Lady Miracle (22 page)

But if he had lived, she would never have discovered the compelling magic that Diarmid had showed her. The thought of him made her melt inside again, a shivering, excited sensation that had happened often in the past several days. That was followed, as always, by a sharp sense of loss.

She sighed and lay the quill down, rubbing her brow, unable to get Diarmid out of her mind. At first she had been relieved that he had gone away, but at night she yearned for his arms to surround her, longed to feel again the wondrous vibrance he had brought to life inside of her.

But she would shutter her desires. The laird of Dunsheen did not want the burden of her foolish heart at his feet. She would leave Dunsheen Castle. She had treated Brigit, and Lilias and Iona could continue without her supervision. She would ask Angus to send a runner to Kilglassie. Gavin was not there, but someone would come to escort her home.

Leaving Brigit and the others would hurt almost as much as leaving the laird himself. But she steeled herself against the regret and her inner protests, and returned to the chart.

When the shadows deepened, Gilchrist put away his harp and Angus came to carry Brigit up to her room. Michael continued to work in the empty hall by candlelight, vaguely aware that the dogs barked outside in the yard, and voices called.

Then she heard steady footsteps crossing the chamber and looked up, startled. Diarmid came toward her, his hair wind-tousled, his green and black plaid dark in the fading light, his gaze silver and vivid as it met hers.

She stood, dropping the page that she held. When he was an arm’s length away, he halted, eyeing her steadily.

“Lady, greetings,” he said, his voice quiet and formal.

She nodded tremulously. “Dunsheen. I have been doing the horoscope,” she rushed on, anxious to talk about something, anything, to keep him with her, to focus his attention somewhere else than on her eyes. She showed him the chart she had drawn. “Saturn is poorly aspected to Mercury, and there is a strong predominance of Pisces and Capricorn, but there is a positive influence of Venus and the moon.”

He frowned. “And what does all that mean, if anything?”

“I think she will be fine, although not for a long while yet. According to the natal design, the best method of treatment is—” she stopped, blushing suddenly, hotly.

He folded his arms over his chest. “Is what?”

“Touch,” she said in a small voice, glancing away.

He was silent for a long moment. Then he huffed out a low breath. “Lady,” he said, “I have been thinking. You will need to gather your things for travel. You may not agree, but I—”

“I understand,” she said quickly. She lifted her chin. He wanted her to leave Dunsheen; he must have decided, as she had, that it was best. “I will go,” she said, firming her voice. “I will to leave some instructions for Brigit’s care—”

”
Tcha,
” he said, a sound of exasperation. “I want you to come with me.”

She blinked. “With you?”

“I mean to sail to Glas Eilean in the morning.” He frowned at her. “I know you do not want to go there, but I want you to meet my sister Sorcha.”

“You want me to come with you?” She realized that she sounded like a dim-wit. “To Glas Eilean?”

He nodded. “Tomorrow at dawn.”

Her heart beat rapidly. He asked her to go to the lair of her enemy, her brother’s enemy. But he wanted her to go with him. She caught her breath, and then remembered that he would sail there in his birlinn. Fear rose within her, and she bit her lip, hesitating.

“I need you there,” he said. “Sorcha needs you. I assure you that you will be safe. The voyage is not a long one,” he murmured.

Something in his voice melted her resistance. “I will do it,” she said in a rush, and felt as if she stepped off a cliff.

The world careened, and Michael clung to its last remaining edge with clawed hands. She grasped the side of the birlinn and groaned hoarsely, but the sound was lost beneath the roar and crash of waves and wind.

Another swell surged beneath the boat, and she lunged forward without grace or dignity to lose what little was left in her stomach. A spray of cold, salty water cleansed her face and doused her hair yet again. The chilled shock quieted her heaving, empty stomach for a while. Hands shaking, hair hanging in her eyes like rank seaweed, she leaned her arms along the rim of the birlinn and stared, exhausted, at the lurching sea.

Hearing repeated shouts, she carefully shifted her glance to look around. Long and narrow and fluid in design, her oak planking gleaming wet in the sunlight, the
Gabriel
rose and fell over the waves as she sped forward. Twenty-six oars were manned by the burly tenants and kin of the Dunsheen Campbells. They sat upon wooden chests and pulled steadily at the long oars outthrust from holes cut in the boat’s sides. Their wide, rhythmic sweeps and the billowing sail overhead drove the vessel forward.

