Chapel Orahamm

The winds blow across Old Man Storr.

The mists settle about the lochs.

Clouds trail across the high reaches.

In the highlands, I am at home again.

— in the year of our Lord 1692

At the end of his date, the dark bloom of ink sent the man in the deep red leather cloak scrambling for the blotting paper. His nib needed cutting.

“Mr Niloofar!” The captain’s cry jarred the man’s attention from his journal. Mr Niloofar flinched, his gloved hand brushing the dark blue liquid across the vellum. Beneath the plague mask, he glowered at the offending materials and reached for the bottle of setting powder.

The hatch creaked, sending a shaft of light to scatter dust motes in the hold of the ship. The masked man shielded his face against the blinding crescent. The captain, in a simple brown kilt and homespun shirt, clumped down the narrow stairs while Mr Niloofar shifted his calligraphy set around, still in a panic for the paper. The ink was seeping, wicking down the side.

“Ye awake, Mr Niloofar?” The captain approached the cloaked figure. Furtively, the man in the hold shifted the plague mask low on his face and held out a stilling gloved hand to the captain. Unable to see the movement, the captain continued his approach in the cramped space. Close enough to Mr Niloofar’s makeshift desk of crates, he stopped with a frown to study the mess his guest was making. “If ye come out now, the fog’s risin’. Ye’ll see Bàgh Faoileag comin’ up along the ridgeline.”

The masked man waved the captain to his job. Dragging his effects together, Mr Niloofar put away inks and pens into a leather satchel. The setting powder had ended up in the bottom of the bag. He pulled it out and dusted the papers. While he waited for the documents to dry, he shoved his satchel into an oiled duffel bag leaning against the box he had commandeered for his ruminations.

The man shifted a short rectangular box no larger than his torso from under his makeshift cot of canvas and rigging. The pages set, he tied them into his leather folio and eased it into a slot in the box. He tugged the duffel to check the weight. Nothing had been moved in it, save for the satchel. The padlock on the chest next to it gleamed under lamplight.

Pulling at the hood of his floor-length cape, he flicked a glance to the stairwell. Setting his jaw, fingers trembling, he tapped the top of the box, contemplating. He was not ready to see home. The slap of the ocean against the hull walls did nothing to ease the knot in his chest. He shook his fingers, banishing the tell. Trying to draw in a breath against his constricting throat, he reached into his cloak hood to adjust the steinkirk threatening to throttle him. Metal at the tips of his fingers drove his fear to the back of his brain. Closing his eyes, he slipped along the rolling twist of gold hidden beneath the silk tie holding his collar together. A Brent Goose’s honk shot an arrow of nostalgia through his heart.

Pushing past his cerebrations, he took to the end of the hold. The ladder steps were shallow, and he jammed his knee on a tread as he emerged. Tripping forward into the dawn, he swallowed the view in front of him.

Salt hung thick in the cold, damp air. Waves slapped and harassed the tar-smeared hull of the birlinn. The oars bruised and harried the ocean, seeking a purchase to move a scant length forward. The breeze cut through the leather cloak, probing and slashing. The drifting scent of fish and the bark of seals made his eyes water. It had been too long since he had seen these shores. Land floated into view in the murky; a fog-laden sunrise cast the hills in blood and fire. Buildings popped up through eddies of brume along the edge of the bay, marking the village -centre of Bàgh Faoileag.

He ignored the captain and his son clattering about the deck. Mr Niloofar lost himself in the sights and sounds of home. Ten years he had not felt his feet on his own land. His heart twisted, and heat spread under his eyes at the view. He found solace in the mask that hid the tears flowing down his cheeks from the captain and his men.

The plague doctor settled himself into the crook of the foredeck, watching over the bowsprit as mist rushed across the top of the walls in bursts and tendrils. The last half a mile to the dock was an excruciating practice in patience. 

Faces he would never see again swam across his memory with every tree and shrub emerging in the gloom amongst the coastline’s ancient volcanic rocks. They bobbed in and out with the tide, up into the shallows to scuttle away amongst the algae and cockles. Memories, bemoaned by fate and fire, trickled down boulder faces and dashed away in spots of teasing laughter. He curled his fists around the wood at his fingertips, fighting to bury the longing he had to see skirts and kilts in a sky-blue shade shimmying along the shore.

With a clack and thunk, the boat eased up to a slew of posts and water-logged decking, stretching ghostly fingers through the murk. Dock-hands yelled back and forth with the men on board to tie the birlinn off. The masked man turned from his position at the bow, headed for the lowest point in the vessel’s middle, and jumped to the slick boards. His cloak billowed up around him, allowing a burst of cold air to strip away his warmth from his sky-blue Southron suit. The man sighted on the end of the dock, the road leading up to the realm of familiar. The dock hands jumped back from the commotion. One crossed himself, his face draining of colour when he saw what hid the cloaked man’s face. It never was a good sign when a beak doctor swept into a village.

