The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (66 page)

“It escapes between your fingers, I suppose.”

“Leaving naught but a memory of dew.”

She gazed at him.

“Then there’s Curran. He’s the rock that makes up the Hebrides. Gneiss, it’s called. One of the hardest rocks the earth has ever conceived.”

Morrigan heard Diorbhail’s voice.
Who is the mountain? Who is the seal?

“Your husband is a patient man.” Seaghan’s gaze was penetrating. “But it wouldn’t be right to test him.”

“You’re saying Mackinnon is inconstant?” The breeze seemed abruptly chilly.

Seaghan frowned. “Perhaps that word better fits you, Lady Eilginn.”

She knew the flush climbing through her cheeks was damning.

Heaving a sigh, he said, “Here’s what I think. You’re a lass who’s been yanked out of everything she’s ever known and thrust into a strange place, with demands she’s never been prepared for. And you have a romantic bent,
àilleag nan nighean
— no, don’t scowl at me. There’s naught to be ashamed of. Romance is part and parcel of every Highland-bred heart. What I’m saying is that I do no’ believe you’re as worldly as you try to appear. I’d not tell you Aodhàn’s business if I thought otherwise. He’s a man with a devil on his back.” He nodded. “Aye, it’s the truth. He and I have lived together as comrades and partners since that moment I hauled him onto the deck of the
Bristol
. That’s nigh on twenty years. Don’t you think if anyone knew him, it’d be me? But I don’t. He’s stubborn, moody, and hard; whatever damaged him out there in the sea has never released him. I don’t think it ever will. I know the day is coming where he’ll walk away and none of us will see him again. He’ll disappear into the sea like he appeared out of it all those years ago.”

Running his hand over a nearby lanyard, he added, “Truth is, I don’t want you hurt.”

Morrigan lifted a corner of the blanket. Her daughter had fallen asleep.

First Diorbhail, then Eleanor, now Seaghan. Agnes too. And since Michaelmas, Curran had hardly spoken Mackinnon’s name.

Yet this deluge of warnings sparked more of an offended loyalty than distrust. She glanced at Mackinnon, alone on the bowsprit but for the dolphins. An angry inner voice shouted.
My Mackinnon
. Her jaw clenched. She didn’t realize she’d thought this for a moment, and when she did, she turned her face down, tightening her hold on Olivia.
My Curran,
she told herself. Running the tip of her index finger over the wean’s cheek, she repeated it.
My Curran.

“There’s something about the two of you,” Seaghan was saying. “These many years he’s never bothered with women, though a few have tried to win him. And you, a bride. A new mother. I’ve seen how your husband looks at you. You’re the love of his life. You’ve been blessed, Morrigan, in a way few can claim, yet still you look at Aodhàn like a fallow field calling for sun and seed… and rain.”

Morrigan kept her face down, wanting to hide the confusing emotions she knew she wouldn’t properly disguise.

“You are married, you know,” he said. “Though you seem in danger of forgetting it.”

“No. Never. That is
not
true.”

“Well, then, perhaps I’m wrong, and have said things I shouldn’t’ve. If so, I ask your forgiveness.”

Morrigan thought of Nicky, how he’d teased her for reading the tales of Greece, and mockingly called her Helen of Troy. That poor married woman had surrendered to infidelity. How many untold deaths had it caused?

“You loved my mother, didn’t you?” She peeked at him through her lashes.

It was his turn to flush. After a long hesitation, he growled, “I did.”

Determined to push through shyness and fear, she said, “And you’ve gone on loving her these many years.”

“I have.” He rubbed his forehead and sighed.

For longer than she’d been alive, he’d loved Hannah and remained faithful to her memory, though Hannah had wed another, and borne another man’s child. “Mackinnon isn’t the only one who should put his past to rest.”

Seaghan squinted over the sparkling water. He gave a helpless shrug and nodded.

Sunlight gifted them with languorous warmth. Water lapped against the shore. Olivia released a milky sigh and rubbed a fist over her cheek. The boat’s drowsy rocking soothed Morrigan into a near doze. She lay down with Olivia on the stern
thwart
next to Seaghan, her legs tucked against her stomach, her head cushioned on a neatly folded plaid. From the corner of her eye she saw Aodhàn’s white sark billowing in intermittent breezes. “I mind when I was small,” she said. “I’d lie on the grass beside Loch Ryan. I saw many things in the clouds. Great gods, rearing unicorns, dragons blowing fire.”

“Tell me about your life.”

“And bore you senseless.”

