“But…but I can’t marry anyone!” I burst out.
Dougal’s eyes were suddenly sharp. “Why not, lass? Do ye have a husband living still?”
“No. It’s just…it’s ridiculous! Such things don’t happen!”
Dougal had relaxed when I said “No.” Now he glanced up at the sun and rose to go.
“Best get moving, lass. There are things we’ll have to attend to. There’ll have to be a special dispensation,” he murmured, as though to himself. “But Ned can manage that.”
He took my arm, still muttering to himself. I wrenched it away.
“I will not marry anyone,” I said firmly.
He seemed undisturbed by this, merely raising his brows.
“You want me to take you to Randall?”
“No!” Something occurred to me. “So at least you believe me when I say I’m not an English spy?”
“I do now.” He spoke with some emphasis.
“Why now and not before?”
He nodded at the spring, and at the worn figure etched in the rock. It must be hundreds of years old, much older even than the giant rowan tree that shaded the spring and cast its white flowers into the black water.
“St. Ninian’s spring. Ye drank the water before I asked ye.”
I was thoroughly bewildered by this time.
“What does that have to do with it?”
He looked surprised, then his mouth twisted in a smile. “Ye didna know? They call it the liar’s spring, as well. The water smells o’ the fumes of hell. Anyone who drinks the water and then tells untruth will ha’ the gizzard burnt out of him.”
“I see.” I spoke between my teeth. “Well, my gizzard is quite intact. So you can believe me when I say I’m not a spy, English or French. And you can believe something else, Dougal MacKenzie. I’m not marrying anyone!”
He wasn’t listening. In fact, he had already pushed his way through the bushes that screened the spring. Only a quivering oak branch marked his passage. Seething, I followed him.
* * *
I remonstrated at some length further on the ride back to the inn. Dougal advised me finally to save my breath to cool my parritch with, and after that we rode in silence.
Reaching the inn, I flung my reins to the ground and stamped upstairs to the refuge of my room.
The whole idea was not only outrageous, but unthinkable. I paced around and around the narrow room, feeling increasingly like a rat in a trap. Why in hell hadn’t I had the nerve to steal away from the Scots earlier, whatever the risk?
I sat down on the bed and tried to think calmly. Considered strictly from Dougal’s point of view, no doubt the idea had merit. If he refused point-blank to hand me over to Randall, with no excuse, the Captain might easily try to take me by force. And whether he believed me or not, Dougal might understandably not want to engage in a skirmish with a lot of English dragoons for my sake.
And, viewed in cold blood, the idea had some merit from my side as well. If I were married to a Scot, I would presumably no longer be watched and guarded. It would be that much easier to get away when the time came. And if it were Jamie—well, he liked me, clearly. And he knew the Highlands like the backs of his hands. He would perhaps take me to Craigh na Dun, or at least in the general direction. Yes, possibly marriage was the best way to gain my goal.
That was the cold-blooded way to look at it. My blood, however, was anything but cold. I was hot with fury and agitation, and could not keep still, pacing and fuming, looking for a way out. Any way. After an hour of this, my face was flushed and my head throbbing. I got up and threw open the shutters, sticking my head out into the cooling breeze.
There was a peremptory rap on the door behind me. Dougal entered as I pulled my head in. He bore a sheaf of stiff paper like a salver and was followed by Rupert and the immaculate Ned Gowan, bringing up the rear like royal equerries.
“Please do come in,” I said courteously.
Ignoring me as usual, Dougal removed a chamber pot from its resting place on the table and fanned the sheets of paper out ceremoniously on the rough oak surface.
“All done,” he said, with the pride of one who has shepherded a difficult project to a successful conclusion. “Ned’s drawn up the papers; nothing like a lawyer—so long as he’s on your side, eh, Ned?”
The men all laughed, evidently in good humor.
“Not really difficult, ye ken,” Ned said modestly. “It’s but a simple contract.” He riffled the pages with a proprietary forefinger, then paused, wrinkling his brow at a sudden thought.
“You’ve no property in France, have ye?” he asked, peering worriedly at me over the half-spectacles he wore for close work. I shook my head, and he relaxed, shuffling the papers back into a pile and tapping the edges neatly together.
“That’s that, then. You’ll only need to sign here at the foot, and Dougal and Rupert to witness.”
The lawyer set down the inkpot he had brought in, and whipping a clean quill from his pocket, presented it ceremoniously to me.
“And just what is this?” I asked. This was in the nature of a rhetorical question, for the top page of the bundle said CONTRACT OF MARRIAGE in a clear calligraphic hand, the letters two inches high and starkly black across the page.
