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bedlamsbardFor Ellora.
Stuart set his head against the cool stone walls of the prison, tried to blank out the sounds of the rest of the men in his holding cell behind him. Never silent, not in Ardsmuir, not anywhere with the walls that held him in. He thought he’d kill for a breath of fresh air, or for the clean sounds of the wild moving around him. Not for him, not now, not locked away for treason against the crown, not ever.
He knew this, deep down inside his bones, knew he was never going to get out. He’d stay here until he died, and then until his bones rotted away into fine dust that stirred at a breath. Ardsmuir never let those it had taken go.
*
The weight of the prison was still heavy on his shoulders when he rode away, but he didn’t look back, just clamped his scarred hands tighter around the reins and stared at Algernon Bloom’s back in front of him. Lord Roeswood, risking his reputation and his career for one Jacobite soldier – no matter how good that Jacobite soldier had been in prison, he still should have been transported to America, stuffed in a cargo hold without air or sunlight, then let out and indentured, next thing to enslaved, indentured to some rich settler who was too good to do his own work. Major Bloom, crisp and clean in his red uniform, hand flat and cool as the prison walls against Stuart’s face. “I’ll do what I can,” in a soft British accent, and Stuart’s Scots always sounded rough and unrefined next to the voices of the English officers.
“Take me home,” he whispered into the English air – they were going southwest, he knew this – and listened to the wind carry the words back to Ardsmuir. Not home; you can’t go home again.
*
Blowan House stood on green Welsh ground, and the richness of the soil was so pure that Stuart couldn’t even look down and pretend he was back in Scotland. When he closed his eyes and stood facing into the wind, the sounds were unfamiliar and the smells alien; he might as well have been in America, not Wales. He wasn’t in Scotland, was leagues upon leagues from Brigadoon.
Algernon put him in the stable, gave him care of the delicate thoroughbreds that the Blooms were famous for, and Stuart sometimes found comfort in the simplicity of animals, how easy they were to please and their innocent forthrightness. No memory of Scotland here; no one in Brigadoon had ever owned a horse, and the closest he’d come to one were the huge draft horses used in Kinleigh, the larger farming village several miles to the south. When he’d been a boy, his father would take him to the quarter fair, he and Charlie, but he’d gone to his last fair almost a year before he’d run away.
The draft horses were hairy things, and bore as little resemblance to the Bloom thoroughbreds as an English uniform did to the Jacobites’ tattered highland plaids.
*
“I dinna remember,” Stuart says, and his face is distant and terrified, grim sorrow caught in the sharp planes almost hidden beneath his skin. “It fades after a while, ye ken? It fades – and then – and then –” He shakes his head, and Tommy wants to flinch away at the sudden movement. “I dinna remember,” he says again. “I want to, so badly – but the Miracle – the curse!” He spits the word. “It takes away memory of all life outside Brigadoon. Sooner or later, it will be gone. And so will ye.” He drops his head into his hands. “I want her,” he murmurs softly. “I want her so badly it hurts, and some days I think I’d damn Brigadoon to hell for one night in her arms. Just – one – night.”
Fiona looks like she’s been slapped in the face. “Stuart, ye wouldna!” she says. “Remember what happened to Harry –”
He raises his head. “Aye, I remember what happened to Harry,” he says. “Because Brigadoon thought it couldna fight, because Brigadoon couldn’t choose for the Highlands or the English king – he died for that. Ye have no idea what it’s like, Fiona.” His blue eyes slant closed. “I wish t’ God I’d never come back,” he says. “I wish to God I could ha’ stayed.”
“What are you talking about?” There’s horror on Fiona’s face, and Tommy reaches for her hand. “Stuart, what madness do ye speak of? This is Brigadoon – this is your place, Stuart! Ye were born for this!”
“You sound like my brother,” Stuart says. “That’s what he said, when I came back. Or dinna ye remember?”
“And maybe Charlie was right!” Fiona says. “I ken it sounds like madness in itself, but maybe he was right! This is your place, Stuart, not some lord’s house in England. Ye werena made for that, but for this. This, Stuart!”
“I was made for her,” Stuart says.
“For who?” Tommy asks, running his fingers along Fiona’s palm. She quiets and leans against him, but the horror still lingers on her face, and he can’t think but for the wanting to calm her.
