Sins of a Highland Devil

by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

  “God be good!” Alasdair froze, the flagon poised at his lips. “That can only be King Robert.” He glanced at James, then started forward, his long strides carrying him back the way they’d come.

  “We will speak of this later!” He glanced back over his shoulder.

  James hurried after him, biting his tongue.

  With the King’s arrival, the trial by combat would take place on the morrow. And if the fighting proved as fierce as he suspected, it was doubtful he and Alasdair would ever share a word again.

  How odd that the notion pained him.

  Chapter Twelve

  About the same time, but in the coldest, darkest part of the Glen of Many Legends, a place where black mist often swirled and impassable, stone-filled corries kept unwanted intruders at bay, Grizel stood in the middle of her tidy, thick-walled cottage, Tigh-na-Craig—“House on the Rock”—and sent a silent prayer to the Auld Ones, humbly thanking them for the great powers they’d vested in her.

  She resisted the temptation to laud them for their wisdom in recognizing that she, better than any other, knew how to best use such favor.

  Some opinions should be kept to oneself.

  And she knew well that such gifts as hers could be snatched away in a blink if a soul dared to be boastful. Or, Odin forfend, if one dared to misuse them. Though, admittedly, there were moments when she slipped, allowing her pride in her greatness to shine.

  Most especially when Gorm annoyed her.

  He wasn’t the only Maker of Dreams. And if, now and then, he goaded her into flaunting her superiority, the blame was entirely his own.

  But she never used her abilities to harm.

  Though, given sufficient provocation, she had been known to needle those so deserving.

  This was one of those times.

  So she patted the snowy-white braids she wore wound artfully on either side of her head and then smoothed her black skirts. She took pleasure in the clean, freshening scent of cinnamon that rose from the heavy linen folds. The fragrance delighted her nose. For luck, she rubbed her knotty knuckles across the half-moon brooch of beaten silver that she always pinned at her shoulder.

  Satisfied, she hitched her skirts just enough to ensure that her small black boots were spotlessly clean, no bits of heather or smears of peat clinging to the soles.

  On finding no fault with her footgear—she did take care with such things—she allowed herself a deep, appreciative breath. Tigh-na-Craig was known for the earthy-sweet peat smoke that permeated the cottage’s thick, white-washed walls. And the tantalizing food smells that always hovered in the air. This morn, a rich meat broth simmered in the heavy black cauldron that hung from a chain over her cook fire. The mouthwatering aroma almost tempted Grizel to forgo her duties.

  Her diminutive stature—many likened her to a tiny, black-garbed bird—wouldn’t let anyone guess, but she was fond of her victuals. And with good reason, for her skill with a ladle was nigh as formidable as her magical talents.

  But her savory meat broth would have to wait.

  Just now, more important matters needed her attention.

  Eager to begin, she straightened her back as best she could and then hobbled to the door. She cracked it just enough to make certain that her special friend and helpmate, Rannoch, still guarded the cottage’s entry. Her ancient heart warmed to see the white stag, for they’d been together beyond remembering and she loved him dearly. Also called Laoigh Feigh Ban, because of his remarkable coloring, the enchanted creature possessed powers to rival her own.

  “Ahhh, you’re a good lad,” she crooned, pleased that he hadn’t abandoned his post.

  Looking most regal, for he was a magnificent beast, he rested in front of the door, his great white body curled like a dog’s on the soft bed of heather and bracken that she’d prepared for him.

  Ever alert, he peered up at her from his dark, velvety eyes. Behind him, billowy curtains of gray mist drifted across the high moor where the rest of the herd grazed in step. Their red-brown bodies moved like silent shapes in the fog, barely discernible. But when Rannoch turned his proud head to gaze in their direction, Grizel knew he wasn’t drawing her attention to his hinds.

  Rannoch focused his stare on the high peaks on the far side of the grazing ground. A sacred place where, were it not for the mist, a deep cleft in the fold of one of the hills would be visible. The black-jawed crevice that opened into Gorm’s cave and where he’d now be hunched over his Pool of Truth, muttering spells of his own and scrying for the dreams he’d work with this day.

  Leastways, Grizel hoped that’s where he was.

