The Sea-Harrower: A Scottish Highlander Historical Romance

by Abigail Clements

‘Indeed,’ he said sharply. ‘I will send her away.’

  ‘No,’ she cried. ‘Och damn you, tell truth for once, ’tis a fair enough question. I am wary now, of all you do. Will she take me to Rome at all, Antoine, please?’

  ‘No. She will take you to Morocco and I will sell you into slavery.’

  ‘Away. I’ll not play your games. Tell me truth, Antoine, or I will not go with you at all, but ride to Rome alone, like I near did before.’

  He turned away from the water and looked very carefully into her gentle honest eyes. ‘Och poor lassie. I will tell. You see now, the ship is enchanted, the same as the house above your head. She is called to me by magic, and here because I longed her to be here. My unicorn brought her to me because I was missing him. Shall I keep him now or send him away?’

  ‘Och send him away, and ride t’ hell on his back,’ she cried in despair.

  ‘Aye, fine,’ he said. ‘But first I will go to Rome; I am fancying a sight of that city, a bonnie place. Tell me, lassie, would you maybe like to come?’

  He smiled and calmly held out his fine gentleman’s hand. She took it, unwilling, and followed him aboard. But she did not believe him, until the Civita Vecchia was in sight, off their starboard rail.

  Antoine leaned on the railing of the forecastle deck, the warm wind rippling his black hair, and the sun glistening from it. He was in fine health now, to be sure. He said it was the sea had cured him. Marsali said it was getting his own way.

  The Italian shore was summer blue-hazy beyond. For days they had sailed in gentle waters, drifting by mysterious morning-misted islands, and the boats of fishermen. Time slowed with the heat; even the gulls were dreamy and sat on the railings, too lazy to fly. The crew of the Sea-Harrower dangled fishing lines from the gunports into the silken sea.

  ‘They were saying, the year gone,’ Antoine said, gesturing to the golden blur of the Roman port, ‘that Geordie was all for bombarding it, unless the Holy Father sent Tearlach fleeing from Avignon.’

  ‘It does not look like he did.’

  ‘Och you’d not have seen the difference. ’Tis fair falling down, the most of it, like all the place. But Tearlach took his own leave, afore they could throw him out. I am thinking he learned his lesson in Paris when they caught him at the Opera, trussed him up, and flung him in the jail house. He’s grown wise now, and makes his own exits in fair time.’

  ‘’Tis no way to treat a prince,’ Marsali said.

  Antoine laughed, and leaned far over the rail, watching the creamy curling foam of the bow. ‘Look now who has grown loyal and true. Indeed, but princes have been treated less kind than that, Stuart princes most of all. He would be wise, little cat, to accept his fate. Rome is where they want him, and he’ll be well treated there. Pensioned, and pampered, and snug.’

  ‘Then will he be in Rome?’ Marsali asked, with the old, confused apprehension she felt when she thought of Tearlach and her bloody purpose.

  ‘Not likely. The day he does what Geordie wants, is the day he is no more prince.’

  ‘But James is in Rome,’ she argued, ‘and aye has been. And James is king.’

  ‘Aye, lass. James is king. And I am pope.’

  ‘If that is your feeling, what do you here, with myself, and James MacKinnon’s Cause?’

  ‘Yon, lassie,’ he smiled softly and waved at the port and the Roman hills beyond, ‘is the midden-heap of Europe. The centre of the Old World, and the dung-heap of the new. Like all dung-heaps, it will have its vermin. I am here to find a rat, lassie, to amuse a little cat.’

  ‘A rat?’

  ‘Aye, lass. A rat called Tearlach for a cat called Marsali. I suppose what cats do with rats is God’s worry, and not my own.’ He laid his hand casually on his sword hilt and caressed the metal basketwork. It was for him an odd, militant gesture. He seemed to be making up his mind over something and then he said, ‘James MacKinnon had a story to tell, Marsali. It was not a story for Tearlach, but one for that other James. I will take you to him, a fine gentleman, for all my teasing. To him you may give your tale of clansmen and gold. He will be knowing what use to make of it. ’Tis his Cause, lassie, as long as he lives, and not Tearlach’s at all.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And why no?’

