Marti Talbott's Highlander Series, Volume 5

by Marti Talbott

  The Haldane lived in a valley too, although it was much smaller as was their village. The one-story keep was in the center of less than thirty cottages. By the different colors of stone and mortar, it was obvious rooms had been added to the Keep at various times over the years.

  Not far from the laird’s home stood a stable, several store houses and an odd structure Cowan heard about but did not truly believe existed. The structure was little more than a wooden frame but in the center hung a large, rusted, square plate of iron. Next to it, hung a piece of wood shaped somewhat like Cowan’s forearm with a wad of cloth tied around the thickest end.

  A flock of sheep and several cattle dotted the bottom half of the valley and the people were going about their business as usual except for one thing—there seemed to be few men to guard them. Cowan found some comfort in that. If they believed he was hostile, he would have fewer Haldane to fight.

  But just as he started to urge his horse down the hill a woman screamed. It alarmed Cowan. He quickly halted and tried to see if he could tell where the scream came from. A second later, a man backed out of the Keep and ducked just in time to avoid a wooden bowl someone inside hurled at him. This time the woman’s scream sounded more like a command and Cowan was surprised. Perhaps the rumors of the Haldane’s ill-mannered wife were true after all.

  Cowan checked the bundle in his lap, saw that the boy was still sound asleep and put the cloth back over the child’s head. He waited a few moments until he believed the woman had calmed and then continued on down the hillside. As soon as he broke through the trees, someone shouted and three men, including the one who backed out of the Keep, drew their swords. Their glares were fierce and they looked prepared for battle, but Cowan did not pause. Instead, he walked his horse into the valley and headed straight for the men.

  The shout of his approach roused the clan and soon two more men and several women gathered in the courtyard. But Cowan kept his eyes on the man in the middle whom he guessed was Laird Haldane and when he was near enough, he halted, turned his horse to the side and lifted the cloth off the boy’s head.

  The small crowd erupted into shouts of joy.

  “You have found him!” A woman with tears welling up in her eyes ran to Cowan. But just a couple of feet away she slipped in the mud and fell on her backside. Suddenly her tears turned to shrieks of laughter, which made everyone else laugh. He could not help but like this woman and he did think the sight funny, but he kept his face emotionless. It was one thing for her clan to laugh at her, but quite another for a stranger to do so.

  Nevertheless, he quickly dismounted and with the boy in one arm, he reached out his hand to her. “Are you hurt?”

  “Nay.” She held his hand with both of hers, let him pull her up and then took the boy out of his arms. “Thank you.” She smiled, waited just a moment for his nod and then dashed back to the three men. Each quickly put his sword away and lovingly touched the child before she took him inside the Keep.

  Had she not been the mother and no doubt a wife, Cowan might have been even more taken with the woman. She had long, dark eyelashes that matched the color of her hair, which she let freely hang down her back to her waist. Her voice was like music when she laughed and she had dimples, one in each cheek when she smiled. He watched her disappear inside and was ready to get back on his horse when the three men boldly came closer.

  CHAPTER II

  “I AM LAIRD HALDANE,” said the older man in the middle. His hair and clothing were disheveled, he looked tired and he was about to say something more when a woman inside the Keep started yelling.

  “You miserable excuse for a husband, I told you to keep watch over the laddie. Look at him, he is filthy and he smells. I blame you, husband, for ...”

  Completely humiliated, Laird Haldane did not say a word. He only frowned, blinked repeatedly and then held his eyes to the top of his head waiting for her to stop.

  “You are the devil’s own son, you are,” the woman continued. “Little more than a scunner, to my way of thinking.”

  Laird Haldane winced when she called him a scunner. Finally, it was quiet for a moment. He again opened his mouth to speak and got but three words out before she began again. This time Laird Haldane simply sighed and tried to talk over her yelling. “Are you married?”

  “Nay,” Cowan admitted.

