Flame

by May McGoldrick

  Mater’s attention was focused on her task. As she stirred the contents of the kettle, the picture of Joanna MacInnes flashed into Gavin’s head. It was so strange that he couldn’t shake her free of his mind. This morning, before departing Ironcross Castle, he’d followed his impulse and gone back to his room simply to look again at her portrait. It was there where Edmund had returned it, upon the hearth.

  Gavin was certain now that none of his men had taken the painting. He knew that the three warriors would have taken more pleasure in gloating over their daring move than in actually stealing the portrait out of his chamber. But the whole thing still puzzled him. It was so strange to have someone go to the trouble of stealing that painting and putting it back where it had always been. The act served no purpose.

  Gavin shook his head and tried to tear his eyes away from the fire.

  “She would come here, you know, and do exactly as you have done.”

  Mater’s words pierced Gavin’s thoughts like a bolt of the lightning. His eyes snapped up and stared into her gray eyes. “Who?” he asked unsteadily.

  Mater’s eyes drifted toward the direction in which he’d come. “All alone, she would come to us, riding down that hill. She would get down from her mare and walk to this fire and sit so silently before it. Just as you are doing now.”

  How could she know this? he wondered. How could she bring up Joanna’s name when he’d just been thinking of her. As far as Mater knew, he had never known the young woman. Despite what his heart kept trying to tell him, he never had so much as met her. He gazed across the fire at the old woman. One who can read thoughts, Gavin knew, can be a powerful friend...or an even more powerful foe.

  “Your soul is tormented, laird,” she added. “But hers was troubled as deeply as yours.”

  Gavin’s face darkened and his eyes narrowed. As far as her words about him, the warrior knew his features reflected the grimness that he carried within him. But what she said about Joanna alarmed him. That portrait was a picture of youth and happiness and hope.

  “Were you her confidante?” he asked. “Her advisor?”

  “To her, I was Mater.”

  Her simple declaration was powerful, but he wasn’t convinced. “A household of servants tell me she was happy,” he stressed. “And yet...”

  “Those who knew her well are dead.”

  “And you are the last living person who can tell me more about her?”

  “Nay, not the last one,” she said enigmatically, shaking her head. “But there was a time when she would escape Ironcross and take refuge here. Aye, many a time we would spend a few hours here by this fire...here in the abbey.”

  Gavin’s eyes drifted to the woman’s hands as she stirred the contents of now simmering kettle. “What was the reason for her misery?”

  She didn’t answer his question, but instead picked up a wooden bowl.

  “How could a woman of her age and place be plagued with sorrow as deep as...” Gavin cut his own words short.

  “As deep as your own?” she finished. “Nay, laird. How could a man in your place and position be so tortured as she!”

  She dipped the wooden bowl into the kettle. Stretching her two hands across the fire, she offered him the steaming potion. Gavin took it.

  “How?” The warrior chief looked her in the eye, and then, surprised at his own openness, heard himself say plainly, “Grief!”

  She picked up the wooden spoon and continued to stir again. Gavin brought the bowl to his lips.

  “A man who conceals his grief,” she said, “will find no remedy for it.”

  Gavin paused. “I do not conceal it. I simply wonder if there is a remedy for it.”

  “You haven’t been searching for one.”

  “Perhaps no remedy exists.”

  "What happens if I were to tell you that I have the answer?”

  He just stared.

  “Would you believe me?”

  “This is foolishness!”

  “You don’t believe me!”

  “I’m not here to discuss my grief.” His tone was curt even to his own ear, but unexpectedly, he saw Mater’s eyes soften with understanding.

  “Learn to weep, laird, and you will learn to laugh again.”

  Looking at her, it occurred to him that she spoke as if she’d known him for years. And despite what he liked to admit, he knew that he did indeed conceal his grief beneath his fierce exterior. Gavin stared at her more closely. From the time that he was a lad, he had never wept. He recalled once wondering if, once started, he would ever be able to stop.

