Lady Catherine laid down her quill pen and looked out her chamber window to a streak of silver that gleamed beyond treeless hills. Someday, when they drove the Norse from the Heathery Isle she would be able to leap on a horse and explore every rocky crag and green glen. Until that glorious day she would have to occupy herself within the castle, learning the ancient laws and customs of the island and balancing Lord Alistair's account books, which had been sadly neglected.

She had enlisted the help of a tutor, Raonull, to begin to teach her Gaelic, though the old fellow proclaimed, "Gaelic is the language o' nature, an' needs no learnin'. Just open your mouth in the Gaelic shape, an' see if Gaelic doesna fall out."

Phemie had gathered together a dozen weaver-girls and needlewomen; already gowns of white wool were being steeped in vats of herbal dye. The women brewed a lovely soft green color from nettles; red from dandelion roots; and purple from lichen.
On this day Lady Catherine looked like a flower herself in a sweeping gown of pale yellow. The long floating sleeves were knotted up and her white veil was fastened with a wreath of fragrant rosemary.

Phemie was sitting on a rush mat, sewing like mad. She spit out a pin and asked, "Well, how are ye' gettin' on wi' the lord?" The chamber had been a storage room when they arrived; in only a fortnight, Phemie's energy had transformed it. White sheepskins scattered the floor; oaken doors carved with bars and chevrons protected the closet bed. A writing table was pushed near the window; a scarlet cushion brightened its stool. A bowl of wildflowers stood atop a brass-bound chest. Phemie, too, had a new gown of soft russet wool, and her wild tangle of red hair was tamed into four thick braids.

Closing the account book, Lady Catherine answered, "He loves me madly. I never knew it could be so easy."

Though Phemie had little use for men, she relented enough from her principles to admit, "His lordship seems a fine gallant sort, though maybe a wee bit overbearin'."

On her fingers Lady Catherine numbered his attributes. "Chivalrous, handsome, and renowned in battle. An easy, courteous manner. Wears the splendid garments of a Norman nobleman." She counted six. "And he was struck with me at first sight."

"Ye beware, now. Give a man a fish an' he'll take a whale." Phemie had observed with dismay and scorn the follies committed by other servingwomen in the name of love. Tears, hysterics, unwanted babies she had seen it all. "It's no use likin' men over well, for they are sure to break yer heart. They never really care for ye, my dove; ye may wear yerself out for them for years, an' then they're away, an' it's out o' sight out o' mind"

Lady Catherine wasn't listening. "Everything I learned watching the court ladies who passed through Ambermere I'm using it all. I saw how they used to drive Sir Wallis to distraction advancing and retreating, taunting and mocking. It almost feels dishonest, but if I had presented myself to Lord Alistair as a bedraggled orphan begging for sanctuary, he would have considered me a curse and a burden."

Phemie leaned back against the doors of Lady Catherine's bed. Her long legs stuck straight out. "Well, lassie ye're made, mind an' body, on an original plan a'together. Ye say an' do all mortal things on a system o' yer own."

Lady Catherine smiled over her shoulder saying, "You always did tell me that nothing worth having could be gained without difficulty."

"Aye, it's a rocky path, the road o' a lover," said Phemie, sucking a drop of blood from her finger. "The folk that travel slowly an' find the way rough an' lonesome are the ones that ha' no love to help them on."

Lady Catherine's smile faded and she turned again to the window. "Are you going -- below-- this morning?"

"Aye."

"Take great care coming and going, you must not be seen."

Phemie bristled. "I can hold a secret like the headstone o' a grave." Sadness clouded Lady Catherine's sea-green eyes. She had imagined she would find perfect happiness at Raven's Rock, and yet she could not entirely lose herself in the pleasures of the castle, the feasting and the pipers. While watching the sword dancing or talking nonsense with Lord Alistair, the thought would come to her of Vincent locked away in the dark.

"The elder brother possesses every glory of rank and state, while the younger must content himself with a few bottles of colored ink and an occasional chess game with an old monk."

