Afric, too, would soon be leaving for France. But Hugh was glad for that, because he did not enjoy Afric’s companionship. He, like his common mother, reeked vulgarly of cloves.
Cursing softly beneath his breath, FitzSimon moved across the chamber, plucking up the odious parchment from his desk. One of the paperweights rattled carelessly across the desktop and rolled, falling with a rude clatter upon the wooden floor.
Still cursing, he rolled the parchment furiously, eyeing the burning taper on his desk, prepared to burn the letter. Something like tears burned at the back of his eyes. Sobs constricted his throat.
Forsaken.
That’s what he was.
Be damned if he would allow himself to grieve over the loss of a woman who’d never loved him true.
At least that’s what he told himself and that’s what he was determined to believe. Fueled by a fresh rush of anger, he bent to blow out the taper.
What need had he of light when he knew every corner of this godforsaken mausoleum? He had paced it from end to end for far too many years. And now, the castle was devoid of life—not a soul to happen upon, trip over, or even send scurrying back to their beds.
Muttering still more curses, Hugh stuffed the missive into his belt, deciding to put it away in a safe place, as he spun toward the solar door. His bed summoned him now, beckoning like a whore to his crackling bones. He made quickly for the door, stopping short at the sight of a shadow squirming there.
“Papa?”
Hearing the familiar voice, FitzSimon clutched at his chest, blinking to dispel the image of a little girl, her features growing clearer by the second.
“Papa?”
Could it be? But nay! It was only a child, her face gaunt with sunken cheeks. Did they not feed her well enough? He smacked his breast to see if he might be dreaming in his bed. The whack he gave himself knocked the air from his lungs.
“Page?”
The girl’s tiny form hugged the threshold, as though she feared he might rip her free of her support and haul her away by the scruff of her neck. “I’m afeared, Papa” she said.
In times past, Hugh might have scolded her for presuming such a familiarity with him, because she was not his daughter—or so he’d once believed. Confused now, he rubbed his eyes and stuck a finger in his ear.
His daughter—what appeared to be his daughter—lingered in the threshold, her image a shimmery visage from his past. He asked her, “Why art ye afeared?”
The little girl, illumed by a strange blue aura, not unlike the blue heat of a flame, persisted in the doorway. “I cannot sleep, Papa. The wind wails, and my pillow is much too thin.”
Now he could clearly see the features of the girl’s face, illuminated by that strange blue light. She looked exactly like Page at that age. “Your pillow’s too thin?”
“Aye, sir.”
Surely this child could not be his daughter Page? Page was fully grown by now, with children of her own. “Gads, child! What would ye have me do about the bloody wind? It seems to me ye’d do better to go and seek your prayers.”
The child’s face fell. “But… I cannot sleep, Papa.”
“Aye, well, you should not be here,” FitzSimon scolded her. “I’ve no idea what you be doing in my home. So shoo, now! Shoo! Shoo! Be gone!”
For a moment, the child’s expression appeared crestfallen, and then her mouth twisted into a disheartened moue, though she did not cry.
Of course, Page never cried. He remembered that stoic expression all too well. Even now it left Hugh with a guilty pang.
Disgusted, as much with himself, but no less with the child for having given him a prick of guilt, FitzSimon stamped his foot at the girl, as though she were naught but vermin in his home.
The child turned and fled. Hugh made to chase her, but he stopped when her strange blue light extinguished amidst the dark hall. He stared down the corridor, not entirely relieved now that she was gone. Strange as it was he could still hear her little footsteps echo down a distant hall.
“Rats,” he muttered to himself. “”Tis naught but rats.”
God’s truth, he’d never touched a drop of vin this eve—not one drop. After all, what fun was there in drinking all alone?
Scratching his head, he reached for the parchment at his belt, and finding it still there, he patted it neatly and kept marching down the hall, all the more determined now to find his bed.
His feet felt fat tonight, his toes swollen in his boots. His eyes burned. His gut churned, and it felt much the same as though some fat boar were seated upon his chest.
