Beneath a Dark Highland Sky: Book #3 (5 page)

They both laughed as Sorcha began to hastily braid her own hair, a difficult task, for it was wavy and thick, a shiny, rich red-brown like her mother’s had been. As a child, she’d tried to sleep with a nightcap but it had always wiggled loose and fallen off by morning. There seemed to be no cap that could contain her unruly tresses so she’d stopped wearing one. She’d often wished she’d had shiny, black hair like her brothers.

Nessa sighed. “Ye dunna ha’e the bearing of a maid, Sorcha. I think it will be difficult to convince
anyone
yer a servant, even dressed as one. Ye ha’e a regal, confident way about ye. A commanding way.”

“Are ye saying I am domineering?” Sorcha’s deep green eyes were playful, her smile teasing.

“Och, nay, ne’er that,” Nessa teased. “Just that yer as stubborn as a wild bull.”

Sorcha sighed. Her face was proud and expressive and there was no help for it. And she was stubborn. Yet would she have to act the part; she would have to play the ever humble and gracious servant while that hideous Maclean oaf was under her roof.

“The powerful Highlander willna be easily fooled,” she said. “But mayhap we can convince him that, despite yer beauty, his betrothed is a hateful, intolerable, ill-mannered shrew. At the vera worst, if our ruse is discovered and the marriage to me is still forced, I can make his life so hellish that mayhap he will choose to spend most of his time on Maclean land and forget all about me and this keep.” She looked at Nessa and smiled. “This could e’en be
amusing
.”

Nessa did not look amused. “What
will
happen to me if we are discovered?” she said quietly. “Will the Highlander cut off my head and drink my blood from my skull?”

“Nessa, I will take all blame and all…punishment.”

“I ha’e always thought ye the bravest person I’ve e’er known. Ye get yer bravery from yer Da, God rest his soul. What does it feel like to be that brave?”

“I am nae brave. I am practical.”

Sorcha missed her father Murry sorely. Murry was a cousin to William Douglas, Eighth Earl of Douglas. Sixteen years ago, James the Second had invited William to dine with him at Stirling Castle. But the hot-headed and suspicious James accused William of conspiracy in his dealings with Yorkists in England and through a pact made between Douglas, the Earl of Crawford and the Lord of the Isles.

In the ensuing argument, James stabbed William twenty-six times and then he and one of his guards threw open the wooden shutters below a glass window and hoisted their victim through it. His bloodied and broken body had landed on the cobbles of the courtyard far below.

Sorcha’s father’s keep had never been on a scale that could be compared to an earl’s, but the keep was well run and maintained despite all its inhabitants had lost after Arkinholm. After that battle, many of the Black Douglas clans had never risen to their previous statuses. It was due to Sorcha’s astute management and strength that her father’s keep had not fallen into disrepair or become a sad place with a musty smell of neglect.

The rushes were changed frequently, the chores done regularly and promptly by the servants, and there was not a cup or bowl out of place. Sorcha had had to keep herself busy or she feared she would not be able to go on. She learned as much as she could and discovered a strength and skills that surprised her. And through it all, she continued to care for her brother Gillis, who since that battle thirteen years ago, did not speak. Sorcha could well imagine the horrors he had experienced, for she’d walked many a battlefield herself, witnessed the bodies strewn on the ground, men and horses broken and bloodied, crows flapping away as they were approached.

She’d seen the broken lances and spears, men using whatever they could to shovel out hasty graves in the boggy ground—swords, dirks, helmets, and breastplates—and binding together hawthorn wood with ring rope in the shape of a cross. But Gillis had seen far worse. He ne’er spoke of anything since that awful day, his ghost-gray eyes haunted still. He wandered the grounds of the keep, mostly taking care of the animals, feeling more comfortable among the chickens, sheep, and horses than among his own clansmen.
Sometimes we ha’e so much we wish to say that we canna find a way to say it at all,
Sorcha thought.

