by P. C. Cast
with the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were the spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
when they cut him down on the highway,
down like a dog on the highway,
and he lay in his blood on the highway,
with a bunch of lace at his throat.
I began the last stanza standing in the shadows between the two fires, hands tracing the patterns of the words like a magician performing illusions in the shade-filled air of the night.
Still of a winter’s night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon the cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A Highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A Highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
I ended by clasping my hands before me and looking over my shoulder off into the distance—like I was sure the friggin Highwayman’s ghost was riding up behind us. The guys were quiet for a second, then (thank God) they broke into riotous applause, all talking at once about the bad-assed Redcoats and wondering where they could find a Bess of their own.
I made my way back to ClanFintan, amidst the congrats of the troops, and reperched on my log.
“I liked your story.” ClanFintan handed me the wineskin and I took a grateful swig.
“Thanks. It’s one of my favorites.”
“I have never heard it before.” His voice sounded different—more contemplative than curious.
“Oh, well, I’m not surprised. I made it up.” I had my fingers crossed behind my back. I truly didn’t mean to plagiarize, and I sent up a silent apology to the dead Mr. Noyes.
“Who are the Redcoats?”
“The bad guys. It’s a clothing metaphor for evil.” He didn’t look convinced, so I switched on and went into teacher mode. “Red is for blood. Blood has a negative connotation. Therefore, a red coat would be a figurative allusion for an evil person or peoples. As would a sun rising to a red sky in the morning be a portent of disaster to come. Or a red look would be a negative or bad look.”
“And King George is who?”
At least he uses correct grammar.
“A made-up guy.” My fingers were recrossing themselves.
“And a highwayman is…” He paused, waiting for me to fill in the correct answer.
“A thief who uses a road that winds its way like a ribbon up a mountain. Hence the ‘high’ part of the word.” I tried to meet his eyes, but didn’t do a great job selling my fibs. I’m really not a very good liar. A good exaggerator, yes—a good liar, no.
“Hrumph.”
I translated that as centaur for “You’re full of crap.” But I acted as if I didn’t speak the lingo.
“Gosh, it’s been a long day.” Big yawn and stretch. “I think I’d better turn in.”
For a moment he didn’t react, he just looked at me oddly. Like he was trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together. And suddenly I remembered how adamant Alanna had been about me not letting anyone know I wasn’t me. However confusing that might sound.
She had seemed kind of stressed and neurotic (even more than what was the norm for Suzanna), but her distress had been real. And let’s face it, she knew a lot more about what was going on in this world than I did. I had to assume she had good reasons to be paranoid. Yet she had told me that I could trust ClanFintan. At the very least I better keep my mouth shut about my origin until I had a chance to question Alanna.
So I did my best to blink innocently up at my too-curious, handsome, petable husband. Then I glanced behind us at the entrance to the barn. “Hey, could you please go in there first and make sure there’s nothing creeping or crawling around before I make up a pallet?”
His distracted look of concentration changed into a smile. “Of course.” He found Dougal, who had migrated over to the other fire, probably to give us some privacy. “Dougal, Lady Rhiannon needs two blankets.”
Dougal snapped to like a good boy.
“Come.” He stood, holding out a hand to help me up. “I will not let anything creep or crawl on you.”
I took his hand and we went into the shadowy interior of the barn. It wasn’t very big, and it was packed with hay bales. They were bound together in clumps with twine, which was stacked on top of one another. ClanFintan busied himself tossing around some clumps and untying others. By the time Dougal handed him a couple of blankets, he had made a nice little nest near the front of the barn. He lay one of the blankets on top of the nest and motioned for me to join him.
“There is nothing in here that can harm you.”
“Thanks. I don’t like things that slither or dart.” I sat in the middle of the nest and began pulling off my boots. He bent down and took over for me.
I really liked that about him.
The barn was dark and cozy and smelled like a newly cut field.
“Where are you guys sleeping?”
“We will take turns at watch. Between our turns at watch we will rest by the fires.”
“I’m the only one who will be sleeping in here?”
“Yes.” He cocked his head and I could see the white gleam of his teeth.
“So it wouldn’t be indecent of me if I slipped out of my pants?” I hate sleeping in pants.
“No, I believe that would be fine.” His voice had turned into liquid velvet again.
I took off my pants, folding them neatly and bending (using my best Marilyn Monroe imitation) at the waist to set them on a convenient clump of hay. I knew his eyes were on me, and I liked it. Curling up on my blanket-covered hay nest, I lay back and smiled up at him.
He covered me with the other blanket.
“Good night. Sleep well, Rhiannon.” He didn’t turn to leave.
“When is your turn to watch?” What the hell, he was my husband.
“Not until well after moonrise.”
“Then would you stay with me until I fall asleep?”
“If you like.”
“I like.”
I sat up and scooted over, making room for his considerable bulk. He stepped into the nest and reclined. It was like he was sitting behind me—the human part of his torso was tall, but not so large that it was awkward. I gave him a chance to get situated, and then I leaned back so that the top part of my body rested comfortably against his chest and in his arms. I shifted position so that I was facing him, still resting in his arms.
