A Strange Scottish Shore

by Juliana Gray

  He took my hand as he spoke, and I stared down at our linked fingers, resting atop my own lap. I had thought the wind created all that noise coming through the shutters, but now I perceived the rush and crash of the sea as it beat the cliffs below. I smelled the brine, the hint of ozone. “What happened to her?” I asked.

  “Well. We were making our way up from Edinburgh, as I said—”

  “What was he doing in Edinburgh?”

  “One of the children had found a treasure of some kind, a stash of pearls, and he had gone to sell them. So we were carrying a fortune with us, though I didn’t know it at the time, which he meant to bring home and shower his Helen with. He meant to buy land and build a manor, to become a lord in his own right, because he hated seeing her labor as a fisherman’s wife when he knew she hadn’t been brought up to it.”

  “Then he might have made up with his father and found some occupation in the castle,” I said, “instead of a harebrained scheme like that.”

  “Ah, well. A chap likes to make his own way. In any case, they were much at odds in those days, and I daresay he didn’t want to put Helen in that position, living in the castle while the countess made her life miserable. You women can be devilish territorial. In any case, where should I be if he didn’t go down to Edinburgh on his harebrained scheme? Dead on the floor of a tavern, without much skull left to speak of.”

  I gripped his hand. “Oh, don’t.”

  “In any case, as we got near to Thurso, Magnus became more and more animated. He’d been away longer than he expected, and he missed her terribly. Couldn’t wait to see her again, to see the children, to show her what he’d brought, to introduce her to me. I was rather charmed by his ardor, though it made me ache for you, Truelove. But when we arrived at last, she was gone.”

  “You mean—”

  “No, not gone like that. At least, not until later. The hut was empty, and he was frantic, went into the village for news and found the children in the church, as he had told them to do if some danger threatened. And the children told him that a boatful of men had landed on the shore near their cottage, had made Helen put on the suit in which she had arrived there seven years ago, which Magnus had stashed away in an old trunk, and she had swum away with them.”

  “My God. It’s just like Magnusson’s story.”

  “Magnusson? Who’s Magnusson?”

  “Thurso’s son, the modern Thurso,” I said, and then, more slowly, “His natural son. He’s the one repairing this castle. He’s turning it into a hotel of some kind. And he discovered the chest that— And he told us the legend of the castle—but it doesn’t make sense.”

  “My dear, none of this makes any sense.”

  “I mean that the story he told us—the family’s selkie legend—took place here in Hoy. It’s associated with this castle, not Thurso.”

  Silverton leaned back against the wall. “There are dozens of selkie legends in these parts, Truelove, and it’s been hundreds of years. Things get muddled and merged together. Interpreted according to one’s own superstitions. Isn’t that what we talked about, back in Greece? How myths are made.”

  “Yes, but—” I looked down at our clasped hands. A delicate movement stirred inside me, the baby quickening, and for an instant I forgot all of it, the tangled history, the banquet taking place nearby, Magnus and the Thursos and even Silverton, while an ocean of ferocious love drenched me. I put my other hand on the underside of my abdomen and closed my eyes. Next to me, Silverton moved.

  “Something wrong?”

  “No.”

  He made a little sound and laid his hand over mine. I opened my eyes and found he had turned toward me and watched me anxiously. I tried to smile.

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes. How did everybody end up here in Hoy?”

  “We followed her. One of the fishing fleet had seen them, heading in that direction, toward the Orkneys, so Magnus swallowed his pride and went to old Thurso for help. That was my idea, by the way. Old bury-the-hatchet Silverton. And I’ll be damned if the old man didn’t come bang up to scratch. Gave him men and boats and everything he needed.”

  “And you reached Hoy . . .”

  “And we reached Hoy and traced them north, along the coast, until we reached—well, as it happens—”

  “The same inlet where you and I met yesterday?”

  “Why, how did you know?”

  “Because I found her suit. Helen’s sealskin.”

  “By God! Where?”

  “In the cave where you found me.”

  His hand released mine. He straightened and stared at me. “Why the devil didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because I didn’t want to alarm you. Because I didn’t know you knew anything about Helen. Because I simply couldn’t explain what I felt in that cave, without terrifying you.”

  Silverton took me by the shoulders. “What? What did you feel in that cave?”

  “Max,” I said.

  “You can feel Max?”

  “I can feel his power. It was there in that cave, and it’s upstairs in the attic, and it’s in your bedchamber and God knows where else. In the great hall, I think, though it’s more diffuse there.”

  He gazed at me steadily, his expression fixed in such stern lines, I couldn’t tell what he thought of this revelation. Whether he was angry with me for keeping it secret, or mystified, or even believed me altogether.

  “He’s reaching for us,” I said.

  Silverton swore. Released me and leapt to his feet. “I’ll swear we searched every inch of that beach. She was gone. No sign of her.”

  “The cave is very dark.”

  “It wasn’t until we found our old friend Hunter and his men—”

  “Hunter?”

