by Mac Flynn
I left the small houses and walked through the commercial portion of the village with its shops of food and blacksmiths. The road also ran past the inn. The majority of travelers were men, and some had more leisure time than was good for them. They sat outside the doors to the large, wooden inn and leered at me as they passed. By their suits I guessed they were the livery for the lairds who stayed at the inn.
"Would you expect to see such beauty in a swamp as this?" I heard one of them say.
"Not I," another replied.
"Little mouse, are you lost?" one asked me.
I moved to the other side of the road and looked straight ahead. To acknowledge them was more than they deserved, and would only worsen matters. One of them took it as a slight.
"Too proud to talk to us?" a tall, lanky man growled. He strode across the wide, muddy road towards me. I tried to avoid his clutches, but he grabbed my wrist and pulled me against him.
"Let me go!" I ordered him.
He turned to his companions with a laugh. "Does anyone want a kiss from the little mouse?"
"Aye!"
"I'll take one!"
"Me first!"
"I think the lady is wanted elsewhere," a voice spoke up.
The man turned around and roughly pulled me with him. We looked down the road in the direction of my home. A tall gentleman of thirty-five stood in the middle of the road. He wore a traveler's cloak much like mine, but worn brown with mud and creased with the hot sun of many long summer days. His black boots were soiled, but of fine calf skin, and his long brown hair was pulled back in a tail that trailed far down his back. He had dark eyes that hardly blinked.
"Mind your own business," the man who held me snapped.
"I have made it my business to take this young woman from you," the stranger returned.
The man snarled and shoved me into the waiting arms of his horrible comrades. He cracked his knuckles and stalked over to the stranger. The cloaked man did nothing but stand in his spot on the muddy road and smile. The livery servant reached him and swung his fist.
The cloaked stranger dodged the blow and returned it with a swing of his own. His fist hit the livery servant full on the cheek. The man spun towards us and showed his eyes were rolled back in his head. He fell face-first into the mud and lay still.
The cloaked man raised his eyes to the others who held me. "Who else of your number wishes to test their mettle against me?"
After such a demonstration the other livery servants were not quite as bold as their fallen friend. They abandoned the man and scurried back inside the inn. I glared at their retreating backs as the cloaked man walked up to me.
"What cowards. . ." I mumbled.
"Yes, they were a poor sort to pick on such a lovely moon flower," the cloaked man commented. I turned to him and noticed he studied me deeply with his dark eyes. "But you are well?" he wondered.
"Aye, thanks to you," I agreed. I bowed my head and curtsied. "I owe you a great deal."
He smiled and shook his head. "No deed that shouldn't have been performed." He turned and gazed at the fallen man. "But we should put some distance between ourselves and our new acquaintances." He looked to me. "You're headed for the castle." The sentence was not a question, but a statement.
I furrowed my brow, but nodded. "Aye, but how did you know that?"
"Your steps were very determined before this rude interruption. Only a servant fit for Campbell Castle would hold themselves with such dignity," he commented.
"I haven't the honor to call myself a servant of the castle until I arrive there this day," I informed him.
He raised his eyebrows. "Then you haven't met-" He shook himself and his smile widened. "Well, well, but the plot grows thicker indeed." The queer man stepped back, swept one side of his cloak in front of him and bowed to me. "Allow me to guide you there myself to ensure your safe arrival."
I shook my head. "I can't expect such kindness from you. You've helped me so much already." And something of his strange demeanor startled me. I felt he kept things from me, and though I was a stranger to him I was unsettled by the chance that I was perhaps a part of those secrets.
He straightened and offered me his arm. "Nonsense. What would your mother say if I allowed you to journey alone after such a trial?"
I took a step back and clutched the front of my cloak. "How do you perceive so well? Witchcraft?"
He laughed and shook his head. "Nothing so fanciful. I merely noted your simple but lovingly created cloak. The stitch shows great care, and I guessed you had a mother. Only a parent, and most especially a kind mother, would perform such a duty for their child." He held out his arm closer to me and stared into my eyes. His voice was soft and pleading. "Please. Let me accompany you."
