Books by Maggie Shayne (290 page)

I shook my head, considered telling her she had the right of it. That I was incapable of loving ... now. But then decided I had hurt her enough, and my revelations would soon do so even more. Enough of causing her pain.

"How long were you together?" she asked, taking my hand now, leading me back to sit on the boulder as if she were the experienced sage, and I the innocent. She urged me downward, then curled her legs beneath her and sat on the ground at my feet, close to me. Her body leaning against my thighs.

"I was but four and ten when I found her. She was the daughter of an enemy chieftain. Our men took her father's life in battle, and I found her in her village, being beaten by her two brothers, Marten and Kohl. She'd been mistreated all her life. So I took her."

"As prisoner?" she asked. No judgment in her tone, just curiosity.

"The choice was hers. I took her, yes, but I may have left her behind, had she asked it of me." I shrugged. "Or perhaps not. At any rate, she did not object, so I took her. And back in my village, I made her my wife, and gave her my promise that no man would ever raise a hand to harm her again. 'Twas a promise I kept."

Arianna's hand touched my thigh, and she dipped her head, as if she were studying her fingers with great interest. "Was she ... very beautiful?"

"She was comely. Small and frail. With the temperament of a mouse, Arianna. Wary and afraid, but eventually she came to trust me, and to love me. We had a good life together. She cared for my needs and I for hers. She gave me my sons, the most precious things in the world to me."

Arianna blinked and lifted her eyes to mine. "She sounds like my opposite. She couldna have been more unlike me."

"Tis true enough," I told her.

And she quickly looked away, hiding her eyes from my scrutiny. "Tell me of the children."

"Jaymes was the younger. Timid and tall for his age. Sickly. But bright, beyond measure. He was constantly working figures, numbers and such. He could draw any likeness, and play the pipes like Pan Himself. Will was the elder. Strong, a warrior, a strapping lad with a temper to match. It was all I could do to keep that one in line. Had he lived much longer, he'd have been fully capable of besting his sire in a fair fight."

Darkening with understanding and sympathy, her eyes turned up toward mine again. "Oh, Nicodimus. You lost them."

I closed my eyes. ' 'I lost them all. Anya died struggling to give birth to our third child, a wee girl who never lived to draw her first breath. After four and ten years with her, I didn't think I could live without her, but somehow I did. My lads needed me, then. I had no choice."

"You are very strong," Arianna whispered. "I've always known that about you." Her arms had somehow

twisted 'round my waist, and her head rested on my thigh. "An' a fine father you must have been to those lads."

"I tried. By the Gods, Arianna, I tried. But Jaymes died when the Black Death swept through our village later that same year. And a year later, Will and I were cut down side by side, in battle with the same clan from whence I'd taken his mother."

"Oh, Nicodimus ..." she whispered, head rising, hands stroking along my back. "Oh, my love, I am so very sorry. I know this grief that lives in you. I know it well."

"I know you do," I told her, studying her eyes seeing the tears pooling there. "You've felt it, too."

"So you and Will were wounded ... in this battle?" she asked.

"No," I said. "No, Arianna, we were... we were killed."

She sat up straighter. "No, my love ..."

"Yes. I'd a blade thrust straight through my heart, Arianna. There was no question. I died beside my son on the field of battle. But moments later, I lived again. Consciousness returned, and with it a blinding flash of pain and light. My body arched until I thought my spine would snap, and I dragged in a desperate gasp that failed to satisfy my starving lungs. I opened my eyes and stared, first at the blade which skewered me still, and then at my beloved son, lying lifeless at my side. And a rage filled me such as none I had ever known. I gripped the hilt of the sword, and pulled it from my chest. I howled in rage that Will should be dead, and I alive, with no one left, no one at all. Even before my grief abated, I felt a tingling sensation, saw the bleeding stop, and watched in awe as the mortal wound in my chest healed itself.

"Someone saw me then, and shouted that I'd been dead, my body already cooling, only moments before. I was confused and maddened with grief, and so I ran. I ran away."