Stuart looks him straight in the face. “I remember flashes,” he says. “Moments caught in time. I suppose they’ll fade too, and the day they do I’ll fall on my sword.”
Fiona’s eyes widen, and she lashes forward. “Stuart –” she gasps.
“Tommy,” Stuart says. “Ye gave up your world for Fiona, and for Brigadoon. I meant to do the same for her, and I would ha’ – only –” His face closes, and there’s something bleak caught there, something distant and not-Scottish. “I couldna,” he swallows, “for Brigadoon.”
*
He’d always remember the first day he saw her. They’d had reports of a horse black as midnight and its rider, a strange woman in archaic clothes, and the host of Bloom cousins occupying the manor had taken it upon themselves to try and find her, taking bets on who she’d speak to first. Algie had rolled his eyes and said something about Welsh legends and not talking to strange women, and Stuart had sat back in his seat at the back of the hall and remembered what he’d told Algie about the Scots women who did their spying on their backs and smiled.
They’d gone out riding that night, Algie and Stuart, and Algie had saddled his own horse and handed Stuart the reins to Asfaloth, a prancing white stallion vain enough to curvette half the time and smart enough to try and buck his rider off the other half. For a groom, Algie had said, no problem at all. It should be me having the problems with Asfaloth – not you.
I dinna know horses, Stuart had grumbled, but he’d put his hand on Asfaloth’s neck and felt the horse fidget for a moment under his hand before settling down.
Algie had grinned at him and mounted up. You will.
Algie rode a crimson mare named Tsornin, Roeswood’s fine horses imported and crossbred from Arabia and France. Tsornin took no rider but Algie, and Algie wouldn’t let anyone else ride her or even touch her, half in fear they’d lose a hand or some other precious appendage. That day Tsornin had been strange all evening, and Algie finally turned her head away from Asfaloth and told Stuart he’d take her out on her own, they’d meet back at the stables. When he finally returned, he looked like he’d seen his father’s ghost and moved slowly and dreamily, but Stuart hadn’t seen it.
He’d turned Asfaloth back towards Blowan House, the faint outline of the manor silhouetted against the rich green of Wales, and as he’d done so he’d seen a rider pass him by. A woman, on a black horse, and without knowing why Stuart had spurred Asfaloth after her. No matter how hard he pushed Asfaloth, he couldn’t catch her, and the mare she rode never seemed to tire. For no reason he could find, even then, he’d called out for her.
“Wait, milady! I want nae more than a word –”
And she’d turned back toward him, and the mare had cantered with her hooves lifting inordinately high. “And why didn’t you just say so?” she asked. “I would have come, if you’d asked before.” She reached out and touched her hand to his face. “My name is Rhiannon,” she said.
*
She came to him sometimes in the stables, where he’d turn around and find her with her palm out, one of the horses lipping up an apple, and Stuart always found himself terrified that they’d hurt her. When he finally voiced his fears, she laughed and said, “They won’t hurt me, Stuart.”
He kissed her for the first time in the stables, after a shaky-legged colt had stood for the first time, and he turned to find her cuddling the mare’s head in her silk-clad lap. He slid his hands around her waist and kissed her, and her hands came up to cup his face, the metal of her rings cool against his cheeks.
*
“I love you,” he said, and didn’t know why he’d said it as Rhiannon jerked away from him with her eyes wide, not bothering to gather the fabric of her dress to her.
“No,” she whispered, and shook her head wildly. “No. You cannot.” Desperately – “You cannot.”
“Rhiannon,” Stuart said, reaching out for her with one callused hand.
“Stuart, you cannot,” she said and wailed, “What have I done?”
“Rhiannon.” For a moment he thought he felt her hands on his face, fog swirling in front of his eyes, and when he shook his head she was gone, only the silk of her dress remaining.
*
“I loved her,” Stuart says, and looks surprised. “I still love her,” he adds. “I always will.”
“I didna ken,” Fiona says, her head shaking wildly and her hair a bright whirl. “I always thought – Stuart, does your da ken? He wants ye to marry, like Charlie –”
“He knows,” Stuart says, looking grim. “He knows I am married. He willna believe it, though.”
Tommy looks at Stuart’s left hand, and sees what he’s always seen there. The wide gold band on his ring finger, and there’s no way anyone can mistake it for anything but what it is. It’s a wedding band, of course.
