Flame (22 page)

She fisted one hand and pressed it into her
palm. “I had been brought up not to believe in court gossip. I have
never been one to participate in idle talk. And now, so far as I
could see, the same woman who had taught me those values seemed to
be expecting me to accept her words without question. She demanded
that I stay away from Mater and the women she had gathered around
her.”

Gavin placed his hand on hers and drew her
eyes up to his. “But when you came back to the Highlands the
following fall--in spite of what she had told you--you still went
back to the abbey.”

“I did,” she whispered. “And it hurts me now
to admit that I decided to go against my grandmother’s words.”

“And then, something happened.”

“Aye, something happened,” she answered, her
eyes taking on a faraway look. “In my last visit to the abbey, I
accidentally happened to overhear a conversation about a gathering
that was about to take place. A ritual of some sort for the women.
My curiosity was aroused, and though I was not invited, I was
determined to find out what I could.”

Gavin noted the way her hands now clutched at
the blanket, so he reached over and took them in his own. She
glanced up at him, almost startled by his attention.

“Where was this meeting, Joanna?”

“In the vault beneath the castle,” she
whispered hoarsely. “In the same room where the crypts lay.”

Joanna shivered and Gavin himself felt a
sudden chill sweep through the room. Looking in the direction of
the hearth, he gazed for a moment at the fire. “So you went
there?”

“I wanted to. You see, they were to meet that
night. ‘Twas a full moon. But it would not be so easy. Earlier in
the day, a message had come from the castle that the Earl of Athol
was due to arrive. I knew he would come, and I knew there would be
harsh words between John and my father...on account of my
betrothal. So there was no way I could excuse myself.”

Gavin pulled up the blanket and covered her
bare shoulder with it. “And this was the night of the fire.”

“Aye. The same terrible night.” Joanna nodded
and shivered again. “I stayed as long as I could in the Great Hall.
And as I had suspected, my father and Athol took up their argument.
But to my dismay, they grew angrier than I had ever seen either of
them. Finally, using their unwillingness to reason as an excuse, I
fled back to my room and entered the passages. I wanted to get to
the vault before the moon rose.”

“How did you know your way around?” Gavin
asked curiously.

“From Athol,” she whispered. “The summer
before, I had been able to talk him into showing me the tunnels and
the caverns. He even took me as far as Hell’s Gate.”

“‘Tis a wonder that the laird of the
neighboring lands might be so knowledgeable about the secrets of
this keep!”

“Not so. The caverns are no secret. From what
he told me, my own father had shown him the secret passageways when
they were mere lads. Later, when my father had grown, Athol still
spent many days roaming those passages, for there were many years,
after my grandsire passed away, when neither of my uncles wanted to
take their permanent seat as laird. Athol said those were the years
when he and his friends would explore the caverns of Ironcross for
the sheer adventure of it. Around that time, my father would
occasionally return to the Highlands as well. From all I hear, at
one time they were very close.”

Joanna wrapped her hair around one hand,
“Athol told me that everyone thought the castle a haunted place.
‘Twas a true test of manhood for the young lads living nearby to
cross the footbridge at Hell’s Gate.”

Gavin had to force his mind and attention
back to the events of that fatal night. He wished to know more
about Athol--and about this Hell’s Gate--but that information would
have to wait a bit.

“Tell me what happened next...the night of
the fire...when you went into the tunnels.”

“‘Twas easy to find the vault, but the place
was silent as death itself.” Joanna jumped suddenly as a gust of
wind tore through the window, banging the wooden shutters hard
against the walls. She clutched the blanket more tightly around her
shoulders. “So I decided to stay and hide myself--and wait.”

“And did they come?” Gavin asked.

The wind was whistling into the chamber, and
the warrior looked irritably toward the open windows. Pushing back
the covers, he strode across the chamber to close the shutters.
Outside, it appeared that a tempest was brewing, and the rain that
spattered against his naked skin was sharp and cold. With some
effort, he pushed the shutters closed and latched them shut.
Turning back to Joanna, he was amazed at how fragile and frightened
she suddenly looked. He considered all the hardships she had
endured during these months--the strength she must have worked so
hard to garner simply to stay alive. And now, for the moment, all
of it seemed to have drained completely out of her.

