Bride for a Knight Page 14

The figure shivered and stepped back from the lip of the gorge. Not wanting to invoke the older, darker powers that might frown on taking such justice into one’s own hands, the figure adjusted the folds of its great, voluminous cloak and slipped back into the mists and shadows.

  While St. Maelrhuba’s influence might be a bit watered down after so many long centuries, there wasn’t a Highlander walking who’d doubt the lingering sway of the ancients.

  The mysterious Picts and others.

  Shadow folk one would be wise not to rile.

  Passing by the Na Clachan Breugach stone each time a visit to the ruinous chapel was required was daunting enough. Kissing in the shadow of such a stone, and then so lustily, was to call up a thousand devils.

  Never mind that in the days of the ancients more lascivious acts than kissing had surely gone on within the sacred circle of those hoary stones.

  Stones of Wisdom or the Lying Stones, only one remained and the figure was sure it hadn’t been pleased to witness such a kiss.

  Such passion.

  And so, the figure decided, moving stealthily through the trees, measures would need to be taken to ensure such passion didn’t flame again.

  Only then would the stone be appeased.

  And the figure’s grievances well met and avenged.

  About the same time and not all that far from the swirling waters of the Garbh Uisge, Jamie followed Alan Mor into his privy solar at Fairmaiden Castle. Once again, he marveled at the little room’s cheery warmth and beauty. This time he also wondered if he hadn’t misjudged his host.

  Perhaps placed unwarranted suspicion on his doorstep.

  Truth was, whether he found it hard to believe or not, the Matheson laird looked genuinely outraged and appalled.

  And, Jamie couldn’t deny, exceedingly innocent.

  Leastways of having had anything to do with the deaths of Jamie’s brothers.

  Alan Mor’s indrawn breath and the way he’d leapt from his seat at the high table when Jamie stated his reason for visiting was testament enough to his surprise. Even now, his bushy-bearded face was visibly pale.

  Clearly shaken, he raked a hand through his hair and strode to the shuttered windows, then wheeled back around almost as quickly. “I would not be party to such a black deed if my own life depended on it,” he vowed. “Or the lives of my fair daughters.”

  “But you understand I had to come here?”

  “Och, aye,” Alan Mor owned. “I just canna think who would do such an evil thing.”

  He started pacing, rubbing the back of his neck as he stalked around the solar. “I’ll admit your da and I have had our bones to chew, but any feuding we carried on has e’er been amiable feuding. Anyone in these hills will tell you that. Though I willna deny we keep a wary eye on each other. But see Munro’s lads done in?”

  He stopped in front of the hearth fire and shook his bearded head. “Nay, lad, I had naught to do with the like.”

  Jamie frowned.

  Ne’er had he accused any man of such a vile deed.

  Even by association.

  But he’d seen and heard what he had.

  His brothers were as dead as dead can be. He couldn’t back down. If he hadn’t been able to save them, he could at least honor them now with his persistence in uncovering their murderer.

  And hopefully, in the doing, prevent more tragedies.

  Someone had appeared in his father’s bedchamber draped in a dripping plaid—a plaid that selfsame someone later tossed onto the effigy of one of Jamie’s long-dead forebears.

  Although he’d not discount Aveline’s insistence that she and others have seen his brothers’ ghosts, Jamie was certain the bogle plaguing Munro was a flesh-and-blood man.

  Someone well capable of tampering with an age-worn footbridge.

  And, he suspected, equally guilty of recently mixing fish bones in a kettle of porridge meant for consumption at Baldreagan’s high table.

  A near disaster he’d learned of just recently, the almost-tragedy, averted thanks to Cook’s watchful eye.

  Just now, though, Alan Mor’s eyes were on him, waiting. So Jamie put back his shoulders and plunged on.

  “In truth, sir, I canna think who would have done it either,” he said, speaking true. “I—” He broke off when the door opened and Sorcha entered with a large flagon of warmed, spiced wine.

  Jamie nodded to her, gladly accepting the cup she offered him. He also tried not to frown again. But it proved difficult for her presence made him keenly aware of the loss of his brothers.

  His reason for visiting Alan Mor.

