Fire & Flesh

by Kerri Carr

  She emptied the contents of the poke directly into the fireplace without examining its contents. The smell of burning meat instantly filled the room and she spied the shiny smoothness of an organ before the fire engulfed it.

  Ye could expect little else from a wolf.

  Dinner was some leftover pork chops, vegetables and cider. Then she spread an old bearskin in front of the fire and lay down.

  Her final thoughts, as her eyelids yielded to slumber, was the unfamiliar smell that had come to her that morning. It had not left with Ross’ visit.

  *****

  The Man Out of Nowhere

  The day woke sluggishly, with a patch of sunlight peeking from behind swatches of gray clouds. Regardless the day promised to be sunny at some point.

  Aila had a breakfast of biscuits and gravy and then practiced her thrusting with the halbard and then the biodag from sunup until the sun ascended halfway to the middle of the sky.

  Her arms were leaden weights and her belly on fire with hunger as she trudged back to the house.

  The familiar rise of the house as one approached was a view that filled her with much melancholy. She recalled a time when she would return from the fields with her father and brother, and meet her mother outside milling corn for the cornbread at dinner, her tartan shawl wrapped protectively around her shoulders. She recalled her quiet but glad welcome, the warm fragrance of cinnamon and liquorice oozing from her embrace. She found herself half-expecting to see the familiar outline bent over the grinding stone or smell of cornbread wafting deliciously from the house. After all these years.

  She approached a small lake somewhere behind the house framed by surrounding woods. This was where she usually bathed. Perhaps it was because the lake was what her father had particularly loved about the house. Or so he said, before paying a hefty sum for the house and six acres of surrounding land. During summer and sometimes during winter he would travel six miles on horseback to spend time alone in the house for over three days at a time. At other times, he would travel with the family to the lake house but never for long holidays. Whenever they asked their mother about his strange trips, she would smile and respond that their father was taking care of some business. But she never missed the look of apprehension that crossed her features whenever she explained. It was as though any mention of that house filled her with concern. Whatever bothered her about the house or her father’s trips never revealed itself. But whenever her father returned he seemed cheerful and their worries never spanned beyond his absence.

  Her moving to this house was due in part to her desire to be lost in that same mysterious air that her father donned whenever he returned from the outskirts. There was a quiet reassurance within the walls, in his old bearskin coats she often wore out and the pervading scent of pine wood. She had never been very close to her father, but he was a very kind man. As a member of the highland regiments he was almost always caught up in travels. Sometimes he was gone for half a year to a whole year. On his return, he would regale the family with stories of far reaching conquests in Europe and Africa. His gifts were often as generous as they were exotic. He had once brought back ivory and intricately carved gold ornaments from Asia for Mother.

  She recalled her wonder at the tiny animals carved into a gold bracelet and imagining how the craftsmen had managed to do that. She made up her mind to be a gold craftsman when she grew up, imagining melting her father’s gold and crafting the most prized sculptor in Reay that people would buy for more gold than had been melted for the sculpture.

  She painfully stripped her dress, favoring her aching shoulders only slightly and walked into the still lake. The coolness was instantly therapeutic. She sighed in pleasure, lying back and spreading her arms.

  Sometimes in this lake, forever seemed to sneak up on her, stealing away minutes and trapping her for hours in its embrace. She sometimes imagined a watery grave, silky and yielding and the prospect of drowning was a little bit tempting. But she had felt the cold water burn her lungs not once and not twice in past and she knew there was no comfort in dying from drowning.

  She swam slowly, admiring the blue green hues that dance subtly under the surface of the water, how the light reflected off its shimmering surface in interesting shades of colors that—

  She glanced up sharply, instinctively submerging her body to her neck. A tall, powerfully built man was standing with his back to her, his short tartan robe displaying arms and legs to good advantage. His long, rusty red hair was swept back and caught tightly in a leather tong.

  She didn’t know how long he had been standing there, but she knew the man had first spotted her and only turned away in respect.

  “If ye are from Ross you are in a lot of trouble now!” she cried, circling toward the bank where her clothes lay. “Get off my property right now!”

