"I'm not likely to forget it," I assured him, with some grimness. I remembered Jamie's story of his punishment at Colum's order, and wondered how much of that had been in revenge for his mother's rebellion.
Still, Colum had had no chance to seize the opportunity of marrying his sister to the laird of clan Grant. Toward dawn, Dougal had found Malcolm Grant camped along the main road with his followers, asleep under a gorse bush, wrapped in his plaid.
And when Alec and the others had come pelting along the road sometime later, they had been stopped in their tracks by the sight of Dougal MacKenzie and Malcolm Grant, both stripped to the waist and scarred with the marks of battle, swaying and staggering up and down the roadway, still exchanging random blows whenever they got within reach of each other. Grant's retainers were perched along the roadway like a row of owls, heads turning one way and then the other, as the waning fight meandered up and down in the dripping dawn.
"They were both of them puffing like blown horses, and the steam rising off their bodies in the chill. Grant's nose was swelled to twice its size, and Dougal could scarce see out o' either eye, and both wi' their blood dripping down and dried ower their breasts."
Upon the appearance of Colum's men, Grant's tacksmen had all sprung to their feet, hands upon their swords, and the meeting would likely have resulted in serious bloodshed, had some sharp-eyed lad among the MacKenzies not noted the rather important fact that Ellen MacKenzie was nowhere to be seen among the Grants.
"Weel, after they'd poured water on Malcolm Grant and brought him to his senses, he managed to tell them what Dougal wouldna pause to hear—that Ellen had spent but a quarter-hour wi' him in the rose garden. He wouldna say what had passed between them, but whatever it was, he'd been so offended as to wish to take his leave at once, without showing his face in the Hall. And he'd left her there, and seen her no more, nor did he wish ever to hear the name of Ellen MacKenzie spoken in his presence again. And wi' that, he mounted his horse—a bit unsteady, still—and rode awa'. And been no friend since, to anyone of the clan MacKenzie."
I listened, fascinated. "And where was Ellen all this time?"
Old Alec laughed, with the sound of a stable door hinge creaking.
"Ower the hills and far away. But they didna find it out for some time yet. We turned about and pelted home again, to find Ellen still missing and Colum standing white-faced in the courtyard, leanin' on Angus Mhor."
There followed more confusion still, for with all the guests, the rooms of the Castle were full, as were all the lofts and cubbyholes, the kitchens and closets. It seemed hopeless to tell which of all the folk in the Castle might also be missing, but Colum called all of the servants, and went doggedly down the lists of the invited, asking who had been seen the evening before, and where, and when. And finally he found a kitchen-maid who recalled seeing a man in a back passage, just before the supper was served.
She had noticed him only because he was so handsome; tall and sturdy, she said, with hair like a black silkie's and eyes like a cat. She had watched him down the passage, admiring him, and seen him meet someone at the outer door—a woman dressed in black from head to toe, and shrouded in a hooded cloak.
"What's a silkie?" I asked.
Alec's eye slanted toward me, crinkling at the corners.
"Ye call them seals in English. For quite a bit after that, even after they knew the truth of it, folk in the village would tell the tale to each other that Ellen MacKenzie was taken to the sea, to live among the seals. Did ye know that the silkies put aside their skins when they come ashore, and walk like men? And if ye find a silkie's skin and hide it, he—or she—" he added, fairly, "canna go into the sea again, but must stay with ye on the land. It's thought good to take a seal-wife that way, for they're very good cooks, and most devoted mothers.
"Still," he said judiciously, "Colum wasna inclined to believe his sister'd gone off wi' a seal, and said so. So he called the guests down, one by one, and asked them all who knew a man of that description. And at long last, they worked it out that his name was Brian, but no one knew his clan or his surname; he'd been at the Games, but there they only called him Brian Dhu."
So there the matter seemed to rest for a time, for the searchers had no idea in which direction to look. Still, even the best of hunters must stop at a cottage now and then, to ask for a handful of salt or a pannikin of milk. And eventually word of the pair reached Leoch, for Ellen MacKenzie was a maid of no ordinary appearance.