Highland Charm: First Fantasies

by April Holthaus

  The walls that had kept her safe since the Earl's death came crashing down around her and she gave a strangled moan as her body folded inward upon itself. She began to weep with wrenching sobs that rose from her throat and left her shuddering. Rocking wildly, her arms locked over her chest, she sobbed at the pain that washed through her in waves. Then the waves became real ones and she was lost in an angry sea, fighting for breath while the water surged around her, drawing her deeper and deeper into the suffocating darkness, until she could no longer see the light.

  Chapter 24

  Muriella struggled upward through the shadows toward a wavering brightness that beckoned like the touch of a human hand. Slowly, as the blackness dissolved, freeing her from the web of sleep, she opened her eyes. The first thing she became aware of was the weight of a cool cloth on her forehead. She was lying on the bed with the heavy furs beneath her, but she could not remember how she'd gotten there. On the far wall burned the torch whose light had lured her out of the darkness. She focused on the gold-and-orange flame, hoping its warmth would chase the chill from her body. Her breath seemed to come and go in time with the movement of the flame, but the heat could not reach her. Turning her head, she peered about until she saw movement, heard a sharp intake of breath.

  "She's awake. Ye'd best go now."

  Megan. But there was someone else who murmured something she could not understand before slipping from the room. "Who—" Muriella began, but she could not force the words past the raw pain in her throat.

  "'Twas Duncan," the servant told her, approaching the bed on silent feet. "He helped me lift ye from the floor. I couldn't do it on my own." When her mistress started to rise, Megan laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Lie still. Ye aren't well."

  It was true. Muriella felt weak and faintly dizzy; the slightest movement of her head set the room spinning. Her heartbeat was uneven, but when she saw the gold-and-green curtain that swayed as the servant came closer, her pulse increased. She remembered now—the new hangings, her cry of pain, her tears, and then… Her head pounded dully and she closed her eyes, swollen and painful with weeping.

  "What ails ye?" Megan asked as she adjusted the cloth on her mistress's forehead. "Ye don't seem to have a fever, but yer face is so pale"

  Muriella took a deep breath. "I'm no’ ill," she said. "'Twas only the Sight."

  The servant's eyes widened. "But we found ye on the floor. Ye didn't even know we were there."

  Muriella found it difficult to speak around the lump in her throat, but she saw that Megan too was afraid, and knew she had to calm her. "I think 'twas because the vision was too strong. It overwhelmed me so completely that I had to fall beneath its weight."

  The servant did not understand, but she touched her mistress's hand in compassion, hoping Muriella would not feel how erratically her heart was fluttering. "Was it the battle again?"

  "No. 'Twas something I first saw long ago. I thought I was free of it, but..." Her voice trailed off as the memory of her own words echoed in her head. The Sight never lies. The vision will come to pass, just as all the others have. I can't stop it and I can't change it. All I can do is wait. Her mouth was dry and her hands damp with sweat.

  "Well," the servant murmured, "I think 'twould be best if ye closed yer eyes and tried to sleep. I'll tell Sir John ye won't be down for supper." She could not quite banish the quaver from her voice. When she turned to go, Muriella put out a hand to stop her.

  "I have to go down."

  "Why?" the servant demanded. "Ye don't even look like ye could stand."

  "Because," Muriella said, "I don't want to be trapped here among the shadows all evening. Just now my thoughts aren't very good company, ye ken." She paused while Megan regarded her doubtfully.

  "Don't worry," Muriella added. "The weakness will go soon. 'Tis always the way. I'll rest for a while, then join the others in the hall."

  The servant narrowed her lips into a thin line of disapproval, but she did not argue. She had learned long ago once Muriella had made a choice, she would not be swayed. Perhaps she should slip away and tell Sir John how she had found her mistress sprawled unconscious among the rushes. Surely he would make her stay in bed where she belonged. Muriella's grip on her arm increased and Megan leaned closer.

  "Don't do it," Muriella said. "Swear to me ye won't tell him."

