by Susan King
“I would have snatched the arrow before it hit its mark.”
She stared up at him. “You couldna do that.”
“I could. And I would not have missed my aim, either.” He shifted to his feet and helped her up. “Come. Can you run?”
She nodded. He led her along a fast course, where the trees were dense and high. As they ran he watched for the guards. The loch was to the left, and he angled toward its long tip.
“Elladoune?” she asked. “We canna hide there.”
“Not there. Around to the other side of the loch. A long walk, I know, but there is a place we can go for the night. I want you to rest and be safe.” Near the edge of the greenwood, he stopped in the shade of an elm, his gaze scanning the loch. At the nearest end, Elladoune rose high on its promontory, silhouetted against the tinted sky that waned toward twilight.
“There is a shorter way. Come with me.” She grabbed his hand and turned toward the little cove between Elladoune and the abbey. Gawain ran with her into the shelter of the trees. She stopped in the green shade of a stand of birches.
“Quick,” she said, “take off your mail!” She fumbled at the leather thongs that tied his chain-mail hood to the hauberk.
“Do you mean to swim across the loch? Are you mad?”
“ ’Tisna far from this point,” she said. She yanked at his belt. He sighed, realizing she would not listen to arguments. He removed the sword belt and sheath while she tugged at his surcoat and the lacing of the hauberk.
He slid free of the hauberk, taking it from her to drop it on the ground. Juliana untied the laces of his quilted gambeson.
“But your wound—” he began as he pulled the garment off.
“ ’Twill be cleansed in the water,” she said. “I will be fine. Hurry,” she urged as he slid out of the padded tunic.
“Juliana, this is madness,” he said.
She pulled on his shirt. “Can you swim?” she asked bluntly.
“Aye, but you should not swim so far, with your side—”
“If you dinna want to go, I will go myself,” she said. Pulling on his leggings, she stopped. “Ach, you should stay. The sheriff will hunt you and arrest you for escaping with me. The king will have your head. ’Tis safer if you stay here, and protect your good reputation in England. Your orders are to leave Elladoune.” She looked up at him. “Leave Scotland.”
He took her face in his hands. “Show me the way across this loch,” he said fiercely. “And then I will show you something.”
Gaze searching his, she nodded. She bent again to divest him of his armor. When he was down to his braies, he knelt to shove his sword, boots, clothing, and the mound of chain mail under a fallen tree trunk.
He turned to see that she had stripped off her cloak and boots and stood in a long shirt, her bare legs lean and well shaped. She ran along the bank to the cove’s outer edge, where tall reeds verged, and slipped into the loch. Gawain followed.
The cool shock of the water soon faded, and felt refreshing in the lingering warmth of the day. He treaded water quickly past the reeds, keeping his feet free of the silty bottom. With a deep breath, he plunged after Juliana, surging with long strokes and deep kicks to where a group of swans circled.
He glanced over his shoulder and saw men and horses on the shore. Beyond Juliana, a flock of white swans glided nearer. Gawain hesitated, knowing how territorial and tempestuous the birds could be.
Juliana dove under, coming up in the middle of the circle of swans. She waved toward him.
He skimmed under the water too, and came up beside her. She cast him a quick smile and stroked ahead, staying inside the ring of white swans. Astonished, Gawain went with her.
Sooner than he expected, they reached the other side. Juliana dove under again, and he followed her along the layered stone of an underwater cliff. They came up under the shelter of huge pines that hung out over the water.
She climbed onto the bank and he followed. The swans had accepted their presence, staying with them all the way across the loch. Now they skimmed away. Juliana ducked low under the protecting branches of the pines.
From a shaded hiding place, she produced a cloth sack. Gawain, sopping as he knelt behind her, watched in amazement as she pulled out dry clothing. She shoved something at him, and he grabbed it—a woolen blanket.
Yanking off her wet clothing, she knelt, nude and dripping, under the eaves. She turned to him, tugging at his tunic. A moment later, stripped and wet, he took her into his arms.
