Lady Catherine drifted up from blissful dreams and wondered, as she slowly roused to wakefulness, where she might be. Instead of heather-stuffed pillows, lavender scented linen sheets, and a silken coverlet, there were fragrant pine needles. She opened her eyes and looked up through rustling boughs. A freshening wind carried the scent of the sea.

She sat up, yawning, brushing off the sleeves of her smock. The glorious dawn made her feel she was a child again, younger than her one-and-twenty years. Constrictions and endless struggles against Sir Wallis had stolen her youth. This journey was giving it back to her, all the fancies and imaginings that sorrow had crushed.

She rose and saw that Phemie was already wiping down the horses with a handful of grass. Glancing around covertly, Phemie spoke in a harsh whisper.

"Haste ye, there's no time to lose. They're after us -- we must run for our bare lives. That rascally Sir Wallis will no rest till we're both in his hands."

Lady Catherine pulled on her rough blue kirtle, then stripped ribbons from the thick plaits that hung to her waist and fought the wind to comb her hair. As she swiftly retied the braids, she turned over in her mind the wild race of the night before, and the strange being who called himself Vincent. Had she dreamed that half-human face, that soft, hoarse voice? Or had he been a supernatural creature who vanished with the dawn?

"Is Vincent still with us?"

Phemie gestured for silence. "Be canny, lass, be canny, or the creature will hear us ride away an' come swarmin' over our heads like a black bat."

"Not one more word," said Lady Catherine, with anger that surprised both of them. "We don't abandon a man who is the reason we survived."

Sullenly Phemie continued to rub down the horses, muttering, "Man? Take care, lassie, he's no a 'man' to meddle with."

Lady Catherine wondered at her own outburst. Vincent could surely protect himself, he needed no one to take his part; and yet his grief at Phemie's harsh words the night before told her he had a soul that felt his differences keenly.

To calm her temper, Lady Catherine walked to the edge of the cliff and knelt there, looking down at great jagged crags that rose in broken vastness from the sea and lost themselves in twists of cloud. To her astonishment, she saw Vincent climbing back up the cliff one-handed. His other hand cradled something in a fold of his plaid.

Instantly her vexation was forgotten. "What did you find?" she called down to him, smiling.

"Birds' eggs," he answered. He halted in his climb to gaze up at her bright, fair face. In the blue gown she looked like a piece of the sky.

She retreated to gather sticks; when he reached the top, a fire was already blazing. Lady Catherine sat on the ground, feeding sticks to the flames.

He wore the purple plaid, white tunic, and deerskin breeches that had been concealed by the leper's robe: the disguise was folded once more in his belt pouch. Standing on the cliffs edge, his lightning-colored mane blew like a storm.

Under her breath Lady Catherine decided, "Whatever you are, you are quite splendid." An unexpected flash of memory illuminated her mind. In her bower hung a tapestry that depicted a lion rearing with upright paws to protect a maiden. When as a child she was lonely or frightened, she had pushed her bed close to that tapestry to draw strength and comfort from that fierce, noble guardian. The lion's expression and Vincent's were the same.

Recalling the battle at the ring of stones deepened that resemblance, and she smiled to herself, glad that she had fought alongside him. Always she had scorned the tapestry-maiden for shrinking back and forcing the lion-guardian to fight alone.

"Draw in an' fall to," called Phemie. Before their flight she had purchased provisions in the Druid village: dried herring, dried mutton, and oatmeal. The three of them found places around the fire, though Phemie sat apart, with rebellion burning in her eyes. Her call had not been intended to summon Vincent to the circle.

Lady Catherine sipped water from a wooden cup. She was annoyed at Phemie's bad manners. Though the Scotswoman had been her sole companion for years, she was still a servant. To Vincent Lady Catherine remarked, "Your sleeve is crusted with blood. If your wound pains you, Phemie has knowledge of healing herbs."

Before Phemie could protest, he shook his head, no. Lady Catherine's hands had touched him. That memory would live and die with him, unstained by the touch of any other woman.

When they had eaten, Vincent followed Phemie to the edge of the trees; the saddle was heavy that she was trying to lift. He took the saddle from her, saying, "Women have burdens enough -- let me lift this small one from you." The bay horse, started by his unfamiliar scent, plunged furiously and lashed out with its hind legs.

Phemie jumped away from the flying hooves and then faced Vincent squarely, arms crossed in defiance. She had been looking for a chance to speak her mind. "I am no one to say one thing afore a body's face an' another ahind their back. I'll be right plain wi' ye. I willna overlook any harm done to my lady. I'm tellin' ye, I'll make ye pay dear for it."

