The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (49 page)

“I have seen myself holding you,” Diorbhail said. “Trying to give you comfort at a bad time.”

Eleanor nodded. “I see you with hair the color of seashells, and you smell of juniper. There’s color around you right now. It’s white. Like a cloud.”

Morrigan gowked, shocked into speechlessness at this turn.

“Wait one more day,” Diorbhail pleaded. “Stay with us. Share your knowledge.”

Eleanor’s mouth tensed. “I would not feel right about it. Sitting here while everyone searches for her.”

“Just one day?” Morrigan asked. “I… I’m not ready to go back.”

No one said anything for a minute or two. At last Eleanor shrugged. “Let us in, then,” she said, and helped Morrigan return to the rocking chair.

“Eleanor,” Morrigan said. “This is Diorbhail Sinclair. She’s no stranger. I knew her in Stranraer. She walked most of the way here to find me.”

“She walked from the Low Country?”

“Aye.”

Eleanor regarded Diorbhail, her brows lifted. “Well, well,” she said and nodded, as if reluctantly impressed.

* * * *

They passed around warm barley tea in the single wooden mug Diorbhail had found in the rubbish heap outside the bothy.

“I couldn’t sleep for thinking about you,” Eleanor told them. “You were who knows where, and quickened with child. Then I remembered this old bothy, how it was so remote not even Randall Benedict’s mercenaries found it when they cleared Glenelg. A woman named Clara lived here. Mad Clara, she was called. She could hardly speak the Gaelic, much less English. I started to wonder if you could’ve found this place, and if you were hurt, you might have used it for shelter. I decided to come and have a look.”

“The Lady was guiding you to us,” Diorbhail said. “You’re part of us. She wants us to be together. She kept you from saying anything or bringing anyone with you.”

Eleanor shrugged, but she didn’t deny it so that was something.

“Tell me your story,” Morrigan asked Diorbhail. “I’ve often wondered about you and wanted to know.”

Diorbhail chewed her lip for a few seconds. “I was born near a village called Durness, on the northern coast,” she said. “My mam was the healer. I don’t remember my da at all— he was a fisherman, and died in a storm when I was a babe. In those days, my mam had to be aye careful, for the Christians watched her, hoping she would make a mistake they could hang or burn her for. They didn’t seem to care they’d be left without anyone who knew how to keep their cuts from festering, or what to do for flux.”

Eleanor snorted her understanding.

“She died,” Diorbhail said, “and I was on my own. My tale is an old one. I fell in love. He was handsome, and being with him made me happy. He talked me into lying with him, and when I realized I was going to have a child, I told him.” She laughed without humor. “You’ve never seen a lad change so fast. Now I was a slut, and who knew how many I’d spread my legs for. I thought he loved me, and I was a fool. When I could no longer hide it, the Kirk cast me out. He was right there among the rest, throwing rocks. I made my way south, and eventually landed in Stranraer. My child was born by then. I gave birth to her in the ruins of a byre near Kilmarnock. I tried to say I was a widow but I suppose I’ve ne’re been so good at lying. It worked for a while, until a man who knew my history came through. I wouldn’t leave again, though, and… there was you. I could no’ leave you, Morrigan Lawton.”

“So you stayed, though I never spoke to you.”

“I knew that would change one day.”

“I hate him for hurting you,” Morrigan said.

Diorbhail shook her head. “He does no’ matter. I knew what I did with him was wrong, and no’ because it went against what the Kirk demanded. I felt it in here.” She struck her chest. “I knew it because my heart told me he wasn’t for me. He wasn’t the one I was meant to be with. I think we all have this understanding inside us. We get impatient with the waiting, the no’ knowing when or if the right one will come, so we ignore it, to our sorrow.”

“That’s how I felt with Kit.” Morrigan sat up straight in the old rocker. “At first I wanted to be with him, but then… I cannot describe it. It was like I would suffocate if he didn’t stop, if I didn’t get away from him.”

“I wish I’d listened to the warnings in my own heart,” Diorbhail said. “But then I would no’ have had my child. And I might never have come to Stranraer. I might never have found you.”

“And if I hadn’t listened, I might have been forced to go to America with Kit, instead of here, with Curran.”

