by Allie Mackay
Now he knew what to do.
He’d draw the Vikings ashore and slaughter them when they landed.
Even if only a handful of their loathsome, beast-headed ships fell for his ploy, the lesson he meant to give them would teach them fear.
At the least, it would warn them to stay away from his shores.
There were two things Vikings dreaded. One was losing men. Not because they feared death. As long as they died well, clutching a sword or battle-ax, Odin’s feast hall awaited them and they went there gladly. But for the living, a reduced number of warriors meant a weakened fighting force. Replacing lost men was difficult when the raiders roamed so far from their own northern shores.
Magnus buckled on his sword, a slow smile curving his lips. He was good at whittling down the number of fighters in a Viking war band.
He took equal pleasure in diminishing the crew on a Norse longboat. After all, every oarsman could wield an ax or a sword as wickedly as his oars bit the waves. And—Magnus tied back his hair with a leather band—soon he’d treat his foes to their other great dread, a burned ship.
More than one, if the gods were kind.
Somewhere a cock crowed, and Magnus glanced at his shuttered window. The barest hint of gray was just beginning to edge the fading blackness. And—he snatched his plaid off a chair—a light drizzle was falling. He could also hear the sea foaming on the rocks beneath his castle walls.
Soon, he would lay his trap for an unsuspecting Viking fleet.
Bloodlust stirring, he threw open the lid of the strongbox at the foot of his bed and looked down at the glittering sea of silver and gold arm rings that filled the chest. He might have to secure a second coffer.
He hoped so, fervently. But this morn, he simply grabbed a handful of the shining bands and slid them onto his arms.
He was ready.
With luck, he’d soon have reason to undo the leather string binding his hair. He’d smile then and shake his head, letting the strands swing free around his shoulders so that his foes would see his loose hair and know at once that he’d come to kill them.
And after he’d sated himself on vengeance, he’d make another visit to Orosius.
The sea vixen might not be of his world, but he was certain she was close.
So near he could taste her.
Chapter 6
Magnus MacBride, Viking Slayer.
Help me win. . . .
Margo repeated the silent words like a chant, letting them fill her mind and—she hoped—sending a heartfelt message into the cosmos.
It was the morning of the Bucks County Scottish Festival and, quite possibly, the most important day of her life. The only moment that could surpass today would be when her Atlantic-crossing plane landed at Glasgow International Airport, bringing her to the land of her dreams.
If she won Donald McVittie’s raffle drawing.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t shake the feeling that everyone crowding the parklike grounds of the Cabbage Rose Gift Emporium and Tea Room shared her sentiments. Celtic festivals did tend to draw people who claimed to love Scotland. Margo could spot such folk at a hundred paces. Their eyes shone with the same sense of wonder she always felt when she walked around the fairgrounds and immersed herself in so much Highland culture and atmosphere.
It was tartan triumph, alive and breathing.
What Scotophile could resist such a perfect blend of bagpipes, haggis, and plaid?
No one that Margo could see. Everyone milled about in awe, their hearts soaring and passions roused. A group of middle-aged couples near the duck pond behind the tea room even wore matching sweatshirts that read The Home Glen Is Calling Us.
Margo had no doubt that each one of them wanted to win the seven-day guided coach tour of Scotland.
As, she was sure, did everyone else enjoying the brisk autumn day.
And that knowledge was killing her.
When a large, forceful-looking woman barged past her wearing a huge pin proclaiming in rhinestones that she loved the Auld Hameland, Margo didn’t perish.
But she did get a queasy feeling in her stomach. The woman had a determined air about her and she was heading straight for the Cabbage Rose’s plaid-decorated auditorium, where Donald’s drawing would soon take place.
The woman was competition.
Margo bit her lip as her rival for the trip marched across the grass. Tweedy and with her iron gray hair perfectly coiffed, she looked as if she could afford well over three hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of raffle tickets. Though—one could hope—if that was true, she could probably also purchase her own air ticket to Scotland. Perhaps even a private kilt-wearing chauffeur once she arrived there. So maybe she hadn’t dropped as many raffle tickets into Donald’s tartan-wrapped drawing box as Margo had done.