  “Forgive me, quine.” He remained still. “If ye just finish with yer bath and—”

  He ducked suddenly and the rock Aila had hurled at him only grazed his left shoulder. Blood broke freely, running down his shoulder and soon dripped off the edge of his short robe. But he only smiled. “Sorry for intruding but I’m not ye enemy… Aila.”

  She blinked in surprise. “How do ye know my name?” she demanded, raising another rock, as she shrugged on the rest of her clothes.

  Now he turned to face her. In contrast to his dark red hair, his beard was a deep shade of brown, accentuating a certain feral quality about him. His deep blue eyes sparkled with barely constrained mirth. He approached her as he said, “I am Cailean an' I am yer adopted brother.”

  “Ye lie!” But she didn’t sense any lies in this stranger that introduced himself as her adopted brother.

  “It’s true what I tell ye, Aila,” he returned. “Be patient and I’ll tell ye everything.”

  *****

  Cailean’s Tale

  “I was born in London, but I lived here on the lake with my mother for ten years after we returned to Reay from London. Yer father made this possible for us. My mother was a native of England who married a Laird from Scotland. But then my father the laird gravely mistreated my mother and so she ran away with me. This was just before I turned ten. Ye can imagine how it would be raising a child as a single mother in the heart of London. One day my mother met a man while she looked for work in the marketplace, a tall stately fellow who said he knew my father and was with him when he journeyed to Africa. He had been searching for us and had been directed to the marketplace based on his descriptions of my mother that a friend had passed on to him. Even then, it was a stroke of luck as we were already planning on going to Spain with some friends the following week. The man invited us to come and live in Reay, and that’s how we got to the house on the lake –

  “So, all those visits,” Aila interjected. “It was my papa visiting you and your mama?”

  “‘Ye,” the man nodded shortly. “And to the unspoken question, nay they were not lovers. Yer papa was a very good man to us. He called me son and confided a great deal with me. Suffice for me to say I called him papa as well.”

  Aila felt her eyes sting with moisture. That was indeed her father, committed to helping his friends to his dying breath. Before he became wealthy from his international enterprise, it was not uncommon for him to sell valuable possessions to help stranded friends. It was something that endeared him to most people.

  “My ma died and I joined the highland regiments so I missed – he levelled his voice in sympathy – the events that happened with your family and didn’t return in time. I’m sorry.”

  “But now I have returned and my purpose is grave. I have some weighty news for you, Aila,” he waited.

  Suddenly she was tensed. She stood, thinking that if she breathed something might break.

  “Speak on then.”

  “Yer family was not killed by border reivers. They were killed on the orders of Laird Donald Mackay of Inverness.”

  ***

  Sometimes the truth is a liberating thing, freeing the captive bir
d from its cage to the blue sky. But sometimes it is a thing that awakens a terrible commitment to destruction.

  “Why did he have my family killed?”

  Cailean paused. “He was on the expedition to Africa with yer father and they happened on a vast amount of treasure. They divided the booty, each getting a princely sum. But Donald soon squandered his portion. Having learned that yer father had stashed his gold away, he hoped he could get his hands on his gold by killing him and stealing it while he traveled. But the chest on the family carriage that night contained no treasures.”

  “And is there really such a treasure?”

  Cailean nodded. “Right here on this property. I am led to believe yer father buried over eighty talents of gold underneath the ground here. It was yer father’s express wish to donate the gold to the cathedral in Aberdeen, where he spent his early childhood.”

  Aila hadn’t heard this aspect from her father. She generally thought he had lived in Reay all his life. She regarded the bit of knowledge with mixed feelings. She knew so much yet so little about her own father—and his enemies.

  “Is Laird Donald still alive and well?”

  The man nodded. “And he now knows about the gold. Any day now he will arrive here with his murderous criminals. This is why I have returned.”

  Aila stood thinking. She recalled the attacker that had alerted the others to her escape as they finished off her father and mother, but they ignored her. What could a little girl do? Perhaps she’d die in the woods she ran into.

