The Lady Gillecomgain
by Tim "Gabriel" Reynard
treynard@holly.colostate.edu	

Disclaimer: Gargoyles is the property of Disney, no profit is being made
by this, yadda, yadda, yadda. 

This was inspired by watching my personal favorite of the Gargoyles 
episodes, entitled "City of Stone"  I thank Lydia C. Mariano for a 
truly magnificent epic part of the Gargoyles universe. 

Mature readers only, please.  

*****

	The ladies-in-waiting fussed over her, making sure her lovely 
red-gold hair was bound just right, her lips stained with a color that 
would show off her green eyes.  Her wedding gown had been labored over 
by the finest tailors in Scotland. 
	She cared not.  She sat there, sullen and morose, not blinking
an eye, not lifting a finger unless it was required.  Whatever
fire she had once possessed had been dampened, quenched. If it still
flickered, she did not know it. 
	"Och, the lass is stiff with fear!" said a lady who was tying her
hair, as if she couldn't hear her. 
	"Aye, wouldn't you be, if you were about to marry the High Steward
of Moray?"
	"With those scars crossing his face?  Aye, I would!" laughed 
the other.
	She could almost feel the frown she knew would form on the 
other's face.  "Now, now, none of that.  He is a powerful Lord, and 
a good catch for a lass."
	On and on they went.  At the end of the day, they would go home
to their husbands, who loved them, and they in turn. Perhaps a child 
would run to greet them, tell them what adventures this day had brought
them. They would sup, then sleep in each other's arms, clinging to each
other, bonded as one in the eyes of the Lord, and each other.
	She closed her eyes and fought with all her power to keep her
lips from trembling.  A single tear slipped from it's confines and rolled
slowly down her cheek.
	It went unnoticed by the ladies-in-waiting.  
	"Daughter?" 
	The ladies faded invisible into the background, as was their
calling.  Gruoch turned and beheld her father.  The man shuffled his feet
and looked away momentarily from those accusing eyes. 
	"Father." she said.
	"It is time, Gruoch." he said.  "The people await you."
	She turned away. 
	"Gruoch..." he started, then fell silent.  She silently counted
the seconds until he tried again.  It was a full seven.
	"Gruoch...I know you do not want this...but it is out of my
hands, I swear it!  King Duncan himself has ordered the marriage! Would you
have my lands stripped, you and I without a kingdom?"  He was angry now.  
"This is for your own good, daughter.  I love you!"
	"You love me?" she turned and gave him a look that made him feel
like the bugs he squished around the dining hall.  "You force your
own daughter to marry someone she does not love herself, and you can
say that to me?  What care I for politics?" she spat.  
	"Of course I love you!" he said pleadingly.  "If I had let you
marry MacBeth, you would have been hunted down and killed by the King's
guard for capital treason!"
	"You don't know that!" her voice rose with every word.  "He and
I are very resourcefull!  We would have survived long enough to endure 
until the end of the King's wrath! MacBeth has little enough support as 
it is among Moray, and I am just one of many women that catch 
Gillecomgain's eye!  He would not waste his soldiers on us for long!"
	"I'm sorry, Gruoch." her father said solemnly, folding his arms.
"I have made my decision.  As your father, it is my right."
	"Your right in the eyes of the King, perhaps." said Gruoch.  "But
not in MacBeth's.  Or mine."  She got up, smoothing her dress.  "I shall
marry Gillecomgain, father.  I shall submit to this...this...farce of
a sacred union." She stared at him coldly.  "But I will not love him."
	"You will grow to love him, in time, my daughter."
	"And perhaps gargoyles will come to life during the day."
	"Please, try to understand." sighed Bodhe.  "It is for the good
of the clan."
	"Is it?" she scoffed. "Was it for the good of the clan that you
convinced MacBeth to let me go?"
	He winced.  "Gruoch, MacBeth understood what was best-"
	"Don't deny it.  I know your way with words, father.  That is
why you are the King's favored ambassador.  Your skill at negotiating
peace is matched only by your silver tongue."  She trembled.  "I'm sorry,
but it's true."
	He looked down sadly at her, mouth hidden beneath his beard.
	"I love you, father.  I truly do." she said softly.  "But I hate
you for this."  
	And she strode briskly out the door, heading for the first day
of the rest of her life.  She did not look back.

