Books by Maggie Shayne (279 page)

"I always wanted to ask you about it—that feelin' I get when you're near. But it seemed I should remember my place, and be neither impertinent nor disrespectful."

"But you've changed your mind about those things now?"

She glanced toward her sister's grave and her eyes grew darker, her voice softer. "They seem less important to me now than the dust in the highland wind, Nicodimus." Her eyes were round and filled with pain—and something else: rebellion. A dangerous wildness flashed from somewhere deep within her, and seemed to fit with the way her hair

snapped whiplike with the wind, while her skirts flew about her ankles and bare, dirty feet.

"Propriety has its place, Arianna."

"Propriety," she whispered, looking directly at me again. "Society. Lairds and chieftains and crofters and slaves. What good is it, I ask you? What does any of it truly mean? Who cares whether a woman wears her hair unbound until she bears her first child, and bound up tight thereafter? Or if she walks about alone, or if she addresses a laird by his given name? What arrogant fool made up all these ridiculous rules that have us all hoppin' and scurryin' to obey?"

"You're angry," I said softly. "I understand that, Arianna. .."

"Aye," she replied. "I am angry. Tis meaningless, all of it!"

Her voice had grown louder with every word, until I gripped her hands gently in my own and felt the jolt of awareness that occurs when one of our kind touches another. She looked at me quickly, shocked by that heat, wondering at it, I knew, but I said only, "Keep your voice low." And I inclined my head toward the village nearby, where already several sets of speculative eyes were turned our way. Hands shielding careworn faces from the morning sun. Squinting, searching gazes trying to see who dared raise her voice in the cemetery, of all places.

Arianna followed my gaze and saw her curious neighbors. She sent them a defiant glare with a toss of her head that reminded me of Black when he is agitated and smelling a battle; the way he shakes his mane almost in challenge. I moved to take my hands from hers, but she closed hers tight and clung with a strength that surprised me.

I looked down at our joined hands, and for the first time a ripple of alarm zigzagged up my spine to tap at my brain. For this was no child clinging to my hands. This was a woman, young and beautiful and full of fire. And her hands were slender and strong and warm.

"You
want
to make them gossip about you. Is that it?" I asked her.

"Let them gossip. I dinna care."

I took my hands away. "Do you care what pain you cause others, Arianna?'' I asked, in a second attempt to put her firmly in her place, to let her know that what she might have been thinking just now when our hands were locked together, could never, never be. She was hurting, full of anger, confused and lonely for her sister. That was all it was. "You're promised to the cobbler's son," I reminded her.

She tilted her head to one side and shrugged. But it seemed her rant had ended, for her face no longer seemed like that of a warrioress about to do battle. ' 7 never made any such promise to Angus MacClennan. Nor do I intend to abide by it. An' believe me, that clod has no tender feelin's where I'm concerned."

"No? Why, then, do you suppose he's asked for your hand, Arianna?"

She smiled slowly, eyes sparkling now with mischief. "You can guess as well as I. He wants a servant. Someone to cook an' clean an' mend for him. But mostly, he wants someone to lift her skirts when he demands it. Someone to relieve his manly needs with so he'll nay have to hide in his da's woodshed an' do it himself—"

"Arianna!"

"What?"

She was all wide-eyed innocence, but I saw the gleam beyond it. I only scowled at her.

"A tender young girl isna supposed to ken such things, I suppose!" Again that expressive toss of her golden locks. "Nay, we're to blindly agree to be some man's slave an' his whore in exchange for our room and board. Well, it willna be me, Nicodimus. Not ever."

I had to bite back a smile. So bold and outspoken, and so damned determined. "A wife should be none of those things, Arianna."

"Name one who isna
all
of those things," she challenged me, leaning slightly forward, hands on her hips, legs shoulder width apart in a cocky stance.

"Your mother," I said.

She lost a bit of her cockiness. "Tis different with my mam."

"Why?"

"Because my da loves her, I suppose."

"And are you so certain your cobbler's son doesn't love you?"

She peered up at me from beneath her dark lashes. "Not so much as he loves his hand on certain nights in his da's woodshed."

I had to look away. To laugh aloud would only encourage her. And she needed no encouragement.

