When they were done with it, she raised herself calmly to look down into his face, beautiful and love-weary. But her eyes caught then on the silver fur talisman he yet always wore, damp now at his throat with his own sweat. She laid her small fingers idly upon it, and his hand closed on her wrist like a trap.
‘Away, fool, you’re hurting me,’ she said.
‘Away, fool, you’ll never learn,’ he returned sharply with his eyes yet closed. ‘Curiosity kills yet many a pretty cat.’
She flung herself angrily off him, and he let go her wrist. ‘I was only wanting to see,’ she said pettishly.
‘I was only wanting to taste, Adam,’ he mocked, ‘and ’twas the sairpent tempted me.’
‘’Tis no forbidden fruit, surely, but an old bit of sailor’s rubbish. Why should I not touch it?’
‘I have given you now my splendid roof, and my fine table, all my servants at your command. You’ve had my most gracious bed and my most gracious self in it.’ He smiled sweetly, enraging her. ‘Every fruit of the garden. But that you may not touch. Be satisfied, little cat, and do not break the rules. Most awful things become of those who do.’
‘Nonsense,’ she said, ‘you’re worse than Ishbel. What rules indeed, and who makes them, and who says what becomes of they who break them?’
‘Who knows?’ he said softly. ‘Perhaps they will be cursed like that fabulous creature that cannot but lie, or like my unicorn, roaming the world seeking a friend kind enough to believe he exists.’
‘There are no such curses. There are no rules, but God’s rules, and He makes no curses.’
‘Leviathan broke the rules, and my poor horned beast bears the curse.’
‘Fables.’
‘Aye then, what of Eve?’ He twisted around in the bed, so he lay on his stomach, and caught at her hand. She turned so they both lay side by side, like children, and he pointed up to the tapestry, and the lady with the unicorn. ‘Yon’s Eve, lass, in the fair garden, poor Eve. Made of dust by the Maker of rules, made to be the breaker of rules. Are you thinking now that was kind? Surely now, it was not fair, the sleekit sairpent and the bonnie tempting tree.’
‘You’re talking me into blasphemy, Antoine, and I will not be hearing it.’ But he went on, and took her hands from her ears, where she’d put them to shut out his voice.
‘Look lassie, how she holds his head, there, on her soft knees. There now is a lass who knew how to treat a friend.’
Marsali looked up to the exquisite tapestry. The unicorn’s eyes, spun of a hundred tiny black silk threads, shone with trust. Then she said suddenly, ‘Aye, but look, Antoine,’ and she pointed with one slender finger to the huntsmen, with their great grey dogs, behind the timeless embroidered trees. ‘Look you where it’s getting him. ’Tis a trap.’
‘You’ll not imagine I have not thought of that.’ He turned slowly so that he faced her, in the bed, resting his sleek, dark head on one arm. The late afternoon light shivered dreamily in his eyes. ‘Lassie, you asked me to prove my love by giving you my life.’
‘I asked no thing like that, Antoine.’
‘It was your meaning. I will give you something more, lass. I’ll give you that bit nonsense that’s so intrigued your eye. Here now.’ He reached beneath his long hair, sitting up as he did, and untied the knotted talisman with a sudden quick flick of his fingers. He slipped it from his throat and held it out to her. She would not touch it.
‘Why, lass, it’s nothing but sailor’s rubbish.’ It was silken smooth, magically smooth as if it had never been knotted at all, those strands of silver sealskin.
‘Away, Antoine, I do not want the thing. I find it eerie.’
‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘But surely, if it’s fearful, you’d be safer holding it than me. Perhaps I will wrap it about your pretty throat one day, and draw it tight. Here now, protect yourself.’
‘It is bewitched,’ she cried softly, and drew back and slid off the bed, naked, and stepped away from him. He laughed delightedly, yet sitting up in the beautiful silken bedclothes, brown and sleek, with the look of a wild beast in an unnatural sanctuary, that look of the unicorn on the wall.
‘What if I tell you that once this is yours, I am bound to you forever, powerless before you, and must bow to you as yon poor beast to Eve?’