  “Oh, yes. You’ll remember him. The ginger chap who caused all the trouble in the first place, first on Skyros and then on the damned train into Edinburgh, and then at the North British while you lay in your drunken stupor.”

  I whispered, “He was here?”

  “Him and a half-dozen men. They raided our camp during the night, while we were entrenched near the inlet, searching for Helen. It was a damned close thing. He had a pistol with him.”

  “Oh, God. The bullet!”

  “What bullet?”

  “The bullet I found on the beach.”

  He was staring out the window, which overlooked the sea, and now turned his head over his shoulder and frowned downward at me. “Did you, now? Was this before or after you seduced me on that particular beach?”

  “Before, of course. I kept it in my pouch.”

  “And the sealskin?”

  “I brought it back with me, wrapped in my cloak. But Hunter! What happened to him? Did you kill him?”

  “No,” he said slowly, “I didn’t. Why do you ask?”

  “Because he paid us a visit at Thurso, two days after you disappeared. He surprised us in the library.”

  “You and Max?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Max and I were examining the contents of the chest, you see, the one Magnusson had discovered here. The reason Max summoned me up to Thurso to begin with.”

  “Yes, I remember. So that was what Hunter was after? This chest?”

  “No. He was after Max, actually. I think he wanted Max to send him somewhere, but Max didn’t know how, hardly even knew what he was talking about, and wouldn’t have done it in any case. We managed to take back his pistol and he leapt out the window and into the sea. He must have killed himself; I can’t imagine anyone surviving that leap, let alone swimming to safety afterward.”

  Silverton folded his arms. “Then how did he turn up in Hoy?”

  “I don’t know. I presume he accomplished all this before we met him in Greece. He must have first come to Hoy and found Helen, and then managed—God knows how—to get himself sent
to the twentieth century—maybe Max accidentally—”

  “But that’s impossible.”

  “Not quite. You see, we think of time as a sort of line, when it seems to me—”

  Silverton sat down on the bench opposite and leaned his forearms on his knees, so we were face-to-face, almost touching. “No, darling,” he said quietly. “I mean it’s impossible because he’s still here. He’s locked up right here in the dungeon of this castle, where Magnus imprisoned him three years ago.”

  • • •

  There is a ring on the fourth finger of my left hand, made of gold. Silverton placed it there himself, the morning after we consummated our marriage, or whatever it was that Magnus had made between us in the great hall of the castle of Hoy.

  He knew, of course, that I didn’t consider us properly married. He said as much, as we lay facing each other on the pallet at dawn, the blankets wound shamefully around our nakedness. You’re everything, I had told him. His arm stretched over my head, and the other hand caressed my cheek, and for some time we contemplated each other. Contemplated this new, intimate kingdom we had entered during the night.

  “And of course you think we’ve sinned just now, don’t you?” he said at last.

  “Yes.”

  “You do realize the modern Marriage Act is centuries away. You and I could marry each other right now, in this bed, just by saying a few vows and then copulating afterward, if Magnus hadn’t already done it. Married us, I mean.”

  “I didn’t say any vows, and neither did you.”

  “Then I’ll say them. I, Frederick, take you, Emmeline—”

  I put my fingers on his lips. “Don’t blaspheme.”

  “I wasn’t. We don’t need a church, Truelove. Not even a priest. Not in this age. God Himself is the only necessary witness.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t give a damn if we’re married or not. What does it matter, after all this?”

  “It matters to me. It matters to me whether you think I’m your husband or not.” He sat up. “Let’s get dressed.”

  “Oh, God. Must we?”

  “Yes, my dear. We must.”

  He had risen and dressed while I watched him dreamily, and then he had persuaded me to rise and to dress. Out in the cool, foggy morning, he had led me down the path to the village and the small stone church at its center. I stopped at the sight of it.

  “What about banns?” I said.

  “Merely customary.”

  I looked again to the wooden doors of the church. It was a Thursday, I believe, and they were shut.

  “Must we?” I said again.

  “Well, no. Of course not. But I should very much like you to believe in this marriage as I do. I should very much like to hear the word husband from your lips, and have you believe it.”

  I looked up at his dear face, the blue eyes I loved, the familiar shape of his jaw and the color of his damp hair, and I thought, He means it.

  So I went into the church with him, and he roused the sleepy priest and said his vows to me before the humble altar. I repeated them back. The priest proclaimed us man and wife and Silverton drew the gold signet ring from the fifth finger of his left hand and placed it on the fourth finger of my left hand. It was too big, of course. We later went to the blacksmith and had it properly fitted, in exchange for a large, handsome cod.

  The point is this. I stood before Silverton on that misty August morning and watched him slide his own gold signet ring over my knuckle, lifted up my face to be kissed as his bride, and I—foolish creature—thought we were therefore united. I thought the ring I wore signified the infinite trust between us, the union of our bodies and minds and secrets. The circle we had drawn between ourselves and the rest of the world, inside which there was only the two of us, our true selves, nothing else.

  And I suppose, since I then went on to keep certain truths from him, I shouldn’t have felt betrayed or even surprised to learn that he had kept certain truths from me.

  But I was.

