The Kissing Stone

by Amanda Scott

  “You sent to Rothiemurchus for Sir Ivor, too, did you not?”

  “Aye, sure, and told him tae come in from the west as we did, so he’ll be on Clan Chattan land all the way. I mean for our men tae rest tomorrow, for I’ll no attack any town on the Sabbath whilst innocent folk be a-going tae kirk. But we hied ourselves here so the men can rest and be ready tae leave afore dawn on Monday, just as we did today.”

  “Your men, with mine and Cawdor’s, may be enough to take the castle.”

  “I canna trust tae that, though, for we dinna ken how many men Comyn de Raite left tae hold the town, and I dinna want war wi’ the man.”

  “I doubt that de Raite wants war, either,” Fin said.

  “Perhaps, but I dinna plan for what he may or may not do,” Malcolm replied. “I try tae plan for all that the villain could do, and this fight be between de Raite and me. When he hanged four of our Mackintoshes six months ago, afore winter set in so hard, I honored me promise tae Mar and his grace, the King, and took nae vengeance. But I’ll be hanged m’self afore I let that devil take all o’ Nairnshire.”

  “How many of my men will you need?” Fin asked.

  “We’ll ha’ enough without ’em, for Sir Ivor will bring many and Cawdor and his lot from Strathnairn and Inverness will join us as we go. Ye’re tae stay here whilst we head out as quiet-like as we came from your west woods. After all, de Raite likely has watchers and may ha’ designs on Finlagh. Meantime, there be one other wee matter we must discuss,” he added, looking pointedly at Katy.

  Scarcely daring to breathe, she shifted her anxious gaze to her father.

  Fin said mildly, “You refer to this notion of yours that Gilli Roy should marry our Katy, aye?”

  “Aye, sure, and Gillichallum Roy be willing enough.”

  “Is he, though? In troth, Malcolm, I have long thought that he and Katy behave more like a brother and his younger sister than young lovers.”

  “Bah,” Malcolm said. “’Tis a close kinship they have is all, and tae my way o’ thinking, good friends make good marriages. Forbye, their union will bind our two families more tightly together.”

  Katy shut her eyes, sent a brief but urgent prayer aloft, and opened them again to watch her father.

  “I understand your wishes, Malcolm,” Fin said with a slight nod. “Still, Katy is young yet and not, I think, eager to marry. She is also aware of our Scottish laws as they relate to marriage. Had she and Gilli Roy shown tender feelings for each other, I would not stand in their way. But I have told each of my daughters that she will have a strong say in choosing her husband. I cannot ignore that promise now.”

  Katy relaxed, and her thoughts flew again to Will. She had not told him that the Mackintosh wanted her to marry Gilli, not only because she had been dead set against the notion from the outset, but also because she supposed that Will would tell Aly. She wanted no part in giving such news to the girl for whom Gilli so plainly cared, perhaps loved, and who might even love him.

  Malcolm had not yet replied to Fin, but his displeasure was plain to see.

  Will awoke Sunday morning wondering how far the Mackintosh might have traveled the day before and how large his army would be when he reached Nairn.

  He had heard much about the Mackintosh, the reputedly small and ancient Captain of Clan Chattan, from Granduncle Thomas, and nothing that Thomas had said of Malcolm, as Thomas had always called him, suggested that the man had lost any of his skill. He had, after all, survived not only the Great Clan Battle of Perth four years before the turn of the century but also Harlaw two decades ago and the terrible defeat at Inverlochy less than two years ago. Such a man, aged or not, would not waste time once he knew that Cawdor needed him and his men.

  Even so, Will had seen only normal activity the last couple of days, and his father’s other watchers had reported no sightings by suppertime that day of aught suggesting an army.

  Nonetheless, he remained uneasy. Much as he had disapproved of de Raite’s seizure of Nairn, he could not wish disaster on his kinsmen or their men.

  Waking at his usual time Monday morning, Will dressed and went downstairs to break his fast before heading back to the ridge. A glance outside had revealed clear, sunny skies, and the morning seemed peaceful.

