The Raven's Wish (8 page)

Nearing the doorway that led to the bedchamber where Macrae slept, she hurried past and down to the castle yard, where her cousins waited with the horses.

* * *

Again that night, Duncan woke, hearing a noise. His first thought was that the girl had returned. Thrusting his hand beneath his pillow, he closed his fingers around both his dirk and her little knife. He heard soft footsteps beyond the wall.

Bounding out of bed, he went to the wall and began to probe, listening as his fingerpads moved over the cool stone, seeking the opening he was certain was there.

There: a faint noise below. He sighed with victory as his canny fingers found the low door hidden in the shadows behind a high-backed wooden chair angled to conceal the corner. Finding the latch, he pulled the door open and peered into the dark stairs beyond.

He wondered how generations of tall, burly Frasers had ever managed to negotiate the stingy dimensions of the secret stair. Being easily as large as any of the Fraser males he had seen, he was not eager to try it, but the Fraser girl, slim and lithe, could pass in and out like a cat.

Then he heard a door closing somewhere below. Frowning, he wondered who might leave the castle in the middle of the night—and why. And as the queen's lieutenant, he was obligated to investigate this. Sighing, he pulled on trews and shirt, wondering if he would get any sleep this night. He laced up his leather jack and found his black cloak and high boots.

If anyone understood venturing out on a dark night, it was Duncan Macrae. He had ridden with his own brothers, long ago, to raid on Clan MacDonald, and in the Lowlands, he rode with the best of the Border reivers. They had gone out in silent packs through the darkness to steal cattle and sheep, to burn a barn, or even to kill if the feud, or the moment, merited it.

Something of the sort was happening here tonight. His senses were tuned to such stealth and tension. He knew well the lure of a clear night; he had followed many times the beckoning glimmer of the moonlight.

With a muttered oath, he bent and eased through the narrow doorway.

* * *

Over hills springy with summer heather they rode through moonlight. Crossing the stream that bordered Glenran, the Frasers guided their sturdy horses, slipping silently into territory that they knew belonged to Clan MacDonald.

Riding beside Ewan, Elspeth glanced at Kenneth and Callum ahead. Only these three rode out with her tonight, though raids often involved several riders, kinsmen gathered from around the area. She had ridden in parties as large as thirty riders, mostly cousins all of an age. But tonight was meant to be a quick raid in answer to the MacDonald attack a few nights past.

The night wind whipped their hair and refreshed their lungs, and Elspeth smiled, loving the cool snap of it, the scent of heather and moss and pine in it, the way it shook her braid loose and played with her hair. She laughed aloud and Ewan, riding beside her, turned.

"Elspeth," he said, "hush now, and tell us what you know."

She closed her eyes briefly. After a moment she felt the presence of cattle, like a dull congestion in the air, without human presence: unguarded cattle grazed to the east.

"That way," she said, pointing.

Her cousins nodded, turning their horses' heads to follow Kenneth, who went ahead at her bidding. They rode through rolling landscape, hills and burns and forests lushly beautiful even in moonlight. At the crest of a hill, Elspeth halted her horse. The glen below was not familiar to her.

"Here," she said. "Somewhere near here."

"MacDonald cattle," Kenneth remarked quietly. "Listen: lowing loud and rude like their owners. Look there." He gestured. Peering through the milky light, Elspeth saw the black dots of a herd of cattle, at least fifty head, moving slowly over the slope below.

"The girl is always right," Callum said with admiration.

"And the MacDonalds are snoring loud and rude inside their castle," Ewan said. "Simple, this will be. Come ahead."

Rounding up a part of the herd was quick work. Kenneth and Ewan, fast and certain on their mounts, with Callum and Elspeth on foot, split off a group of a dozen or so cattle from the larger herd. Silent and swift, the reivers followed an unspoken Highland tradition of courtesy in raiding, which ensured that a full herd was rarely taken.

Small, black, shaggy, and impossibly dumb, the cattle followed wherever they were shooed. Soon the Frasers were on horseback again, guiding the animals between them. Grinning widely, they rode back toward Glenran.

Now and then Elspeth kicked out a foot to remind one or another of the short-horned steer to stay with the group. When her boot lacing came loose, she fell behind, pausing to retie the thongs.

