by Ruby Duvall
“Here!” Iain called. Emma breathed a sigh of relief, her eyes searching the darkness beyond Kenneth, who stood on the path outside the paddock that sat between the barn and his home. She didn’t spot Iain until he had nearly reached the redhead.
“This one is still alive,” Kenneth said grimly, nudging the man lying on the ground with his bare foot. Knowing that the man wasn’t dead made it far easier for Emma to breathe.
“My pommel met with the back of his head,” Iain explained. “The other one wasna so lucky.” Iain had killed one of them? Just like that? “Two more escaped. Did ye see any more?”
“No,” Kenneth said. “I heard no more than four.”
Both men looked in her direction at the same time. She jumped and grasped at her locket. Iain stalked toward her, still gripping his sword. She stepped back, inadvertently kicking the empty bucket.
“I just wanted to help,” she said. Iain ripped the torch out of her hand and then lowered it to see into the bucket half-full of water. He dropped it inside, dousing the flame and plunging them all into darkness. Unable to see, she was surprised when he reached out one steely arm and hauled her against his chest.
“I told ye to stay inside,” he whispered, hugging her close. “Why are ye here?”
She wrapped her arms around him, holding on as tightly as she could. “I was too worried. Are you all right?” He pressed his lips against the top of her head.
“Aye, lass, I’m all right,” he said.
“I’ll run and fetch a man-at-arms, Iain,” Kenneth called, walking up to them. “Once we have someone to keep watch, we’ll go to the constable with this.” Iain released her but she couldn’t help stroking his arm as he stepped away from her. “Emma, ye dinna mind watching Beth, do ye?
“Of course not,” she said. “I’ll go get her—”
“I’ll bring her. She was frightened when I left and ’tis a verra dark night.” She felt Iain step closer. Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the faint light penetrating the thick cloud cover and she could just barely make out Kenneth’s features.
“I understand,” she said. She thought she saw him smile.
“And thank ye for saving the barn,” he said. Yes, definitely smiling. Iain gripped her shoulder and squeezed gently. She didn’t know what to say, so she nodded, hoping that they saw it. “I’ll bring Beth and then be back with a man, Iain.”
Iain slid his hand to the small of her back. “Let’s go home.”
—
An hour later, Iain and Kenneth set off for the village. The unconscious thief was slung over Kenneth’s shoulder, hands bound behind his back. Iain had the honor of carrying the dead one, who was considerably heavier. Though they were on their way to speak to the laird, a man Iain had spoken to only a few times, Iain could only think about who he was walking away from. Emma and Beth were safe inside his home and guarded over by two men but leaving them alone still made him uneasy.
When he and Emma had returned to the house, he saw in the light of the fire that she had run outside without her shoes and was surprised by how he felt to see mud on her feet. It had seemed wrong. She had also been shaking and the bottom of her smock was also splashed with mud and wet up to her knees.
Insisting that she sit by the fire, he replenished both buckets and set one to be heated. He then fetched his mother’s best smock from a trunk in the shed where he had stored her things.
“I can’t take this, Iain. I already have something to wear.” She held out the folded smock in refusal. Kneeling in front of her, he lifted her hem and showed her the mud on it. Of its own accord, his other hand wrapped around one of her delicate ankles.
“I promised ye something to wear when ye wash this set of clothes. Ye wouldna wear a muddy smock with my sister’s dress, would ye?”
Her eyes flicked to the mud-splashed skirt in his fist and then returned to his face, silently watching him as his thumb caressed the inside of her ankle. She slowly brought the smock against her chest.
Kenneth then arrived with a sobbing Beth, who clung desperately to his neck, not wanting to part with her father anytime soon. However, if they were to deliver the surviving thief and help the constable’s men-at-arms hunt down the local pack of MacGregors, it had to be done quickly before the main group could pick up and move. Once Kenneth had secured their captive and had returned to the croft with men-at-arms, they had taken time only to shepherd the loose animals back into the barn.
“An ungodly hour to be visiting the laird,” Kenneth observed.