His blue eyes with their lifelong shadow of pain saw through Phemie's rough manners to the loyal heart within. "You love her."
"A fine spirited lady she is, I'm tellin' ye -- the dearest, bravest one that ever was," Phemie exploded. "To look at her ye would think that she's proud-like, wi' a setapart kind o' an air, but whenever she speaks an' looks at ye, ye've the feelin' that there's only her an' ye in the whole world. She's one o' the few folks ye meet in a lifetime that ye canna know all at once."

He lifted the second saddle, and considered his words before speaking. "You are a wise woman, one who sees beyond appearances. For her ladyship's sake, consider that it is an untamed land through which we travel; it may be that my protection will be needed. Though you are wary of trusting me, I make you one promise; no harm will come to you -- to either of you -- while I have life to prevent it." As he placed the saddle on the back of the chestnut, it jumped back-reared, and plunged sideways as if about to bolt. Vincent wiped his hands on his leather breeches and walked into the trees.
|Disconcerted, Phemie tightened both cinches and tramped back to the smouldering fire. To herself she murmured, "Well, if ever I heard the like o' that. He's clean wrong in the face, but losh me, he speaks like a book, an' has the airs o' a grand gentleman."

The horses were saddled, the foodstuffs packed and ready, but Vincent could not be found. Lady Catherine put one foot in a stirrup, then spoke to Phemie. "It is not fitting that he should be forced to walk while we ride. You and I will ride together." She shot Phemie a look that meant -- obey, then dismounted again and walked into the cool of the trees, driven by curiosity.
The rushing sound of a waterfall urged her on. Under a crooked pine she paused, for she had found Vincent. With his back to her he knelt among reeds on the shore of a pool, washing his tunic. Instinctively she knew why -- because he believed the smear of blood distressed her.

The sight stirred her with surprise. His curling mane caught the sunlight as it poured over his bare shoulders. Light brown fur sparked with threads of copper and bronze rippled down his powerful back. Hastily she retreated to the campsite. When he appeared a few moments later, with the dripping tunic clinging to his body, she said nothing. He was entitled to his privacy, and she had much to turn over in her mind.

While Phemie kicked dirt over the coals, Lady Catherine lifted herself lightly into the saddle. She sat poised with a regal grace, despite the fact she was accustomed to riding sidesaddle.

She asked him with her eyes before she spoke. "Will you ride beside me?"

He came a step forward, looking at her with infinite surprise. Taken aback, he shot a sideways glance at the bay and then another at the landscape ahead, webbed by streams and blocked by a black hedge of thorns.

His hesitation irritated Lady Catherine, who was an accomplished horsewoman. "When you come to an obstacle in a race, there are three courses open to you. Either you refuse the jump and quit the race, which is usually the safest thing to do. Or you go at it with a weak will and come to grief. Or you take the obstacle at full gallop and clear it before you know where you are."

He heard the challenge in her tone, and his face became stern. He took hold of the rein and put his boot in the high stirrup, but awkwardly, kicking the horse in the side. It plunged.

Vincent hung on, and climbed somehow into the saddle, coming down in it heavily. The horse panicked and kicked out violently. He was thrown forward against the pommel with his hands on the animal's neck. The bay reared up; he flew backwards and landed in the dust. Snorting with suppressed laughter, Phemie caught the horse while Vincent got up. He looked dogged and passionate.

"Give me the reins," said Vincent. There was a sound in his voice that was terrible. He took the reins and sprang into the saddle and pressed his legs against the horse's flanks. It exploded beneath him. Three spine-wrenching, neck-snapping jumps, and Vincent was jolted blind, breathless, and dazed though he stayed in the saddle.

The horse humped double, bucking and twisting madly. It reared up: then with a shrill whining neigh that was like a cry of temper, bolted away across the rocky ground.

"He'll be killed," cried Lady Catherine. "Why didn't he tell me he couldn't ride?"

Vincent set his teeth hard. He lost the stirrups and they flew wildly, terrifying the horse, who broke into a headlong gallop. Not knowing, or looking, or heeding what happened behind, he leaned forward on the horse's neck. The hooves as they dashed the ground up sounded like thunder.

His face was very calm, but his blood was in tumult, the delirium of passionate excitation was in him.

