My Something Wonderful

by Jill Barnett

  He froze, aware his sister was angry and she blamed him. Her beliefs were well-founded. “She swooned. I merely had the foresight to be standing there to catch her.” He eyed Mairi’s sweaty hair, pulled from its braid and hanging around her flushed face, and the old woolen peasant gown with the patched sleeves and covered with a stained leather apron. “Perhaps the prospect of meeting you frightened her,”

  Mairi swiped at her brow self-consciously. “I was making candles, Lyall Robertson! More like the prospect of being handed over so freely to the likes of Huchon de Hay. And do not be so thick-headed!” She lowered her voice and hissed, “How could you kidnap the king’s daughter?”

  “She didn’t know she was kidnapped,” he said flippantly. “She thought I was taking her to her father. Ouch! The Devil’s blood! You have boney knuckles.”

  “Knuckles? I should clobber you on the noggin with a flail, crack it open and hope some good sense might fly in. You gave her to de Hay?”

  “And your old swain Colin Frasyr.”

  “Do not, Lyall. I cared not a whit for Frasyr and you well know it. And he has a blood bond with his cousin so that he was involved is not a surprise. I doubt he would harm any woman, but de Hay? He is cruel. Why did you do it? Tell me why?”

  “You are a woman. You cannot understand what was at stake.”

  “What I cannot understand is stupidity. You imagine yourself part of some brotherhood misunderstood by mere women whose minds are frittered away on such things as velvet and pearls.”

  Lyall did not respond.

  “I cannot understand? That is what you men say when you do something we women know is harebrained. Do not tell me I cannot understand. My husband was the king's own diplomat. You think we did not speak of things? You think he did not value my thoughts? My opinions? You are a fool, brother. And I understand all too clearly that you have no excuse for what you have done.”

  “Dunkeldon—“

  “Curse Dunkeldon! Curse it to hell and back! Curse it to the hell it has taken you to, Lyall Robertson. We walked away all those years ago and still you cannot leave it behind you. You are my brother and I love you, but you have made a grave mistake, out of guilt you should not feel, for events out of your control, and the foolhardy idea that Dunkeldon is more than just a burnt old ruin--one that has ruined you! It has.” She looked away from his and shook her head in disgust and frustration.

  When she looked up again, she placed a hand on his arm. “Do you not see? This is not a mere sport, some lark. ‘Tis not a mistaken marriage, the lure of bonding yourself to the man who held our father's lands or a marriage to some poor lass far from willing. Dunkeldon has driven you too far this time. It has driven you toward treason. You gave the king’s daughter to his enemies. You could lose your knighthood. Your name could be listed, Lyall. You could be imprisoned, or hanged.” There were tears in her voice when she said, “Did you learn nothing from what happened to our father?”

  “How could I forget? I bear his name…you do not. You married Robert. Mother wed Ramsey. I--” he tapped his chest angrily, “I alone carry his name, and his shame.”

  “Mama! Mama!” The boys came running in.

  “You lads be quiet. What are you doing here? Oh, where is their nurse?” Mairi ran toward the chamber door and called to their maid.

  The nephews spotted him and shouted his name louder than Norman tourney caller, and suddenly he had boys all over him.

  * * *

  “Mama? Is that the great lady?” The child’s voice came from far away.

  Where am I? Glenna’s head was foggy.

  “Aye, Duncan.” The woman who answered did so kindly, her tone soft and lilting.

  “What is the great lady’s name?”

  “Lady Glenna.”

  “Why is she on the bed?” Another child asked, his voice higher and with a slight lisp of a child still learning to sound out his words.

  “She’s dead, Gregor!” Yet another piped in with a wicked, teasing tone, before he lowered his voice ominously and said, “She was poisoned by the vile, dark witch who lives in the forest and eats foolish lads with red hair and spots after she boils them in oil.”

  “No witches are in the forest. You lie!” But poor Gregor’s voice sounded doubtful and as if he were going to cry.

  “Why won’t she wake up?” Duncan asked

  “She will.”

  Lyall?

