CRATHES CASTLE, GRAMPIAN REGION, SCOTLAND 1735

"What d'you mean you won't tell me?" The Laird roared incredulously. "When I tell you to reveal the identity of the father of the bairn within your belly - you WILL reveal the Bastard's father!"

Margaret shook in fear. She had sworn never to tell. In truth, Cameron had told her if she told he would do nothing to help her and he would deny the babe was his. Tears welled up in her large blue eyes and coursed down her sallow cheeks. She was not well. The Laird had been trying to starve out the name of the man who had impregnated her and she was not budging. She had gone so long without food that she had begun to fear for her baby's life.

She placed her hands protectively over her swelling middle. At fifteen, she was the Laird's ward and now unless the man who committed this offense came forward to marry her, she would be unmarriageable. No man would want her with a bastard child in tow. "I'm sorry. I've taken an oath." Margaret said weakly, she was faint and grasped out for the chair before her.

The Laird wrenched the chair from her grasp and threw it aside; loudly it crashed against the stonewall. He watched her crumple to the floor and hovered over her.

"You WILL tell!" He yelled angrily.

The door opened abruptly. "Father! What is going on in here? The servants are hanging about like there is to be an execution and I can hear your bellowing all the way down the hall!"

Cameron said upon bursting in. Then he saw Margaret, pale and ashen on the floor, a heap of plaid and rumpled skirts, too weak to even lift a hand to protect herself. She looked at him beseechingly with great saucer-like eyes.

Cameron frowned. "What is the meaning of this?" He looked from Margaret's collapsed body to his father standing in fury and breathing like an enraged bull.

"Well m'son. It seems while you was off to the city, you missed some developments around the manor." The Laird leaned against the fireplace, his arms outstretched, hands on the mantle. "Our wee bonnie lass here went and got a bairn in her belly and now won't deliver up the beast responsible."

Cameron's eyebrows flew up in a flash. Margaret simply stared at him.

"So, you've punished the Lady in some way?" Cameron asked gingerly.

"Aye. I have. She doesn't eat till I have the name."

"Now, Father…" Cameron began.

"I am Laird! Let me not have to remind you of that son. When I ask for the man's name, I want the man's name. Damn girl is as stubborn as her dead father was."

Cameron helped Margaret into a chair; she looked dangerously close to falling out of it once he got her there.

"Looks like she'll be seeing her father soon if she doesn't eat soon. This is unjust." Cameron breathed deeply.

"You try getting the name from the wretched lass then!" The Laird roared with a wave of his hand, "I've business to attend to!" Off he went in a huff, stomping down the hall in anger.

Cameron locked the door behind him, and turned to Margaret.

"Why were you gone so long? I tried to send word."

She said exhaustedly.

"You didn't tell him anything did you?" Cameron asked, worried for his own safety.

"Look at me! Do I look like a woman who told to get it over with?" Margaret was pasty white, her eyes dark and sunken.

Cameron winced.

"We have to tell him something. He'll starve you to death. The man has no heart. He tried to brick my mother up in a wall once. Just for talkin' with a man.

Servant saved her." Cameron sighed. "Course, Father killed the servant later." He paused. "This is why you must give him a name."

"He'll kill you if he finds out!" Margaret said in a whisper.

"Not MY name, you silly goose. Any name. A servant.

Someone who needs dismissed anyway." Cameron's gears were turning at full speed in his mind.

"I'll not lie to your father. I've committed one sin already. I'll not be covering it with another."

Margaret said in anger.

"There is no other way." Cameron pounded on the table.

"Aye. There is. You can be a man and confess all to your father and then marry me before the babe is born." Margaret said sternly.

"We both know that I am betrothed to another. The alliance between our clan and hers is more important than our tryst and my father's investment in your ward ship." Cameron said hotly.

"And, more important than your child?" Margaret tried to push herself up, to leave, but fell back into the chair, too weak to stand.

Cameron stared at her coldly. "You weren't supposed to get with child."

