The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (72 page)

“
At noon the fisher seeks the glen

Adown the burn to steer, my jo;

Gie me the hour o’ gloamin’ grey,

It maks my heart sae cheery O”

She’d changed into a wrapper, and had flung her wet hair behind her shoulders. Olivia lay in her arms, giggling as Morrigan danced her around the room. After a moment she lifted the babe and kissed her forehead, her cheeks, and her chin. “Wee pud,” she said, burying her nose against the nape of the child’s neck. She touched Olivia’s toes and stroked the miniature belly, which expanded and contracted in the easy, guileless way of babies. Dropping into the rocking chair, she opened her robe. Olivia nursed happily, kicking. Morrigan hummed and rocked.

Not a fig had she cared about the widespread fear of a spoiled figure from breastfeeding. “A wet-nurse?” she’d said. “That’s for grander ladies than me.”

How could he have entertained the idea of her harming Olivia? He longed to stop time, capture this picture and trap it in a box so he could relive it whenever he wished. Every smile, every tender stroke she made, not knowing she was being spied upon, proved her adoration.

She switched the wean to her other breast and leaned her head back, closing her eyes.

“Morrigan,” he whispered.

Her eyes opened and she glanced about the room, but he was well hidden in the shadows outside the door. “He haunts me,” she said. “I hear his voice everywhere.”

Olivia lifted her head. She regarded Morrigan, deeply intent.

“Why, what’s this?” Morrigan asked. “D’you want to say something, lassikie?” She lifted her daughter, kissing her naked stomach. Olivia gurgled her delight.

Warned by a slight sound, he swiveled. It was Diorbhail, a cup of tea in one hand, holding up the hem of her skirt in the other. She looked as dismayed as he felt.

“I was bringing mistress some tea,” she said, low, as if she knew somehow that he didn’t want his presence discovered.

He nodded shortly and gestured to her to go on. She passed him with a shy smile and entered the nursery, setting the tea on a table next to Morrigan. She crossed to the far wall, beside the crib, and folded a blanket.

Protect
, the pines had commanded. And he would, with his whole being, with everything he had.

Curran watched Morrigan draw the baby close. “No one will ever take you from me,” she said, barely loud enough for him to catch the words. “I’ll kill them if they try.”

* * * *

Hugh waited a long time for the laird of Kilgarry.

The priest saw the change in him at once. Shadows darkened Curran’s eyes. Irritation etched lines around a mouth that used to curve in easy, near-constant laughter.

“Curran,” Hugh said. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Curran shrugged. “The lambing is going well.”

Hugh decided to waste no time. “Your wife has been to see me.”

A glitter flickered then disappeared in Curran’s eyes, leaving them flat. “Why?”

“She wanted my help.”

Dropping into a chair, the lass’s husband drummed the surface of a table and sighed. “With what?”

“What’s deviling her. It’s not caused by you, Curran.”

“Scunner it!” Curran rose and paced, rubbing his forehead. “I’ve tried my best, Father. Apparently, what I’m offering isn’t what she requires.”

“It is,” Hugh said. “Be patient. She’s trying her best too.”

Curran stopped. “Is she?” he said. “This is her best?”

“You’re her husband. You took her to wife, in good times and bad. If you love her, you’ll not give up at the first sign of trouble. You’ll protect her, like she deserves.”

Hugh’s voice was sharper than he’d intended. Too sharp, judging from the way Curran’s head reared and his eyes widened. No matter. The point must be cemented while he had the man’s attention. “Mind, will you, how young and innocent she was when you got her with child— aye, you didn’t think that was still a secret, did you? And her father and brother were not faceless strangers to us but locals, known to nearly everyone here,
and,
not a year has passed since they both died. Before she could properly mourn or make peace with her loss, you pushed her into marriage and transported her across the country, away from everything she’s ever known. That’s not the least of it, is it? She wasn’t raised to be a lady but a simple laboring woman. This life is unfamiliar, and I have no doubt it’s terrifying. I know she fears shaming you.”

“So it’s my fault.” Curran wearily rubbed his eyes. “I know it. What I did was unforgivable. But I’ve done everything I can think of to make it right.”

