‘Damn you, you’re like a petty child that’s been fussed over all its life. I too have ridden for five days, in the same weathers as yourself. If you’ve taken a chill it was your nonsense in the sea, with yourself all hot and sweating from the journey, and serves you right.’ She yanked the counterpane up with disdain.
‘I could not resist the sea ’twas so bonnie. Besides it will not hurt me. No, ’twas the riding. I am no peasant to be used to such things. It is the higher breeding you see.’
Marsali peered carefully down into his still, fine-boned face, and could find no trace of humour. ‘You’re insufferable,’ she said.
‘Indeed, but will you lie down and be quiet, I was near enough asleep.’
Marsali climbed onto the feather mattress next to him, and lay down carefully, so that not an inch of them touched. ‘I will be having some of that,’ she said, and turned an edge of the counterpane over herself, yet fully dressed.
‘You’d be more comfortable in your shift. Assuming you have one on.’
‘I could not bear you to be seeing the ugly sight of me. It might cause you to faint, you so highborn delicate and all.’
He smiled slightly, yet with his eyes closed, and said, softly, ‘Och vanity, vanity. Just what are you wanting lass?’
‘Antoine, ’tis not funny. To tell truth, were it not for Mistress Annandale, and yon widow in Avignon, and they both hearsay mind, I’d be thinking you womanish. Which you look bye the bye.’
‘Och well, think what you like.’ There was no rousing him. He slept then, calm as a child beside her. But she could not sleep for long, and lay looking at him, wondering if maybe she was right in her teasing, and he was not natural.
‘’Tis a bloody waste,’ she said at last, in a whisper, and turned to sleep. Below, the sea was constant, like a singing in a dream. Just before she slept, she turned and looked over her head, to the wall behind the bed. An ancient tapestry hung there, framed in the two tall posts. It was medieval, from the days of kings, and embroidered with marvellous coloured silks, faded to a delicacy no living dye could match. It was huge and elaborate, with trees and flowers, a forest glade. In the distance were huntsmen, with grey dogs, like her father’s. But in the centre, calm as the peace in the centre of a storm, were two figures, one of a lady, beautiful in violet gown, and the other, its horned head humbled, and resting peaceful on her knees, was the unicorn, white in the sea-spun light of the moon.
In the morning, she awoke alone. Antoine was gone. The door was yet locked, and no servant had entered. The candles were burnt down to waxy stubble. Antoine’s shoes and coat and cravat were yet where he had left them. He’d flung his stockings also on the floor. An eerie, grey dawn light hung all through the room. Marsali arose at once, minded on the morning at Trotternish, long since, and knew where she would find him.
From the balcony a long curve of white stone steps ran down to the ground floor, and beyond, along the cliff edge to the sea and the narrow crescent of white sand in the western curve of the peninsula. They were neither so steep, nor so precarious as those steps from the terrace, and without hesitation she shucked off her stockings and left them, and her lace garters, on the tiles of the balcony. In the dim dawn light, she climbed in bare feet, down into the sea wind that swept the front of the house.
She was cautious at first, but soon found her footing, used as she was to the steep sea braes of home. She turned once, and saw the grand château still and dreamy silent, with its now-grey turrets, high above, but went on, step by step, till her feet were in the silken sand.
His footprints led across it, down to a white pinnacle of broken rock, and she followed, silently in his path. As she reached the pinnacle, she heard the sea take on an odd, hollow tone, an echoing of its own whispering against the rocks. She scrambled, feet in the warm water, the smell of salt and weed all about her, like a memory of the kelp-pits of home, and rounded the white foot of the pinnacle. It was then she saw the caves.
It was lime rock, bent to the liking of caves, and the sea had whispered its way in and around it for all the aeons of time. Now in the white rock, beneath the château, there was another house, a sea-house, with a ceiling grander and higher than Antoine’s banqueting hall. It arched misty grey-white above the sheltered, still water, and she knew its pillared roof must surely soar to the foundations of the château itself. The thing was sea-bound below as at either side, and hung like a cloud above the water.
