The Sea-Harrower: A Scottish Highlander Historical Romance Read online

  He snatched up his glass and drank to the portrait, and to James MacKinnon, still laughing the while. Duncan MacLeod relaxed visibly, leaning back against the wall. He said softly, ‘These are troubled times, laddie, to play at games.’

  But James roared with delight and swung Antoine around by the arms as if dancing a reel with a lass. They stumbled in the tiny room and crashed laughing into the table, so the portrait-cylinder clattered, and the face of King James shivered out of shape. ‘And you the while the one of us, and never saying. Och, ’tis sly you are.’

  ‘And supposing I was to say and then find you all cats of another colour? What then?’ Antoine smiled slowly to Duncan MacLeod. ‘These are, well enough, troubled times.’ Then he sat down, on the floor, cross-legged beside Marsali and laid the long, strong fingers of one hand on her arm. He said softly, ‘But then the lassie sang of the moorhen, and I was knowing, now, the meaning of that. The moorhen is King James, dark James, dark as the dark bird, himself. And James it was I dined with, not four months since, in Rome.’

  Then there was no holding James MacKinnon; he must have it all, the whole story of that night, and every occasion, and all there was to tell about Antoine and his father and brothers and their French-Irish empire of ships, and their dealings with King James.

  Antoine drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, sitting there like a child by the hearth, as he told his history and the long tale of his powerful, ruthless family, Marsali listened, growing still and cold by her father’s feet, and the more she heard, the less she was wanting to hear.

  A wild enough lot they were, those half-French sons and daughters of Irish Jacobite exiles. The Battle of the Boyne had cost them their estates in Ireland, and two generations, and marriage into the noble line of Sainte Marie, had made them European.

  Cut loose from the land, they became traders, boundless and unlawful and treacherous, kings of the sea, smugglers and pirates and dealers in the richest wares of their day. Tobacco and rum, sugar and cotton, all found their part in it, but the jewel of their fortune’s crown was the trade in slaves.

  ‘Aye, the African triangle,’ James MacKinnon said softly.

  Antoine smiled. ‘It’s rum, slaves and sugar make the best of it. With a wee bit this and that thrown in.’ He laughed quietly to himself and said, ‘You see then, we are exiles as well.’

  ‘Exile has been rather more kind to you,’ Duncan MacLeod said. He sat on the wooden bench by the drystone wall, a little apart, reserved, as always.

  ‘The sea has been kind to us,’ said Antoine. ‘But we are exiles yet, and there is land in Ireland that is ours by right.’

  ‘By the right of him who is yet away,’ James MacKinnon said quietly.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Well then, we are again understanding each other, laddie. Tell me now, where is it you will be going to, when you are well?’

  ‘There will be a ship in Port Glasgow in the spring, the Sea-Harrower, sister to the White Rose she is. She sailed three months past from Africa with slaves for the colonies. She will return with tobacco for the Glasgow markets, and I will meet her there. And then …’ He smiled quickly to Marsali, not seeing that cold look she gave him as he played with the ends of her loose hair. ‘Then I am away to the southland of flowers. And will you come with me, Marsali of the waterfall hair?’

  She jerked free, angrily, sweeping her hair up and over her shoulder and turning her back to him. ‘And sail on your slave ship? Never the day.’

  James MacKinnon said quietly, ‘I would not be so haughty, lass. The day might come when we would be grateful of a good ship, whatever her cargo. And where does she make for, your Sea-Harrower, Antoine?’

  ‘Egypt. But she will make landfall at Antibes, and from there I will be finding my way home.’

  ‘And will you be again in Rome, or Avignon?’

  Antoine smiled again, bent over his knees, the long, black hair half-covering his face. He did not look at James but said, ‘Now, that I could. If there were cause.’

  ‘Aye now. There might be cause.’ James stood and walked to the table and looked down at the cylinder and the crooked face of King James. He straightened it carefully and glanced quickly to Duncan MacLeod. A nod passed between them, unseen by the company.

  ‘Marsali,’ James said then. ‘You will be telling our guest of the gold of the ship Ste. Genevieve.’

  Marsali turned her face away and said nothing. ‘Daughter, I am thinking you have heard me.’ There was a low, underlying growl in James MacKinnon’s voice.

