chapter 8 - TRAPPED
She couldn’t say ‘no’ any more than she could dispel the wild thump of her heart. The wait for her response hung heavy as rain upon the room.
With perverse irony, the pounding of her chest carried her to childhood, and a memory. She had been no more than a wee thing when she found a frantic little sparrow trapped within the stillroom, a dank dark place. How the bird managed to find its way inside the room heavy with the scent of malt and burning peat Maggie would never know.
The thick oak door, framed in the opening of what was no more than a cave within the mountain, had been shut tight. The only light from a small window covered with a thin oiled sheet, its ledge as deep as a child’s arm was long.
Maggie’s plan was to hide inside and hear how the whisky was made. She’d come ahead of the others, using all of her weight to get that monstrous door open a crack so she could slip inside. It was then she’d sensed the bird, feared it was a bat.
But it wasn’t. It was a poor, helpless sparrow, startled by the light that the door offered. It dodged and darted, as frightened of Maggie as it was of its plight.
She’d caught it then, held it gently within the palms of her hands, as she tried to sooth it’s trembling. The wild beat of its heart could be felt in her fingertips bringing prayers to Maggie’s lips. Over and over she begged God to be merciful, to allow the creature to live long enough for the men to arrive, for she daren’t let go of the sparrow in order to open the blasted door.
She’d received a telling measure of censor, for being within that cavern, for being in a place that she never should have entered. But it dinna’ matter to her, the bird was free, flying off without a care, without so much as a circling thank you. It was free and that was gratitude enough.
There was no one now, to hold her, comfort her and wait for an open door.
She was trapped with no savior in sight.
Her brothers, ever so quick to stall suitors, were obviously part of this plan. Her parents? Maggie knew, without even looking, the pride that would be shinning in their eyes and the eager hope that Maggie would succumb to this odd manner of courtship.
And it wasn’t just them, her parents and her brothers, who had been caught in this man’s tales. The wretched beast had the whole of the clan in his hand. Maggie could see it, with one furious glance, the rapt anticipation, the delight that one of theirs would become the Great Laird MacKay’s wife.
Talorc the Bold was just the sort they would all want for her, a man who was larger than life itself. Larger even than the tales they told about Maggie. They all knew her, knew the truth behind each of the stories and yet they chose to believe his words, believe the testament of cheers that had rung through the hall but moments ago.
They were fools. They were all fools.
Warriors did this before a battle. They would stoke the fire of aggression with the fuel of former battles that grew far beyond reality. With each telling the stories became grander and bolder and more daring. A warrior who knew his way around words could convince his men of anything in those moments, even that to die in battle was a glorious thing.
Pah! As if risking a life were not foolish in the extreme.
Oh aye, and the Bold knew what he was about. Hadn't he taught her that? His timing was impeccable, waiting until the whisky had filled the men to just the right point, until they were puffed-up with a false bravado, a sense of largesse, yet not so far gone as to be sloppy, or to forget the Bold’s words.
Aye, the men were seeing their world as a bigger and brighter and bolder place, including one wee lass.
Even knowing this, Maggie could not say no.
But neither would she say yes.
“You’ve given me little time, MacKay.”
“Aye.”
“Some would say you’re trying to trap me.” She could feel the tension in the room ease with the anticipation of a spat. They were highlanders; to them a fight was no less than entertainment, especially when they were certain of the outcome. They’d not have respected Maggie if she let him have his way without a battle.
He had wound them all in with his stories, but Maggie knew, just as well, how to ease that coil if not unwind it all together. Or so she hoped.
“Aye, perhaps.” He admitted, answering her accusation of entrapment, “just as I once cornered a horse crazed with fear. We were in a burning wood. Had I let him go, at the least he would have burned to his own death.
“So you see, Maggie, I trapped him to save him.”
He was a more agile opponent than she had expected.
“And you think to be saving me by trapping me?”
He didn’t respond, nor were there the telling little quips coming from their audience to boost her side of the quarrel. It was time to change tactics.