“I dinna think he’ll be unhappy to see us.” Iain adjusted his hold on the dead body, trying to keep the strain on his shoulder to a minimum. “Let’s hope the live one comes around soon though.”
“Did ye hit him too hard?”
Iain sighed with annoyance. “I wasna thinking about how hard to hit him.”
“Ye probably hit him too hard,” Kenneth mumbled.
“Quit yer nagging, ye woman. All ye did was run around waving yer sword.”
The redhead chuckled. “True, true. ’Tis hard to kill any thieves when ye canna see yer hand in front of yer face. Ye truly have the eyes of a stag.”
“I’ve no such thing. Just good ears.”
They were only a few steps out of the forest when one of the patrols caught sight of them. The young man-at-arms loudly alerted the other night guards, waving his torch. Iain ground his teeth together.
“The fool is announcing it to everyone,” Kenneth said. The man’s shouts woke up several villagers who emerged from their homes to see what all the noise was about. When they passed by Aili’s home, Iain was glad to see the old woman shuffling toward them, gripping a lamp in one hand and holding a shawl around her thin shoulders with the other. She even seemed relatively lucid.
“Aili, go out to the croft and stay with Emma and Beth,” he said in a low voice once she was close enough.
“What has happened, Iain?” she asked, her cloudy eyes searching the darkness as she lifted the lamp higher. She gasped when she recognized what Iain was carrying over his shoulder.
“MacGregors.” The old woman dropped the ends of her shawl and covered her mouth with fingers. “They’re scared, Aili.” Wordlessly nodding, she turned back to her home. Iain breathed a little easier to know that Aili would be with the girls.
As they neared the castle’s gatehouse, one of the men-at-arms took the dead thief off Iain’s hands. They were then led into the castle’s empty great hall and surrounded by half a dozen men, the constable’s best soldiers and the laird’s personal leuchd-crios, there to keep an eye on the prisoner dangling between Kenneth and Iain. Everyone waited in silence while the laird was roused by one of the servants.
Iain watched as another servant went around and lit extra candles and torches. The great hall was roughly the same dimensions as his home but much more richly appointed. The laird’s table sat on a dais at the back and a door to the right of it led to the laird’s private rooms. Two long tables sat perpendicular to the laird’s table, both empty save for a row of candles. He had been inside the great hall before but not for a long while. The last time had been to officially take over his father’s croft, which had been under his uncle’s guardianship.
Iain looked down at the man on his knees next to him, a boy barely into adulthood. He had a wiry frame, one that could grow taller still. Blood had dripped down his neck from the cut on the back of his head where Iain had hit him. He had gone after the boy when he had seen his barn roof catching fire. The boy dropped the torch and attempted to feint around him but he had hadn’t been prepared for the pommel that struck the back of his head.
The laird’s deep, loud voice resounded from behind the door before it opened. “How many? Damn it, ye didna ask?” The door to the private hall banged open and Laird Archibald marched through, followed by a meek-looking male servant, and tying a fur-trimmed coat around his neck. Though the laird was as thick as an oak, he was a man of short stature and he didn’t step down from the dais to stand leve
l with everyone else.
“Iain, is it? And Kenneth?” The man’s voice echoed inside the great hall. “Where’s my constable?”
The larger door behind them opened and the laird’s constable, James, strode into the great hall with another man-at-arms. “I’m sorry to be late, laird. One of my men woke up half the village with all his crying about the MacGregors,” he said. Iain nodded at the constable, who nodded back.
“Is this one of them then?” the laird asked.
Iain looked to Kenneth, more comfortable with the redhead talking for both of them. “Aye, laird. We counted four. Iain killed another and the last two fled.”
“Did ye lose any livestock?”
“Only one of the dogs, laird. The thieves tried to burn the byre roof but it was put out before it could spread.”
The laird looked off to the side for a couple of seconds, thinking. The boy’s arm flexed in Iain’s grip a second before he groaned. The MacGregor then tiredly lifted his head. “James, this one will be ready to talk soon,” the laird said. The constable gestured to a couple of his men, who took the boy from Iain and Kenneth and dragged him away.
