THE CHAINS OF FATE an utterly compelling and romantic historical saga (The Heron Quartet Book 2), page 12
‘Oh God, Francis Heron, anyone would think you were arranging a peace treaty!’ I cried, finally losing patience. ‘I’m not asking for a beautifully written piece of parchment signed and sealed by the King and Prince Rupert and the Lord General and anyone else who happens along. All I want is to talk to you occasionally, to pass the time of day in a civilized fashion and not feel an itch between my shoulderblades. Will you at least grant me that?’
For an instant, unbelievably, I saw a twitch of amusement pulling at the corners of his long mouth, then he said, ‘Yes, possibly. But no more.’ With that, he went out as abruptly as he had come in, leaving me weak and almost laughing with a kind of ludicrous relief. For the first time since my arrival at Catholm, we had spoken together almost amicably, and now I had some real, actual bricks with which to build up my hope, and was nearly content.
It was a beautiful afternoon, and Goldeneye killed twice, and I went through it all as if bemused by my good fortune, although I had done little more than clutch at straws. Once Grainne leaned towards me as Malise and Gib were busied with a kill, and said softly, ‘You look happy. Has anything happened?’
‘No, well, yes, possibly. I had five minutes’ conversation with him, and we parted on good terms — I think.’
‘You never know where you are with Francis,’ said Grainne. ‘But do you think he’s coming round?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, but at least it’s a start,’ I said, and felt my wide grin crack my face with my happiness. ‘Pray God it lasts, and grows better.’
But during the next week things remained just as they had been before, save that his previous hostility had gone, to be replaced with a dispiriting, neutral indifference that I found, after my initial upsurge of hope, to be almost as daunting as his previous anger. Again I despaired, and not even Gib’s suggestion that we go up on to Ninestane Rig one evening for a convivial supper around Archie’s fire could lighten my depression.
It would be a balmy night: the day had been hot and sunny, and the earth and air still held a residual warmth. The horses were saddled as the sun went down, and a shaggy garron, hardly larger than Jasper’s mount, was laden with a barrel of ale slung over each flank. The child himself, all in a fret to accompany us, had been granted his wish, and sat his hairy little pony in a fidget of excitement, paying no attention to Francis at all. Nor had he done so in the ten days since my cousin’s arrival, elaborately ignoring him: and that, I was fairly sure, had hurt Francis more than a little. I could see him now, his eyes on Jasper, shadowed and unrevealing of any emotion, but Jasper, who had cancelled his former loyalty to Francis with alarming thoroughness, was showing off his newly-acquired horsemanship for the benefit of Malise and Gib.
In the dimming light, the sky to our left was a glowing incandescent red and green and turquoise and gold behind the flat shadowy shapes of the mountains, Dod Hill and Stob Fell and Bught Knowe, at the head of Hermitage Water. There would be enough light to see by, until we reached the shielings, and on the way back there would be a new-risen moon, as well as torches, to illuminate our path. We climbed up through the infield, talking softly amongst ourselves, Jasper whistling tunelessly as he rode at Malise’s side. As we ascended the long slope of the hill, I looked to left and right, breathing in the summer dusk, seeing the insubstantial hills lavender and purple in the receding light, the valleys and dales bowls of shadow at their feet, and gently garlanded with ethereal wreaths of mist above the waters. The eerie screech of a whaup echoed above us, and the stars were made new and brilliant in our honour.
The shielings were some way beyond the stone circle, for which I was glad. The fire, fuelled by whin and broom and peats, as well as precious wood from the valley, could be seen from some distance away, and the cheerful sound of singing became audible soon after. As we came close I was surprised to see how many people there were: upwards of thirty men, women and children, most of the latter barefoot, and all so shabbily clad that even in my beech-brown homespun habit, I felt overdressed and out of place. But no one seemed to object to this intrusion of the laird’s family at their feast: three scrawny lads took our horses and we were given a warm, friendly welcome, brought to the fire and handed ale in an alarming variety of drinking vessels, made from pewter, pottery, wood or even horn. There were wooden platters to hold our barley bread and oatcakes and cheese, and the hunks of juicy roast lamb, dripping with fat, hacked from the carcasses spitted, crackling and hissing, above the fire. It was all utterly delightful and informal, I thought as I licked my greasily fragrant fingers, and saw from Grainne’s fire-lit, smiling face as she listened attentively to Malise, that she felt the same. Jasper, sitting between his mother and me, was eating with a happy abandonment to sheer greed that would never have been tolerated at a normal supper table. And Francis and Gib, on the opposite side of the fire, had two slatternly-looking girls dancing attendance on them. As I watched, Gib pulled the more opulent of the two on to his lap, passing his flask of aqua vitae to Francis: who drank it off as if it had been water.
