Books by Maggie Shayne (259 page)

And a good friend. I’d come to love her very much in the short while she’d been with us. So much so that I hoped she would never decide to leave. ’Twas as if I’d known her always, though that could not be possible.

“Perhaps there’s no need to tell you so…” She slashed at me again, nearly nicking me this time, but I danced backward just out of reach of the gleaming blade. “But I think it a poor idea.“

I thrust, she dodged. “Why?” I asked. “Is he not the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen, Arianna?”

“With perhaps one exception,” she said with a careless shrug. “But he’s also a man of the cloth.”

“Which means he’s in touch with the Almighty, just as we are.”

“Which means he believes Witches should be put to death.”

I went still, and so did she. Our blades raised, our bodies poised in ready crouches, we paused to catch our breath, and to lock gazes as she awaited my reaction to her words.

“Duncan tried to prevent the hanging that killed my mother,” I said. “He’s not like the rest.”

“Can you be sure?”

I blinked, lowered my head. “I… yes, I’m sure.”

Arianna shrugged. “I am not,” she said. “And I’m equally doubtful of your judgment where he’s concerned. I suppose ”tis lucky for you I’m here to watch out for you.“ She slashed at me again, neatly slicing the fabric that covered my middle this time.

I jumped back. “Be careful, would you? You could have cut me!”

“And what would it matter?“‘ Arianna asked with a grin. ”You’re immortal. You would heal.“

’Twould hurt all the same,“ I replied, scowling, but lifting my own dagger to waist height before thrusting it forward in a quick darting motion, drawing back just as quickly.

“Better
I
hurt you than your preacher man, Raven. I’ve a feeling you’d recover from the nick of my blade far more quickly than from a broken heart,” she said, and jumped sideways to avoid my blade. The act sent her off balance, and I leaped forward, shouldering her hard and sending her to the ground.

“Aha!” I shouted, and leaped on Arianna, straddling her middle, braced up on my knees. One hand gripped Arianna’s wrist, immobilizing the dagger she still clutched, while the other held my own blade to my friend’s throat. “I have you now!”

Arianna yanked one of her legs out from beneath me, planted a foot on my chest, and shoved hard, all in the space of a heartbeat. As I went sprawling onto my back, Arianna bounced to her feet without using her hands.

“Overconfidence is the quickest path to defeat. Never underestimate the enemy.” Then she laughed. “That was good, though. You grow better every day.”

“It does not feel as if I do.”

“You do.” Arianna’s smile gentled. “You know I am only concerned for your safety, don’t you? If I did not care for you, I’d keep my opinions to myself.”

“I know, Arianna. I just happen to disagree.”

“You could get yourself hurt. You know that.”

She looked so sad, and I wondered if she spoke with the voice of experience. “I know,” I said. “But ”tis worth the risk to have him, even for a little while.“

She held out a hand. I took it, and Arianna pulled me to my feet, then spun me around and held me fast, her blade at my throat. “I cannot believe,” she said close to my ear, laughter in her voice, “you fell for that one
again?”

“Raven!”

’Twas Duncan’s voice, startled and horrified. He came out of the nearby trees and into view, staring in utter terror at Arianna, her blade, my throat. ”Let her go!“

Arianna glanced down into my eyes, her own sparkling with undisguised mirth. Then she looked at Duncan and shrugged. “Oh, all right. If you insist,” she said. She released me, and then she threw her blond head back and laughed in a voice that rang with the clarity of bells.

I couldn’t help it. I bent my head to hide it, but my shoulders shook as I, too, gave in to quiet laughter.

Poor Duncan only stood there, staring from one of us to the other in confusion. “I dinna ken… Raven, are you—”

“I’m fine, Duncan. Arianna and I were only… practicing.”

He frowned, looking me over from head to toe and frowning even harder. “You’re… you’re wearin’
breeches?“

“Being a man,” Arianna said, “you’ve likely never tried to fight in skirts, but I can tell you, Duncan, ”tis no easy task.“

I sent her a quelling glance and sought a plausible explanation. “We’re learning to defend ourselves, Duncan. That is all. We’re unmarried women living alone in a small settlement. We simply feel it the wise thing to do.”

“The wise thing to do,” he countered, “would be to marry.”

