The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (56 page)

“Aodhàn Mackinnon said Padraig’s wife nursed me before she died.”

“That’s what I heard, as well. I might not be speaking to you now, were it not for Wynda Urquhart. I mind when I first met poor Padraig. Their five-month-old son died too, Saint Brigit bless him. Padraig was miserable.” She blew on her tea, saying she preferred it almost cool. “But Master Thomas helped,” she continued. “He made Padraig his gamekeeper and he hired Malcolm to be one of his shepherds. Most Lowlanders brought their own shepherds, but not Master Thomas. No, he returned dignity to every Highlander within his reach. He understood us like he’d been born here.”

“I wish I could’ve known him.”

“His son is his mirror-image. You’re a fortunate woman, if you’ll forgive me saying so.”

“Aye, it’s true.”

Looking at Agnes’s weather-roughened cheeks and neatly plaited hair, Morrigan wondered what would have happened if the clearings hadn’t destroyed Glenelg. Though she possessed fine clothes, a grand home, and a wondrous husband, an instant of unaccountable regret flashed. Had she grown up here, she might’ve married Logan… Kyle… or some other lad she’d never know because he’d been sent in exile to Nova Scotia. Instead of being awakened by Violet, perhaps she would have risen without help, lit the fire, and boiled gruel. Her husband would have labored dawn to dark and come home smelling of dirt, sweat, fresh air, and horses. His rough hands would’ve held her, his sweet mouth offered love. Why, she could almost see herself ruffling his messy ginger hair, and hear his words.

Can I trust you? You’re not like other girls. You do what you want, what moves your wild heart.

It was strange that she would sit in Kilgarry’s kitchen and construct such a vivid fictitious life. Odder still was the longing and grief that followed.

Agnes, unaware how far her audience had mentally wandered, went on with her tale. “The land hereabouts is best suited to grazing sheep and cattle, but we ploughed every bit we could. We provided honest labor to support ourselves and this land.” Her expression sobered as she added, “’Twas a sad day when the lung fever stole him from us.” Then she frowned at Morrigan. “So… it was Aodhàn Mackinnon who found you, who brought you down off the mountain, was it?”

“Aye.” Morrigan’s face grew hot at this unexpected turn.

Agnes’s gaze sharpened. “And he vanished that night, and wasn’t seen for two full months after.”

“I had naught to do with that….”

One of Agnes’s wiry brows lifted. “Of course not,” she said. “I wasn’t suggesting you did. I do wonder what sent him fleeing. He’s never gone away for so long.”

Morrigan spluttered. “We hardly spoke.”

“Mistress, I know you didn’t cause him to run away. He rejoined his seal kin; it’s what he does. What I worry about is you, to be honest. I believe Aodhàn has cast a glamour upon you, m’lady. Did you look into his eyes at all? I’ll see what sort of protection spell I can work up, otherwise, well, who knows what might happen?” Agnes glanced into the rafters, blushing. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything about this.”

Agnes’s obvious discomfiture conjured the way Mackinnon had stared into her eyes the night he’d carried her off the mountain, and before that, the raw passion on his face at the Saint Michael’s festival, the way he’d kissed her, as though she was his long lost love. He’d held her gaze then as well, and she thought she caught a glimpse of his soul.

At least this good woman couldn’t see how reliving that kiss made Morrigan’s whole body ache for another, no matter how hard she tried to stifle it.

* * * *

Padraig Urquhart said the last time it had been this cold was the year they’d been cleared. Folk gathered at the Michaelmas barn for robust dancing to wile away the bitter nights of the new year. Malcolm played the fiddle. Seaghan, their
seanchaidh,
or taleteller, retold the ancient adventures of Conn of the Hundred Battles, of Fionn MacCumhaill, Cú Chulainn, and other Celtic heroes, and added a few stories of the Goddess Morrígan in honor of Kilgarry’s new lady.

Glenelg’s women prepared for
Là Fèill Bhrìghde
, Saint Brigit’s Feast Day, which fell on the first of February. Morrigan and Beatrice had begun a habit of rocking away the evenings in Morrigan’s cozy turret sitting room, sewing blankets and baby clothes. Neither knew the local tradition, so Morrigan asked Fionna about it when she brought tea.

“It once was a grand celebration,” Fionna said. “Over five hundred folk called Glenelg their home when I was a girl. Not like now. They’re away to Nova Scotia… dead… or getting old, like me.” Her hands faltered over the teapot.

