"You see," Sean bounced across the green sward, "I told you I found the perfect place."

        Mary looked up at Duncan.

        Duncan looked down at Mary.

        Both of them surveyed the wreck of the old abbey cathedral, now little more than stones and dust, which occupied the older site of the monastery on the landside of the bridge.

        "Just look at it!" Sean threw his arms wide and leaped over the stone rubble into the chapel proper, overgrown with soft grass and at least five different colors of wildflowers.

        They just did. And then they looked at each other, bonded by their mutual travail, the irrepressible Sean MacLeod.

        Duncan sorely missed the Old Man for many reasons, some he had expected and some which totally surprised him. One of the latter was his suddenly being able to spend more uninterrupted time with his son. He was nearly dead from the exhaustion of it. How had Adam made this seem so easy? Now that he thought of it, though, Adam did seem to have been running a constant and timely interference between Duncan and Sean. Doubtless that was why the senior MacLeod had not yet wrung the junior MacLeod's neck.

        For Mary's part, she was surprised to find she missed the cool, seasoned rhythms of Malak's patience and style. This had not been quite so apparent before this latest plan of Sean's. She had many images of what her wedding would be like and none of them included a roofless barn of stones.

        "Well, come on, then," Sean called back to them, encouragingly, "Can't you just see it?"

        And the hell of it was, they just could.

---

        "Well?" Joe geared the refitted Lincoln down a notch as they headed to Overlook on yet another run to town for wedding stuff. Only ten days to go, as Lucille reminded them, often and loudly.

        Lucille was now sound asleep in the "shotgun" seat and Duncan was busy staring out the back window at nothing at all.

        "I'm sorry, Joe," Duncan said, at least a half-minute later. "Did you say something?"

        "You want to talk?" Joe glanced back and then returned his attention to the winding road.

        "Not really," Duncan leaned forward as he answered, knowing full well that Dawson wanted to talk.

        "I've been thinking about you and Adam," Joe came straight to the point.

        Duncan pushed back in his seat. "I don't see where this is any of your business, Joe."

        "Yeah, well you know me," Joe laughed, "I never interfere."

        "Oh, and I am so inspired by your devotion to your Oath," Duncan said, in Adam's voice and words. His eyes opened to their limits and he clapped both his hands over his mouth.

        "You do that a lot, you know," Joe commented. "You conjure him up constantly. I think when he comes back for the wedding--"

        Duncan pulled his hands down, "He won't come."

        "But he promised--"

        "Trust me, Joe," Duncan leaned forward again, "we won't be seeing him."

        "Or you hope you won't," Joe corrected him.

        Duncan wondered if he had suddenly broken out in words across his forehead which said, "Free practice analysis subject here. Ask a question. Win a prize."

        "It's the down side of having so many close friends, Buddy," Joe answered the very disgusted face Duncan had made over his last remark. "They're there when you need 'em, there even when you can't stand 'em. You want to know what I think?"

        "Not particularly, Joe," Duncan answered honestly. "Look, this is the time for us to celebrate Sean's and Mary's wedding. It isn't the time to dwell on his parents' separation. I'm going to have enough to worry about getting Sean through the disappointment when Adam doesn't appear."

        "How convenient for you," Joe murmured, almost more to himself. "How frigging convenient."

        Duncan's smoky eyes drifted their attention out the window again and he lost interest in Joe's commentary.

        Down the road ten more miles and Joe said to no one in particular, "I'm beginning to think it's all an artificial thing, these rules about who loves who, and in what package and when and how and why and so forth. I had a dream the other night about sitting on the side of my bed with my legs off and talking to Kyle about how sorry I was, going on like that when I thought he and Sean were lovers. I just kept talking and talking, but he wouldn't listen. I'd say something and Kyle would laugh, say something else, and Kyle would laugh harder.

        "Then he just hugged me and left--or disappeared, something, you know how dreams are--and I settled back down in bed, rolled over on my side, and you were lying there, sound asleep. What do you think that was all about?"

        Duncan was sure he could answer, just as soon as he stopped trying to swallow his tongue.

        Joe waited for the paroxysm to pass.

        "You're kidding," Duncan said finally when his windpipe had cleared.

        "Yeah, Buddy," Joe nodded, "but I do need to talk to you."

        "Go ahead," Duncan surrendered.

        "Whatever is going on with Sean and Mary," Joe began carefully, "My son, the light of my life, and--well, you know how it is with sons and fathers, Mac."

        Duncan agreed that he knew all too well at this point in time.

        "I'm not sure even Sean knows this, Mac," Joe paused, "Kyle really is gay, Mac."

        "Oh," Duncan said with great sympathy. "Oh, Joe, I had no idea. I am sure Sean doesn't know or he would not have engineered this charade. It isn't like him to be cruel--unbearably cheerful, I'll grant, but he is never intentionally hurtful."

        "I can't talk to Kyle about it," Joe said sadly, "I'm just too--I want to make some sense, some peace, with this, but I'm just too close to be convincing, and I really blew it when he first told me about Sean."

        Duncan sighed, "I can relate, Joe."

        "Would you talk to him?" Joe asked in a near whisper.

        "Me?" Duncan asked.

        "You are the finest and most upstanding gay person I know, Mac."

        Duncan felt his face grow numb and a sound like cicadas in mid-summer began in his ears. He knew Joe Dawson meant this as a compliment, but it was so unlike the old Watcher to be this inaccurate. He heard himself saying, "But I'm not gay."

        Duncan MacLeod was hardly aware that Joe had turned off the road and shut the car down. He was only cognizant of the pale blue eyes, pinning him unmercifully, as if they were God's Own Judgment.

        "Yeah, Mac," the smoky tones floated towards the back seat, winding round the shafts of that pale stare, like a garland of epiphany, "And I am not crippled."

        "Only between your ears, Beloved," Lucille woke up and joined the fray. She didn't exactly know what they were going on about, but she took the opportunity to rap Joe on his near deltoid, just on general principle. "What is this? You started a row and didn't invite me. I'm miffed."

        "God help us," Joe shook his head.

        Lucille sat up and stretched, a most pleasant display in anyone's book of images to remember, and looked out the window. "We aren't to Overlook yet," she observed.

        "No," Joe answered.

        "But we're stopped," Sweet Lucille continued.

        "Are we?" Joe assumed a cheap innocence which only an old grey fox like himself could manage.

        "Oh, you are impossible," she cuffed him again and twisted in her seat, "Duncan, tell me what this is about?"

        The Highlander smiled, but his teeth were set edge to edge. "Something like the tenth chorus of Doctor Joe's Sexual Preference Blues."

        Lucille lowered her eyes and chuckled, "You'll have to excuse Mr. Dawson, Macster, he's been very concerned about Kyle of late."

        "And I shouldn't be concerned about my own son?" Joe dodged the next hit. "Stop that!"

        "Well, you never seemed worried where I was concerned," Lucille warbled sweetly.

        "I'm getting more concerned by the minute," Joe stared at her, "What do you mean?"

        "Oh, Jody My Precious," Lucille patted and stroked the shoulder she'd been popping, "It's like I told Kyle. You have slept with men and I have slept with women and I couldn't see where it did either of us any harm. Very much to the contrary, in fact."

        "Men?" Joe's soft, smoke-strafed tones came as near as they could to shrieking. "One man, one time, and it was under very unusual circumstances."

        Lucille assumed her persona of Infinite Madam. "I can just imagine," she said, through a smile that would have shamed Alice's cat.

        "Luz!" Joe drew up tall and indignant.

        "We're all gay, Joe," Lucille had evidently heard more of their conversation than she had at first seemed to. "And I don't mean just we three, either. I just don't see your problem, Joe."

        "It's a guy-thing, Lucille," Joe said, glancing back at Duncan, who seemed to agree, "You just wouldn't understand."

        Lucille's ivory features turned slowly toward him and she gave, first Joe, and then Duncan, such a look, along with her favorite and most vile malediction, "Men! The real wonder is that we give you a choice at all!"

---

        Sweet Lucille Dawson had not much else to say to either of them the rest of the morning as she marched on poor, defenseless Overlook like Sherman through Georgia--or so she said. If the ground was not burning when she passed, it was more or less smoking, as she bartered and bargained and seduced one shopkeeper after another into donations of time and goods to the holy ritual they would enact at the site of the old abbey. She invited them, one and all, fussed over this detail and that. Her taste was impeccable, her decision final.

        Joe and Duncan began to wonder why they had come at all. Except for Duncan's toting and Joe's complaining, they had no discernible function at all in this campaign. The Highlander had been a foot soldier. He knew the drill. He decided it fell to him to watch out for the troops, in this case, Dawson. Duncan went AWOL about lunch and pulled his conspirator into a deli as the First Lady of Seacouver marched onward to her next assault. It was the first time all morning Joe hadn't complained.

