‘What are you saying? I have no idea what you are saying? Who is the cailleach and why must she sleep?’
‘I am always forgetting how very little you know. The cailleach is the wise old woman. Such as I will become in time, God willing. She walks the fields, bringing winter in her wake. A good thing too. The land needs to sleep and we need to rest for a time, while she walks and renews, walks and renews. Only now, she’s growing weary. It’s her turn to lie down and sleep. Then the springtime will come. You can feel her clinging on. Soon, she’ll not be able to resist. She will lie down and take her rest, and the blessed Bride will come and bring the springtime with her all over again.’
She took his hand, dusty from the cas chrom, the nails chipped and stained and dirty, and laid it at her breast. He felt her heart beating strongly beneath his fingers. The stretch of land where he was working, while not remote, was at least hidden from prying eyes. Or so he thought. He held her at arm’s length for a moment, afraid of muddying her gown, her wrap, and then unable to resist the desire in her eyes, bent and kissed her full on the lips. Heedless, she pulled him closer. ‘Oh my darling,’ she said. ‘What are we to do?’
‘What are we to do? What can we do?’ he echoed.
‘I’m sure I don’t know. We have a saying here: what’s for you won’t go by you. Perhaps we should wait and see what the springtime brings.’
*
They must have been watched. Not closely, perhaps, otherwise the consequences would have been even worse, for Lilias as well as for himself. But from a distance, Iain Og McNeill, returning from some errand for his master, had perhaps lurked and watched and seen what amounted to an unwise intimacy between the incomer and the daughter of the house. Maybe the kiss had been observed. Afterwards, Mateo found himself wondering why the man had not gone straight to Ruaridh McNeill with his suspicions, but then it occurred to him that Lilias would have denied it. Of course she would. She would have described it merely as a friendly encounter, because she was in the habit of bringing the stranger some refreshment when he was working out in the fields like this, as she brought bere bannocks and a flask of ale to the other men and women from time to time. She would have expressed outrage and indignation and Ruaridh would have believed his daughter. Whatever he may have suspected, he would have trusted her. Besides, he was well aware that the presence of the two young Spaniards on the island was causing a certain amount of discontent and even downright hostility among some of the islandmen, who saw them as a threat, as unwelcome strangers, possibly even as enemy spies. They could not go against McNeill’s wishes, but the feeling persisted all the same and McNeill knew it.
Mateo had finished his day’s work and was trudging home, carrying the cumbersome cas chrom as best he could. He was so tired that he could think of nothing except the warmth of the fire, food of some kind and a long sleep. Darkness was coming on. He was passing the walls of a long-abandoned cottage when some never-quite-quiescent sixth sense kicked in, the tingle of danger, and he suddenly became aware of movement out of the corner of his eye. All his old instincts of self-preservation surfaced. Three men were slinking out from behind the remains of a turf wall where they had been lying in wait for him, far enough from the house for them to attack him without anyone coming to his assistance. Three against one. Bad, he thought, but not insurmountable.
He saw even in the gathering gloom that they had no weapons. So they planned to give him a beating, but would stop short of killing him, knowing that their chief had guaranteed his safety, would be forced to investigate and punish a murder. They circled him warily. They had been hoping to take him completely by surprise but now they had to rely on their greater numbers. He recognised Iain Og, and two more of McNeill’s followers, herdsmen. He didn’t know their names but they had been among the young men who came down from the shielings in the autumn. They spoke to each other in their own tongue, but he didn’t need to translate what they were saying. He had fought enough men, sometimes to the death, to be able to read them. The fight was brief and brutal. They relied on fists and strength but he had the cas chrom, which – he immediately realised – was a pretty good defensive weapon if needed. He had been exhausted, but the energy of battle suddenly surged through him and he swung it like a great sword, catching Iain Og on the side and throwing him off balance. The other two rushed forward, but he swung the heavy metal foot back again, sweeping it low to the ground and knocking a second man down. As Iain regained his balance, Mateo carried on swinging in a wide arc, hearing the satisfactory crack of metal colliding with bone. Iain gave a great cry of pain, and hopped away backwards, groaning. One of the attackers had circled behind him, and jumped on his back, throttling him, but Mateo instinctively crouched down low as he had been taught by his father, and used the man’s own forward momentum and body weight to throw him to the ground. Sending a little prayer of thanks home to his father, fierce and uncompromising as the man had been throughout his childhood, he stood back, panting, reversing the cas chrom and holding it by the weighty metal foot. One of his attackers was winded, one disabled. The third made a last attempt to seize the improvised weapon, but Mateo had the advantage and thrust it forward into the man’s belly, knocking him to the ground.