“How,” she asked practically, “do you plan on wedding me when there isn’t a Priest within the Highlands? It is nearly the Feast of Fleadh nan Mairbh, no decent man of the cloth would be found near folks who celebrate such things.”
“Does it matter, Maggie?” He asked her gently, “Do we need a church man to make vows? Are you not a Highlander? Is your word not strong enough without witness?”
Those were fighting words, they were. Maggie narrowed her eyes.
“I would like the blessing of a power greater than either of us, Laird. Surely you can understand that . . . wait for that.”
“There is no time, Maggie. We, the MacKay’s and all her septs, need our wedding,” he ran his finger along her cheek, caught her jaw in his palm when she tried to pull away. “Just as they need the presence of our son.”
“There’s no guarantee of that, Laird.” She defended.
He laughed, threw his head back and laughed. Maggie kicked him.
“Oh Maggie,” he grumbled good naturedly, rubbed his shins to the raucous laughter of the crowd. “Life never offers guarantees, but it can make promises. You’re a healthy lass, a surprise blessing to a ma and da that had already born seven sons. And should you bear me a daughter, you’d not see more delight, for there’s ne’er been a daughter in my line for three generations. Give me a son, or a daughter, and fail that-- we’ll raise those of our clansmen, and teach them our ways.”
He was more of an opponent than she’d ever faced before. She was fighting for all she knew, all she wanted in life, and yet he could come in and take it all from her with one fell swoop of words.
She admired him for it.
She hated him for it.
She willed the tears away, closed her eyes against them, as she fought for the only argument he had yet to slaughter. “And you cannot wait, one season, for a priest, a man of cloth to bind us?”
Talorc looked to the ground, muttered to himself, then looked up straight into Maggie’s eyes. He was well aware that he pressured her, she could see it, and she knew that he knew, with time she could break this thing.
If he’d give her time.
“Maggie,” he sighed, and she knew a concession was coming, “in the tradition of old, in the ways of the Highlanders, we will clasp hands, vow to each other. If you canna’ make vows for life, then promise yourself for a year and a day. Handfast me, Maggie.”
Och, Dear Lord, God in Heaven, Help me. She cried within, though no answering cry returned. Ian, if you’re there, help me, for no one else will.
Talorc reached out, took her hands in his, “Handfast me.”
Ian’s voice failed to ring in her heart.
“I couldna’” she tried to pull away, “it wouldna’ be right.”
“Why wouldn’t it be right? We are Highlanders Maggie, this is our way. Are you so different from the rest of us?”
The flutter of panic in that poor birds wings so long ago, was no match against the flutter of Maggie’s heart. She was trapped. She could feel it and the panic overwhelmed her.
She shoved the Bold straight aside, looked over at her parents, so she could confront them, but her da would not look at her. He looked to his plate in deep contemplation. Her ma, oh . . . Maggie’s shoulders slumped with what she saw there. Her ma’s heart was breaking. She had wanted Maggie to agree to the wedding but if not, then even her ma was willing to push her into a Handfast.
A union where, in a year and a day, the Bold could walk out just as easily as Maggie herself could.
“. . . should you still not be certain of the match,” he continued, “you can walk away. No holds, no binds, you’re as free as that horse was, once I steered him away from the fire.”
“We know nothing of each other but tales told by others.”
“Maggie, the Handfasting is for you, to give you the chance to walk away. ‘Tis not for me. I’ve made that clear. But, I will also make it clear, should you give yourself to me, between the end of the Handfasting and now, should you find that there is no better for either of us, then the priest will bless the union, whatever season he finds us..”
“Aye, Aye” the men cheered, the women sighed and wept, caught in the thrill of a courtship unfolding.
“Ma?” Maggie tried once more, but her mother only shook her head. It was Maggie’s decision to make, and no other. In truth, she dinna’ have a choice.
“I will think on it.” She hedged.
Talorc shook his head. “No, Maggie, my people, our clan, they are waiting. They want me to bring you back with me, to settle you in amongst us before the Feast.”
