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

by Rebecca Lochlann

  When Diorbhail first came to Stranraer, she’d passed herself off as a widow, but someone discovered she’d never been married, and that was the end of that. Her child had no father.

  Morrigan felt a certain wary kinship with Diorbhail’s bastard.

  Beatrice had instructed Morrigan to look the other direction if she happened upon Diorbhail, to cross the road so they wouldn’t come within speaking distance.

  Succumbing to an odd fascination, Morrigan often peeked anyway. Where is your man? she longed to ask. He should be here to protect the mother of his child from torment.

  Douglas had spit on the ground when Diorbhail passed by. Morrigan knew mere spitting wouldn’t satisfy him if he found out about Kit and his daughter in the barn.

  She hid her face among the dresses in her wardrobe, breathing the comforting scent of cloves and wool. “I know you’re gone, and maybe you never cared about me anyway, Hannah Lawton. But there’s no one else I can talk to. None who could understand.”

  With a last wishful glance at her bed, she smoothed her skirts and trudged down the stairs, following the scent of new-baked scones. Once when she was little, she’d pilfered four wedges, covering each with so much of Beatrice’s heather honey she’d made herself sick. She couldn’t smell them baking without thinking of that day and suffering a twinge of queasiness. But she still loved honey.

  “Morning, Auntie,” she said as she entered the kitchen. She slipped on the jacket hanging by the close door, and stepped outside.

  Sharp air stung her cheeks and clouded her breath. The rain slackened into drizzle, and she paused to scrutinize the muddy road. Mist prevented her from seeing much beyond the carriage house, but she mentally followed that road as it wound away to the east and the veterinary’s door.

  Before she’d regained her sense of decency, there had been an instant where Kit’s touch felt better than anything she’d ever known… better than the taste of honey, or the softness of summer rain, or the brush of wind on the moor. That part shamed her the most. For several moments, she’d lost all notion of right and wrong.

  Yesterday she’d imagined herself Curran Ramsay’s wife. Fourteen hours later, she’d lured Kit into kissing her, and more.

  What about the long-held, impassioned dream of the warrior she’d fondly dubbed “Theseus”? She shook her head and faced the truth. The pleasure she’d felt with Kit had really been for that fantasy. She’d kept her eyes closed so she could pretend it was her imaginary lover touching her, kissing her, pressing her into the hay. When confronted with the reality, she’d only wanted to escape.

  How daft was that? Would she spend her life wishing for a man who didn’t exist?

  “Have you too few brains to get in from the rain?” Douglas had come around the corner of the byre, leading their Clydesdale. Leo nickered and bobbed his head at the sight of her.

  “It doesn’t bother me,” she said bravely, though as she spoke, she realized the shoulders of her jacket were soaked, as was her face.

  “Aye?” His callused thumb swiped at her cheek. “Are you wearing paint?”

  “Where would I get such a thing?” She jerked away from his touch.

  His eyes narrowed and he cuffed her, hard, with his knuckles.

  “It’s the cold air!” She rubbed her cheek. Her jaw felt half-dislocated. There would be a bruise later, and it would hurt to eat.

  “You should’ve had the milking done an hour past.” With a scowl and a curse, he went on about his business.

  “Someday,” she said, “I’ll have a life free of beatings, and no one will tell me what to do.”

  “Sit down,” Beatrice said when she returned to the kitchen. “I have things to say before Isabel wakes and our day is thrown to the wind.”

  Morrigan hung her jacket on the peg, carried the egg basket into the larder, and wondered what she’d done now.

  Her aunt gestured to the other chair at the worktable and joined her, frowning as she glanced at the spot Douglas had cuffed. Morrigan could feel it swelling.

  “Yesterday, when you were doing the wash….” Beatrice regarded her teacup and sighed, grimacing as though she’d tasted something bitter.

  Morrigan waited, chewing on the rim of her thumbnail.

  “Christian kissed you,” Beatrice said finally. “Bold as could be, and you let him.”

  A blush flooded Morrigan’s cheeks clear to her scalp. She knew Beatrice saw it from the way her aunt’s eyes narrowed.

