Page 40 of The Lone Wolf's Bride

She nodded and tried not to cry.

‘Come,’ he commanded.

As she followed him to the door of the shabby dwelling, she stumbled hard with exhaustion, but as the ground came up to meet her, again she felt his strong hand on her, hauling her back up by the elbow.

‘Look where you are going,’ he snarled as he tossed her arm away and walked quickly inside, leaving her following in his wake.

Ilene managed to conjure a smile for the house’s occupants, a frail-looking man and a young woman, his daughter, she assumed. They were a ragged pair, the man stooped and sallow-faced in the gloom and the girl straggly-haired and dirty. Ilene noticed, with pity, that the poor lass had no stockings and stood barefoot on the cold dirt floor. Murray passed some coin to the man, whose face lit up at the sight of it, and then they both scuttled out of sight.

The dwelling consisted of one room, in the middle of which, was a kind of hearth formed by a round of stones with no mortar between them. A sickly fire burning there provided the only light, apart from the open doorway which seemed to serve as both a chimney and a window. The smell of stale food mingled with smoke from the fire and the only furniture was a table, black with grime and a couple of stools before the fire. In the corner was a bed which was little more than a few rough bits of wood nailed together, with straw thrown on top for warmth. How on earth was she to sleep there with Murray beside her?

‘Where are they going?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘To sleep in the barn, with the animals.’

‘So we’ve driven them out of their home into the rain.’

‘The coin I gave them will more than compensate for that. Few folk come this way, so it’s a boon to them. They have little food, so we will share our rations with them. I think its best that you do not eat for a while, but I brought along some rum and a little sugar, so have that - it’ll warm you.’

Darkness was upon them almost immediately after she felt the rum warm her belly, but in spite of a terrible exhaustion, Ilene spent a sleepless night on top of the straw in the cold bed. Murray had abandoned her to it almost immediately, in favour of his own brooding company, lying down on the floor wrapped in his plaid, before the fire.

The next day they rode for miles and miles, over increasingly bleak moorland and scrubby hills. He spoke little, other than to ask if she needed to rest. She tried not to be a burden and always replied that she did not, but every now and again he would give her a hard look and suddenly order they stop, for the sake of the horses. Each time she sat alone while he wandered off into the distance. He seemed unable to bear being near her and Ilene had a greater sense of foreboding the longer their journey continued. Her optimism was slowly dying, with each step away from home.

‘We will rest here a while,’ said Murray grimly, after many more miles of riding through vast sweeps of heather. ‘Prepare yourself as your father told me the journey gets harder from this point.’

‘Why harder?’

‘Treacherous ground,’ he said, giving her a dark look. ‘We cannot take rest before nightfall.’

Ilene flopped down, feeling tears come upon her at the mention of her father. She felt horribly homesick, weary to her bones and so very lonely. Being used to the enclosing strength of Cailleach’s walls, and the bustle of its occupants, the quiet solitude of the moorland felt like the grave. All she could hear, over the howl of the gusty wind, was the steady thrum of bees robbing the heather of its nectar, punctuated now and then with the mournful cawing of a crow from far away.

Her fate suddenly crashed in on her. Here she was, at what seemed like the edge of the world, carrying the child of a man who had abandoned her, married to one who despised her. She cried silent tears, fearful that Murray would hear, but he did not seem to notice and, a while later, bid her mount and continue on their way.

She soon realised why they could not travel when they lost the light. The dry moorland slowly became a treacherous maze of peat bogs, through which the road twisted and turned, like a thin ribbon of safety. Ilene hated its oozing dampness and the rotten, sulphurous smell that rose all around them. She was nervous so decided she would risk speaking.

‘How do you know the way, Murray?’

‘Duncan brought me up here many years ago, as a lad, so I have some knowledge of the land around here and he gave me good directions. Besides, there is but one path, so it is the only way to go to get through this infernal place. Anyone foolish enough to travel at night would soon be off the path and end up sinking, without a trace, in this stinking muck. Even in daylight, we must be careful.

‘It’s horrible. I think this is what hell smells like,’ she said.

‘No, hell smells like a woman,’ he said bitterly.

After that, Ilene spoke no more.

Eventually, after a tiring afternoon of riding, they reached the edge of the land. Soaring cliffs fell away into a grey, churning sea below. Ilene was fit to drop as she watched the waves pummelling the rocks.

‘Careful, steady your horse,’ Murray snapped, grabbing the bridle. ‘The edge is not sound and you are too close.’

Sunk in misery, she hadn’t even noticed how close she was as he pulled her horse around and away.

‘Not far now I think,’ he said, looking steadily at her. ‘A few more miles and then you will be in your new home, or whatever you want to call it.’

Chapter Sixteen

The cottage was long and low, placed just where the land folded into the sea. Indeed it was a miracle it had not been swallowed whole by it, such was the power of the gusty wind sweeping inland and the waves battering the coast. Its stone walls were damp with salt spray and pitted with age, scabbed with blooms of lichen the colour of sulphur and moss the bright green of crab apples. It was edged with a rough stone wall and had a long, low barn and a well.

A wide, sweeping beach of dark sand stretched away in one direction, fringed with rippling sea grass and, in the other, rose the mountains, misty, frigid and snow-peaked. It had obviously stood a long time and, by the state of the front door, loose and rattling in its frame, had been sorely neglected. The thatched roof was worn and patchy, bringing to mind a dog with mange. Shrouds of cobwebs enveloped the windows and the eaves.

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