Highland Charm: First Fantasies

by April Holthaus

  Then, out of the mist, she saw a small, moving light. It faded, flared, and leapt as other flames appeared around it. Muriella gasped and found she could not move her feet. She wanted to close her eyes and blot the image from her sight, but knew it was stronger than she. In the darkness behind her lids the vision would only glow brighter, and with it, the knowledge that death was coming to this place—again. Not just one death, but many. Would it be Colin or John or the others, whose names she did not even know? From the number of flickering lights, she knew it might well be all of them.

  "Miss Muriella?" Duncan cried, alarmed by the pallid color of her skin and the way she trembled, as if she had to fight to remain standing.

  The mist retreated at last, burned away by the sound of a human voice. Muriella stared at the squire, trying to anchor herself to reality with the sight of his face. "Colin's right, 'tis my fault!" she cried.

  "No," Duncan said, taking her arm. He was frightened by the blank look in her eyes and did not know how to help her. "He's only angry ye slipped away again. He said it to hurt ye, that's all."

  Muriella shook his head. "Ye don't understand. I know they'll die, but I can't change it."

  It came to Duncan then that what the men whispered about her power was true. Instinctively, he recoiled from her. "Ye don't mean—" He choked on his own words and could not go on.

  Muriella gripped his doublet in stiff fingers, hardly aware of what she was doing. "There's nothing I can do, don't ye see?" Her voice came out a ragged whisper. "Why can't I stop it? Dear God, why?"

  * * *

  The moment John and Colin and the others rode into the woods south of the keep, they found evidence the outlaw had passed there before them. They plunged into pursuit without further thought. Believing Calder was running in fear, John and Colin were too intent on catching their foe to notice the trail was too clearly marked.

  They rode up hills and made their way along paths choked with underbrush, following the sweep of Loch Awe, poised always between the loch and the sea. Yet they never met a single enemy. Several times they were forced to stop to rest their horses, but each time the men were ready to move again, they found a fresh trail.

  Finally, near noon, Colin reined in his animal and turned to his brother. "I think the outlaw's playing with us. The trail is always clear, but we never seem to get closer. I smell another Calder rat."

  "And mayhap the rat wears Maclean's cloak." John's eyes blazed with a light that had burned out hours ago in the eyes of his comrades. Raking his fingers through his heavy beard, he considered the path before them.

  He knew that, like Colin, the men had begun to be suspicious. They had not eaten yet that day, they were tired, and although none of them would have faltered had they met Calder with thrice their number in straightforward combat, they were uneasy about the sense of deception that had begun to gnaw at their nerves.

  Grasping the handle of his sword, John looked directly at his brother. "Ye may want to turn tail and run, but I won't do it."

  "If he's waiting for us—" Colin began in a harsh whisper.

  "Then so be it," John hissed back. "If Calder thinks he can beat us so easily, he has a thing or two to learn about the Campbells. He's laid down a challenge, and I intend to meet it, whatever the consequences." He paused when he realized his voice was shaking with the force of his anger. "Besides," he said more calmly, "don't ye see what will happen if we turn back now? Calder will have provided for just such a move, and they'll be waiting for us, that I guarantee."

  Colin glanced back at the men, who were watching the brothers with close attention. The horses were clearly tired and the men almost equally so. But Johnnie was right; should they retreat, Calder was certain to jump them. "Well then, I suppose we must go forward for a bit. But I warn ye, be ready for anything."

  In a few minutes, the Campbells reached a clearing in the trees. In the distance, they could hear the sea attacking the rocky shore. The air was moist and heavy with the smell of salt. On all sides of the tiny glen, the oaks and underbrush grew thick and impenetrable. For a long moment, there was complete silence; then Andrew Calder struck.

  The men seemed to fall from the branches of the trees—men who wore the Fraser plaid, the Rose, the Calder, and the Maclean. While the Campbells scrambled from their horses, the enemy abandoned their bows to a man, drawing their broadswords instead. It was not long before the glen was in complete confusion.

