CHAPTER TWELVE
My Love Coming

There was no one in the hallway, though Lady Catherine could hear the crashing of pots and the rumbling laugh of Malai in the kitchen. The great brass-bound door at the dark end of the corridor stood ajar; with a twist of her slender body she slid through and found herself on a timber landing. Huge blocks of stone wound down into utter blackness, and she wished intensely that she had thought to bring a lantern. Still, the best way through was always on, and she felt for the first step with a cautious foot.

By the time she made the first turn, the single streak of light behind her was swallowed in darkness. She groped but found no handrail: she paused and steadied herself against the damp stones of the stairwell. By reaching out both arms she could sometimes touch the walls. She had always secretly feared the dark: only her power of will kept her from turning back.

Something squeaked and ran across her shoe. When her heart steadied again, she descended another step, then another. She tried counting the steps but that only made her dizzy as deeper and deeper the mighty staircase wound into the earth. The stone blocks were uneven: she was forced to feel her way with hands and feet, cautiously, slowly. Looking up and looking down, there was no light at all, no sound but her own breathing. Her foot slipped and she caught herself with a gasp.

"Go on, you coward," she berated herself, and repeated the war cry of the clan, "Buaidh no Bàs, Victory or Death."

There was an echo of footsteps not her own, coming to meet her. At once her fear was gone. As swiftly as a deer she raced down the stone blocks two at a time, her arms outstretched in welcome.

Vincent's arms went around her, lifting her off the step; she locked her hands behind his neck. She tasted a strand of his hair that drifted across her mouth.

"I was looking for you," she said, laughing and panting. A thought flashed through her mind like lighting and was gone, 'You are mad with joy because this man is near you. It may be wrong but you don't care -- you don't care.'

"You found me," he answered, and there was amusement in his tone. He set her down again, but kept hold of her hand, and together they descended the last turn of the steps.

He lit candles and lanterns around his chamber until blazed with light, then pushed two low stools near the fireplace. She made herself comfortable, spreading the skirt of her cloud-pink gown and rubbing her hands near the flames, while he brought two mugs of ale from the pantry. The ale was forgotten, though, when he took his place beside her. The hearth-fire danced in her eyes: he was lost in their light.

She glanced around the cell that he had made into a home: the bed with its feather tassels and striped coverlet; a painted chest draped with a yellow goatskin, and on that an arrangement of seashells; a polished brass tub filled with kindling; a red branch of coral on the mantlepiece. Bunches of herbs tacked to the ceiling drifted a clean scent of the outdoors around the chamber. Everything showed a sense of beauty and a determination to make the best of his fate, and her admiration for him deepened once more.

She said "It seems so long since I've seen you, and yet it hasn't been that long since we sat on the cliff. Wasn't it beautiful, that night?"

"There were never such stars before," he answered. "When I am out at night sometimes I am maddened by the freedom. Maddened."

She laughed with pure joy. "Does it make you want to climb a tree in a thunderstorm and ride the wind?"

"You remember that." It was like the fulfilment of some dream to find himself sitting beside Lady Catherine and hearing her eager voice, that had as many notes and tones as a robin's song.

"Everything. Even when we were hungry and hunted, caught in the rain, bedding down on pine needles... thinking back it seems like one unending stream of glory."

"Yes ... the dawn with its ribbons of gold, and the clouds changing colors, and the seagulls going up hills and down valleys in the air."

She leaned closer to him; every thought lit his face just as the firelight caught his hair and kindled it to an aura. Just to hear him speak again she asked, "Tell me more, for I want to hold eternity in an hour, as you do. What other wonderful corners of this beautiful island have I yet to see?"

Her nearness scattered his thoughts; it took a long moment of effort to gather them together. "Creag an Sgairbh, Cormorant's Rock; uncounted hundreds of birds nest there. Creag Dhubh, the Black Crag, where a prophetess foretold the glories of the clan. Càrn na cuimhne, the Cairn of Remembrance, where long-ago heroes are buried. Every rock and glen of the island has a story."

Eagerly she said, "I want to know it all."

His soft, hoarse voice warmed with humor. "It is an ancient clan. Legends say that not all the people in the world drowned in the Flood. A few escaped in a small boat and landed here. So we claim our descent from neighbors of Noah."