        "You really think we can pull this off?" Duncan asked over a beer and a hot pastrami.

        "If it can be done, the Sweets can do it," Joe nodded.

        Duncan sipped on his beer and stared off blankly. He put the beer down and hunched over his elbows, staring straight at Dawson, "I've thought about this the past few hours, about what you said in the car. And I've decided I really am not--"

        "Oh, Mr. MacLeod," a tan young man dressed in tennis whites leaned over the table. "I heard about your recent separation, and I just want to say how very sorry I am." He pressed a business card into the Highlander's hand and whispered in his ear.

        Joe watched Duncan come to full parade rest, smile and nod...and wait for the man to just leave.

        "What were you saying?" Joe asked around a mouthful of really good minestrone, "You'd decided you weren't--?"

        "Here," Duncan handed over the card, "you take his unlisted number and shove it up--"

        "Well, well, well," Sweet Lucille, the Great and Glorious, stood over them like a mother who had just relocated her lost children at the Mall. "Lunch already?"

        Joe reached under the table and started rubbing his knee. "I fell, Luz," he said quietly with just a touch of pain in his words.

        "Oh, no," Lucille knelt beside his chair and fussed over him as if he were in the middle of a coronary. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know. Are you badly hurt? Oh, Honey."

        "Not too badly," Joe said bravely.

        "Oh, poor, poor Dear," she went on and on. Then she glanced over at Duncan, clearly asking for him to affirm or deny Joe's assertions.

        Duncan's eyes rolled towards the ceiling and he shook his head.

        To his exceeding surprise, the Highlander saw a look of exquisite relief wash over Lucille's face, but she never stopped cooing over her "poor, wounded Joe."

        She knew Joe was lying. Joe probably knew she knew. Duncan would never understand these two.

        Lucille and Joe, playing out this silly scene in the midst of God and everybody, her kneeling on the floor, her pale arms wrapped around his torso, her auburn mane draped over his heart, rocking and comforting him.

        I mean, Duncan thought, the very height of ridiculous.

        But there was something about the two of them, these conspiratorial children, that made him miss Adam so badly in that moment that he had to excuse himself and go outside for a walk.

        "So tell me, again," Mary picked up some more ivy from the enormous pile beside them and wove it into the garland net, "This is going where?" Mary surveyed the hundred or so workmen climbing over the stone barn, shoring up walls, setting loops in the stones, arguing in a half-dozen different languages, while Duncan MacLeod tried to keep the peace until Grant returned and gave them what for. Thomas Cross' troops had been working on the abbey for the past week, and as far as Mary could tell, nothing was different, despite the exhaustive attentions of the Cross Renovations Crew.

        Kyle, working on the other end of the garland, looked up, "Ivy, Mary, what do you think?"

        "I'm not as good at this, oh, Royal Gardener," Mary added some more ivy. Thank God for Kyle, she thought. It did not seem that Sean was too eager to be of any help at all with the preparations for this open air matrimonial affair. Lucille was almost more help than Mary could stand, but her taste was splendid, so Mary simply gave in to everything sartorial and Sweet Lucille took over outfitting the entire party. Uncle Joe took over the music, well, in his own way of dominance, Joe merely began doing the music and waited until someone noticed how very lovely it all was and actually asked him if he wouldn't mind.

        Cross took over the culinary plans. No one asked, no one thought to. It was simply his finest skill and everyone, including Thomas, took it for granted that he'd be in charge of meals. Grant took over being foreman of the crew. The Facets and a strange group from town had taken over refitting the MacLeod cliff complex, second and third floor old monk cells into guest rooms. Mary did not think they would be receiving that many guests, it being such a rushed and last minute endeavor. She could not, herself, get into the excitement which surrounded her. Everybody else, most of them strangers to her, was more glad about this event than she. But, then, weddings were more for the social order than for the bride and groom after all, Mary reasoned, more a way to keep the very disruptive forces of sexual energy from blowing them all to kingdom come.

        "Working at Stanley Park every summer hardly qualifies," Kyle laughed, "but who am I to argue. Ivy, for fidelity." The blonde young son of Joe and Lucille shifted his position, seated on the soft grassy rise above the constructional fray down at the old abbey ruins.

        "And the blue bells?" Mary asked, picking some out of another pile and wondering what the significance would be of holding one's wedding in a ruined church.

        "Constancy, Mary. And the chrysanthemums for friendship."

        "So this will adorn the entry to the chapel," Mary said.

        "Exactly," Kyle agreed, "If we ever get any help from the prospective groom, so we can finish these on time," he said this just loudly enough for Sean to look up from his slate.

        "I'm doing something important here, Kyle," Sean replied.

        "And what exactly would that be, Sean?" Mary stretched her fingers. At this rate she would look like a ditch digger, or at least her hands would, by the time of the wedding--three more days. They would never be ready. Elopement started looking better and better.

        "Got him!" Sean said, "Yes? Yes! Done and done!" He looked up at his two friends, "It's a secret. The best wedding present ever."

        "Thank you, Sean. Now if--" Mary threw a bunch of ivy his direction.

        "Oh, it's not for you," Sean's quick wits and reflexes saved him from an ivy facial.

        "All this time you've been working on that," Kyle grimaced, "and it hasn't anything to do with the wedding?"

        Sean meandered over and started braiding on the garland. "It has everything to do with the wedding," he answered, "and you are going to--"

        "Just love it!" Mary and Kyle finished his answer in unison.

        "Oh, you two are no fun at all," Sean complained lightly.

        "This isn't supposed to be fun," Mary leaned back on her elbows.

        "No?" Sean pounced on top of her and proceeding to deal her a near-fatal tickle.

        Kyle kept weaving, shaking his head. "If you two are done--" he said, though they were clearly not.

        "Ah, and the sober and elder father of our trio has spoken," Sean acknowledged, sitting back up.

        Mary straightened her sun dress and conceded defeat. "Wicked, wicked boys," she said.

        "Wicked?" Kyle pumped up in full mock indignation. "My Lady, I am innocent as the newly flown winter drifts."

        This rolled Sean over on his belly, gasping and choking in mirth.

        Mary giggled behind her slender hand.

        "What? What?" Kyle said and ruined the next blue bell bouquet.

        "Well," Sean came back to sitting and cleared his throat, "what you say is true enough," he paused for effect, "If one does not count your unseemly activities with a certain young man of our acquaintance and your unspeakable trysts of late."

        "Eeeooooh," Mary said, in false disgust, wrinkling her charming nose.

        "Eeeooooh," Sean agreed.

        "Weel," Kyle started again with another nosegay, "I'm not the one to be castin' stones, but has anyone thought about the fact that this certain young man of whom you spoke is about to be wedded, illegally I might add, to a first cousin, who used to be his sister."

        "Eeeooooh," they all said.

        "And might I add," Mary took her turn, "that if we were to judge the unseemly, then we would certainly have to include the fact that same young man has been stepping out on their avowéd nuptials with the driven snow character of the first mention. And don't think for one moment, Sean MacLeod, that I buy that drivel about 'practicing.'"

        "Eeeooooh," said Kyle, a little more sincerely than he might have wished.

        Sean seemed to be getting the worst part of this rondo, but he had one remaining move and he took it, "I might include that fact," Sean began, "were it not for the greater and more diverting reality of a higher being such as yourself, leaving the only other of her kind to deliver herself in congress to a lowly human, little more than a beaste." He made snuffling, growling sounds and stalked around them both on all fours.

        "Eeeooooh," Kyle and Mary said together, laughing and holding their sides.

        The frivolity evaporated as suddenly as it had begun and they all settled into making garlands: daisies for loyalty, lilies for purity, forget-me-nots for true love. All the different languages of the rose would be displayed in bouquets at the front of the chapel. In the next hour, they had finished and bagged five garlands and had begun working on a sixth. They were as good together when they worked as when they played.

        Grant appeared with two beers for the nearly-weds and a lemonade for Kyle. "Sorry, Master Kyle," the large man spoke to the young man's frown, "I can get you a beer also, but you know what your mother would say."

        "That's all right, Grant," Kyle said smiling slyly and reaching his hand up the inside of Grant's knee. "I rather favor the simpler intoxicants."

        Sean could not have believed it, but he thought he saw the flicker of a smile trace across Grant's usually solemn and sober mien.

        Kyle kept right on talking about the simple pleasures, and all the while his light fingers teased upwards along Grant's inseam, and Grant ignored the affront.

        Just shy of indecency, Grant said, "Master Kyle if you are angling for a recommendation in your coming year starting college, I should be all too happy to compose one for you." The wide shoulders turned with the rest of the mountain and Grant took their leave, but not without an addendum, "Perhaps we could discuss it in your room tonight after dinner."