“I’ll take care of it,” the constable said as he and the rest of his men followed him out. Only the laird, his servant, Iain and Kenneth remained, though the servant stood back by the private door.
“Ye’ve done well,” the laird nodded. “I’ll see to it that ye get the reward I promised. Hopefully, this will solve the MacGregor problem—for a while at least.”
“Thank ye, laird,” Kenneth said. Iain echoed the sentiment.
The laird sucked on the inside of one of his cheeks, his eyes settling on Iain. “However, there’s something else we need to discuss.” Iain inhaled deeply, knowing already what the laird wanted to talk about—or rather, who. “Is it true that a young woman has come to stay with ye, Iain?”
“Aye, laird.”
“And my son has met this young woman?” Iain nodded at the laird’s question. “Her name wouldna be Emma, would it?”
“It would, laird.”
The laird smiled. “Colin talks about her. Says she’s magic and I’ve heard rumors that she’s one of the good folk. A fairy,” he whispered. “Is that true as well?”
Iain hadn’t wanted it to come to this. He knew the laird was a superstitious man but he could neither pretend to believe that Emma was some kind of creature from a fable, nor could he lie to the laird like he had to Rossalyn.
“It is true, laird,” Kenneth said. Iain shot a glance at the redhead. “Her-her manner and speech and appearance—they are more than foreign. It is difficult to describe, laird, but the first time I saw her, I couldna believe my eyes and in the days since she came to us, she has transformed into a normal woman. She does still speak with an accent, one I’ve never heard before, and she uses strange words.”
Now that Kenneth had said it, Iain couldn’t refute it so easily, especially when the laird was nodding with fascination.
“When did she arrive?” he asked.
“The morning Finian and Duncan’s kine were stolen.”
The laird looked to Iain. “Tell me of yer time with her. Do ye suspect her to be other than what she seems?”
Iain opened his mouth to answer, only to realize that he had no reason to think she was anything but a fairy. She knew next to nothing of their culture and their history. She did speak with an accent he couldn’t place and had indeed transformed into a human woman. Even her possessions were strange and her experiences and knowledge were beyond his. She had not told him about her past but she also hadn’t denied the common belief that she was one of the good people.
“No, laird, I dinna,” he finally admitted with some surprise.
“A good omen,” the laird insisted. “She will bring us luck. After all the trouble with the MacDougalls and the MacGregors and then that God-forsaken sickness, the foul death of the English…”
“And she was the one who put out the fire on the byre roof,” Kenneth eagerly added. The laird’s eyebrows shot up.
Suddenly, it became clear to Iain what his friend was doing. He was taking advantage of the laird’s superstitious nature, reassuring him that Emma was not a MacGregor or kin to some other rival clan. He was ensuring her safety.
“Her presence is just what we need,” the laird said, slapping his thigh and smiling. “She is at the croft? I will meet her and welcome her to the clan myself.”
“Aye, laird,” Iain said.
“What of the fairy rumor, laird?” Kenneth cut in.
“The rumors about her canna spread to other clans. The good folk are powerful. Their knowledge is vast and they can do things we canna. Others would want some fairy luck on their side.” The bottom of Iain’s stomach dropped out. “Bring her into the village so that she may be seen as a normal woman and introduce her as such. Otherwise, the rumors will only grow worse.”
“Laird, I dinna believe that would be wise—” Kenneth tried to say.
“It will be enough. For now, we can only worry about the present thorn in our sides, the MacGregors. I’m glad to see that yer sword isna rusty, Iain.”
“My sword will always serve ye, laird,” he vowed. He gripped the hilt of the sword at his side and stood straighter.
“I know ye would go but I would charge ye to protect the lass in yer home.” Iain fought not to let his disappointment show, having been eager to join the war party. “She canna be left defenseless for anyone to take her from us.”
