Highland Charm: First Fantasies

by April Holthaus

  "He couldn't even save himself. He's dead."

  Chapter 21

  The bell rang through the castle, echoing upward, slow and mournful, counting off the years of the dead men's lives. So many had died at the battle of Flodden Field that the bell had not been silent for many hours. Muriella had listened to the hollow tolling for so long it had become one with the pulse of her blood, drowning out even the clack of the loom. Within the mesh of wool and silk beneath her busy fingers, the burn flowed through the valley, lovely and tranquil under the Kelpies' watching eyes, but its beauty did not touch her.

  "M'lady, ye must come away from there!" Megan pleaded. "Ye'll make yerself ill if ye don't eat."

  "I'm no’ hungry," her mistress replied, her hands never faltering in their task.

  "But it's been near two days that ye haven't left this room. Ye can't stay hidden away here forever." Megan's voice rose shrilly on the last few words; she was frightened by the unnatural pallor of Muriella's skin and the blank look in her eyes. Since the news of the Earl's death had come, Muriella had not wept or cried out once. Instead she sat hour by hour at her loom, retreating within herself until Megan could no longer reach her.

  "Please," the servant began again, but when the door to the solar opened, she paused to look up in relief. "Sir John," she cried, "will ye talk to her? She won't leave the loom."

  John frowned when he saw the shadows under his wife's eyes. So she’d had no more rest than he in the past few days. Then her flying fingers caught his attention and he stared, momentarily mesmerized by the lacework of silver and blue that shimmered under her skilled hands. He wished, for an instant, that he could lose himself in the soothing rhythm as Muriella seemed to have done. "'Tis time," he said at last.

  His wife concentrated more fiercely on sliding the shuttle between the threads. "Time for what?"

  "To see my father."

  She flinched, then her hands grew still.

  "The hall is quiet now," he continued, "but, 'twill no' be for long. I thought ye'd rather go down when no one else is by."

  Muriella let the shuttle fall from her fingers to dangle against the brightly colored fabric. "Have ye—" She stopped, unable to say the words.

  "No. I didn't want their eyes upon me when I said goodbye."

  She looked away. "I don't think I can do it."

  "If ye don't," Megan interjected, "the Earl will surely haunt ye."

  "He'll haunt me anyway," her mistress whispered. He was with her now, this moment, in the thin red mist that cloaked her thoughts, in the memory of his voice that echoed through the emptiness inside her.

  John moved closer, resting his hand on his wife's shoulder. "Come," he said. "There isn't much time."

  She had no strength to resist his command, no desire to draw away from the pressure of his fingers on her shoulder. She knew John was right; she had to see the Earl's body. It was the only way to bar his bloody specter from her dreams. Leaving the shuttle swinging free, she rose to follow her husband from the room.

  They moved in silence through the narrow passageway while the torches leapt and wavered above them. They had nearly reached the top of the stairs when Mary met them on her way to the upper keep. She stopped as if turned to stone, her eyes wide with fear, when Muriella met her gaze. With a cry of alarm, the servant crossed herself and fled.

  "Damn!" John cursed, glaring at the servant's retreating back. "'Twill no' happen again," he added. "I'll speak to her later."

  "No. Leave her be." It was not the first time a servant had shrunk from meeting Muriella's eyes in the past few days. They had heard, no doubt, of her vision of the slaughter of the Scottish army, and their fear of her power had flared again. Even Mary could not face her. It seemed that, of the servants, only Megan had that kind of courage. When Muriella swayed on her feet, John took her arm. She welcomed his support as they continued down the corridor.

  At last, the stone walls seemed to fall back, and with them, the enveloping darkness. Narrowing her eyes against the light, Muriella stood with her husband at the top of the stairs. The worn stone steps led directly to the bier resting on trestles in the center of the Great Hall. John's grip on her elbow increased, and slowly, on feet made of lead, they started downward.

  The silence, broken only by the ringing of the soul bell, swelled until it filled John's head. He stood for a long time with his hands on the lid of the plain wooden coffin. I've a feeling about this war, the Earl had told his son in despair. Argyll had known the cause was hopeless, had guessed before it even began what the outcome of this conflict would be. John clenched his fists impotently against the unyielding wood. He simply could not believe that his father had chosen to die alone.

