Heaven and the Heather (12 page)

She walked silently, her slippers barely making a whisper on the stone steps and plank floors. She was lost in this horrid dank place,
non
, it was just a series of corridors. Nothing to frighten her as long as she remained calm. She took a deep breath and continued. After a few dozen steps she saw a twisting stair just beyond a stone archway and an ajar door. She paused before the arch carved with heads of deer. Sabine stopped beside her and peered around the door.

With care she opened the door wider to get a better look. She gasped.

Scattered about a dark wood table and ornate, throne-like chair were dozens of scraps of paper. Some were crumpled, some torn. From the look of things, autumn had come early to the Highlands.

Sabine stepped inside. The vast chamber was vacant. To one side of the table a large hearth smoldered and hissed with a dusky peat fire. On the opposite wall an enormous posted bed with dark velvet drapery sat like some foreboding sentinel. Sabine shivered. This had to be Lord Campbell’s chamber.

The need for her art overrode the fear that should have made her leave this place. Fear stung her enough to make her rush across the scabby rush mat that covered the floor. She skidded to a stop at the table, the papers blowing up and settling at her feet.

Sabine looked down at the papers and scowled. In France one did not toss paper on the floor unless it was worthless garbage, and even then one did not.

She knelt down into the papers, as good as gold to her, and began greedily scooping up the scraps. She stuffed them down the front of her gown, filling her cleavage.

In mid-scoop she paused, her eye on one large piece that was more than a scrap. The words on the paper made no sense at all. Gibberish, some language of this land. There was a cracked red wax seal. This paper was an old letter, but it had a lot of unused space on the bottom. What she could draw with such a luxury of virgin space! Maybe there was some worth to Lord Campbell after all. His wastefulness was a blessing to her.

She knew exactly what she would draw on that field before her…Niall MacGregor. She tingled at the thought. His image would come from her mind. She would capture every detail on paper. She halted those thoughts. Was she that much of a hypocrite? One moment she thought Niall a wild savage, and the next she trapped his image on paper without so much as taking a charcoal stick to it.

“He’s so free, and, yet, he holds my thoughts captive. The memory of his grin, of his eyes, of his very being….” Sabine shook him from her mind. “’Tis best I forget we ever met,” she breathed, the truth hurting her like a blade drawn slowly through her heart.

Voices and heavy footsteps coming up the stair arrested her thoughts. She searched wildly about the chamber and spied the bed. A childish, yet life-saving notion grabbed her. She scrambled into the dark, dusty space under the bed. The footsteps and voices invaded the chamber. Sabine gripped the large paper in her right hand, balling it tight. She peeked out at Lord Campbell and another man who stood in the papers scattered about the desk.

Sabine held her breath and waited. This was a rare treat to the man who would be her husband with his character stripped bare to her when he did not know she was observing him. She prayed he would give her a pleasant surprise about himself. He could not be the demon Niall had said he was. Lord Campbell was a noble, and Niall was nothing but a…

A man, she mouthed.

The man who joined Lord Campbell stood in shadow with his profile to Sabine. He was overly tall. His hair was curly, the end of his nose rounded like a knob. He wore a dark cloak wrapped about his body, his hood down about his neck.

This man spoke an odd language. It sounded like guttural nonsense. And Lord Campbell must have shared her opinion, because he chose to respond to the man in English. Perhaps he thought that other language was beneath him.

“What proof have you of your skill? Must be better than the Royal archers who prefer to play that absurd game of golf on the palace green than practice their skill. I daresay, your treachery is unmatched by your presence here, but I’ve no knowledge of your hand with the arrow. Am I to take your word alone in exchange for my coin?”

The shadowy man took in a long breath before declaring, “
Tu tha bi fo fiachaibh do!
”

He slammed his fist on the table. The candle in an iron holder jumped, wax sprayed onto the wood, the flame flickered madly.