        "Perfect," said Kyle, smiling ear-to-ear. He looked back at Mary and Sean to find them staring at him with the expression his mom called slack-jawed. "What now?" he asked.

        "Are we to understand that you and--" Mary started.

        "And Mr. Granite are an item?" Sean finished.

        "Maybe a subtitle," Kyle said dreamily. "He's really nice."

        "Doesn't Thomas Cross object?" Mary asked, totally surprised about Kyle's abject lack of self consciousness where such things were concerned.

        Kyle busied himself on the garland and did not answer.

        "Kyle!" They both shouted together.

        "All right, almost Mr. and Mrs. MacLeod," Kyle answered them, "I was just thinking how to answer without being rude. The simple answer is, 'no, Mr. Cross does not mind.' The more complicated answer has to do with the unspoken notion that I will not be engaging in any more 'practice,' with your husband to be, Mary."

        "Oh," said Mary softly. "I rather thought that would be your choice. Yours and Sean's."

        "Really?" Kyle asked. He reached into the flowers and retrieved a gladiola and a single orchid from one of the boxes and handed them to Mary.

        "Hey there!" Sean complained.

        "Compose yourself, Beloved," Mary said sweetly, "Kyle is just remarking on my beauty, and--" she paused, trying to think what gladiolus meant.

        "Generosity," Kyle filled in.

        "And besides, husband of mine," Mary said, "If you are to have your choices, then I will surely have mine from time-to-time."

        "The hell you will," Sean barked back.

        Mary said absolutely nothing, but one bright brown eyebrow lifted over the ivory of her forehead and she waited.

        "I mean, what is getting married for, if not--" Sean sputtered, trying to answer her most intimidating silence. "Why go through with this if--"

        Kyle slid over beside Sean, "You better tell her you love her, and quickly, Sean," he whispered.

        "Because I, because I love you," Sean checked back with Kyle like a person with his lawyer at a senate hearing. "And that's why."

        Kyle nodded. Mary smiled.

        They all went back to the garland factory.

        "You know," Kyle commented when too much silence had passed between them. "We are all Children of Chaos in some way or another."

        "How do you figure that?" Sean asked.

        "Well, you are a son of Chaos," Kyle began.

        "What are you talking about?" Mary asked.

        "Ram was Sean's mother," Kyle began again. "One of her other names is Chaos."

        "You know about my mother?" Sean stopped his garland weaving and put both his hands on Kyle's shoulders.

        "Kyle," Mary said evenly.

        "Of course I do," Kyle said.

        "Kyle," Mary warned again.

        "Mary probably knows more than I. She's been talking to her these past--"

        "Kyle!" Mary yelled and punctuated her displeasure with a handful of irises which had gone mushy during their shipping.

        "Eeeooooh!" Kyle mopped the brown violet mush off his face. "What was that for?"

        "Because sometimes, dear Cuz, you are every bit as young as you are," Mary snorted.

        "You talk to the dead?" Sean stared at his intended.

        "Kyle!" Mary barked under her breath.

        Kyle's bright sea eyes went large with the internal revelation of his glaring error and he took Mary's warning as holy edict. Inside his head ran a less sacred mantra about times like these, Holy Shit.

        Mary stood up and walked away from them. Sean followed after her, wondering what all this was about and why the three of them had suddenly split apart.

        "Mary?" he called to her to stop.

        She turned around slowly and looked up at the MacLeod son. "I wanted to tell you about this at the proper moment," she began.

        He wanted to gather her into his arms and comfort her obvious distress, but something about her tone made him cautious, if not afraid. "I am listening, Mary," he said.

        "What exactly has your father told you about your mother, Sean?"

        The more he heard, the less he wanted to hear. "Poppa told me she died when I was born, that she loved me very much, that she looked a lot like Dahm, that she was a dragon, like you are--but I really don't know what this last part means. I always understood the term to mean Immortals who could have children."

        "I suppose it is as good a definition as any," Mary sighed. "I do not know if I am a dragon in that sense, though, Sean."

        "We've talked about this before, Mary. I don't care. One way or the other, if we have each other, then we have all the blessing we need."

        Mary ducked her chin and smiled wickedly, "Not discounting the odd practice?"

        Sean rolled his palms up in surrender. "Well, I suppose that would depend on how odd."

        Which set his bride-to-be laughing.

        "So I should tell you the truth and be done with this," Mary sighed again. "Your mother still lives, Sean."

        Sean heard the words, but he was a moment understanding them, then he was a much longer time sorting through their many unspoken meanings. Poppa and Dahm had lied to him all his life. His mother had abandoned him. He was something less than he had supposed himself to be. He might very well have other brothers and sisters in the world. He might one day meet this woman--might have done, already--and never know her. Then it occurred to him why Dahm had left. Of course, Dahm had stolen Poppa from his mother and Sean's upcoming marriage would have stirred all of that up again.

        Maybe She was coming for the wedding, and if that were the case, maybe Dahm would not be.

        "Sean?"

        "I'm sorry, Mary," Sean shook his head trying to still the chorus of questions which went with his sudden transformation from motherless child to cast-off.

        Mary reached up and stroked her slender fingers through the dark hair at his temples. "Ram did die when you were born, Sean. But she is Danaan. She did not stay dead--badly injured, but not dead. Ram was in an auto accident--"

        "So that much was true," Sean interrupted. The world seemed unable to come to an even keel. "Did your mother and your father deliver me?"

        "Yes, Sean. That is true also."

        "Why didn't she come for me when she recovered?" Sean asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

        "She couldn't remember anything," Mary began, "Ram's head was crushed, Sean, and past the initial recovery, she was too badly injured to retain any of her powers of Immortality. My mother says she gave you the last of her power."

        Mary pressed against Sean, moving her hand around to rub the back of his very tense neck. "Kyle's father married her in the hospital and brought her home to his place over the bar."

        "Which--what?--makes Kyle my stepbrother before the fact?"

        Mary chuckled and buried her forehead into Sean's chest, "He is right. We are all Children of Chaos."

        "But when Ram finally recovered," Sean could not help but ask, "Why didn't she come for me then?"

        "It's a little complicated to explain, Sean," Mary stalled.

        Sean pushed her out to arm's length and waited for her gaze to meet his. "Try," he said.

        Mary explained about Ram's return to herself on Holy Ground, the Grand Quickening, as it were. She told him as much as she knew about the death of the dragons and Ram's sentence for killing them, about the sojourn in hell, about the bargain to escape hell and return to the world.

        Then she told him about Malak.

        Sean sat down on the grass and patted the ground beside him. "You are saying that your father and my mother and this, this usurper are all one and the same person?"

        Mary floated down beside him, "No, Sean. They are three separate entities in one body."

        Sean understood, but the believing was lagging behind the knowing. "Dragons have two sides, man and woman, but this drake has three sides--or, wait, two sides and one guest, your father?"

        "More or less, yes," Mary snuggled into his side and wondered when the sea wind had turned and grown so cold.

        "So your father isn't in Africa," Sean continued, "He's been with you all this time, trying to talk you into marrying him, into marrying the man-side of my mother."

        "Yes," Mary said after running the confusing words over in her mind, just to check.

        Sean's features set in deep concentration. "So, Mary, does Malak know you are marrying me instead?"

        "No, Sean. He thinks I am going to marry him."

        Sean jumped up. "What?" he shrieked. "Why exactly would he think that?"

        "Because I lied to him, Sean. Because I told him I would, to make him stop asking me."

        "And have you and he--?"

        "Sean MacLeod!" Mary said with more indignation than one might have thought possible for such a diminutive person. "You are impossible!"

        Sean sank to his knees before her, "And is that why you accepted my proposal?"

        "No. Of course not, Sean."

        "Why?"

        "Why am I marrying you?" Mary reached her hands out to him. "Oh, if you do not know that by now, I am certain I cannot explain it."

        Sean sat back on his heels, resisting her advances. "Why didn't you tell Malak about me?"

        Mary shook her auburn curls and her hands sank to her lap. "He is obsessed with the notion that you will steal me and kill him. He thinks that I have been born to be his bride, and that he has known this since he first saw me in a dream five thousand years ago."

        Sean collapsed inward on himself. No wonder Dahm and Pop had lied to him. No wonder his mother had run from him. No wonder in the world except that this lithe, fair lady should even look at him twice, let alone love him.

        "And I do, you know," Mary said, coming to his side and taking him in the circle of her arms, the prison of her heart.

---

        "Isn't it a bit red?" Duncan asked, standing in the middle of the tower room while Lucille pinned him up--her words: four ways from Sunday.

        "It's mulberry, Duncan, mulberry," Lucille repleated the back darts and pinned again. "Hold still, Duncan. The wedding's tomorrow and we can't have the groom's father going nekkid."

        "I am sure I could hold still if you could stop drawing blood," Duncan complained, for which disrespect, he got cuffed mid-skull.

