Chapter Text
So you speak to me of sadness and the coming of the winter,
The fear that is within you now that seems to never end.
Saturday, 1 June 1996
The MacLeod Farm near Glenaladale, Scotland
Connor MacLeod rode down the hillside, enjoying the sweet growing scents of summer and the feel of a good horse beneath him. He liked riding bareback. The sky was mostly blue, the lower parts of the hills green with rich grass, and the tops of the crags across Loch Shiel had a faint dusting of the last of the winter's snow. He still thought it was the most magnificent sight he'd ever seen, and he was glad to be home in the Highlands, living here again after more than four hundred years.
He paused as he came to the fence at the high pasture and looked down at his farm. The stables and garage lay slightly uphill from the old farmhouse. The late afternoon sun brightened the colors of the marigolds in the garden beside the house. The flowers and herbs that his wife Alex had planted thrived there, protected from the harsh winds by a wing of the house and the high rock wall that he and his son John and Duncan had built two years before.
Connor clucked to the mare and kept going. As he came to the corner of the fence, he suddenly pulled the mare to a halt, and his cheerful mood disappeared. There was a car he did not recognize parked in front of the garage.
Connor slid off the horse, opened the gate to the pasture, and urged the mare through. She trotted off happily, and Connor began the painstakingly slow process of moving closer to the house. Duncan had told him of the Watchers, the secret organization that kept watch on Immortals. Duncan had also told him of the Hunters.
As Connor moved closer to the front of the house he felt the unmistakable presence of an Immortal. He unsheathed his katana. He was very glad that Alex and John were in Inverness at a football match for the weekend. He smiled a little to himself, grimly. Duncan would have announced himself by now, and Connor couldn't think of any other Immortal friends who might come visiting. This could be interesting.
Then he saw her. Cassandra stood outside of the garden wall, her hands empty, her long green gown swirling down to her ankles. The low-slanting rays of the sun glinted off her long hair, and the color reminded Connor of golden wheat drying in the sun. She was as beautiful as he remembered, and he was not impressed. He walked toward her swiftly, making no attempt to hide his sword.
She made no attempt to draw hers.
He walked straight toward her, his face expressionless. He knew he was not the most welcoming figure, and he was glad of it. When he was almost close enough to touch her, he lifted his katana swiftly and held it just against her neck.
She did not even flinch.
Connor held the blade next to her throat as he cautiously circled her, coming at last to stand behind her. Then he moved in closer.
"How does it feel, Cassandra?" he asked quietly, almost gently, his lips close to her left ear. He was standing right behind her now, his chest almost touching her back, the length of his thigh barely brushing the back of hers. He could feel the heat from her body against him, and his breath stirred her hair. The scent of lavender lay faintly about her.
Connor let his voice drop to a soft caress. "How does it feel to have a blade against your throat?" His grip tightened at the last word, and he heard the sudden hiss of air that escaped her as the razor-sharp edge of his sword nicked her skin. "Did you forget what I said?" he whispered, as he placed his left arm close under her breasts, pinning her arms against her sides, immobilizing her further.
He saw her close her eyes and felt her relax against him. He smiled in grim satisfaction; she knew the slightest movement might be fatal. "I told you to stay away from me." His voice was still soft; his right hand still held the edge of the blade close against her neck. "So, why are you here?" he hissed.
He did not ease up the pressure on the blade, and she spoke softly, trying not to move her throat too much. "Duncan is in danger."
Ah. Of course. Duncan. Why else would she come to him? Connor eased the blade just a fraction, but tightened his arm around her lest she think of escaping. "How?"
Cassandra opened her eyes and sucked air in slowly, trying to draw a full breath. "There is an Immortal hunting him. Duncan will need my help."
Connor was unconvinced and unconcerned. "He's never needed your help before."
The blade came closer to the softness of her neck, and she moved her head back as far as she could. He made sure it was just far enough. "This is different," she said urgently. "This Immortal is different." Connor's blade did not waver. "I brought oranges," she said desperately.
He did not move the sword away or loosen his arm about her, but he repeated with harsh amusement, "Oranges?"
"Yes, oranges," she said, her voice light but with a hint of strain showing through. "Fresh from sunny Spain."
