by Sondra Grey
Brandon blinked. Babette was a French name, but the older woman had the broad accents of a highlander born and bred. She seemed to recognize Brandon’s rough accents too. “From north of Argdour, eh?”
“Aye,” said Brandon, smiling, “Near Invergloy” he said, naming a town he knew not far from Tor Castle. He’d had to lie a time or two in his work as a spy. It was always best to stick as close to the truth as possible.
He met the piper, Tamas, and the sword dancer – apparently also a lute player – Robin. “Where did you learn to play lute?” Brandon asked him interested. Robin spoke with a lilting of an Aberdonian so it wasn’t surprising when he claimed to be from Aberdeen, a port in which he would have encountered a great many types of musicians.
The last to arrive were the two women. Glenna, whom Brandon was warned about by Babette, and Meg, the harpist.
“Oh Ned, did you bring me a present!” the singer, Glenna, cried out, rushing forward and clinging to Brandon’s arm. Her breasts were on display in a low hanging gown and Brandon couldn’t help but be entranced by the sight. You’d have to be cold blooded not to be moved by it.
“He’s not for you, Glenna,” said Ned, sounding more fatherly than annoyed. “He’s the new fiddler.”
“Yes, but can he play?” muttered the young lutist, looking at Brandon sourly. Ah. He had feelings for the singer. But of course. You could spend all your time in a band of seven and not develop small dramas. Brandon had best entangle himself from it. He politely stepped out of Glenna’s grasp and introduced himself formally.
“I’ve missed the road,” he said, honestly enough, for he loved to travel when he wasn’t warring. “And I’ve missed the music. It was nice to live a steady life in the city for a time. But I’m ready to head home.”
The players seemed to accept his excuses, and he mounted the steady mare and walked beside the wagon as it left the city walls.
He’d been hoping to spend more time with the harpist, but she disappeared into the wagon almost as soon as she’d arrived. The singer, on the other hand, sat at the back of the wagon, singing her siren’s song and attracting the glances of passersby, quieting only once they were outside the city limits and there was no one to watch her.
“Do you sing?” she asked Brandon, batting her lashes attractively. Brandon couldn’t help but smile at her. He understood why men found women like her attractive. All he had to do was express interest and she’d let him lead her into the woods and have his way with her. The thought was surprisingly tempting, and were he in a different mood, or had he come across her while living in his father’s keep, he might have given her a tumble to see if she was worth the ride.
But watching Eudard, watching Ewan – his brothers had left a sour taste in his mouth. He would not use women as they did. He’d had a great deal of time to think while alone with the old gods on Ruim. He would not be as black as his name suggested.
He let Glenna flirt, and he answered her honestly enough, and when her wheedling questions became too much for him to handle, he rode up front to enjoy Ned’s silence. Not long after, Meg had climbed up into the driver’s seat and played her harp for Ned. Though she was clearly playing for the enjoyment of the old man, Brandon found himself affected. He had the sudden, unshakeable urge to sit next to the light-fingered lady, to see what she smelled like. To hear her clear, lowland voice some more.
“Would you care to ride, Ned?” he asked, politely. “I can drive the wagon for you.”
“I’m fine, my boy, though thank you for asking. If you’re sick of riding, Robin is always keen to mount up, aren’t you boy?”
Robin stuck his head out of the tent, and eyed Brandon’s horse with envy. Though Brandon didn’t wish to relinquish his place riding next to Meg, Robin was a good two stones lighter than he, and the horse could use the rest. So, he traded places with Robin and sat in the wagon.
By day’s end, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take of traveling in a troupe. He’d lasted two hours in the wagon, where it became clear that Glenna would be dogged in her pursuit of him, then he’d demanded the horse from Robin and rode with Thamas, whose silence was a balm.
There were villages to stop in and rest the horses, and they did. At night, they camped by the road and Brandon cursed his idiocy. He’d been gone from the road long enough to have forgotten to pack canvas for a tent.
