The Raven's Wish

by King, Susan

  She arched her back and he swept his hands over her breasts until the tips were tight buds beneath his palms, and then he took one and then the other into his mouth. She cried out and flung herself forward, her hair waving over him like cool silk, like fine-spun gold reddened with fire.

  Following a deep, soothing rhythm, she moved over him, her breasts skimming over his chest. He curled forward and caught a tip with his mouth, soft and yet hard, warm and firm in his lips.

  Then he rolled her over and laid her back, shifting over her, feeling her move and open her legs beneath him, and he entered, sweetly plunging into that welcoming heat. Enclosed, he moved in rhythmic pursuit of a feeling, an intense vortex, far more than physical. Here in her arms, nurtured inside her flesh, he could renew; he could accept love over death, he could find life. Something washed over him like the sea and seemed to take away the hurt of years. The warm gift of her body, of her love, began to heal him. He felt lighter, brighter, filled with peace.

  She arched beneath him, and he groaned softly, pulling her closer, the heat and softness within so intense that he could not form words, could not see a thought to its end. He only felt: the heat, the moistness, the exquisite infinity within her.

  She cried out and he held her hips fast against him, and thrust into her, giving himself into her like flame blends into flame. He felt as if the edges that defined his body from hers began to dissolve. One being was created and existed while the stroking rhythm of heart and breath and pounding blood overtook them and bound them together and then released them.

  He sighed, and slowed, and rolled away, laying on his side to draw her head to his chest, stroking her back, feeling her heartbeat and his own through her slender body. She kissed his shoulder, and he kissed her head, and looked toward the window.

  The sunset had faded into indigo, and the stars winked, cold and bright. And for some reason he thought of the fairy wife of one long-ago Macrae laird, and he knew that same magic had been spun in his own life, by the loving spirit who lay in his arms.

  He only hoped that the bond, the silvery web that netted their hearts, would be strong enough to pull him home again once he left here.

  * * *

  "I want to go back to sleep. I am so tired, my bones hurt," Elspeth said, and groaned. "My feet hurt. My back and my neck and my—"

  "Hold, hold," Duncan said. He chuckled softly in the deep shadows. He had slept for a long time, and had risen from the bed a short while ago to shut the window; he had forgotten it earlier, and a brisk wind had awakened him.

  Noticing that dawn edged the sky, he had come back to bed to climb into the warm cocoon of the deep, soft feather mattress, with its fat pillows, fur coverlets and plaid curtain hangings. Elspeth had woken up when he sank into the bed.

  "Come here," he said, "and I will ease your hurts." She rolled ungracefully, dropping her arm across his chest with a loud sigh.

  "You cannot ease these hurts," she said, "they are too much. I am one ache, from head to foot. I have lived my entire lifetime in two days. I feel like I am a hundred years old. Let me sleep."

  He rubbed her neck and shoulders, making small circles with his fingertips. "You do not look a hundred to me," he murmured. "You are young and strong, and clever enough to escape from the doom of a tidal rock."

  "That was a long swim. No wonder I ache," she answered, and stretched her neck so that he could knead her stiff muscles. "How old is your grandmother?" she asked.

  "I do not know. A hundred." At her quick gasp, he laughed. "Seventy, perhaps."

  "She is formidable, and yet somehow adorable. So tiny and white, like a fairy."

  "She is all of that," he said. His hand moved down to rub at her lower back, the curves of her waist and buttocks soft and wonderful beneath his hands. "And she told me that she does not expect to see either of us until late in the day. You shall get all the sleep you want."

  "Shall we sleep all the day, then?" Her sleepy voice was infused with humor.

  "Not all, I think, though we should keep to our bed," he murmured, and spread his fingers over her face to tilt her lips to his in the darkness.

  "Duncan," she said a moment later. "Did you quarrel with Innis Macrae, when you left here?"

  "I thought we were done with that," he said softly.

  "I want to know the whole of it, why you left, why you stayed away so long."