"Spanish oranges?" Connor allowed himself a short laugh, dry and unamused. "Perhaps I will let you live a while longer. For old times' sake. But first..." He pulled her roughly to him, holding her tight against his chest, and settled his grip more comfortably on the sword at her throat. His left hand went to her waist, and his fingers closed around the hilt of her sword and lifted it smoothly from under the fold in her long gown. "I want your sword." He stepped away from her carefully, her sword in his left hand, his katana still raised and ready in his right. "For old times' sake."
He stared at her mockingly until she closed her eyes briefly and nodded, submitting to him. He opened the gate, walked through the garden to the back door of the house, and laid her sword on the step there. She had a different sword, he noticed, an English one-and-a-half with a wrapped handle, instead of the scimitar she had used long ago.
Cassandra followed him through the gate, then waited for him near the wall while he took her sword away. She had known when she came here that she would have to submit to him, to offer no threat. She needed to talk to him, this one last time. At least now he would give her that chance.
He looked much the same as she remembered, of course, though his hair was very short, and he wore a green shirt under his wool sweater and a pair of gray pants instead of breacan and sark. When he had held her tightly against him, she had noticed the scents that lay about him, the scents she still remembered. He smelled of heather and horse, of smoke and sweat and wool.
His voice was different now, rougher, more throaty. He had the indeterminate accent of many older Immortals, though the rhythm of the Highlands still lay under his words. She wondered if that had always been there, or if it had returned to him when he came home.
Two years ago, she had been surprised when the detective agency she used had told her Connor had moved to the Highlands. Today, she had been very surprised to be told at the village of Glenaladale that Connor MacLeod lived in the farm up the hill with his American wife Alex and their son John.
Connor with a family and using his own name again. He had indeed come home. Yet, even beyond the family and the accent and the clothes, he was different. The hardness she had seen in him in Aberdeen had been tempered to steel, a very dangerous steel.
Connor came back and stood about ten feet from her, close to the side of the house. His sword was still in his hand. His voice was cold. "So, where are the oranges?"
She motioned to the bag next to the gate. "Shall I get them?"
"Later," he said, and he leaned back against the house wall. His casual posture belied the intensity of his stare, the readiness of his stance. "Who is this Immortal?"
It was still hard to say his name. "Roland."
Connor went very quiet, very alert. "The same one you warned me about."
"Yes." Cassandra blinked and went on. "He is dangerous, Connor."
"How?" he demanded. "What's different about him?"
"Roland has ... a power," Cassandra started, "in his voice." Connor was looking at her skeptically. Well, why should he believe her? she thought bitterly; she had taught him not to trust her. But the time was at hand; she had to convince him. "He can use this power to hypnotize people to do whatever he says. He can make them lay down their swords, or fall asleep."
Connor's skepticism changed to outright ridicule. "In the middle of a fight? Yeah, sure."
Cassandra wondered if he practiced that particular sarcastic tone or if it came naturally. Connor would have been very good at the Voice. Too good. "It's true, Connor." She could tell by his unwavering stare that he did not believe her. She gave a frustrated sigh and started again. "Haven't you ever - stopped someone with a word, or a look?" She knew that he had, and she was pleased to see the glint of acknowledgment in his eyes. "Just the way you said it, or the look in your eyes, was enough to control the other person."
He was still skeptical. "It doesn't work all the time, or with everyone."
Her eyebrows lifted, and she inclined her head slightly. "But it can." She looked down at her hands and spread out her fingers, then curled them in slightly, remembering the power she had once held in her hands. Power she had used to heal, to create, to build. Roland had destroyed nearly everything she had ever made, and she had given up healing since Connor had left her in Aberdeen. She had given up on many things since Aberdeen. She folded her hands together calmly and looked at him. "Do you remember what I said to you about the wolf pup?"
He shrugged; it had been a long time ago.
"You asked me if it were magic, when the wolf pup and I understood each other." He nodded slightly, and she continued, "And I told you that the magic lay in the listening. If you are trained in listening and observing, then you know what language another person will respond to, what language will control them."
He nodded slowly, but his eyes were still cold. "How do you know of this?"
She turned to look over the low part of the wall and stared out across the loch at the hilltops. "I was sworn to the Sisterhood of the Temple of Artemis, on the Isle of Lesbos, over three thousand years ago. Part of the training of priestesses included the Voice. It was one of our greatest secrets." Her gaze dropped to the hard bare earth of the path, and she said softly, "I do not think any of the Sisterhood has survived."
