‘Don’t try to shame me with your golden tongue, Ramirez,’ said Conner, ‘or you might find me squaring up to you like those laddies over there. . .’
There was a bare-fisted boxing match in operation at the edge of the market square. Two men were busy pummelling each other’s faces to jelly. Ramirez sniffed in disapproval.
‘Barbaric,’ he said.
‘And I suppose,’ said Heather, ‘that sticking pieces of metal in each other would no be barbaric?’
‘It depends on whether the combatants have any idea of the art of fencing. If they just bash away at each other with rusty iron claymores, like your friend here was once wont to do, then yes, that is barbaric. But a man like myself, and an equal, can make a duel into a series of moving tableaux that would make Da Vinci reach instantly for his brush, in order to capture them on canvas.’ .
‘Och, you’re full of blather,’ she answered, letting go of their arms. ‘I want nothing. I’m off to get a dinner for us.’ She walked off in the direction of the chicken sellers.
After Heather had walked away, into the crowd, Ramirez said in a serious tone, ‘You must leave her, MacLeod.’
‘What? Are you mad?’
‘No.’ The tone was sad now. ‘I’m not mad.’
Conner had thought at first that his friend was jesting with him, but it was evident from his demeanor that this was not the case. The young man was troubled. Why should he leave Heather? He told Ramirez that he had promised to stay with her, forever.
‘That’s just it,’ came the reply. ‘There may be a forever for you - but not for her. She will grow old, and die.’
‘But what we want is a family.’
‘You cannot have a family. Our kind can’t father children. ‘
Conner was stunned by this piece of news. ‘That won’t please Heather. I’ll tell you that for nothing. ‘
Conner was morose now. He walked between the stalls kicking disconsolately at the ground. In the distance he could see Heather purchasing the chicken. She held it up and called, ‘Dinner.’ How could he leave her? It was impossible. Ramirez did not understand. He supposed the Spaniard, or Egyptian or whatever he was, was now so jaded that he had forgotten what it was like to love a woman, completely. Ask me instead, thought Conner, to tear off my right arm. That would be easier. Heather came up to them and Conner took her, desperately, into his arms, giving her a kiss.
She mistook his reasons and broke away from him, laughing. ‘He’s so full of life,’ she said to Ramirez. Then, ‘I’m away now to buy myself some cloth - for a new dress. Here’s dinner,’ she thrust the chicken into Conner’s hands. ‘Don’t let it run away.’
She moved off again, towards the stalls on the far side of the market. Conner cradled the chicken, watching her lithe body weave amongst the people. Some children played tag around her and she cried, ‘Oh, you little devils. Go on.’
Conner said out loud, ‘She is beautiful.’
‘You must leave her brother.’
Conner walked away.
‘MacLeod - “ called Ramirez. ‘Come and have an ale with me.’ He caught up to the Scot and steered him towards some benches. They bought a pot of ale each and sat supping it, not looking at each other.
‘You don’t know. . .’, said Conner.
Ramirez held up a hand. ‘Not that. Don’t say that to me. I know all right. That’s why I’m telling you what you should do. I was born two thousand five hundred years ago - thereabouts. In that time I’ve had three wives. The last was Shakiko, a Japanese princess.
Her father,’ he indicated his Samurai sword, ‘Masamune, was a genius. He made this for me. That was in five-nine-three B.C. It’s the only one of its kind. Like his daughter. . .’
Ramirez took another swallow of his ale. His brow was furrowed and a deep melancholy had crept into his tone. ‘When Shakiko died, I was shattered. I would save you that pain.’
‘Would it be any less pain to me, to leave her now? I don’t think so. Why suffer now, when I don’t have to? Why make her suffer? That doesn’t make sense to me.’
‘She will suffer anyway. You will stay young - and she will grow old. Do you want to live with a grandmother? Do you think she’ll like that? When the wrinkles cover her face - and yours is still smooth and youthful – she may hate you. Have you thought of that?’
Conner shook his head.