“Mr Niloofar, sir!” The captain bellowed from his ship. The man, impatient to be about his morning, turned to the portly seaman, sparks of sunlight glinting off his mask, casting green dots across the planks. “We’ll get yer luggage aff an’ waitin’. Go get yerself fed an’ come back wit’ a hand. Straight up frae here ‘n take a right’ll put tae the howf.” The captain pointed the doctor in the direction of the main thoroughfare.

He waved his thanks and turned back to continue his ascent into Bàgh Faoileag. Squaring his shoulders, he grimaced, willing nerves to hold together. The weight of the leather cloak did little to still the thrum of blood in his fingers. He considered he should have shortened the hem when he commissioned the garment. It would inevitably drag in the mud and snow.

A large gold and turquoise circular brooch pinned the mass of leather to his right shoulder. The hood drooped over his eyes, shading him from the blinding morning sun that popped between the horizon and the overhang of looming clouds threatening to burst.

The buffed camel leather of his gloves, matched to his mask, gleamed in the frost-bitten air. The thin felt lining kept his skin warm against the isle’s insistent chill. Brass fittings around the green glass of his beak mask provided a macabre pair of eyes to his appearance. The stitching was meticulous, not worked at great speed, but with love and dedication for the craft. The mask possessed a pair of dark canvas faux nares in an illusion of an avian face. At the end of the beak, the silver cap had been manipulated to create a division between the mandibles and the deadly-looking tip. Overall, the impression was that of an exotic scavenging bird enclosed in a shawl of its own feastings.

Ice-prickled air swept under his cloak as he traipsed up the rocky slope that would take him deeper into the village. The red leather billowed about him, startling roosting birds into flight. The breath of the sky swirled and groped, trying futilely to find a purchase into his vestments. Though his spadderdashes and boots hugged his calves and crawled their way up, trying to caress his knees, they could not quite reach, allowing a pair of pure white silk stockings to peak out between their edge and the hem of his breeches. A little old-fashioned, tucking them under the hem, but it felt more comfortable to him that way. Less likely for the ribbons to come undone. Not that much could be seen of them save for the sky blue almost white justacorps that skimmed the matching breeches’ hem edge.

His gloves, which held back the ballooned sleeves of his justacorps, were fitted to the fingers. Decorative stitching ran from the tips to the centre top, where it merged into a bird with its wings outstretched. The cuffs were a wide funnel, clasped tight with a button at the wrist. Edges of the leather were bound with carefully patterned embroidery. The left glove drooped with a large, red, knotted bobble and tassel at the cuff. The tightness and the swinging mass were reassuring in their familiarity as he approached what had once been home.

Mr Niloofar knew where he was going, as long as the Taigh-seinnse Druma is Flasg had not burned since he had last seen it. Rock, Tudor-style buildings rose on both sides of the street. Raw sewage crept in a melting runnel down the middle of the path. He hugged close to the east side of the worn structures, enjoying what warmth he could glean from the foggy sunrise.

Not much had changed. He recognized the older villagers and could guess at the lineage of the younger beginning their morning chores. They skittered out of his way, though, when they noticed his looming presence. All they saw was a haunting figure signifying death that had been at best second-hand news from years ago.

---

A smoking peat fire sputtered in the tavern’s fireplace. Reflector oil lamps hung strewn about the rafters, illuminating the shadows the morning sun had not yet banished from the dim room. The acid smell of burning rush and beef suet mingled with the peat, leaving the building coated in an earthy scent A clatter of dishes resonated from the kitchen hidden behind a thick wood door. To match the cacophony, a hoarse cough rattled against the plaster walls in the main room.

“Widow Magaidh, ye’re lookin’ peely-wally. Ye should get thon hack looked efter!” The inn maid called from the kitchen door as she pressed the impendence with robust hips. She swung to the main hall, her hands full of plates and a massive jug of thin, warm ale. Setting the dishes behind the slab of tree trunk hewn to serve as the bar counter, the maid turned to regard her guests with a worried frown.

An old woman in a homespun dress and apron sat near the single large window in the tavern, staring out at the road and the rising sun. She waved the inn woman off. “Waste yer time worryin’ on someone other than me, Hepsibah. Ma doctor’s comin’ tae look efter me soon!” Widow Magaidh chortled back.

