The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (58 page)

“At last the queen’s lover discovered a place the gods could not see. The couple married and had a child. A daughter.”

“A love story….”

He smiled. “After a few years, the queen quickened again. When it came time for the child to be born, she labored through the night, and as the morning sun rose over the hills, they had themselves another baby girl. Their oldest daughter was pleased, for she wanted no pesky brothers.”

“Brown eyes and curly brown hair,” Morrigan murmured. “As fine as spider webs. It tangles, oh, how it tangles when she sleeps.”

Mackinnon’s jaw clenched, but after a moment he went on, his voice breaking at first, then steadying. “The older daughter thought the baby was hurt, because of the blood. Her father told her not to worry, that the babe would soon be clean, and to give her mama a kiss, because she’d labored hard to bring this wee sister into the world.”

Morrigan sighed and curled her hand against her cheek. “A happy ending. Thank you, Mackinnon.”

The rage was gone and so was the headache, under the cool damp towel and Mackinnon’s gentle massage. Drowsily peaceful, she envisioned the couple who lived beneath a magical obscuring cloud that allowed them to snatch joy in defiance of ruthless gods.

She saw the man brush his fingertips up and down his lover’s arm as she ladled soup into bowls for the children. She imagined him reading to her while she rocked and nursed the babe. She pictured the lovers on their impossibly high cliffs, the ones she had seen before, and knew this was their special place, where they renewed the spells that kept them hidden, and where they conceived their weans.

“I should have tried harder to find you,” he whispered. “If I’d found you first…”

She sighed. She never would have guessed such rough hands as Mackinnon’s could be so tender.

“
Lethe
is what I long for.” His voice was sad. “Oblivion. It’s the one thing I am forever denied.”

“You don’t hate me at all, do you?” she asked.

Benevolent, happy dreams teased now, coming closer. The breezes were brisk and salty. There was a continuous roar as the ocean battered the rocks below. Mackinnon was already here, waiting for her. This was their place, these high cliffs, above the sound and fury of the sea, with the lonely cry of gulls, and an eagle soaring overhead.

Never
.

CHAPTER TWENTY

ALAS, NO ONE
could pretend the marks of Saint Brigit’s wand had blessed the house.

Memories of the night dissolved into confusing fragments. Morrigan was unsure what had happened, and wondered if it had all been a dream. She didn’t feel daft when she woke, or violent, only tired and ashamed.

She dawdled over breakfast, stroking her stomach. Bonny, bonny babe. This child had done more to make her feel worthwhile than anything else in her whole life.

Had Mackinnon come to her bedroom? Had he spent hours perched on the edge of the bed, brushing her temples, telling stories?

Curran had promised to check on her. If Mackinnon had truly been there, Curran would’ve shot him. But she couldn’t recall seeing Curran. Maybe he hadn’t ever come up to bed.

It had been months since she’d seen Mackinnon, and it wouldn’t surprise her if months more passed before she saw him again. Last night might have been her only opportunity to ask about Diorbhail’s claim that he’d come into Kilgarry’s garden when she was asleep and kissed her. But what if Diorbhail had misunderstood, and he hadn’t done such a thing, had not even entertained the idea? It would be too humiliating.

“How was the evening?” she asked when Curran returned from his early-morning errands.

“Oh, lass, it was boring without you.” He kissed the top of her head.

“When did you come to bed?”

“It was late. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

“No.”

There was no sign of feathers or the ruined doll. Their absence made it easy to convince herself she’d dreamed the whole thing.

Douglas and Nick Lawton had been dead six months. Morrigan pictured her father’s glowering face and Nicky’s, so rakish, his hair always a mess. Now he was nothing but rotted flesh and bone in a horrid box. But this baby brought hope. New life. It was an endless circle, life, death, and constant renewal. She’d seen the truth of it from the flourishes on her mirror to the pattern of the seasons to the full moon and her own body. Everything was a circle.

Morrigan seldom felt the babe kick now.

Two more months to go, and she would enter an unfamiliar land behind closed doors where women screamed and blood flowed. Hannah Lawton died having her. Soon, Morrigan would risk her life in the same way.

Eleanor tried to determine whether the babe lay breeched or headfirst.

“Is she healthy?” Morrigan asked.