The breathless kiss he gave her was somehow the finest, the most pure, he had ever shared with her. His hands skimmed the graceful curve of her back, and her breasts, nubbed and firm, rubbed against his chest. He nestled against her, rising hungry, and kissed her again. Her arms encircled his waist.
He wanted her fiercely, yet he inhaled sharply and forced himself to turn away, to cool his passion. This was not the time. Snatching up the blanket, he wrapped it around her.
“Your wound,” he said raggedly. “Let me see it.”
She turned to show him a small, ugly tear in the perfection of her skin, below the lowest rib on her left side. Though it was clean and scarcely bled, he saw a flash of pink muscle beneath the gap of skin. He frowned, and turned to rip a wide bandage from a shirt in the sack of clothing.
Wrapping her slender form securely, he picked up a dry gown of bleached linen that lay folded on the ground. He drew it over her head and arms, tugging it down.
He kissed her chastely, quickly. “Later,” he said, “when your wound is healed, and we have time, this secret place of yours could serve a fine purpose.”
She nodded, teeth chattering. “Dress now, and hurry. They may have seen us cross the loch!”
“I think your swans hid us well,” he said, but he grabbed the blanket, a tartaned length, and pulled it around himself. Then he stopped and looked at it.
The plaid was the red, purple, and brown pattern of the MacDuffs. He held its bright thickness in his hands. Slowly, deliberately, he spread it out on the ground. He had seen a leather belt in the pile of clothes, and he grabbed it, sliding it under the cloth.
He pleated the plaid carefully, leaving a length free, as his father had showed him so long ago. He had not forgotten, although he had not been aware of it until that moment.
Juliana knelt and watched him in silence. He lay on his back, wrapped the gathered plaid around his waist, and stood, head and shoulders ducked under the tallest part of the pine overhang. He fastened the belt quickly and flipped the extra cloth over his bare left shoulder. Then he looked at her.
She looked puzzled. “Where did you learn—”
He watched her, heart slamming. “My father taught me.”
“Your father?” She gaped at him. “Henry Avenel?”
“My own father,” he murmured. “Adhamnain MacDuff.”
“MacDuff … Gawain,” she said, and gasped. “There was a wee lad who left long ago … Gabhan MacDuff. He was taken south by his Lowland mother—oh! His English mother!” She raised shaking fingers to cover her mouth.
“Aye,” he said quietly. “I am he.” He held out his hand, while she gazed wide-eyed at him. “Come with me. There is something I want to show you. Mo cridhe,” he added.
My heart. The phrase came to him so easily.
She stared at him. Somehow, in the space of a few breathless, wondering heartbeats, she had watched him transform from a king’s knight into a Highland warrior.
“Gabhan MacDuff?” she said again. Blinking, she wondered suddenly if he had gone mad, surrounded by Highlanders and stories and legends for so many weeks at Elladoune.
“I am he,” he repeated. “The one who left here, so long ago.” He took her hand to draw her with him out of the pine eaves and into the forest. Turning, he strode so fast, barefoot and plaided, that she could not ask the host of questions that rioted through her mind.
She followed him through the trees and up a hill. He slowed and took her hand to help her over some rocks. Wildflowers tumb
led in crevices and heather swayed, bright and beautiful in the dimming light.
They passed a rushing burn, and she paused, breath heaving, her hand to her aching side. Gawain—Gabhan, she corrected herself, as she had always called him without knowing—stopped, looking back at her.
Somehow, he belonged on that hillside, with the heather cushioning his feet. Behind him, the mountain was dark and cragged, the setting sun bright on its upper face. For a moment, she saw the countenance of winter, old Beira, on a high slope.
“The face,” she said. “ ’Tis there again.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “Come.” He held out his hand and led her upward carefully, slowing for her, placing his hand, warm and strong, at her back.