  ‘I have heard you well enough. Tell him yourself, father, if you wish him to know. I will have no part in it.’ Then she whirled around and faced him with disgust. ‘Och your noble cause, your rightful king and free men of Scotland … for them, for that, you will throw all aside, and deal … deal with him.’ She flung a scornful hand towards Antoine. ‘A slave trader, a slaver. A man who sells men like beasts.’

  ‘Och lassie, that is another world,’ said James sourly.

  ‘It is this world, father, and he does the work of the devil in it.’

  ‘Daughter, you will be silent.’ He turned to Antoine then and said, ‘I apologize for the woman’s behaviour. She has been too long from civilized life. She has forgotten how one treats a guest.’ He looked over his plaided shoulder at Marsali as if he would strike her in a moment.

  But she ignored that and cried angrily to Antoine, ‘And what of you, making your wealth out of such misery, buying and selling human lives. How can you live with yourself, bringing such suffering on humankind?’

  Antoine sat very still, still in that child’s pose, with his arms around his knees. His face was without expression, calm, very beautiful in the wavering light. Marsali could see, where his rough, white shirt was open at the throat, the silvery glister of the talisman against the brown skin. He said very softly, ‘What humankind chooses to do on land is its own choice. My choice is the sea.’

  ‘The sea nearly drowned you, and I am thinking it were best if it had.’ Marsali saw the shadow of her father’s hand and flung back from it, but he was quick as a wild thing, and the hand cracked hard across her jaw.

  She stood up, very slowly, trembling from his blow, but dry-eyed. She walked from the room out into the night. In the black, cold wind she stood and listened to the sea pounding and growling on the rocks of Skye. She said in her heart, ‘Och Lord. You take my good brother, and Rory who was gallant and brave. And you leave us a one like that? Now why is that, will you be telling me?’ When she began to cry, she heard a sound, like a ghost reaching behind her. A hand touched her shoulder, and the fingers brushed upwards against her cheek. They were cool, and still.

  ‘Marsali,’ Antoine said.

  ‘Do not be touching me. I have no use for you.’

  ‘Not true.’ But he dropped his hand, and then she turned instinctively, and he said, ‘You see, you will turn to me yet.’

  ‘I would turn to the dog, if it licked my hand.’

  ‘Oh, fire, fire. Marsali, you will love me.’

  ‘You are evil and I will hate you.’

  ‘If I was evil, the sea would have drowned me.’

  ‘Nonsense. You are alive because of Murdoch and me. Our mistake and your good fortune. Do not be reading divine kindness into that.’

  ‘I am alive because of you, and because of that you will love me. As a mother must love a child, Marsali, though it grows old and turns every wrong way.’ The wind had strengthened, blowing off the surf, and it whipped around Marsali’s shoulders, lifting her hair, that heavy weight from her neck. She stood to it, unfeeling, bred to her northern land.

  He shivered, in his thin shirt and no coat, out in the damp night. And she remembered then how hard and foolishly he had worked the day, when he should not have done. She took his arm, suddenly, and said, ‘Go in, you will be ill again.’

  He laughed, a clear laugh in the sea wind, and said, ‘Aye then, Marsali. It were best if I had drowned. But still now, you fe
ar for me, lest I take a chill. You will love me, Marsali, against your will and to the ends of the earth.’

  Then he went in, to her father’s house, where she had made him welcome, and left her alone, and unwelcome, in the night.

  When Marsali awoke in the dawn, the seal-folk were calling their sharp, barking call on the shore. Murdoch would be angry. They stole from his hard-built fish cairidh, and he despised them. But she liked them in spite of their thievery, gay sleek things, playing in the icy sea. She crept through from the end room, where she slept with Ishbel, silently, so as not to wake the others. Murdoch slept yet, in his own bed, crammed in behind the scullery door, and James MacKinnon slept still on the floor. But the curtain of the box bed was drawn back, and Antoine was gone.

  She stood still in the cold room, uncomprehending. Had her words, spoken so angrily, taken so lightly, gone deeper than ever she thought? Would he leave them like that, in the night, as uncanny and unexpected as he had come? She saw him, in her mind, already away, walking the long far road to the lowlands. Was she never to see him again?