“Aye, of course.” Eleanor hardly paid attention. “But not yet turned,” she added. “And don’t you be setting your heart on a girl. There’s no way of knowing beforehand, no matter what anyone says.”

Such was Morrigan’s trust in Eleanor by now, and so troubled did she feel every time she thought of Saint Brigit’s Eve, that she confided about her rages and the fainting. “D’you have a tonic or tea for that?” she asked, hoping her smile would hide her anxiety.

“Do you see flashes of light?” Eleanor asked.

“Aye, and I get the most awful headaches.”

“How long has this been going on?”

Morrigan had to ponder. “A long time. I was about twelve or thirteen, I think, when it started.”

Eleanor listened to Morrigan’s heart with a narrow wooden contraption. When she straightened, she was shaking her head.

“Well?” Morrigan asked.

“I hear nothing untoward. Usually, what you describe is caused by a problem in the heart, though from what you say, the swooning is connected to strong emotion.”

“One never happens without the other.”

“I have seen this before, in Edinburgh. My brother called it
syncope
, a fancy Latin term for fainting spells. Have you ever had an injury to your head?”

Morrigan thought back to Douglas’s thrashings, the times he’d struck her in the face or cuffed the side of her head hard enough to make her ears ring. Come to think of it, the fainting, rages, and headaches had started about the same time as her father’s beatings. When she left school, at thirteen.

Eleanor’s brows lifted at Morrigan’s flush and downcast gaze. “Ah,” she said, and frowned.

Morrigan couldn’t make herself say the words. She tried, but her voice wouldn’t work. She picked at the coverlet.

“I’ll write my brother,” Eleanor said, “and ask him about it.”

Morrigan nodded.

“I did find out something else that might interest you.”

“Aye?”

“It’s about what you saw, the last time we gave you the witch’s cap. Apparently, the things you described actually happened. I was curious, so I spoke to Father Drummond, and he wrote a few letters. Seems there was an Inquisition, many centuries ago, in what is now the German Empire. Those names you spoke did sound like they came from that area.”

Morrigan had tried to banish the memory over the last four months. Sometimes she didn’t think of it for days or weeks. Sometimes it flooded in with horrible clarity, leaving her cold and shaking.

“It’s interesting to me how you knew that,” Eleanor said, without inflection.

“I didn’t.”

Eleanor perused Morrigan. At last, with a sigh, she said, “Heinrich Baten lived, mistress. So did Klaus Berthold. He was the Archbishop of Cologne. Heinrich Baten was an inquisitor, given special powers by the pope to stamp out heresy.”

“I don’t know what an inquisitor is. Or an Inquisition, or an archbishop. I only know heresy because you explained it.”

Eleanor’s brows lifted. “And yet, when you related your dream, you did so without hesitation, without stumbling or doubt.”

“What about… Caparina Naske?”

“He couldn’t find anything on her.”

She paused for a long time. Morrigan’s nerves twined and stretched.

“According to the priest who searched the history at Father Drummond’s request, Heinrich Baten was ambushed and murdered in suspected retaliation for all those he had burned at the stake.”

“You told Father Drummond about my dream?”

“I did not involve you, and never spoke your name.”

“What does this mean?” Morrigan rubbed her temples. The dizziness was returning.

“I really don’t know.” Eleanor rose from the bed and fluffed Morrigan’s pillow. “It’s odd. Because I’ve discovered that at least some of those you mentioned are folk who really lived, I feel I must regard everything you say when you’re not yourself as possibly real.”

“Do you remember that night last autumn, when Diorbhail and I looked into the water?”

“Aye, you were quite upset as I remember.”

“I saw you in the water that night, Eleanor.”

“Did you?”

“You had a mark on your forehead.”

“I know what you saw. I have seen her as well. She seems a tortured soul, and I have long tried to delve into her story. I have… seen and heard things I am not ready to share.” Eleanor pursed her lips and frowned.

Curran came in then and Eleanor took her leave.

He brushed Morrigan’s hair with soothing strokes, and rested his hand on her stomach for long stretches, not wanting to miss any kicking that might come along.

“You love me still?” she asked.

“Of course I do. More than ever.”

“I might die.”

He gathered her close. “We’re going to have ten bonny, brave, fair and reckless weans, and you’ll be fine. You’re feared because it’s your first, and I don’t blame you. I imagine all new mothers feel the same.”