  De Raite, who had beaten him to the high table, even greeted him in a friendly way, so it was a shock to them both minutes later to hear a brief clamor in the courtyard before Colley and Hew strode into the great hall.

  “They attacked us and wrested the castle from us afore dawn!” Hew shouted. “Them devils even put four o’ our leaders tae the sword!”

  Will leaped to his feet. “Where are Jarvis, Liam, Dae, and the rest of our men?” he demanded.

  Colley said gruffly, “Jarvis be dead, as well as Fergus Niven o’ Badenoch. That old bastard Malcolm killed Jarvis himself when Jarvis challenged him.”

  Swallowing hard, Will blinked away sudden tears. Jarvis was the one brother who had made any effort to be friendly to him. His sorrow swiftly turned to anger.

  “Be damned tae ye, Hew!” de Raite snapped. “Bad enough that ye’ve lost another o’ your brothers. What be ye a-doing here if we still ha’ men in Nairn? Ye be their leader, for I put ye in charge! Ye should be wi’ them!”

  By then, Will had all he could do to avoid turning on his father in pure rage to remind de Raite that he had warned of just such an outcome.

  “Gi’ me peace, Da,” Hew retorted. “Had the castle no had a sally port, Malcolm would ha’ killed us, too! We barely escaped. Did ye want us tae die, too?”

  When de Raite looked about to erupt, Colley said, “Cousin Dae were in town somewheres wi’ Liam and a troop o’ our men, a-telling folks ye were claiming the sheriffdom. Liam’s nae fool, sir. He’ll bring that lot home safe.”

  “I hope he does,” de Raite said grimly. “Not that it matters much now that we’ve lost the castle, but this will not be the end of it. By heaven, I shall inform the Malcolmtosh—aye and Fin of the Battles and Sir Ivor of Rothiemurchus, too—that I mean tae report their defiance o’ the agreement that Jamie hisself made betwixt the lot of us tae maintain the peace. But how did ye let this happen, Hew?”

  Fists clenched, Will did not stay to hear Hew’s excuses. If de Raite could not see the irony in his last few words and his complaint against the Mackintosh for breaking the peace, when de Raite had done the same thing and done it first, Will could think of naught to say to him or to Hew that either would want to hear.

  Instead, he headed onto the ridge and had another look at Finlagh Castle from above on his way south. Seeing naught that stirred him to think he might earlier have misrepresented its peacefulness, he continued his usual patrol.

  On his way home, the castle still looked undisturbed, but a carefully spread white kerchief decked a bush near the pond above it.

  Katy and Clydia had nearly finished preparing for supper Monday evening when Catriona entered their bedchamber to tell them that Malcolm and Cawdor had routed the Comyns and that Malcolm had returned from Nairn with his men.

  “Mercy,” Clydia exclaimed, “that was quick!”

  “Aye, but they did leave here well before dawn,” Catriona reminded them. “Now that Cawdor has reclaimed his constabulary and gathered more men to guard the city until he can be sure that all is safe again, Malcolm has decided to go home.”

  Looking at Katy then, she added, “He will take Gilli Roy with him, love, so you need fret no more about that.”

  “Is Malcolm still vexed with me?” Katy asked her.

  “Not any longer, but be kind to Gilli Roy, for I do think that Malcolm does believe that he ought to have persuaded you.”

  Although Katy was tempted to tell her about Gilli’s Aly, because Catriona usually knew all their secrets, she did not. That secret was Gilli’s. Glancing at Clydia, she saw that her twin had evidently found a knot in her lacing.

>   Downstairs, as the twins crossed the hall toward the dais, Gilli hurried after them and called out Katy’s name loudly enough for her to turn to see that he was holding out her kerchief. “One o’ ye must ha’ dropped this above by yonder pond,” he said. “It had blown on tae a bush there.”

  “Oh, you found it,” Katy said, stifling her vexation. “That is mine, Gilli. It got wet, so—” Breaking off when Clydia caught her eye, she shrugged.

  “Aye, sure, I see,” Gilli said, catching up with them. “Ye forgot it when ye came down from there. I’m glad I saw it, then.”

  “You have been away all day, Gil,” Clydia said. “Where did you go?”