  Oh, her father would do murder, for sure, if he had left them and her rudeness was the cause. She clutched up her plaid from the chair at the fireside and ran out the door.

  House and byre were silent, empty and grey in the thin light. The hill road to Portree, that last night Duncan MacLeod had taken full of brandy and good cheer, was now a dead grey shadow, curving off over the heather. There had been a frost in the still night, and the ground outside the door was hard, the hoof prints of beasts frozen stiff and edged in white. But there were newer prints, the prints of a man, dull marks in the shining hoarfrost, and they led, not to the hill road, but to the sea. The seals barked, far and clear in the dawn air.

  Marsali waited only a moment by the secure dark of the house door. Then she wrapped the plaid over her head and shoulders, tucked it tight under her arm and shut the door firm behind her. She walked, cautious on the frost-slippery path, to the sea.

  At the glaistig’s stone she stopped, looking out over the ice-rimmed curve of their bay and the grey sea beyond, dim, and the dark promontory curves of the bay’s arms. They would not be there, the silkie-folk. But she knew where.

  She turned off the path, scarce glancing at the stone hollow, milk-filled and lonely. She climbed up over the frosted heather, crunching beneath her bare, cold feet, and crossed the rocky back of the promontory. Below, on the far side, was a small, sheltered cove.

  The surf was shut out by the rocky arm of land, and the rock shelved away below the water, and the sea there was deep and green. In that narrow, rushing place, the seals came from their fishing to play.

  She saw them at once, from the height of the hill, seven dark shapes in the dawn-tinged sea. The water flowed and rippled about them like the strings of her harp. Six were grey and smooth, the familiar silkie colour, but the seventh was black and shining as coal. Then she saw the white flash of a strong young arm by the black head. The seventh was Antoine.

  He swam like a sea creature, not a man at all, and the seal-folk plunged and dove and rose all around him. She could hear his laughter over the cold, unmoving air. He turned in the sea and the grey creatures turned to greet him.

  Marsali caught up her skirts and scrambled backwards, up, away, terrified, making for the rocky crest of the hill and the glaistig’s haunted stone and the safe path home. But he saw her and shouted, and she stopped, unwilling, but drawn by his voice and the sight of his play in the misty sea. She turned, fearful, but excited, and trembling.

  The sea was empty. Antoine was standing on the shore, white-naked and lean. ‘Turn your head, lassie,’ he called, half-teasing. ‘’Tis a brazen creature that you are.’

  She flung around, her back to him, ashamed, fear drowned in indignation. She heard his steps behind her, his bare wet feet on the rocks, a slippery sea sound. She said angrily, still facing the hill, ‘And how is a lassie to know the sea will be the domain of naked madmen of a winter morning?’

  ‘Och, a lassie can hope,’ he said softly. His hand on her shoulder was cold. He had flung his clothing on over his wet body, the britches and linsey-woolsey shirt. They clung to him, dark soaking. His black hair sleeked around his neck, in little wet tails, tangled in the silver gleam of the talisman.

  Marsali shuddered and said, ‘You’re mad. Or bewitched. Ishbel is right.’

  ‘Because I play with the creatures of the sea? But they are friendly. Come.’ He held his wet hand to her. ‘They will play as well with you.’

  She gasped and jumped back. ‘Never, they would have me away to their sea caves and drown me, to be sure.’

  He laughed, stepping back and looking across his shoulder at the empty sea. ‘Och surely, you’re not believing such nonsense, a sensible lass like yourself. They are only friendly. And lonely. It would be cruel to deny them company.’

  ‘They are sea beasts. What do they need of our company?’ she said sharply, watching fearfully where his eyes idly crossed the water.

  He did not look at her, but said slowly, ‘Who is to be saying what one creature might crave of another? ’Tis a lonely world, Marsali. We are best to make what friends we can.’

  He leant over her, smiling, beguiling with his white teeth bright against his dark wet skin. His mouth was gentle, shadowed at the corners by fleeting lines. She thought his eyes uncanny, large and pale under the sharp arch of black brows, the lashes like wet black velvet, They were clear as the cold air, those eyes, and she could read nothing in them.

  ‘I will seek friends wherever I find them,’ he said then, and she knew he meant to kiss her. He reached his wet arms around her waist, laughing and playful, and she pulled violently away. But she felt the cold of his body, and was suddenly sure again that he was only a man, and vulnerable.

