The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (25 page)

Citing the double shock she’d suffered and her lethargy, he convinced Aunt Ibby to let him take her for a drive, to imbibe the “reviving fresh air.” With a basket of food tucked between them in the trap, he sent Leo eastward. In due course they came to a muddy turn-off that rambled through open country and woods.

And oh, the hills… one over the next they rolled, draped with purple heather that resembled vast coronation robes for an unseen deity. Wildflowers burst from every crevice.

Leo’s uniform hoof-beats lulled Morrigan into forgetful peace— or perhaps it was this lad beside her, gifting her with generous smiles, urging her to breathe, making her feel irreplaceable.

The track led them around the edge of a loch and they found themselves on a narrow isthmus, glimpsing the upper tines of a citadel through a leafy frame of trees.

“I’ve never been here,” Morrigan said to Curran’s inquiry. “I always go to the coast. Let’s see what it is.”

Leaving Leo to graze, they clambered over a low wall into a clearing. The stone fortress before them soared high and forbidding; the window openings were blackly menacing. Not a breath of wind or a single birdcall broke the silence.

Showers of ivy covered the ancient stronghold. Leaves brushed Curran’s shoulders as he stepped through the doorway. He turned, held out his hand and smiled, never to know how the image of him there, crowned in ivy, reminded Morrigan of Dionysos, Greek god of wine. Vibrating with emotion, she put her hand into his and returned his smile, letting him draw her into a chamber bright and shadowed, a place of immense, watchful silence, bursting with invisible memories of lost lives. She tiptoed, fearful any sound or misstep might bring the old keep tumbling onto their heads.

Curran went off to explore, leaving Morrigan in the central hall, or whatever it had been. She listened for his footsteps, but instead heard subdued laughter and the spirited beat of drums. Staring at a wall still webbed in shadow, she gave herself over to envisioning what it might have been like to live here. There… a carved throne near a roaring fire, and sitting in it a man with a full black beard, holding a goblet. Next to him, spackled in firelight, stood a tall, solemn-faced lass, her knee length hair braided with ribbons. Morrigan smelled roasting game, heard the sizzle of dripping fat. Thrusting the point of his dagger into a great hunk of meat, the man ripped off a mouthful with his teeth and laughed as juices ran through his beard.

Morrigan closed her eyes to better visualize the spectacle. This man was a powerful chief. He had waged battle, enriched his clan, and won cattle through canny raids. His face wore pride, selfishness, and more than a dab of cruelty.

An old child’s ditty trailed through her memory:

Frae Wigtown to the town o’ Ayr,

Portpatrick to the Cruives o’ Cree

Nae man need think for to bide there

Unless he court a Kennedy
.

Curran appeared at her side, laughing when she jumped and released a startled shriek. Her fancy dimmed and she stood once again in an empty, echoing ruin, housing only mice and spiders.

They walked outside, fetched the basket, and spread a blanket beneath the branches of a great old oak. Curran lay beside her, whistling as he spread jam on a scone and held it to her mouth.

She nibbled. “You’ll have me big as a house.”

“That’s my plan. You’re far too appealing. I don’t want to spend all my waking hours fighting off Glenelg’s lusty men.”

“Oh, Curran.”

“You don’t know, do you, how bonny you are?”

A flush crept through her cheeks. She laughed and unwrapped a wedge of cheese. She knew too well it was beauty that brought Curran back from Ireland, then from the Highlands. He’d probably tried to forget her and couldn’t. That would explain why he hadn’t appeared in June, as he’d promised. There was power in beauty. Because of it she sat on this blanket being fed by an ardent lover who declared his willingness to marry.

Though she was gratified to possess the magic requirement that pulled him to her, she also wanted to demand more of him. But he wouldn’t understand if she tried to explain. How could he, when she didn’t understand herself?

“Morrigan.” He clasped her hand, turned it, and rubbed the birthmark on her wrist almost absently. “You’re the bonniest girl I’ve ever seen in my life… and I’ve seen a few. There’s more pretty flattery I could say, but you’ll have to marry me to hear it.”

What if, that day on the moor, she’d had a missing tooth, a wandering eye… or was simply ordinary?

Had her nose been longer, or pointed… her eyes a wee fraction closer… lips half-a-heartbeat thinner… he might’ve spilled his seed then refused to marry her. He would have gone on with his merry life while she and his unwanted child joined the fate of women like Diorbhail Sinclair.

