Ronan braced his hands on the stone ledge of the window and drew a deep breath. Far below, a dog fox trotted along the edges of the trees, cloaked in deep shadow one moment then reappearing into a slant of pale moonlight.
“Well?”
He closed his eyes. “If the clan talespinners are to be believed, the grave proved empty.”
“I knew it!” She clapped her hands. “Heisburied elsewhere and we need only find the tomb.”
“The talespinners also say that his evil was so great and his power so infinite that the devil himself envied him.” He turned to face her. “ ’Tis said the Horned One seized the mortal remains and the stone, taking them with him into hell where he tossed both into a bottomless pit.”
“ Pah- phooey!” She laughed. “I tell you, he —”
Ronan didn’t let her finish. “He used the last of his power to curse the family, damning us even in death as the devil carried him away. His capture was our fault, he railed, furious that we’d buried him in such an easy-to-find spot, or so tradition claims.”
Gelis shook her head. “I do not believe a word.”
Nor do I, Ronan owned, though he kept the sentiment to himself.
“Be that as it may, whether he once slept in the table grave or no, his final resting place has ne’er been found,” he admitted, speaking true. “What does remain is his curse. It strikes —”
“I do not believe that either.” Her eyes flashed. “I told you at Creag na Gaoith what I think of your curse.”
She whirled and started pacing again, his plaid swinging about her knees. “Never in a thousand lifetimes did youthinka rockslide into happening and —”
“Think you that is all of it?”
Ronan unlatched his sword-belt and laid it and his brand on a chair. Then he removed the large Celtic brooch holding his plaid at his shoulder and set it on the chair with his belt and his sword.
“What happened to Matilda at the Rock of the Wind was only one horror in a long history of family tragedies,” he said at last, pulling off his plaid. “Numberless heartaches have visited us, lass. The kind of pain I strove so hard to keep from touching you.”
“Then tell me of it — from the beginning.” Gelis claimed a chair beside the hearth and clapped her hands on her knees. “If you think I shall cower and tremble, you are sore mistaken.”
He frowned at her, his plaid still bunched in his hands. Turning away, he shook it out and carefully folded it before placing it atop the large iron-banded strongbox at the foot of the bed. When he straightened to face her again, she knew she’d won.
But the hesitancy still clinging to him made her heart clench.
“Please.” She leaned forward, letting her eyes plead. “I truly want to know.”
He appeared to consider. “As you wish, but it makes grim telling,” he finally conceded, looking at her as if he expected her to start quaking any moment.
Or worse, leap to her feet and bolt from the room.
So she leaned back in the chair and forced a calm expression. Never yet had she felt so close to him and it wouldn’t do for him to note her quickened pulse and mistake her hope for fear.
Her device apparently worked, because he blew out a great breath and went to stand at the open window again, at last looking ready to speak.
He cleared his throat. “You asked me once if I’m plagued by theDroch Shùiland I told you of Matilda’s death. How rather than the Evil Eye, my own thoughts sometimes manifest in horrible ways.”
Gelis opened her mouth to object, but he waved a staying hand.
“Enough of my kinsmen — and a few kinswomen — have suffered thus,” he continued. “Though the instances I know of with surety lie some hundred years or more in the past. Either way, those sad souls had but to glance at a cow and its milk would dry up or curdle. If they crossed a field, its crop withered behind them.
“Their woe was great for they meant no ill and did their best to avoid causing such disasters.” He paused, his mouth twisting. “I know of at least one such kinsman who took his own life because of his malady.”
“There are many tales of theDroch Shùilin these hills.” Gelis didn’t know what else to say. “So long as the stricken do not use their power to work ill on others, they cannot be blamed. Besides” — she sat forward again — “there are ways to counter the Evil Eye.”
Lifting a hand, she counted them on her fingers. “Rowan is one of the surest talismans against the like. Then there are charmed stones, amulets, and a wealth of incantations. Even if you did have —”
“Ach, sweetness. I have told you, what plagues me is far worse.” He rammed both hands through his hair and closed his eyes for a moment. “Would that such counter-charms as walking three times sunwise around a milk-blighted cow or drinking silvered water would cure it.”