“He better come wi’ a golden cure, fur how lang ye’ve

gone on with thon rattle!” The innkeeper cackled back, taking up a series of glasses to polish with her apron.

“Knowin’ him, he micht make thae happen,” Widow Magaidh whispered conspiratorially to the kilted man at her table.

He chewed on the inside of his cheek as he regarded her under thick brows, his storm grey eyes flashing. Bright red hair, pleated into many small coils and decorated with glass and bone beads, was tied away from his face to create a massive cascade of copper down his back. A short beard hugged his chin, though a moustache lacked at his upper lip. “Ah dinnea ken, Aunty. Dinnea a draught frae a tincture.” He muddled his bannock over the top of a late season apple fritter, leaving crumbs in a small pyramid on his thin clay plate.

Widow Magaidh waved away his nervousness as she would a fly in summer. “Yer heid’s full o’ mince, Fearchar. He asked fur someone tae do heavy work fur him. See’s no reason ye’d have trouble with thae.”

The fire at the hearth freshly smoked that morning, leaving the room damp and cloudy. Fearchar washed down what little breakfast he had consumed with the ale, now cooled from Hepsibah’s earlier ministrations. He wrapped his great kilt tightly around himself, wishing he was back home in bed with his wife. “Ye ne’er mentioned na doctor a’fore now an’ ye take his medicines. He guid, Aunty?”

Hepsibah emerged from behind the counter with a serving tray. “Ye done murd’rin’ yer breakfast, Fearchar?” She took Widow Magaidh’s plate. He nodded his head morosely. The portly little woman took his dish, displeased with his handiwork. “Tell that lassie a’ yer’s nae waste her time away in thae wee hoose in them hills. She should cummeon an’ visit more of’en. Then maybe ye’d have manner tae eat yer breakfast like a proper man.”

“Hepsibah!” He leaned over the table in feigned dejection.

She whacked him lightly on the shoulder and spun away from the table to take the plates to the sinks. “It wert stale anyway.”

“Na, Ah thought it was jist out’ta the o’en!” He joined in with her teasing.

“Awa’ an bile yer heid!” She disappeared into the back of the inn, the door closing behind her with a soft click. Dishes clanked in the quiet left in her merry wake.

“Now, Aunty Magaidh, who’s this dotair ye’ve got comin’ in?” He turned back to the ancient matron sitting quietly in the opposing chair.

“Jist ’cause ‘e’s someone Ah knows an’ ye don’nae,

don’nae make him a chancer, Fear. He’s become a good doctor since last Ah saw him.” Her reassuring smile did little to allay his fears. She gained a far-off look in her eye as her gaze settled on the window, and the raised corners of her creased lips fell into a deep frown, wrinkle lines sinking in to reveal her fragile age. He waited, knowing when she wandered through her memories, it could be many minutes before she returned to the conversation. She returned after a time, lifting her face back into a hollow smile. ” ‘e needs some’n ta ‘elp ‘im while ‘e’s ‘ere. Jist for a bit.” The rims of her crinkled eyes reddened. Moisture built along the edges.

He was none too pleased with the situation. Honestly, what was his grandmother’s friend expecting from him? His grandmother, upon her deathbed, requested he help Widow Magaidh as a last favour. After moving from the far end of Skye three years ago, befriending the woman, and finding a niche of handy work in Bàgh Faoileag dry stacking and thatching, he still did not quite understand where Widow Magaidh travelled when her mind wandered. “Aunty, Ah am nae scholar nor wet nurse – “

“Oh, haud yer wheesht. Ye’re perfect fur what ‘e asked fur.” She patted his arm.

He stole himself against her reassurances. “Less’n ‘e needs fresh bodies, Ah’m nae his man, Aunty Magaidh. Ah never learned ta good book nor to hold a nib. Ah kin nae keep numbers. Ah’m nae apothecary. The best Ah kin is the difference ‘tween uil-ìoc and caorann. Learned it the hard way.” He fingered his empty cup, unable to meet her gaze.

She shrugged again, waving his self-pity away. “Ye fought valiantly on the mainland, Fearchar. Ah heard about yer adventures. Sure’s ye’ll be useful. An’ here’s this.” She reached into her pocket. Holding out her gnarled hand for Fearchar’s inspection, he inhaled sharply. Looking from her hand to her face, he studied her to see if she was serious. “Gold coin sayin’ ye’ll help him.” Her misty eyes danced above her toothless grin.

Not like he had a gold coin to his name, but he would be a fool to turn her down now. Unless her doctor was also a general, he saw no good reason to partner with the man. “Ye’re on.” He shook her hand over the bet, knowing what a surprise it would be to bring home a gold coin for his lovely little woman.