  He looked down at the bowl in his hands, and his thoughts returned to Joanna and her pain.

  “For whom did she grieve?” he asked gruffly.

  “The answers to your questions about Joanna MacInnes await you at your keep.”

  He shook his head. “All who knew her closely--the ones who could answer any questions about her--they are all dead. You said so yourself.”

  Gavin watched the spark again come back into her eyes as Mater looked at him straight in the eye. He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. Feeling the weight of the bowl in his hands, he brought it to his lips. The brew was soothing and warm as it went down.

  A moment passed as Mater watched his face. Gavin returned her gaze and then finished the broth, as a curious frown creased the brow of the woman.

  “Not all!” she answered then. “They are not all dead!”

  Staring at her from behind the lowered rim of the bowl, Gavin waited, hoping to learn more. But the old woman was clearly done with their chat. He watched her as she raised herself to her feet and picked up a satchel that lay on the ground. Gavin sensed that he was being dismissed, but he had no desire to leave. Not yet. So he pushed himself to his feet as well, and fell in step beside her.

  For the next couple of hours, Gavin walked with her as she wandered through the sun warmed hillsides surrounding the valley. Something about the way the sunlight fell on the river, on the rocks and the grass--something in the time they shared--reminded him of days he had spent as a lad in the hills around Jedburgh Abbey in the Borders. He didn’t press her to tell him more, and she seemed to tolerate his presence. He helped whenever she allowed him to--pulling a stubborn root, holding her satchel when she would relinquish it. But when they eventually reached the fields where Gavin--from the top of the hill--had seen villagers working the land, the new laird bent down and took up in his hand a cast off hoe.

  “Why are they hiding?”

  “They do not trust you,” she said. “They are afraid!”

  “But why?”

  She turned her gray eyes up to his face. He could feel the sun on his back. But she never squinted or raised a hand to shield her eyes against the light. “What makes you so trusting?”

  There was a sharp edge to her voice, and Gavin frowned at her, trying to understand what her question had to do with the overwhelming fear that could drive an entire village into hiding at the sight of one man.

  “I decide where to place my trust,” Gavin answered.

  “You accepted the broth out of my hands and drank it unquestioningly.”

  “I would not pass an offering of hospitality,” he argued.

  “I could have poisoned you!”

  “Aye. You could have, at that. But I trusted you.”

  “You did not know me.”

  “Still, I trust you.”

  “Why?” she almost hissed, frustration becoming apparent in her wrinkled features.

  “Because I have done nothing to incur your ill will. Because I wanted us to be at peace. You did not run away and hide like the rest of them. You stayed out and faced me. For all that you knew, I might have come to harm you. But you trusted me, so I trusted you.”

  “‘Twas no trust, you fool,” she snapped. “I have no fear of any violence that you or any other man might bring down upon me. At my age, I have no fear of death.”

  “Nor do I!” he said coolly.

  She bit back her next
words, and they stared at one another in silence. Gavin spoke again.

  “I have come to the Highlands in peace. I am here to be laird, and I want the trust of you and these people.”

  “They fear you. They hate you.”

  Her harsh words were a blow, but Gavin shrugged them off. “I have done nothing to deserve their hate.”

  “Perhaps, laird. But the ones before you have!”

  Gavin stared for a moment. There was so much that he needed to learn about these people--about Ironcross Castle and its past. His words were clipped when he spoke again. “I cannot change what is past. I can only control the present. I can only work for the future well being of all who live on these lands.”

  “Ha! You think you can control the present?” She lifted a finger and pressed it against his chest. “You cannot force us to hear you. Nay, laird. You will have to bear the price of your predecessors’ guilt. ‘Tis too late to...”

  “Nay, Mater.” He cut her short, wrapping his giant hand around her bony fingers. He knew how easy it would be to crush them in his grip, and he could see in her face that she knew it too. But he just held the hand--gently--and let the flesh of his palm warm the coldness of her old bones. “Nay, Mater. I will earn their respect and trust. I will earn yours.”