My hair was acting crazy, as usual. Drying by the fire had made it curl like Medusa’s. He brushed some of it back out of my face.
“Sorry. It gets in the way a lot. I should cut it short.” I blew a stray strand out of my mouth.
He blinked at me in surprise. “Women do not cut their hair.”
Oops. “It might be easier if we did.” Crap. Wonder if he’d noticed that my hair was shorter than Rhiannon’s? Hastily I added, “When Alanna trimmed it the other day I should have told her to take a little more off.”
“Short hair might be easier, but less attractive.” He sounded like a typical guy. They love long hair. And, quite frankly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You may have a point.”
“Yes.” His stray hand caressed my hair, getting tangled in the mass of it. He lifted his hand, still enclosed in my hair, leaned down and buried his face in the middle of it. His movement sandwiched me against his chest and I felt, more than heard, his breathy moan.
He lifted his face out of my hair and our eyes met. Our faces were very close to one another.
“So, you like my hair?” His eyes traveled to my mouth as I whispered the question.
“I am finding that I like many things about you.”
I smiled softly at him. “You sound surprised.”
His gaze shifted back to my eyes. “I am.”
“Don’t be. What you see is really who I am.” Before he could get me backed into a conversat
ion Alanna would not approve of, I reached up and pulled his mouth down to mine.
I wondered if I would ever get used to the feel of him. He was like liquid heat and as he explored my mouth, my mind wandered to other places on my body I’d like him to explore. I felt goose bumps rise all the way down my spine and I moaned against his lips.
And he pulled away from me. Just a little, but I felt the absence of his warmth like a cold wind.
“Why did you stop?” I sounded hungry.
“You need to sleep.” He sighed and tapped my nose with one of his fingertips. “And I need to stop this before I forget that I cannot allow myself to shape-shift.”
His finger had moved from my nose and was now tracing the line of my lips. That was giving me goose bumps, too.
“Oh yeah.” I caught his finger between my teeth and bit down, gently. I was gratified to feel the sharp intake of his breath. I let his finger go with a kiss. “That’s a bummer.”
“What is a bummer?”
“A bummer is you not being able to allow yourself to shape-shift tonight.”
“A bummer is a bad thing.”
“Very bad.” We smiled at each other like teenagers.
I curled my body around him and snuggled against his warmth.
“Try to sleep,” he whispered into my hair.
“I can think of other things I’d rather be doing.”
“Relax and think about sleep.” His voice sounded strained—which made me smile against his chest.
One of his hands began rubbing the tight muscles of my back. I sighed with pleasure.
“That feels really good.”
He grunted a response that sounded like a muffled order to be quiet. His kneading hand worked the muscles of my back and began moving its way down to my very sore and very bare buttocks.
“Uhhhh, that’s sore.”
“I know. Be still.”
Now he sounded like my grandma.
But I hushed. The combination of my exhaustion and his warm, insistent massage was better than a Tylenol PM. I felt the stress drain out of my muscles. Sleep came suddenly, carrying me away on a tide of relaxation.
* * *
At first my dreams were disjointed snippets—scenes of being in a hot tub with the Lone Ranger and his horse, Silver. Which is odd enough, because I’ve never dreamed of the Lone Ranger before (if I’m going to dream of a masked guy, it’s usually Batman—his good/bad boy stuff really does it for me), but add to that oddity the fact that my dream persona was coming on to Silver, and kept trying to tell the Lone Ranger to take a hike, and you really have a weird dream. Even for me.
Anyway, that didn’t last long. Unlike Mr. Ed, Silver couldn’t talk, so I lost interest. My dream faded out from the hot-tub fiasco and I found myself plunked down in the middle of a large Saks Fifth Avenue store with a big wad of money in my fist and several salesladies salivating to help me. I was just making my way toward the blush-colored cashmere sweater set (price marked $529.00—it was on sale), when my body was suddenly sucked through the ceiling of…
…Oh, great. The barn.
I was floating above the two campfires and the sleepy centaurs. The moon had risen and was a sliver of light against the star-filled sky. This time I steeled myself against the feeling of vertigo as, against my will, my body lifted higher and began floating toward the northeast.
I looked off to my left and I could see the glow from the smoldering castle. I closed my eyes and pleaded with who or whatever was in control to please not make me go there. Instantly I was filled with a sense of reassurance and comfort. I relaxed a little and opened my eyes.
Sure enough, I wasn’t traveling toward the castle. Instead, I was heading in the direction of the distant mountains. I tried to will myself to the east so that I could check on Epi and maybe even float over the temple and snoop around and see what was going on there, but as I had discovered before, I had no real control over this type of dream experience.
But I told myself this time was different. Before, I didn’t realize that what I was seeing was reality and not a dream. This time I knew better.
My floating body traveled over the dark settlements. I peered down, trying to make sure that there were no people left who had disregarded the evacuation warnings, but I had little time to look for signs of life because as I reached the edge of the forest, my speed increased so that the trees below me became a dark blur. My body hurled ahead as if it had been shot from a sling.