  Closing his eyes, he summoned the rage that had burned in him for so long, but now that it would have brought him relief, he found it was gone. In its place there was only grief, which ate at him constantly, leaving his insides hollow and raw. With sudden resolution, he pushed the lid aside.

  Muriella hung back when she saw John grip the wood in rigid fingers, then shudder, breathing with difficulty, as if he could not get enough air. His face was haggard in the unkind light of the many torches, and his eyes revealed an agony so great it made her shiver. Then he reached out to touch the Earl's cheek. Muriella turned away from the sight of his pain.

  When John looked up, she moved closer to the bier, willing the numbness to protect her. Her heart pounded dully in her chest and, for a moment, her eyes refused to focus. Then, gradually and with painful clarity, her sight returned. She saw before her the corpse of a man who had died a violent death from the blow of an English bill, but it was not the Earl. This gray and rigid death mask belonged to a stranger, not the man she had grown to love. Her throat felt tight with unshed tears as she reached out to touch Argyll's sunken cheek, as she had once touched Rob Campbell's. In that moment, the chill seemed to move from the Earl's body into hers. She thought she might be ill, but then she realized that John was pulling her away. Without a word, he replaced the lid.

  "Johnnie, where the devil have ye been? We're gathered in the library to discuss what's to be done about the Macleans. David Campbell is asking for ye."

  Colin's voice rang out, competing with the tolling of the bell. John stiffened as he turned toward his brother. Colin seemed unaware of the coffin and its burden; his attention was occupied with the heavily carved silver brooch he was polishing with a corner of his plaid.

  John caught a glimpse of the familiar brooch that bore the Campbell arms and the wild myrtle that was their badge. For all the years of his life, his father had worn that symbol of the Laird of the Clan Campbell. To him it was obscene that Colin should flaunt it so openly when the Earl was not yet buried. "The Macleans are always speaking out against us. Now isn't the time—"

  "But that's where ye're wrong. Ye see, Johnnie, I've men watching and listening on Mull, and they tell me Maclean is ready to strike soon. I told David we didn't need ye, but he wouldn't listen." Leaving his brooch for the moment, he added, "What I want to know, little brother, is if ye're still a member of this clan or no'? I'm sure we could manage quite well without ye."

  John fought back the angry response that rose to his lips. He would not argue with Colin while his father's corpse lay a few feet away. "Ye won't rid yerself of me so easily. I'm coming." While his brother started up the stairs, he turned back to Muriella. "Rest," he told her. "'Twill be a long night."

  As Muriella watched her husband climb the stairs behind his brother, shoulders bowed under the weight of his sorrow, she thought it might well be the longest night she had ever spent.

  * * *

  The men and women had come by the dozens for the feast on the eve of the funeral. They had consumed so much ale and wine that the stores in the keep were badly depleted, yet the salmon and mutton, salted herring, sweetmeats and bread they ate by the platterful did not seem to satisfy their insatiable appetites. At the end of the evening, the clansmen reeled around drunkenly, forming the patterns
for the funeral dance, while the pipes blew their wailing lament. When it seemed to Muriella she would choke on the odor of stale food and the sound of their harsh laughter, they began to filter out into the courtyard. Those who could not move lay where they fell among the rushes, snoring from the effects of too much ale. Gradually, the last of the voices faded out and the silent vigil for the dead Earl began.

  John, Muriella, Duncan and Megan seated themselves on benches around the bier to watch and see that no evil befell Argyll in these final hours before his internment. At first Colin was there, sprawled across a bench, half-sitting, half-prone. But presently he fell asleep. When he began to snore, John nudged him rudely awake. The third Earl of Argyll went up to bed.

  No one spoke as they sat waiting for the night to pass. The soul bell had ceased its ringing at last; Muriella found the stillness oppressive. With her arms crossed over her chest, she stared at the coffin, swaying a little on her hard bench, fighting to keep her thoughts unformed so that they could not hurt her.

