A Strange Scottish Shore

by Juliana Gray

“What a tremendous coincidence.”

  “Yes, it was, wasn’t it? Only it wasn’t, really, because he had gone down to the village to find me.”

  “Why didn’t he come to the house, then?”

  “Because we had things to discuss, Truelove. Manly things. Chests were beaten, jests were exchanged. Do you know,” he said, patting his tunic, “at times like this, tucked up cozily together after a good bout between the sheets—”

  “Sheets?” I said dryly.

  “—I really do long for my old pipe. I suppose tobacco’s a long way off yet, isn’t it?”

  “A very long way. Don’t change the subject. What did you and Magnus speak about?”

  Silverton sighed. “He was offering me a job, in fact. I believe the same thought had occurred to him, once the news began to spread—”

  “News?”

  “That you’re breeding, my dear. I’m afraid that midwife isn’t the sort of woman who holds her tongue, and babies are about the only news there is in a village like this. In any case, he thinks fishing’s a bad show for me, in my present situation, your present situation, and he wants us to move to the castle, where I can advise him in a political capacity. Be a sort of grand vizier. How does that sound?”

  I spoke slowly. “It sounds like exactly the sort of thing you didn’t want. What did you say? All the barbs pointed in your direction.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind, not really. I’ve regained a bit of my old spirit in recent months, after all. I can’t imagine why. In any case, it would relieve my mind of a great deal of worry. Plenty of dosh, plenty of food and clothing and shelter for you and the child.” He lifted his arm from behind his head and laid his hand over mine, atop his chest. “I never meant to be a fisherman forever, after all. I relished the danger when I had nothing to live for, but now . . .”

  “Only if you want to,” I said. “Don’t make yourself miserable because of me.”

  “Miserable? I have a life now, because of you,” he said. “A future. An entire lifetime, here with you. It’s high time I set about making something of it. There might be more children, after all. All those long winters ahead of us, and you so damned insatiable in bed. There are consequences to that kind of wantonness, Truelove. Terrible consequences.”

  I thought about the rubber suit, back in the cave. The small metal object hidden in my leather pouch. The electricity that had crackled along my nerves, the sense of returning purpose, the presence of a power I knew in my bones.

  Now here I sat, tucked into the curve of Silverton’s chest. His arm lay about my waist; his hand covered the ball of my belly, as if to protect the infant within.

  Silverton squeezed my hand. “Well, Madam Grand Vizier? What do you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think. I suppose I wouldn’t mind living in a castle,” I said. “Back in your old chamber, I suppose?”

  “Not just my old chamber, but an entire apartment, all to ourselves. Sitting room and bedroom and nursery. They’re fitting it all up now.”

  “What, already?”

  “The sooner, the better, don’t you think? You’ll have a waiting woman, too, all to yourself. I made sure of that.” He pulled me on his lap, kissed me heartily, and hauled us both to our feet. “Magnus will be over the moon. I don’t know if I should tell you this, but I believe he’s taken rather a fancy to you.”

  My head was spinning, trying to fasten itself on all of these new facts. “Has he? He’s hardly spoken a word to me, since that day he visited me in the hut. The day after our wedding.”

  “Well, he will tomorrow, won’t he?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes, tomorrow. Didn’t I mention it?” Silverton took my hand and led me carefully over the driftwood to where my little boat sat on the shore, ten yards away from the sailboat bobbing at its mooring. “Magnus’s father and stepmother have just arrived from the mainland. The feast begins at the usual hour. I shouldn’t be surprised if it goes on until sunset. What’s the matter?”

  “I’ve just—I’ve left my cloak behind.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  “No, that’s all right. I’ll fetch it while you ready the boat.”

  I turned and hurried back past the driftwood, where my cloak lay rumpled on the shingles. I picked it up and shook out the dirt and sand. Behind me, Silverton was still busy with the boat.

  Quick as a minnow, I darted into the cave, snatched the rubber suit from the corner, and wadded it into the folds of my cloak.