  "There were five of us, the Macrae brothers of Dulsie," he said. "I look at your cousins, and I am reminded of how we were. That must be why I like being with your cousins, feeling a part of a close group like that again. I was the youngest. It is astounding to me, somehow, that they are all gone now, but for me." He lay back on the pillows and rubbed at his face. "We were a scourge, my brothers and I, after the MacDonald raid. Uncontrollable, wild. My mother was sick with grief, and had no authority over us. My grandmother was a strong, willful woman, and she let us all know what she thought of our raiding."

  She laid a hand on his chest, a comforting warmth. "I was barely past boyhood. The Highland way is honor and pride, but my brothers and I thought we should demonstrate that by strength at any cost. We returned savagery for savagery. We were relentless, and we were wrong, but it took me years to learn that."

  "You were clever at those raids, I heard, and a legend after a while. Ruari told me that. His mother frightened her children with tales of the wild Macraes."

  He smiled ruefully. "We took a great deal of MacDonald cattle, and hid it well. We killed only those men who confronted us—we did not murder them in their sleep, and we did not do harm to women or to children. We were after men only. After months of this, another of my brothers was killed. I quarreled with my grandmother when she insisted that we stop. The Macrae chief, and the chief of the Mackenzies, with whom our clan is allied, sent word to cease. So I left Dulsie in anger.

  "My mother had died of her grief, and I went south to tell her family—she had been a border girl, sent by the king's council to wed a Highland laird. My mother's cousins took me in. They were border reivers, among the cleverest of the lot, and so I carried on there in much the same way." He flexed his shoulder, feeling an uncomfortable stiffness in his wounded arm. "I learned more about reiving and burning and murdering than a man should ever know, in the time I spent with the Kerrs."

  Her hand came up to stroke his chin, rasping her nails over his beard. Her fingertips played with his earlobe, with the golden circlet there. "How did you come to wear an earring?"

  "My cousins and I decided to become pirates one night. We stumbled, drunk and full of ourselves, into a tavern where an old woman did our ears for us. But we sobered, and never went to sea. We liked reiving too much. Did you know that a sailor wears a bit of gold in his ear, so that if his body is washed up on some shore, he at least can supply the price of his coffin?"

  She shook her head. "Highland lad, pirate, reiver—how did you become a sober lawyer dressed like a raven, full of righteousness?"

  He cast a wry look through the dark, but answered. "My father always felt that education was needed if Highland men were ever to advance themselves beyond poverty and warfare. He had decided on the law for me, and had paid my way at St Andrews before I was even twelve years old. Once I realized that my wild life was gaining no good for me, or for the memory of my father and my brothers, I took leave of my cousins and went to St Andrews. I earned my way through the rest of my education by clerking for solicitors, among them William Maitland. He is now on the Council, and has ever been a friend to me, although he is a formidable man himself. May he and my grandmother never meet."

  "Ah. We did wonder, when the queen's lawyer knew reiving better than a pack of Highlanders," Elspeth said. She touched his chest, her hand moving gently along under his arm. "When I first touched this scar, I felt so much anger," she said. She flattened her hand and was silent for a moment. "But now no images come, only echoes, and tremors."

  "I am letting go some, I think," he said. "I have learned much about anger and loss, but n
ever more than in the past two days." He sighed. "When I came to Glenran and had to face MacDonalds again, all the past churned up inside of me."

  "You were fully aware that you went against the Council's wishes when you organized our raid."

  "I was. And I did relish that ride against the MacDonalds."

  "A raid can be a challenge, a good game," she said. "No true harm done, but cattle and sheep exchanged back and forth. That is the game we played that night with you, and we enjoyed it. Ruari was the one made it turn ugly later, not you, or us."

  "When Ruari took you, and even earlier, the day of the hunt when he threatened you, I was ready to kill him."

  "But you did not. You walked away from Ruari on the beach, when you had the chance to kill him."

  He sighed. "I swore, years ago, that I would not take another life. I have taken too many without right."

  "The law has taught you that?"

  "The law showed me that there are other ways to deal with feuds and murderers and thieves."

  "The law saved your life, I think."

  "In a way."

