The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (26 page)

Morrigan stared at Ibby’s plump face. “Are you teasing me, Auntie?”

“No, why would I?” Ibby lifted her chin and harrumphed. “The stories have passed from generation to generation. There must be a reason. It’s said the great Cú Chulainn learned his art from Scatach, the witch, and from her sister, Queen Aife, who was known far and wide as a formidable warrior.”

Could this “Eefah” be one of the women Diorbhail Sinclair had been referring to?

“Didn’t you learn about Queen Boudicca at least?” Ibby settled herself more comfortably in her rocking chair. “I know it isn’t proper, but I’ll admit I send a prayer her way every now and then.”

“Who?” Morrigan said.

She snorted her disgust. “You had the benefit of eight years of schooling, yet you’ve never heard of Boudicca? What
did
that man teach, anyway?”

“How to read, spell, how to work sums and some history—”

“History, yet no’ a word of Boudicca?”

“No.” Morrigan blushed beneath Ibby’s scowl. Perhaps it would be better if her aunt remained ignorant of how much Greek history the dominie had imparted, or for that matter, the thorough study of male historical figures, from Alexander the Great to Sir William Wallace. There had also been many dry hours learning about Lord Palmerston and other statesmen, far more than what was taught about Queen Victoria.

“She rallied men and women from every corner of the land when the Romans outraged her daughters and stole her inheritance. She and her people sacked Britain, London included.”

“The way I mind it,” Beatrice cut in, “she failed.”

“Not before she’d destroyed Roman towns across England and struck terror into her enemies. Mam told me Boudicca called upon the women in her army specially.” Flushed with color, Ibby rose from her chair and raised a fist to the ceiling. “‘This be a woman’s resolve! As for men, they may live and be slaves.’”

Beatrice snorted. “All these years I thought you a good Christian, Isabel Maclean. Now I wonder if there isn’t a liberal beneath all that fluff and lace.”

Morrigan watched her paternal aunt deflate, and for an instant, she disliked Beatrice. “I wish I had learned about our women warriors,” she said quickly, as Ibby returned to her rocking chair. “They sound majestic and strong. No namby-pamby creatures with their smelling salts always nearby.”

“Aye, well.” Ibby wiped her nose with her handkerchief. “Maybe it’s best if such traditions are forgotten. After all, women’s lives have changed, and no doubt for the better. I can’t imagine going off to fight a war, myself.”

Beatrice gave another snort, making it clear she could not imagine that either.

They stitched without speaking for some time. “Everything seems so different from the old days,” Morrigan said at last, tired of listening to the endless ticking of the mantel clock and hoping Ibby might offer more interesting historical tidbits about women’s power in Scotland’s distant past.

“It’s the queen,” Beatrice said. “She’s turned us from wildcats into tabbies.”

Ibby nodded. “But she means well, I think. She loves Scotland. Not like some. A trend was set when she bought Balmoral. Now all the rich
Sasannaich
want to own their bit. But it’s the way they use it that vexes me. First we were cleared away like rubbish to make room for their sheep, now they’re destroying the ancient forests so they can kill the deer more easily. They won’t leave a twig for the poor beasts to hide under. Sometimes I fear they’ll not stop until the Highlands are emptied of flora, beast, and man, and the only sound left is the cry of the lapwing.”

“Auntie,” Morrigan asked, “will you tell me of these clearings? What the devil happened? What was it?”

Ibby leveled a warning stare upon Morrigan. “I suspect you’ve enough to answer for without adding blasphemy to your list of sins,” she said, emphasizing every word.

“Sorry.” Morrigan dropped her gaze to her lap.

“Douglas would fly into a rage if we ever brought it up. Yet you were born in the thick of it. Here you are, expecting a child of your own, and you know nothing of your past, or what caused the loss of your mam.”

“You could tell me.”

“What we need to discuss,” Beatrice interrupted as Ibby opened her mouth to reply, “is what to do about these wicked youngsters.”

Morrigan frowned. Every time the subject came up, someone always cut it off.

But Ibby agreed. “Aye, there’s more pressing matters. And just you wait until Curran Ramsay comes next to visit. Lord, how he’s offended me! Laird or no’, I vow I’ll have a great bit of his flesh in return for what he’s done.”

* * * *

Soothed, perhaps, by the wash of waves outside her window, or the proximity of the Hebrides and wild Highlands, Morrigan’s dreams took on a honed, lifelike quality.