  “Aye. So you can betray us.”

  “I do not betray a trust,” Gavin growled. “That I vow!”

  CHAPTER 7

  The sun dropped from sight behind the high walls of Ironcross Castle as Gavin descended the last hill into the gorge, and it was fairly dark by the time he reached the jumbled slabs of rock that leaned against one another beside the path. The rocks looked nearly white in the gathering gloom; there were a dozens of the strange formations in the gorge, looking like an army of hideous monsters in the twilight.

  He had never expected to be returning so late. But when he’d started for the abbey in the morning, he had never even hoped to learn so much in just one day.

  Mater was certainly a fascinating woman. She had a kind of gruff charm about her that Gavin found quite engaging. Sometimes, the honest way that she spoke had been both heart-wrenching and enlightening. But as the afternoon had worn on, she had also spoken in what had the appearance of riddles. He was certain, though, that her words were intended to give him some clues about the origin of the curse that everyone believed hung over Ironcross Castle. After what he had heard today, Gavin knew that most of the truth that he was in search of lay in the combined histories of the abbey and the past lairds of Ironcross, both. What it was, however, she would not tell him.

  In spite of her obstinacy in that, though, before the day had ended and Gavin had taken his leave, he was certain that he had somewhat effected a change in Mater. Though she clearly had no goodwill for the past lairds--and in spite of her open declaration that she would not trust him--she had become almost agreeable as the day went on. And before end of the day, Gavin had even spotted a few workers returning to the fields. Very few, he recalled, but today he had at least made a start.

  Gavin’s thoughts were drawn back to the present by the tossing of his steed’s head as the trail narrowed. He patted him on the neck to calm him.

  “Aye, Paris,” the laird said aloud, “I can see the castle as well. We are nearly home, big fellow, and though those two dogs, Edmund and Peter, probably have eaten my supper, I am quite certain they’ve saved some oats for your...”

  The boulder, large enough to crush Gavin’s skull, grazed him on the shoulder with enough impact to unhorse the giant, sending him crashing into the rock wall beside the path.

  Springing to his feet, Gavin whipped his broadsword from its scabbard and peered up at the rocky overhangs for his attacker. His startled charger had skittered off into the darkness, but the warrior knew he would not go far. The silence of the night was unbroken, and Gavin could see nothing.

  His heart hammering in his chest, Gavin’s mind suddenly flooded with those words of warning. The curse! No laird of Ironcross Castle has died of old age for centuries. The Lowlander shook his head, disgusted with himself. He was simply not going to allow nonsense to cloud his mind or rule his actions.

  Moving cautiously across the path, Gavin knelt beside the boulder. One man could lift it--he was fairly certain of that. Two men could easily handle it, and perhaps aim it with some precision. One man, or perhaps even a woman, could roll it from a ledge. Gavin could feel blood running down the side of his face where he had struck the rock wall, and he flexed the muscles in his shoulder.

  Quietly, Gavin sheathed his broadsword and drew his dirk. Holding the dagger in his teeth, he quickly crossed to the base of the mound of rocks and began to climb. This mound rose fairly high above the floor of the gorge, and there were a number of places that the boulder could have fallen from.

  The night was still, but for the sound of Paris stamping and snorting with impatience a few yards down the path. Gavin climbed carefully, but there was no movement above. And there was no one to be found. Though it was dark, not a shadow moved anywhere, and Gavin began to wonder if perhaps the rock had indeed fallen without human assistance.

  On one of the ledges of the rocky formation, the warrior chief stopped and looked about him. The walls of Ironcross Castle loomed up high and black, and the laird could see a sentinel lighting torches as he made his way along the parapet. Above him the stars were like diamonds on the black velvet sky. There was no point in going up any further, he decided. Not without a torch.