Hugh stood. “Aye, you have. You’re a good man, Laird. I wish I could tell you what we spoke of today. I know it would ease your worry. But what is said between a priest and a penitent is sacrosanct. So I’ll only ask you to be patient awhile longer.”

“Douglas beat her. Did she tell you that?” Curran’s pacing resembled an angry carnivore. Hugh half expected to hear a growl.

Pausing before his wife’s portrait, Curran stared at it then pivoted. “Her back was covered in welts, this wide, from one of his whippings.” He held out his thumb and forefinger. “They were bleeding. She just shrugged. That’s how accustomed she was to it. Eleanor thinks Morrigan has….” He stopped. His teeth gritted and he sucked in a harsh breath. “An injury to her brain, and she said it’s likely incurable. She suspects that’s why Morrigan swoons, and it may be the cause of her nightmares. Now you’re telling me she needed more time to mourn his death? Forgive me, Father, I
don’t
understand.”

Remorse flooded Hugh’s throat with bile, but he made himself continue. “He was her father. The only one she had, even if destroyed by madness. Don’t you see she feels responsible? Her nightmares are like pages in a book, telling us the story, if we take the time to read them. Morrigan blames herself for her mother’s death too, and… and Nick’s.” His voice broke as he thought of Douglas’s son, that braw lad with his mother’s enormous blue eyes. He remembered thinking Nicky’s eyes were angelic.

Rain pelted the leaded windows like otherworldly fingernails.

“She had nothing to turn to,” Hugh said. “When Douglas died, he left his devils to Morrigan, who knew only
his
strength,
his
omnipotence. Some folk ease their pain with prayer, but she couldn’t. And she’s never witnessed love between a man and woman.” The answer exploded, an interior volcano annihilating doubt. “Love, violence, hatred, failure… they’re all the same for Morrigan. That’s all she knows.” Certainty filled his heart. “Don’t you see? It’s as clear to me as this vase.” Prisms flashed through the crystal as he picked it up.

“No, I don’t.” But Curran’s voice slowed like he did see, too well, though he didn’t want to.

Hugh set the vase down. “Let me speak to Beatrice. She’s the only one left alive who knows everything. She’ll understand what drove Douglas.”

“The harpy. She won’t help you.”

“Let me try. And I beg you, don’t disown your marriage. Didn’t Browning say:

“
Truth, that’s brighter than gem,

Trust, that’s purer than pearl,

Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe—

All were for me

In the kiss of one girl.
”

“That sounds aye secular, Father.” A smile played faintly on the young laird’s face. “What would the bishop say if he heard you quote that?”

“He is far away in Inverness, and I’ve a weakness for poetry.” Hugh returned the smile, happy to see any hint, no matter how slight, of the Curran Ramsay he knew and loved.

Without hesitation, Curran replied, “Then you’ll mind what Burns said:

“
Their tricks an’ craft hae put me daft,

They’ve taen me in an’ a’ that.

But clear your decks, and here’s—
‘
The Sex!
’

I like the jads for a’ that.
”

Hugh grinned.

So did Curran, though he tried not to. Then he called Fionna and asked her to fetch Beatrice. “I’ll leave you,” he said. “For she’ll never say a word with me here.”

“Thank you Curran.” Hugh settled himself to wait, enjoying a fresh surge of confidence. Only this morning, he’d mourned his uneventful, unproductive life. Now he felt certain he could serve once more.

But Beatrice refused to share her secrets. He called upon her love, if she had any. “You know why Douglas acted as he did.” He smashed his fist against the table, causing knickknacks to jump and jangle in fragile protest. “Tell me. You do want to see your niece happy, don’t you?”

Her lips whitened and her eyes turned black, hard and impenetrable as stones.

Hugh’s head was throbbing again. He tried to hide it, to level Beatrice with a calm, commanding regard, but sweat broke out in his armpits. He kept thinking of those terrible days after Glenelg burned. They’d never truly faded into the past. They lived on, warping and molding everyone’s lives.

“You know,” Hugh muttered as he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids. “You know—”

“I do know.” Beatrice stared him down. “I know many things. Like how little you did after the clearings. You in your cozy cottage, us in the snow.”