  ‘It is Tearlach I must be seeing. James will tell us where.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Antoine said. ‘’Tis a dangerous game his son is playing yet, ramskeerin’ away about Europe. Were I James, I’d not be telling his whereabouts to any passing folk.’

  ‘I am not any passing folk. I am the daughter of MacKinnon of Glentarvie.’

  ‘And loyal and true,’ Antoine said, with a sweet, sly smile.

  ‘What are you saying?’ she said sharply, sensing suspicion in his elaborate innocence.

  He raised his arms lightly in the air, and shrugged. ‘Not the truth, I am sure. I am not capable, you may recall. I was seeing, in my curious way, that you’ve once more shot in yon pistol. Is it rape on your mind again?’

  She did not answer, but looked hard on him, nervous of him. But he only laughed into the blue sea below, as if it meant nothing to him, at all.

  It was not until they had left the Sea-Harrower far behind them and were within the city walls, that he mentioned James or Tearlach again. The ship had tied up in Civita Vecchia, and Marsali had gone to the sumptuous cabin she had shared with Antoine, that elegant place he had never shown her on their first journey on the Sea-Harrower. There among the rich trappings of his favoured life ‒ fine glass and cutlery, and silver, even splendid paintings on the wooden walls ‒ she had packed her small parcel of belongings. There was more in that sea cabin of possessions and treasures uniquely his own, than in all of the Château Sainte Marie. She saw more clearly that in his father’s house he was but a passing stranger. When she teased him about it, he said, shrugging, ‘What things of the world I fancy, I keep here. That’s my father’s home; this is my own.’

  He saw her slip the pistol through the wide, red leather kirtle of her dress, and the powder horn on its ribbon round her neck, all duly covered by her cloak. ‘’Tis a fine lusty city, to be sure,’ he said. ‘But if you’ll be needing all that much protection, I’ll even be taking fear myself.’

  ‘Where else would I carry it?’ she said coolly. ‘I’ve no gear now, but what I carry on my back.’

  ‘Poor highland beggar. I’ll buy you a store of gowns and Roman coral, and a serving maid to carry it behind.’

  ‘Och away. Besides, you wear yon sword, why should I not be armed?’

  ‘’Tis decoration,’ he said. ‘You’ll not be catching me using it. If the lusty natives take a fancy to us, I’ll be away ahead of you, fleeing down the street.’

  ‘I am thinking you’ll be safe enough. You’re really not as pretty as myself. For all you think.’

  ‘Aye, lass. But you’re not knowing Rome.’

  He left his ship so lightly cheerful this time that she wondered if he intended to return within the day. But he hired a post chaise, and ushered her into it, and within minutes they were rolling bumpily along the dust-choked road. ‘’Tis a good many miles, yet, lass,’ he said, putting his feet up on the wall of the coach, and tipping his hat over his eyes. ‘You may wake me when you see the walls.’

  Marsali ignored him and looked out the dusty windows at the golden countryside. Through the windows at the front she could see the driver, mounted on the off-side horse, a bony grey. The horses were harnessed in shining green leather, and their manes and tails plaited with red ribbon. Each had fresh flowers tucked into the harness at the ears, and the driver wore a dark beret splendid with red tassels. ‘’Tis bonnie,’ she whispered softly.

  ‘’Tis ridiculous,’ said Antoine, beneath his hat.

  But Marsali thought the whole country bonnie, with its vineyards and orange trees and girls with shining black hair and embroidered skirts. There were some houses, scarce bigger than her own in Trotternish, with roofs of thatched branches, and goats on the roofs. Everywhere w
ere cattle and children and loose pigs and dogs. But among them all, and the sound and smell of the country, were, like white bones on the landscape here and there, beautiful ruins of another time, columns, half-broken, their fluted sides wrapped in flowering vines. Or statues, with grass thick about their feet, and once a beautiful marble beast, half lion, half angel, at the roadside, and tied to it a small brown cow.

  ‘Look,’ she cried, shoving Antoine’s shoulder. ‘Such bonnie things, so little thought of. Why is that?’

  He woke and stretched and shifted his hat from off his eyes, and she asked again, and he looked out bemused. They were nearing the Aurelian wall surrounding the city itself.

