‘You see, sir,’ I explained. ‘About a year ago. We had a fight and, well, she . . .’
‘Must have been quite a fight,’ said the merchant, amused. ‘I noticed that she was a fiery one – when she saw you off on the boat. By the way, I didn’t completely make up my incognito that day – my middle names are, in fact, Marcus Amanza.’
But I wasn’t thinking of Eilidh any more, nor the merchant’s sailor disguise. I was thinking of the wound. Initially, it had knitted together fine because Mammy had wrapped it in a seaweed poultice, but it hadn’t healed completely, and looked like it never would. But now it was gone.
When I looked up at the merchant, he was staring at me intently. ‘You’re serious about this, aren’t you?’ he said as I continued to twist and turn my wrist in a desperate search for my scar. I even checked my other hand in case I had forgotten which wrist it had been on.
‘Might have been the water,’ mumbled the merchant almost to himself. ‘I told you that it has healing properties.’
‘But it was there only yesterday,’ I protested.
The merchant walked over to the settee and sat down heavily, his forehead wrinkled as if he was trying to figure something out.
As I was myself. I remembered looking at the scar in the stables last night, that fold of puckered skin that served as my constant reminder of home. I used to think it ugly, but now realized how much it meant to me.
‘I’m sorry about last night, Iseabail,’ said the merchant after a time, his eyes browsing my hand again. ‘It’s my responsibility to look out for your welfare. Especially after bringing you all the way here. I should have reminded the servants to show you how to water down that wine.’
I blinked at the change of subject, suddenly angry that he thought the disappearance of a scar so trivial. ‘I want to go home,’ I blurted out. ‘As soon as possible . . . when the seas are safe enough to pass?’
The merchant’s eyes widened at my outburst and he blew out his cheeks in surprise. Then, sighing heavily, he folded his arms and leant back against the red silk of the settee. ‘What do you think is waiting for you back there on that island, Iseabail? Something that you cannot find here?’
‘Really, I am most grateful for everything you have given me,’ I began, struggling to keep my emotions in check. ‘But – I am betrothed to be married – as you well know.’
‘You return for . . . a husband?’ said the merchant, putting a finger to his lips in false contemplation.
I nodded, furiously. I had told him my intentions to return that day on the boat. And hadn’t he witnessed with his own eyes Artair’s emotional goodbye?
‘Troublesome creatures, don’t you think?’ he said, his tone mocking. ‘You would rather forgo an education to wait hand and foot on an illiterate man, risk your precious young life to bear his children?’
‘But things will not be like that,’ I said valiantly, affronted that he had referred to Artair in this way. ‘Artair and I have discussed it. One day we will rule the islands together. As man and wife. As equals!’
The merchant digested this calmly before clearing his throat. ‘Well, if childbirth doesn’t kill you, then you’ll be ground down by hard toil. An old hag by the time you are thirty,’ he sneered, ignoring my declaration. ‘I really thought that a mind as agile as yours would have been opened up to other possibilities by now. And Father Ronan has led me to believe that you are quite the scholar.’
‘Returning to marry Artair is my destiny,’ I went on, determined, though my bottom lip started to tremble. ‘I don’t belong in this house and the longer I stay here, the less I remember who I really am.’ I looked down at my smooth wrist and remembered how I’d so easily kissed William last night. My tears, refusing to be contained any more, pushed hotly out from my lower lids and rolled down my cheeks. But I did not dry them. I wanted Plaustrell to see how I was suffering. Wanted to remind him of the promises he had made.
But the merchant busied himself with plucking bits of fluff from the bolster of the settee.
‘The main reason I summoned you here today was to tell you that the supplies I promised your chief have left the port,’ he said sulkily. ‘Weather permitting they will be with your people in a matter of days.’
At this I perked up. ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said, finally wiping my tears. This news was so unexpected, so welcome. Whatever happened now, sending me here had not been entirely pointless.
‘I apologize if I spoke out of turn just then sir, it’s just . . .’