Hearing an odd sound, she lifted her head. For a moment, she thought a baby cried nearby, then recognized the bleating of a lamb. Dismounting, she walked toward the sound, emanating from a cluster of bushes beside a rocky outcrop on the moor.

She knelt and reached carefully into the knotty base of a thorn bush. Tangled in the prickly branches was a lamb, no more than a few months old, bleating furiously, barely audible over the wind and the muted thunder of the passing herd.

"Ach, little one," she crooned, "come here!" She freed its soft fleece from the thorns, and disentangled one small leg from the branches. The little creature trembled like an aspen leaf under her touch as she gathered it in her arms and stood. She hurried toward her pony, which grazed nearby. Ahead, her cousins paused to wait, and she hastened to join them, the lamb settled in her lap.

"What do you have there?" Callum asked as he looked at the little black-faced lamb, which bleated and struggled for a moment. Elspeth soothed it quiet again.

"We shall reive this little one from the MacDonalds too," she said, patting its soft white fleece, its body warm against her. Bony legs and little hooves restlessly kicked her. "Stop, now," she murmured. "I will not harm you."

For a moment she recalled saying something similar earlier that night, when the lawyer Macrae had pinioned her to his bed like an eagle catching a hare. Blushing hot, she ducked her head and urged the horse onward, though she could not dismiss the memory of his strong arms about her twice that very day.

The lamb shifted inside the swath of plaid that covered her chest, and she stroked it as she rode. A whistle from Kenneth, up ahead, reminded her that she had a task to perform. She nudged with her toe at the nearest shaggy cattle rump. Obligingly, the animal stepped away, though it responded with a loud, round lowing that startled Elspeth with its volume.

The lamb was startled as well. Struggling and kicking, it managed to slide halfway out of her lap. Then it leaped from Elspeth's arms and went downward with a plaintive bleating.

The commotion that erupted was sudden and complete. Shouting for help, afraid the little beast would be trampled by the cattle, Elspeth leaned down from her horse and reached frantically. The lamb disappeared between the cattle's hooves, a rapid blur in the moonlight. Terrified by the white creature that bleated in their midst, the cattle took off in several directions, lowing and grunting and shoving with their heavy heads in their haste to be gone.

Elspeth leaped from her horse, pushing the animal toward a safe direction. Her cousins were now chasing the runaway cattle, and she dashed off on foot after the tiny white blur. By some miracle the lamb had not been caught underfoot.

As the lamb fled, Elspeth pounded with booted feet through the heather. Behind her, she heard someone shout, but she did not stop. The moonlight was clear enough to show her the white shape of the lamb, and the long slope of the hill that she rapidly descended.

A dark, glistening plain spread out at the foot of the hill. Myriad burns sparkled there, like silver threads woven into nubby black wool. She ran on.

The heather thinned out and her feet struck raw, soggy ground, tufted with mosses. The lamb bounced and bleated, leading her forward. The ground grew softer, and Elspeth slowed her pursuit, suddenly wary of her surroundings. All around her, black water gleamed. Intent on catching the stray lamb, she had not heeded the warning of the moonlight reflections ahead of her, had not thought about the softening ground beneath her feet.

When the lamb hesitated, its tiny black face merging with the darkness, Elspeth pounced.

And sank into a cloying peat-bog. One foot, the other, then her legs, sank and disappeared in the thick black mire. She stumbled forward, arms and hands in the oozy stuff. Struggling just took her deeper into the bog. Trying to straighten, she grew still. With the toe of one boot, she felt solid ground beneath the dense, wet peat. Gasping, she fought for balance.

She was surrounded by a marshy sea of peat. The black, treacherous surface foamed with mosses and grasses and the watery stretches glistened in the moonlight. Safer passes of firm ground were nearly impossible to distinguish.

Ahead, she saw the pale blur of the lamb, its bleating growing more plaintive now. Elspeth moved toward the lamb, lifting and dragging her legs through the rich, odiferous mire. Reaching out, she touched the trembling little animal and drew it toward her, nearly falling deeper as she did so.

Coughing and gasping, she gained her footing, inhaling the repulsive odor of dank muck. Then she remembered her nightmare—and began to scream for help.

