A Summer in Amber Read online

  Chapter 2: Thursday, 20 June

  01

  The incessant flash and window rattling crashes of the storm kept me awake half the night. Being a solar max year which looked to rival, if not surpass, the storms of the Storm years, the atmosphere is heavy with a super abundance of charged particles, though, of course, the tropical weather may have had something to do with the storm as well. And no doubt the restless anticipation of my impending journey north accounted for some of the sleeplessness as well. So I'd hardly fallen asleep before the streaming sunlight and my watson's alarm ushered in a brightening new day, far, far too early.

  A little after 5:30 a.m. I wheeled my bike out of my flat, joining the noisy sparrows in the freshly washed world. I hung the saddle bags on the rack, strapped my ruck sack on top and pulled out my watson to go through my checklist one last time. Then with nothing left to do but to go, I pulled on my gloves and set out from my narrow terrace for the train station, slipping into the stream of early workers on their way to work.

  Nearing the station, I dodged teams of stoic horses and rumbling farm tractors hauling wagons of braying heifers and restless pigs, and then idled behind a shepherd and his dog driving a flock of sheep down the street, one and all bound for the Thursday livestock market across from the station.

  I confirmed the e-ticket on my watson at the ticket counter and then put a series of tags on my bike's handle bars so it'd follow me to Inverness. I waited in watery light of the platform until I saw it safely swung aboard before boarding the reworked, articulated passenger/luggage coach. The 6:05 to Peterborough had just two coaches with a new built multi-fuel English Rail 2-6-4T engine (No. NBL 423). We jerked to a banging start at 6:17 and slowly the bright world began to drift past the window through a thin haze of steam and smoke.

  I'd spent Tuesday morning in the Cavendish library collecting and downloading material on beaming electric energy before seducing Penny into a picnic on the river with the promise of dim sum. Spring rolls and pork buns, dumplings with shrimp, pork and mushrooms proved more than enough to convince her to take time from her work to lunch on the Cam with Say.

  We met at Scuds Boatyard, and hired a punt. She chose to tease or test, or just to break my heart, dressing mod with a short skirt, long white socks that ended just above the hem of her skirt, a fact which I couldn't help but notice as she settled into the punt, and a silky blouse that clung, at certain points, to her slim body, with bright scarf about her neck, that she removed along with her wide brimmed bonnet when we reached our spot in the shade. Say what you will for the mystery of an Edwardian ankle length skirt and high collars, I'll take a slim, shapely leg and a silky blouse with an open collar any day, even if it requires the fortitude of a saint to remain just friends. We whiled the afternoon away in the warm leafy shade with spring rolls, tea, wine and conversation. It was like our early days, so much to say, so easy to say it. Our final projects had demanded a great deal of our time and energy, and though we'd spent countless hours working alongside each other in the lab or our tiny office, we'd lost touch with each other's lives. (What little we had during those long months.) Now, with that work and stress behind us, we rediscovered that kindred spirit-ness of the old days, conversation and comfortable silences. I ended up going back to her flat for a late dinner and only saying goodbye around ten. I managed to keep my wits about me, saying nothing to annoy her, and keeping track of my hands when all I wanted to do was to hold her again, so we parted best of friends. It was a day of pure perfection.

  Yesterday morning, I consulted a techno-conservation grad student to get a crash course in water stained and mildewed papers. Waterlogged and mildewed computers are more in their line of work, but she suggested several books to download. After lunch I'd a final meeting with Blake. He transferred my work visa as a Cambridge research student to my watson, along with directions and contact information for Glen Lonon. He also treated me to a stern lecture on the importance of treating Learmonte respectfully – someone who held my future (and the research centre's) in the palm of his hand. I assured him that I was resigned to my term of servitude, determined to make it as smooth and as short as possible. Afterwards I looked in on Penny for a brief and breezy goodbye, so as to not undo the magic of our picnic and then lightly packed my saddlebags and rucksack. I'd buy what I lacked in Scotland with my lavish per diem.

  The 6:05 arrived in Peterborough late, but still in time to make the 8:07 out of London, a refurbished BR Standard Class 5 4-6-0 number 73153 in English Rail green livery pulling six refurbished Mark 3 coaches and two luggage vans – I really should put this childhood habit behind me.

  The platform was crowded, and more tra than what you'd find on a Cambridge platform. Men in suits and wide brimmed hats, women of all ages in long dresses, wide bonnets, gloves and closed parasols, with far fewer of the younger women in slacks or short skirts and long socks or men in shirts, trousers and slouch hats or straws. You don't need many layers or the heavy garments to protect you from the intense ultra-violet light; any modern fabric does the job, so dress often serves as a somewhat bewildering statement of class and attitude. Tra style is either associated with rejecting technology because of its association with the old order, or indicative of a more exalted class. The class angle explains why Blake and Learmonte dress in Edwardian fashion, but are still enamoured with the old order. I dress mod, wearing a minimum of protective clothing, as I'm quite comfortable living in our new age.