Connor straightened up a little and looked at her intently. "If the Voice was taught only to the priestesses, then how did Roland learn it?"
She did not want to answer, but she must. She needed his cooperation, and she wanted his understanding. "I taught it to him," she admitted, calmly staring into his eyes.
"You taught it?" She nodded, and he leaned back again and shook his head slightly. "Didn't you say it was one of the Temple's greatest secrets?"
"Yes," she said. "It was."
He stared at her a moment more, watching her closely, looking into her eyes. "You broke your vows for him," he said softly, almost gloatingly. A cruel glint of humor showed in his eyes and around his mouth. "I bet the Sisterhood wasn't happy with you after that."
She said nothing, but she knew Connor had seen the flash of pain in her eyes before she hid it, for the glint of humor about his mouth became a cold smile.
The smile disappeared as he demanded roughly, "Why Duncan? And if you have this - Voice too, why don't you go after Roland?"
She shook her head and whispered, "I can't."
"Why not?" he demanded. "Too scared?" His eyes mocked her again, and his voice was cutting. "So, you are a coward as well as a liar."
Cassandra did not respond to that.
He left the wall of the house to stand directly in front of her, his sword comfortably in his hand. He looked her up and down, coldly evaluating her body, looking at the soft curves of breasts and hips and the long length of muscles in her legs and arms.
It was not the look men normally gave her; it was clinical and impersonal. It made her feel as if she were standing on the auction block again, stripped naked for people to see and judge and buy. She stood rigid underneath it, refusing to allow it to bother her, pretending she wasn't there, as she had so many times before.
"Can't fight your own battles?" he asked sardonically. "Have to find a man to fight for you?"
Cassandra shot him a murderous glance before looking away, but not before she had seen Connor smiling at her anger.
His voice grew quieter, but not softer. "Roland is your enemy now, but what was he to you before, that you taught him this Voice?"
She did not answer that, either, and he stepped forward, putting himself much too close to her. She could not retreat; her back was against the wall. She breathed rapidly through her nose as he looked at her coldly.
"Was he your student?" He moved even closer to her and leaned forward, tilting his head so that his eyes were only an inch away from hers. His voice was soft and insinuating. "Your - lover?"
Cassandra spoke then, low and furious. "He is my son!"
Festival of Gula, 1310 BCE
By the Rivers of Babylon
"Mother?"
Cassandra set down the pot she was painting, then turned and held out her arms. Roland left Jarie's side and ran from the doorway across the room to her. Cassandra swooped him up and they whirled around, his feet flying out as they twirled. He had grown so much that his feet barely missed the long table against the wall where the painted pots were stored. "How's Roland?" she asked. "How's my boy?" She set him down with a thump.
"Jarie and I went to the market today, and I saw the most biggest ram ever, Mother. He was huge, and his horns were that wide!" He held his hands as far apart as he could.
"That big?" Cassandra squatted in front of him, listening carefully. He had grown so tall. He was hot and sweaty and smelled of dirt and sheep, a happy combination for a little boy. It was hard to believe he was the same scrawny child she had first seen huddled in the dust in the slave market a year ago.
"Yes, and he was loud, too! When they fed him he went BAAAA!" Roland gave a passable imitation of a sheep, displaying the gap of his missing front teeth.
Cassandra smiled up at Jarie, her neighbor and friend, who was smiling, too. She turned back to Roland. "Did you help Jarie with her shopping?"
"Oh, yes."
"He carried the basket for me," said Jarie, her dark eyes amused. The gold bangles on her arms gleamed in the dimness of the room, and her green robe flowed about her as she came into the room and sat on the bench built into the mud-brick wall. "He carried it all the way home."
"I'm very strong." He stood tall and proud.
Cassandra reached out and brushed his light brown hair away from his forehead, then gathered him to her in a hug, relishing the solid feel of his stocky body in her arms. "Yes, you are," she agreed, "very strong."
She let go of him and said, "Roland, I am going to visit Haram tonight, so you will stay with Jarie until I get home." At the look of disappointment on his face, she said, "But, this afternoon, before I go, we will paint the pots together, yes? And you can help me pound out some clay." She knew he loved to do that.