Ten babies! Easy for him to be brave. It wasn’t him who would go through it. His part ended with the pleasure.

“I wish we could love each other again,” she said.

“I can wait,” he returned, trailing kisses down her neck and across her shoulder. “If I can touch you, it’s enough.”

Caught in an unusual period of boundless energy, she insisted on decorating the nursery and asked Curran how they would go about finding a suitable nanny, with Glenelg cut off by mountains and snow from the rest of Scotland.

“Well,” said Curran, “what about Diorbhail? She was a mother.”

Morrigan stared at him. “Why didn’t I think of that? She’s perfect, if she’ll do it. Thank you, thank you, Curran.” How different he was from Douglas and Beatrice and their petty contempt. “I’ll ask her. I’ll have to be tactful, since she’s still grieving her own child, but I think she’ll do it. It’ll help her.”

Diorbhail was moved into a bigger, snugger bedroom next to the nursery.

“Could we travel after the baby’s born?” she asked Curran that night. Untying her robe, she added, “I want her to know the world.”

“Why are you so sure you’re having a wee lass?”

“I see her. She has your eyes. I want to name her Olivia. Olivia Therese, for your mother.”

“I hope you’re right.” He reached around from behind and stroked the sides of her stomach.

She leaned against him, resting her cheek against his throat. All day she’d suffered cramping and odd pains, but his warm hands soothed it all away. “I want,” she said. “I want….” How braw he always smelled, like storm clouds mixed with fallen leaves. It had become for her the scent of pleasure, contentment, and safety.

“Tell me.” He walked with her to the bed and joined her under the blankets.

“Morrigan…?” Beatrice opened the outer door and entered, looking at a tangled knot of thread she was holding. Not until she’d passed through the sitting room and stood at the bedroom door did she look up. Her brows lifted.

“Michty me.” She wheeled, deliberately stomping, releasing a string of Gaelic. “
Chan fhaca mi a leithid
….” She shut the door behind her with a solid judgmental thunk.

“Why can’t folk knock?” Curran scowled. “Don’t they know what a closed door means?”

“What did she say?”

“That she’s never seen the like.” He rolled his eyes.

His surly expression sent Morrigan into a giggling fit. He began tickling her.

“Stop it,
stop
.”

His hands left off tickling and returned to stroking.

“Love me.”

“We can’t.” He kissed her, long and slow, leaving her breathless.

“Please, Curran, we’ll be careful. I want you.” She pressed against him.

“A saint couldn’t resist you,” he said, arranging himself behind her.

“Ah, that’s grand.” She closed her eyes.

“This is dangerous.” But his voice held no conviction.

Her strong-willed husband, the powerful man accustomed to having his own way, lay completely helpless in her thrall. She smiled.

A witch, they called you. And a witch you were
.

Night had grown old when she woke to a flow of liquid drenching her legs and the bedclothes. “Oh,” she gasped.

Curran rolled over. “What?” he asked, sleepy and indistinct.

“My water.” The midwife had warned her.

Leaping from bed, he jerked on the breeks he’d left crumpled on the floor. “I’ll get Eleanor.”

It seemed then that Morrigan heard shrieks of laughter outside the window, and fingernails scratching the glass. Dwarves and faeries— they would break the glass as soon as Curran left. They would steal her babe and leave a changeling. “No!” She clutched his arm. “Don’t leave me.”

“Let me call Fionna then,” he said half-impatiently.

Curran told his housekeeper to send Logan for the midwife. “Tell him to use the fastest horses,” he said.

Fionna peered past the master, but bobbed a curtsy and promised to hurry. “D’you want the minister as well?”

Morrigan’s abdomen contracted in a furious, insistent, breathless push. She tried to answer but could only gasp. Thankfully, Curran knew her thoughts. “No,” he said firmly. “We don’t need him.”

The contraction released its grip, allowing her to breathe again. “The bed’s wet.”

“I’ll get someone.” Curran rang the bell. “Don’t move, Morrigan.”

Fright paled Tess’s face as she brought armfuls of clean linen. Curran helped Morrigan out of bed and into the wing chair. Avoiding Morrigan’s eyes, Tess swiftly remade the bed and helped her into dry nightclothes.