Gillis had not had an easy life. When he was a child of six summers, he got too close to a boiling pot and part of his face was burned as he knocked it over. There were clan members who poked fun of Gillis after Arkinholm and that angered Sorcha. “More know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows!” they’d chant when they saw him. Sorcha prayed for Gillis often, though she did not spend much time in the small chapel near the keep. She often prayed when she was walking alone in the woods or lying on a carpet of heather and grass, watching clouds drift silently across the sky. Wherever it was most quiet—in the shadows of moss-covered mountains or pulling herbs from the soggy ground—was where she prayed and made her vows. She would always care for and protect Gillis, for there was no one else to do it now.

The Douglas property included south-facing grassy slopes and open woodland, places Sorcha and her brothers had explored many times as children. In the center was a square stone keep of several stories with angled turrets. It was an imposing structure and all she’d ever known. She had many good memories here and she would fight to hold on to them. There was no way to replace her father and mother or the brothers she had lost, no way around the emptiness she felt without them, but it was for them that she had done all she had done as she’d grown into a woman. She had vowed to make her father proud, and she’d kept that vow.

The worn deer skin mats were shaken out every day. Fires were lit daily to disperse the chill. Items stored in the vaulted basement were carefully monitored to make sure blankets, plaids, and clothing would never be in short supply. ‘Twas the same for the kitchens and larders. Clouds of smoke rose from the great hearth as meals were prepared and everyone was fed. Salt, candles, and needles were always on hand. There was nothing decayed or ruinous about the keep; a caring woman’s touch saw to everything. She was even careful with ledgers and had managed to reduce some of the estate’s debts.

The land itself boasted orchards and stables, good pasture, and scattered woodland, with gurgling burns and beautiful views northward over the islanded firth to the Lothian coast, and far further to the Norse Sea itself. There was the familiar sight of towering stone cliffs stained with white bird droppings, and the beach, where seals and fowl sometimes alighted. There were the caves she’d played in as a child, with their smooth, sculpted sides and colorful, dazzling ceilings of purple and green lights, though one had to be careful when the tide came in not to be caught inside.

The familiar sights and sounds of her home.
Now an arrogant Maclean Highlander thought he could just stride in, years after the battle of Arkinholm on the decree of a now-dead king, take command of her home and her clan, marry her, and force her to bear him sons.

No one in the keep wanted to see the Maclean as its laird.
No one.
Sorcha trusted all to play their parts in this ruse. But they would all have to be careful. The things she’d heard about the Maclean made her shiver.

He came from a long line of Highland warriors who seemed to have no fear in their hateful bones and whose prowess with swords and arrows was well known all along the misty coasts of Scotland. People said he drank the blood of his enemies from their hollowed out skulls, just as his father had, a man they called the Black Wolf. As a boy, Malcolm Maclean had legendary visions that had aided a king.
Legendary visions about her own clan’s defeat.

The Douglas clan, what was left of it, was stubborn and brave. The Maclean would discover that soon enough.

Kendrew, clan huntsman, often told her she was braver even than her brothers had been, that she was more like her father in temperament than Tavish and Gordon, and they had both been very brave lads. He taught her how to play chess, string a bow, and hunt game in the woods. After Murry died, Kendrew had become like a father to her. His wife Margaret was a kindly, patient woman who had no children of her own. Kendrew and Margaret felt the loss of her father, mother, and brothers almost as much as Sorcha did, and both cared particularly for Gillis.

She remembered vividly a spring day when her father and brothers had prepared to go to battle. She had thrown her small arms around her father, burying her face in his rough plaid, beseeching him not to go. It turned out to be the battle they would not return from, the battle of Arkinholm. Before he’d departed, he’d said, “I ha’e cheated death many times, lass. And if for some reason I dunna do so this time, remember, a Douglas doesna die in his bed. Dunna fear so. ‘Tis better to ha’e a brave death if death it must be. And if all is lost, ye must carry on bravely here and make me proud.”

Now Sorcha managed the keep as expertly as her mother Lizbeth had before she’d sunk into despair and drowned herself. And while Sorcha didn’t possess her brothers’ physical strength, she handled a dirk and bow almost as well as they had.

She would need to be bold to fight for what was hers, and she was ready.

She was restless, in fact. She only had a few hours of freedom left, a few hours to truly be Sorcha Douglas. It would all change when the Highlander strode arrogantly into her keep.

