CHAPTER NINE
Star Wishes

The following week, a feast was held in the great hall. The nobles' trestle table stood on a dais at the north end, while the other tables were pushed into a horseshoe and spread with overlapping oxhides. Woolen cushions softened the axe-hewn benches. Maidservants rushed about placing wooden platters and trenchers of bread, and carrying up from the kitchen cauldrons of venison and inky pinky, beef spiced with vinegar.

Servingmen lugged up a regiment of barrels that dripped ale and beer. Under the tables a pack of dogs dyed red and blue in the dregs of the dye vats crunched deer bones in the straw. Rows of antlers bristled from the rafters; before the Norse invasion, Lord Alistair had often sailed to the mainland with his henchmen and brought down stags with his bow.

Barefooted clansfolk pushed their way into the great hall and found their places despite a few fistfights about rank. The men had donned their finest garments: a cape pieced from otterskins or perhaps a feileadh mor -- big plaid -- thrown over a knee-length leine-chroich -- a linen shirt dyed saffron yellow. Thhe women wore smocks of speckled wool and long checkered stockings without soles, fastened by a loop over the toe. Their plaids varied in design and shade, as it was the purplish color rather than any particular pattern that was the badge of the Clan. Those women with heroes for husbands displayed ornaments wrested from dead Norsemen: saucer brooches and torques of gold.

The plaintive strains of Fraoch Eilean on the bagpipes announced the Lord and his betrothed, and raucous cheers exploded.

In his dark velvet tunic and diamond-twilled plaid, Lord Alistair looked every inch a chieftain. Lady Catherine stunned the clansfolk almost to silence -- her foam-green silk and regal bearing astounded the fishermen and artisans.

The piper's second tune was interrupted by the bard, Teàrlach, who forced his way into the middle of the hall and began to sing a genealogy, accompanied by a harper who strummed a triangular clàrsach, beautifully carved. Not to be outdone, a huge fighting man wearing a quiver of arrows behind his shoulder stood up and bellowed a welcoming speech in Gaelic. The haggard face of Teàrlach whitened with rage: he shook back a halo of white hair and sang more loudly to drown out the fletcher. In an undertone, Lord Alistair explained to her the rank and standing of each guest. "The redbearded man with the arrows is Ceannaideach the fletcher, his son in the sheepskin breeches is Cléireach... Teàrlach the bard is fiery-tempered but we prize his knowledge of our lineage ... the woman with the crooked back is Ealasaid, she is immensely proud of her goats. There is your tutor, old Raonull, mumbling over a mutton bone. The toothless crone next to him is his mother, she is always ailing with the wheezles."

"Who is the woman sitting in the corner?"

An extraordinarily beautiful gird wearing the blue and green apron and kirtle of a Norsewoman sat on the floor, away from the guests, embroidering the eight-legged horse of Odin on a man's shirt. Her fair braids, hung with golden balls, hung to her waist.

Hurriedly Lord Alistair explained, "Sitric, two seasons ago she fled from her Norse kinfolk and we gave her sanctuary here. She speaks only her own tongue. I'm certain she does not understand the reason for the feast."

Sitric glanced up. Her eyes were the cold green color of an iceberg. She looked at Lady Catherine without expression, then returned to her task.

To hide his embarrassment he dabbed at his lips with a square of linen, then said, "I suppose they expect me to make a speech now. Too tiresome."

To his surprise, shyly Lady Catherine stood up. Gradually the hall became quiet. In careful Gaelic she said, "Thank you for making me welcome. God bless the Heathery Isle and the sky over it!"

Accompanied by cheers and the scream of the pipes, Cléireach, the red-haired son of the fletcher, leaped over the table and honored her with a dance, one hand on his hip, the other over his head. His legs in their sheepskin breeches flew to and fro.

Lord Alistair stretched out his long legs and looked at her appraisingly over the rim of his goblet. "There is a matter I've wanted to consult you about. Prepared to turn me down at all points?"

Lady Catherine appeared to be listening to the music.

He went on, "What am I going to do with myself. That is for you to decide."

She shot him a quizzical look. "You are at my disposal, are you?"