A great gap-toothed grin appeared, and he nodded. "But first, Mother, can we eat? I'm really hungry." He spread out his arms again. "I'm this hungry! Hungry as that ram!"
Cassandra and Jarie both laughed, and Cassandra said, "As hungry as that? Well, little ram, let's eat."
1 June 1996
The MacLeod Farm
"He is my son," Cassandra repeated softly, "and I vowed I would never harm him." Connor retreated, giving her room. She turned away from him to face the wall and leaned her forehead against the cold rough stone.
"You broke your other vow," Connor said caustically. "Why don't you break this one too?"
Her hands clenched on the rocks, and the rough edges scraped against her palms. "I've tried." What was another curse, another broken vow? She had thought it could not be worse than the original punishment. She had been wrong. She closed her eyes again, trying not to see the burned and broken bodies of her friends and her families. Her shoulders trembled for a moment, then she turned to face Connor once again. "I did challenge him, twice."
"And?"
"He was better with a sword than I was," she admitted. "But he did not choose to take my head either time." She gave a quick convulsive shudder. "After a while I wished he had."
"What did he do to you?"
She shook her head quickly, dismissing that. "It wasn't what he did to me that mattered. It was what he did to others in front of me. And the second time I tried to kill him, it was worse." Her gaze turned inward, and there was no escaping from the memories now. "He sold me eventually, when he had finished with them." He was still not finished with her.
She forced down the anguish and let the mask settle over her features once again. She said calmly, "I am forbidden to try to kill him. The Lady of the Sisterhood denied me even the chance to redeem myself." The bitterness of that day had grown throughout the centuries, and it lay heavy and cold within her. "If I do try, then others are hurt."
Connor rocked back on his heels a little, and she was surprised to see a little of the coldness leave his face. But only a little, and only for a moment.
Connor studied her, then asked, "Then those stories you told me about being strangled and being tortured were true?"
Cassandra took a deep breath. She had felt as though she were ripping open her soul when she had told him those stories, and all these years he had believed them to be lies; he had believed she had only told him those stories so that he would feel sorry for her. She would never have lied about things like that. Of course, how was he to know? She had lied about many other things; why not those, too? She answered quietly, "Yes, Connor. The stories were true." Even more quietly now. "Just not - all of the truth." She had left out the worst.
He didn't respond to that, but finally said, "So, this Roland, he's your student, the one who returned and raped and strangled you."
Cassandra swallowed hard, remembering. "Yes."
"He's the Immortal who tracked you down and killed all your mortal families throughout the centuries, and killed your students. He's the one who tortured you."
"Yes." It came out in a whisper.
"And he's your son."
Cassandra could not say the word; it came out only as the ghost of a whisper. "Yes."
Connor's voice was smooth, detached, bland. "Maybe the two of you should go on a talk show for dysfunctional families. You know, sons who hate their mothers?"
Cassandra took a step forward, her hand flashing toward his face. The arrogant, smug, self-righteous, overbearing Scottish bastard!
Connor was ready for her and caught her wrist in his left hand. His right hand casually brought his sword into view. "Careful, Cassandra," he said evenly, "your claws are showing."
She tried to pull free, and he tightened his grip until her fingers curled inward. She took a deep breath and relaxed her arm, but he did not relax his hold on her.
"Why hasn't he killed you? Where does Duncan fit in?" Connor demanded. "You haven't told me the whole story." His eyes grew even colder. "But, then, you never have, have you?"
He was right. She never had. She had never told anyone. "You don't want the whole story." She gave a small bitter laugh. "Trust me on this, Connor." She should have known it was precisely the wrong thing to say to him.
"Trust you?" he hissed, and slammed her hard against the stone wall. "Trust you?" His voice was softer now, and much more dangerous. "Oh, no, Cassandra." He leaned into her, using his body to pin her against the wall, holding her right hand high above her head. "You made very sure I would never trust you about anything. You made very sure I would never trust anyone."
She could feel the beating of his heart against her chest, feel the hard length of one of his thighs wedged between her own. His other thigh pressed painfully against her leg directly above her knee, preventing any movement. His gray eyes were hard and his expression cold. Even though their bodies touched intimately, there was not the slightest hint in Connor's manner that he felt anything but anger. She was not a woman to him; she was an enemy. She wondered what he looked like when he smiled, a real smile, not the predatory glee she had seen on his face today. She could not remember.
