Song of the Highlands: The Cambels (The Medieval Highlanders) (24 page)

With an effort that seemed more than she
could bear, she closed her eyes and managed to force a slow,
calming breath into her lungs. Then, leaning forward on her stool,
resting her head between her knees, she relaxed her shoulders,
hoping that by doing so, she would keep herself from tumbling to
the floor, tumbling into darkness.

After several silent moments, Morgana at
last felt well enough to sit up again.

Still, her ribs, her lungs, felt too tight
to breathe properly. Rising, she dropped the mending back into the
basket and went to her bed to lie down. When she’d settled there
curled in a ball on her side, in the dark cocoon that the closed
drapes surrounding the bedframe afforded, the furs pulled snugly
o’er her, and her hand placed protectively o’er her growing babe in
her womb, she allowed her thoughts to stray back to the vision
she’d just had.

If what she’d seen had been a memory, then
she did not want to know more. Her brow furrowed. Tho’, she did
wonder (and wondered also, if Robert believed the same), if the
remembering of all that had happened would somehow bring back her
voice.

She pressed her lips together and nibbled on
the bottom one.

But if she allowed the memories free rein,
would they grow stronger? So strong that she could no longer have
any control o’er them? So strong that they sent her even further
into madness? Aye, ‘twas that fear that convinced her ‘twas better
for her and her babe, and even for Robert, if she endeavored to
learn or recall no more of that time. Even if it meant ne’er
regaining her voice. Aye, even then.

And, what if ‘twas not a memory?

Her heart raced and she gripped the side of
her finger between her teeth.

If ‘tis madness, then she would fight it
with all that was inside her. She would not give in to it. She
would make note of what things brought on the spells, and she would
simply keep well clear of them.

For, even tho’ it had not been easy these
past days to keep the secret of her visions regarding the necklace
from her husband, to maintain the pleasant and peaceful guise as
she went about her daily tasks, she’d still managed to do it.

But, what if they grew stronger still?
Plagued her more often? Were even more vile than the one she’d had
moments before? What then? Nay, she’d not give them purchase. For,
hadn’t she only moments before vanquished them? She could do so
again. And again. And again. She must. For Robert and her babe, she
must. Nay—she
would
.

Feeling steadier now that she’d made that
decision, she rose from the bed and went back to her mending by the
window. She’d dropped the needle in her haste earlier and, after a
few sweeps of her eye o’er the floor, she at last retrieved it from
under the stool.

Settling back once more into the soothing
task of her wifely duties to tend her husband’s needs, her mind
wandered to Robert, and his relationship with Vika.

It had been a shock she’d not been
expecting, to watch her husband and his ex-lover together. A shock
that, she had little doubt, had more to do with her current worry
that her husband may have made a bad bargain in her—more so, even,
than she’d fretted about on the day of their wedding—than any true
belief that his desire for Vika lingered still.

She shook her head and forced her thoughts
back on her task. The hole mended, she lifted up the leg covering
for full inspection. Aye, that would do nicely. She smiled with
tenderness.
Poor Robert.
He was so oblivious to such things
as this. A man of action, was he, with little care for the torn
seam here, or the hole in the toe there.

Dropping her hands that held the hose back
into her lap, she lifted her gaze and peered out the window. From
this vantage point she could see past the barbican to the verdant
sun-soaked glen beyond, and further still, to the full and lush
stand of trees that was the MacVie forest. Several miles past that,
she knew, but had yet to see it, was the loch that their little
burn fed into. Her gaze lifted. Onward still, like earthen
sculptures of a recumbent female form, the peaks and slopes of
Cruachan Beann
buoyed the clouds above them and split the
horizon.

Recalling the oft-retold legend of
Cailleach Bheur
, the old hag of the ridges, she’d heard from
the spinners not long after her arrival here, she smiled. If only
she could stave her unease in the same way the old hag staved the
font on the mountain’s peak each eve to keep it from o’erflowing
and flooding the land.

Resting her palm o’er the small mound of her
belly, she sighed.
No more fretting.