  ‘Bonnie things indeed,’ Antoine said, ‘but things of the past. Here now are the wisest of folk, those uncaring lasses with their petticoats drying on some emperor’s head.’ He waved out to the left where, beside an ancient fountain in a small dusty outlying square, three black-haired girls were wringing out their washing and spreading it on the branches of an orange tree, and on the sun-soaked marble bust of a forgotten king. A hen picked curious at the foot of the emperor’s plinth. ‘You see, they know best how to treat the past. Turn your back, and hang your drawers on its head. That’s all the honour due to kings and countries gone.’

  ‘’Tis sour you are,’ she said, but he was smiling, a gentle smile, and sad.

  The post chaise went on and passed into the city, and proceeded first down a broad avenue, reaching away to lovely aspects of a distant, magnificent fountain. Then it turned off into a narrow, twisting street, upon which houses and churches, shops and courtyards were set at every angle imaginable. By its measure, even the winding alleys of Glasgow had order. And by its measure as well, they had been sweet-breathed as country air.

  The Romans had no more regard of cleanliness of streets than those merchants of Scotland. But Rome had the sun, and the heavy malarial air to give its ripe streets a full fruiting.

  Marsali caught her breath and closed her hand over her mouth to keep from retching. Antoine laughed, looking out through the dust-stained glass at the slow waters of the Tiber, bobbing with debris and shadowed by the crumbling walls of abandoned buildings. ‘’Tis not a flower garden,’ he said. ‘But faith, lass, you’ll soon be used to it, look yon, they never notice.’

  In the street, a handsome dark-eyed gentleman, with a velvet coat slung loose over his shoulders, and a brilliant sash about his waist, stood talking rapidly and eating a sweet ice, licking his fingers the while. His companion, as elegantly dressed, was chatting over his shoulder and urinating against the wall of a church. The lady with them, in a Parisian panniered gown, with her hair piled high and topped with a golden plume, took no notice at all.

  ‘Indeed,’ Marsali said, ‘they’re an uncommon social lot.’ Antoine grinned and leaned back in the leather seat of the coach, loosening his cravat against the heat, and putting his feet up again, his buckled shoes scraping an insolent line on the painted wall.

  ‘Aye, and gentle. Were it in my nature to leave the sea, it would be with Roman folk I would live.’ Marsali thought that natural enough; they seemed, like himself, to have no manners.

  ‘Surely this is not yon Quirinal where the Holy Father and all the fashionable folk are wont to live,’ she said.

  ‘No. It is not. But you’ll see now, that’s none so different. Roman folk are not so fussy as some about their neighbours. See that row of pretty windows, with the statues all above.’

  Marsali looked; between a mean pink building, with a moss-crumbled tiled roof, and a width scarce great enough for its own open door, and, on the other side, a courtyard full of goats and pigs, was the front of a long and elegant structure of tawny stone. Sixteen windows ran symmetrically on either side of an arched doorway. Above were another sixteen, and yet another storey beyond; all trimmed with balconies and cherubs.

  ‘’Tis a palace,’ Antoine said, ‘and some great nobleman lives there.’

  ‘Will he not be minding the wee laddie selling ices in his doorway?’

  ‘Surely no. Most like he’ll away out to buy one himself. Most democratic the Roman folk. But it is not to the Quirinal, but the Campo Marzio, we are going.’

  ‘But you were telling me, it was the Quirinal, and the home of your Roman noble friend, where we would be staying.’

  Antoine shrugged. ‘I have many Roman noble friends, there and elsewhere, and I am bored with them all. Nothing to do but play and nothing to talk about but carriages, and love. We will stay elsewhere, with the people about us, and I will like it better. But have no fear, it will smell no sourer than the Pope’s own palace. ’Tis all a midden, Rome.’

  ‘I am thinking it is not your reason,’ Marsali said quietly.

  ‘Perhaps it is not. In any case, you’ll not expect the truth, nor believe it when you hear it. But look, lassie, we are home.’

  Antoine tapped on the window of the coach, but the driver, having found his way by some magic of his own through the unnamed streets of unnumbered houses, had already drawn his beribboned grey horses to a halt.

  Antoine swung open the painted door of the coach and helped Marsali down, so graciously that she asked what had come over him.

  ‘’Tis the sweet city,’ he said. ‘It is hard to be harsh in a southern land.’ He paid the driver with a French gold piece and received in return a couple of coins and a handful of the paper currency of Rome, imprinted with pictures of the Apostles.