Iain’s fist clamped hard around the hilt of his sword. It bothered him to hear the laird speak of Emma as a possession or a lucky charm, as though she belonged to him. Iain and his entire family did belong to the laird but Emma… She wasn’t a Campbell. She didn’t belong to Archibald or the MacGregors or anyone else.
She was his!
Chapter Ten
Gratefully taking a seat across from Aili after kneading a new batch of dough, Emma rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand and pulled her kerchief off her face with the other. She hadn’t yet slept and felt as though a heavy weight hung from her neck. It took all her concentration to keep her eyes open and her head up.
Beth had cried for half an hour after her father left with Iain and just like her mother had done for her, Emma sang Blackbird to calm Beth down. Even then, it wasn’t until an entire Beatles album a couple of hours later that the little girl finally fell asleep. Aili arrived at the croft a short while before dawn. Now midmorning, the men-at-arms were patrolling the area and Beth was sleeping soundly on the extra bed. Emma was tempted to go take a nap as well.
“Ye dinna seem well, child,” Aili said, “and ’tis more than the long night.” Emma sighed to hear that someone clinically blind could still see her real anxieties. “Ye dinna have to tell me why but know that ye were meant to be here. Ye’ve brought us good fortune.”
“How’s that? We were just attacked by cattle thieves,” she pointed out, wiping her flour dusted hands on her apron.
“But they didna succeed. Ye snuffed the fire on the barn roof. Iain and Kenneth brought the laird two thieves, one still alive.” Emma winced, thinking of the man Iain had killed. Thomas had stopped by earlier to fill them in, telling them that one of the dogs had indeed been killed by a MacGregor. Next to the thief’s death, though, it was strange to feel grief for the dog. She honestly didn’t know what to feel anymore.
“The laird knows about me, doesn’t he,” she said as a statement. After all, how could anything stay quiet for very long in this place?
“And I’m sure he’ll ask Iain and Kenneth about ye,” the old woman said.
“He wouldn’t kick me out or anything, would he?”
“Now dinna fret about that. The laird’s a good man and he’d never hit or kick a woman.”
Emma almost corrected Aili’s mistake but decided to let it go. “But what will the laird do? Should I swear fealty or something?”
The old woman cackled loudly, revealing the number of teeth she had lost. “I suppose it’l
l depend on what Iain says and on the laird’s mood.”
Oh great, she thought. Emma folded her arms and put her head down in defeat too tired and too worried to keep a straight spine.
“Besides, it isna the laird ye should worry about,” Aili said.
Cold fingertips skittered down the back of Emma’s neck and she lifted her head. “What did you say?”
Sudden footsteps brought Thomas to the door, breathless and smiling. “They’re back! With a whole cart!”
“What?” Emma got to her feet. Thomas could hardly contain himself and took off running toward the road. Stepping outside, she saw Kenneth fielding questions from a smiling Malcolm as the redhead led a horse-drawn cart. Iain walked behind, his sword sitting against his hip. When he raised his hand, Emma somehow knew that he was waving to her. She waved back.
“Seems the laird was in a verra good mood,” Aili said, coming up behind her. Emma looked askance at the old woman. “The horse, cart and everything inside are gifts to Iain and Kenneth for bringing in the thieves. Far less costly than a sop.”
“But there are many more of them, aren’t there? Won’t they just keep coming?”
“Dinna forget that one of the thieves is alive and has a tongue. They’ll learn where the rest of the nearby MacGregors are camped.”
“You mean they’re going to kill them,” she said, swallowing hard and pressing her hand against the cold lump in her stomach. It was chilling to hear that the laird planned to kill another group of people. They weren’t foreign terrorists or a violent cartel. They were the laird’s own countrymen.
“’Tis more complicated than ye think, dear. The MacGregors would otherwise demand a high bribe and we’d all have to pay it. If the year’s harvest is poor, we could starve at wintertime.” Emma looked back at the approaching cart. Kenneth was smiling and talking with Thomas and Malcolm. Iain, though not smiling, looked quite relaxed. They were happy to have caught the thief.
The mix of emotions tumbling inside her heart made her entire chest ache. She hoped that most of it was simple exhaustion.