        "Groom dressed in red," Sean bounced in, "be better off dead."

        "You made that up, you spiteful child," Lucille remarked, "and besides, it's mulberry, mulberry."

        "Hmmm? I thought mulberries were dark purple," Sean mused.

        Duncan flashed him a silent warning. Lucille was in no mood to be trifled with.

        "Don't be so smug, Sean," Lucille continued, "You're next."

        "I got fitted in town," Sean picked up an apple from the bowl on the couch table.

        "Yes, and that bozo at the tailor's doesn't know how to fit around your abundantly muscled physiques," Lucille explained, "so if you don't want wads and wrinkles, you'll bring your suit up and let me refit it."

        "The blue one?"

        "Prussian," Sweet Lucille's eyes flashed, "really, Boys, you will be the death of me yet!"

        "So how does the rest go?" Duncan asked about the colors.

        "Well, who am I to argue with the Mighty Sweet when she says I made it all up anyway?"

        "Sean!" both tailor and victim admonished him.

        "It goes like this," Sean surrendered.
 

Married in White, you have chosen right
Married in Grey, you will go far away,
Married in Black, you will wish yourself back,
Married in Red, you will wish yourself dead,
Married in Green, ashamed to be seen,
Married in Blue, you will always be true,
Married in Pearl, you will live in a whirl,
Married in Yellow, ashamed of your fellow,
Married in Brown, you will live in the town,
Married in Pink, you spirit will sink.

        "Married in mulberry, your days will be merry," Lucille supplied.

        Sean thought better of his own version of the couplet, something along the line of "and they'll know you're a--" Well, no reason to stir anything up. Especially not now. "There are also rhymes about days and months," he offered.

        "Ouch! Lucille!" Duncan jerked. "Go on, Sean. Let's see, we're a Friday, in August."

        Sean recited, first, the days:
 

Monday for health, Tuesday for wealth, Wednesday best of all,
Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses, Saturday for no luck at all.

    Then he recited the months:
 

Married when the year is new, he'll be loving, kind & true,
When February birds do mate, You wed nor dread your fate.
If you wed when March winds blow, joy and sorrow both you'll know.
Marry in April when you can, Joy for Maiden & for Man.
Marry in the month of May, and you'll surely rue the day.
Marry when June roses grow, over land and sea you'll go.
Those who in July do wed, must labour for their daily bred.
Whoever wed in August be, many a change is sure to see
Marry in September's shrine, your living will be rich and fine.
If in October you do marry, love will come but riches tarry.
If you wed in bleak November, only joys will come, remember.
When December snows fall fast, marry and true love will last.

        "Well, one for two isn't bad," Duncan commented, slipping carefully out of the pincushion that Lucille had made of his red coat. Mulberry.

        "I personally think it's as much rubbish as the bridesmen fighting off the maiden's family to abscond with the bride, so the groom could get her pregnant before her family found her again," Sean said.

        A slow smile drifted over Lucille's fair face, followed by a soft blush, "Oh, my, Master Sean," she said, "How you do go on."

        "It really used to be that way," Duncan commented, heading for the door to go help with the last minute doings at the old abbey. He didn't stay in the cliff house any longer than was absolutely necessary. He was becoming convinced he would never be able to stand this house again, it was so filled with Adam's absence.

        "I don't recall we dressed in red, though," the Highlander called just as the door closed behind him.

        An apple hit the door just as it closed and turned to sauce on the threshold. "Mulberry, God Damn It!"

---

        Just before dawn, Duncan gave up trying to sleep in the hammock set between two tall trees in the cliff house's front lawn. He had given up trying to stay in the master bedroom, and there really was no other place in the entire house where an inch of recumbent-possible surfaces were available. The Highlander could not believe the number of people who had come, and from long distances. He'd put the Villancourts in the master bedroom since he wasn't using it and they would appreciate the hot tub and the sea window, and--

        --all the little touches that Adam and he had taken for granted as the years went by.

        --and were so fraught with meaning now, that Duncan could not bear them.

        They had opened twenty rooms on the third and fourth level down. Cross' facets had done wonderful work, coming up with furnishings and linens, cleaning like they were readying for Last Day and the arrival of the Big Boss. Each room was simple in appointments, but warm in lighting and those same little touches: the quilt, the throw, a soft rug, a special lamp. They were sharing one bathroom on each of the new floors, plumbing being the most difficult and time-consuming portion of the reconstruction. The Highlander imagined there would be wars when the guests started to wake.

        But Thomas was already up, cooking an enormous breakfast, in addition to putting the finishing touches on a resplendent reception dinner, and all this after a rehearsal dinner last night that seated thirty or forty. There would be sixty to eighty this morning, if one included the extra servers and those guests who chose to come early from Overlook.

        The Highlander wondered if all this industry on Cross' part were more as reparation for not finding Adam, and less as the gracious and generous gesture it seemed. Probably a bit of both.

        Which reminded him--Duncan pulled out his slate and traipsed through the mail. No, Adam had not so much as sent a postcard. Duncan typed a letter to Sean from Adam, in Adam's style, explaining his absence and wishing Sean well on this most important day. He conjured up Adam--as Dawson referred to it--the edgy sophistry done over in shades of dry wit, the thin veneer to a heart as wide as the world.

        It wasn't exactly a lie, Duncan reasoned. He was sure Adam would write such a letter were he able to--actually or emotionally. The Highlander was truly sorry for having driven Adam away at any time, but most particularly this day, when they could have stood together and sent their boy off into the adult world. I hope that he does not feel so badly as I do, he thought. I hope his heart is at peace. I hope he forgives me my stupidity, or at least, blindness.

        I wish he were here to make just the right sarcastic comment about my red coat.

        Duncan saw the lights from a car pull up at the landside of the bridge. He keyed off the mail and onto the gate lock, disembarking the hammock and heading for this latest guest. They are sure starting early, he thought. There was a faint glow of predawn, but the sun itself was almost an hour away.

        Reaching the gate, he opened it with the manual combination for the second device and the vehicle drove by him across the bridge.

        It wasn't that the walk wouldn't do him good, but the rudeness of not at least asking if he wanted a ride back to the house, made Duncan a little wary. The driver was fussing with the trunk when Duncan reached the driveway. She seemed to be a late-middle aged woman, silver hair overlying brunette, trim of figure, tight and tense in all her movements with that angry determination displayed by the truly exhausted.

        "Here," he said, "let me help you with that." He was going to have to bed her down in the tower room which meant the entire household would be nearly walking over her all morning, but she seemed so tired and drawn, she'd probably never notice. "I can get you some breakfast and a place to rest, though it will be a little less than private. I think the bathrooms will still be empty this time of the morning if you want to freshen up. I can get you some towels," Duncan paused. He was going on raw energy himself having hardly slept since Adam's departure, two weeks earlier. He'd forgotten to introduce himself. "I am Duncan MacLeod, the groom's father," he amended the lapse, reaching out a hand to the woman in the impeccable Italian suit.

        "You don't have to introduce yourself, Duncan," a familiar voice snapped, "I know who you are."

        "Anne? Anne!" Duncan reached his arms out to hug his ex-wife. What had happened? She was supposed to be a Power with transferred regenerative powers, like Joe and Lucille and Alexa.

        "Let's forego the warm moment, shall we?" It really wasn't a question.

        Duncan switched to formal mode. "Mary will be so happy you came. You must have been flying for over a day to come this far and then the drive. You must be tired."

        "Just point me to the bathroom and forget the Gaelic charm," Anne Lindsey, consulting pathologist at the Charing Cross Hospital in London, licked her lips, "A double bourbon on the rocks wouldn't hurt my feelings, though."

        Duncan followed her to the front door where the porch light revealed that not only was Anne fifty now, but an "old" fifty. Life had not been good to Annie.

        "Stop staring, Duncan," she said meanly and opened the door for him and her luggage.

        "I'm sorry, Anne. It's just--well didn't Grace give you--"

        "Bad batch of dragon's blood, I guess," Anne snorted. "Or maybe our little Gracie doesn't know as much as she pretends about such things. Just as well. I don't have a taste for freaks." The way she looked at him made Duncan's skin itch.

        "I'm okay with--um--how's the politically correct term go? Yes, I'm fine with alternative  sexual preferences, just so they stay out of my bed," Anne was clearly tired and out of sorts.

        Duncan remembered her as being high-strung and a little rigid, but this brittleness and cruelty was a new thing. "Are you all right, Anne?" he couldn't help asking.

        "Oh, I'm just too wonderful," her sarcasm bore not the slightest humorous tone, "My only daughter, a half-caste lizard, is about to be wed to the bouncing baby boy of two light-loafered Immortals and a full-caste serpent. What's not to be right about that?"