"Oh, pardon me, sir, My dear son of the Laird, I forgot to tell God you didn't want complications from our fornicating!" She hissed.

Cameron pointed a finger at her. "Tell father it was Adair, the keeper of the horses, tell father he forced you." Cameron fetched some water and handed her a silver mug.

"I can't lie to him, Cameron. I just can't." Margaret cried softly.

"You can't even stand! You have to have food soon, you and the baby will both die." Cameron said firmly.

"Save me then."

"You have to do what I've told you." Cameron got up and unbolted the door. He called for two servants who were nearby. "Take her to her chambers." Cameron frowned at Margaret.

Tears trickled from her eyes as the two servants lifted her up and carried her away.

Margaret was dazed in her bed, two days later. So weak, she could no longer sit up. The Laird burst open the door and it hit the stonewall behind it with such force that mortar crumbled to the floor. "Ye ready to talk yet, you little harlot?" He shouted.

Margaret nodded slowly. "Adair." She said in a hoarse whisper.

"The keeper of the horses?" The Laird roared.

"And did he force himself upon you or did you lay down like a whore for him?" The Laird was so close to her, that Margaret could feel the impact of his breath upon her face.

"Force." She mumbled as her eyes welled up with tears. She had just doomed an innocent man to save Cameron's sorry hide.

The Laird looked down at her and took her hand gently, "The truth is all I was after, lass. There's no shame in it, lass. Some men are animals." He kissed her frail hand and called Margaret's lady in from the hall. "See to it the Lady Margaret gets some broth and strong, mulled wine."

With that he left the room in a hurry.

Margaret felt like dying. What horrific death had she just handed to an innocent man who had done nothing but show her kindness since she first came to live here. Cameron came in on the heels of her lady in waiting, and took the tray from her.

"I'll tend to her. Leave us." Cameron said. The woman curtsied and left.

"You told him it was Adair?" Cameron spooned some of the broth into her mouth and dabbed at her chin with a white linen cloth.

She nodded slowly.

"Your father will kill him, you know." Margaret whispered.

"Aye, but there was no other way, my dove."

Margaret swallowed and asked, "Do you love me?"

Cameron rolled his eyes and helped her drink some wine. "Must we go over all of this again?"

"You never answer when I ask." Margaret said quietly.

"I am the son of the Laird. I am not free to marry whomever I might love. You know this. You know this just as certain as you know you undoubtedly will be sold to the highest bidder who wants you for a wife."

Cameron's hand shook as he continued to spoon the dark broth into her hungry mouth. "Love is for the common folk, dove."

"You do not love me." Margaret said this as if were the first time she saw it so clearly. As if it were the first time she had allowed herself to believe it was true.

"Shh. You're hungry and you need to eat. We can talk later. Think of your baby." Cameron smiled.

"Aye. Think of your baby." Margaret said sternly and nipped at the spoon.

Margaret grew stronger and in a few days was back on her feet, still weak, but growing stronger. There had been no trial for Adair. Margaret was waiting, like everyone else; to hear of what form of punishment the Laird would pronounce upon Adair. He stood accused by a ward of the Laird, of rape and getting a child upon her. Margaret knew he would be killed. She just didn't want to hear it actually stated.

A knock sounded on the door.

"Come." Margaret said loud enough to be heard.

The door entered and her lady in waiting entered.

"Oh, it's you, Anna." Margaret said with a smile and looked back out of the window.

"He's to be castrated, hung until almost dead, then cut down and gutted." Anna said in an audible gulp.

Margaret's knees gave out from under her. Anna rushed to her mistresses' side. "Let me help you to a chair, M'Lady." The young woman struggled under Margaret's swollen frame and heaved her into the nearest chair.

"This much shock can't be good for your bairn. My mother told me that." Anna pulled Margaret's hair back behind the chair so it wouldn't get sat upon and pulled.

"Tis alright. Could you send for the Laird's son? I need to speak with him." She asked.