“But –” Fiona says faintly. “How can ye not – how can he not –” Her eyes widen. “Where is she, Stuart? Is she dead?”
“She’s not in Brigadoon,” Staurt says, and grief etches lines on his face. He repeats the words. “She’s not in Brigadoon. She’s no’ wi’ me.”
*
“Take him,” Algie told him, putting Asfaloth’s reins into his hands.
Stuart looked at the stallion, then at Roeswood. “What?”
“Take him,” Algie insisted. “He likes you. He doesn’t like many people.”
“I canna take your horse, ye daft Englishman,” Stuart said. “They’ll hang me for theft, to be sure. And I’m no’ but a groom. This is a laird’s horse. Any blind fool can see that.”
Algie put his hand on Asfaloth’s neck. “You’re not a groom anymore, Stuart,” he said. At the look of confusion he received, he added, “I’m sending you home. To Scotland.”
“Ye canna mean that.”
“I can and I do. I have a pardon from his Royal Majesty for the person of one Stuart Dal –”
“I willna take your king’s pardon, Roeswood.”
“You will, Stuart,” Algie said, closing his fingers like steel on Stuart’s wrist. “Take your girl and go home, you stubborn Scot. I’m giving you a gift. Why can’t you just take it?”
“My girl?” Stuart said after a moment of silent glaring.
“The one all my cousins have been chasing,” Roeswood said. “Honestly, Dalrymple, don’t look at me like that, I have nothing but the best of intentions in mind. The Welsh one with the horse. Tell her I’d like to offer her Tsornin to stud, if she’ll let me have the foal.”
“I dinna think ye ken what ye’re askin’, my friend,” Stuart said.
“I probably don’t,” Algie told him. “But the offer still stands.” He put his hand on Stuart’s shoulder. “Go home, Stuart. Go back to Scotland and take your girl and write me. You’re welcome at my home any time.”
Stuart pulled him into a sudden hug. “Ye’ve been too good to me, Algie. Any time ye should come to Brigadoon, ye’ll be greeted and feasted like a king.”
*
“They’re lettin’ me free,” he told Rhiannon.
She paced in front of him in a thick swirl of green silk. “So you’re leaving.”
“I am,” he allowed. “But I wish – I wish ye to come with me, mo cridhe. Back to Brigadoon.”
Rhiannon turned fiercely on him. “I cannot, Stuart. Don’t you understand? I’m not – not like you are. Not human. I am tied to the land, to Wales, and I can’t leave.”
Stuart closed his eyes. “Then I’ll stay,” he said. “I’ll stay here with you, workin’ in the stables. Algie will let me keep my job and – and Blowan House isna a bad place t’ be. I dinna need Scotland, or Brigadoon.”
Rhiannon dropped to her knees in front of him, skirts pooling out around her. “Stuart, you cannot,” she said desperately. “You can’t stay here. I – I am a spirit of the land, of Wales, but you are of Scotland and this isn’t your place. If I keep you here my cousins will have my head. And Brigadoon – there is something there. A spriit.”
Stuart caught at her hands. “A tannasg?”
She shook her head. “Not a ghost. An earth spirit, but a vengeful one, and a stranger.”
“In Brigadoon?”
She looked at him with wide liquid green eyes. “Yes.”
Stuart dropped his head. “Then I have to go,” he said.
“And do what? You can’t expect to fight a spirit, not one you don’t know, and not alone.”
“I ha’ no choice, Rhiannon. Brigadoon is my place as – as Wales is yours. If it is dangered, then I must go.”
“It will kill you.”
“Then I will die.” He raised her hands to his lips. “I am a soldier, Rhiannon. Death holds no fear for me. Just – I would like to be married before I go.”
Rhiannon wrapped her fingers around his. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Aye, I dinna. But I must ask it nonetheless.”
*
Fiona gasps a little, a small sound that startles the still of the clearing. “Stuart!” she says. “Ye canna – a spirit? One o’ the fae? Had ye any idea what ye were doin’, then?”
“Not in the beginning,” Stuart says, offering her a slight smile. “She told me later, but I already kent it. Johnnie Ray – he was another of the grooms – was always tellin’ tales, and the story of the woman on the black horse was one o’ them. By then I didna care, for it was Rhiannon I loved, not the spirit.”
“But a spirit,” Fiona says in a small voice.