        Duncan did not tarry getting her the double bourbon after he tucked her bags behind the sofa. He could smell breakfast cooking down one level, comforting and reassuring in the face of Anne's bitterness. "Am I to understand you don't approve, Anne?"

        "You can understand any damn thing you want, Duncan," Anne took a large swallow, closed her anxious eyes, and savored the drink. "I haven't counted in that girl's eyes, since her first trip to Africa with that sodomite father of hers. I am only here because Mark is not and it just didn't seem right that no family should be present."

        "Adam isn't here either," Duncan commented, "If you were worried about any untoward activities."

        "Just stay away from me, Duncan," Anne drained the glass and he poured her another, noting the handful of pills she took with the next swallow. "I will be civil. I will be leaving after the wedding. That's about all you need to know."

        This could be him, Duncan thought suddenly, separated from love and from life for some petty prejudice. Maybe this was him already, muscling his way through what remained of his life, putting up a good front and all the while dying inside. When Sean had left, what would he be? Cruel and bitter? No, he would still be honorable and kind, but that somehow made little difference in the face of Anne's example.

        She was being honorable, coming to the wedding to stand witness for Mary's family, but right or not, the gesture was so hollow as to be entirely without value. Anne followed the rules because she could no longer trust her own sense of goodness. The affect was too apt, too close to Duncan's own. The Highlander wondered if it had been Adam's magic, or his own love for the Old Man, which had turned Duncan's rightness into goodness. And would he now revert to an automatic honor again?

        Anne melted onto the couch and was soon snoring. Duncan took off her shoes and tucked the couch throw around her.

        He was so glad Sean had found such a woman as Mary to see him into the future. Duncan could not bear to think of his son broken on woe, lonely and hurt. He reminded himself to be vigilant for his own sake.

        And he set Anne's example before him like a beacon on the shoals.

---

        The old sea cliff came alive slowly as little knots of celebrants shuffled their way to Cross' sublime breakfast and hot, bracing coffee, or queued up for one of the five bathrooms. Despite Duncan's misgivings, war did not break out. There was a calm, contemplative patina of peaceful, loving thoughts laid over the stones themselves, left from the monks, no doubt, which seemed to extend the rule of no combat on holy ground to the various non-Immortals. That, and they had all partied so late and so well the night before, they didn't have the energy to fight.

        Out on the landside of the bridge at the abbey, the sun rose on a transformation Duncan would have sworn was impossible. The Cross Crew had performed their magic on the old abbey chapel and the surrounding grounds. Hundreds of head-high trees accented an instant parterre of gravel and bark walkways, tiny reflecting pools and beds of flowers, their pots buried beneath the bark. Even the trees were still potted, but all the plantings were so ingeniously displayed, they seemed to have been growing there forever.

        The garlands Sean and his cohorts had worked on all week where hung, widthways, across the chapel where the ceiling beams used to be. A nearly-invisible wire was strung from the nave to the entry, point-to-point, to replace the main beam and the garlands had been lifted at their centers and attached to this wire. Over the wire and the garlands, translucent parachute silk had been hung to make a new roof which washed the entire chapel with light and liquid shadows. The ground of the chapel had been pounded hard and level and carpeted in soft greens, set with beautiful brass pots of bonzaied cherry and maple and apple trees.

        An enormous hole in the northern wall, a gap of twelve feet wide with only a four foot high stack of stonework left, had been sketched in with ivy and wisteria. The same treatment, only smaller had been used on the arched windows. There were no pews as such, but simple wooden benches served, a hand lithographed "missal" for the wedding already graced the pews, every two feet along the benches. The simple stone altar on the low stone ledge in the nave was ringed and rowed with every color and kind and size of rose, from the palest peach to the deepest red, almost black, sitting in water-filled crystalline vases every shape and size, some of them a yard tall.

        At the entryway to the chapel, Duncan and Dragon and Strike had pitched two large pavillions, one for the bride and her maids, on the left, the other for the groomsmen, on the right. The old chapel had not been blessed with a vestibule, or sanctuary either for that matter, and both had been added for the wedding, using bright tents. There were other, smaller tents with open sides pitched around the garden for the wedding reception and the largest pavillion was pitched in the one other remaining ruin of the abbey, probably the refectory, though no one was sure. In any case, here Thomas would finish preparing the lavish feast he had been readying the entire week. Grant, Duncan noted, was already up, arranging the equipment in the large tent, counting silverware, puttering around with this and that, talking to himself.

        Duncan entered the garlanded bower overhanging the space between the two vestibule tents. He checked the interiors of each, mentally ticking off that each was set as it should be, mirrors, water basins, ice chests, aspirin, everything for any last minute contingencies. A little like mounting a siege, he thought. Entering the chapel proper, Duncan was surprised to find he was not alone.

        "Good morning, Mary," he bowed to the woman who would that day become his daughter.

        Mary jerked around, obviously lost in some internal meanderings. "Oh, Duncan," she remarked, "I didn't see you there. Good morning."

        "Your mother arrived this morning," Duncan sat down beside her on the last bench.

        "Yummy," Mary said, clearly wanting for a sufficient amount of sleep to soften her mood. "How is she?" She looked back down at the tiny, ragged book on her lap.

        "She's about as tired and nervous as you are," Duncan said solicitously. "What is that?" he indicated the book.

        "Oh," Mary's golden gaze drifted upwards towards the garland beams and the billowing silk. "I suppose it's a remnant of childhood, a reminder of my first image of romance. I found it this morning, looking for something old---you know, something old, something new, something borrowed--."

        "Which reminds me," Duncan dug in his back pocket and brought forth a tiny box which he traded her for the book.

        "Oh, Mr. MacLeod!" Mary's face lit up with gladness, "Oh, they're beautiful!" She gingerly lifted out the sapphire earings, tiny little blue stars. At the bottom of the box was a brass coin. "What's this?" Mary asked.

        "It's an antique sixpence, Mary. For your shoe," Duncan replied.

        "Why?"

        Duncan shook his head. "I've never been married myself, Mary, so I don't know, but it's the last line in that verse. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue, and a sixpence to put in your shoe--or something like that. For luck and prosperity, I suppose."

        She hugged him and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, Mr. MacLeod."

        "Well, I don't expect you to call me 'Dad,' Mary, but Duncan would be fine," Duncan opened her book. It was a poem by Walter Scott. One he knew well. He began to read aloud.
 

LOCHINVAR

Oh, young Lochinvar has come out of the west
Through all the wide border his steed was the best
And save his good broadsword he weapon had none
He rode all unarmed, he rode all alone
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war
There never was a knight like the young Lochinvar

He stayed not for break, and he stopped not for stone
He swam the Esk River where ford there was none
But ere he alighted the Netherby Gate
The bride had consented, the gallant came late
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war
Was to wed the fair Ellen of the young Lochinvar

So boldly he entered the Netherby hall
'mong bridesmen and kinsmen and brothers and all
Then spake the brides father his hand on his sword
(for the poor craven bridegroom said never a word)
"Oh, come ye in peace here or come ye in war
Or to dance at our bridal, young Lord Lochinvar?"

"I long wooed your daughter, my suit you denied
Love swells like the Sollaway, but ebbs like its tide
Now I have come, with this lost love of mine,
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine
There are maidens in Scotland, more lovely by far,
Who would gladly be wed to the young Lochinvar"

The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up
He quaffed off the wine and threw down the cup
She looked down to blush, she looked up to sigh
With a smile on her lips and a tear in her eye
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar
"Now tread we a measure," saith the young Lochinvar

So stately his form, so lovely her face
There ne'er in that hall such a gallard did grace
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume
And the bridesmaidens whispered, "'twere better by far
To 've matched our fair cousin with the Lord Lochinvar"

One touch to her hand and one word in her ear
When they reached the hall door the charger stood near
So light to the croup the fair lady he swung
So light to the saddle before her he sprung
"She is won.  We are gone o'er bank, bush and scar
They'll have fleet steeds that follow," quoth young Lochinvar

There was mounting 'mong Graemes of the Netherby clan
Fosters, Fenwicks and Musgraves, they rode and they ran.
There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see
So daring in love and so dauntless in war
Have you e'er heard of gallant like the young Lochinvar?
by Sir Walter Scott

 

        When he had finished, Duncan looked up to see Mary burst into tears. "Oh, Mary," Duncan gathered her to him, "I know I am not a shining knight, nor is my son, but if an old, slightly tattered Immortal and his dear son will serve, I am sure this wedding will be every bit as romantic as you have hoped it would be."

        Mary shook her bright copper tresses and rubbed her palms on the thighs of her jeans. "I just keep waiting for my heart to lift, for, for, something--. Like when Christmas comes, and at first it's just shopping, and 'Did you forget a card for Grandma?' and so forth, but then, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, your heart lifts and you feel the spirit of the season."

        "Sacred," Duncan said.

