14

The fine weather did not break. For three days, I woke at dawn and made my way in the early morning sunlight to the broch. With the loose stone cleared from the interior of the broch, I could see more clearly the layout of the interior rooms around the walls.

It was apparent that the broch had first been built with no accommodation in the centre at all. This, I believed, had consisted of a courtyard, which was only later reduced in size by the construction of a number of small apartments around its periphery. I drew this conclusion from the fact that the walls of these little rooms were not keyed into the main structure but simply abutted onto it. Working carefully with a bricklayer’s trowel, I excavated three of the rooms down to the base of the walls.

In the smallest, I discovered a number of potsherds of crude manufacture, seashells and round pebbles from the shore, many splinters of bone and a much-corroded iron pin about four inches long, with a flattened head. As the broch builders had not used nails in the construction of their towers, I assumed this was a pin to fasten a cloak or some other garment. The scatter in the room suggested to me that the finds I uncovered had been put there for a purpose, perhaps to give substance to the beaten earth floor, which would otherwise have been churned up; for this reason, I decided the room had been a domestic animal shelter possibly, judging by its dimensions and the bone splinters, a kennel for hunting dogs.

The floor of the adjacent room showed two postholes which had, presumably, held up a roof of thatch, whilst the third and largest room contained not only four postholes but the site of a hearth, a thick layer of burnt charcoal surrounded by a square of five fire-scorched flat stones.

These discoveries convinced me that the broch was not a place of refuge in time of strife but a permanently occupied homestead belonging to a family or clan of some social position in the locality.

Yet whilst my archaeological inquisitiveness was somewhat sated by my work, my curiosity concerning Eilean Tosdach increased by the hour. I could not look up from my work, take a break to slake my thirst or pause to stretch without seeing it lying half a mile away: and whenever I looked at it I had the uneasy sense that I in turn was being watched.

On the afternoon of the third day, I completed my excavations at about four o’clock in the afternoon. My back ached from hours of bending and my eyes seemed to be fixed permanently to a focal length of about two feet. I bagged up my finds, completed my notes and left the ruin to sit on the boulder where I had eaten my midday meal on my first visit.

The sky was studded with clouds, which ran their shadows over the mountains at my back and the sea before me. I waited until I was in their shade, then slid from the boulder, removing from my satchel a seafarer’s telescope I had borrowed from Ogilvy on the pretext of wanting to survey the island for ruins.

For twenty minutes, I covered the far shore with the telescope. I saw nothing moving. There was also no sign of any habitation, either ancient or modern, save the causewayed dùn about which I came to the conclusion that it was not actually an outstation for an insular settlement but for the settlement in which I was working.

‘I shall have to return to Eilean Tosdach,’ I said to Ogilvy that evening as we sat on benches outside the inn, a jug of ale between us and the twilight deepening, watching the fishermen return with their wicker baskets filled with herring, sild, sardines and assorted crustaceans.

‘Is that so?’ he replied, tapping a briar pipe out against the heel of his foot and filling it with shag from a tobacco pouch in his pocket.

‘I need to visit the dùn again,’ I explained by way of excuse, mentioning my theory and going on, ‘If I can find potsherds on the island similar to those in the mainland broch, it will support my hunch.’

‘Aye, I suppose it will do that,’ he replied noncommittally, tamping down the contents of his pipe bowl and lighting it with a Swan vesta, the air suddenly tinged with the blue smoke and aroma of rum-soaked tobacco.

The following morning, Jamie took me out to the island, dropping me off at the same landing place and instructing me to be back there not after four o’clock. As before, he cast off as soon as I was ashore, sailing ahead of a stiff breeze down the coastline.

In truth, I did want to see if my thesis held up to archaeological scrutiny, yet I was far more fired by the thought of seeing the girl again. It was not then a matter of love, nor had I any carnal desire for her; it was her exoticism that drew me. I regarded her as I might a priceless Etruscan vase or a piece of Roman glass: just thinking of her somehow reminded me of a delicately blown fourth-century amber-coloured jug I had once been permitted to handle, with a trefoil mouth and exquisite turquoise handle, the rim decorated with intertwining spirals. Just as with that exquisite artefact, I was intrigued by her, by the mystery of her past, enchanted by her appearance.

Setting off along the path, I walked slowly, scanning the way ahead carefully, watching for any movement I could not attribute to the breeze. I even checked the direction of the wind, to make sure it was in my favour. Every few yards, I looked round but saw nothing.

Approaching with caution the boulder upon which I had last seen the girl, I noticed a barely discernible track heading up the ridge behind it. It was little more than an indentation in the scrub, but I found it to be well worn. There was no doubt in my mind that the boulder was one of the girl’s vantage points, and, looking over to the mainland, I realised that if she had chosen to observe me working in Dùn an Làmh Thoisgeal, it would have been from here, almost directly opposite across the strait.