  “Are you ignorant, or deliberately wicked?”

  Damn you, Morrigan. Kit’s furious sneer materialized along with a wrench of shame.

  “Your father would never consider that lazy, penniless lout good enough for you.” Her voice escalating, Beatrice added, “I hope you don’t think to trick him into marriage by lying with him.”

  No one could accuse Beatrice Stewart of not saying what she meant. If she were to find out about last night, she would tell Douglas, and he’d skelp the hide from her bones. He’d throw her lifeless body into the loch and consider himself well rid of her. Fish would eat her eyeballs. Eels would play in her ribs….

  “I shouldn’t have to remind you that you must never allow a man to touch you, I don’t care who he is or how long you’ve known him. Gossip of any kind will ruin you, but d’you think the tarnish rubs off on the man? You alone must be spotless, or no man will ever have you, and no decent woman will speak to you.” Beatrice’s unblinking gaze burned halfway through Morrigan’s forehead. “When you marry, you must be untouched. Ignorant. After you wed you’ll find out the hard way what’s expected. Married women must suffer it, suffer and suffer for the rest of their lives, in misery and pain, as the Bible demands.” She rapped her knuckles against the table. “After you’re wed, then you’ll submit, even when what he does makes you wish you were dead, and it will. This is woman’s sorry lot.”

  Morrigan stared at her aunt. If suffering was what came of marriage, then why were women expected to want it? Dismay crept through her memory of the night. Kit had been like a stranger, almost violent when he’d pushed against her. He’d bitten her. There had been a moment when she wasn’t sure he would stop, no matter what she said or did.

  “I hope, if he ever does make advances, that you’ll have sense enough to put him in his place. Listen to me or not, I cannot always be there to turn you back to righteousness. But undoubtedly, if you choose to ignore me, you’ll get everything you deserve.”

  With that last bit of sage advice, Beatrice returned to wiping grease off the stove. The talk was over.

  Morrigan drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes as the old rage sparked, curling from toes to scalp, a low smoldering at first, then accelerating, leaping into consuming flames.

  The faded flowers in the smoke-stained wallpaper shifted and began to whirl. She had to get away, before her truth, her madness, was betrayed. She must run and run until exhaustion and the primal need to breathe deadened everything else.

  Her chair squealed as she pushed it back. Ignoring Beatrice’s sharp, “What are you about, mutchit!” she ran outside. Drizzle had made everything muddy and she slipped, but she stumbled on, not stopping until she’d climbed over the stone wall and entered the little forest that butted up against their property on the south side.

  Water dripped from the branches. Leaves sighed as they brushed wetly against one another. Come inside. Rest. Here you are safe, they seemed to suggest. Morrigan bent over, gasping until she regained a semblance of control and no longer felt she was about to throw up, then she followed the overgrown path to her secret place: a pool, half-hidden under long grass, lush bracken, and moss. She sank to the ground, hugging her knees to her chest.

  Someone shouted, but the sound was far away. “Go to hell,” she said.

  Images of the inn’s usual patrons crowded her thoughts. The Wren’s Egg generally played host to well-dressed, polished Englishmen, who poured into Scotland nowadays since the queen had made it so popular. Some came to hunt deer. Others were on their
way to Ireland. Many sought to buy up cheap tracts of land. The Wren’s Egg had few local customers, partly because it was so favored by the English, and partly because most everyone hated Douglas Lawton.

  Two and a half years ago, just after she turned sixteen, Douglas told Morrigan she was to sit with these guests in the parlor after the evening meal. When she’d asked him what she was supposed to do, he’d shrugged. “Use those lessons Isabel paid for and play the piano. Ask them about themselves. Smile, if you can. Make them enjoy their time here, so they’ll recommend us.”

  She knew the income from paying guests kept the family from destitution— barely. The crops Douglas grew and sold brought in hardly anything. But as much as she longed to please him, she hated that chore above all others. Shy, seldom at ease unless she was alone or with Nicky, Morrigan had no talent for idle pleasantries. Playing the piano only worked for a half-hour or so. Then silence would fall and conversation would falter. Men traveling alone had usually spent an hour or two in the taproom and were tipsy, some downright drunk. They wanted to be entertained. They wanted to flirt, and be flirted with. Sometimes these men seemed to assume her presence meant she was willing to give more.

