Abbie smiled sadly again. “Perhaps, but I feel if she is, she is buried deep down where I shall never find her. Life is not what I expected it to be. I think my parents did me a disservice by allowing me to believe in the impossible. They should have prepared me for the cruelty of life, for how hard and endlessly bleak it is. Heroes turn into villains like the day turns into night. That is a simple truth that more people should be aware of, and I know that when I do have a child they will not be blind to that. I will show them the true face of the world and when they are older they shall thank me for it.”
Maggie listened to her friend and feared that she was beyond help. They continued working on the clothes for the remainder of the day and spoke of little aside from the meanderings of life. But all day Abbie had the future in her mind. A deep malaise had seized her soul and she tried to think back to the girl she had been in an effort to recapture that sense of wonder and adventure. For a fleeting moment she felt it, and a smile flickered on her face. But in the very next moment the horn sounded, announcing the return of Callum.
The village cheered for their hero. He embraced them all and laughed with them, showering upon them the hoard he had collected from his small adventure. There were little tribes dotted about and Callum often went out to collect tributes from them, for his continued protection. These took the form of cakes, baked bread, and small trinkets. Abbie rose to meet him. Callum leaned down and pecked her cheek with his lips. He was always so gentle in public.
“And for you my wife, I have this,” he said, and pulled out a necklace from a pouch hanging around his wide waist. It was a long chain, with a green jewel hanging at the end. The shade was the same as her eyes. She took it from him and thanked him. Everyone cheered, enjoying the delusion that this was a happy, fulfilling marriage. Callum turned and celebrated through the night, while Abbie disappeared into her own hut. She fingered the necklace and wondered what poor soul Callum took it from. She placed it beside the bed and lay there, staring up at the ceiling, dreading his inevitable return.
3
He stumbled back in the small hours of the morning. He smelled of alcohol and meat and she pretended to be asleep. Her eyes were clamped shut as she heard him stagger around the room, clattering into various things, eventually causing some bowls to fall off the side and shatter against the floor.
“Damn you woman,” he cursed, “what sense is there of putting them there? Such a good for nothing. Look at you sleeping there, so precious and loved by all. What good did that do the town when they were being attacked. They needed a man then, not a damn foolish woman who believes in fairies. I don't know why I ever married you in the first place. You can't even do the one thing you were made for.” Abbie heard it all as he carried on mumbling to himself and she tried her hardest to stifle her tears, choking them against the pillow. Callum stayed up for a while. He pulled off his clothes. His body was now getting a little chubbier as he relaxed and ate and drank more, whereas when he had beaten back the barbarians his body had been packed with muscle. There was still the essence of a handsome man inside him but it had been dulled by gluttony and greed.
He sat on the edge of the bed and the mattress creaked under his weight. He coughed and spluttered and crawled into the covers. She felt his hands over her and his hot breath and his grunts of desire and she wished that it would be over quickly. He gripped her tightly and there was no escape. She did her wifely duty, although she wasn't sure if he could even tell if she was asleep or not. Despite being a hero, stamina had never been his strong point, but as he slept and snored loudly Abbie gazed out at the wan moon and prayed to something bigger than herself, pleading for some respite from the horror because she didn't know if she had the strength to endure it for the rest of her life.
The following morning Callum rose in a rage. Something had blackened his mood and he was taking it out on Abbie. He shouted at her for breaking the plates even though it had been entirely his fault, and he made her clean it up. Then he noticed that she was not wearing the necklace he had brought back. He clutched it in his mighty fist and his face contorted with anger as he confronted her.
“I bring you back treasure and you dare not wear it? How dare you defy me like this? When you go outside you will wear this as it is a token of our love. You need to show other people,” he said.
“When are we going to stop lying to ourselves? You don't love me, you just like having me,” she said in a rare moment of courage. Usually she suffered in silence but she was tired of it, and she knew that she was going to feel the ire of his temper anyway so she might as well talk back to him.
“Do not presume what is going on inside my heart. Now sit down and put this necklace on,” he said. When Abbie didn't move Callum growled. He placed his hands on her shoulders and pushed her down on a chair. She surrendered, unable to resist his strength. He pulled her hair away from her pale, freckled neck, and placed the chain around her. The metal was cold against her skin. The jewel rested in her plunging cleavage, and Callum looked at her with approval. His long, thick fingers pressed into her shoulders and her chest heaved, fearful of what he was going to do next. But, to her surprise, he moved away and began to get dressed.
“Who did you take this from?” she asked after a few moments.
“That is none of your concern.”
“I beg to differ. If you are going to raid other tribes you are no better than the barbarians that attacked us, and one day you will meet your match in battle and you will fall.”
Callum spun around and Abbie could see the whites of his eyes. In that moment she felt sheer terror. He pointed a finger at her and when he spoke spittle flew from his mouth.