Not knowing what lay over it, I crouched low as I reached the top of the ridge. The track I had ascended here joined a very obvious and well-used path at least a foot wide that appeared to run the length of the island, keeping just below the skyline on the seawards side.

For some minutes, I sat down in the scrub. It was, I thought, like being on the far, unseen surface of the moon, and I wondered, remembering Ogilvy’s comment on the fishermen’s loathing and avoidance of the place, how often men had cast their eyes upon the landscape before and below me.

On this side of the island, even the scrub was wind-bent, as if ordered by a gigantic brush combing it towards the top of the ridge. There were no trees; indeed, the tallest bush was not above four feet high. Boulders were strewn about the slopes, affording ample cover to anything that might choose to hide from view. The girl could have been behind any one of them, observing my progress over the ground, yet I did not feel her presence.

Sitting on the bare earth, my head just above the top of the scrub, I gave her much thought. I could not come to terms with what she was doing on the island, how she survived there with no contact with the mainland. I had seen no signs of domestic stock, no indication of any agricultural activity, not so much as a bush with an edible berry. And the loneliness. How, I wondered, did she survive the solitude.

At the semi-crouch, I pressed on. Abandoning the path, I moved like a hunter from boulder to boulder, keeping my profile as low as possible whilst, at all times, assuring I was not silhouetted against the sky. It was slow going and I saw not a sign of any human activity. I even began to wonder if, perhaps, the girl had been a figment of my imagination, that Ogilvy’s coconut oil had not been as efficacious as he had assumed and that I had, after all, suffered sunstroke and one of its commensurate hallucinations.

Rounding a small spur coming off the ridge, I was suddenly aware of smoke. I could not see any indication of a fire, but the scent of burning wood was strong. With the stiff breeze blowing, I assessed that I must be quite close to the fire, so, lowering myself to my belly, I edged forwards, pulling myself through the brush by my elbows.

After some yards, I came to the side of a steep combe. Had it not been for the smoke giving me warning, I would almost certainly have stumbled upon the place, giving away my presence in a spectacular fashion with an ignominious tumble down the slope.

About thirty yards across and forty long, the combe was strewn with boulders around which the soil had been tilled, worked by a foot plough that lay against a rock. Several narrow raised beds of vegetables, formed by turning over two layers of turf and fertilising the depression between them with dried kelp, were growing in what must have been the only sheltered place on the island. Irrigation channels ran between the rows of plants, fed from a spring at the head of the combe. A pen of interwoven wicker panels contained a number of hens and a gaudily plumed cockerel. At the seawards end of the combe was a tiny shingle beach upon which was drawn up a craft not unlike a Welsh coracle. So much, I thought, for the talk of there being no landing place on Eilean Tosdach. On a flat boulder near the water’s edge, gutted fish were laid out for drying. A net was strung between two poles.

For a while, I lay on my belly looking at the scene through the cover of a low bush and marvelling at how anyone could survive so successfully on the island. Even the broch builders had not, it seemed, sought to tame the place but just used it as an outstation, supplying its occupants from the mainland.

The smoke, the product of very dry wood, was hardly visible, but a faint wisp appeared every so often from a dense clump of bushes close by the beach. I retreated some yards, then, still on my stomach, edged my way towards the sea for a better view.

Tucked into the protection of the undergrowth and boulders was a croft. The low walls were made of stones, neatly fitted together in the manner of the brochs, without mortar. The roof was covered with living turf, only a circle of stones at one end breaking the uniformity of the tough grass: through this escaped the drift of smoke. There were no windows, but, facing away from the sea, a low door was hung with a heavy curtain of hide, the bottom hem sewn with stones to keep it closed.

A little way from the door was the site of an outdoor hearth in which a charcoal fire was burning. It was exactly like that which I had excavated at the broch, a rectangle of flat stones with a space between two of them to allow air into the embers. A large earthenware pot, the sides blackened by smoke, stood on one of the hearthstones, simmering. To one side of the croft was a pool surrounded by boulders and fed by the spring. A wooden ladle, carved from one piece of bleached driftwood, lay by the water’s edge.

As I gazed down from my hidden position, it was as if the whole scene was a reconstruction of life as it had been lived two millennia ago. It reminded me of the sort of tableaux imaginative museum curators erected. All it lacked was a tailor’s dummy dressed in rags, wearing a claymore in a leather scabbard and holding a spear.

For ten minutes, there was no movement or sound other than the scratching and clucking of the hens. The breeze died down somewhat, the sun shone intermittently as the clouds blew over and the sea lapped gently at the shingle. I grew uneasy. The absence of the girl made me wonder if she was there. If she wasn’t, she could have been behind me, her hands holding a rock with which to cave my skull in, or a spike to drive into my spine. I bent my head over my shoulder. I could see up to the ridge and scanned it carefully. Nothing was out of the ordinary. A herring gull perched upon a rock preening itself told me I was at no risk.