"Aye, M'Lady." Anna curtsied and scurried out to fetch Cameron. He came stomping down the hall and into her chamber awhile later.

"Is this about the horseman?" Cameron said, closing the door behind him.

Margaret looked at him icily.

"I know it's harsh", Cameron continued, "I tried to persuade father to just hang the sorry bugger, but he wouldn't go for it." Cameron said as if he had provided a merciful option.

"That man's blood is on our hands, Cameron! We might as well go kill'im ourselves." Margaret said in a fury.

"It's not on my hands. You're the one who confessed to father, not I."

Margaret frowned until her blue eyes were piercing slits, and Cameron could see that his passive dove had another side to her, before now hidden.

"You told me to tell your father that Adair forced himself upon me and raped me! This is your doing! I will not take the blame for this!"

Cameron threw up his hands. "I'll send a priest to you then, M'Lady!" He chuckled and left the room.

All night Margaret wrestled with her conscience and heart. She wrapped her green robe around her and waddled down the spiral stairs and to Cameron's chambers. She knocked on his door softly.

No answer.

She rapped harder, louder.

Suddenly, she heard giggles erupt from inside and a flurry of quick movements. Cameron answered the door in his shirt.

Margaret was furious. She pushed past him and in an emerald swirl circled the room opening cupboards and chests. She finally stumbled upon the right one and yanked the serving wench out by the arm. She stood there trying to cover her nakedness with her hands.

"Get out you little strumpet! Get out!" Margaret shoved the naked girl into the vast hall without a stitch of clothing.

Cameron simply shrugged at the shivering girl and closed the door on her.

"Another man is going to die tomorrow…a horrible, horrible death for YOUR sins and you…YOU are in here titling that servant girl!" Margaret was beside herself with jealously and rage. She began to see the man before her for who he really was… a cold-hearted bastard not unlike his cruel father. " I want you to go to your father, NOW, and tell him the truth!"

Margaret demanded.

"You know I can't do that."

"You mean you won't do that!"

"Can't, won't. All the same. Adair will die tomorrow.

You are cleared of any wrongdoing. Much sympathy will be garnered for you. Father makes it up to you. La la la. Everything works out fine in the end." Cameron clapped his hands together and rubbed them in glee. He had a twisted smile on his face.

"He is going to be castrated - alive-then hung, then while gasping for breath, he is going to have his innards yanked out. Do you understand all of this?"

Margaret yelled, gesturing wildly.

Cameron shrugged.

"I'm telling your father the truth." She said and then suddenly, grabbed her side as the baby solidly kicked her in the ribs. She reached for the door.

Cameron threw himself in front of the door, barring her exit. "I can't let you do this." He said firmly.

"Get out of my way, Cameron. I am telling him tonight. I will not burn in hell for the murder of an innocent man!" Margaret shouted and tried to physically push Cameron aside.

Cameron suddenly burst out laughing. Margaret put her hands on her hips defiantly. "What, pray tell, is so amusing!"

"You and your huge belly, trying to move ME aside!"

Cameron laughed louder.

"Move." Margaret commanded.

An evil glint shone in Cameron's eyes. He looked into Margaret's face with the look of a crazed man. "You have made your confession. Now, let it lie. You will not ruin my future plans. You will not alter my betrothment nor will you tell my father about you and me." Cameron hissed venomously.

"You will sacrifice a man for your rich heiress? For a castle? You will sell your soul for mortal riches?" Margaret was aghast at the thought.

"Go back to your room and go to bed." Cameron started to open the door.

Margaret tried to hurriedly shove him aside and make a run for the Laird's room, but Cameron pushed her backwards. Her bulk sent her toppling to her bottom, skirts flying. Cameron bent over her and yelled. "I gave you a chance, stupid woman!"

Margaret struggled to stand, but Cameron shoved her back to the stone floor with his boot. She crawled towards the fireplace seeking a weapon of any sort.