Beatrice nodded her agreement.

Morrigan wound yarn into a bright blue ball and marveled how the clearings still affected everyone, like it had happened only a year ago rather than nineteen. The event draped like a permanent shroud over the entire coast. Mentioning the word
clearings
always brought pensive expressions and uncomfortable silence.

Fionna recovered and began pouring. “We decorated corn dollies with shells and grass and feathers. We put on our bonniest white dresses and collected gifts from the whole parish. By the by, our lads would come, bow their heads, and ask permission to enter the special Bride’s house. We made fun of them and forced them to wait until they turned blue. Women have the upper hand one night of the year, and that’s Saint Brigit’s.”

Morrigan was reminded of something Diorbhail said at the bothy.
I believe in She who men face when they die. She was the one we all worshipped first. She made everything we see around us. She has been here from the beginning.

“Are you cold?” Beatrice asked.

“No.”

“I clearly saw you shiver just now.”

“Maybe someone stepped on my grave.”

If that world comes, women will be the same as cattle or sheep, and there will be no succor anywhere.

Fionna continued her description as she covered the teapot with a towel. “Dancing lasted the whole night. We’ve kept up the tradition, though it’s a sad, shallow imitation of what it used to be.” Nodding towards Beatrice, she added, “As the oldest woman in the house, it will be up to Miss Stewart to make the Bride’s wand and bed of straw. She’ll douse the fire and smoor the ashes. If our fortune’s to be good in the coming year, Saint Brigit will mark the ashes with her wand while we sleep.”

She picked up the tea tray. “I do wish you could have seen how things were in the old days, mistress. Can I fetch anything else for the two of you?”

Morrigan and Beatrice told her they needed nothing, and Fionna left.

“Aunt Ibby says I can’t go out now.” Morrigan sighed. “Will I ever be through this, and free again? It seems I’ve carried this babe inside me forever.”

Beatrice tisked as she worked a bit of saffron thread through the eye of her needle. “This is the freest you’ll be the rest of your life. Once a wean scraiches its way into the world, you’ll learn how thoroughly a mother can be tied down.”

“But we’ll have a nanny,” Morrigan reminded her.

“Aye, you’ve come up in the world, haven’t you? The high and mighty miss.”

“Curran says it’s the common way among folk who can afford it.”

Beatrice scanned the sitting room, her gaze lingering on the mahogany mantelpiece. “Times there are this richness fair scunners me,” she said. “I find myself wishing I still lived in a
taigh-tughaidh
,
like we did before you were born. Hannah and I shared it with Douglas, his mother, Ibby, and Nicky. The life was simple. Most would think us daft to prefer that to how we were raised, and aye, Hannah hated it. But I took to it. I’ll never forget the smell of autumn, or cutting the peat and bringing it in on a pony.”

“Tie-toouh?”

“The Gaelic for a thatched house. You should put more effort into learning the language spoken hereabouts.”

“You’d prefer such a life to this?”

“There’s much I’d suffer rather than be indebted to a miserly landlord for every rag on my back.” With a growl of disgust, Beatrice thrust her needle through the cloth. “The night’s grown thick to be sewing, and my eyes hurt.”

Morrigan scowled. Was that what the woman thought of Curran? And after everything he’d done for her.

When Tess brought coal in the morning, she told Morrigan that in the Highlands, Saint Brigit was sacred to expectant women. “When you go into labor, Eleanor will call upon her to give you an easy delivery.”

The maid blushed as she glanced at her mistress’s ever-expanding abdomen. It made Morrigan feel old, and she wasn’t even twenty.

All this because of an afternoon’s impulsive passion on the moor above Stranraer. It was hard now to remember the excitement and ardor of that day, but at least she and Curran had been closer lately. They did other things at night in the big feather bed, things that wouldn’t jeopardize the baby. Still, she longed for the day when….

She caught herself. Her thoughts had strayed to Aodhàn Mackinnon again. She tried to quash these fancies, but they had a way of sneaking in when her guard was down. Her wayward imaginings made him cold and reserved with everyone except her. With her he was fever-hot yet sweet as well, even teasing. It didn’t seem to matter how often or how sternly she told herself such fabrications had little to do with real life. Some secret part of her, suppressed when she was awake, obviously wanted to be that important to Mackinnon.