  After seeing my bike aboard again, I boarded and spent the next five hours watching the lush green countryside of jolly ol'England flow by the carriage window. I'm not old enough for its changes to be glaring, but we crossed cart tracks that had once been paved roads and rolled past abandoned cottages that were too far from everything where only the very rich can afford petrol and the auto license fee. Young woods have sprouted in once ploughed fields, and grazing sheep dot pastures too poor for the intense agriculture we practice to maximize our limited amount of petroleum based fertilizer, all viewed from a refurbished century old coach pulled by a refurbished steam engine along a once electrified high speed line. The new England, in a nutshell.

  Though the big wind farms were swept away with the solar storms, which made transmitting power over long lines unsafe and impractical, tall, idly spinning windmills still pierced the horizon all the way north, stuck, like giant pin wheels, into the map of England to mark each hamlet, village and small town, their number in proportion to the community's size. Even with solar panels on most roofs and garden sheds, the local windmill and its battery shed provide supplemental power in an often overcast England.

  We slowed for some track work beyond Lincoln, passing work gangs leaning on their tools watching us creep by, but never came to a complete halt. I'd an hour leeway at Waverley station, so I wasn't concerned by the delay. Indeed, I was under no hard deadline, so I could break my journey into two days without it mattering.

  A grey haired tra dressed gentleman settled into the seat next to me in Newcastle and taking out his folded epaper edition of the Scotsman, snapped it open.

  'Eh, don't like to see that,' he remarked, showing the front page headlines “Strong S-Storms, power outages expected over next several days. Heat wave to continue” adding, 'Gives me a twinge every time I see S-Storms in a headline.'

  'I imagine it brings back memories,' I nodded.

  'It isn't the memories, so much. I was young, single, and could look after myself back then. No, it's what it means for the future. I'm not so young, nor single, these days. Headlines like this make you wonder where it's all going. The sun looked to be settling down after the Storm, and now, here we are again, solar storms as strong or stronger than those of the Storm years. Makes you wonder if those Morlock chaps aren't on to something.'

  'We're much better prepared now. Any outages will be precautions, and only for hours rather than months and years. Still, I'm sure this will likely lengthen the Morlock communities' waiting list,' I said. 'Myself, I'd think living in
the caves would be pretty uninviting as long as you can live in the sunlight of even a restless sun.'

  'I'm too old now to consider it. Just have to take my chances. Nothing to be done about it anyway,' he remarked, adding as he returned to scanning his paper, 'Don't mind the heat, though, there's plenty of damp and cold to go around.'

  'Aye, I'll not complain either.' I agreed and fell silent as he returned to his paper.

  I suppose for the pre-Storm generation; the world they knew which ended abruptly thirty-six years ago left many frightening memories. And now, seeing the sun grow restless again has to be a little unnerving, despite assurances that it's a cyclical cycle and these are really only minor variations. Stirs old memories, I'm sure.

  With the brakes squealing, we pulled into the steamy glass and brick cavern of Waverley Station thirty minutes late. I cleared customs, largely a symbolic gesture of independence, and entered Scotland with a breezy welcome. English pounds are always welcome. Still, it left me too little time to lunch in one of the buffets, so I settled on the freshest looking sandwiches I could find along with a bottle of ginger beer and stuffed them in my ruck sack to eat on the train. I carried my bike up the steps and over several lines to reach the Inverness platform with time to spare.

  I paused on the platform for a few minutes to study the idly steaming Royal Scottish Rail's blue liveried 4-6-0. (I'll spare you the number and class. I have to start letting go some time. And well, RSR trains are out of my ken.) And then studied my fellow passengers, noting subtle differences from the crowds of a London or Cambridge platform. Most of the older men were dressed very traditionally in grey or mossy tweeds or black suits with slouch hats, gloves in their breast pockets. The young men skipped the coats and sometimes sported just broad flat caps. The women and girls all wore long ankle length dresses in dark colours, wide brimmed, veiled bonnets, closed parasols and white gloves. Missing entirely were women in long gaily patterned dresses or bright young girls in slacks and straw hats with bright bands who decorate a London sidewalk or train platform. Nor were there any young men dressed in white, with light blazers and panama hats who seemed ready to play cricket at a moment's notice. Not only was the Waverley platform less festive, it was noticeably paler too, far less leavened with the tropical genes that gives the southern English population its tan. Only a few minor details suggested it wasn't 1910 – the bikes were not quite right, there were no loungers smoking gaspers, no gentlemen with top hats and no grubby street urchins streaking through the crowd. The steam powered time machine that carried me to Waverley was just slightly flawed.

