The Sea-Harrower: A Scottish Highlander Historical Romance

by Abigail Clements

  ‘Damn that Frenchman, I will kill him,’ Murdoch said quietly, with his patient farmer’s hand on the hilt of his unaccustomed sword.

  ‘Nonsense. ’Tis you the poet now,’ Marsali cried. ‘What right have you to be wreaking fine highland vengeance on Antoine? Did he not do all he promised? He cared for me well, and brought me to Avignon, and then on to Rome, all for my father’s sake. I have seen the king and laid our worthless offering at his royal feet, and been turned away for the foolish trash I am. Antoine has kept all his promises. He did not promise James MacKinnon to forbear from that bit whoring, by the way. Nor did he promise to stand faithful by the whore.’

  Murdoch lifted his big hand coolly, and without passion or thought he brought it across her face with force enough to fling her to the turf. ‘You’ll not shame my father’s name, woman,’ he cried, as she lay there on the ground. ‘You’ll not shame his name.’

  But Rory leapt for Murdoch and struck him hard across the mouth, and there was no humour this time. Murdoch said softly, ‘Damn, brother, but I’ve fair had enough the day,’ and without a moment’s pause he drew his sword.

  ‘Och away,’ Rory said, turning his back in disbelief, but he froze with the tip of Murdoch’s broadsword at his spine.

  ‘You’ll fight now, damn you, for my sister’s honour, and I, for that of my father.’

  And so Rory flung himself back out of the way, and, since Murdoch but lunged after him with the sword, he was forced to draw his own in his defence.

  ‘Man, we’ve no time for the likes of this.’

  Murdoch slashed out with a dangerous surety, and Rory parried but uneasily, still arguing, till Murdoch cried again, ‘Fight, damn you; for my father’s honour I’ve always the time.’

  ‘Your father will whip the foolish pair of you,’ Marsali cried, scrambling up to her feet amazed and furious, ‘to hear you’ve come to this.’

  Murdoch stopped short and lowered the sword, and Rory relaxed against the laurel ledge with clear relief, Murdoch turned slowly and looked long and cool on his sister standing there. He rested the tip of the sword then on the edge of the marble fountain, letting the water splash over it and staring at the glistening ripples there made. Then he said very quietly, as if he had not been fighting anyone at all, ‘Why am I not in Trotternish, girl, at the work of my father’s harvest?’

  ‘Surely he is harvesting himself.’

  ‘Aye. A long reaping it will be. The Ghillie’s Cot is without a roof, lass; would I leave my father so?’

  ‘Surely he is roofing it himself,’ Marsali whispered.

  ‘No, lass,’ Murdoch said, yet toying with the sword. ‘He has roof enough forever, and no more need of bread.’

  ‘What riddle is this, brother, what are you telling me?’

  Murdoch turned from her and slashed the water of the fountain with a great white splash. He shouted out, so loud that none heard the creak and scrape of the palace door, ‘He is dead, Marsali. Hung by the neck from the rooftree of the Ghillie’s Cot. Dead and in his grave now five months gone. And that the work of yon gentle English soldier with whom you once spoke so kind.’

  ‘No,’ Marsali cried, ‘no, no, it cannot be!’ Then she screamed like a wild thing and flung herself at Murdoch in a fury, for his bearing her the word. Rory caught her in his arms and held her back. She cried out again and again, obsessed with the treachery of the English soldier. ‘But he swore, he swore, I had his word.’ Rory but held her the tighter until she was no longer crying words or tears, but a gasping, raw animal sound.

  Then there was silence, and she yet clung to Rory’s ragged shirt, and he held her now, like a lover. And in the silence, the palace door scraped and clunked shut on its old iron latch. ‘The devil,’ cried Murdoch and whirled about, sword in hand. But he stopped still and whispered softly, amazed, ‘Och, to hell.’ Marsali straightened in Rory’s arms and looked up through wet lashes. Antoine was standing by the door.

  He was standing very still, beneath the orange trees, the shadows dappling his face and hair. He made no reply to Murdoch, nor seemed even to see him, or Marsali held there so kindly in a stranger’s arms. He said only, as if to himself alone, in a clear foreign voice, ‘Did they do that? Did they kill my lion of the north?’

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘But why, Antoine will you be telling me? Why did you go, and why came you again?’

