A Strange Scottish Shore Page 13

  “To Silverton? Here? Now?”

  “Yes! That’s the easiest way, don’t you see? We might spend weeks combing this place, and never find the right spot. Send me back, and I’ll bring him there.”

  “Where?”

  “Anywhere! Here. Right here. In this room.”

  “What if it’s not built yet?”

  I turned to the window. The hammering was growing louder. We were speaking in short, quick sentences, as if time were of the essence, as if some devil stung our heels. My heart was hammering, too, so hard and so fast I felt dizzy. “What were you looking at, out there?”

  “Nothing. That point, I suppose. That crest of rock.”

  “There, then. I’ll take him there.”

  “You can’t. Miss Truelove, you can’t. It’s far too dangerous.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “My God, anything might happen! I don’t know what the devil I’m doing! You must consider—you might be lost to me forever—”

  I shut my eyes and gripped his hands with all my strength, while my pulse shattered my ears and my brain turned to flame. “Don’t say that. Don’t make me consider. Just do it. Send me. You must. Right now. This is what you must do.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I can’t explain—”

  “Miss Truelove—”

  The smell of sawdust and manure and Silverton grew inside my nose and occupied my head. I thought I heard voices, footsteps.

  “Someone’s coming,” I said. “Quick.”

  “Nobody’s coming.”

  “Please!”

  He hauled me down on the sofa, and the first sparks tantalized the nerves of my palms.

  “Keep going!” I gasped.

  Something sang in my ears. My palms turned hotter, began to burn. The rush of separation began, of otherworldliness, of hurtling toward some distant destination, surrounded by electricity.

  “Wait!” cried the duke. “Wait! The object! I need an object, something of yours.”

  I opened my eyes. Away from the window, away from the sunlight, he had regained his own face, Max’s face, and he was gazing upon me like a man in torment. His black hair seemed to have gained twice its volume, as if a force had taken hold of each strand. So red was the skin of his cheeks and his nose, it might have been burnt with a hot iron. I thought, I have nothing, nothing except my clothing.

  But that was not quite true.

  You must understand how desperate I was. You must understand the compulsion I felt, the extraordinary necessity, as if I were galloping to catch a train that, if it left the station without me, would surely crash and be destroyed.

  Without thought, without the slightest sense of regret or loss, I untied the belt of my cardigan and found the chain of my father’s plain silver pocket watch, pinned to the pocket of my skirt.

  I unpinned the watch and thrust it into Max’s hand.

  “Here,” I said. “If that can’t summon me back to you, then I am forever lost.”

  “It won’t work,” he said. “It can’t work.”

  “Try. Try!”

  He took my hands again, and the force of contact struck me like an engine. In the space of an instant, I was hurtling backward, or forward, or upward, propelled toward some magnetic pole. I heard a voice calling my name from the end of a long tunnel: a voice that began in Max’s dark baritone, and ended in something else.

  The Fisherman did as the Lady asked and unhooked her dress, and he said to her, ‘Lady, if you do not mean to lie with me, you must tell me this instant, for the sight of your beauty is too much to bear.’ And the Lady replied, ‘Then my beauty is yours, as poor as it is, for by your dear love you have purchased mine, and yours it shall remain unto eternity.’ So the Fisherman took her to bed and loved her mightily, and in the morning they went to the village and were married, and the Fisherman and the Lady gave thanks to God for their happiness.

  But that night, while the Lady lay asleep in the deep thrall of nuptial pleasure, the Fisherman stole from their couch and hid her strange suit in the false bottom of an old chest, for he took no chance that his bride should disappear back into the sea that had brought her to him . . .

  THE BOOK OF TIME, A. M. HAYWOOD (1921)

  Seven

  I smelled the smoke first. Though I couldn’t realize it then, a long time would pass before the scent of a peat fire did not constitute some part of my awareness.