“I’d not be bored. I want to know.”

So she described the Wren’s Egg, how folk stopped on their way to Ireland, or to the Highlands to shoot the deer. She told him about Nicky’s poetry, and her private game, taken from Robert Burns, of categorizing men grave or merry. She related the forbidden early morning rides, and how Aunt Ibby had hired a woman, over Douglas’s protests, to teach her to play the piano. “She tricked him into agreeing by telling him it would bring more guests.” She sighed. “I’ll always be grateful for what she did. There’s little I love more than playing. Chopin, especially.”

“D’you know,” Seaghan said, “if you’d grown up here, you wouldn’t’ve learned that. We’re a poor, hard-working lot. You probably wouldn’t’ve had much if any schooling. I didn’t think I’d ever say such a thing, but something right came out of the clearings.”

“The dominie told me my brain was quick, and it was a pity that because I wasn’t a man, I couldn’t go to university. But Aunt Beatrice called education a fool’s waste on women. She said what was the use, when women’s lives are spent cooking, cleaning, and bearing children?”

Seaghan scowled. She noticed, but decided she had pressed enough for one day.

“Did you have any swains before Curran?” he asked.

“I did fancy one of my brother’s friends, but he didn’t want to marry.”

“Young and foolish, was he?”

“He wanted to travel and paint. He was an artist. But he got a lass in trouble and ended up having to wed after all.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s who painted you.”

“Oh, aye,” she said, blushing again. “I forgot you saw it.”

“So he was your first love?”

She shrugged. “Papa didn’t approve. He never would’ve given his blessing, even if Kit had been willing, which he wasn’t.”

“I cannot say I’m disappointed.” Seaghan took a long drag off his pipe. The tobacco crackled in the bowl, and the aromatic smoke he released hung in the still air. “About all that….”

“I saw the flowers on my mother’s grave, Seaghan.”

“Oh, well, that’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” she said. “Hannah died giving me life. Papa never forgave me for that. It wasn’t until after he died that I realized he wasn’t evil. He was hurt, and doing the best he could. Of course, my understanding came too late. Do you hate me too, for what I did? I took her away from you as well as Papa.”

“Hate?” He rested his hand briefly on her boot. “Hannah lives again in you.”

Morrigan couldn’t quite suppress the tremor in her laugh. “I’m sorry. There’s been too much death, and near death this last year. I’m not accustomed yet to Papa and Nicky being gone, to almost losing Olivia, to the pure chanciness of life. It’s made me gloomy.”

“I’ve been unfair, and judgmental as a damned missionary. You’re no’ inconstant, and I apologize for saying it. But I’m certain Douglas did not hate you over Hannah. You can’t know what lay between your da and mam before you were born. My feeling is his anger was directed elsewhere, and you got in the way.”

She shrugged. “He had to’ve suffered, to be so furious all the time. Part of me comprehends that too well. Forgive me, I didn’t mean to scunner you. Were you going to tell me something?”

He hesitated. “No,” he said. “No. And you’ve no’ scunnered me.”

A rolling wave caused the boat to sway. The hull grated against a submerged rock. Seaghan turned his gaze to the bowsprit. “We’re drifting in.”

“Aye,” Aodhàn said.

Neither raised their voices. Morrigan realized Mackinnon must’ve overheard every word she and Seaghan had exchanged.

She sat up and looked about. They weren’t far from the rocky coastline. To her left was an islet holding a lighthouse, to her right a larger hunk of land, bleak and barren.

“Eilean Sionnach.” Seaghan used his pipe to point at the isle with the lighthouse. “And that one is Ornsay.”

“Would you care to walk about?” Aodhàn asked her. “Have a look at the seals?”

“Aye,” she said.

Aodhàn dropped the anchor. Seaghan pulled the dinghy close and helped Morrigan clamber in, handing Olivia down to her when she had her balance.

They landed on a smooth patch of earth on the shore of Ornsay, where they had a fine view of the looming, silent lighthouse. She wondered if Louis’s family had built it.

Olivia continued to sleep, not even waking when her mother called out that she’d found a cache of perfect scallop shells.

Seaghan spread out the plaid then presented his basket of bread, cheese, and whisky. There was so much Morrigan wondered if he’d foreseen her coming along. They ate and drank with the sort of appetite Seaghan claimed always accompanied being on the water.

As Aodhàn promised, a harem of sleek grey seals were sunning on the rocks by the lighthouse. More bobbed in the water, and a few swam closer, traversing the expanse between Eilean Sionnach and their picnic spot. They seemed unafraid, and with good reason, as she’d been told time and again that no one on Skye ever killed seals.