Phemie squinted to re-thread her needle. "It's a pitiful business. A man can be content if he knows somebody wants him, somebody listens for his foot-fall, somebody watches for his comin'. But nobody will ever watch an' wait for him, an' it's burnin' a hole in his heart."

"Mine, too," said Lady Catherine softy.

Phemie wanted the best of all things for her mistress, and Lord Alistair was obviously the best. "Vincent's over good for this world, but as my mother remarked, he'll be more at home in the next, so that's some consolation."

Lady Catherine found that consolation worse than none. With an effort she shook off her painful thoughts and adjusted her veil in a handmirror. "I must be off -- have a lesson with Raonull and then his Lordship is joining me on the battlements." She swept from the chamber with a swirl of her yellow train.

Left alone, Phemie's thoughts remained with Vincent. She had insight enough to see the dungeon walls were closing in on him, crushing his spirit until he was becoming weary of life. She knotted her thread and again recalled her mother's faith. "Ah well. This is a changeful world, but there is a better beyond it, an' sorrow canna win to that city." 

"Queen takes pawn at F-2, checkmate!" declared Jacobus, and rubbed his hands together in satisfaction. He looked around to tell Vincent, but he was behind the pantry curtain.

"More by luck than good management," muttered Phemie. She hated to lose and stared at the chessboard intently as if she could change the outcome by mental power.

Jacobus could afford to be genial since he had won "I hear from the servants that you are putting this castle in order."

"Thank ye sir it's vera kind o' ye to say that. I like to work, I like it, I canna be idle. I do the best I can wi' the lower servants, but I canna get them exactly to do what I want: some's ignorant, an' some's narrow, an' some's fair indifferent."

Jacobus repressed a smile. Phemie would have made an efficient Abbot. Or Pope. "Even his Lordship has noticed the new coats of whitewash on the walls, and the new dishes appearing at mealtimes. And he does seem to be taken with her ladyship."

Phemie shook her fists over her head in triumph. "I never set myself up for bein' farther seein' than the most o' folks, but the first day I saw Lord Alistair I said that it wouldna surprise me if he should fall in love wi' my lady."

Vincent emerged from the pantry, carrying a gray curlew with a splint on its wing. The bird's beak gaped open: its rapid heartbeat quivered against his palms.

Phemie continued, "It beats all. The first day he ever saw her. But it's always the way, once an' ever, or never. She hated Sir Wallis, but she wasna born for hating. She was meant to love -- one man, an' that's Lord Alistair."

Jacobus turned his attention to Vincent, who was sitting on the edge of the bed, stroking the bird's gray feathers. The night before while walking near Creag an Sgairbh, Cormorant's Rock, he had followed the wild cries of its desperate mate and discovered the injured bird.

Jacobus asked, "Will it live, do you think?"

Vincent shook his head briefly. "I've offered grain and water; it refuses to eat or drink."

"Poor bird," said Phemie, rising to go. "Well do I know where ye came from, an' the merry times ye had. Ye hatched in the white dunes an' clucked in the reeds of the shore. Oh hard's our fate with a wing broken an' the heart still strong." That same fate might be the reason for Vincent's exhausted appearance, she guessed -- he longed to be free once more, and galloping across open country. Besides, her dear lady had taken the trouble to befriend him, and that companionship was lost to him, too. The ill-starred, ill-designed creature could not venture up; and for safety's sake Lord Alistair would probably forbid Lady Catherine from carrying out any errands of mercy below.

"I must away," she announced. "I'm showin' Malai in the kitchen how to stir porridge rightly, sunwise, east to west. There's one virtue about porridge, a wee bit extra boilin' does no harm, which is more than can be said for any other dish except sheep's head broth. Good day to ye, sirs." Phemie vanished through the door and her footsteps receded toward the circular staircase.

Jacobus inspected the chessboard to make certain he had actually won. To Vincent he commented, "She is not entirely without intelligence. For a woman, I mean."

When Vincent didn't answer, Jacobus turned around in the chair to look at him. "You seem very silent. Soup is a great restorative, if you want to give the bird a spoonful."