"Yes. I am at your disposal alone."

"Aren't you being rather hasty? Perhaps in a year or so, when we have come to know each other better..."

His voice roughened, suddenly his banter was gone. "Can't you see I'm on fire for you? I want you tonight. Let me haul the old priest up from the cellar to marry us now."

"Oh no," she said quickly. Her hands clenched under the table. "That would not be fair to the clansfolk."

"To hell with the clansfolk," he said through his teeth.

"I would want a true Scottish wedding, with a first-maid and a first-foot and a blessed broom to sweep the hearth and an oatcake broken over my head and a meal-chest to put my hands in for good luck and prosperity..."

"You have been learning, haven't you. Listening to the old women." He tried hard to control his temper; he wasn't used to being contradicted. "Very well, I am at your disposal. You will have as triumphant a pageant as you could wish. Listen while I tell you how your wedding night will be. You will never reach the bed. I'm going to take you on the floor. Does that prospect make you fear me?"

With a glance of cool disdain she answered, "You underestimate me, my lord. I fear no man."

Under the table he began to stroke her leg. She shot him one glare that would have melted steel, and moved sideways on the bench. He was trying to subjugate her with desire, but the time and place were wrong, and all she felt was annoyance.

The feast seemed endless. The bard and harper glorified the deeds of the clan chiefs, beginning with Lord Alistair's grandfather, his prowess in war, the rival clansmen he had slain and the animals he slaughtered barehanded.

"Lord Gilleasbuig, he was the red torch to burn foes,
he would cleave them to the heels,
he was a hero in the battle,
a champion who never flinched.
Gilleasbuig who held victory in his hand…"

Eventually the bard moved on to Lord Alistair's father, his daring escape from Viking slavers, and his rescue of a Norman nobleman, Lord Charles of Ambermere.

"Lord Uilleam was a warrior who did not refuse battle,
A hand that was not feeble in the hard fight,
He bore arms from the time he came of age,
Lively was his courage on the field of battle..."

…A few lines were added in praise of Lord Uilleam's wife, Una, a fair woman captured from Clann Catanach, the People of the Cat. She died young, pining for her home. At last the bard reached Lord Alistair himself, and apparently he out-glorified all his ancestors.

"Alistair, son of Uilleam, of the wavy hair,
O pleasant bright one, he is a tree that will not bend,
A noble lad with whom it is difficult to contend,
The grandson of Guilleasbuig is my great hope..."

Lady Catherine could only catch a word here and there. She waved away a servingwoman offering another goblet of ale.

She murmured, "My lord, I am so weary. Would it be discourteous if were to take my leave?"

"Wait, wait," he urged. During the later verses he had moved close to her again. He was enjoying the praises of the bard as well as the feeling of his leg pressed against hers. "Listen to this next verse -- it describes me. Tall as a tree, hair of raven black, able to slay four Norsemen with one blow of my fist. It's good."

The feast ended at last after a sword dance; to the sound of wild cheering Lord Alistair insisted on escorting her out of the great hall. He led her through two corridors and up a dark flight of stairs before she realized he was heading toward his own bedchamber.

She called a halt on the landing. "My lord, I expected better from you than this trickery"

"Can you blame me, Catriona?" he breathed, cornering her against the wall. "I'm starving for you. Let me see you without this." With the ease of long practice he removed her circlet and veil and tossed them aside, then slipped his hands behind her neck.

"You must not," she protested, but her words were muffled by his passionate kiss and soon she no longer wanted to protest. She had never been kissed so thoroughly. His mouth tasted faintly of wine.

Even as he kissed her, his mouth curved in a sardonic smile. He intended to awaken her, teach her the delights of the body and this was a beginning. One roving hand fondled her bodice while the other began unthreading the side-ties of her gown.

All at once she felt stifled, engulfed by his craving. "No. No!" she panted, and tried to push both of his hands away. The ribbons loosened and his caress became intimate, sliding across the thin cloth of her shift to cup her breast.

His kisses were devouring, as though he would draw the very life from her. There was fierce possession in his grip. "Touch me, Catriona, feel the effect you have on me." He seized her hand and pressed it against his thigh.

