The Path Read online

  “Like everything else in this land, I found it to be unique—beautiful, moving, and yet often difficult to comprehend.”

  Brother Michael laughed at his words. “And there, Mr. MacLeod,” he said, “you have truly described Tibet.”

  Duncan also smiled. “I have to admit I’m surprised to hear you attended the ceremony,” he told the monk.

  Brother Michael shook his head. “Attended is too strong a word,” he replied. “Watched, perhaps. It was too great an opportunity to miss. Even Father Jacques was there, though his brother priest was nowhere to be seen.”

  Brother Michael’s words reminded Duncan that he had not seen the younger Jesuit since that day outside the Choi house with Mingxia, and, content in the pattern of his days, MacLeod had let the absence calm his previous suspicions. Perhaps they had been based on nothing more than personal distaste after all, he thought briefly.

  But another part of him still whispered a warning, and MacLeod silently promised himself to be more wary. It would be so easy, here in this land of pace, to drop his guard—but if he did, who might pay the price of his negligence?

  Duncan knew he would continue to heed that small inner voice he had come to trust over the centuries. He would renew his vigilance.

  Brother Michael’s gesture recalled MacLeod’s attention. A little distance away he saw Father Jacques sitting surrounded by a group of children. What story the priest was telling MacLeod could not hear, but the children squealed with delight as he made faces and changed his voice with the characters.

  “He’s a strange man, is Father Jacques,” the monk said softly, unaware of the misgivings his words had caused in MacLeod. “One would hardly guess that someone with a soul of such genuine love and simplicity also has a brilliant mind. He was a professor of botany back in France, you know. He taught for many years, but when he heard this mission was opening up, he begged to come here. The children adore him. They call him Bo-Bo.”

  Duncan smiled again. “Aye, I’ve heard them,” he said.

  “Well, don’t let his gentle spirit fool you, Mr. MacLeod. Father Jacques also plays a very mean game of chess. Speaking of which, you said you might come by for a game.”

  “Aye, so I did. Next week?”

  “I’ll look forward to it. Perhaps you can explain the ceremony to me. There was much I could not see from where I was and less I understood.”

  The conversation was ended by a loud crash of cymbals. All around them drums began to pound in a steady rhythm. MacLeod looked toward the center of the square and saw dancers in costumes and headdresses performing around the fire. One had the head of a deer, another of a dragon. The third was wearing a huge black hat with the face of a fierce deity. All were dressed in bright multicolored robes that flowed around them as they moved.

  “This dance I have seen before,” Brother Michael said over the noise. “It is the Tibetan version of a morality play. Soon they will bright out an effigy representing evil that they will dance around and eventually destroy. When that is accomplished, the dancers climb to the next step of rebirth by the animals becoming human and the fierce deity changing to a face of compassion.”

  Duncan stayed by Brother Michael to watch the dance, and he clapped with the rest of the crowd at its completion. When it was over, he headed back to Xiao-nan to spend the rest of this celebration in her company.

  Tomorrow, he told himself as he slid an arm around her waist, tomorrow there will be time to be alone. Tomorrow I will tell her the truth of who I am.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  There was no time for Duncan and Xiao-nan to be alone the next day, or the day after that. Finally, on the third day after the Kalachakra ceremony concluded, when the last of the visitors had truly left Lhasa, Xiao-nan packed a basket of food for them, and they headed out into the hills.

  It was a warm day, the warmest Duncan had known in Tibet. He wanted to go down to the river and sit on the rocks in the sun and the quiet, but Xiao-nan knew it would not be quiet today. On a day such as this, many of the women from the city took their washing to be cleaned in the river and laid out to dry on the rocks and bushes near the water’s edge.

  Instead they went into the hills. Neither had a destination in mind, yet they both headed toward the same place—back to where the blue orchid grew, where they had spent their first day together and begun to fall in love. Xiao-nan chattered while they walked, far more talkative than usual, but Duncan was only half listening. With each step he could feel the tiny spark of dread in his heart growing. He struggled to find the words that he would say to her, knowing that no matter how eloquent his explanation, Xiao-nan might still choose to turn away from him.

