Page 8 of The Splendor of Fire
“You’re some conversationalist.”
She stirred.
“I’ve had a wife, a mother, a stepmother, and a sister, and none of them could stop talking. I thought even women who are touched in the head would like to talk.”
Morag removed the cauldron from the fire and placed it on the hearth with a bang, then swept ash over the stones creating a smooth covering. When she finished, she stuck a pinky into the dust and moved it with swift determination through the ash. She looked over her shoulder, shooting him a coy look, curling her finger up and down at him inviting him closer.
Intrigued, he pushed off the wall.One, two, three, four, five.And looked. She had written something. He read it out loud. “I’m not the idiot…YOU are. I am unable to speak you TOAD…. And the name isMoira… not… Morag.”Saints.
Léo turned and found himself nose-to-nose with her, fury masking her delicate features. In shock, he swallowed his apologies, scrambling backward three large paces to get away from her and colliding with the wall. Pinning him against the stone with one firm forearm, she jerked the bandage off his shoulder. Brow creased, she picked the five remaining maggots out of his wound and threw them, and the bandages, into the fire.
Bending over her basket, she removed a bundle and slammed it into his stomach with unexpected force. He grunted, catching the bundle thrust into his hollow gut. Swiftly, she pulled the covering over her basket and stomped to the door, banging her fist against the solid wood.
Desperation overtook him. “Morag—Moira—wait… don’t leave me.”
The door opened and she disappeared through it without looking back.
Unable to believe what he’d just witnessed, he put a hand to his stomach where she’d pegged him with his benevolence gift, suddenlyintrigued.Beautiful, unusually so. And spirited.His heart lurched with a powerful wave of masculine interest in her and he wished she hadn’t left.
Recovering himself after a few moments, he followed his nose to the cauldron and palmed a hunk of meat, bringing it to his ravenous mouth. It melted apart, so satisfying that his eyes rolled back in his head. A faint taste of butter lingered on his tongue. Moira could cook. It was the first time in months he’d tasted…
Oh saints. Chicken.She had been making a beak with her fingers and pecking on her palm like the ground, moving her elbow out like a flapping wing.
He talked to himself through his full cheeks. “I am an idiot.”
Rolling his shoulder forward and back, he examined the wound. It didn’t drain and was almost healed without a stitch. With sudden embarrassment, a feverish memory of her face floating above his and working on his wound staggered to the forefront of his mind. Had it been her all along who had saved his life, and not Father Allen?
His cheeks burned. And there was something else. A kiss. A heated kiss. No, several heated kisses. From what he struggled to remember, she was most definitely not touched in the head; he was.
Shame that he had acted like such a passionate fool saturated him from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet, and he gripped her present to him, afraid to look inside. After long minutes, he licked the food from his fingers and unraveled the bundle. It was the first gift he’d received in many months, and her thoughtfulness overwhelmed him. A dark blue tunic, made for his frame, and a pair of trews that looked his size. A small book unrolled from the leg of the trews and hit the straw mat.
Astonished, he picked it up and opened it. Just inside the front cover, wild handwriting marked it as her own.The Psalter of Moira Allen…M.A. or A—, known only to God, but known fully by Him.
Léo puzzled at the inscription, but flipped the page.Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the chair of pestilence…
Unable to believe his eyes, he thumbed the pages, finding all of the one hundred and fifty-one psalms. Tears threatened. Somethingwith which he could fill his hours. Something that would feed his soul.
He flicked frantically through the pages and a paper escaped, floating to the floor. He knelt, then unfolded it, and was struck dumb. Sketched across the rough surface of the paper was an exact rendering of the Cuillin Hills, so lifelike it was as if he were standing before them. He had never before seen anything like it. Not even the illuminations in the Psalter could rival its mastery.
Using only charcoal, the peaks of the mountain glowed from an unseen setting sun. Clouds stretched in puffs and covered the sky in darks and lights. Tall grass sprang up across a field and seemed to ripple with the wind. At the forefront of the sketch, the gentle basin of the sea banked against pebbled shore and reflected the inversion of the mountain. Moira had given him a window.
He noticed more wild-looking script at the bottom of the sketch, and he angled it toward the light of the fire.
Dearest Léo — The Lord who is your leader, He himself will be with thee: He will not leave thee, nor forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed. - Yours, Moira.
Again he read, and then reread, the endearment,Dearest Léo.Tears leaked over his eyes and splattered against the charcoal, creating a circular splotch over Moira’s name. What had he done? She’d saved his life, fed him, clothed him, and revived him, and he’d paid her cruel insults. He’d not even thought to ask after her father and inquire if he was well or why he had not come this week. For another week he would sit alone, deprived of human company all because he’d indeed acted like an idiot. Was he to be forever doomed by his cruel MacKinnon nature?
Loneliness clamped around him as he ate in silence.
You’re not alone, Léo.
Léo stopped chewing and looked around the room. Saints. It was starting. He’d been alone for months and his mind was slipping into madness.
You aren’t mad.
He placed the empty cauldron on the fire and settled back on the mat, opening the Psalter, hands shaking. He wasn’t prepared to lose his mind, not yet. If he could focus it, perhaps the voice would stop.Thumb brushing over the pages, he flicked the edges of the book. When his finger landed on a random page, he began to read.
Let the poor see and rejoice: seek ye God, and your soul shall live. For the Lord hath heard the poor: and hath not despised his prisoners.