  They lay together in an ancient bed in the first tavern of their new journey. It was an old, old place in the mountains north of Rome, which they, four of them on weary horses, had come to late in the night. Rory and Murdoch slept near the kitchens, but their own room was high under the eaves, and Marsali could hear the rain tapping on the tile roof, in the darkness.

  She could not see Antoine’s face, but felt it instinctively with a gentle, loving hand, the familiar line of brow and cheekbone. As she touched the fine-turned mouth he kissed her fingers. ‘Och, love,’ she whispered, ‘I’m not caring if you tell or no. It is that good to have you back.’

  ‘Lost sheep are much favoured,’ Antoine said. He was lying very still, and though he held her other hand with his own, he made no attempt to touch her body. He said, ‘Are you not glad to see him, too, who has returned as from the dead?’

  ‘I’d not talk of that, Antoine,’ she said at once.

  He sighed softly. ‘Then you are glad. If you cared but little, you’d talk free enough.’ Then he said clearly, ‘I saw Murdoch, that day, at the Opera House, and I knew all was changed; there were new rules to the game. So I fled, not wanting to play to the end.’

  ‘You’re a strange kind of coward, lad,’ she said, ‘to run from a fancy like that.’

  ‘’Twas no fancy. The world of men is a muckle entangling thing; the longer you stay, the more it will wrap you up, like the vines all tangling the roof over our heads. A day again, there would be no escaping. I went for my safety, lass, no better reason.’

  ‘I am sure,’ she said coolly. ‘Why then did you come back?’

  ‘Because of late I’ve become a fool.’ He reached over her with one arm, and raised himself and stretched himself lightly upon her body, his mouth above her mouth, his hands beneath her hair. ‘Och, love me, Marsali, ’tis an old world, spinning faster to its end.’

  In the darkness she drew him close, upon her, and locked her arms about his slender waist. ‘Yes, oh yes,’ she whispered and cried with delight as he came to her with familiar ease. Her hands slid down, across his hips, rejoicing in the lean hardness of his body. She flung herself against him, and he met her as fiercely; like two strong young animals, they made love. But when passion swept her and she would cry aloud, a shriek of pleasure, she remembered the one who slept far below in the kitchens of the inn, and stifled the cry, with her lips against the talisman at Antoine’s throat. She felt him stiffen, the whole length of him, and it was not with love. For an instant she was sure he would forsake her, but he did not, a slave to his body’s need. He spent his seed within her, but with a curse, and wrenched himself free.

  They lay silent, side by side, partners of an unkind union. Slowly she got up from the bed and lit a candle from the low fire, finding the darkness unwelcome, and sleep far away. She looked back to the bed. Antoine lay yet in the exhaustion of love, one arm outflung on the rough muslin pillow, the other across his naked body. He was so beautiful she wanted to weep, and swept with tenderness stood beside him and drew the bedclothes over him against the cool mountain air.

  He said nothing, nor opened his eyes, as she lay down again beside him, and laid her head on his sweat-damp shoulder. He reached for her, tiredly, and gathered a great mass of her long, loose hair. ‘I have lost you,’ he said.

  ‘How can you say? Was I not only now in your arms?’

  ‘Who was in your mind, though you were in my arms?’

  ‘Yourself alone.’

  He sighed softly, and yet played with her hair. ‘Do not lie to me. You can lie to them all, pretty cat, but not to me.’ Then he cried out angri
ly, ‘Och to hell,’ and flung her aside. He stood up, angrily wrapping himself in a blanket like a highlander’s plaid. ‘Lassie, what a tangle you’ve led me to.’

  ‘You are free to go, Antoine,’ she said in a small, cold voice.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said. ‘And who are you to tell me that I am free?’ Then he stalked away and stood, yet wrapped in his mock plaid, by the black, vine-hung window. ‘Love is a most enchanted cord, little cat. We’ve all the power to bind it up tight. ’Tis not so easy to unbind. No matter for you though,’ he said sadly. ‘You’ve himself now, and no doubt he’d warm your bed as well as I.’

  She made to protest but he stepped to her and laid a thin hand across her lips. He half closed his eyes and shook his head, refusing to listen or see. ‘Do not mind,’ he said. ‘It is not for yourself I’ve come from Rome, but for that precarious fool you call a prince. Och, he’s but a man, like all men, but he will do for our standard-bearer. We’ll hang our Cause about his neck.’ He laughed shortly. ‘With any luck he’ll throttle with it, by the by.’