Outside, the wind bellowed harder, the sound all the more unnerving for the uncanny silence now ringing through his halls—a silence that grew, piercing his eardrums, and making him wince with pain.
By the rood, he did not feel well tonight.
It must have been that greasy pheasant! Rubbing his ears with the palms of his hands, he massaged them to ease the ache. But then, after removing his hands from his ears, he heard a woman’s song in a faraway voice…
Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
To cast me off discourteously.
For I have loved you well and long,
Delighting in your company.
Hugh rubbed his ears again, peering around in confusion. By the bones of the saints, what devilry was this?
I have been ready at your hand,
To grant whatever thou wouldst crave;
I have both wagered life and land,
Your love and good will for to have.
It was an auld song, one his wife used to sing quite a lot—in fact, right there, in that very solar. The chorus was such an annoying earworm. It went like this: Greensleeves was all my joy, Greensleeves was my delight, Greensleeves was my heart of gold, and who but my lady Greensleeves. Hugh thoroughly despised the song.
Of course, at the time he’d loathed Eleanore all the more. And Page, she’d never had a prayer of a chance, for she’d looked precisely like her mother.
Listening closely, FitzSimon tried to determine where the voice was coming from. Surely not the solar, from whence he’d only just come? He spun about, a human compass veering north.
From inside the solar came a strange glow, and the sound of the woman’s voice grew clearer yet…
'Tis I will pray to God on high,
That thou my constancy mayst see,
And that yet once before I die,
Thou wilt vouchsafe to love me.
The solar itself seemed to glow with a strange blue incandescent light, and the light seemed to be expanding as the song and voice grew in clarity.
Like a moth drawn to the light of a flame, Hugh took a wary step toward the solar door. It occurred to him in that instant that he might well meet a moth’s fate, but he could not stop himself. One foot went after the other.
“Eleanore?” he called out.
No answer came from the singing woman, but her song continued as Hugh inched his way toward the solar, his footfalls echoing like claps of thunder along the empty hall. Only once he realized the clatter he was making, he took greater care to soften his step, lest he startle the woman and she flee. He tiptoed the last few feet.
He spied the singing woman the instant he poked his head into the room—seated before the hearth, right there, where Eleanore used to sit and rock their babe.
Stunned by the sight of his long-lost wife, Hugh’s hand clutched at his heart.
Nay, but there was no babe in her arms at the moment, but she sat rocking in that chair, arms crooked into empty space, as though she were clutching a tiny baby to her breast. “Eleanore?” he said, aghast.
She appeared exactly as he recalled, with dark wispy hair that defied thick raven plaits. She peered up at him, and for an instant, the sweet look in her eyes nearly brought him to his knees.
Then suddenly she dropped her arms to her sides and stood, and by the time she did so, her look of love was fled, replaced with one of the most fearsome visages Hugh had ever beheld.
“Hugh FitzSimon,” the apparition shrieked—and now he knew it for what it was, for the light of the room emanated solely from this creature—from the blue sockets of her eyes.
“Eleanore!” The hand over his breast became a desperate claw, nails digging into his flesh, as though to burrow deep inside and snatch out his aching heart.
Eleanore pointed a long shadowy finger at him. “You will die alone,” the apparition proclaimed. “Already it has begun. Can you hear the keening of eternal silence?” The ghost suddenly lurched at him, sliding over the wooden floor.
“Please,” Hugh begged. “I am an auld man!”
The room was brilliant now, the light otherworldly, like the hottest depths of hell—except not red, but blue. The wind outside continued shrieking, but not so loud as the apparition did when she spoke, despite that Hugh sensed she never raised her voice.
“Not old enough to regret your vile deeds,” she screamed, reaching out an upturned hand, as though beckoning him to take it.
Hugh cowered from the ghost and turned to flee. But there she was again, standing behind him, gliding toward him from the hall.
