Outlander aka Cross Stitch - Gabaldon Diana - Страница 10

“Yes, all right. I understand.” I was willing to abandon the topic – for now. I turned to go on walking, but he reached out and took me in his arms.

“Claire. I love you.” The tenderness in his voice was overwhelming, and I leaned my head against his jacket, feeling his warmth and the strength of his arms around me.

“I love you too.” We stood locked together for a moment, swaying slightly in the wind that swept down the road. Suddenly Frank drew back a bit, smiling down at me.

“Besides,” he said softly, smoothing the wind-blown hair back from my face, “we haven’t given up yet, have we?”

I smiled back. “No.”

He took my hand, tucking it snugly beneath his elbow, and we turned toward our lodgings.

“Game for another try?”

“Yes. Why not?” We strolled, hand in hand, back toward the Gereside Road. It was the sight of the Baragh Mhor, the Pictish stone that stands at the corner of the road there, that made me remember things ancient.

“I forgot!” I exclaimed. “I have something exciting to show you.” Frank looked down at me and pulled me closer. He squeezed my hand.

“So have I,” he said, grinning. “You can show me yours tomorrow.”

When tomorrow came, though, we had other things to do. I had forgotten that we had planned a day trip to the Great Glen of Loch Ness.

It was a long drive through the Glen, and we left early in the morning, before sunup. After the hurry to the waiting car through the freezing dawn, it was cozy to relax under the rug and feel the warmth stealing back into my hands and feet. Along with it came a most delicious drowsiness, and I fell blissfully asleep against Frank’s shoulder, my last conscious sight the driver’s head in red-rimmed silhouette against the dawning sky.

It was after nine when we arrived, and the guide Frank had called for was awaiting us on the edge of the loch with a small sailing skiff.

“An’ it suits ye, sir, I thought we’d take a wee sail down the loch-side to Urquhart Castle. Perhaps we’ll sup a bit there, before goin’ on.” The guide, a dour-looking little man in weather-beaten cotton shirt and twill trousers, stowed the picnic hamper tidily beneath the seat, and offered me a callused hand down into the well of the boat.

It was a beautiful day, with the burgeoning greenery of the steep banks blurring in the ruffled surface of the loch. Our guide, despite his dour appearance, was knowledgeable and talkative, pointing out the islands, castles, and ruins that rimmed the long, narrow loch.

“Yonder, that’s Urquhart Castle.” He pointed to a smooth-faced wall of stone, barely visible through the trees. “Or what’s left of it. ’Twas cursed by the witches of the Glen, and saw one unhappiness after another.”

He told us the story of Mary Grant, daughter of the laird of Urquhart Castle, and her lover, Donald Donn, poet son of MacDonald of Bohuntin. Forbidden to meet because of her father’s objection to the latter’s habits of “lifting” any cattle he came across (an old and honorable Highland profession, the guide assured us), they met anyway. The father got wind of it, Donald was lured to a false rendezvous and thus taken. Condemned to die, he begged to be beheaded like a gentleman, rather than hanged as a felon. This request was granted, and the young man led to the block, repeating “The Devil will take the Laird of Grant out of his shoes, and Donald Donn shall not be hanged.” He wasn’t, and legend reports that as his severed head rolled from the block, it spoke, saying, “Mary, lift ye my head.”

I shuddered, and Frank put an arm around me. “There’s a bit of one of his poems left,” he said quietly. “Donald Donn’s. It goes:

“Tomorrow I shall be on a hill, without a head.

Have you no compassion for my sorrowful maiden,

My Mary, the fair and tender-eyed?”

I took his hand and squeezed it lightly.

As story after story of treachery, murder, and violence were recounted, it seemed as though the loch had earned its sinister reputation.

“What about the monster?” I asked, peering over the side into the murky depths. It seemed entirely appropriate to such a setting.

Our guide shrugged and spat into the water.

“Weel, the loch’s queer, and no mistake. There’s stories, to be sure, of something old and evil that once lived in the depths. Sacrifices were made to it – kine, and sometimes even wee bairns, flung into the water in withy baskets.” He spat again. “And some say the loch’s bottomless – got a hole in the center deeper than anything else in Scotland. On the other hand” – the guide’s crinkled eyes crinkled a bit more – “ ’twas a family here from Lancashire a few years ago, cam’ rushin’ to the police station in Invermoriston, screamin’ as they’d seen the monster come out o’ the water and hide in the bracken. Said ’twas a terrible creature, covered wi’ red hair and fearsome horns, and chewin’ something, wi’ the blood all dripping from its mouth.” He held up a hand, stemming my horrified exclamation.

“The constable they sent to see cam’ back and said, weel, bar the drippin’ blood, ’twas a verra accurate description” – he paused for effect – “of a nice Highland cow, chewin’ her cud in the bracken!”

We sailed down half the length of the loch before disembarking for a late lunch. We met the car there and motored back through the Glen, observing nothing more sinister than a red fox in the road, who looked up startled, a small animal of some sort hanging limp in its jaws, as we zoomed around a curve. He leaped for the side of the road and swarmed up the bank, swift as a shadow.

It was very late indeed when we finally staggered up the path to Mrs. Baird’s, but we clung together on the doorstep as Frank groped for the key, still laughing over the events of the day.

It wasn’t until we were undressing for bed that I remembered to mention the miniature henge on Craigh na Dun to Frank. His fatigue vanished at once.

“Really? And you know where it is? How marvelous, Claire!” He beamed and began rattling through his suitcase.

“What are you looking for?”

“The alarm clock,” he replied, hauling it out.

“Whatever for?” I asked in astonishment.

“I want to be up in time to see them.”

“Who?”

“The witches.”

“Witches? Who told you there are witches?”

“The vicar,” Frank answered, clearly enjoying the joke. “His housekeeper’s one of them.”

I thought of the dignified Mrs. Graham and snorted derisively. “Don’t be ridiculous!”

“Well, not witches, actually. There have been witches all over Scotland for hundreds of years – they burnt them ’til well into the eighteenth century – but this lot is really meant to be Druids, or something of the sort. I don’t suppose it’s actually a coven – not devil-worship, I don’t mean. But the vicar said there was a local group that still observes rituals on the old sun-feast days. He can’t afford to take too much interest in such goings-on, you see, because of his position, but he’s much too curious a man to ignore it altogether, either. He didn’t know where the ceremonies took place, but if there’s a stone circle nearby, that must be it.” He rubbed his hands together in anticipation. “What luck!”

Getting up once in the dark to go adventuring is a lark. Twice in two days smacks of masochism.

No nice warm car with rugs and thermoses this time, either. I stumbled sleepily up the hill behind Frank, tripping over roots and stubbing my toes on stones. It was cold and misty, and I dug my hands deeper into the pockets of my cardigan.

One final push up over the crest of the hill, and the henge was before us, the stones barely visible in the somber light of predawn. Frank stood stock-still, admiring them, while I subsided onto a convenient rock, panting.