She laughed merrily. "Ancient indeed." Her eyes widened with a sudden thought. "We might take a boat out one night, just escape, the two of us, and sail far out, and not come back until we find the edge of the world where the sun comes up."

His stricken expression flooded her with remorse. "I am so sorry," she whispered, and put her face down on his hands.

"Don't be sorry," he murmured against her hair, which held a faint scent of roses. "It's a beautiful dream." He felt her tears on his hands, and deep inside he let himself go, remembering a fable that tells how, when Paradise faded from earth, a single rose was saved and treasured by an angel, who gives to every man, sooner or later in his life, one breath of fragrance from the immortal flower -- only one.

Without lifting her head, she said, "It hurts me so much to think of you here."

"You mustn't grieve. If you grieve, there will be two of us sorrowing, when there needn't be one. I have everything I need."

"Everything?" There was doubt in her question.

He couldn't lie, and couldn't tell the truth. "Tell me all you have been doing. Have you been opening your mouth and letting the Gaelic fall from it?"

She smiled then, and wiped her eyes, though tears still shone on her cheeks. "You know old Raonull. Yes, he is teaching me a song. Shall I sing it for you?"

"Please."

"It is called, 'Mo Rùn A Tighinn,' My Love Coming." Clasping her hands around her knees as she sat on the low stool, she fixed her dreamy gaze on the red depths of the fire, and began to sing. Her voice was not strong, but very sweet.

"Mu dheireadh, mo-ghaoil, thaingh thu do m'inonnuidh, mudheireadh, mudheireadh!" The soft tune rose with longing and dropped to a murmur of fulfilment. Vincent watched her until he could bear it no longer, then closed his eyes to listen.

Her voice softened to a sigh as the song drifted to contentment. "At last, my love, thou hast come to me. At last, at last!" In sudden shyness she leaned forward and hid her face against her bent knees. She knew little of men and wondered if once again she had been too bold.

Two questions were burning in her and she gathered her courage to get past the first. "Vincent, there is something I must explain to you. The last time we parted... I kissed you. You looked so shocked when I did that. I'm afraid I offended you."

He was being pushed to the edge of his self-command: if she had glanced up then she would have seen it in his face.

Her voice fell even lower in shame. "Can you forget my unmannerly behavior? Acting without thinking first has always been a fault of mine.

"My lady... " He lost his voice and tried again. "I will try to do anything you wish. If you want me to forget that that you blessed me with your kiss, then I pledge myself to try."

"You were not offended?"

He shook his head, no.

A thought illuminated her face with sudden radiance. From her braid she untwined a silver ribbon, and tied it around his upper arm. "You've been my champion from the first -- this makes you my knight, like those in ballads and legends of chivalry. In return, you must promise me one thing."

He gasped, "Anything."

"Whenever I am so glad to see you that I forget my manners, you must be my true knight, and overlook my faults."

The silver ribbon and her tender plea were wreaking havoc with Vincent's self-control. He drew a harsh breath, trembling on the edge of a confession. But a wild torrent of passionate words would cost him her trust, he knew. She had faith in his friendship, and the thought of losing her confidence was too painful to endure.

After a time he managed to say, "I promise." He lifted her hands to his lips and then pressed them both against his coarse blue tunic as if they were two wings of a bird ending their journey.

They were both silent for a long while, she looking at his bent golden head. Under her palms she felt the strong and steady beating of his heart, and she willed the moment to last forever.

Abruptly he stood and crossed the chamber. when he sat down again on the low stool he held a wooden model of a Viking ship. "I did go back to Land's End a few nights later, to wish on one of those sky-promises for you. It seems the power that answers prayers is watching over you with special care. Jacobus was searching through his books today, looking for a marriage benediction. The day after tomorrow, he said."

She repressed a sigh. "I spent all morning standing on a stool, being fitted."

He arranged the oars and straightened the linen sail, and then was able to say, "You will be beautiful." The image in his mind of the chapel, the guests, and the bridal couple was so clear it might as well have already happened. The fact that he could picture it gave him an odd satisfaction. His self-control was not going to fall him: he could trust it to get him through the ceremony and the wedding night. He had strength to accept his fate and to do right for right's sake.