  When Rannoch twitched his ears, she wasn’t so sure.

  She did catch a movement—a dark smudge against the swirling gray—near the rocks that guarded the entrance to Gorm’s sanctuary. He could’ve finished his dream making and decided he was for a dose.

  Gorm relished napping as much as she loved to eat.

  Grizel pursed her lips. She didn’t need Gorm’s trumpeting snores disrupting her concentration when she was about to indulge in a bit of wisewomanish mischief.

  If the gods were kind, the dark blur had been nothing more than a shadow.

  Even so, precautions were in order.

  She peered down at Rannoch, seeing in the angle of his antlered head that he understood.

  “That be the way of it, laddie.” She eased the door wider, leaning out. “I’m trusting in you. If thon long-bearded he-goat comes loping back here before I’m done with my spelling, send him back to his cave.

  “Better yet”—she scrunched her eyes, looking off toward where she knew the cave to be—“fuddle his mind for a bit. It would serve him well to wonder if he’s gone addled, vain bugger that he is.”

  Rannoch snapped his head up even higher, antlers back now, as he bent his intelligent gaze on her. It was a look she knew well.

  The white stag wouldn’t let her down.

  And if she plied her craft with as much skill as always, a certain craven named Sir Walter would soon take his pestiferous self from the castle of her beloved Camerons and find a bed elsewhere.

  He’d plagued them long enough. Besides, his king was now in the glen and could provide a pallet in his royal tent. It’d already been decried that he’d bring his own lodgings, lest quartering in one of the glen’s three castles showed an indication of court favor.

  “We know better, eh, Rannoch?” Grizel clucked her tongue. “Thon Stewart fears sleeping beneath the roof of men he sees as wild-haired, bushy-bearded heathens. He’ll worry he might waken with his kingly throat slit.”

  As if the pagan gods agreed, the wind rose just then. Cold and mighty, it raced round the cottage like a fury, tossing the bottom fringes of the roof thatch before howling away across the moor.

  Pleased, Grizel closed the door and returned to her worktable, where she’d set out a small wooden bowl filled with tiny figures she’d been fashioning for days. The shapes were made of peat, oats, a few secret spelling herbs, the whole held together with newt spittle. They resembled rats, though one had the form of a man.

  Reaching for the human figure, Grizel placed the tiny image in the center of a square of birch twigs. Then, with great glee, she cackled and began filling the enclosed space with the teeny rats.

  She was just placing a generous handful of rats in the square, merrily using them to cover Sir Walter’s miniature likeness, when the door opened quietly behind her.

  “What are you about, woman?”

  “Gah!” Grizel spun around, sending the peat rats flying through the air. Gorm stood just inside the threshold, his elfin face stern. His usually merry eyes were suspicious. And his splendid, near-to-his-knees beard riffled in an unseen wind, a sure sign that he was in a dangerous mood.

  Grizel glared at him, peering past his shoulder at the now-empty door stoop. Even the fine bed of heather and bracken that she’d made for her four-legged friend had vanished. Everything was gone except the rocks and whirling mist.

  “Gl
ower all you wish, it’ll change naught.” Gorm’s beard ends fluttered wildly. “As I’ve e’er been for trying to make you see.”

  “Where be Rannoch?” Grizel thrust out her chin, ignoring the beard-riffling.

  “No’ doing the fool guarding you ordered him to do, that’s true.” Gorm shut the door and came forward, bending to snatch up one of the peat rats as he crossed the stone-flagged floor. “Thon creature heeds me more than he does you, if ne’er you noticed.”

  “Say you.”

  “I don’t need to be a-saying it. ’Tis true.”

  “And I’m a painted harlot at King Robert’s court.” Grizel put her hands on her hips. “Rannoch wouldn’t have let you pass unless you bribed him with a treat. What did you conjure? Tender shoots of sweet spring grass? Or the succulent tips of pine and—”

  “A basket of pine tips and a generous portion of tasty, buttery nuts, if you’d be knowing.” Gorm stepped closer, his clear blue gaze piercing. “What I would hear is the meaning of this?”

  He held out his hand, palm up to show the tiny peat rat. “What poor soul deserves an infestation of rats?”