Vincent shook his head touching the splint with a gentle finger. The words be spoke under his breath seemed to have little connection with the curlew. "It doesn't get easier. If I thought it would end some day I could bear it more lightly, but it always goes on just the same."

 

Gillies and henchmen of Lord Alistair guarded the ramparts; wild, bearded savages whose shaggy plaids were looped around their bare legs like skirts, with the fringe hanging free. They all saluted Lady Catherine and grinned. Already her beauty and the saga of her escape to the Heathery Isle, accompanied only by her maidservant, had gained her a reputation as a spirited lassie who would prove to be a brave mother to the next generation.

Lord Alistair was waiting for her on the highest battlements atop the eastern tower. It did not escape her that he looked magnificent in a tunic of midnight blue embellished with silver-wire embroidery. He was a man worth winning, and if a feint of courtly manners could arouse his interest, she was determined to carry it through.

He swept off his feathered cap in a splendid bow. "Good day to you, Lady Catherine. I am flattered that you left your chaperone behind, and yet -- to be alone with me here -- you must guard your reputation."

"Oh, reputation, it becomes so cloying in time," said Lady Catherine, with a mocking toss of her head. "Virtue becomes so tiresome after a short while that one longs to be bad, just for a change."

She moved away -- a gracefully malicious, tormenting, laughing beauty whose retreat was a challenge, whose every gesture intoxicated him with the witchery of provocation. He followed her as if fastened by a leash. He said, "That's the beauty of being good, and I recommend it to all my friends on that very account -- you can always leave off at a moment's notice, without any trouble."

"How delightful," she countered, keeping a distance between them. "In order to find excitement in life one must be bad. Housekeeping and saying one's prayers and retiring at sunset are the occupations of a tame little mouse. That, I have never been."

"Perhaps you are offering me a challenge." He brushed the backs of his fingers across her check: affronted, she averted her head.

He added, "To tame you would be a sport indeed."

She was not certain she liked the heat in his manner. To change the subject she remarked, "It's a blissful morning. Why don't the birds sing?"

"They're molting, dear lady. All their little feathers have become unfastened and their beaks are full of pins while they make themselves tidy again."

Impudently she challenged him, "Then why don't you sing? You are not untidy."

"Nothing could suit my mood better," he said, and struck a poetic attitude, with one hand across his brow.

"O moon, when I gaze on thy beautiful face,
Careening along through the boundaries of space,
The thought has often come into my mind
If I ever shall see thy glorious behind."

"Lord Alistair!" she exclaimed, trying not to laugh. "That is the most degraded thing I've ever heard."

His smile was irresistible. "I'm accustoming you by degrees, to my talents. With infinite precautions you will in time, be able to endure much worse than this. Shall I sing the next verse?" .He took a deep breath to begin.

"Don't you dare attempt it!" she insisted, putting up a hand to ward him off "Please, remain quite silent."

"She mutters the unthinkable," he said, shaking his head. "My music has unseated her reason. By and by she will begin to moan and revive."

He slid an arm around her waist: a little alarmed, she said, "It's perfectly outrageous."

Her little quiver of apprehension was delicious, and all part of the game, he was sure. "It is, but I don't mind. Ever brought down a pheasant on the wing? Your arrows found me, dear lady, and the sky's full of feathers, and I'm on the sod, kicking. All you have to do is send your hunting dogs forward and retrieve me."

"Take care, my Lord," she said, sliding away from his caress. "I'm approaching spinsterhood at a terrifying rate. How do you know that I may not clutch wildly at you?"

"I'm here. Clutch me," he urged her, and opened his arms wide. A devilish gleam lit his blue eyes.

He was moving very quickly, she thought nervously. Very quickly indeed. It might be wise to lay aside foolishness for a time and discuss matters honestly: her dreams, his desires, and Vincent's place at his right hand.

She turned away and leaned over the stone railing, looking toward a distant silver line that was the sea. "My lord, let us set aside pretense for once and speak in earnest. There are serious matters we must discuss."