        Mary thought a moment and then she agreed, "Yes, like the difference between the sacred and the profane, the mystic and the real. I know that these rituals are mostly for the guests, the community, the social order, but I want something from this day to take away for myself."

        "I suppose Old Sean there makes a rather dim memento," Duncan invoked the spirit of his own Beloved in the tones and the phrasings of the Old Man.

        Mary began to laugh, and it was several minutes before she gasped and admitted, "There is that."

---

        Mary was still chuckling about her dear, dim memento four hours later, layered in lace, smelling like peaches and roses and nervousness. She peeked out again through the narrow gap at the corner of the tent, counting the house. There were the Villancourts, seated on the groom's side, front row. They had been the last to arrive and they had a slightly rumpled look still, though they were elegantly appointed, as if they'd just this minute gotten out of bed and were about to go back.

        Mary wondered if it would ever be like that between herself and Sean.

        She was surprised her mother had come, surprised at how worn and used up she was now, when she had always seemed so mean and indomitable. And Mary was even more surprised by how Judge Stoner, who would be presiding over this farce, had taken to Anne, had brought her breakfast and charmed the socks off her, seeing to this and that as concerned her comfort and ease.

        Mary thought her mom had lost five years since she first woke up. Mary wondered if Sean would have such a power over her. She'd even heard her mother giggle at something Tony Stoner had said. Anne, giggling. It was a wonder the earth hadn't tilted on its axis.

        And there was Mokgobja, arriving late last night, all the way from East Africa with tidings from Grace and Cassandra, and the Lion Tribe which existed in the most remote area of the continent. Not exactly Tarzan's escarpment, Mary thought, but it might as well be. Mokgo had come as emissary and prince apparent to his tribe, all seven feet of him. She found him easily in the chapel throng. Even seated, he was the tallest member there, and not discounting the fact he was so richly black of color, he seemed almost purple. He had been quite the hit at the rehearsal dinner the night before, regaling them with the story of the present he had brought, which was traditional, to the groom, to Sean. It was a tuft of lion mane. He went on and on about how they had to take the mane from a living lion. Everyone was clearly amazed...

        ...Until Mary piped up and asked how Tanuba was doing these days, and it was revealed the tuft came from a cub Mary had raised one summer and who now guarded their cows as if he were a herd dog.

        Mokgo would return to three wives, all of them doubtless longing for him even now. Mary wondered when she would begin to long for Sean that way. She searched inside of herself for such a longing, but all she found was a wistful regret that her father, yes, and Malak, were not here to see her step into her future.

        Master Cross and Grant were seating the bride side, Kyle, the groom's guests. They all looked so tidy and cute in their suits--Sean had decreed no tuxedoes. Mary had held her tongue over that. Sean really did not have a tolerance for meaningless things, romantic notions and such. Part of his humor was in making fun of pomp. Doubtless this reflected his brother Adam's cynicism. Maybe he will change, Mary thought, or maybe I will find it doesn't matter so much, in time.

        She counted the guests and waited. An unfamiliar wave of pure emotion washed over her, neither sad, nor rueful, nor blissful, nor glad. It seemed to fill her up entirely, to focus around her waiting as if it were a sacred act, and she could not fathom where the feeling came from or what on earth it meant.

        Duncan MacLeod appeared at the door of the tent. "It's about that time, Mary. How are you doing?"

        Mary didn't trust her voice. She nodded and he entered.

        Behind him, she heard Joe's lovely music, simple and fair and straight to the heart, a lighter blues about the touching things between folk before the love goes.

        But what, Mary wondered, if the love never starts? This had been such a good idea, such a sensible thing. She was so very fond of the MacLeod boy, even given the discrepancy in their ages. With Immortals, five years was hardly a difference. She just led the way and she had expected her heart to follow. What now, if it didn't? Lucille had been a welcome and kind ear to Mary's misgivings. There she was, on the groom's side, second pew. Sweet Lucille had said not to worry, that she would start down the aisle, look up, see Sean's bright face looking at her, loving her for all she was worth to him, and that would be the moment. Mary hoped so. Lucille was having a moment all her own, it seemed, head tipped slightly on her long, pale neck, gazing dreamily at the song master and his lovely lyrics, all of them written, no doubt, for her.

        Thomas and Grant made their way to the nave and took their places on the right side of the altar. Yes, Mary noted, they had put Duncan's prayer bowl as the single adornment, as she had asked, at the center of the altar stone. Sean walked into the chapel out of the sanctuary tent in through the epistle- side door, what used to be a door. The sliding and creak of several hundred guests coming to the alert made an odd counterpoint to Joe's tunes.

        Mary saw Judge Stoner, her mother on his arm, stride past the tent into the aisleway of the chapel. She took a deep, steadying breath.

        "Mary?" Duncan leaned forward, "If you are not right with this, I will be more than ready to tell our guests, you have decided to delay the ceremony, and we'll all go eat ourselves sick on Thomas' feast."

        Mary shook her head. Then a thought struck her, how could she have been so dense, so self- occupied? "Oh, Duncan, this must be awful for you!"

        Duncan started to laugh, but the sound expired into a soft sigh. He could hold strong against all else save her consideration just now. He shook his head, not wanting to pursue this.

        But Mary was already crying, "How could I be so cruel not to understand your pain?"

        Duncan reached in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, leading her over to the mirror so she could blot and fix her makeup. "Mary," he spoke from behind her to her image in the glass, "I will go after Adam when you and Sean are settled...and, yes, I am sad he is missing this. He would love it. So many straight lines and no worthy retorts. There are times," he began, by way of explaining, "when you go wounded into the field, because there is no other choice. Then you rise above your infirmity, you draw from all that you are, and if you are not victorious, then at least you died trying."

        While this may have helped Duncan to shore up his own will, it set Mary to weeping even more.

        Duncan caught the bridesmaids out of the corner of his eye as they trailed past the gap in the tent drapes. The organ that they'd hand carried across the cliff from the road, started to rumble from deep in its rich throat. He peeked out and checked. Lucille had taken her place with the maids as matron of honor, Cross and Grant and Sean were lined across from them and Stoner standing in the middle, the picture of judicial propriety, if not the essence.

        "It is now or not, Mary," Duncan returned to her. "Do you want me to stop this?" He meant it sincerely, though he had no idea how he would deal with his son if she said "yes."

        "Onto the field, then," Mary drew up tall and strong, and the dragon within her shined like the sun straight over their heads. Her weeping stopped, she blotted one last time and returned the hankie. Then she took up the tiny little book with her favorite poem and took the bouquet of pale roses from Duncan, hooking her right arm under his elbow. "Charge," she said, taking a last deep breath.

---

       Duncan walked into the sunny folly of the old abbey chapel, thinking it was probably never so well-appointed nor so well-attended as it was this holy day. Mary felt steady on his arm, though clearly she had her misgivings. But then, Duncan thought, we are talking about Sean, and he is enough to take anyone aback. He did wish he weren't dressed in red, mulberry, whatever. Too near the ancient purpose of his position as bridesman where actual fighting and bleeding were apt to occur to keep the bride safe from abduction.

        And all her childhood Mary had dreamed of such an abduction. Duncan smiled at his friends to the right, to the left. Oh, leave it to him to find something really obscure to worry about, when he should just be feeling basically miserable about Adam's departure, and not have room enough left to be sad or worried about anything else. The only problem with that was he had solemnly vowed not to weep this day, and if he thought of the Old Man, really thought of him, for more than a few seconds at a time, he felt his eyes welling up and the stricture begin to cut his throat.

        Duncan instead decided to focus on his son. There he was, the imp, standing between mahogany dark Cross and bone white Grant, looking for all the world like Neopolitan ice cream, the three of them. His attention slipped back an hour, when he had finally printed out and hand delivered the counterfeit email from Adam. Duncan had had no luck convincing Sean to pull up the email on the slate. The young man's pale blue eyes were no where near focusing after the preceding nights revelry.

        Sean had taken the paper, after Duncan had solemnly informed him that Adam wasn't coming. Sean read the note, folded it in half, folded it in quarters, and put it in his pocket. Then he threw his arms around his father, "Pop, I do so love you," he said.

        Which Duncan took to mean: even if Adam isn't here, you're here.

        But his understanding was corrected when Sean added, "So you wanted me to know that not all lies are bad things." He hadn't bought it for a minute.

        And there he was, Duncan thought, still smiling like Lucille's cat that swallered the canary. You could almost see the feathers at the edge of his charming, bright smile. Damn, the Highlander thought, as they approached the nave, now I'm going to have to be careful not to think too much about how my own dear son is about to leave as well.

