Chapter 2

Chapter

Two

L aura was relieved to see the gray fingers of dawn light filtering through the window shutters as the housekeeper showed her to a bedchamber. She could hardly lift her feet to mount the stairs. They felt like lead weights as she trudged wearily upwards. Her broken fingernails from scrabbling over coarse rocks burned as she used the wall to lean on for balance. There was no bannister.

It seemed as though she might have fallen through a crack in time to a place untouched by decay or progress. Whatever happened to be going on in the outside world—harvests, feast days, births, and deaths—nothing seemed to be relevant inside the fortress.

The door creaked when Mistress Berenson pushed it open. The housekeeper crossed the floor and opened the shutters after putting the linen on a side table. She had to blow the dust off its surface first. The pale light probed gently into the room, allowing Laura to look around her. The bedchamber was decorated with large cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. The thick webs moved as a soft breeze came in the window. The floorboards were bare of thresh, revealing the chilly wooden planks underfoot.

When Mistress Berenson saw Laura looking at the dusty chests pushed against the walls and the faded tapestry hangings, she said, "Och, Milady, it's the best we can offer ye, begging yer pardon. We have nae had a visitor at Beinn na h'Iolaire since me grandmither's time."

Cocking her head to one side, Laura tried to repeat the word. "‘ Benna yol-loh-lair '. That's pretty. What does it mean?"

The old woman clucked her tongue. "In yer strange Sassenach language, it means Eagle's Peak. The ancestral home of the Sterling clan."

It seemed polite to help the housekeeper make up the bed. The castle seemed strangely empty of servants with the four men gone, but Laura did not want to risk being rude again, so she did not comment on it.

Once the heavy canvas cover had been lifted off the bed, the mattress and bolster were relatively clean underneath it, except for a slight mustiness. "Dinnae worry yer wee head aboot mites, Milady." Mistress Berenson caught Laura's doubtful expression. "I make sure to smoke every bolster once a week during the hotter months."

Laura shivered. "Does it ever manage to get hot up here? The wind is almost freezing outside the walls. I am chilled to the bone." Then something struck her. "How is it that your master does not feel the cold bite in the air?"

For a moment, she thought that the old woman was not going to reply, but then Mistress Berenson plumped the last pillow and stood upright. "Laird Sterling is used to it, I suppose. Dinnae be a-feared of him, Fair Maiden. His bark is worse than his bite."

She left Laura alone, telling the girl to hold off on bathing until the lads were back from the village. "They can carry a load o' hot water up those stairs for ye much faster than I. A warm cloth and wee snack is the best I can do for ye until then."

But when the housekeeper returned, she found Laura almost half asleep already. Propping the young woman up with her arm, she coaxed her to eat a small bannock before allowing her to lie back down again. She wiped the sweat and dirt off Laura's face as the girl slumbered.

"Tell me more about this place, if you would be so kind, Mistress," Laura muttered before her dreams claimed her.

Sighing, the housekeeper went to an old chest in the corner and withdrew from it a scroll of ancient parchment. As she unfurled it, the faded script was easy to read in the warming sunlight that now streaked across the room.

"I'll recount for ye the only sad story the sorrowful Sterling clan is ever likely to tell, lassie. The Master held this document in his safekeeping for a long time." And she began to read.

He returned from the Crusades with only one hand. The left hand. And many folks considered that to be bad luck. The right hand is called ‘dexter' by the ancients because it is considered to be the righteous side of the body, used to bear drink and food. The left hand is called ‘sinister'; forever to be thought of as wrong, unclean, and unholy.

In his pack, the laird carried a rare relic: a small clay tablet with some ancient symbols etched upon it. And instead of offering the sacred relic to the Kirk, Laird Arik Sterling chose to keep the item for himself.

"I've lost me right hand," he growled at anyone who tried prompting him to do the right thing and make an offering of the relic to the local bishop. "I will nae lose this precious trophy too." Most of the parishioners forgave the laird for his selfishness. He was still young, and the lad had lost his father during a fierce crusade battle in the city of Antioch.

In an effort to put the past behind him, Laird Arik chose to get married. He wooed a beautiful maiden, a healer, whom some called a white witch, and she accepted his proposal.

The local bishop did not recommend it. "Och, Arik, I would love to do it, but ye are still a young man and can wait until next year."

The laird scoffed. He was not ashamed of his love. "Ye scorn me choice because she is nae a noblewoman." The bishop shook his head. "It is nae because of her birth that makes the union ill-advised, Laird Arik. I dinnae want ye to marry during such an unlucky year! According to our calendar, it will be thirteen hundred years since the Year of Our Lord at the stroke of midnight next Wednesday. That does not bode well for yer marriage."

