Highland Lover: Book 3 Scottish Knights Trilogy (46 page)

Chapter 1

Scotland, East Coast of Loch Long, 1425

D
ree, what’s amiss?” sixteen-year-old Lady Muriella MacFarlan demanded as she stopped her spinning wheel and pushed a strand of flaxen hair out of her face.

Her nineteen-year-old sister, tawny-haired Andrena, had stiffened on her stool near the fireplace in the ladies’ solar at Tùr Meiloach. Now, eyes narrowed, head atilt, listening, but with every sense alert, Andrena set aside the mending that she loathed, remaining silent.

“Dree?”

Standing, holding a finger up to command silence, Andrena moved with her usual athletic grace to the south-facing window, its shutters open to let in the fresh, sun-warmed afternoon air, which was particularly welcome after the previous night’s fierce storm. She could see over the barmkin wall to the steep, forested hillside below and other hills rolling beyond it to the declivity through which the river marking their south boundary plunged into the Loch of the Long Boats and on to the sea.

When Muriella drew breath to speak again, the third person in the room, their eighteen-year-old sister,
Lachina, said quietly, “Murie, dearling, contain your curiosity in silence for once. When Dree knows what is amiss, she will tell us.” After the briefest of pauses, and not much to Andrena’s surprise, Lachina added, “
Is
someone approaching the tower, Dree?”

“Perhaps not approaching,” Andrena said. “But the birds seem distressed. I think someone has entered our south woods—a stranger—nay, more than one.”

“Can you see who they are?” Muriella demanded, resting her spindle in its cradle and moving to stand beside Andrena at the window.

“I cannot see through the trees,” Andrena said. “But it must be more than one person and likely fewer than four. You can see for yourself that the hawks are soaring in a tight circle yonder in the distance. And, if you look higher, you’ll see an osprey soaring above them. I’m going outside to have a closer look.”

In the same quiet way that she had spoken to Muriella, Lachina said, “Mayhap you should tell our lord father, Dree, or Malcolm.”

“What would you have me tell them?” Andrena said with a slight smile. “Do you think either of them would send men out to search for intruders merely because I say the birds are unsettled?”

Lachina grimaced. They had had such discussions before, and both of them knew the answer to her question. Andrew Dubh MacFarlan would trust his men to stop intruders, and Andrew’s steward, Malcolm Wily, would look long-suffering and declare that no one was there. By the time he decided, for the sake of peace, to send men out to look, there would
be
no one. Andrena had suggested once that perhaps their men had made more noise than the
intruders did, but her father had said only that if that was so, her intruders had fled, which was the most desirable outcome.

“I’m going out,” Andrena said again.

“Surely, men on the wall will see anyone coming,” Muriella said as she peered into the distance. “Our boundary rivers are still in full spate, Dree. No one can cross them. And if anyone were approaching elsewhere, our lads would ring the bells. I think those birds are soaring just as they usually do.”

“They are perturbed,” Andrena said. “I shan’t be long.”

Her sisters exchanged a look, but although she noted the exchange, she did not comment. She knew that neither one would insist on accompanying her.

An instinct that she rarely ignored urged her to make what speed she could without drawing undue attention to herself. Therefore, she hurried down the service stairs, deciding not to change from her green tunic and skirt into the deerskin breeks and jack that she usually favored for her rambles. It occurred to her that she would have no excuse, having announced that strangers had entered the woods, to say that she had not thought anyone outside the family would see her in the boyish garb.

Andrew did not care what his daughters wore, but he did care when one of them distressed their mother, who had already deemed the breeks shameful. And her mossy green dress
would
blend well with woodland shrubbery.

From a rack near the postern door, she took her favorite wool cap and twisted her long tawny plaits up inside it. Then she donned the gray woolen shawl hanging next to it and grabbed the dirk that had hung by its belt under the shawl.

Fastening the belt so the weapon lay concealed beneath
the shawl, and leaving her rawhide boots where they lay on the floor, she went outside barefoot and crossed the yard to the narrow postern gate.

Three of the dogs, anticipating a walk, sprang up and ran to meet her.

Catching two by their collars, she said to the wiry redheaded lad eyeing her as he raked wood chips near the gate, “You’ll have to keep them in for now, Pluff. If anyone should inquire about me, I’m going for a walk. But I don’t want to have to keep the dogs from disturbing the woodland creatures.”

