Highland Ballad Part 24

Trembling with sudden fear and concern, he reached under the floor-boards to the place where he kept the stolen pistol. Then ran with it up the doubling stairway. Again the woman screamed, the sound cut short by a dull gasp of pain. He lifted the latch and burst into the room. . .too late.

His mother lay bleeding on the bed, her eyes wide with uncomprehending horror. The long knife had started in her womb, and jerked upward with a vicious pull. The man, fully clothed, stood watching her die. He turned toward the frozen child, the bloodied knife poised, ready to strike again.

But the young man was not his mother. With the instinctive ferocity re-taught him by the streets and quays of London, he stiffened his arm and fired. The murderer fell at his feet. At the age of ten, he had killed his first man.

He did not wait for the Law to decide his fate: he had seen too much of its handiwork. And he had no intention of slowly starving like the other orphans of the gutter. Instead he crept down to the docks, and stowed away on the most imposing s.h.i.+p he could find, dreaming, in his way, of a life of adventure at sea.

And when the vessel was well out in the Channel, he left his hiding place and snuck into the captain's cabin, late at night as he paced the deck. Once inside he worked his fingers to the bone, scrubbing, polis.h.i.+ng, and straightening the room.

The strategy worked. When the captain entered and saw what he was doing, he beat him half to death, then ordered him chained in the hold. But after three days he released him and set him to work, performing tasks of the lowliest kind, with no other pay than a meager share of salt pork and hard biscuit, and the constant threat of being thrown over the side.

But to a boy who had never known or expected kindness, it was enough.

He never thought to complain or answer back, except to the cruder sailors, who thought to use him as a girl. These soon learned that the knife he carried was no idle threat, and that the boy could not be cowed. They left him be.

Even the iron-willed captain had come to respect him. After a time he made him his cabin boy, going so far as to teach him the rudiments of sailing and navigation. He never showed affection, most probably did not feel it. But he became nonetheless the closest thing to a father that he would ever know.

The vessel was a slave s.h.i.+p, and it gave him his first confirmation of life's inherent cruelty. For the strange dark men they transported were no less strong, subtle, or determined than themselves. And yet for no greater crime than being primitive, and unable to defend themselves against the weapons and treacheries of Europe, they were sold into a bondage from which there was no escape, ending only in death.

He never thought to question whether this was right or wrong. And if this captain and this s.h.i.+p did not carry their human cargo to the colonies, some other would have, and perhaps not as safely or as well.

So at the beginning of each westward pa.s.sage, he learned but a single word of the tribe's native tongue. And when he went down into the hold to bring them their gruel, when one of them would catch his eye and make pleading gestures, bewildered at his lot, he used it:

"Accept." There was no other way to survive.

And so for five years he had lived, making the long triangular pa.s.sage: from London to the coast of Africa, carrying medicine and supplies, from Africa to America, with the slave labor which helped build it, then back again to England with raw materials, and the profits that came from being aggressive, and willing to do what was necessary. It was a lesson he never forgot: injustice there would always be, and a man must look to his own advancement.

But then Captain Horne had died, strangled to death by a slave's chain in a s.h.i.+p revolt. The huge, fierce black man had been oblivious to the thrusts of his own knife from behind, his one desire to kill the man in front of him before his own life was ended. This, too, was a lesson he would long remember. The captain had grown less severe with age, and had loosed his grip, just enough, for those he kept under his thumb to rise up and take his life. The moral? Victory must be consolidated by ruthless vigilance.

He had shed no tears when order was restored, and his Captain's body returned to the deep. He was simply gone, along with the life that he had come to know so well.

And though he might easily have found work on another s.h.i.+p, being then a strong and tireless lad of fifteen, he decided that the rise to power was too slow, and too limited at sea. Real opportunity, in his eyes, lay in the military and political arenas.

So when the s.h.i.+p returned to Plymouth, he joined the army as an infantryman, and later forged and sponsored his own commission as officer. At every step he gained the reputation of a fearless soldier, and of a fierce, unyielding leader of men. Such indomitable young lions were much needed in those days of expanding Empire, and could rise quickly to positions of prominence, especially along the frontiers.

Nor was he to rise in rank alone, but also in station. After a determined search, he at last found a n.o.ble family in ruin, ready to collapse. And through a combination of bribes, extortion, and the threat of violence, he forced the aging and childless Lord to recognize him as his legitimate son, and rightful heir to his name and property alike. The old man died but a few months later, his spirit broken, his body racked by poison.

And so he found himself at twenty-nine, his implacable charge taking him to the heights of his profession, swift and sure as an arrow's flight. He had no illusions; he had no dreams; and he could not conceive of anything that would alter his life's course in the least.

He believed he knew and understood all that the world held for a man, and did not hold. He knew what he wanted, and he was willing to pay the price.

Yet it was at the very heart of this emotional wasteland that the one kindness, the one exception of his life had somehow found him. He had just returned from southern Africa, where forces under his command had crushed a native uprising before it could gather impetus and support.

In honor of this he had been decorated, and invited to a special reception held for him at the summer estates of the Earl of Suss.e.x.

Arriving in little-used dress uniform, making no attempt to hide his disdain for this aristocratic gathering and all that it implied, he had seemed, as he often did in society, a poorly disguised wolf among dogs. His one desire was to make the acquaintance of those persons who could advance his career, ignore those who could not, and get out before his deep-seated hatred of the rich caused him to do or say something he would later regret.