‘I will not believe you, Antoine, you speak nothing but lies.’
‘Och well,’ he said, ‘’tis but rubbish anyway. But mind, lassie, that I offered. No, I will not swim out to sea to drown myself if you leave me. I couldn’t if I would, for the sea will not hurt me. But if ever it is I that leaves yourself, remember that I held out to you the power to hold me forever, and you would not take it in your hands.’
He tied it carefully beneath his hair again, and it seemed once more natural there, and not a thing of either fear or power.
She came closer and stood before him uncertainly. ‘’Tis fables only,’ she said.
‘’Tis surely not. ’Tis what passes for my soul, Marsali, a thing not lightly given.’
She laughed at that. ‘If that were true, you would never give it, lad, that I am certain.’ She knelt on the bed, and he wrapped her in his hard, brown arms again. ‘Och,’ she laughed, ‘are you not yet done?’
‘No. If you will not have my soul, you may have my child. I am determined to have my share of immortality, one road or another.’
‘Away. I do not wish to be thinking. I’ve no time for your child, Antoine. I’ve things I must do.’
‘The things you’ve been doing are not renowned for the avoidance of children.’
She shook her head and pulled away and cried out, ‘Mary protect me, I’ll not do it more.’ But he was already loving her with mouth and hands, and she fought but weakly.
After, he said darkly, ‘Och, say your prayers again, lass. The world is not needing a child of mine.’
She was hurt and said, ‘Another of the like of yourself, indeed the world does not need. But it yet might take after its mother.’
He shook his head and said only, ‘A cursed half-caste beast, I would not wish such a life on anything.’ He got up then and dressed silently and left her alone, swearing he would not lay hands upon her again. But in the evening, he came again to the room where she had sat, lost and lonely, all that time. He came in quietly, like a small child, his head down. He said, in one quick breath, ‘Marsali, will you wed me and be my wife, I cannot live without you.’
She shook her head. ‘I must go to Rome, Antoine, for my father’s sake.’
‘I will give you this fine house, and all my wealth.’
‘There is a promise, Antoine, and I cannot break it.’
‘Marsali, Marsali. I will become a Christian man, like all your folk, and throw my cursed charm into the sea.’
‘You are not knowing, Antoine, what you ask.’
‘Nor you, what I offer,’ he said.
He did not ask again. But he shared her bed that night, once more, and she shut firm from her mind the imaginings of his child. The week passed, and Antoine rode on his pony to Antibes and came back with word that the ship they awaited had not yet come. Marsali was ashamed of her pleasure in the news.
But when another week had passed and the word from Antibes was no surer, and then a third week, she grew restless and concerned. The summer was drifting past. In Trotternish her father would stand before the black house door, watching Murdoch harvesting hay, and the English soldier would be watching them both. Tearlach MacSheumais was yet fine and well, and far far from her hand.
She doubted Antoine’s word, he so content with her company and the fine luxury of his home. He swam every morning, in the sea cave in the dawn, as first she found him. In the afternoon they rode across the hot sunny hills, or played at ball, like children, in the gardens, among the hedges and glistening fish ponds, beneath the orange trees. In the evenings they dined alone on the balcony of their bedchamber, with the sea wind about them and whispering servants ever at hand. Time slipped by unnaturally as if the pl
ace were indeed enchanted.
‘How am I knowing,’ she said, seeing a full month past, ‘that the ship is not here after all? Perhaps you lie to me.’
He shrugged, calmly, and said, ‘Come with me and see for yourself.’ But she refused. He had servants at his constant call, to whom he conversed in a French she could scarce understand. They would tell him if there was a ship, and if he wished he could take her to the harbour when he knew well there was not.
‘I will go alone, then,’ she said on a morning of the fifth week. ‘I will ride to Rome if I must.’
That evening he told her at dinner that a ship was expected, bound for Rome, in one week’s time. All would be well.
Three mornings before the ship was to come, Antoine did not rise with her to swim in the sea. He lay quietly in bed, his hand across his eyes, saying he would sleep yet. He slept most of the day, and in the evening rose but briefly to stand in the cool air of the balcony. The morning after, he told Marsali he was ill. She looked upon him with scant belief.