Beauty put this babe in her womb. Beauty carried her to this place. Beauty would see to it she remained unscathed by her reckless choice.

The paths that stretched from the hub of birth, some thorned, some smooth, were fair mischancy.
Beauty
seemed a flighty, insubstantial thing. Strange to think that, in the end, suffering or joy could be created by the way a woman’s face and body were molded, rather than her ability to love, her loyalty, or her day-to-day efforts to make a worthy life.

Years of hard work and trying to be good had brought Morrigan sorrow and pain, but beauty had transformed the path to one of warmth and sunlight.

What if it vanished, this sole ability she possessed? No, she couldn’t call it an ability, for she’d done nothing to achieve it.

“Why d’you stare at me like that?” Curran traced the frown between her brows. “You can be fierce as an eagle sometimes.”

He didn’t wait for an explanation. Light and quick, he dropped his hand down and stroked her stomach. “Our son will show before long. I’m scunnered by this waiting.”

“It isn’t me,” she said, struck by his vehemence. “It’s Aunt Ibby. She insists on a year of mourning.”

“You know you can’t wait that long. You’ll have to tell her.” He rolled on his back and rested his head in her lap, his golden hair a bright pool against her onyx-black skirts.

“I want to show you off. Glenelg’s men’ll be aye jealous. Seaghan has hounded me for years to get myself married and start a family. Doesn’t make much sense. He’s older than I by at least thirty years, yet never wed.”

“Seaghan?”

“The fisherman who lives in Glenelg. I told you of him before.”

“Oh, aye, the one who thinks the whole world would move to the Highlands if they could.” Something about the name nagged at her. She frowned, concentrating, and was chilled as she remembered. Douglas had accused her of protecting a “Seaghan” during his attack.

“That’s the one,” Curran said. “There’s a whole village to prepare you for. Seaghan, for instance, shares his home with another bachelor, a man he saved from a watery death.”

She put away the memory and returned to the blithe, sunny day. “I don’t know whether to ask you why Glenelg men never marry, or to explain the tale behind this near-drowning.”

“Oh, plenty are wed, and no doubt rue the fact daily— bloody hell!” Laughing, he grabbed her wrist to stop her from punching him again. “Sheathe your claws and I’ll tell you about Aodhàn. It was the day Glenelg was burned to the ground. The landowner had a ship at Loch Hourn, the
Bristol,
ready to take his evicted crofters to Nova Scotia. They’d passed the cliffs of Berneray when Seaghan spotted Aodhàn in the water. He hauled him on board, pumped the water from his lungs, and stitched up a wound in his chest. They’ve stayed together ever since… almost nineteen years. He’s told me he thinks of Aodhàn as his son, though there’s only about ten years difference between them.”

If Seaghan was in his fifties, and had lived in Glenelg when the village burned, that would make him Douglas’s contemporary. He’d been in Glenelg when she was born. He and Douglas must have known one another. She wanted to ponder this, but it was hard with Curran kissing the birthmark on her wrist and changing the subject.

“So, my love, will you tell your aunt, or will you let your expanding belly notify her?” A quick flip brought him upright and facing her.

She saw his intent. He pushed her, slowly, inexorably, backward.

“You promised my aunts you’d behave….”
Take me and be quick about it,
she left unsaid, though it fair beat at the confines of her throat trying to come out.

His unruly hair made her think of the underwater castle, of the lion he’d fought and died with. Yet, undefeated, he’d risen from death and joined with the woman in the oak tree. Morrigan trembled with lust and longing, like the woman in Curran’s underwater world must have done. Curran had absorbed the soul of the lion into his body and both had revived. Together, he and his deadly foe made love to the woman. She pictured it so clearly… the lion’s warm breath, his tawny mane shutting out everything else, flashes of Curran infused with victory….

I will have victory
floated through her imaginings, the phrase somehow familiar, recalling her daydreams of Theseus and his Cretan lover, the one she always wanted to call Aridela rather than Ariadne.

“Shall I leave you alone?”

Many scathing answers rose to the surface, but in the end they evaporated. She considered what that other woman might have said. “Kiss me.” When he rose up from that, she whispered, “Love me, please, love me, Curran, I can no’ thole it.”

So he did.