        They stopped before Tony and turned towards each other. Duncan lifted the lace veil and said, just loudly enough they all overheard, "I am standing here for your father, Dr. Mark Palmer, and I give you back to yourself, Mary, that you may choose to whom you will go." Then he bent down and kissed her lightly on her forehead. Mary tucked her little book into the champagne satin sash at her waist and moved the bouquet into her left hand.

        She laid her right hand over Duncan's wide left palm and they both turned towards the altar as Sean came down the three steps, bouncing, though he practiced most of the rehearsal coming down in a more sober, stately fashion. He reached out his right hand, the wrong one, beaming like he'd just been introduced to an old and dear friend. Then  he remembered and lifted his left palm.

        Duncan transferred Mary's hand to Sean, whispering, "May God bless you and give you joy, Mary, Sean."

        He stepped back as they turned towards Stone, hand in hand, and his throat choked up sore and sad. Be happy, he demanded silently to the powers that were.

   Kyle leaned against Lucille and sobbed. Duncan wondered how the Dawson boy was going to get through life with such a soft, sweet nature. Hopefully he would find someone strong to watch over him. Someone who needed to learn all the gentle sensibilities. Joe leaned across Lucille and popped the boy lightly on his leg. For which he got slugged so hard by Mama Lucille, the Mayor nearly howled out loud.

        Duncan heard Stoner start the introductions and welcomings. He was so very good at this sort of thing, weaving them all together in a temporary family of sorts, recounting all their doings in the days preceding, setting each a place in the scheme of the thing.

        As he slipped into the front pew beside Anne, she hit him. Hard.

        "What?"

        "You can't sit here," Anne said.

        Duncan shook his head and waited.

        "There's trouble back in the groom's pavillion," Anne explained, "Someone came up and said you should go there. Right now!" she added for emphasis.

        Duncan started back down the aisle, as quietly and as quickly as he could go. What trouble? And why had he not heard someone running up behind him? Maybe it was the dull headache and the loud buzz from so many Immortals in one place. Gina and Robert, Thomas and Sean, though not yet Immortal, he had a buzz like an ancient. It was probably just as well Richie had not made it in time for the wedding. He had called two days earlier, something about an accident, he and Alexa would come as soon as the arrangements were made, but he doubted they would get there in time for the wedding.

        And Richie had been right, they would probably arrive late this evening. He promised to save them some cake.

        "What seems to be--" Duncan began as he exploded through the tent drapes. "Oh--Connor!"

        Connor put two fingers up to his lips and glanced towards the chapel.

        "Connor!" Duncan repeated in a quieter tone. "You old devil. When did you get here?" He extended his hand to the Immortal who had been his teacher, then Duncan threw respectibility to the wind and threw his arms around the elder Highlander.

        "Just got here, Son," Connor hugged him back.

        Duncan pulled back and looked Connor in the eyes. He didn't hear the answer, so much as the term that Connor used, "Really? Son? I mean, I knew, but I--"

        Connor usually laughed in a fashion like a pit viper with laryngitis. He did so now. "I guess I always thought so, Duncan. Got the proof of it two decades back, but--"

        Duncan placed his hand on Connor's shoulder and nodded, "I understand. This is so wonderful that you're here now!" Duncan knew, as they all did, that Connor was chief among the walking wounded, and had been since his fight with the Kurgen, and probably always would be. Connor kept to himself, as much for the effect he had on people, as for the effect they had on his badly torn sensitivities. Looking into Connor's eyes, Duncan was reminded of his brief sojourn in hell. He would have liked to sit quietly with his clansman, his father, and speak about the old days when the world and they were newer, but they didn't have the luxury.

        "Let's go, Duncan," Connor's reedy tones admonished.

        So, back into the chapel aisle came Duncan with his father on the groom's side, though in this instance, Duncan was standing shield for a greater kinsman, as was proper in war. Stoner stopped his pleasantries and the entire congregation turned its eyes their way.

        "I was sorry to hear about your partner," Connor's whisper hissed more than his speaking voice.

        "You know about that?" Every muscle in Duncan's body went suddenly so rigid he could hardly walk.

        "Yes," Connor said, being careful not to look anyone straight in the eyes.

        "You disapprove?" Duncan asked.

        "Damn right, Duncan," Connor answered, "Not enough you always get the best girls, now you get the best man."

        Duncan halted and stared at his father.

        "I have known your friend longer than you, Son," Connor sighed, "And he always said no to me."

        They started walking again. In a few short words, Connor had taken away his bastardy and his shame. Duncan could hardly breathe.

        "Is there anything I can do to help?" Connor asked as they neared the bride, groom, and judge.

        "You can help me find Adam after this is over," Duncan answered.

        Connor just smiled and his eyes wrinkled warmly at their edges. He nodded, but did not move.

        "What is it?" Duncan asked when Connor did not move to be seated.

        Connor extended his hand, "If you think I'm going to draw back your veil and kiss you on the forehead, you are likely to be disappointed, Duncan."

        "What?"

        "You wanted me to help you find Adam," Connor said reaching down for Duncan's right hand and shaking it. "'Tis done, and done." He pointed up to the nave. "May God bless you and give you joy, Son."

        Connor left Duncan standing there, dazed, and took his seat beside Anne where they leaned together and smiled, having brought off their part in Sean's wedding gift. Duncan jerked his gaze up to the place where Connor had pointed. The congregation held its breath, knowing full well, of course, what the Highlander would discover but not knowing exactly the reaction he would have.

        It was to Duncan's credit that he remained standing, the revelation was so unexpected. Adam stood there, smiling like a madman, his hair done in bright chestnut, full and long, with the tiniest beard framing his mouth. He was the sweetest sight, Duncan thought, that he could ever pray to see. And he has come back to me, the devil, and that demonic son of mine knew it all along. No wonder he tipped to the email so fast. And then he just could not muster the will to stop the sudden swell of his heart and the fall of the tears down his face.

        Then Adam was down the stairs beside him, leaning against him and saying something funny which he could not hear, pushing him over to stand by Mary, as the ceremony proceeded. Duncan would argue later that he should have stood on the other side, but at this moment he would not have been lucid enough to recite his own name, had he been pressed to do so. He heard Stoner begin again, heading into the marriage proper. Duncan still could not hear the words. He heard Gina sobbing, two pews behind him to the left. He heard Lucille sniffing and gulping one pew to the right. He heard the distant pounding of thunder and wondered if the rain would beat them to the end of the ceremony.

        But all he could feel was the anguish of the separation, not two strides, between himself and his heart.

        The ceremony came, as he knew it must, to the part where they were to speak their vows. Duncan thought he was beginning to hear the words, but he still couldn't make out their meanings. Well, not the specific meanings. The look on his son's face pretty much said everything about his love for the woman, Mary, without a word spoken. All the while the thunder grew louder in the distance and Duncan worried about the rain.

        Then it was their turn and Adam went first. "I could say I love you for the simple things, like getting up first in the morning and making coffee," Adam began. "but you make the worst coffee in the civilized world. So I shall be content with making the coffee myself and appreciate all those lesser attributes of yours like honor and justice and courage and devotion. Petty things, to be sure, and of dubious utility, but they would not be known to me were it not for you."

        "Were it not for you, I would be without gladness," Adam continued.

        "Were it not for you, I would be without joy."

        "Were it not for you, I would be without life."

        "Be my life, this life, with me, forever," Adam nodded and folded his graceful hands together, waiting.

        The throng waited. They were all so used to Adam's rhythms that they somehow thought a punch line would be forthcoming, but it wasn't.

        Duncan stepped towards Adam, something he had willed himself not to do the entire service up to now. He reached out.

        "No," Adam whispered, "You have to say something first. Anything at all. I love you will do."

        "I am not a man of words," Duncan said, almost conversationally, directly to Adam. "And I have driven you away with my words, and hurt you with my words, and I don't want that to happen again. I want--" but really, Duncan thought, what did he want? "I have all that I want. My friends, my son, my new daughter, and--" he swallowed back the swelling in his throat. "And if you will have me, I should never want for anything else, ever. And if I shut up now, then maybe I'll have a chance at that."

        "I now pronounce you," Stoner intoned, "husband and wife," and nodding to Duncan and Adam, "and husband and husband." He hadn't really thought about altering the last line of the wedding, so he did it on the fly, as it were, "You may now do whatever seems appropriate to some nice person nearest you."

        Which brought the congregation into a great gale of laughter as one and all complied with the judicial order.

        Mary brought her arm up across Sean's chest and reminded him they had agreed on no passionate display, just a mannerly peck. "I wouldn't want either of us embarrassed, Sean," she said by way of recalling their agreement.

        Duncan stepped up to Adam so forcefully, he nearly knocked the lanky man over backward. "Prepare to be mortally embarrassed," Duncan announced as he wrapped his large arms around Adam's long torso.

        "Just be careful of the weaves," Adam whispered, "they cost me an arm and a leg, and they were a bitch to---Mmmm." Whatever he might have said was lost in the press of warm, soft lips, and light, teasing tongue.