Tommy curls his fingers around hers. “What do you mean,” he asks, “a spirit?”
“Rhiannon was one of the fae, the Fair Folk,” Stuart says. “A fairy, if ye will.” At the dubious expression on Tommy’s face he adds, “Come now, man, if ye can believe in the Miracle ye can believe in faeries. They’re not sae different.”
“Well, there’s the fact I’ve actually seen the Miracle in action,” Tommy says. “So it’s not believing so much as…knowing. Fairies are a little harder to stomach.”
Stuart shrugs a little. “Be it as it may,” he says. “I had Rhiannon there when Algie explained it to me and that was some help.”
Tommy rubs his free hand over his eyes. “Wait, wait…the Englishman knew about the fairies before you did?”
“Well, he’d been sleepin’ wi’ Rhiannon’s sister Angharad for the better part of half a year by then, so that was some help.”
“You’re making it sound like all Welsh women are…never mind.”
“Good decision,” Stuart says dryly. He rubs his fingers reactively over his wedding band. “My brother doesna ken what he has. He has his wife, the woman he loves –”
“The harpy,” Charlie announces significantly, coming back into the clearing. He collapses next to Stuart with a bottle in one hand. “The woman drives me to drink, I swear. I love her, but – her screechin’ would raise the dead, I swear it.”
“Aye, well, she’s a woman,” Stuart says.
“I preferred her when she was livin’ with her da,” Charlie says. He leans heavily on his brother’s shoulder. “Stuart, mo bhráthair, ye ha’ no idea how lucky ye are, livin’ wi’ no wife.”
“Ye’re drunk,” Stuart tells him, leaning over to scoop up the bottle. “And it’s a wonder it took sae little time. What was it your Bonnie Jean was sayin’, hmmm?”
“Don’t ask,” Charlie says. “I should ha’ let Harry have her. He was better suited to her temperament.”
“Aye, well, if ye had, he’d still be alive.” Stuart glares at him. “On the other hand, Jean wouldna have him, sae it’s not your fault sae much as it is hers.” He pauses. “And he’s still here, sae there’s not sae much harm as there’d be otherwise.”
Tommy looks around frantically. “What?”
Stuart set his head against the cool stone walls of the prison, tried to blank out the sounds of the rest of the men in his holding cell behind him. Never silent, not in Ardsmuir, not anywhere with the walls that held him in. He thought he’d kill for a breath of fresh air, or for the clean sounds of the wild moving around him. Not for him, not now, not locked away for treason against the crown, not ever.
He knew this, deep down inside his bones, knew he was never going to get out. He’d stay here until he died, and then until his bones rotted away into fine dust that stirred at a breath. Ardsmuir never let those it had taken go.
*
The weight of the prison was still heavy on his shoulders when he rode away, but he didn’t look back, just clamped his scarred hands tighter around the reins and stared at Algernon Bloom’s back in front of him. Lord Roeswood, risking his reputation and his career for one Jacobite soldier – no matter how good that Jacobite soldier had been in prison, he still should have been transported to America, stuffed in a cargo hold without air or sunlight, then let out and indentured, next thing to enslaved, indentured to some rich settler who was too good to do his own work. Major Bloom, crisp and clean in his red uniform, hand flat and cool as the prison walls against Stuart’s face. “I’ll do what I can,” in a soft British accent, and Stuart’s Scots always sounded rough and unrefined next to the voices of the English officers.
“Take me home,” he whispered into the English air – they were going southwest, he knew this – and listened to the wind carry the words back to Ardsmuir. Not home; you can’t go home again.
*
Blowan House stood on green Welsh ground, and the richness of the soil was so pure that Stuart couldn’t even look down and pretend he was back in Scotland. When he closed his eyes and stood facing into the wind, the sounds were unfamiliar and the smells alien; he might as well have been in America, not Wales. He wasn’t in Scotland, was leagues upon leagues from Brigadoon.
Algernon put him in the stable, gave him care of the delicate thoroughbreds that the Blooms were famous for, and Stuart sometimes found comfort in the simplicity of animals, how easy they were to please and their innocent forthrightness. No memory of Scotland here; no one in Brigadoon had ever owned a horse, and the closest he’d come to one were the huge draft horses used in Kinleigh, the larger farming village several miles to the south. When he’d been a boy, his father would take him to the quarter fair, he and Charlie, but he’d gone to his last fair almost a year before he’d run away.