When I returned my attention to the combe once more, she was there, crouching by the pool, the earthenware pot at her feet. She had her back to me, her hair falling forwards as it had on our last meeting, showing the nape of her neck. After a moment, she raised her hands and, in one motion, pulled her upper garment over her head. Her skin was white and unmarked save for the faint shadows of her vertebrae. Naked to the waist, she dipped the wooden ladle in the pot and tipped the hot water over her hair. I, not ten yards from her, watched the water run down her back. She shivered as it touched her skin.

I felt guilty, secretly watching her, yet I could not take my eyes from her. Her every movement, no matter how prosaic, had a defined beauty. Where the water wet her back, her skin glistened. The sunlight seemed not to shine on her so much as be absorbed by and radiate from her.

After a few minutes, she began to sing: it is the best I can describe the sound. It was not a tune, exactly, nor had it words. It was a grotesque and whimsical melody of twanging, plunking notes, discordant and yet imbued with primitive rhythm, rising and falling in muted crescendos. It was as if she were strumming a simple stringed instrument inside her head, her mouth echoing like a sound box.

When her hair stopped dripping, she ceased her music, stood up and turned to face me. Her breasts were small and white, her nipples dark. With almost delicate steps, she went to the hearth and, scooping up a handful of cool ashes from the periphery of the fire, started to work them into her hair, massaging her scalp with her long fingers. This done, her hair caked with a paste of ash, she went back to the pool and rinsed it out.

So entranced was I by her activity, I did not see the curtain to the croft lift and a mongrel appear. I was first aware of it when it gave a short, sharp yelp. The sound startled me and I must have moved my head. This alerted the dog further. It remained silent, but its hackles rose, its lips lifting in a snarl.

At the dog’s bark, the girl had jumped to her feet and turned about. She made no attempt to cover herself, quickly brushing her wet hair behind her head.

The dog was set, staring in my direction. It tilted its head to one side, the better to hear if I moved. She did likewise. The cockerel, alarmed by the dog’s bark, raucously called out once. The hens fell silent and crowded together under a ledge of rock in their run. Even the breeze seemed to die. The only sound to be heard was the hiss of the sea on the shingle.

I knew I should leave, that I was intruding upon the girl’s world and had no right to impinge myself upon it. My motives were selfish, almost voyeuristic. Yet I had to stay. The girl’s loveliness held me.

Looking upon her brought a deep calm over me. I could not explain it. It was as if being near her was almost spiritual. Had I been religious, not a modern man of science with a training in logic, I would have said that either great goodness or great evil dwelt in her. It was, I considered, no wonder that the people of Breakish were afraid of this place, of her, the tannasg. She possessed a power that they dared not face and I could not resist.

The door curtain was flung aside and a man appeared. Dressed in a leather jerkin and a dark-coloured kilt, he had shoulder-length hair and the full beard of a patriarch, grey with age. Although not tall, he was stocky, powerfully built. Behind him came an elderly woman wearing a long brown skirt and woollen shawl, her hair scraped back into a tight bun. He looked at the girl, then at the dog.

I kept still, my heart pounding, my pulse beating in my brow.

None of them spoke.

The man began to survey the side of the combe. I could tell he was staring at the base of the slope, slowly and methodically working his way up. The girl remained at the pool side, making no effort to hide or run for cover. She, too, scanned the hillside, yet whereas the man had a scowl upon his face, a soft half-smile seemed to play upon her lips. The woman moved quickly over to the girl’s side, picked up her discarded clothing and folded it over her arm. Such a domestic act seemed so incongruous in the circumstances.

His study of the hillside complete, the man entered the croft to return a moment later carrying a broad pouched belt and a long-barrelled flintlock musket of some antiquity. As the woman scanned the bushes, he opened the pouch, took out a powder horn and primed the weapon, tamping the charge home with the ramrod. This done, he took a musket ball from the pouch and, with a wad, rammed that down the barrel. I could not help wondering if the weapon had been used on Cumberland’s soldiers as they fell down the wet steps.

So mesmerised was I by the man that I temporarily ignored the girl. When the gun was charged, I shifted my gaze. She was looking straight at me. Like a wild stag on the mountains, she knew exactly where the stalker was even if she could not see him. It was, I thought, only a matter of seconds before she gave away my position, yet she made no attempt to communicate with the old man.

And, now, she was unequivocally smiling.

The man put the musket to his shoulder. I heard the distinct click of the flintlock as he thumbed it into the cocked position. The breeze picked up, agitating the undergrowth. Under cover of the movement, I began to worm myself backwards as quickly as I dared. When out of sight of the bottom of the combe, I rose to a crouch and ran for the cover of a tumble of boulders just below the ridge. As I reached them, I heard the distant report of the musket. The ball struck one of the boulders fifteen feet from me. I felt safe. Either his aim was poor or the weapon just did not have the range. No other shot was fired.

I looked back down at the combe, which was, from the ridge, barely discernible, and I knew that, despite the risks, I had to return to be with her.