Cameron saw her goal: the fireplace poker. He whisked it into his own hand. "Is this what you're after, m'sweet lass?" Cameron laughed. "Going to poke me with the poker, are we?" His face was distorted by evil. An odd smile permanently lined his mouth. He shoved Margaret back to the floor with his boot again.

"Cameron think about the truth. You are a man of honor! You must tell your father!" Margaret pleaded.

Cameron laughed uproariously.

"A man of honor?" He cackled. "I have NO honor! No man in this family has any honor! Greed, lust, that is what the men in this family have! It is in our cursed blood!"

Margaret frowned. "You can change that. Do what's right. What is good! Confess and save an innocent life!"

"No one is telling father anything!" He barked.

Margaret was standing now and inching her way towards the door as Cameron raged and ranted. He caught sight of hr flight and rushed at her in an instant, pulling her to the fireside by her long hair. He found a loose stone next to the hearth that was very much in need of repair, and felt his palm encircling it.

"Cameron! I love you! Think of your baby!" She was desperate, she saw the stone coming, a quick blur, and then all was black.

Cameron looked at the bloodied stone in his hand. He looked at Margaret's sprawled, swollen figure on his hearth, her skirts dangerously close to the fire.

Realization replaced blind rage and he stood there listening to the crack of the fire and the steady drip, drip of Margaret's blood dripping from the stone in his hand to the cold floor at his feet. The baby kicked inside her, under her skirts, as if trying to escape its dead mother's body.

He could save the child now if he cut it out…but he didn't.

Looking around, he saw the pile of stones that had fallen from the side of the fireplace and hearth and an idea slowly began forming in his twisted mind. He began to frantically claw at the stones, then chipped away at the mortar with the poker until he had a large enough hole under the hollow hearth. The mortar was old and chipped easily. It was in need of repair anyway. Covered in sweat and dried mortar powder, he dragged Margaret's still warm body over and crammed her into the hole.

He would need mortar. He locked his door and tried to refrain himself from running outdoors. He stumbled around by candlelight in all of the out buildings until he found what he had been searching for. He had helped repair stonework and walls as a youth. His father believed hard work built character so he had his son instructed in carpentry, wood chopping, farming and masonry. All these skills would be useful on this night. Cameron trudged upstairs, pulling along his supplies wrapped in his cloak only too happy that no one spotted him going to his chambers.

In his room, he worked quickly. He replaced the stones one by one. Repairing the crumbling fireplace. It was an excellent reason for the fresh stonework. But how to explain Margaret's disappearance? He crept outside and to where Adair was locked up. No guards were posted, as there were only two keys to the lock.

One was with his father; the other key no one knew existed. He had keys to every lock made once while his father had been gone for an extended time, and he had then killed the skilled man who had duplicated all of the keys for him. One could never be too careful. There were few powers his father possessed that Cameron had not found a way to equal.

He unlocked the lock and swung the open the door to the building where Adair was held. Then like a shadow he vanished before Adair could see who had freed him. In the morning Margaret was gone and Adair had escaped. The assumption was easy to make. Margaret had stolen the key from his father, returned it, and then escaped with her lover into the black of the night. The castle buzzed about it for a few months until the English started up some new trouble and minds shifted to new topics. Then it started happening. At first, Cameron had thought he was overly tired or had drank too much ale, maybe too much wine, or had eaten some bad mutton. Maybe it had all been a bad dream. But, it kept happening.

Deep in the night, he would see her. Margaret, in her embroidered green robe, floating across the room, his baby in her arms and then she would vanish over the hearth of the fireplace.

Was he going mad? Was it guilt that made him see these apparitions? Was it remorse for dooming his own flesh and blood child to struggle for life against the prison of its dead mother's belly? Cameron gasped.

She was back again. Slowly, ever so slowly, floating, cradling the babe, green robes flowing, and pouf…vanishing before his eyes.