‘Enough?’ He held the plough ready for another bout.
The three men cursed him and backed off. He couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying, but the general tenor of their words was obvious.
‘Leave the lassie alane,’ growled Iain Og. ‘Do you hear me, interlowper? Leave the lassie alane. You’ve been warned. Next time we’ll bring swords.’
They left him then, the two bruised men helping Iain along, walking on either side of him so that he could take the weight off his leg. Mateo wondered what story they would tell Ruaridh, or Beathag, who would have to tend to their injuries. Not the truth, surely. Reaction set in, and he had to sit down on a stone for a while, to recover himself. He was torn between laughter at the nature of his weapon and fear that somebody really had seen the kiss and would tell tales to McNeill. But when he arrived back at the house, Beathag and the other women were gossiping about the kicking and subsequent broken bone that Iain Og had had from one of the beasts. Lilias was nowhere to be seen.
‘It was a clean break, and should heal well enough. But you should never get between a cow and her calf,’ said Beathag wisely. ‘Let that be a warning to you too, Mateo.’
Relieved and weary, Mateo thought that he and Lilias had had a narrow escape. They would have to be more careful in future. Or perhaps, for her sake as much as his own, he should follow the advice of the three men and ‘leave the lassie alane’.
*
For the first time in his life, Mateo envied his cousin. They had been as close as brothers, even though he was so much older, but perhaps for that very reason, he had always been the leader, always giving instructions while Francisco had been content to follow. It occurred to him now that his cousin may have resented this, even though he had never spoken of it. Now, Francisco was spending days, as long as the light lasted, painting the portrait of Lilias. He had already finished a charming study of Ishbel, in her best gown, a basket of clam shells in her hand, like a little pilgrim, and the two dogs at her feet. She looked half young woman, half sprite, ‘a changeling for sure,’ her father said, but Mateo could see that he was very pleased, and was glad of it. As soon as Francisco began his portrait of Lilias in her yellow gown, with her pearls and her lace, Mateo went back moodily to his ploughing, and stayed there, although he kept a close eye out for angry islandmen and kept his plough at the ready when he was walking to and from the fields. Nobody approached him. With every chik-chik, chik-chik of the blade, he thought about the kiss. Thought about her closeness. The scent of her, the warmth of her. He thought too about all the lines and planes of her, the mathematics of her, the right, perfect proportions of her. He could travel to the ends of the earth and he would never find her like again. The earth was loose bene
ath the foot plough, so the work could have been worse. The island was damp and windy, but seldom troubled by frosts. His first sight of snow here had been on the distant peaks of another island, but it was a rare winter indeed when snow came to Garbh. It was not entirely unknown to him either, since Teide, the sleeping dragon of his island, was occasionally snowy, even while the uneasy earth below the peak was beset by fumaroles.
McNeill followed the progress of the portrait: Lilias in her yellow dress, lace at her breast, pearls at her throat and a spray of entirely imaginary lilies in her hand, for such things were unknown on this island, but not unknown to Francisco, who could paint them from memory. Lilies for a lily. McNeill had plans for the portrait. He had had word that Seoras Darroch of Jura, who had fostered Lilias’s younger brother, was still interested in making a match with his daughter. He was a gentleman of superior quality, a man of means, with herds of cattle and plenty of fighting men at his call. A good husband, a good provider too. If Lilias thought that he was also an old husband, she was a girl who could put off till tomorrow anything that she didn’t need to worry about today. Independent in so many ways, she was in the habit of obeying her father without question. He had never given her bad advice in her life. Never gone against her wishes. Until now. And even now, she had to admit that he might be right. A marriage to Darroch might be a good thing. He was a prosperous man and, by reputation at least, shrewd.
