by Glen Craney
“Here’s a fine turn,” the boy announced with a slight lisp. “For once, a lassie running to me.” Just as swiftly, he turned his attention back to the race and fixed his eyes on the only high ground within sight, a distant crag overgrown with trees and circled by a narrow path.
She couldn’t be certain what unnerved her more: this tadpole’s smirking quip, or his ability to put her out of his mind so easily. As if reading her thoughts, he turned again and winked. She recoiled with a bounce of her chin. Who is this infuriating lad? Such preening confidence was unnatural in one so slight. She caught herself staring at him with a blushing smile.
Tabhann crumpled her new admirer with a fist to his ribs. “Leave her be.”
A second blast of the horn shot the runners off in a whirl of mud and grass. Tabhann took off with them, turning to laugh at his victim, who was still on his knees and gasping for air.
Belle ran to the injured boy and lifted him to his feet. Her act of mercy miraculously revived him, and although his head barely reached her chin, he lifted to his toes and kissed her on the lips. She shut her eyes in shock. When she reopened them seconds later, she discovered that he had shot off like a hare. She was allowed no time to either enjoy or despise the moment—her arm was nearly yanked from her shoulder.
Her father dragged her away. “Stay clear of the Douglases!”
Roughly handled, she glanced back at the last runner—that faint sliver of bone and flesh was the son of Wil Douglas? “I only asked if he was hurt!”
“And shamed your own kin!”
“Are the Douglases not Scots?”
Her father answered her with a slap that stung like flung ice. “Black stain of Original Sin, you are!” he shouted. “Damnable jeeger of me whole brood!”
She stifled a cry. The blow hadn’t hurt half as much as the judging gawks of the clansmen around her. Tall, with thick dusky hair and a copper complexion, she was again made aware that she looked nothing like her stout father and choleric brothers with their flaming red scalps and freckled, liverish skin. They treated her like a bastard child, so much so that she often fantasized that she had been stolen at birth from another country. It was near to the truth, for her father never tired of shaming her with the story of how the first MacDuffs had arrived with the Gaels to subdue the darker Pict savages that had painted their bodies with pagan tattoos and had sacrificed their children to appease the gods of their warrior queens. She was constantly being reminded that her deceased mother had come from those same witch-hatched natives.
Wiping the sting from her cheek, she stole another glance at the competitors running off. The Douglas boy, she then realized, was dunned with the same tawny complexion. She wondered if he also suffered taunts of being sired from the Black Danaan, a race of foreigners said to have arrived on the Isles from Iberia.
Shrugging off that mystery, she looked up and caught Red Comyn watching her humiliation with unabashed relish. Thickset and looming, this awful man who claimed title to the Scot crown had a ruddy face overgrown with an unkempt flaming beard, and he took in all that passed with the cold eyes of a mountain cat. But there was no stealth of movement about him; he walked with a lumbering step and was always heard before seen, wheezing and heaving with each breath, as if unable to summon sufficient air through his trefoil nose webbed with fine blue lines. Most who encountered him for the first time mistook this odd mannerism for derisive snorts.
Red chortled. “You could have used another son, eh MacDuff? But she serves your purpose nigh.”
Ian forced a leg of roasted rabbit into her hand. “Put some meat on that scrawny frame! Red’s kinsman won’t beseek a bag of bones for a wife!”
She stared gape-mouthed at her father. “I am to be … married off?”
“Did ye think I brought you here for idleness?” he said with a snarl. “You’re a woman now. That’s what you’re always telling me. Bonnie chance it is that Red here and his roosters take a fancy to you.”
Red dug his greasy hand into her hair as if planting a claim. “You’re not too fine for us, are you now, lass?”
She tried to fight him off. “I’d rather die!”
Her father cocked his fist at her again. “I’ll damn well grant the wish!”
She flinched, but this time she felt nothing.
A loud collective roar caused her to open her eyes. Wil Douglas had rammed her father into a tree. Stoked by the prospect of a fight, the clansmen cheered the two brawlers on. Forgotten in the melee, she stalked the scrum and silently urged the Douglas chieftain to deal her father a painful lesson.