The merchant stood stiffly and held up his hand to stop me speaking.
‘You know, it doesn’t seem to matter how much I give you Iseabail,’ he tutted, walking over to the bookcase. ‘You never seem satisfied.’
‘Sir?’ I began, puzzled.
‘I mean, look at all these fine volumes you now have at your disposal.’ He plucked a small book from the shelf. ‘And yet you insist on rifling around in private rooms in the pursuit of more?’ At this he swivelled on his heel to look at me directly.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, beginning to tremble as I realized where his conversation was now heading.
‘And tell me, Iseabail – after you’d finished with my fireside read, did sheer nerve carry you up the ladder?’
‘No, sir, I swear!’
There was a moment of silence.
‘Pity for you,’ said the merchant, replacing the book.
Then he turned to me but now he was smiling. ‘The upper reaches of my tower contain some quite marvellous things,’ he beamed. ‘Maybe I can show you sometime?’
‘Yes,’ I mumbled, wary at his change of mood.
‘Though my daughter will be less than pleased if she knew you were to be granted access to my treasures,’ he mused. ‘Let me think of a diversion for her.’
Just then, there was a knock at the door and at Plaustrell’s command, Sylvia stepped inside. The maid relayed a message in Italian. Even after my studies in Latin, which Father Ronan told me was not so different, I struggled to make much sense of the language.
‘Now, if you will excuse me, Iseabail,’ said the merchant genially, ‘I must attend to my household. I’ll send a distraction for Maria – a signal for you to come to the tower . . . when I find a convenient time.’
And there he left me alone on the threshold of the library, looking out into the glorious chequered entrance hall. The merchant’s conversation had left me quite adrift. On the one hand he had honoured the winter supplies but, as I now realized, had evaded the question about my eventual return home, sidestepped it lightly with an invite to his fantastical workshop. And I had let him away with it, lapping up his latest offer like a grateful dog.
Walking out over the black and white tiles, I caught sight of myself in the hall mirror. Where was Iseabail McCleod, that fiery, barefoot girl who’d stood right here not so long ago having dragged her rough trunk across the snowy moor? A staunch, dutiful girl with full intention to return to her island, to her betrothed? Now there was only a gentlewoman, cloaked in the finest silks, cheeks plump with good living. My reflection looked back at me, genteel, stately – bearing no outward trace of my rough island self. And now the scar, one of my trusty reminders of my old life, had disappeared too.
I stepped closer to the mirror, hoping to see something of the old Iseabail. But other than a faint resemblance to my sister, there was so little left. The merchant’s house, it was erasing me.
Two days later the Beast Compendium materialized on Maria’s writing desk.
She read out the accompanying note excitedly:
Dearest Maria – please accept my apology for the delay with your gift. It got lost in the melee of Christmas deliveries.
‘Finally, my present!’ said Maria, picking it up greedily. She held it tight to her chest as I approached. ‘I hope for Papa’s sake it is as special as he claimed,’ she said imperiously. ‘Shall we take a look?’
I’d been awaiting the merchant’s clandestine invitation ever since our meeting in the
library. But now I was confused. If this was the gift that Maria had been expecting, then what was the animal in the stables for?
Also, the gift’s arrival was the merchant’s distraction, a mechanism to give me a chance of escape. Maria, however, was not letting me out of her sights.
‘Maybe you should read it first,’ I said, stepping away as if heading for the door. ‘It’s your present, after all.’
But this only fuelled her. It seemed to me that she was quicker than ever to anger these days. ‘You do not wish to see it?’ she said scornfully. ‘This beautiful book that you have surely never laid eyes on?’
Defeated, I moved back over to the desk. I couldn’t risk raising her suspicions that I had indeed seen the book before. I would need to think of another plan.
She placed the book importantly on the table and I noted that the red ribbon marker was still present.
She prised the book open with the ribbon. And there sat the maiden again in her woodland clearing, the one-horned creature draped across her knee.