  That was their big mistake, underestimating her. And now she would exact the revenge that they had coming.

  “Tell me where to find this man, Donald.”

  “That will be my duty to bear,” Cailean returned. “I shall carry out justice—”

  She lunged at him suddenly with an open hand. The punch glanced off his upper arm. It was like hitting a stone pillar. She launched her body at him, intending to knock him down. He caught her mid-air by the waist and dropped to his knee at the same time so the fall broke into a roll and suddenly he was sitting astride her.

  “I concede,” she snapped and he got off her.

  They sized up themselves.

  “What do ye want from me? Yer message has been delivered. Ye must be on yer way then.”

  Cailean smiled. “I swore upon my life to yer father that I’d look after ye.”

  “And a fine job of that ye have done,” she returned. “I have done very well by myself. I don’t need any protection.”

  “For the love of ye father and my debt to him, I ask of ye this favor.” He fell to one knee. “Let me be ye protector.”

  She regarded him for a moment and then made to walk away.

  “I will sleep in ye barn or in the fields by ye house, just grant me this one request I beg of ye.”

  She turned, with an amused glint in her eye. “Ye will indeed sleep in my barn,”’ she said. “But come on in with me and I will look at ye shoulder.”

  ***

  The next few days passed uneventfully. Cailean spent most of the day at the lake and farmland, catching fish and harvesting summer crops. Twice he brought home wild game. At night, he mounted watch until the early hours of the morning.

  One fine afternoon, Aila approached him as he dug up turnips.

  “I don’t believe ye soldiers were trained to resist every form of rest or nourishment, Cailean.”

  “Ye will sleep when ye are dead,” he said, not looking up.

  That goes the saying.”

  He turned and gasped, a certain intensity sharpening his eyes.

  She was dressed in a simple frock, but her figure bloomed ripely underneath. She had let down her hair and now it flowed radiantly across her shoulders. She might have freshly taken a bath also.

  “Ye papa always spoke of how beautiful ye are and how you meant the world to him. He was very proud of you, how he spoke of you.”

  “Ye are as beautiful as he said.” His voice softened. “Like the very goddesses that enslaved mortals with their gazes.”

  “Are ye enslaved then?”

  An inexplicable, savage wave of lust surprised her from the pit of her belly, overriding her initial instincts of self-preservation, and weakening her lower body.

  He must have seen the naked emotion in her face; his face lowered toward hers and he crushed his lips into hers. She felt his warm breath on her face, almost intoxicating, as his hands lowered urgently to knead her supple, firm breasts. A low moan escaped her lips, her fingers hooking into his body, leaving angry red lines. They kissed hungrily, hands clawing wildly at their clothes.

  Trembling, her fingers slipped down his abdomen, slowly caressing as they descended. He grunted in response, his hands sliding underneath her buttocks, and lifting her toward him. When they came together, she bit back a cry of passion as sheer pleasure cascaded down her frame. She clung to him as he ploughed savagely. they came together, an explosion of dragged out sighs signifying an end yet a beginning.

  Afterwards Aila lay in his arms quietly, thinking that if she was going to face the possibility of death soon, this was one good way to start the countdown to her final hours.

  They succumbed to the beckon of tiredness and slumbered. So, they missed the fellow well hidden in the woods surrounding the lake, observing them. He had reddish lanky hair that framed a bald pate.

  *****

  They made love again until the evening birds came calling in the old yew trees surrounding the lake house and bats flitted out of their dark abode in the rafters.

  Afterwards they lay in a quiet embrace, content with the stillness of the evening punctuated by an occasional melodic call of an evening bird.

  “I will kill ye if I find out that ye were lying in your tale,” she said as she lay on her back regarding the rafters.

  “Pray how do ye intend to find out?” He seemed amused. “It’s easier to tell the truth – it preserves time for the people involved. All I have told ye is the truth.”

  “I have my ways,” she said smiling. “The truth always comes to me.”

  “It came to you indeed.” He smiled back.

  There was silence for a while.