The calls Michael heard came from a man who also beat a drum to help the oarsmen pull in unison. Overhead, the square sail bellied and strained against the rope lines that anchored it, and the boat rocked sideways. At Diarmid’s shout, a few of the oarsmen left their posts to bring the sail down, rolling it and tying it to the spar with stout rope. Michael had no idea why they chose oar over sail at this point, but thought they meant to avoid winds strong enough to blow them off course.

Diarmid stood in the bow of the boat, his stance wide and balanced, his hair winging out in the stiff breeze. Behind him, the curved spine of the wooden prow, its end curled in a spiral, thrust toward the bright blue sky. Diarmid spoke with Mungo, who stood beside him, and then walked away, stepping carefully among coils of rope and stacked wooden barrels. Michael watched him come toward her.

She turned away, curling her legs beneath her. Perched on a barrel in the stern of the boat, she clung to the rising, falling edge tightly, as she had for two hours already.

Diarmid had walked back to speak with her a few times during the voyage, but she had directed such wicked little glances at him that he had left without much comment. She knew that he stood behind her again, but she did not look up at him.

In truth, she wished that she could sink through the bottom of the boat and disappear. Her illness mortified her. Although her constitution was generally strong, she had a sensitive stomach, especially in boats. Her genuine apprehension near water stemmed, in part, from bouts of ocean sickness that she could not cure. As a physician, she thought she should exhibit perfect health. But in this, she was defeated.

“Michael,” he said. “Are you any better?”

She folded her hands along the rim of the hull. “I am fine,” she said. “Go away.”

“Fine?” He sat on a stack of rope. “I doubt that.”

“I am,” she said stubbornly. “This is just the way I sail. It will pass. Go away.”

“So this is why you dislike water and boats,” he mused.

“In part,” she mumbled, pressing her hand against her mouth.

“It is enough. Can I help?”

She shook her head and nearly fell off the barrel when a wave rolled underneath the birlinn. Diarmid grabbed her and steadied her.

“The winds are high today,” he commented. “I feel a little ill myself, when sailing is like this.”

She sent him a sour glare and shoved her hair out of her eyes. Lank and wet, it slipped down again. She was too exhausted to sweep it back once more. “Go away,” she snarled.

”
Ach
, girl,” he murmured gently. He kept his hand on her back, the only spot of warmth she felt in this open, cold, wet place. “Come in toward midship. You may feel steadier there.”

“I like it here,” she muttered. She was sure to hate it anywhere on board the reeling, swaying craft. And she refused to display her weakness in the wide, flat middle area, where nearly thirty men could stare at her.

“Michael, let me help.”

She answered with a groan as the world went green and uncertain again, and thrust her head over the side of the ship.

Diarmid held her shoulders until she had finished. She sat back and he swept her hair out of her eyes, a soothing motion that did little to dispel her misery, her irritation, or her embarrassment.

“Go away,” she muttered.

”
Ach
,” he said, “I have nothing else to do but sit here.”

“Sit somewhere else. I need to be alone.”

“Do you?” he asked, combing his fingers through her hair. Shivers, pleasant and relaxing, rushed through her. Exhausted, she allowed herself to lean against him slightly. He provided a haven of stability in a reeling world.

“Sit where you will sit, then,” she said irritably; she wanted him to stay with her, but would not admit it. But she sighed a little when his hands began to knead the tension in her shoulders.

“Were you ill like this on the voyage from Italy?” he asked.

She nodded. “Both times, going there and coming back, though years separated the trips. The ship was a large one, French, with wooden castles at either end and a deep hold for trade goods.”

“I have sailed on larger ships,” he said. “My stomach bothered me quite a bit on those.”

She looked at him in surprise. “You?”

He nodded. “I have been ocean sick many times, though I have learned ways to relieve it. This helps somewhat.” He reached into a fold of his plaid and pulled out a small, withered bit of yellow flesh, like an old slice of apple. “Ginger,” he said. “I tried to give it to you before, but you nearly took my head off with your snarl. Here, suck on it.”

