The Battle for Duncragglin Read online

  For Jan, Eric, Graham, and Mame

  And special thanks to the citizens of the town of Dunbar, who (acting admittedly under the authority vested in them by no one in particular) bestowed upon me the status of “Honorary Scot” with the presentation of a humorous certificate that I display proudly. A greater honor is hard to imagine!

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  PART I: A CHANGE IN PLACE

  1 Travel to Scotland

  2 The McRaes

  3 The Wailing Rocks

  4 A Plan

  5 Picnic at the Ruins

  6 Midnight Excursion

  7 Trapped

  PART II: A CHANGE IN TIME

  8 Within Dark Forests

  9 Captives of a Rebel Camp

  10 The Battle at Loch Karins

  11 Hare Today

  12 Fire

  13 The Unlucky Rabbit's Foot

  14 Never Underestimate

  15 That's No My Son

  16 The Mission

  PART III: A CHANGE IN DUNCRAGGLIN

  17 The Captive in Malcolm's Home

  18 Prepared to Die

  19 Breeching Duncragglin

  20 Bartering with the Kitchen Master

  21 To the Dungeons

  22 Interrogation

  23 The Gallows

  24 A Turn of Events

  25 Hesselrigge's Legacy

  26 Small Markers

  27 The Way Back

  PROLOGUE

  “There it is, Dad! That's where they left it.”

  The man glanced up the cliff to where a board was wedged in the rocks. He shook his head. “If even they didnae want it, Grant, it cannae be worth anything.”

  Undeterred, the boy ran across the sand at the water's edge, leaping clusters of seaweed stranded by the tide. Shells crunched under his boots as he climbed the rocks at the base of the cliff. Reaching the board, he yanked it loose and turned it over. Yes, this is it!

  Here they were, those strange animal engravings that had so intrigued him earlier that day, when he saw that foreign boy holding the board. He examined the engravings closely: the sharp-tusked boar that stood so ridiculously erect on its hind legs; the ant that looked like it was brandishing a weapon; the bird with the long pointy beak and the piercing eye that seemed to stare all-knowingly out from the board.

  But the carvings were faint; the wood rotted, green, and slimy. The boy grimaced. His dad was right: this was not the kind of thing that would sell in their Scottish artifacts and antiques store. Moreover, being waterlogged, it was heavy, and he didn't feel like hauling it back to the car. The only reason he was interested in it at all was because of that foreign boy.

  Although he did not want it badly enough to carry it, he did not want to leave it either. That foreign boy might come back for it. So he lifted the board by one end and, with a grunt, gave it his best Scottish caber-toss. The board arced and plonked end-first to disappear underwater. Seconds later, it rolled back up to the surface, where it nodded gently in the drift and tug of the swells coursing over submerged rocks. But instead of drifting away, it was slowly being pushed back to shore by the waves. The tide must be coming in, the boy thought. Annoyed, he watched as the board disappeared behind some rocks. He climbed to the water's edge to see where it went. To his surprise, it was gone.

  Kneeling low to the water, the boy saw an opening beneath an overhang. Intrigued, he hung his head down further and peered into the darkness. The hollow extended far under the rocks. Wherever it led, it was big enough to suck in a board and make it disappear without a trace.

  This was important, and he knew it. This just might be what he and his father were looking for – the way into the underground caverns that legend had it were sealed off ages ago, caverns that his father suspected might contain all kinds of valuable ancient relics, or better yet, treasures … huge chests filled with gold coins, guarded only by helpless grinning skeletons clutching rusted swords studded with priceless, gleaming gems. Ha! They would sell it all, the swords too. The boy didn't believe those tales of ghosts and demons; tales of how people who went in never came out. And so what if some people had found a way in and had gotten lost? His father was smarter than that. He wouldn't get lost. They would find things never found before. They would be rich! His father would have what he always wanted. And then he would be content, and then he wouldn't be in the pub all the time, and he wouldn't hit him and his mother anymore, and everyone would be happy….

  The boy scampered back up the rocks. Waving urgently, he persuaded his reluctant father to climb around the outcropping.

  His father leaned over and shone his torch into the opening. The light traveled a long way down a narrow, water-filled tunnel. The incoming tide was almost to its ceiling. Waves slapped the sides, rose up to fill it completely, and receded as the seawater came gurgling out.

  The man let out a low whistle. He straightened. “Yes,” he said softly. “You just might have found it. And if you have, this is the start of something big … something very big.”

  PART I

  A CHANGE IN PLACE

  1

  TRAVEL TO SCOTLAND

  Alex knew he had been to this airport before, back in those early, awful days when his parents went missing. He took in the tall arch of glass, the web of steel girders, and the dizzying array of signs, but nothing looked familiar.

  His uncle Larry stayed close beside him, muttering the whole time about how he had to be sure Alex got on that plane. Together they waited their turn at the counter, where a conveyor belt whisked away Alex's battered brown suitcase and his ticket was exchanged for a boarding pass. Together they waited their turn at the security check, below a sign that read PASSENGERS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.

  “But I need to accompany the boy to the gate,” his uncle argued, fretfully running his hand over the top of his balding head. “He's only twelve, and I have to make sure he gets on that plane!”

