Ahead, a rare sight—a small hovel of a cottage, huddled stone on stone beside the track. He knew very well he should make his way up and around the brae to avoid it, but he lacked the strength.
He meant to trudge on by as swiftly as he could. But in quickening his pace he stumbled and went down beside the drystone wall that fronted the track, his fingers grasping for it. They missed, and he went down.
He felt the hard, cold ground coming up to meet him, and then no more until a voice sounded in his ear and a pair of determined arms urged him up again.
“Here, now. Here, now.”
He came to himself, at least bits of himself, and obeyed that strong urging. Someone helped him to his feet. Supported him as he struggled.
“Awa’ in wi’ ye now. A few steps more, only.”
The next he knew, he awoke in a dim room. A fire burned nearby, but it did little to lift the gloom cast by a low roof and no windows he could see. He felt warm but curiously wooden-headed, and so weak he had no words for it.
“So ye’ve come awake, ha’ ye?” A voice, the same surely that he had heard outside, along the track. A woman’s voice.
She appeared beside him and eased herself down with a small groan of discomfort. She was aged, with a crown of silver-white hair and a face full of weathering, her voice cracked by time.
“I was beginning to wonder if ye would wake at all, and me wi’ ye stretched out here beside my hearth. Wha’ to do wi’ ye?”
Finlay said nothing in reply, did nothing save stare at her.
“Fleeing yon battle, are ye?” she asked kindly. “The one awa’ in the south?”
“Aye.” His voice did not sound like his own.
“Aye, so I have had others moving through here, a few, and some hurt sore bad. I ha’ helped them as I may, being the loyal Scotswoman tha’ I am. But I am a widow on my own, ye ken, and ha’ no’ much to spare.”
“Wha’ is this place?”
“Kintail. Laird Campbell’s land. Where are ye bound, laddie?”
“Home.”
“And where might that be?”
“Cursed if I can recall.”
She pursed her lips and tutted at him. “Och, ye ha’ a great, terrible lump to the back o’ yer head. I reckon that’s knocked the sense out o’ ye, but I do no’ doubt all will come back in time.”
Finlay doubted it.
“Wha’ is yer name?”
“Ardahl. Ardahl MacCormac.” It came from nowhere.
“Aye, and does that no’ sound like a name fro’ Ireland? What ye bedoing here, then?”
“I am no’ sure.”
“Well, ye sound like a Scotsman true, and no’ Irishman I ever met. When my husband, Ernie, was still alive we sometimes hired Irish lads for the harvest, ye understand. They did no’ sound like ye. But ye no’ be wearing a tartan. Just that gray kilt and nay plaidie at all.”
“The only name I recall is Ardahl.”
“Well, I canna help that, but mayhap ye’ll remember more as yer head heals. Wha’ I can help is the state o’ ye. Ye need feedin’. Ye are naught but bones, and I am no’ surprised ye went down outside my door.”
She was kind. “Ye be kind.”
“Tush, tush, ye let me do as I will. One thing for certain, ye canna be out in the cold or ye will lie down beneath a gorse bush and die. ’Tis snowing out there, ye ken.”