  It was not an unreasonable fear. It was born of experience and sorrow. Had not his own clan cast him out, people with whom he had spent all the years of his youth, who knew him better than any others on earth? The man whom he had called Father, whom he had honored and revered and loved, turned from him, calling him a demon and devil’s spawn. Even after two hundred years, Duncan still felt the pain of their last meeting on the road near Glenfinnan.

  Of all the clan, only his mother had still loved and accepted him. It did not matter who had borne him or what others might say about his life—he was her son and ever would be.

  It was only the memory of her love that gave Duncan hope now.

  The blue orchids still bloomed in rich profusion beneath the slender trees, sending their sweet fragrance into the summer air. More than ever, the place had a feeling of enchantment as the slight breeze moved the leaves overhead, sending dappled pools of golden light dancing across the brilliant blue flowers.

  The summer heat had dried much of the ground beneath the trees, but Duncan still spread out a thick blanket so that they could sit in comfort. Xiao-nan quickly unpacked the basket she carried, then sat back and breathed deeply, smiling at the fragrance of the flowers.

  “I have been thinking, my Duncan,” she said, as she moved close, nestling into the circle of his arms, “that our wedding might take place at the time of the next new moon. I know that is only three weeks away, but you have not family with whom marriage property must be settled and if we marry soon, we will have many weeks of fine weather ahead to build our home.”

  “Marry in haste, repent at leisure,” Duncan said in English, under his breath. Xiao-nan looked up at him, puzzled.

  “What did you say, my Duncan?” she asked. “I did not understand.”

  Duncan shook his head slightly. “ ’Tis nothing,” he said. “An old saying of my people that popped into my head.”

  “But I would like to learn the words of your people.”

  Duncan looked down at her head resting on his shoulder and gave her a small smile that did not quite cover the worry in his eyes. He knew he was just postponing the inevitable. He took a deep breath.

  “It is a saying that means to be certain about the person you marry. Are you certain you want to marry me, Xiao-nan? No doubts or reservations?”

  Xiao-nan pulled away from him. Duncan watched her dark eyes cloud with concern, losing the spark of joy that had been there all morning.

  “I am certain, my Duncan,” she said. “Are you no longer?”

  “Oh, sweetheart,” he said as he reached out and ran a finger down the softness of her cheek. “I’ve never been more certain of anything. But if we are to marry, then there are things about me that you must know. No secrets—the whole truth.”

  Xiao-nan took his hand and held it in both of her own. Duncan looked down at her fingers, so slender and delicate, clasped around the squareness of his palm. In a moment she would likewise hold their future; would she be strong enough, or would the truth shatter their lives? Even in the love Duncan saw staring out of her dark eyes, he found no answer.

  He searched for a way to begin this conversation. “Do you remember when your father asked how I would provide for a wife and after I told him, he said I knew many trades for a man so young?” he said at last. “Well, he was wrong. Oh,
not about my knowing many trades—I’ve had more occupations that I chose to tell him—but about my being young. I have lived a long time, Xiao-nan, far longer than you can imagine.”

  Duncan waited, giving Xiao-nan a chance to speak, but she sat, staring at him with her serene expression and waiting for the words yet to come. Again Duncan drew a breath. He held it and let it out slowly.

  “I am truly Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, as I have told you,” he said. “I was born two hundred years ago in the Highlands of Scotland. I do not age; I cannot die as other men do. I am Immortal….”

  Xiao-nan remained very still while she listened, letting her silence encourage Duncan to speak. She had questions, certainly, but she knew that if she spoke, Duncan would stop. He would answer only what she asked and, perhaps, not say all the things he needed to say.

  With the full empathy born in womankind, strengthened by the depths of her love, she knew that Duncan needed to purge the secrets of his soul. She knew, too, that by letting him talk without imposing direction on the things he said, she would learn far more about this complex man before her.

