Highland Destiny

by Hannah Howell

  “Aye, Beaton’s dogs would have been yapping at your heels all the way to these gates,” muttered James.

  “So, what did ye feel was of such great importance that ye had to bring the news to us yourself, and at such a speed?” asked Balfour.

  “To begin with, Beaton may not be dying, so, if ye had thought to just wait until the mon breathed his last foul breath, ye may have a verra long wait.” Douglas reached for the jug of wine, hesitated, then refilled his goblet with sweet cider.

  “But everyone has said that he is verra ill. The rumors of his impending death have been so often repeated that they have to have some truth in them, dinnae they?”

  “Oh, aye, but e’en though the mon looks as poorly as any I have e’er seen still walking, what ails him may not kill him. Once I was recalled to the fact, I realized that he has been dying for three years or longer! This lass I met is possessed of a healing touch, and she seemed to think that, if he truly had a killing disease, he should be dead by now. She said it was probably just some ailment of the skin. It does lessen and worsen as some ailments of the skin are apt to do.”

  Although Douglas’s news that Beaton could still live for many years was not welcome, Balfour was far more interested in the lass he had mentioned. “Ye met a lass there who has the healing touch?”

  “Aye, a bonny, wee lass.”

  “With unruly black hair and green eyes?”

  Douglas frowned slightly as he stared at Balfour. “Ye describe this lass as if ye have seen her.”

  “I think I have. Her name is Maldie Kirkcaldy.”

  “Weel, I didnae ask her her clan name, though that sounds right. Others kenned it and I think I heard the name a time or two. All she told me was, ‘I am Maldie.’ I had heard about her healing skills, that this was her second visit to Dubhlinn, and that she stays in the village with an old woman who was newly widowed. Curious that ye should ken this lass.”

  “Oh, aye, I ken her. She stayed here for a wee while, then went running back to her master, Beaton.”

  “Her master? Why should ye think Beaton is her laird and master?”

  “She stayed here long enough to learn all about us then, once we had guessed her game, she went racing back to Dubhlinn. The lass appeared on the road to Dubhlinn as we crept away from our loss, kept her own counsel verra tightly, had no answers or explanations when I presented her with my growing suspicions, and then fled to Beaton.”

  “And ye believed she told the bastard all she had heard and seen?”

  “Aye, what else was I to think?”

  Douglas shrugged. “Just what ye did, I am thinking. Howbeit, ye are wrong. That lass is no ally of Beaton’s.”

  “How can ye be so certain of that?” Balfour tried not to be too hopeful for, knowing how desperate he was to learn that Maldie had not betrayed him, he was too eager to accept any other explanation for her actions.

  “Oh, aye, verra certain. That lass wasnae at Dubhlinn to help old Beaton. She was there to kill him.”

  Balfour was so stunned that he could not speak for a moment. It was an effort to stop himself from gaping at the man. A quick look at James gave him some comfort, for that man was looking equally as shocked.

  “Did she tell ye that was why she was at Dubhlinn?” Balfour finally asked, his voice roughened by his lingering shock.

  “Nay, she did more than that. I saw her trying to stick a dagger in his heart with my own eyes.”

  “But why?”

  “That, I fear, I cannae tell ye. I was peeping in at the doors of the great hall, and she and the old mon were at the far end. All I caught was a few words and I dared not draw any closer. There was something about how cruelly he treats women, talk of betrayal, a few weel-said insults by the lass, and a few mentions of how long overdue he is to taste some weel-deserved justice. I wondered which one of his enemies had sent her, e’en considered the possibility that ye might have, but now I think it was some personal vengeance.”

  There was one question that Balfour had to ask, although his fear of Douglas’s answer made him hesitant. “Is she dead?”

  “Not yet,” replied Douglas, and then he yawned so widely that his body trembled.

  “She tried to kill the mon. I would have thought that she would have been killed right there, right then, by Beaton himself or one of his men.”