  A small finger slid open her eyelid, and startled, she was suddenly staring a small lad with bright red hair and no front teeth. “Hallo.” His freckled face squinted at her and he removed his finger from her eyelid. “Are you dead, my lady?”

  Glenna opened both her eyes.

  “Mama! She’s awake,” he shouted. “The Lady Glenna, is awake!”

  “Glenna!” Lyall was suddenly kneeling by the bed, her hand in his. His face was covered in road dust, caked along his lips and jaw, and his hair was stuck to his head from his helm. But there he was, so close, looking contrite and overly concerned, his brow furrowed and his eyes red with road dust and moisture.

  Was this the same man who shoved her away last night, who ignored her all day?

  He reached out to lovingly take the cloth from her brow and her hand shot up and gripped his wrist hard. He looked at her hand and frowned.

  She took the wet towel and whacked him with it.

  “Oh! Did you see, Mama? She hit Uncle Lyall!” The oldest lad was pointing at her and jumping up and down.

  “She will not have sweets for a whole day,” Duncan said seriously.

  The children’s nurse came into the room, looking harried and out of sorts. “I’m sorry, milady. They escaped. Come along, lads. You were not supposed to leave the kitchens. “ The woman shooed them toward the door. “Now be off with you. Hurry.”

  The children’s voices waned as they ran down the hallway, and room was suddenly silent. Lyall looked at Glenna and said, “What was that for?”

  “I shall tell you. Gladly. I wake to you kneeling by my side? This is far cry from the tail end of the contingent, is it not? All day you avoided me.” She lowered her voice and said, “I hope you ate enough dust to choke on. Now suddenly you choose to be near my side and all concerned?” She gave a sharp laugh. “You are a horse’s ass, Lyall.”

  “You make no sense woman. You do not get angry…you do not hold me accountable when I turned you over to your father’s enemies, when you are locked in a tower--”

  “She was locked in a tower?” The young woman standing behind him interrupted, only a voice behind Lyall’s big, broad-shouldered body.

  Glenna tried to lean enough to see her but could not.

  “Aye,” Lyall said quickly, “which did not affect you, apparently. Yet here you glare at me and beat me with a towel for not riding by your side?”

  “Nay…” Glenna sat up on an elbow and spat, “For last night!” She flogged him with the towel twice more, but the third time he grabbed it mid-air and jerked it from her hand.

  “Perhaps that is why I chose to ride in the rear position…my lady,” he said sardonically and stood up, calmly dropping the towel in the laver by the bed.

  “Coward,” she said with barely controlled contempt.

  “Exactly.” Lyall gave her a forced and icy smile that held no humor. “I have never claimed to be anything but.” And with that, he bowed stiffly and strode from the room.

  29

  Run away. Walk out! I do not care! Glenna glared at the wide open door, then realized her hands were in fists and she relaxed. She looked down, surrounded by lush furs and thin fine sheeting on a huge soft bed, candlelight everywhere from over a hundred candles in the room. Then she remembered she wasn’t alone. Also left in the midst of the opulent and massive chamber was another woman. Lyall’s sister?

  They exchanged an odd look of surprise, suddenly alone together, strangers, then the young woman burst out laughing. “Oh, what a dear you are!”

  She had the most lovely colored red-gold hair, not Lyall’s g
old, but redder, like the rare, pinkish-gold hammered wristbands from Byzantine Glenna had seen in a seller’s stall once and could not bear to steal. But those strands of that hair fell all about her face and shoulders, not unlike her own wind-tumbled mop.

  Where was the velvet gown? Where were the jewels? Where was the smug look Glenna had expected? Except for her clear skin and soft, noble features, Lyall’s sister looked like a chorewife at the end of a long, hard day. Glenna was shocked silent.

  Still laughing, Mairi said, “I have wanted to hit my brother with more than a wet towel!”

  “Aye. I can imagine. Truly.” Glenna looked at the door, then shook her head. “You poor thing. I have been stuck with him for mere days, yet I cannot imagine the trial you must have had growing up with him.”