  He filled the silence with his memories, telling her of his life, of his years of wandering and the loneliness they contained: no true home or family, no wife to share his truth, no children to lighten his burden, friends lost to old age and death. He had seen wonders, too, the glories of land and sea but, Xiao-nan wondered, were they recompense enough for all the sorrow?

  He told her then of the Game and what it took for him to stay alive. She did not doubt his words; his eyes held the years and the deaths he had seen, had caused. Xiao-nan felt as if her heart would break for him. A single tear slowly ran down her cheek. At the sight Duncan stopped. With his free hand he reached up and gently wiped it away.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, “I’m sorry. I did not want to hurt you, but you had to know the truth. I love you, Xiao-nan, and I won’t have my life causing you sadness or remorse. Now that you know the kind of man I am, if you want me to go, I’ll understand. I’ll think of something to tell your family, so they know it’s my fault and no shame to you.”

  Xiao-nan put a hand to his lips. “Shh, my Duncan,” she said, “You speak with foolishness now. Do you think my feelings are so weak, that I am so changeable, that I will love you less for having opened your heart to me? No, my Duncan. I think I shall love you not only in this life, but in all the lives to come.”

  Xiao-nan saw that despite her words, there was a haunted expression lurking in the depths of Duncan’s eyes. Part of him still doubted, still expected her to reject him, to turn away in horror at who he was and what he had done in his life. What a sad thing, she thought, to have so little knowledge of love. For all his two hundred years, at that moment Xiao-nan felt infinitely older and wiser than he.

  She leaned her face into his and brushed his lips softly with her own, knowing in her woman’s heart that the assurances he needed were not given with words. He returned her kiss, but she could still feel his hesitancy. She moved closer to him, wordlessly inviting his touch.

  She kissed him again, her hands pressed lightly against his chest. She was not experienced in the ways of physical passion, but neither was she ignorant, and she knew that she must guide him into this, at least for now. His gift to her had been the secrets of his heart; her gift to him was the fullness of her body. From this day onward, they would truly be as one.

  As his kiss lingered, she slowly slid her hands under his shirt, feeling the hard muscles of his back, the smooth suppleness of his skin. With a single, graceful movement she lay down, drawing him with her. He pulled his face away and looked deeply into her eyes.

  “Xiao-nan, there is no need—”

  “Shh, my Duncan,” she said, once more raising her fingers to his lips. “It is time.”

  He kissed her then, slowly and tenderly. Xiao-nan gave herself up to the feeling of his lips warm and soft upon her own, of his hands, so gentle as they brushed the hair back from her face. His lips moved to her eyelids, her ears, the juncture of her neck and shoulder, lingering in a rain of soft touches that sent shivers of delight through her. Once more she slid her hands under his shirt to feel his skin beneath her palms.

  With a swift motion he pulled the shirt over his head and cast it away. Gently, Xiao-nan ran her fingers through the mat of dark, silken curls in the center of his chest, up over the muscles of his shoulders and back again. Her movements were slow, savoring each second, exploring the sensations that touching him gave her.

  Duncan moved slowly too, as he began to unfasten her clothing. He watched her carefully, and she knew that with the slightest indication he would stop. But she did not want him to stop. With each passing second, each touch of his fingers and lips, she desired more of him.

  He bent his head to her breast, his tongue sliding across the sensitive flesh. Xiao-nan could not halt the gasp of pleasure as his lips closed upon her nipple. His hand slowly explored the softness of her flesh, stroking across her arm, her stomach, her thigh. Her back arched to meet him as lips followed hand, leaving a shivering trail everywhere they touched.

  Xiao-nan felt alive in ways she had never felt before. She found herself ill-content just to lie there. She wanted to feel, to touch, to taste him in the same way he was touching her. With a gentle push, she rolled him onto his back. He pulled her with him, strong arms holding their bodies together, flesh against flesh.