  ‘Are you really meaning that, Antoine? Are you really to do this thing, with Rory and Murdoch and yon Doctor Cameron? Surely I thought you jesting.’

  ‘No longer, lass. I will not jest longer. Och Tearlach is nothing to me, nor even good James. Nor Scotland herself if you must know. I am like that poor king himself, without a place in the world; too rooted in the old to be planted again in the new. But I will yet join your brother, and the friend you care so little for, and we will play again this foolish game.’

  ‘But why, Antoine, if you’ve no place in it all?’

  ‘Little cat, little cat. ’Tis like all wars. All men fight in the end for their own private cause. One fights for land. That is Murdoch. And one for a dream; ’tis your friend. And another for a vengeance of the blood. That is yourself now, most surely, for has not your father’s death won you, at long last, to your father’s Cause?’

  Marsali laughed bitterly. ‘All his life he strove to make a Jacobite of me, never knowing that all he need do is die, and the miracle is accomplished.’ There were tears mingled in her laughter. ‘Antoine, how could they? How could they betray me so? The bastards; I’ll make them pay.’

  He laughed also then, and with no tears. ‘Och, little cat. Such a nation you come from. You speak always best in the language of blood. Small wonder you are yet barbarians. Barbarians, all. Aye well, it is myself as well, Marsali. That is why I am here. I will have revenge now for my lion though it costs me my life.’

  He flung himself down on the bed, weary and angry, and in despair she blew out the light. He would not touch her, nor she him, but in the morning, when the crowing of the cocks in the midden below awakened him, she was in his arms, and he in hers. With the fingers of one hand he traced the edging of her face at the hairline, and watched her brown lashes flutter, as in a dream. His fingers touched her lips and in her sleep she kissed them and whispered, ‘Rory, Rory, it cannot be.’

  He did not wake her, but slipped from the white arms and rose without sound. He dressed himself solemnly, and when he was done, stood before the cracked mirror propped lazily on a wooden chest against the stuccoed wall. It was dusty and smeared and showed a thin fine-turned boy’s face that made a mockery of his age. He had his mother’s eyes, and their reflection brought her to his mind, and he touched her gift tied about his brown throat. But beyond the eyes, he could not recall her face, over the years that lay between.

  He looked down to the bed. Perhaps she had looked like Marsali, with a strong, high-boned island face, and a waterfall of hair. He knelt by the bed, as he had seen Marsali do, each night, with her hands twined in her beads, saying her prayers. But having no prayers, he was silent, and gently stroked her hair where it tumbled, sleep-tangled across the bed. He laid his hard young face against it, with a yearning for the softness there. She did not wake, and he gently gathered a lock of it, so it tangled richly golden about his hands, like Marsali’s net of beads. He kissed the hair, and dropped it from his hands, and went out the door.

  When Marsali rose alone, she dressed with quick unease, remembering the anger in which they had slept. She half expected to find him gone away, when she climbed alone down the two flights of narrow steep stairs to the body of the inn below. But he was there, sitting at a long, bare wooden table, in the sun of an open window, while a maid in an embroidered white dress brought coffee and fruit and bread.

  Rory and Murdoch were not far away, bent over the table, arguing intently. Rory rose to his feet as she entered but yet faced Murdoch and said, ‘If we go overland all the way to Ghent, we will lose time in the mountains. And Cameron, going by sea from Savona, will arrive far ahead of us.’

  ‘It is autumn and the seas are uneasy,’ said Murdoch. ‘It will take him a fair while, too, and ships are not always where you want them. And do not be in such a hurry lad, you’ll not miss the fight. It will take more than a day or two to unseat King George.’

  All the while Antoine said nothing but sat carefully polishing his broadsword, like one of a mind to use it. Marsali thought him somehow different, and knew suddenly it was the cheerless way he held the weapon. She did not like that, and came uneasily to sit beside him. As she did, he said quietly, ‘Marsali, I am thinking, you are unkind to this lad.’ He shrugged one shoulder towards Rory.

  ‘How is that?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘Is it not to himself you are pledged?’

  Rory said at once, ‘I hold her to no pledge.’

  ‘I was not asking you. Marsali?’

