by Lynn Kurland
As Connor just had.
She wanted to sit down, but there was nowhere to go but the ground, and heaven only knew what kind of response that would bring from Connor’s clan. It was difficult to come to terms with it, but she realized that she had no choice but to accept that she simply could not save Connor’s life. She couldn’t fix him, she couldn’t control him, she couldn’t help him when he didn’t want to be helped. She couldn’t write his script for him.
More importantly, she realized that she had no right to try.
She heard the door open behind her. She almost didn’t turn around, but her curiosity got the better of her.
Cormac came loping down the steps, mopping up the blood dripping from his nose with the hem of his tunic. He stopped in front of her and smiled.
She was almost sure he’d had more teeth ten minutes ago.
“Where will you go?” he asked.
She smiled faintly. “Home.”
“Don’t you have a horse?”
“It ran away.”
He lifted both eyebrows in surprise. “Indeed. I vow I do not like the thought of you wandering about without protection.”
“Don’t worry; I have a sword.”
“Can you use it?”
“If I have to.” She paused. All right, so she couldn’t save Connor. That didn’t mean she couldn’t make one last effort to warn him. “You know, Cormac, there is something you could do for me.”
“Name it.”
She smiled truly. What a gallant soul. “Convince Connor to be careful in dealing with the Frenchman. He is not to be trusted.”
“How do you know? Are you in league with him?”
“No. I have the Second Sight.”
“Aaahh,” Cormac said, satisfied. “Our grandmother had it as well. I daresay if you had told Connor as much, he would have listened to you.”
She shook her head. “I’ve told him all he needs to know. Just help him, if you can.”
He looked at her for several minutes in silence. “Did you come through the fairy ring in truth, Victoria McKinnon?”
She hesitated. “That would be difficult to believe, wouldn’t it?”
“Scotland is a magical place, my lady.”
Victoria was just certain she’d heard that somewhere before. She suspected James MacLeod carved it into big rocks in every century he visited. “Well, magical it may be, but the Scotland of your day is no longer the place for me.” She smiled. “Keep Connor safe. That’s all that matters.”
He stared at her in amazement, and that was the sight she carried with her as she walked from the hall and made her way back through the forest.
Fortunately, not much time had passed inside the hall, so it was still near noon when she started through the forest. It was fortunate, because it made it quite easy to find her path back through the trees. And given that she could hardly see for her tears, that was a very good thing, indeed.
She had done the right thing. Not the easy thing, but the right thing.
She wondered what Connor would say when she saw him in the future. Maybe that was why he had been so vocal in his insistence that she not try. Maybe he had known she would come and he would ignore her and be killed just the same.
But how could that be, when she hadn’t met him until after he’d been dead for centuries?
She decided to try and sort it out later. For now, she could carry with her the knowledge that she had tried and that she had walked away. Hopefully that counted for something in the grander scheme of things.
She turned back for one final glimpse of Connor’s forest, then turned away and trudged off toward the fairy ring.
Chapter 28
Connor paced about his great hall, wishing desperately that someone would enter those doors and tell him that there were enemies tampering with the cattle, or crofters needing a rescue from unruly neighboring clans, or perhaps even the stray band of Englishmen lost in the north and desiring a quick send-off to the next life.
Unfortunately, all he had was his very pleasant, very reasonable cousin coming inside to be further tormented.
“You should have listened to her,” Cormac said easily.
Connor growled at him, but his cousin only smiled, unafraid. And given that the responsibility for his bloody nose could be laid at Connor’s feet, along with that tooth that had been rotting out of his head an hour earlier and now seemed to have migrated to the floor, Connor refrained from further comment with his fists.
“She was daft,” Connor muttered. “Me, slain? Ha!”
“She seemed in full possession of her senses. Besides, why would a McKinnon want to do you a good turn? I vow, Connor, she was in earnest.”
“She was a McKinnon?” Connor exclaimed. “I knew it.” Then he paused. “But why would a McKinnon want to enter my hall? Surely that she did so is proof enough that she had lost all her wits.”
“You’re an untrusting whoreson.”
“Can you fault me for it?”
Cormac sighed. “Nay, I cannot. But,” he added, “I think you should consider her words. You know, she had the Sight.”
Connor pursed his lips and turned away. Victoria McKinnon might have been beautiful, but she was daft, spouting all that nonsense about him being killed—
He looked back over his shoulder at his cousin. “The Sight?”
“Aye, so she claimed.”
Connor turned away and reluctantly gave that some thought. His grandmother had possessed the Sight and she had certainly predicted more than one thing over the course of her life that had come to pass in its own time.
He considered what the McKinnon wench had spewed at him. His wife had indeed left him a fortnight ago, taking his bairns with him and casting in her lot with that cuckolding Frenchman, but that was common knowledge.
Connor turned and looked into the fire. It wasn’t in his nature to ruminate overmuch on things he had decided he had no time for, but even so, there was something almost familiar about that wench. As if he’d dreamed of her but only just remembered that at this moment.
He frowned. He was quite certain he wasn’t feuding with McKinnons at present. Then why did her name raise his hackles?