  Lying on top of him, Xiao-nan slowly slid down his body until she rested her head upon his chest. She could hear the steady beating of his heart. She moved her head from side to side, brushing his skin with her lips, letting the soft hair caress her cheeks as she breathed in the warm male scent of him. With her lips, she followed the hair down to the flat of his stomach and heard his sharp intake of breath.

  Bold as she had already been, she was not quite brave enough to undo the rest of his clothing as he had removed hers. Instead, with lips and tongue she followed the outline of his rib cage back to his chest, his neck, his lips. His hands entwined themselves in her hair as their kisses grew deeper and Duncan again took control of their lovemaking.

  He rolled her beneath him, letting her feel his strength, the very maleness of him in the action. Xiao-nan opened her lips to his kiss and felt his tongue caressing the inside of her mouth. She felt herself filled with a growing hunger for which she as yet had no name.

  Still Duncan did not hurry. Their kiss went on, became another and another. Xiao-nan hardly noticed when he removed the last of his clothing, but soon there was no impediment between them. He moved his hand to the soft inner part of her thigh, stroking, fingers gently grazing her skin. She opened herself to him as his hand traveled to the dark triangle of hair and found the warmth awaiting him.

  He moved himself more fully on top of her. She opened herself wider to him, every part of her body aching to have him inside her, male to her female. She knew there would be pain the first time, but when it came it passed quickly, the memory of it erased by the pleasure that followed.

  Duncan’s movements were slow and sure, teaching her body how to meet and move with his. Her breath came in gasps as the sensations built. Her hands roved down his back, to his hips, the firmness of his buttocks, the power of his thighs. He seemed to know her body’s needs before she did as he slowly brought the rhythm of their joining to match the pounding of their hearts in movements as old as life and as elemental as the mountains around them.

  Xiao-nan had not know such pleasure existed. She wrapped her legs around his thighs, bringing him deeper into her as the sensations built in waves through her body. Her back once more arched, her hands gripped his arms as light erupted inside of her. She rode the crest of it for a long timeless moment, feeling as if the light wrapped around the two of them, binding their souls together and reaching on toward infinity.

  As the sensation began to fade, she felt Duncan give the deep shudder of his release. Then he, too, was still and they lay there as their breath quieted, wrapped in the w
armth of their love and each other’s arms.

  He rolled off of her and pulled her to him. She nestled, cradling her head in the hollow of his shoulder; she felt as if she could stay here forever. Duncan kissed the top of her head and Xiao-nan turned to look at him. All of the doubts were gone from his eyes. She saw only peace, and love.

  “In my country,” Duncan said softly, “when a man and woman marry they are said to become one flesh. I know we have not yet said the words of marriage together, but no words can add to what I feel in my heart.”

  “Yes, my Duncan,” Xiao-nan replied, “we are one. Now and forever—through all the lives to come.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  They stayed in the hills for most of the day, talking and touching, loving each other in that enchanted place where the blue orchid grew. Duncan could think of no more beautiful spot for their lovemaking to have begun than here, with the sweet scent of the flowers surrounding them and the warmth of the sun playing its golden fingers across their bodies.

  They made love again in the afternoon with quieter passion, each enjoying the discovery of the other. Then, as the sun passed behind the tallest of peaks to the west, ending the heat of the day, they knew it was time to return to the city.

  Duncan had agreed to Xiao-nan’s date for the wedding; it could not come soon enough for him. Tonight they would speak to her parents, and tomorrow the arrangements would begin in earnest.

  When they reached the city, Duncan thought he felt a subtle change to the atmosphere. There was a tenseness that reached him even through the euphoria of the afternoon. It was like an itch between his shoulder blades that made him want to reach for his sword. But his sword was in his room at the Potala and its absence at his side, for the first time in many weeks, filled him with disquiet.

  Xiao-nan’s father came out to meet them as they neared the house. “Good, my daughter, you are home,” he said, “and you, Duncan MacLeod. We feared you would not be in time.”