  I saw my bike loaded before boarding and finding a seat. The day was getting long and I still had hours to go. At 2:45 we pulled out of Waverley for the highlands. My seat mate was boy, overflow from a family on a holiday, who was content to read comics on his watson and share his opinion of pre-Storm super heroes with me. Luckily he quickly recognized me as a 'foreigner' and adopted the universal language, speaking loudly and slowly. Given his strong Scottish accent and local slang, this was greatly appreciated.

  For the first hour we crossed rolling coastal farmlands, each village marked by the ever present windmill. After that we crossed the invisible pale and began weaving through river valleys between dark pine forests and heather covered hills, brown and green, fading to blue in the distance – a rough and empty land showing little sign of human activity. When the rare cottages or hamlets did slip past us, most were still abandoned, the land too poor and too far away in the post-automotive world to be worth inhabiting. My fellow travellers likely took this abandoned wilderness in stride, but having lived only in London and Cambridge, I found this wild and rugged land was something entirely new and strange, and even a little eerie. Though only a day's train ride from home, I'd left my world – and indeed, my time – far behind.

  A little before 7:30, in a squeal of breaks, banging of bumpers, and a final sigh of steam to signal a job done, a journey ended, we came to rest under the glass roof of the Inverness rail station. I faced a choice. Glen Lonon was still two and a half hours away by either bike or by the next train to Ordmoor, its nearest rail station. I could overnight in Inverness, but being the longest day of the year, with sunset after 10:00 this far north, I could still make Glen Lonon in daylight or early twilight. I just didn't know how welcomed I'd be at that time of the evening. I decided I'd best use the station's call box and see what the estate's factor, Maude Munro had to suggest.

  I collected my bike, attached my bags and as the last of my fellow passengers met their families and friends to drift out into the long evening sunlight, I stopped near the Wi-Fi call box. I took out my worn leather covered watson, and folding back the cover, syncing it to the call box Wi-Fi and called the Glen Lonon number Blake had given me.

  'Good evening,' I said as a female voice answered my call. 'This is Sandy Say. I was wondering if Maude Munro is available?'

  'Aye, speaking. Who did you said you be?'

  'Sandy, that is to say, Alasandr Say. I'm the fellow up from Cambridge to look into some historical papers for Lord Learmonte.'

  'Alasandr Say, yes of course. Are you in Inverness or Ordmoor? I'll send the Rover to collect you.'

  'Just arrived in Inverness. Thanks, but no need for a car. I've been sitting all day and I thought I'd stretch my legs with a ride out to Glen Lonon. There's light enough. But it'll mean I'd arrive a bit after ten. Would that be too late? I can easily stay on in Inverness and ride out in the morning.'

  'No need to spend money on a hotel room. Your cottage is ready and waiting. And I suppose by the time I arranged for McGregor to pick you up and return, it'd have not saved any time, so if you don't mind the ride, we'll just wait on you. Do you know how to find us?'

  'I've maps to find my way to Glen Lonon, but how do I find you exactly?'

  'When you get near to the estate you'll come to a couple of cottages along the road and then a fenced paddock, after that there's a gate on your right with a cottage. A couple of hundred metres beyond this you'll come to another gate on your right. The Factor's House will be just quarter mile beyond the second gate, but on your left, which is where you'll find us. We'll keep the light on. Just bang on the door when you arrive.'

  'Thanks. Sounds simple enough. Hopefully, I'll see you around ten.'

  'We'll keep the kettle on for you. See you then, Cheerio.'

  'Thanks. Cheerio,' I replied and disconnected. It was little over 35 kilometres to Glen Lonon, just what I needed to clear my mind and work out all the kinks collected from twelve hours of sitting.

  02

  The evening was still bright and warm as I stood in the small square outside the station consulting my watson to plan my route. I'd cross the Firth on the A9 bridge and then take a lane along the shore of the Firth westwards to Glen Lonon in the hills. First order of business, however, was supper and something for tomorrow's breakfast as well. I set out along Academy Street in search of a takeaway restaurant.

  Inverness is a city of old, ornate stone buildings – buildings that easily reverted back to 19th century, no doubt serving the inhabitants well during the early Storm years. Most shops were closed and the city centre nearly deserted. I had to zigzag down several narrow side streets to find a small fish and chip shop open for business. I took away two steak pies and chips and a bottle of ginger beer, and set out to find a place to picnic along the shore.

  I crossed the firth on a wide four lane bridge. The motorways of the pre-Storm era feel so out of scale, almost alien these days. One side is usually used for horse and bike traffic, while the other is (rarely) used for motor traffic. I find it hard to imagine how they could've been so necessary back then. While we could use more long distance vehicles, it's hard to imagine ever needing the motorways again. But then, I suppose a generation or two of Englishmen felt the same way about Roman roads, baths and plumbing when they came upon them decades after the Romans had left and abandoned them.