They passed a trickling waterfall, where Gawain stopped to drink with her. He took her up a long, grassy slope, a wide pathway deliberately cleared of rocks by the hand of mankind.
At the top, he drew her with him through a wild, feathery edging of bushes and bracken. On the other side, she saw a high and broken wall of gray stone.
“Oh!” she said. “What is this place?”
“Glenshie,” he said. “I was born here.”
Again she gaped at him. Mad, certainly, she thought—yet in her heart she knew that he was in deep earnest.
He pulled her with him inside the perimeter of the square keep. She sat on a fallen stone, while the gloaming descended, soft and purple, around them.
Propping a foot on another stone, staring out over a slope that overlooked the loch far below, he began to speak.
And she listened, and at last began to understand his secrets.
“I betrayed them all,” he said, after telling her much of his story—his childhood, his secret dreams, his gradual disillusionment as a young knight. He had even explained his mother’s reticence. He finished by telling her about his sojourn with James Lindsay and his rebels.
Through it all, she had listened quietly, and he was grateful for her patience and acceptance. The night darkened and deepened toward dawn, yet he still sat with her among the stones of Glenshie and talked. With each new revelation, he felt a burden lift from him, heart and soul.
“I betrayed everyone, Juliana,” he continued. “They had faith in me. But I went over to the Scottish side with your cousin and his rebel band. I betrayed my family, and the English heritage my stepfather had granted me. I broke the word I had given King Edward—more than once. My stepbrother died because of the choice I made.” He had explained the forest skirmish and its aftermath. “And I abandoned the friends who needed me.”
“You betrayed no one,” she said. “You acted for honor, which many of your comrades didna do—and so it seems wrong, when ’tis right. Now that you have found Glenshie, and found the part of you that you thought was lost, you will have peace of mind.”
He sat on a fallen stone and stared at his hands in the darkness. “Peace? I cannot redeem what happened to Geoffrey.”
She sat forward, placed a hand on his arm. “But death is a risk of war, and every knight knows it. You didna kill him. Be true to your own heart, Gabhan. You think much about others, but forget to tend to yourself.”
He smiled a little. “I do tend to what I need. I looked for Glenshie. And I allowed myself to fall in love with you.”
She rubbed her hand along his arm. “And I am glad you did. But now you need to tend to the rest.”
“My allegiance,” he said softly.
She nodded. “You love Scotland.”
He looked at the mountains. “I always have,” he murmured.
“Then you must choose as best suits your heart.”
“I know what you want to hear from me. But ’tis not so easy to cast off all that I am, and take up the plaid, and the cause of Scotland with it.”
“I understand you better now,” she said thoughtfully. “You are one of those who are caught in this war. One side and the other pull you fast between them. You care for both sides.”
He folded his fingers together. “If I declare for the Scots, my family in England will bear the brunt of it.”
“The Avenels love you. They would tell you the same. Go the way of your heart, and let the rest tend to itself.”
In the darkness, she glowed like moonlight. He slid his hand over the satiny crown of her head. “You sound like Laurie,” he said, smiling wearily. “Please myself first.”
“Laurie is another with a foot in both lands. He decided for England, and willna waver.”
“Oh, I do not know about Laurie,” he said. “He wavers more in his heart than he lets on. His wife is English, and Laurie likes life to be easy. He says he only comes here for the ale.” He smiled a little. “But he respects the Scots and he does not like this fight. ’Twould not take much to sway Laurie to the Scottish side someday.”
“Would he follow you if you came over?”
“He is not a follower. He goes his own path—as I do mine.”
“When you were looking for me in the forest, the day we rescued the cygnet,” she said. “What were you going to tell me?”
“Who I am,” he said. “What I had found here at Glenshie. I wanted you to know all of it. Including what I have been ordered to do at Elladoune.”
“Close it,” she said.
“Raze it,” he said. “That is the full truth.”
She gasped, and gasped again, and sat up, turning away from him. “Nay,” she whispered.