  I cannot say whether I was conscious yet. My head was heavy and dark, and I could not move my limbs. I remember thinking I was dreaming, that I was caught in some dream from which I could not wake, and that my surroundings, my person, my own name were a mystery. I realized I was cold, but that even the relief of shivering was beyond my power.

  I stirred slightly, trying to lift my head, but some warm, constraining force held me in place. In the instant before I slipped back into the void, I understood that this force was an animate one: the arms of a human being.

  And I heard a voice, hushing me gently. Telling me to rest a while longer.

  • • •

  The next time I woke, the break was sharp. I jolted upward, and now the unknown human arms released me. Though I was still weak, I could turn—indeed, you could not have stopped me from turning—and saw a bearded face before me.

  Its lips moved. “Feeling better?”

  I kissed him. That was our first kiss: an act of reflex. Because he was Silverton, who never refused a kiss in his life, he embraced me back. I wish I could recall how it felt, how long it lasted, whether our lips parted, how he tasted, but the memory is too confused. I only remember how glad I was, how relieved, though I could not quite determine why I should be so glad and so relieved. And the scratch of his beard on my skin, that is indelible. I can feel it still.

  At length our mouths parted, and he set me against his chest. I believe he was laughing, or at least chuckling. My head moved in rhythm, and the vibration filled me. “Don’t try to move anymore, my dear,” he said, and his voice sounded different somehow, not in timbre but in accent. “You’re quite safe, at least for now.”

  “Safe?” I whispered.

  “In my little hut. Nobody bothers me here.”

  I had so many questions, but no strength or wit or sense to put them into thoughts. Only the single word: “Where?”

  “Where? Oh, my darling girl,” he said, laughing again, though it was not a joyful laugh. “I’m afraid that’s the wrong question.”

  • • •

  I suppose it was several hours later before we talked again. He left me to heat some broth in the iron pot on the hearth, and as I lay back upon the pallet and watched him, I realized I was covered by several lengths of fur. The room was not large, perhaps twelve feet by twelve, containing only a pair of chairs and a small table, a large chest, the primitive fireplace, the pallet on which I lay. A rough, earthen substance formed the walls around us. On the wall to my right, a window seemed to have been cut, but it was covered by a cloth of some kind.

  What lay beyond, I was terrified to discover.

  My little hut, he had said. He crouched before me now, his tall frame cramped by the small room, his limbs even leaner than before. Instead of his usual impeccable suit, he wore a tunic of homespun wool, belted in leather, and dark hose of the kind an actor might wear, and I thought, for the first time, shivering not with cold but with fear—

  My God, my God. What have we wrought?

  Silverton seemed not to notice my awakening. When he returned, he bore the broth in a cup made of pewter, and he spooned it to my lips himself, as if I were an infant. He was not without reason. I had no more strength than an infant, and I continued to shiver, despite the fur. He remained patient and told me the coldness would ease soon. That was why he had kept me close, these past hours, piled with fur, the peat fire blazing extravagantly, though it was Aug
ust.

  “Still August?” I said, rather hoarsely. “Then how have you grown such a beard?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s only been a few days since—since—since I saw you last.”

  He set the spoon in the cup and stared at me. “Truelove. My dear, dear Truelove. I’ve been wandering these blasted lands for three years now. Are you not aware?”

  “Three years!” I started a little, and realized, as I did so, that I wore only my chemise beneath the fur. Neither dress nor stays nor petticoats belonged to me. I hardly cared, however. My attention was fixed on the face before me, its lower half covered by stiff golden whiskers, a shade or two darker than the hair on his head, which was quite long and bound in a queue at the back of his neck. The truth of his words now stunned me.

  “Yes,” he said, more gently. He set down the cup on the stone floor beside him. “Are you saying you’ve passed only a few days, in that time?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I’m dashed. I suppose I must look a beast to you.” He ran a hand through his hair, loosening it, and then smoothed his beard. “By God, it’s good to speak English, however. You’re confused, of course.”