“I am nothing like those animals! I am merely being compensated for providing a service. I protect them and if they cannot see that then they are free to challenge me, but they will fall because I am the hero and the hero always emerges victorious.” Abbie found his words distasteful and bile filled her mouth. She struggled to ignore it, and waited for him to leave, but there seemed to be something playing on his mind. He paced the floor and kept stroking his beard. Eventually Abbie asked him what was troubling him.
“There is a growing clan on the other shore of the lake. I have been monitoring them for some time but they keep expanding. Their leader is a cunning, brutish man – a savage. I fear that he may be planning an attack against us. I have met him and I know that he is planning something. I must prepare the village to defend itself. I cannot allow another tribe to take what is ours.”
Abbie had never seen Callum afraid before and she wondered how terrible a man must be to provoke this reaction in him. She toyed with the necklace and stared at him, suddenly afraid of the future again. But perhaps the sweet release of death was the only thing that could provide her with hope. It was a horrible thought, but part of her wished that Callum would fall in battle. He would get the heroes' death he would have wanted and she would be free of the misery. And yet she also knew that it was a risky wish, for the man that defeated him could be even worse than him.
4
It was the dead of night. During the previous few days Callum had been preparing the village to defend itself in the case of the attack. When pressed, he offered no reasoning other than that this man was a brute and had an evil look in his eyes. Abbie suspected that there was something more to it than that, but everyone else accepted the explanation without question. Callum delayed a hunting party so that he would be in the village when the attack happened, and as the nights passed without any event, his paranoia and worry only grew. He peered through the forest, keeping sentry like a man possessed. Abbie was glad, for it kept him away from her, but also worried because he resembled a man losing his grip on his sanity and she feared for what may happen if he lost his mind and went completely mad.
But while Callum was so focused on an attack from the forest, he forgot about the lake. His clan had only built simple fishing boats, but the same was not true of the clan across the shore. In the quiet of the nig
ht, a long, narrow boat slipped across the water and a number of scouts skulked through the town. They stayed in the shadows and made no noise. Abbie had been sleeping peacefully when she was awoken by a hand clamped around her mouth and a bag pulled over her head. She struggled against them, trying to lash and kick out, but there was no hope. Her screams were muffled, and just as quickly as they arrived they departed again, this time with Callum's wife. The boat slid across the water, and when daybreak came chaos ensued, but of course Abbie did not know this, for she was being taken to a new clan.
The men in the boat said not a word. Abbie twisted her head but she could not see through the blackness of the bag. Her hands had been tied and the rope dug into her wrists. Her throat tightened and her heart was pounding as she wondered what awaited her. Was she being taken from the arms of one brute to another? Would her sorrow ever end? Only time would answer her questions, but she had an unsettling feeling as she felt the boat sail over the waves. They approached the shore and she was hauled off the boat. She stumbled against the sandy shore, and the men holding her didn't seem to care about her well-being at all. She was flung down into a room of some sort, for she heard a door being locked. Her arms were still tied and no matter how hard she tried to twist her head she was unable to free it from the dark sack. With nothing else to do, she slept, only to be awakened at the crack of dawn. The sack was pulled from her head and she saw a man, just a normal man, staring at her.
“Rise and shine,” he said.
“What do you want with me?” Abbie asked defiantly.
“Oh, it's not what I want with you, it's what Duncan wants.”
“And who is this Duncan?”
“You'll find out,” he said, and when he smiled she saw that he was missing some teeth. He provided her a tray of simple food and untied her hands. Outside she could hear that things were busy and there was lots of loud chatter, but she was unable to see anything. She wondered what was happening at home. By now Callum would surely have discovered that she was missing and he would be rallying the troops to come and get her. They did not have the ships to traverse the lake so they would have to make the long ride through the forest, which would take a few days. Abbie hoped that she would survive that long.
In the late afternoon, when the sun was at its peak, the man with the missing teeth came to fetch her again. He grabbed her arm roughly and hauled her out of the small hut. She screamed and hollered but nobody was there to help her, they all just looked at her with slight interest. Eventually her throat grew raw so she stopped her protest, knowing that it wasn't doing any good. The man took her to another hut, this one larger, and when he pushed her through the door he stayed outside.
Abbie looked forward and saw a man with his back to her. He wore a sheepskin and a crown made of branches. His long black hair was tied into a ponytail and it swung along his back like a pendulum. By most measures he would have been an imposing hulk of a man but in comparison with Callum he fell short, and Abbie wondered why her husband had been so afraid of him.
“I apologize for the rough treatment,” Duncan said in a soft tone. It took Abbie by surprise and she found herself to shocked to reply. “These are desperate times and they called for drastic action. Do you know why you are here?”