  “I think Calum, Beaton’s most faithful cur, would have cut her down without hesitation, but he didnae. As I said, ’twas hard to hear from where I stood. Howbeit, one thing was said verra clearly and loud enough for all to hear. Beaton evidently has a liking for using a loud, kingly voice when he pronounces a judgment. The lass is to hang at the end of market day on the morrow. I was hoping there might be something we can do to help the lass.”

  “There may be,” Balfour forced himself to reply, fighting the urge to ride for Dubhlinn immediately. “We plan to attack Dubhlinn on the morrow.”

  “Then I am even gladder that I left that muck heap when I did. I may have some information that will aid you.”

  “I am sure that ye do, but go and bathe, then rest.”

  “There isnae much time left.”

  “There is enough for ye to steal a few hours of much needed sleep. ’Twill make your mind clearer.”

  The moment Douglas left the great hall, Balfour poured himself a large goblet of strong wine. It took several deep drinks before he felt calm enough to think straight. The mere thought of Maldie being led to the scaffold made him desperate to ride to her rescue with no hesitation or plan, and he knew that would be utter folly. He had a plan of attack, a very good one, and it could easily accommodate the need to rescue Maldie.

  He suddenly cursed and shook his head. “I forgot to ask Douglas where Maldie had been put to await her hanging.”

  “There is a lot ye forgot to ask the lad, but dinnae fret,” said James. “We have time to let Douglas rest and to find out all he learned while at Dubhlinn. Ye were right when ye told him he needed to get some sleep. He was so weary he could easily have forgotten to tell us something of great importance. A mon that tired cannae think too clearly. Aye, and he needs to be rested so that he can ride with us on the morrow.”

  Balfour nodded. “And, when I told him of our plan to ride against Beaton in the morning, he gave no hint that he kenned anything which could prevent that.”

  “Aye, and that he would have remembered no matter how blind-weary he was.”

  “Good.” Balfour rubbed the back of his neck and grimaced. “I fear my wits fled me when he told me that Beaton means to hang Maldie. One moment I believe that she has betrayed me, the next I discover that she is to hang for trying to murder Beaton. Why should the lass try to kill the mon?”

  “Only she can answer that question. There could be many reasons why, and we but waste time trying to guess which one put that dagger in her hand.”

  “I just fear that it may have been me.”

  “Ye? Ye didnae ask the lass to go to Dubhlinn and try to stick her dagger into Beaton.”

  “Nay, but I accused her of betraying me, of working for Beaton against us. Mayhap the lass thought this was the only way to save her honor, to prove her innocence.”

  “That lass is no fool. There are many less risky ways for her to prove her innocence.”

  Balfour smiled faintly. “The lass may be clever, but she isnae so clever or so perfect that she is free of all wild ideas or plots or ne’er acts without thinking everything through most carefully.”

  “Mayhap, but that leaves us with no reason why she stayed at Dubhlinn for a fortnight ere she came here,” James pointed out. “There is more to all of this than we can understand ere we speak to the lass.”

  “Aye, so we had best succeed on the morrow. Not only must we free Eric from Beaton’s grasp, but free Maldie from the hangmon’s noose. I but pray that they are both in the dungeons of Dubhlinn for, unhappy a place as it is, ’tis the safest when the battle starts.”

  Maldie cautiously felt her way along the wall of the dar
k cell until she touched the edge of a cot, and then she sat down. It took another moment before her eyes adjusted to the dim light provided by one smoking torch set in the wall outside of the cell. She felt Eric before she saw him, felt his fear, his anger, and his curiousity.

  “How are ye, Eric?” she asked. “Has Beaton hurt you?”

  “How do ye ken who I am?” the boy asked as he edged nearer to her.

  “Ah, weel, I have just arrived here from Donncoill.”

  “My brothers sent a lass to aid me?” His voice held the hint of shock as he warily sat down next to her. “Nay, they would ne’er do that. Mayhap ye are some trick played by that bastard Beaton. He means to use ye to turn me to his side.”

  “Nay, ne’er that. He but felt that I might like to meet you ere I hang on the morrow.” Just saying those words made her shiver, but she fought against giving in to her fears. Eric needed strength and calm now.