        The embarrassment was not evident round the old chapel, though blushes abounded and the guests and celibrants cast the ruin into absolute silence, except for the rumble of the approaching storm, nearly on them from the sound of it.

        Duncan might have remained in this embrace forever, but he knew the beautiful parachute silk would be no protection from the rain and that getting the guests to the open pavillions for the reception dinner was a pressing priority. He let Adam go and stepped back, glancing up at Mary whose face was first admiring and then shocked as the wind blew into the chapel through the place in the east wall that had been rebuilt with ivy and flowers.

        Duncan wheeled and saw, not the wind, but an enormous black blur exploding through the hole in the east chapel masonry, tearing the ivy and pounding to the ground with the sound of...

        ...thunder.

        Many things happened then, all at once, all at great speed.

        Connor bolted into the aisle and was cut down beneath the horse's charge.

       The Villancourts rose as one, swords drawn. Gina took the bride's side guests and Robert the groom's, moving them back away from charging black destrier coming down the aisleway, scattering benches and igniting the carpet through rents where his shod hooves struck the stones beneath and sent up sparks.

        Grant dove for the weaponry which they had cached beneathed the altar. They had not anticipated this use for the brightly polished blades. They were there to honor the wedding couple, to form an arch of their swords as they left the chapel. He tossed Cross' sword to him and the katana to Duncan who had moved far back in the Nave, pushing the bride behind him. Sean took the golden sword that was Adam's pride and joy, and Grant brought out his own long blade, a monster of steel and edge and weight.

        At the same time as the rider bolted through the wall, Adam knew who the rider was--Malak--what his purpose--Mary--and the manner of his assault. He called out this last, but no one immediately understood what he was saying, "He's desecrating the ground!"

        Clearly evident to all was that this young man, muscled and fair, was charging an enormous black war horse straight down the aisleway. Both his forearms were cut and bleeding from elbow to wrist, the blood flowing into his hands whence he threw it before the path of the horse, sending up eery blue sparks that reeked of sulfur.

        Adam ignored Grant's offer of his sword and took Duncan's prayer bowl from the altar, asking Cross about the water it contained. Only distilled from the kitchen tent came the answer. Adam took the bowl with him to the back wall. He began chanting in what seemed to be mispronounced ecclesiastical Latin, but which was really the authentic version of the same.

         In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Intríobo ad altáre Dei...

        Malak reached down to his right boot top as he reared the stallion before the Nave ledge. There was a whistle as Adam whipped away and turned his back to the thin sharp throwing dagger. The second dagger headed for Sean, standing to the right of the altar with Adam's sword held high above his right shoulder. The young groom's fine reflexes did not serve him well in this instance. Instead of the clean, nearly painless kill that Malak meant by the throw, Sean's quick move left resulted in a deep, sucking chest wound. He would be out of the fray, but in pain and dying the whole while.

        Adam knew his brother was hit, but he never ceased the invocation, speaking faster and faster over the water in the bowl.

         Asperges me Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.

        Duncan tucked Mary behind him again with his left arm, his right bearing the katana before them both. He could not go to his son, now whimpering on the floor by the altar.

        Cross moved forward and then hesitated, seeing the Father of All Horses. He found himself standing between the two men he loved most in his entire life, and it was beyond him who he should defend and who he should assault. Malak's other student was lost in the hypnotic drone of his own chant.

        Misere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.

        The next dagger found its mark, flying straight to the center of Cross' fractured heart and his indecision was reconciled. Grant charged the horseman and Malak wheeled his destrier and let the horse's back hooves send Grant smashing senseless against the back stone wall of the Nave.

        In this same time, the Villancourts managed to empty the chapel and return to stand with Lucille and Kyle and Joe, who refused to leave. Robert placed Kyle behind him and Gina took over guarding the Dawsons, who were Powers both and not nearly as susceptible to fatal injuries as their mortal son.

        Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto, Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Asperges me, Domine, hyssopo, et mundabor: lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor.

        Malak dismounted and strode towards the altar across from Adam, still murmuring the Latin.

        Emitte lucem tuam et veritatem tuam: ipsa me deduxerunt et adduxerunt in montem sanctum tuum, et  in tabernacula tua.

        Malak raised both his bloody forearms over the altar stone and brought them down upon it. The entire Nave lit with a pale incandescance for a few seconds and then the glow faded. Adam never looked up, never left off his prayer over the bowl and the water within.

        Exaudi nos, Domine, sanctae Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus : et mittere digneris sanctum Angelum tuum de caelis, qui custdiat, foveat, protegat, vistet, atque defendat omnes habitantes in hoc habitaculo. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.

        Duncan pushed Mary to the wall and told her to stay there while he went forward to meet Malak. He glanced back to see that she had followed his order and was surprised to see the bright flush on her cheeks, the fevered sparkling in her gild eyes. She must be beyond herself with fear, he thought.

        And who could say what had gotten into Adam? Duncan knew better than to reprimand him now, or to make him join the fight if he were not so disposed.

        Malak reached over his shoulder and drew forth his own sword from the scabbard strapped on his back. Duncan groaned inwardly. He'd gone up against that blade before, or at least a smaller cousin. Ram was wielding it then, and she had been pregnant at the time. Duncan steadied his nerves and he reviewed what he knew about the strange Danaan blade and the way that they fought with it.

        Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beatae Mariae semper Virgini, beato Michaeli Archangelo,

        Duncan heard Adam begin the Confiteor, and the irony of the invocation to the angels did not escape him. They had all they could do with this single angel. They really didn't need to call up any more, he thought.

        Malak started spinning the heavy, wide blade and it began to whistle and then to ring in higher and higher tones. Duncan thought about the last round he'd had with a smaller version of this sword. He'd ended with his hair cut and his insight refurbished. He did not think Malak would be caring to do either this time around. The significance of the blood began to dawn on the Highlander. The blood and what Adam had said about desecrating the ground--Malak had desanctified the chapel with his own blood. The Danaan could not enter or stand upon Holy Ground. He'd used the horse to enter, used his dragon's blood to make the ground before him unholy, until he reached the altar and besmirched the entire chapel.

        And Adam was frantically sanctifying the water in the bowl to consecrate the tiny church again.

        Otherwise, Duncan thought, I might very well leave my head and my life in this place. His portion of this was to stall Malak until Adam could finish the spell--blessing, he corrected himself. His one advantage was that Malak did not wear the arm guards like his female alter ego was wont to do. He could not be bouncing the blade to reverse the arc as quickly as she had. But he was so much stronger than Ram, this was probably not going to be a big advantage at that.

        mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

        Oh, that's for sure, Duncan agreed with the "my fault, my fault," part of the Confiteor. Malak moved foward easily, in a balanced glide, meeting the katana's blade so hard, Duncan almost lost his grip as the tingling of the impact traveled up the length of his arm and rattled his teeth. He knew how to intersect the arc of the spin and how to attack away from the blade's path, because its great weight really took a concentrated and directional balance on the part of the wielder. But Duncan misjudged Malak's incredible athleticism which fully compensated the awkward, but deadly, blade. In a final pass, Malak drew him in, pulling Duncan off balance forward, and delivering an explosive, unexpected left to Duncan's solid jaw, which dropped the Scot like the proverbial rock.

        Malak stepped over Duncan's senseless body and took Mary around her waist, lifting her up and calling to the stallion. He mounted the bride on the stallion and turned back towards Duncan, raising his sword above the Highlander's vulnerable neck.

        In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti. Amen.

        Adam filled his hand and showered the Danaan. The entire Nave filled immediately with sulfurous smoke and the smell of brimstone, and the sound of Malak howling. The Danaan staggered out of the smoke and leaped behind Mary onto the destrier. Adam stumbled down the steps into the aisle and threw the entire contents of the bowl after him, but it was too late. Malak gained the doorway and he was gone with the bride in a shower of sparks and curses.

        Despite Lucille's quick jab, Joe shouted, "Jeesuz, Adam, could you just have done that a little more slowly?" At least he'd kept Malak from taking Mac's head.

        Adam turned his face toward the Watcher and started to smile. A gout of blood poured suddenly from his lips and he fell, face forward onto the torn carpet. Malak's blade, buried to the hilt still sheathed itself in the Elder Immortal's back.

        Robert de Villancourt went to Sean, still whimpering on the floor of the Nave, by the altar. He was fighting for air and moaning with every exhalation. The wound had collapsed one lung and was fast compromising the second. Robert sat down beside the MacLeod heir and lifted Sean's shoulders and head into his lap. He told the lad to be still and to relax, that relief would be immediately forthcoming. And Sean did stop moaning, though his fight for air became more desperate.

        With a motion fast as thought, Robert removed the blade and placed it where Malak had intended it to go, deep in Sean's heart.