The Sea-Harrower: A Scottish Highlander Historical Romance

by Abigail Clements

  ‘Aye, bonnie, with such fair eyes and so dark a skin.’

  ‘Aye.’

  Marsali turned and looked carefully at him. He was lightly swinging his tri-cornered hat, and smiling peacefully to himself.

  After, when they had dined at the homely, rich table of Maria and her husband, Paolo, the wagoneer, on pasta and salads and fruit, they were shown to a bedroom to rest from their journey and the heat of the day. It was a small room, with a statue of the Virgin cheaply painted in a little niche in the wall, and a marble-topped washstand and a bed. There were unpainted wooden shutters at the window, and Antoine drew them closed, shutting out the late afternoon light.

  He lay down on the bed, and she lay beside him and held his hand. ‘How long may we stay here?’ she asked.

  He shrugged. ‘We’ll not need long. Tomorrow I will bring you to King James in his sad, old palace. And the next day, we can be on our way.’

  ‘On our way.’

  ‘Aye. Home, for we will then surely be done.’

  ‘I am just beginning, Antoine. I will indeed see James, but only as a step to Tearlach. The Rising is not in the hands of James, anymore than the Forty-five.’

  ‘It is not the Rising on your mind.’

  ‘How are you meaning?’ she said.

  He only put the back of his hand across his eyes and replied smoothly, ‘I have promised James MacKinnon to take you to his king. That I will have done. I am away tomorrow, away to Scotland or away to the sea. If you come with me it will be the first. If you do not, the second, and you’ll go, wherever you wish, but you’ll go alone.’

  She sat up in the dim room, looking down at him. ‘Surely you’ll not leave me.’

  ‘You were all for leaving me, scant days ago.’ He sat up, also, and leaned against the old brass bedstead; he was as elegant there as in the château.

  ‘But what of your promise?’

  ‘My promise was to your father, and now it is complete.’

  She swung her feet off the bed and got up and opened the shutters a crack. In the courtyard below, the two children were playing. Unconsciously she laid her strong young hand flat on her stomach. ‘Why always will you honour my father, and never myself? Why will you not come with me, for my own asking, and my own sake.’

  ‘He is a lion, MacKinnon, and a brigand, but I would trust him with my life. Yourself, little cat, I’d not trust with that.’ He tossed a baiocchi, a small Italian coin, at her feet.

  ‘That is cruel, and wicked,’ she cried, and she bent to pick it up and fling it back. There was lettering upon it, in Latin, which by her father’s will she had learned well enough to read. ‘Redeem your sins with charity,’ it said. She looked at it, uneasy, and clutched it tight in her hand.

  ‘A thief to know a thief,’ Antoine said softly, from the bed. ‘And a liar to know a lie.’

  ‘I am neither.’

  ‘Aye, lass.’ He lay back on the rough homespun blanket. ‘Kneel to yon Lady in the niche there, and tell her what you’re bringing to Tearlach. Go on, now, do not be shy. If I am liking the sound of it, perhaps I’ll change my mind.’

  Marsali looked at the statue of the Virgin, naively rapturous with pink plaster cheeks. But the Virgin, for all. She shook her head. Antoine laughed quietly, looking at the cracked, unpainted stucco between the ceiling beams.

  ‘Then it is James, lass, and no more. You see now, faith is an uncanny thing. Faith in a crown keeps Tearlach a wandering beggar. And faith in a Lady will make you the same. You’d be better with my unicorn, lass; he wants nothing of all the wide world, but a friend.’

  But they did not see King James the next day, nor the next. Antoine went out in the city without her, accompanied by Maria’s husband, the cart driver, playing the roles of gentleman and bodyguard. They roamed the taverns and coffeehouses in search of members of King James’s exile court. It appeared a complex diplomatic problem, the gaining of trust and entrance to that society, and the winning of an audience in the Palazzo Muti with the king.

  Or so Antoine was wont to say, on the second night and the third and fourth. Paolo Conti, big and broad and grinning in his brown cloak and high pointed hat with the three cock’s plumes, defended him in bastard French, solemnly echoing his every word. But Marsali was suspicious. It was growing uncanny like the ship at Antibes. Besides, Antoine came home to the courtyard beyond the little house, more nights than one, with his arm about Paolo’s neck, laughing and singing in Italian, and smelling of the country’s good wine.