  Taking a sip of the wine, he turned back to his host. “After what I’ve told you, surely you must see that someone is responsible?”

  “So it would seem,” Alan Mor agreed after a few moments of brow-furrowing. “But” —he whipped out his dirk and thrust it at Jamie, hilt first—“I’d sooner have you ram my own blade into my heart if you think my hands are stained with your brothers’ blood.”

  Jamie took the dirk and tucked it carefully back beneath the older man’s thick leather belt. “I can see it was not your doing,” he said, meaning it.

  But the matter remained unresolved.

  He slid an uncomfortable glance at Sorcha, not wanting to besmirch her father’s house and his associations in her presence. But she didn’t seem to be paying them any heed.

  She was seeing to the fire, jabbing a long iron poker into the flames, and he couldn’t help thinking of the hearth fires at Baldreagan, each grate well laid with smoldering pieces of the footbridge.

  The notion called his brothers’ nine faces to mind and he could almost feel their stares. They wanted and deserved their deaths avenged.

  Something he’d never see accomplished if he fretted about offending those who might have answers.

  So he took a deep breath and cleared his throat. “Your men,” he began, watching Alan Mor closely, “can there be one amongst them who’d carry such hatred against my clan?”

  “My men of Pabay? The reformed cutthroats as the glen wives call them?” Alan Mor waved a dismissing hand. “There’s not a one o’ them I’d trust to commit such a barbarous act.”

  “But they wouldn’t have come to you from Pabay—the robbers’ isle—if they didn’t carry a good share of dark deeds on their shoulders.”

  “Dark deeds, aye. But there are degrees of villainy.”

  Jamie cocked a brow. “I’ve ne’er heard the like.”

  To his surprise, Alan Mor grinned and thwacked him on the shoulder. “Lad, now you see why I’ve trusted my wee lassie to your care. One look at you and a man knows you’d ne’er do ought to hurt her.”

  Jamie almost choked on his wine. “To be sure I’d ne’er harm her. I’d kill any man who tried.”

  “Well, now! Isn’t that what I just meant?” Alan Mor grinned at him. “And, aye, there are degrees of villainy, but my Pabay men have put their days of thieving and deceit behind them. Though a few are scoundrels. I willna deny that.”

  He paused and jerked his head meaningfully at his daughter, waiting until she left the solar and the door closed softly behind her.

  “Nevertheless, there isn’t a murderer amongst my men,” he continued, folding his arms. “That’s always been a line I refused to cross. If you knew aught about such men as call Fairmaiden their home, you’d know they’d ne’er do aught to lose their welcome here.”

  He fixed Jamie with a piercing stare. “See you, I give them a chance to make a new life. They’d be fools to vex me.”

  Jamie returned the stare. “There’s something you aren’t telling me,” he said, certain of it.

  Alan Mor blew out a breath. “Only that there are some in these parts who do bear grievances against your da.”

  “Who?” Jamie took a step forward. “Name them if you know.”

  “Ach, laddie, would that I could,” Alan Mor returned. “But doing so would mean naming every laird and chieftain e’er to purchase cattle from your father.”

&nb
sp; Jamie stared at him. “You mean men vexed o’er his cattle prices.”

  Alan Mor nodded and poured them both new cups of wine. “Munro’s haggling and scheming to squeeze the last coin out of his buyers has earned bad blood,” he said, handing Jamie one of the replenished cups. “Likewise his gloating when he succeeds. If you’d e’er seen him preen and squawk as he tucks away his money pouches, you’d understand.”

  “Och, I understand,” Jamie assured him.

  His da was filled with wind and bluster. And he did relish trumpeting his own horn.

  “I’m glad you do understand,” Alan Mor said. “Though I still canna see one of those up-backed cattle lairds going to such extremes to vent their spleen. Highland honor forbids such low-stooping, whether a man is rightly grieved or no.”

  He paused for a sip of wine, then dragged his sleeve across his mouth. “Nay, laddie, I dinna think you’ll find the murderer amongst Munro’s cattle buyers.”

  “Neither do I.” Jamie took his own wine and went to stand at the window.