* * *

That night, well after the compline bell,
Gwynlyan trod the path to her, and now Morgunn’s, secret haven. She
was close enough to the burn to hear the rush of water as it
slammed against rock, the splash of nighttime creatures as they
searched for food or mates in their aquatic home, smell the wet
ground, the must of the damp green moss, that during the day would
nearly blind the eye with its bright green color, but now, in the
dark and dim of the nighttime forest, would appear as shades of
gray, black, and deep, deep green upon the rocks and stones along
the burn’s edge. As she continued to walk, she enjoyed, as well,
the sharp tang that wafted up to her of young fern leaves and other
new-grown plant life crushed beneath her feet.

Morgunn would not be pleased with what she
would tell him, but there was naught else she could do. Until that
afternoon, when she’d hidden behind the trunk of the large oak near
the northwest corner of the garden, and listened to her son-in-law
speak so frankly about Morgana’s plight, she’d had no notion of the
extent of her daughter’s distress, nor Robert’s increasing worry
for her and their babe because of it. ‘Twas time to reveal
themselves to her, to help her mend with the knowledge that her
family had not been slain, but had survived the attack, to enfold
her in the warm refuge of their love once more.

Coming to the area near the burn where the
land sharply sloped, she grabbed hold of the low-lying branch she
used for leverage each eve, and carefully began her descent. She’d
managed to get a foothold with her first initial step down, but
when she placed her other foot, the right one, down ahead of the
first and attempted to lift her left, ‘twould not give way, as a
bundle of unearthed roots had somehow snarled around her ankle. In
seconds, she’d lost her balance and begun to fall, her mind already
whirling with images of the torch fire taking flame to her and the
forest around her. A scream formed in her throat, but was muffled
before she had time to think how, by a scarred and calloused hand
across her mouth, as, at the same time, a long, muscular, familiar
arm enveloped her from behind and pulled her up against a chest as
hard, but with much more heat, as the symbol stone of the ancients
that stood proud on the heath near
Aerariae secturae.

“To lose you now,” warm and charged with
desire, a smoky whisper puffed against her ear, “when I’ve only
just found you again...nay, lass that will ne’er do.” He stepped
back and brought her with him, not releasing his hold on her until
he was sure she had her footing once more.

After a silent moment, in which they both
stood drinking the other in, Morgunn wrapped his long fingers
around her fist, then slowly slid the torch from her hand, in a
bold, sensual reminder of more intimate past caresses. Her fingers
trembled. Still, she managed to say with some modicum of poise,
“Hardly a lass.”

The soft kiss he bestowed upon her ash-toned
lips stunned her more than his words that followed.

“To me, in my heart, you will always be a
lass,
my
lass.”

And you will always be my brave warrior
husband.
“I have tidings,” she said briskly to cover her desire
for him.

With a nod, he took her by the hand and led
her to higher, yet still secluded, ground, edged as it was by the
dense crop of heavily-leaved trees. Once he had the torch secured
by soil and rock in the ground, had her settled upon his mantle
beneath the canopy and resting against the trunk of a birch, he
said, “Tell me of what you have learned.”

“Our daughter suffers, is preyed upon by
images from the ambush, tho’ I know not what images they might be.”
Of the hours Alaric rutted ‘tween my ungiving thighs?
She
prayed not.

Morgunn swung around, pummeled his fist into
the trunk of a tree, bowed his head. “He shall pay for all he has
done to us. He
shall
!

“Vika, as we believed, knows little of the
details surrounding the assault on us, so in the end, did little to
aid our daughter’s memory of her past.”
Or, mayhap, ‘twas of
shivering in a dark corner of that devil’s cot singing with her
ears covered to the violent sounds?
“She was able to give
Morgana some information about her life prior to the ambush, and I
saw later that Morgana was soothed by this knowledge.”

“Then how is it now that you believe she is
tormented by memories of the assault?”

“I followed Robert and Vika into the herb
garden after the nooning meal, hid from sight, and watched for
others who might have followed as well—there was no one.”

“Good.”

“Aye, of that I am thankful. But as I
watched, I listened,” Gwynlyan continued. “Robert revealed to Vika
that Morgana has been haunted by sudden flashes of memory that make
her panic and swoon. She sings in her sleep, which pleased him at
first, as he believed she was recovering her voice, but now he
worries ‘tis somehow connected to the violence and fright she
suffered. He fears for his unborn babe.”