The elder Douglas heaved Ian onto his back. “Take a hand to that lass again and I’ll make certain you never sire another miserable MacDuff!”
Red Comyn dragged Wil Douglas off of Ian. “We’ve had enough of your meddling! You lost Berwick! But you had no trouble saving your own hide!”
The Douglas chieftain raised his bloodied fist. “Berwick fell because you—”
“That’s Jamie Douglas in the fore!”
Alerted by that shout of disbelief, the clansmen turned to see the puniest of the competitors leading the pack down the slope at the halfway point.
Belle took advantage of the distraction to get away from her father and the Comyn chieftain. She rushed to the edge of the camp and saw young Douglas pull several paces ahead of the other boys. He was almost flying across the rocks while carrying an ax half as heavy as his own weight.
A MacDonald man drained his tankard and chased the gulp with a gibe aimed at the Comyns. “Red, when’s the last time one of your brood lost the race?”
Before Red could recover from the shock, Wil Douglas answered for him, “When I outpaced him on Ben Nevis thirty years ago.”
The clansmen cackled and thumped forearms—all but the Comyns and MacDuffs, who stood glaring at the distant runners in stupefied silence.
While the others rushed to gather at the finish line, Belle saw Red Comyn nod furtively to her eldest brother, who acknowledged the mysterious signal and slithered off. The Comyn chieftain pointed a finger at her in warning that she’d best not reveal what she had just witnessed. She turned back toward the crag in time to see the Douglas boy disappear into the thick oaks.
HIS CALVES THREATENED TO CRAMP, but James drove on through the swirling patches of low fog and blinding glints of light. Having run this route a hundred times, he knew the last stretch would be the most difficult, a steep descent down loose rocks followed by the long kick over the flat valley. But he had never risked a sprint so early in a race, and now his sides felt as if they were going to split. Would he have enough strength left for the straightaway?
He heard the yells of the other runners several lengths behind.
The black raven that had followed him from the start circled and led him on. Another turn, and he arrived at the final target: an image of a dragon painted on an ancient oak. Should he waste precious seconds to cross the ravine and impale his ax at close range? If he threw it on the run and missed, the ax might tumble into the gorge, and he’d be disqualified. Without slowing, he drew a deep breath and let the ax fly.
The weapon hurdled across the ravine and held its bite on the dragon. He laughed, now certain of victory. Those nearsighted Comyns couldn’t hit a church door from the top step. He thought about stopping to enjoy their shocked discovery, but took off for the brow of the crag where the path descended to open ground and—
His feet gave out from under him.
Tumbling headfirst to the rocks, he felt a sharp pain swell up in his nose. Groggy, he reached up and found a wet gash on his forehead. He climbed to his knees and, looking around with watering eyes, saw a rope pulled across the path. Distant laughter was followed by the pounding of approaching feet. He tried to stand, but his ankles buckled. A heel slammed into his ribs, and he rolled across the ground fighting for breath. He looked up and saw Tabhann pressing a foot against his chest.
“We heard how you gave up Gib Duncan to save your old man.”
Another thump sent him rolling toward the cliff.
Tabhann threw his ax and hit his mark on the tree. Laughing, he took off down the crag while the other runners came behind him, abusing James with kicks as they ran past and fired their axes. James slid down the scarp and broke his fall by catching a briar. The raven perched on a rock and watched impassively while he clung to the branch. He blinked the sweat from his eyes.
Was he visioning from the pain?
The raven dipped its beak and shape-shifted into a woman draped in black robes. Wielding a sickle, she had wild hair the shade of fresh-drawn blood, and her skin was so white that she looked anemic. She glared at him with dilating, almond-shaped eyes as green as a Galloway hillock after a rainstorm.
He hadn’t felt such chilling fear since Gibbie jumped to his death. Then he remembered—he had seen this hag once before, when he was bedridden years ago with the weakness in his lungs. His stepmother had screamed her name: Morgainne, the Raven Goddess of Death. He cried out to her, “Help me!”