‘I am thinking he is shamming,’ she said to the servant maids who fussed about him all the day. They thought her cold, and brought all manner of comforts to him. Antoine remained in his bed, the room darkened, staring moodily at the canopy and announced he surely had some grave illness and most definitely could not travel.
‘You’re tricking me,’ Marsali whispered when the servants were out of sight. ‘You tricked me into coming here, and you tricked me into loving you, in the sea. And now you are tricking me so that I will miss my ship and never get to Rome till autumn, and the Dear knows then if I’ll be in time.’
‘In time for what?’ he said softly, as if it pained him to talk. ‘What is upon you that you must hurry so? If Tearlach is to capture Scotland again, he may surely wait a week.’
‘’Tis not that.’
‘Then what,’ he said wearily.
‘I cannot say. But I know you, Antoine. You’re spoiled and petty and think of nothing but yourself. You’re liking my company and myself in your bed and you happily will stay on here to the end of our days. But I’ll not stay with you. I will go now, to Antibes, and find lodgings if I may and wait on my ship you swear is coming.’
‘You’ve no money.’
‘Damn but I will steal if I must. I’m not your whore yet.’
He turned his face away. ‘I cannot help my illness.’
‘You’ve no illness.’
‘You’ve no heart, little cat. I ache all over, and my head spins if I so much as move. I have some awesome fever and most like will die of it while you sit arguing about Chairlie.’
‘If you did not die in Trotternish, you’ll not die of this. Then you were really ill. Today you’re shamming.’
He closed his eyes and refused to talk. She sat looking down at him below the timeless beauty of the lady and the unicorn. He had not eaten for three days, and he had indeed grown thin, and, unshaven now, looked far from well. He seemed uncanny delicate, alone in that vast bed. It was hard to think of his lusty strength there, but days before. She touched his face, and laid her hand across the fine, sharp cheekbone, and stroked gently from temple to brow. He did not move. She could not swear that the skin was not dryer and warmer than it should be. ‘Och to hell,’ she said softly. ‘Antoine.’
He would not answer and she spoke then, knowing he was hearing. ‘Antoine, I love you dearly. But I love my father more. I am going to Rome, now, without you. If you are well again, one day, you may follow. But today I am going. Good-bye. And God bless you, if He will.’ She walked to the door.
‘Marsali,’ he called.
‘I’m not hearing you.’
‘Next week, surely, I will be well. There will be a ship.’
‘Aye and the week after, and after. Good-bye.’
‘I will die, Marsali, if you leave me.’
‘Never.’
‘Then wait.’
‘For what?’ she cried impatiently, but he sat up then, and cried out, suddenly, with great emotion, ‘Please, Marsali, wait, I will come with you, I swear.’ But she shook her head tiredly and went out the door.
She was in the gardens, walking quickly towards the stables with her small pack of belongings, when he caught her. He had dressed in haste, and was yet barefoot, running down the earthen pathway between the tall hedgerows. She turned, unwillingly, and waited for him beside a fishpool glittery with carp.
‘I am seeing you’ve recovered,’ she said when he reached her. But he swayed a little, unsteadily, on his feet, and caught his arm about her shoulders for support.
‘Yon, lassie, is what we waited for, surely now you’ll not be leaving me?’ He pointed out to the blue sea beyond the dark shadow of the château, and she saw the white sails of a ship.
‘Does she make for Antibes?’ she asked then, gently slipping her own arms about his waist.
‘No, lass, for the sea cave, and her harbour. Yon’s the Sea-Harrower, come home.’
‘How are you knowing, ’tis but a white sail.’
‘’Tis the Sea-Harrower come to take us to Rome. Come back, we will find the glass and you shall see.’
Unwilling yet, she returned with him to the château and on the balcony of their bedchamber she stood with the long brass spy-glass.
‘You’ll not need to read the name, lass. The beastie will tell you.’ She nodded, seeing the horned beast below the bowsprit.
‘Antoine, how were you knowing?’
