“I have a responsibility to Cairndene and its people!” Minna yelled. “I can't leave them like this! What areyoudoing for them?” She poked a finger in his chest so hard that he fell back on his elbows and the hood of his cloak fell onto his shoulders, revealing his face.
They stared at each other for a moment.
“Are you happy now, Mistress Darroch? Now do you see why I hide away like this? No-one likes to look at this ugly scarred face of mine. Run away if you like - I don’t care any more.” Gowan said bitterly. He turned away, but Minna pulled him back, then turned his face so that he was looking straight at her. To her astonishment, instead of the green, gray or blue eyes she had been expecting, his eyes were deep brown, a vivid contrast to his shining golden hair. He was stunning.
“You are not ugly,” she said gently. “I see a very handsome man with a little puckered skin on his left cheekbone, and I would be proud to be seen with you.”
Gowan looked at her doubtfully. Perhaps she was paying him these compliments to make him feel better, although why she would do such a thing was beyond him. She could not be serious.
“How long has it been since you looked in a mirror?” , she asked, seeing the doubt on his face. He thought for a moment, trying to find the answer to her question. “A few years,” he replied. In fact, he had not seen his face since before he had been thrown out of the castle. A small flame of hope crept into his heart at the thought that he might not be as disfigured as he had thought. Perhaps he had healed a little and was not quite so disfigured any more.
“What is your name?” Minna asked suddenly.
14
“Who I am is not important,” Gowan stated firmly. “I am no one you know, and no one you are ever likely to concern yourself with. Once you are feeling better you can leave here and never look back.” He had pulled his hood up again, and clearly, despite having revealed his face to her, he was still self-conscious.
“And you? What will you do?” Minna was troubled. “I know where you are now, and I know what you look like. I have no idea of your name, but I know your face and your voice now, and I know you are the tallest man for miles around here. If I tell people I am sure it will be easy to identify you.”
Gowan was silent. She was right. The only thing keeping her in the hut was the bolt on the door, and if she could escape she could tell anyone she liked about him, including the Laird.
“I could kill you,” he pointed out, trying to sound threatening. “I am a big man.”
“That you are,” she agreed. “But you are not a killer. I have met killers, and you are not one of them. If you wanted to kill me you would have done it by now. You would not have helped me at all, but let me die. No, you know what suffering is and you will not inflict it on anyone else.”
She sat down beside him and looked into his shadowed face. At first, he avoided her eyes, looking down at his hands, then he looked up. When she first laid eyes on him, Minna had been astonished at the improbable contrast between his deep brown eyes and golden blond hair, and she was still surprised every time she looked at him.
Now, in the shadow of the hood, they looked black. On an impulse, she reached forward and began to push the hood back over his hair, but he reached up to stop her. However, she resisted him and he let go of her hands, letting the fabric slip back over his hair.
At once, he lifted his right hand to shield the scars from her gaze, but Minna was not to be dissuaded from looking at them again. “Don’t hide,” she said gently. “You are a handsome man, Mister Whoever-you-are. I don’t know why you are hiding away here.”
“And I don’t know why it is any of your business,” he growled. “I am someone who prefers to be left alone, and that is all you need to know.” He stood up and stalked out, and presently Minna heard the heavy bolt fall on the other side of the door. There was one on the inside too, but the man obviously relied on the fear of the villagers to keep them from bothering him. She wondered if any of the guards were as superstitious as these simple people were, however, she reasoned that they must be because the man had never been disturbed before.
With nothing else to do, Minna closed her eyes and went to sleep.
* * *
Gowan had never felt so restless. Usually, when he was not fishing or collecting his food from his traps, he exercised, putting his body through some punishing, rigorous routines that left him sweating and exhausted. After this, when he was absolutely worn out, he would go for a swim in the loch and let the freezing waters wash and refresh him. Afterwards he would feel hungry enough to eat and tired enough to go to bed.
He often dreamed of his mother and the last desperate look on her face as she sent him away, hopefully to safety. She had sacrificed herself for him, and he would be forever proud of her yet ashamed of himself. He should have died too, but in his dreams his mother would often tell him that such an action would do nothing to bring her back. It would be a sheer waste of a life, and everything that life could have accomplished. He tried to console himself with that thought, but it was never enough to banish his shame.
Now, as he sat beside the loch, his back against a tree trunk, he imagined her sitting beside him. She would have unbound her long dark blonde hair and would be combing it with her fingers, while he, only eight years old, was admiring it.
“Your hair is like a river, Mammy,” he had said, leaning against her. He was never happier than when he was with her.
“And your eyes are like the lovely soft eyes of a cow,” she replied, chuckling.
“I don’t want to be a cow!” he protested indignantly. “I want to be a stag with great big antlers!” He raised his arms to show her.
“Just your eyes,” she consoled him, squeezing his shoulders. “And your hair is like sunlight.”
“Am I your best boy, Mammy?” he had asked, looking up at her adoringly.
“Of course you are,” she replied, kissing his shining hair. “I wish I had another Gowan so I could love both of you.”
He laughed. “Then you would only love me half as much,” he pointed out.
“Oh, no, my son.” His mother shook her head. “Think of it this way. When you have a little boy you have a little boy pie, but when another one comes along, you don’t cut the boy pie in half. You bake a bigger pie.”