* * *

Easy enough, Duncan found, to follow the Frasers in the bright moonlight once he had spotted them on the crest of a hill, and heard the girl's laughter on the breeze. He kept a discreet distance, but had no desire to lose them and be left riding through MacDonald territory himself.

If the MacDonalds were to discover a Macrae on their land at night, he would not survive until dawn—the animosity was generations old between their clans.

Now, shifting the reins of his stallion, he scanned the darkness ahead and wondered whether the Frasers were heading for the glen to his right or were keeping to the river. If he were to follow the course of the river, it would eventually lead toward the western sea and the distant mountains that edged Kintail. His own home, Dulsie Castle, lay nestled in those hills.

And most of the moors and hills between here and Kintail belonged to Clan MacDonald. Here they disputed borders with the Frasers; to the west, with Clan Macrae. As for the Frasers, he need not follow them further this night. He had discovered what he wanted to know: they had ridden out on another midnight cattle raid. The bond of caution was a necessity.

Turning the horse's head, he headed back toward Glenran, craving a soft bed more than a hard ride just now. Then, as the sounds of a stampede rose on the wind, he paused to listen—and sighed in exasperation. The Frasers had gone down into the glen. And either they had met with some angry MacDonalds, or they had lost control of the night's booty.

He spun his horse to ride back. After a half league, he could hear the distressed bellowing of cattle and the thunder of hooves. Reaching the top of a grassy knoll, he saw riders and cattle chasing crazy patterns of pursuit and flight through moonlit heather.

If this was how the Frasers reived cattle, no wonder there was such trouble here. Sighing, he rode forward, his horse cleaving a path through pandemonium.

He noticed Ewan and waved a cheery greeting as he passed, then saw Callum—the lad's broad shoulders were unmistakable—and he nodded pleasantly. Kenneth, his dark braids flapping, stopped his garron and gaped. Duncan raised his hand in a relaxed salute.

"Greetings," he called. "Enjoying the night air, are you?"

Kenneth continued to stare. Callum rode toward Duncan. "Why are you out here?"

"I had some trouble sleeping," Duncan answered affably. "There were some rather large mice in Glenran's hidden stair."

Callum looked surprised, then surveyed the commotion behind him as his cousins chased after the cattle. "We mean no harm out here. Go back to Glenran."

"I know it is just a little cattle exchange," Duncan said. "But the beasts can be troublesome far past their value. Round up your cousins instead, and get back to Glenran before the MacDonalds arrive." He looked around at the moor. "What frightened the herd?"

"Elspeth and her—
Dhia,
where is the girl?" Callum twisted in the saddle. "Elspeth!" He rode away, calling his cousins.

"Quietly, if you please," Duncan muttered. "This is a raid." In the distance, he saw a riderless, saddled horse—and realized it must be Elspeth's horse. On foot in the middle of a stampede, the girl could be in serious danger. He rode further along the ridge of a hill, searching.

A scream drifted up from below the ridge. Riding down the slope, he dismounted when it grew too steep for the horse, tossed the reins over a low bush, and walked down.

He heard another faint shriek, and narrowed his eyes. No MacDonalds, no wolves or wildcats, just a maze of glittering watercourses in the moonlight—

The girl had gone in the bog. Calling out to summon her cousins, he threw off his cloak and leather doublet, then his shirt as he began to run. Reaching the spongy quagmire, he tread more carefully, unable to tell firm from boggy ground.

"Elspeth!" he called. "Elspeth Fraser, where are you?"

"Here," came the reply. Duncan saw a dark, amorphous shape move, and heard a mournful bleating sound. Poor girl, he thought; she was nearly incoherent with terror.

Pulling off his boots, he tossed them toward his other garments, and lunged forward in trews and bare feet as the cold muck began to envelop him. Moving slowly through the ooze, he made his way toward Elspeth.

"Stay where you are—do not move," he said. She nodded, just a glint of bright hair and face above peat-blackened shoulders.

Another careful step, another; he felt with his toes for solid ground beneath the black pudding of the peat-mire. Close enough to see Elspeth clearly, he stretched out his hand. Earlier today he had waded through clear water for this girl, and had reached out to her in just this way.

"No visions, now," he chided gently, "and no blades, and I will take your hand."