Anne Gracie - [Merridew Sister 03]

by The Perfect Stranger

  Mac smiled wryly. “Aye, but we are young, my bonny. We have our lives ahead of us. But if ye were old, and had only a short time left to live, how would ye prefer to go? Slowly, your powers fading, eaten away by pain and illness until you are helpless and dependent…” He paused to let his words sink in. “Or quickly and magnificently, in a blaze of eternal glory such as we saw here three nights ago?”

  Estrellita looked up, her expression arrested.

  “She died like a warrior queen, lass,” he said softly. “She chose her death, and ye must honor her choice, and her.”

  Tears poured silently down Estrellita’s face, making tracks in the gray ash smeared on her skin. She whispered, “Sí, she die like warrior queen.”

  Estrellita sent everyone away while she washed and dressed her beloved great-grandmother in her finest clothes.

  Nick was still unsteady on his feet, so they made a bed of straw for him in the shelter of the cave, and he lay there, sleeping on and off, Faith never far from his side.

  Mac paced helplessly outside the cottage, respecting Estrellita’s wish for privacy, wanting to offer support and comfort and love, but the girl held herself aloof from him, from everyone, her face drawn, her eyes swollen and red from weeping.

  She spoke to him only once, and then it was indirectly. “Faith, please tell Tavish and Stevens to dig grave for Abuela. There.” She pointed down the hill. “Next to Steven’s Algy.”

  Stevens looked up, startled. “Next to Algy?”

  Estrellita said to Faith, “Sí, she tell me this long time ago. And four days ago she tell me again. So dig.”

  Estrellita sat watch over her grandmother for three days and nights. On the morning of the next day she emerged from the cottage dressed in a brilliant red outfit, its cheerful effect ruined by the ash smeared over her face and hands and hair. “Is time to lay The Old One to rest.”

  It was a very small funeral; only Estrellita, Faith, and the four men. Mac was disturbed by this realization of how isolated they were. “Do ye not want a priest, Estrellita love?” Mac asked. “I’ll go down to Vittoria an fetch one if ye wish.”

  She addressed Faith. “No priest. Abuela and I, we are—were part of the village, but not belong in same way as others. The priest, he will come after, and bless grave. And village women will come after and pray for her.” She scrubbed at her swollen eyelids with her fists. “Is why Abuela say to put her in ground next to Algy. Village women much respect Abuela. She help with babies, sickness, everything. Women will come every week, keep grave clean, bring flowers, leave food, say prayers, talk to Abuela. Stevens’s Algy and my Abuela, they never be lonely now.”

  Stevens pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and blew into it loudly. “Thank you, my dear,” he said.

  The old lady’s funeral was quiet and very poignant. They carried Abuela down the hillside, wrapped in a rug and carried on a wooden pallet by the men of the party. Nick had almost fully recovered by then and wanted to do his part, to pay his respects to the old lady who died to give him life.

  They laid her carefully in the deep hole beside Algy’s cairn. Around her Estrellita placed a pair of fine leather boots, an embroidered shawl, a skirt, a black cooking pot, a copper kettle, a bowl, spoon, and cup, a string of jet beads, and a fistful of coins. Then she covered them all with a white woven cloth.

  Estrellita made a long speech in the language she and Abuela shared, then bent and threw a handful of dirt into the grave. Soundlessly, racked with grief, she gestured for the others to do the same. They came forward one by one, each person saying something, a prayer and something personal. Each of them threw a handful of dirt in.

  Mac went first and disappeared soon afterward. Nick was the last to stand beside the grave. He stared down into the hole at the small figure wrapped in the rug. This could have been his grave, here, on this stony, foreign hillside, along with Algy, his lifelong friend. What did one say to a woman who’d given her life to heal him? He could think of no words sufficient to thank her. He simply recited the twenty-third psalm.

  “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want, he maketh me to lie down in green pastures…”

  As he spoke, the English members of the funeral party joined in, reciting the beautiful prayer.