*****

	"My bride...the Lady Gillecomgain!" crowed the High Steward
of Moray.
	"Milord."  She barely noticed the barren applause.  She 
concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.  She wanted to 
run, to break free of the chains that shackled her. Invisible, to be sure.
But there nonetheless.  
	She saw MacBeth, slumped in a chair in the corner, an undrunk
goblet of wine in his hand.  Oh, my love, she thought sadly.  How I will
miss you.
	She briefly made the courtesy of admiring the Prince's firstborn.
Personally, she thought he looked like a bowl of porridge with a calf's
tail hair on top of it. 
	Smiling, happy on the outside, she gave the proper reactions
to the hundred or so congratulatory remarks that were sent her way.  
As soon as she could, she feigned tiredness from all the excitement
and went straight to her chambers.  
	 She dismissed the three ladies-in-waiting that stood next
to her bed, she noticed with a start that they were identical, differing
only in hair color.  They asked her if she wanted anything and Gruoch
waved them away.  They left, looking at her with solemn and grim faces.  
	Gruoch sat on her bed, staring blankly
at the window.  The sun was deep into the mountains already, shadows
lengthening.  The celebration would no doubt last all night.  And then
tomorrow she would begin her new life as the Lady Gillecomgain.  What
kind of a man was he, she wondered.  She knew not who he was, an apparent
nobleman who had come out of nowhere, as far as she was concerned.  
He was as ugly in manners as he was in form.  When they had first formerly
met, she had caught him leering even as he kissed her hand.  The
scars didn't really bother her, she could get used to that.  It was
what lurked behind those scars, what they represented.  The blackness
in his eyes was an opening to the well of his soul.  Somehow, the cuts
that became the scars had opened a rift into the darkness.  The physical
hurts themselves did heal.  But she doubted if he himself had. 
	Angrily, she ripped off her wedding dress with her bare hands
and tore it to shreds as best as she could.  She sweated and ruffled
her hair, smudging the color on her cheeks, anything she could do
to make herself undesireable.  Trembling, she suddenly swore loudly for
the first time in her life, mimicking an oath she had heard when one of
the stableboys had gotten kicked while shodding her horse.  It felt
good, so she did it again.
	Then she threw herself on the bed and let herself weep.  She cried 
in private what she would not let herself do before the wedding.  	
	When she finally slept, she dreamed of the gargoyle who had saved
her and MacBeth's life years ago, strangely enough. 

*****

	A hand on her breast awoke her instantly.  The candles had long
since burned out, she could barely see as a large form practically fell 
over her straddling her.  Another hand pawed ineffectually at the 
remains of her dress, and she could smell the odor of ale and 
mead mixed with meat.  It reminded her of the carcass of a horse that 
had died, rotting in the sun for days.
	She screamed and both hands fumbled and fell to the side of her.
She struck out with one hand, nails scratching at the figure's chest
before it was caught and held in a grip of iron.  
	A candle was lit to her side and suddenly she beheld the face 
of her new husband, criss-crossed with three parallel scars that looked
inflamed and oozing in the faint light.  
	"'Tis I, wife!" hissed Gillecomgain.  "D'ye not know your own 
husband?"
	"You..." she started.  "You are not my husband."  She said it
with such conviction even she herself was taken back. 
	"The Lord seems to think so." he grinned.  "Stop with this
foolishness."  He slid a hand between her legs, fingers rough 
against her sensitive skin.  
	"Stop." she said, voice quavering.  Her body was as taut as a whip.
	"Nay, my beauty." he snickered.  "This is our first night together
as husband and wife!  It should be finished properly."  
	Gruoch wanted to gag from the stink of his breath on her face.  
"You will leave me alone." she said, trying to hide the growing fear in 
her voice.  Her stomach was threatening to bring up something, she 
didn't know what, she hadn't had anything to eat all day.  She 
couldn't have eaten.  
	"Cease, wife!" he growled.  "By the King, I won't have my own wife
refusing me on our wedding night!" he slurred.  She nearly screamed
as he bent to try and kiss her roughly, hands beginning to rub up 
and down her body, unshaven growth of beard scratching her chin. 
	MacBeth's beard was silky and soft, red curls that tickled 
and caressed her chin even as his soft kiss touched her lips.
	"Away with you!" she cried out. "Stop, h-...husband!  I don't want
this! Please!"
	"You'll be mine, or by God, you'll find the tip of
my sword between that whelp MacBeth's ribs!"
	She froze.  Dear Lord in Heaven no...
	"Aye, I know all about your tryst with Findlaech's son." he sneered. 
"Resist me futher at his peril." 
	He loomed over her, demon-like, the scars wrinkling as his 
lecherous smile grew.  She banished the feeling of the touch of his 
rough hands on her most intimate of places, of his tongue licking her 
cheek like a dog, of the thing entering her with all the compassion and
lovingness of a snake devouring prey.  Of his black eyes glittering
maliciously in the fading candlelight.
	She thought of MacBeth, in the sunny field over the loch where he
had proposed his love to her.
	The candle went out. 