Margo fervently wished the gorgon bought only one chance at the Heritage Tour.
Just then, pipes skirled and drums rolled from the far side of the duck pond. The stirring tones came from a meadow near the edge of woods that were appropriately draped in fine, drifting mist. The parade ground where, Margo knew, the local piping-band competition was gearing up. As so often, “Scotland the Brave” seemed to be the tune of choice. Margo’s heart began thumping, her breath catching with all the fierce longing she felt for her beloved Highlands.
And they were hers.
No one loved Scotland more.
Who else would spend hours printing his or her name, address, and phone number on the backs of 350 raffle tickets?
Donald McVittie hadn’t wanted to spoil the moment with everyone in the audience scrambling to check raffle numbers, so he’d insisted that people write their personal information on the tickets in block letters.
Margo’s hand still ached.
She suspected her fingers might be permanently She suspected her fingers might be permanently cramped.
But just now the screaming pipes were calling her, so she started forward before she could check herself.
She never missed the piping drills. Only this year she’d vowed to stick close to Donald McVittie’s A Dash o’ Plaid booth. She hoped her hovering presence—and her silent prayers to Magnus MacBride, Highlander of her dreams—might somehow deter other Scotland zealots from purchasing raffle tickets.
So she quickly turned back to Donald’s stall, hoping she looked suitably formidable.
A Dash o’ Plaid appeared annoyingly inviting.
Donald had left earlier, claiming he was needed in the auditorium, where preparations were under way for the Scottish luncheon buffet and the festival highlight, the drawing of the grand-prize trip to Scotland. But Donald’s son, Donald Junior, bustled about the tartan-hung booth, encouraging passersby to stop, blether, and—Margo could throttle him—pick up tickets for the raffle.
“Wee Hughie MacSporran, famous Highland author and historian, will be guiding the tour.” Donald Junior’s voice boomed from the other side of the stall as he beamed at two twentysomething girls wearing too much makeup and plaid rayon fanny packs. “He’s known as the Highland Storyweaver and is also the founder and owner of Heritage Tours. He’s quite an authority on Scottish history and—”
“Does he wear a kilt?” One of the girls popped her gum.
Her friend giggled. “I’m more interested in what’s under his kilt.”
“Is that him?” The gum popper snatched a book off the display table. “Royal Roots: A Highlander’s Guide to Discovering Illustrious Forebears,” she read the title aloud, peering at the large, rosy-cheeked Scotsman on the cover. He was kilted, but he looked more like a pudgy teddy bear than a wild and rugged Highlander.
“He isn’t too sexy.” The girl slapped down the book.
“Any man in a kilt is hot.” The giggler picked up another MacSporran title, Hearthside Tales: A Highlander’s Look at Scottish Myth and Legend. She eyed the author’s photo critically. “He’s at least six foot four.” She glanced at her friend. “I like big men. I wouldn’t mind tooling around the heather with him.�
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“Who says he’s big where it counts?” Her friend popped another gum bubble.
Ever a diplomat, Donald Junior ignored the girls’ comments and launched into a spiel about how Wee Hughie MacSporran was directly descended from Robert the Bruce and that the author was at the festival, come all the way from Scotland to draw the grand-prize winner.
The news drew a bored sigh from the gum popper.
But the other girl nearly swooned. Squealing, she danced a little jig.
“You’ve sold me,” she gushed, swelling her breasts.
“I’ll take twenty tickets.”
Margo stiffened.
She’d die if one of those girls won the trip.
Death by Highland envy.
There were surely worse ways to go. But she’d rather go to Scotland.
Trying not to show her annoyance, she reached to examine a tartan sash. Lovely in rich shades of dark green and blue and just enough threads of black and pink to make it special, the sash had caught her eye the instant she’d arrived at the A Dash o’ Plaid booth.
But such sashes—each one imported from Scotland—were expensive, so she’d resisted temptation and busied herself looking over the assortment of kilt pins, Scottish-themed figurines, refrigerator magnets, and coffee mugs.