  “Oh!” Mairi gasped, then in a laugh she snorted like a pig and put her hands to her face, which was bright red. Her giggles and embarrassment were infectious, and Glenna laughed, too, completely taken aback. Mairi’s open and blunt manner was a surprise. No coy noblewoman here.

  The young woman closed the distance between them and gave a curtsey—an odd and uncomfortable gesture for Glenna to receive--holding her stained, dark leather apron and rough, worn, woolen gray gown with the torn sleeve and spotted with bits of hardened wax and splatters of oil. “Lady Glenna,” she said, “I am Mairi Grey, Lyall’s sister and widow of my dear lord Robert Grey, and mother to those rascal lads who were bothering you.”

  “They did not bother me, Lady Mairi.”

  Mairi shook her head. “Listen to us. We are not at court.” Mairi grabbed her hands and to her surprise and relief, Glenna felt as many calluses as she had on her own palms. “We are to be friends, I think, Glenna.”

  “Moreso. Sisters,” Glenna admitted quietly.

  “Sisters?” Mairi frowned, then her eyes grew large. “Lyall and you?”

  Glenna nodded.

  “Oh, Mother Mary and Joseph!”

  Glenna winced a little, suddenly having second thoughts about spilling the truth—the lie?--so soon.

  “You cannot be wed.”

  “Aye.” The more people who knew, Glenna decided, the more she told, the more tight the knot would be around them and harder for Lyall to back away from her, and perhaps, the more difficult ‘twould be for her father or his councilors to dissolve the marriage. She had no choice but to fight for Lyall, though she was not pleased with him at that moment and he still was not convinced how badly he needed her. Hardheaded, beautiful, stubborn man.

  “But you are royalty.”

  “So they tell me.” Glenna frowned and looked down at her pitiful clothing, then shrugged. “I look nothing like royalty.”

  “Oh, you need not worry,” Mairi waved a hand casually in the air and if the news were nothing. “I have gowns for you, bolts of fabric, and more.”

  Gowns? Glenna’s heart caught slightly. Gowns?

  “My mother and I, along with some of the other women, have been stitching our days and nights away, but later with all that.”

  “What kind of gowns?” Glenna whispered, almost afraid to believe the words she’d heard, afraid to ask, and thinking of her precious green velvet, far too big and that hung from her shoulders down to its ragged, knife-chopped hem, rolled up tightly in her satchel with her too-large red leather shoes. Could she have two gowns, maybe three? What if one of them were silk? She could barely breathe at the thought.

  Mairi must not have heard her because she continued pacing on the thick carpet in the center of the room, then she stopped and said, “How can you be wed? Any marriage you make must be made with the king’s approval and witnessed.”

  “We spoke vows to each other.”

  “You handfasted? Lyall should be flogged with more than a towel. It matters not. You needn’t worry. A handfast cannot be binding. You are not a crofter or freeman. You are a Canmore. Any declaration of man and wife surely must be witnessed for legitimacy.”

  Glenna started to tell her there was a witnessed document, but bit her tongue. She had best keep the proof to herself for now.

  Mairi faced her, frowning. “I cannot believe Lyall is caught up in another complicated union.”

  At first Glenna was deeply hurt, then she said, “Another?”

  “Aye. He did not tell you about Isobel?”

  Glenna shook her head. “He did say to me once that his wife was dead.”

  Mairi came and sat on the bed next to her and her expression grew serious, “It was a terrible, terrible time, and a poor match, but Lyall was on his grand quest for Dunkeldon. Do you know about Dunkeldon?”

  “I was there, but I did not know its significance. I found your brother standing at the graves of your father and brother. I had to prod him to find out that much. He would not speak of it, and I did not push because of the deep pain he carried in his eyes when he was there.”

  Mairi nodded. “That is another story for another night. ‘Tis enough to know our father was declared a traitor days after his death and Dunkeldon burned to the ground. Our older brother died that day and our mother was left scarred from the burns she suffered. The lands were taken. We were very young. It was many years later that Lyall approached Huchon de Hay, whose only daughter Isobel’s dower lands included Dunkeldon, the very land our family had lost. Our stepfather tried to talk some sense into Lyall but he would have none of it. His decision was made so the family stood by him.