Then I slowed and stopped before a structure perched at the base of a rugged mountain pass. The castle was large, almost as large as my father’s, but as I became accustomed to the darkness of my surroundings I realized it was not at all like MacCallan Castle. Where MacCallan Castle had been graceful and picturesque, this building was stark and imposing.
And then I felt it. If I had been standing, I would have doubled over at the waist. It was the same feeling I had had the night I witnessed MacCallan’s destruction. From the castle before me evil emanated, thick and cloying like honey dripping from a comb. The echoes of that night’s horror reverberated from the walls beneath me—not in the form of sound, but of feeling. I blinked as I tried to focus on the castle and see it objectively—but the shadows of MacCallan stayed with me; death colored my perception. I could not shake the ghosts of those men from my soul.
The castle looked as if it had been carved from the mountains. It was a perfect square with thick walls and barred doors. The walls themselves were built of a rough gray stone, which gave its exterior the appearance of age, like gnarled wood that had withstood many storms. As I studied the castle the setting of one of Edgar Allan Poe’s more obscure short stores, “Ligea,” flashed into my mind. The main action takes place in an ancient monastery, walled by thick, old stone. Within the walls Poe’s character subsequently watches his second wife killed by the specter of his first—who then revives and consumes the second wife as the narrator plunges into madness. Somehow the comparison felt appropriate.
My hovering body moved forward until I hung directly over the middle of the building. The castle was not asleep. I could see many open fires burning in the large, square courtyard. Although my dream body could not feel temperature, I realized it must be cold here because the shapes that tended the fires were covered with heavy blankets and capes with cowls. I shuddered, and for a moment I was afraid I had mistaken blankets and capes for wings as I had once before. But one of the figures shrugged off a blanket as it added another log to a fire, and I saw that it was definitely human. A human female. Of its own accord my body moved closer. All of the figures were women, but they moved methodically and didn’t speak to one another, like they were automatons.
“The women from MacCallan Castle.”
I spoke aloud and saw one head turn in my direction. She was young, probably only thirteen or fourteen. Her cheekbones were high and promised a striking profile to come, but now they were still sweetly rounded with cherubic youth. Her eyes were large and thickly lashed—they swept like butterfly wings as she tried to blink away the vestiges of a numbness in which the other women looked to be deeply entwined. She stared in my direction, straining to see something that had no real substance. Her hair was a mass of curls that caught the light of the fire and gleamed like faceted stones.
I felt a surge of sadness at the sight of this lovely girl. Something terrible was happening. I knew it with a surety that was fueled by more than the clinging horror of what I had witnessed the last time the dream magic had overtaken me. I didn’t understand it yet, but I knew what I was spiritually eavesdropping upon went beyond kidnapped slaves or abused concubines.
And then a horrible shriek split the night and the girl who had been straining to bring herself to see and feel retreated to the rest of the cowering females. Her eyes were once more glazed and empty. The women milled together like sheep whose shepherd had betrayed them to the wolves. They plucked nervously at their clothes and fretfully held their wraps tightly around their trembling bodies. Their attent
ion was focused in one direction. They were staring at a closed entrance. The door was large enough to suggest it might lead to a main hall or chamber.
The shriek repeated. A couple of the women started to move forward toward the door, but several of the others fretfully called them back.
Again the shriek sounded—almost inhuman in its raw pain. I couldn’t stand it. With everything inside of me I wished I knew what was happening—and I wished I knew how to stop it.
As if answering my plea, my body flashed forward and was sucked through the ominous door like a gerbil through a vacuum cleaner. I was spit out into the air, hovering near the ceiling of an immense room. My first impression was that the room reminded me, in a vague, shadowy way, of the dining hall at Epona’s temple. Fireplaces, big enough for several people to stand in, were blazing in each corner of the room. Flaming tapers were lit. But none of this dispelled the gloom of the chamber. Crude tables like ancient picnic benches had been pushed near the walls of the room, and in the flickering light I could see people seated all along the benches. Many of them had their heads lying on their arms and appeared to be asleep. None of them were talking.
Then another shriek, followed by a panting moan, drew my attention to the middle of the room. A group of people clustered around a single picnic bench. My body drifted toward the group and as I got closer I began to feel inundated by waves of evil followed by what I could best describe as a misting of despair. As on the night of the attack on MacCallan Castle, my premonition was almost palpable. I didn’t want to look—I didn’t want to see what was on that table, but my eyes refused to close.
Everyone in the group of people surrounding the bench had something in common other than their concentration on the table. They all had wings. Wings that rustled and stirred even though their bodies remained very still. I took a deep breath and braced myself as my spirit floated into position over the table.
I had found the source of the shrieking. It was a woman—she was naked but it was impossible to tell how young or old she was. She was lying on top of a table that glistened red with her blood. Her arms had been stretched over her head and tied down. Her legs were spread and her knees were up and bent. Her feet had been pulled back to her body and tied down, too. She looked like she was being prepared for some kind of obscene Pap test. Her distended belly rippled and writhed with a life of its own and she shrieked again—her neck muscles straining and her body quivering.