  ‘They are, I see, a merry lot, those noble exiles of the Cause,’ she said at night, beside him in bed.

  ‘Indeed. Drowning their sorrows and the memories of that warm, sweet country you call home. And to think,’ he added bemused and slipping his arms about her, ‘they are forever trying to return. Would not they be wise to forget old Scotia and her rains, and stay on here in the sun? Would not we be wise as well?’

  ‘No,’ she said, turning from his kisses. ‘Where is your promise, Antoine, and indeed, where is your great threat that you’d leave me, and all, and go away to sea?’

  He kissed her throat and her shoulder, and slipped the shift down from it so he could kiss her breasts. The air was hot and still and insects sang beyond the shutters. She made to speak again, and then did not, but stroked his sleek head in the darkness, and let him have his way. She knew, at once, that it was not King James he shrank from, but his own threat; he had sworn to leave her, and now could not bear to face the day.

  But the day came to him, of its own accord.

  On the fifth night of the second week, Antoine said they would attend the Opera, and she would see something of the civilized world. He sent her out with Maria as serving maid, to a dressmaker, so she might be clothed in style, and so they set out in the evening in a splendid painted carriage he had hired, its driver himself dressed like a king, through the black Roman streets.

  Well before they reached the Opera House, Antoine rapped on the window and had the driver halt in the street. He helped Marsali down, she holding the white silk of her summer gown high, and ducking her head so the white plumes in her hair might emerge undamaged.

  ‘’Tis not just for art, we are going, pretty cat, but for gossip and vanity and for me to show you off to all that pass. We will walk, the now, and see the city.’

  ‘We’ll not see anything, ’tis black as soot.’

  ‘Aye. But still, you’ll be surprised what we might find.’

  There were no lights at all on the streets of Rome. Antoine said they were thought unseemly in a country whose dark summer nights were the province of the Lord. ‘Darkness is the right of folk,’ he said.

  ‘Surely it is the right of folk not wanting to be seen,’ Marsali said wisely. ‘I am thinking Roman thieves must be liking it fine.’

  ‘Never. ’Tis a holiness,’ Antoine said, and in the blackness she could not see if he was laughing or not. ‘Look, the Lady has her lights, and only she.’

  Marsali thought it true, for at every corner of the twisting streets was a little shrine to the Madonna, and before each, below the offerings of silver treasures laid by the guilty there, burned a small light. ‘Some of the more cynical folk, like yourself, were all for lighting the streets in the modern way. But the people would not hear of it, their Lady outshone.’ He laughed. ‘So if we are robbed, we will think of it as an offering. Look you, move away.’

  There was a rumbling and a clatter of shod hooves and the bulk of an unlighted carriage loomed up behind and thundered past, scarce missing them on the rutted, dusty street. Antoine paused then and took the candle from the small cylindrical lantern he was carrying, yet unlit. But he gave it to Marsali to light from the flame at one of the shrines. ‘I am thinking now,’ he said, ‘I will just be playing it safe.’

  They went on, Marsali more at ease with the thin ray of light flickering from the small glass window of the lantern. But more than once a whispered voice from the night called something in Italian, and Antoine at once obediently
shielded the light with his coat, in respect of their privacy.

  They rounded a corner, darker than most, with the black shadow of a great church hanging over them. There were few shapes of distant people, in the gloom, and no carriages at all. Their footsteps echoed against the shuttered black windows of houses, and the empty stalls that in daytime were shops. Marsali heard the crunch of another’s step behind them, and Antoine was instinctively reaching to shield the light when the voice called out, not in Italian, but in English, the familiar phrase, ‘Turn the light, sir, turn the light.’

  ‘Who’s there,’ Marsali whispered, for she had heard the faint Scots accent on the words. Antoine shuttered the lantern, and the flame went out. The shape of a man was more felt than seen. Antoine did not stop walking, his left arm through her own, and his right hand resting on his sword. The man drew beside them and kept walking too.

  ‘The lady, sir?’ the voice inquired.

  ‘The lady is my friend, and a friend to the bonnie moorhen.’