  Setting down his cup, he unlatched the shutters and opened them wide. The air held a biting chill and full darkness would soon claim the eerie half-light, so filled with shadows and damp, sighing wind.

  He stood rigid, staring out at the gray pall of mist. Thick, drifting sheets of it curled across Fairmaiden’s bailey and the surrounding woods.

  Woods that bordered on some of the finest, most lush grazing grounds in Kintail. Fairmaiden’s greatest prize and a treasure he could scarce believe would soon be his.

  Leastways a goodly portion of it.

  He was quite sure his da wouldn’t have parted with an inch of such sweet, rich pasturing lands. No matter how many daughters he might have had to dower.

  And that was another question he had to put to Alan Mor.

  Once and for all time.

  He turned from the hushed silence beyond the window. “I will find my brothers’ murderer,” he said, willing it so. “No darkness will be black enough for the bastard to hide in for long. But I would ask one more question of you.”

  Alan Mor shrugged. “I’ve naught to hide.”

  “Save the stones weighting down the bride price coffers you gave my da.”

  To Jamie’s surprise, the older man laughed. “A private jest,” he said, sounding not at all put out that Jamie knew. “Call it repayment for all the years your da has fleeced me to the bone each time I’ve been fool enough to buy a stirk or two from him.”

  He wagged a finger at Jamie. “That’ll be the reason the pop-eyed lout hasn’t complained. He knows he owes me.”

  Jamie folded his arms. “What I would know is why the alliance in the first place? Both your daughter Sorcha to Neill, and now giving Aveline to me?”

  He glanced at the closed door, wishing it were bolted. Or perhaps even better, opened wide. Simply to ensure curious ears weren’t pressed against the wood.

  Especially Sorcha’s for he had no desire to stoke the maid’s sorrow.

  “Aye,” he went on, looking back at Alan Mor, “I canna wrap my mind around your willingness to forge a bond between our houses. It’s bothered me since I first received your missive at Cuidrach Castle, and it still plagues me. Though I am more than pleased to have Aveline as my bride.”

  “Why shouldn’t I wish peace between our houses? A lasting bond?” Alan Mor jutted his chin. “Mayhap I’ve grown weary of feuding?”

  “Amiable feuding,” Jamie reminded him.

  “So I have said.”

  “You have the better grazing lands,” Jamie pointed out. “By your own admission, you must’ve bought enough Baldreagan bulls o’er the years to have enriched and strengthened the blood of your own herd.”

  “Would you believe because your cattle are protected by old Devorgilla’s rowan charms?”

  Jamie shook his head. “Not for a heartbeat.”

  Alan Mor curled his fingers around his belt. “Suffering saints, laddie, I hope my wee daughter ne’er gets on your wrong side!” he said, but his tone was amused. “If you’d have the truth of it, there is another reason I sought this alliance. But it has naught to do with your brothers. That I swear.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Alan Mor pressed his lips together, scratched his bearded chin.

  And said nothing.

  But the faint tinge staining his cheeks assured Jamie he did have something to say.

  Jamie waited. “Well?”

  “Ach, simply this.” Alan Mor swept his arm in a great arc to take in the splendor of his privy solar. The fine tapestries dressing the walls and the costly standing candelabrum with its pleasantly-scented beeswax tapers. The richly carved settle by the door with its sea of welcoming cushions.

  Even the flagon of heady spiced wine they’d been sipping. The generously-laden platters of cheese, confits, and sweetmeats spread on a table near the window.

  Alan Mor enjoyed his comforts and Jamie couldn’t fathom what the man’s high taste had to do with making peace with his long-time feuding partner.

  Good-natured bickering or no.

  Unless …

  Jamie’s brows drew together. The notion forming in his mind was too preposterous to put in words.

  “I canna believe you feel threatened by my da?” he asked, regardless. “Dinna tell me you feared he’d seize Fairmaiden? Take your riches from you?”

  “Sure as I’m standing here, that’s the reason I wished an alliance with the cross-grained devil,” Alan Mor admitted, his face coloring a deeper red. “Though it was ne’er Munro himself who concerned me. The saints know he hasn’t roused himself to raid a neighboring keep in more years than I can count!”

