Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  Selena got down from her horse and tried to walk resolutely over to the place where McGrover was tied. She saw him watching her approach through the slits of his swollen, blackened eyes, like a serpent trapped and cornered, bitter and scornful and unrepentant, waiting for the blow of the club.

  Brian handed her the curved sword and stepped back. She took it, lifted it tentatively, and faced McGrover. He was not laughing now, and she thought that she must at least look determined enough to kill, although her heart was beating in her ears and blood throbbed like a bad wound throughout her body.

  “Go on. Do it,” Brian said.

  I can’t, she thought, with a fading sensation somewhere below her breasts. I know I should, and even God could not think it wrong, but…

  “Would it be better if I left you alone?”

  She nodded, and her lips felt dry as chalk against her tongue.

  Leaving her horse tethered, Brian mounted and took the other two horses and rode down to the end of the meadow. She saw him there, in the sunlight, like a gentleman holding horses for his companions in the morning hunt.

  McGrover still watched her, unspeaking. It gave her a small measure of courage, his belief that death was coming at her hands.

  “Do…do you wish to beg forgiveness?” she asked, giving him the chance for that, at least.

  He snorted derisively. “I’ll not beg.”

  “I didn’t mean of me, of us. I meant of God.”

  McGrover laughed in disbelief. “A fool who’d believe such cannot kill me,” he said. “The only thing is will. Those who lack it believe in things like God. Now, little girl, use that sword to cut my bonds. Ye may be imprisoned, but I give my word not die if ye set me free.”

  For an instant, she wavered. It was not because she believed him, and never would she have cut him loose. But she wavered because he no longer believed her capable of execution. Was she, in fact, capable?

  The morning sun beat down, warm on the sweetness of the new grass, the trees, and all the living plants. Today, amidst that sweetness, the life of Darius McGrover would end. And she would be the agent of its ending.

  “How do you wish it?” she heard herself ask in a voice surprisingly strong. Think of Father, she thought.

  McGrover stiffened. He had not expected this. Down at the end of the meadow, Brian called out, and his words drifted over: “Get it done an’ let’s be off.”

  “In the neck, the…the throat,” McGrover said, lifting his chin, his eyes on her, like those of a snake who grasps a last chance in its mesmerizing power.

  “As you wish,” Selena cried. She wanted to call back the blade as soon as her arms pushed it, arcing, through the whistling air. This is not me. I cannot do this, cried one part of herself, but her arms said you must! and the ugly, hooked sword hissed through the air. The edge of the blade was homing toward the side of McGrover’s neck; his glittering eyes were on the blade. Selena did not know why—she would not know why until long after—but as the blade moved, level for his neck, something turned in her mind, and her wrists turned too. The blade curved upward. McGrover shrieked in sudden pain and jerked against his stake. Blood was everywhere, scattering like a cloud of raindrops, red in the air. She stood there, gasping. He jerked convulsively, eyes wide with wonder. And reprieve. On the ground, between them, was one of his ears, severed by the blow. Blood bubbled like a spring in the circle where his ear had been.

  For a long moment, with Brian’s voice drifting again over the meadow, Selena and McGrover looked at each other. Then his head dropped down, his chin rested on his chest, and he was still. The blood poured down upon his shoulder.

  She threw the sullied blade down upon the charred wood of Foinaven Lodge and ran for her horse, not looking back.

  A Star to Steer Her By

  The waterfront tavern stank of bad air, sweat, wine, vomit, and harsh spices used for cooking to hide the taste of bad meat. Brian and Selena entered together, trying to appear like a sailor and his girl. Selena hid her blond hair beneath a ratty shawl, and Brian tried to slouch, to look smaller, in case there were soldiers on the waterfront looking for them. It was Selena who had insisted on the disguises.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so jittery. No one has bothered us all during the trip down from Foinaven, and McGrover’s as dead as Henry the Eighth. Isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  He had taken her word for it. The cut of the sword. The spray of blood, red like pearls on the blades of grass where once the floor of the lodge had been. And McGrover collapsing, after looking at her one last time.

