Highlander’s Secret

by Adams, Alisa

  William nodded. With one last venomous look at his father, he left.

  "I can tell you who it was," the Baron sighed heavily. "I meant no harm to anyone, however. The shoe was worn and I was about to have it replaced. I sent the horse to the blacksmith, but we were in haste to be gone lest the hunt start without us. The blacksmith warned me that some of the nails were still loose but I was in too much of a hurry. The horse stumbled and Marianne fell off, striking her head against the ground. Mercifully, she died at once. I blame myself, but it was an accident - you must believe me."

  He does look genuinely sorry, Columba thought. He had a sixth sense about these things, but there was something else to be considered.

  "But Craig said Milady was drunk," he pointed out.

  The Baron hung his head. "She was not drunk," he said quietly. "She had one glass of wine. I told her she must be extra careful with her health since she was carrying my child."

  Craig's face twisted with fury. "That is a lie," he hissed, "you distracted her while I put milk of the poppy into her wine - instructed to do it by you! She could have survived a stumbling horse - but not a stumbling horse and enough poppy milk to fell an ox!"

  "Let me understand this," Iain Drummond said, "even if the horseshoe was an accident, which I doubt, by the way, you were both complicit in the poppy milk plot."

  "No!" They both cried at once. Then they pointed at one another. "It was him!"

  If it were not so serious the entire company would have burst out laughing. Craig and Hector sat looking at each other, hatred spitting from both their eyes. They had just implicated each other.

  "That sounded like an admission of guilt to me," Cameron said, looking around the room. There were nods and murmurs of agreement.

  Then Hector spoke up, his eyes round with panic. "Wait! Wait!" He cried, "why would I want to kill the mother of my own child?"

  "To marry me?" Iona piped up, her voice high with disbelief.

  "That too," William put in. "He wanted Iona the first time he saw her, but he would have killed Marianne anyway because the baby she was carrying was not his. Marianne's belly began to swell two weeks after they first lay together, and three months later she looked as though her time was due. Marianne was forced into that marriage, Iona, as you would have been, but she did not have the strength to break free.

  Laird Hector was furious, so he saw a way of killing two birds with one stone. He had Craig McCallum poison Marianne's drink so that she would fall off the horse and kill herself, or die of an overdose of poppy milk. That was his revenge on Marianne and the man who got her with child. It also left the way clear for him to marry a beautiful young woman whom he had been lusting after for months.

  Her father was conveniently penniless, due in no small part to Hector Laughlin, who is a dab hand with the dice." He paused, pretending to be surprised at Craig's shocked and furious face. "Pardon me, M'laird, I am sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings," he went on, "if you did not know that Baron Laughlin is an expert cheat you must be the last person not to. He is notorious. Well, all I can say is that the pair of you deserve each other."

  "You - " Craig uttered the filthiest oath the Baron and everyone else had ever heard. Hector Laughlin reeled back in shock.

  "William," Donalda asked, walking around the table to stand next to him, "how did you know about the baby - not being the Baron's, I mean?"

  William looked down for a moment into the face of the mother he loved and then into the face of the father he hated.

  "Because the baby was mine," he said dully, "and those two both knew it." He pointed to Hector and Craig. He folded his arms and paused, then said, "well, gentlemen, have got your revenge on me, and now I am having my revenge on you. You have both confessed to murder here today by implicating each other." He looked at the faces all around him. "I have not the power of life and death, so shall we let the justices decide? We have enough witnesses."

  There was a murmur of agreement before both prisoners were taken down to their cells again. Craig said nothing, his jaw locked and his face expressionless, but the Baron squealed all the way downstairs until they could hear him no more. William stood up and began to stride across the room towards the door. Donalda tried to stop him but he shook her off. Then Iona came up behind her.

  "Mother," she said gently, "let me talk to him. I think I understand better than anyone else what he is going through."

  Donalda sighed and nodded. Iona gave her a quick squeeze then opened the door and ran after William, calling out his name. He neither turned nor acknowledged her in any way. She caught him up at last, then grabbed his arm to stop his progress along the hallway. They were almost in the atrium, which led out to the courtyard and the stables.

  "Were you going out for a ride?" she asked breathlessly.

  He nodded, his expression bleak. They looked out at the sheets of rain teeming down from the heavens. "Hmm… it's not a very pleasant day for it. Can we talk? Perhaps you can tell me about Marianne."

  "Iona, thank you, but—"

  "I am in this too, you know," she interrupted, "this concerns me as well."

  "I had not thought of it that way," he answered, "I'm sorry, Iona. You have every right to hate me - dropping like a stone into the calm millpond of your life."

  "Nothing is your fault!" Iona exclaimed. "It is theirs!" She pointed her finger to the ground, indicating the dungeon. "Hanging really is too good for them. I would let them rot in the dungeon for the rest of their miserable lives. Have you seen that place?"

  "Yes," he replied grimly, "and I agree with you. The food is terrible too." He smiled, and it was like the sun coming out. She had never really looked at him before and saw to her surprise that underneath the blemish he was quite a handsome man. They went into the small parlor, then sat down while Iona poured him a cup of ale.