  The security agent held up her hand. “We'll have an airline agent accompany him the rest of the way, sir,” she said, with a quick glance at Alex's boarding pass. She beckoned impatiently for Alex's bag. Dismayed, Alex watched as she dropped it onto a moving conveyor belt that fed into a big machine.

  Alex didn't want his comic books damaged – they were the only things of his father's that he had left. He'd found them years ago in a damp and mildewy box, pressed into the furthest recesses under the basement stairs of his uncle's house.

  “Yeah, sure, I don't care. Just keep them in your room,” his uncle had said.

  They were classics: old, illustrated versions of famous books. Among Alex's favorites were Journey to the Center of the Earth, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and The Time Machine; but there were many more, so many great adventures in such faraway places and such distant times.

  The only reason the comics had survived all these years was because Alex's father had wrapped each one in a plastic envelope. Even so, many of the pages were weak and disintegrating.

  A guard beckoned for Alex to pass through a metal detector.

  “Bye, Uncle Larry,” Alex said quietly.

  “Be sure you get on that plane!”

  The guard glanced at an instrument panel and waved him on. Alex squeezed past the other passengers at the far end of the X-ray machine and snatched up his bag of comics before their carry-on bags could bunch up around it.

  Ahead were several long crowded corridors. Alex checked his boarding pass. The ticket agent had circled gate number 5B, but that was not much help. He dreaded the thought of missing his flight, especially the part where he saw his uncle again.

  He took a deep breath. Well, first things first. He knelt to tie up his laces.


  “Alex Macpherson?”

  A uniformed woman was standing over him. “Come,” she said. “I'll take you to your gate.”

  Far from missing his flight, Alex was the first to board. The announcement had said families with children could board first, and Alex figured that meant him – even though he had no family.

  Happy to discover that he had a window seat, Alex pulled a comic from his bag and settled in to reread the battle conquests of Sir William Wallace in The Scottish Chiefs. His favorite part was where Wallace takes a castle by surprise.

  But he was distracted, and his mind wandered.

  “You're going to stay with your aunt Fiona for the summer,” his uncle had announced, only a few days before. Alex had heard his uncle on the phone, working out the details. “I'll pay for the flight, but I see no reason to pay for his room and board. He's your nephew too. I don't see why you can't share more of the burden.”

  Alex didn't care to know the details of what they ultimately worked out. From what he'd heard, he was to stay with his dreaded aunt Fiona in Scotland for the summer. He had met Aunt “Finicky” the year before, when she was over for a visit. She had paid him little attention, other than to ask him to fetch this or that. Her husband had been a merchant seaman who'd spent most of his time in pubs. “He drank himself to death,” Aunt Fiona had told Uncle Larry. “It served him right.”

  A leather bag dropped onto the seat next to him. A plump, middle-aged man with neatly parted hair hoisted a small suitcase into the overhead bin. Snapping the bin shut, he moved the leather bag to the floor and plopped himself down.

  “Hello, traveling alone?” he said, with a friendly smile.

  “My aunt is meeting me at the airport,” Alex replied hesitantly, over the top of his comic book.

  “How nice. What's that you're reading?” The man tipped up his glasses. “Remarkable! You know, I'm studying that very period of Scottish history. I'm a professor of archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. Thomas Macintyre's my name.” He extended his hand. “Yours?”

  Oh, no. Not one of these talkative types. Alex stifled a sigh. He mumbled his name and reluctantly held out his hand.

  “Macpherson, you say.” Professor Macintyre gave Alex's hand a rapid little shake. “Now that's a fine name – goes way back in Scottish history, back to even before the time depicted in that comic book you're reading.”

  Alex raised the comic and made like he was going to read.

  “Did you know that many of your ancestors fought in the Battle of Dunbar in 1296? That was a terrible day for the Scots; thousands were slaughtered. It's not that the Scots were poor fighters; the English simply had better weapons, tighter discipline, and superior strategy. But that was before William Wallace came along – oh, yes, that very same William Wallace you're reading about. He changed everything. Oh, how he knew strategy – he outmaneuvered the English at almost every turn.”

  “So what happened to these Macphersons?” Alex asked, becoming interested despite himself.

  “Sad to say, most were killed. But you had one very unusual ancestor who fought with William Wallace, you know….”

  “What did he do?”

  “Eh? Oh. Well, when he was about your age, he helped Wallace achieve a decisive victory. It was in the battle for Duncragglin, a strategically positioned castle on the east coast, up a ways from the Firth of Forth.”

  “How did he do that?”

  “The records are sketchy. It was a long, long time ago and not much was written back then.” The professor hesitated. “But somehow – no one knows how – he helped Wallace and his men get past the enemy defenses. For years afterwards, people thought he had special powers.”

  “What kind of powers?”

  “Well, for starters, he just showed up out of nowhere one day. He had a strange manner of speech and spoke of other worlds and strange things … but that's all we really know about him.”

  “Is the castle still there?”