  “That’s the end o’ the bastard, then,” Brian swore, riding, throwing out his chest squaring his shoulders against the future. And it had to be true, didn’t it? Even if, somehow, McGrover had not been dead against that beam? Because who might have found him at that time of year? No one used the lodge then, and the local villagers never came to the place unless the family was there, ready to dispense money for services rendered.

  But if, somehow, he had survived? After all, he knew they were going to Liverpool to meet a ship. And if he had survived, and somehow his men were looking for them…It meant that she had failed in a terrible way. It meant that she had jeopardized their future as surely as the Rob Roys’ lack of precautions had jeopardized the past.

  “McGrover is finished,” she told Brian, more vehemently than was necessary, and he seemed proud of her, but in a doubtful way, as if he did not entirely believe her.

  So she had insisted on a semblance of disguises. And he had complied.

  “Hey, we’ll ha’e us two pints o’ ale,” Brian called heartily, feigning mild drunkenness, as he half guided, half pushed Selena toward a table in a dark corner of the tavern. Yards away from the table, there was a window that looked out toward the harbor. The window was as close to the quay as they had been yet, for they had not wanted to seek the Highlander until they were assured of its presence there. And assured of the fact that no British officers awaited them.

  That was another question, too, which Selena did not want to face: would the Highlander be there at all? Many things had happened since the night of the Christmas Ball, and she had begun to realize that any man who made a deal with a traitor might have second thoughts. Just as anyone who made a deal with Royce Campbell might have second thoughts, watching the cynical smile on his lips, the glitter in his eyes.

  But they did not bother with the window at all. A good bit of laughter, swaying, exaggerated stumbling got them to the table.

  “What o’ me ale?” Brian called again.

  “Show me yer coin, matey, an’ ye kin ’ave the whole place,” answered the barmaid. She was a thick, coarse woman, with good cheer heavy in her voice, but a sullen, dangerous tightness around the eyes. The other customers in the place, about a dozen hard-drinking sailors off boats in port, and four prostitutes, turned to stare hard at Brian and Selena.

  We’re not succeeding, she thought. We don’t look right.

  In a moment, Selena understood why. A trapdoor opened on the ceiling at the other end of the bar, and a man swung down, hung there for a moment, and then dropped heavily to the floor. Then the men and women at the bar burst into a lewd, hearty round of cheers. A pair of red leather pumps appeared in the trapdoor, kicking prettily, rustling petticoats beneath a bright red dress. It was a saucy young woman. She climbed down a row of pegs that had been driven into the wall. She had lustrous, coffee-colored hair, a luscious figure, and a look about her pretty face that managed to be vulnerable and hard at the same time.

  “Eh, Slyde, ’ow’d it go? ’Ow’d it go up there?”

  “Gimme a big whiskey,” called the man who had preceded the girl, grinning, satisfied, rubbing his groin.

  “An’ ’ow was ’e, Belle? Is it true the bloke’s all talk an’ no action?”

  “It’s a professional secret twixt me an’ Slyde,” the girl said, provoking another burst of crude laughter. Brian and Selena looked at each other. The tavern was more interes
ting than they had anticipated, and potentially more dangerous. Not only would any information they might require be for sale, though dearly, but also for sale, at a later time, to anyone who wanted to know, would be the fact that they had been there seeking information. About the Highlander. And passage to America.

  The barmaid poured Slyde his whiskey, then drew two big mugs of ale and slid them across the bar to Belle, who also did duty as a waitress. She brought them over to the table, first giving Selena an appraising look—measuring the competition—then staring boldly at Brian. Who stared back. Selena remembered that he had been a long time in the Highlands, and that he had always been a lusty boy, but he had best watch himself carefully now.

  “Tuppence each,” Belle demanded, putting the ale on the table before them. “Pay now.”

  Brian took a coin out of his pocket and handed it to her. She reached for it and took his hand, held it. Her smile was a challenge.

  “Care to ’ave a go at it, hon?” she asked him. “Come on, an’ I’ll bet the tuppence I’ll gi’e ye a ride lak this one ’ere couldna learn in ten years tryin’.”