“Because you're going to attack my village?” Abbie responded. Some of the old fire that had been burning in her youth returned. During her marriage the fire had been quelled but now she had a new target for her frustration, and while she couldn't fight back against Callum, Duncan was a different proposition altogether. He chuckled softly and then raised his head, sighing heavily.
“Is that what you really think of me?” he said.
“That you're a savage and a brute? That's what I've been told.”
“By your husband no doubt.”
“Of course. And it's plain to see from the way you stole me from my bed and took me captive.”
“Again, I am sorry for that,” he said, and the words were heavy with emotion. Abbie studied him and started to think that there was more to him than what Callum had suggested. After all, she knew how deceiving appearances could be, and yet she was wary too. “But we are not like you people. We are not the brutes here.”
“Do I look like a brute to you?” she asked. At this point Duncan turned around and studied her with his eyes. She saw that they were a deep blue. His beard had flecks of gray in it, suggesting that he was older than she had assumed. His eyes were kind too, and had a weariness about them that she found she could sympathize with.
“No, I have to admit that you do not, and that is what I find most puzzling about this turn of events.” His gaze drifted down to the necklace. He started to say something and then stopped himself, before smiling at her. “It's a pleasant day outside, would you care to join me for a walk?” Abbie accepted the offer, unsure what to believe.
The sun hung high in the sky and it bathed the world in a resplendent golden glow. The air was fresh and it reminded her of how her village had been in the days before the barbarians attacked. The lake shimmered under the sun, and she looked out to the opposite side. It was too far to see anything except a faint plume of smoke, but Callum was sure to be amassing forces. Duncan led her away from the town to the edge of the forest, where they walked around the quiet fringes. It was a while before they spoke, but Abbie noticed that Duncan kept glancing at her necklace, and eventually she asked him why he kept looking at it.
“Before I answer that...how much do you know of your husband?”
“More than you, more than anyone else.”
“But what of his...travels, and the tributes he takes?”
Abbie cast her eyes downward, ashamed. “He only tells me that he takes a tribute for the services he offers. That they are earned because of the protection he can give all the villages but I...I fear that is not the whole truth.”
“Yet you wear it as thought it was your own.”
“He made me. I'm sure you've seen how...persuasive my husband can be.” It was at this point where Duncan stopped and pulled Abbie aside. He took hold of her chin and tilted her head up so that he could look into her eyes. She tried to glance away but his stare was mesmerizing and he seemed to look more deeply into her than anyone had before. She felt him inside her and yet it was not a feeling of invasion, more a feeling of comfort, as though he was swallowing up the loneliness that had resided inside her, as though he witnessed all the pain and anguish and shared the burden.
“I can see you have suffered a great deal. Perhaps I was mistaken in my initial judgment, but you cannot blame me for I only had your husband's reputation to go on.”
“What do you mean by that? What's going on?” Abbie asked. “Why did you take me?”
Duncan sighed. “First tell me what your husband told you about us, if anything?”
“He said that you were planning an attack on us, that you were a savage. He acted frightened, more frightened than I had ever seen him, so when I met you I assumed that you would be...a monster.”
“I am glad to see you were mistaken. It is interesting that he is scared though. I assume it isn't me he is scared of, but the truth.”
“And what is the truth?”
“That he is the only brute in this land and that he is the barbarian, the one responsible for so much suffering.” He looked at her with cold eyes, eyes that had seen so much sorrow, and to hear it from his mouth struck a chord in Abbie's chest. She knew now that she had not been the only one who was a victim of Callum's evil.
5
“Tell me more about what he has done to you,” Abbie said. She was sitting on a fallen log now, and Duncan was leaning against a tree. There was a slight breeze that tugged at her dress, but otherwise it was a calm and peaceful day.
“Callum has been tormenting the local tribes for a while now. He's offered protection but it is him who we need protection from. He asks for more and more tributes, which only make us weaker, and finally I have had enough. I am tired of the way he thinks he can b
ully us and make us submit. So I took his wife. I refused to give him something he wanted yesterday and I could see in his eyes that he was not used to being told no, and I knew that he would be back. It would seem that he is trying to whip your tribe up into a frenzy. I took you to use as a peace offering, hoping that if I offered you to him we could come to an agreement.”
“I fear you may have made a grave mistake. Callum is a proud man and he will not take this lightly. Sadly, he will be more offended that you dared to take something of his than the woman he loves. I am just a possession to him, no more or less than anything else he owns, and most likely he will simply try to take me back by force. I would urge you to prepare your town for an onslaught. He has started to believe his own hubris, that he is invincible, and he will not stop until anyone he sees as an enemy dies at his hands.”
“Is there no chance that you can reason with him? I do not want to see any bloodshed.”
The Highlander's Mail Order Bride (Scottish Highlander Romance) Page 67