She frowned at a pile of Real Men Eat Haggis bumper stickers.
At a dollar each, even they were beyond her budget.
She’d put every dime she could spare into the She’d put every dime she could spare into the drawing box.
Getting nervous, she drifted back to the rack of tartan sashes. They were exquisitely made and so quintessentially Highland.
Margo sighed.
Wistfully, she smoothed her fingers along the soft, pure wool. The lustrous weave seemed alive to the touch, warm and beckoning. Conjuring images of wild cliffs and castle ruins edged against dark, brooding skies. She could feel the cold, racing wind and smell the earthy richness of peat smoke in the chill, damp air.
This was why she loved A Dash o’ Plaid.
The booth held magic, always.
But when she looked up from the pretty tartan sash, her dreams of heather, misty hills, and glens shattered. The gum popper and the giggler were stuffing what appeared to be way more than twenty dollars’ worth of raffle tickets into the drawing box.
Donald Junior looked on, a pleased smile on his ruddy face.
The raffle benefited a good cause.
The McVitties—who rescued border collies in addition to running A Dash o’ Plaid—were donating every penny earned to a local no-kill animal shelter.
And they were personally matching the sum.
Needy animals would benefit.
Margo loved animals. She had the scars to prove it because she was known to veer her bicycle to avoid colliding with the occasional squirrel, raccoon, or other critter that sometimes dashed across her path. She never minded such scrapes or bruises. If the animal escaped unscathed, her little bit of pain was well worth it.
She applauded the McVitties’ dedication.
Even so, she resented every raffle ticket the two girls had purchased.
And that made her feel like a terrible person.
But her annoyance didn’t go away.
“If I win”—the giggler started kissing her tickets before pushing them into the slot—“I’ll put a tilt in Wee Hughie’s kilt before you can say Braveheart.” The gum popper rolled her eyes. “If he’s called ‘wee’ because of the size of his haggis, you won’t be able to tell.”
Donald Junior’s smile faded. He was fussing with an assortment of coffee mugs stamped with thistle designs or colorful pictures of a bagpiper in front of Edinburgh Castle.
The two girls nudged elbows, clearly enjoying his discomfiture.
Margo frowned at them, not caring if they noticed.
When they did, they both opened their eyes exaggeratedly wide, treating her to a scathing look that showed they thought she was an obsolete dinosaur.
And maybe she was.
Because—she lifted her chin and gave them a glare that could’ve frozen much of Iceland—their attitude only made her think of older, distant times when men like Magnus MacBride, Viking Slayer, would’ve dealt swiftly with such crude and rude manners.
Men like Magnus had honor, she knew.
In his day, insults weren’t taken lightly.
But this was the here and now, another age and a different world. As if they sensed how much that unalterable fact irritated Margo, both girls uttered two words that Margo would never allow to pass her lips.
Then they sashayed off toward the Cabbage Rose, their hips swinging.
Margo shuddered.
It was almost more palatable to think of Dina Greed in Scotland than those two twits.
“They’ll no’ be winning,” a sprightly, old-ladyish, and definitely Scottish voice trilled behind Margo.
“Gah!” Margo whirled around, almost colliding with a bright-eyed Scotswoman.
“You needn’t fash yourself, lassie.” The tiny woman winked at her. “All things happen as they should and”—her blue eyes twinkled—“when they should.”
“Ahhh . . .” Margo didn’t know what to say.
“Fie on them.” The woman shot a glance at the girls’ retreating backs. “There be words for their kind, but”—she set her hands on her hips—“I’m a lady.” Any other time Margo would’ve smiled.
But she’d been caught out.
The old woman had clearly seen her watching the girls. And somehow she knew Margo burned to win the raffle and that—how embarrassing—she wished everyone else buying a ticket would lose.
Margo’s head pounded slightly and she felt a teeny bit dizzy. Almost as if she’d stepped into another dimension, silly as the thought was. Donald Junior was still standing a comfortable arm’s length away, but somehow the distance felt like miles. Behind him were racks of ready-made kilts, tartan skirts, and—for the less discerning— Kiss me, I’m Scottish T-shirts.