The draft horses were hairy things, and bore as little resemblance to the Bloom thoroughbreds as an English uniform did to the Jacobites’ tattered highland plaids.
*
“I dinna remember,” Stuart says, and his face is distant and terrified, grim sorrow caught in the sharp planes almost hidden beneath his skin. “It fades after a while, ye ken? It fades – and then – and then –” He shakes his head, and Tommy wants to flinch away at the sudden movement. “I dinna remember,” he says again. “I want to, so badly – but the Miracle – the curse!” He spits the word. “It takes away memory of all life outside Brigadoon. Sooner or later, it will be gone. And so will ye.” He drops his head into his hands. “I want her,” he murmurs softly. “I want her so badly it hurts, and some days I think I’d damn Brigadoon to hell for one night in her arms. Just – one – night.”
Fiona looks like she’s been slapped in the face. “Stuart, ye wouldna!” she says. “Remember what happened to Harry –”
He raises his head. “Aye, I remember what happened to Harry,” he says. “Because Brigadoon thought it couldna fight, because Brigadoon couldn’t choose for the Highlands or the English king – he died for that. Ye have no idea what it’s like, Fiona.” His blue eyes slant closed. “I wish t’ God I’d never come back,” he says. “I wish to God I could ha’ stayed.”
“What are you talking about?” There’s horror on Fiona’s face, and Tommy reaches for her hand. “Stuart, what madness do ye speak of? This is Brigadoon – this is your place, Stuart! Ye were born for this!”
“You sound like my brother,” Stuart says. “That’s what he said, when I came back. Or dinna ye remember?”
“And maybe Charlie was right!” Fiona says. “I ken it sounds like madness in itself, but maybe he was right! This is your place, Stuart, not some lord’s house in England. Ye werena made for that, but for this. This, Stuart!”
“I was made for her,” Stuart says.
“For who?” Tommy asks, running his fingers along Fiona’s palm. She quiets and leans against him, but the horror still lingers on her face, and he can’t think but for the wanting to calm her.
Stuart looks him straight in the face. “I remember flashes,” he says. “Moments caught in time. I suppose they’ll fade too, and the day they do I’ll fall on my sword.”
Fiona’s eyes widen, and she lashes forward. “Stuart –” she gasps.
“Tommy,” Stuart says. “Ye gave up your world for Fiona, and for Brigadoon. I meant to do the same for her, and I would ha’ – only –” His face closes, and there’s something bleak caught there, something distant and not-Scottish. “I couldna,” he swallows, “for Brigadoon.”
*
He’d always remember the first day he saw her. They’d had reports of a horse black as midnight and its rider, a strange woman in archaic clothes, and the host of Bloom cousins occupying the manor had taken it upon themselves to try and find her, taking bets on who she’d speak to first. Algie had rolled his eyes and said something about Welsh legends and not talking to strange women, and Stuart had sat back in his seat at the back of the hall and remembered what he’d told Algie about the Scots women who did their spying on their backs and smiled.
They’d gone out riding that night, Algie and Stuart, and Algie had saddled his own horse and handed Stuart the reins to Asfaloth, a prancing white stallion vain enough to curvette half the time and smart enough to try and buck his rider off the other half. For a groom, Algie had said, no problem at all. It should be me having the problems with Asfaloth – not you.
I dinna know horses, Stuart had grumbled, but he’d put his hand on Asfaloth’s neck and felt the horse fidget for a moment under his hand before settling down.
Algie had grinned at him and mounted up. You will.
Algie rode a crimson mare named Tsornin, Roeswood’s fine horses imported and crossbred from Arabia and France. Tsornin took no rider but Algie, and Algie wouldn’t let anyone else ride her or even touch her, half in fear they’d lose a hand or some other precious appendage. That day Tsornin had been strange all evening, and Algie finally turned her head away from Asfaloth and told Stuart he’d take her out on her own, they’d meet back at the stables. When he finally returned, he looked like he’d seen his father’s ghost and moved slowly and dreamily, but Stuart hadn’t seen it.