‘A unicornis!’ Maria cried, following the text with one finger. ‘A beast stronger than a lion with a horn that can cure any poison.’
Then she looked at me directly.
‘Only tameable by a maiden pure of heart,’ she said with a strange smile.
‘Let me see that,’ I said, attempting to see the page that I had only glimpsed in the tower. ‘What do you mean, pure of heart?’
But Maria pulled the compendium away from me. ‘How dare you touch it,’ she said. ‘I’ll say when you can look at it. Now why don’t you just go – leave me alone!’
‘Very well,’ I conceded.
Leaving Maria to her book, I went off to the tower, though I couldn’t help thinking about the girl in the picture and the appearance of that phrase again: pure of heart.
It was just after ten in the morning and the wind was howling around the hillock, though no further snow had fallen. I pulled my cap further over my ears and made ready to walk up the steps.
‘Iseabail!’
I turned to see Father Ronan making his way up from the sunken garden. It was rather early to see him up and about.
‘Where on earth do you think you are going?’ he said, surprised to come across me too.
‘The merchant has asked to see me,’ I replied.
‘And he’s asked to meet you here?’
I nodded, wanting him just to go away. Despite my misgivings about how eagerly I’d accepted his invitation, I was curious to see the upper part of the tower and I worried Plaustrell would change his mind if I was late.
‘I’ve been trying to work out what he’s been up to in there,’ the priest said, looking up at the line of clover-leaf windows disdainfully. ‘Whatever it is, I’m not sure it’s God’s work.’
‘But isn’t the merchant a man of faith?’
Father Ronan seemed not to notice my question. ‘There’s something strange going on,’ he added quietly. ‘The snow around the stables, why – it’s all gone.’
The ground under out feet was still frozen hard and covered in snow. ‘Is that so?’ I said, not really believing him and desperate to get to the tower. ‘It’s probably just where the sun strikes and melts it.’ Then again, hadn’t I fallen into a pile of slush near the stables when Whitefoot had leapt on me last night . . .
‘Just be careful, child,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Keep God close to your heart.’ And he stumbled off in the direction of the house.
His words had a strange echo and I remembered that Innes Ferguson had said the same thing to me as I embarked on my voyage to the mainland. I shivered, suddenly full of doubt.
I waited until the priest was completely out of sight and then, shaking off my misgivings, ran up the steps to the door of the tower. Then I knocked and waited, my heart pounding; at last I was to see all those wonders that Maria had spoken of.
The door opened a crack. ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Plaustrell, opening it fully. ‘Please come in, Iseabail. I thought sending Maria her gift would afford you a few hours’ peace. I have to admit to holding on to it for a little while.’
I was ushered into the low-ceilinged room which looked much as it had on the evening of Christmas day except there was more daylight entering through the clover-leaf window.
‘Let me stoke the fire,’ said Plaustrell, directing me to sit in the throne-chair.
The merchant was wearing simple clothes again and appeared far more relaxed in the tower than he was in the confines of his grand house. He moved off gracefully towards the back of the room, returning moments later holding a tray set with two small cups and a strange kind of metal pot, which he put on an octagonal veneered table beside the fireplace. It was the table on which the Beast Compendium had sat. My heart sank. Maybe he wasn’t going to show me to the second floor at all.
I sat by the fireplace, thankful it only held a small grate. The library was stifling in comparison.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it,’ said Plaustrell as he slid the tray upon the table, hiding the pearly geometric design. ‘Inlaid with animal bone, all the way from India.’
‘You own so many beautiful things,’ I said, arranging my skirt about the chair nervously. ‘Many that until a few months ago I never would have believed existed.’
‘And yet?’ said the merchant, without looking up from the tray.
I took a deep breath. ‘I must tell you that I miss my old life.’
I worried about the effect of this revelation, but he calmly pulled up a three-legged stool and sat down on it, indicating that I should remain in the throne-chair.