For a moment I thought about how seldom it was that I found myself inclined toward laughter. Genuine laughter. "I like you, Arianna," I said. "Just take care to bite your tongue from time to time. Not everyone appreciates a sharp wit and bold talk from a young woman the way I do."

She smiled up at me, all but glowing. And I thought I would enjoy spending a bit of time with Arianna while at Stonehaven this time, getting to know the astounding young woman she had become. And then I was shaken out of my thoughts, for she suddenly grabbed my hands and held them, and her thumbs caressed the hollows of my palms in slow circles. She stared up at me, her inquisitive eyes probing mine.

"You're different from other men, Nicodimus. I've sensed it always. You pay no more mind to the world and its silly conventions than I do. You... you're like me, somehow."

I averted my eyes. "I don't know what you mean."

"Dinna you? You're supposed to be Laird Lachlan's kin, yet you dinna live in his keep. You bathe just as often as you like, without a care that the church calls it vanity."

"And just how would you know how often I bathe?"

Her smile was slow, and it stirred something to life deep within me. "You smell good, Nicodimus. Clean. I like the way you smell." I looked away from the heat in her eyes. Her palm came to my cheek, turning my head until I faced her again, and then it remained there. "An' what's more,

you dare to talk openly and all alone to the girl half the clan thinks is crazy—"

"And the other half thinks is dabbling in Witchcraft," I interjected, hoping to shock her into silence. She saw too much, this girl. And she was looking far too closely, tampering with parts of me that no one had dared come near in a very long time. Her touch ... rattled me. Relief sighed through my chest when her hand fell away from my cheek at last.

"An' what if I am a Witch?" she shot back, undaunted.

I stared at her in surprise. She was all fire and life and utter defiance, boldly blurting words that could easily get her killed. "Tis no business of mine what you are, Ar-ianna," I told her. "And no business of theirs, either. Do as you will."

She rolled her eyes. "I intend to do just that!"

I gripped her shoulders to make her listen. "But keep it to yourself, for the love of heaven! If you can't conform, then
pretend
to conform. And never, ever again must you say something so foolish aloud! For your own sake, girl, take the advice of one older and wiser. One who would like to see you live to grow into womanhood."

"I'm a woman already," she told me, chin high, hair sailing in the breeze. "A woman like no other woman you've ever known." She swayed slightly closer to me, gaze locked on my lips.

I dropped my hands from her shoulders and staggered backward as her bold, enticing eyes flashed fire at me. I'd come to her to try to help her. Instead, I felt as if I were under attack. Her forces battered my innermost tower, and I had a feeling they could bring it to rubble with minimal effort.

"An' since you've mentioned it," she went on, "just
how much
older and wiser are you, Nicodimus?" She smoothed the front of her dress as she spoke, her fingers brushing very near to her breasts, but her eyes never left my face.

I saw her meaning in those eyes. Saw it clear, for she didn't seem the least bit inclined to hide it from me. It

unsettled me, shook me to my bones. I'd never thought of her in that way ... not until this very moment—or perhaps a few moments ago, when I'd seen her again, a woman grown.

"Too old for what you have in mind," I said, hoping I sounded mildly amused and sardonic. "Go find your cobbler's son now, and torment him in my stead."

But even as I turned to leave her, my mind spun its arguments. She would be eighteen in a fortnight. Oh, yes, I knew the date of her birth. I knew more about her than she knew about herself. I was over seven centuries old ... and yet at the time of my first death, I'd been twenty and eight. Physically ... I still was. And never more aware of it.

"You're meant for me, Nicodimus," she called as I walked away. "You must ken that as well as I."

I froze where I stood. She came toward me, but didn't stop when she reached my side. Instead she kept walking, brushing past me, and dropping a kiss upon my cheek as she did. The touch of her lips sent heat through me all the way to my toes. "You'll be mine one day," she whispered. "An' then, Nicodimus, I will know all the secrets you hide behind your sapphire eyes."

A shiver raced up my spine as I watched Arianna walk away, golden hair dancing in the wind. She walked proudly right up to where a crowd of crofters stood pretending not to watch her antics. Her chin jutting high, she nodded hello to each of them, her entire stance oozing defiance—as if she were silently daring anyone to chide her for going about alone. Or for kissing a guest of their laird so boldly.