  Once, after a long evening fighting off an inebriated lout from Yorkshire, Morrigan had come downstairs and overheard Beatrice tell Papa that his daughter was what brought those rich Englishmen out of their way to stay at the Wren’s Egg. “The hussy’s paps alone make men forget their wives and Christian reputations,” she’d said. “If we can catch the right man in the act, Morrigan’s loss will purchase a lifetime’s comfort for us. You’ll never have to plough another row, Douglas.”

  Looking into the bright kitchen from the shadowed corridor, Morrigan saw her aunt rub her thumb against her fingers.

  Papa had shrugged and snorted. Morrigan expected him to blast Beatrice for suggesting such a thing, but he didn’t. He merely called her a born swindler, and added that he could hardly believe how she and Hannah were raised. “Everything that redheaded bitch told me was a lie,” he’d said. “Why am I surprised that you’re no different?” This caused Beatrice to turn away with an impatient huff.

  As she blindly stared at the brown surface of the pool in the forest, Morrigan knew what had sparked her rage. Beatrice had looked her square in the face and said she must never allow Kit to take liberties with her. She’d implied an awful punishment for ignoring her advice. Meanwhile, when she didn’t know her niece was listening, she suggested their lives would be improved if Morrigan were raped.

  Oh, aye, Beatrice might think her ignorant but Morrigan knew how things were done. Men and women coupled, the same as dogs, kye, and horses. Men made water inside a woman. The same water they spilled onto the ground magically started a babe when it was deposited in a woman.

  Aunt Beatrice wanted to use Morrigan as bait for blackmail, and Douglas hadn’t seemed overly disturbed by the idea. The only reason Beatrice warned against Kit was because he didn’t have coin enough to make it worthwhile.

  Morrigan pressed her face against her knees. Would she ever be loved by anyone? Was any part of her worthy of it?

  She brushed one hand over the pool’s surface, watching the ripples spread and diminish.

  Mud oozed over her other hand where it was pressed to the ground. Strangely entranced, she made a fist, squeezing the mud between her fingers, watching how it covered her chilblained skin and bitten, ragged nails.

  What if the mud could draw out her flaws? She saw herself emerging, perfect, new, unspoiled, like a butterfly from a chrysalis, rage sucked from her soul like poison from a bee sting.

  Tentatively, she dabbed a little on her cheeks and across her nose. “You really are daft,” she said mockingly.

  It will cleanse you. Purify you. The wild inner Morrigan now, urging her on.

  She fought the compulsion, yet she knew it would win in the end. All she need do was let the spell consume her.

  She stood and stripped off her dress, corset, and petticoat, leaving only her chemise and drawers. The mud was thick, very wet, and there was plenty of it, more than enough to cover her chest and arms and comb it through her hair.

  Like the phoenix, she would rise, filled with the inexhaustible strength of Gaia, Mother Earth. A book she’d seen once on the dominie’s lectern carried a fanciful etching of that goddess. Hills and mountains formed her abundant breasts and rounded belly. The entrance to her womb was a yawning black cave mouth, outside of which a tiny, naked, terror-stricken male cringed.

  She hadn’t heard the dominie come into the room. He’d been angry; he’d slammed the cover closed and told her never to pry into his things.

  A blush ran through her cheeks. She knew the etching was improper, and that she shouldn’t have looked at it. Many times since she’d wondered what the artist had been trying to suggest.

  She looked into the pool. There she was, the hidden secret lass, smiling and triumphant. The girl who bedeviled with counsel no one else could hear, who forced the flesh and blood Morrigan into defiance that brought nothing but punishment. The mud hadn’t eradicated her at all. It had freed her.

  “Bitch,” Morrigan said.

  The fetch smiled and made a moue of her lips. I’m the only thing keeping you sane.

  Morrigan’s hair, heavy with mud, fell over her shoulders and struck the water, sending those turbulent dark eyes into the world of chimera.