Morgunn growled, scrubbed his hands o’er his
face, then strode over to her and collapsed down next to her with
his back to the forest and his legs drawn up. Resting his arms on
his knees, he said, “And what of you? You have stayed close to our
daughter. Surely, if ‘twas so bad, you would have seen signs of it
as well?”

Looking off in the distance, she said, “Aye,
I have.” As she spoke, she absently touched her fingertips to the
place above her breasts where the cross hung, beneath the coarse
brown wool of her gown, and felt its imprint push into her flesh.
“Near to a sennight past—‘twas the day after we first met here, in
fact—she and Robert came to this very spot. I happened upon them
when I returned to retrieve something I’d left the night before.
When I discovered them, I turned, and started back toward the
holding. I’d only taken a few steps when I heard Robert cry out her
name. I rushed back, but discovered that she’d merely swooned.”
Gwynlyan clasped her hands in her lap and brought her gaze back to
Morgunn, saying, “I thought then ‘twas only due to her childing
state. But now…. Now I believe ‘twas more than that.” Again, she
lifted her fingertips to the cross hidden beneath her clothes,
wondering how much she’d need to reveal in order to convince him to
do this thing.

“Aye? What makes you believe such?”

Taking in a deep breath for courage, she
tugged the chain and brought it out, exposing the ancient
amulet.

Morgunn’s eyes widened. His gaze riveted
upon the piece, he reached out and lifted the cross from its perch
between her breasts. “I remember this…. ‘Twas my mother’s...and
‘twas my gift to you….” Bringing his gaze back to hers, he said,
“How do you have this still? I cannot believe Alaric, or one of the
others did not steal it.”

Nay.
She could not tell him the whole
of it. Not yet. So, she lied. “I hid it in the hem of my gown, and
later, I found other places to hide it, so ‘twould not be taken.”
The last part, at least was truth.

Smoothing the pad of his thumb o’er the
emblems, he murmured, “This is the thing you came back to the burn
for that day?”

“Aye. But...now, and especially after what I
o’erheard this day, I believe that the viewing of it is what sent
Morgana into a swoon. That she recalled holding tight to it,
holding tight to me, while the sounds of the men attacking came
from outside our covered cart.” Unable to bear the twin needs
inside her to both crumple into his strong embrace and to cringe
away at the same time, and knowing that he’d cringe away, as well,
were he to fully learn the extent of her fall from honor, she
slipped the amulet from his grasp and tucked it and the chain back
behind the cloth of her white chemise and brown woolen gown.
Feeling him settle back into his previous position as she did so,
and keeping her eyes down, in a pretense of concentration on the
task, she continued, “The day after, Morgana came here again, this
time with me and a guard—,” she did look at him now, “—and I found
this odd at the time, but dismissed it as mere chance—she dropped a
ring at the exact place where I’d retrieved my necklace the day
before, following her swoon. After she placed the ring back on her
finger, and for the remainder of the day, she was somber, seeming
thoughtful, even.” Gwynlyan clasped her hands together in her lap.
“I am convinced now that her reserve was due to the fact that she
did not find what she came back here to find: my amulet necklace. A
link to her past, and possibly something that made her recall us,
the ambush, and the violence of that day.” Her earlier unease
forgotten with her newly revived sense of purpose, she grasped hold
of his hand, squeezing tight. “She suffers, and ‘tis time for us to
reveal ourselves to her, so that she may be calmed by the knowledge
that all the terror that befell us did not result in our deaths, as
she has been told...as all still believe.”

In the long, tense silence that followed,
Morgunn dipped his head and studied the edge of the makeshift
pallet they sat upon. Finally, he said, “Do
you
believe her
babe is in danger from these flashes of memory?”

Gwynlyan could be naught less than honest,
tho’ she knew that her answer would no doubt decide it. She dropped
her gaze from him, looked first at her twined hands, then lifted it
up toward the break in the canopy, which allowed a moonlit view of
the rushing burn, of the moss-covered stones and plant growth on
the far bank. “I confess, I have not thought of much else since
hearing our son-in-law’s words, but...,” she shook her head,
brought her gaze back to Morgunn, “nay. I believe the babe is
well-nested ‘neath Morgana’s heart, and will not loose itself so
easily.”