She spoke to Mateo about it one evening when they were sitting by the fire, in full view of whoever might pass through the Great Hall. He was grateful that she could confide in him, but it was a confidence that was not much inclined to raise his spirits. Her proximity was a peculiar kind of torment to him. It felt as though there was a fine mesh of threads between the two of them, pulling them closer together. With every breath he had to resist the impulse to reach out and touch her. He wondered if she felt the same.
‘The truth is that whenever I think about leaving this island, about going elsewhere, going to live among strangers on a bigger, bleaker island altogether, my heart quails. I can’t lie about that. I would have to make a new life for myself as the wife of an older man and the mother of his surviving children. It’s a daunting prospect. I can’t even begin to picture it.’
Having failed to picture it, she dismissed it from her mind until it seemed impossible to choose otherwise. Impossible to quarrel with the plans that were already being drawn up for the marriage.
‘I feel,’ she said in an undertone, ‘much like the poor woman who was enticed to touch the water horse. I’m being dragged along to my doom, and there is nothing I can do to remedy it.’
‘Can you not tell your father how you feel?’
‘How can I?’
‘I don’t mean about me. I don’t mean for you to tell him that you have any feelings for me. If you have.’
She gazed at him for a moment. ‘Do you doubt me?’
‘I don’t know what to think. But perhaps you could tell him that you have changed your mind. That you don’t wish to marry this Darroch after all.’
‘The truth is that I never wished to marry him. I was given no choice in the matter. Assumptions were made. And I didn’t contradict them. If I had, I think my father wouldn’t have taken it so far, even though it’s a good match. Now it’s too late. I need the water bull to rescue me.’
‘I’d gladly sacrifice myself to save you.’
‘But it would do you no good, Mateo. For they would be outraged and they would still make me marry him. Your fate would be very uncertain. My father is a good man, but he is also a hot-tempered man.’
The plan was that Darroch would visit in the spring. There would be a betrothal ceremony. The portrait would be a wedding gift to Ruaridh McNeill’s new son-in-law, although McNeill had been heard to say that he would prefer to keep the likeness here on Garbh, to remind himself of the much-loved daughter he was about to lose. Francisco, hearing this, relayed it to Mateo.
‘I suspect,’ he said, ‘that McNeill is in no great hurry for the marriage to take place. I think he would be happier if both portrait and girl stayed here on the island. Or at least that’s what Beathag told me.’
Difficult as communication was between them, Beathag had grown very fond of the young man. His vulnerability seemed to have struck some chord in her and she mothered him.
‘But what use is this to me? Or to Lilias?’ Mateo asked, morosely. ‘McNeill may not want to lose her, but that doesn’t mean he’ll consider me a fitting husband, does it?’
‘Why not? If she loves you? It seems to me that he indulges her in everything. Besides, we are men of good family.’
‘We are penniless foreigners here, Paco. Nothing more. If it comes to a choice between an alliance with a wealthy chieftain and an unwise marriage to an enemy stranger, which one do you think he would prefer? I have nothing to offer her. Nothing.’
The days grew longer, and the Spaniards began to see what Ishbel had meant, last year, when she said that the island would be full of flowers. The house was well named. The stretch of land above the shoreline was a natural tapestry, woven, as Lilias would have it, by ‘blessed Bride herself’ striding openly through the fields now while the cailleach slept: great drifts of early primroses and violets, marsh mallow, self-heal and trefoil, clover, pink campion, bluebells and frothy cow parsley. Across the hills behind the house, the early white of blackthorn soon gave place to golden whin and creamy, sweet-scented may. Mateo thought about the almond trees at home, in all their beauty, but saw that the flowers of this island were just as lovely. Lilias told him of the yellow flag irises and the purple foxgloves that were to come. Clumps of sea pinks would rustle in the breeze along the seashore. There would be roses, delicate pink and white roses scrambling among the rocks and a froth of heady meadowsweet. Lilias told him the names whenever they could snatch a moment together and he repeated them after her. He was dizzy with the beauty of this landscape and dizzy with a desire for her that he could do nothing to remedy or assuage.