  “I do not recommend it. She will run down in a while and then she will bathe her sore throat in wine and become far more friendly. I was deceived when I married, you see. I loved her and love can be very deceiving. At the time, she was quiet without many words. She has changed.”

  “Why do you allow it?”

  “Unfortunately, I love that lass still. Love can be persuasive even after the wedding night.”

  Cowan was confused. The woman who came to get the boy cried, then laughed and was now yelling? She was clearly daft and he felt sorry for the Haldanes. He did not know what to say, so he simply nodded.

  “I thank you for bringing my son home. He is my only child whom I love very much.” Laird Haldane rolled his eyes and paused to listen once more to the incessant yelling of his wife. Her name calling included scallywag, beast and demon, but the worst of them was scunner and once more Laird Haldane winced.

  Cowan glanced at the other men and each looked just as perturbed as their laird. Then the yelling stopped. To his surprise, the woman who came to get the boy appeared in the doorway of the Keep and was smiling. How was it possible for a woman to change her disposition so quickly? He could not believe his eyes. “Is she daft?”

  Laird Haldane quickly looked to see who the MacGreagor warrior was talking about and when he turned back, he too was smiling. “That is not my wife. She is, Lasha, my sister and I would that all women had her temperament. It is my wife, Ena, who yells. She can be very entertaining and good company when she has a mind to ... when she is not yelling ... which I admit is rare these days.”

  The women in the courtyard seemed fascinated by Cowan’s size, but his gaze kept drifting back to Lasha. He had to think of something to say to take his mind and his eyes off her. “Why have you not come to see Laird MacGreagor? He is a good lad and he will welcome you.”

  Laird Haldane moved a little closer and leaned toward Cowan. “It is my wife, you see. I cannot leave her and I cannot take her with me. Does Laird MacGreagor truly have a golden sword?”

  Cowan was caught completely off guard by the question and at a loss for words. He detested lying but in this case, he had no choice. “I have never seen one.” It was true; he had not yet come to the glen when the sword was last seen and now no one knew where it was, save Neil.

  “I am grieved indeed. I had my heart set on seeing one. Oh, I nearly forgot.” He nodded to one of his men who quickly ran to the odd structure with the iron plate. The man untied the large wooden baton, grabbed hold of the smaller end with both hands, backed up and struck the plate as hard as he could. The sound spooked his horse and Cowan had to hold the stallion’s halter down to keep him for bolting.

  “Forgive me, I should have warned you. It calls our searchers back, you see. I hear tell you use whistles. We use the Bonnie there to alert our clan. Perhaps someday you will tell us about the different whistles.”

  Cowan had heard that sound before, but never knew what it was. For weeks, he suspected it was some fearsome animal they had not yet encountered, and was glad to learn it was not. “I fear my laird would not approve my giving away all our secrets.”

  Laird Haldane stroked his straggly beard thoughtfully. “I suppose he would not, at that.”

  The yelling started again and Cowan studied the pained look on Laird Haldane’s face for a moment. “My father’s third wife carried on like that, but he tamed her.”

  Haldane’s eyes lit up as did those of the other men. “How?”

  “He put her out and would not let her back in until she stopped yelling. It might take a time or two, but once you put a lass out in the rain, she begins to see reason.”

  “W
hat did he do about the name calling?”

  “I believe he kept half a goblet of water handy and threw it in her face when her words disturbed him. I caution you, she will soon learn to duck. Before father got her tamed, the water hit me more often than it did her.”

  Haldane chuckled. “I will keep that in mind. Are you quite certain there is no golden sword?”

  Cowan was about to answer when Lasha boldly walked up to him.

  “I thank you for bringing my nephew home.” She put her arms around his neck, gently pulled his head down and lightly kissed his lips. Then she let go and stood back.

  Cowan quickly looked to see if he was about to die, but Laird Haldane was still smiling. He got back on his horse, looked once more at Lasha and then rode back the way he came.