He’d turned Asfaloth back towards Blowan House, the faint outline of the manor silhouetted against the rich green of Wales, and as he’d done so he’d seen a rider pass him by. A woman, on a black horse, and without knowing why Stuart had spurred Asfaloth after her. No matter how hard he pushed Asfaloth, he couldn’t catch her, and the mare she rode never seemed to tire. For no reason he could find, even then, he’d called out for her.
“Wait, milady! I want nae more than a word –”
And she’d turned back toward him, and the mare had cantered with her hooves lifting inordinately high. “And why didn’t you just say so?” she asked. “I would have come, if you’d asked before.” She reached out and touched her hand to his face. “My name is Rhiannon,” she said.
*
She came to him sometimes in the stables, where he’d turn around and find her with her palm out, one of the horses lipping up an apple, and Stuart always found himself terrified that they’d hurt her. When he finally voiced his fears, she laughed and said, “They won’t hurt me, Stuart.”
He kissed her for the first time in the stables, after a shaky-legged colt had stood for the first time, and he turned to find her cuddling the mare’s head in her silk-clad lap. He slid his hands around her waist and kissed her, and her hands came up to cup his face, the metal of her rings cool against his cheeks.
*
“I love you,” he said, and didn’t know why he’d said it as Rhiannon jerked away from him with her eyes wide, not bothering to gather the fabric of her dress to her.
“No,” she whispered, and shook her head wildly. “No. You cannot.” Desperately – “You cannot.”
“Rhiannon,” Stuart said, reaching out for her with one callused hand.
“Stuart, you cannot,” she said and wailed, “What have I done?”
“Rhiannon.” For a moment he thought he felt her hands on his face, fog swirling in front of his eyes, and when he shook his head she was gone, only the silk of her dress remaining.
*
“I loved her,” Stuart says, and looks surprised. “I still love her,” he adds. “I always will.”
“I didna ken,” Fiona says, her head shaking wildly and her hair a bright whirl. “I always thought – Stuart, does your da ken? He wants ye to marry, like Charlie –”
“He knows,” Stuart says, looking grim. “He knows I am married. He willna believe it, though.”
Tommy looks at Stuart’s left hand, and sees what he’s always seen there. The wide gold band on his ring finger, and there’s no way anyone can mistake it for anything but what it is. It’s a wedding band, of course.
“But –” Fiona says faintly. “How can ye not – how can he not –” Her eyes widen. “Where is she, Stuart? Is she dead?”
“She’s not in Brigadoon,” Staurt says, and grief etches lines on his face. He repeats the words. “She’s not in Brigadoon. She’s no’ wi’ me.”
*
“Take him,” Algie told him, putting Asfaloth’s reins into his hands.
Stuart looked at the stallion, then at Roeswood. “What?”
“Take him,” Algie insisted. “He likes you. He doesn’t like many people.”
“I canna take your horse, ye daft Englishman,” Stuart said. “They’ll hang me for theft, to be sure. And I’m no’ but a groom. This is a laird’s horse. Any blind fool can see that.”
Algie put his hand on Asfaloth’s neck. “You’re not a groom anymore, Stuart,” he said. At the look of confusion he received, he added, “I’m sending you home. To Scotland.”
“Ye canna mean that.”
“I can and I do. I have a pardon from his Royal Majesty for the person of one Stuart Dal –”
“I willna take your king’s pardon, Roeswood.”
“You will, Stuart,” Algie said, closing his fingers like steel on Stuart’s wrist. “Take your girl and go home, you stubborn Scot. I’m giving you a gift. Why can’t you just take it?”
“My girl?” Stuart said after a moment of silent glaring.
“The one all my cousins have been chasing,” Roeswood said. “Honestly, Dalrymple, don’t look at me like that, I have nothing but the best of intentions in mind. The Welsh one with the horse. Tell her I’d like to offer her Tsornin to stud, if she’ll let me have the foal.”
“I dinna think ye ken what ye’re askin’, my friend,” Stuart said.
“I probably don’t,” Algie told him. “But the offer still stands.” He put his hand on Stuart’s shoulder. “Go home, Stuart. Go back to Scotland and take your girl and write me. You’re welcome at my home any time.”
Stuart pulled him into a sudden hug. “Ye’ve been too good to me, Algie. Any time ye should come to Brigadoon, ye’ll be greeted and feasted like a king.”
*
“They’re lettin’ me free,” he told Rhiannon.
She paced in front of him in a thick swirl of green silk. “So you’re leaving.”
