The Long Road

Scotland, 1557

on the road between Perth and Whithorn

A persistent mist had given way to cloudy stillness. Lise had dropped back in the line of riders until she rode just before the hired guardsmen who brought up the rear of their party. They were traversing a lightly wooded hillside on the way to Sterling, which, for the most part, required them to ride in single file.

Their way often took them on such paths. Swollen by Autumn rain, the glen bottoms were often too treacherous to afford safe passage, so they took paths higher up occasionally wooded slopes.

Lise was weary, saddle sore and damp. In truth, she felt that she had not been properly dry since their departure from Perthshire, sometimes, she thought morosely, not since they left Bordeaux.

Ahead, she could hear the voices of Margarete and Owen. They had taken to passing the long hours of their journey by trading songs. This was a fairly straight forward process for Owen, as he was fluent in French after his years with Colin in Paris. Margarete had to coach him on pronunciation, as the tunes she knew were mostly of Southern origin, but her task was nothing to Owen's.

Gamely, Margarete was attempting to learn Welsh ballads. This was largely an exercise in rote learning, and required Owen to repeat the songs, and individual phrases many times. Though a part of her resisted it, Lise felt his voice soothing her manifold discomforts. Nevertheless, she willfully chose to skulk back among the guardsmen, undesirous of companionship. The guardsmen, seeing little warmth between the women, accepted Lise as a servant like themselves and, after their initial abortive attempts to engage her, (curtly rebuffed,) left her entirely to herself.

She still rebelled inwardly against this mad venture of Margarete's. To go on pilgrimage to pray for a child was frivolous enough she felt. To do so in late October, when the weather was dreadful, and the country in turmoil, was downright madness. As Margarete's attendant however, she had no choice but to accompany her mistress.

Since the events of Lamas night almost three months ago, all of Lise's actions were governed solely by duty. Since the shocking attack on her person, the double rape, the degradation that had come to be known by all in the castle, it seemed to Lise that her very life had ebbed.

It was not merely the devastating effects of the assault, but also the memories it evoked of long buried pain, and the reminder of her own vulnerability. The fact that the assault had occurred on the very night after she and Owen had, at long last, come together in love, was the ultimate cruelty of fate. Since that night, it seemed that the love Lise had known for both Margarete and Owen had flickered along with her spirit.

Ahead, the singing was abruptly silenced, and Lise became aware that the horses were being halted by wary riders. Looking up, she perceived little sign of alarm however, more so a sense of alert caution.

Riding close to the head of the company, Owen and Margarete beheld the obstruction on the crude path at the same time. Some distance ahead, but directly in their line of travel, stood two deer, unmistakably doe and stag, and equally unmistakably in the postures of copulation.

Owen shot a sideways glance at Margarete, and had to steel himself not to laugh at the wide-eyed surprise on her face. To the left, the wood was more dense, impassible for their horses. To the right, the slope became precipitous, equally impassible. Owen and the lead guardsmen agreed, with a silent look, that their only course was to remain still and wait for the conclusion. Even had they not sported several dead geese across their saddles from a few lucky bow shots that morning, none would have felt at ease dispatching the deer with arrows at such a moment.

His amusement not withstanding, Owen edged his horse a little away from Margarete's. Both had been abstinent for longer than each preferred, and the intimacy created by music and a common purpose, gave him the sense that this was a vista they could not comfortably share.

He glanced back to see Lise taking in the scene. When she saw that he watched her, she raised her eyebrows at him in a way he could not interpret.

Fortunately, their approach had allowed them to perceive the obstacle soon enough to halt the horses before they could be made restive by the deer. All remained as quiet and still as possible, cautious of the stag.

When the act had concluded, the lead guardsmen signaled for them to continue. Owen made a point to follow him quickly, allowing Margarete the opportunity to fall back, which she did.

"You look like an ignorant villager who has just been dazzled by a cunning Magician," Lise remarked, catching sight of the look on Margarete's face."

In former days, Margarete would have been stung by Lise's acerbic tone. Now, she was so grateful for any spontaneous remark that she barely registered the sarcasm.