The three of them sat near the water’s edge to watch the creatures. The largest bull of all raised his mighty head and scrutinized them.

“He’s sizing us up,” she said.

“Aye.” With the barest quirk of a brow and hint of a smile, Mackinnon said, “Sing. He’ll come nearer, and his wives will follow.”

She searched his face for the jest.

“A woman’s singing enchants them,” he said. “Didn’t you know? They can’t resist it.”

Seaghan’s regard was mockingly stern. “Have you forgotten the legend already?”

“You mean from my wedding day?” She was half-sure they were playing tricks, trying to make her look foolish. “About seals being human? Curran made that up.” She glanced at Aodhàn, but thought perhaps she shouldn’t mention the part about him being Glenelg’s resident selkie.

Aodhàn cleared his throat, cracked his knuckles, and in the space of a breath transformed into a
seanchaidh
, the classic storyteller, his voice rich and resonant, every word and inflection carefully chosen to evoke the image of an ancient bard entertaining his king and court.

“In Scotland,” he said, “in the time of King Arthur, before there were castles or clans, many tribes warred and competed for power. Kings and chiefs built forts with high palisades, nestled on hills and rocky cliffs, where they could be easily defended.

“One chief had holdings near land’s edge at Cape Wrath. With him in his fortress lived his wife, two doughty sons, and one daughter of marriageable age. The lass was a beauty, with hair that fell like sheets of copper, a mouth red as autumn-ivy, and skin as pure as moonlight.”

He paused and his gaze rested on Morrigan. He blinked then looked away to the restless water.

“Her name was Eamhair,” he said. “Men throughout the land heard of her, and of her father’s wealth. Highland men are impetuous, then even more than now. They traveled the length and breadth of the country, meeting whatever adventures came their way, in hopes of gaining her favor. What they didn’t know was that the chief’s daughter had already given away her heart. No one knew. Even if the chief had proved willing to indulge her, Eamhair’s choice never came forward to claim her.

“She knew this man well and loved him, but he was born of the night, and the long secret hours lasses spend alone in their beds.”

Eamhair
. A girl immersed in fantasy like Morrigan, pining over a Greek barbarian with shaggy blond hair and a sword that rarely left his side.

But she must listen to her bard, or she would miss something she was beginning to respond to, and to feel was of great importance.

“Whenever a horse brought a man to the gates, she came running, hopeful that this time, it would be her lover. But it never was. She grew despondent, and spent more and more time alone on the cliffs, singing to the gannets, the sunset, and the wind.

“Her father wanted the matter resolved. His wife nagged him to find a kind man, who would treat their daughter well, but he was far more interested in how her beauty could benefit him. Judging from the number of rival suitors loitering about the fort, drinking his ale and consuming his meat, he figured he could make a tidy profit selling her to the highest bidder. Whether the winning man was kind mattered not to Eamhair’s father.

“Though he preferred hunting and reaving cattle to the tedious business of women, he spent an evening or two studying the latest set of suitors. Which would bring prestige? Who would give loyalty, silver, and warriors if needed? Several seemed likely, but he hesitated, hoping for more.

“One day, while Eamhair was walking, she was disturbed and frightened by a great horde of men on horseback. One of them was more richly dressed than the others. His mount’s bits and saddle were highly polished. His face held an arrogance that put her on guard.

“Several of the men made ribald comments as they crowded around her. But the leader lifted one hand and they all fell silent. He dismounted and approached her. He kissed her hand and asked her name.

“Though he was all charm, Eamhair saw the men exchange glances. Their expressions warned her he was not as he seemed.

“He escorted her to the fort and introduced himself to her father. The two men closeted themselves in order to speak privately.

“That night Eamhair’s father notified her that she was to be married. No one knew what the stranger offered or threatened, but Eamhair’s father did not seem pleased.

“The lass wept into her pillow. Her father had auctioned her off without a thought or care to what her life would be. She pictured the triumphant suitor, who she could hear shouting and reveling in the great hall. No doubt the morrow would find him gruff and bleary-eyed from too much drink. His eyes offered not the slightest breath of poetry. She feared a man who would set out to purchase her would prove to be hard-hearted and cold. Would he see the majesty of the heavens when a storm blew in, or taste snowflakes on his tongue? Who would laugh with her by the waterfalls? To whom would she sing in his faraway land? Who would walk along the cliffs with her in the gloaming and call to the seals?