She was walking along a high, sheer cliff. A man ran up and grabbed her hand, ostensibly out of concern for her safety.

It was exhilarating, being next to such a precipitous drop. It made her heart beat fast. To fall would mean watching death come for you as you plummeted helplessly through cold, uncaring space. She turned her face upward, her gaze caught by an eagle circling, almost as though it was watching them.

Off to her right, beyond the cliff, lay the Atlantic, stretching away to the shores of America, and to her left nothing but peat, grass, wildflowers, and sheep.

The man didn’t like not being the center of her attention. His constant need annoyed her yet also made her laugh. His grip on her hand tightened.

“I’ll build you a summer house here,” he said, “since you love it so much.”

“I’m not a prostitute, sir. How many times must I explain that to you?”

He stopped. “You will marry me, Lilith.” He frowned, boldly trying to intimidate her.

“I’m nobody. Your da—”

“Is a factor.” His eyes turned ferocious. That, coupled with his black, windblown hair, gave him a devilish presence. “And I’m a factor’s son. Shall we force his hand? He’ll agree if your belly has his grandson in it.”

“I’m going to marry Daniel.”

After spending the day with him, she’d come to realize he wasn’t the ogre many thought him to be. Though he put on an arrogant face, she had glimpsed tenderness in him. Perhaps she was the only one he’d ever shown that face to. She cared about his feelings now, and didn’t want to hurt him. But that didn’t mean she would betray Daniel.

Daniel was like her. She pictured herself making his porridge, digging at his side in a garden, having his babies. They could build a life. Daniel’s hands were big, callused, and gentle. He had an equally big heart. She was drawn to him in ways she couldn’t explain. Didn’t it say something that she was still thinking of Daniel while walking along a cliff with this provocative character?

His hands weren’t callused, and never would be. His fingernails were clean, his coat smart. He didn’t smell of fish, or soil, or sweat, and for the last several years, he had been away at Eton. He’d only recently returned because of his father’s worsening consumption.

“Your father wants better things for you than a fisherman’s wean in a patched dress and fraying shawl,” she said.

The cliff vanished. They were lying on a machair-covered slope looking out over the sea, caressed in breezes as soft as rabbit fur. A jewel dangled from his fingers. A necklace. Someone had died, and the pain of it was terrible. But it was time to move on.

She spoke his name—
Oo
… something. He leaned in and kissed her.

Beatrice’s familiar morning shout sent the man swirling away. “Morrigan! Wake up! D’you plan to sleep the day away?”

* * * *

Morrigan’s fine romance entered a dismal interlude of privation and difficulty. Ibby never gave her niece an unchaperoned moment with her betrothed. “I introduced you,” she said to Curran more than once. “I trusted you. Now here we are. You defied my feelings and her innocence.”

Morrigan began to suspect that Ibby berated him simply for the expression of guilt and chagrin he rewarded her with. She was sure the first time she caught Ibby smiling to herself as she walked away.

Her aunt would be scunnered if she knew how Morrigan had thrown herself at him, had barely given him a chance to resist. But Morrigan was confident he would never tell.

Ardent glances and the surreptitious touching of hands had to suffice. With stoic patience and unyielding good humor, Curran assured her that in the end, Ibby would lose this battle.

During one of his visits, he suggested an outing to introduce Morrigan to Kilgarry, chaperoned by the aunts, of course. They agreed, but insisted he return them in two days, as they were eager to attend Mallaig’s annual Highland Games.

He hired a local fisherman and his crew to ferry them up and they set out on a bright, sweetly scented afternoon. They passed Loch Hourn and the Sandaig islands, and Curran pointed. There, towering above that riotous portion of the Sound called the Kyle Rhea, framed within a thickly wooded hill, glinted the upper storeys of his home. With the help of the fisherman’s telescope, Morrigan saw crimson flags streaming from two turrets, and even the rearing silver unicorns embossed in the center. The late afternoon sun lit the reddish stones and blazed against the leaded windows in the nearer turret, exactly as Ibby had once described them. Diamonds, in a cinnabar setting.

The rocky coast of the Isle of Skye lay directly across on the other side of the Kyle Rhea. Hills clambered in an eager race to a finish line of bluish white clouds. Water reflected the land, deep blue-green fading to violet.