He had sat once more on the edge of the unmade bed. He shrugged and said softly, ‘There might have been a letter, surely, lass.’
‘But there was not.’
He shrugged again. She came and sat beside him. He leaned on her shoulder and then lay down, with his dark head on her knees, and the soft afternoon sun streaming over them both.
‘’Tis sorry I am, poor creature,’ she said, ‘but faith I swore you were shamming.’
He lay quietly yet, awkwardly across the bed, with his bare feet trailing to the floor, and let her gently stroke his hair, as meek and guileless as the unicorn, sun-dusted in the tapestry above.
‘How could I have thought it?’ she said remorseful, and frightened by the weariness of him. ‘Forgive me, please, Antoine, for doubting you.’
‘Och, lassie, ’twas fair enough, no doubt.’ He smiled a brief, strange, muted smile. ‘Men will do any manner of thing in the name of love.’
Chapter Twelve
A day later, they sailed in the summer dawn, for Rome.
It was sooner than Marsali would have chosen. Now with their ship awaiting them in the sea cave harbour, it was, perversely, she who delayed. She feared for Antoine. Convinced at last that his illness was real, she was ashamed and concerned for him and feared that he shammed health in his eagerness to sail, as before she was sure he feigned sickness.
He would not be persuaded. He was childishly excited at the sight of his beautiful ship, and as she drew nearer, he had climbed down the weary long steps to the shore to see her safely home. Marsali walked with him, wrapping her shawl about his shoulders, and her arm about his waist.
Captain de Veulle came ashore, rowed by sailors in the same longboat that had taken them to land at Marseilles. He greeted Antoine with his expressionless deference and accepted his orders without question. But after he had left them and was slipping silently across the lagoon in the shore boat, Marsali said softly, ‘Should not the master dine with us tonight, as once we dined with him?’
‘I would not have him in my house,’ said Antoine.
‘But why?’ she said. ‘Surely now, you employ him and place your ship in his hands, which you love more than is halfway natural.’
‘Aye, I do. And I employ a brute to break the wild ponies that roam my dusty hills. And another for the slaughtering of farm beasts. They do not dine with me either.’
She said no more about it, and they dined alone on their balcony, and lay one more night in one another’s arms beneath the blue canopy and the faithful unicorn’s black silk eyes.
She awoke before him, and in the grey light kissed his sleeping mouth and rose, only half-willing. It was a trap, his beautiful house of Sainte Marie, but as bonnie and kind a trap as the lady’s gentle knees. And now it was past.
They left in the dawn light, like thieves, taking their few belongings in their hands, and without a word to the servants. They climbed down the sea staircase and on to the shore. The Sea-Harrower awaited them, her tall masts near brushing the sheltering lime rock roof, and her sails furled; silent she was, like a visitation from another world. Not one of her crew had come ashore.
Marsali glanced once back, before she entered the shadow of the great rock, at the château dreaming above; a sleeping dragon she had escaped. But as the longboat drew away from the black ship’s side, coming for them, she was suddenly afraid and saw her freedom brief. In Antoine’s house she had been a restless guest, but on the Sea-Harrower she was a prisoner. There was no fleeing him there. She had fled a benign beast, for one malevolent.
‘Antoine,’ she said, her hand on his white sleeve. He stood at the water’s edge, his coat flung over one shoulder, his sword buckled about his waist once more, the dangerous adventurer who had fought the Well-Met so gaily. He did not hear her, so intent he was on his ship.
‘Antoine, will you be telling me, why is she here?’
He turned slowly, blinked once, and then said, ‘Were you not wanting a ship? Have I maybe been mistaken?’
‘No, Antoine. She was bound away to Egypt, and then the Colonies. Why is she here instead?’
‘Who knows?’ he said softly. ‘The ways of ships are the ways of the wind.’
‘Nonsense. The ways of ships are the ways of trade and gold. Not to be trifled with. Why is she here, Antoine?’ She was nervous suddenly, and tightened her grip on his arm, and whispered so the approaching oarsmen would not hear. ‘Will you be telling me, is this another of your shams?’
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