Her quicksilver changes of mood amused Lord Alistair: such ploys were all part of the courtly game of advance and retreat. He grazed his hands down her arms. "Men of my clan discuss nothing. We possess ourselves of what we desire, as did my late father, Lord Uilleam. He spied the fair Una and dragged her aboard his ship and brought her back to Raven's Rock and wed her despite her pleas and tears. I suppose she was content enough, when she became reconciled to her fate."

She countered, "My lord father did the same ... in a way. He spied the fair Helene, swept her to Ambermere, and locked her in the tower. But there our two stories diverge. Lord Charles left her strictly alone, but each day in the courtyard below her window he fought another knight in single combat and emerged victorious; and each night he sent her a rich gift. After six weeks he brought Helene down from the tower, opened the portcullis, brought her a steed, and offered her an escort back to her family if she chose to go. She chose to remain."

Lady Catherine did not say aloud her final thought: 'And she loved her husband, which I daresay Lady Una did not.'

He laughed lightly. "We are not so fastidious here. Like Lord Uilleam, I am a man, my blood is red. I am sure you would be satisfied with nothing less. You live without illusions, my lady, that is one of the things I admire about you."

She was angry at herself, though she didn't know why, so Lord Alistair would have to do. "You admire me? I'm glad. I only wish I had really magnificent gowns and were far better looking. Then you might suffer more."

Lord Alistair submitted to be amused. "I can see your faults just as clearly as your virtues, and I admire both."

"Would you have me a saint? They were all martyred," she snapped, and turned away. Once again he followed, standing beside her, looking out over the crenellated wall.

Said Lord Alistair, poetically indicating the scene, "How like a woodland paradise! How sweet the zephyr! How softly sing the dicky-birds!"

She had to laugh: he was amusing when be chose to be. He took that as encouragement and cupped her face between his hands.

Tenderly he drew the veil aside and pressed a kiss on the side of her neck. Despite her raillery, Lady Catherine was innocent, and had never before known a man's caress, while Lord Alistair was well-versed in games of passion.

"Oh!" gasped Lady Catherine, and said no more, for he kissed her so passionately that no further words could come. She did not resist him. It all happened so quickly, as if she were lost in a fevered dream. One moment she had been collected and calm; the next, she was thrilling to the rapture which all her life she had missed, drinking the ecstasy of the moment. She had tried to make him care -- and he did.

He whispered, "So now I have caught you, my white flame, my will o' the wisp. How dare you try to escape me? How dare you?"

He locked her in his embrace. Pressed close against him, a sweet warm feeling began to flower in her body. She did not try to answer him: his kisses prevented all speech. She was helpless in his grip, and she rejoiced wildly in the sensation, like a delicate instrument in the hands of a skilled musician. This was love, at last...

 

Far below, Jacobus stood in the pantry, chopping up a cabbage to add to a cauldron that bubbled in the fireplace in the chamber beyond. Usually, of course, Vincent prepared his own meals, but the lad had been looking peaked since Phemie returned above, and Jacobus was well known among the villagers for his restorative soup, which had saved more than one ailing child and wounded warrior. Since he was thought to be a wizard, he suspected that his parishoners valued his soup more than his prayers.
Usually he brought a little something down every time he visited: a few onions, a loaf of oatmeal bread, or a crock of wild berry preserves. The whitewashed shelves behind him were well stocked with dried beans, salted herrings, and stone-ground peas for porridge.

He scraped the cabbage off the rickety table into a wooden bowl and pushed aside the curtain. Vincent sat huddled over a sheet of vellum, a goose quill pen in his left hand, copying the Song of Songs. He looked gray and weary, as if he were fighting a pitched battle against himself. The winning chess game was still set up: the dead curlew lay in a box by his feet.
Cheerfully, Jacobus hoisted the bowl of cabbage. "From the kitchen garden. I have to threaten those lazy wenches with excommunication to make them weed the rows. Did I ever tell you I was the best cook in the monastery, the Abbot said to me once...