“How dare you call me worthless! We have struck a bargain. If it is done to my satisfaction, you will get payment.” Lord Campbell lifted an object from the papers littering the table. “And do not speak the Gaelic to me. If any of Her Majesty’s court would hear it they would be most…confused.”

Sabine stared hard, her curiosity growing. He held an arrow. The point reflected the hearthlight. The shaft was painted a smooth white, ending in the most beautiful green and blue feathers. They must have come from a drake, the color was so brilliant, so distinctive.

He regarded the arrow briefly before handing it to the man who took it and tucked it away into his cloak.

Lord Campbell looked down at the desk, strewn with every manner of paper. “Where is that agreement? Did you return it to me?”

“
Thà
,” the man said. Sabine assumed that meant ‘yes’, he nodded also.

Lord Campbell swept the papers to the floor with one arm. They fluttered down like leaves. “I’ll never find anything in this rubbish! The servants have been so lax to my needs, now that Her Majesty is within,” he raged. “I’ll compose another. I’ll see that you receive it in due time. I must now prepare for Her Majesty’s return.” He paused, smiling. “I should be falconing with her. Engaged in frivolous Royal pursuits, making my loyalty known.”

“Cretin,” Sabine whispered.

Lord Campbell paused and suddenly looked toward the bed. Sabine pulled back into the dark praying he had not seen her.

She did not breathe as she listened harder.

“I have no doubt that you agree with me when I tell you that, in my observations at court, Her Majesty has made foolish choices, one being falling in with that Lord Darnley,” Campbell said. “What an unabashed fop he is! The queen’s duty is clouded by this childish attraction. She barely listens to my council on the Highlands. No one knows what’s best for Scotland better than me.”

Sabine heard the big man shift his weight on the plank floor. “Is yer loyalty to Her Majesty heightened because of that fine piece of French quim she’s given to ye? I saw her round the great hall seeing to the queen’s person.”

She did not know what ‘quim’ was, but by the way the man said it, she knew it was far from a compliment. Lord Campbell was certain to reprimand him for such indiscretion.

“There is more than one piece of French quim in this castle. How would you know which is my betrothed?” Lord Campbell asked.

“The lassie has a fine figure, warm looking hips and arse, and tits generous enough to fill yer hands. And her black hair is a goodly length for taking into yer fists, and having yer way, for holding her face beneath yer kilt.”

Cochon!
Highland dog! Sabine dug her fingertips painfully into the wood, trapping small bits of wood and grit under her fingernails.

“I do not wear a kilt,” was all Lord Campbell said.

“Ye’re reputed to be a man who favors only the best and the grandest of everything. Ye pick yer lassies as well as ye pick yer horses,” the Highlander said. “Have ye given her the three fingers up the tirlie-whirlie that ye give any filly ye’re gonnae buy?”

“She’s intact,” Lord Campbell said. “She’d best be.”

Sabine covered her mouth.

“Ye have doubts,” the man asked with a short laugh, humored by his question. Sabine could not have been less amused.

“She is French,” Lord Campbell said.

“Aye,” the Highlander said, “I believe that she is true to her kind, as much a whoredaughter as the one she serves.”

Head spinning, Sabine pressed further back into the shadows.
Whoredaughter.
The very same name her father had given to her. She knew there had been no love lost between him and her long dead mother, the woman he called a whore until the day the fever consumed her. And that day, before she was shunted off to Her Majesty’s service, he had called her
whoredaughter
.

“Marriage will no doubt put me in the best position to do what I must without suspicion,” Campbell said firmly.

What work?
Sabine’s mind screamed.

“And the whoredaughter?”

“I will saddle that bitch, and make her mine.” Campbell sighed. “I grow weary of her displays of spirit, of having to suffer through her petty bouts of disdain, of bowing to her every whim, pretending that what I do is only in her best interests.”

“Teach her what she should know.”

