In The Turning of the Night

Rose slipped noiselessly down the stairs, a tartan rug wrapped around her shoulders. A thin gown was fine in a soft bed with a warm man, but even in summer, this great house was chilly at night. She found her way through the dark house and into the library by memory and moonlight, and saw her lord sitting in his great leather chair, long legs stretched toward the fire and ankles crossed. A brandy snifter hung neglected in one hand. She crossed the room to him silently, bare feet whispering across parquet and carpet.

"My lord," Rose whispered, kneeling beside the great chair. He seemed not to hear her, seemed lost in some mental landscape where she could not join him. She frowned a little, laid a hand on his forearm. She leaned closer. "Bay," she said in his ear.

Summerisle jumped a little, looking around at her, and the brandy snifter in his hand slipped. She caught it before it could fall and put it down gently on the floor. He smiled fondly at her. "You're the only one who calls me that," he said.

"If anyone should be able to call you by your name, it'd be me, I'd suppose," she said with a little asperity.

"I'd suppose," he said, and smiled at her again, a tired smile that hurt her heart a little. He extended his hand to her, and she took it. He drew her onto his lap and she leaned against him. "Having trouble sleeping?" he asked softly.

"I could ask the same of you," she replied gently, twisting a bit to look down at him. "The Old Ones know, neither of us should be having trouble sleeping at the moment. "

Summerisle chuckled a little. "No." His arm tightened around her waist and he leaned his head against her side. "I've been doing a lot of praying, Rose."

She felt tears sting her eyes. "I know you have".

The firelight flickered over his face as he stared without blinking into the flames. "I've listened for the gods in my heart. Over this whole terrible year, I've listened like I've never listened before. And what I've heard is, "Our people suffered in the winter cold, and where were you? We've given you everything, and where are you now? Your people are the only ones who still love us. You are their father: give us power, that we may bless them again." Then I think of that innocent man down there in his room at the Green Man. I know he has a life and loved ones, colleagues who will hunt for him - we must be very careful there - and a woman promised, who will grieve when he is lost. He's mightily connected to this life of his as he's built it. Powerful as she is, our Willow could not budge him."

Rose's jaw tightened. "You felt it, then?"

"I felt the magic spiral up and die down again, unfulfilled. I can feel Willow's weariness even now. He's passed her test. And because he has, he will die to save the lives of people he does not know, never understanding anything but his own terror. Can it be right, that one man should die to save many? But . . . another winter like the last one, and our people will start to die." His voice caught and he fell silent.

Rose's arm tightened around his shoulders, feeling the coldness of the flesh under his silk dressing gown. She tugged her blanket around to share its warmth with him. "He would do the same to us, and never think twice," she said softly. "If it were still the time of the hunting, he would be first to throw his torch at the foot of our stake."

She felt more than saw his frown. "But it's not that time anymore. He is the one we need, and while both his blindness and his arrogance are considerable, they are not the issue."

Rose couldn't help but smile. "He is an arrogant fellow, isn't he? Marching in here, flinging his dead hare about, shouting at a peer of the realm. The little prat."

Summerisle said nothing, and Rose raised an eyebrow. "He made you angry when he shouted at you. I saw the thunder in your face."

Summerisle shifted Rose into a more comfortable position on his legs. "He did set a match to my temper, I do admit. He despises us, and that adds to my trouble. Am I pursuing this to the bitter end because now that I've met him face to face, I don't like him? If he had turned out to be my heart's brother instead of that little prat you mentioned, would I end it differently? By the gods, I hope not. I hope my resolve is stronger than that." He rubbed along the side of his face with one hand.

Rose ran her hand through Summerisle's hair, noticing with a little sadness the many silver strands that had begun to encroach there. She remembered him as a teenager, all long legs and elbows and great dark eyes, coming to her arms in the first flush of manhood. How could she have imagined then that she would still be beside him when his hair was sown through with gray. She began to massage the back of his neck, feeling his tension. "You must stop going round and round with yourself like this. You do not stray once you've set a course. Your will has never bent once, all this cold, hard year, or in all the years I've known you. You will do what you have to, to save all our lives, even if it breaks your heart."

Summerisle laughed, a silent, bitter breath. "If I'm also doing it to save my own life, does that make it any less noble?"

Rose sighed. "That's not going to happen and you know it. Now stop it, or you're going to have me crying."

"But if it did?"

She took his face in both her hands and made him look up into her eyes. "If it did, I would go to the Wicker Man with you." His eyes widened and he started to speak. She pressed light fingers to his lips and said, "Shh. That's no idle promise, for without you, there would be nothing in this world to keep me. Now for the god's sake, don't think any more about such things." Summerisle slid both arms around Rose and held her tightly, and they were quiet for long minutes, both digesting the import of what she had just said.