She knew that Vincent was loyal to his brother, and railed herself to say, "Lord Alistair Is everything you said, noble and gallant."

Once more Vincent told himself how glad he was that she had found her heart's desire. "He is in love with you. He told me so."

That was meant to make her happy, but somehow it did not. Her lips trembled. "And what did you tell him?"

With a stolen splash of Lord Uilleam's wine they had christened her the North Star. "That I wish every joy for both of you. Every single joy. You must not lack even one."'

Even he seemed to be pushing her toward the altar. Perhaps it was written in the stars: Phemie, Malai, Ealasaid, Jacobus, the islanders, and Vincent himself seemed to think so. They all assumed it was her destiny to be his lordship's possession. She couldn't even blame Lord Alistair: she had trapped herself. "The day after tomorrow, will you be there, behind the wall?"

He shook his head violently and set the ship down.

She reached out an unsteady hand and touched the silver ribbon around his arm, as if asking his forgiveness in advance. "Vincent, do you think Lord Alistair would suffer greatly if I were to halt this wedding?"

He got up and pushed through a curtain into an adjoining chamber. Shocked and wounded, she stared after him, already regretting her question.

Stumbling, he careened against a cupboard, spilling his boyhood collection of rocks, shells, and birds' eggs. A chess set stood ready on a trestle table: it rattled as Vincent gripped the edge of the table, leaned forward, and hung on.

The defenses he had built up so carefully were crashing around him, too. He couldn't trust his self-control after all, for Lady Catherine's fealty to Lord Alistair was wavering. Despite all the treasures he could give her, she was having second thoughts.

Daily he drank from a bitter cup for his brother's sake, yet this bitterness surpassed all other. Never had he been so tempted to claim his birthright, to come up into the sunlight and claim justice for himself. Jacobus would bear witness to the truth.

The silver ribbon around his arm tortured him with hope. She had called him her knight. If he won his inheritance, he would be able then to offer her all the treasures that now glittered around Lord Alistair: a noble name, a towered castle, the fealty of the clansfolk. If he could only stand beside her in the daylight and pour those glories into her hands, at her feet.

His whole being revolted against the injustice that was forced on him; he could have cried out to her the truth. The betrothal document bound her to wed not Lord Alistair by name, but the Lord of the Heathery Isle.

He spoke so softly that he could hardly hear himself "Catherine. You are betrothed to me."

And all he had to do to gain his inheritance was to betray a secret kept for thirty years, shame his mother and father, and destroy his brother.

Such a betrayal -- no, he couldn't do it -- such treachery wasn't in him.

He was actually breathless; only his grip on the table kept him upright. "Don't listen to me... you mustn't hear me... I love you... I love you... don't listen..."

When he came back through the curtain, she was sitting at the table, looking at his maps. The dangerous mood of intimacy had been broken.

"Sir Wallis has come," she said, tapping the merchant ship drawn on the map. Her tone was cool and distant. "I have so many suitors they will have to get in line. Well -- two. A short line."

The struggle had cost him; his voice was uneven. "He and the Norsemen are joining forces. Promise me that you will take great care."

Her smile was swift and meaningless; his abrupt leavetaking had hurt her more than a little. "I must be off."

He took a lantern down from a wall hook and walked beside her as she hurried toward the spiraling staircase. They walked side by side but not hand in hand. Lady Catherine was quite silent, withdrawn and remote. She was moving away from him and he could not follow her, could not even reach out to hold her back. Their uneven footsteps sounded to Vincent like the uncertain heartbeats of a dying man.

Lady Catherine had always tried to face the truth, but never a truth more painful than this. With trust in his wisdom she had revealed the trouble of her deepest heart: and she had been spurned. Never again would she descend to the dungeons of Raven's Rock to confess her sorrows to someone who turned his back and walked away.

She would not take his guiding hand, preferring to climb on her own. She wanted to ask him to go back and let her continue alone.

"Go, you are... "she began, but there was a tightness in her throat and she didn't trust her voice. Hot tears stung her eyes: angrily she wiped them away. "Go, you are not my friend, or you would not let my faults estrange us. I thought better of you, I was grateful for your constant kindness, but now you have shown me that was wrong to trust you with my confession. You are disappointed that I spoke as I did, and so am I, and not only that, but grieved and wounded to the heart."

