slammed out the door. 

By the time he got to the creek, he was having second thoughts.  The runoff from the spring snows was icy, at best.  But, he argued with himself, it was fairly warm out, at least for this time of year.  And he had already started to shed most of his layers of skins and pelts that gave cause for Mog to call him a “beastie.”

He paused at the edge of the fast moving water, and wandered downstream a bit, finally settling on a rock just underneath a small fall.  He untied the wrappings on his legs and feet, then pulled off the pelts that covered his shoulders and arms, the sleeveless vest he had worked so hard on, and finally, the leather breeches he had made himself.  He hadn’t been completely naked in a long time.  The cool air made gooseflesh rise and he shivered.  Well, best to get it over with as quickly as possible.  He sat on the rock and slipped into the icy water, giving an involuntary shout as the cold enveloped his privates and crept up to his waist.

He grabbed the soap and scrubbed as fast as he could, but after a minute the cold didn’t seem quite so bad, and it really was a relief to wash away the accumulated grime.  He even sucked in air and ducked his head, washing his hair and rinsing it several times.  It was a heavy, unwieldy mass, but it, too, felt lighter and much more pleasant once he finally got it clean.

Last, he washed his shoulders and face, scratching away at his beard, and making a quick decision.  Summer was coming, and he would be cooler without the beard, and besides, he was tired of being called “beastie.”  He was not a beast, but a man. Mog had never even seen his face, and if he was going to transform for her, he might as well go the whole way.  He fumbled for his dirk, his hands trembling a little from the cold, then sat on the rock, cutting away his beard, then carefully scraping at the bristles until his face was smooth.  He tried to look in the water to see the effect, but the sun was low in the sky and the water was moving too swiftly to get any impressions.

By the time he was done shaving, his skin had dried and he pulled on just his vest before donning the new plaid, folding it around his waist in a familiar pattern of movements before swinging the extra length over his shoulder and holding it in place with the baldrick his mother had left with his cloak and sword.  The new cloth felt soft on his flesh, warm without being constraining, and it was an unexpected relief to be back in a kilt once again.

He sat and pulled on his leggings, gathered up the rest of the pelts and headed back to the cottage, feeling more like his old self than he had since that fateful day on the battlefield of Glen Garven.

When Mog opened her door and looked up at him, she was silent for a long time.

“Well? Am I clean enough for you?” he demanded.

She stepped back from the door and waved him in and said nothing, just returned to her seat by the fire, watching him warily.

“What’s wrong, old woman?” he insisted, perturbed by her silence.  Perhaps revealing his true face had not been a good idea.  It was his damned pride driving him, once more.

She smiled a little and shook her head.  “I knew the eyes were fey, but I didna’ realize…”

Duncan felt a chill wash over him.  He had not intended to frighten her. 

“Tis no wonder they so easily believed you one of the Daoine Sithe.  Damned fools.  All it takes is to be a little different and they call you evil,” she muttered, rising and fussing with the fire.

“They had reasons for what they did,” Duncan insisted.  “You don’t know…”

“I heard the village folk talking with the tinker,” Mog interrupted, giving him a hard look that took on a chilling quality when she smiled.  “They do a wee bit of gossiping you know.  And there’s still talk of a MacLeod lad who committed the sin of living, despite a terrible wound in battle two years ago.  Darling of the clan, they say, heir to the village chief and a mighty warrior, but turned out to be a changeling, a devil in disguise.”

“Did he now?” Duncan murmured, turning his attention to his pelts.  He put them on the table and carefully refolded them into a smaller bundle.

“Oh, aye.  But methinks they’ll be sorry, now.”

Duncan turned to her and she had a strange, almost malicious gleam in her eye.

“And why would that be?” he asked.

“It seems they’ve got another devil to worry them, and few strong sword arms to defend the village,” she smiled grimly.  “You’ll see your revenge, lad,” she whispered.

Duncan went very still.  “Tell me what you mean, woman,” he insisted.

“Tis Kanwulf,” she leaned forward, speaking softly as though the name itself could conjure the presence of the legendary Viking marauder.  “They say he’s back, raiding villages as he sweeps up the coast, then moving inward.  He’ll get to the MacLeod strongholds any day, now, and ever since their losses in that battle with the Campbells, they’ve hardly had enough men to maintain their crofts, much less defend their lands from such as him.”

“You’re lying, old woman.  Kanwulf is a story told to frighten children.”

She shrugged.  “I only know what they say in the village.  Kanwulf or some raider using his name to scare folks, what does it matter?  Those who turned you out for naught but being different will soon pay in full measure.”

Duncan headed towards the door, his mind suddenly filled with horrifying thoughts of his mother and father, of Jean MacClure and Donald MacAndie, of all his cousins fighting for their very lives, and he not there to help defend them.

“And where be you going?” Mog insisted.