  “Not really. You can see where the keep used to be and the outline of the harbor, but it's pretty much gone. All the entrances to the underground chambers were sealed off hundreds of years ago. Apparently, every now and then, someone would disappear, and folk thought they were getting lost in caves deep under the castle. Others thought the ruins were haunted, which is to be expected – that's what usually happens when a person goes missing anywhere near an old ruin. So they blew up some more of its innards long ago and sealed it up.”

  “Do they charge admission?”

  “Admission! Och, no. It's completely abandoned. Scotland has so many ruined castles. There's not enough left of this one to interest tourists.”

  No tourists, long-abandoned underground chambers … maybe there's a way to get inside. Alex shivered with delight. Perhaps he would find dungeons with rusty iron bars, or even bits of old weapons and armor!

  “I think, though, that there is something even more interesting there than the castle.” The professor lowered his voice. “Quite by accident, I found reference to an extensive underground labyrinth in some Roman writings. The Romans found this labyrinth to be quite mysterious. Now, no one has yet made the connection between the labyrinth the Romans wrote about and the caves beneath the Duncragglin ruins, but I think they could be one and the same.”

  “What was the labyrinth used for?”

  “Who knows? It could have been a form of defense. It would be hard for invaders to defeat people holed up in a spiderweb of caves deep under the cliffs. I have a theory, though, that there was much more to it – something very frightening….”

  “What was frightening? Professor?”

  “Well, that's what I've been trying to find out. From what the Romans wrote, the labyrinth might hold one of the world's great mysteries. But how a people who lived so long ago could have been so advanced, that's hard to understand….”

  “So it's very old?”

  “Yes. It was there long before the castle, dating back to prehistoric times. I believe it might have been built about the same time as many of the standing stone circles we see in Scotland. There might even have been a relationship between all these things – they might have worked together for some religious or magical purpose – but that's only a theory of mine.”

  “I was born in a place called Strath Mern … or something like that,” Alex said. “Are the castle ruins anywhere near there?”

  “Straith Meirn?” The professor pronounced it with rolling r's, which Alex had no hope of imitating. “Oh, yes, very near – the town's only a few miles south of the ruins.”

  Alex was listening to Professor Macintyre so intently that he was only dimly aware that the airplane had been taxiing. The engines swelled to a deep roar, and Alex felt himself being pressed back into his seat. The runway markers flashed by faster and faster. The plane tipped up and the ground fell away.

  Night fell, and the lights were dimmed. People reclined their seats, adjusted pillows, and pulled blankets up over their shoulders. Everyone seemed ready for sleep – everyone, that is, except Alex. Next to him, the professor sat with his seat-back reclined, eyes closed, making annoying little snorting noises. Alex debated whether to prod him to make him stop.

  The professor's chin waggled down to his chest and the snoring ceased. Alex breathed a sigh of relief and tried to get comfortable, leaning back and tucking the airplane blanket under his chin.

  Suddenly the professor gave out a deep gasp that left his jaw hanging open. Then he snorted louder than ever. To make matters worse, his head slowly lolled toward Alex despite all of Alex's telepathic efforts to will it back the other way.

  Irritated, Alex twisted to face the window. He raised the blanket up over his head and tried hard to ignore the gasping and gurgling behind him. He imagined himself preparing for battle back in the time of William Wallace. He was covering hand-dug trenches with branches and heather to lay a trap for the enemy. Indeed, he'd come up with the very idea and was commended for it by none other than William Wallace himself, wh
o clapped Alex warmly on the shoulder and said, “Well done, son. Wherever did ye learn such clever battle strategy?”

  Morning came quickly – too quickly. A flight attendant pushed a cart down the aisle, but it didn't feel like breakfast time.

  Groggily, Alex lifted the blind. The horizon had turned into a band of brilliant red that pushed back the black of night. It was becoming altogether too bright for this hour. Alex snapped the blind back down.

  2

  THE MCRAES

  “Let me take those bags – I've got a cart – how have you been – it's so good to see you – how was your flight?” The babble of voices swirled around Alex as he stood by himself, waiting and watching passengers reunite with family and friends.

  The arrivals hall was emptying. Alex had no idea what to do next. His aunt Fiona's telephone number was with him, but he had no money to make a call. He was tired and wondered miserably if there was a bench somewhere to take a nap.

  “Alex Macpherson – would ye be Alex Macpherson?”

  A short, squat man with a round nose and a blotchy complexion was staring intently at him, cap in hand. Beside him, a boy about Alex's age (or about his size, anyway) was eyeing him curiously.

  “I'm Alastair McRae.” The man extended a big callused hand. “This is my son Willie.”

  Alex was uncomfortable with all this hand-shaking. Back-slapping and high-fiving, yes … hand-shaking, no. When Willie extended his hand (prompted by his father), Alex slapped it and held his hand out for Willie to return the slap. He did.

  “Y'r aunt Fiona isnae feelin' well, so she's arranged fir ye to bide wi' us fir a week or two.”

  Alex blinked. “She's not well?”

  “It isnae serious – just a head cold. Ye can gi'e 'er a call once we git to the farm. Until she's better, ye'll be staying with me and my three bairns: wild Willie here; my dochter, Annie, who's a wee bit older'n ye lads; and the wee rascal Craig, who's the youngest.”