Soft, cooling palms skimmed my face, and big brown eyes, brimming with tears, traced my features with healing tenderness. "Aye, Nicodimus. An' you've been runnin' ever since. From love. From carin' of any kind. Because it

hurts to love and lose, you've decided nay to love at all."

I nodded, amazed, and not for the first time, by her insights. "You are very wise for one so young."

'"Tis nay my age which makes me know your heart. Nicodimus. 'Tis my own grief. I, too, wished never to suffer loss again. I believe 'tis why I drew away from those closest to me. Even my own dear mother." As she spoke, she lay her head down once again.

I looked down at her, blond hair spread over my legs as her head rested gently there. "Then perhaps you do understand."

"To have lost my sister nearly destroyed me," she went on, lifting her head now, and stroking my cheek with one hand. "I canna imagine the pain of losing a child ... much less two of them, an' your newborn ... an' your wife."

I closed my hand over hers on my face, and gently moved it away, for her touch was eliciting more emotion from within me than I had realized was hidden inside. '"Tis the way of things, for me ... for my kind."

Her hand stilled in midair, eyes widening. "You mean you're nay the only one? There ... there are others?"

I felt my lips pull into a smile at her innocence and wonder. "Hundreds," I told her. "And all of us cursed to outlive all of those we love."

Blinking rapidly, she finally averted her face. "I could never exist that way," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. "Never!"

And my throat went dry, because I knew she must. But I couldn't tell her that. Not yet.

Eventually, she looked back at me. ' 'T ken now why you canna love me, Nicodimus. I'll never ask it of you again."

I looked into her eyes, as dark and fathomless as the night itself, and I felt an odd tug in the center of my chest. It felt like ... regret. But that made no sense, whatsoever.

But she gave me no time to examine the feeling.

"Where did you go?"

I only looked at her blankly, still pondering my own heart. "Where did I—"

"When you ran away," she clarified, staring up at me, wide-eyed and rapt with attention.

"Of course." I focused my mind back on my tale. "I wandered for a time, stopping at crofts and working for a meal and a place to lay my head before moving on again. Eventually, I decided to make my way back to my village, my people. I'd been searching for answers, but I'd found none. I'd been traveling aimlessly over the whole of Scotland for well over two years. And I was still no closer to understanding why I lived. But I had noticed things, changes in me. Though these things only served to puzzle me more."

"What sorts of changes?" she asked, nearly breathless now with anticipation.

"They were gradual," I explained. "There was a certain sharpening of my senses. My eyesight grew keener, and I began to see in darkness as well as I did in bright light. My hearing became ... acute. My sense of smell became as honed as that of the wolf, and I seemed able to taste things more thoroughly, even things on the air. Physical feeling intensified, and with it, physical strength and stamina beyond that of any ordinary man. And then there was the healing ... any wound I had would heal within a short while, just as I have shown you here this night. And while I suspected I could not easily die, I had no idea that I was immortal."

"How could you?" she asked. "Who would ever imagine such a thing?" She shook her head slowly, her gaze turning inward. "Even though you've shown me this miraculous healing power, I still canna quite grasp the fact that you canna die."

"I can die, Arianna. Just not easily, nor in the usual way."

She perused my features, her brown eyes narrow. "Go on, tell me what happened, how you found the answers you sought."

I rose from the stone to pace away from her. Apparently in thought, but truly because her embrace affected me far more than it should. Far more than I could bear.

"When I returned, it was to find my village destroyed. The crofts of my people burned, the crops lying exposed to the burning sun, withered and ruined, the livestock butchered, their carcasses stinking and bloated. And their owners, for the most part, alongside them in the same or worse condition."

"Oh, Nicodimus," she breathed. "Gods, I'd have collapsed in devastation."

I turned. She'd risen, but stayed near the rock, looking as if she'd like to run to me, to offer comfort, but perhaps, knowing better. "That is very close to what I did. Later, when I managed to move again, I erected a huge pyre, placing upon it the bodies of my clan—my friends and neighbors, my elderly father and my cousins." I lowered my head, shuddering at the memory. "I think I knew even then that the men responsible were Anya's brothers, Marten and Kohl. They'd vowed vengeance on me since the day I took their sister, and only the births of our sons had prevented them leading their clan against us sooner. Evil, they may have been, but even they had enough decency to refrain from embarking on a battle that might wound their own kin."