  At the bar, the laughter was cruel, and too loud. Brian and Selena were strangers, having wandered into an alien setting and one in which they were unwelcome. They were about to be made sport of, although it was clear from Belle’s voice, and the manner in which she stood at their table, pert breasts thrust forward invitingly, chin and bottom held high, that she was more than ready to fulfill her part of the proposition. Brian swallowed and wet his lips, unable to keep from giving her the eye. Selena kicked him under the table, a gesture which was seen by everybody watching eagerly from the bar.

  “Hey, did ye see it? The lady’s in a fit, she is.”

  Selena heard something in the way they pronounced lady, the way big Slyde, drinking his whiskey, snorted and chortled, that told her the shawl and cheap smock she wore did not conceal her origins. They would have to, if they were to elude McGrover’s men, and get aboard the ship to safety. This tavern was the last place a young woman of noble birth would choose to be. Indeed, so was the whole of Liverpool.

  It was a foul and predatory city, a port city, both beacon and pit of Empire, with a black heart beating deep within, sounding out the rhythms of lust and avarice and petty crime. From all over Great Britain, the poor and the dispossessed flocked to it, owning naught but tatters and hopes already dead, seeking by whatever means at hand to hoard another crumb of bread, to scratch from the face of God’s iron sky one more day of bitter life. The new factories were growing, grimy and stained along the dismal skyline, and in these from dawn to dusk and far into the evening worked the poor and the children of the poor, driven by whips, chained to the machines, sometimes falling asleep at the lathes and wheels, to be maimed or killed thereby. And out of these factories and into the teeming swarm of the city staggered those who survived, hearts black with hate and despair. Better to cut a man’s throat in a back alley, an alley awash with feces, urine, all manner of deteriorating garbage, than to bear one more day in the plants, or in the mines of the countryside. Better kill a rich man, if your luck held good, and even the score a little. You could sing with satisfaction, even on the gallows, if you killed a rich man once.

  And then there was the waterfront, drawing to it by choice or accident of itinerary the dregs of mankind, wanderers from across the savage earth. Dark-skinned men with gold rings in their ears, whose eyes glittered with strange secrets, wild dreams. Men who had killed, fought, robbed, whored, and who would do far worse should someone invent new evils of excess to surpass the old. Here on the docks with the salt smell in the air, and the smell of strange cargoes loading, and unloading, walked men and women in search of momentary escape from lives that were already unsuccessful escapes. They could no more flee desires which had already perverted them than those same perverted desires could fill the emptiness inside their hearts, or the emptiness and cold desolation of Liverpool, at any time of the year. Even spring.

  “Oh, I’ll wager I could make her do some delicious jumps,” Slyde grimaced, winking at Selena.

  She looked at him directly for the first time, and saw a roughneck bigger than Brian, with a sailor’s wool cap on his head, wool sweater and canvas pants, and a bandanna, frayed and stained, knotted around his thick dirty neck.

  “If you can’t get ’im,” taunted one of the whores at the bar, “better step aside an’ let somebody ’o knows how.” And Belle, thus goaded, snapped, “I can outdo you lyin’ down, on the best day you ever ’ad,” which brought more merriment. She leaned down and gave Brian a full kiss on the mouth, pushing her breasts and body into him. Selena saw him look at her, wide-eyed, out of the corners of his eyes, like a drowning man shooting one final desperate look at the safe shore before going down for the last time. Selena did not know what to do. Brian was falling, anyway. Maybe it was best to go along with this, and if worst came to worst she could run outside and flee down the street to…to what? They had to proceed calmly; they had to know where they were going, what they were doing.

  They had to find out where the Highlander was, of all the ships in this great port, and waste no time getting to it. Watching Brian lose himself in the whore’s kiss, Selena resolved to tough it out, somehow, as best she could.

  “Looks lak ye got ’im goin’, Belle,” the barmaid smirked. “I do believe e’s up t’ it now.”

  “’Course, wouldna surprise me if ’e was a mite hungry,”Slyde put in, signaling for another whiskey. “What wi’ that bloodless piece of goods ’e keeps fer company.”