  The servant could not look away from those strange green eyes that saw so much. With a shiver of apprehension, she whispered, "I swear."

  * * *

  In a brocade gown of many colors, with her braid wound tightly around her head, Muriella stood looking down into the Great Hall. John was not at the high table with Colin, and it took her a moment to locate him, seated at one of the trestle tables with his men. He was using a thick slice of bread for a plate, just as they were, and seemed perfectly at home on the rough plank bench they all shared. Duncan was beside him, but Muriella could see the squire was not as comfortable as his master. The sight of John's dark, bearded face brought the fluttering wings of fear back to life within her. She wanted to turn in the other direction and make her way to the high table, but the thought of the walls of her chamber made her turn toward her husband.

  As she passed, the men fell silent one after another, their knives clutched in their hands, their bearded faces lit by the yellow glare of the torches. The stillness rang in her ears, louder by far than their raucous laughter, and though she looked neither to the right nor left, she felt their wary eyes upon her. The heavy fabric of her skirt gripped tightly in her fingers, Muriella approached the table where John sat. The men around him began to shift uncomfortably.

  When he realized how quiet the others had become, John looked up, smiling, and saw his wife, who had stopped at the end of the table. The laughter died on his lips. What was she doing here, waiting expectantly, destroying, with one look from her disturbing green eyes, the easy camaraderie he and the men had shared?

  Beside him, Richard Campbell took his slab of meat-soaked bread and, swinging his leg over the bench, made his way to another table. His brother Andrew did the same. One by one the others followed, until only John and Duncan were left.

  As Muriella came closer, John leaned forward to speak in a whisper rough with impatience. "Mayhap 'twould be better if ye sat at the high table where ye belong."

  The men were watching and listening, waiting for her to turn away, but she could not do it. She could not let them see how much their apprehension hurt her. "'Tis where ye belong as well, but that doesn't seem to worry ye. So," she added, "I'll stay." Without waiting for his response, she seated herself on the bench.

  John's fingers tightened around the handle of his dagger, which still held a piece of dripping mutton he had speared before he noticed Muriella. He should have ordered her to leave and been done with it, but it was too late for that. They would both look like fools if he sent her away now. "So long as ye don't linger," he said.

  "I'll get her something to eat," Duncan declared, rising from his own bench with alacrity.

  Muriella watched the squire go, certain he was grateful for the excuse to slip away, even for a moment. Placing her hands on the rough plank table, she traced the furrows and pits in the wood with apparent concentration.

  "Well?" her husband demanded. "What's so important that it couldn't wait?"

  She was no longer certain what instinct had drawn her here instead of toward the relative safety of her usual place; she only knew that she’d had to come. She wondered why, when she looked up at her husband's frowning face. His brown hair was tumbled in disorder, mingling with the curling confusion of his beard, emphasizing the displeasure she read in his eyes. Muriella forced herself to meet John's gaze. "I came to say my chamber is lovely." To her the words were an agony he would never understand; since the Earl's death, John had twice touched feelings she had willed into darkness. Twice he had moved her and made her weep. That frightened her as even his anger had never done, as deeply as the terror that whirled within her at the vis
ion of the rising water.

  John stared at his wife in surprise. He had forgotten, in the turmoil of preparing for battle, about the scene in her room that afternoon and the instructions he had given Mary. He had wanted to forget, had welcomed the coming conflict because it kept his thoughts occupied. Even had he remembered, he would not have expected Muriella to acknowledge his gesture. For the first time he noticed that the glitter had left her eyes. Her cheeks were pale, touched slightly with pink, and her face had an uncharacteristic softness tonight. Without conscious thought, he reached to cover her hand with his. "Ye seem better. Has the vision left ye?"

  Muriella shook her head in confusion. She had thought it gone, but now it was back. As John's fingers closed around hers, the image became stronger, more vivid. Or was it something else? Her head began to swim with the image of falling shadows streaked with red and her ears to ring with the clashing of many blades. She saw the struggle, the battle, the death, but it was not the same. It was— Her heart began to pound. "Ye're going to war, aren't ye?"