  He thanked her, took a sip, then sighed and passed his hands over his eyes. "She was everything to me," he murmured, "my whole life." Then he began to tell his story.

  41

  William's Story

  The first time William saw a real woman was at the age of seven when one of the nuns from St Gertrude's came to see the Bishop. There were always women around, of course, but the boys, most of whom were orphans, were kept strictly segregated in their own quarters and their own schools. Hence, the only women he had ever seen previously were statues of the Blessed Virgin and his mother. Since he had no other standard by which to judge, he thought that all women looked like the plaster statues or like his mother, and since he and his mother both had purple birthmarks he assumed that a great many women had them too.

  At the age of seven, the order had judged that it was permissible for boys to see members of the opposite sex, but when William saw the nun, he had no idea at first what he was looking at because this one looked nothing like the statues in the church. She was fat, old and wrinkled; William stared at her for a long time from behind a pillar before one of the monks dragged him away.

  "It is very rude to stare, William," Brother Jean-Pierre, a French monk, said sternly. He was a very tall man with hollow cheeks, gray hair and kind eyes. He had been at the monastery for a long time and had seen two generations of boys grow up. Some of them stayed, some went, but he remembered all of them.

  "Now," he leaned down to look into William's eyes. "I will give you something nice if you promise not to do it again."

  William nodded furiously.

  "I promise," he said, crossing his heart.

  Brother Jean-Pierre took from one of his capacious pockets a bright red shiny apple and gave it to the little boy. Apples were a rare treat for the boys and William looked up at the tall monk with shining eyes.

  "Thank you, Brother Jean-Pierre!" He cried and ran off down to the stables to eat it. The monk's gaze followed him; he had always had a soft spot for the poor marked child and prayed every day that God might see fit to take the blemish away from him.

  William went to his secret corner behind the bales of fragran
t hay in the stables. He loved to be among the horses with their soft noses, swishing tails and sweet scent. His favorite was a little mare called Angel, and when he was finished half of the apple, he gave her the rest. She crunched it eagerly and nudged among the folds of his robe for more. He laughed as she tickled him, then put his arms around her neck and hugged her. She was so sweet.

  William's favorite daydream was the one where he put a saddle on the little mare and rode her down to the sea. He had never left the monastery grounds in the whole of his short life and the dream of freedom was always with him. At the age of seven he did not realize this, but as he got older he began to be aware that there was a world outside the perimeter of the monastery complex.

  He saw his mother often, and sometimes she was even able to stay overnight with him at the women's hospital, and If Craig knew about these visits he never acknowledged it. William knew that he had a father, but Craig McCallum was always too busy to come and see him. The truth was that his father had no interest in either William or his mother, but William had no inkling of that till much later.

  After that first rather discouraging sight of the nun, William saw a great many ladies of all shapes, sizes and ages. Most ignored him, some whispered to each other about his blemish, and a few looked at him with pity in their eyes, but very few spoke to him like the normal young man he was.

  As he advanced into his teenage years he began to feel different, both physically and mentally. A restlessness began to take over his body, his voice grew deeper, and one day at the age of fifteen Brother Jean-Pierre showed him how to shave. Some of the boys had begun much earlier, but he was fair. He had grown tall too, and his work in the carpenters' workshop and in the fields at harvest time had given him an impressive set of muscles.

  For five more years, he followed the strict rules of purity and obedience, but when he was twenty years old it all changed because that was when he first saw Marianne. He heard her laugh first, a musical peal of mirth that made him want to laugh too. He had never grown out of the habit of hiding behind pillars to look at and listen to people. It was amazing the things saw and heard!

  She was standing with her back to him, and a river of long, wavy auburn hair cascaded down to a waist that was so tiny he could have joined his hands around it. A woman, her auburn hair threaded with gray, whom he presumed was her mother, was standing beside her. He could hear every word that the girl and her mother were saying to the young monk with whom they were conversing, but later he would not be able to recall a word of it.

  She turned around and he ducked behind the pillar again, but it was too late. She had seen him. Her mother and the monk were still involved in their animated discussion, not even noticing that she had gone. She peeked around the pillar and saw him. He watched her face for signs of revulsion, but there were none.

  Then she smiled at him, her full lips parting to show sparkling white teeth. She had deep gray eyes that were framed by eyebrows that were shaped like gulls' wings and long feathery eyelashes.

  William had only limited experience of women, but even he knew that this one was beautiful.

  "Do you hide from everyone or is it just me?" She asked, eyes twinkling. She had a Lowland accent, he thought. Many of the monks came from places like Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Falkirk.

  He felt like saying if you looked like me, would you not hide too? But he said nothing. She reached out her hand and took his, then led him out from behind the pillar, still smiling.

  "What is your name?" She asked.

  "William," he replied, mesmerized by the gray eyes.

  "I am Marianne," she told him, "I am pleased to meet you."

  William was paralyzed with shyness. He smiled but said nothing as he gently disengaged his hand from hers.