He cried out, pleading for his life. “Eleanore! Nay!” This could not be real. His shoulders scrunched as he backed into the solar, retreating toward the hearth. Behind him, flames exploded at his back. He could feel the heat straight through his cloak.
“Oh, but I am,” she said, as though she’d somehow read his thoughts, her voice ever so sweet—as though, in fact, sweetness could come from such a face with raging orbs for eyes. “As real as those flames beating at your back.”
Behind him, Hugh’s cloak ignited. He shrieked and quickly shrugged it off his back.
Eleanore smiled thinly. “As real as the flames you will feel… if you do not mend your ways.”
At Hugh’s feet, his cloak continued to burn, the scent of scorched fur unmistakable, like the scent of burning flesh. The entire room grew blistering hot, when only moments before the icy wind had nearly numbed his fingers to the bone.
“Hell awaits you, Hugh, but ’tis one of your own making.”
He would have stepped away from her, but now he was trapped. There was no way out. His voice trembled as he spoke. “What can you mean?”
“I needst not say, ye already know. But, my dearest Hugh, if ye must see, then take my hand…”
Hugh fervently shook his head. “Nay!”
Silently, insistently, the ghostly Eleanore held her hand out, a flickering blue extension of herself that wavered between flesh and bone. The thought of touching that hand horrified Hugh to his very soul.
But, nay, this could not be real, he reassured himself. It was only a dream—a terrible, horrible dream.
“Come with me,” Eleanore beseeched, her voice a singsong plea.
“Nay,” Hugh refused. And yet his feet, they did move, as though summoned by her will. He slid the distance to where she stood, so close that her burning hand remained easily within reach. “Please,” he begged, afeared now in earnest.
“Come with me,” she demanded again, her voice as dulcet as her song had been.
Despite himself, Hugh gave his wife a quivering hand, half expecting to be dragged down into the depths of Hell.
But she did not take him there; instead, she took him somewhere else… where Hugh stood half-dressed against a bitter wind. He made to pinch his cloak together against the weather, but it was no longer hanging upon his shoulders and the wind forced its way past his flesh, straight to his bones.
He recognized this place.
It was Aldergh’s cemetery, but the chapel that had once stood beside it was now demolished. All that remained were bricks stained with black ash. In the distance, Aldergh Castle was no more.
And there, at his feet, lay a solitary tombstone, overturned, evidently forgotten amidst the weeds. He couldn’t quite read the inscription. But behind that tomb lay row upon row of his ancestors’ graves, none lay next to it, and none in advance of it. Beyond that lone gravestone were only wicked looking briars.
“Tis cold,” he complained, giving the ghost a sideways glance.
Eleanore smiled a knowing smile. “Colder yet ye’ll find ye be, Hugh FitzSimon, though I shall give ye sunshine if ’tis what ye please.”
Without ever moving Hugh found himself in a place he’d not visited in many years: Chreagach Mhor. It was springtime now—but how could that be?
Children laughed along the bluff-side, racing through rows and rows of dancing blue bonnets. One. Two. Three. Four. They came running past—and through him. One little boy ran directly through Hugh, laughing as he ran.
Hugh spun about to watch them race away, toward an old stone keep at the top of the hill—the ancient seat of the MacKinnon lairds.
Soaring high upon a gently sloping hill, Chreagach Mhor was a rugged fortress seated upon a violet mantle. The heather bloomed a brilliant violet against a vivid carpet of green and scattered across the lush landscape, rugged stones stood like proud sentries to guard the mammoth tower. Small thatch-roofed buildings spattered the hillside.
Another boy came racing past, perhaps this one no more than twelve. “Mother says to come along,” he shouted at the escaping girls. “Tis time to sup.”
The girls all squealed as the boy reached the hindmost runner, trying in vain to grasp the little girl’s golden hair.
“Constance!” the boy screamed, when the child managed to escape, and then all the girls laughed and scurried away.
Was this some form of hell, to glimpse a life he was never privy to?