  After crossing the firth, I followed the main ro
ad less than a kilometre before turning off and down a narrow lane leading to the small hamlet on the shore. I found a bench along the strand to eat my steak pie and chips while gazing out over the water and the wide, cloudless sky. It was cooler near the water, but the evening seemed almost as tropical as it had been in Cambridge. With a 30 kilometres ride still ahead of me, I didn't linger. Finishing my hasty picnic, I set out again, following a narrow, overgrown lane along the shore before heading inland, reaching Ordmoor by nine with an hour of sunlight and something like 16 kilometres still to go.

  The countryside I rode through seemed ever so slightly eerie. I can't say exactly how it differed from what I knew from Cambridgeshire or outer London, but it did. Must be in the details. Though the fields were planted with familiar crops and the sheep gazing in the paddocks were familiar enough, the farms seemed more remote, vaguely forbidding. I had to dodge more potholes in the macadamised road and the brambles and wild flowers that crowded the shoulders and leaned into the lane seemed, well, wilder. The woods were darker and more overgrown. The grey stone cottages seemed colder, dreary and harder than the brick cottages of home. And the stone fences and hedges had a rougher, 'on the fringe' or beyond the pale feel to them. The land seemed coldly indifferent, if not vaguely hostile to me. And it was quiet, but that may have been on account of the time of day. The countryside's population – both human and animal – may well have already been calling it a day in their homes, burrows and nests. No doubt it was all simply a reflection of my own feeling in finding myself so far from familiar fields. Still for whatever reason, Scotland had a lonely, hollow air about it this evening. I was homesick already.

  The long day was catching up with me, and, so tired and sweaty, I cranked the bike's electric motor up a notch and pressed on along paved road heading towards the blue hills. I seemed to be the only thing stirring, even the sheep in the fields seem suspended in place. Half an hour after Ordmoor, I reached the small hamlet of Maryfield and leaving the paved road as it turned north, continued on through the long shadow of its idle windmill, straight through the sleeping hamlet and on to the dusty gravel lane that leads to Glen Lonon.

  This narrow lane is flanked on both sides by stone walls and a line of large trees that stretched ahead, their arching branches forming a green shadowed corridor. The sun brushed the deepening purple hills to the north west casting deep shadows and rich golden highlights on the trees and the stone walls. A few minutes out of Maryfield I came upon a large dusty flock of sheep being driven by an equally dusty shepherd and his weary dog.

  'Evening, mate,' I said as I pulled up alongside of him, giving him a start, I'm afraid. 'You're out late.'

  'Good evening to you, sir,' he replied, glancing my way under his battered slouch hat. 'Aye, finishing a long drive.'

  'Much farther to go?' I asked with a nod towards the flock. 'I'm on my way to Glen Lonon and hope to get there before it gets too dark...'

  'No, not far at all, just quarter of a mile up.' he replied indicating an open gate, a pale notch in the darkening lane ahead.

  It wasn't worth pushing through the flock, so I dismounted and walked alongside the shepherd, wiping the sweat from my brow with my forearm. 'Still bloody hot for this time of evening, isn't it? I thought it'd be cooler up here.'

  'Aye, it is very hot,' he allowed and then added, after a pause, 'Guest of Lord Learmonte, are you? If I may be so bold as to ask.'

  I shook my head, 'Not a guest, more like staff. I've been hired for the summer to do some historical research.'

  'That'd be the Rhymer's papers, wouldn't it?'

  'The Rhymer's papers? I'm not sure I follow you. But I don't think so. I'm here to study some historical records connected to the estate.'

  'Them TTR Mackenzie's papers in the old box that ol'Baily found a'mouldering in a shed down at Belgate Wood. Them papers,' he replied, glancing my way, adding with a knowing grin, 'The only history of these parts is a long list of when someone killed someone in one clan feud or another down through the ages. And they've that bloody list already.'

  So much for being a bloody great secret. 'Sorry but you see, I've been asked not to talk about my work. Can't say one way or the other. Signed my mark in blood so to speak. Still, I'm curious about these papers you're talking about, if you know what I mean.'

  He gave me a look and said, 'Aye, I suppose I do. Really shouldn't have mentioned them at all, I suppose. You being a stranger and all. I did hear they're supposed to be a big secret, just us locals know about them. But seeing as you're working for Lord Learmonte, I suppose no harm's done.'

  'None whatsoever,' I assured him. 'But why'd you refer to the papers as, what was it? The Rhymer's papers?'

  'TTR, Thomas the Rhymer. That's what he's come to be known by, round these parts.'

  'The name sounds familiar...'

  'He was a wizard from long ago, like that Merlin fellow. Spent time in the Otherworld, the faery land or some such place.'