  “One who should be eaten by them and no’ just visited by them.” Grizel tightened her lips, annoyed that he’d guessed her purpose from a few teeny rat likenesses scattered across the floor.

  But—she couldn’t help it—her pride in her craft bit deep, so she moved away from the sturdy worktable, freeing the view of the birch twig square piled high with the little peat rats.

  “Behold—Sir Walter!” She dug her fingers into the mound of tiny figures and retrieved the little man. “Asleep in his room at Castle Haven”—she indicated the birch twig enclosure, returning the image to the middle of the square—“and waking to find his chamber crawling with rats.”

  “And think you young James will appreciate such an infestation?” Gorm peered at her work, his beard tips no longer riffling. But his brows had snapped together to form a fearsome iron-gray bar. “We are here to guard this sacred place and look after Camerons, not make their lives more unpleasant than necessary.”

  “Think you I have bog cotton for a brain?” Grizel snatched the peat rat from his hand and dropped it into the twig square. “ ’Tis you who have your fool head on backward. Young James will see nary a single rat tail. My magic was cast so that only Sir Walter will see them.”

  “I’m still not for liking it.” Gorm crossed the room and sat on a three-legged stool. “We have more earnest work to do than pester a fool Lowlander who”—he rubbed his knees as he spoke—“will soon be gone from this glen, after the trial by combat.”

  “Humph!” Grizel flicked a speck of lint from her sleeve. “There be some hereabouts who deem it fitting to salt the tails of those who bring grief—”

  “I’ve already said that peace will return to the glen.” Gorm stilled his hands, his tone annoyingly patient. “Have you forgotten my words? That all will be well when innocents pay the price of blood and gold covers the glen?”

  Grizel snorted. “And the grief?”

  “No man living reaches the end of his days without knowing sorrow. If he does”—Gorm resumed his knee rubbing—“he is only half a man, because he hasn’t learned that braving the worst storms brings the reward of a bright morrow. It is hardship that makes a man strong, not frivol.

  “And”—he stretched his arms above his head, clearly hinting that he wished a nap—“happiness e’er tastes finer when it’s first been seasoned with tears.”

  “You should have been a poet rather than a Maker of Dreams.” Grizel knew he spoke wise words, but stubbornness wouldn’t let her agree.

  Instead, she went to her cauldron and busily stirred her meat broth. Gorm didn’t need to see how much it peeved her that, while he’d revealed his prophecy about the battle’s outcome to James—and to her—he’d kept silent as to the meaning of his cryptic words.

  “I’m not for calling back my rats.” She stirred her meat broth with particular vigor. “Don’t be asking me, ’cause I won’t.”

  “I want naught to do with your fool cantrips.” Gorm pushed to his feet and came to stand beside her. “Though I will be hoping you’ll spare a bit o’ your skill for someone I saw outside my cave a while ago.”

  “A visitor?” Grizel almost dropped her ladle. The Bowing Stone always let them know when anyone approached the corrie that opened into their high moor.

  As did Rannoch, unless he was distracted by one of his hinds and missed the stranger’s approach.

  Or…

  If the visitor bypassed the standing stone and its secret entry.

  And only souls no longer living could do that. Suchlike, and—Grizel’s regrettable peer envy made her bristle—other half-mythical beings like herself and Gorm.

  “It wasn’t the great Devorgilla of Doon if that’s why you’ve gone all pinch-faced.” Gorm leaned around her to sniff appreciatively of the steam rising from the meat broth.

  Straightening, he took the ladle from Grizel’s hand and dipped it into the cauldron, helping himself to a taste. “I didn’t get a good look, though I’ve a fair notion who it was. Truth is, I’ve been expecting that soul’s arrival for a good while now.”

  “And who might it be?” Grizel plucked the wooden spoon from his hand when he tried to dip it back into the broth. “I am for hearing.”

  “Mayhap I’ll also be for telling you.” Gorm snapped his fingers to conjure another long-handled spoon and, grinning triumphantly, helped himself to a second sampling of the meat broth.

  “It was”—he smacked his lips—“someone who can bring much gladness to the glen.”

  “But who?”

  “I daren’t mention the name before I’m sure.”