  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…”

  Estrellita started sobbing, and Faith’s arms went around her, as Faith recited the prayer and gazed sightlessly out over this valley of death below. This was for Abuela, and for Algy, and for all of the young soldiers who’d died here, far from home and their loved ones.

  And as the last words of the prayer were blown away on the wind sweeping up the valley, a low moan came, followed by the sound of an unearthly tune.

  Estrellita looked up, shocked, wondering. “What—?”

  Nick explained. “It’s Mac, he’s playing the bagpipes for your gran. It’s a Scottish tradition.” He listened. “The song he’s playing, it’s called ‘The Flowers of the Forest.’ It is a traditional lament—that means song for the dead.” He softly spoke one of the lines in time to the music, “The flowers of the forest are all withered away.”

  “Is beautiful,” Estrellita sobbed. “I not expect this. Abuela, she would love this. My people also play these pipes.”

  They listened. The music was poignant and hauntingly beautiful. The strains of it echoed down the valley and faded away into the mountains.

  “He brought the pipes thinking it would be Capt’n Nick’s funeral he would be playing at,” Stevens said softly in Faith’s ear, and the information made her hug Estrellita all the tighter.

  Chapter Sixteen

  O, thou art fairer than the evening air

  Clad in the beauty of a thousand stars.

  CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE

  NINE FULL DAYS OF MOURNING WERE REQUIRED AFTER THE death. It was the tradition of her family, Estrellita explained to Faith. “And I must do it properly, to show respect. I am the last woman of my family.” She added, “With us the bloodline is traced through the woman.”

  She spoke only to Faith during that time, though Mac several times attempted to speak with her. She would not communicate with him in any way; she refused even to look at him. She looked appalling. She did not wash, her face and hands were covered in ash and soot, and her hair was tangled and filthy. Her bright red funeral clothes were soon torn, ragged, and covered in soot and ash.

  She went about the business of clearing the cottage of everything that had belonged to her great-grandmother. She smashed what she could and burned the rest: clothing, linen, pots, and pans. She did not cook, she refused to eat what Faith and Stevens cooked for her. She did not mind them cooking, she told Faith—they were not bound by her traditions—but she would do nothing that might show disrespect.

  Mac’s frustration built until at last, on the sixth day, he found her alone, burning more of her great-grandmother’s things.

  “What are your plans, Estrellita, lass? Cap’n Nick and the others plan to leave in five days. The cap’n’s lady says you will be mournin’ for nine days, so that’ll be finished by then. So I need to know, lass. Do I stay or do I go?”

  She ignored him, acted as if he wasn’t even there.

  He grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him.

  “I’m asking ye again, Estrellita. Will ye wed me?”

  She averted her face and said nothing.

  “Ye have nothing to stay for—and by the looks of what ye’re burning, ye’ll have nothing left anyway. So come home wi’ me, lass, and we’ll be wed.” He drew her close to him, and uncaring of the ash-smeared state of her, bent to kiss her.

  She fended him off with a flurry of kicks and punches. In deep fury she hissed, “You! Do not speak to me! You are being disrespectful! And anyway, I am the one who choose. I, Estrellita! Not the man!”

  Mac clenched his fists. His face ached from where she’d lashed out at him. “Disrespectful, ye say?” He snorted. “For a man to ask a grubby little witch t
o wed him? There’s plenty who wouldna bother wi’ such niceties, ye ken!”

  For answer she tossed her hair in sublime indifference and marched off.

  He stared after her, swore and kicked a rock over the edge, listening with a sour expression as it bounced down the hillside. When he had his temper under control, he rejoined the others.

  “She’ll no say what she’s doing. I dinna ken if she’ll stay or come wi’ us.”

  Nick gave him a sympathetic glance. “Well, it must be up to you. You are free to choose now.” He put his arm around Faith. “It’s been six days since I’ve had a headache. It’s early days, of course—”

  “I believe it,” Faith interjected. “She really did cure you. The doctors didn’t know there was a piece of shrapnel pressing on your brain, but now it’s out—”

  “And how the hell she did it is more than I can fathom,” said Stevens.

