“This is a beautiful place,” she said, looking around at the beach and the sea. “How did you find it?”
He motioned to his cloak, and he helped her to sit on it. Handing her the skin of wine, he waited as she drank from it and then took a mouthful, too.
“When I first arrived at Diarmid’s keep, I had great freedom to come and go and to roam as much as I wanted,” he explained. “Well, as long as my lessons were done first and any work Diarmid wanted seen to. Then I would take a horse and ride and walk for hours. I found this from above and studied the tides and the pattern of them and came here often.”
She stared up at him for a moment and then nodded. “So you bring your women here?” she asked. The even tone spoke of no judgment or censure for the behavior, in her eyes—just acceptance.
Damn her! The anger flared quickly, but he was able to put it back before striking out. “You are the first woman—actually the only person—I have ever brought here, Moira,” he explained.
Her eyes darkened then, and he wondered what she was thinking. Sometimes she would fall back into the silence of their first days, and he believed that memories plagued her from her past in those moments. But there were other times, like this one, when she seemed to be considering her place with him. Her question was a direct one, when she did speak.
“Did you bring me here to couple?” she asked, reaching for the laces on her gown. “Is that what you wish to do now?” She would be undressed if he did not stop her.
“That would be pleasing, Moira. Anytime I can have you naked in my arms is pleasing, but not now. I brought you here so that we can talk.”
She’d rather swive him or pleasure him in some other way, if it was her choice, she thought, as she looked out over the sea again. Talking to him or about him made her think about things she’d rather ignore or dream of things she would never have. So pleasure and mindless passion were safer paths to take. But, she could only imagine what he’d gone through to arrange this outing, so if he wanted to talk, she would talk.
Moira watched the set of his mouth and the way he clenched his hands and released them, and knew he wished to speak about her. Sighing, she waited, impatiently, for him to begin. When he closed his eyes and shook his head, she worried that it was bad news he had to share.
“I have been searching in Diarmid’s collection for the records of my visions,” he said.
Of all the things she’d thought of, that was not one of them. “Records? He keeps records?”
“Ranald does. Each month he writes down Diarmid’s version of what happened and the names of the people involved. I had never seen them until last week,” he said.
She watched as he opened the leather sack he’d brought and took out several sheets of parchment and a scroll. He held them out to her and then must have remembered that she could not read, because he pulled them back. “What do they say?”
He began to read some of the dates, some of them within months of her family’s massacre and others well after. He read out names of men, bits of wording that his visions revealed, instructions given in that very formal, almost musical rhythm he used when he was in the power of the visions. She recognized it, even if he did not. Finally, he pointed to a place on the parchment that meant nothing to her until he uttered the words that chilled her blood.
“I think that this is the vision that led to your family’s deaths.”
The sound of her own breathing grew louder and more frantic in her ears, and the blood pounded in her head and behind her eyes, until she grew dizzy from it. The air became heavy, weighing down on her until she felt herself falling back into the blackness.
The shadow over her moved, allowing the sunshine to touch her face for a moment or two. Then the cold water on her cheeks woke her from her stupor. The Seer helped her to sit up, but he sat behind her, supporting her so she would not fall again.
“Drink this,” he said, holding the skin to her lips and lifting it to pour some of the potent wine into her mouth. After three mouthfuls, he took it away. His voice was calm, but she felt his heart race as she leaned against his chest. He still held the parchment sheets in his hand, and Moira decided that hearing the rest of it sooner was better than waiting too much longer for it.
“What did it say? How do you know it is my family?” she asked. She’d told him nothing other than her name, so she could not understand what link there could be in these papers to her family?
She closed her eyes as she remembered telling Agnes her name and that of her parents and their village. Had Agnes told the Seer? Glancing now at the parchments he held, she knew the servant must have reported her words to her master.
“You talk in your sleep, Moira. You yell and you laugh and you cry out about your family when you dream of them,” he said softly. “I but listened and searched for what I’d heard in the dark of the nights we’ve shared.”
“Agnes knew,” she whispered.
“Did she?” he asked. She wondered if her words would cause trouble for the woman who’d comforted her when she needed it most. “I am glad you confided in her, though I wish it had been me.” His gaze softened as she turned to look at him. He sounded wounded in some way by her choice to tell Agnes and not him. “She will keep your counsel well if you have need of her.”
Moira wanted to explain how it had happened that day. How the past had poured out of her and how Agnes had shared something about her own past. But something kept her from doing that.
“Do you want me to read the part about that vision?”
She nodded and tried to steady herself for whatever terrible thing this parchment said about her family. He moved it over so he could see it in front of them and began.
“It is the spring of the year 1092,” he read. “The visions grow stronger, and Connor cannot yet understand or control them. Today he gifted Skurli from Caithness, who was betrayed by an enemy in Quinag in the north of Scotland. In exchange for his support, Diarmid sent his men north to aid Skurli and help to settle his affairs.”