The mirth fled me and regret replaced it in my heart. “Please stop asking. You know I cannot.”

“You will, eventually.” He came closer. “So, will you show me the finer points of combat with blades?”“

“If I did, then how would I ever overpower you?” I asked.

“The same way you do now, my love, with a simple glance.”

I smiled as he came to me, wrapped me in his arms, and hugged me so tenderly I nearly cried.

“How did you find us, Duncan?” Arianna asked him, even now sliding her blade into its sheath. “We thought coming here the height of discretion.”

“Discretion is a fine idea,” he replied. “For if ”twere someone besides me to see you both in breeches, fighting as if to the death, there would be scandal indeed in the streets of Sanctuary.“ He lowered his head. ”More so than there already is.“ Then slowly he lifted it, met my eyes again. ”Your aunt told me you’d gone walkin‘ in the woods. Once I got near enough, I simply followed the sounds of battle.“

I smiled at that, but the smile he returned was a sad one.

“Something troubles you,” I said.

“Indeed. Elias Stanton suspects…” He slanted a worried glance toward Arianna, as if about to say something she shouldn’t overhear.

“Never fear,” she quipped. “I know exactly what that fool suspects. More than likely, he suspects me of the same things.”

“Aye, more than likely,” Duncan agreed. Then he gripped my hands in his. “You should leave this town, Raven. At once. I dinna believe ”tis safe for you here.“

I sighed deeply.

“You knew this day would come, Raven. We’ve spoken of it,” Arianna said.

I nodded but met Duncan’s eyes. “I’ll not go. I’ll not pack up and move away from…” I bit my lip.

“From what?” he pressed, squeezing my hands.

Closing my eyes, I whispered, “From you, Duncan. I don’t want to leave you.”

He smiled, then seemed to catch his lip between his teeth as if to stop its trembling. “You love me, lass. You either dinna ken it yet, or canna admit it to me, but you do. You love me.”

“Stop it, please…”

“All right. All right.” But he pulled me tight, kissed me softly, before he let me go and spoke once more. “I thought… I thought to go with you, Raven. If you’d have me.”

My brows bent until they touched. “But all you have is here. Your home, your position, your friends in Boston.”

“All I have, nay, all I
wish
to have, ever,” he whispered, “is here, right here in my arms.”

Pressing my lips tight, I averted my eyes. “My aunt Eleanor is not a young woman,” I told him. “She’d never leave this place.”

“She isna the one in danger here, Raven. You are.”

Arianna spoke then, coming closer to the two of us. Though she disapproved of my relationship with Duncan, she seemed to understand it. And she would neither nag nor play the part of my judge. Witches didn’t work that way. She’d voiced her opinion. Now she would leave it at that.

“I have to agree with the pastor on this point, Raven,” she said, then she glanced at Duncan and lifted her brows. “Imagine that.”

I saw Duncan smile at her, a tentative smile, and one Arianna returned, just as hesitantly. They would become friends, in time. I felt certain of that.

“It doesn’t matter that you both agree,” I said. “Eleanor’s husband built that house for the two of them. She clings to her husband’s memory by remaining there, and if she leaves…”twould be like cutting the roots from some great tree. She would wither and die.“

“How can you know that, Raven?” Duncan asked.

“Oh, she can. Believe me, she can.” Arianna lowered her head and shook it.

“She took me in when I had nowhere else to go, Duncan,” I told him. “And in the time I’ve been with her, I’ve come to love her very much. She… she is all I have left of my own mother. Can’t you see that?”

“Of course I can see it,” he said harshly. “What I canna see is you dyin’
because
of it.“

Meeting his gaze, I whispered, “She has only a year left in her, Duncan.”

“She has… ?” He looked at me sharply, then at Arianna, who only lifted her brows and shoulders, and then turned to study a tree as if it held great interest. “How can you be sure of that?“

I lowered my eyes. The truth was, I’d studied the lines of Aunt Eleanor’s palm, and I knew. I’d restored her health, she would enjoy what remained of her time on this plane, but when a person’s purpose was done, they moved on, and all the magick in the Universe couldn’t change that. “I simply know it.”

He nodded. “Another of those things about which you canna tell me?”