"I will not!" she gasped, half in fear, half in fury. Pushed against the wall, she fought to free herself from the pressure of his body. "Let me go."

"Little liar," he said fondly. "You don't wish me to let you go." To prove his statement, he stood back and spread his arms wide. "You are free to run away, but I don't believe you will."

One leap, and she was away, darting down the nearest staircase. She kept on running until she could no longer hear Lord Alistair's indulgent laughter.

Turning down a corridor, she paused at an unfamiliar arch. "I made a wrong turning." The castle was a beehive of rooms, and at night all the doors looked alike.

Completely lost now, she sat down in misery on a wooden step. She wanted to cry. In her heart was a growing suspicion that Lord Alistair did not respect her, that he had read too much into her flirtatious airs. An unbidden thought rose to her mind -- 'Do I respect him?' Quickly she pushed the traitorous question aside.

"He certainly desires me. That is what I wished for. I ought to be more pleased with my victory. Why does the thought of my wedding night only make me feel like a rabbit in a snare." She found herself rubbing her lips with the back of her hand. It was so confusing to thrill to the caress of Lord Alistair and shrink from him at the same time.

"Any reasonable woman would revel in his touch. Sir Wallis accused me of having a cold nature; perhaps it's true." She couldn't sit on the landing all night. Angrily she re-knotted the ribbons of her gown as step by step she descended a spiral staircase and found herself in a dank and gloomy chapel. It was small and unfurnished, with a flagstone floor and an altar at one end. With growing irritation she rubbed her eyes; her fatigue grew deeper with every passing moment.

"Lady Catherine?" The voice was low and hoarse, silk on granite.

"Vincent!" She whirled and saw his tall form outlined against a rack of rush candles. She ran to him, her weariness forgotten in delight. "I haven't seen you in so long, days and days." Impulsively she threw her arms around him. It was so good to lay her head on his broad chest and feel the strong, steady beat of his heart.

More slowly he reached his arms around her, rested his cheek against her hair, and closed his eyes.

She murmured, "Are all feasts that endless? Oh -- forgive me -- you could not be there."

"But I was there," he answered, and pressed a kiss into her hair, so lightly that she felt it not. "Within the wall, behind the tapestry. I heard your Gaelic benediction." He had also sensed her aversion to Lord Alistair's ardent lovemaking, and he had been preparing to race through the castle to rescue her from harm, though it would have meant his own destruction. For one shame-filled moment he was taken over by a white flare of rage. Love was supposed to make a man self-sacrificing, but desire made Alistair greedy and inconsiderate. Lady Catherine had fled not from his caress but from his arrogance.

He thought, 'I would have touched you more tenderly than that, Catherine,' and opened his hands wide across her shoulderblades.

Suddenly she stiffened. "But is it safe for you here in the chapel?"

Under her cheek she felt his soft rueful laugh. "It is not much used. Besides, there is a loose stone in the wall, a small opening through which coffins were pushed outside during a plague. Are you -- are you too weary for a walk?"

"Not at all!" she insisted. "I've been longing to see you and tell you everything."

They knelt behind the altar and Vincent drew out from the wall a squared block of stone. They both crawled through and found themselves in the open air.

Stars glittered between remnants of clouds that blew from the sea. The honey scent of heather was pungent beneath their feet as they walked slowly away from the castle. Somewhere an owl called out to the night, to the stars, or to a lover. Vincent said, "The Norse are on the other side of the island, you need not fear."

"Let them come," she teased him. "We've fought them back before." Somehow her hand found his.

It was so satisfying walking side by side that neither of them felt the need to speak. Vincent was thinking that he could well imagine what a life a man might lead with her, wandering about the thick green woods and purple moors, tramping side by side in the wind and bright sunshine and even the soft falling rain, each of them defying the weather and laughing at fatigue. To carry their simple meal with them and stop to eat it joyously together under a hedge, to lie under the shade of a broad branched tree to rest when the sun was hot and hear skylarks singing in the blue sky, and then at night-time to sit at the door of a tent and watch the stars and tell each other fanciful stories while a red campfire danced. A man might range the world with her and know joy every moment. As he had known in those brief few days of freedom that would never again be his.