  “I didna want tae go wi’ the men intae Nairn, as ye might understand,” he said. “So I just walked here and about.”

  “To the Stone?” Katy asked him quietly.

  “Aye,” he said with a sigh. “I hoped I might ha’ a chance tae say good-bye tae Aly, but she wasna there. By me troth, though, it fair gave me a chill tae think about her whilst I were standing there. ’Tis likely I’ll never see her again.”

  Gently, Clydia said, “The Fates may be kinder than that, Gil.”

  “I hope so,” he said. “She says her da’s a right villain, though, that he’d likely kill her, did he ever learn she were a-meeting wi’ me.”

  “Then we must pray that he is not so wicked or that he never finds out,” Clydia said practically. “In any event, fathers rarely kill their daughters, Gil.”

  “Some do, though,” he said. “Me own cousin slapped his eldest daughter so hard that she hit her head against a stone wall and died.”

  “Who is Aly’s father?” Katy asked him.

  Gilli Roy’s cheeks reddened. “I dinna ken,” he said. “Dinna think I never asked,” he added defensively when the twins looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. “I did ask her, but she started a-weeping and said it were best that I knew nae more than what she had told me, which was nobbut her name being Aly. I couldna force her tae tell me, could I?”

  “Did you never follow her home?” Katy asked.

  He stared at her. “Nae, for she said I must not, and I trusted her word.”

  Diplomatically, they agreed that he had behaved properly. Katy thanked him again for returning her kerchief, with the unspoken hope that Will had seen it before Gilli retrieved it, and they joined the others at the high table for supper.

  Malcolm, Gilli Roy, and Malcolm’s men left the next morning for Loch Moigh after breaking their fast with the family.

  Malcolm’s visit had placed extra demands on the larder at Finlagh but also on the generosity of the cottars in the west woods, who had felt obliged to share aught that they had with the men-at-arms who had slept there. Accordingly, Catriona ordered more baking, and Katy promptly offered to deliver bread to the forest folk that afternoon after the fresh-baked rounds had cooled.

  Catriona gave her a searching look that vanished when Clydia offered to accompany her. “Thank you both,” she said then. “Give Granny Rosel a hug from me, and tell her I look forward to a visit with her later this week and that I’ll bring Ailvie with me. Come to that, you two ought to take Bridgett with you.”

  Katy bit her lower lip to avoid protest, but Clydia said, “I think Bridgett would liefer stay here, Mam. She told me that Lochan has scarcely spoken to her for days, and she means to find out if he has gone dumb or is just being difficult.”

  Catriona grinned. “She will catch that man, I think. Bridgett knows her own mind, and I have seen the way Lochan watches her when she crosses the courtyard.”

  “When she swishes across it, you mean, teasing him with her hips,” Katy said with a chuckle. “I have seen that, too.”

  Laughing then, Catriona left them to their usual chores. While Katy tidied the solar, Clydia made a list of yarns she needed and what fabrics she wanted to inspect on their next visit to the town draper, assuming, she said, that Nairn remained peaceful now that Cawdor was back in charge.

  While Katy attended to her chores, she tried to imagine how best to let Clydia know that she wanted to be alone for a time that afternoon, so she could visit the Stone and see if Will was there.

  He had said he would try to meet her in midafternoon, after all.

  Hours later, as the twins walked from the castle to the woodland cottages with the fresh bread, Katy remained silent, still wondering just what to say.

  “What are you scheming now?” Clydia asked with a note of humor in her voice. “Nae, do not look at me as if I were a witch, Kate. You wear your thoughts on your face, as I have oft mentioned before. ’Tis also why I believe you did not accidentally leave the kerchief Gil found yesterday at the pond.”

  Gritting her teeth, knowing of no way to avoid confiding in Clydia but knowing, too, that her twin would honor her confidence, Katy said, “I want you to let me have time to myself later and not tell anyone else.”

  “It must be that Will again then, aye?”

  “Aye,” Katy admitted with a sigh. “I like him, Clydie, more than I can put into words, and I trust him, too.”