Morrigan saw how events had shaped the future. If she’d gone to America with Kit, she never would have met Eleanor, or Seaghan… or Mackinnon. Diorbhail would not have been able to follow. Morrigan glanced at Eleanor half-fearfully, realizing she’d all but confessed to lying with another man besides Curran, but the midwife was merely listening, no judgment or shock on her face.

Eleanor spoke musingly as she stared at the fire. “Women are punished for knowing how to heal. For being creative, for having opinions. For wanting to be educated. They’re punished for defending their own. They’re punished for how they look, or how they don’t look. But most of all, women are punished for giving love. The men who talk them into the giving aren’t punished, nor are most of the men who take what they want by force. I pray that one day all women see and understand what’s been done. Only then will anything change.”

Morrigan chalked up this blasphemy to the strange freedom the bothy inspired.

Leaning forward, she clasped Diorbhail’s hand. “Will you tell us,” she asked, “why your daughter is not with you?”

Diorbhail shrank into herself. “She was trampled by a horse,” she said at last, very quietly.

“Diorbhail.” Morrigan could have cut out her tongue for not leaving it alone.

“It was done deliberately,” Diorbhail said. “Louts who had long taunted me. They used a horse to crush her like a china cup, and laughed. Nobody cared. None but me.”

Morrigan knelt in front of her. Eleanor stood, and in her logical, dispassionate way, proceeded to make more barley tea. She gave the mug to Diorbhail, briefly clasping her shoulder.

“What was her name?” Morrigan asked.

“Alecto. It came to me in a dream two days before she was born. I had never heard of it. I don’t know where it came from or what it means.”

“I do,” Morrigan said, tightening her grip on Diorbhail’s hand. “It’s Greek. It belongs to one of the Erinyes. There are three of them. They’re sisters. Tisiphone, Megaera, and Alecto.”

“I thought it sounded grand, but I shouldn’t’ve named her that, because it brought her nothing but torment.” Diorbhail rubbed her eyes wearily. “I wanted to die,” she said. “I walked into the ocean. The eagle stopped me. I kept seeing you, hearing your voice. You’re the reason I still live. Because I couldn’t save my child, but I will try to help save yours.”

* * * *

Diorbhail was unsurprised by the violence of Morrigan’s dreams. “They show you what you need to remember. A witch, the men called you. And it’s true. A witch you were.”

Morrigan stiffened. “I wasn’t!”

“To them, you were something to fear. There was something about you the dream didn’t show. It’s no’ important why they thought what they did. Don’t you see? No matter how strong or wise a man is, no matter how much power he wields over others, he loses it all, his strength and his pride, in his need for the woman. He hates the way he’s drawn to her. For some men, she becomes a witch. A devil.”

“A temptress,” Eleanor said.

Diorbhail nodded. “That’s why those kind of men rape. It’s why they kill. ’Tis their way to defeat what they fear. It’s how they tell themselves they have no longing, no weakness, and that it’s not their fault. There are more of those men than you might realize, mistress. Some slaughter every last speck of tenderness they were born with. They no longer feel guilt, no matter what they do. They crave the pain they cause. We’re leaping towards a world where that is common. Someday, if that world comes, women will be the same as cattle or sheep, and there will be no succor anywhere.”

Eleanor nodded. “Aye,” she said. “The more we accept the cages fashioned for us now, the easier it will be for that to happen.”

“They blame us for their own weakness,” Morrigan said, pondering it.

“There are men who rise beyond what they are taught, but many cannot… so woman is bound at the bottom of the sea, always looking up, never able to rise. It’s easier, you ken, to think of her as a witch who uses her body to trick and deceive. When all, men, women, and children, accept that a woman is evil, a whore in the making, then confining her is necessary, ‘for her own good.’ Guilt is smoothed over, and their fear ebbs.”

Eleanor said, “I have two brothers. One is a surgeon, the other a priest. They are vastly different, and both have taught me many valuable lessons. My brother the priest liked to make me sit on a stool for hours, memorizing texts proclaiming the evil of women, how we single-handedly introduced sin into the world. The early Catholic leaders taught that women are paths to the Devil, created only to kneel, serve, and submit. One called us accidents, misbegotten men, made through illness or ill wind. They blame the crucifixion itself on women. Their fear and hatred is clear for those who look, who are not afraid to believe. My brother took it to heart. He liked to whip me until I bled, and force me to ask his forgiveness for the sins of the female. My other brother finally took me away. He and your husband knew each other, and eventually, I came here.”