Or for muttering incantations over her dead sister—and in the daylight at that.

Daring them.

No one took the challenge.

She was right when she said she was a woman like no other. For there had never been another who touched my soul the way she did.

"Just what do you think you're about, Arianna?" her mother whispered harshly.

Arianna turned back toward the darkened cottage from which she'd just emerged, and hugged her dark cloak tighter 'round her shoulders. Her mother opened the splintery wooden door wider, and peered out at her. "I thought you were sleepin', Mam."

"How is a mother to sleep when her child roams about in the night like a wraith?"

Lowering her head, Arianna whispered, "I was only goin' for a walk. I couldna sleep."

Mara Sinclair shook her head, glanced up and down the path as if to be sure none of the neighbors were watching, and then stepped outside. She wore a nightshift that reached to her ankles and covered her arms to the wrists, over which she had thrown an old shawl for both warmth and propriety's sake. Out of long habit, Mara began twisting her long, gold and gray hair into a knot even as she sent her daughter a disapproving stare.

The sight of it made Arianna's temper rise. "Why do you do that?" she asked. When her mother tilted her head in confusion, she continued, "Your hair. Leave it, Mam.

Just this once, dare to ignore the rules of this foolish society and leave it."

With firm motions, her mother finished the job of binding up her hair and met Arianna's stare. "You so disapprove of me. Of all I am, all I stand for. I vow, Arianna, I dinna ken what's happened to you."

"You ken exactly what's happened to me, Mam. I've lost my sister," Arianna said.

Mara pressed one hand flat to her chest, and held the other up as if to ward off her daughter's words. "Dinna speak of Raven to me!" It was a shout. But then she bit her lip, tempered her voice. "I canna bear it, child."

Arianna shook her head. "Dinna call me 'child,' Mam, for I am a woman grown. An' I willna obey without question the way a child would do. The way ... you do."

Her mother lifted her head slowly, staring at Arianna with hurt in her eyes. "Nay. You never did, lass."

"You scold me for my silence. You say I'm broodin' an' that I willna talk to you. Yet when I try to express my grief for my dead sister, you silence me. What am I to do?"

"Talk to me of something else," her mother whispered, gaze lowering, lids shuttering her eyes at once.
"Anything
else."

"I
think
of nothing else," Arianna said.

"Oh, but you do, lass," her mother said, speaking slowly and meeting her daughter's eyes once more. "You think of wherever it is you go on these midnight walks o' yours. An' of late, you think of Laird Lachlan's comely cousin. I've seen you spyin' on him now and again."

Arianna searched her mother's face. Barely a line in her skin and yet she looked old all the same. It was more than the gray in her once pure golden hair. It was something deeper than any wrinkle could ever be.

"Aye," Mara went on. "I've seen the way you look at Nicodimus, lass." Reaching out as if to stroke Arianna's hair, she paused and lowered her hand. Arianna told herself she'd have ducked away from her touch all the same. And yet she felt the pain of longing for her mother's caress, having been denied it. Not since Raven's death had her

mother touched her in love. Instead they only hurt each other, over and over.

"Dinna wish for what you canna have, child," Mara warned. "He's far too old, an' above you as well. The kin of a chieftain, while you're but a saddle maker's daughter."

"You know nothing about Nicodimus Lachlan," Ar-ianna said, feeling as if her mother were attacking her. ' 'He cares no more for the silly ways of society than I, an' I
can
have any man I wish! You'll see!"

Mara frowned. "Child, you'll find only disappointment should you go dreamin' of such things. "Tis young Angus you'll wed, an' none other."

"I've told you before," Arianna replied slowly. "I willna marry that whelp!"

"Hush!" Again her mother glanced around, seeking watchers in the night. More concerned, Arianna thought, with what her fellow clansmen and kin might think than with her daughter's feelings.

"You think I'm nay good enough for the likes of Nicodimus Lachlan, dinna you? You think I'm nay pretty nor smart enough. But I
am
equal to him. Equal to any man, be he peasant or king!"

When there was no immediate reply, Arianna met her mother's gaze again, saw her eyes soften, dampen. "I certainly believe you equal to any man, daughter. 'Tis the man you might have a wee bit o' trouble convincin' of it."