Ned and his wife slept in the wagon, as did Glenna. But the others had tents to set up and Brandon found himself wandering over to see if Meg needed a hand setting up hers.
“Oh, I’m not sleeping in a tent tonight,” said Meg, when he asked. “It’s a nice evening out. There’ll be need for tents soon enough. But it’s still summer. It’s still clear and relatively warm. I’d rather sleep beneath the stars.”
Brandon found himself smiling at the thought of Meg sleeping beneath the stars. He understood the want. There were summer nights on Ruim when he would do just that, when he would try to block the sound of the ocean, to imaging he was back in the forests near Ben Nevis, hunting with his brothers.
He helped Thamas make the fire and watched Glenna, Meg, and Babette set out to make dinner.
“We don’t always eat this well,” said Robin, sitting beside him and waving a leg of chicken. “But we were paid handsomely in Edinburgh and were able to stock up for the journey. In about a week’s time we’ll have to hunt. Are you handy with a bow?”
“Handy enough.” He replied. He hadn’t had to hunt in years. There was no hunting on Ruim. There was nothing but rats and crows on Ruim. And there was no hunting in Edinburgh. Occasionally the king went stag hunting in the hills with his knights. But Brandon was not a knight. Not yet anyway. Soon. He grinned.
He’d been hoping that Meg might join him for dinner, but she sat on the opposite side of the fire, near Ned and Glenna and spoke to Glenna in hushed voices. Brandon knew they were speaking about him because Glenna kept giggling and looking over. Brandon sighed. He would have to do something about her soon, but wasn’t sure what it would be. One had to be careful in small groups like this. It might just be easier to give into the singer. Lord he hoped he wouldn’t have to do that.
It was Robin who started the music, by pulling out his lute and plucking an English melody. Meg stood up from the circle and went to grab her harp. Brandon’s eyes followed her as she came back, tuned it, and joined in the melody. Curious, he thought, leaning back on his hands and letting their music wash over him. He could appreciate how an Aberdonian like Robin might learn this song, but where had Meg learned it. He made up his mind to speak with her on the morrow.
Chapter 12
I knew the fiddler player was watching me. Worse than that, I wanted him to watch me. It was why I’d gotten my harp out, why I’d joined Robin in the song. While Glenna had snored beside me last night, I’d thought of him, of the concern in his face as he wiped my makeup away, of his patience as he allowed me to leave the courtyard myself. I realized, as I had walked out, that I wished I hadn’t said no. I wished I’d let him take me back to the hotel.
Watching Glenna flirt with him was upsetting me more than it should. Watching him steal glances at her chest, or laugh at one of her ridiculous come-ons – that was torture as well. I was angry at both of them and knew that anger was irrational.
So, I dealt with it the only way I knew how – I made him look.
Beside me, I knew Glenna saw him looking because I could feel her getting her dander up. I knew the moment before she opened her mouth that she was going to change the song – she didn’t know the one we were playing.
“Play ‘On Yonder Hillside’” she commanded in her orator’s voice. And Robin, damn him, switched almost immediately. I’d look petty if I didn’t play along and so I did, the earlier, unfinished melody still pulsing through me. Glenna stood up to sing, acting the song out with such ridiculous force that even the ever-patient Ned rolled his eyes. She sang directly to Brandon, who politely watched her and applauded when she was finished. When she comman
ded he get his fiddle out and play with her, he got up and did as she commanded, and I put my harp down, mood sour and ruined.
Glenna was loath to sleep inside the tent that evening, but Brandon didn’t take the bait to ‘go walking’ with her and so she finally left in a huff. I laid out my roll by the dying fire, stewing in my own irritation. I closed my eyes but listened to sounds of the fiddler settling down nearby. Only when all was still, when I could discern his breathing, did I relax, did I let myself fall off to sleep.