  Her head rang with the sound of the others' breathing, overly loud in a room wrapped in silence, and she thought she might scream. Then John began to speak, softly at first, so that the words were indistinguishable, but with a slow, measured cadence that matched the labored beating of her heart.

  His voice grew louder, stronger, and Muriella raised her head in blank astonishment as the meaning penetrated her fog of her unconsciousness.

  “Ah! Freedom is a noble thing! Freedom makes a man to his liking. Freedom all solace to man gives. He lives at ease that freely lives.”

  The last time she had heard those words, she had been sitting in the library, watching the Earl struggle with a burden of hopelessness she had not understood. Then it had been her own voice that had caressed the familiar lines as John's was doing now—rhythmically, as if they came, not from memory, but from the heart. Muriella felt her husband's gaze upon her and she huddled forward, bowing her head in protection against the pain that flared within her.

  A noble heart may have none else,

  No other thing that may him please,

  But freedom only; for free liking

  Is yearned for o'er all other things.

  Drawn by the rise and fall of the poetry, Muriella looked up until her eyes met John's. She opened her mouth to speak, but could not find the words. Her husband's bright blue gaze was holding her, probing beyond her mask of indifference to the agony underneath, and against her volition, her lips began to move in silent time to his voice.

  Now he that aye has lived free

  May not know well the property,

  The grief, nor the wretchedness

  That is coupled with foul thralldom.

  Slowly, she began to whisper the words, prompted by an instinct deeper than fear, until her voice mingled with her husband's as they recited the poem the Earl had loved above all others.

  But if by heart he should know it

  Then all the more he should it wit,

  And should think freedom more to prize,

  Than all the gold in the world that is.

  Muriella rocked on her bench, her fingers digging painfully into her arms. When a drop of moisture fell on her gown, she realized she was weeping. Closing her eyes against a wash of pain too fierce to bear, she willed the numbness to cloak her feelings once more. But then John's fingers met hers, burning away her protective veil with a single touch, and she gripped his hand tightly—in gratitude, in grief, and in compassion.

  Chapter 22

  Dawn brought the men from the courtyard and the guests from their beds. They began to file into the hall, taking their places for the funeral procession. John rose from his chair as Colin appeared at the top of the staircase. Despite all the drinking his elder brother had done the night before, his eyes were clear and unmarked by the heavy shadows that had settled under John's own eyes. Colin descended the stairs with regal calm, surveying with satisfaction the preparations going on below him. His dark cloak was trimmed with expensive fur, his black doublet velvet with carved silver buttons. Beneath his cloak, the wool plaid was draped across his shoulder and fastened with the Campbell brooch. Colin's expression was correctly solemn, but there was no flicker of grief in his eyes as he glanced at the coffin. He nodded once to his brother, then left the hall to head toward the kitchen.

  Probably for some ale, John thought bitterly as he turned to help Muriella to her feet.

  Her legs were numb from sitting for so long without moving; she swayed for a moment before her husband caught her around the waist. She blinked as the doors swung open and the sunlight—the first in weeks—assaulted her eyes unexpectedly.

  "No! Leave me be!"

  Muriella looked up at the sound of that voice to see a woman hovering in the doorway. She was bent forward, her plain cloak wrapped close around her body, the hood pulled low so her face was barely visible. The men watching the door tried to block her path, but she pushed them aside. Before they could stop her, she crossed the hall until she stood in front of John and Muriella. "I came!" she cried in a voice not at all like her own. Her shoulders were hunched forward and her hands shook.

  "Elizabeth!" John stood unmoving, appalled at the sight of his sister dressed as a peasant and nearly hysterical.

  Muriella saw at once that Elizabeth would not be able to stand much longer. She slipped out of John's grasp to take his sister's arm, drawing the woman closer to the fire.

  Elizabeth trembled, speaking brokenly. "He told me I must not come. He told me... I thought... he left me alone." She pulled the hood farther over her face and stared blankly into the flames.

  Muriella drew a bench forward and pressed her sister-in-law onto it. She had moved by instinct when she saw Elizabeth's pallid face. The woman was frightened, that much was clear, even to Muriella's clouded brain.

