Ok..we all know who these characters belong to..I just invited
them to play in my
garden for a while..Catriona MacLeod is mine and you can't have
her..sorry..when
the other folks are done visiting they'll go back to those who
make money from
them I DON'T ! (Oh I wish, I wish)Disclaimers:
IMPORTANT NOTE:....Inspiration for much of this story is from personal thoughts and experiences. I also did quite a bit of research into background, if you're into footnotes..wait till the end and I'll oblige. The material information on Belsen came from a transcript of the trial of the Camp Commandant Josef Kramer and other SS personnel. If you're wondering..most of the Greek names (apart from Methos' name) I stole from Socrates dialogues. The legend of The Fairy Flag is a real MacLeod Clan legend and will be addressed at the end of the story ..also references to the malt whisky(s) mentioned...( when I get that far)
I must acknowledge the great inspiration of Maygra de Rhema..........in particular her Origins Cycle stories. These can be found at the following site:
Her idea for Methos' original name being something other than the one we know and love him by was a particular influence, our stories will not necessarily reach the same conclusions since we are both writing original works and writing at the same time on separate continents and in different time zones..I would like to thank Maygra for her advice, encouragement and permission to link some of the ideas in her cycle to my own story, in particular for the use of one of Methos' prior names...... ( no spoilers have to wait till you get that far)........also for her valiant attempts at beta reading a text which has been and is still beset by problems ..above all bear in mind this is an ongoing piece of work...I hope you enjoy the story so far.
This is Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel....not the one they show on TV since that is Loch Duich in Glen Shiel rather than Loch Shiel in Glenfinnan!! They are only 50 miles apart after all. ( I don't know why either..maybe someone couldn't read the map..or maybe they just liked the look of the castle on Eileann Donan..nevertheless THIS is Loch Shiel..accept no imitations or forgeries.)
Loch Shiel; 1st August 1997 - 4 am
The pre dawn light made the Loch look ethereal. Catriona looked ahead at the lightening sky. The start of Lughnassadh...'Now it is time,' she thought. Removing her clothes she slipped from the jetty into the water below. As the sun's rays fingered their way into the aquamarine sky she plunged into the cold water. A gasp escaped her lips as she resurfaced. Closing her eyes for a moment she sought to calm her heartbeat before striking out in a leisurely breast stroke toward the island that lay quarter of a mile from the northern edge of Loch Shiel. Swimming toward "home", all the while silently praying - the Gaelic phrase forming its shape on her lips with each slowly defined stroke. 'Please,' she thought 'let this work.' She prayed again - the phrase "Tar alainn, tar gome" (Come my beauty, come to me)
As she swam, almost chanting the phrase aloud, she could feel the water's cool embrace in every fibre of her being - caressing and stimulating, and now beginning to sap her strength with the cold. She couldn't remember the last time it had been so cold for her Lughnassadh swim. Catriona was an Ollamh, a Master Druid, and this ritual was a vision quest, summoning her 'familiar' to her by means of the prayer - and using the twin tools of dawn and a shoreline as portals for the vision she desired - she pressed on. Banishing thoughts of her own discomfort she concentrated on the on the ritual. Purification and an opening of the portal to her vision was what she sought and she renewed her chant with fervour. Closing her eyes again she willed herself forward, she needed to reach the shore by full sunrise. As she opened her eyes she caught her breath as the summoning prayer achieved its object. The swan slowly gliding toward her as she reached the shallows on the shore line of the island..the sun finally appearing in its full golden glory above the horizon at the exact moment all the elements closed together, woman, shore and swan. Catriona reached her arms up and around the neck of the beautiful bird and gently embraced the wild creature. Soothing and stroking its neck she breathed a calming word or two..still speaking Gaelic. "Fuist, mo chroi, fuist." Then she closed her eyes and cleared her mind to allow the vision to fully absorb her being.
When it came she nearly fell in her astonishment. Here were two men she "knew" but had never met. One dark and one fair, but both "kin" and both supposedly the stuff of fiction - of legend anyway. She recalled their faces from the pictures, the drawings she had seen in her uncle's archives. Dunvegan Castle, the seat of the Clan MacLeod was her family home and she had spent the last few summers reorganising the clan archives and artifacts for the new exhibition her uncle was designing. These two men were part of that Clan history. Duncan and Connor MacLeod who had each, in their time, died and risen again to be cast out from the Clan and denounced as demons. She was nevertheless unsurprised that they were part of this vision.
Despite the scoffing of her uncle when she had first talked to him about the legends she had always believed them. He felt there was less substance to them than there was to the legend of the fairy flag of the clan. It was a legend she and all other members of the Clan knew well..and the flag was on display to this day in the castle..if he could accept the flag then why not Duncan and Connor..she felt there was a link between the two and always had, but her uncle had laughed and called her a romantic..which she was of course but how could you be a Druid and not be a romantic of sorts she wondered.
As she watched the two men in her vision she remembered the story she had seen in the archives and which she had then reproduced for the exhibition: The story of the fairy folk who were reputed to be part of the Clan and who had twice in history saved the Clan from disaster was as real to her as the Loch, the swan and her vision. The legend of the flag replayed in her mind, obscuring the vision for a moment until a breeze across the Loch nudged her from her wondering thoughts.
She blinked and was again subsumed by her vision. The location was vague but she felt sure she would know it again if she saw it. There was another man, slender dark haired, exhausted, and desperate, bloody, bound and fettered to a post whilst a woman made menacing moves with a knife towards his torso. The two men she recognised were frozen in horror as the woman chanted and used her voice in a way that made Catriona shudder - 'so this woman is also of the sisterhood, and there is pain in her bearing..as in his' ..she recognised as the bound man's face..particularly his eyes..became the focus of her sight. She caught her breath. Such pain and such longing for judgment, acceptance and forgiveness in a pair of eyes she had never seen. And such eyes! The clear depth of them and the colour which changed from amber to green flecked with gold and back again was mesmerising..she could drown in such eyes as his. They were so expressive she felt she could read his every thought in them. This man accepted his fate as his due she could see, in fact his eyes betrayed the knowledge of so much sorrow it was painful to her sight and she was tempted to break the vision, but she could not . This was so clear and so palpable a scene before her eyes she felt as if she could touch the four figures, feel their breath, communicate with them. She knew in her soul that this was a vision of future events and that she would be involved in some way in them.
She almost cried out as the woman turned to face Duncan and Connor and sneered at them for their foolish devotion to the bound man..she could not hear the words but she knew that revenge was the purpose of the woman's actions and that that bloody purpose would drive her until she could feel she had reclaimed a part of her soul she felt she had lost because of the man she held captive. She had seen this face many times before in her nightmares...now to see her in the vision was a shock so profound that this time she shook, both with the cold of the early morning and with the full flown fear that encased her heart.
'So we shall meet, but how soon?' she wondered..she wanted to reach out and reassure the bound figure that this suffering could and would end if she had anything to do with it, but she was unable to move. Then the vision faded and she was again by the shore of the small island, the swan was holding still with its head down to her shoulder almost nuzzling her.
She released the bird and murmured her thanks. Rising unsteadily from the water she climbed the beach as the bird drifted slowly away into the early morning mist. The sun was already disappearing into the usual highland haze as she walked with heavy legs toward the bothy in the wood, her "home" whenever she chose to go there. She was lost in thought and wonder as she considered her vision and what part it would play in her future.
Click below for next chapter: Chapter 2