Dreams were strange, the way they seemed so lifelike, at least for her. They affected her mood, sometimes for days. She often pondered the dream Curran had shared with her. He had jumped into a mountain tarn and had encountered an underwater castle. He’d fought a lion, and the two merged. They had loved the woman and freed her from the oak tree. Through this merging and loving, the whole world was redeemed and forgiven.

* * * *

Curran offered Kilgarry for the holiday feast, ostensibly so Morrigan could participate.

On Saint Brigit’s eve, Tess and Violet donned white dresses and unbound their hair. They collected Bride gifts from every home in Glenelg and ran laughing into Kilgarry, their arms overflowing with all manner of things from cakes and cheeses to herbs, painted shells, and bright wooden beads.

Bitter cold fired their cheeks with scarlet. Frost sparkled against their cloaks. They danced about the kitchen, giggling and singing, their exuberance heating the room. These were the only two never-wed virgin lasses in the township, and this was their special night.

Beatrice and Eleanor fit into the unmarried category as well, but no one had courage enough to ask if either were still virgin, and both snorted at the idea of collecting gifts with Tess and Violet.

Morrigan succumbed to unwelcome envy. Tess Dunbar and Violet Campbell possessed waists so small a man’s two hands could span them. Morrigan glared at the doorway as she pictured her husband, banished right now because he was male, a virile male who had taken her chastity and impregnated her in one afternoon.
How Zeus-like of him
.

The baby rolled heavily, and the middle fingers on her right hand tingled and went numb. She didn’t know if the two events were related, but they always happened together.

Tess and Violet draped their arms around each other’s shoulders and examined the gifts they’d collected as they sipped Janet’s special recipe, a richly churned flip made of cream, eggs, brandy, and spices.

These were free, pure, innocent lasses, the very standard of the wild, sweet Highlands. It didn’t matter if Tess was two years older than Morrigan. She appeared younger because she was untouched. Unspoiled. What every man most longed for.

And Violet. Not quite seventeen, with shining russet hair and eyes so blue they rivaled Curran’s. Never had Morrigan forgotten the way her maid had bolted her fingers onto Curran’s arm at Michaelmas, or the pride in her upturned face. Beside her, Morrigan felt massive and ugly.

Stop, stop
. She was catching these mental attacks and halting them more quickly. Now she heard her father’s voice in the rebukes instead of her own.

Why were females so often cruel to each other? Why did they choose hostility over friendship towards those who could and should be perfect allies?

Morrigan pressed her palm against a gnawing ache in the small of her back.

Perhaps because their futures were created through plotting, planning, and battling, not only for themselves, but also for the children they bore. Without the support of men, they would likely die, or at least never escape poverty and want. Men had fashioned the world thus.

Though Morrigan had attained one of the highest pinnacles a woman could hope for, the fight wasn’t finished. Younger women would always beckon to lustful male instincts. Even in the wilds of Scotland, men were in some ways like Turkish pashas, spoiled, cosseted, taking for granted the fact that beautiful females would compete for their favors.

Women were scavengers. Or perhaps a better comparison would be urchins, like Diorbhail’s poor murdered daughter, fighting for tossed bread crusts. A bigger crust meant longer life.

The doorbell scattered her thoughts. Glenelg’s gentlemen were clumped up and down the front steps, their caps dutifully, humbly, removed.

She regarded them from behind Tess and Violet.

“May we come in and honor Saint Brigit?” Logan asked politely.

“You could if you were worthy, but sadly, you’re not.” Tess stifled giggles behind one hand. “And you stink.”

“Poor frozen starvelings,” Violet cried, “are your privates as shriveled as your faces?”

Tess squealed and gave her companion a shocked blow on the shoulder then both fell into paroxysms of laughter.

“Is this the best we have to choose from?” Tess propped hands on hips. “This pathetic lot? Where is our brave William Wallace, our bonny Prince Charlie?”

“What’s become of the Highlands?” Violet gave an exaggerated sigh.

Logan turned his cap in his hands. The look he sent the lass promised future retribution, but he kept his mouth shut, as he must at Saint Brigit’s.

“Oh, let them in,” Janet said from behind Morrigan. “They’re blue as Picts.”

Curran passed Morrigan with only the briefest winter-chilled kiss. He was far too involved in discussing the merits of breeding his Augustus with delicate Stoirmeil to bother with his pregnant wife.