But during the meal he found himself seated across from a beautiful and fragile young woman who for some reason looked down, blus.h.i.+ng, each time his eyes fell upon her. There was something in her face. .

.he had never been able to describe it. . .that made him curious about her. He felt drawn to her somehow. He did not know why, nor did he think to ask. Thinking and asking, outside the pale of his ambition, were a thing almost forgotten.

So when the company moved to the ballroom he stayed on, and after watching her for several minutes from a distance, approached her and asked her to dance. She flushed more deeply than before, looked up at him with pleading eyes. She started to say yes, then fell into a swoon.

Oblivious to all else in the room, indeed, in all the world, he caught her up and carried her to the freer air of the balcony. Those who tried to follow were met with such a murderous glare.....

Sitting beside her in the gentle moonlight, he had felt such concern.

And when she came back to herself, when she opened her eyes and saw him she said simply, to his astonishment:

"You know that I love you."

Knowing nothing else he embraced her gently, with such a surge of tender emotion that for a time he did not know himself. The past fell away. The future as he had planned it turned cold and barren in his sight. Without so much as knowing her name, or even believing in the possibility, he knew that he had found the love of his life.

There were many obstacles, not the least of which was Earl Arthur himself, her uncle and guardian, who violently opposed their union.

But the newly empowered Lord Purceville was obsessed, and let nothing stand in his way, until they were man and wife.

He remembered their wedding night, Angelica beside him in the moonlit bed. Her virgin's blood ran softly, like a benediction, as he wept the only real tears of his life. The world lay gentle and loving in his arms, knowing him as even he did not. He could see no end to their happiness.....

The pain of it became too much to bear. He tried to force himself back to the present. But there remained one more memory, one more brutal image that would not lie still---a savagery that went beyond simple violence. For it was the cold, unfeeling hand of Death: death to the young, who so desired life.

The v.a.g.i.n.al blood ran again, as if in mockery of their love. His second son, stillborn, lay beside her in the bed, as she clutched his hand in uncomprehending pain and fear. The physician bowed his head in resignation, and walked away.

No gentle and loving farewell was left to her, only life seeping out, and death creeping in. She knew that it was over, and in the final moments only begged him to go on, to love their living son, and try not to hate. But as she died his hope died with her. The one love, the one exception, had gone from his life.

And in time he grew harder and more ruthless than before, a meanness added to the fire of his charge, as innocence enraged him, and naivety invoked his wrath.....

How could she be gone, the one he held so close? There was no justice..... G.o.d? If such a being had stood before him in that moment, telling him the reason, he would have cursed him and tried to kill him.

The Lord Purceville found himself alone, on the bed that he had made, his eyes as dry as the desert of his life, the hateful emptiness of the present. It was pointless: to look for meaning in a world where none existed, to search for reason among the airless stones of a ruined temple. He had never known such bitterness.

There was nothing left. Nothing but to destroy his enemies, and live out his life in defiance, unvanquished and unawed. The soft light that had tried to suffuse his soul, was snuffed out like an insolent candle in ancient and unchangeable darkness.

He had made his choice. The night had wounded him, but not enough. He had chosen the sword long ago, and by the sword he would die. He cast aside worthless sentiment, and studied the end-game before him.

Because stone is hard---it does not change---and a stream will run to its conclusion.

Thirty-One

Michael woke with a sense of foreboding that was almost physical. He often felt uneasy after too short a sleep, as if hearing the distant thunder of inevitable death. But this was more immediate, more intense.

The knowledge of what he must do that day had never left him, but had woven itself in and out of his dreams. It was not that.

Something was wrong. Where was Margaret MacCain, and why had she left the hut deserted? Looking across at Purceville's empty bed, he felt his throat tighten and his heart beat heavily. Pulling on his boots and long coat, he walked as calmly as he could to the door of the ancient dwelling, afraid what he might find on the other side. He opened it.

The horse was still there, grazing unconcerned in the place where he had left it. So the Englishman had not deserted him. This, and his bent form not far off, calmed him. But not for long. First his eyes made out the shovel in his hands, then the newly dug grave at his feet. The red, clay-like soil piled around it called to mind images of an unhealing wound. What did it mean? His mind flashed back to their conversation the night before, as they reached the high narrow pa.s.s, and approached the witch's hut. It was not so much what Purceville had said that troubled him, but what he had not said.....

"You'd best stay back and out of sight until I've spoken to her," had been his own words. "The widow MacCain has no love for the English, and your father..... Well. Let's just say I may have spoken too soon, when I said that no one has greater reason to hate you." Nothing.

"I'm not even sure how she feels about me," he continued. "But when she learns that Mary is in trouble, and that we are trying to help her, I think she will see things as they are." Still no reply. "You don't seem overly concerned, Purceville. She's a hard old woman, and as determined an enemy as you're ever likely to face. I'm not one to fear her for a witch, but there are other weapons she might employ."

"She won't resist us," said the other strangely. ".....she's not as hard as you think."

"What makes you so sure?"

Again no answer. He had been too weary to press the point; he only thought it curious. And when they reached the dark shelter and found the woman gone, the night's small rest a.s.sured, he had been far too relieved to wonder at it. For in the clinging darkness he had not seen the charred tree above, or the withered bones that shrank away from it.