All the enjoyment suddenly turned sour. I looked abruptly away and embarked on a long and involved game with Jasper. ‘I’m going to think of something, and you have to guess what it is.’
Jasper sucked his fingers noisily, and yawned, showing a wide row of small even milk teeth. His mother paid no attention to this display of bad manners, being utterly absorbed in what Malise was saying. Aware of jealousy and envy in two directions, I added, ‘Are you going to play?’
‘Yes,’ said Jasper, his usual enthusiasm rather lessened by all the food and the lateness of the hour. ‘Uh, what colour is it?’
‘I can only answer yes or no,’ I reminded him. Jasper yawned again. ‘Is it blue?’
‘No.’
‘Er, is it green then?’
‘No.’
Inspiration temporarily deserted him: then he said abruptly, ‘Can you see it now?’
‘Yes.’
Jasper cast his eyes round the firelit circle: they lingered briefly on Francis and Gib, who seemed to be trying to outdo each other in the amount of beer they could imbibe in one draught, and then passed on. ‘Is it something you wear?’
‘No.’
‘Um … is it made of wood?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s this!’ cried Jasper, snatching up his greasy wooden trencher from the grass beside him. I praised him, and the game continued, but at last Jasper grew more tired, the cavernous yawns more frequent, and eventually he fell asleep almost in mid-sentence, his small warm body pressed confidingly against me. Across the fire, I saw that Gib and his girl had gone, and his place had been taken by a couple of raffish young Scots, clad in sheepskin jerkins, who were talking animatedly to Francis and the remaining girl. He had his arm negligently across her shoulders, as if by habit, and I realized suddenly that this must be the notorious Kirsty Armstrong, who was so prodigal with her favours. With a sick thump of my heart I looked away to where Archie was preparing to sing. Like many of the company, he had evidently imbibed very well, but it made no difference to his incongruously tuneful voice, save perhaps to mellow it still more. And by some strange unwelcome alchemy, the song he sang was all too appropriate.
Oh, I loved a lass, and I loved her sae well,
I hated all others who spake of her ill:
But now she’s rewarded me well for my love,
For she’s gone and she’s married another.
When I saw my love to the church go,
With bridesmen and bridesmaids she made a fine show:
And I followed on wi’ a heart full o’ woe,
To see my love wed to another.
There were too many memories that song brought back: of the day I had married Dominic, thinking that Francis was dead, and also of another day, at the beginning of my love affair with Francis, when he had sung part of the song to me. As the bittersweet recollection flooded back, I realized that Archie was singing that same strange verse:
The men i’ the forest, they askit of me,
How many strawberries grow i’ the salt sea?
I answered them back wi’ a tear i’ my e’e,
How mony ships sail i’ the forest?
Involuntarily, I looked at Francis, expecting some sign that he too remembered, and was just in time to see him smooth the girl’s riotously tangled yellow curls away from her wet red mouth, and kiss her.
Something had happened to my stomach. I felt physically sick, the oily lamb suddenly queasy within me. Without thought for the slumbering Jasper, I struggled desperately to my feet and ran away from the bright cruel drunken firelight, into the welcoming oblivion of the summer night. I did not care where I was going, I just ran, on and on into the dark, my breath sobbing and the picture still of Francis and that girl, that slut, that whore Kirsty Armstrong, indelibly in front of my eyes like some malevolent will o’ the wisp.