  ‘Och you fool,’ she said.

  ‘Are you yet angry, then, Marsali? You’ll not forgive me my father’s trade?’

  ‘I will not forgive you swimming in the frost of November, and likely undoing all the work I had nursing you.’ She covered caring with anger.

  ‘Gentle Marsali,’ he said, touching the soft-coloured curve of her cheek, and added honestly, not playing now with her, ‘The sea will not hurt me.’ He almost turned to go, as if in kindness he would free her.

  But she flung off her plaid, to wipe his wet face and dry his hair, and it wrapped in the wind about them both, trapping her. His pale eyes brightened with a quick winter light, and he caught her waist in his thin, strong hands. She struggled, but he had only to lean backwards and unbalance them both, easily, and he fell full length on his back in the frozen heather and pulled her down on top of him. She gasped with the shock of the fall and the coldness of his hard, wet body beneath her. She could feel the whole length of him against her, leg and thigh together, and the stirring of him against her skirt. He was human enough. And she.

  She let her head fall, bewildered over his, the thick hair burying him, her mouth on his mouth. He welcomed her, kissing and laughing at once, his wet hands strong and tangled in her hair. But he released her, and when she bent to kiss him again he spun her over him onto the ground, playful and cruel. Then he sat up, like a gay savage child, his hands about his knees and eyes away on the sea, ignoring her. She lay ashamed, tasting the salt of his wet mouth, and bitter pride.

  After a while he said, ‘I could not be doing that, now, lass. What would your father say?’

  ‘My father,’ she gasped. ‘What is it to my father?’

  ‘Och, a good man, he is. He deserves better of a guest. He deserves better. A good chaste daughter, such a man should have.’ She could not tell if he were laughing or not, his face turned from hers. ‘It is best you away and make the porridge, lassie, and say your prayers, like a good daughter.’

  ‘It is best you go to hell,’ Marsali said coolly.

  ‘Och lassie, such a one as yourself might well be careful with her threats. Who knows now where that sweet mouth will find you?’

  ‘And wh
o, you proud, priggish lout, did make the starting of it?’

  ‘It wasna me, Adam, ’twas yon sairpent,’ he mocked. ‘And you’ll not put the fear of hell in me, whatever. I’m no Presbyterian Reformer.’

  ‘Och no. The likes of you and I take our sin with pleasure.’ He smiled then and turned to her and lay on his back beside where she sat now, stiff and angry. He closed his eerie, beautiful eyes and reached for her hand. ‘Marsali.’

  ‘To hell.’

  ‘Marsali. I am a terrible tease. But you are very beautiful, and I could love you.’

  She stood up and lifted the fallen plaid from the frozen ground. ‘We will neither of us live to love anyone if we stay any longer in the frost. I am freezing. We will go to the house.’ Then she smiled, just a small smile. ‘And I will make the porridge. Like a good daughter.’

  He jumped up, suddenly catching her from behind and whirling her around him, stumbling on the uneven heather hill. Then he set her down and kissed her forehead, the way Norman her brother would have done, Norman the gallant one.

  ‘’Tis a fine daughter you are, for all I might say. Lassie, tell me, why would you not speak of the gold?’

  She looked quick, cautious, around the frayed edge of her plaid. He caught her eye and said very carefully, ‘It is all right, you know. He told me of it. I know he has it. But if you wish, we will not talk more of it.’

  ‘Och, we can talk. Talking will not stir the wretched stuff.’ So she told him then of the day long, long ago, when she and Norman and Rory had been riding their grey, shaggy ponies up on the hill with the wild hooded falcon on Rory’s arm. The falcon had risen, freed, and rode the air and made its flashing dive and then suddenly, wild, veered off, with an uncanny shriek. And then they saw that strange sight. ‘There were three men, you see, in strange foreign clothes, like yourself when we found you. And carrying between them a great box of wood, and heavy it was clearly, slung on a pole between them. A strange enough sight in the grey empty moor as ever we saw. But the times were troubled, and Norman had us hide in a birch grove for safety. We saw them stop and discuss, and it was clear that they’d enough of the carrying of the thing. The place they hid it was fair enough, I am thinking, if no one had been watching, and if maybe they would have remembered it and come back.