  John took a single deep breath, his eyes glowing with excitement. He saw at once his men were outnumbered, but that only made him more determined. An easy victory meant nothing to him. Facing an enemy who was stronger gave spice to the game.

  Before he had slid from his horse's back, he struck a man down with one blow of his dagger. When his feet touched the ground, he grasped his heavy broadsword in the other hand and swung it from side to side, slashing indiscriminately at the red-and-green Maclean plaid. As he lunged and retreated and lunged again, his gaze swept the glen, seeking a man who might be Calder. He knew the others would fall into confusion once their leader was down, but the swords were closing in around him and he could not stop to find the outlaw in the blur of blood and plaid and sweat-soaked skin.

  Glancing to his right, he leapt out of the way an instant before a heavy blade came slashing down in the spot where he had just been standing. He brought his weapon up, then down, and another Maclean fell beneath it. Somewhere to his left, he heard Colin cursing violently and his own eyes told him that the Campbells' situation was far from promising.

  John's exhilaration turned to dismay when he realized he and his men had been forced into a knot at the center of the glen, with the Macleans pressing in on all sides. "Damn!" he swore. A challenge was one thing, but this could well be a slaughter. The ground at his feet was covered with blood; he did not know how much of it belonged to his companions. He and Colin exchanged a telling look as they were thrown together and paused to catch their breath. They were losing, that much was clear. More than half the men who had followed them into the glen now lay dead outside the circle of their enemies.

  John clenched his hand around his blade until his fingers ached and a strange stillness seemed to enfold him. The ring of clashing blades, the harsh cries of triumph, even the groans of pain faded into the background and he felt, all at once, that he was completely alone with the smell of death. He raised his sword, swinging it wildly to ward off the silence threatening to choke him. He struck a man with the side of his blade, forcing him to his knees in the grass. Thus the two men remained, frozen in time, until the enemy's death cry tore from his throat, waking John from the trance that had gripped him.

  It was then that a bellowed order to retreat sliced through the glen. Incredibly, the Macleans fell away and began to back toward the sea. The Campbells watched in silence, their stained swords poised in the air before them. For an instant, they were too stunned to move; then they raced after the men who had slipped beyond the trees and away.

  As he followed the path they had taken, John left the woods that opened onto a rocky beach. The Macleans had sheathed their weapons and were hurrying over the sand toward several boats waiting to take them to Mull.

  "After them!" John shouted, slashing at a wild myrtle in his path.

  "No," Colin said. "We've lost too many men already. We wouldn't catch them anyway, and I wouldn't be surprised if they had more men waiting on Mull. Mayhap they want to lure us to the island, then claim we attacked them on their own land. I don't know for certain, but I do know I won't be a fool twice in one day."

  John cursed under his breath. "I didn't even see Calder. How do we know he was here?"

  "He was here. And no doubt he'll be back. Come." Colin nodded toward the shadowed glen beyond the trees. "We must see to our dead and go home."

  * * *

  When Colin, John and the other survivors drew near the arm of land that reached toward Kilchurn castle, they met the Earl and his escort returning from Cawdor.

  "What the devil
!" Argyll exploded. Both his sons were streaked with blood and dirt, and they led a string of riderless horses. Behind them came a group of tattered, weary men who seemed barely able to stay on their animals. "Was it Calder?"

  "Aye," Colin answered. "And ye needn't be wondering whether or no' Maclean is protecting the outlaw. That glen was so crowded with red-and-green plaid ye could no’ tell the enemy from the bloody grass. And there's something that puzzles me still. Calder had us. We couldn't move at all, yet he retreated. I don't like it."

  The Earl regarded his eldest son with a troubled frown. "Ye can bet he means to strike again. Now he'll have even more reason to try to get the girl."

  John, who had been thinking back to the moment of stillness in the midst of the battle, looked up, suddenly alert. "What do ye mean?"

  With a grim attempt at a smile, Argyll pulled a piece of parchment out of his doublet. "This document declares Muriella Calder to be sole legal heir to the Thanedom of Cawdor. Ye'll note the witnesses against her mother have sworn they were paid by Calder to lie. Even William Calder himself has signed."