"I'm sure I've seen such things before growing up," she said thoughtfully, "But it never looked quite thus to me before. I suppose it's because I have..." She broke off, unwilling to speak the words.

Lise bit back the unpleasant rejoinder that came to her lips. Something in Margarete's young face stopped her. It was the familiar, slightly vacant expression Margarete got when something had stirred her into unexpected reflection. Suddenly and startlingly, Lise was moved by tenderness. Her own bitter sarcasm suddenly seemed so at odds with the purity of Margarete's curiosity and introspection.

"Is that how all such matters between men and women seem to you now?", Margarete asked, so gently that Lise felt no impulse towards sharp response.

"What do you mean?", she asked, to buy time.

"So base, so animal, so lacking in tenderness, so brutish."

Lise felt a quick and devastating desire to weep. Margarete's soft, almost diffident words seemed to resonate like a shout in her head, and twisted something painful in her guts.

So much time went by that Margarete had long since ceased to expect a response, but harkened attentively when Lise spoke quietly.

"No. I know that such is not so, I know it in my head at least. In truth, it was an odd comfort to see it. I do not know why this should be; perhaps because it was so uncomplicated"

Lise's words were spoken in a softer and more vulnerable voice than Margarete had heard from her since Lammas. She looked into Lise's face and saw a similar softening.

"Did it make you miss your husband?", Lise asked with a faint but un-ironical smile.

Margarete nodded a little shyly, then asked very cautiously "Did it make you miss Owen?"

Lise's features twisted a little and her eyes slid away, and she gave a faint nod also.

Margarete was filled with relief that Lise was speaking so calmly and genuinely to her that she was afraid to say the wrong thing. Since their departure, she had felt only Lise's anger and resentment.

"I heard the men say that we will make a shorter day of it today, the horses need rest."

They did not speak again until the vicissitudes of stopping for the night, but the silence between them was the most comfortable they had shared for many months. Each felt privately that, as discommodious as the outdoor life of traveling was, there was something restful about being outside castle walls, enfolded in the natural world. The air was still, and there was no rain. On many nights, they had found shelter in lodgings as diverse as prosperous Abbey granges and pore crofter's huts. Tonight, both women were glad to find there rest out of doors.

At Sterling, they spent the night in the comfortable home of McNab, the business agent of Margarete's husband. In their bedroom, they spoke easily of trivial matters, comforted by unimportant words.

"I have lost my green underskirt!", Lise exclaimed in mild frustration."

"Oh?", Margarete replied vaguely, rummaging among her own possessions.

"Yes, you know that lovely unique sea-green that we found in the market in Perth when we arrived?"

"Yes, I remember it," Margarete replied, distractedly. "You're sure you brought it?"

"Of course," Lise replied in mild irritation. McNab's house maid did a fine job with our laundry, luckily it was a windy day so all dried properly, but she must have mislaid it. I'll ask in the morning."

Margarete kept her face averted. She knew where the underskirt was. It had been carefully torn into strips which Margarete had been tying to branches around holy springs.

The reason she had insisted on this pilgrimage was not to pray for a child. It was to pray for the renewal of Lise's spirit, for Margarete greatly feared that without intervention, Lise would sicken and die from grief. Filled alternately with anger and apathy as Lise had been, Margarete and Owen had chosen to keep the true purpose of their journey hidden from Lise, but Margarete prayed, and left tokens of green cloth, as was the custom at holy springs.

After Sterling, their way took them through low, rolling country, only partially wooded. The hill tops were home to the now familiar sheep walks, and the land was well cultivated, though nearly fully harvested by this season. Mountains stretched up off to their right.

Lise was becoming increasingly irritated by the holy wells and springs. These were many, and Margarete rarely allowed the party to pass one without stopping so that she could perform some private devotion. Lise alternated between finding these forced stops annoying and a relief. She was eager for this mad journey to be completed, but her saddle-sore behind was glad for a chance to dismount and walk about.

Since their departure from Sterling, Owen had begun taking these stops as opportunities to continue Lise's instruction in the Scots speech. She was not progressing as quickly as Margarete, and Owen had been charged with her on-going instruction.