They say that Cameron MacCrathes went mad overnight. No one knows what pushed him over the edge. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He had everything to look forward to: an upcoming wedding, wealth, power.

He bolted the door and refused to leave the room. Hiding his secrets, calling out over and over again, "I will NOT tell father!"

The Laird tried to convince Cameron through the heavy, closed door that whatever it was that was troubling him, he could keep to himself, just please unbar the door.

A month passed. Cameron hadn't let food in for weeks. The Laird was very concerned now, and rightfully so. He had the servants batter the door down, and there he beheld his son. Dying. Sprawled out protectively, it seemed, over the hearth.

"Son?" The Laird grew close.

Cameron said something incoherent, turned his face to his father and died.

As cold air blanketed the room, enveloped the Laird and froze his heart with fear, before his eyes a green robed girl hovered over the body of his son. She held in her arms a sleeping baby. Then she was gone.

"Bugger me if that weren't Margaret McCullen!" He said and sat on the hearth with a thud. He buried his head in his hands and tried to make sense of it all.

He had to close up the room. No one would stay there. After they laid his son to rest, each year, at the same time, at the same season, the beautiful green robed ghost and her sleeping baby would float over the room and disappear at the fireplace where Cameron had breathed his last. The Laird didn't know where Margaret was or how she had expired, but she must have loved Cameron so much that she came back to look for him every year.

When he told the story, he would end it the same way. "Cameron loved that lass like a sister. As if they shared the same blood. He always was protective of her. Lass must've done the same for him in death. Just like the sister she were to him in life." The MacCrathes eventually lost their status, wealth and lands to the English; but the Green robed lady continued her search for Cameron MacCrathes and does to this day.

Post Note: Workmen at Crathes Castle in Scotland, renovating the aging castle, discovered the skeletons of a woman and a baby under a stone fireplace. The skeleton had remnants of green fabric attached to the bones. She still visits Crathes Castle and is affectionately called, "The Green Lady".

 Angeline Wawkes-Craig has had many sroties published and has many slated for publication in the future. Here is a list of some of them .....

Slated for future publication:

Fiction:
The Black Lily, "The Sword of Elegard", historical, TBA
The Black Lily, "Henry's Daughters", alternative his/horror
Summer 2002
Scars Publications, The Swan Road, sword/sorcery Novel
08/2002
Fullosia Press, "Flight From the Massacre at Glencoe: 1692", historical
9/02/2002
The Black Lily, "The White Dragon", excerpt from TheSwan Road
09/2002
Beggars Press, The Lamplight, "The Yellow Paper", horror
09/2002
Banshee Studios, "The Soldiers", horror
09/2002
Fiction Funhouse, "Portrait of a Drunken Fish", humor
9/25/02
Lovewords Zine, "Come to the Window", historical
10/2002
House of Pain, "The White Dragon", excerpt from The bSwan Road
10/2002
House of Pain, "The Soldiers", "The Spare Room", horror
12/2002
Beggars Press, The Lamplight, "The Trench", historical
Spring 2003
Current and Past Publications:
Fiction:
Horror-Web, WINNER Horror Story Contest, "The Stairway" 8/07/02
The Copperfield Review, "The Red: The Tale of the Nameless Soldier" 8/01/02
Lovewords Zine, "The Red: The Tale of the Nameless Soldier", historical 8/01/02
Fullosia Press, "Come to the Window", historical 7/31/02
House of Pain, "Mind Over Matter", horror 7/15/02
Children, Churches, & Daddies, Chapbook "The Prose", "The Spare Room", "The Ones Before", "The Soldiers", "The Yellow Paper", horror

My novel THE SWAN ROAD will be released soon. $10.50 ck/mo(price includes s/h). THE SWAN ROAD, published by Scars Publications, will be available at www.ebay.com,www.scars.tv,and promo mailers.Additional info at site below. YOU CAN NOW READ THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS FOR A "SNEAK PEEK" AT THE NOVEL, ON WWW.SCARS.TV! (click books & chapbooks)