  “Good sakes, Kate, his father, Aly’s father, is a villainous man, according to Gilly Roy. As I have been pondering that, disturbing possibilities have been stirring in my mind. Just now, as I thought of you meeting Will on the peak, I realized that he likely heard you or saw you from the ridge. What if he is a Comyn of Raitt and was watching us?”

  Katy felt a chill but quickly rallied. “He cannot be, Clydie. If he were, he would have captured me just as those Comyn villains captured Àdham shortly after he returned from Inverlochy two years ago. Will is too kind to do such things.”

  “So you think, but how can you trust someone you barely know, Kate? That sounds as daft as Lochan telling Bridgett he loved her when he scarcely knew her.”

  “Mayhap it does, but I do,” she insisted. “Not only did Will save my life, but my trusting him seems to be much the same thing that you mentioned when you said it scarcely surprised you when he stepped out from behind the tree that day, because you’d had that odd feeling that someone was nigh, but felt no real fear.”

  “Trust is much different, though,” Clydia replied. “The other seems more of a warning sense to make one wary of whatever one is about to do. Trust is—”

  “—trust,” Katy interjected. “One trusts or one doesn’t, that’s all. One feels safe, and I feel as safe with Will as I do with you or Mam or Da.”

  “Do you not think that we should ask Da about these feelings, then? He must have them, too, so he is likely to know more than we do about what causes them.”

  “Then, ask him if you like. I still want time to myself this afternoon. I mean to take a walk, Clydie … alone.”

  “Where will you meet him?”

  “I shan’t tell you, because if Da or Mam asks you where I am, you would have to tell them. This way, you can honestly say you don’t know.”

  Clydia gave her a long, measuring look and nodded. “Aye, then we will begin our visits at the farthest cottage. But if you are not back before supper …”

  “I will be,” Katy promised. “I do not mean to go more than a short distance from the knoll, not beyond hailing distance.”

  Clydia still looked doubtful, but Katy knew the words were true. After all, if the dense canopy of trees did not conceal the Stone, men on the ramparts would see it. So if Will should be so daft as to threaten her, those men would hear her scream.

  Chapter 10

  Fearing that he might miss Katy and hoping it was as safe for her to meet him at the standing stone as he thought it was, Will had abandoned the ridge much earlier. He had been waiting for over an hour at the Stone, his ears alert for the faintest sound of her approach or that of anyone else. The woods were alive with songbirds and other creatures, all behaving normally.

  He even heard the shrill, repetitive kee-kee-kee of a kestrel, t
hough he could not spot the bird. Its chestnut-brown and gray coloring would match the trunks and branches of most trees in that dense woodland.

  The familiar sounds, scents, and feeling of peacefulness relaxed him. The day was warm, and he did not mind sitting on the flat rock he had found amidst thick shrubbery a short way from the huge stone.

  He could see it easily through the foliage, so he would see her when she approached. So sure was he that he would hear her coming that when his thoughts drifted again to Jarvis’s death, he forced his attention abruptly to a pair of baby gray squirrels chasing each other, flinging themselves from branch to branch of the trees.

  Moments later, though, his mind’s eye presented another image of Jarvis with the doubtless bloody sword plunging into him. Emotion struck so strongly then that he scarcely knew it as grief, making him wince and shut his eyes. When he opened them, Katy—in a pink kirtle, with her thick wheaten plaits reaching over her bosom to her waist—stood silently by the Stone, peering into nearby bushes.

  Feeling better at once, Will raised his hand and stood.

  “Good, you are here,” she said, smiling as she pushed first one and then the other dangling plait back over her shoulders and moved to stand before him, her beautiful eyes alight with pleasure. “Have you waited long?”

  “Nae,” he said, though he knew he had been there at least an hour, perhaps two. Now that she was here, though, smiling as she was, it did not seem to have been long at all. Studying her face, he seemed bereft of words, so he said the first thing that came to mind, “I never noticed that wee scar before. How—?”

  “Stairs,” she said, “when I was four. My parents kept telling me not to run up them, but I always did, and so …” She shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about that. I … I wanted to see you and …” She looked at him so hungrily that without a thought he opened his arms. When she walked into them, gazing up and raising her arms to rest her hands gently on his shoulders, he needed no further invitation.