It was beginning to irritate Lise that Owen should insist on turning Margarete's devotional interludes into opportunities for language lessons. The breaks from travel were scarcely long enough to make instruction worth while. Nevertheless, Owen was persistent, strolling away from the horses with her, good-naturedly correcting her pronunciation.

On a misty afternoon, Lise saw the telltale flash of colour ahead which indicated yet another hillside spring. Owen had explained early in their journey that it was the custom for pilgrims and suppliants to hang bits of cloth from branches near the spring as an offering to which ever saint was honored there. A bit of clothing or some other personal effect belonging to the ailing individual was the most common.

If she was feeling well and did not think but merely gazed, the effect was rather festive, as many colours were represented. As their journey progressed however, she often came to see each fragment of cloth as a symbol of the suffering of some unknown and absent person, someone who might not even be on this earth any longer. Mostly though, the sight of these emblems had become merely the indication of a coming lesson in Scots.

Predictably, Margarete drew rain, and waited for Owen to assist her in dismounting. Margarete made her solitary way up the slope to where this particular spring pored out into a pool, bordered by carefully placed stones.

Lise sighed, finding her own careful way to the ground, and waiting for Owen's inevitable approach, which she had grown to both desire and dread.

He led them casually further along their path. A guardsman would linger to assist Margarete back into her saddle, and they would mount themselves when they saw her return.

As Margarete reached them and all were mounted save Lise, she said that she would linger to relieve herself. Always cautious of their safety, Owen bade the most impervious of the guardsman to stay behind so that she would not be unprotected.

Her business in the shrubbery complete, Lise doddled, savoring the brief near-solitude. She cherished time alone, and had had none since their departure from Colin's castle. The guardsman had retreated to a safe distance, and his presence was so unobtrusive that it barely registered on her consciousness.

Unwilling to rejoin the party at once, she thought she might avail herself of a drink of water from the spring after all. She picked her way up the slope, then knelt at its edge.

There was a small, wooden statue, of St. Bride she supposed, and flat stones which had been placed with care so as to afford a semblance of ease to those who knelt there. The water was pleasantly cool but not icy. When she had drunk her fill, she sat back, in no hurry to rise and remount.

Her gaze swept idly around the bushes which ringed the place, noting the faded offerings, the bits of cloth that dangled from branches. Her eyes halted at one such offering. She rose slowly, her eyes fastened on it. Like a sleep-walker, she approached, reached up, and removed it to hold in her hands. She felt numb and dazed. The strip of cloth had been torn from the edge of a garment, and its colour was a rich, unique sea green. She knew that colour, had in fact been thinking of it in Sterling. She raised the fabric to her nose and inhaled. It bore the fragrance of the sashay she used to scent her clothing.

She stood transfixed, struggling to understand. She looked slowly around at the spring with its offerings, then down again to the cloth in her hand.

Gradually, the truth seeped into her awareness like a strong dye through wool. She looked about her once more, as though seeing her surroundings for the first time. No cloth from Margarete's clothing graced these branches; and it was not McNab's house maid who had misplaced Lise's green underskirt. It was not for the ripening of her womb that Margarete prayed.

Lise made her careful way back down the slope and mounted her horse. With a nod to the guardsman, she proceeded along the narrow path after the others. A slow anger was kindling inside her. This outrageous journey in the cold and damp, this tramp across this sunless and wild country, was not to pray for a child. Margarete had lied to her. Dragged her unwillingly on an ill-advised venture to pray for... for... What? For Lise apparently. The presumption of it left her speechless. She, who had little use for prayer at the best of times, had been made complicit in a dangerous and uncomfortable journey, so that Margarete could intercede for her with the All Mighty. How dare she?

Lise urged her mount forward, catching sight of Owen ahead. Usually he lead the party, and she knew he lagged back in order to see her safe return. He turned at the sound of her approach. As he saw her, she raised the strip of cloth, and the fury on her face told him clearly that she understood all. He had not prepared for this moment, and did not immediately know how to respond. Seeing this, she deduced at once that their journey's purpose was known to him.