He leaned against her even more, squeezing her between the warmth of his body and the coldness of the stones. "I want the whole story, Cassandra, and I want it now." When she said nothing, he growled, "I'm not a patient man, Cassandra."
And that was precisely the wrong thing to say to her. He had taken her sword, and he thought her helpless, intimidated, submissive. He was wrong. She knew she could not overpower him physically, but then, she did not need to. "Let go of my wrist, Connor." The words were pitched just right, a slight uprising on the name, a hint of gentleness behind the command.
Connor blinked, and his eyes lost their focus. He looked as though he were desperately trying to remember something, but his fingers loosened, and he released her arm.
She smiled a slow small smile, then carefully took hold of his thumb and twisted, pressing her own thumb into the sensitive spot on the webbing of his hand.
Her smile widened just a little as she saw his mouth tighten with pain. He started to bring the handle of his katana toward her face, but he was still confused, and it slowed him enough for Cassandra to whisper, "Submit, Connor." As his muscles suddenly relaxed, she saw a flash of panic in his eyes, and there was an answering flash of triumph in her own. "Kneel." She continued to twist his thumb, and he went to his knees before her.
"Stay, Connor." She released his thumb; she knew he would not move. She slowly walked around him and crouched down on his right side, far enough back so that he could not see her. "You're not a patient man?" she asked softly, gently, close to his ear. "You haven't needed to be!" Her voice was still soft, but it was not at all gentle. "I have been patient for over three thousand years, Connor, three thousand very long years!"
She moved back a little and said conversationally, "This is the Voice, Connor." He was fighting it, she saw, but she knew Connor. She knew what he despised and what he admired, knew what he hated and what he loved. She had trained him and killed him, loved him and used him, and he was hers.
She laid her hand on the hilt of his katana. "Give me your sword, Connor," she commanded. His fingers relaxed, and she took the blade from him and stood. She hefted it in her hand, feeling the weight of it, the balance. It felt somehow different from the sword she remembered, but it was still razor-sharp. She stood comfortably beside him and brought the sword in a smooth arc towards his neck, stopping just before the blade touched his skin.
Connor could not move, could not see her as she stood by his side, could not quite see his own sword, but he knew it was there.
Her voice came from above him, cool and detached. "Lean forward, Connor, very slowly."
Somewhere in the back of his mind someone was screaming, but it sounded very far away. Her voice was much closer, and he obeyed it. He felt only slight resistance as the cool sharpness of his sword touched his neck, and a damp warmth when the blade sliced his skin open and the blood welled forth. He could smell his own fear and his own blood above the scents of horse and sweat, and the cold resistance became a thin burning line.
"Stop there," she said, and he did. "It's just a little cut, Connor, such as you might get when you shave."
Her voice continued closer to his ear as she bent down a little. "But I could tell you to keep going, and you would. You would lean into the blade and slice through your windpipe." A dry finger very gently traced the center line of his throat.
"And you would cut these two arteries." Now her hand encircled the front of his neck, her thumb and finger following the paths of pulsing blood. "Here, and here."
The hand moved away. "I doubt you could cut your own head off, though. You would probably pass out first. But I don't think that would be much of a problem, do you?"
Connor's mouth was dry, but he could not swallow with the sword at his throat. He tried to move his head back, but her voice stopped him once again.
"Stop," she commanded, and he froze. He could feel the coolness of a sheen of sweat on the back of his neck, and his muscles shook with tremors as he tried to fight her. But he could not move.
Cassandra stood next to him, his sword in her hand, and looked down on him as he struggled against her control. Oh, no, Connor, she thought, not yet. You wanted the whole story, and you are going to listen to it.
"You wondered what the Voice could do, didn't you, Connor? You wondered if it were real. Now you know. I could tell you to kill your wife Alexandra, Connor. I could tell you to slice her into bloody pieces while your son John watched. And you would do it. Oh, yes. And if I told you to, then you would do the same to him."
He had closed his eyes, she saw, but he could not close his ears. "The Voice can be used to make a mother dip her infant into boiling water. In. Out. In. Out. Over and over and over again, until the flesh cooks and falls off the bones. The baby still screams, of course. The Voice doesn't work very well on infants, so you can't tell them to be quiet."