  • • •

  I woke in a jolt, sometime in the middle of the night. Another gale had started up, and the wind howled miserably around the cracks and corners of the cottage. Beside me, Silverton stirred and lifted his head.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” I whispered, and settled myself back in the bedclothes.

  But I did not return to sleep. I had been dreaming that I was back in my old life, before the old duke died, inhabiting my elegant room in Belgrave Square, devoting myself to some tedious, shallow task that, for some reason, I couldn’t complete. And when I woke, I didn’t recognize myself. This cold, dark cottage; this warm bed, inhabited by this vital man; this marriage, this pregnancy, this primitive, passionate life—surely this was the dream, this could not belong to me. This couldn’t be me, Emmeline Truelove. I was not given to wanton adventure. How had I woken up inside this woman’s body? Inside this strange world?

  The man beside me made a sleepy noise and gathered me snug against his chest, spoon-fashion, as we were in the habit of sleeping. The warm marine smell of him filled my head. His flesh lay solid against mine. I laid my hand along his forearm and said to myself, This is why you’re here. This is what you came for.

  But the thought gave me no comfort. Something else lingered outside the comfort of Silverton’s body, outside the stone walls of our cottage, biding its time for me, and it was this that had jolted me awake in the middle of my dream.

  And as the hours of the night bled into dawn, I did not rest, but instead lay hovering between sleep and wakefulness, neither of one world nor the other.

  The Lady fell to her knees and begged her son to let her stay upon this shore, for she had fallen into love with a Fisherman here, and pledged herself to him by sacred vow, and his babe even now quickened in her womb. But her son grew angry and dragged her to the cottage, where he opened the false bottom of the Fisherman’s chest and showed her the suit that lay hidden there. ‘See how your lover has deceived you,’ he said, ‘for he has kept the means of your escape from your hands, so that you would remain here in poverty to keep his house and serve his vile lust, and to bear his bastard children . . .’

  THE BOOK OF TIME, A. M. HAYWOOD (1921)

  Twelve

  In the end, I must have slept a little that last night in the cottage, because I woke to Silverton’s kisses—not on my lips, but my belly, where his beard both tickled and aroused me. I cried out and grabbed his hair. Thus encouraged, he moved lower.

  He took his time dispatching me, and made his own pleasure last as well, rocking gently inside me as if he meant to go on all day. Why not? He had no fish to catch this morning, no dawn launch from the harbor. He meant to enjoy himself in his favorite occupation, and he meant me to enjoy it, too, and such was his happy dedication to marital duty, his infectious delight in the act of love, I gave myself up and joined him in that netherworld of carnal copulation. We sprawled on the bed afterward, too depleted to move, until the growl of Silverton’s stomach could no longer politely be ignored. He turned his head and grinned at me.

  “Do you know what it is with you, Truelove? You’re game.”

  “Game? Game for what?”

  “For this. For anything. I knew it the moment I spotted you at Olympia’s funeral, wearing your prim black dress and clutching your little glass of punch. I said to myself, Silverton, old boy, that woman is game.
From that instant, I wanted you.”

  “How flattering. I remember thinking you were an idiot and a reprobate, and I wanted nothing to do with you.”

  He climbed on his elbows and crawled to me, pressing kisses into my neck and bosom. “Now look where you are, rosy-cheeked in my bed, great with my child. Life has a bloody marvelous way of working out, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t know how you do it, really.”

  “Do what?”

  “Get everything you want.”

  “Oh, that. It’s a matter of perseverance, that’s all. Single-mindedness. I decided you were the only woman in the world for me, and once I did that—narrowed my efforts, I mean—you stood no chance at all, Truelove. Why are you laughing?”

  “It just seems a Pyrrhic victory, that’s all. You’ve got me trapped in your bed, right enough, but at what cost?”