He rubbed his hands over his face vigorously. He was having a damned unpleasant se’nnight.
The door burst open. Connor looked, hoping foolishly that it might be that feisty redheaded wench come back to torment him a bit more.
Instead, it was a man, filthy and drenched, gasping for breath. He fell to his knees just inside the doorway. Connor strode over to him, but stopped a handful of paces away. He heard Victoria McKinnon’s words whisper in his mind.
Beware the Frenchman. He will murder you in the clearing near the stream . . .
He considered, then shook his head with a snort. Impossible. He didn’t consider himself above death, but he was well aware of his own fierceness and prowess as a scout. No one would catch him unawares.
Well, unless Victoria McKinnon was the one to murder him, but somehow he suspected she was not capable of that. Besides, what reason would she have for it? He could think of several who might want him dead, but he could not list that flame-haired wench among them.
He looked at the man kneeling on the floor in front of him. “Aye?”
“I bring you tidings of your lady, my laird,” the man gasped.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up. It was as Victoria McKinnon had predicted.
Then again, perhaps she was in league with the Frenchman and she had known this fool would come to bring his tidings.
“What tidings?” Connor asked flatly. “That she is fled?”
“She dies, my laird. She calls for you.”
“Why?” Connor asked. “That she might again remind me of my condition as cuckold?”
The man shook his head. “She bid me say she will tell you where your children lay.”
Connor caught his breath. Ach, but if there was one thing that would have induced him to leave his home, ’twas that.
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Beware . . .
He shrugged aside the warning. “I will come,” he said shortly. “Are you alone?”
“Aye, my laird.”
“Refresh yourself whilst I fetch my gear.”
The man nodded, accepted drink, and was waiting when Connor came back with his sword and cloak. They walked down the steps to the ground, where Connor found his horse waiting for him.
“What is your name?” he asked the messenger.
“MacDuff.”
“Well, then, lead on, MacDuff.” Connor paused, then frowned. By the saints, was he losing his mind? Lay on? Lead on? The words swirled in his head. He had a vague memory of having a ferocious fight with someone over which it was.
He’d fought with that red-haired wench. He was almost certain of it.
But how was that possible? He’d just clapped eyes on her but an hour ago. Was he having a vision of something else?
By the saints, was his grandmère’s Sight coming home to roost in him?
He put his hands to his head and held it for a moment until the fog receded. Obviously, breakfast’s vile smell should have signed that something was amiss with it. Next time, he wouldn’t ignore his nose in favor of his belly.
He vaulted up into the saddle.
“Let us be off,” he said curtly. “MacDuff.”
The man took the lead and they set off. They hadn’t left the castle behind before it began to rain. Connor cursed. The day was doomed.
He paused. Doomed?
The hair on the back of his neck rose in direct proportion to how far away from his keep he rode. The man in front of him looked back now and again, as if he made certain Connor was still there.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Connor barked.
The man jumped as if he’d been pricked with a dirk. He nodded nervously and continued on.
Beware the clearing. The Frenchman will attack you . . .
He watched his surroundings with a piercing eye, all his senses on alert. His horse was skittish. Connor cursed. Damned beast. He would have been better served to have purchased that ugly thing that had greeted him pleasantly rather than this prancing ninny who had blinded him with his beauty.
“Just up ahead,” the messenger said, plunging into the trees. “There is a clearing up ahead. She awaits us there.”
Connor caught his breath. The glade? Would his death await him there?
He rode slowly, fighting his horse and his suspicions both. He saw the clearing up ahead. The messenger slowed down and looked back over his shoulder as if he feared Connor would not come along.
Connor hesitated at the edge of the forest. He saw nothing.
But that made him no less suspicious.
The arrow will come at you from the east. Your horse will crush you beneath it and then the Frenchman will come and finish you. He will tell you as your die that your bairns and your wife died of the ague because he dragged them through the wet for days on end . . .
There was no reason to believe that would happen. There was also no reason to believe it wouldn’t.
Connor rode out into the glade.
The sound of an arrow leaving a bow came from his left.
His horse reared. Slipped. Went down.
Connor’s feet were out of the stirrups already, though, as he had been anticipating the like. He went down with the horse, but instead of being crushed beneath it, he dropped to a crouch beside it. He quickly flattened himself on his back and waited.
And the Frenchman came, just as Victoria had predicted.
Was she a witch, then, or in league with this devil? Or did she indeed possess the Sight?
Connor feigned groans of anguish.
“I see you are almost finished,” the Frenchman said with a smile. “I will help you along, mon ami, but first let me tell you a small tale that will interest you greatly.”
“Will it?” Connor groaned. “More than the stealing of my children and bedding of my wife?”
“Your children died of the ague,” the Frenchman said with a negligent shrug. “I did not want them, anyway, so it grieved me naught. But your lady is dead as well. A pity. She was, how do you say it, quite spirited in bed—”
And then he began to gurgle. Connor drove his sword harder into the man’s belly and twisted. The man gasped in agony, then slowly and satisfactorily died a most uncomfortable death. Connor shoved him over, then stood, wrenching his sword from the man’s belly.