  She studied Eric for a moment as he stared at her wide-eyed with shock and disbelief, clearly struggling to think of what to say next. He was indeed fair of face. His features still held the softness of a child, but there was already the hint of the handsome man he would become. His hair was a very light brown, and she suspected it would be even lighter if they were not sitting in the near dark. There was a brightness to his eyes that told her they were not brown like his brothers. In truth, the fine lines of his face did not remind her of any of the Murrays. They did not really remind her of Beaton either, so they had to be a gift from his mother. It would be easier to make up her mind about his blood heritage if she could see him in the bright light of day, but she knew she would have to depend upon the mark. If he carried the same one she did, there was no doubt about who had fathered him. Maldie was just not sure she ought to tell the boy.

  “Why are they going to hang you?” Eric finally asked.

  “Because I tried to kill Beaton.”

  “Why?”

  “I promised my mother that I would as she lay dying. She made me swear an oath that I would find him and make him pay with his life for the harm he did her. The mon seduced her, and then deserted her, leaving her alone and penniless with his bairn at her breast.,

  “Ye are Beaton’s bairn?”

  “Aye, one of what is said to be a large horde of daughters he didnae want. Ah, I see I have shocked you,” she murmured as he gaped at her. “’Tis a shocking thing to try and kill one’s own father, but, in truth, I have ne’er seen the mon before today, so I have no true feeling for him. There is no more bond between us than a tiny little voice in my head that tries to remind me that his seed made me. I didnae listen to it, I fear.”

  “Aye, ’tis shocking that a child would try to kill her father, but that isnae what shocked me the most. As ye say, ye dinnae e’en ken the mon, have ne’er e’en set eyes upon him. Nay, what shocked me to the heart was that your own mother would ask ye to do such a thing, to commit such a sin for her.”

  “Weel, she had been terribly wronged by him. She told me so quite often as I grew. She was a gentleborn lass, and he should not have shamed her that way.”

  “True enough, but the crime was hers to avenge. She shouldnae have asked ye to swear to kill your own father, to set that black sin upon your soul. I am sorry if ye see this as an insult to her, but ’tis what I truly think. She must have grown verra bitter to e’en think on such a thing.”

  “She had,” Maldie said softly, saddened by his words for they were the stark truth. “From the earliest time that I can recall she talked to me of how I was to cleanse her name of the shame he had blackened it with.”

  “She raised ye to kill the mon?”

  Maldie winced. The boy meant no disrespect. He spoke with the blunt, sometimes painful, honesty of the child he still was. His direct question pounded in her mind, however, demanding an answer. The one that formed was enough to sicken her.

  He was right. With one simple question he had exposed the truth she had fought so hard to ignore. As she sat in a Dubhlinn dungeon awaiting a hanging, she no longer had the strength or the will to ignore that truth. Her mother had raised her from the day of her birth to be the sword of vengeance she herself was too cowardly to wield. It would be kinder to think that Margaret Kirkcaldy had never thought of the consequences of that, of the danger she would be putting her only child in, but Maldie could no longer deceive herself even that much. Her mother had been so eaten up with her hatred of Beaton, that she simply had not cared what happened to her daughter so long as Beaton suffered some punishment. Whether her daughter failed and died or succeeded and blackened her soul forever with the sin of killing her own father, had not mattered to the woman.

  “Aye,” she whispered, too hurt to even cry. “She raised me to kill the mon.”

  “I am sorry,” Eric said softly, resting his long-fingered hand on her shoulder. “I did not mean to speak of things that hurt you.”

  “Ye didnae hurt me, laddie. My mother did. All I suffer from at the moment is the fact that I am too weary and too close to death to keep lying to myself. In my heart I have kenned it all along. I was just verra good at ignoring it. And, aye, mayhap I ached to kill Beaton simply because he had left me with her, or because I wanted to blame him for what she was. Then, too,” she forced herself to smile at him, “he is a mon that sorely deserves killing.”

  Eric grinned, then plucked at the torn back of her gown. “Ye fought hard, did ye?”

  “Not hard enough.”