Muttering something under his breath about old superstitions, Arik went to tell his love. He found her in the wee cottage where she lived on the hillside, a pretty place where the flowers bloomed in spring and protected from the snow in winter. "Good morrow, me bonny lass."

Laird Arik was deeply in love with the woman. She was a few years older than he was, but their lovemaking was all the sweeter because of her experienced tenderness. After giving her smooth cheek a loving kiss, Arik spoke out. "I have come to give ye the bad news. The Kirk will nae marry us this year. The bishop forbids it. He says we must wait a year."

He tried to embrace her, but she pushed his arms away and turned her beautiful face away from him. "Arik, dinnae try to turn me sweet. This is terrible news. I-I am older than ye are. I cannae wait. I dinnae have the time."

But he promised her that his love was eternal. "See, sweetheart. I'll give ye this relic to prove me love for ye. I found it underneath one of those great stone monuments buried in the Egyptian sands." Bringing the small tablet out of his sporran, Laird Arik pressed it into the woman's hand. "Cherish this keepsake until our wedding day. It will nae be long."

When he left, the healer eyed the clay tablet carefully. It had tiny symbols carved around a strange figure with the head of a long-nosed bird on a man's body. When she rubbed the images with her thumb, the woman could detect five animal shapes carved into the stone: a wolf, a hellhound, a lion, a bear, and an eagle. They seemed to be encircled around the mysterious half-man, half-river bird figure.

As a learned wise woman, she had seen the birdman figure in spellbooks before—but she had no idea of the Egyptian god's powers.

"I'll use this treasure to cast a spell. I want to make our love last forever." Bringing out her cauldron, the healer consulted her grimoire. "Rose petals, violets, harvest hay, and water from a mountain burn. A pinch of thyme, a leaf of mint. The perfect love potion." Soon, the brew was bubbling over the fire.

Taking the pot off the hook, the healer cast the ancient tablet relic into the potion, murmuring the following spell. "Time will lose its power until love joins us together forever."

The next time Arik came to visit her, she promised herself that she would give the potion for him to drink. Dipping a ladle into the brew, she tasted the concoction. Shuddering and falling to the ground, the woman lay still, staying like that for many days.

Oblivious to what his lady love was doing in her croft, Laird Arik returned to the stronghold fortress his ancestors had built to defend their land. He found a messenger waiting for him there with a call to arms.

"Ye have been summoned to the court of Raibeart an Bruis, Laird Arik Sterling. The king's son is planning to go to war with the Sassenachs. He needs all his lairds and chiefs to support him."

Swearing up a storm, Arik quickly dashed off a letter to his love:

Wait for my return, dearest sweetheart. No matter what happens ~ A. S.

But Laird Sterling's luck did not hold. He was betrayed by Raibert an Bruis, who had decided to make peace with King Edward. Arik was captured at the Battle of Bothwell Castle. Because there was no wife back home to raise the ransom money for him, it was fifteen long years before Laird Sterling was released from the English prison.

He was much changed in manner and appearance. His hair had two long horns of white sprouting from the temples, and his face was weathered. But the villagers recognized him by his proud stance and missing hand. He spurned the celebratory feast, saying he must go and visit the healer. After all this time, she was still his one true love.

Riding to the cottage like a man possessed, he pushed open the door. There she was, as beautiful and unchanged as he always remembered her to be in his dreams.

"Dearest one! I kent ye would wait for me. Seeing how beautiful ye still are, it feels like time has frozen in place for ye. I wish I could say the same for meself."

Smiling and welcoming him with a passionate kiss, the healer offered him a cup of mulled wine to drink. "Let us wassail together, love," she whispered enticingly, "for it has been too long." He gazed at her with love in his eyes and drank the wine.

He felt the effect of the potion immediately. Every hurt and injury on his body healed at once. Even the stump of his hand throbbed and tingled, as if the flesh wanted to knit together and grow back.

"What have ye done to me?" Arik Sterling fell to the floor, covering his face with his one remaining hand.

"It's nothing but a healing potion, dearest," the healer reassured him, "and when ye wake, we can be together forever, just like ye promised."

With a supreme effort, the Laird struggled to his feet. He stood there swaying in the middle of the healer's croft, his face livid with anger. "Ye have cursed me and all who might carry me tainted blood in their veins, woman! How dare ye inflict such pain on those who are nae born yet? Where was me choice? Did ye ever stop to think aboot that?"

"Dinnae leave me to endure this world alone, Arik," the woman wept. "I never knew. I thought…" She reached out for him with desperate hands.