“For my children,” he said bitterly. “Braw Donaldbain and bonny Heather. Perhaps now you will join their dam in hell.”
The Frenchman wheezed out one last breath and died.
Connor looked at his horse, which was thrashing about. Broken leg, the damned beast. Connor did what was necessary, then looked about for the messenger. He saw the flash of clothes in the forest. He threw his sword with all his strength. There was a cry, then nothing. Connor strode into the forest and found the man who was now carrying it in his back. He wrenched it out and rolled the messenger over.
“Where are my bairns?” he asked coldly.
“Never—”
“Tell me!” Connor roared.
“Day’s ride east,” the messenger wheezed. “Abandoned crofter’s . . .”
He said no more. Connor cleaned his sword and stood. Then he turned and walked away, wondering what he was to do now. His wife and children were dead. His enemy was dead. He paused in the middle of the glade and looked at the scene of death.
It could have been him there, lying with his life ebbed from him, his eyes staring unseeing at the sky. And it would have been, if not for Victoria McKinnon.
There is a fairy ring through the forest, over the hill and down into a glade. It is a gate to the Future . . .
The Future? What, by all the saints, did that mean? The Future was ever before him and he needed no gate to get there. It would arrive as surely as the sunrise without him doing aught to invite it.
But the fairy ring was another thing entirely. He knew where it was. Indeed, he’d even had a look at it once or twice, but that had been years ago when he’d been young and willing to be afrighted by tales of ghosties and boggles and other otherworldly creatures who were rumored to haunt the place. But to give it serious thought now?
Ridiculous.
As if in agreement, rain began to fall. He shook aside his unproductive ruminations and strode back through the forest. By the time he reached his hall, the rain had plastered his hair to his head and his plaid bore a fine sheen of drizzle. He shook himself off like a hound and walked inside his keep.
There was nothing out of the ordinary therein. Cormac stood by the fire, listening to one of their more witless clansmen spewing out some sort of problem that required all the laird’s time and attention. Connor would have tossed the fool out his door.
But Cormac listened gravely, then gave the man a small list of things he should do to see the problem solved by himself, then yet another list of things Cormac would do for him after those had been done.
Connor considered. That was well done, to be sure. Indeed, the crofter had certainly fared better with Cormac than he would have if Connor himself had listened to his sorry tale.
The fairy ring . . .
Connor wondered if he could drown out Victoria McKinnon’s words with vast quantities of ale. It was tempting to try, but he had other things to see to before he indulged in that. Besides, he wasn’t one to blot out his troubles with strong drink. Better to face them with his sword drawn and ready. The thing to do now was find his bairns and bury them properly. He would give thought to the rest of his future after that was done.
A future that he had thanks to Victoria McKinnon.
“Connor?”
Connor blinked and looked at his cousin. “Aye?”
“You’ve returned. I didn’t expect you back for days. Ho, Angus, go see to the laird’s horse—”
“My horse is slain,” Connor said briskly. “My gear could be fetched, though. There are two dead assassins there
, as well. They can rot in the rain, for all I care.”
Cormac’s eyes bulged. “The McKinnon wench was right?”
“Aye.”
“Then the bairns are—”
“Dead.”
Cormac closed his eyes briefly, then looked at his cousin. “What will you do now?”
“I must bury my children.”
“That is as it should be.” Cormac paused. “And while you’re gone?”
“You will see to the keep and the clan.”
“But what of Robert and Gordon—”
“My brothers are fools. I’ll see that our people know to follow you.” He cursed. “Damn that useless horse. If it hadn’t broken its leg—”
“Take mine.”
Connor sigh. “I’ll pay you for him.”
Cormac smiled. “Connor, there is no need. You have been brother and father both to me all these years. ’Tis but a small thing in return.”
Connor was not given to displays of affection, but he thought a hand placed briefly on his cousin’s shoulder was not inappropriate, given the seriousness of the moment.
“My gratitude,” he said. “I will fetch supplies and be on my way.”
“So soon?”
Connor looked for a way to explain how uncomfortable he suddenly felt walking about his hall when he should have been dead. It was not at all the same feeling he’d had countless other times when he’d cheated death thanks to his prowess. In this case, he had the very cold, unyielding suspicion that he would have met his end, were it not for Victoria McKinnon seeking him out and delivering a warning to him.
Why had she?
I came because I know what will happen . . .
He considered that for several minutes. She had come because she knew what would happen? Why had she cared? What had she hoped to gain? What if she had come not expecting anything at all?
He could scarce fathom that. But all things seemed to point to it.
“Connor?”
Connor looked at his cousin. “I need to go. Today.”
“Of course.”
Connor left his cousin standing there watching him and went to fetch himself some food for his journey.
It took him a handful of hours to prepare, which did not please him. His supplies were gathered quickly, but ’twas the business of the clan that delayed him. In the end, he had to draw his sword to cow his brothers into obedience, and he suspected it would last no longer than the time it took for him to ride out of sight, but that would not be his affair then. Cormac could keep them in check until he returned.