She grimaced. “I could not,” she said.

“Try it,” he said, tearing off a sliver. “Just a bit. There,” he said, as he slipped it between her lips.

The dried root was sharp but sweet, coated with sugar. She sucked, and waited. The boat surged and she swung against Diarmid. He caught her and kept an arm around her shoulders. Cold salt spray drenched them both, and he slicked the water from her face with a gentle hand.

“Better?” he asked.

She wrinkled her nose. “I am not sure. Perhaps.” Her stomach still hovered at the edge of upheaval, but the worst of the sensation had faded.

“It does not work for everyone, but I find it useful. I learned of it from a Venetian trader,” he said. “He supplies us with sugared ginger along with other spices from the East for Dunsheen woolfells. When we can get shipments through.”

She looked around the boat, at the rowers, at Mungo laughing with the drummer, who had stopped his insistent rhythm for a while. “Your birlinn looks like a Norwegian longship. I have only sailed on the larger European ships, and rowing boats.”

He nodded proudly. “All of my birlinns are Norwegian built, in the design used for centuries by Vikings. This kind of vessel is far more practical in the western Isles than the square, deep European ships, and so most Islesmen use them. Birlinns are perfect for sailing among islands and coasts—light, graceful, fast, and flexible, an advantage in trade or in war.”

“War?” She glanced at him.

“I hold my land of the king’s good will in exchange for two birlinns pledged as warships,” he said. “King Robert has required their service a few times, but most of the time I use them for trading and voyaging.”

She nodded, sucking on the ginger. Her stomach felt calmer, but she doubted the illness was over. Another heavy wave brought the boat high; when the prow smacked down, Michael shoved away from Diarmid to hang over the edge. After a moment, when nothing happened, she looked at him in surprise.

He smiled. “Better,” he said with satisfaction.

“A little,” she admitted. Her head ached viciously, and she had not lost the persistent dizziness, but her stomach was undeniably quieter. She rose shakily to her feet. “How much longer must we sail?”

He stood too, and pointed ahead. “See those mountains?” He gestured toward three blue, conical shapes that pushed against the cloud-filled sky, far in the distance. “Those are the peaks on the Isle of Jura. Beyond that lies the Isle of Isla. Glas Eilean is just off its southern tip. We will sail for another hour or so at least. Our progress is slow because of the heavy seas. Currents affect a boat like this even more than winds.”

She nodded. “Is it always this rough out here?”

“Not always.” He smiled a little. “There are times when the sea is like green glass,” he said, “sweet and smooth and fast as ice. Other days the clouds are high as mountains, filling the sky, and the winds carry us like a dream wherever we want to go. Then there are times when the water is rough and quarrelsome. A storm often comes behind such waves. But my birlinns—the larger one, the White Heather, a small one I call Grace, and this, the Gabriel—are nimble vessels in any weather.”

She turned to glance up at him. His eyes had a silver clarity, like the sparkle of sunlight on the water, that showed his pride and his excitement. “You love the sea, and your boats,” she said.

“I do,” he said. He glanced at her. “But you do not, I know. We are pulling toward Isla as fast as we can, and we’ll follow the shoreline on power of oars, although we must be careful of the rocks and currents.”

He stood beside her for a while, silent, then put a hand on her shoulder and turned her slightly. “Listen, now,” he said. “Listen carefully.”

She did, frowning to concentrate. The constant rhythmic rush of waves was underscored by another sound, a deep, throaty roar. “What is that?” she asked in alarm. “An approaching storm?”

“The sound of a whirlpool—Corrievreckan, it is called—formed by the tidal currents between Jura and another island. At times that channel is calm, if tricky, but winds like these can start it turning, and storms can whip it to a dangerous frenzy. A birlinn like this can be swallowed in an instant.”

“We are not going near there, are we?” she asked nervously.

“Not at all,” he said. “We are safe.” His hand still rested on her shoulder. He drew her closer, supporting her with his strong arm, peering down at her with concern. “Are you well?”

She nodded, still wobbly and uneasy, but much more in balance. The improvement might have been due to sugared ginger, but she thought that Diarmid’s presence made the greatest difference. He anchored her with his steadfast support. She leaned against him like a rock in a storm.