The goddess was unmoved. “I tolled your crossing once.”
He looked down at the sharp rocks below. “I don’t want to die!”
“Come now, what follows after this life is not as horrid as you mortals make it to be.” The goddess snapped her sleeves and conjured up a vision of Gibbie against the roiling clouds. At her stern nod, Gibbie’s apparition reached forth and begged James to come to the other side.
When the goddess turned to await his decision, James saw Gibbie shake his head in warning. He felt his grip slipping. “I’ll do anything!”
“You barter with me? You who could not fight off that pack of pups?”
“To Hell with you, then!” He closed his eyes and braced for a fatal fall.
Morgainne weighed his plea. “Impertinence, even in as I draw nigh. That is rare enough. … The cost shall be two souls for the salvation of one. Of my choosing. At my time. Until then, you serve me.”
Before James could protest the bargain, the death goddess melded back into the raven and flew off. The branch’s roots ripped from the cliff, and he fell down the long jag of rocks. When he finally came to a stop at the base of the pog, he groaned and flexed his arms and legs. Miraculously, he had suffered just a few scrapes.
A ROAR OF DISCOVERY RUMBLED across the valley.
Seeing the first runners emerge from the woods, and now only five hundred paces away, the clansmen rushed to the finish line.
Belle elbowed her way into the human funnel that would soon engulf the runners. In the distance, she saw Tabhann leading the pack with a confident pace. He pumped his fists in celebration as he outpaced the others by several lengths, easing his way down the winding path on the last half-mile sprint across the heather. She narrowed her eyes in disbelief. The Douglas boy was nowhere to be found. She turned on Red Comyn with an accusing glare, but he just smirked and slapped the backs of the confused clansmen.
“All’s right with the world again, lads,” Red announced with a sinister grin.
Disappointed that an upset was not to be witnessed, the clansmen retreated to the ale casks to replenish their mugs and rejoin their war arguments.
But Belle held back. She glanced over her shoulder, and from the corner of her eye, she saw something stagger from the brush on the heights. Young Douglas, bleeding and heaving, was running toward the camp as if his life depended on every stride. She rushed beyond the finish line and yelled, “Come on!”
The men spun again at her shout, and Red Comyn shoved his way to the front. He bellowed a warning at Tabhann, who had slowed his approach to a victory jog.
Tabhann risked a glance over his shoulder and then forced his legs into an unexpected trial. The Douglas lad was still running, even after his beating.
And he was gaining ground.
Their excitement ignited again, the clansmen jostled back to their positions on the finish line and haggled over last-minute wagers.
A hundred paces from the waiting scrum, Tabhann’s legs buckled.
James caught up with him and returned the elbow he’d received at the start of the race. Nose and nose they came, careening, their neck veins bulging and their faces crimson. The clansmen tightened the finish rope.
James thrust a hip into Tabhann’s side and lunged across the line first.
Tabhann crawled in second, yelling and cursing as Red kicked at him like a butcher driving a hog to the slaughter pen. One by one, Cam and the other boys staggered across the line behind him.
Risking her father’s wrath again, Belle ran to the collapsed Douglas boy and cradled his head in her lap. Could this really be the same carefree lad who had kissed her at the start of the race?
The rules judge—a local priest from St. Bride’s kirk—mounted a Shetland pony and cantered off toward the pog to confirm the accuracy of the ax throws against the dragon mark on the tree across the ravine. The clansmen waited in tense silence for his signal. When the priest whistled to verify that James had indeed hit his mark, they erupted again in raucous celebration.
Enraged, Red Comyn fought a path through the cheering throngs to challenge Wil Douglas. “There’s devilry in this!”
“Aye, by your doing,” the elder Douglas said. “Hand it over.”
Red felt for his dagger, but several clansmen countered his threat by drawing their weapons. Finding no allies for his protest, the chieftain could only nod angrily for his kinsmen to bring up a packhorse. He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out Scotland’s most coveted prize, a rusted ax featuring a handle carved with the names of past winners. He slung the Dun Eaddain ax at James’s feet. “You won’t have it long.” He led his kinsmen in a huffing march from the camp. “Our business in this pigsty is done.”