  "I don't believe it!" Colin cried.

  "Believe," Argyll said. "Don't ye see what it means?" Nodding toward the empty horses, he smiled bitterly and declared, "We have won."

  Chapter 12

  "Listen," Muriella said. "'Tis so lovely."

  "What is, miss?" Brow furrowed, Megan leaned forward to concentrate more intently.

  Spreading her arms to encompass the narrow strip of shore, the placid loch and the pines and larches that crowded in toward the water, Muriella whispered, "The stillness. 'Tis for that I came." She tilted her face toward the sun, the first they had seen in days. It shone wanly overhead, barely able to warm the cold air, but Muriella welcomed it like an unexpected blessing.

  For five days she had not been out of the castle. The rain had beat ceaselessly against the walls and turned the river outside into a torrent. Nevertheless, the preparations for the wedding moved forward. Although Muriella was not allowed to go out, the seamstresses came in. With them came the first of the wedding guests, who had begun to arrive from all over Scotland. The castle had rung with the sound of unfamiliar voices for many days now.

  This morning, when the lowering clouds had parted at last to reveal a pale blue sky, the waters of Loch Awe had seemed to call to her from her tiny window. It had not taken her long to convince Megan of her need to escape. "But without Duncan and Adam," Muriella had insisted. "We'll go no farther than the loch, and just this once I’ll no’ have their watching eyes following me."

  Megan had hesitated, remembering all too well the morning a month ago when her mistress had gone to the Gypsy camp. She would have refused at once, except for the look of pleading on Muriella's face and the chill that had settled into her own bones in the past few days. She too wanted to breathe fresh air, free of the musty dampness that had invaded every part of the keep.

  Besides, her mistress had changed since that last visit to the Gypsies. Though the bitterness and anger that had once simmered in her eyes was no longer visible, Megan suspected it lay deeper beneath the surface now. Sadness still clung about Muriella like an invisible veil, but she did not lash out at the Earl or John or Colin—not even when old lump-in-brow taunted her.

  She had been kind to Megan from the beginning, but now she reached out to befriend the other servants, and those few men willing to speak to her. “Much as I wish I could claim otherwise,” she had confided in Megan, “’tis true the Campbells have kept me safe.” She looked away to hide her face, but her voice trembled, betraying her. “So many seek to see me dead. So many have died to protect me.”

  She was no more eager to wed John Campbell than before, but she kept her regrets and sorrow to herself. The servant had been unable to talk her out of her guilt over the deaths of the men who had died in her cause, and she walked as if their ghosts stood on her shoulders.

  When she went outside, like today, the shadows lifted and she breathed in the spirit of the girl she had been before the Campbells took her. Or so Megan imagined.

  As for Andrew Calder, he had been quiet for a month, since the disastrous battle in the glen, and with the number of armed men who had arrived, the castle was well fortified; it was not likely Calder would strike now, when the Campbells were strongest. So the two girls had slipped on dark cloaks and made their way through the courtyard and under the heavy iron portcullis, raised in welcome to arriving guests.

  "Aye, ‘tis sweet as spring," the servant agreed as the warmth of the sun at last began to dissipate the chill in her body.

  Muriella leaned against the boulder at her back, reveling in the peace of the moment. Loch Awe spread out before her, its surface woven of shifting shades of blue and gray in the pale February light. The fine-grained earth clung to her hands and the water lapped softly on the shore, swirling pale changing patterns in the sand as it retreated. Smiling at Megan, who sat with her eyes closed in contentment, Muriella said, "I’ve no’ felt this way in a long time. Not since I left Kilravok."

  Megan opened her eyes. Muriella did not talk much about her past. "Was it as lovely there as 'tis here?"