“It is not possible,” she countered “I have to be here for Fleadh nan Mairbh. I promised Ian.”
She’d startled them all, judging by the mumbles and grumbles of the people.
“Maggie,” Talorc watched her closely, “you do not invite the dead to come near.”
“He was my twin.”
“You have a right to your life. His time had come, do not invite yours away.” Talorc spoke with caring, for everyone knew that the Feast of the Dead was a time of caution. It was a time to hide from the folly of those passed beyond. No one would court such danger.
“It would be more to your purpose to create new life to fill that void. To give your child the name of Ian, in his honor.”
“No." She backed away from his words as the snare of them tightened.
“The two of us, together, this very night.”
“But. . .”
“Marry him Maggie, Marry him . . .” The cheers rang through the hall, the stomping the clapping the voices raised in unison to billow and settle around her.
“Not tonight.” She cried.
“Then in the morn, Maggie, for we leave when the sun shows herself.”
The chorus had died down, all eyes intent on Maggie and Talorc.
Maggie turned to face them all. “It is what you want?” She cried out, one last plea to the people.
“Oh aye, lass,” Old Padruig played the spokesman, “there’s no better for you or for him!”
“Do you all agree?” She shouted, bringing on another resounding cheer. “Then I shall do it.” She promised with a nod of her head. “And the consequences be upon your heads.”
Pivoting, she faced Talorc, “In the morn. There is too much to do tonight, if I’m to leave at daybreak.”
He raised their hands high as everyone joined in cries of delight. As soon as she could, Maggie spun away, headed toward the stairs that would take her up to her room. Chairs and benches scraped back as her mother and kinswomen hurried to join her.
They reached her first, though Talorc was not far behind, despite the delay of those who wished to toast his victory.
“Maggie?” He stopped her.
“Aye.”
“I’d thought,” he leaned in, whispered for her ears alone, “that you would prefer to have our first night together here, with your mother close by to attend you, settle you.”
She stared at him, at his lapse in conviction.
“Are you saying I’m to be so terribly alone when away from here?” When, not if. She’d given her word.
“No,” he shook his head, frowned, “That’s not what I was saying, have no fears on that count. It’s just that a mother is a mother . . .”
“And you chose to take me from mine. So be it, if there’s any guilt in that, then feel free to feel it.” She snipped.
His frown deepened, though he failed to respond. With a tilt of her chin she swirled away, her entourage of relations a wake of women behind her.
“Tomorrow.” Talorc shouted when she was halfway up the stairs.
Maggie stopped, looked down at the man she would handfast in the morning. “Tomorrow,” she promised with a grim determination, so at odds with the enthusiasm he obviously felt.
Tomorrow she would be promised to a man, bold in his battles, both on the battlefield and off. Life would never be easy. If she thought getting her own way was difficult with her brothers and a bear of a father, winning concessions with this man would be all the harder. Hadn’t tonight proved that?
* * * * * * * * * *
Maggie scrambled to hide as the earth quaked and shook about her.
“Maggie . . . Maggie, wake darling, ‘tis time.”
Groggy with sleep she stirred, opened her eyes. A circle of candles surrounded her bed, lighting the dark of the night. Kinswomen, her mother included. Why?
“Oh Maggie,” Muireall swooned upon the bed. “Are you not thrilled? Are you not the luckiest lass in the whole of the Highlands?”
Still muddled, Maggie rubbed her eyes.
“Oh aye,” Leitis smiled, “if Nigel had courted me like that, I don’t know what would have happened.”
“I do!” Sibeal brought on a chorus of laughter that the older women tried to hush in deference to Maggie’s innocence. Quick as the flicker of a candle, Maggie understood why her kinswomen were here, why they spoke the way they did.
Come daylight she would be riding away from this place, her home. “What’s the time? Is it anywhere near to morning?”
“You’ve an hour at most.” Fiona sat beside her daughter, shooing the other women off.