  John released her hand abruptly. "Who told ye that?" He'd given strict orders that his wife was not to be told until the last minute.

  Muriella kept her eyes lowered. "I overheard it in the halls," she lied. "Is't true?"

  John sighed. He should have known something like that could not be kept secret. "Aye," he told her. "We leave before first light tomorrow."

  Muriella felt a rush of relief. He was going away. She would be safe. Then her throat constricted with a new kind of fear. She'd be out of danger, but he would not. "'Tis the Macleans, isn't it?" she asked unsteadily.

  "They aren't the only ones, but they're involved, aye."

  "And Elizabeth?"

  "We don't know for certain, but we think she's at Duart, away from the center of the rebellion. If she stays there, she should be all right."

  When he saw that Muriella was not reassured, John squeezed her hand. "Don't worry. Maclean is a fool, but he isn't a madman. He'll see that Elizabeth is safe."

  It was not really her sister-in-law Muriella was thinking of; it was John. Instinctively, she closed her fingers tighter around her husband's, asking a silent question of the Sight she had never before summoned of her own free will. For a moment, the warmth of his touch shook her. Then the coldness seemed to settle over her skin and the room began to sway.

  When John felt his wife squeeze his hand spasmodically, he looked down at her in confusion. She had never done that before. Then he saw the gray cast of her face and the strange darkness in her eyes.

  "No!" he shouted, springing up and away from her in one swift movement. "Ye could curse a man that way, don't ye know that?"

  His voice rang through the hall, and the men, who had begun to talk among themselves again, fell silent, staring from John to Muriella and back again.

  Muriella's eyes cleared, the room ceased its spinning, but her heartbeat dragged and her hands trembled. John glared down at her, his face white with rage or fear, she could not decide which. She felt inexplicably bereft. Around her the men were staring, their eyes full of silent accusations that echoed John's own. She was alone in a room full of strangers, a world full of strangers who could never understand—and did not wish to.

  John heard a movement beside him and glanced up to see Duncan with Muriella's supper in his hands. The older man welcomed the interruption. Motioning for the squire to pass, he said in voice that carried to other listening ears, "Eat. 'Twill make ye feel better."

  Muriella looked away, but not before he caught a hint of the pain on her face.

  "Damn!" Turning on his heel, John called. "I'm going for a ride. 'Tis far too close in here for my taste."

  "But m'lord, ye'll be riding all day tomorrow," Duncan protested.

  John glowered at the squire. "Since when are ye my nursemaid? 'Tis a ride I want and a ride I'll have." Carelessly, he kicked his bench aside and strode across the hall.

  When he had gone, Duncan set the platter before Muriella, then sat nearby.

  "Ye saw?" she asked, her gazed fixed on the plate of mutton.

  "Aye." The squire frowned. "He doesn't mean to be cruel, ye ken?"

  "No," she said tonelessly.

  "'Tis just that a warrior's skill and confidence are all he has to keep him safe. If ye make him doubt those things, if the thought of yer premonition makes him hesitate, even for an instant, it could cost him his life and those of his men."

  "Aye," Muriella murmured as she toyed with a thick piece of bread. "I suppose ye're right." But the knowledge did not ease the ache inside her.

  The squire watched her anxiously. He could not forget how lost she had looked this afternoon, lying in the rushes, her face swollen and red from weeping. He had felt as helpless then as he did on her wedding night when he'd watched her tear herself away from the magic of the Gypsy bonfires. He wanted to console her, but knew there was nothing he could do. No matter how much he might wish to, he could not change the fact that tomorrow, before the sun had risen, the Campbell men would take their broadswords in hand and ride determinedly, even eagerly, into battle.

  Chapter 25

  In her dream, Muriella wandered through the lower tunnels of the castle where the torches filled the rough stone passageways with an unnatural light. The sound of her footfalls on the packed dirt floor did not disturb the stillness, but seemed instead to meld with the flickering shadows that closed around her.