  Silverton lifted his head from my breast and considered me with his blue eyes. He stood on his hands, one on either side of me, like a cat with its prey, long and lean and wonderfully scruffy. “I don’t count the cost, Truelove,” he said quietly.

  “Why not?”

  He rolled to his side and propped up his head with his elbow. “I’ve told you about my mother, haven’t I?”

  “Your stepmother? Or the bolter?”

  “The bolter. My real mother. Or rather, the woman who gave birth to me. Immensely beautiful, I’m told. She and my father, they were madly in love, and then my father went off to war and got himself wounded, terribly disfigured—have you ever met him?”

  I thought of the Duke of Ashland and his missing arm, his mangled jaw in an otherwise perfect face, visiting Olympia in his study one afternoon. “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, you can imagine my mother’s reaction when that monstrosity returned home to her, calling itself her husband. She jumped straight into another man’s bed, and then she bolted with him, and I never saw her again.”

  We lay facing each other in a tangle of bedclothes, in a fog of human musk. I laid my hand on his cheek, wound my fingers inside his short, rough beard, and the old Emmeline Truelove receded, receded, until I could not recall her at all. Who was that woman in her prim black dress, clutching her wine, terrified of the high animal spirits scintillating the man standing next to her? Disguising her terror with disapproval.

  I touched the corner of his mouth with my thumb. “You’re wrong. I can’t imagine her reaction at all.”

  “I hope not,” he whispered. “I don’t think I could survive it.”

  • • •

  I tell you all this not to arouse or titillate, but to explain the intimacy of our mood as we made our way along the lane to the castle, followed by a cart that contained our few belongings. Magnus had sent the cart—the driver arrived at our door a few short minutes after the conversation I related above, causing us to scramble for our clothes and our dignity—and I watched as Silverton helped the man load the bed, the table and stools, the dishes, the wooden chest underneath the window. We left the door unlocked. Silverton took my hand as we started up the road, and it seemed to me, as the castle grew to a monstrous size before us, buzzing with activity in anticipation of the feast to come, that we were walking into a vast, unknown future, with only each other to cling to.

  • • •

  The bustle of the great hall astonished me. I had thought our wedding banquet, as impromptu as it was, had been a lavish event, but that was nothing compared to this hurly-burly of servants and furniture and decoration. There were new, fresh rushes on the floor and banners hung from the walls and railings. Men stood about, already half-drunk, and Silverton hurried me past them to the staircase. As we climbed the steps, I felt the seriousness of his mood.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, in a low voice.

  “The whole damned village, that’s all.”

  “What’s wrong with that? I daresay they’ll appreciate a bit of merriment, after the dark winter months.”

  “Just stay close to me, that’s all.”

  We reached the landing and went down the hall to the chamber we had shared on our wedding night. I paused in the doorway, but Silverton urged me through and shut the door firmly behind us. The wooden shutters were closed tight over the windows. I walked to the middle one and opened it, and a gust of wet, fresh wind struck my face. I leaned out regardless, craning my neck to see around the edge of the recess.

  “Why, there it is!” I said in surprise.

  “What?”

  “The inlet from yesterday. You can’t see the beach, but there’s the tip of the headland, and the gap between them.” I pulled back so Silverton could look, but he paid little notice. He was walking restlessly about the room, inspecting the furnishings. “Is something wrong?” I asked again.

  Before he could answer, a thunderous knock struck the door, and without any further preamble the driver entered, followed by a train of men, carrying our things from the hut. I stood aside while Silverton argued and instructed, and the table and chairs went out again, along with the dishes and cookware. They were dickering over the chest when I spoke up.

  “That stays here, please,” I said in Norse, and the man must have understood me, because he shrugged his shoulders and set the chest against the wall, next to the one already in place. They were similar in size, but the one belonging to the castle was built along more elegant proportions. I stared at them both, side by side, and a shimmer seemed to pass over my skin.

  The last man left and closed the door. I looked for Silverton, who had stopped beside the bed. A pair of garments had been laid out on the covering, considerably richer than those we were wearing. “What the devil are you playing at, old boy?” Silverton muttered, crossing his arms.