She nodded slowly. "But once your precious Will was gone, their restraint went with it."

I nodded, my lips tight, my stomach roiling with the memory. ' 'After the fires burned low, I went to the ancient Stone Circle, where the holy men of my clan would go to commune with the spiritual realm, and find peace and wisdom. Common men such as I rarely ventured into the sacred space, but I still had no answers to the questions burning in my soul. And somehow, I thought I would find them nowhere else."

Eyes widening, Arianna tipped her head to one side. "The same Stone Circle where I saw you tonight?"

"Yes, little cat. I vowed I would remain there until the Gods themselves spoke to me, or I would die slowly within its embrace. And there I sat upon the ground, day and night, with neither food nor water. I sat there through rain and storm, through the chill of night and the heat of midday,

until my mind became dulled with hunger, and my body parched with thirst. Until I became too weak to sit up, and so lay down instead, my knees curled to my chest, my body trembling. And still I waited, demanding the Gods either speak to me or take my life."

Arianna did come to me then. She stood very close, one hand sliding up my arm. "Obviously, they did not take your life."

"No. They gave me the answers I sought, in the form of a group of men whose roots went back in time, to unknown beginnings. The Druids. Holy men. As it happened, my vigil fell near their springtime rites, the one the Pagans call Beltane. And so they came from their secluded havens, to summon forth the spirits of the trees, and to dance in celebration of the spring."

"And they found you there?"

My hands had found their way to her waist, tiny in the span of my palms. I think I put them there to keep her at a safe distance, but it almost transformed into an embrace. It felt incredibly intimate, standing this way, holding her waist, her hands on my outer arms, her little face turned up to mine.

"One of the hooded, aged men carried me to the edge of the circle, and poured water down me, fed me, wrapped me in a blanket. Then left me there to witness their peculiar rites." I closed my eyes, remembering. "The fiddler played, and they danced and chanted. It was something of rare beauty and power."

I could see her face twist in confusion. No doubt she wondered why I would later sully such a sacred, mystical site with the blood of my enemy. But I would come to that.

"When they left again at dawn, they carried me with them. And at their temples, hidden deep within the forests, they patiently taught me what I was."

"What, Nicodimus? What are you?"

So much eagerness in her eyes. The fear was less now, than it had been before.

"I'm a Witch. An immortal High Witch, Arianna. Far different from village Witches such as The Crones were.

Most don't even know of the existence of the High Ones, the immortals."

She took my hand, and led me beside her along a path deeper into the woods. ' 'How did you become this way?''

Her small hand was not cold, nor trembling, but strong, and firm. As if she could somehow comfort me. And amazingly, she was doing just that. "There are two ways," I told her. "It is said that when one dies while attempting to save the life of a Witch, that person will return to his next lifetime with the gift of immortality. He is born, and grows older as any mortal would do, until he experiences physical death for the first time. When that happens, he doesn't remain dead ... but instead revives to life once more. And from that moment on, he will not age. His senses will sharpen, and his strength will grow. The older he becomes, the stronger he will be."

She nodded, listening intently. "You said there is one way you could experience true death, Nicodimus."

"Yes. Only should someone remove my heart from my chest, will my death be permanent. And even then, it isn't true death, for the body, though lifeless, will never rot away, and the heart, though bodiless, will beat on ... perhaps forever."

She stopped walking, and with a soft gasp lifted her hand to her breast. "'Tis a nightmare!" Then she blinked... and slowly looked up at me. "Then... that man in the circle, whose heart you cut out..."

"Yes," I told her. "He was immortal. But not like me, Arianna. He was one of the Dark Ones, made immortal by far different means. For as I told you, there are two ways to obtain this endless life, and the second is far less pretty than the first."

She released my hand, and wandered toward the banks of a swift running stream, there to sit down on the soft moss, spreading her skirts beneath her. "Come," she said, patting a spot beside her. "Tell me."