She was not going to spend those hours pacing in her bedchamber. All was nearly ready for the laird’s arrival and the evening meal.

She changed into trews and a tunic that reached to just below her knees, belting it with a leather belt, and slipped calf-length leather boots onto her feet. She would go hunting. For now, she would leave the silver ring her mother had given her on her finger. It would be one of the last things she removed before meeting her
betrothed.
One of the last traces of Sorcha Douglas to disappear.

5

The small Douglas keep was strongly cited above a bend in the river that emptied itself into the heaving sea.

Malcolm had expected to see a fortalice half in ruination, ill-cared for and neglected after all these years, its inhabitants harassed by border families and barely able to defend themselves. But the keep looked well-minded. He frowned as he studied it. He had not looked forward to this day. What would he find inside? An untidy, disorderly mess? A clan that hated him and did not welcome his intrusion? An unwilling, hateful bride-to-be?

He’d put this day off as long as he could. He knew virtually nothing about Sorcha Douglas. There would be no traditional hand fasting, no trial marriage for a year and a day.

He had not been ready to take a bride two years ago, when he could have claimed her, and he wasn’t ready now. But he’d run out of time. He could no longer put the day off without drawing royal ire.

He wanted to remain his own man, choose his own wife. A long-ago vision and a decree by a quick-tempered king with proclivities toward violence had changed all of that. Still, James the Second had granted him Douglas land and that was nothing to scoff at.

Malcolm and his war advisor Nathair rode slightly ahead of a larger party of Maclean men. Malcolm had not dressed in any sort of finery; he preferred to journey in traveling clothes. His plaid was not pinned at his throat with a jeweled brooch and it was not belted. It was wrapped over one shoulder and under the opposite arm. Beneath his plaid he wore a simple leine and trews. Like the other men, a large, warlike sword hung over his shoulder. His leather boots were damp and mud-spattered
.
There was nothing to distinguish him as the leader of the party, but all men took his orders without question. He did not need refined, bejeweled clothing to command or to inspire loyalty.

As the horses continued southwards, circling a steep brae and steeper braes to the right, then going west, they eventually found lower ground to the east. The land was marshy, and in a deep-sided small valley they passed an old mill that was a jumble of timber and stone beside a fast-moving burn. The water swirled over great slabs of polished granite and was almost black in the harsh afternoon sunlight.

It was late spring but the air held a chill. Malcolm was glad they’d made good progress on the journey because rivers and burns could fill quickly after a rain storm and cut you off from your destination, and peat bogs and rocks were difficult and exhausting to climb over.

Malcolm watched the water, remembering Douglas clan ancestors had taken their name from a fabled black stream.
Dubh-glas
was a Gaelic phrase that meant “black stream.” At present, his mood was as black as the waters.

He and Nathair continued to ride several hundred yards ahead of the others, reigning in their powerful chargers on a hill beneath a cluster of trees, staring at the keep and a great jutting headland beyond that looked like a proud, curled fist shaken in the face of all enemies who approached to the west. Malcolm thought of the day he’d been summoned to meet James of the Fiery Face, when he was eight years old. He remembered the vision that had sadly come to pass. He had told James not to pull the lion’s tail and the king had laughed. “I
am
the Lion!” he’d said. The Lion Rampant of Scotland, a king who sat the most ancient throne in all of Christendom.

Five summers after that fateful meeting in Edinburgh castle when the king had surrounded himself with fortune tellers, astrologers, and others who’d claimed to know his future, James had laid siege to Roxburgh Castle, one of the last castles still held by the English at the time. He brought along the artillery he so admired, imported from Flanders, and indeed had lost his life when one of the cannons he was standing next to—a cannon they called “The Lion”—exploded upon firing.
“’Tis nae a man that will kill James the Second in five summers,” Malcolm had told his parents, “’Tis a lion.”

The gun required hundreds of men and at least fifty oxen to move it. ‘Twas said the unexpected explosion rent the air and struck the wet, muddied grass like a great war hammer, mangling the king’s face and snapping his thigh bone in two. He’d died almost instantly.