  “I don’t understand.”

  He looked up. “He’s making a show of strength, that’s all. The feast, the garments. Me, hurriedly installed as grand vizier. You, as some sort of hostess.”

  “Is that what I am?”

  He held up the dress, which was made of rich blue velvet, nearly purple, and trimmed with fur. “You’re no lady-in-waiting, that’s certain.”

  “I hope I’m not too large to fit inside it.”

  “I expect your belly will be part of the show, my dear. Nothing so extravagant as a woman increasing.” He walked to me and held the gown to my shoulders. “A good fit. I wonder how he guessed so well.”

  “He’s a man, that’s all.”

  “Exactly. Come along, then. Let’s get you into it. I’ll be your lady’s maid. There’s no point trying to find servants; I expect it’s all hands downstairs at the moment.”

  He helped me lift my old woolen surcoat over my shoulders, and then eased the velvet garment over my kirtle. The fit was snug; I stared down in dismay at the bulge of my abdomen. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You look ravishing.”

  “But I don’t want to look ravishing.”

  “Well, my good friend Magnus apparently wants you to look ravishing, so I expect we had better not disappoint him.” He reached for the silver girdle and wound it around my waist, just above the curve of my womb. “You might as well accustom yourself, in any case. This is nothing to how you’ll look in a couple of months. Why, when my stepmother was carrying my brother—”

  “Oh, stop.”

  “—like she had swallowed a cannonball, or else a cook pot, that’s it, a very large cook pot—”

  “For God’s sake, it’s your own fault, you devil!”

  His smile faded. “Yes,” he said softly. “My fault.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  Silverton knelt before me, put his hands to the small of my back, and kissed the center of my belly. “You are to behave yourself in there, is that clear? Not to injure your mother in any respect. Maintain a modest size, turn about smartly, enter the world headfirst and double-quick when summoned.”

  “If he’s any
thing like his father, he’ll do none of those things. Especially now that he’s been told.”

  “Then he had damned well better turn out like his mother.”

  “Or she,” I said softly. “Just imagine you rearing a daughter.”

  “Ah,” he said, expelling his breath, and for a moment we didn’t move, not a flicker, except my hands caressing his hair, except the butterfly stir of the baby against his cheek. At last he rose and held me against him. “That’s why we’re here. For your sake, for the child’s sake. You can’t raise a child in a hovel.”

  “And you? What about your sake?”

  “My dear,” he said, “they are one and the same.”

  The wind blew through the window, striking the side of my cheek. The faint noise of revelry rang in the air, muffled by stone and wood, laughter and voices and musical instruments playing snatches of music. I said, “It sounds the same, doesn’t it? That’s the strangest thing of all. The words are different, but the voices haven’t changed. Men are still men. Rain is wet. It’s the same sun, the same clouds. Flowers, birds, fish. Life goes on.”

  “Except these men will be long dead by the time we’re born. Bones rotting in the ground, forgotten utterly. Not even a tombstone left to mark them. Nobody will know exactly how all this was. Scholars will wonder. Archeologists like Max will dig and dig, and they’ll never know the truth of it. The essence.”

  I listened to the beat of his heart, the whoosh of his blood, and my arms moved to encircle his waist. I closed my eyes and for a moment, for an instant, I forgot where we stood. The cold wind blew on my neck. My scalp began to tingle in a familiar way, my bones to lighten. I felt as if we were hovering between the two worlds, and the sounds beneath us were the sounds of builders and picnickers, and Max . . . and Max . . .

  My eyes flew open.

  “What’s the matter?” Silverton asked.

  I looked up to meet his gaze, which was narrow and quizzical. His thick gold beard, his long, unkempt hair, the lines about his eyes and mouth. I tried to remember what he had looked like before, clean-shaven and immaculate, the polished, dazzling heir to a dukedom, and I couldn’t.