“I…I need to borrow your mare,” he blurted out, his mind whirling with dire possibilities.

“You need no such thing!”

“I must go to them.  If the village is in danger, I must be there!”

Mog stared at him in astonishment.  “Why?  They don’t want you. They turned you out.  Banished you.”

“It doesn’t matter, don’t you see?” Duncan insisted.  Why didn’t she understand?  “It is…it is what I was born to do, all I know how to do.  My mother and father, all my cousins, my friends, my people, I canno’ stand by and do nothing!”

“And what will you do?  You think they'll take you back, let you fight at their side?  They’ll only reject you again, more fools they.  Believe an old woman, lad. This I know.  People fear what they do not understand, and once you have been branded evil, that is all they will see until the day they die.  Or you die,” she added with a whisper, staring into the fire.

Duncan went to her, kneeling in front of the chair.  “They are my people,” he explained softly.  “My clan.  They are in here.”  He pointed to his heart.  “Maybe they won’t take me back.  Maybe they won’t want my help, but I canno’ stand by and do nothing!  Maybe I can even redeem myself, I don’t know, but I have to try.  Please, Mog."

Her watery eyes slowly swiveled back to him, their gaze hard as ice.  “You are a fool,” she whispered, then her focus dropped to her lap.  “Or maybe I am the fool.”  She waved a desultory hand at him.  “Go then.  Just don’t get yourself killed for those who care naught for you.”

“Killed?” Duncan repeated sadly. “That would be a blessing,” he murmured, then gasped when Mog slapped him, the blow stinging against his newly bare cheek, sending him falling back to the floor in a heap.

“Death is no’ a blessing!” she hissed, “Except for the devil who wants your soul.  So unless you truly are a demon who prefers the depths of hell, do not talk of such things.  So long as there is life, there is hope.”  The words belied her earlier bitterness, and Duncan knew she had been hurt by those she loved, and badly, but that even now she ached for their acceptance.  She shook herself and raised her chin, declaring, “You are pledged to return, do you hear me?  You canno’ take my lovely mare and leave me without means to get to the market.  And you canna' die and leave me with no meat for the winter.  I want your promise.”

Duncan rubbed his cheek.  The woman had a surprisingly strong arm.  “I canna’ promise not to die,” he grumbled, almost smiling at the irony of his own words.  “But I pledge on my honor to keep care for your horse and return her as soon as I am able.”

“She was my son’s last gift to me,” Mog addressed him softly.  “He went against that shrew of a wife and gave me the mare when she was barely a yearling.  I thought the woman would kill him when she realized I was leaving with finest horse in the herd.”  Her eyes were distant and sad.  “He didna’ try to stop me, nor did he keep her from screaming insults at me as I left, with all the village to hear.”

Duncan pushed himself to his feet, dusting off his new kilt.  “He should have found a way for you to stay,” he grumbled.  "Twas his duty to you and to the clan."

Mog snorted, standing with a grunt of effort.  “Ye don’t know my son’s wife,” she groused.  "Moibeal is the daughter of the chief’s brother and holds them all in thrall to a tongue sharper than a serpent’s tooth.  And my Alisdair, well, he never was one for a fight, but he’s the best horseman in the village. Has the most beautiful, gentle hands.” She smiled at the memory. 

She had reached for her saddle packets, emptying them of their contents and packing them with dried fruit, some cheese and a large portion of dried meat she had stored on a shelf.

“Here,” she handed him the leather satchel.  “Just bring it back to me.”

She followed him out to the pen and watched as he saddled and bridled the mare, moving the stirrups to their fullest length 

“What’s her name?” he asked, stroking the horse’s soft nose, unable to even say thank you to Mog.  The words seemed totally inadequate, and he wasn’t sure she wanted to hear them.

“Whose name?”

“The mare.”

She looked surprised, then thoughtful.  “You know, I never gave her a name, just always called her my lovely.”

“My Lovely?” Duncan snorted, leading the animal out of the pen.  It was already getting dark and he needed to get out of the woods before he lost all the light.  “That’s no name for a horse.” 

“Maise, then,” Mog offered.  “For she is that.”

“A beauty indeed,” Duncan nodded, and mounted.  Maise skittered for a moment with a stranger on her back, but the mare settled quickly with a gentle touch.  He looked down at the old woman.  She was outlined in the cottage door by the light from the fire, her arms tightly crossed, her chin held high.

“Remember your pledge,” she called out.

He nodded.  “I’ll be back,” he replied.  “On my honor, I’ll be back.”  He wheeled the mare around and in moments he was out of sight of the old woman’s cottage.  By full dark, he had reached the edge of the forest and found a trail leading south, over shrub-covered, rocky hills, and he urged Maise into a slow trot, feeling a heavy chill of foreboding as he headed back towards Glenfinnan, the trail lit by the silvery light of a three-quarter moon in a nearly cloudless sky.
 
 

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