He gestured the guardsman who had accompanied her forward to join the rest of the party. When they could speak privately, he chose the most pragmatic of statements.

"You cannot vent your anger before all these." He indicated the train of Guardsmen and pack animals, among whom rode Margarete, ignorant of the storm gathering behind her.

"Why not?", she hissed viciously. "Surely I have no longer any dignity left to lose? All know my shame, and likely all know that I am the lamentable object of all this piety. I have done with obedience and decorum. Of what use are they to me."

Owen felt the beginning of panic. Lise's expression was reckless in the extreme, and he spoke harshly, attempting to head off an outright confrontation.

"You may rail silently all you wish against your lot in life as servant rather than master, but on this journey, I am in command, and you will follow my instructions. I order you not to speak to Margarete for the rest of this day's ride. You will stay at the foot of the party and speak to no one of this matter."

To forestall argument, he urged his horse forward, sending the nearest guardsman to take up his post at the end of the column. He could feel her angry gaze burning into his back, and he sought to put distance between them.

Despite her harsh words, Lise yet held her own dignity in sufficient regard not to shriek her fury to Margarete as she longed to do. She spent the rest of that day's ride seething in solitude. Taking his injunction literally however, she considered that the end of that day's travel freed her from his command.

They had come upon a tiny collection of stone dwellings, barely a village, and Owen had negotiated a roof over the heads of the women at least, for a mild but steady rain had begun.

As the men tended to the horses and set up their camp, Lise followed Margarete to some distance away where they would be expected to seek privacy in order to relieve themselves and make what toilet they could in a swift-flowing stream. Owen had given Margarete a low-voiced account of Lise's words to him, and she knew what was coming.

Lise held up the strip of sea-green cloth for Margarete to see. Margarete had had all afternoon to consider her words. Mustering what composure she could, she spoke in a calm, level tone.

"I have lied to you as you have discovered. It is not to pray for a child that I have brought us on this journey, but to pray for the revitalization of your soul. Since Lamas, I have grieved and feared for you. I knew not how else to bring you fully back to... to yourself, to me. I have never lied to you before, but I knew you would not... I can not imagine my life without you, and each day you grew further away. I feared that by fasting and disinterest, you would... would leave this world entirely. Any risk seemed worth it to me, even my husband's anger or my own safety."

Wholly unmoved by this affecting speech, Lise gazed at her with an expression that was contemptuous. When she spoke, it was through gritted teeth.

"Though my honor and my choice have been taken from me, I yet retain my sense of duty. I will complete this journey with you because I must, and I will act as your servant While I must. When you are safely returned to your husband's protection however, I will consider my duty discharged. I will have done with being an obedient and powerless servant, without even command over the fate of my own soul. I made my way very well in the world before I knew you, I will do so again. I will no longer be manipulated and disposed of at your will. You have a castle full of servants to do your bidding. Once you are there again, I will consider my duty to you discharged.

Margarete felt herself sway, and could not get her breath. It was as though she had been struck in the belly. Lise saw, enjoying the sensation of power that Margarete's fear and pain gave her. Feeling wholly in command of her fate as she had not done for a long time, she turned and made her way back to the cluster of huts that would be their resting place.

The dwellings were minimal in space and comfort. Lise and Margarete were welcomed in the largest. They huddled around the dwelling's smoking fire along with the inhabitants. These were a married couple, two small children, and an infant. All of the children were thin, and none of them looked well. The woman had dark smudges under her eyes, and her movements were weary as she saw to their comfort as best she could, then drew her fretful babe to her breast to nurse.

Lise thought clinically that the woman looked as though she might be again with child. Even through her own righteous anger, she knew a detached compassion. She tried to engage in polite conversation with her, but the woman's Scots was almost incomprehensible to Lise, and she looked so fatigued that Lise hadn't the heart to persist.

It was natural for Lise and Margarete to share the bed with the woman and her babes. The woman's husband had gone to find his rest with Owen and the guardsmen, Owen's trade goods having easily secured such courtesy. Lise, However, found such close proximity to Margarete intolerable. Inventing a complaint of the bowel which would require her to make frequent visits out doors, she said briefly that she would find her rest among the men.