He staggered and turned dizzy, and his hand groped for the wall like a blind man feeling in the dark. An agony of loss was on him; he had no force or memory or consciousness apart from her. In his despair he knew only that a few moments before, she had smiled on him, listened to him, lingered beside him; and now she was going, never to return. He kept climbing slowly, as if to postpone their parting; in response she sped on, drawing ahead of him.

Above them appeared a narrow shaft of light, like a flaming sword that divided their two worlds. The light stabbed him as if it were also dividing their two souls. They reached the door beyond which he could not pass, and her hands were tugging the bar.

Bitterly she said, "Earlier I asked you to forget. Perhaps that is wise advice for both of us."

He was strong, but not strong enough to part from her in anger, for the one breath of fragrance from the angel's rose was passing from him, and would never be his again. He had lost her, this time forever.

His voice was raw. "Don't ask that of me. For one perfect hour, I was your knight. If you could know what that means to me. To lose remembrance of your kindness I would have to lose the life you rescued. About... your question. I cannot advise you. Listen to your own heart, it alone can decide for you."

Anger still burned hotly in Lady Catherine. On the threshold she whirled to speak sharply and looked down into Vincent's face. His eyes were the color of the summer skies that he would never see again. There was truth in them, and a depth of pain that she could hardly imagine. Though he did not kneel, he stood five steps below her, and his stance awakened a memory of her dream.

Their gazes locked. Her eyes seemed to search his innermost being, and what she found there stole her breath. An unexpected surge of the connection between them carried his agonized thoughts clearly to her mind: 'She has borne so much pain. Let me spare her from further suffering... let me bear it all.'

Her vexation began to float apart and vanish: understanding took its place, glimmering like a spark of light in her own mind.

The terrifying fog that clouded her dream must have been a symbol of her own confusion. The man who had come to her through wreaths of darkness and mist was her dream-love, her destiny.

Turning away from the sword of light, she stepped down one block. Looking down into Vincent's eyes, she realized with a gasp why she could not love Lord Alistair. His handsome face could not win a heart that was given away long ago.

Once more she took a step downward. So many years ago as a solitary child she had wished for a true friend, and sought one in the lion-guardian of the tapestry. That friend she had found at last, and the strong protector, the gentle lover she longed for as a woman. He was here, standing before her, racked with longing, not daring to offer his heart, his empty hands.

Another step down brought her closer yet. Her blindness and his misgivings had concealed the truth, but in the light of the bond she found the insight to understand. In Vincent there was a power to love without limit or reason, without flinching from the consequences or counting the cost. She had awakened that intensity in him. He would love her all his life, through death, and beyond. She knew that, for she felt the same awakening in herself. It was the capacity to love without measure and it was latent no longer. She could feel it glowing now, like a sun within her body, and the splendor was all for Vincent, who gave so generously, who contented himself with so little.

For Lady Catherine, to understand was to act. That certainty, sudden as it was, brought with it a blaze of resolve. Vincent had survived on dust and ashes long enough. What she had, she would give, and never count the cost.

She put her hands on his strong jaw, roughened by golden stubble, and saw his expression change. The bond between them she felt keenly at that instant, and she knew that for him, hope could be more painful than despair. She tilted his face upward; deliberately and warmly she pressed her mouth against his, holding him to a lingering kiss. With great generosity she let him sense all she was feeling, holding nothing back.

"I love you." She turned and walked up into the light without looking back.

His legs folded; he sat down abruptly on one of the stone blocks. He had felt the awakening of her understanding, and the hope that thundered in him was almost too great to bear.

A lifetime of self-doubt resurrected old fears: how could it be possible, he had nothing to give her: only his whole undivided devotion, and what was the worth of that? Perhaps this kiss, like the first, had been meant only in kindness. But it hadn't seemed like kindness. What he had sensed in her kiss was love, all the warmth and depth and truth he had been hungering for all his life. Tentatively he reached out along the bond to see what she was feeling. The power of her emotion rushing back through their connection tore a gasp from Vincent. A ray of pure gold filled him with an infinity of glittering lights, as if his blood were carrying stars through his body with every beat of his heart.