  “Does it matter?” Faith asked. “All I care about is that Nicholas is well and that we can have—” Her face crumpled, but she mastered herself and continued, “Nicholas and I can have a life together. A future.” Her eyes flooded, and she buried her face in her husband’s chest and hugged him. She had been so emotional lately. Given the circumstances, it was not surprising, but really, why was she such a watering pot now, when her husband was cured and the future looked so rosy?

  She touched her stomach and wondered. Was the old woman right about that, too?

  “How are you going, Capt’n?” Stevens asked.

  Nicholas smoothed Faith’s hair. “We’ll sail from Bilbao.”

  “By boat?” Stevens and Mac exclaimed in unison. “You?”

  Nicholas pulled a face. “I can endure it, and I’d like to get back as quickly as possible.” He shook his head ruefully. “Black says my mother knew of my illness. She will be expecting any day to hear of my death. Damned blabbermouth doctor!”

  There was a short silence, then Mac said, “So ye’ll not be needing me after all?”

  Nick shook his head. “I never thought I’d be so glad to sack a man.”

  “Aye, Cap’n, and I never thought I’d be so glad to be out o’ a job!” He gave Nick a clout on the back that nearly sent Nick and Faith flying.

  “Of course,” Nick said, “If you do decide to come back to England, there will always be a job waiting. You know that, I hope.”

  Faith had been trying to follow the conversation. “What do you mean, you’ve sacked Mac? What job?”

  There was an awkward silence. Mac said hastily, “Oh, just the arranging of the journey, you know—that sort of thing, missus.”

  “Then why wouldn’t you be needed for the return journey? I would imagine you’d be especially necessary if Nicholas is to be incapacitated by seasickness.”

  “Ah, yes…but Stevens can see to that,” Nicholas said.

  “Stevens has been here all along,” Faith pointed out.

  There was another silence.

  “It can’t hurt to tell her now, Capt’n,” Stevens said. “Now that it’s not going to happen.”

  Faith looked from one grave face to the other and said slowly, “You mean now that Nicholas isn’t going to die.”

  Mac looked uncomfortable and suddenly decided Abuela’s bonfire needed stirring. Nicholas said in a bracing voice, “Stevens, you have plenty to do, I think, if we’re to leave in a few days. Mac, whatever you choose is acceptable to me.” He released Faith and walked into the cave to see to the horses’ tack.

  Faith detained Stevens as he went to pass her. “Tell me, Stevens.”

  Stevens hesitated, then said slowly, “Remember that hare, missie? And what Mac did? Can’t stand to see a living creature suffer, Mac.” He gave her a significant look and then went past her.

  Faith felt her stomach clench as the unspoken meaning of his words penetrated. Nicholas had come to Spain to die, and it was Mac’s job to see that he didn’t suffer.

  Oh, God! What an appalling thing those three men had been facing. One to die, one to kill, and the other to watch it happen. Thank God for Estrellita’s Abuela. Thank God they’d met Estrellita in the first place. Thank God the piratical ship’s captain had believed she might shoot. There were so many things to be grateful for. She sent up several quick prayers of thankfulness. And then made up her mind not to dwell on the narrow escapes they’d had. She had the present to dwell in, and the future with Nicholas to look forward to.

  “I don’t want you to stay behind alone, lass. Come wi’ me. Ye dinna have to marry me, and I’ll no touch ye if ye want it that way.”

  Estrellita glared at him and walked past without a word.

  He followed her. “I’ll no’ press ye, lass, but ’twill drive me mad to think of you alone, wi’ no family and no man to protect ye.”

  Estrellita addressed the air. “Why would I want come with a mutton-head, hairy great bush who not even know what mean respect!”

  Mac flung up his hands in frustration and rage. “Well, if that’s the way you see it!” he yelled after her and stormed off.

  When the others sat down for dinner that night, Estrellita’s gaze revealed she had noticed his absence, and the number of times it wandered to the door told Faith she was worried, but the girl said nothing. Nor did she eat anything except green leaves and drink water and coffee.