Dougal suppressed a sigh of impatience at my recalcitrance.
“Ye ken quite weel what it is,” he said shortly. “And unless you’ve had another bright thought for keeping yourself out of Randall’s hands, you’ll sign it and have done with it. Time’s short.”
Bright thoughts were in particularly short supply at the moment, despite the hour I had spent hammering away at the problem. It really began to seem that this incredible alternative was the best I could do, struggle as I might.
“But I don’t want to marry!” I said stubbornly. It occurred to me as well that mine was not the only point of view involved. I remembered the girl with blond hair I had seen kissing Jamie in the alcove at the castle.
“And maybe Jamie doesn’t want to marry me!” I said. “What about that?” Dougal dismissed this as unimportant.
“Jamie’s a soldier; he’ll do as he’s told. So will you,” he said pointedly, “unless, of course, ye’d prefer an English prison.”
I glared at him, breathing heavily. I had been in a stir ever since our abrupt removal from Randall’s office, and my level of agitation had now increased substantially, confronted with the choice in black and white, as it were.
“I want to talk to him,” I said abruptly. Dougal’s eyebrows shot up.
“Jamie? Why?”
“Why? Because you’re forcing me to marry him, and so far as I can see, you haven’t even told him!”
Plainly this was an irrelevancy, as far as Dougal was concerned, but he eventually gave in and, accompanied by his minions, went to fetch Jamie from the taproom below.
Jamie appeared shortly, looking understandably bewildered.
“Did you know that Dougal wants us to marry?” I demanded bluntly.
His expression cleared. “Oh, aye. I knew that.”
“But surely,” I said, “a young man like yourself; I mean, isn’t there anyone else you’re, ah, interested in?” He looked blank for a moment, then understanding dawned.
“Oh, am I promised? Nay, I’m no much of a prospect for a girl.” He hurried on, as though feeling this might sound insulting. “I mean, I’ve no property to speak of, and nothing more than a soldier’s pay to live on.”
He rubbed his chin, eyeing me dubiously. “Then there’s the minor difficulty that I’ve a price on my head. No father much wants his daughter married to a man as may be arrested and hanged any time. Did ye think of that?”
I flapped my hand, dismissing the matter of outlawry as a minor consideration, compared to the whole monstrous idea. I had one last try.
“Does it bother you that I’m not a virgin?” He hesitated a moment before answering.
“Well, no,” he said slowly, “so long as it doesna bother you that I am.” He grinned at my drop-jawed expression, and backed toward the door.
“Reckon one of us should know what they’re doing,” he said. The door closed softly behind him; clearly the courtship was over.
* * *
The papers duly signed, I made my way cautiously down the inn’s steep stairs and over to the bar table in the taproom.
“Whisky,” I said to the rumpled old creature behind it. He glared rheumily, but a nod from Dougal made him oblige with a bottle and glass. The latter was thick and greenish, a bit smeared, with a chip out of the rim, but it had a hole in the top, and that was all that mattered at the moment.
Once the searing effect of swallowing the stuff had passed, it did induce a certain spurious calmness. I felt detached, noticing details of my surroundings with a peculiar intensity: the small stained-glass inset over the bar, casting colored shadows over the ruffianly proprietor and his wares, the curve of the handle on a copper-bottomed dipper that hung on the wall next to me, a greenbellied fly struggling on the edges of a sticky puddle on the table. With a certain amount of fellow-feeling, I nudged it out of danger with the edge of my glass.
I gradually became aware of raised voices behind the closed door on the far side of the room. Dougal had disappeared there after the conclusion of his business with me, presumably to firm up arrangements with the other contracting party. I was pleased to hear that, judging from the sound of it, my intended bridegroom was cutting up rough, despite his apparent lack of objection earlier. Perhaps he hadn’t wanted to offend me.
“Stick to it, lad,” I murmured, and took another gulp.
Sometime later, I was dimly conscious of a hand prying my fingers open in order to remove the greenish glass. Another hand was steadyingly under my elbow.
“Christ, she’s drunk as an auld besom in a bothy,” said a voice in my ear. The voice rasped unpleasantly, I thought, as though its owner had been eating sandpaper. I giggled softly at the thought.
“Quiet yerself, woman!” said the unpleasant rasping voice. It grew fainter as the owner turned to talk to someone else. “Drunk as a laird and screechin’ like a parrot—what do ye expect—”
Another voice interrupted the first, but I couldn’t tell what it said; the words were blurred and indistinguishable. It was a pleasanter sound, though, deep and somehow reassuring. It came nearer, and I could make out a few words. I made an effort to focus, but my attention had begun to wander again.