  "In a way, though we didn't have a loch—only a bubbling burn with a little pool. 'Twas no' as beautiful as Loch Awe. And it had no secrets." She leaned her head on her knees and added thoughtfully, "Everything seems bigger at Kilchurn and more impressive somehow." From here the tree-heavy islands scattered across its surface obscured the far bank of the loch. "But I loved that wee pool just the same." •

  Closing her eyes, she tried to bring her memory of the burn into sharper focus. "The only one who knew of it besides me was my cousin Hugh, and he didn't go there often."

  The servant leaned closer, chin resting on her cupped hands. "But sometimes he did? Ye weren't alone always, surely."

  "No, I was often with Hugh," Muriella mused. "Most days we played together in the afternoons. We used to chase each other into the woods, then hide among the trees. But Hugh always found me before long, and then we'd start again. When we were too hot and tired to run anymore, we'd go to the burn and cool our feet in the pool."

  She looked out at the loch and saw her memories reflected in the silver green water. The rhythmic lap of the waves was soothing, lulling her into dreamy tranquility. For the moment, she could forget the feeling of dread that had haunted her like an accusation since the day she'd seen those flames glimmering from the center of a chilling mist. It was not over yet.

  It would not be over until she became John's wife. Until she took the Campbell name, and in doing so, proclaimed the Earl's right to Cawdor could no longer be questioned. "Muriella Campbell," she repeated under her breath. The name sounded strange and remote, as if it could never really belong to her.

  "Just think, in four days ye'll be a married woman," Megan whispered, echoing her mistress's thoughts. "Aren't ye excited?"

  That was not the word for the distress that flared in her many times each day as she wondered what her life would be like after the wedding. Because the Earl's wife was dead and Colin's Janet never came to the Highlands, Muriella would be mistress of Kilchurn. The thought only added to her trepidation. She sensed that Argyll would expect a great deal of her. But first would come the ceremony—and then the wedding night. She remembered, suddenly, John's urgent kiss on that long-ago afternoon; she could not quell a shudder—and then a tiny rush of heat—at the thought of his body stretched out beside hers in a huge, fur-strewn bed.

  She suppressed the memory of the heat and concentrated more fiercely on the beauty of the loch. The waves reached for her, retreated, reached out again with clear fingers, and then retreated once more. She could hear the wind sighing in the treetops overhead, then dropping down to touch the still water. She felt it was calling her closer, drawing her away from the cold, damp reality of the deep beyond the trees. For the moment, the clouds had scattered and there was no hint of a shadow on the loch. There was nothing but the sound and sense of the wind on the water. />
  She rose to make her way toward the rocks tumbled along the shore as a seabird flew past, its image reflected like a streak of silver on the loch. She followed its path with her eyes, kneeling on a large, flat boulder, trying to settle her heavy skirts behind her without dipping them into the chilly water. With her palms pressed against the stone, she looked down at the bottom of the loch. "Megan!" she cried. "Look! I've found a magic castle."

  The servant came at once to kneel beside her mistress. There was barely room for the two girls on the boulder. Megan would have tumbled into the water if Muriella had not caught her with both hands. Leaving one arm across the servant's shoulders, she pointed through the water at an overgrown rock thick with moss and waving grass. With its fissures and crevices and tall, curved spire, it did resemble a keep, though Megan herself would never have seen a castle in the shaded gray stone.

  "Mayhap 'tis a home for the Kelpies. Ye know how they love the water."

  Muriella tilted her head, considering. "Aye," she murmured at last, "maybe 'tis." She leaned closer, suddenly intent. "Or mayhap 'tis no' the Kelpies at all. 'Tis something different."

  Smiling, Megan pointed at a reflection on the water. "'Tis yer own face, miss, with the darkness of yer braid over yer shoulder."

  Muriella nodded. Her face was captured on the surface for a moment, and then a breeze touched the loch and the image rippled, blurred and slowly, subtly, began to change. Now the face was that of a stranger—a lovely woman with pale blue eyes. She combed her long blond hair as it twined itself among the rocks, then set a ring of bright flowers on her head. Above the lap and swell of the water, Muriella heard a keening cry that vibrated through her body. She reached out to touch the enchanted face, but it was gone.