Lady Catherine was remembering the loneliness of her years in Ambermere, that should have held so many possibilities for joy, and yet had brought only an ever-tightening confinement. Then she put the sad thought behind her and opened herself to pure bliss, to a world where people were near to one another and cared for each other… as friends. There was no loneliness in that world. She had come to know it on the journey, radiant mornings with summer scents of gorse or new rain on the earth, heavenly nights with the sound of the waves like a lullaby and someone close by who felt those things and drew in their delights in exactly the same way.

The hills were treeless, scraped to bedrock by winter gales; they waded through hollows knee-deep in bracken and ferns. When at last they reached Land's End, they both sat on the cliff edge to watch otters spotting in the foam far below.

Her voice was hushed: as she looked up, her eyes filled with moonlight. "Did you ever see such stars before?"

"Never." His head tilted to watch her. "They look like promises, don't they. Jacobus used to tell me that God would never show us something he did not mean to give us: that life once given is given for eternity; that no love is ever lost."

She was ready to be convinced of anything wonderful, just there and then. "My father used to speak to me in the same way, before he fell ill. He told me, 'Never be afraid to dream, for you cannot dream better than God will do."'

"Perhaps you should make a wish on one of those promises."

'This is what warm summer nights are for,' she thought, 'dreaming and wishing.' Some cold winter night, when summer seemed far away, she would take this hour out of her memory and live it again. "Only on the first star is a wish granted. It's too late, the whole sky is shimmering."

"It can't be too late, not for you. Whatever power answers wishes must surely answer yours."

It was lovely, so peaceful not to have to be constantly witty, not to keep up the polished facade. Lady Catherine chose a star, closed her eyes, and breathed a wish deep in her heart: Hold back the dawn.

To better see the otters she stretched out on the cliffs edge, propping her chin on her hands. Far below black specks darted in the waves, sliding down rocks scoured smooth by the tides.

After a moment he stretched out beside her, though he knew it wasn't wise.

"They look happy, playing," she mused. "Do you suppose they are?"

"Their lives are full of chasing and swimming and delight in their own powers, they live in the great freedom. Yes, I think so."

"Are they happier than birds?"

He had to smile. "You give me credit for too much wisdom. I couldn't tell you."

She let out a sigh. "I wonder why life is full of so much sorrow. If I were God, oh, wouldn't I change things! There wouldn't be anyone hungry or lonely or sad. And you -- you would no longer be misjudged by people like the druid villagers who are not worthy to know anything of your real self. I cannot tell why, but when I met you I seemed to find some friend that I had lost long ago. I was certain that you would never misunderstand anything I said, and I felt that I saw further into your heart and mind than anyone else could do. Is that very strange?"

They lay so near each other that she could hear the rasp of his black cloak against the sea-grass when he moved closer to the edge. Framed by his hood, his profile was stern and remote. "If you knew me as I really am, you might cease to feel the -- the interest that you say --" The longing to make her love him and his struggle not to breathe love to her, deprived him of his strength.

"I do not fear to know you as you are," she said gently. "I don't think you yourself can see all the better things there are in you." With an impulse of affection she reached out and rubbed his shoulder, saying, "You look sad. Can I help?"

His voice was almost inaudible as he answered her earlier remark. "I have no answer that could explain sorrow, and there have been times I wondered what my life was for. I only know that in this hour I hold eternity. Our quiet companionship with the stars above and the sea below tells me what forever means."

He wondered if he had said too much, but she answered simply, "I think about you."

Gratefulness illuminated his face. "You do?"

Her hand still rested lightly on his shoulder. "I wonder how you are, and what I might do to make your life easier."

He picked up a pebble and cast it over the cliff. "There is nothing to regret. I hold forever all that eternity can give me."

She had not given up her intention to confront Lord Alistair and bring Vincent up from the dungeon. "Perhaps you are too ready to find consolation in defeat. Perhaps you should fight on to victory. Reach out and seize your fate and grapple until it surrenders what you want."