Terrified that he'd be killed, Lady Catherine spurred her own mount and pursued him out along a barren stretch of rocky ground. Her eyes fixed on a far-off moving speck that was the horse carrying Vincent madly toward the north. A sudden sense of the chase intoxicated her; she nudged her horse with her heels; it strained forward at a furious gallop. Heather and stones flew about her horse's feet. Vincent was still ahead, on rough ground strewn with boulders. She gained and gained until she was close enough to see his bent figure.

The land seemed to fly beneath him; trees, streams and boulders all went by him in a dream. Vincent felt drunk with the strong, keen wind that blew so fiercely in his teeth. Every breath of cold air lashed him like a whip. Wild blood, that lay latent in Vincent under the gentleness of tutelage and custom, awoke and had the mastery.

The bay's stretching stride launched farther yet; then the two horses were racing side by side, Lady Catherine leaning low in the saddle. Vincent heard nothing, knew nothing, saw nothing but the dull thud on the earth of the flying gallop, and the wall of blackthorn that reared ahead. The bramble hedge loomed higher and closer now, but a minute of life like this was worth a year, and he knew that he would clear the obstacle or die trying.

His hands clenched on the reins and his face whitened with determination. His feet crushed closer and harder against the bay's flanks.

"Now-- now!"

The bay rose at the leap, all the life and power there were in him gathered for the effort. Vincent was lifted in the air higher, and higher, and higher in the wild wind, and the bay was over.

Lady Catherine felt her animal quiver under her spur and she heard the catch in his panting breath as he strained to give his fleetest and best. She urged him forward; then he was sailing through the air, and he landed, staggering, on the far side of the hedge.

Though it still ran on, the bay was nearly spent; she could see that. Reeling inwardly with victory, Vincent caught at the flying reins, leaned back in the saddle, and pulled with all his force. The horse stopped dead.

'His strength must be enormous,' she thought with startled admiration.

He was beside her, white with dust, streaming with sweat, panting as if the laboring breath would tear his chest apart. In his eyes was a savage and exultant gleam.

She asked, "You're not hurt?"

"No," he said, with a great gasping breath.

"The horse won't give much more trouble just now. Shall we ride back?"

Vincent shook his head.

She hesitated. "Perhaps you aren't accustomed to horses…"

"I don't care. I'll go on. I won't go back." He put up one hand, brushed sweat from his streaming forehead, and said again fiercely, "I won't go back."

He had the expression of a man in a fight to the death. She liked the iron sound in his voice.

Almost roughly he said, "You asked me to ride with you. I'll ride with you."

She knew by the look in his eyes that if to ride with her that day meant death to him he would have done it nevertheless. Something within her acknowledged the tribute with awe. "Why have you never ridden before?"

After a pause he answered, "I -- I had not the opportunity."

She did not pursue the subject, but stroked her horse's foam-flecked shoulder and turned her eyes toward the horizon. "I must return for Phemie."

He nodded but did not answer, quieting the snorting horse with a soothing hand. He knew that for him, freedom and happiness were fleeting, and he meant to experience all he could before the dungeon doors closed on him again, forever.

Later as they rode side by side, Lady Catherine asked him, "Is it a great distance to the Heathery Isle?"

"The storm carried my boat south -- the return journey will be longer." In his deepest heart was a wish, unknown to his waking self, that they might ride on forever, and never reach Raven's Rock.

 

They awakened the next morning to gray skies and a rumble of thunder. Wreaths of mist curled around the trees and billowed up the steep face of the cliff from the fog haunted sea. For Vincent, everything seen by daylight was a new sensation: even the changing hues of a cloudy sky.

"The seabirds ride the currents of the air so easily," he said. "What glorious freedom."

The sky darkened as they mounted and left the campsite. Vincent was swiftly becoming a skillful rider; Lady Catherine murmured a few hints. "Keep your reins loose, don't pull his mouth. You must not mind my telling you -- I've ridden since I was an infant."

"I thank you, my lady," he answered.

"I'm sure you could teach me a thousand things; it is kind of you to let me teach you this."

He looked at her oddly. "I know nothing. But I am ready for anything that life can teach me." There was a savage sound in his voice. "I want to learn it all.

Lady Catherine was intensely curious about Vincent: who was he? why had he never ridden before? Why had he been chosen as Lord Alistair's messenger? Despite her puzzlement she refrained from interrogating him, in the belief that personal questions might pain him.

Swords of lightning stabbed the clouds; thunder rumbled so close that the horses became skittish, snorting and kicking. Phemie, who rode behind Lady Catherine's saddle, could do nothing but mutter angrily and hang on.