He reached the bed and, in a gesture that cut
straight to his heart, Joanna gazed up and drew back the covers,
opening her arms to him. Gavin gathered her tightly to his side. It
was so easy to lose himself in her embrace. She was indeed an
enchantress, robbing him of every shield, every barrier he had
built up over the years. She laid her hand against his heart,
touching him where he had thought surely he had constructed the
greatest protection. He could see now how wrong he had been.

“They did come,” she whispered quietly. “But
not as the women I had come to know. They came as strangers--as a
group of chanting, raving madwomen.”

“Did they see you?”

She shook her head and laid her forehead
against his chin. “Nay, I was so taken aback by their presence in
that crypt--by the talk, by their evil prayers--that I found myself
speechless, frozen where I hid.”

She shivered again as Gavin ran a warm hand
up and down her arm beneath the covers. Her skin was ice cold to
his touch.

“What happened next, Joanna?”

“‘Twas some kind of ritual. The thing was as
familiar to them as breathing the air is to you and me. I don’t
know if it was Christian or pagan or from the devil himself. But
then, what came next will give me nightmares till the day I
die!”

Gavin’s head snapped around as the flames in
the fireplace suddenly leapt up on the hearth. Between the wind and
the blasted draft of the chimneys, he thought to himself, it was
amazing the whole castle had not burned to the ground long ago.

“‘Twas the most upsetting part of all they
did--up to that time.” Joanna bit off her words. “As I watched, one
of the women, with a shriek of some eldritch fiend, knelt by the
pyre they had built in the center of the vault, and lit the brush.
I can still hear the crackling roar, the rushes and the reeds and
the sticks igniting. The blaze lighting up the entire crypt in an
orgy of shadows and light. Then the women, like demons, breaking
into some pagan dance, spinning and falling in a frenzy of moans
and howls. ‘Twas as if they ceased to be human! And Mater watched
over them all.”

Although he had never been a witness to such
rituals, Gavin had heard, on occasion, of places in both the
Highlands and in the western Borders where such strange gatherings
occurred. Some said it was a part of the old religion. Most said
nothing about it at all.

But this still offered no just cause for
placing the guilt of the murders on Mater.

“And there was more,” Joanna continued. “As
these women carried on with their dancing and chanting, Mater began
to preach to them, using words about lairds and the evils of such
men and the curse and the traditions. From where I stood, hidden
beyond a crypt, it took me no time at all to realize that she was
talking about my father. She was calling down justice. Mater was
calling on some ‘power’ to bring death...on him and on all who
followed in his place.”

Joanna reached and took hold of Gavin’s hand
tightly in hers. “As amazed as I was by what had gone before, ‘twas
nothing compared to that moment--to hearing those words. I mean,
she was speaking of my father, John MacInnes! A peaceful man who
had never willingly brought a jot of pain or hardship on any living
soul. Why him!”

“What happened next, Joanna?”

“Finally, they all left the vault at last,
still wild-eyed, possessed with the frenzy. I could not believe
what I had seen. I sat huddled in that corner for I do not know how
long. I suppose I was completely shaken, confused with what I had
witnessed.” She stared into the darkness of her memory. “Whatever
‘twas that moved me--fear or betrayal--after a while I did stir.
Aye, I found some courage and started back to my room, though I
know now it must have been some time later.”

Joanna was no longer shivering; she was
openly shaking in his arms. Gavin lifted her from her place,
drawing her gently into his lap, and he wrapped his arms
protectively around her. Outside, a long, low rumble of thunder
rolled across the loch.

“I was too late,” she croaked over the noise.
“By the time I reached the passages into the south wing, the smoke
was thick and the heat unbearable. I was choking, but I climbed
upward. There were flames leaping everywhere. And there were choked
screams above the roar of the fire. I killed them! I waited too
long in the crypt! I...”