              Malcolm had never wanted to see these things in his dreams. He thought of Thomas Rhymer, a Seer born from Celtic mists in the year 1220. “True Thomas” had also seen the death of a king in a vision, Alexander the Third of Scotland.
Alexander died in a fall from his horse while riding in the dark to visit the queen at Kinghorn in Fife in the year 1286. He had spent the evening at Edinburgh Castle celebrating his second marriage and meeting with royal advisors. He was advised not to make the journey to Fife because of weather conditions, but travelled anyway. He tumbled down a steep, rocky embankment in the dark.

It was rumored True Thomas
had a passionate affair with the Fairy Queen, going off to live in Elfland, deep in the Eildon Hills in the Scottish borders. Malcolm’s own marriage was certain to be a passionless disappointment, just one of many marriages arranged for political reasons—because he had once predicted victory in battle for a now-dead king.

              “The frown ye wear makes ye look downright menacing,” Nathair said, his sleekly muscled horse antsy to move again, snorting and pawing at the sodden ground. “Our laird need nae fear marriage as long as the wench is comely and sees to the laird’s e’ery need, as yer bonny sister sees so expertly to mine.”

              “Ye tread on dangerous ground, my friend,” Malcolm said, but a smile threatened to crest his lips. “Dunna speak so of Andreana. If I didna ken how much ye loved and cherished her, ye’d find the point of my sword at yer throat.”

              “E’er the protective brother. But I do love her madly. Ye ken I am loyal to two things—a good woman and a good war. And soon Andreana will give birth to my first child. But let us talk of the Douglas wench, who has been commanded by a king to marry the Maclean and spread her legs whene’er….”

              “Yer nae vera
observant
soldiers, are ye?”

              Both men looked up, following the sound of a voice high above them in a tree. A girl sat in the tree, holding a bow and arrow, and the arrow was trained on Malcolm.

              “And ye talk rudely of yer laird’s bride-to-be.” She cast her glance in the direction of the men approaching over the hill. “Which one is he? Which one is yer laird?”

Malcolm studied her face. There was determination and mischief in her deep green eyes and her dark auburn hair flowed down her back in a single braid. The sun caught threads of gold in the silken mass. On closer inspection, he saw she was not a girl but a woman, dressed oddly in trews and a belted tunic, leather boots on her small feet. She was some sort of servant. But what was she doing in a tree with a weapon of war?

Her quiver was no poor instrument. It was a well-made bag of linen stretched with a frame and secured at the neck with laces. The bow was sturdy, made of yew and strung with hemp. There was a flash of silver and he noted a ring on her finger, also curious for a servant.

“What lady allows her female servant the privilege of hunting?” Nathair challenged. “Or mayhap the hunting is a ruse, and ye seek another kind of pleasure? A tumble in the woods with one of the Maclean men? After all, yer hair is nae covered.”             

“I dunna seek anything so vulgar as lying with a
Maclean
. Blonde oaf, do ye e’er see a man wear a cap when he hunts? My lady doesna care if my hair is nae covered and she allows me to hunt because I am just as good as a man with bow and arrow. Would ye like to find out how accurate my aim is?”

Nathair laughed outright. “Yer lady Sorcha Douglas has some foolish notions, lass.”

Both men, upon seeing she was female, relaxed their guards. Sorcha tested the tension of the string. She sighted the blonde-haired man and drew a breath. “I could easily put an arrow in yer arrogant hides, and that would be most displeasing to yer laird, would it nae?”

              “Aye,” Malcolm said. “That would be most displeasing to our…laird. Most displeasing, indeed. In fact, he would no doubt feel compelled to make ye sew up any wound ye inflicted.” He challenged the sprite with his intense amber eyes and she repositioned the bow so the arrow was once again trained on him.

              “Tell me, sprite, ha’e ye e’er pulled an arrow shaft from a man’s bare, bleeding buttocks and sewn up the wound?” He laughed at the blush that rose to her cheeks. “Maids are more used to mending worn garments by the fire, are they nae? Perhaps a ratty linen shift or some threadbare hose? Yet would I guess sewing is nae one of yer favorite pastimes.”

              “I wonder if she’s e’er actually fired that bow,” Nathair said.

              “Yer vera close to finding out, Highlander.”