‘It is not always easy,’ he mused, arranging the tiny handleless cups around the metal pot, which I noticed had a curved spout and a handle. The cups were painted intricately with dragons and scaly fish, a style that featured throughout his house, a style that I had learnt was known as ‘oriental’. He reached over to retrieve the kettle from the stove and poured hot water into the pot. ‘This journey from rags to riches. You may be surprised to learn that I too came from far humbler beginnings.’
‘You mean that your father before you was not also a merchant?’ I asked, intrigued, hardly noticing that he was once again avoiding the subject of my return home.
‘No, very far from it,’ he continued, inching his stool closer to the squat table. ‘He never left the village where he was born. Died there too, after a hard and thankless life.’
I noticed that he hadn’t shaved again and the stubble had thickened considerably over his lower jaw.
‘His trade, if you can believe it, was that of a simple woodcarver. And I was his apprentice, set to follow in his footsteps.’
‘But then how did you come to all of this?’ I asked, feeling more at ease because of Plaustrell’s revelation about his humble beginnings.
‘I ran away to Venice when I was twelve, taken in by a priest who had me schooled. Nobody could believe how hungry I was for knowledge, how quickly I learnt languages.’
‘Did you ever return to your own village?’
‘No, never,’ said the merchant, picking up the metal pot, its spout emitting a trail of steam. ‘I went to university,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘Where I studied anatomy, though languages will always be my true passion.’
I looked at him quizzically.
‘Anatomy is the study of the human body,’ he went on, pouring the bronze liquid into the cups. ‘And Padua is the most forward-thinking of the universities.’
‘But then how did you come to be a merchant?’ I said, watching the ground leaves collecting in a minute sieve.
‘A means to an end,’ laughed the merchant. ‘I needed a way of making money once I left the monastery – to fund my work. But let’s focus on the task at hand. This drink I’m serving is called tea and the Chinese have a whole ceremony attached to it.’
I took the scalding cup from his hands and inhaled the grassy aroma. It was uplifting, green and good.
‘They use it for contemplation, and . . . to
say thank you,’ he said, taking a cup himself. ‘And it is you that I would like to show my gratitude – for being such a faithful companion to my daughter.’
‘You are too kind,’ I mumbled, embarrassed now about my ungrateful outburst in the library yesterday. He looked up at me with gold-flecked eyes, his stool far lower than the throne-chair. We finished our tea in silence.
‘Well, I have to say that you take your tea with the elegance of a Chinese noble,’ he said, wiping his lips and standing. He picked up the stool and placed it back against the stone wall. ‘It might be harder than you think to return to your simple life.’
‘Really, I am just my same old self,’ I said, flustered by the veiled compliment. ‘My people will find me most unchanged.’
‘Is that true, Iseabail? Do you really believe that?’ he smiled, his eyes batting momentarily to my left hand. The hand that had once held my scar. ‘It would have been impossible for me to return to my village as a young man,’ he said, emotion shining in his eyes. ‘Even if I had wanted to.’
I looked at him, perplexed. Did he know that he had touched a nerve? That I had been wondering the exact same thing as I’d stared into the hall mirror yesterday?
‘My family back in the countryside would never have accepted the new me – not just how I looked, but how my mind had expanded, opened up to the wonders of the world – you need to think carefully about whether it is wise to return.’
‘Then I’ll pretend that my life here was no different to that on the island,’ I said, swallowing, thrown by my own change of heart. I had intended to return brimming with knowledge but perhaps he had a point: I hadn’t thought it through properly. Would the islanders be able to handle the truths about the outside world? The truth about my life at the merchant’s house? Even Artair might feel differently about me. What if he worried if I would be satisfied to spend the rest of my life on the island after the luxury to which I had been exposed? What if he knew I had ended up living in the house of the mysterious sailor?
There was a long silence.
‘That’s quite a pretence to keep up,’ said Plaustrell, clearing his throat, ‘whilst skinning foul seabirds from dusk till dawn.’
The Pure Heart Page 12