‘No, but it doesn’t matter. If I leave her now, she will hate me anyway. It sounds as if I can’t win. I love her, because she’s Heather - ‘
‘But you just said - you find her beautiful.’
‘Her - aye - that means what it says. She lives in a pretty body, at the moment, but I would love her anyway…’
Ramirez shrugged. ‘I’ve done my best. I can’t blame you. I was the same.
Three times I’ve made the same mistake. I thought you might be stronger - but we’re as weak as each other.’
‘Another weakness - we lose our heads over women’ said Conner, forcing a smile.
‘Yes, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that’s an inherent feature of all immortals. It’s certainly not shared by the Kurgan - not in the same way. He’ll take a woman all right, but he’ll as soon cut her throat afterwards, as keep her with him.’
A man came up to them and shoved a cage of doves before their eyes. Conner shook his head and waved the man. away. He was thinking about that time on the battlefield, when the Kurgan had confronted him.
‘The black knight,’ he murmured. ‘I should like to fight him again, now I have the skill.’
‘You’ll get your chance,’ answered Ramirez. ‘Soon enough. If you don’t meet him for another thousand years, it will be. too soon. It’s because of him that I sought you out.’
Conner asked, ‘Who is the Kurgan? Where does he come from?’
‘The Kurgans were an ancient people, from the Steppes of a land called Russia. For amusement they tossed children into pits with hungry dogs - to fight for the meat. He… ‘ Ramirez paused and seemed deep in thought. ‘He is the strongest of us all. The perfect warrior. If he wins the prize mortal men will suffer an eternity of darkness.’
Once Heather had her cloth, they set out, heading back to the croft. The snow had begun to fall, as winter was coming on. Large flakes settled on the land around them, transforming the rugged scenery into something softer, more yielding. The hills became smooth mounds feminine contours. The deer could be seen, moving to new grazing ground in the south, travelling quietly through the white shield of falling snow. The trees stood out starkly now, those that had lost their leaves, in pathetic groups. While the conifers held their original shapes, beneath the outer covering of white. The land had a purity about it, as if it had just taken holy vows, turned itself inwards, rejecting all worldly connections.
Amongst those hills the animals and birds were huddled in hungry groups, part of that rejection.
‘How do you fight such a savage?’ Conner asked of Ramirez, when Heather was out of earshot.
‘Who?’
‘The Kurgan.’
Ramirez sighed. ‘With heart, faith - and steel.’
‘Are they enough?’
There was no answer to this question. Ramirez did not know any more than Conner.
Chapter 18
WHEN THEY ARRIVED back at the croft, the winter had taken the snowscape into its iron-hard grip. The world was tightening as the freeze set in and Conner went off hunting, leaving Heather and Ramirez to feed the stock and start a fire.
The croft had been built adjacent to an ancient fortification - a drystone keep to which an older race of Scots had retreated when the Roman legionaries had chased them out of their valleys. It was an unstable erection but still reasonably windproof and useful for stabling the stock in poor weather. It had no doubt seen more dramatic times; had heard the clash of weapons without - and within its crumbling walls; had received its share of battle-scars and seen men die within its confines. Now the old stonework harboured spiders and bats, was a refuge
from the cold, and hardy plants found anchors for their roots in its cracks and crevices. It was a gloomy place, with a spiral stone staircase to the watchtower above and narrow windowslits.
Heather did not like to spend time in there alone, as its ghosts worried her, so Ramirez helped her lay some straw on the earth floor and start a fire to drive out the winter that had crept in through its many orifices.
Heather was a little troubled by the secrets the men appeared to be keeping and she was determined to find out what was going on from Ramirez while Conner was away. She knew that her man had been deliberately sought out by the Spaniard and while she was prepared to let things lie for a while, she had reached the point where she was concerned for their lives together. She was afraid that Ramirez had come to take him away. If that was so, she wanted to know why, so that she could fight to keep him, on equal terms. This Ramirez had a magnetism for Conner which went beyond normal friendship. Besides, they were not truly friends - that was not their reason for being together in the first place. They may have become so, now, but that was an accident, not a design. She wanted to know the design. What scheme, what plan, had been responsible for Ramirez coming all this way to see her man?