  'Aye, I follow you now. But how did Mackenzie come to be known as Thomas the Rhymer?' I asked.

  He considered me for a moment. 'I've had an education, sir. So what I'm telling you, I don't want you to believe that I think it's true, or all of it, anyway. I know better, but I'll tell you what some people think, if you're interested.'

  'Of course, and please do, it sounds interesting. You know what they say, where there's smoke, there's fire,' I said, adding, 'There's some truth in all tales, I suspect.' I was curious to hear more about TTR from the local point of view.

  'Aye, I suspect there is. Well, people around here, them that knew him back in those days, say that he was Thomas the Rhymer come back from the Otherworld. Though there's some disagreement on whether he was Thomas before the accident or only after. Some say TTR Mackenzie was always Thomas the Rhymer and only woke up to the fact after the accident, others say Mackenzie died and Thomas the Rhymer took his place in the body. He was so much changed by the accident that either case is possible, at least to the superstitious old folk that tell these tales. You don't have to believe it, of course, but there's no way around the fact that he was not the same man after the accident.'

  'Lord Learmonte did mention that too, but why Thomas the Rhymer?' I asked.

  'It was his initials, TTR, Thomas The Rhymer, you see. And then, of course, he built his great secret machine. The old folks say it was a gate he built up in the Maig Glen. A gate, so he'd be able to return to the Otherworld, a place that used to be connected to this world but was closed a hundreds of years or more ago. He'd spent time there before and people say he'd somehow come back as Mackenzie or remembered who he was again after the accident and wanted to return to the Otherworld.'

  I shook my head. 'I'm not sure how much fire is in that smoke. But never mind. I understand he was building something, of course, but I don't think it had anything to do with magic. So where would they get the Rhymer connection and why would they say it was a gate?'

  The shepherd shrugged. 'I don't know. You see all this happened before I was born. I can only tell you the tales as they've come down to me. And as I said, I don't believe them, much, myself. Though I'll tell you, whoever he was and whatever he was a'building, it was a mighty powerful thing. Had power lines especially run up from the Loch Luicent dam, they say. And I can tell you this from personal experience, Maig Glen has felt a bit uncanny ever since then. The old folk say that when he opened the gate to the Otherworld, our world jumped back three hundred years or more in that instant and that TTR disappeared in a flash of blue light, never to be seen again...' he held up his hand to still my questions. 'Now even I don't believe that, but some say that to this very day. And they'll tell you that gate he built still swings open and close, just a little, and when it opens, the storms and the Riders come out to ride the hills...'

  'The Riders?'

  'The Seelie Court, from the Otherworld. You can see the lanterns they carry in the woods and hills at night, a troop riding about the countryside. I've seen them with my own eyes. And cold
sober too. You'll see them too, if you stay a fortnight at Glen Lonon. Especially in times like these when the gates open a'mite. Of course it could be just St Elmo's fires as the outsiders claim. I'd like to believe it. I'd rest easier. I believe them until I see them pacing me in the woods... And as for the storms, well, they'll warn you clear enough when you get to Glen Lonon about them. They'll tell you there's iron in the hills or something that makes the storms so intense in Maig Glen that even the sheep know to run to shelter when they see just a wee cloud. But you'll see all that for yourself if you stay the summer.'

  'I can't tell you much more,' he added. 'Most of those that knew the old days are gone now. I know, of course, that it wasn't likely his gate that made all the changes in the sun. Yet it all happened at the same time, and if you ask a true believer, he'll swear it was TTR's gate that done it. And who's to say it wasn't,' he added suddenly, giving me a challenging glance.

  'I don't see how,' I said. 'But if he was working with electricity, the unexpected early storms might well have shorted his equipment out rather spectacularly and started a fire. But I do know for a fact that he lived after the fire. Still, that was long ago and before the storms so we'll never likely know exactly what happened. Maybe his papers will tell us– tell someone I mean to say – something.'

  We'd reached the gate where the sheep had turned into the paddock and were crowding around a water trough. An elderly man was waiting by the gate along with the tired dog.

  My shepherd friend nodded to the old man and turned to me. 'You'd best be on your way now. And, sir, might I ask you not mention anything of what I've just told you to the folk at Glen Lonon. They'll not want to hear it, and I'd not want my knowing about them papers to get anyone in trouble should they think the secret's all theirs...'

  'Aye. No need for them to know anything about it, I'm sure you're not the folk they want to keep it secret from. And thanks for sharing the local folklore of TTR. I'll keep an eye out for, well, the Riders...' I added with a grin.

  He grinned as well. 'A fortnight or two in Glen Lonon and we'll talk again, mate. Have a good evening.'

  'You too, mate,' I said as I mounted my bike once more and started off down the darkening lane.