  "I was just going to pray in the chapel," she said softly, looking into his eyes, "I need a very special intervention from God. Will, you come and pray with me?"

  "I would be happy to," he replied, risking a faint smile, "if-if you do not mind being seen with me."

  Her brow creased in a frown. "Why should I mind?" she asked, puzzled.

  "Because of this," he answered, touching his birthmark.

  She shrugged. "It is part of you," she said simply.

  That was when he decided that he loved her.

  Marianne's mother, Lady Sabine De Mauvais, a very devoutly religious Frenchwoman, had been married off to Laird Alfred Douglas McLeish at the age of sixteen. It had been a relatively good marriage, neither passionate nor hostile, but amicable. She had come to the monastery to pray in the beautiful chapel and see if there was any way she could help out, either financially or in kind.

  Marianne had merely come out of curiosity, but now she was glad that she had. The first second she had seen William, she had been shocked by his appearance, but when they began to talk she realized that he was just like everyone else. He looked shy, and her heart went out to him. It could not be easy to live with such a disfigurement, and perhaps that was why he had become a monk.

  They knelt down in the chapel to pray, and Marianne lit a candle for her intention. William was too distracted to think about God. The beautiful creature by his side was taking up all his attention, and he had very little to spare for ethereal matters. He had not yet taken his vows, but this was the strongest trial yet of his commitment to God. Perhaps he was being tested.

  When she stood up and held out her hand to say goodbye, he felt a plunging sense of disappointment. She smiled at him, and he wished he had some way of capturing that smile so that he could take it out and look at it whenever he was lonely or sad. He dared not smile back; when he smiled the wrinkles around his eyes, which looked so attractive on other people, looked grotesque on him—or so he thought.

  "God bless you, William," she whispered as she curtsied to him.

  "And you, Marianne," he replied.

  She turned away and was gone.

  Marianne thought about him all the way home. Despite what he thought of himself, she found him very attractive, but he was about to take his vows and she knew that even now her father was looking around for a suitable husband for her. Somehow, she thought that a scarred monk would not be his first choice.

  She sighed. Sometimes she thought that she understood how cows and sheep felt; bred for whatever wool or meat they could provide, or how many lambs or foals. Women were just like them, commodities to be bought and sold, walking wombs to provide sons.

  She shook herself out of the miserable train of her thoughts and followed her mother home to castle McLeish, only five miles from the monastery. Five miles was all that separated them, and the road was straight and well-kept. It would only take an hour to get there from her castle. She had to see him again before he took his vows or her father married her off to some rich and loathsome suitor.

  Each of them dreamt about the other that night. William had never so much as kissed a woman, although Marianne had once tried it with a male cousin and found it quite pleasant. William dreamt of holding her in his arms the way he sometimes held his mother, but he knew that holding Marianne would be quite, quite different. When he thought of it, his body responded a strange way. He had felt this before, but never in connection with a woman, and never so strongly. He had no-one to ask about it, but it was pleasant, so he enjoyed it.

  Marianne dreamed of standing before a priest in a church and being married to William. He looked so handsome in spite of his scar, and he told her that she looked like a queen. She tried to think of an excuse to go there. Their own parish church was quite nearby, so she could not make it an excuse for going to pray. However, having an illicit relationship with a monk was a situation which she had not foreseen and had no idea how to handle.

  The problem was solved in a quite unexpected way when William turned up at the castle with a letter from the Bishop for her mother. William had deliberately committed a small misdemeanor by breaking one of the monastery's small statues of the Blessed Virgin, knowing that his errand wou
ld consist of walking the five miles to Marianne's castle. He had heard two of the priests discussing it. Five miles was a long way, but William would have walked a hundred to see Marianne.

  42

  Marianne

  William reckoned that it would take him around two hours to walk to Marianne's castle if it did not rain. He set off in late morning, with instructions from Brother Jean-Pierre, now very old and frail, not to walk back if it was too dark and rainy.

  "We not only take care of your soul," he said in his kindly way, "but your body too. Go and God bless you."

  It was freezing cold and William turned up the cowl of his robe and the hood of his cloak to ward off the chill. He thought about Marianne till he was almost at the castle, then he saw a horse coming towards him. Its rider had flame-red hair that streamed out like a banner in the strong, almost gale-force wind. It was Marianne.

  She leapt off the chestnut mare in a most unladylike fashion, then looked at him, breathless and smiling. "I was worried about you," she said, pushing tangled strands of hair out of her eye which were the same stormy gray as the sky.

  "Why?" He laughed. "I work outside in this weather all the time."

  Her face fell. "I am sorry, I did not know. I thought you just stayed inside and prayed all the time."

  "No, it's me who should be sorry," he replied, then they both laughed, and looked at each other.

  "This is ridiculous, William," she said at last. “We both know what we want. Put your arms around me."

  He did so, cautiously, gently, as if he would break her. But when she embraced him, it was not in a tender fashion at all. She pulled him quite roughly against her body and leaned her head on his chest. His heart was beating as though it would jump out of his body. He had never felt so strangely excited in his life. He wanted to kiss her, but he had no idea how.