Several times I stumbled and fell, over stones or grass-tussock or, once, a somnolent and startled sheep, but always, somehow, got to my feet and went on. My eyes became accustomed to the dark, that here in the North was not so deep, and at last I slowed to a walk, and then halted. For in front of me, flat black against the sky like a mouthful of rotten teeth, were the Stones.
I stared at them, fighting to regain control of my labouring breath. The wind sighed softly in my hair, and in and out of the Stones, like the eerie shushing whisper of the sea: or the wicked Lord Soulis, breathing evilly amongst the Stones where he had met his end. I feared no ghost, I told myself firmly, and I wanted to sit and rest: and where better than against one of the Stones?
I walked in amongst them and sank gratefully down against the largest, which leaned outwards from the circle. Pondering the hideous legends of this place might prove to be a pleasant task beside my recollections of what I had just seen, but was impossible. My feeling of nausea rose again at the thought of Francis, doubtless as Gib had already done, slinking with the girl into the darkness and tumbling her in the heather. Sick with overwhelming jealousy and anger and grief, I drove my fist futilely against the hard impassive mass of stone, and had to suck the salty blood off my knuckles. I could do nothing about them, nothing at all, and that, out of everything, angered me the most. In impotent fury I leapt to my feet and prowled restlessly around the circle, feeling my way from one stone to the next, my fingers registering automatically the minute unseen difference in shape and texture and position, for there was as yet no moon.
There was a light, though, a growing light in the northern sky, and, my attention caught, I gazed at it, for surely the moon would not rise there?
And it could not be the moon. The light was green.
I had thought myself an intelligent, educated, rational woman, but I stood rigid, and a thrill of pure superstitious terror lifted the hairs on my back and neck, and sent a shiver running all through me. The wind and the strangeness both brought tears to my eyes. I blinked them away, and stared to the north, fascinated and awed, for now, after that first eerie moment, I knew what it was. Malise had talked of the Northern Lights that set the sky dancing and shimmering twenty times a year on the Borders, more frequently to the north: old Meg had said that the rare displays visible from the hills around Liddesdale were as nothing to the glories to be seen from the Western Isles.
The light grew, and flickered, and tongues of greenish fire began to lick out from the radiant arc on the northern horizon. Utterly entranced, all thoughts of Francis and Kirsty Armstrong totally forgotten, I clung to the stone and gazed at the surpassing beauty unfolded in the sky. The darting, witch-like fingers of light shimmered and twisted and fluttered like banners streaming in an unseen, unfelt breeze between the earth and the stars. As well as green, there were rays of purple and violet and rich rose, shaking and quivering above me like a great windblown curtain of light, and all in a marvellous and utter silence.
I remember I wept from the beauty of it. I do not know how long I stood there, unheeding of cold or stiffness or cramp, spellbound and enchanted as if by witchcraft, until the ethereal lights faded and the radiance withdrew, little by little, before my straining eyes, until there was no more brightness in the north. It was like awaking from a wondrous dream. I became aware again of the small rustles of night, the wind in the grass around the Stones, the stars untouched in their allotted places, of the stone against which I leaned, and my aching legs and painfully cricked neck. With the lights still vivid behind my eyes, I drew deep shuddering gulps of air, as if I had held my breath all the while in awe. Desolately, I supposed that I had better return: if, that was, I could remember my way, for I had come no little distance from the shielings and the fire was no longer visible. I hoped that Malise and Grainne had seen the lights too so that I could share my experience: the view of them down at Catholm, with the bulk of Ninestane Rig interposed, would have been poor at best. I had just collected my wits and was looking round to regain my bearings, when I became aware of a new, dark shape between two of the stones, a shape man-high, that had moved quite silently. I gasped with sudden fear, and backed stealthily towards the edge of the circle, gathering my skirts for a speedy retreat.
‘Don’t worry, it’s Francis,’ said his voice, and even in those brief syllables I could tell that there was something strange in the sound of it. But such was my sudden delight — for he must, on purpose, have sought me out, searching for me over half the hill — that I did not heed it. ‘Oh, Francis, did you see them, did you see the lights, the lights in the sky?’