Arianna sighed hard, and shook her head in disgust.

"Child, we used to be so close, you an' I. Do you recall? I'd sit an' comb your hair, an' sing to you 'ere I tucked you in to sleep...."

Arianna closed her eyes in response to a rush of pain. She missed those times. "An' Raven would sing along," she said, caught up in the memory for just a moment, in spite of herself. ' 'She had such a beautiful voice. And when she—"

"Nay, you mustn't!"

Arianna lowered her head slowly. "You blame me," she whispered.

"Whatever are you—"

"Speak the words, Mam. 'Tis high time we spoke the truth, you an' I. You blame me for my sister's death. I was the elder. I should have protected her. She drowned because of me. I—"

"Nay, child!" Her mother reached for her, and perhaps wouldn't have stopped halfway this time. But Arianna ducked away before she could find out. "'Tis untrue, Arianna," her mother rushed on. "Your da an' I have ne'er once blamed you for what happened."

Holding back her tears, Arianna lifted her head. "Of course you do," she whispered. "An' I canna dispute it, for I blame myself as well." Sniffling, Arianna turned to walk away.

"Come back here! Arianna, where do you think you're goin', lass?" her mother demanded in a voice gone harsh.

"I'm goin' where I want," she cried. "An' doin' what I want, an' I'll marry who I want, as well. I'll nay be good nor obedient ever again, Mam, for I've seen the truth of where goodness and obedience find their reward! At the bottom o' some murky loch is where!"

"Arianna..."

"Raven was the good one," Arianna whispered, shaking her head and backing slowly away into the night. "She was the good one. It should've been me who drowned, Mam. It should have been me!" Arianna turned and raced away into the night.

She refused to cry. Instead she worked her rage out by running as fast as she could over the rutted paths of the village and beyond them, toward the woods. When her lungs burned and her muscles screamed, she slowed to a trot and then to a walk. Her heart thrummed and her breath rushed in and out of her heated body like the wind in the trees around her. And then she rested, waited... and listened. The nighttime woodland sounds would soothe her. They never failed to help her regain control when her tight grip on it faltered.

Soft, pine-scented air caressed her face, stroked her hair, filled her lungs. Padded feet stepped over the ground off to the left. Three steps, then a pause. Then an airy sound...

sniffing. A wolf. Yes, a wolf. Nodding in affirmation, she moved a little farther, stopping again at a familiar scent that tickled her nose. Standing still, she inhaled softly, closing her eyes. She smelled the heather growing thick on the moors, and rich earth and night air. She didn't smell the wolf, though the old women had told her such a thing was possible. The wolf could smell her, they'd said. So why shouldn't she be able to detect his scent in the night air?

She put all else from her mind as she made her way to The Crones' cottage just inside the edge of the woods. She chased away her sorrow, her guilt, her rage, and replaced them by focusing on her senses, on honing them as The Crones had taught her, on feeling as if she were one with everything around her. On trying to detect the scent of a wolf in the night.

"You're late," a rich, female voice announced, and Arianna looked up to see Celia, her skin smooth and unlined, her silver hair loose and flowing over her shoulders as if she were a young girl. Her smile was warm, and despite her scolding tone she enfolded Arianna's hands in her own. It was the sort of touch Arianna had been craving from her mother. What would she have done this past year without the companionship of these three women?

A small fire danced in the clearing beside the crooked little shack The Crones shared. The light of the fire was bathing their faces, gleaming in their eyes, throwing shadows upon their worn woolen shawls. Their home was a humble one, built of rough-hewn plank boards and filled with knotholes. It had weathered to near black over the years, and had moss growing on one side and vines creeping up the other as if embracing the wood. Its thatched roof sagged in the middle, as if it were tired to the point of exhaustion. The wild tangle of growth in the back looked to be a weed patch, but was in fact a garden of herbs and plants with healing properties. But no matter how untended this place looked, there was magick here. Arianna had known it from the first time she'd come to these three women and pled with them to teach her their ways.

"My mam tried to stop me," she explained.

"An' you came anyway?" Celia asked with an arched brow.

"I'm a woman grown. I'm a Witch. I do as I will."