“I owe her so much,” I said, brushing past his question as if he hadn’t spoken it. “I’ll not ask her to give up the home she loves, leave the place where her dear husband lies buried, spend the last year of her life miserable. I cannot. ”Tis only a year, Duncan. Perhaps less. Surely Elias Stanton and his suspicions can be put off that long.“

Duncan looked frustrated. He turned away from me, pushing a hand through his hair. But when he faced me once more, his jaw was set. “I’ll see to it you’re protected then. He willna harm you, Raven. I vow it on all that I hold sacred.”

“You mustn’t do that,” I protested. “I won’t have it, Duncan. Understand that.”

“I love you more than my own soul, Raven, and because of it, I canna do otherwise.
You
understand
that.”
He kissed me once more, hard, and walked swiftly away in the direction of town.

I watched him go, then sent Arianna a helpless glance. “What am I to do?”

“Teach me,” Arianna said, “the spell that makes a man who looks like that one into your devoted servant.”

I only shook my head at her. “Tis no spell, and well you know it.“

“Perhaps not,” she said. “A shame, though. I could have used it once.”

I tilted my head. ’Twas the first hint she’d ever given me as to her past. ”You… loved a man who didn’t love you in return?“

“I loved a man,” she said with a small, bitter smile, “who’d have been happy to see me dead.”

“Then he was a fool.”

She shook her head. “No, he was right. In the end I won his trust, if not his heart. And trusting me is what got him killed.“

She turned and started back toward the house. I hurried after her. “”Arianna?“‘

“I don’t talk about that,” she said, false gaiety in her voice. “It is history. I can’t imagine what made me bring it up.”

“But—”

“Please,” she said, and there was a wealth of power in the word. “Let it be, Raven. And suffice to say that, having seen the way your Duncan looks at you, I am beginning to think I may have been wrong about him.”

I went still and felt my heart swell. “Thank you for that,” I whispered. “But as to this other…” She sent me a quelling look. “All right,” I murmured. But I wondered. What kind of man could break a heart as strong as hers?

Duncan didn’t come to me by day after that. Only by night. Nearly every night. We’d meet in the forests or on the cliffs above the angry sea. We’d love until we were spent and then lie naked in each other’s arms, just resting. Just
being.

I loved him more each time he smiled at me, each time he whispered my name. I wanted him with me always. And he came to me whenever the sun went down.

Except on my sacred nights, when I would make an excuse. I think he knew I was hiding something, one more secret added to the many I kept from him, but he never pressed. Only hoped endlessly that I would come to trust him enough to tell him my truths. If only he knew that I
did
by now. ’Twas for his own safety that he could not know the truth about me.

Once a month, when the moon was full, Arianna and I slipped away from the cabin very late at night, while Aunt Eleanor lay sleeping. Deep into the woods we’d venture, there to set a small balefire alight, and to cast a magick circle, invoke the elements to aid us in our work, and feel the power of our Goddess growing strong within us. We burned fragrant herbs and special candles we’d made ourselves with loving care and magickal energy. We left offerings of food and wine, or flowers we’d gathered for the occasion as a symbol of our love for the Divine.

I often pondered the nature of my religion and that of Duncan’s. I knew, as I’d always known, that his God and mine were the same. Our beliefs about Him differed, as did our ways, but in the end, there was only One. I saw the Divine as every bit as much female as male, and addressed both aspects, by referring to them as my Goddess and my God, my Lord and my Lady. Followers of Duncan’s faith no longer recognized the feminine Divine, but still prayed to Mary in times of need.

Prayer was another way in which we were at once the same and different. When in need, we both turned to Divinity for help. Duncan’s way was to surrender his will to that of the Almighty, seeing it as a separate entity, and asking for assistance. My way was to connect to that same Source, only to do it believing it was
not
separate from me, just as the Earth and the Air and the very sunlight are not separate from me. I am but a small part of a very large being, and that being is the Universe Herself. When I make magick, I feel
Her
energy flowing through me and then direct that power to bring my will into being. For me, prayer is not a request, but a command, delivered with the very might and power and authority of the Almighty.

But the most important difference between Duncan’s faith and mine was that I believed the religions of the world were simply many spokes on a single wheel, all springing from and leading back to the same, singular Source. And his decreed that there was only one way to salvation, and that anyone who chose another path was damned. Guilty of the most vile sin. Deserving of torture and death.