  “Oh, how can you be so cheerful?” I said, and burst into tears.

  For a moment, he only stared at me in astonishment. Well he might. I have never been the sort of woman to weep; I have learned, over the course of a life spent chiefly in the company of men, that tears must be kept strictly on the inside. I don’t know what broke me then. The idea, perhaps, that Silverton had lived three long years alone in this place, while I had lived only three days. In my state of physical and mental enervation, I couldn’t bear it.

  At length he conquered his amazement and reached for me. I sobbed against his homespun shoulder and found that while the odor of his expensive soap had disappeared, the familiar scent of his skin had not. Silverton. His voice came like a miracle into my ears.

  “Because I’m used to it, my dear. That’s how I can be cheerful. And I’m so damned glad to see you again, I might sing.” His hand stroked my hair. “I never imagined I should have this chance again.”

  “No faith at all?”

  “Faith? Faith in what? Luck? Though I suppose my luck is your misfortune. How the devil did it happen to you? I still can’t quite work out how I ended up in this mess. One moment I was chasing a villain into the street, and the next—hmm. Something to do with Max, of course, the damned beast. Perhaps you can enlighten me?”

  We had never touched so intimately—I in such shocking undress, he clothed scarcely more decently—and yet I felt no embarrassment. No constraint, no sense of doing wrong. The strict code in which I had been bred seemed to have lifted from my shoulders and flown away. I lifted my head and met his soft, curious gaze, and I told him the truth.

  “I came back to find you, of course. I made Max do it. It seems he has the power, you see, not just to summon but to send, almost at will.”

  “I see.”

  “At first, we tried to bring you back, but we couldn’t find where, or how. So there was no other way. I had him send me to find you.”

  The room was quiet. Through a crack in the curtain covering the window, I perceived that it was daylight, but what hour? Morning or afternoon or evening, I couldn’t say. With my eyes, I traced the fine new lines etched upon Silverton’s face, the expression of grim wonderment. His lips were cracked and full, his beard glinting faintly in the glow from the hearth.

  “My dear, brave Truelove,” he said. “As game as they come. And now we’re both in the soup.”

  I seized his sleeve. “No, we’re not. How can you possibly think me so heedless? We made a plan, the duke and I—”

  A series of loud, rapid thumps shook the wood of the door. Silverton swore.

  “Who is it?” I exclaimed, in a whisper.

  He sighed and detached himself from me. “It’s your welcome committee, of course. I’m afraid I was expecting this. Tuck yourself back under those blankets, my dear, and attempt to look as if you’re sleeping off a night of carnal debauchment.”

  “What?”

  Silverton kissed my forehead and rose to his feet, and so small were the hut’s dimensions that his dear, golden head bent at the neck, in order to avoid brushing the ceiling. He said, with a note of apology, “I’m afraid I told them you were my concubine.”

  • • •

  I obeyed him instantly, at least in the first directive. Whether I actually contrived to look like a prostitute—that tip of my head showing from the edge of the furs, that is—I know not, for I kept my eyes shut tight, and the voices I heard, masculine and rough, almost guttural, spoke no language I recognized.

  Silverton answered them in the same tongue, however, and at one point the sound of laughter drifted from the doorway. My cheeks turned hot, chasing away the last of the chill.

  Then footsteps, heavy ones, and a sharp word from Silverton.

  I lay perfectly still. I believe the side of my face showed above the covering, but that was all. A rank smell found my nostrils, and a wave of disgust and terror passed through my belly. How close was he? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t dare open my eyes. Silverton was saying something, and somebody answered him, and there was another round of male laughter, of the kind I recognized from my own age. Certain things were eternal, it seemed. I began to perspire, in my cocoon of animal hides, and just as I thought I couldn’t bear the tension, the loathing, for another instant, something took hold of the furs and yanked them away from my body.