  She knew the moment he saw the mark on her back, its shape and size visible beneath the torn back of her gown even in the dim light. He tensed, then shuddered. Maldie inwardly sighed, for there would be no hiding the truth now. From all she had heard, Eric was far too clever to miss the implications of sharing a birthmark with her.

  “Ye have one of those too, dinnae ye?” she asked softly, her voice weighted with sympathy.

  “Aye, I thought it was from my mother.”

  She could tell from the unsteadiness of his voice that he was not going to take the truth well. What sane person would wish to discover that he was the son of a man like Beaton, and not one of the clan that had lovingly succored him his whole short life? Maldie took his hand in hers, knew he wanted to cry but fought the tears, and wished there was something she could say that would ease his pain.

  “I am sorry.”

  “I would prefer to be a Murray,” he whispered, his voice thick with the tears he refused to let fall.

  “Ye still can be. They dinnae need to ken this. Only one person has seen my mark, and he didnae recall where he had seen it before, only that it looked a wee bit familiar. So, there is a chance that ye can keep this a secret. Especially if that person ne’er kens who I really am.”

  “And would that person be my brother Nigel?”

  “Nay, Balfour,” she muttered, then scowled when she felt his surprise. “Balfour isnae a bad-looking fellow, ye ken.”

  “Oh, aye, I ken it. ’Tis just that the lasses dinnae often ken it.” He sighed and buried his face in his hands for a moment. “Of course, he isnae really my brother anymore.”

  “Weel, nay. ’Tis probably nay the time to say this, ’tis too early for ye to gain any joy in the irony of it all, but Beaton thinks he has stolen his wife’s bastard and must hoist a lie upon the world when, in truth, he has taken back the only legitimate child he has ever sired.”

  “Aye, ’tis too early for me to enjoy that sad jest. I dinnae want to be his son. The mon is a swine, a cruel, heartless boor. He wishes to twist me into the same sick mon he is.”

  “Ye could ne’er become like him.”

  “Who can tell? If he makes me watch the death of another mon the way he made me watch Malcolm suffer, I may lose my wits enough to be quite like him.”

  Maldie put her arm around the boy, horrified by what Beaton had done. She had heard about the torturous death Balfour’s man Malcolm had suffered. To make a young boy watch such a thing was cruelty indeed. Eric might be right to think that Beaton meant to twist him into t
he same sick man he was. How many times could a boy be subjected to such horror before he did begin to change, to begin to gain that particular type of cold heartlessness that Beaton had perfected in himself?

  “I must tell Balfour and Nigel the truth,” Eric said, sighing heavily and slumping against the damp stone wall of their cell.

  “As I said, ye dinnae really have to,” she said, respecting his honesty but wondering if he understood how much pain it could bring him.

  “I really have to. I couldnae look them in the eye if I held this secret in my heart. I wish I could get word to them now ere they risk Murray lives to try and rescue me. ’Tis nay right that any Murray should die trying to save me, a Beaton, from my own father.”

  “They would still save ye from Beaton,” she said, but his quick, crooked smile told her that he had heard the doubt in her voice. “I feel that they willnae be able to hold this against ye, but then I recall how long the feud has gone on, how deep the hatred goes, and that confidence wavers. I am sorry.”

  “Why? ’Tis the truth. One should ne’er be sorry to tell the truth.”

  “Aye, one should if ’tis a truth that hurts someone. Your honesty is most admirable, but ye will soon learn that not everyone wants to hear the truth either. Some people will be made quite angry by it, some will be quite hurt. One shouldnae lie, but then sometimes one shouldnae be so quick to tell the whole truth, either. Weel, it may not seem of much value to ye at the moment, but, if the Murrays cannae look beyond the blood that runs in your veins, ye will still have me. We are brother and sister.”

  He laughed shortly and shook his head. “Oh, aye, that might help except that ye are about to die.” Eric gasped and clutched at her hand. “Oh, sweet Jesu, I am so sorry. I allowed my own hurt to kill all my wits. I should ne’er have said such a cruel thing.”

  “Dinnae fret so.” She took a deep shaky breath to calm the sudden attack of fear his words had infected her with. “I dinnae plan to die on Beaton’s scaffold.”