Margo could see all that from the corner of her eye.
Yet her focus seemed to have narrowed to the tiny Scotswoman with her wizened face and sharp blue eyes.
“Did Patience send you after me?” Margo could imagine her employer being friendly with such a woman.
They probably belonged to the same pagan circle.
Though ...
Margo knew most of Patience’s friends. And this woman wasn’t the sort to be easily forgotten. She reminded Margo of the witch in “Hansel and Gretel.” Except this crone seemed a good one. Almost like the wisewomen in some Scottish medieval romance novels.
“Patience?” The old woman cackled, enhancing the comparison. “Nae, dear, that one didn’t ask me to fetch you. But”—she stepped closer—“I know that she and your two other friends are saving a place for you at the Scottish luncheon buffet.”
Margo blinked, not sure what to think of the woman having such intimate knowledge of her private life.
“You are Margo Menlove, eh?” The crone tipped her somewhat bristly chin.
Margo just looked at her.
White-haired, rosy-cheeked, and flamboyantly styled in a sweeping skirt of deep black velvet and an emerald jacket of the same material, she’d completed her outfit with an expertly draped blue-green tartan sash. A large ruby-studded Celtic brooch winked at her shoulder, where it held the sash in place. Tiny high-topped black boots with red plaid laces peeped from beneath her skirt, adding a touch of modern pizzazz to her Old World look.
Anywhere outside the Scottish Festival, she’d appear odd.
But lots of people did wear period dress to the event. Most didn’t strike the same authenticity as this woman, but they did try.
It was part of the fun.
Still. . .
“How do you know my name?” Margo didn’t like the chills prickling her nape.
The woman’s smile turned mischievous. “Och!” She waved a knotty-knuckled hand. “I heard your friends blethering. They were
worried that you hadn’t yet joined them.
“I was about to come this way, so ...” The crone didn’t finish. She did glance across the grass, past the other souvenir and food stalls to the row of clan tents curving along the far side of the duck pond.
Thick mist was beginning to roll down from the low hills to drift across the water. Shimmering curtains of soft gray stillness glided toward the Cabbage Rose Gift Emporium and Tea Room and the sprawling auditorium just beyond. The mist reminded Margo so much of Scotland that her heart squeezed.
“Thon scene could be the Highlands.” The old woman set a hand to her breast and took a deep breath. “No peat, but there’s fine damp air and a wee touch o’ leaf mold and moss. Such scents do delight the soul.
“Take away the hurly-burly and your boxy buildings and cars, and a body could almost be there. Maybe even on my own Isle o’ Doon.” She started to smile again, but just then the two young girls—Margo’s twits—pushed through the crowd at the auditorium door, elbowing inside.
“They’ll no’ be winning,” the crone said again, sounding as if she knew. “Suchlike would lose heart fast in my world. They’re in love with the Highlands they see in fill-ums.” She spoke the word film as if it was strange on her tongue. “They dinnae have the backbone to stand beside a true Heilander.”
“A true Highlander?” Margo was intrigued.
“Aye, just.” The woman grasped Margo’s arm with surprisingly firm fingers. “Such men as walk my hills need women of strength and courage. Women who appreciate honor and understand the need of blood feuds. Bold-hearted lasses who can dress wounds and even take up a sword if need be.” The crone’s grip tightened. “Women worthy of a lord of battle . . .”
Margo’s ears began to buzz, a strange ringing that increased as the old woman’s voice faded. A wave of dizziness washed over her and she leaned back against the edge of a display table, vaguely aware of Donald Junior showing a sgian dubh to a stocky, brown-haired man wearing a sweatshirt decorated with a red Scottish lion. Donald was holding up the little black dagger—commonly worn as a sock knife—and repeatedly saying, “No, it’s pronounced skean do . . .” as he turned the horn-handled dagger this way and that, showing off the knife’s Celtic-knot-design mounting.