“Juliana, it torments me,” he murmured. “With you there at Elladoune—with MacDuffs there—how could I do this? But my orders will not change. Naught will change just because I wear a plaid in this moment. My chain mail is hidden away, but it still exists. ’Twill not go away.”
She was silent for a long while. “I think,” she said, “you made your decision long ago. For England.”
He let out a regretful sigh, as if he could release some of his sadness. “I am a knight of King Edward. I have a chance to gain the right to Glenshie by that means.”
“Ruin my family’s castle,” she said, “to save your own.”
He puckered his brow. “I never intended to destroy Elladoune. As soon as I can, I will ride out to see the king’s commanders myself and argue for it. But I will clear it and close it down before I leave. That will satisfy De Soulis until I can appeal to the king’s generals—if anything can satisfy him. He will do whatever he can to ruin me now, I suspect.”
She kept her face turned away, and said nothing.
He reached out and touched her hair, a silken sweep of light in the darkness. “You thought I would choose for the Scots.”
“I hoped you would. I still hope so. I think your heart lies there.”
“Juliana, regardless of which way I lean in my heart and soul, I need to do what will serve all those whom I love—my family in England, my kin in Scotland. My honor as a knight. You,” he whispered fervently. “I can ensure your safety if I remain with the English. Do you not see that?”
“Safe,” she said, “without you?” She glanced over her shoulder. “What serves you in this?”
“That I can help others, and protect them,” he said. “It means much to me, that, though some think it my greatest flaw. If I sacrifice something of my life, I gain in other ways. Mayhap you would still love me,” he said softly, wonderingly. “If so, ’twould be more than enough.”
“You I love,” she murmured. “But a Sassenach who rides through Scotland, ruining it for his king—’tis hard, that.”
He stood abruptly and stepped away, placing his foot on the rubbled wall. “So that is your answer. You cannot love a Sassenach.”
She stood and came toward him. “You I love. You. ’Tis my own flaw. My own weakness. Or my strength,” she whispered. She touched his arm.
He turned with a low groan, overwhelmed by what he felt, what she offered. Gathering her into his arms, he tucked his chin over her head and stood silently with her.
“There is another way to claim this place,” she said, looking up at him. “
Claim it through your king—your own king, the King of Scots. You were born a MacDuff, not an Avenel.”
He looked over her head at the night landscape and did not reply. There was irrefutable truth in what she said, and undeniable risk.
“Robert Bruce will take this land back from the Sassenachs one day. Scotland will be free, I know it in my heart. Glenshie is yours by right. Your own king wouldna dispute such a claim.”
“Unless the claimant fought for the English.” He sighed. “I have been tempted to put my faith in Robert Bruce and his campaign, I confess it. He is a true king, noble with it.”
“Would you give your fealty to a man who has himself transgressed against King Edward, and made his obeisance three times? Would you pledge to follow that man, now that he has followed his heart and become King of Scots?”
He huffed a flat laugh at the irony she pointed out. “You are asking me to change my allegiance.”
“You did so once.”
“I need to ensure the safety of my English and my Scottish families,” he said gruffly. “The best way to do that is to serve my knight’s obligation, and earn what privileges I can—for your sake and for the Avenels both.”
“You choose obligation, not love. Loving us, you could still follow your own heart. We would understand that.”
“Understand this. I obeyed my heart once, and went over to the Scots. It ended in disaster.”
“Then try it again.”
He stared out at the mountains and the loch. “ ’Tis a beautiful place, this,” he murmured. “I remember it well. I always wanted to come back. But I love the Avenels, too.”
“You have family here—your own MacDuff kin.”
“I know. I must speak to them.”
“And someday,” she said, taking his hand and placing it on her abdomen, “there may be others who are kin to you.”
He kissed her temple. “Would you want that, with a Sassenach knight?”
“I want that with you,” she murmured decisively.
He framed her face. “Would you go with me to England, if I asked that of you?”
“To visit your family, but I canna live there. My soul is here.”