Iylaine wants to go down

Malcolm sent Iylaine up the ladder ahead of him, though if there was one of the two more likely to fall while climbing, it was certainly he.

He persisted in being gentlemanly with her, despite the fact that she could easily mount a horse unaided, despite the fact that she could put on her own cloak more quickly than he could help her into it, despite the fact that she had good enough balance to run along a ridgepole and certainly did not need the support of his arm merely to walk across a field.

Iylaine was an unconventional girl, but Malcolm lacked the imagination necessary to woo her in any but the traditional manner. Fortunately she usually consented to his ministrations.

“Oh, Malcolm,” she murmured anxiously when they had both reached the top and she saw the silhouettes of other couples strolling along other stretches of the wall. “We can’t come up here. All the young lovers come up here.”

“Well, and what are we?” he laughed.

She stared at him, open-​​mouthed and aghast.

“Come, Baby,” he said quickly. “No one else will climb as high as this tower. I only wonder whether we can see the sea at night.”

He did not think it likely, but it had seemed a good excuse. He knew that from the highest towers of Thorhold one could catch a glimpse of the sea on a clear day.

But though the night was clear, and though they had the light of a full moon that was only beginning to wane, one could only see darkness where the dim blue of the sky met the sombrous earth.

“Oh, well,” he sighed. “We know it’s there. Remember when you dipped your feet in it?”

He had hoped that, if not the sight, then at least the memory of the sea would bring back something of that night to them, but Iylaine only walked anxiously along the wall.

Nevertheless he did not intend to go down disappointed. He and Murchad had resolved to kiss their sweethearts again this night. It seemed the most likely occasion: it was said that there was something about weddings that made girls wistful with thoughts of their own.

Malcolm thought that Murchad had an unfair advantage, since he and Synne already knew they would be married, even unto the year and the season, whereas he and Iylaine had certainly never mentioned the possibility of such a thing.

Furthermore Synne seemed the sort of girl who could get wistful over such matters as pretty gowns and presents and feasts, whereas Iylaine had seemed greatly bored by the whole affair, except insofar as she was relieved that Lady Eada’s marriage to the Baron might put an end to Sir Osfrey Ealstan’s frequent visits to the valley.

But Malcolm also knew that she did not like to be shut up in churches and halls all day long, and he had thought that she might come alive once he got her into the open air. Indeed, she seemed more alert, but also more fretful as she paced back and forth and picked at the palm of her right hand with the nervous fingers of the left.

“I’m cold, Malcolm.”

This too was part of his plan. “Then come here,” he said and held an arm out to her. He would hold her close a while to keep her warm, and then…

“It’s so windy here,” she complained as she walked past.

“It’s windy all the time here. It never stops blowing on high.”

“I don’t like the wind.”

“What do you like, Babe? Come here.”

“I like fire,” she muttered. “Only fire. Fire all the time.”

“I believe you would like a seat at the devil’s right hand,” he laughed. “Wouldn’t he have a fit when he saw how you can’t be burned!”

“I can be drowned,” she said as she went past him again.

“Aye, but I shan’t let you.”

“Sometimes I want to,” she murmured.

“Baby!” he wailed. “Oh!” Now he went after her and caught her arm. “Don’t even think such a thing. You can’t swim.”

“I know.”

“Baby! That does it. Next summer I’m teaching you to swim, and you can kick and spit as much as you like, but my mind is made up.”

“I don’t want to swim,” she shivered and stared at the darkness where the sea should have been. “I want to go down.”

He was too horrified to speak. He gripped her arm as if she were going down even then.

After a moment she seemed to realize the horror of her own words, and she looked up at him with eyes that held the appeal of a drowning girl looking to a man on the shore.

He clutched her body against his as he had done once when they had stood in the water and stood on the sands. She sobbed and clung to him as she had then.

“Baby, why?” he moaned. He wanted to know why she wanted to “go down,” as she said, but also why she could not simply let him love her without dragging him to the brink of terror before she could flee back to his arms in her fright.

He kissed her as he had hoped, but not as he had planned. It would not be enough, not for long. For the first time he understood the true urgency of possession. With such a girl it was not only a matter of pleasure. Such a girl could so easily be lost.

If she were truly his, he thought, he could hold her, even if only to let her drag him down.