  Jamie frowned. “That still doesn’t explain the alliance.”

  “Nay?” Alan Mor guffawed. “I’m a-thinking it does well enough. If you think about it! See you, I’m a man who appreciates his leisure. I had my share of warring in my younger days, even traipsed across the land and the Isles with the good King Robert Bruce in his fraught and hungry years before he won his crown.”

  He started pacing again. “And I’ve done my own share of devilry, cattle stealing and the like. Why do you think I open my doors to the men of Pabay and other souls like them? Broken men can find a home here, warm themselves at my hearth and drink my ale. They are welcome to make their pallets in my hall.”

  He threw Jamie a challenging look. “So long as they’ve put their roving days and banditry behind them. I want no cause to lose what I’ve worked so hard to gain. My peace of a night” —he paused to plump one of the settle cushions—“and my comforts.”

  “Begging pardon,” Jamie said, “but I doubt my da cares whether Fairmaiden is filled with luxuries or if you and your men sleep on straw.”

  I doubt he cares where and how I sleep.

  But he kept that last to himself.

  “I told you—it isn’t your da,” Alan Mor said, helping himself to a sugared sweetmeat. “It’s his fool cattle dealing and the enemies he’s made because of it. High-placed enemies in some cases and I canna afford to have such long-nosed snoopers poking around hereabouts.”

  Taking a handful of the sweetmeats, he dropped onto the settle, looking suddenly tired. “See you, even though my men have ceased spreading havoc across the heather, there isn’t a one o’ them whose name wouldn’t perk ears in certain lawful places. So it’s been my concern that your father’s dealings might cause the wrong souls to come swarming into these parts one o’ these years.”

  Jamie’s brows shot up. “So that’s why you wished an alliance? To keep away the law?”

  Alan Mor nodded. “I willna have a grieved cattle laird sending a sheriff across my land to get to yours and, by happenchance, discovering how many reformed cutthroats dine at my table!”

  “But how would an alliance prevent such a thing?”

  “Because,” Alan Mor wiped his mouth and leaned forward, “your brother Neill had a far sounder head on his shoulders and knew how to settle a fair deal. I’d hoped the
marriage of Munro’s eldest son would see him managing more of your da’s lairdly duties. He would’ve tempered the dangers and grievances your father seems to stir whene’er he opens his mouth.”

  “I see,” Jamie said, understanding at last. “And you think my marriage to Aveline will bring the same benefits?”

  “That is my hope.” Alan Mor stood. “Aye, there you have it.”

  “Then I shall do my best not to disappoint you,” Jamie said, the words surprising him.

  Ne’er would he have imagined he’d one day be offering a hand of peace to Baldreagan’s bristling bear of a neighbor.

  And a well-meant hand of peace, at that.

  The door swung open then and Sorcha stepped inside. “’Tis almost vespers,” she said, glancing at the now darkened window arches. “The evening meal is set in the hall if you care to come belowstairs? And” —she looked from her father to Jamie and back again— “I need to know if an extra bed needs to be prepared for the night?”

  “You are kind, but I must return to Baldreagan,” Jamie told her, already making for the door. “I’ve already tarried too long. Though I will stay for a quick bread and ale, aye.”

  But a short while later, as he pushed back from Alan Mor’s table, his words kept circling in his head, haunting him.

  … Tarried too long.

  He could think of something else that had lasted too long.

  Namely the rift between himself and his sire.

  A matter he needed to devote more attention to and would, as soon as he’d rid Baldreagan of bogus bogles and avenged his brothers’ deaths.

  Hopefully the coming days would bring success.

  And since the alternative wasn’t acceptable, he’d simply have to ensure that they did.

  Chapter Nine

  Gunna of the Glen?”

  Aveline’s fingers stilled, her needle poised over her handiwork. Her question hovered in the hall’s smoke-hazed air, almost alive, definitely taunting her. Worse, she could feel her pulse beating in her throat, and so rapidly she was sure the others would notice.

  But she’d had to ask.

  Something about the way Gelis had said the woman’s name struck dread into her heart.