  “You mean you won’t be telling the name.” Grizel glared at him, sure she’d burst from annoyance.

  “I mean”—Gorm licked the back of his conjured spoon—“it would anger the Auld Ones who’ve allowed the soul to come here, if we speak the name before the soul comes to us asking for our help.”

  Grizel knew that was so.

  But she didn’t like it.

  “I believe I saw the soul myself, I did.” She lifted her chin, remembering the dark smudge she’d seen near the entrance to Gorm’s cave.

  “Then if you get a closer look, you can tell me if my suspicions are right.” Gorm’s answer wasn’t the one she’d hoped to pry out of him.

  But before she could prod further, he clicked his fingers to banish his drat spoon. Then, with the purpose of a man bent on vexing a curious woman, he marched across the room and lowered his bandy-legged self onto his heather-stuffed pallet. As deliberately, he turned onto his side and pulled the plaid covering over his head.

  His snores soon filled the cottage.

  Which was well and good.

  If he slept, he wouldn’t see Grizel slip out the door. If a soul was flitting about the high moor, desiring help, she meant to make herself available. From the sound of it, the soul’s plight better suited her skills than Gorm’s pesky truth mutterings.

  It’d been a long time—many centuries—since she’d worked her magic twice in one day.

  So she cast a last glance at Gorm’s prone, noise-making form. Then she took her cloak off its peg by the door and hurried out into the mist.

  She wouldn’t mind finding the soul before Gorm.

  If she did, he’d have to admit her talents were greater than his own. But above all, in her heart of hearts, she couldn’t bear the thought of a soul in need.

  Especially if—from Gorm’s hints—the soul was who she thought it might be.

  That would be glorious.

  Very fine, indeed.

  Several hours later, long after Grizel conceded defeat and returned to her still-simmering cauldron at Tigh-na-Craig, Catriona, Alasdair, and their men-at-arms rode through the heart of Mackintosh country. It was a slow journey, because their horses had to pick a careful path through the maze of odd-shaped stones and outcroppings that crowded this northernmost
end of the Glen of Many Legends.

  Alasdair hardly spoke, his face grim as they pressed deeper and deeper into land held by a far greater foe to MacDonalds than Clan Cameron.

  Catriona looked about with interest, having never been to this remote corner of the glen. Comparing this dark and stony place to Blackshore helped her keep her mind off James. So she sat up straighter and peered into the empty landscape.

  Not that much could be seen.

  Certainly no dreagans, though everyone knew this was where they were said to roam. But thick mist did swirl here, colder and denser than any she’d ever seen at Blackshore, nestled in the glen’s less rugged southern bounds. Mackintosh territory couldn’t be more different if it were a pebble on the moon. And the dark winds that blew mist everywhere roared angrily. At times, whipping past them like a riled, living thing. Then racing away to rush over and around the strange rock formations many claimed were all that remained of the dreagans’ unfortunate victims.

  Hapless souls who dared to pass through this way at times they shouldn’t have, paying the price for their folly by being fire-blasted to stone.

  Catriona drew her cloak tighter about her shoulders and shoved all thought of dreagans to the farthest reaches of her mind.

  Since visiting Castle Haven and meeting Clan Cameron’s raven-haired beauty ghost—whoever she was—she couldn’t dismiss that such things did exist.

  Perhaps even dreagans.

  But despite the cloying fog, she could tell that nothing save bare rock and jagged, naked peaks surrounded them. She could feel the cold of the stones. And the horses’ hooves rang hollowly on the broken ground, the sound echoing from the high, enclosing hills.

  She tamped down a shudder, hoping no one noticed.

  Her ambers were quiet, the stones cool against her skin. But once or twice, she thought she’d caught flickers of heat pricking her throat.

  Imagined or not, the stirrings unsettled her.

  She’d been raised on fireside tales about the Mackintoshes’ fierceness. How they descended from Norse Berserkers, wild and ferocious warriors who lived to fight and knew no fear, ever. They were men who served as Odin’s own, falling gladly into battle frenzy and even biting their shields when such bloodlust overcame them. Some even said they could take on the shape of an animal. Or turn themselves invisible, raging as unseen wraiths through the dark of night simply for the joy of terrifying their enemies.