Beneath a Dark Highland Sky: Book #3 (20 page)

30

Two weeks had passed since Lulach and Nessa had died at Devil’s Waterfall. Spring had turned to early summer and the hillsides were ablaze with purple and red heather.

Tomas’ presence made Sorcha nervous now. He was watched, but she feared one day she would be alone in a corridor or a cellar vault and he would be there, dirk drawn, vowing revenge for his sister’s death.

Sorcha struggled with sadness as she remembered the girl and the woman Nessa had been before her mind turned. Gillis and Caterina were both a comfort to her, and Caterina, who had been invited to make the keep her permanent home, had stayed on. Sadly, Caterina’s parents had died of fever a few months ago and she did not wish to return to Italy. She had no desire to return to Lulach’s clan, who had never accepted her and where legally Lulach had been able to beat and rape her at his whim. The Kerr clan was one of the most warlike clans of the borders, quick to defend against English invaders and quick to
cross the divide whenever they fancied some succulent prime English beef for their tables. They were Crown vassals and had served as Warden of the Marches, appointed by the Scottish King to administer law and defend Scotland’s frontier against the Sassenach. Lulach, though not well liked or respected by his own clan, had still been one of them. The repercussions with clan Kerr remained to be seen, but Sorcha knew Caterina would be protected here.

Sorcha struggled with nightmares about Devil’s Waterfall. She would thrash in her sleep and Malcolm would wake her, holding her in the warm cocoon of his arms. Sometimes Sorcha would talk about that day. “That arrow came awfully close to my own head,” she teased him. “’Tis a good thing yer aim is so fine.”

              “Ye ken my aim is better than fine. Lulach got what he deserved.”

              Sorcha’s shift caught under her hip as she raised herself on an elbow. She pulled it free. “Thank ye for saving my life, Malcolm Maclean.”

His eyes held hers. “I ne’er want to feel that way again.”

              “What way?”

“The way I felt when I saw ye on that ledge in that monster’s grasp.” He caressed her cheek and then got up from bed, his long nightshirt reaching to his knees. He stared out the window. It was early morning and still dark. “The Maclean men are getting impatient to return to Mull Island,” he said.

“When do ye wish to leave?”

“Within the week.” His tall frame tensed, clearly expecting a battle from her.

              “I will go with ye, if ye want me to.”

              He whirled around. “Of course I want ye to go with me. Why would ye say such a thing?”

“Ye havena touched me since our wedding night. Do I displease ye as a wife?”

              “Displease me? Nay, Sorcha.”

              “Then why do ye nae…touch me?”

              He climbed back into bed. “I didna want to press ye until ye were ready. Yer sleep has been troubled. Ye dunna talk much at table. Ye barely eat. Ye seem lost in yer thoughts. I didna want to add to yer burdens. I was waiting until ye were ready. I was waiting to see…if ye wanted me.”

              She cupped his face with her hand, admiring his square jaw. “Malcolm, I am hungry for yer touch. I desire it now.” Her hand slid to his neck, where she could feel his pulse beat, and she kissed him with all the hunger she felt.

              “Then ye shall be fed, wife,” he growled, his face fierce.

              His shirt and her shift were soon discarded in a pile on the floor. His hands were warm and they seemed to be everywhere. She stretched into his touch, opening herself. “I am nae a piece of porcelain, Highlander. I want yer urgency. I dunna want ye to be gentle.”

              In an instant, he had her pinned to the bed beneath him. It was as if she could taste the sun and the moors and the wind-swept sea on his skin. He moved her arms so they were above her head, pinning them with his hands. Sorcha’s thighs were spread, waiting for him, aching with need of him. “Make me forget all else,” she breathed.

              He sheathed himself to the root in a single thrust and she cried out in pleasure. His grip tightened and he pressed deeper, hitting her womb with each stroke.

“Mine,” he said, staring down at her, continuing to thrust hard with solid strokes. She struggled to adjust her position but he would not let her; he held her tight. Instead, as she began to quiver, she wrapped her legs more tightly around him, seeking to pull him into herself even deeper.

              Malcolm’s breath was hot and fast on her face, mingling with her own. Sorcha reveled in the feel of him on top of her, inside her, all around her, to the point where she felt she was dissolving into him. Her hips rose to meet him as he hammered her with a passion she’d never known. She began to pulse and shudder, her womanhood clutching him with pleasure, and he repositioned himself, using one hand to press her thighs so she would be even more open to him. He watched where they were joined as he rammed himself into her tightness with a frenzy.

