“For shame, Alex,” said Ian reproachfully. “She’s nearly believing it.”
Kelpie jerked out of her dream and hissed venomously at Alex, who chuckled impenitently and wondered how she would try to get even this time.
The next day Kelpie went down to the burn, where she had noticed that the soil had a sticky, claylike quality. There she sat for some time, screened by broom and high bracken, and slowly shaped a small clay figure—not that it looked much like Alex, she being no artist. In fact, she admitted, a body could barely tell that it was supposed to be human at all. But perhaps the intent was the main thing. If only she could get hold of a bit of his hair or a fingernail—but Kelpie had had enough of hair-stealing for a while, particularly red hair. Anyway, Alex was much too canny. She had never yet managed to steal anything from him without being caught. No, she would just have to be trying her hex without it.
There were brambles conveniently near. Kelpie picked a long thorn, regarded her clay figure thoughtfully, and then plunged the thorn deep into the area where the stomach might be expected to be.
Then she wrapped up the hex figure, went back to the rowan tree, and began to watch Alex hopefully.
Two days passed, but if he had any pains in his stomach, he concealed them very well. Kelpie added a second thorn to the figure, this time in the head, and again waited. By rights, his brains ought to start melting away, but she must not be doing it right, for Alex’s brains remained as uncomfortably keen as ever. He didn’t even get a headache.
Kelpie began looking wistfully at the tall, gaunt woman again. If she was a witch, she could undoubtedly help. And yet—Kelpie noticed that the men of the army did not treat her at all as a witch. Far from shunning her, they went out of their way to be kind, to bring her choice bits of food, to talk to her. Once again Kelpie decided not to risk trouble. She would manage her own hex, impotent as it seemed to be.
In disgust, she took it out again, plunged thorns all over it, rubbed it with nettles, burned it, and then watched again. After five days Alex did twist his wrist slightly, but somehow Kelpie failed to feel much satisfaction. She was quite sure that she had never put a thorn in the left wrist. So she gave up trying to hex him. Either she didn’t have the power at all, or else—which seemed quite possible—Alex had a greater power.
Lord Graham of Montrose had a great power too. Kelpie found herself more and more interested in him. The look of him was not that of a strong leader at all. Slight, he was, with gentle dark gray eyes and a quiet and courteous air that hardly seemed to belong in an army at all, much less at the head of one. Now, Antrim looked like a leader indeed, massive red giant that he was, with a great roar of a voice. Yet there was no doubt that Montrose was the heart and soul of the army. Everyone, even Antrim, listened to him with respect amounting almost to worship, and everyone said that he had a genius for warfare.
Was it magic? Quite likely, Kelpie thought. She took to watching and listening whenever he was among the men. But she never saw him make any magic signs, and his words were about such things as honor and loyalty and why he was fighting for the King. Ian had said Montrose wanted no power for himself, but only for right to be done, but Ian was gullible. Skeptical, Kelpie kept her ears open.