They had all worked late into the night, deciding what Maggie could take with her, what would need sending, what would be saved for her children. They had teased and sighed and ooh’d over Maggie’s fate. Only Maggie didn’t take to the fussing. She remained practical; it was the only way to get through what she needed to get through.
It was bad enough that she would have to marry a warrior who came with the near promise of widowhood. God forbid she be left as hungry for male company as Muireall. And with a warrior, a great huge beast of a man, well . . . she would have to be just as strong in spirit. If not, he’d trounce her in every manner of will-- just as he’d done last night when she was fighting for life as she knew it.
The worst of it was that he didn’t know her, and when he did come to see who she really was, when all the grand stories proved to be no more than a blown up grain of truth, would he want her? Or, would he turn to all those other women who swooned at the mere thought of him?
Could she ever hope to hold a man such as Talorc the Bold?
As if to spite Maggie’s thoughts, her mother took her hand, “He’s a splendid man.” Then she brushed the hair from Maggie’s forehead, a gesture of comfort that had Maggie pulling back. How many times in the past had her mother done just such a thing to ease an illness, a pain or to soothe the frustrations of the young? But those gestures would be too far away to be of any comfort when Maggie faced the confusion and fear of a new home.
“She’ll be the envy of every woman?” Caitlin cawed, unaware of the sudden wariness between mother and daughter.
“Oh, aye,” Siobhan responded, “he makes me quiver.”
“How I wish I could be you on the bedding night.” Someone else said and they all sighed and nodded.
The words poured around Maggie, too many to take in, too forceful to ignore. Confused, shaken, she lifted her head to knowing smiles. They jostled each other with elbows, raised eyebrows, their comments, now whispered, growing more suggestive by the moment and suddenly Maggie found a new emotion, a new fear, to completely overwhelm all the others she’d ever felt since meeting this man.
If they were all so eager, why hadn’t they asked to be sacrificed? Why hadn’t they saved her, possibly the only woman who didn’t want to be in this place?
Fiona must have sensed what was happening, for she wrapped a protective arm around her daughter's shoulders, quieting the others.
“Don’t go frightening her, now.” Fiona warned, but the protective care had come too late. Maggie yanked free of her mother's hold.
“You knew what he was up to, didna’ you?” She snapped and saw her mother's guilty start. So that was the way of it. “Last night, before we even sat to dine, you knew. You led me into that, without a word of care.”
Throwing off the covers, she scrambled out of the far side of the bed and yelled. “How could ya’ do that? How could you let him put me in that corner, where there was no turning back no matter how I felt?”
“Oh Maggie, I didna’ think . . .”
“You should think! I’m your only daughter and now I’ve no home here. Why do I wait to be bathed and dressed? Why don’t I just go down there and take his hands and make my promises and leave? For you’ve sent me away from the only home I’ve ever wanted to know. To a place where who knows what waits?”
Although she paused, to gather breath, to settle the rising hysteria, the others were too stunned to break her momentum.
“Do ya’ think he lived there with no woman in his bed?” She asked. “Do you think I’ll have my own around me when they carry his body back, all bloodied and broken after a battle? Do you think I’ll be pleased with a man not of my own choosin’?”
“Aye!” Angrily, Fiona broke through the shock of her daughter’s attack with a succinct nod, “I do!” She shouted back, rounding on Maggie. “For the first time I’m grateful for your brothers’ interference. For 'tis true, no man dared court their sister. But your brothers would not dare to interfere with the Bold. Nor would I have allowed it, as I did in the past.”
She took her daughter by the shoulders. “He’s perfect for you Maggie, even if you’re too fool to know it.”
They stood, both rigid, linked by Fiona’s hands on Maggie’s shoulders when suddenly Maggie flung herself into her mother’s arms. “Oh mama, I’m so frightened!” And finally the tears came as mother and daughter clung to each other, each full of their own sorrows for the parting.
Fiona would lose her daughter, to fret and worry with no way of knowing how her own little lass fared. And Maggie, to face marriage to a stranger, to confront the unknown, without her mother’s wisdom and care.