She could not breathe. His words stopped, but the echoes filled her head and the pain of it burned through her. Could that be how it happened?
“Shhh, now,” he whispered from behind her, wrapping both arms around her and rocking her gently.
“Then it is true?” she asked, when she could speak. “You gave this Skurli the directions on how to wipe out my family?”
“’Twas not like that, Moira. I do not remember the vision or the words or the person the power decides to gift. I could not control it then; I cannot control it now the way I would like to.”
She pushed out of his embrace then and climbed to her feet. “And that absolves you of their deaths? If you had not…if you had…”
She shook her head in confusion and walked away. Too many words, too many thoughts and feelings filled her head now, and she would regret or pay for anything she said right now, so she walked. When she reached the end of the inlet and the water crashed up against the thin edge of cliff that sat out farther toward the sea, she stood there and stared out at the dark blue waters and the painfully bright sky.
How much time had passed she knew not, but then he stood next to her, staring out at the same sea and sky without saying a word. She knew what he wanted. She knew what he’d hoped she would say when he explained the terrible thing to her, but her heart did not have it in it to offer to him. Her hatred of him had fled in these last weeks, along with her need to kill him to avenge their deaths, but there was no place in her heart for forgiveness.
He needed her to say it. Before these visions brought about his end, he needed forgiveness for the terrible cost paid by others for his gift. ’Twas as though her word could give him the peace he sought, not of body, but of soul and mind. But he could read on her face that she could not forgive him for his misguided acts of the past. At least not until one or both of them was dead.
Connor stood there, praying for a word he would not hear, until he could not wait any longer. Turning away, he wa
tched the birds landing on the highest part of the cliff face and then flying off over the sea in search of food.
He’d been wrong again and misjudged her. Thinking that she would accept the explanation offered in the notes and understand he had no choice in the matter, he’d shared what he had found with her. With her, he would pay for the sins of his past forever.
Connor walked back to the place where his cloak lay spread on the sand and sat down once more. She remained unmoving at the water’s edge, staring out at the sea as though she would discover something there she needed. An hour passed before she came back into herself and turned to see where he was. The tide, which had remained low, now changed directions, and the shallow pool filled with water more quickly.
When she reached him, he stood and held out a small meat pie the cook had packed for him. At first she began to refuse it, but she finally accepted it and his help to sit on the cloak. The painful silence grew, and he saw that she struggled to chew and swallow the food, so he got to his feet and walked toward the cliffs to give her some peace. Leaning against the rocky wall, he watched as she finished the pie and drank some of the wine. Some minutes later, she turned and faced him as though to speak to him, but instead she began screaming.
“Connor!” she shrieked, as she climbed to her feet and began to run toward him. “Get back!”
Not understanding her warning, he began to walk to her, but she reached him first and pushed him into the wall. The boulder crashed down in the spot where he’d been standing before she screamed out his name. He heard the sounds of a struggle above, and he searched for the origin of it on the top of the cliff. Godrod’s voice rang out in warning, calling out to his men and then the body of one of the soldiers fell from the edge and crashed onto the beach in front of them.
Moira stifled the scream that threatened before it escaped, covering her mouth with her hands while trying to catch her breath. “Come,” he said, taking her and holding her under the cover and the protection of the sheer cliff wall. If he could not see over the edge of it, someone could not see them tucked in at its base. They waited in silence for some sign of what had happened above to the other soldiers.
The advantage to having but one way onto this stretch of beach was its coveted privacy. The disadvantage, he now discovered, was that, if under attack, there was no other way out. And, in a few hours, the sea would cover the entire inlet as the tide reached its full height trapping and drowning anyone caught here too long.
He kept her in his embrace during those dark minutes as they waited, but he could feel a widening expanse opening between them with each passing minute. Then, Godrod rode onto the beach and ordered them to mount and ride back to the keep.
Connor picked up the leather sack, putting away the parchments and scroll, something he’d not shown her yet, and tossed the uneaten food to the seabirds careening between cliff and sea as he gathered the reins of the horse in his hand. Grabbing the horse’s mane, he heaved himself onto its back and held out his hand to Moira.
The sadness in her gaze tore his heart in two as she glanced up at him in taking his hand. With her foot resting on his, he pulled her up behind him and, once she settled and grabbed hold of him, he urged the horse up the path. Godrod followed, leaving the body of the dead soldier there.
“Another attempt on your life, Seer,” Godrod explained. “I had two new soldiers in my company who asked to attend you. They stood watch on the edge, but one managed to loosen the boulder and send it over the edge while the other covered his actions.”
“The one on the beach?” he asked.
“He pushed the boulder over. Thank God, you were warned before it hit you,” the soldier said. The good wishes did not ring true in his voice, and his eyes told another tale. “The other fled, but my men are pursuing him now. Worry not, we will catch him.”