Lady Catherine's merry laugh rang out. "When I was a child I loved thunderstorms, rain and lightning. I longed to climb to the top of a swaying pine and ride the windstorm."

Startled he exclaimed, "You, too?"

"Did you ever do it?" she teased him.

"I cannot lie -- I never did," he confessed.

"Ah well. Your chances are not yet over. Hope on!"

Just for the briefest instant he closed his eyes. Her playful words shook him deeply. He had learned as a child from Jacobus what his fate must be. For years he carefully built up inner walls, assuring himself that he was content within the limits of his happiness: his studies, the pages of beautiful lettering which he flecked with gold, and his solitary nighttime rambles. He had used up so much strength trying not to dream. Now he felt those walls crumbling, leaving him defenseless against what was to come, whether it might be joy or pain.

"Hope on," he repeated softy, to himself alone. What he was hoping for, his mind would not admit, though his body knew, with a rush of glory like a golden fountain.

They paused at midday beside a lake that stretched like a sheet of quivering quicksilver to the base of distant hills. Though a cold wind was blowing, the heavy clouds still held their rain.

With a branch and a length of twine, Phemie quickly caught three glistening trout, explaining, "The fish dinna get many diversions in their lives; they like a windstorm for the sake o' change." With oatmeal cakes baked in the ashes of a small campfire, they made a hearty meal.

Afterwards as Lady Catherine knelt beside Vincent at the lake's edge, washing her hands, she said, "I am beginning to hope that we are safe from Sir Wallis now. I cannot believe he will follow me further."

He glanced at her profile, so pure and clear, and then looked away, unable to share her hope. "Sir Wallis has lived near you, in the same manor house; he has known you for years, seen and spoken to you every day. It is not possible that he could fall to care for you. He will not relinquish his pursuit."

She laughed ruefully. "You overestimate my charms, Vincent. He wants Ambermere, and to gain it he would wed me or have me killed with the same feeling in him of fastidious distaste. To my father, he always showed a smiling, sympathetic facade. It seems so hard for me to understand how someone could betray his own brother. That must be the lowest of treacheries."

Her remark struck too close to home. Since leaving the Druid village, more than one fancy about supplanting his brother had crossed Vincent's mind.

She continued, "But I do believe we have outdistanced his ambitions."

He got to his feet, wiping his hands on his plaid, and his face became grim. "In any case, you need not fear Sir Wallis. He will not harm you -- I will see to that."

She sprang up as well, shaking her hands to dry them. "I wouldn't fear him if he appeared before me with revolving eyeballs and two red horns on his head. Being afraid is against my principles." In her heart she knew she exaggerated just a little; but her intention was sincere.

He was awestruck by her bright courage. As they walked back to the campfire, Vincent thought, 'She has to be mistaken, though. Sir Wallis must surely care for her with all his soul and strength. He wouldn't be able to stop himself'.

The two horses were saddled and waiting: Lady Catherine leaped on to the back of the chestnut while Phemie clambered up behind, grumbling, "If I'm thrown off, it will be yer biame."

Over her shoulder Lady Catherine remarked, "You don't like riding behind the saddle."

"Nay, I fair hate it," muttered Phemie. She cast an envious glance at Vincent, who was lengthening his stirrup straps. He had a horse of his own to ride. Life wasn't fair at all.

Firmly Lady Catherine answered her. "There's no help for it. As you always say to me, what cannot be cured must be endured."

Phemie made a face and tried to arrange herself more comfortably as the horses broke into a trot. "A'right, I'll say no more. Since yer ladyship will ha' it so, I'll fall off an' he'll tramp on my face, an' then ye'll maybe be sorry."

 

Vincent was enjoying the journey so intensely that he did not assume his disguise when they neared a devastated monastery, burned no doubt by Norse raiders. He only threw a fold of plaid over his head and across the lower part of his face.
On such a gray day, the rubble looked even more desolate. Only an arch with its keystone still stood among mountainous heaps of toppled building stones. Jacobus's reminiscences enabled Vincent to recognize among the ruins a cloister, a chapter house, a refectory, and a chapel. A few books lay in the mud, shorn of their jeweled bindings.

Among the survivors mournfully picking through the ruins was a jug-eared lay brother who led a shaggy pony. When he discovered something worth keeping, a spoon or a shoe, he pushed it into one of the two canvas bags strapped across the pony's back.

