Waking the Princess (40 page)

"Thank you. You should know," she said quickly, "that Edgar presumes too much. I never promised to marry him."

He watched her for a moment. "Perhaps you should."

"Why?" she breathed, stunned, watching him.

"He cares for you, in his way. He can offer you a great deal—a wealthy scholar, an eminent man, and free to marry. You're charming enough to reform him from a pompous ass into an obedient husband."

"I do not want to reform him. How absurd! I do not love him. I could not, could never love him." Her gaze was caught in his, melting into his.

"Love is not a condition for marriage."

"Just the opposite. I know," she said, hurting suddenly.

He nodded, silent, then walked away, striding down the corridor toward the staircase.

Christina stood in the hallway, feeling as if her world tipped wildly, and she could not find her balance.

"Christina," John said from the doorway. "Go after him."

She blinked, looked at him, then gathered her skirts and ran down the wide hallway.

When she reached the stairs, she heard the slam of the great oak door echoing in the foyer. By the time she hurried down the steps and reached the door, MacGregor was there to hastily open it for her.

Outside, the drive was empty. She heard Pog's hoofbeats echoing along the wooded lane.

Turning, she went back into the house, aware that MacGregor and Mrs. Gunn watched her, concern and sympathy in their eyes as she walked past them. Lifting her chin, she went upstairs and headed to the library, where she could be alone.

* * *

Moving the magnifying glass over the fragile vellum, Christina studied the phrases crammed along the margin of the second sheet. All afternoon, she had carefully copied the words into her notebook in pencil, not daring to use pen and ink near the old page, and she wore white gloves to handle the delicate vellum.

For two days, she had not seen Aedan—but the work sustained her, fascinated her. She went painstakingly through the marginal notations, deciphering lines of tiny, nearly illegible script. She flipped endlessly through the pages of Sir Hugh's thick Gaelic dictionary, seeking the oldest Irish root of each word she transcribed. Where the correlations were not obvious, she relied on logic and intuition to discern the meaning.

Finally she had come to the end of the text. When her translation was done, she planned to repeat the work again to be sure her interpretation was as accurate as she could make it. Then she would send a copy to Uncle Walter for his opinion. Surely these ancient verses, never before translated, would stir his interest and improve his spirits, and in turn benefit his health.

Glancing around the quiet, lamplit library, she wished she could share her discovery with Aedan, too. For two days, while she worked in the library or watched Edgar supervise the clearing on Cairn Drishan, she had only glimpsed Aedan from afar, and had not seen him in the house.

He was spending long hours at the site of the alternate road, returning too late at night to share formal meals with the others, and leaving before the others arose for breakfast. Christina suspected he was avoiding Edgar, and wondered if he was avoiding her, too.

Longing to speak with him, she hesitated to seek him out. After the clash with Edgar, and after their exquisite, impulsive lovemaking several nights before that, she knew that emotions were hot and deep, and perhaps they were both afraid to address them. Her own feelings were too powerful, the pull she felt to Aedan passionate. The time for truth was nigh, and he had retreated. So had she.

But she had awoken last night with a fierce revelation, and she wanted to tell Aedan. Love, she realized—true love, soul deep and profound—could heal all wounds, break all spells. That sort of love would transcend any threat. She believed it, deep within. She wanted him to believe it, too.

She loved him. She truly did. But she had to leave it be, say nothing, wait for him to think about the same things. She would not try to coerce or convince. He had to realize it for himself.

Sighing, she rubbed her eyes and reviewed her penciled translation once more to be certain it was correct. Though composed thirteen hundred years earlier, the ancient words were fresh and immediate, touching her deeply.

Hope and despair filled every phrase, as did the author's passion for his lost beloved. Christina felt that her translation was right—and she was sure, now, that the poet was Aedan mac Brudei himself, the Druid prince of Dundrennan's legend.

She traced her fingertip along a verse she had copied:

In dark of night and light of moon,

I, Aedan mac Brudei of Dun Droigheann,

a prince of Dal Riata, write these words.

I summon thee, Liadan, Daughter of the Bear

To hear me through the mist.

Come to me, my heart.

Shivers cascaded through her, crown to foot, sensual, provocative, as she felt the power in the words. Reading the lines again, startled by a sudden thought, Christina knew what the poet had intended.

She removed her eyeglasses and studied the aging brownish ink closely. The ancient poet's passion seemed to resonate in each letter he had drawn. Her heart beat fast with excitement as she looked again at her penciled translation.

Liadan, hear me. Come to me, my heart.

"Oh, my God," Christina whispered. Her hands trembled. "It's a spell. A magical incantation."

Mouthing the words, she felt something magnificent behind their simplicity. And she could almost feel the magic ripple through her, a poignant stirring of her heart. Tears pricked her eyes.

Writing down a spell or a charm would have been forbidden to Druid initiates, she knew from her research and discussions with her uncle. Not only did they protect their secret rituals, but they believed that the written word had force enough to transfix magic in eternity.

Yet Prince Aedan had inscribed, in his own handwriting, a charm to call a lost and wandering soul back to the realm of the living. Loving Liadan, he had risked all for her.