‘Holy Mother,’ she whispered. ‘’Twas ourselves sleeping above, and me never knowing.’ She minded on the whispering sea song that swept through the hallways, and saw then that within the shadows of the cave itself was yet another long curve of stone-carved steps, leading into blackness. Beyond was no doubt an entrance to the château, a sea entrance, so its seafaring lords might, if they fancied, come to their door without bearing the ignominy of land. A smuggler’s haven, to be sure, and she knew why it had been thus built. The wreck of a small boat, mouldering salt-whitened within the cave at the water’s edge, was surely a remembrance of those days. But it seemed now strangely abandoned, as did all about the grand old house, as if its owners had grown bored with the life it offered, and came now, like Antoine, only occasionally, as lonely strangers to its door.
Thinking on him, she remembered her purpose, and stepped back into the water for a clearer look into the cave’s depths. She saw nothing, and sat on the white rock at the edge of a deep pool half in the cave and half in the morning sun, bewitched by the sleepy beauty of it. She heard a splash, and a fish-rippling of the deep water, and whirled, but seeing nothing, turned back to the open sea, where the white light of morning was streaking long, shivery lines. A seabird cried, and she looked up to what had stirred it. It cried again, swooping by her head, and then something clutched, wet and alive, at her ankles, in the sea. She screamed, with horror, the awful fear of the dark secretness of water, and the clutch of it tightened. In struggling to her feet, she gave it the unbalance it needed.
‘Oh Jesus, Jesus save me,’ she cried, both hands at the weed-wet rock, but without hope, for it had her fair and with a great wrench jerked her wet footing from her, and pitched her, with it, into the sea. She fought wildly, and the wet hold of the thing released her, but for a moment, and then had her more firmly about the waist.
It pulled her down, its own weight behind her, and turned her, in the water, she drowning there, and she saw a shadow pass across her face and then a sudden firmness against her and a wet mouth upon her own. Antoine. He released her and she swam desperate for the surface and air. He was beside her, laughing, his black head sleek and shining. ‘Och lass, you’ll not drown so quick; the sea is strong, but not so strong as that.’
‘Animal,’ she cried. ‘Animal. You near drowned me, and terrified me. I hate you Antoine, you’re as evil a thing as ever was.’
He swam easily beside her as she struggled there. ‘You’re the most complex of lasses. Last night you’d not let me sleep for your trying to seduce me. This morning, but one kiss, and I’m the devil himself.’ She turned from him, struggling still in her wet skirt, in water near over her head, and reached for the shore. His arms came about her again. ‘No lass, no more.’
She fought him, hearing an eeriness in the words.
‘I’ll drown, Antoine, I cannot swim in all this nonsense.’
‘Then we’ll be having it off you,’ he said. In a moment he was at the rock’s edge, pulling her to him and balancing precariously, half in the sea. He was naked as far as she could see, and she turned her face away. ‘Do not be ashamed for me, lass, we’ll soon have you to match.’ He found the lacings of her silk dress and with a practised hand was loosening them. But she struggled and bit, and he said suddenly, ‘Och to hell,’ and caught the thin fabric in both strong hands and ripped it down the back.
It was then she knew him to be serious. ‘Antoine, you’ll not do it. I’ll kill you if you do.’
‘Och surely,’ he said, and had the skirt from her, a loose wet bill
ow of silk on the tide. He did not bother with the shift, and the wet muslin was no protection from his eyes. She fought free of him and he let her go and when she scrambled half out of the water, he but caught her ankle. She turned and he looked carefully up and down, she with her breasts half-bared, and the dark of her maidenhair showing clear through the shift. ‘Och bonnie, bonnie,’ he whispered.
‘Antoine, please, you’ve been my friend.’
‘You should never have come here lass.’
‘Nor would I, had you not tricked me.’
‘No lass, I tricked you to the château, because I was lonely. I have been long, long a foreign creature in your land. But you came here, to this sea-place, of your will alone. I did not force you, nor did I ask you. I am not the foreign creature now, lass, but ’tis you. And it is not loneliness I am feeling any longer.’ He leapt for her then and toppled her again into the sea.
‘Up there lassie, you were my friend. Now I am needing something more.’