Somewhere within a tangle of hazel and maybush a bird called out to its mate, with a demand for love too exquisitely worded to be denied. The unseen bird uttered all the longings, all the desires to which Vincent could never, never give voice. At that moment, he revolted inwardly. Why should he of all creation alone be silent? Why should he not for once speak out? The temptation to draw her close was so strong that to his dazed senses he almost seemed to himself to have already yielded to it.

The years be had spent In training his whole being to outward self-command did service to him now, and aided him to calm speech. "Ah, your war-cry, No Defeat, No Surrender."

Her smile flashed up. "There was a time I felt so trapped and desperate that I would have changed places with anyone, I thought... a serf hoeing turnips or an otter in the sea. But now I am beginning to know that I am young, life is strong. As well as sorrow the world seems full of happiness -- surely some of it will be mine." She tugged free a sprig of heather and buried her face in the scent.

It was a picture he would carry with him forever, Vincent thought: her flower face pressed against the small blossoms and leaves. He said, "When night falls and the stars appear tomorrow night I will keep watch for the first one, and speak that wish for you." He could not do so now; when they had first reached Land's End his star-wish had been spoken in the depths of his being: Keep the day back.

He knew full well that wish would not be granted. Even now Lady Catherine had been missing from Raven's Rock too long.

"You must get back, Phemie will worry," he said, and helped her to her feet.

"And Jacobus, too."

"Oh yes."

They walked back slowly through a glen that rustled with ferns. Vincent was in no haste. He knew he had been given this one little island of time to show him what life might have been, and that it was passing too swiftly. A weak, thin bleating caught his attention. Under a patch of gorse he found a newborn kid, cold and trembling.

Vincent tucked it under his arm, sheltering the small frightened thing within a fold of his black cloak, and said, "Ealasaid is the goat woman. I'll put this one back in her pen."

When they reached the sheer crag of the castle wall with its single missing block of stone, he still carried the kid. With his free hand he reached within his shirt.

His voice seemed to echo the soft sigh of the wind. "It is very probable that you and Lord Alistair will be marrying soon. With my whole heart I pray that every happiness will be yours. I have a small keepsake for you, a reminder of the hardships you endured so bravely to find your heart's desire."

In her palm he placed a tiny, delicate seashell strung on a silken cord. "I found it on the beach just before the three of us sailed for the Heathery Isle."

"Thank you, Vincent." She cherished the shell in her hand. "I remember that beach with the white and pink shells, and the gold sunset. I will treasure it always. If only the world were made up of people like you, what a realm of kindness and truth it would be. I have a small thing for you, as well." Into his hands she laid a velvet pouch on a thong. "You cannot see the design in the dark. I embroidered my badge, a white rose, with the badge of your clan, the otter. It probably doesn't look much like an otter."

He opened the pouch; a crooked horseshoe nail slipped into his palm.

She said, "I thought you would like to remember the day you learned to ride."

After a long silence, Vincent said, "I would tell you what this means to me, but there are no words."

Words were not always needed; Lady Catherine knew that well. To have been able to sit together in the friendly darkness was enough.

She knelt to crawl through, then reconsidered and stood again, saying quietly, "Days to come will bring changes in our lives, but we shall always be the same to each other -- heart-friends and true friends; nothing will change that. Whether I marry Lord Alistair or not, you will always be dear to me." With that she took his face between her hands, tilted his head down and kissed him. It was a gentle kiss, a gift of caring. "Wish for me, Vincent, and I shall wish for you."

He knew in that instant that he was going to come apart in front of her. He was going to come apart and she was going to see who he was, and what he was.

Before that could happen she knelt once more and disappeared into the chapel, leaving Vincent on the edge of breaking.

***

Lady Catherine floated up through the vaulted ceiling of the dungeon, out of reach... the mouldering stone walls sprouted serpentine chains that trapped him in their coils... a river ran at his feet… his reflection disintegrated on a sheet of white water...