A bewildered cry broke from Vincent; he shoved his chair back and lurched to his feet, then bent double as if he'd been stabbed by a burning knife. The feeling was so unfamiliar it took him a moment to trace the sensation to its source: a man and a woman on the ramparts, and the desire flashing between them. When he realized what was happening, his frantic cry rose to a howl, for he had no control over the heat that possessed him.

Horrified, Jacobus reached an arm around him. "You're ill. Lie down, let me make you a bowl of soup."

Vincent shook off the restraining hand: he could not explain the sheets of lightning that were scorching through his body. His blood was set afire by kisses that aroused the lawless instincts of his own half-wild manhood. Both were unbearable --the white heat of his own ferocious urges as well as the stolen pleasure of her eager response to another man. Between groans he managed to say, "I'm not ill. It is not soup that I am starving for."

"Take off your clothing and lie down," Jacobus begged him.

Still doubled over, Vincent shook his head. "Believe me, Jacobus, that is not a remedy." His own longing heightened the connection until he could almost hear her unrestrained gasps of delight, almost taste her wildrose lips. Her surprised response reached him, stripping him of his hard-won humanity, unleashing possessive impulses even more primitive than his battle fury.
His whole consciousness strained upward as if his gaze could pierce the tons of solid stone that divided him from the woman on the battlements. What he sensed almost cost him his sanity. Her passions were awakening to life under the practiced hands of his brother. From him she was learning the possibilities of bodily delight.

"Tell me what's ailing you?"

Vincent didn't hear the anxious question; he was too far gone, demon-ridden by cravings that could be expressed only in wordless screams: 'I want her -- want her -- God forgive me!' He wrapped both arms around his stomach and stumbled to the opposite wall, bumping his shoulder on the doorsill. Throwing back his head, he let out roar after roar of savage desperation. The release of emotion kept him from going mad.

Shaken, Jacobus sat down on the stool, gripped his hair and pulled it upwards until he looked like a gray-crested blackbird. "It's that woman, isn't it. From Ambermere. I cannot bear to see you tearing yourself apart like this." With a helpless sigh he surrendered to fate, knowing himself beaten. Though he believed wholeheartedly in celibacy and was one of nature's bachelors himself, he realized that blessed state did not suit all men. It was becoming clear that Vincent believed this woman was the other half of his soul.

Well, loving was not a sin, and even his lad should have his chance. "Is she determined to wed Lord Alistair?"

A final deep-chested roar burst from Vincent and faded into echoes. Though his whole body still shuddered with need, the immediate danger of madness seemed to be past, and he could try to accept the truth: that she fitted into the contours of Alistair's body as perfectly as she did into his life. Their love was meant to be: it wasn't the fault of either of them that it drove a half-mad creature of the dungeon to the edge of frenzy.

Despite his shame, he was torn apart by unreasoning, hopeless hatred of himself, of his fate, and even of the man who was his rival. He could not stop himself from pleading silently, frantically, as if Lady Catherine could somehow hear. 'Please, not yet, wait just a little. If you give yourself to Alistair now it will kill me. Just kill me.'

"Vincent? Is the woman fond of you?"

He struggled heroically for a burning moment before he was able to force a few words from his raw throat. "She trusts me. She has put faith in my friendship."

Jacobus had been loyal to Vincent for thirty years, and that loyalty did not fail him now. "Thinking back on canon law, if you were to win her from your brother, it would be a venial sin but not a mortal sin."

Vincent had not imagined that his pain could intensify. He managed to turn his attention to Jacobus. "Win her? Do you know what you're saying? Look at me. Look around you at this cell. The very thought is an insult to her."

"Consider the unthinkable, my boy." He looked at Vincent steadily. "You and I and Lord Alistair know the truth. Perhaps it is time for the whole truth to be known."

Vincent shook his head in mute pain, then drew a deep, shuddering breath; for the two on the tower were moving into a close embrace. He exerted all the force of his will to control his reaction. Sweat streamed down his face: he clutched the back of the chair and felt the carved wood splinter in his grip.