  Before them was a blank wall, marked only by a half-open door and a painted cross and the word, ‘rispetto,’ neatly lettered in black.

  ‘Is it the name?’ Marsali asked, curious.

  Antoine laughed, leading her to the dank doorway. ‘Mind your feet,’ he said, as he stepped with a long stride over the filthy stream at the roadside. ‘No, ’tis not the name, not unless every second household in Rome goes by that name. Respect, respect, Marsali. It means you must not pee on the wall, but go on to the next, for doing that, or doing yon.’ He gestured to where two curly-headed boys were squatting like small animals in the street. They waved and grinned.

  ‘Och away,’ she cried. ‘Surely it does not.’

  ‘Most surely it does, and do not let me see you breaking the rules.’ He grinned again, and said something else which was drowned in a peal of beautiful, elegant church bells from the rich, golden, baroque twin spires across the narrow street. He stopped and listened and when it was done said softly, ‘Oh bonnie, bonnie,’ as once he had said of herself.

  Within the doorway was a long, dark alley, rank and sour. But beyond, it opened out into a courtyard in which a marble fountain scattered sun-silvered drops of water that blew softly across a square of green lawn. Box hedges haphazardly trimmed made a modest pattern about it. Half in a corner, under an orange tree, dreamed an ancient statue of a beautiful woman with but one hand. A dark-skinned baby crawled beneath it, unaware, and pulling at the tail of a brown, mongrel dog. There were a dozen and more speckled chickens scratching on the gravel paths, and a dove, white as snow, in a lemon tree. Marsali was more intrigued by the bright fruit ripening on the tree than all the wonders of Rome.

  ‘Does it grow like that?’ she asked wonderingly.

  ‘Never. They make them of plaster each spring, and paint them there. Are you liking the place?’

  Marsali looked about carefully; the walls were high, and fluted shell-shaped vases were carved in bas-relief in places along them, and held yet a straggle of flowering vines. At the far end was a house of crumbling golden stone, with a steep, crooked tiled roof, its reds dulled by yellow moss. There were three storeys, with two windows each, all wooden-shuttered. At one she saw a flutter of movement.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ she asked.

  ‘What if I was to tell you that this is my true home, and that dark-faced lass at the window were my true mother, and all the rest were enchantment and lies.’

  ‘I’d not believe you,’ she said flatly.

  He shrugged. ‘Maria?’ he shouted. ‘Will
you away down and greet a friend?’

  The woman who had been watching from the window suddenly flung open the closed sash and leaned out and shouted loudly and laughingly in the Italian tongue. Marsali could not understand, though her brother Norman had flung the odd word at her in their childhood. But she caught, sure enough, Antoine’s name, and the tone of endearment upon it.

  The face disappeared from the upstairs window and reappeared shortly at the door of the little house. The woman was not old, perhaps thirty, a little heavy, but with a beautiful, clear olive skin, and lustrous eyes, gentle and black. She had a small child on one arm, like an unnoticed package. When she embraced Antoine, she did not put it down.

  Antoine said something to her, in Italian, that must have been introduction, for the woman turned then, set the child down, and held out both her arms, with their wide, white sleeves fluttering in the summer breeze. She spoke some kind thing and took Marsali’s hands and kissed her both cheeks. Then she kissed Antoine, and Marsali suspected she had been introduced again as his wife. But now, surely, she could scant object.

  The woman went ahead of them, into the house with the small child running after her, clinging to her wide embroidered skirt, and peering round it at the strangers in the garden. Before Marsali would follow, she said to Antoine, in Gaelic, ‘Will you be telling me what we are doing here?’

  ‘Here we will stay. Yon wife has a bed for us, and the heartiest table you’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Is it a tavern, an inn?’

  ‘Och never. You can see yourself, ’tis but a house.’

  ‘Then who is she to you, Antoine, to welcome you home.’

  ‘Not my mother.’

  ‘I am seeing that. She is but your age.’

  ‘She is younger that wee bit. And married. Now.’

  ‘I think I am seeing. Her husband, he is also your friend?’

  Antoine grinned. ‘The Romans are gentle folk, and do not ask more of the flesh than the flesh can bear. Are you liking yon wifie’s bairn?’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘Both. But the elder it is I am thinking of.’