  I must admit that I was growing weary and anxious to put the last half an hour of my travels behind me. I wondered if it'd be too much to expect a nice soft bed awaiting me. I soon came upon the Lonon River bright beyond the trees on my right, a placid stream, twenty metres wide. With the sun behind the distant hills the lane was now in blue twilight, the road a pale line under the dark trees. The breeze had dropped entirely away with the setting sun, leaving the dying day's tropical heat even more oppressive and the world about me even more still and silent.

  I turned over the shepherd's yarn as I rode. The Storms brought out a great outpouring of religious and superstitious doom and gloom. And well, who's to blame them? It's easy enough to imagine how the Thomas the Rhymer's stories might have gotten started. And I could see that if some idea of what TTR's device did had been bandied about, it could easily be distorted into a “gate” of sorts, so there was likely a vein of truth buried in the yarns. I'd have to, discreetly, inquire about the changes in TTR and the manner of his death and the location of this gate...

  I entered the Lonon River glen as the first of the highland hills loomed on my left, its birch trees and bracken crowding and arching over the lane. Through the birches and bracken on my right, I caught a glimpse of the deep blue waters of Loch Achonie, an old and now abandoned hydro-electric scheme lake. The sky through the trees had taken on a deep orange tint and the tropical heat felt even heavier and more stifling in the narrow airless lane through the woods. Every once in a while, I'd ride through a patch of cooler, earthy smelling air, the springs of night beginning to bubble up from the deepening shadows. The road started a gentle rise, and I kicked the motor up another notch to take it, my legs beginning to ache. A few minutes later I caught the flicker of pale blue light across the loch and against the blackness of the pine plantation turned forest, and then again, the pale reflection of lightning. Given the oppressive feel in the air, it was hardly unexpected, but not welcomed. No thunder yet, I'd rather not arrive wet. I kicked the motor up yet another notch and picked up the pace.

  The glen began to quickly darken. Through the occasional break in the tree cover, I caught sight of storm clouds boiling overhead, veined in lightning racing west to east. The lightning soon grew incessant, a constant blue flickering light shifting the shape of things in the woods in its subtle strobe, but not a breath of air, not a leaf moved, only the shadows danced. And even a few minutes later, when the low drumbeat of thunder could just be heard in the distance ahead of me, the world still seemed almost supernaturally still.

  I didn't have a good feeling about this. Though the thunder was still distant, there seemed a sense of menace in the air, which had to have been in my imagination, but seemed real enough at the time. There were enough trees around that I shouldn't have to fear lightning, much, but I was pedalling with all I had left.

  Nearing the top of the rise, the trees thinned and I came full upon the dark blue-grey sky racing overhead. A line of steel towers, abandoned electric power pylons, marched into the darkening distance over the tree tops. Their outstretched arms were sheathed in dancing blue lights, St Elmo's fire. In the flickering light, the pylons seemed almost animated, eerie metal giants marching across the hills out of the storm. I could not tell how far off the storm was, since the incessant thunder did not allow me to count off the seconds, but the rumble of thunder was growing stronger. I put my head down and raced down the curving lane as fast as I dared. Luckily, the wheel tracks were hard packed and without major pot holes so I didn't break my neck.

  The clouds seemed to brush against the treetops as the lane levelled. The rain could not be far off. The river came in to view again briefly and then swung out of sight leaving an open field on my right.

  In a blinding instant, the world turned into a blue splitting crack of near-doom, the thunder arriving with the lightning with a physical force. I braked and struggled to keep control of the bike as I veered off the lane. I managed to keep control, barely, and my heart started pumping once more, pounding in my chest, and I put my head down and raced ahead. They say a miss is as good as a mile, but I'd take the mile...

  I spied cottages ahead, I hoped they were the fabled ones just before the first gate house. I thought about stopping, but decided to push on down the straight lane, since the rain was holding off.

  I passed the first gate house and in a minute or two more I'd be at the factor's house. Safe. I caught the blinding flash a split second before the crash washed over me, just ahead, behind a screen of trees. That minute or two was suddenly looking pretty iffy. I crouched low over the handle bars and raced ahead, the blue bolt still etched in my retinas.

  The rain began with a few heavy drops, knocking craters in the dust of the wheel tracks as I came upon the second gate house. Another flash and crash, but this time a second behind. I peered ahead in the gathering darkness, and coming around a bend, saw the light of the stone built house on my left. I turned in, braking hard. I could hear the drumming of the rain racing through the woods towards the cottage as I hopped off the bike and ran it up next to the door. They must have been watching for me, since the door opened and Ms Munro almost pulled me in.

  'Thanks,' I managed to pant and the rain lashed against the door, bitter at its missed chance.