The fly had found its way back to the puddle, and was floundering in the middle, hopelessly mired. The light from the stained-glass window fell on it, glittering like sparks on the straining green belly. My gaze fixed on the tiny green spot, which seemed to pulsate as the fly twitched and struggled.
“Brother…you haven’t a shance,” I said, and the spark went out.
14
A MARRIAGE TAKES PLACE
There was a low, beamed ceiling over me when I woke, and a thick quilt tucked tidily under my chin. I seemed to be clad only in my shift. I started to sit up to look for my clothes, but thought better of it halfway up. I eased myself very carefully back down, closed my eyes and held onto my head to prevent it from rolling off the pillow and bouncing on the floor.
I woke again, sometime later, when the door of the room opened. I cracked one eye cautiously. A wavering outline resolved itself into the dour figure of Murtagh, staring disapprovingly down at me from the foot of the bed. I closed the eye. I heard a muffled Scottish noise, presumably indicating appalled disgust, but when I looked again he was gone.
I was just sinking thankfully back into unconsciousness when the door opened again, this time to reveal a middle-aged woman I took to be the publican’s wife, carrying a ewer and basin. She bustled cheerily into the room and banged the shutters open with a crash that reverberated through my head like a tank collision. Advancing on the bed like a Panzer division, she ripped the quilt from my feeble grasp and tossed it aside, leaving me quaking and exposed.
“Come along then, me love,” she said. “We mun get ye ready now.” She put a hefty forearm behind my shoulders and levered me into a sitting position. I clutched my head with one hand, my stomach with the other.
“Ready?” I said, through a mouth filled with decayed moss.
The woman began briskly washing my face. “Och, aye,” she said. “Ye dinna want to miss yer own wedding, now, do ye?”
“Yes,” I said, but was ignored as she unceremoniously stripped off my shift and stood me in the middle of the floor for further intimate attentions.
A bit later I sat on the bed, fully dressed, feeling dazed and belligerent, but thanks to a glass of port supplied by the goodwife, at least functional. I sipped carefully at a second glass, as the woman tugged a comb through the thickets of my hair.
I jumped and shuddered, spilling the port, as the door crashed open once more. One damn thing after another, I thought balefully. This time it was a double visitation, Murtagh and Ned Gowan, wearing similar looks of disapprobation. I exchanged glares with Ned while Murtagh came into the room and walked slowly around the bed, surveying me from every angle. He returned to Ned and muttered something in a tone too low for me to hear. With a final glance of despair in my direction, he pulled the door shut behind them.
At last my hair was dressed to the woman’s satisfaction, swept back and pulled high in a knot at the crown, curls picked loose to tumble to the back, and ringlets in front of my ears. It felt as though my scalp were going to pop off from the tension of the strained-back hair, but the effect in the looking glass the woman provided was undeniably becoming. I began to feel slightly more human, and even brought myself to thank her for her efforts. She left me the looking glass, and departed, remarking that it was so lucky to be married in summer, wasn’t it, as I’d have plenty of flowers for my hair.
“We who are about to die,” I said to my reflection, sketching a salute in the glass. I collapsed on the bed, plastered a wet cloth over my face, and went back to sleep.
I was having a rather nice dream, something to do with grassy fields and wildflowers, when I became aware that what I had thought a playful breeze tugging at my sleeves was a pair of none-too-gentle hands. I sat up with a jerk, blindly flailing.
When I got my eyes open, I saw that my small chamber now resembled a Tube station, with faces wall-to-wall: Ned Gowan, Murtagh, the innkeeper, the innkeeper’s wife, and a lanky young man, who turned out to be the innkeeper’s son, with his arms full of assorted flowers, which accounted for the scents in my dream. There was also a young woman, armed with a round wicker basket, who smiled amiably at me, displaying the lack of several rather important teeth.
This person, it developed, was the village sempstress, recruited to repair the deficiencies of my wardrobe by adjusting the fit of a dress, obtained on short notice from some local connection of the innkeeper’s. Ned was carrying the dress in question, hanging from one hand like a dead animal. Smoothed out on the bed, it proved to be a low-necked gown of heavy cream-colored satin, with a separate bodice that buttoned with dozens of tiny cloth-covered buttons, each embroidered with a gold fleur-de-lis. The neckline and the belled sleeves were heavily ruched with lace, as was the embroidered overskirt of chocolate-brown velvet. The innkeeper was half-buried in the petticoats he carried, his bristling whiskers barely visible over the foamy layers.