  I gasped and sat up, and Silverton let out the kind of roar I had never before heard from his throat. Before I could even comprehend the appearance of the man who stood next to the pallet—closer, far closer than I had imagined—Silverton was between us. I snatched up the furs. From the doorway, men laughed. Silverton had whipped out a blade of some kind, a knife or a dagger, and held it now against the other man’s throat. I saw black hose and thick leather gaiters and a tunic much like Silverton’s, and also a sword, raised slightly, which I now realized was the object that had pulled back my covering. The metal glinted in the light from the open door. I remember thinking how battered it looked, how scarred. Silverton was speaking, or rather he snarled words I could not understand. From the doorway, the other men roared happily.

  Then a curious silence fell upon the small, smoky room. The two men stood a few feet away from me, Silverton and the intruder, poised against each other. From my perspective on the pallet, I could see nothing of their expressions, but I knew better than to intercede, or even to move. Or perhaps I was too stunned to do either. Some strange, primitive drama was unfolding before me, some ritual. Silverton’s back moved as he breathed, and I found myself counting the long, slow beats of his respiration. The fresh air moved inside the hut, summer-mild, laced with the familiar scent of the sea. The sword moved slightly; Silverton hissed some quick word, and the other man drew back, laughing. Silverton laughed, too, but I knew him too well. I knew he didn’t mean it.

  All at once, the tension dissolved. The man tucked his sword into his belt, and as he moved to the door, I caught a glimpse of his face, his dark beard and his pale face, and the scar that creased the skin above his left eyebrow. I remember thinking it was not a face you could easily forget.

  • • •

  When the door closed at last, I rose to my feet.

  “Have you any clothes for me?” I asked.

  He faced away from me, one hand still braced against the door, his head bent as if in prayer. “Not as such,” he replied, rather dryly.

  “I suppose I might borrow one of your tunics, then.”

  “Why?”

  “I must—there are certain—I require a moment of privacy.”

  Silverton straightened and turned. His face began to crinkle. The laughter built slowly, as that of a man not quite sane, and proceeded into helpless w
hoops. “Oh, Truelove,” he said, wiping his eyes. “My dear Truelove. You are so damned—so damned—my God. You’re just the same. Perfectly, beautifully unchanged, the truest Truelove there ever was. God forever bless you.”

  “Sir—”

  “Sir.” He sagged back against the door. “A band of ruffians turns up at your door. The breadth of a mere hair stands between you and a most brutal rape. And you—”

  “Rape!”

  “Yes, Truelove. Did you not divine their purpose?”

  I shook my head. My throat had closed in shock, making words impossible.

  “Dear chaps. They’d decided I’d had time enough with you, you see. Fair’s fair. They wanted their turns.”

  He said it lightly, but his face was grim and exhausted. I thought, for some reason, of our earlier kiss, and how heartfelt it was, and how curiously innocent. How tenderly our lips had moved each other. How I had then rested myself against his chest and thought myself safe, as safe as I had ever felt in my life.

  I made myself speak. “What did you tell them?”

  “That you were mine.”

  I must have frowned, because he pushed himself away from the door and said, “I realize that sort of thing goes against your noble principles, of course, but I felt I had no other choice. Possession is the creed here. Possession, enforced by strength.”

  “I see.”

  “No. I don’t believe you do. You are to go nowhere without me, is that clear? Not one step outside this hut.”

  “This is nonsense.”

  “I’m afraid not. It’s deadly serious. You’ve got no idea—” He shook his head and moved to pick up the cup and the spoon that sat next to the pallet. “It’s damned lucky I came upon you first. I don’t know what sort of all-powerful Providence was keeping watch over you, Truelove, but you should offer up your orisons forthwith. Still hungry?”

  I shook my head.

  He set the utensils on the table and went to the wooden chest under the window. “In the meantime, if you’ll be so good as to pop this tunic over your fair form and follow me, we shall proceed to the privy.”