Finally, Summerisle said, "If I don't think about that, I'm thinking about our man. He doesn't deserve the suffering he will endure before the gods take him. The intolerant, intractable nature of his faith blinds him to his approaching fate, luckily for us, but he is intelligent. He's following every clue and putting everything together that we've given him. He has great power - what a priest he could have made for Avellunau! And by the gods, he resisted our Willow, and I don't know of any man on this island who's ever done that before, once she cast her eye upon him."

Rose chuckled. "Neither do I," she said, looking wisely down at him. He looked at her in a startled way, then pinched her knee gently. She squeezed his shoulders a little, pleased to have turned his dark train of thought, and also to have caught him out. He had the grace to look a little embarrassed, as if a secret of any kind could be kept in their community for long. A dalliance or two or three meant nothing to Rose one way or the other. It was the nature of men and women to attract each other, but her lord always came back to her.

Summerisle retrieved his brandy from the floor and offered it to Rose, who sipped, then swallowed the remaining bit himself. He looked into the shifting shadows of the fire and said softly, "This little policeman is like a river backed up to bursting behind the unbreachable dam of his faith. When his life springs forth beyond the bonds he labors in now, and that dam breaks, the power that is unleashed will wash over this island in a great flood. I know it will. I know our island will burgeon again. I know he will be accepted. I've foreseen it." There was the soft surety of prophecy in his voice, and Rose felt a chill go up her spine. That her lord had the prophetic gift was certain - she had seen it at work before. She was always amazed by people who called it a blessing. "I just don't know that my resolve will hold to bring this thing to accomplishment," Summerisle continued softly. "How I wish the oracles could have foretold a better way."

Rose sat very still on her lord's lap, stroking his hair and thinking. So many different levels to this man and to their life together. Her lover, her friend, her teacher and her student, her high priest, and the laird of her home. He valued her opinion and sought out her advice. He had made her Lady Summerisle in everything but name, and someday before long they would get round to that. Whatever happened tomorrow, whatever they gained and whatever it cost, she would be beside him. She shifted herself to put her arms around him, and squeezed tight. "I will be there with you. I will give you everything I have, not because you are the high priest or my laird, Bay, but because I love you with all my heart. I have loved you since we were children. You know that."

Summerisle hid his face in her neck. "I know it, my darling Rose," he whispered, his voice just a little unsteady. "This will be the hardest thing I have ever done. If I have your strength beside me, I can do this thing and my determination will not flag. Just stay close to me, up on that headland tomorrow."

Rose rested her cheek on the top of her lord's head. "I will. I promise I will. But you must remember too, that the people must not see or feel one shadow of doubt or fear. They have come to believe that this one life will save and nurture many others, and I too unswervingly believe this to be so. But one doubt from you, and they will see it. You must be relentless, because if there is one chink in this armor of magic we build tomorrow, it will all collapse. You know this to be true."

He squeezed her hands. "I know it."

Rose took his face in her hands again, and looked hard into his eyes. "Tomorrow you cannot be Bay, the genial friend who comes to the Green Man and sits in the taproom drinking MacGregor's ale with the doctor and the schoolmaster. You cannot be the smiling laird that the children surround and hang from when they see him in the high street. You may pretend outwardly to be that man tomorrow, but inwardly you must be Lord Summerisle, the leader and father and High Priest of everyone on this island of ours, and you cannot let your heart soften your will. He must die that we may continue to live." Her blue eyes stared down into his dark ones, and for a moment it was unclear who was master.

Then in the last of the firelight she saw something come into his eyes that she had seen before, and she shivered a little. She had experienced his lightning mood changes for years and had never gotten entirely used to them. Summerisle stood her up and quickly rose from his chair, not flinching even though his legs had to be full of pins and needles. He towered over her, looking down at her with eyes suddenly black and fathomless, his hands grasping her shoulders tightly enough to be painful. "Gently, Johnny," she whispered. "Try not to hurt me." He said nothing, but lifted her by the shoulders and took her mouth, not hurting but close to it, not giving but demanding. Rose knew he would die before he would hurt her deliberately, but nevertheless she would be bruised tomorrow. A rush of fear and desire came over her. She knew her warm and kindly lover was gone for a while. He had taken her advice, and her warning, to heart, as he always did. Before her now stood a being of fearsome power whose will, once set in motion, would not, could not stop, till the day was done and the task accomplished. And she was the one who had deliberately awakened him.

Another day's time would see the end of this, but for now he must shield his heart, from everything, even from her, or he would be destroyed by this dreadful task that lay before him as surely as their anointed guest would be. She would pay any price to keep that from happening. A little sadness came into her heart, and she wished for him to look at her with love again, not in this cold and commanding way. This was the one part of him she could not share in, but only give to as charged by her lord. People thought that it was just His Lordship and Miss Rose spatting when this happened, or when she chose to stay away from him for occasional periods of time. She would not do that tonight, though it would cost both of them. The island people thought they knew their laird and his lady, but they did not know everything.