  • • •

  “My God,” I said. “My God. Right here in the castle, right here below our feet. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “For the same reason, I expect, you didn’t tell me about the bullet or the sealskin. I didn’t wish to alarm you. And there was no need.”

  I stared across the small space between us, so short a distance that I could see the tiny streaks of brown leaking from his pupils into his blue irises, I could see each line around his eyes and his mouth, I could count each eyelash. I thought of the past seven months, sharing our little hut, sharing our bed, each daily joy, each daily bread. I looked at his lips and remembered how they felt on my breast; I looked at his golden, thatchy beard and remembered how it felt between my legs.

  My mouth was so dry, it was difficult to speak. “All that time. All this time, he was a mile away, a short walk, and you knew.”

  “He’s locked in the dungeon, Truelove. There’s no danger at all.”

  “If he had escaped?”

  “He can’t escape. The guards—”

  A faint shriek floated down the corridor. Somebody’s laughter.

  “For what reason?” I asked. “What reason does Magnus keep him there? Why didn’t he just kill him?”

  “He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t bring himself.”

  “Why not? My God, why not?”

  Silverton opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of footsteps came down the hall at a frantic pace. A man bolted past, and another.

  “What the devil?” Silverton said, rising from the seat.

  I rose, too, and looked around the corner of the window recess, into the corridor. The music had stopped, the gaiety had stopped. Somebody screamed. The sound carried like a banshee’s wail, and abruptly cut off.

  Silverton turned to me. “Stay here,” he said, and pushed me back into the recess.

  “But—”

  “This one time, Truelove, for God’s sake! Do as I say and stay there!”

  Before I could answer, he bolted down the passageway toward the great hall.

  • • •

  Of course I didn’t obey him. I sat stunned for a second or two, trying to comprehend the turn of events, and then I rose from the seat and followed my husband at a stealthy, safe distance.

  I couldn’t let him see me. If he saw me, he would bend his attention in my direction. He would try to save me instead of himself. I kept back, concealing myself in the corridor’s many shadows. My dagger, my leather pouch were both upstairs in the bedchamber, out of reach. Ahead of me, Silverton slipped around a corner and disappeared. The walls now echoed with an ominous silence, except for a single voice, a male voice, issuing commands I could not hear.

  Surely this was all part of the feast, I thought. Surely this was some kind of entertainment being practiced on the guests. Two hundred men guarded the castle, and the Earl of Thurso had brought fifty men of his own in their ships across from Scotland.

  A scuffle of voices broke through the silence, and another shriek. I stopped and flattened myself against the wall, listening.

  Think, Truelove. You can’t just walk right into the hall.

  Footsteps. Heavy, loud, quick, numerous.

  I dashed for the nearest corner and whipped myself around it just in time. Three men ran past toward the hall, bearing arms, wearing leather armor, and I couldn’t say if they were guards or attackers, hunters or prey. I flattened myself against the wall and prayed they wouldn’t see me in the darkness. Prayed Silverton would find the same luck, wherever he was.

  When the noise of their passing faded, I nudged myself out into the corridor and hurried in the same direction Silverton had taken, ducking around the same corner, which led not to the great hall itself but to a narrow, plain staircase. A faint light glowed at the top. Behind me, the sound of footfalls smacked against the stone.
I dashed up the steps, breathless, to find myself in the gallery above, which bordered three sides of the great hall at a height of perhaps fifteen or eighteen feet.

  I stopped and stared at the opposite side, where the minstrels had played, but there was no sign of them. They were either ducking beneath their seats, or had abandoned their instruments altogether. I looked to my right, the long side of the hall, and a hint of gold flashed from the darkness. Silverton?

  I stood with my back to the wall, and I couldn’t quite see over the edge and into the space below. I was expecting the noise of a melee to rise into my ears, but instead it was strangely calm, just a single voice calling out commands, and the rustling sound of footsteps on rushes. If I crept to the edge, would I expose myself? Carefully I edged along the wall, out of sight, in Silverton’s direction. The gold flash had disappeared back into the shadows, but I knew he was there. My head ached; my eyes were starting to blur. I kept myself upright by sheer force of will, inch by inch, until I reached the end of the wall, facing the open space of the long side of the gallery, and stifled a scream.

  Three men lay motionless on the ground. Silverton bent over one of them, working his hands at something on the man’s body, over his lifeless shoulder. I wanted to call out, but my throat was too stiff. I moved forward to the pillar at the corner of the gallery, thinking I could grip it and brace myself, and as I approached the gallery’s edge the scene in the hall itself became visible. I gathered the details in an instant—tables overturned, guests in a huddle, presided over by a very few men, something going on at the head table, where was Magnus?—when a movement caught my eye from the gallery. Silverton. He held a simple crossbow in his hands, into which he had already loaded an arrow. As I watched, wavering, he coolly brought it up to his chest, aimed, and fired. A shout came up from the hall below. Silverton was already reloading. I peered over the edge and saw a blur of movement, an arrow flying back in Silverton’s direction, a ginger head attached to an enraged, familiar face.