  “Isobel de Hay was raised in a convent, sheltered, and not the right match for my brother. She was as fragile as spun sugar, and about as sensible,” Mairi added in a wry afterthought. “I believe she always thought she would become one of the sisters and wed her God, but her father never would have allowed it. She was too valuable to barter. The blood bond through Lyall to the Ramseys and the barony of Montrose, our stepfather and close friend and council to the king, was all too tempting for de Hay.”

  A daughter’s barter value. There was something Glenna understood and she experienced a moment of deep sympathy for Isobel de Hay.

  “Isobel was naïve, and after they were betrothed, she was exposed to gossip and lies and manipulations of others with hard hearts and jealousies. My brother had been very successful on the tourney circuit. He had grown rich as Croesus from his prizes and purses, was acquiring the respect for the Robertson name-- he wanted so badly to vanquish all that had tarnished our name--and most expected that at some point, our stepfather would make him his heir to the barony.

  But Lyall often kept to himself. There were not many he trusted, my husband, and at one time, another seasoned knight I only met a few times, Sir Ellar of Herth. So often he was without close friends to stand by his side, and that time of the wedding was no different. Isobel was a twit who listened to gossip. The night before their wedding ceremony, when the de Hay castle was filled with wedding guests, she wailed and pleaded with her father that he had betrayed her, that he had shamed her because he gave her to the son of a traitor. Lyall heard her. We all heard her.”

  Glenna closed her eyes. She could only imagine what that had done to him.

  “The wailing was horrid. I wanted to gag her. The next morning they wed but soon afterward, while the celebrations were going on, she snuck away. Lyall was the one who found her body at the base of the tower, dead, broken.” A haunted look came over Mairi’s expressive face and she was pale. “I have only seen that look on my brother’s face one other time, and I was so young. That was how my brother had looked when he buried Malcolm and we left Dunkeldon.”

  Glenna wanted to know what happened to them, but she could see the telling of his story was painful enough for Lyall’s sister.

  “By law, the dower lands stayed with de Hay because they had not yet consummated the marriage.”

  “The betrothal was not binding enough?” Glenna asked.

  “Not for the dower lands. The betrothal was the promise of the contract, but the wedding itself and the act of the marriage bed secures the deed. Lyall was left more broken than that poor, sad, y
oung woman. Not because he had lost the lands, but what her words did to his pride. He blamed himself for her death and said had he treated her more kindly, she might not have chosen falling to her death over being wed to him. What she did to him.” Mairi shook her head. “She broke his desire to even try to reclaim honor for his name, then finding her body seemed to break something else.

  “In what way? He changed?”

  Mairi nodded. “He put up a wall that none of us could break through. He had been close with Donnald, the baron, who has been a good father to us both. But Lyall blocked him out. He ran wild and drank and disappeared for days at a time. Finally, he came back one day, looking like he’d been to hell and back, and he let his squires and other men-at-arms go, found them positions with other houses, and other knights, and he struck out alone and none of us could stop him. As far as I know, he never again joined another tourney.”

  “Where did he go?”

  Mairi frowned and shrugged. “I saw him only a few times before last year. He came back when we lost Robert—he and Lyall were close and had served together as pages, then squires for my stepfather. After Robert died, Lyall stayed at Greystone Manor with us. I believe he and my stepfather thought it best the boys and I were not without family close. My sons adore him, and I think after some time, they were good for him. There were days when I thought perhaps he might be coming back into himself again, but then de Hay contacted him.”

  Glenna was as quiet as Mairi as she applied the knowledge to Lyall and his manner and actions. My Lord, what had he thought when he came rushing into the tower at Kinnesswood as she jumped?

  The door opened and a young, fresh-faced maid came in. “Milady?”

  “Aida. Oh, I had forgotten.”

  “The bath you ordered is ready, milady.”

  “And becoming cold whilst I stand in here yammering?” Mairi gave her maid a wry smile. “We will be right there. Forgive me, Glenna. I forgot myself. You must long for some comforts.”

  Glenna thought the soft bed and furs she was sitting on was the finest comfort she’d ever experienced.