Darroch postponed his visit. He sent word, via McAllister, that he had much to occupy him at home. He would come later in the summer. He could not spare the time for a betrothal and a wedding right now. Lilias didn’t know whether to be glad or offended. McNeill was offended but tried hard not to show it. Darroch was something of a catch and proud men must be given some leeway. He was a proud man himself and understood this well enough, but his daughter was such a prize. Why did the man not treasure her as he, her father, did? Why did he seem unaware of his own good fortune?
*
The portrait was finished, the spring sowing was done and the cattle had left for the shielings and the higher pastures, taking half the Achadh nam Blàth household and the inhabitants of the nearby clachans with them. Mateo noticed with some relief that two of his attackers were among those departing. Iain Og’s leg was not yet mended, but as soon as it was sound, he would be joining them. The cailleach was asleep, and Bride still danced through the fields, strewing flowers in her wake. While Francisco taught Ishbel the rudiments of drawing and painting, and while McNeill was away on business of his own to the settlements in the south and west of the island, Lilias and Mateo slipped away separately and unnoticed, and met in the privacy of Dun Faire. They climbed the crumbling stairs to the higher floors, sitting up there watching the sea, the distant islands, the occasional fishing coble or galley, the patches of wind and the cloud reflections moving across the changing face of the water.
They contrived to meet like this on several occasions, becoming adept at dissembling, leaving the house individually on this or that pretext. It was easier for Mateo, who had the excuse of outdoor work. Lilias was always having to invent excuses for leaving her little sister behind, but since Francisco was complicit in their arrangements, they managed it somehow or other. It helped that so many people had left for the higher pastures, and that McNeill himself was often away from home at this time of year.
For a while, they were happy simply to be in each other’s company, but inevitably the desire that had plagued them both could be satisfied only by kissing and soon enough kissing turned to touching. One day Mateo came early to the Dun, bringing his knife that had been returned to him by McNeill, for practical rather than warlike purposes, and cut enough young heather to make a soft bed among the stones. Even as he worked, feeling the rough stems and the soft shoots against his fingers, he knew what his intentions were and how unwise they might be, but the strength of his feelings and the recognition that she felt the same overrode all prudence and propriety. There, on a heather bed, like many young men and women before them, they lay close and made love, lip against lip, breast against breast, arms and legs and at last bodies intertwined, neither knowing nor minding where one person ended and the other began.
After that, passion would not be denied and they met often, becoming careless in their desire. But whatever goddess oversees such things, Bride herself perhaps, was disposed to be kind to them, and their secret remained safe within the ancient walls of Dun Faire. Longing to make some gesture of good faith, he took his precious golden ring from its hiding place, next to his heart, and placed it on her finger. She admired it on her hand for a moment or two, kissed him, and then slipped it off to examine it more closely.
‘This is the most beautiful gift anyone has ever given me. The hare. The lilies. And have you seen that the hare is leaping sunwise?’
‘I noticed it when you spoke about the boats going with the sun. Lilias, it’s the only thing of any value I possess. Well, that and my honour. It has been with me for many miles and through many trials. Whatever happens, I want you to keep it.’
She peered inside it. ‘What does this say? Vouz et nul autre. Is that Spanish?’
‘No.’ He smiled at her pronunciation. ‘It’s French. It means you and no other. The ring is from France and it’s very old. Perhaps a hundred years. See – there’s another inscription too. Un temps viendra. A time will come. Maybe our time will come at last.’
The Posy Ring Page 29