All he could say was her name, and that was everything. "Catherine! Catherine!"

It was true, he could not doubt the streams of light that pulsed through the bond; she was loving him. It was her love that was sending those stars coursing through his blood.

He had always imagined that joy would be a strengthening thing, but he was helpless with happiness, overmastered by dreams he had hardly dared to picture. For once in his life, he let himself believe -- that she would kiss him again, that he would find the courage to kiss her. That she might actually turn from Alistair and pledge to him her love.

Desires beat against bars within him, clamoring for freedom: he released them to soar. If it came true, her small hands might be willing to touch his body, that had been starving for a loving touch all his life long. And after she became accustomed to his appearance, she might find it in her heart to let him stroke her silken skin with a similar caress of tender love. In time she might trust him enough to lie beside him, her dear body close against his own, and he would know at last what his life was for.

More earthshaking than any dreams of bodily union was the radiance pouring through him from her loving spirit, telling him to believe that tomorrow and tomorrow and for all the days to come, he would never be alone again.

Trembling, shattered with happiness, he made his way down the steps to his own chamber, while one star-stream of glory after another coursed through his blood. Face down on his bed he collapsed, for bliss vanquished his strength as misery had never done.

"Oh. Oh! My own love!" His voice was muffled in the pillow. The galaxies that glimmered through his soul and body lit his future with the brightness of heaven. She was his heaven, all he could imagine of light and peace and blessedness. She was his love, now and forever, his own. No fate could approach him which had any shadow on it; the worst turn of fortune could never hurt him, if they were one.

"She said I love you. To me. She said it to me. " Over and over he repeated it, and each time a new fountain of stars erupted within him, until the ecstasy was almost painful. He had fought so long to hold on to his self-control, and now he let it go with vengeance, not knowing if he were laughing or weeping. If he wept it was the cry of a heart that was bursting with the sweetness of release from infinite pain and hopelessness. It was true -- he could believe it now -- one day on this very bed, she might lie beside him. The thought made him laugh out loud and roll on his back, flinging his arms out wide. Possessed by a sheer agony of joy, he spoke into the darkness as if she could somehow hear. "So much pain, so many years wasted in eternal night. Now I know how I survived when it would have been easier to die. I kept on living because you were alive, in the same world with me, and coming nearer day by day. And I would go through it all again, for this. Oh, love, hear me, listen to me, you must. Not a towered castle, not rank and title. Only this heart, this life, this body, if you can accept it. If you can accept me."

Sunbursts detonated within him, each explosion more radiant than the last. For through the bond, Lady Catherine felt his plea, and sent him a wordless answer from her own overflowing happiness. Even now, she was thinking of him, and loving him, too.

Unless it was all his imagination. He had done so much dreaming; enough to unbalance the mind of any man. Goaded by restlessness, he rose and paced the chamber, knocking his fists together.

"Am I dreaming again, or deceiving myself?" He gazed around, seeking confirmation. There by the fire were the low stools where they both had been sitting. Two mugs of ale still dripped on the floor. He wasn't dreaming, then. It was all true. Tomorrow evening it would still be true, and they might once again steal out through the chapel and walk through glens that rustled with ferns and bracken to Land's End. There, on the cliff's edge, in the friendly darkness, he would tell her everything.

"If I speak with her she'll never deceive me; if I depend on her she'll never betray me. If I remember her she'll never forget me. If I tell her I love her with all my soul and strength she'll never mock me. I'll reach my arms around her, more tenderly than Alistair ever did, and she'll rest her head on my heart, where no other woman's head has ever rested. And then ... I'll return the kiss she gave to me, and she'll know I'm hers forever." The picture was so vivid he could hardly bear to wait through all the hours that had to pass before he could see her face again.

He knew he wouldn't sleep: the very idea was ludicrous. He'd have to find some difficult task to occupy the time in between, such as shoring up the secret tunnel. There were timbers stacked in another cell and a pile of tools under his bed. With a pick and sledgehammer in his hands he strode from the chamber; then paused, dropped back his head, and breathed the deepest prayer of his life. "If Alistair is the man she wants after all, then give me the strength to stand aside. But if he is not, if she could trust her happiness to me ... if I could be a man with her, her man... God I have asked you for nothing else, in all my life. Let it be true. God of mercy, let it be true."