  'Aye. Cutting it close. Good thing you hurried, or you'd have been soaked in seconds,' she said, adding, 'I'm sorry, Mr Say, I never thought of the possibility of a storm when you called. It storms in the Maig Glen most every night, what with the sun being so active, but this is the first one of the week to spill into Glen Lonon. Still, you've arrived safe and dry.'

  I was going to tell her it wasn't the rain – I didn't melt in water – that had me hurrying, but the prospect of being fried crisp by lightning, but by the time I caught enoug
h of my breath to say so, I decided that might be taken as criticism, so I just panted out, 'No harm. Didn't see it coming at first, with the hills and the trees or I would have hurried sooner.'

  'They come up fast in these glens. Always keep a weather eye. But step in and have a cup of tea. Lord Learmonte left some instructions for you. We might as well get that business out of the way. This, by the way, is my father, Guy Munro,' she added as she turned to lead me to the kitchen, introducing me to a man standing behind her.

  'Welcome to Glen Lonon, Mr Say,' he said as we shook hands. He was a large, grey haired man with a humours glint to his eyes.

  'Nice to meet you, sir. My friends call me Sandy, and I hope you both will too. I still think of Mr Say as my father.'

  Maude Munro, Lord Learmonte's Glen Lonon agent, or factor as they are known in Scotland, looked to be a rather formidable woman in her later middle ages. She was dressed in moleskin slacks and tweeds – well-worn working clothes.

  Guy Munro, a retired factor, lives with his daughter. 'I help Maude by doing the odd job here and there for my room and board,' he said, adding with a wink, 'Not, of course, that she needs her old man helping her.' Far more talkative than his daughter, he easily carried their half of the polite conversation we had around the kitchen table waiting for the water to boil and the tea to steep. I talked mostly about my day's journey.

  Maude set the cup down in front of me. She sat down and shuffled through several sheets of paper and gave me a look. 'You've met Lord Learmonte?'

  'I had lunch with him in Cambridge this past Monday, along with my supervising professor, Evert Blake,' I said, adding, to answer her look, 'I'm afraid that Lord Learmonte and I did not quite hit it off. Not kindred spirits. I believe Professor Blake blackmailed him in to having me up on the grounds that I knew too much, or some such thing,' I added with a smile. 'We've both been blackmailed, more or less.'

  'Just so. Saves me the trouble of dissuading you from any notion that his Lordship is overjoyed having you here. I'll not read you a verbatim version of his instructions,' she said tartly, waving the pages in her hand. 'It's getting late and I'm sure you're tired, but I can sum them up in three guiding principles. First, you're here to work as an employee not as a guest on a holiday. Second, that you are to stay out of sight so he does not have to explain who you are or what you're doing here. And thirdly, you are not to talk about your work to anyone. Everyone will know about it from gossip, of course, but please keep the specifics of your work to yourself.

  'Now Mr Say, you'll find me to speak my mind plainly. Lord Learmonte has been in uncertain temper since the death of his wife, and can be very stubborn and sharply spoken when crossed. I'd advise you to follow his instructions to the letter while he's in residence – usually from Friday afternoon or evening to Sunday afternoon. Either stay in your cottage or take your air and exercise off the main estate. Don't give him any reasons to make your stay more unpleasant than he already has. Are you clear on these points?

  'I believe so,' I said. 'I'm here to work, not holiday, I'm staff, not a guest. I'm to be neither seen nor heard.'

  'Exactly' she nodded. 'That said, I've no intention of wasting my time trying to make your stay miserable, and short of locking you up in the cottage, I don't see how the letter of his Lordship's instructions can be followed. So, if you'll meet me half way, I believe we can arrive at an understanding. I'd suggest that if you would simply make a point of avoiding the big houses and remain as discrete as possible in your comings and goings even when his Lordship is not in residence, we should get along just fine. Stay on this end of the estate and ignore any guests you might happen upon – they shouldn't pay any attention to you unless you attract it. If they should ask what you do, please be a vague as possible, or just dumb. That may work better. But as I was saying, if you keep a low profile and stay amongst the staff, you should be able to enjoy your stay at Glen Lonon with his Lordship not being the wiser.'

  'Yes, of course. I'll be happy to follow your suggestions. I've no interest in the big houses or in their guests, so that's no hardship. I've signed a formidable agreement that binds me not to talk about my work, and I'll certainly follow that as well. And while I hope to get my work done as expeditiously as possible, I would like to be able to get out and explore a bit of the highlands in my free time.'

  'Excellent,' she eyed me critically. 'Guests will roam about the estate and with the stables by your cottage, you can expect them about at times. Most are here only for the weekend, but some, including a group of young people arriving tomorrow, will stay the week. It might be handy if you were to adopt the dress of our farm staff to make it easier for you to blend in.'

  'I was planning to supplement my limited wardrobe with more appropriate clothes purchased here. I'll see that they're consistent with my status.'