Hatred so feral sprang from her face it left him speechless. Her presence worked on him like a rope cinched around his throat. Wrinkled, vindictive woman. Everyone knew that Randall Benedict’s hired men had come to his home in the middle of the night with torches. They had heard about him taking in two of the cleared villagers, and made it clear that if he did it again, they would tie him to his bed and burn his manse and church around his ears.

“And it was quite plain what you were thinking every time you looked at Hannah,” she added, as emotionless as a viper.

He felt the blood drain out of his head like a blade had sliced his jugular. He stuttered something and left her as swiftly as he would run from a demon.

Not until he’d made it halfway home did the trembling subside. Beatrice’s face, stony with old hate, kept materializing.
I know many things. Many things.

He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief, feeling as though he’d tangled with the Devil. Somehow, perceptive Beatrice had discerned his darkest secret… that those many years ago, he, too, had fallen in love with her sister. He was sure he’d kept it hidden in some shamed part of his heart, but maybe Beatrice had a witchy way of seeing.

Mea culpa
, he thought, as he’d done hundreds of times when Hannah walked down the main road through Glenelg, leaving every male she passed wrecked and filled with lustful fantasies.

Lost in his guilty thoughts, Hugh belatedly realized his horse had strayed off the track in search of good grazing.

No matter how furiously he blinked, everything remained a blur. He didn’t know where he was. Was that the sound of water flowing? Was it still raining? He felt as though he was rising into the air above his body.

Morrigan’s voice echoed through his head.
Your church teaches that women are products of the Devil. That we lead men away from God, and that we caused Christ to be crucified
.

He shuddered. “Forgive us.”

Woman is an imperfect male, begotten because her father was ill or in a state of sin. Women are not worthy of life. You are the first deserter of the divine law.

Why did he think of these things now? They were ancient teachings, mostly forgotten.

Blinding pain shot through his head. He moaned.

Then he heard another voice, an unfamiliar voice.

I have sent you a miracle, and you have failed her. You and yours will always fail, until you return me.

He heard grass rustling, and again, the murmur of flowing water. Where was his gig?

A hand clasped his. A beautiful face swam into his eyesight, long auburn hair, eyes luminous with tears.
Hannah, it’s you,
he wanted to say, but he couldn’t speak.

His attention was drawn from that celestial face by movement in the sky. An eagle was circling, coming lower, and lower still. Its beak parted, and it released a shrill, cold cry.

Oh, God
.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

AGNES AND MALCOLM
reported Father Drummond’s disappearance. A tearful Agnes said he’d never returned to the rectory after visiting Kilgarry, and she was worried half to death. A search party was formed.

Padraig Urquhart found him, hidden in long grass near the river, halfway to Dùn Teilbh. Something— birds maybe, had taken his eyes and pecked holes in his cheeks. Several of his fingers were torn off.

A messenger was dispatched to notify his bishop, and three priests swiftly converged. Dismissing the villagers’ protests, two of the priests removed the body to Dumfries, where Father Drummond’s brother lived. The third began an investigation. Days were spent poring through his papers and books. Much of it was packed up and taken away.

Folk from every parish up and down the coast came to mourn him at a memorial service arranged by the Laird of Eilginn and his wife.

* * * *

Time spent with Olivia brought welcome peace. Morrigan told herself she could endure anything as long as she could be with her child.

She hadn’t realized how thoroughly Father Drummond had knitted himself into her heart until she had to face the fact that she would never speak to him again. Remembering his benevolent smile and twinkling eyes, his unruly white shock of hair, his firm, warm handshake, was agonizing. Knowing animals had feasted upon his corpse sickened her. It seemed so disrespectful to a man who had spent his life helping others.

Life returned to a semblance of normalcy, though an invisible chasm remained, formed of questions, mystery, and the unexpected, harrowing loss of a beloved member of their parish.

Why had he gone to see Curran that day? She was too afraid to ask, especially as several times she caught her husband watching her, his gaze somber. Had the priest revealed what she’d told him? Weren’t they required to keep confidences a secret? She thought so, but then, what did she really know?

As the days passed and Curran said nothing, her tense muscles relaxed. Still, her last encounter with Hugh weighed upon her. She wished she hadn’t burdened him on his final day of life.