‘I must, and I’ve no more coin for you to tempt out of my pocket.’ For some strange reason, he suddenly had a strange urge to protect her. ‘You should get out of this life Maggie, it will kill you in the end.’
‘And where should I go, what should I do?’ she replied, smiling at his foolishness.
‘You should find yourself a husband.’
‘And why should I do that?’
‘To protect you from men like me.’
She frowned at him, not quite sure of his meaning, as he had been gentle with her. A fine looking fellow he was too, remarkably skilled abed for one so young. She usually took her mind away somewhere, to escape what her customers were doing, to make it bearable, but with this one, she hadn’t felt the need. She’d spent a pleasant night with him for, like most young men, he had been affectionate, eager to please, because life had not yet had a chance to work on him, turning him hard and cruel.
Murray pressed a little more coin into the palm of her hand, more than she was worth because he pitied her.
‘I can earn it if you like Murray.’
‘Not today, I have to go.’ He kissed the top of her head and as he turned to go he looked back at her. ‘Do anything, go anywhere, if it stops you being trapped.’
As dawn broke over London, he left behind its seething, filthy streets. The sea air felt clean and fresh as it filled the billowing sails of the ship, carrying him to Ireland, along with the rest of Oliver Cromwell’s invading army. He did not know then that he would not return home for many years, and when he did, it would be as a colder, less human version of who he was now.
‘Move yourself boy.’ The harsh voice belonged to a bos’n, bearing down on him with a club in his hand. ‘Make yourself useful you idle dog or we’ll throw you overboard.’ He raised his arm. Murray had done nothing to deserve the blow but he got it all the same.
***
Ilene Campbell sat near the loch, looking out towards the road leading away from Cailleach into the woods. The damp, cold ground was slowly turning her bottom numb, but she doggedly kept her gaze fixed on the road, and had done so for hours. She heard the swish of her mother’s skirts behind her.
“Come inside Ilene, you will catch your death of cold out here.’
‘I don’t want to come in.’
‘It’s been weeks Ilene and I don’t think Murray is coming back,’ her mother said softly. ‘I think he has gone for good. I am so sorry my dear.’
Ilene’s resolved not to cry in front of her mother, she was not a baby. ‘But Murray was my best friend in the whole world.’
‘He still is, I am sure of it,’ Ailsa replied.
‘Then how could he leave me like this? Why did he have to go? I hate him for it.’
‘He just has to make his way in the world, that is all. He loves you and he will be somewhere out there, thinking of you now, I am certain of that.’ She took Ilene’s hand and pulled her to her feet. Ailsa looked at her daughter’s stern little face, the determined set of her jaw. Just like her father, quick to anger, slow to forgive. She marvelled at Ilene’s fierce loyalty to her adopted brother and how resolutely she had waited for him day after day. But then she was like her father in that too, stubborn as a donkey.
They walked slowly back towards the castle. Ilene gripped tight to her mother’s hand, her black hair falling over her face, and her gaze concentrated downwards on the tidemark, where the damp was creeping up her skirt, all so that her mother would not see the tears running down her cheeks. She had cried for weeks at the thought of him out in the world, cold and alone. She had prayed to God, over and over, until she was sure he had heard her and that Murray would come back by now. But as he’d said, he wasn’t her brother and he was never coming back. So if he didn’t care enough about her to do that, she decided she would no longer care about him.
Chapter One
Bishopsgate, London 1658
Nine years later
The crowd were baying like mad dogs as the fight started to get dirty. The tavern boasted not only cockfighting and dog fighting but most profitably, prizefighting. Buried deep inside the maze of narrow streets in the underbelly of London the Bucket of Blood was a notorious place frequented by whores and high-born alike. The beggars hunched in the gutters cast desperate eyes at the backs of the gentlemen come from the warmth of the coffee houses, pushing forwards to get the best view of the violence unfolding. They paid no heed if their silk clothes got spattered with blood. After all, this was what they’d come here for, and there was much coin to be won betting on fighting, where men were maimed or killed if things got out of hand and they frequently did.
The veteran fighter known as the Butcher of Bishopsgate was well named for he was built like an ox, a wall of pure muscle. Hands like meat hooks grabbed at Murray’s face trying to gouge out an eye but Murray managed to deliver a vicious blow to the man’s flanks, feeling the satisfying crunch as a rib broke. ‘Good, that’ll slow this bastard down,’ he thought as the huge brute staggered back. This fight had been going on far too long and he needed a drink.
The man charged at him again and Murray went for him, poised to deliver the killer punch but lost his footing on the cobbles, slick with blood and mud and ale. He fell down onto his knees. The increased roar of the onlookers shouting ‘Butcher, Butcher,’ served as a warning but he had no time to heed it. Suddenly two massive hands were hauling him to his feet as something that felt like a boulder made of iron connected with his forehead. The world turned dark, the force of the headbutt making him fall into the crowd who merely pushed him back towards danger. Don’t pass out or he’ll beat you to a pulp you fool, he thought, as he tried to clear his head.
The Butcher rushed forwards intent on finishing him off but Murray sidestepped at the last minute, punching him in the guts. As the Butcher doubled over Murray delivered a swift and crushing blow to the back of the head. The man tried to rise, coughing blood as he staggered over to him. ‘Now you’re down you’ll bloody well stay down,’ he growled as he stamped on the fingers of one hand, which were splayed out on the cobbles, breaking most of them.
The Butcher screamed and scrambled away from him. ‘I yield, please no more, I yield,’ he gurgled, over the shouts of ‘end him’ and ‘break the other hand,’ coming from the crowd.
Murray turned to the helpless, exhausted man on the floor. This is what they’d come to see and so easy to do it, the work of a moment. Just a hard stamp on the head would despatch him or maybe the windpipe, crushing it like a rotten apple. But why the hell should he give them what they want, craven, heartless pigs?