I felt like a fool on display, the corset doing its best to break my ribs, my scalp aching from the ridiculous hairstyle they’d placed me in. I tried to smile at the young man who approached me, but my father pinched my arm, sharply “Are you hell-bent on attracting the least attractive men in all of Scotland! He’s barely acceptable in James’ court. If we leave here without a husband for you I swear to our lord, girl…”
The dogs were howling out the window. I stopped my fingers on the strings of my mother’s harp. I played my music in the back room near the kitchens, where father and my stepmother hated to go.
“We’ll have fun, you and I,” he breathed into my ear, nails biting into my shoulder where his hand pinned me to the wall. His knee pushed between mine, trapping me so that I couldn’t move. With his free hand he reached into the neck of my gown.
I awoke with a snap, shaking the memories which had filtered through my sleep like dreams. The light hadn’t yet risen, but dawn was coming shortly, the glade in which we’d made camp was filled with a soft, grey light. Around the fire, Brandon, Thamas, and Robin slept. Behind me was the wagon, where Glenna, Ned, and Babette were still abed as well. I wasn’t in Anstruther any longer. I let the reality of my situation sink into me until I was as calm as the morning, then I got up to clean the camp.
Chapter 13
T hey spent four days on the road, two of them wandering through the forests around Loch Lomond before they stopped in a small village a few miles outside of Kilchurn castle, where the Campbells of Glenorchy lived.
Brandon had spent the last few days making a study of the players. Glenna had begun to understand that her flirting wouldn’t get her anywhere with Brandon, and had turned her whiles back on Robin. Robin, in turn, seemed friendlier and more willing to talk. And he could talk a blue streak. Thamas, it seemed, was quiet, so Robin was thrilled when Brandon would answer his questions or speak about his life. Robin’s life was an interesting one. His father had been a travelling musician who’d resided in Aberdeen. Robin, the fourth of eight children, had sailed for a time before meeting Ned and the girls. He liked the music, he liked the travel and the performance aspect.
“Not much attention for you when you’re the fourth of eight,” he confided during one of their long rides. “Now I like the spectacle, the cheering and all…”
As silent as Robin was talkative, Thamas, it seemed, came from a village in Ross territory, where his wife was currently. Glenna had told Brandon that Jenny was the brains, “plain as a mouse, but smart and shrewish. It’s why Tham was happy to leave her behind.”
Glenna, was a cotter’s daughter who’d always had a fine voice and a taste for men. To hear Babette speak of her, Glenna’s father had gone out of business and tried to pimp his daughter. Glenna had run off and whored until finding the group.
Meg was a tougher nut to crack. Ned spoke of her fondly, but said only that she joined them in Grangemuir four years ago on one of their rare tours into the lowlands. The way he spoke made it sound as if Meg had been running from an abusive marriage. Brandon wondered how true that was.
Watching their interactions with each other were also telling. Meg and Glenna relied on one another. Glenna relied on Meg to be her perpetual audience, while Meg seemed to use Glenna’s company to stave off the strange loneliness that hung about her. Babette and Ned had a good marriage though rarely spoke words to each other. They seemed to communicate through glances and subtle gestures. Ned was fatherly, Babette a bit less maternal. She was sour at everyone but had taken a quick liking to Brandon.
Brandon was a fresh audience for their stories, and so whenever one of them would get him alone, he or she would talk and talk.
But Brandon had yet to get Meg alone. And more than anything, that was what he wanted.
When they arrived at the village, Brandon went with Ned to watch and see how the old man secured his business.
There was an art to it, he noticed. Ned would greet the innkeeper and casually mention that his troupe would be playing Kilchurn for a few nights, and would the people of village like a show? He didn’t make the innkeeper respond on the spot, but told him they’d be camped at the edge of town, should anyone be interested in their services. In the end, the three innkeepers sent men to secure, and there was a bidding war for the players that evening. They made more money than Brandon expected.
The concert in the inns was livelier and more relaxed than the concert in the castle had been. Brandon hadn’t yet practiced with the band, but it was easy enough to pick up on their tunes. If he stood by Ned, the old man would count him in. As the music and the crowd swelled and the drink flowed, Brandon couldn’t remember a time when he’d last had fun.