“Oh, lass, you’ll be fine, you will.” Fiona cradled her daughter’s head upon her shoulder. “I’d not let this happen if I thought it would be any different. And you remember now, if you just can’t see it in you, to give yourself to him, then come home. For this will be your home, forever, for always, even if you are married with a dozen children, you are always wanted here.”
Maggie pulled away, swiped at the tears, unaware of the quiet bustle about her as the others prepared a bath, warmed towels, sorted out the best of her plaids with discreet peeks at the two women.
“Mama?” Maggie asked, now needing to know the whole of it. “What is it you mean by giving myself? Talorc said the same thing, that if I give myself then we are truly wed, but if we Handfast . . . mama? Why do you look that way? What am I saying that you . . .”
“No,” Fiona rushed, “no don’t be thinking anything, I was just surprised. A mother doesn’t imagine it’s possible to raise a daughter, with so many older brothers, in a place as busy as our home . . . well . . . where people are so careless with what they say,” Fiona put her arm around Maggie, guided her away from the others, toward the window-- still inky black with night, “It’s just that a mother does not expect her daughter to be quite so innocent of thought.”
"You didna’ look so much surprised as . . .”
“But I was surprised.” Fiona broke in.
“You’re also thinking to use your words to your advantage, or is it to his advantage?” Maggie startled herself by realizing. “I’m thinking you’ve his interest in mind over my own.”
“Never.” Fiona snapped, “Never.” She repeated more calmly. “Though ‘tis true, I often wonder if you know what’s best for you.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.” Maggie badgered.
“About giving yourself?”
“Aye, you ken that’s what I’m wanting to know.”
“Well,” Fiona lifted her chin, “you’ve heard the women talk about the wedding night?”
“Aye, I know all about that. That’s when he takes me to wife.”
“You know what takes place?”
Maggie snorted in disgust, “You are right on that mother. This place is not quiet about such things, nor do the animals care to go into hiding when it comes to mating. But what does that have to do with giving myself? A husband has rights and he takes them. An animal has instincts and they follow them. So what of me?”
“You,” Fiona said with conviction, “have a heart to give or to withhold. You do according to your heart, you give to your husband, absolutely, or you withhold. Let your heart decide, not your husband. He cannot take what you do not give.”
“Is that it?” Maggie sagged upon the window ledge, and welcomed the freshness of the fall breeze as it brushed over her and rustled her hair. There was clarity in its coolness. “A matter of my heart?”
“If you let your heart rule what you do or do not do.” Fiona hedged.
“Then if I do not give my heart than I do not give myself?”
As Fiona took a deep breath, Sibeal marched up to them.
“Maggie, there’s no more time, lass. Get over there and into that tub, or you’ll be wearing a drying cloth to your Handfasting.”
She straightened, looked to her mother, “If it’s as you say, then you can prepare to have me back here in a year and a day from this moment. For I’ll not give my heart.”
Rather than join the throng of women caring for her daughter, Fiona stood quietly and watched as Maggie crossed to the bath. The lass had regained her spirits, ‘twas in her step, in the way she let the others tease her.
Quietly, Fiona touched three fingers to her forehead, her heart, to either shoulder. When the others cast glances her way, they thought she made the sign of the cross in preparation of prayers for her daughter. They could not be knowing that Fiona was praying for forgiveness of the half-truth she’d been telling.
For a half-truth, meant a half lie.
A Handfasting was no more than a betrothal. Oh, aye, the couple would live together, may even share a bed but, despite bawdy innuendos to the contrary, should they mate, should the relationship become more than a promise, married they would be. Priest or no priest.
The whole of the Highlands knew this. That Maggie didn’t came as a surprise. God’s will, Fiona prayed, for she had used Maggie’s naiveté mercilessly. Aye, it was for Maggie’s own good but still, it had not been with clear honesty. It was just that the girl didn’t understand what was in her best interest. And if Fiona judged things right, what was between Maggie and the Laird MacKay . . . well . . . it was nothing, if not physical.
Heart or no, they would be wed before the night was out, or Fiona didn’t know her daughter.