“But… it isn’t fair. We’ve done nothing.” Morrigan inwardly derided herself for complaining about fair play. She’d known better than to believe the world was fair before she turned five.

“It’s their fear,” Eleanor said. “Fear they cannot purge, though they would laugh and deny it to hell and back if confronted.”

They were quiet for a while, watching the fire, then Eleanor said, “When a woman turns evil, it’s almost always because of what was done to her by her father or some other man. More often than not that’s true for men, as well. Generations upon generations, passing along hatred, bitterness, torture.” She paused again, her brows lowered in thought. “When my brother was teaching me his craft in Edinburgh, we treated many who had been misused as children. I saw that such women, as they get older, are loath to harm anyone or anything, but the opposite is true for men. I saw it again and again. Men who are mistreated when young will do the same to others, even to their own children, though they remember with hatred what was done to them.”

Morrigan had longed to hear someone say the things she had privately thought and felt so guilty over. Yet it made her apprehensive, off-balance, like the air was being released from the world and the ground was slowly collapsing.

Did it mean she was not those things Douglas had always called her? That she was not lazy, or useless? Not a hoor?

“Men have so much, but it’s never enough,” Eleanor said. “They try to steal women’s magic, through force or trickery, ridicule, humiliation. As Diorbhail says, if they succeed, then I can only hope those I care about are dead. If that time comes, there will be no more pretense, no words wreathed in praise. I’ve long sensed it coming, and despaired.”

“Does Curran know you feel this way?” Morrigan asked.

Eleanor shrugged. “What business is it of his what I think? All he needs from me is to bring a healthy child into the world. I’ve known since I first watched my father kick my mother as he would a dog, that I would never trust a man. Now that you’ve told me about the argument you had with the master, and how you ended up here, I’m not so sure I have much use for him any longer.”

“He was… provoked.”

Eleanor smiled slightly. “I heard what provoked him.”

Morrigan looked away, blushing.

“One of the reasons my father beat my mother was because of the things she taught me, things like what we’ve been saying. My da vowed he would kick good Christian obedience into her. He killed her finally then abandoned us, for which I was thankful. Fortunately for me, my brother the surgeon didn’t turn out like him. He was my savior.”

As Eleanor poured more tea, Diorbhail mused. “When a woman loves a man, she shows him everything he can be, and everything he’s not.”

“Everything and nothing,” said Eleanor, stooping to slide a few sticks onto the fire. “The heaving abyss from which he came, and to which he travels all the days of his life.”

“She is the terrible face of the Goddess,” Diorbhail said, watching Eleanor intently, “of the judgment awaiting him. She is the sun, and she is shadow.”

“Shadow?” Morrigan rocked faster. “D’you mind, Diorbhail, when you said shadows hold lessons for us?” The rocker creaked dangerously as she grew more excited. “You told me my shadow was long, that it would devour me if I wasn’t careful.”

Diorbhail took the mug from Eleanor. “Of course I mind it,” she said, grimacing at the tea’s bitterness. “She it was who put the words in my mouth.”

“Diorbhail called me an avatar,” Morrigan told Eleanor.

Eleanor shrugged. “What is that?”

“A friend of Nicky’s told me it’s a god who comes to earth and lives like a human.” Morrigan turned to Diorbhail. “Shouldn’t this goddess of yours have made me a queen, or someone with power? How does she expect me to do all these great things? I’m nothing, nobody, penniless, and a woman. Without Curran, I couldn’t even feed myself.”

Eleanor glanced at Diorbhail then lowered her gaze to the cup as Diorbhail passed it to her. “I don’t mean to insult you, but how did
you
know what it meant?”

“I was told what to say. I didn’t know the meaning of the word. I barely remember speaking to her. I had taken the mushroom. It’s a rare, special mushroom that gives visions, knowledge. My mam taught me how to use it. That’s how I saw you, Eleanor Graeme.”

“Witch’s cap, you mean?”

“Some call it that. I brought what I had with me, and gave it to Mistress Ramsay night before last. I’ve searched the fields, but I can’t find any more.”

“I have some.”

Both Morrigan and Diorbhail stared at Eleanor, who nodded. “I collect witch’s cap every year. I’ve told no one hereabouts what it can do, but I’ve used it myself more than once, and I’ve seen things. Strange things.”