Growling with irritation, Vincent threw off the purple striped coverlet and sat up, swinging his legs to the side of the bed. Another night of broken sleep had ended when he tore apart his own pillow in frustration, scattering straw across the floor. Sleeping and waking, the same thought tortured him. "Should I have ducked through the opening and followed her through the castle, reached my arms around her and told her everything? She might have been willing to listen. Then one more kiss would have given her to me then and forever, even if all the powers of the earth should stand against us." Coils of horrible fear gripped him and tightened: perhaps fate had offered him one chance, and he had missed it. The possibility was unbearable: better to think there had never been a chance.

He slammed a fist against the wall: he scorned his own weakness, and at the same time reproached himself for a hundred things he had done and said, and for another hundred he hadn't done and hadn't said. Her parting remark burned through him: 'whether I marry Lord Alistair or not." What did she mean?

Driven by forces he could neither understand nor control, he rose and shoved open the arched door. "If I made my way up through the secret passages of the castle, could find her bedchamber, and awaken her gently and ask her what she meant."

He was driving himself the brink of madness with such ravings. The only way to stop thinking was to take on a difficult task, a chore postponed for years. Angrily he knelt beside his bed and fumbled beneath it for a box of tools. Dressed only in white drawstring breeches, he strode through the open door, gripping a lantern, a chisel, and a hammer. He made his way through a labyrinth of gigantic pillars and massive vaulted arches to a cell at the far end of the dungeon. With his knee and elbow he pried open an ancient door with a rusty grille in the center.

The inside of the door was grooved with scratches, as if maddened hands had clawed the wood. He set the lantern on the floor: faint yellow light glanced across cobwebs hanging in the corners and iron shackles dangling from the stone walls. Jacobus had collected a skeleton from the floor years earlier and given it burial. Now all that remained were the implements of bondage.

Vincent set a chisel against an iron ring in the wall and gave it a mighty blow with his mallet. The clang echoed around the small cell. He set his teeth and smashed with the hammer again. His throat was choked with emotions ranging from confusion and panic to despair. Inside, his heart was being ripped to shreds. He had never known love could hurt like this. He'd never known he could hurt like this.

His mind told him he was a fool, but the word had little meaning. Far removed from the dictates of reason, his emotions lived a life of their own, unmindful of the chaos and tumult they caused, not even caring if they were understood.

"By this time I ought to know that some things are impossible. It is her destiny to marry Alistair. I am dear to her, and I am content." He knew the words of consolation were a lie, paltry comfort to a heart dying with longing.

To Vincent, his recurring nightmare meant that Lady Catherine would forget him. Coping with Alistair and attending to her duties in the castle would gradually efface him from her mind like a chalk drawing left underwater.

The mallet crashed on the chisel again and again. He had always hated those shackles and everything they represented. His bare foot scraped across a fragment of yellow bone that Jacobus had missed.

To the vanished prisoner who had clawed the inside of the door and died in chains, Vincent spoke. "You and I both."

He tossed the chisel aside. The iron ring was scored through in one place but the heavy fetters still dangled down. Vincent wrapped the chain around his hands, braced one foot against the wall, and leaned back. With all his tremendous strength he pulled on the chain, until the links cut his palms and the muscles in his shoulders and back shook with the effort. Sweat poured down his face.

He had to murder his own heart every day to survive without her: violent effort gave him some release. His bleeding hands slipped and he stopped to draw a ragged breath before regripping the chain. The ring was bending outward, he could see that. Once more he took his stance, bracing a foot against the wall, and pulled, groaning with the effort. His arms knotted; his back strained with tension; every muscle in his body was screaming.

Again his bloody hands lost their grip. He couldn't do it. Furiously he grabbed up the mallet and chisel and hammered the iron ring. He knew the noise would reverberate up the stone walls and echo faintly in the kitchen on the ground floor. The kitchen wenches would huddle together and squeal, believing there was a demon in the dungeon.

With a last metallic clang, the ring parted: he yanked the heavy chain free and threw it out of the cell, where it lay coiled like an evil snake. He became conscious of his panting breaths and laboring heart. Gasping, he looked down at his torn hands. His lips curved up but there was no humor whatsoever in his expression. "Maybe they're right."