              His hands found her breasts, squeezing, his mouth tugging on her nipples. She felt a great heat build in her body and cried out again. “Malcolm!”

              He caught her mouth then in a hard kiss, the stubble from his beard rasping her tender skin. Her body convulsed with pleasure while he continued to thrust faster. Her ultimate surrender undid him and he came powerfully, collapsing at her side.

He grasped her hand and stared at the wedding rings on their entwined fingers. Slowly he caressed her inner thigh and his fingers slid between her legs, stroking her tender, sensitive flesh. “I fear I’ve made ye sore, wife.” He smiled devilishly.

              “I like that feeling,” she breathed.

“What feeling?” he asked, his voice low and husky.

“The feeling that ye were there, that ye took yer pleasure, and even though we are nae joined, I can still feel ye there hours later, still a part of me.” He groaned and nuzzled her neck, his fingers leisurely caressing her breast.

              The fire burned low and the morning was chilly. Outside the window, dawn began to spread its pink haze over the booming sea. Malcolm turned her on her side and pulled her into his arms. Sated, Sorcha slept a few more hours, and this time, at least, she was not disturbed by nightmares of great black rocks, deafening waters, and battered bodies. She did not dream of Tomas’ anguished face as the waters tore Nessa’s broken body away and clawed it under the surface.

31             

The next few days were spent preparing for the journey back to Mull. A few Maclean men would stay behind to help with the running of the keep until Malcolm and Sorcha returned.

              Sorcha was surprised by her excitement. She looked forward to traveling to Mull to meet Malcolm’s clan, to learn more about the man and his life there. She knew she would miss Gillis but now that Caterina was here, and the two were spending more and more time together, she felt less guilty about leaving him. She wasn’t leaving forever. In a few months, they would be back.

For the first time in years, Sorcha realized Gillis did not
need
her. He was, as Malcolm pointed out, a man—not a piece of porcelain in need of delicate handling. People thought him simple, but he was not simple. He had been troubled for a long time and he was finally beginning to heal.

She sought out Gillis and Caterina often, finding one or both of them in her father’s retiring room, Caterina painting and Gillis contentedly working on his wood cuts. Today she found Caterina alone in the room, her sensible, blue gown paint-spattered as usual, candlelight shining on the gold highlights in her brown hair. She had pushed her sleeves up her arms and Sorcha was glad to see the bruises that used to be blue were lighter now, fading into a yellow-green. Lulach would never be able to harm her again.             

              Caterina had managed to discreetly send word to a trusted maidservant and the maidservant was able to smuggle herself and some painting supplies out of Lulach’s keep and bring them to Caterina. A few Douglas men had waited in the woods and provided an escort, and she was welcomed by the clan and invited to stay on with Caterina.

Gillis had helped Caterina set up a place to paint in the retiring room, which was now a delightful mess of wood sculptures, wood shavings, tools, paintbrushes, mussel shells cleverly filled with puddles of rich red, yellow, and blue paints, charcoal, needles, clays, a marble slab, and jars of various things like linseed oil, lamp oil, and water. Miniature Viking raiding ships sat poised to invade an island of small glass jars that looked like miniature standing stones and a rough sea that was a dusty pile of crushed cobalt glass. A proud stag that had emerged from a block of wood sat to the left of the raiding ships. There was brown paint on the stag. Caterina was teaching Gillis how to paint and he in turn was creating wood panels for her to paint on. Sorcha had learned Caterina also worked on parchment made of animal skin, but parchment was sensitive to water and could swell and cockle.

When Gillis worked, he patiently coated the wood panel with a mixture of animal skin glues and resin and covered it with linen. Once it was dry, he applied layers of gesso, each layer then sanded down before the next was applied, giving the panel a surface as smooth as ivory.

“May I come in?” Sorcha asked.

Caterina had been so intent on her painting she hadn’t realized Sorcha stood in the doorway. She smiled. “Please.”

Sorcha realized Malcolm had been right about Caterina. She saw beyond Gillis’ scars to the man beneath and Sorcha was almost certain this woman, who had known only violent men, was beginning to feel something other than friendship for her gentle brother.

A fire crackled in the hearth as Sorcha sat down and watched Caterina work, her delicate hands applying paint to a wooden panel propped on an easel that stood well away from the sunlit window. A dark winter sky with a shower of scattered stars was emerging above a snow-covered field of cattle with shaggy coats. The painting was so detailed she could see the silvery, frosty breath of the animals.