“The Guardians meet here on the morrow,” Wil Douglas reminded his old rival. “Attend, or lose your vote.”
As the jubilant clansmen hoisted James onto their shoulders and carried him across the field, Red slapped the back of Tabhann’s head in punishment and hurried his family away, muttering threats under his breath.
Caught in her father’s grasp, Belle was forced to leave with the Comyns. She risked a glance back at the celebration and saw James waving.
Was he trying to say something to her?
IV
AS HER GARRON CLOPPED ONTO the narrow wooden bridge that crossed the River Clyde, Belle swallowed her fear and reined closer to the railing. Praying the currents would be swift enough to sweep her away, she slipped her toes from the stirrups and—
A hand reach out from behind her and captured her arm.
“Steady there, lass,” Red Comyn said. “We wouldn’t want to lose you.”
Disconsolate, she slumped over the saddle, her last chance to escape thwarted. The Comyn chieftain now sensed her desperation and would likely keep her under guard when they arrived at Kilbride, his southernmost fortress.
Red drew a deep, satisfied breath as he led her pony across the bridge and onto Comyn land. “That Douglas stench is nearly gone us, eh?” After glaring a warning at her against scheming more such foolishness, he rejoined her father at the head of the column to renew their negotiations over her dowry.
She choked back tears. Within the week, she would be bound forever to this detestable clan. Resigned to her fate, she resolved to learn all that she could about the two Comyn boys who rode several lengths ahead. Only a study of these men who would rule her, and the manipulation of their weaknesses, might offer her hope for a tolerable existence. But whom could she consult in confidence? She scanned the wind-burnt faces of the Comyn womenfolk bringing up the rear of the train. One old hag, so listless that she appeared on the brink of tumbling from her mule, seemed the most harmless of the lot. When a bevy of quail distracted the men ahead, she slowed her pony to gain some distance from the others. Then, she came aside the wizened woman and attempted to make conversation. “My lady, are you chilled? I have a spare cloak in my roll here that you are welcome to use.”
The crone peered out from her fra
yed shawl with a suspicious eye, looking astonished that anyone would care a whit about her condition. “And you be?”
“Isabelle MacDuff of Fife.”
The woman bared her gums and screeched a throaty cackle. “Another one tossed into the boiling pot!”
Belle suspected that the poor woman had slid past the borders of sanity. To test that possibility, she decided to answer her babbling with equivalent nonsense. Loosening the shawl from her neck despite the stiff headwind, she observed, “Boil indeed. A day this hot would cause Hell to complain.”
The woman inched her mole-tipped nose out a bit farther, until discovering that her ruse of playing senile had been exposed. She retreated into her shawl muttering a flurry of Gaelic curses. Moments later, her crinkled face reappeared like a turtle’s head from a shell, and she nodded with grudging admiration. “You play the actor better than you jump the rail. I can see those questions burning a hole in that pretty little head. Out with them, then.”
Belle was stunned to discover that the crone had somehow divined her intent to escape on the bridge. Yet her clairvoyance was at best undependable, for she had fallen for the nonsense trap. Careful not to glance at the Comyn boys, Belle silently asked herself which of the two cretins she would be forced to—
“The cousin,” the crone answered before Belle had even finished her thought. “Red will save his depraved son as bait for bigger fish.”
Belle grimaced as she watched Tabhann whipping the bloodied flanks of his horse. She could not bear the thought of sharing his bed. Cam was uncouth, but at least he was too stupid to be capable of intrigue. Tabhann, on the other hand, seemed malevolent and conniving, having perfected the art of exploiting the weaknesses of those around him with cruel efficiency.
“Now who’s looking sickly,” the crone sniggered.
“Why me?”
Disgusted by Belle’s cry of self-pity, the crone shot a wad of bile over her hackney’s nose. “Only foolish virgins wail on so. Come now, lass. Think of a chessboard. What strikes you apt about that plain of strategy?”