She was stirring some stew over the fire in the tower, not wishing to waste good fuel on merely warming the place where the stock were kept. Ramirez sat, honing his sword, nearby.
‘Why was Conner so quiet today, on the return journey?’ she asked.
Ramirez looked up. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You didn’t - say anything to him? Have you upset him in some way?’
‘I said many things to him, anyone of which may have got under his skin. You know how sensitive he is.’
‘But nothing specific,’ she insisted. ‘Nothing you wish to tell me?’
Ramirez stopped honing the blade and stood up. He went to her and put his arm around her shoulders. Heather felt the pressure of his hand, but it was gentle, reassuring, nothing else. She continued to stir the pot, staring down into the mess of stew. It was coming. He was going to tell her something terrible or he would not be acting in this way. He would be joking, like he always did when he teased her. Her heart began to beat faster. Oh, God, please nothing terrible. I do not want to lose my Conner now. If he’s murdered, we’ll pay together, Lord. If he’s sick, I’ll lay myself down by his side and we’ll die together. Only let it be together, please dear God. Let it be together.
‘I told him to leave you, Heather.’
She wanted to scream, but instead she said very calmly. ‘Can you tell me why?’
‘It may be hard to understand. ‘
‘I don’t care. I want to know why.’ Her hands were trembling violently now and she had difficulty in continuing her domestic activity. She wanted to hit the Spaniard with the fire iron. Kill him, so that he could not take her Conner away from her.
‘Heather, he and I are very special men. We’re freaks of nature. The fact is, we cannot die - not in the ordinary way. We will grow no older than we are now, and Conner will live several hundred years, if he’s careful. I asked him to leave you because I know what it’s going to be like for him, watching you grow old and die, while he stays young and healthy. I’ve been through it myself. I wanted to save you both pain.’
‘Are you bewitched, the pair of you?’ Her mind was busy, thinking through what she had been told. She was a simple country girl, not uninfluenced by her pagan forbears, and ready to accept that there were things in life that were not readily explained. That there was a dark side to nature that visited itself on the light, every now and again. She was a Christian, but heathen teachings were slow to die in that part of the world.
Ramirez shrugged. ‘Who knows? I haven’t enough knowledge to make a judgement on that, though it’s my opinion that it’s just a quirk of nature, not something that’s been put upon us deliberately, by some wizard or demon, or even God. It just happens, the way some people catch warts and others do not...’
‘And Conner? He agrees with you - about going?’ Ramirez stroked her auburn hair, with a strong, calloused hand.
‘Ah, sadly, no my dear Heather. He refuses to leave you. Instead of a quick, sharp parting, which both of you would have got over fairly quickly, you will have the slow pain of living together, yet knowing you cannot die together. ‘
Although the thought of this upset her, Heather much preferred it to a parting. She said as much and Ramirez nodded.
‘It’s what I would expect you to say. Who wants to do now, what can be put off until later - especially when the later is a lifetime away? I can’t blame you. I’m sad for you, but I can’t blame you. You know he can’t father children?’
She adjusted to this idea very quickly, it being less terrible than the thought of Conner going. ‘I’ll never mention it to him again.’
Ramirez raised his eyebrows. ‘He said you wouldn’t like it.’
‘I don’t. I wanted children desperately - but I wanted them to be Conner’s too. It was for the both of us, that I wanted them. He can’t have them,’ she shrugged, ‘we’ll have to do without. Some people have greater trials than that to put up with to stay together.’
Ramirez nodded. ‘I admire you both.’
‘Don’t,’ said Heather. ‘We’re just selfish that’s all. Love makes one selfish.’
Inside, she was more unhappy than she liked to admit, but she had a strong spirit. She was a McDonald, and her clan did not lie down when obstacles put themselves in the way. They found a way around, or over, them.
She said, ‘What happened in Glenfinnan?’
Ramirez replied, ‘The villagers found out - that he was an immortal. They wanted to burn him.’