Lady Catherine brought out her leather pouch of silver and asked, "Good brother my companion is in need of a mount. Has that pony been ridden?"

Though Phemie was thrilled at the thought of owning her own horse, she felt obligated to object to the outlay of silver. "Nay, lady-lass, ye do enough for me a'readies."

Lady Catherine balanced the pouch on her hand. "While we have it, we have it together. When it's gone, we will go without it together."

The lay brother sighed heavily, contemplating the leather pouch. "Only bareback. The accursed Norsemen stole all the others, even the abbot's fine palfrey."

Before Lady Catherine could reply, Phemie had leaped down from her perch and was stroking the pony's shaggy mane. The matter seemed to be settled, and the lay brother knotted his hoard of coins in his sleeve.

He eyed Vincent warily, then remarked, "Your mistress is generous to her servants. May the Almighty bring all of you safely through this wicked world to the gates of Heaven."

Vincent answered quietly, his voice muffled by the plaid. "To leave this beautiful world is not my wish. God has already been generous to me. I didn't have to die to find heaven."

Lady Catherine overheard his comment, and wondered what he might mean. The pony was brown, with a wicked rolling eye. Phemie had never owned a horse of her own, and she almost burst with pride. She exclaimed, "My bonnie pony, I shall name ye Donnchadh, Brown Warrior." She threw off the two canvas bags, spread her cloak across his back and sprang up, sitting as proudly as any lady. The lay brother shouldered the bags and watched the three as they rode on past toppled walls that had been the kitchen, where a second brother was chasing a chicken around a hill of rubble.

Vincent leaned from his saddle to speak to Lady Catherine. "You have given her great happiness with your gift."

Lady Catherine answered, leaning toward him from hers. "She has been a dear friend to me. Her sharp words are not meant to wound you."

"She worries because she cares for you, and would keep you safe. I have an old friend who cares in the same way." It was for his sake that Jacobus had never sought another monastery, though Vincent had a secret suspicion that his old friend enjoyed not being told what to do, how to pray, and when to eat and sleep.

That afternoon, they halted at a tree-fringed river to rest and water the horses. A gale wind whipped the branches: Vincent walked along the bank of the river to stretch his legs and breathed in the distant scent of rain with deep delight.

Mischief sparked Lady Catherine's eyes; rising from filling the water flasks, she put one hand on the rough bark of a beech and gazed up through the tossing branches.

"It is not a tall pine, but will it do?"

It was a challenge and his spirit leaped to meet it. He sprang to one of the lower branches and reached down his hand to her.
Laughing, she refused his aid, climbing on her own through a thicket of leaves from branch to branch, swiftly toward the gray clouds on high. He used his powerful arms and legs to tear a skyward path through the green. Higher and higher they clambered until they both balanced twenty feet above the ground on swaying limbs almost too slender to bear their weight.

The wind was strong, slashing at their clothing, slapping them with leafy switches. Vincent clutched two handfuls of twigs as though they were the reins of a bucking horse. Under his weight the bough veered and cracked: a thrust of his boot found another branch, even higher, that bent like a bow when he shifted. The wind was so wild it took his breath. Back and forth the whole tree plunged, whipped by tearing winds: the ride was ecstatic.

She balanced with one foot tucked into the fork of a bough and the other pushed into a tangle of leaves. The whipping wind billowed her coarse cloak like a sail, tore it free, and rolled it along the ground. She didn't care. Dropping her head back she screamed with triumph, letting the gale tear her cry away.

Every sway of the tree beneath him, he felt through his whole body. His exaltation was so intense that he had to choke down a roar of pure joy. Instead, he teased her, laughing at her windblown hair and her fierce grip on the branch. "It isn't raining yet. Shall we wait up here until then, and ride out the storm?"

"Life is teaching you foolishness, Vincent," she called over the wind. "Are you certain you want to learn the lesson?"

"Anything. Everything. I want to know it all," he called back.

When they finally descended, Vincent jumped to the ground first, reached up, and clasped her around the waist. Her hands rested on his shoulders as she lightly leaped down. For one wild instant they stood as close as lovers. The feather touch of her hands on his shoulders, the brush of her body, her upturned face brimming with mischief, filled him with fire.

In the tone of a conspirator, she whispered, "Phemie is going to wring me out and hang me up to dry."

"I'll defend you," he gasped. His arms tightened -- with an easy twist, she eluded him and sped away, mocking him.

The explosion from Phemie did not occur -- she was still crooning to her pony -- and hadn't noticed a thing.