Jacobus went on, beating his fist softly on the table to emphasize his sincerity. "Perhaps the time has come to reveal it to everyone. That Alistair is in truth your younger brother. That you are the Lord of Raven's Rock."

His jaw locked with such tension that his voice was a rasp. "After all these years, you suggest that I beggar my brother and turn him out of doors. You fail to realize that Lady Catherine would follow him into exile and poverty. It is not the title she seeks, but the man, to whom she gave her heart as a child. Not only would I gain her hatred but the men of Clann Eoghain would rise up as one and slay me as a creature unfit to be their chieftain. No. No. That revelation is still unthinkable."

Jacobus slumped sadly. He had always cherished a foolish hope that Vincent would one day claim his inheritance. "Your life so far has been so full of pain -- it seems to me you are owed some good fortune. God is supposed to be just, though I must admit I haven't seen much evidence of that. But if you say it's impossible, then all I can do is pray for you."

Vincent drew a deep breath, then another, willing himself to steadiness. He had preached self-command to himself, calmness and courage, and believed he possessed them all, and was his own master. He had even fancied that if misfortune came he would bear it more easily than other men. He knew better now.

"Yes, pray for me, Jacobus, day and night -- don't let up." In the back of his mind a thought burned: 'Give me time to learn to bear this or I will never survive their wedding night.'

Lord Alistair cornered Lady Catherine against the stone battlements and skimmed his hands over her bodice, whispering, "Do you know what effect you are having on me? You enchantress my Catriona -- one more kiss -- one more -- you would not be so cruel as to refuse me. You would not toy with me merely to see me suffer." Though he made a semblance of pleading, his tone was that of a conqueror. He knew now that her wordly-wise manners were a pretense; he could dominate her with a touch.

"I had no idea I was so pitiably weakminded." Lady Catherine gasped as Lord Alistair tightened his embrace, pressing the length of his body against hers. "How you persuaded me into this I cannot understand." Despite the giddy feelings that were pulsing through her, she resented the ring of triumph in his tone as well as the laughter of nearby sentries, and she attempted to wrest herself free. A voice in the back of her mind was pleading for time.

"Onmicomprehension is not vouchsafed even to the fairest, my dear." Her feint of cool elegance intrigued him; her petal mouth set him afire. Against her throat he murmured, "Virtue is tiresome, is it not?"

Though the sensations were exquisite, she was vexed at his presumption. With a swift movement she escaped him, becoming once again mocking and elusive.

"You cannot deny me now," Lord Alistair burst out. "I'm starving for you."

With exquisite witchery she avoided his embrace. "Starving? Cabbage soup is a remedy for that -- I recommend it highly."

"But this is cruel," he protested.

She only said lightly, "when I was small my nurse told me I wasn't good. I said, 'No, I'm not good, I'm only beautiful.' Good day, Lord Alistair." She swept him a curtsey and was gone like the flicker of a yellow bird, leaving him in a fume of irritation and desire.
He followed her down through the castle to continue the game but lost sight of her near the kitchen. She could have gone through the kitchen into the vegetable garden or turned left into the chapel or even disappeared through the immense black dungeon door at the dark end of the hallway.

"Damn." Lord Alistair removed his feathered cap and ran a hand through his dark curls. The woman had set him on fire with her airs and graces, with her eyes that changed from blue to green like waves of the sea. She had blushed to a delicate pink when he kissed her. She would blush that same beautiful pink all over, like the color inside a perfect shell, before he was finished.
Clenching a fist, he promised, "I'll make you beg for my caress. I'll drive myself so deep you'll be empty when I am not possessing you."

"My lord?" It was Jacobus, coming up from the dungeon, carrying a bowl of mutton bones from yesterday's stew.

Lord Alistair's temper was always near the surface. "Carousing with demons again, Father Jacobus. Don't they eat the bones too? Please, help yourself the best in the larder. Everything I have is yours, apparently."

Righteous anger turned the gray eyes of Jacobus to blue-black. "Not quite, my lord. Everything you have... is his."

He limped into the kitchen, and Lord Alistair threw his cap on the floor with an oath.