“Aye, m’lady,” the boy said with a gap-toothed grin. Setting aside the rake, he ordered the dogs back to their naps and unbolted the gate for her, adding, “Just shout when ye get back and I’ll let ye in.”

Smiling her thanks, she went through the gateway, hearing the heavy gate thud shut and then Pluff shooting the bolts. Looking skyward as she crossed the clearing between the barmkin and the woods, she saw that the circling birds had drawn nearer. Whoever was there was moving uphill toward their tower.

Looking over her shoulder, she saw one of their men on the wall and waved.

He waved back.

Satisfied that her sisters and at least two of the men knew she was outside the wall, she hurried into the woods. She had her dirk and the wee pipe she always carried in a pocket that Lina had cunningly woven for it in the shawl. Thanks to Andrew’s teaching, Andrena was skilled with the dirk and, if necessary, could use the pipe to summon aid. Since she did not expect anyone in the woods to see her, she doubted that she would need help.

He was out of breath from running, but he knew that while pelting away from his pursuers he’d left evidence of his flight for a regrettable distance before he’d been far enough ahead of them to take precautions. As it was, he needed to find cover quickly and catch his breath. That his pursuers had lacked dogs to set on his trail was a rare boon from the ever fickle Fates.

He had been both careless and foolhardy, and it irked him. To have scaled the cliff from the stormy loch had been sensible, since he had seen no way in the pitch darkness to get safely away from the loch. The place he had come ashore had provided naught to warn him that he could travel no farther south without fording the damned river, which plunged to the loch in a hurtling waterfall.

To be sure, he had seen the land hereabouts from the water and knew how steep it was. He had seen the high, sharp ridge of peaks beyond it, too. But although the falls were full even then, he had assumed he’d be able to cross the river.

Apparently, one could, if one had the means. But after climbing up from the shore, he had seen how the river raged through its bed, tumbling over boulders and rocks as it went—too deep to ford and too wide and turbulent to swim safely.

He was well away from the river now, deep in ancient woods—a magnificent mixture of tall beeches, oaks, thickly growing conifers, and where it was dampest, spindly birches and willows. The woodsy scents filled him with a heady sense of freedom, but his pursuers were not far enough behind him yet for safety.

Although he had not entered such woodland for nineteen long months, he had hunted from the time he could keep up with his father, and he knew that he had retained his skills, even heightened some of them. Quietly drawing deep breaths and releasing them slowly as he moved, he forced himself to relax and bond with the forest while he listened and waited for the forest creatures to speak to him.

It occurred to him then that although he had moved more carefully and in near silence for the past quarter-hour, the denizens of the forest had remained remarkably still. He had not listened for them earlier, knowing that the roar of the river would conceal them and being more concerned about his pursuers.

A hawk cried above. An osprey responded with its shrill whistle, declaring the woods its territory, although it would have more luck catching fish from the nearby Loch of the Long Boats and ought more sensibly to leave the woodland to the hawks, who were better suited for hunting in them.

Thought ceased when he sensed someone moving as silently as he was through the woods north of him. Had one of the devils got round him? Was one south now and the others north? He had seen only three men earlier on the far side of the devilish river. They had swung across it on a rope tied to a high, stout branch of an ancient beech rooted in what had looked from a distance like solid rock.

The three carried swords and dirks. He had recognized them easily and knew they were searching for him. A soughing of leaves above him drew his glance to a female goshawk on a higher branch. The canopy above her was dense, but he knew that hawks, even big ones like the gos, with two-foot wingspans, were perfectly at home in
the Highland woods. He had occasionally delighted in watching one take prey by flying between trees that had left insufficient room for it and at such speed that, to fit through, the bird seemed to fold wings and body into a thinly compressed arrowlike shape and do it without missing a single sweeping beat.

The hawk above him fixed one fierce yellow eye on him. Then, as if that glance were all it required, it opened its wings and swooped down and away.

He eyed the gos’s erstwhile perch. It was high, but in the dense canopy above it a man might rest unseen for hours. A rustle of disturbed shrubbery south of him, accompanied by a man’s muttered curse, made the decision an easy one.

Andrena heard the curse, too, and froze in place, listening. She had sensed the trespassers’ approach more easily with each step. The woods were her true home, their every sound familiar. She had noted the eerie silence, had seen the goshawk as it shot through the trees in front of her at speed and without sound.