She broke down. Gavin gathered her tightly
against his chest. Her tears ran in streams down her cheeks and
onto his chest. The warrior’s throat knotted tightly and he
clenched his jaws. How well he knew the sorrow that she was
feeling. How well he knew the anguish of losing those you loved.
The doomed helplessness of surviving. The guilt of having
failed.

They sat like that for a long while, until
finally she drew in a long, irregular breath and continued.

“I was barely able to make it to the upper
floors. I think I was about to faint, the air was so hot and smoky.
I pushed at the panel of my own chamber, but the latch would not
give. From the edges of the door, flames licked at my hands. My
hands were burning...I could smell my own flesh. But I...I was
stuck in the passage with my mother and father trapped inside. I
tore myself away. I stumbled, as if in a nightmare, along the
passages. I found a different panel. ‘Twas the same there.
Everywhere I went, ‘twas the same. I could not get through. I
remember finding my way into the passageway that I was certain led
to my parents’ bedchamber. I threw myself against the
panel--screaming and using my hands to dig at the burning
wood--pleading to be let in. But... but they must have all been
dead by then. They were all dead. And I was condemned to live.”

Gavin placed his hand on her quivering
fingers and flattened them against his heart. “How could anyone
stand the heat of the flames?”

She tucked her head beneath his chin. Her
voice was cold, almost lifeless. “The flames were nothing compared
to the anguish I have endured at being forced to live.”

In his mind, Gavin traveled back to the muddy
fields of Flodden. He too had been forced to witness the death of
his kin--of being too far away to help his two older brothers in
battle. He too had been forced to endure the memory of being struck
down, of lying helpless with the dying and the dead.

He, as well, had hoped to die. But a
Highlander had come after him. Though injured himself, Ambrose
Macpherson had lifted him onto his shoulder and had carried him
through the rain for two days back to Scotland. Gavin glanced
vacantly at the windows of the chamber. Outside the storm had
continued to grow, and thunder crashed with a resounding echo.

He remembered the misery he’d inflicted on
Ambrose during that time! From physical threats to the verbal abuse
of the man’s honor, Gavin had done his best to make it impossible
for the Highlander to continue on. Like Joanna, Gavin had been
forced to live.

But Ambrose’s stubborn bravery knew no
bounds. Physically restraining him from bringing himself more harm,
the Highlander had talked only of hope. Of a chance for the future.
Of a Scotland that would need him now more than ever. Ambrose
Macpherson had shown him the courage and the strength that comes
with compassion. And later, he had taught him that there could
exist a friendship and a loyalty that rivaled the ties of kinship.
This was what Joanna needed to feel now. It was his turn, Gavin
thought, to pass on the lesson that his friend had once long ago
bestowed on him.

“I think in the midst of it, I must have
passed out.” Joanna’s voice brought Gavin back to the present. “In
fact, I must have been confused, delirious even, when I first
regained consciousness, since I don’t recall anything of those
moments at all. My first clear memories are from some time later,
finding myself beside the underground loch beneath the castle. My
hands were lying in the cold water, my burned flesh soaking and the
pain surging though my whole body in horrible waves.”

“Did you go back to the south wing ?”

“I tried, but a fever took hold of me. And
the pain searing through my hands nearly drove me mad. I think I
may have lay there in the blackness of that cavern for hours...or
days...time meant nothing. But then, after who knows how long, I
found myself standing. I don’t know what kept me upright. I was
like some puppet held up by invisible strings. Somehow, I made my
way through the tunnels to the burnt out wing, but they were all
gone. The place was in ruins. The ashes were cold, and there was
nothing else.”

Hardly breathing, Joanna had grown rigid in
his arms, and Gavin gently caressed her back. He could see the
tears coursing down her face. It took a few moments, but eventually
her shoulders began to lose their tenseness, and her breathing
became more normal.

“You think this was the next day?”

She shrugged. “I had no sense of time. I
remember ‘twas growing dark, and there was not a single soul to be
found.” She looked away, drawing in a deep breath.