Celia tilted her head. She exchanged an indulgent glance with her two companions. They each smiled and shook their heads helplessly. "Do what thou wilt is but a part of the Rede, child. Tell me the rest," Celia said.

"I dinna—"

"Tell me the rest."

Sighing, Arianna muttered, " 'An' it harm none, do what thou wilt.' "

"Exactly," Celia said. "Do you think you harmed your mother tonight, child?"

"Nay! I dinna so much as touch her."

Celia's eyes narrowed. Arianna knew full well what she meant. She also knew that she likely
had
hurt her mother tonight—and that she would have to make it right.

Celia nodded, seeming to read Arianna's face. "Come," she said, and led Arianna closer to the fire. Arianna nodded her greetings to Leandra, the eldest of the three, a woman whose face was so lined it resembled the surface of the trembling sea. Her snow-white hair was piled atop her head, and when she spoke it was with the voice of gravel. Then Arianna turned to Mary, plump and always smiling, with steel-gray streaks in her thick ebony mane.

"Merry meet," Arianna said.

"An' to you, lass," Mary returned. "You ought be lookin' forward to this night's ritual."

Arianna smiled broadly. For a year and a day The Crones had been teaching her, letting her observe, answering her questions. But tonight, for the first time, she would be welcomed into the sacred circle as a Witch. And after her initiation, she would be allowed to participate in a magickal rite. She could barely contain her excitement.

So far, The Crones' "magick" had consisted mostly of concocting herbal remedies for various ailments, and they
had
managed to raise a cooling wind one hot summer's night. Arianna had been mildly disappointed. She'd been

expecting explosions of smoke and light, thunderbolts, and evildoers changing into toads.

She'd been hoping....

Well, what she
really
wanted to learn from the old women would take far more magick than what they'd shown her so far. But Arianna had learned one thing. Even in their minor workings, there was real power. Magick was real. Knowing that made Arianna certain she would one day learn what she needed to know.

Perhaps even from The Crones. For it may be that they were simply saving the stronger sorts of magick for later on.

"Tonight, you become one with us, Arianna. Our own sister in the Craft of the Wise." Leandra smiled, and more wrinkles appeared in her face before the smile died. "And then, we conjure rain," she said with a nervous glance at the sky. "For unless we get some soon, the crops could well begin to wilt."

"Aye," Arianna said, "and those fool villagers would no doubt blame you for it."

The three Crones exchanged glances, but didn't speak their fears aloud. Still, Arianna sensed their worry.

"Come, let us cast the circle," Leandra said.

I followed Arianna that night. I had been watching her often at night, hoping I could keep her out of harm's way, certain from what Joseph had said that she was too reckless to heed my warnings. I was right.

She went to The Crones on the night of the full moon just as I had suspected she would. Dammit, didn't she realize what a risk she was taking by sneaking out to that croft alone? What could happen to her if she were found out?

I followed, of course, and hid myself in the trees just beyond reach of the dancing firelight's glow.

Then I forgot why I had come. My mind became too involved in the beauty of what I witnessed.

The beauty of Arianna.

By the time I reached the edge of the clearing, the four

of them had cast their circle, and were well into their ritual. Arianna had removed her dark cloak, and beneath it wore a garment of flowing white, which reminded me sharply of the ritual robes of my first teachers—an order of Druid priests. In Arianna's golden hair was a ringlet of flowers, and as I looked on in silence, I realized this was some sort of initiation rite. Arianna knelt in the center of the circle, near the fire, and one by one each of the old women presented her with a gift.

Apparently, Arianna had studied long enough to be recognized as one of them now. It was almost laughable. Gods, if those Crones only knew.

In silence, one of the old women gave her a book. I recognized it as a
grimoire,
in which spells and rituals and ancient knowledge would have been painstakingly copied. The second old woman presented her with a pendant that I couldn't see in detail. The third gifted her with a dagger.

This made me peer more closely, for it seemed to be a very special dagger. One much like the one I carried—like the one
we all
carried at our sides.

But The Crones didn't know of our existence, or of their student's true nature. Did they?

There was no time to ponder this mystery, for the initiation rite concluded, and the four of them moved on to whatever magickal working they had planned for this night. I crept nearer, so I might hear them.