  "I know that Scots law means little in the Highlands. The Highlanders still obey the wild, unwritten laws of kin and honor above all. Feuding only destroys lives, takes parents from children, and siblings away. But feuds will not end, no matter what the crown does to stop them, unless the clans decide to stop." She shrugged. "And I think that will not happen for hundreds of years."

  He glanced at her. "This from one of the wild Frasers? Remember that you talk to your queen's lieutenant."

  She tilted her head. "I understand what you did when you were young, Duncan Macrae, and I understand what you are now. And I love you, Highlander, Lowlander, lawyer or reiver."

  He kissed her, the cool, delicate tip of her nose, and the full, soft lips beneath. "I love you as well, seer."

  "I have one question of you, before I sleep," she said, snuggling against him.

  "What is that?"

  "Do you truly think me a witch?"

  He smiled in the dark. "You have a way about you that is neither earthly nor rational," he said. He felt her tense beside him. "But I would call you fairy or angel before I would ever call you a witch."

  "Again," she reminded him.

  "Before I would ever call you a witch again," he said, corrected. When she sighed and began to breathe in a sleepy, satisfied rhythm, he knew that his apology was accepted.

  Chapter 22

  `To dream o ravens, love' he said,

  `Is the loss o a near friend;

  And I hae killed your brither dear,

  And for it I'll be slain.'

  ~"Young Johnstone"

  "Last night I dreamed of a raven again," Innis Macrae said. "Like I did when you were younger."

  Duncan nodded, and sipped at the contents of his cup, uisge beatha mixed with cream and honey. His grandmother had insisted that he drink some every day to keep his health. He tried to please her, especially when her sharp eye was upon him, waiting for him to finish the drink. He sipped again, and set the cup down on the table. She had ordered a pine fire built in the great hall, and its light and heat, in the middle of a stormy autumn day, was welcome.

  "And what did the raven tell you?" he asked patiently. He remembered that his grandmother's dreams had often been a source of discussion when he had been a boy. She had always tried to follow whatever her dreams told her.

  Now he understood why. He had a new respect for the substance of any dream. He waited for her answer.

  "A raven and a dove came to sit on my windowsill. They told me their wishes, as if I were a witch to grant them," she said. "The dove wished for wings of gold and silver. And the raven wished for you to be its master."

  He stared at her. "Was I to train it to hand, like a hawk?"

  Innis shrugged. "I do not know."

  "Did you grant these wishes?"

  "I told them I had no power left in me, for I was old. I sent the dove to fly off to Elspeth. And I told the raven that he could find you in the Highland hills. I told him to ask politely if you would be his master, and if you declined, to leave you in peace."

  He looked at her for a long moment, knowing that Elspeth regarded ravens as a sign of coming death. "Well," he said, and cleared his throat. "I am sure you said the right thing to this raven, Grandmother Innis."

  "Indeed I did," she declared. "And I shall ask Elspeth what it means. Alasdair says she is gifted with the Sight."

  He hesitated, then shrugged. "Ask her, then. She was with Magnus earlier, though I do not know where she is just now."

  "She is with Mairi and the babes. Magnus is much stronger, though he is not healed yet. He thinks he is ready to travel back to Glenran, though it has been hardly two weeks."

  Duncan smiled. "Have Kirsty speak to him. I think that he might do whatever that girl says."

  "I have noticed that she has a firm way with the lad," she said. She tilted her head to look at him. "And do you do whatever Elspeth bids you?"

  He smiled. "Me? Do what I am told?"

  Innis smiled and shook her head. "I thought not. But I can see that you have changed, Duncan Macrae."

  "I am a man. When you last saw me I was a boy."

  "A stubborn, angry boy, with a heart of stone."

  "I have many regrets over those days, Grandmother Innis."

  "Tch. I am an old woman now, and I have struggled with a high temper all of my life. There comes peace, after a time, if we let our hearts soften a little. I gave you my forgiveness long ago. But when you did not come home, I thought that I would go to my deathbed without your forgiveness. But now I see that you too have learned to soften your temper. And at a much earlier age than I ever learned it."

  He smiled ruefully. "I was afraid to come home, for many of those years," he said.