In her hands, Christina held his heartfelt effort to save Liadan's life. According to the legend, the princess had fallen into a deep and endless sleep. Sir Hugh's poem claimed that the princess had fallen victim to the evil enchantment of a rival king. Perhaps she had been ill or injured, Christina thought with a more practical bent.

Now she sat reading the words he had penned in secret so long ago. Like a tangible force, Aedan mac Brudei's love for Liadan reached out, flowing through Christina herself, stirring her soul. In her mind, the prince's voice echoed across centuries—in Aedan MacBride's quiet, mellow tones.

Stunned, she could almost feel the Druid's hand touch her own, like the brush of Aedan's own fingers over hers. She could feel, as if he were a ghost, his hand closing on her shoulder.

Come to me, my heart.

Her heart quickened, her head whirled.

The magic in the old verses seemed to sweep through her, a profound, loving force, irresistible. She yearned so deeply that tears now streamed down her cheeks.

Journeying upward, come again down

Journeying outward, come again in

No peril shall befall thee on hill or in heather

Come again homeward, safe to me.

Chapter 27

Rousing from rapt concentration, Christina noticed twilight shadows gathering in the library. She turned up the wick of the little oil lamp on the table, its odor lightly pungent. Hearing footsteps, she glanced up.

Amy, Edgar, and Lady Balmossie entered the room to gather by the fireplace, chatting. When Amy invited her to join them, Christina declined politely and returned to her work.

Touching a hand to her brow, she began to copy the Druid's verses again, determined to confirm her translation. With other people now in the room, the poem's strange magic faded. But her conclusions had shaken her to her core.

"Something certainly has your attention," Edgar said.

She looked up. "Good day, Edgar. I'm working on the translation I mentioned to you."

He came close to stand over her, hands folded behind him. Lady Balmossie and Amy were seated near the fireplace, and Amy began to read some poetry aloud to her aunt.

"You missed tea, but Mrs. Gunn said you were studying in here, so I was not concerned," Edgar said. "I did want to tell you that I went to the excavation site today to tell the Highland workers to box the vases for shipment and bring them up tomorrow. We will transport them to Edinburgh by train, but they will have to be carefully wrapped first, of course."

"I do wish you would not move them yet," Christina said. "I'd like more time to examine the pots in their original setting."

He shrugged. "We've seen enough of the Dundrennan site for now. You have notes and sketches, and you can examine them at leisure once they are in the museum."

She sighed. "This is not a good idea, Edgar." But she did not want to argue with him. She just wanted to be left alone with her translation and her discovery.

"Is that the document from the Dundrennan Folio?" Edgar asked. She nodded, and Edgar shifted to look at the page over her shoulder.

Murmuring over the parchment's age and condition, he leaned a hand on the table beside her own. "Interesting. A military roster. But there are some additional lines in the margin."

"I've translated some of the lines. Not all of it." She would not show him what she had found. The verses were too precious, too intimate and personal, to share with anyone but Aedan.

"Some of this is in Latin, I see," he said.

"Gaelic—Old Irish, really."

"That is Latin," he said, pointing with one finger.

She stared at one of the cramped and indecipherable lines in the midst of the roster. Concentrating on the marginal lines first, she had not yet carefully studied the roster. "Yes, it is. The ink is blurred there. It is... D, U... X..." She frowned.

"Dux bellorum,"
Edgar said. "This is a military roster, so
dux bellorum
makes perfect sense. It's a military commander's rank. A term used for a warlord in the early documents. Later it became 'grand duke.'"

She nodded. "Of course.
Dux bellorum
was used by the ancient chroniclers Nennius and Gildas to describe Britain's greatest warlord, Arthur. Interesting that it is on this list."

"It was used rather broadly for warlords in the early centuries," Edgar said. She knew he was an expert on knights, armor, medieval weaponry, although he was among the scholars who disdained Walter Carriston's theories about King Arthur's extended presence in Scotland. It remained a point of intellectual tension between Christina, Edgar and Walter.

She sat up, thoughts sparking. "Perhaps it refers to Aedan mac Brudei, the warrior prince who was the ancestor of the Dundrennan MacBrides. Thank you, Edgar. I missed that reference."

"You've been working too hard, Christina."

She frowned. "Perhaps." She put away her notes, feeling uncomfortable with his cool stare.

"Sir Edgar, come listen," Amy called. "You wanted to hear some of Sir Hugh's poetry. Christina, do join us."

"No, thank you. I'm rather tired." She smiled.

"Just a moment more, Miss Stewart," Edgar replied, and turned toward Christina. "You were going to show me your excavating notes. Are they here?"

"Yes, but—I do need to rest, and thought to read in my room this evening. May we go over the notes tomorrow?"

"Of course, my dear. The work on the excavation has strained your fragile nature. I want to see your notes before the jars are removed, however. If you leave them with me now, I'll read them and we can discuss them later."

Distracted, she nodded, thinking only that she wanted to get back to the Druid's verses, which she could not do with Edgar hovering over her. Reaching into the leather case that held her writing materials, she took out the journal that held her notes on Cairn Drishan, and then tucked the notebook with her translations back into the case, pausing to wrap the parchments up in silk. Edgar took the memorandum journal and wished her a good night before he joined Amy and her aunt.