But the laird rebuffed his lady love's caresses. "I want nothing to do with witchcraft!" He managed to ride home before the cursed sleep overtook him. His promise to wed the healer was forgotten. He no longer felt like the same man. It was the old Arik who had loved the white witch with such desperate devotion.

For seven days and nights, he lay sleeping and sweating in bed, on the brink of death. Time seemed to have no meaning to the man as he struggled to live. Once again, the bishop was summoned.

"Ye must wed a noblewoman, Laird. Maybe the sickness which grips ye can be diluted if ye married a pure and virtuous lady," the bishop insisted. "A young maiden who can give ye plenty of sons to carry on yer honored name."

Believing himself doomed and the healer responsible, Laird Arik agreed. The wedding ceremony was conducted at the bedside and not long after, Arik felt well again and consummated his marriage.

Brokenhearted, the healer left her wee cottage on the hillside and was never seen again.

When Mistress Berenson scrolled the parchment up, she saw that Laura was asleep. Tiptoeing to the shutters, she closed them across the windows to block out the light of day. Darkness fell over the bedchamber, and the castle's new guest slept for a long time.

As she slept, Laura seemed trapped between fantasy and reality.

It was as if the story of the cursed Sterlings was following her through her dreams. A mist of magic seemed to obscure her vision as she struggled to see in front of her. Was that a frightened whimper coming out of her mouth? The granite rocks, the darkness of the night, it was all so confusing.

Weariness made her lag and finally stop. Laura listened. It was so silent. Even the wailing wind had died down. She could go no further. It was clear that fate wanted her to die on this eerie mountain.

And then she heard something. A lonely, high-pitched shrieking sound coming from above her. Laura bit her knuckle to stop herself from crying. It was a will o' the wisp, or even worse, a banshee. Whatever was making the noise seemed to sense her fear, and it wanted to comfort her.

The tone of the shriek changed. It no longer sounded otherworldly. The screech called to her, almost pleading with Laura to climb higher up the mountain. The call gave the petrified young woman the strength to scramble up the rock.

"I'm coming, I'm coming. Wait for me."

The need inside her was urgent. She must reach the one who called. For one fleeting moment, the clouds parted, and the sun shone through. A shadow passed overhead, and when Laura looked up, she saw the wingspan of a great bird soaring above her head like a great protector.

"Eagle." Had she said that out loud? The sun disappeared behind the heavy mists again. Laura lost her grip, nearly falling into a chasm, but somehow she managed to stop her fall just in time.

The eagle's shadow had gone by the time she managed to pull herself back to safety. Immediately, she missed the bird of prey. It was her beacon of hope in this dark world. Laura felt relief when the shadow fell over her again.

"You are back," she smiled, "and I am glad." But when she turned her head to look up, it was not the eagle's shadow that cast its darkness over her.

It was Altair, Laird of Sterling Fortress, that awe-inspiring ruin isolated on the craggy mountain precipice. "Will ye bide a wee while with me, Laura?"

A great struggle rose inside her heart. "I-I am betrothed to another."

He cast his warm plaid covering over her. Laura felt the heat rising within her, spreading over her belly, breasts, and between her thighs. Never before had such a delicious sensation made the blood rise in Laura's body. It was both irresistible and wanton!

"I cannot leave now," she sighed. "This is my home."

A rough hand touched her. "What is that ye say, lass?"

His rough voice made Laura's dream fade quickly. She sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest to hide the sight of her shift gown from Altair's eyes. "H-how dare you come in while I am sleeping? I did not give you permission!"

A wide grin spread over his handsome face. "Mistress Berenson bade me come and pay ye a visit, Laura."

He moved aside to show her the housekeeper standing behind him. Mistress Berenson began to explain. "Forgive the intrusion, Milady, but ye were tossing and turning so much I thought ye were sickening with a fever. And that would mean another trip for the lads doon to the village."

Laura could not concentrate with the laird standing so close to her bed. But nor did she want him to leave until she had found out how much of her sleep talk he had overheard.

"Um, yes. My thanks, but I think my mind is disordered after such a frightening journey, do you not agree, Laird Sterling? Why are you back so quickly and not the others?"

Again, the housekeeper answered on her master's behalf. "The Master doesnae go doon to the village."

Fortunately for Laura, Mistress Berenson moved away from the bed and began to sweep away some of the ceiling cobwebs with a besom. The laird continued to stare down at her from his great height, an enigmatic look on his face.

Laura peeped up at him over the sheet. "Was I having a nightmare?"

"Perhaps. I have nae experience with such feminine matters."

Laura pushed him to admit what he had heard her muttering in her dreams. "Feminine matters? Pray tell."