  'Grand. It's hard at times not to be seen by the people from the big houses, but not being noticed should be easy. And so long as you pass unnoticed, you'll be fine.'

  The rain had stopped and the lightning was only an occasional flicker. She looked through the papers and added as she rose from the table, 'I don't see anything more that I believe I need tell you tonight. My father will show you to your cottage and he'll fill you in on some of the practical detail regarding life in the Groom's Cottage. If you have any questions, feel free to ask either myself or my father. One of us is usually here in the office.

  'I will just add two more warnings. The first involves the storms. As you've seen they can be very furious and electrical especially in the Maig Glen. Any time you see a storm forming or approaching, do not hesitate to take shelter in the nearest cottage or shed, be it occupied or abandoned. Everyone is welcomed in any cottage during a storm.

  'My second warning is not to believe anything my Father tells you about what I shall call the local folklore. He'll swear that he doesn't believe it, but will then go on to spin the most impossible fairy tales connected to these glens with utter conviction. They are just that, fairy tales. The storms are real, St Elmo's fires are real and the moving lights are as common as drunken farm hands, shepherds and poachers who see them. Gullible strangers are rare and I know he'll not pass up the chance to spin his tales.'

  I glanced at Guy who just gave me a wink. 'I'll take your warnings to heart, and though I must say you've made your father's stories sound quite entertaining, however, I'll be sure to take them as fiction,' I said, trying to split the difference. I'll need friends in Glen Lonon to navigate the shoals of Lord Learmonte's dislike.

  'I'd advise you not to encourage him. He'll talk your ear off and keep you from your work. But on your head.'

  'I've been warned,' I laughed. 'Good night, Ms Munro. Thank you for your tea and advice.'

  Guy grabbed a torch and we went out into the cool, damp night. Walking my bike, we crossed the puddled lane and down a dripping, pine fragrant drive with dark trees and the shapes of a few buildings and stone walls on either side.

  As we walked, he filled me in on some of the practical housekeeping matters, who took in laundry, who'd do house cleaning, who would make my meals if I did'na care to cook – he'd introduce me around tomorrow.

  'Now, if you're planning on doing your own cooking,' he continued, 'You might want to find your way to Ordmoor tomorrow morning. I drive a clutch of farmhand wives to market every Tuesday and Friday about at 9:00 and stay around to about 11:30. The seats in the Rover are spoken for, but there'll be plenty of room in the boot for your parcels, so you can lay in a good supply.'

  I told him that sounded like a plan and he told me where to look for him and the Rover in Ordmoor the following morning.

  We came to a corner with a large house – Hidden Garden – on our right and turned left along a gravel drive between woods on our left and a stone fence and a broad paddock beyond on the right for perhaps a quarter of a mile, reaching a collection of barns and stables.

  The Groom's Cottage was set back from the drive by a bit of grass on the edge of a stand of tall
pines, not far from a dim collection of farm buildings and cottages. Inside, he turned on a rather dim battery lamp on the desk next to the door which illuminated a single fair sized room, hot and stuffy from being closed up.

  Guy stepped in and gave me a sketchy tour. 'Over there's your kitchen, here's your sitting room and that door back there leads to the loo and the battery closet. Up that ladder is the bunk room under the eaves. You can have your choice of beds.' And added, 'I'll bring Mrs Douglas over before market to sign you up with our estate worker's co-op. With a little light work, you'll get fresh eggs, milk, meat and poultry from the estate delivered for half of what you'd pay at the market. And there's plenty more things I'll think of later, but we'll have time to talk tomorrow. Good night, young man.'

  I turned on the second lamp on the kitchen table and opened the three downstairs windows and the door to air the cottage out a bit. I brought my bike in, unloaded my gear on the sofa, and parked the bike in the narrow back room/hallway to recharge its battery from a power outlet in the battery closet. I then aimlessly poked about the cottage; the kitchen cabinets were filled with mismatched china, pots and utensils. Beyond the small soapstone wood stove was a wainscot high bookshelf lined with musty smelling paperback adventure books and well-worn sporting magazines. A large tele screen hung on the wall above the book shelf. A worn leather sofa and matching club chair, a wooden desk and chair and a small kitchen table with four chairs constituted the furnishings of the cottage, and together with the soapstone stove, pretty much filled the cottage to capacity.

  Despite my weariness, I found myself too wound-up to sleep, so I took out my watson and recorded impressions of my day's journey until my eyelids grew too heavy to keep my eyes open and my thoughts in order. The attic was too hot and stuffy to even consider sleeping there, so I grabbed some blankets off a bed and settled on the ancient smelling sofa. As I drifted off to sleep, I realized that for the first time since I went up to Cambridge, eight years ago, I was once more a stranger.