  ‘I’m not answering, Antoine. You’re after making trouble.’

  ‘Were you pledged?’ he said evenly and calmly, and Marsali saw suddenly that his ever calm and steady hands were now trembling on the sword.

  ‘We were pledged,’ said Rory.

  Antoine swung around to face him. ‘Thank you. I was but wanting a civil answer. Now we will honour your vows. You’re not my bride, Marsali, as you said once yourself. You are nothing to me but a concubine, as the holy writings say. I give you my concubine, Rory MacLeod. She is yours.’

  ‘I’m not yours to give,’ Marsali cried angrily, but Antoine swung around and the sword flashed in the morning sun. He held its tip to Rory’s throat.

  ‘Go to him or, I will kill him,’ he said. ‘I will not lie with one who cuckolds me in her heart.’

  Marsali screamed and flung herself at Rory, mindless of the sword. Its razor edge jerked inches from her face as she did. She had caught even Antoine by surprise, and his own face was white.

  ‘Aye, but you are your father’s daughter,’ he whispered. ‘I might have killed you, lass, I might have killed you.’ She turned to face him, her body yet a shield before Rory’s as they stood together.

  ‘You may yet, if you wish, but you’ll not kill him. He’s no part in the nonsense between you and me.’

  ‘I am thinking he is but the centre of it, little cat,’ Antoine sighed. ‘Away now, you’ve made your choice.’

  ‘You’ve made it for me, fool,’ she cried indignant, and sad. ‘Antoine how can you do this? What manner of judgment is this, at the point of a sword?’

  ‘The judgment of Solomon, little cat.’ He sheathed the sword and walked quietly out the door.

  Rory, standing yet behind her, relaxed with a long sigh and said, ‘Marsali, these friends you’ve found since I’ve been away, aye play rough, when they play.’

  ‘’Tis no play.’

  ‘Whatever. Go to him, lassie. I’ve loved you for seven years, and I’ll not forget my pledge. But you’ll not come to me like this, at the point of a sword. Go to the one you choose.’

  ‘The one I choose?’ she whispered angrily. ‘Are you thinking now, I’ll run away after him?’

  ‘I am thinking you love him. And he’ll not wait.’

  ‘Are you now? And are you as anxious to be rid of me as he? Well away after him yourself, and hold a pistol to his head, and maybe he’ll be persuaded to have me back.’ She stalked away
from him, staring angrily at the scattering of fruit on the floor, flung there in the scuffle. The little serving maid was cowering yet in a corner, eyes wide, lips moving in a string of desperate prayers.

  Murdoch said, ‘Away, lass, ’tis but a game,’ but the child spoke nothing but the Italian tongue. Murdoch glowered at her and waved his hand, and she vanished then with a scuffle of dirty bare feet.

  ‘I, for one, will be having my breakfast,’ he said and sat down to his coffee and bread, looking at neither Rory nor his sister.

  Rory crouched down and gathered oranges up, like potatoes from the earth. He set them on the table one by one. He said, ‘I am wondering if ever a duel was fought of this like, with the loser getting the lady.’ He grinned lightly.

  ‘To hell with you both,’ Marsali said. ‘I’d have neither, were you the last men on earth. I’ve enough of you and your cloying chivalry, and himself, and his games.’ She waved curtly to the door where Antoine had disappeared. But Murdoch, sitting by the sunny window and watching out, said suddenly, with an uneasy low voice, ‘Och, lassie, I am hoping now you mean that, for yon is himself, and I am seeing now, he was not in jest.’

  She ran to the window, her hands on the weathered, bare wood sill. On the rocky road, the way they had come, with the green, soft hills falling on either side, was Antoine, mounted on his grey horse and riding at a canter towards the east, where, in the far distance, they could yet glimpse the warm Italian sea.

  Marsali stood long, watching him out of sight, a slender, near frail, dark figure with a rakish, white-cockaded hat. She would not weep, not before Rory and her brother, but her hands tightened on the sill, till the knuckles whitened and they trembled when at last she turned away.

  Rory whispered to himself, ‘Och to hell. Am I the cause of all this?’

  She turned to him briefly and then lightly touched his arm, with sisterly warmth, and no more. ‘No, lad, ’twas not for you, nor for me. ’Twas all for a lion. ’Twas all for a lion from the start.’