*****

	The Lady Gillecomgain was the perfect wife.
	She performed her duties faithfully.  She came when called,
spoke when spoken too. 
	He knew not where her husband was many a time, though she found his
sword once after he lay sprawled upon the bed.  It was covered in 
dried blood.  The next day the big news was that Prince's second
cousin on his mother's sister's side had been assassinated, removing 
a final threat to the crown.  She was not stupid. 
      When her lord came to her bed, she lay there immobile, unmoving,
not the slightest trace of expression crossing her face.  She didn't even
feel him.  After a while, he stopped trying and resorted to other women
to meet his needs, which is what she had wished all along. 
	He did try once to play chess with her, but after she beat him
8 times in a row, he swatted the pieces off the gameboard, calling it
childish and stupid.  
	She did not try to acknowledge him in any way. She spent her time 
reading the few books that were around the castle, at her loom, or 
helping tend the garden.
	Mostly, she thought of MacBeth.  And sometimes her father. What 
would he say to her now, should she tell him the truth.  Was this what 
the clan's welfare cost?
	
*****

	"This just arrived for you, milady." the servant said.
	"My thanks." said Gruoch, dismissing him.
	She stood by the dying fire, and looked at the black scrollcase
she held in her hand.  Opening it, a smile touched her lips as she
pulled out a red rose.  She smelled it, letting
the fragrant scent seep through her head.  
	She let out a happy little gasp as she noticed the thorns were
entwined with little bits of red hair, darker than her own.  She smiled.
	MacBeth had not forgotten her.  
	And she would not forget him.
	Gruoch walked out onto the balcony, standing near the wooden 
bench, smelling the flower, glancing at the full moon. It had been a 
moon like this when the gargoyle had come, she remembered.  
	She smelled it once more, and left the rose sitting on the bench.  
She could not keep such a thing, it would only make Gillecomgain 
suspicious.  It would be picked up by the servants later.	
	Footsteps made her start.
	She knew he was looking at her.  Trying to find words
of familliarity between husband and wife that would never come. 	
	"The night is cold." he said without a trace of expression.  "Go in
and stir the fire."
	"As you wish it." she said, equally immutable.  She curtsied
almost mockingly, and went back inside, not caring if he saw the rose.  
	She stirred the fire and sat quietly, like a good wife.  Later,
perhaps she would admire the tapestries some.  Or prepare herself in 
the mirror for the tenth time that day.  
	The world was just full of possibilities.
	A sound made her look up.  Was that yelling, she heard?  A voice,
shouting threats, it sounded like.  She was too far away to place it.  
Curious, she stood and made her way to the balcony, wondering what
was going on.  The lump in her throat grew as she saw the crushed rose
from through the door.  Her resolve hardened, her fire rekindled. 
	She would not be crushed.
	She was the Lady MacBeth. 
	And Gillecomgain be damned. 

The End