‘Antoine, I am a virgin.’
‘Och never,’ he said, ‘I’d never have known.’ He laughed, swimming around her, half-entangled with her wet, flowing hair. Beneath her feet she found the smooth rock half-covered by the sea and crept back till its hard curve supported her and she need not swim. But he was beside her.
He lay down on the wet rock by her, with the water foaming gently over them both. He took her face in his two long, thin hands and kissed her forehead and her eyes and her mouth, holding long there, his hands caressing the salty hair. His body was cold from the water, sleek and lean. He slid one hand beneath her neck, holding her head from the water, and with the other found his way down her body from breast to thigh.
‘Antoine,’ she whispered softly, ‘love me if you must, but do not drown me, pray. I’ve things I must do with my life, and if you murder me, you’ll murder my father surely too.’
He lifted his salt-wet mouth from her breast and looked straight into her eyes. His own were water clear, and eerily peaceful, near silver, like the talisman yet at his throat. ‘I am many things, Marsali, but not a murderer, either of lassies or their fathers. Why say so cruel a thing to me?’
‘Because I am afraid.’
He pulled back and released her and she caught at his hand to draw him back, her body aching in a way she’d never known.
‘I cannot love what fears me.’
‘’Tis fearful you behave, half drowning me.’
‘I was only playing, pretty cat. I will not have you fearing me. Nor will I force you. Good-bye now, away with you and get dressed.’ She pulled back from him onto the wet rock, and he slipped into the sea.
‘Where are you going, Antoine?’
He swam, silky smooth to the centre of the lagoon in the cave. ‘Away.’
‘Where?’
‘Out to the sea, I will swim till I drown, for you do not love me, and I do not wish to live.’
‘Antoine never,’ she cried, and he turned, sleekly with another stroke to the white mouth of the cave. ‘No, please.’ She flung herself after him, into the silky warm water. ‘Please, Antoine, I’ll not leave you.’
‘’Tis not enough,’ he called sadly.
‘I will let you love me.’
He shook his wet head, like a wild thing in the sea.
‘I love you Antoine.’
He plunged under the water’s surface, like a snake or a seabird, and in moments he was beside her, laughing gently, his arms about her and his mouth upon hers. In the shallow rock pool, with water beneath her for a bed, he held her and kissed her, and entered her body and found his way there with such sweet kindness that, virgin though she was, she felt no pain. Only when he’d freed her and she rose and stood, like a fountain statue with the sea about her knees, and saw the blood, sea-thinned on her thighs, was she surely knowing what he had done.
But he rose at once, from his own pleasure, and dove weary into the sea, and swam from her into the cave darkness until he was beyond her sight. She sat alone, without shame, her sea-wet shift clinging about her, thinking what a long strange way she had come with him since Trotternish.
‘Lassie.’
‘Aye, love,’ she said softly, and looked up and smiled. He had come by land behind her, dressed now in his britches and shirt, the silk stained wet from his body.
‘Lassie, if it were in your heart and in your power to lay an evil curse on the head of a living thing, what would you choose?’
‘Och, man, what a weary terrible question … what is upon you, asking it? And how would I be knowing, or even wish to think?’
‘No matter, lass, I can tell you, for I am surely knowing. It would be that that creature, yon living thing you so afflicted, could have all he asked of the world, and know, yet, he might never hold it, more than a span of years. And not that alone. I would curse that creature that it might have friends and lovers, and treat them kind or unkind, but for all its living days one thing would be forbidden it. Are you knowing what?’
‘No, Antoine, nor am I liking this.’
‘Nor am I, lass. That thing is this, that never ever could yon creature be honest. It might have wit, and wisdom, and tell many a bonnie tale, but never, ever might it tell the truth.’
‘But surely then,’ Marsali said suddenly, ‘you told the truth.’
‘Mais oui,’ Antoine said, paying so little attention as to slip unconsciously into the wrong language. They were lying side by side in the canopied bed of the master bedroom, sensuously naked between satin sheets. She had turned her back and he yet held her in his arms, his hands across her breasts. ‘We will try it now, this way, I am thinking,’ he said then, in her own tongue.