  ‘Tomorrow, sir. I will be there as well.’

  ‘Och, aye,’ said Antoine.

  ‘One other thing, sir. There have been two in the taverns looking for yourself.’

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘I would go canny. There’s none knowing their names but the one looks a brigand for sure.’

  ‘I am thanking you,’ Antoine said softly. ‘’Tis grand to be sought after.’ There was a rustle as if the man had mockingly tipped his hat. He laughed as well, a strong laugh.

  ‘Aye, is it not. We have all been sought after that wee bit in our time. That is all, sir.’

  ‘I am in your debt,’ said Antoine.

  ‘God save King James,’ said the voice, and at once the footsteps ceased, as the man spun on his heel, and then began again and receded, echoing rapidly, down the black street.

  ‘Archibald Cameron,’ said Antoine, as he settled luxuriantly comfortable in the blue, plush seats of their box at the Opera. Marsali sat beside him, marvelling at the splendour of gilded and painted plaster all about them. Above her head a fresco of blue summer sky was painted upon the ceiling, and the banks of candles, and hanging smoke-wisping chandeliers showed it filled with clouds and goat-footed men and tremendous, lush women. Far below them, in the pit before the stage, was a close-packed and colourfully seething crowd, laughing and talking, eating elaborate packed meals and standing at times on the benches to wave to friends. But they were the dregs; society, like themselves, reigned serenely from above.

  ‘He is a doctor and studied in Paris and Rome. A fine man, and a brother of another fine man.’

  ‘Lochiel, that will be,’ Marsali whispered. ‘The gentle Lochiel.’

  ‘Aye. Gentler now than ever, being dead three years. In Paris and in exile, with the blood of his people on his hands.’

  ‘You’re cruel,’ she cried. ‘’Twas not his fault the Rising failed.’

  ‘Indeed no. But rebels who fail are brigands. They who win have an uncanny way of becoming kings.’

  ‘Antoine,’ she said sharply, ‘I am remembering now. Who was the brigand he talked of, looking for yourself, and why?’

  Antoine shrugged. ‘Shall I list you the men in this world who might think I owe them a debt? Indeed a debt of blood? Lassie when you live in the lion’s cave, you must expect, from time to time to run into a lion. Do not fear, though, I’ll soon enough be away to sea, and they’ll not come swimming after.’

  ‘Then it is tomorrow I will see James?’

  ‘I cannot promise. Kings are not so good at keeping appointments. Look yon, we will have music the now.’

  The immense blue and gold velvet curtaining swept up to reveal another, of red, and then that too swept aside. The audience far below shouted and hooted and threw bits of food in the air. But when the elaborately costumed gentleman on the stage began to sing, in stilted and repetitive Italian, there was no calming of the audience. A steady chatter continued, and effectively submerged the voice from the stage. In one corner of the pit, a young man, still wearing his plumed hat, hoisted himself on the shoulders of a companion and began to mimic the singer, adding cheerful animal noises as accompaniment. The crowd was delighted and turned to this brighter star, while the performance continued drearily, but steadily, beyond.

  ‘What is this, surely,’ Marsali said, as the ballet which followed the singer was subjected to the same disdain. But Antoine was engaged in Italian conversation with a lady in a high, powdered wig, leaning out of the next box so far that her beauty-spotted bosom was nearly in his lap. ‘Have none of you any manners?’ she cried.

  ‘Patience,’ Antoine said. ‘They are awaiting the aria and will not be bothered with that nonsense.’

  Then suddenly the music soared, and a clear marvellous voice rose melodically above it, and at once the entire huge auditorium was still. Food was left, and lovers ceased their pawing, and even the lady by Antoine withdrew herself behind her fan. The voice was clear as the clearest of child’s voices, and far, far higher than any she’d heard on a man, and she listened entranced. The aria finished and the audience stamped and shouted and clapped wildly. But when the recitative began again, between two lesser figures, they once more dismissed the stage from their notice.

  Marsali said, ‘I am seeing why you’re liking Rome so fine. ’Tis a whole city full of ones like yourself. I am knowing at last where you got your fine manners.’

  ‘No,’ he laughed. ‘’Tis not true, but how are you liking the music and this bonnie place?’