  When he reached the crest of the hill, he stopped, turned his horse and looked back. All of the Haldanes were still watching him, but his eyes went to Lasha.

  LASHA HURRIED ACROSS the great hall to her small bedchamber in the back of the Keep and closed the door so she could change out of her muddy clothing. Unlike the larger bedchamber her parents afforded her as a child, this one was hardly big enough for a bed. She might have been in the larger one still, but when the boy finished nursing, Ena demanded that room for her son. Therefore, Haldane had another room added on to the back for her. Lasha did not mind. This room was small but it was far enough away to keep her from hearing Ena’s voice, unless it was excessively loud...and that was a very good thing.

  Lasha could not seem to stop thinking about the MacGreagor. It was not as though she had never seen a MacGreagor before. Sometimes when she rode north to watch the swans on the loch, she went further still, hid in the forest and watched them from afar. But she had never seen that particular MacGreagor or she would have remembered.

  She meant it only as a gesture of gratitude, but when she touched him and felt the softness of his lips, she found her attraction to him perplexing. All her life she assumed she would marry within her own clan. In fact, her brother sometimes mentioned his desire for her to do just that and for a very good reason—the Haldane clan was small and in order for it to grow, the women needed to stay.

  Lasha wondered if it meant her brother felt the Haldane men incapable of finding wives outside the clan. Perhaps they were not the most handsome men in all the world, but neither were they that ill-favored. But her brother was also her laird and she did not often question his reasoning except on one subject—Ena. Why her brother loved that woman was a secret known only to God.

  Living with her sister-in-law was sometimes misery and were it not for her brother’s love, her delight in her nephew and her ability to block out the sound of Ena’s voice most of the time, Lasha might have seriously considered marriage sooner. She had already turned down two proposals and that left only three unmarried men in the clan, none of which were older than she. One was even two years younger and at fourteen, he was not even fully-grown.

  Of the three, there was one man she found attractive enough. Sionn was pleasant, easy to look at and considerate of the woman. He was also very strong—or at least she thought so until the MacGreagor so easily pulled her to her feet after she fell in the mud—and with only one hand. Lasha smiled at the memory.

  She quickly removed her soiled plaid, pleated her clean, dry one and rushed back to the great hall. Now that the boy was clean, she gathered up his soiled kilt and the MacGreagor plaid the stranger had him wrapped in. What better excuse to see the MacGreagor again than to return his plaid? She smiled, went out the door and walked down the path to the creek. Usually, one of the other women did the wash for the laird’s family, but today she wanted to make sure it was spotlessly clean.

  She dipped the wool kilt in the water, began to rub soap on it and then abruptly stopped. The creek was not wide and when the shadow of a man blocked out the light on the cloth, it quickly got her attention. She glanced up, saw that it was Sionn and motioned for him to move aside. When he didn’t, she stood up. “Is something amiss?”

  “Lasha, I have come to ask you to marry me.” He spread his legs apart, folded his arms and waited.

  “Oh. I confess I have been expecting it.”

  “There are but four women for me to choose from and you are the eldest. I choose you.”

  “I am flattered.”

  She did not continue and he looked unsettled. “What is your answer?”

  Yesterday...this morning even, she would have said yes but now there was suddenly another possibility. In fact, just north of their hold were as many as twenty other possibilities. For the first time, Lasha took a long hard look at Sionn Haldane. He was average, she supposed—neither pleasant nor unpleasant with average brown hair and blue eyes. He was neither too short nor too tall, too thin nor too... “I will give you my answer later.”

  It was not what he expected and Sionn wrinkled his brow. For most of his life he assumed he would marry within his clan and fortunate indeed would be the man who married Laird Haldane’s sister. “When might I expect your answer?”

  Lasha lightly bit her lower lip, “Will you wait a fortnight?” She could tell he was not pleased, neither did he seem all that disappointed, and at length he nodded and walked away.