  Mac was gone for the next two days, and each day she looked more and more worried. But each time Faith tried to talk to her, she just shrugged and pretended indifference.

  “But why won’t you even talk to him?” Faith pleaded on Mac’s behalf.

  Estrellita regarded her with amazement. “For respect, of course. Woman and mens must not talk together until nine days after.” She spoke as if it would be obvious to any but a simpleton.

  “Of course,” Faith said gently. “We do not have this custom, Estrellita. Mac thinks you are angry with him, that you don’t like him.”

  The girl shrugged, as if indifferent. “I am angry. He show no respect. He must wait nine days.” She hunched her shoulder. “If he no can wait nine little days, he no good for me.”

  Faith decided to find Mac and tell him. She did not think she could sort out the differences between two such prickly people, but she thought it might help if Mac knew Estrellita’s silence toward him was part of her mourning ritual.

  But Mac was nowhere to be found.

  On the morning of the tenth day Estrellita emerged from the cottage looking like a new woman. She had bathed from head to toe and looked fresh and young and sweet-smelling. Her hair, newly washed and combed, clustered in glossy elflocks around her head and flowed down her back. She was dressed in a new red and black flounced skirt and a fresh white embroidered blouse.

  “Estrellita, how pretty you look!” Faith exclaimed.

  The girl preened, stroking the new clothes and said, almost shyly, “Everything from the skin out, must be new.” Her eyes wandered around the area, as if searching for someone.

  “He’s not back yet,” Faith told her. “But I’m sure he will come back. He wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye.”

  Estrellita looked doubtful. He had not been seen since their last quarrel. He hadn’t even returned at night.

  “We are leaving tomorrow,” Faith told her. “You must decide if you want to come with us or not. I would very much like you to come, my sister of the road.” She gave her a quick hug. “But it must be your decision. You will have money, to do whatever you want with. You are free to choose.”

  The girl scowled and stepped back. “I no want your money!”

  Faith touched her on the arm. “Hush. I promised your abuela I would take care of you. I cannot force you to come to a foreign land, Estrellita, though I hope you will. But I will insist you have enough money so you shall not want for the necessities in life. A woman alone must be prudent—I know—and there is nothing worse than being alone and having no money.”

  “There is worse,” said Estrellita soberly.

  “Well, yes, but you know what I mean. You will take
this money, Estrellita.”

  The girl looked mutinous, but Faith suddenly had an idea. “It is your dowry. A gift from me on behalf of your grandmother for saving my husband’s life.” That was a different matter, she saw at once. This was something Estrellita could accept without loss of pride. “So we are agreed?”

  Estrellita gave a gruff agreement, but she was pleased, Faith saw.

  But there was still no sign of Mac, and as the day wore on, Estrellita looked more and more anxious.

  The sun had dropped behind the mountains, and the stars were beginning to peep from the dark velvet night. They had eaten a good meal, and for once, Estrellita ate everything, but with little relish for a girl who’d fasted for nine days. Her mouth drooped with sorrow, and her eyes were dark with a different kind of woe. Mac had not returned.

  No one had raised the topic, but all were beginning to worry. They were to leave first thing the next morning.

  But as the moon showed her pale face above the mountain peaks, an unearthly sound pierced the soft night air. It was the sound of bagpipes.

  Estrellita sat up, her face suddenly glowing as if a fire had been kindled inside her.

  “What this song?” she asked. “Is beautiful.”

  “It’s the ‘Eriskay Love Song,’” said Faith softly. She sang:

  Bheir me o, horo van o

  Bheir me o, horo van ee

  Bheir me o, o horo ho

  Sad am I, without thee.

  “‘Sad am I, without thee.’ Oh, is pretty.” Estrellita wiped her eyes. “What mean ‘Bheir me o, horo van o’?”

  “I don’t know. It’s Gaelic—the Scottish language. You’ll have to ask Mac,” said Faith and kept singing.

  Estrellita sniffed and got to her feet. “Is muchly beautiful song. Stupid man! If he so sad without me, why he hide?” She stalked off into the darkness.