  In spite of the situation, Selena flared at Slyde’s persistent implications about her lack of attractiveness and fire,but she restrained herself. She dared not show anger, which a man like Slyde would take almost as an invitation. She drank some of the ale, and tried to edge a bit closer to the window. Belle let her hands rove slowly over Brian’s body until she found what she was looking for. She broke off her kiss, and grinned with cold triumph.

  “Ready, luv?”

  Brian made the decision which promised him pleasure, and perhaps respite from the hostility of the group. It seemed to be the right thing to do, because they cheered, the ratty crowd around the bar, as he allowed Belle to lead him over to the peg ladder. It was a cheer that proffered begrudging acceptance.

  “This won’t take long,” Brian managed to tell Selena, amid the raucous outcry. And then he was climbing after Belle, up through the trapdoor to the loft where business was done.

  Selena edged closer to the window on the harbor, and bent again to her mug of ale. The trapdoor fell shut with a resounding thud, met by another small cheer and scattered cries of good luck.

  “Don’t ye cry now, sweets, wi’ yer boyfriend castin’ ye off lak that.”

  Selena looked up. It was Slyde, of course, just as she had feared. He sat down with a bottle of whiskey and a glass. “’Ere, ’ave some on me,” and he sloshed a dollop of the strong liquor into her glass of ale. “Looks lak ye could stand somethin’ t’ put blood in yer cheeks, eh?” He thought highly of his wit, and chortled darkly. “I’ve a mind t’ stir yer blood a bit myself.” He spoke more quietly now, and at the bar, the others returned to their various concerns. Slyde had picked her out, and that was that. Only Brian could save her now, and he was compromised, to say the least.

  “Well, say somethin’, will ye?” the sailor demanded.

  Selena did say something. She said: “And what, precisely, would you have me say?” She was unsettled, threatened, and she forgot herself. The words, the accent betrayed her position and breeding. She had given herself away as clearly as if the word “nobility” were etched in the flesh of her forehead.

  Slyde sat there, greasy-necked, muscled. He heard the tone and accent and knew that Selena was alien to him. Fear passed over his coarse features. A sword scar on his right jaw whitened as blood came to his face, and his eyes narrowed as he tried to puzzle out the situation. He did not have to be exceptionally smart to do so, and he was not dumb. A
noblewoman on the waterfront, in a place like this. In disguise. That could mean only two things: Either she was looking for a good time, which he was more than willing to provide. Or something was wrong, which opened to him whole new vistas of opportunity and possible profit. Those in trouble were unswervingly ready to pay.

  First things first. “Ye want a hard ridin’ from a ’orse that knows the way, eh?” He leaned forward, and she saw in his eyes that frank, knowing, proprietary look she had seen on Will Teviot’s face in the firelight. She had even seen it, for a fleeting moment behind Royce Campbell’s eyes. And, yes, had it not been Sean Bloodwell’s look, too, that time in the grove by the river, when for the first time he kissed her breasts and she had promised him all else with her eyes alone? That was a man’s look. A man’s look when he believed he was about to enjoy himself a woman, however false that assurance might be.

  Instinct spoke. Use this, Selena. It may be your only weapon.

  “What d’ ye say, eh? Ye got the itch that only a stallion can cure?”

  She had not responded, and he was increasingly sure of himself.

  “That be the problem, eh?”

  Not looking at him, eyes modestly downward, Selena nodded.

  Slyde leaned back in his chair. “Well,” he said heartily, “ye’ve come upon the right saddle jockey, ye certainly ’ave!”

  What now? she thought.

  “As soon as the loft is free,” Slyde was saying, “you an’ me’ll ’ave ourselves a time. An’ you won’t find none better’n me, I swear. Yer man there, up with Belle, I’m goin’ t’ put ’im t’ shame. Ye’ll see. Hey, drink up now. Get a bit in ye. I don’t want ye t’ be a’layin’ there lak a log.”

  Again, his rasping chortle, with an intimate touch to it now. Would she be forced to go through with this? Could she? Selena didn’t know, and as she admitted to herself that she didn’t know, didn’t fully trust herself to do what was necessary to save herself, she admitted, too, that she had already failed. She had not killed McGrover. She had been a coward, had not done her duty at the moment when everything counted. At the moment of truth.