He felt her shudder behind him, and he tugged her arms tighter around him as he touched the horse’s sides and urged him to gallop. Godrod had been lying, Connor was certain of it. The soldier who fled would be killed when caught to cover up Godrod’s own attempts to assassinate them on the beach. Until the other man was caught—and he must be caught before he could spread the news to Diarmid that his brother’s men tried to kill the Seer—there was a small measure of safety for him and Moira.
Accepting no attempts to slow them down, Connor gave the horse his head and raced back to the keep.
Chapter Fifteen
That night took years to pass.
Or so it seemed to him.
The edginess returned in his mind, and he felt the fire begin to burn in his blood. ’Twas five days past the new moon, and any soothing effects from coupling with her wore off quickly in the face of their estrangement the previous day. By the time Diarmid released him from attendance in the hall, a performance commanded at each evening meal now, he felt as though his skin were on fire from the inside out.
Breac and Agnes retired for the night, and Moira lay on her pallet, again not climbing into his bed as she had those other nights. They’d spoken very little since their return from the debacle on the beach, for he saw her to his chambers and faced Diarmid’s wrath alone. Unsure of how she would react to Diarmid now that she knew his soldiers had come to Quinag to help Skurli destroy his enemy—apparently her father—he thought it best to keep them apart.
Steinar gave some excuses about the attack, which Diarmid seemed suspicious of until Godrod appeared with the second man’s head on his sword and appeased Diarmid. But when Diarmid pointed out that he had been against the idea of his Seer leaving the safety of the keep with his slut, Connor wondered who was truly behind the attack and if it was simply a message to him to obey his lord. Two nights later, he was no closer to finding out the truth.
He lay on his bed, pulling the blankets up and then kicking them down. He turned on his stomach, but that made him remember the way she’d stroked him with her hands covered in warm, fragrant oil, which had become something else between them. He flung himself on his back, but he could still see her face as she’d climbed over his hips and seated him full and deep within her.
A cup of wine did nothing to soothe him. A second cup did not help. Tempted to search for the healer’s concoction in his trunk, he cursed and went back to bed. Whatever was between them had held this at bay for four days, but now that it crashed into him from all sides, it felt worse than he’d ever remembered it to be. Ten days remained until the vision, and he knew he could not make it.
At first, while thinking coherently, he understood why she did not come to him. He had brought back the horror of her family’s death to her by showing her those parchments and by reading the report of that vision six years ago to her. Only a madwoman would willingly give herself to the man guilty of his sin.
Though she was many things, mad was not one of them.
Later, as the pain pulsed inside and the crazy lust filled his blood, he did not care what her reasons were. He knew she was awake and could hear his torment.
Connor tossed for another hour or two before giving up. He pulled on his trews and threw on his cloak and sought refuge or relief on the walls above. He walked the perimeter of the battlements several times without stopping. A storm brewed in the night’s sky, loosening the winds and torrents of rain, but it did not stop him. The guards took shelter in the corner towers, but he stood in the middle of it and faced the angry sky. Lightning crashed through the sky, lighting up the stone wall and sending the guards running.
He dared it to strike him. Standing in the rain, he tossed his cloak to the ground and opened his arms up wide, calling down the lightning. It struck a small building in the yard, sending showers of sparks into the storm. He waited, turning his face up to the sky and trying to draw it to him.
It would be a quicker end than the one facing him. Instead of burning out, blind and insane from the pain over these next several months, his end would come in a flash. The lightning crashed again and lit the battlements again and revealed her presence to him.
She walked to him and stood in front of him, with no cloak to keep the rain from her skin or her hair or the thin shift she wore. The rain soaked through it in only moments and plastered it to her skin with so tight a hold that not even the wild winds tearing around them could loosen it. She took his hand and tried to make him follow her, but he shook free of her grasp and stayed in the storm.
“Seer,” she called out to him over the thunder and the pounding of the rain. “You must come inside.”
“Leave me be!” he yelled back. He prayed again that the lightning would do its worst, but it touched him not.
“Let me ease your pain,” she offered, reaching out to touch his cheek. The rain poured down on both of them as he watched her gesture.
“I do not want your kindness,” he spat. Right now he wanted only his death.
“’Tis all I can offer you, Seer.”
Even that hurt him. Yesterday she screamed out his name, but now she called him that damned title once more. “My name is Connor.”
“I offer you only what I have to give, Seer.”
He fell to his knees before her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “Forgive me, Moira. I need your forgiveness.” He leaned his head against her chest and felt the burning of tears though they were lost among the raindrops.
She leaned her cheek against his hair, stroking it and pushing it out of his face. “I have none to give, Connor,” she said sadly.
He held her like that for minutes while the storm raged around them. Neither one moved; each was lost in their own pain. Then, he climbed to his feet, gathered her in his arms, and carried her down the stairs and back to his chambers. He closed the door and put her on her feet in the middle of the room. He pulled the top sheet from his bed, stripped the soaked shift from her, and used the sheet to dry her skin before she took a chill. He dropped his trews and dragged them over his skin to do the same.
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