Marsali sat up, sharply, the sheet falling from her, and faced him, unashamed. They had been five days now at the Château Sainte Marie, and most of it they had been in that bed, practising that grand new amusement they had discovered.
‘No, but it must have been truth, and if it were, then the other could not have been.’
‘What nonsense is this, lassie,’ he said, blinking up at her, and reaching to pull her down to him. But she resisted, and sat up straighter and drew her knees up under the satin sheets and wrapped her bare arms about them.
‘See now, Antoine, what you were saying that day in the sea cave, about a creature so cursed that it might never tell the truth. But there you were confessing it all to me, so surely you could tell the truth and all.’
‘But what has that creature to do with me?’ he said simply, gathering the long, loose hair falling about her white shoulders.
‘Och, Antoine, I know your riddles. ’Twas yourself you spoke of, and your own sly way of saying you did not love me, nor meant you ever to drown yourself at all.’
He let her hair go and lay back and closed his eyes. ‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘How would I be so cursed? It was only an old myth, a fable.’
‘Then you love me, and all?’
He smiled and slipped his arms about her waist and pulled her down beside him. ‘Let me be showing you.’
‘That is no answer. Would you truly have swum out to the sea and drowned yourself but for my love?’
He released her and sat up, with a cold, unkind light in his eyes. ‘Surely Christian womankind is a wondrous thing. Have I not given you pleasure? Have you not sheltered with me and eaten from my table and lain in my fine bed? But no, ’tis never enough. Now I must swear my own destruction to please your pride.’
‘No, Antoine, surely. But it was your own weapon, to win me. I am only asking if it were true.’
He turned away, moodily, and said softly, ‘And if I were the cursed fabulous creature of which we spoke, what would I say?’
‘If it were false, you’d say it were true, as in the sea cave.’
‘Fine then. I will say it was false. Now you can please your pride with the knowledge it was true.’
‘But only if you were that creature, and you’ve now said you’re not.’
‘But if I were, little cat, what other would I
say?’ Marsali stared at him and then slowly shook her head so the thick brown hair came cascading over her breasts. ‘Antoine, I am weary of it, surely. ’Tis like riddling with the sphinx.’
‘There now,’ Antoine said, ‘was a creature to be reckoned with. That surely was one of that brave crowd upon the ark, snatched off in the Leviathan’s jaws.’
‘Indeed,’ Marsali said, ‘like himself.’ She shrugged towards the unicorn in the tapestry above their heads. ‘I will be having you know, Antoine, it makes me uneasy, the way he has of following us about. It is uncanny that he should always be there.’
Antoine laughed. ‘All old houses have their tapestries, and the lady and unicorn is a common theme.’ He drew her close with his cool hands stroking from shoulder to the hollow of her back. He slipped them lower about her buttocks and lifted her easily so she lay on his own body. His strength in so lean and light a form always amazed her. She slipped her arms beneath his shoulders and shifted her thighs with the warm pleasure of his stirring against them.
‘Now you are supposed to say, och be gentle with me, for I am yet afraid,’ he said still laughing.
‘But I am not afraid,’ she said sharply, ‘and I am not needing your gentleness. I am near as strong as yourself.’
‘And I am supposed now to be saying, surely my love, in a small while, all will be well, and you will even grow to like this strange business.’ He grinned up at her, caressing her back.
‘To be sure,’ she said, ‘but I am liking it fine already. I have never liked anything better in my life.’
‘’Tis a terrible whore, she is, the daughter of MacKinnon.’
Marsali sighed softly, thinking on that which she’d rather not think about. She said then, ‘Och do the thing lad and hush with your talking. As for MacKinnon, he thought higher of you than of his daughter, anyway.’
She lowered her head and put her mouth over his as he entered her, so that they kissed at once with their lips and their loins. Then she bent her head lower, burying her face in the smooth skin between shoulder and throat. In the fiery sweetness she forgot her father, and her purpose, and a lad called Rory she was meant to wed, and the fear that had kept Antoine from her heart. Surely he was but a man, and any man was to be loved in the fine old way.
The Sea-Harrower: A Scottish Highlander Historical Romance Page 21