* * * *

On clear days, Morrigan could look out the window in the cramped room she shared with Beatrice above Ibby’s shop, and see the jagged black summits of the Cuillin of Skye in the west, across the Sound of Sleat. She often walked to the harbor, a few hundred or so steps from her aunt’s shop, to watch Mallaig’s ferries as they departed for Skye, or the blue humps of Eigg and Rum. The sough of water and shriek of gulls, the barking of seals and the odor of fish filled every hour of the day and night.

She at last gathered enough courage to confess her secret.

“You’re what?” Ibby’s face collapsed into disbelief then horror. “Sweet Saint Brigit, how could such a thing happen? Who is the man? It had better be the Laird of Eilginn.”

“Of course it is.” Shame caused Morrigan to dip her head. If her loyal aunt could contemplate her being with more than one man, she was lost. “I’m sorry, Auntie.”

Then that is the lesson you needed to learn
.

The memory of Louis Stevenson’s words brought confusion, fear, even guilt that she’d chosen marriage. He was a man who would always follow his own way. But what else could she do? Defy society? Condemn her innocent child to starvation and suffering? Give birth in some shack or barn, beside a road, and maybe, like Hannah, die?

She shuddered. There was another truth as well, one she hardly dared examine. She couldn’t bear the possibility of never again seeing Curran Ramsay, of never laughing with him, never feeling his hands upon her, never seeing that light in his eyes that made her feel so safe and cherished.

Ibby fanned her face with her handkerchief, fluttering her eyelids like she was going to swoon. “And I brought him to meet you. I brought him! How could he do this to me? If this gets out, I’ll lose my patrons. I’ll be ruined.”

“They’ve caused a fine scandal,” Beatrice said. “Thinking of themselves, no’ the others who’ll be blamed for their actions.”

“How far along are you?” Ibby asked.

“Two months.” Morrigan wadded her own black-edged handkerchief in clammy hands. Poor Ibby. Here they were in deepest mourning. Weddings should be the furthest thing from their thoughts.

Not for the first time, she imagined them as a coven of ravens. Ibby allowed no more than the smallest hint of white at the throat and black jet beads to decorate their bodices. Even their handkerchiefs and fans had broad black borders. Morrigan was weary of it already. How did the queen go on year after year, eleven since Albert had died, yet Victoria still wore black and lived in almost total seclusion.

She’d noticed slight changes in her body. Though it was still flat, her abdomen felt harder, tighter, and so did her breasts, fuller too. She was always hungry, and oh, the ache of longing for Curran was relentless. At night, erotic fabrications wove through the deep thick hours, checked only by the snoring bulky presence of Beatrice next to her. Before she fell asleep, the lover she fashioned wore Curran’s face. Yet after, in the dream world, the man who pursued her so ardently never resembled her gentle golden betrothed. There he was tall and thin, his hair very black.

“Two months.” Ibby sighed. “Well, at least he’s willing to marry you, which is more than you deserve.” Tears leaked from her eyes. “Oh, my dear, dear Lord. I don’t know how we can keep this a secret. There would be no other reason for a wedding, not while we’re in mourning.” Her aunt sounded angry with Morrigan for the first time in her memory.

“It must be done nevertheless,” Beatrice said. “We’ll need to find a minister willing to marry them clandestinely.” She paused. “If there were still handfasting….”

Ibby sighed. “Long and sadly dead, if it ever truly existed.”

“We’ve allowed England to change far too many of our traditions.”

“Aye.” Ibby nodded. “‘No One Provokes Me With Impunity,’ we shout, all grand and glorious arrogance. Yet in the last fifty years we’ve become so anglicized we might as well all live south of Carlisle. And we’re overrun with them. They pour into the Highlands like tea at tea time.”

“Handfasting?” Morrigan asked.

“A mere legend, really, supposedly an old Highland custom. A trial marriage, fancifully known to last a year and a day. If the couple was satisfied with the arrangement, the marriage was recorded and became permanent. If not, they separated. But any child born from the union was legal, and considered an heir to its father’s estate.”

“A trial marriage… legal, but not binding?”

“In a way. If the handfasting didn’t please, the woman’s name and reputation wasn’t damaged. She could look forward to another marriage as if nothing had ever taken place. Virginal purity was no’ the be-all and end-all it is now. There was a time when Scotswomen enjoyed freer lives than you could possibly imagine. I mind my grandmam telling me it was women who taught the great Celtic heroes their fighting skills.”