  ‘The place I have seen nothing like, nor have I heard the like of the music. It was like an angel the voice of that man. How can he sing so?’

  Antoine laughed richly. ‘To sing like one, he must unfortunately live like one.’ She shook her head, and he leant over and said, ‘Are you not knowing, lass?’

  ‘Only that it is the bonniest thing I’ve ever heard.’

  ‘Aye. I will tell you the bonnie way it is done, then. You see yon poor benighted sod,’ he waved to the handsome singer, and she nodded. ‘’Tis a libbet. Castrati, the Romans say.’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Och, but he is. Poor soul. They geld them as wee laddies to make that bonnie sound. What are you thinking of that?’

  ‘Surely no.’

  ‘Surely yes.’

  ‘But it was so beautiful, so beautiful.’

  Antoine leaned forward looking down into the wildness of the gay, unmannered audience. He said, ‘Surely that is the way of humankind, to set its heart on something beautiful, be it a song, or a story, the love of a lover, or the honour of a nation, and pursue it like wolves, ne’er counting the cost. Your flaw, little cat, is not seeing that beauty and good are not the same thing. Mind on that, when you meet your bonnie king.’

  Then he stood up suddenly, with the opera still going on below, but his eyes fixed sharply on something in the crowded pit, ‘But now I am seeing something else. Come away, lassie, ’tis time to go.’

  He hurried her from the box and back down the beautiful marble stair, glistening wet with the use the gentlemen had put it to. Outside in the street he kept walking, his arm firm about her, and the whole of him tense and alert. She asked again and again, why they had fled so, with the opera just begun. He made no answer till they had found a hire carriage, and it had taken them all the way through the dark filthy streets to the narrow alleyway that led to their lodgings in the Campo Marzio.

  Outside once more, he turned and looked coolly down the darkened way they had come. He said in a low, sad voice, ‘In the lion’s den, one meets lions. You’ll not believe me, lass, and I scarce believe myself, but I am thinking, there, I saw a lion’s cub.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘Yon’s your patron,’ Marsali said slyly, as the bells began to ring. ‘So maybe you should come and all, you bearing a Christian name.’

  ‘’Twas my father named me, not myself.’ Antoine toyed with the curly hair of Maria’s eldest bairn, and stared fixedly into the fountain. Paolo said, no m
atter, for he too bore a saint’s name, but he was not going anywhere, the sun being so grand in that peaceful corner of the courtyard, beneath the grape arbour.

  Maria said in Italian that praying was for women, in Rome. Men for their part did all the sinning and considered it a fair division. She shrugged, tossing thick black curls over her shoulders and tying a white muslin veil over her head. Marsali did not understand, but Maria smiled broadly in her way, and patted her cheek with one hand, gathering up the child with the other. They’d never spoken a word, she and Maria, sharing no language, but Marsali found herself grown dearly fond of the wagon driver’s gentle wife. She gathered the baby in her arms and covered her own head, and they went out from the courtyard, down the shaded alleyway and into the street.

  The Church of San Antonio was but steps away, across the dirt road, and people were flocking to it from all the neighbourhood. The sun shone, rich and dusty on its twin lavish spires, and the bells were yet ringing for the Sabbath mass. Yesterday Marsali had crept alone there, while Antoine played with Maria’s children, and confessed her sins in Latin to the Italian priest. Last night, in Antoine’s bed, she had refused him, and he had turned from her like a rebuked child.

  At the doorway of the church with the cool breath of the stone-shadowed air upon her, she turned. Antoine was standing alone, by the door of the alleyway, his coat loosely flung over his shoulders and his arms crossed, holding the lapels closed across his throat. He was listening to the bells, shyly, like a wild beast drawn out of the forest by the light of a fire.

  When she came out again, after mass, he was yet there, having waited all the time for her in the street.

  ‘I am thinking,’ she said sharply, ‘you’re indeed the changeling Ishbel says you are, lurking here on the edge of blessed ground. I will be flicking holy water over you, and you’ll vanish in smoke.’

  He turned his back. ‘Did I drown you in the sea when well I could have?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Aye then, let us both play fair.’ Then he took her arm and said, ‘Come, we will make our promenade through the markets, like fashionable folk, and there find neutral ground.’