Once again, Hugh FitzSimon slapped his burdened chest. “Dear Lord, Eleanore! Am I already dead?”
In truth, he did not feel so well this eve.
Eleanore smiled yet again, not quite warm, not quite cold. Hugh could barely look at her for the brightness of her eyes. “Not yet, Hugh. Not yet.”
And then they were no longer standing upon the hillside. They were in a barren field. It was sunny still, but now it seemed they’d somehow happened into the middle of a celebration, surrounded by happy folk the likes of which Hugh had never beheld.
His wife reappeared by his side, not alive, not quite dead. “Is this for real?” he asked. “What of ye? What do ye be?”
The blue glow in Eleanore’s eyes dimmed—just enough so that he could spy the true color of her eyes: hazel green. “For love of ye, I come bearing gifts.”
Hugh screwed his face. “From beyond the grave?”
Eleanore nodded wistfully, looking more like herself than the specter she had been. “Love, you see, is quite the hopeful thing.”
Hugh remained confused. “B-But I did not love ye well enough!” he said.
“This I know.”
“And yet ye loved me still?”
She nodded again and bade him to look about once more, so he could see what she had brought him there to see.
And there she was—his daughter, Page. Older now, with soft tendrils of sun-kissed hair framing a lovely grown-up face. After all these many years, she’d kept her beauty—just like her lady mother. But Hugh peered from mother to daughter, and realized with a start that Page had more of him than she had of Eleanore.
She had his face, not her lady mother’s.
Amazed by the sight of his daughter, he watched her hug a little girl—his granddaughter, Hugh supposed. And then another child came to tug her skirts. With a smile, Page bent to meet the little girl’s gaze. The two spoke at length, after which the child hugged her neck and went racing away, laughing with unrepressed joy. By now, Hugh’s heart pained him immensely. He could watch no more.
Dear God, he could watch no more!
Cruelly, Eleanore pushed him closer. He glided uphill, all the easier to eavesdrop on his daughter’s conversation with her laird husband. At first, Hugh was afeared they might spy him.
“You spoil them overmuch,” Iain complained.
Hugh waved a hand before their faces. It swished through the air nebulously, passing through
the MacKinnon’s short gray beard.
They could not see him.
“And why not?” Page asked her laird husband, who by the way, had kept a hand about her waist, as though he could not quite bear the thought of losing touch. “I will not treat my children the way my father treated me.”
Page’s words were like daggers cast unerringly at Hugh’s heart. He writhed a bit in pain.
The MacKinnon drew his wife close. “There is very little danger in that, my love.”
“A single tart for each will surely not break us,” Page maintained, and then she cast her husband a worried glance. “Do you think there’ll be enough to last the winter long?”
“Dinna worry, Page. The winter will be gone afore ye know it, and then come spring we’ll fill the stores. We’ll find a way. We always do.”
Hugh turned to Eleanore and whispered, “What happened here?”
Eleanore placed a finger to her lips, bidding him listen awhile longer.
Hugh glanced about the field, realizing suddenly that he was standing, not in the middle of a celebration as he’d originally imagined, but in the midst of men and women hard at work, rebuilding barns and clearing fields—and yet their smiles and laughter were scarcely dimmed by this fact. The summer blue bonnets were all dead now. The ground was brown and charred. And yet men and women joked and laughed and traded barbs.
Fire?
“Good day to ye, my lady,” said a woman passing by.
“And to ye,” Page greeted the woman with a wave.
“Bless ye mistress for givin’ my girl a sweet tart.”
“’Tis my pleasure,” Page assured the woman, and then she said beneath her breath, so that only her laird husband might possibly hear, “If only everyone were so easily pleased.” Nibbling pensively at her bottom lip, she turned her gaze across the meadow. After a moment, she asked her husband, “What shall we do about him?”
Hugh followed his daughter’s gaze and found her watching a young man, hard at work, lifting up beams for a peasant’s roof. “It pains me to see him at odds.”
Highlanders for the Holidays: 4 Hot Scots Page 11