  * * * *

  A man rubbed the birthmark on her wrist. Kiss me, Morrigan whispered, dissolving against him. Kiss me again.

  Then the sudden kitti-wee-wit of a sandpiper’s cry brought her up from the ground with a gasp.

  Leaves rustled. Branches creaked. Dappled greenish light blinded her one moment and the next caressed her in drowsy shadows. The smell of damp soil permeated the air.

  Her dress was carelessly draped on a bush. As she stared at it, she remembered dancing in nothing but her underthings, calling upon long-dead female deities to share their secrets.

  “God help me,” she said, though she’d long known man’s mysterious creator never bothered with women.

  The sound of a twig snapping alerted all of her senses. If anyone saw her like this, covered in dried mud, they really would lock her away in a madhouse. She might belong there, but she didn’t want to go.

  She waited, fighting the urge to bolt like a startled partridge. Silence stretched; when she heard nothing else she slipped into the pool, keeping close to the protective cover of long reeds. At last, convinced the sound had been caused by nothing more dangerous than a foraging bird or cat, she floated to deeper water and began scrubbing, humming an old ditty as she used her fingers to comb the last of the mud from her hair.

  She’d almost forgotten her reasons for running away by the time she dunked her head for a last rinse, only to see Nicky reclining against the trunk of an oak, one arm slung atop a propped knee, a stem of grass protruding from his mouth.

  “Awake at last,” he said, as calm as if they’d just sat down to breakfast.

  “How long have you been there?”

  “Long enough to know you’ve lost what little wits you ever hoped to claim.”

  He’d seen her, covered in mud like an aboriginal.

  “You should’ve let me know you were there.”

  He shrugged. “And miss this?”

  “Turn around so I can dress.” Not bad, the casual tone she managed. She hoped it hid the mortification. After he’d obligingly scooted to the other side of the tree, she climbed from the pool and wrung out her hair. “Were you sent to drag me home?” She shook out her dress, but it was no use. It would need time with a hot iron before it would again be presentable.

  “Maybe you’d prefer I bring Da here. He’d appreciate this new sport you’ve invented, don’t you think?”

  “I’m sure he’d join us for a swim.” Though the day had grown sultry, a shiver ran down her spine as she fastened the top two buttons at her throat.

  After a long moment, he asked, “What happened?�
�

  She frowned at the ragged earth where she’d dug up piles of mud. “I don’t know. I never know.”

  “Did you swoon?” His voice was carefully neutral.

  While she could usually hide her bouts of explosive rage, there was no way to disguise the fainting spells. The only warning came in a blinding flash of light and a piercing stab of pain through her left temple. Time and awareness fell away into a fathomless hole, leaving nothing but shadows, echoes of voices, and lingering vertigo when she woke. So far, only Beatrice, and once, Nicky, had been present when it happened. Morrigan lived in fear that one of these swoons might overcome her when she was in town shopping, walking along the shore, or serving guests their dinner.

  After the third spell, Beatrice told Douglas, and suggested Morrigan should see the apothecary. But Douglas, squinting at Morrigan contemptuously, said she would “grow out of it,” and a doctor would be a “waste of coin.”

  “No,” she said. “Not this time.”

  Nicky sighed. She heard him rip up a fistful of grass. “I mind him carrying you around on his shoulders, calling you his ‘wee mouse.’”

  Douglas, carrying her, giving her a nickname? She couldn’t imagine such a thing. Anyway, it hardly mattered. He hated her now.

  Robins warbled overhead. A pair of dippers swooped down to splash beneath the baleful eye of a goosander.

  “You can come out now,” she said.

  When he did, he gave a derisive laugh. “Bloody Christ. Here….” He brushed, rough-handed, at her skirt, but soon gave up, shaking his head. “It’s no use. I swear, when he sees this….” His gaze landed on her jaw. He frowned and put two fingers on her chin, turning her face gently. “Bastard.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “Swollen. Bruised. You’ve had worse.” He paused. “Will you visit me in Edinburgh?”

  “Take me with you.”

  He kept his regard steady. “Da would have me thrown in prison if I did that.”