  "Afraid of me?" Innis looked pleased, Duncan thought. She smiled, her head wobbling slightly, and leaned against the high back of her chair. "This girl you have wed. She is a fine healer, and I understand a seer as well. And she is a Glenran Fraser. Macraes and Frasers have been allied clans for generations. Your father would have approved."

  "He would. You will find her a unique girl, I think."

  "I like her well." There was an elfin gleam in her blue eyes. "Is she a fairy, this girl you have brought to Dulsie?"

  He frowned at her. "Why do you ask that?"

  "She must have some deep magic. To bring you home when your stubborn temper kept you away for nearly half your life. To soften your heart and teach you to love. I can see you love her, very much. It shines in your eyes, and glows on your cheeks." She reached over and pinched his cheek.

  He laughed. "That is your fine uisge beatha."

  "Not all of it," she answered. "Not all of it."

  The door of the room opened, and Alasdair strode in, his face flushed. He sank down onto a bench and sighed deeply.

  "What troubles you, lad?" Innis asked.

  "I cannot stand the shrieking any longer. Pass me some of that uisge beatha. I cannot bear to know that a great man has been brought so low."

  "What are you talking about?" Duncan asked. He poured liquor into a cup and handed it to Alasdair.

  "Magnus. He roars with pain. Can you not help him, Innis?"

  "He is not in pain," Innis said. "Kirsty roped his hands to the bed when he was asleep, because he got up too often. He is yelling at her in a rage. When last I was there, she told him that she wanted his solemn promise to keep to his bed another three days." She shrugged. "That girl has the sweet face and healing hands of an angel, but she is willful as a wildcat."

  "I knew a great man had been brought low," Alasdair muttered. "Do something, Duncan."

  Duncan shrugged. "Not me, man. When Magnus heals, let him do something about it."

  They looked at Innis. She smiled sweetly at them as she poured herself a cup of liquor. "Indeed, let Magnus teach the girl a lesson," she said. "He looks the man to do it, I think."

  * * *

  Elspeth
had never climbed as high as this, up to where the golden-grassed mountain slopes grew bare and rocky, where spouts of water burst from crevices, foamy white against the shining dark face of the rock. She had never climbed high enough to see the undersides of clouds, like soft rings of heaven settled over the peaks of the mountains.

  She was there now, beside Duncan. He turned to smile at her, and held out his hand, his fingers warm and strong as they wrapped over hers. He pulled her higher, his footing sure on rock shelves eons old. Grass and mosses formed a thick, tough carpet between the rocky outcroppings, cushioning their booted feet as they moved upward.

  Elspeth let go of his hand to pull herself up, holding onto a jag of rock and stepping onto a flat, peaceful spot high above the lochs and hills. Cold wind beat against her face, her hair, pushing against her with remarkable strength. Glittering sunbeams warmed the surfaces of the rock and left the shady undersides cold and forgotten.

  She looked out over the world below, at the long autumn-gold slopes, and the unchanging gray of the rock; at the wide, towering expanse of the sky, a tapestry of clouds and sunshafts; at the lochs and rivers below, shifting blue glass poured out into the earth.

  Breathtaking power and wild, high isolation surrounded her. Sitting down on a crag, she watched the world, and felt as if she were suspended between heaven and earth. Beyond the realm of the everyday, she felt as if she could almost touch the raw power and the sublime grace that infused this place.

  "I wanted you to see this," Duncan said as he sat beside her. She smiled up at him, breathing in the air, clean and sharp. The winds blew back her hair and beat at the plaid and shirt she wore, borrowed from Innis Macrae's cupboard, which was filled with plaids belonging to Duncan's brothers. She dangled her booted feet out into open space and leaned against Duncan, feeling his solid form at her back.

  "Below, there, at the tip of that loch," he said, pointing to a long stretch of water, "is the fortress of Eilean Donan, where a cousin of mine is constable for the Mackenzies." She looked at him, and then at the loch, its saturated blue the color of Duncan's eyes. She smiled, and nestled against him. The tiny fortress below looked like a fairy castle, as if it were carved out of the very landscape, in harmony with its surroundings, water and mountain, rock and sky.