“Naturally I said to the man, ‘What purpose?’ But he wouldn’t answer on that, and seemed to be sincere in his silence.”
“But what is the Glamis Castle story?” asked I.
“Oh, that there is some curse in that family, you see, and when they tell the new heir he never smiles again. Many have written of that. I’ve been to Glamis Castle. Who knows? But this man from the Talamasca, he was a studious and passionate sort. We had a splendid time up there, in the glen, looking at the moon.”
“But you didn’t see the little people.”
He fell silent, then: “I did see something. But it wasn’t fairies, I don’t think. It was just a smallish man and woman, rather misshapen, same unfortunates you see begging in the streets. I did see those two once very early in the morning, and when I told my Talamasca friend he was in a perfect fury that he himself had not seen them. They didn’t come again.”
“With your own eyes, you saw them. Were they frightening?”
“Oh, they gave me the shivers!” He shook his head. “I don’t like to tell that tale,” he said. “Remember, to us, my friend, fairies aren’t merely humorous little beings. They are demons of the wild; they are powerful and dangerous and can be vengeful. I’ll tell you this, there are fairy lights in that glen. Fairy lights, those flames that rise up in the night on the distant horizon without explanation. I wish you luck in going there. I really wish I could go. We’ll begin collecting these research materials for you immediately.”
I went home to our fine lodgings in New Town.
Mary Beth had still not come back. I sat alone in our suite, a comfortable pair of bedrooms and a sitting room in between, and I drank my sherry and wrote down all that I could remember of what the man had told me. It was cold in these rooms. It would be cold in the glen. But I had to go there. The saint, the fairies, it’s all mixed up, I thought.
Then, in the silence, a feeling stole over me. Lasher was near. Lasher was in the room, and he knew my thoughts, and was close to me.
“Are you there, beloved?” I asked casually as I jotted down the last few words.
“So they gave you his name,” he said in his secret voice.
“Petyr van Abel, yes, but not the name of the saint.”
“Aye, Petyr,” he said softly. “I remember Petyr van Abel. Petyr van Abel saw Lasher.” His entire demeanor seemed tame and thoughtful. His secret voice was at its most resonant and beautiful.
“Tell me,” I coaxed.
“In the great circle,” he said. “We will go there. I have always been there. I mean that you will go there.”
“Can you be there and with us at the same time?”
“Yes,” he said with a sigh. But there seemed some doubt in his mind. It was, again, the limits of his thinking.
“Be clever, spirit, who are you?” I asked.
“Lasher, called by Suzanne, in the glen,” said he. “You know me. I have done so well for you, Julien.”
“Tell me where my daughter Mary Beth is, then, spirit. I hope you did not leave her somewhere in this dark city to her own devices.”
“Her devices are very good, Julien, allow me to remind you. But I left her to her own vices rather than devices.”
“Which means what?”
“She found a Scot who would be the father of her witch.”
I shot out of the chair in a protective rage! “Where is Mary Beth?”
But even then I heard her singing as she came down the corridor. She opened the door. She was very red-cheeked and beautiful from the cold, indeed, sort of glistening, and her hair was loose. “Well, I have done it at last,” she said. She danced into the room, and then put a kiss on my cheek. “Don’t look so stricken.”
“But who is the man?”
“Don’t give it another of your precious thoughts, Julien,” she said. “I shall never again lay eyes on him. Lord Mayfair is a good name, don’t you think?”
And so that was the lie that was written home, just as soon as we knew she had conceived. Lord Mayfair of Donnelaith had fathered her child. Indeed her “marriage” had been held in that “town”-though of course there was no town at all.
But I jump ahead of my story. I had the keen feeling at that moment that she had mated with success, and as she described this man to me, pure Scots, and black-haired and wicked and charming and very rich, I thought, Well, perhaps this is as good a way to choose a father for one’s child as any.
Any pain I felt, jealousy, shame, fear, whatever, I buried it inside me. We were committed libertines, she and I. I would not have her laughing at me. Besides, I was too eager to go to Donnelaith.
As I told her what I knew, our beloved spirit did nothing to come between us. Indeed, he was quiet that night. We were ail quiet. Though down the street there was quite a bit of talk. Seems one of the local lords had been murdered.
I didn’t learn till later who it was. And even then the name didn’t mean anything. But I think I know now that it was the father of Mary Beth’s baby.
Let’s go on to Donnelaith now. And let me tell you what I discovered there.
We set out the very next day, with two big carriages, one for ourselves and our luggage, the other for several servants needed to assist us. We went north to Darkirk, to the inn there, and from Darkirk on together on horseback, with two pack animals, and two of the local Scotsmen also on horseback to guide us.
We were both great lovers of horses, you understand, and riding in this treacherous hilly terrain was rather a treat for us. We had fine horses for the trip and provisions to stay the night, though not long after we set out, I became aware of my age, and aware of many aches and pains that I had been able to ignore before this time. Our guides were young. Mary Beth was young. I was pretty much on my own, bringing up the rear, but the beauty of the surrounding hills, of the rich forests, and the sky itself drugged me and made me very happy.
There was a chilly haunted glory to all this, however. Scotland! But I had to go all the way to the glen. When I felt the urge to turn round, I kept my counsel and went on. We had a hasty lunch, then rode until almost sunset.
It was just then that we came to the glen, or rather a slope descending upon it. And from a high promontory, just out of the deep forest of Scots pine and alder and oak, we saw the distant castle across the gulf, a hollow overgrown monstrous thing above the beautiful glowing waters. And in the valley itself the high straggled arches of the Cathedral, and the circle of stones, remote, and austere but plainly visible.
Darkness or no darkness, we decided to press on. We lighted our lanterns and went down through the scattered groves of trees, and into the grassy glen, and did not pitch camp till we had reached the remnants of the town, or more visibly, the village which had lingered on after it.
Mary Beth was for pitching camp in the pagan stones. But the two Scotsmen refused. Indeed, they seemed outraged. “That’s a fairy circle, madam,” said one of them. “You wouldn’t dare to do such a thing as camp there. The little people would take it very ill, believe me.”
“These Scots are as crazy as the Irish,” said Mary Beth. “Why didn’t we go on to Dublin if we wanted to hear about leprechauns?”
Her words gave me a little thrill of fear. We were now deep in the broad glen. The village did not include one single stone left standing. Our tents, our lanterns must have been visible for miles around. And suddenly, I felt strangely naked and undefended.
We should have gone up to the ruins of the castle, I thought. And then I realized it. We had not heard from our spirit all day. We had not felt his touch, his nudge, his breath.
The thrill of fear deepened. “Lasher, come to me,” I whispered. I feared suddenly that he had gone off to do some terrible thing to those we loved, that he was angry.