‘Those? Haven’t you seen them before? Though they’re commoner in spring and autumn … aren’t you cold?’ He moved nearer, and with incredulous wonder I recognized in those last words the kind of concern I had never thought to have from him again. I stood stupid with amazement by the stone, and watched his dim shape approaching, coming closer and closer until my straining eyes could discern the pale glimmer of his hair and face and shirt, and the dark shadows that marked his eyes: and then his hands came out to grip my rigid, unbelieving shoulders and pull me against him.
I could not believe it. I wept for joy and relief and overwhelming emotion, crushed against his shirt, while his hands roved over my back and hips and around my waist, and his mouth whispered soft unintelligible endearments into my hair. He guided me backwards until I felt the hard unyielding stone against my spine, and then he disentangled his hands and began to fumble with the buttons of my riding-habit …
It was then that I remembered how usually quick and deft were his fingers, and realized that he was drunk. Although I should have been afraid, alone on the moor at night with him in such a condition and his intentions so plain, I was not. It seemed as though my bones were melting and the stars reeled before my eyes as the old desire for him, that I had not felt for nearly two years, threatened to overwhelm me utterly — and I did not care. His unsteady hands finished their task and I gasped, once, at their cool touch on my breasts, and then he smoothed back the tangled hair from my lips and bent his head to kiss me.
An hour earlier, no more, he had employed that self-same gesture to a slatternly girl no better than a whore, clear in my view; and so easily now, and with as little regard on his part, he was planning to seduce me. And I remembered also, on a wave of fear and disgust, the terrible moments in the stable at Nantwich, and the menacing soldier who had wanted my body as Francis wanted me now, with a lust that owed nothing to love or friendship or affection or consent: and was thus no more than an animal’s. I had just enough wits left for a stab of perverse anger to taunt me into action. It was as though I had been drowning, drowning in the honeyed deceit of his unscrupulous casual love-making, and had only just in time reached the surface. With the greatest effort of will I have ever needed, I wrenched my mouth from his and twisted and punched and struggled and kicked to win free. Caught off guard, his quick wits fogged by drink, it was easier than I had feared: I plunged to the ground, rolled vigorously over and over, and scrambled to my feet, panting, well out of reach.
‘What the devil …’ He stood staring at me, though in the limited illumination of moonrise we could see very little of each other. ‘Come here, you little bitch, and let me have you … don’t be coy, that’s not like you …’ His voice was soft and slurred and made me shiver with suppressed longing, but my mind was resolute. My shaking fingers groping for the buttons of my bodice, I said, ‘No, I won’t come to you, however hard you may whistle, for it’s plain you only want me for your whore, and I’ll not give you my body for your pleasure without having your love in return.’
‘You were not so scrupulous with Dominic, were you?’ he said, with a new silky, sneering menace. ‘You gave him your body, if I remember, and got his wealth and his title in exchange for it, and that’s whoredom under a nicer name … come here.’
I took two steps backward as he advanced, my heart suddenly thumping unpleasantly as the real possibility of rape became apparent. My heel nudged a stone: on an impulse I bent swiftly and picked it up. It was probably a piece broken off one of the standing stones by frost and weather, and it fitted snugly inside my hand. I said, my voice as firm as I could make it, ‘No … oh God, don’t think I don’t want you, but not on those terms, not while you’re drunk, any whore would serve you just as well.’ I added, unwisely, ‘Why don’t you go and seek out Kirsty Armstrong?’
‘She was not so willing as she promised, and you’ll do instead of her for tonight,’ said Francis coldly.
‘I’m not interested in just tonight,’ I said, desperately bunching my skirts in my other hand, ‘Nothing less than for ever will do — ah!’
He had suddenly lunged for me, and my overworked eyes had almost failed to see it. I flung myself to one side, and his hands grasped my sleeve. I twisted frantically and with a loud rip of homespun tore myself free. Almost without thinking, I threw the stone with all my strength, not caring how hard it struck him as long as it did. I saw his shape sway forward and fall, whether from a stumble or the stone’s force I did not stop to see: I turned and ran out from the Stones, up the long ridge towards the fire and my friends.