“Do painters in Italy really used charred animal bones to make black paint?” Sorcha asked.

              “Yes. But we need light to create shadows and darkness. Painters can get white from melting deer antlers. It’s called Hartshorn. In this picture, I haven’t painted the moon yet. When I add it, I will use the Hartshorn and something called smalt, which is a blue color made from ground up blue glass. It adds shimmer.
But one has to be careful because the cool tone can turn greenish from the yellowing of the linseed oil.

“
In a cathedral in Italy I once saw a painting of the Madonna by Gentile da Fabriano. The colors were magnificent. They almost seemed to vibrate. I longed to paint like that. The Madonna’s tunic sleeve, beneath a mulberry red robe, was embroidered in gold. The painters who catch a Pope’s eye can afford to use gold leaf made from beaten gold coins in their paintings, or lapis lazuli, a precious and expensive stone that must be imported and has been used to paint the blue robes of the Virgin Mary. Not ordinary smalt. The rest of us have to improvise. Lulach lost the dowry he got upon our marriage in dice games. He went so far as to lose a horse and his clothes more than once. He cheated too and was caught. His palm was pierced through with the die and scarred so everyone would know he cheated, but the dowry was gone by then anyway.”

              “’Tis a vera good painting, Caterina. I think ye dunna need gold coins or precious stones, for yer talent alone makes the colors shine.”

“There is always something to show God’s wonder. When I paint, I can almost feel the colors pouring out of me.”

              I watched her work for a while and then said, “Gold coins and jewel-encrusted crosses and an auld manuscript have been found in the secret tunnel that leads to the Black Burn of Sorrow. So the tales about Vikings raiding these shores and monks desperate to hide their treasures from them had some truth after all. The tunnel must ha’e once led to a monastery that no longer stands.”

“’Tis an incredible story,” Caterina said. “Maybe the Viking ghosts rumored to haunt these halls can finally rest in peace now that the hiding place for the treasure they sought has been discovered.”

              Sorcha smiled. “And now the irate ghosts of the monks will take their place.”

              Caterina laughed as Gillis came into the room and sat behind the desk. He began to work on painting the stag. Sorcha watched the two of them for a while, catching the shy gazes they shared with each other, feeling a contentment she hadn’t felt in years. She didn’t want to think about how the Highlander was responsible for much of her contentment, how things had changed for the better since his arrival. But she couldn’t very well tell herself not to feel what she was feeling.

              “Sorcha, thank you again for taking me in. I have never felt I belonged anywhere. Not in Italy among the nobles or the nuns, and certainly not in clan Kerr.”

Gillis stared at Caterina and there was tenderness on his face and in his gray eyes.

              “Ye will always have a home here,” Sorcha said.

              “Aye,” Gillis said. He painted a while longer and then carefully set his brush down. “I want to talk about that day at Arkinholm. I need ye to ken what happened to father, Sorcha. To our brothers. I should ha’e told ye years ago. But I couldna speak…I couldna find the words. Until now. I dunna ken why. Now I feel as if I may ne’er stop talking, that the words must burst forth from me like an ocean of rippling waves.”

“I will give you privacy,” Caterina said.

              “Stay,” Gillis said, his eyes fierce with the flood of terrifying memories he sought to release from his soul. Caterina nodded and continued to paint.

              “I ha’e longed for ye to find a way to talk of it brother, to help yerself heal,” Sorcha said.

Gillis sighed. “Perhaps if we had won that battle, we wouldna ha’e lived here in fear all the years afterward, being kept in check by the king and the border families who rose to fortune on our losses while we waited for the Maclean to come and claim this keep.” Gillis picked up a Viking ship and fidgeted with the wood. “It wasna a big battle as battles go. A few hundred men fighting near a bend in the river Esk. I didna want to fight. I was the least prepared for battle, the least likely soldier, nae like Tavish and Gordon, who were bred to fighting from the womb. Yet I feared father’s disproval if I did not go and fight.

“The battle was fierce and fast. I stuck close to father. Gordon and Tavish had charged early into the fray and were somewhere else. They were always so much braver than I. It was late afternoon, with the promise of a wet dusk, and a mist had blown up where we fought the royal army and the Red Douglas, making it difficult to see where the enemy was.”