  She paused, listening, when a low moan of fear escaped from the chamber at the end of the hall. Suddenly it was very cold and the torches were painting grotesque patterns on the gray stone all around. She did not want to move forward—in a few steps she would be able to look into the chamber—yet her feet seemed to have a will of their own that carried her closer and closer to the half-open door. Instinctively, she hung back in the shadows, then leaned forward so she could look without being seen.

  John was kneeling in the chamber with a dark shape at his feet. It looked like a body, but she couldn't be certain; the shadows were too deep. Then the wind stirred the branches of the tree outside the window and daylight crept between the fluttering leaves. The light played across John where he knelt beside the figure. Laughing, his teeth glittering, he raised his hands above his head. The sound of his laughter chilled Muriella. Then the light struck him fully. His wife screamed, but no sound escaped her. His arms were covered with blood to the elbow. It dripped slowly between his fingers, staining with vivid red the motionless figure at his feet.

  Muriella awoke with a start. She lay for a long time, waiting for the frantic beating of her heart to ease and the cold fear to dissipate. As the ceiling of shadows shifted and changed in the firelight, she forced her eyes to focus on the muted patterns above her. She would not let the panic overcome her, she swore silently. Not this time.

  It was not so strange that her husband should have blood on his hands; the Campbells were at war, after all. The dream was not a warning, only a nightmare that lingered when the sound of John's laughter and the image of his blood-soaked hands had faded away.

  Muriella lay still, willing herself to believe it, until eventually her heartbeat slowed to normal and the heat of her body destroyed the chill the dream had left behind. She fell back asleep while the ghosts of forgotten shadows whispered above her.

  * * *

  The leaves parted in the breeze, fluttered, then came back together with a sigh while their shadows moved over the damp ground beneath. John tensed, reached for his bow and fitted an arrow into place. He did not trust the sudden stillness, broken only by the murmur of the leaves. Eyes narrowed, he leaned forward, his hand on his horse's neck to keep the animal from moving. The men who followed faded into a blur; for him there was only the feel of his bow in his callused palm, the reality of the trees ahead and the awareness of an enemy concealed by the shifting gloom.

  A twig snapped. His eyes glinted with anticipation as he raised his head like a wolf scenting its prey. Knees pressed tight to his horse's sides, he drew back the
string of his bow, sighted down the shaft of the arrow, and released it with a shout of triumph. He knew, even before the man crashed headfirst through the underbrush, that he had hit his target. The pounding of his heart told him he could not have done otherwise.

  John swung his leg over the saddle and jumped to the ground, heading for the man who lay unmoving in the bracken. Richard Campbell was there before him.

  "Is it Hugh Rose?"

  "No," Richard told him. "'Tis black hair he's havin', and he's too old by half, but he's a Rose, just the same."

  John bent to examine the dead man. "Well then, Hugh must be nearby." Frowning at the impenetrable tangle of the forest, he glared through the trees as if determination alone could make them give up their secrets. Turning back to Richard, he added, "This time I mean to catch him."

  Richard shook his head. "He's kept ahead of ye for near a week. What makes ye think ye'll find him now?"

  "My instincts. He's within our grasp. I can feel it."

  "I don't understand why ye're so determined to bring him down. Ye've already scattered most of the rebels, and Hugh's no more than a petty outlaw who can't hurt the Campbells now."

  John leaned down to cover the dead man's face with a dry corner of his plaid. What Richard said was true. The rebels had given up the fight a week ago and Colin was on his way to Edinburgh to settle the terms of surrender with the regents. The new Earl had made his peace with the vanquished rebels, but John had not. He had far more at stake, this time, than did his brother. "Hugh Rose is more dangerous than ye realize," he said as the two men started back toward their restive horses. "The people fear him when they hear the tales of the money he's stolen and the murder he's done, but they also admire him for the fearless devil he is. If we don't stop him soon, they'll make him a hero, and then we won't be able to touch him. Besides, there are other reasons. I can't let him go on this way. Ye must know that."