Cassandra shifted her weight slightly and eased the sword away from Connor's neck. "Sit," she said, and Connor slowly eased back from his kneeling position to sit on his heels. The thin drops of blood had run down his throat. They disappeared into the deep green of his shirt collar, but showed dark against the light gray wool of his sweater. She held the katana casually in a two-handed grip and stood beside him.
She knew he could not quite see her, but she made sure he was able to see his blade just in front of him, ready to strike.
"This is the story you wanted to hear, Connor; the story you were so impatient to listen to." She took a deep breath and began. "Roland was my son; I adopted him when he was five. He was six when he was taken from me and abused by a man." Taken from Jarie's house that night, taken while Cassandra lay in her lover's arms, though she could not bring herself to tell Connor that. Jarie had been killed, her body left on the floor of the house.
"I finally found him after three days." Three days she had looked for him, three days and nights she had searched the town and visited the inns and the brothels, searching for her son. Three days and nights of hell for a six-year old boy.
"When I found him he would not speak to me, would not look at me." She might never have found him if she hadn't been able to sense his faint pre-Immortal presence. She had found him locked in a small house, naked and bleeding, used and discarded.
"He cowered under the table and shivered." Never again had he run across a room into her arms, trusting her to catch him, trusting her to be there.
"So, I promised him I would never harm him; I swore the most sacred oath I knew that he need never fear me, and finally he crawled out from under the table and wept in my arms." He had flinched when she had held him tight against her, cringed when she had tried to kiss him, and finally she had merely sat there with him on her lap, not daring to touch him at all.
"The next day I started teaching him the Voice, so that he would have some way to protect himself. I knew what it was to be abused, Connor, and I would not let it happen to my son again, no matter what vows I had to break." Never again. Never for her; never for him. Never again. At least, that was what she had thought.
"But he grew up, and he grew apart, and he started to use the Voice to get what he wanted, to force girls to his bed. We quarreled, as I told you, and he left. And then he came back. And I was happy to see him, and he was happy to be home with me."
Two days before the Festival of Ishtar, 1291 BCE
By the Rivers of Babylon
"Mother?"
Cassandra dropped the pot she was painting, and it fell to the table and broke in half. She turned quickly, aware of the sudden flush in her cheeks, the quick beat of her heart. "Roland?" she asked hesitantly, peering at the tall figure silhouetted in the doorway. But, of course, it had to be him; she could sense his faint pre-Immortal hum clearly.
"It's me, Mother," he answered, his hands nervously twisting his cloak between his hands. He did not step into the room.
"Roland?" she repeated, coming over to him, hardly daring to believe it was really him. His voice was different than she remembered, deeper now, a man's voice. He had grown taller, and his shoulders were wider. But he was so thin! The bones showed prominently in his face and in his wrists, and his stockiness had disappeared. His tunic was filthy and badly mended, and his long curly hair was matted. "Roland." He had come home.
He swallowed and glanced around the room before looking at her. "Mother, I...I'm sorry."
"Oh, Roland," she said and held out her hands to him. "I'm sorry, too." Sorry for the words spoken quickly in anger one afternoon and regretted for the next seven years. "Come in, Roland, oh, please come in."
And he did.
"Are you hungry?" she asked, bringing him a stool.
He nodded, a wolfish grin crossing his face quickly. "I'm always hungry."
It had been a foolish question; she could see how thin he was. She placed cheese and grapes in front of him, then hurried to cut some bread and pour him some water. She sat down across from him and wondered what to say. He had obviously been traveling for some time, and had not done very well for himself. She finally settled for, "I'm glad you are home, Roland."
He looked up at her and nodded. "I'm glad, too," he said, and glanced away again.
He must be embarrassed, she thought. It was not easy to come back and admit to a mistake. She was glad he was not yet Immortal. She would tell him of that soon.
"Is there meat?" he asked. "Or beer?"
"No," she said, "I'm sorry. I can get you some, if you would like, tomorrow at the market?"
He nodded and tore off another hunk of cheese. "That would be good," he said. "I have missed the way you cook." He looked around the room and commented, "Things haven't changed much." They had moved three times since she had adopted him, but the small mud-brick houses were much the same. There was still the long table covered with many painted pots, the potter's wheel in the corner, the baskets hanging from the ceiling. "That's a lot of pots," he observed.