  Shaking his head, Gavin sheathed his dirk and started down. At the bottom, he whistled for Paris, and the huge animal trotted over. With a grunt of pain, the warrior swung up into the saddle and nudged the horse around toward the castle.

  “Home, big fellow,” the laird commanded, adding, “and if in the future you see any more ghosts, you can be certain I will be paying you closer heed.”

  **

  Joanna froze at the creaking of the great oak door.

  Standing in the center of underground crypt, the young woman looked around in terror. Never in the past had Mater and her cult entered the castle on any night other than the night of a full moon. At least, not on any night that she was aware of. Why were they coming tonight? The one night Joanna had chosen to finalize her plan for justice.

  Panic swept through her at the heavy metallic clack of the door’s ancient lock. She knew she needed to hide, and she silently flew across the stone floor toward the shadowing recess beside the altar-like table. The oil lamp that sat on the table, burning eternally, flickered with the threat of exposing her.

  The sound of footsteps echoed down the tunnel as Joanna threw herself into the dark refuge. Pressing up against the wall, she held her breath as the steps paused at the entry to the crypt. One of the thick pillars obstructed her view of the door, but Joanna suddenly realized that the trespasser was alone. There was no talking, no hushed whispers...this was no cult gathering. She waited, but there was no sound. Whoever stood at the entrance was waiting, as well. If the intruder came in and searched, Joanna knew she would be found. She put her hand to the dirk in her belt.

  After what seemed to be an eternity, whoever it was moved on down the tunnel.

  Joanna waited a few more moments, but no one returned, and she let out a long sigh of relief. But then, an urgent sense of worry tugged at her senses. There was something terribly wrong. It had to be one of Mater’s women who’d come, but why hadn’t she come into the vault?

  Joanna wracked her brain as she stepped out into the crypt again. Why else would someone use that oaken door to enter the castle? These tunnels were never used as passageways by house servants, or by hungry peasants seeking shelter. Since the time Joanna had been hiding here, Mater and her evil followers had been the only intruders.

  The young woman looked about, making certain she had left no clues to her presence there. Then she silently made her way out of the crypt. She wasn’t finished with what she had come here to do, but there was still about a fortnight left to the next full moon. There w
as still time left to plan her final revenge.

  Standing in the pitch-black of the tunnel, she listened for noises, but there was nothing. Once again, the stillness of the earth enveloped her. To her right the long, deep caverns and passages, burrowing beneath Ironcross, awaited her. To her left the oaken door. It was so close. It seemed to beckon to her in the darkness.

  She went to it.

  Joanna knew the huge iron key hung suspended from a spike driven into the stone wall, and hesitantly she felt for it. The ancient metal was cool on her fingertips, and she took it down, slipping it into the lock and turning it.

  Drawing a deep breath, Joanna opened the door and peered into the darkness behind her. There was nothing. No sound. No sign of life. Turning back to the open door, she stepped through and pushed cautiously along in the darkness. Soon the tunnel wall gave way to the stone walls of a small cave, and as the passage widened, a brush of cool, night breeze swept through her hair. Like some starving beggar who finally sits at table, Joanna filled up her lungs with the fresh heather-scented air until she thought she might burst.

  Suddenly, she was out from under the roof of cave, and above her the stars sparkled with a brilliance like no time she could ever recall. The ability to breathe, to feel the cool breezes pulling gently at her clothes, at her hair--these were sensations Joanna thought she would never experience again. Like a prisoner chained in a deep pit, she had sentenced herself to confinement inside this castle. For more than six months, she had buried herself in what was--for her--the labyrinthine tomb beneath Ironcross. And it was a tomb from which there could be no escape. Her death could be the only end to this sentence.

  She raised her hands high in the air, allowing the soft night air to wrap about her, to caress her body.

  A low whistle, and then the sound of a horse floated upward to her, jerking her abruptly out of her reverie. Joanna peered down over the ledge.