Chapter 14
W hen they’d played their agreed upon set, a few amateurs brought their instruments out and kept the music going. Babette and Ned took turns dancing, Glenna was holding court at a table full of lads, and Brandon, the fiddler, had gone up the bar for more Ale.
It was the second time I’d seen him play, and it was so fantastic I’d nearly forgotten a whole bar of music watching him. Four days on the road with him, and I hadn’t seen him smile. Well, he smiled occasionally, in a mocking or polite way. But nothing genuine, not like tonight, where he’d laughed and stomped his feet with Ned’s tabor and picked up a few of the choruses. I’d even seen Glenna turn around and glance at him in surprise over his rich baritone.
I hadn’t wanted the playing to stop. I could have watched him all night, and watching him now, linger by the bar by himself, I felt drawn to him.
“Where did you learn to play fiddle like that?” I asked.
He looked down at me, as if surprised I might come over and speak to him. Then he considered me a moment and passed me his drink. I took a draft of it. Cheap ale. Best we’d get around here, and I was thirsty, so I drank deeply. I didn’t miss much about the life at my father’s house, but I missed the good wine.
“There was a man in the village who played,” said Brandon after a moment. “I loved the music, even as a boy. I used to go and watch him all the time. He offered to teach me. My mother used to like it, when I played to her.”
“Did you play for her often.”
A small, rueful smile stole across his face. “Whenever time allowed.” He spun, leaning back on the bar and watched me as I finished off his ale. “Do you want to go for a walk?” he asked, smoothly, eyes all innocence as they took me in.
A walk. Like the kind of walks that Glenna took? A strange feeling crept over me, making my limbs heavy. I felt flushed.
“Yes,” I said. I did want to go with him. I wanted to go with him badly. There was a press in here, it was warm. I’d stayed away purposefully while we were riding so as not to make trouble with Glenna, who could not stop talking about how handsome and dashing she found the new fiddler.
“Not like any village lad you’ve ever met, is he?”
Indeed, he wasn’t. And while I hadn’t met as many as Glenna had, I’d met enough. Brandon’s accent may have placed him in a highland village, but his manners were somewhat more polished. His edges not so rough.
A lot of that might be shyness, I thought as I walked ahead of him, out of the inn door and into the night. He hadn’t opened up much to anyone. He seemed watchful, intent, and given to long bouts of silence.
“The quiet doesn’t bother you, does it?” I asked him, when we reached the edge of the small town and he’d yet to say a word. Above us, the hunter was visible amidst the thick knot of stars
that spilled across the sky.
“Does it bother you?”
I shrugged. “I spent a good deal of my life in the quiet. I like noise well enough.” My father had always gone quiet right before he exploded.
“Which is no doubt why you are such close friends with Glenna.”
I sighed. “She does like to talk.”
Brandon smiled and kept walking down the road a way until he came to a fat tree. Then he sat down and leaned up against it.
I didn’t know if I wanted to sit. I had a strange and restless energy. I was incredibly aware that I’d no idea what to do in these situations. That I was the inexperienced ingénue that Glenna and Babette had labeled me.
“Do you know, Meg,” said Brandon after a moment. It was the first time he’d used my name. I liked the sound of it on his lips and I turned, and looked down at him. Gone was the cautious and polite Brandon who’d been travelling with us a few days. This Brandon was different. He leaned against the tree trunk, a blade of long grass in his hands, one leg crossed over the other as he stared at me with a sharp, amused interest. “You’re quite a mystery to me.”
I was the mystery. I placed my hands on my hips, feeling slightly threatened by this strange, new Brandon who lounged before me. Much more like a panther than a simple village groom. “How so?” I said, finding my mouth was suddenly dry and licking my lips. A strange tension was curling just beneath my breast. Delicious, almost painful. I made myself stand still.
“You don’t seem like a village lass,” he said. “There’s a coarseness to village lasses and a softness to you. Something a bit more refined.”
“What is it you’d like to me to say?” I asked, anxiety spiking the strange emotions already roiling through me.