"The festival of Ishtar is in two days," she said. "I'll be going to the market to sell them then."
"That will be good." He smiled at her then for the first time. "Can I help paint them?"
She smiled back and reached across the table to hold his hand. "Yes, Roland, of course."
During the next two days she cooked for him and cleaned for him and combed out his hair and mended his clothes. He was quiet and withdrawn, but she thought nothing of it. He had always been proud and reserved, and she knew it had not been easy for him to come home. But he was home. Her son had come home.
The music from the festival was still playing loudly when Cassandra came home late that night. It had been a good day, and all of her pots had sold. She even had orders for more. The long rows of unfinished pottery sat neatly on the table. She and Roland could start painting them tomorrow, but tonight she was very tired. Roland was still at the festival, but he would be home soon. Cassandra went to sleep.
Cassandra blinked and tried to open her eyes, but a voice whispered urgently, gently, in her ear, and she closed them again. It was only later when the voice spoke again that she opened her eyes. "Roland?"
He was standing very close to her now, right next to her bed, and she could smell the oil he had rubbed on his torso and the yeasty scent of beer on his breath. "Yes, Cassandra?"
Cassandra went cold at the sound of her name.
"Or should I call you Mother?" His voice twisted viciously on the last word.
Cassandra tried to sit up, but his hand slammed against her chest just under her throat and knocked her back.
"Where's the money? The money from the pots you sold?"
"Roland," she whispered, shaking her head.
"Where's the money?" he demanded, using the Voice to command.
Dazed with sleep and surprise, Cassandra answered immediately, "In the large pot under the long table."
"Good." Then he was on her, straddling her, his hands around her wrists, quickly tying her hands together, lashing her to the bed. She started to struggle, and he slapped her hard across the face.
Cassandra tasted blood and swallowed. "Stop this!" she commanded, using the Voice.
Roland froze for a moment, then laughed. "Oh, no, Mother," he said mockingly. "We know each other too well to use the Voice on each other very often. But still..." He hit her again, hard enough to stun her, and then he quickly gagged her with another strip of cloth. "I know how persuasive you can be." He tied her legs as well, then sat back and admired his work. "I was surprised to find you alone tonight, Mother. Maybe your lover is coming later?"
He smiled at her lazily and said, "I hope so. Perhaps he'd like to watch. Or maybe some of my friends would like to watch." His smile disappeared. "You never liked my friends, did you, Mother? But I've made a new friend." Roland reached out and gently lifted a strand of her hair away from her face. "He said he was a friend of yours as well. He suggested I pay you a visit, and he asked me to mention him to you." The smile came again, gloating, sickening. "His name is Methos. Though he said you might remember him better as Death."
Cassandra closed her eyes at the sound of that name, the sound of her enemy's name on her son's lips. She would never be free of Death. He had taken her and used her; he had taken her life over and over again, and now he had taken her son as well. Cassandra shook her head and felt the tears leak from underneath her closed eyelids.
"Look at me!" demanded Roland, and he hit her again, a vicious slap that brought tears of pain to replace the tears of sorrow and dread. He smiled when she opened her eyes. "I see you do remember him." His eyes raked up and down her body. "He told me a few other things you might remember, too. But first, I believe you said the money was in a pot."
He got off the bed and walked over to the table. He hefted a small pot in his hands. "But which one? There are so many." He smashed it to the floor. "No, no money in there. How about this one?" He smashed that one, too, and he made his way down the line.
Cassandra watched as he smashed every single pot she had made. He did not stop when he found the money; he merely placed it on the table and continued. When he had finished with the pots, he stepped over the broken shards of pottery. Cassandra could see the gleam of his eyes in the moonlight as he picked up the jars of paint and flung them against the wall over her head. The darkness of the paint spattered over her and dripped down the whitewashed wall.
He walked towards her then, and he smiled.
1 June 1996
The MacLeod Farm
"Or I thought he was happy," Cassandra said. "After he beat me and raped me and strangled me to death, I ran. He chased me that night, but I escaped. He almost caught me a hundred years later, but I escaped from him and went back to the Temple on Lesbos, seeking sanctuary. He followed me there, and he set fire to the Temple and killed many of the priestesses, my sisters. He took the Lady's head. I had led him to them, led him to my sisters. After the sisterhood banished me, I ran again and went to Troy. He followed me there, and joined the Greek army.