  CHAPTER III

  LASHA DID NOT MEAN to, but all afternoon she kept comparing Sionn to the MacGreagor. She did not even know the MacGreagor’s name but she knew his lips and could not get the thought of them out of her mind. Sionn had not spoken of love nor had she expected him to. In fact, he rarely spoke to her at all over the years. He was a Haldane hunter and a good man from what she could tell. But he was not mystifying or exciting—not at all like the short encounter with the MacGreagor. On the other hand, how would she know? Even as Sionn proposed to her, he stood on the other side of the creek and did not touch her. Perhaps she would find his touch mystifying as well...if he ever touched her.

  It took a while, but Lasha worked at her washing until the garments were as clean as she knew how to make them. She wrung each out and hung it on a tree branch to dry. Hopefully, a fairly strong breeze would present itself and do most of the drying so she would not be forced to hang them near the hearth at night. Ena would surely have something unkind to say about having a MacGreagor plaid inside the Keep and Lasha was not in the mood to hear it.

  AS MOST CLANS PREFERRED, the Haldane’s great hall was big enough to hold several people at once. It had a long, narrow table in the center, chairs against the walls and a stone hearth at one end. Animal skins adorned one wall, weapons hung on another and a small, colorful, aging and fraying tapestry hung on the third. Three doors along the back wall led to adjoining bedchambers, a fourth door went to the outside and a fifth led to a kitchen.

  It was an ordinary evening in the Haldane keep. Lasha’s brother was happy and her sister-in-law was not. Ena was not an unpleasant woman to look at. In fact, when she smiled she might even be thought of as beautiful. The problem was, she rarely smiled. Her hair was a soft yellow which she wore in two braids in summer and loose in winter for the warmth of it. Her eyes were brown; her complexion extraordinarily soft for an older woman and her stature was graceful. If she did not have such a vile temper, Lasha might even like her.

  Lasha sat across the table from her brother and Ena, ate her evening meal in silence and waited. She waited through the yelling...waited through the insults...and still she waited. Yet, when Ena called the MacGreagor a scunner, that was the end of it. Lasha abruptly stood up, shoved her chair back, put both hands on her hips and glared at her brother. “You heard the lad, put Ena out!”

  The Haldane’s mouth dropped. “Lasha, you have never spoken to me thusly.”

  “We had no answer before. I tell you now, brother, handle your wife or I will seek sanctuary with the MacGreagors.” With that, she walked out the door, marched across the courtyard to her favorite tree stump in front of the elder’s cottage, sat down in a huff and tightly folded her arms.

  Laird Haldane could not believe his ears and q
uickly followed her out. “You cannot mean it. Would you truly leave us?”

  “I can take no more of her bad mood. She should be grateful to have the boy back, not furious he was lost to begin with. Put her out before we all go daft.” He studied the determination in her eyes, thought about it for a moment and then headed back inside the Keep.

  For once his wife was speechless and her eyes nervously shifted when she saw him come through the door. In just a few short steps, he crossed the room, bent down, grabbed her behind the knees and laid her over his shoulder. “Ena, we will have no more of your yelling.” He heard her draw in a sharp breath and fully expected her to hit him with her fists, but she was far too stunned. He turned, hauled her out the door and carried her to the same puddle of mud Lasha fell in earlier. Careful not to hurt her, he plopped her down and backed away.

  Ena could feel the cold wetness seeping through the back of her wool plaid and her ire began to steadily rise. She pulled one hand out of the mud, then the other and flung the wet dirt at her husband. Then the full force of her rage began to show in her face. “How dare you! You will pay for this!”

  The Haldane turned, motioned for Lasha to come inside and then closed the door behind him. He expected a whole string of vile words but it was quiet outside and that made him extremely nervous. He began to pace from one end of the room to the other and made three complete turns when suddenly the sound of the baton hitting the iron plate broke the silence. Again it sounded and again and again.