“I will, and soon,” Campbell said. “She will learn that she should serve and obey me, not rule and command me. Beauty, despite her flaws, and the willingness to shed her shank to the first lad who lifts her skirts, will not protect her.”

Sweet Saint Giles! Sabine could not breathe. Her heart pounded, threatening to burst. She prayed it would and end her agony. Campbell knew about Niall. That day she arrived in this terrible country he had to have seen Niall chase a chicken up under her gown!

“She will not be protected by any palace or castle, for she has chosen her fate by leaving France. And she will die by it.” Campbell declared. “I’ll see you out, but not by way of the great hall. You’re presence here is known but to me. Her Majesty’s court would not understand.”

The man met this statement with a grunt.

The sound of waning footsteps and the diminishing echo of agreement from the Highlander told her she was once again alone.

She waited clutching her belly before she slipped out from under the bed and out the door. Bile rose in a fiery trail onto her tongue. She clasped a hand over her mouth to keep from retching.

She needed fresh air. And a great deal more.

Sabine ran away from the narrow stair, the one she was sure Campbell and the Highlander had used. She ran until she came to another stair one wide and familiar. She forced her legs to propel her down the steps. Grateful, relieved, she stumbled into the Great Hall, a cavernous and cold space, sparsely decorated with a few tapestries and rusting swords. The only sign that the queen was a guest were the fresh rush mats on the floor and candles in the sconces.

Sabine ran faster than she had in her entire life, the large paper balled inside her right fist. She knew she had to get outside past these nasty stone walls, if only for a moment, to think, to clear her mind.

She raced through the great hall, past stunned servant boys, into the courtyard, past a lowly line of farmers bringing tithe, and onward to the massive portcullis which was kept raised for the farmers to pay their lord. Two leering guards stepped in her way.

“Suffer Her Majesty’s wrath for not allowing me egress!” Sabine threatened.

The Royal guards immediately stepped back to the shadows of the thick wall.

Taking in great gulps of air, she raced over the drawbridge spanning a dingy, weed-choked moat. She did not look back as she filled her lungs with the cool air, with the essence of this wild place that even Campbell could not corrupt.

Not far from the castle, a less-used path branched off from the wider road. Sabine chose it. The path was more of a trough through the meadow, leading down toward a winding stream partially hidden by birch and bracken. A narrow wooden bridge made of roughly hewn planks, just wide enough for a horse and rider, spanned the stream. Sabine halted her flight on that bridge. Beyond, on the other side of the stream, was a darkened forest and infinite horizon of misty mountains.

She looked back at Castle Campbell
Dubh
, Black Campbell. Such a fitting name for so dreadful a place. It was now diminished, small and unthreatening on the horizon. At this distance the frightening hard edges of the jagged crenellation on the two towers that framed the large gate were softened in the heavy air. She could barely make out the small windows, nothing more than afterthoughts on an endless facade.

“I fear that castle will be my gallows,” she whispered.

Campbell’s words were like the arrow he gave to that man, well-sharpened. There was no mistake that he wore more than one face when he was with her. No mistake at all. It chilled her blood. Her father had called her
whoredaughter
once. A vulgarity she would never forget.

“But there is nothing I can do…unless I run away. But that is impossible. I do not know this land. I would be hunted down like a hare.”

She could tell the queen what she had heard. Sabine quickly shook her head. “I am but a lowly, crippled servant to Her Majesty, an oddity like Rizzio, and Campbell is a respected Scottish noble…” She paused, the trickle of the stream below her suddenly sounded like her words and thoughts: mournful, lost, confused, not strong. “Why would he wish to have me murdered? Is it because he thinks I’m in league with Niall MacGregor?”

She looked up, toward the mountains. Was Niall there? Hiding? Waiting for a reason to come out from the den where he dwelled?

“Niall, she whispered so quietly, “where are you?” He, after all, still held fast to her
sac
, as much as she held fast to her fading hope that she would not marry Campbell and could return to France, anywhere, as long as it was not here.