"Have you heard of Troy, Connor? Have you heard what happened?" Cassandra remembered well the images from the ancient play which described the even more ancient horror. "Have you heard how a cry of death rang along the town and filled the homes of Troy, and little babes clung in terror about their mothers' skirts? How the groves stood forsaken and the temples of the gods ran with Trojan blood? How the children were peeled from their mothers' arms, and tossed from high atop the battlements? Have you heard?" She was speaking slowly and distinctly, making sure he heard every word.
"That was the first time I tried to kill him, the first time I broke my oath to the Mother. But I failed, and he took me prisoner." Cassandra stood very calmly, making sure the sword did not waver.
"Roland made me watch. I watched as they tore my foster-daughter Cassandra from the altar where she sought sanctuary and raped her there on Holy Ground. I watched as the unburied corpses of the slain were piled by the temple for vultures. I watched as the city burned, its towering walls one sheet of flame, the smoke soaring on wings to heaven. The city sank to the ground before the spear. The river's banks re-echoed long and loud with the screams of captive women. The men - young, old - lay dead upon the field of battle or butchered in their beds."
Connor sat where she had told him to, his eyes staring straight ahead, looking at his sword, listening to her words with no expression on his face.
"Listen well, Connor. I hope you aren't bored yet. Because there is more. There is much more." She went on.
"After everyone was dead, after he tired of me, he sold me as a slave. He told me he would not kill me because he enjoyed chasing me; it gave him something to do. After I managed to become free, I ran. He found me a few centuries later, and I tried to kill him again. I broke my vow again. That was only a small village, perhaps a hundred people. You haven't heard of that, I suppose." Her voice grew even more detached. "It is one thing to see soldiers rape and kill and burn. You have seen that, have you not, Connor?"
He nodded slightly, and she said, "Of course, you have. We all have." She spoke very slowly now. "It is another thing to watch families rape and kill and burn each other."
Connor closed his eyes again.
She held the sword steady in her right hand and reached out with her left hand to wind her fingers in his hair. His hair was as soft as she remembered, but much shorter; there was not even enough to grab. She pulled on what she could and tilted his head back. She said with the Voice, "Open your eyes. I want you to look at me."
He obeyed her, revealing the fear coiling behind the blankness in his eyes.
She stared at him a moment, wondering if she should be feeling some compassion for him. She felt nothing but a cool sense of satisfaction and control, and she liked it. She liked it very much indeed. The power whispered to her, its siren song calling her name. But she knew where that power could lead, and the story was not over. Cassandra blinked and continued.
"Roland had a few companions with him, enough to keep a village in control. And he had his sword, of course, and the Voice, the Voice I had taught him. And he used the Voice, used what I had given him, Connor, used it to make them..." She stopped, unable for a moment to speak. She took a deep breath and calmed herself. "I already told you about the infants, didn't I, Connor? Maybe you are willing to trust me on this now. You don't want to know what else he did."
Her commands would wear off eventually, she knew, but she still held his sword in front of his neck, and he would remain where he was until she was finished. She let go of his hair, but he continued to look up at her.
"At first, they begged me to stop him, to help them. But there was nothing I could do." Except listen to their screams and watch them die.
"Roland told the villagers that I had brought this punishment on them. He told them that that the gods were angry with them for giving shelter to an oath-breaker. Me." She nodded slowly to herself. Roland could punish her, but she had not meant to bring the punishment to others.
"After that, they stopped asking me for help. They started cursing me instead." The curses had been almost harder to listen to than the screams.
"It was almost a year until everyone was dead. He sold me again, and eventually I escaped again. Every few hundred years he would find me, and destroy those around me. So I ran more often, and I had no friends, no family. And I never tried to kill him again."
She knelt beside Connor and spoke softly in his ear. "That's the story you were so impatient to hear, Connor. That's why I won't fight him. That's what the Voice can do." She laid the katana on the ground in front of Connor, and as she stood she was surprised to see that her hands were shaking. She said quietly, "I release you."
She did not wait to see what he would do, but walked over to the corner of the garden. She knelt down on the ground, leaned over, and vomited.
Continued in Chapter 2