5 December 1667. The loud crowing of a cock awoke me to both the new day and a pounding headache--a price I often paid for keeping late hours, writing reports to King Charles II of England.

I ought to know better, and I'm surprised my good host's neighbors haven't said something. They've surely noticed the midnight light from my candle, and I've seen more than one soul accused, tried, and executed on less evidence than that.

Scots are a suspicious lot and have no good reason to trust Englishmen, particularly inquisitive ones such as I, but on the other hand, I suppose they've learned not to look out into the night. They know it's dangerous to see things that don't concern them and a good way to end up accused or dead.

I yawned and looked out the open window into the cold darkness beyond, the dawn still only in the damnable cock's imagination. I spent a happy minute thinking of imaginative ways to kill that miserable bird, who continued his raucous cawking and karking, as if daring me to try to fall back asleep.

My name is Robert MacDonnell, hardly a name to raise Scottish eyebrows, and that's why the King selected me for this particular task. Properly attired, I can pass for a Highlander, in rough manner and burred speech learned at my father's knee. The perfect spy.

I threw the filthy bedclothes off and rose shivering from the straw mattress, my bare feet cold on the dirt floor of the house. I pulled on my breeches and boots and headed for the hearth. The fire there had burned down considerably during the night and gave but little warmth to the rude stone habitation.

I rubbed my icy hands together and held them out toward the weakly glowing embers, grateful for even the minimal heat, as I tried to ease the stiffness from my fingers.

From the far corner of the room, my host--a distant and none-too-hospitable elderly relative--arose and threw a shabby knitted wool shawl over his shoulders, then came hawking and scratching himself up to the hearth, mimicking my own actions. He stood there, hands to the fire, and squinted owlishly at me, as if trying to remember whom I was and by what right I stole his heat.

He finally grunted, grabbed a poker and bent to stir the embers, then took a single chunk of wood from the small pile beside the hearth and tossed it onto the fire. Apparently satisfied with this miserly display, he scowled and said, "I'll na take kindly to ye writin' inta the wee hours again. Were ye na kin, I wouldna ha' ye here. Do ye na ken the danger? Laird or bairn, makes na difference, 'tis na safe. The Godfearing folk hereabout dinna take to candles at Satan's hour. 'Tis divil's work."

Devil's work, indeed. I ignored the parsimonious old fool. Witches, warlocks, sorcerers? To listen to the Protestant Church of Scotland--the Kirk--the woods were full of them. If these minions of the devil were such a threat, their enchantments so powerful, why had none of them managed to save themselves?

But those considerations aside, I had my orders.

Despite the distractions of a major outbreak of Plague and then last year's Great Fire in London, stories of shape-shifting by a recently executed Scottish witch--one Issobel Gowdie--had reached the court. The royal curiosity had been piqued, and King Charles himself had charged me to discover the truth, if possible, about the events of five years earlier.

I think he was only acting at the behest of the Archbishop and certain elders of the Kirk of Scotland. I suspect they wanted to be certain the witch was dead, and that England and Scotland would see neither repetition of Gowdie's heinous crimes nor the spread of her putative ability to shapeshift into the form of a catt.

That was why I was here in County Nairne--just south of the town of Auldearne, to be exact--a lone Englishman in hostile Scots country. I'd spent a great deal of time and effort to find the Reverend Harrie Forbes, the minister who had presided over Issobel Gowdie's confession and trial. More than a few golden guineas had changed hands, but I'd so far been unable to learn his whereabouts. He'd disappeared as if the King had put a price on his head.

However, I'd planned an interview today with John Weir, a venerated townsman and purported witness to the Gowdie trial and execution, who I hoped could give me a lead towards finding the elusive Rev. Forbes.

I made a cold breakfast of peas porridge, thanked my well-compensated but reluctant host, buttoned up my traveling coat and left. The icy waters of the Firth of Moray to the north shimmered ahead of me in the winter sunlight as I made my way into the village of Auldearne, a pleasant walk of some few miles.

The road was frozen and firm, the going easy. Curls of smoke rose from the quiet houses, and patches of half-melted snow covered the sleeping fields and fences of the smallholdings I passed along the way. Only a few foraging cows and sheep noted my presence by lifting their heads to watch curiously as I walked by.

I stopped as I entered the village proper, to ask directions of a warmly-dressed horseman traveling from the direction of Nairn, not far to the northwest. The red-bearded fellow, perhaps a clansman, pulled up at my hail and eyed me up and down, a hand on the dirk at his waist. He relaxed as I told him with my best Highland burr my name was MacDonnell, and I'd just made my way down to the coast to look for a certain reliable churchman. I gave him the name.

He hesitated, looked about, then pointed at a small stone structure at the far end of the town. He said gruffly, "Have a care with whom ye converse in these parts, laddie. 'Tis best to trust no one."

I smiled. "I keep my own counsel."

He nodded and touched a hand to his bonnet, then rode off without looking back.