  Aila spoke up again. “We were traveling to Edinburgh for a festival when the border reivers swooped upon us. My father, my mother, both of my sisters and a brother – all killed. My father begged them to spare our lives. They only laughed and killed my brother and sisters, and then my mother. My father witnessed it all before he was killed.

  I only survived because I had gotten rather lost in the woods where I went to relieve myself. Upon my return, I saw what had happened and was spotted by the murderers. I’m still uncertain of how I managed to escape but I heard their taunting laughter and half-hearted pursuit. Eventually they stopped and went back the way they had come. I wandered for a full day before I stumbled upon an old man and his wife who took me in. There I was and then I met my Uncle Sebastian, which was fortuitous because I planned to return to my village Reay. I made an arrangement with him in which he’d be my guard and I’d provide him with food and lodgings. This was equally a timely move because various relatives sought to lay claim to the family properties. I sold everything on my return and moved over to the lake house. I figured that was the closest I’d be to my family. And sometimes in the quiet of the night, I feel they are really all sleeping in the rooms around me.”

  Cailean drew her close. “Let us find comfort then in the common bond we share, the magnanimity of yer father, my father.”

  She stroked his face. “Ye are all the family I have got now.”

  ***

  Later, Aila prepared a simple dinner of broth with black buns, and they ate silently by the light of the fireplace, listening to the pinecones crackling under the heat.

  Aila watched Cailean. He ate with the short quick gestures of a person that only ate out of necessity, a person accustomed to being a soldier. She tried to picture him alone in the night at a lookout, a fur blanket across his shoulders and a broa
dsword at his feet. The smell—

  “It’s gone,” she spoke out loud.

  The man looked up at her, amused. “Where to?” But she only shook her head no.

  “We should find where that gold is buried on this land and build a trap for them around it.”

  Cailean glanced at her thoughtfully. “Traps yes, but seeking for that gold now would be taking up valuable time for preparation. Our ignorance of its location is an advantage too.”

  She nodded in understanding. No one could be coerced or tortured into divulging anything they didn’t know.

  “What stops you from leaving with the gold after all has been done?”

  He fixed her with an inscrutable stare. “We need to take stock of our weaponry and plan accordingly.”

  She thought of the old weapons Sebastian had left behind. She had mastered the halbard and the biodag, but there was also a broadsword with a grip that needed mending which she hadn’t so much as lifted more than out of mere curiosity.

  “I’ve got a couple of weapons stashed away,” she said. “They used to belong to a relative.”

  It was then she realized he had come unarmed, or so it appeared.

  She said so. “Where you disarmed in combat and decide to run?”

  Cailean laughed loudly, rising to his feet. “We will find out soon enough. But now you must get to bed. I must be on the night watch.”

  “I will join ye,” she countered. “I require the training—”

  “No, Aila,” he returned. “You will need your strength tomorrow, I assure you.”

  She nodded. “I will clear the table then. Do what ye must do.”

  He swung the fur blanket across his shoulder and with one last look at her, proceeded outside.

  ***

  The night was cold and the sky clear. The moon was not out yet but he was accustomed to using his eyes in the dark. He would have loved a torch, but it was too risky at the moment. He made his way through the woods by the lake, his watchful gaze picking up the slightest movements.

  His years of training were kicking in strongly. His senses were highly attuned to the slightest of movements, an ability that complemented the quiet of the forest. He reached a massive tree that had fallen under its weight; the trunk was rotted out and the roots decayed—so this meant few would pay any attention to the stump. Kneeling by its rotten jagged stump, he slipped a hand under the trunk and felt around briefly. His hand withdrew a huge rope poke from which protruded several sheathed weapons. He withdrew a bow and a quiver of arrows, then a leather satchel and one large roughly cut piece of parchment. If there had been more light, someone would have studied the raised ridges and patterns on the cut of parchment with a puzzled expression. That person would eventually have recognized it as a map but a very strange one. Its surface was braille and while Cailean was not blind, the braille was effective for reading the map in pitch darkness. It was a skill he had picked up in his regimen.