“I am,” he allowed. “But I wish – I wish ye to come with me, mo cridhe. Back to Brigadoon.”
Rhiannon turned fiercely on him. “I cannot, Stuart. Don’t you understand? I’m not – not like you are. Not human. I am tied to the land, to Wales, and I can’t leave.”
Stuart closed his eyes. “Then I’ll stay,” he said. “I’ll stay here with you, workin’ in the stables. Algie will let me keep my job and – and Blowan House isna a bad place t’ be. I dinna need Scotland, or Brigadoon.”
Rhiannon dropped to her knees in front of him, skirts pooling out around her. “Stuart, you cannot,” she said desperately. “You can’t stay here. I – I am a spirit of the land, of Wales, but you are of Scotland and this isn’t your place. If I keep you here my cousins will have my head. And Brigadoon – there is something there. A spriit.”
Stuart caught at her hands. “A tannasg?”
She shook her head. “Not a ghost. An earth spirit, but a vengeful one, and a stranger.”
“In Brigadoon?”
She looked at him with wide liquid green eyes. “Yes.”
Stuart dropped his head. “Then I have to go,” he said.
“And do what? You can’t expect to fight a spirit, not one you don’t know, and not alone.”
“I ha’ no choice, Rhiannon. Brigadoon is my place as – as Wales is yours. If it is dangered, then I must go.”
“It will kill you.”
“Then I will die.” He raised her hands to his lips. “I am a soldier, Rhiannon. Death holds no fear for me. Just – I would like to be married before I go.”
Rhiannon wrapped her fingers around his. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Aye, I dinna. But I must ask it nonetheless.”
*
Fiona gasps a little, a small sound that startles the still of the clearing. “Stuart!” she says. “Ye canna – a spirit? One o’ the fae? Had ye any idea what ye were doin’, then?”
“Not in the beginning,” Stuart says, offering her a slight smile. “She told me later, but I already kent it. Johnnie Ray – he was another of the grooms – was always tellin’ tales, and the story of the woman on the black horse was one o’ them. By then I didna care, for it was Rhiannon I loved, not the spirit.”
“But a spirit,” Fiona says in a small voice.
Tommy curls his fingers around hers. “What do you mean,” he asks, “a spirit?”
“Rhiannon was one of the fae, the Fair Folk,” Stuart says. “A fairy, if ye will.” At the dubious expression on Tommy’s face he adds, “Come now, man, if ye can believe in the Miracle ye can believe in faeries. They’re not sae different.”
“Well, there’s the fact I’ve actually seen the Miracle in action,” Tommy says. “So it’s not believing so much as…knowing. Fairies are a little harder to stomach.”
Stuart shrugs a little. “Be it as it may,” he says. “I had Rhiannon there when Algie explained it to me and that was some help.”
Tommy rubs his free hand over his eyes. “Wait, wait…the Englishman knew about the fairies before you did?”
“Well, he’d been sleepin’ wi’ Rhiannon’s sister Angharad for the better part of half a year by then, so that was some help.”
“You’re making it sound like all Welsh women are…never mind.”
“Good decision,” Stuart says dryly. He rubs his fingers reactively over his wedding band. “My brother doesna ken what he has. He has his wife, the woman he loves –”
“The harpy,” Charlie announces significantly, coming back into the clearing. He collapses next to Stuart with a bottle in one hand. “The woman drives me to drink, I swear. I love her, but – her screechin’ would raise the dead, I swear it.”
“Aye, well, she’s a woman,” Stuart says.
“I preferred her when she was livin’ with her da,” Charlie says. He leans heavily on his brother’s shoulder. “Stuart, mo bhráthair, ye ha’ no idea how lucky ye are, livin’ wi’ no wife.”
“Ye’re drunk,” Stuart tells him, leaning over to scoop up the bottle. “And it’s a wonder it took sae little time. What was it your Bonnie Jean was sayin’, hmmm?”
“Don’t ask,” Charlie says. “I should ha’ let Harry have her. He was better suited to her temperament.”
“Aye, well, if ye had, he’d still be alive.” Stuart glares at him. “On the other hand, Jean wouldna have him, sae it’s not your fault sae much as it is hers.” He pauses. “And he’s still here, sae there’s not sae much harm as there’d be otherwise.”
Tommy looks around frantically. “What?”