Dolphins vaulted alongside the boat, whistling a welcome. It was all so rich, green, and thrilling, yet without warning or reason, Morrigan’s heart began to thud heavily.

“We have deer and a few wildcats.
Cait fhiadhaich,
we call them in the Gaelic.” Grinning, Curran took on the bland monotone of a lecturer. “They can be quite savage. Their favorite meal seems to be their own offspring. As for the deer, it’s almost time for the rut. You’ll be here when it begins. They roar through the night. I find it strangely fascinating.”

Morrigan was distracted by a sense that the land was shifting. She could see, but not clearly— hear, but not Curran’s voice. Premonition speared her, heightening her senses, magnifying the damp scent of mountain clouds and the flutter of a kestrel’s wings.

Her attention locked on two men standing at the shoreline, dressed in rough fishermen’s clothing.

“Seaghan,” Curran shouted. “Aodhàn!” He waved. The shorter figure waved back.

As she stared, unable to blink or turn away, a pulsating, reddish orange halo formed around the taller man, leaving her with the urge to rub her eyes. The shimmer reached out somehow, striking her in the solar plexus like a thunderbolt. Her heart skipped; cold sweat broke out on her forehead. She closed her eyes, taking several deep breaths, and then felt nauseated when she breathed in pungent smoke from someone’s pipe.

Above her head, the sails clapped. Curran’s cheerful voice droned on and the dolphins made their merry welcoming cries. The landscape cleared, green, fragrant, sweet, as the two men fell away to the stern. She gradually realized they must have been the same two men Curran had described at their picnic beside Castle Kennedy.

Curran put his hand on her shoulder. “You’re pale. Are you seasick?”

“No.” How weak she sounded. Not like the girl she often dreamed of.
Aridela.
That intrepid lass would never sound feeble.

“Come, sit down. We’re almost there.”

They disembarked at a wooden pier extending from a shingle beach in Glenelg Bay. Several buildings lay beyond the shore, marking the near edge of the village. A thin, long-legged young man, smoking a pipe that seemed much too large for him, leaned casually against a spotless wagonette garnished with fancy red wheels, hitched to a matched pair of bay geldings, also spotless. Tamping out his pipe, he came forward with a relieved expression, making Morrigan wonder how long he’d been waiting, and welcomed Curran in barely recognizable English.

“Kyle Ross,” Curran said. “Kilgarry’s gardener, and, today, her coachman.”

The boy nodded, shyly red-faced.

When everyone was comfortably settled on padded leather seats so well sprung she thought she was sitting on air, Kyle sent the geldings south along the coast. Morrigan hoped they would see those two men again, but there was no sign of them. The rough, shingled track led them to an estuary crowned by an old stone building: the local Catholic Church, Curran told her. From there the road veered inward and continued on beside the river, climbing as it entered a forest. Trees loomed closer and closer, to the point where branches grated against the sides of their vehicle.

Glenelg. She was in Glenelg, where Douglas and Hannah met and fell in love. Hannah had given birth to her here. Apprehension brushed across Morrigan’s arms; she was only dimly aware of Curran’s intent gaze.

They came to a fork in the road. One side meandered tantalizingly away eastward, into a wooded, velvet-green glen, while the other crossed over the river via a bridge and continued south through open meadows and farmland.

“Gleann Beag lies that way,” Curran told her, nodding towards the east. “It’s Gaelic for the ‘Little Glen.’ Would you like to see it before we go on?”

She nodded, not trusting her voice to be steady. Kyle spoke to the horses and the wagonette followed the rutted track. It was so thickly wooded that for some time she couldn’t see anything other than a wall of trees, but every now and then they thinned and she glimpsed steep hills, verdantly green and purple with heather, and once, a pretty waterfall. Smoke rose from the chimneys of two crofts, but they saw no one.

“What’s that?” Morrigan pointed to what appeared to be the crumpled shell of a tower. The fitted stones rose twenty or thirty feet on one side, but the rest had vanished or fallen in, leaving only a circular foundation covered with weeds.

“It’s called
Dùn Teilbh
hereabouts,” Curran said. “It’s all that’s left of an ancient building of some sort. There are three of them along here. Nobody knows how old they are, or what they were built for. They could have been forts, or farms, or lookout towers. Some say the Picts, or another lost race, must have built them, long before Scotland was civilized. Every now and then men of science come and make a great study of them.”