‘And the priest stopped them?’ She went instinctively for the most logical explanation.
‘No. The priest had difficulty in sorting out his pagan beliefs from his Christian teachings. He would have stood by - no doubt in great anguish - and let it happen. It’s good that it didn’t - for him too. He would have spent the rest of his life in remorse - convinced that he was going to Hell.’
‘And so he should do,’ she said, incensed.
‘Don’t be too hard on the man. It’s not an easy concept to accept. Christian people lay down and die when they are mortally wounded. To him, the Devil was at work. . .’
Heather cried, ‘So that’s why Conner gets so moody when I talk about his having the devil in him. I didn’t know. Oh, my poor Conner.’ She paused. ‘And you have been in love too?’
‘Several times, my sweet,’ he laughed. ‘Once, I had to try and rescue a lady from one of my own kind - one who wanted to take my life. We can be killed by each other, but I’m not going to tell you how.’
‘It must have been very dangerous for you.’
‘Well, I was very much in love with her, my dear Heather. She was the only thing on my mind - not the danger. So, holding a rose between my teeth and with my sword in my belt, I scaled the forty-foot-high walls of a stronghold, then lowered myself down from the roof with a rope, to swing in through her open window.’
‘That’s so romantic. ‘
Ramirez laughed. ‘Unfortunately, the lady was no longer there. . .’
‘What did you do?’
‘I introduced myself to the lady that was there. She was most helpful. We got on famously.’ He suddenly seemed to have a thought. ‘Would you like some wine? I have some in my saddlebag.’
‘It’ll be frozen through.’
‘Then we’ll warm it and have it mulled.’
He went outside and she could hear his boots crackling in the snow. She was glad, now, that she knew the worst. It was not an easy thing to have to live with, but it was not as bad as she had feared. She had thought that perhaps the man Conner had said he had wounded, when he first came to the croft, had died, and that they would come and take him away, to hang him. The wounded man was obviously just a story, because Conner had been afraid of what kind of reception an envoy from the Devil might get.
He had be
en right, too. Her father would have turned the young man away. Instead, they had come to treat each other with the utmost respect and her father had not been an easy man to like...
Ramirez was back, with the wine, but he was looking concerned.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
Ramirez kicked the snow off his boots. ‘I don’t know.’ His brow was furrowed. ‘I think. . . but it’s no use guessing. Perhaps I’m wrong. I just have a bad feeling.’
She was alarmed. ‘Conner?’
‘No, I don’t think so. My great age, for I’m over two thousand years old, my dear, has given me instincts, but has not improved their reasons. Perhaps it’s nothing. Let’s drink the wine.’
Up in the. tower, the doves that nested there suddenly took flight in a flurry of wings. Both Ramirez and Heather looked up, anxiously.
‘Perhaps a wild beast?’ she said.
‘Perhaps. ‘
Suddenly, Ramirez whirled and stared at the door. He drew his sword. ‘Heather - get out. Run.’
‘What’s the matter?’
Before he could reply, there was a sound of splintering wood and a huge swordblade appeared in the rotten timbers of the doorway. The blows were repeated and the door shattered beneath them. Heather screamed. In the light of the opening, contrasting sharply with the white snow beyond, stood a giant of a man, dressed all in black. He was smiling.
She scrambled to her feet and ran into the corner of the tower. Ramirez stood his ground for a few moments all that could be heard was the spitting of the peat on the fire and the bubbling of the stew. The wine had fallen from the Spaniard’s grasp and the container had broken, spilling the contents over the straw, turning it scarlet.
‘Kurgan,’ said Ramirez, almost matter-of-factly. ‘I should have trusted my instincts. Or should I say, my sense of smell. ‘
The Kurgan laughed. ‘Always the slick-tongued insult, eh, Ramirez? Perhaps I should cut that tongue away from your body - from the neck up.’
‘You’ve tried before - and failed.’
‘That’s true - but I’m here now, to try again. This time I have the feeling that you won’ be so lucky.’
Highlander Page 10