I furrowed my brow, but stepped close to him and took his arm. He smiled and patted the top of my hand. "Brave girl, and for that I will call you Andra."
"But my name is-"
"You are Andra to me," he insisted.
The stranger walked forward and led me down the roads and onward to the castle. The center of the village was nestled at the bottom of the hill beneath the castle, but the steep incline meant none encroached on the tall stone fortifications. Only the straight, wide road dared climb the hill to the gate with its wooden gates tall and wide enough through which a carriage could be driven.
I studied the man's features as we walked arm-in-arm. He was slightly pale and though he smiled greatly the humor never seemed to slip into his dark eyes. He was a most peculiar man, but I knew I had much to learn about the world, and he had saved me from a dangerous fellow.
"If you will call me Andra, what shall I call you?" I asked him.
"Bruce will do," he replied.
"I do not know your face. You're not of the village?" I guessed.
He shook his head. "No, but I have passed through before. The laird has hosted me several times."
I bowed my head. "I understand."
He laughed. "You take me for a laird. An astute observation, but I don't wish for you to treat me as one. I am a traveler. Nothing more or less than that." He studied me. "But tell me about yourself. You have lived in this village your many years?"
"I have," I confirmed.
"And now you go to make your fortune?" he guessed.
"My mother is need of income," I explained.
"Then you are both brave and kind, Andra," he complimented me.
"My name is-"
"Andra to me, and to me it shall always be," he told me. "By-the-by, it has been many years since I last passed. Is the young laird still well?"
"He passed away seven years hence," I informed him.
A dark shadow passed over his face and his smile faltered. "Dead?"
"That is what they say."
He raised an eyebrow. "They do not know?"
"There was no funeral. We expect he died away from home," I explained.
His smile returned. "I see. That changes everything. But our interesting conversation is at an end. We have arrived."
We stood at the bottom of the road that led up to the old wooden gates of the castle some half mile hither. He released my arm and stepped back. I turned to him and gestured to the castle.
"Will you not at least find some solace in a warm kitchen?" I offered him.
Bruce looked up at the castle and a strange smile slipped onto his lips. "No. I don't believe I'd be welcomed there anymore."
I was curious , but remembered Mother's warning of my business and others. "Then I'll thank you again, and wish you a good journey, sir."
He bowed to me. "A good day, Andra, and may the light of the moon shine brightly on you."
"May God grant you a long life," I returned.
Bruce chuckled. "He has, but good day."
He turned and strode down the road. I was left with a great curiosity, and so watched him until he disappeared among the cottages.
"What a strange man
. . ." I whispered.
But my curiosity would not feed me, and so I returned my attention to the castle. I walked up the slope and soon arrived at the border of my future. The stone keep of the ancient Campbell clan was a mountain of boulders hewed to fit one on top of the other. Tall, narrow windows were cut into the boulders and looked out on the great moorlands owned by the laird. The top of the high walls were wide battlements where archers could make their stand against a great force. The entirety of the castle would have swallowed half the village, and so great was the expanse that the castle could house such a number of servants and lairds with their entourage that they were a village unto themselves.
The entrance was two large wooden gates that opened the way to an expansive courtyard. Animals were kept in a stable on the left, and on the right at the far back was a pair of doors that led into the living and eating quarters of the laird and his guests. To my immediate right past the gates was a small, low stone barracks where the guards of the castle and a small contingency of soldiers were kept for the safekeeping of the village.
Two men with swords stood at attention on either side of the open gates. They looked askance at me.
"What brings you here?" one of them snapped.
"I am to be a servant in the kitchen," I announced.
He jerked his head towards a small door beyond the stables. "The kitchen is through there."
I bowed my head. "Much obliged."
The man sneered and they both returned to their duty of watching the road. I hoped other welcomes would not be so cold as my first.
CHAPTER 3