Gillis set the wooden ship down. “A man stepped from the mist, a gigantic man. His face was crazed with bloodlust and his hair as red as fire. In one hand was a gleaming sword, in the other an axe, and both were awash in blood. A leather targe was slung over his shoulder, its leather band across his chest. His hair was pulled back from his large brow, and his face was spattered with the blood of dozens of men. His eyes were dark, unholy wells of hell. And then another man emerged from the mist. I froze in fear, Sorcha. I…froze. I have been so ashamed to think of it all these years.

“These men, they made me think of the Berserkers, the Norse warriors of auld who fought in an uncontrollable, trance-like fury, as wild and mad as snapping hounds or wolves.

              “Father shouted our war cry, ‘Douglas!’ He quickly dispatched the second man with a thrust of his sword, up and beneath his targe, and the man fell dead. Father was pulling his sword from the other man’s guts when the gigantic man looked at father and then at me. ‘I’ll cleave ye from yer skull to yer groin, skinny lad!’ he said. He raised his axe above my head and I couldna move. I stared at death and I couldna move. He swung his axe just as father tried to shove me out of harm’s way.”

              Tears coursed down Gillis’ scarred face. “The man’s axe found father’s skull. I saw him fall dead at my feet. He died because I was a coward. Something snapped inside me. I was able to move then and felt a rage like I’d ne’er felt before. There were rocks near the river. It was muddy. The big man slipped and I picked up a large rock and I…I…brought it down on his head. Over and over again. I smashed in his skull until what was inside splashed and gurgled through the fractured bone.”

Gillis shook now and Sorcha went to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I canna stop seeing that man’s face in my dreams. I think then that I slipped in the mud and hit my own head on a rock and e’erything went black. When I awoke, I lay near father’s unmoving body, and the mangled head of the gigantic man was nearly in my face. The sun was dropping below the horizon and the field with all its scattered bodies was glazed in an orange haze. I heard the sound of hoof beats and the snorting of horses and saw the royal army picking over corpses and taking anything of value from the dead. I kent then we’d lost the battle. I saw the king himself and his plumed horse emerge from the mist. I didna move. I needed to make them think I was dead. I was thinking,
be silent. Dunna breathe. Dunna move. Dunna think.
I closed my eyes.

              “I was sure they could hear my heart pounding and I wondered if each breath I took would be my last. The soldiers began to poke the dead with their swords to make sure they didna move or moan. If they did, they got a sword blade through the heart. I opened my eyes vera slightly to see King James the Second get down from his horse and look around. The awful sound of muddied, bloodied earth squishing beneath a man’s boots is the same whether the man’s a soldier or a king.

“King James poked father’s body with the tip of his sword. I closed my eyes and then he poked me, and I bit my tongue to keep from crying out. ‘An ugly one here,’ he said. His voice was commanding, his royal breath filled with hate for his enemy. He said, ‘I was born a twin. My twin died in infancy. There ha’e been many days when I felt his spirit near, and today, in our victory, is one of those days. The power of the black-hearted Black Douglas clan is broken this day! This is how ye win wars and teach those who side with King Henry and the bloody whoreson English a lesson they willna soon forget! From this day, generations will grow up who willna ken the name of Black Douglas and who willna fear them!’ The royal army that day was made up of Red Douglas men, the Scotts, and members of the border clans. They cheered at the king’s words. ‘Long live the Lion Rampant of Scotland!’

“I heard, as if far away, the scrape of leather as the king sheathed his weapon. I heard the hoof beats as they departed. Yet I didna open my eyes for hours. At one point, I even thought I must be dead.

              “Stars were scattered in the sky when I finally had the courage to look around. The mist had cleared. It was cold. There were still men of the royal army about, though far fewer of them. I saw the spear of another slain Douglas on the ground, the rue leaf once attached to it crushed in the mud. I slid backward into the river and hid waist deep in the water and reeds. For hours I shivered there, waiting for the last of the royal army to leave. Gleann finally found me. He told me Tavish was dead and Gordon too. But I couldna seem to understand him. Everything seemed to move slowly and my head ached terribly from when I’d fallen on the rock. I found I couldna speak. I merely nodded.

“Gleann told me Tavish got an arrow through his neck and Gordon had been stabbed in the chest and the stomach and the wounds had been fatal. Both fought like devils unleashed. Unlike me, who had smashed a man’s head in with a rock. A rock! I helped Gleann to bury father and Gordon and Tavish in that awful field…me, who shouldna ha’e been alive.” Gillis paused. “Ye ken we eventually brought their bodies back here and buried them on clan land.”