  John, who had also recognized Elizabeth's agitation, brought two goblets of wine. One he gave to his sister, who took it without looking at him. The other he handed to his wife. "Drink it," he told her.

  Muriella swallowed the liquid rapidly, surprised to feel it burning down her throat, awakening her insides from their numb sleep. When she was finished, she gave the goblet to John and knelt next to Elizabeth. "Tell me," she said.

  Elizabeth ran her tongue across her lips and struggled to find the words she wanted. With a sigh, she reached out to touch Muriella's shoulder. "Lachlan forbade me to come to my father's funeral," she said at last.

  "What!" John exclaimed.

  "'He was my father,' I told him. 'And my enemy,' he said. I told him I must go and he... he..."'

  "Did he threaten ye?" John leaned toward his sister, lifting her chin with one finger. "Did he?"

  "No, he simply forbade me. Then he left." She shook her brother's hand away. "I believe he thought I wouldn't ever disobey him."

  John snorted with disgust. "Aye, Elizabeth. Ye made him believe it."

  Muriella put a restraining hand on John's arm. "Please," she said.

  Her husband opened his mouth to object, but when he saw Muriella's expression, he decided to leave her to deal with Elizabeth. He was not in a tolerant mood just now. Without another word, he left the two women alone.

  Elizabeth was glad her brother had gone. Staring at her feet, she continued in a low voice, "After he went away, I sat before the fire with my sewing. 'I must do as he bids me,' I told myself. Yet I am twenty-five years old, and no longer a young bride who cannot think on her own." She paused, stricken with sudden remorse. "I haven't ever done this to Lachlan before. My father and I haven't been close for a long time now, ye ken, and it doesn't seem right to hurt my husband for him. Mayhap I shouldn't have come."

  Muriella covered Elizabeth's cold hand with her own. "Ye did the right thing."

  "'Tis no’ right to disobey yer husband."

  Muriella looked away. "Lachlan was wrong to try to keep ye at Duart," she insisted.

  Elizabeth did not appear to be listening. "But as I sat there staring into the fire, I saw my
father's face among the flames. It hovered there and I thought, He will burn. He is burning. The flames..." She raised her head to meet Muriella's compassionate gaze. "They hated each other, did ye know that? My father made me choose, ye see, and it had to be Lachlan. He couldn't ever accept that. After yer wedding he told me my husband was an enemy to the clan and that I should leave him. He said I could live here just as I used to, that he'd protect me. I think he really believed I'd stay with him, but I couldn't do it." She looked up at Muriella, seeking her approval. "He didn't understand. Do ye know, he hasn't spoken kindly to me since then? But I had to choose my husband."

  "Not this time," her sister-in-law said softly.

  Elizabeth looked up in surprise; the thought had not occurred to her before. "No," she said. "Not this time." She held her hands palms upward, examining her fingers as if she could not decide what to do with them.

  Muriella threw her arms around her sister-in-law and felt Elizabeth's shoulders tremble. "The Earl spoke of ye often," she said at last. "He loved ye very much, Elizabeth. He would have wanted ye here."

  Elizabeth considered her doubtfully. "Would he really?"

  "Aye, I know it. I know too that ye wouldn't have been able to forgive yerself if ye'd abandoned the Earl at the end."

  The two women clung together for a moment, then Elizabeth said shakily, "I had to come, no matter what, didn't I?"

  "Ye did," Muriella assured her.

  "Aye." At that, Elizabeth stood, throwing her hood back from her face. She was no longer afraid to be recognized. Then for the first time she saw the bier in the center of the room. The color drained from her cheeks and she found she could not breathe properly.

  Muriella slipped her arm through Elizabeth's when she realized the procession was ready to leave. "'Tis time," she whispered.

  Six men stood grasping the poles on which the coffin rested, while the priest stood near the door with his brass bell in his hand. Behind him were the five who carried the Earl's armor—his helmet, gauntlets, sword, spurs and shield. Then came the man who bore the Campbell arms. Last was Colin, standing at the foot of the stairs with John beside him. When the new Earl tossed his cloak over his shoulder and nodded, the funeral procession began.