***

There was a strange peace in Lady Catherine's heart as she slowly climbed the stairs to her own chamber. Whatever might happen, at least she no longer had to pretend. She had been blind, but now she knew the truth, and it set her free. The man she had loved since childhood was not Lord Alistair, but Vincent. There was no one else, there could be no one else. Years before they met face to face, their souls had reached out in wordless longing and fused.

Lord Alistair's thwarted anger did not matter, any more than did the trepidation of Jacobus or the greed of Sir Wallis. If Vincent could forgive her for being misled, if he could open his arms and his heart, she would ask nothing else of earth or heaven.

She pushed back the door to her own chamber, expecting to see Phemie. She was startled to find Sitric changing her bedlinens.

"You need not assume that duty, Phemie tends this chamber."

Sitric did not answer. She was much taller than Lady Catherine and her green and blue Norse kirtle set off her magnificent form. Her ice-green eyes swept Lady Catherine up and down as she closed the carved doors and stalked from the chamber with an armload of linens.

With a sigh, Lady Catherine sat down at her writing table. It would soon be too dark to write, unless she lit a candle. In truth all she wanted to do was look out into the deepening twilight and dream.

Stars began to glimmer; still she held in her hand the shell on its thin cord. In her mind she saw a half-human face, strangely beautiful, with eyes that could not lie, and lips that had trembled when they brushed her own. She saw extraordinary hands that held her so gently, accepting her slightest touch with an ache of gratitude, though those same fearful hands had fought death to a standstill for her sake. She saw a splendid body longing for tenderness, and a heart so completely unselfish that he would never ask.

Recalling that kiss on the stairs brought a wild-rose blush to her cheeks. Warmed by the remembered sensation, she opened herself inwardly to the bond to let Vincent sense her own shy desires: to hold him close and kiss him until they were both breathless. Her guileless communication was rewarded by a sunburst of exaltation that almost knocked her off the stool.

She laughed aloud in delight. "It may prove very interesting, Vincent, if you keep on loving me like that." Snuggling her head down on her arms, she floated into passionate dreams of stroking and tasting and touching ... she knew very little about loving, but she could imagine his mouth on hers ... a kiss of fevered sweetness. It felt a little wanton, knowing he could sense her imaginings; it was lovely to know he rejoiced in them too. She closed her eyes, dreaming of whiteness against burnished gold.

The screech of bagpipes awakened her with a start; she had dozed through the night at her writing table. The tune sounded like a call to arms, but there was nothing to be seen out her window but the first glints of morning.

"I must be mistaken. It must be a ballad that sounds to me like a battle cry."

Lady Catherine stretched and yawned. Her dreams had been so ardent that she was sorry to wake up. Soon Phemie would bustle in to wake her with a warm honey drink; it would be too bothersome to explain why she was still dressed.

She unwound silver ribbons from her braids and combed her hair until it rippled to her waist like brook water. The cloud-pink gown she spread across a stool; her leather slippers she pushed under the table. Dressed only in her pleated smock, she sank with a sigh on to the bed.           

She buried her face in the sheet and noticed an odd scent unlike the heather with which her pillow was ordinarily filled, or the lavender folded into the linens. She plumped the pillow and a fine black powder came off on her hand. It was too much trouble to change the linens again, though, and she was so weary, and her head was pounding... she was developing such a terrible headache...

... there was a buzzing in her head as if countless bees were making a hive. With her eyes closed she saw red circles revolving in ceaseless rhythm, in such numbers that her mind reeled. The circles coiled into a funnel, sucking her down into lurid darkness varied by painful flashes of light. She felt herself falling through time, through space, through an eternity of emptiness...

Of time and place she became completely unaware... the world she knew dwindled to an object very far away... the funnel opened and swallowed her whole and there was no more fear, no more pain, only the obliterating dark.

"Gracious powers -- no! My lass! My own dear lassie!" Phemie's scream did not reach her. She was far beyond hearing anyone's call.