She had a destination.
Steadily, surely, she walked toward the forest, where she had last seen the wolf. There she sat and waited. The certainty that he would come did not surprise her. It felt inevitable that he would be here, and inevitable that she would wait.
She did not wait long. She did not hear him coming until he was very close and she could see him, so consumed was she with thoughts of earlier that day and what she had felt.
When she did see him, he was bigger than she remembered, but he bent his head down so that she could touch his face. She put her arms around his neck and drew closer to him.
“Please,” she said, “I want to see you.”
Then she blinked, and he was in front of her, her hands still around his neck, the moonlight gleaming on his pale, naked skin.
“But you do see me,” he said. “You always see me.”
Then he kissed her, and she drank in the sweetness of his affection, knowing that however much she got she would never be full. She could feel him against her, and she had never seen a naked man before, but she was not shocked or embarrassed. It was only right that he should be there, and right that he should be naked. And when his hands reached round to undo her dress, and slid it off of her soft, inexperienced body, it was only right that she should be there, naked, against him too.
It was right for him to lay her down, on a patch of soft moss she hadn’t noticed, but he must have known was there for her. And it was only right for them to be together, one breath, one body.
After, they lay on the moss, and looked at the sky and the moon through the branches.
“Why are you helping us?” Elspeth asked out loud, although she felt she knew the answer.
“Because I heard you, at the church yard. And I knew that when you were in pain, I would need to ease that pain. And if you wanted to stay, then I would stay with you.”
She curled up next to him, pulled her dress over them both for warmth, and fell into the deepest sleep she’d ever had.
Chapter 7
In the morning, Elspeth woke alone. Henry was gone and she had no memory of him leaving. Only the small tear in the back of her dress convinced her for certain that it hadn’t all been a dream. She put it on, feeling so very alone, and wandered toward the village.
When she got there, she found a changed place. About a third of the people had left their homes, and the rest were terrified, or excited, or a combination of both.
“Where is Henry?” people kept asking her, over and over, and she had no answer for them.
She thought Granaidh would be very cross with her when she finally found her, but to her surprise she was only concerned.
“What’s happened?” she asked her grandmother. “Why is everyone so concerned?”
“There was a man who came in the night. He’d seen the English coming and ran all the way here to warn us. He says they will be here today.”
Elspeth felt her heart begin to race.
“Where is Henry?” her grandmother asked. “Where is the wolf?”
Elspeth had no answer.
Chapter 8
They spent the rest of that day in a panic. People came to the house over and over to ask her questions. Had she seen Henry? No, no she had not. Was he coming back? Was he bringing the wolf?
She told them that she was sure, that of course he was. She tried her best to act as certain of this as the ground beneath her feet, but she could tell from the worried looks on their faces that she could not conceal the doubt that had crept into her heart.
What if he had gone? What if he had gotten what he wanted from her and then, like so many words spoken into the night air, disappeared to leave her and her village to their fate?
Facts that she had previously overlooked began springing, unbidden, to her mind. Certainly he had been able to dispatch six terrified soldiers in a forest at night. But then he had had the advantage, hadn’t he? He’d been concealed and they were cowards, anyway, who had run from the battle in the first place and did not even have enough sense between them to find the right direction to rejoin the army.
And the village had so very few men who could even fight. They would do the best they could, but they had been relying on the wolf – a wolf that, Elspeth now saw, would be out of its depth. Surely Henry must have known this. Surely he must have known all these things from the beginning.
Had he never intended to help? Had she been absurd? Had she been blinded by the magic of the situation, of the man who could be a beast, to recognize the truth of what all men – wolf or no wolf – truly were?
Elspeth tried to push these thoughts away. She tried to believe in what she had felt the night before. She tried to summon the certainty she had felt lying on the moss, looking at the shards of sky she could see between the branches. But hope was slippery, and as the hours wore on, became harder and harder to hold on to.
Finally, after a day that seemed so long it must have been a week, there was a figure spotted at the horizon. Elspeth had been in her room, lying on her bed, alternating between utter faith and absolute heartsickness. Fiona came in and got her, and told her to come.
It was a lone figure, large and limping, and impossible to make out at a distance. But Elspeth knew instantly who it was.
The doubt that had plagued her in the afternoon was banished in one glorious instant, and she ran out to meet her wolf with all the energy of a child.
Chapter 9
Henry’s wounds were deep, and he did not change to a man. He could not speak to her, but she did not need him to. She didn’t know whether he did not change because he could not change in such an injured state, or because wounds such as these inflicted on a human would surely kill him. She did not need to know.
Rumors spread throughout the village, but no one asked her any questions directly. There were those sent out to investigate, who discovered a band of solders on the road who had been torn to pieces, their banner ripped and bloody, lying in the dirt.
For seven days, the wolf lay on the table in Elspeth’s house, and when Henry walked through the village at the end of that week, no one asked him what had happened. They only greeted him with overly large smiles, and brought food to him as he recovered.
And no one questioned when he did not leave Elspeth’s house once he was healed, and no one questioned when they married, soon later, after such a short time.
The only one who had any further questions for Henry was Elspeth, when, some months later she asked him if he had always intended to fight the English alone as he did.
“Yes,” he had replied, after some time.
“Why would you do such a thing?” Elspeth asked, angrier, even after all this time, than she had a right to be. “Why not fight in the village, where you would have had help. Why go alone?
“That’s simple,” he said. “I would have had help if I had fought in the village, and I would have been safer. But your life would have been at risk, too, not only mine. And I only risk things I can afford to lose.”
Then he kissed her forehead, and they never spoke of the past again, only of the future.
Highlander’s Promise
Chapter One
Sometimes Agnes couldn't believe her terrible luck. Her father had just moved them to England for a position he had gotten at the royal court. Scarcely had they unpacked their trunks than the first war for Scottish independence ring out across the land.
Agnes' mother Hariot was overjoyed to see how prescient her husband was to avert an absolute catastrophe for the family by using his political prowess to buy them safety in England. Agnes' sympathies lay at the opposite end of the spectrum, and she was disgusted with her father for betraying their homeland and becoming a shill for King Edward.
What was even more infuriating was the fact that, while she sat on her derriere, just eating the plentiful food and looking out the window of her room, somewhere in the distance her countrymen were starving because of the war interrupting the growing season. Though this was the first
time she ever really got to experience this sort of frustration and longing as the daughter of an aristocrat, the fact that she had never before had to experience this made it that much worse.
The idle occupations that at one point she might have found agreeable, or even enjoyable at times, were now inane at best, and infuriating at worst. Her temper was a volatile thing that she could not always control. Her parents and the servants both suffered from these outbursts of temper, but neither could explain them. For as privileged as she was to have a fine house, a waiting staff and plenty of food, she acted as though she were seriously deprived.
Of course, in Agnes' mind, she was deprived of something more important than delicate foods or fine clothing could ever be. She was deprived of the feeling of self-worth, and nothing was more important to her at this point in time.
Agnes was a Scottish woman, her father's defecting be damned. She didn't want to be living under the same roof as a man who would throw away his country at the drop of a pen. She wanted to help Scotland while it was struggling to maintain its autonomy.
It was unbearable to think that she was living in a safe manor with all the comforts that were afforded to aristocrats while her people suffered. So, she chose to take flight during the night, when no one would be able to stop her.
Therefore, on the sixth day after moving into the manor, Agnes packed up a trunk of only the essentials for her journey, and then left in the quiet of the night, mounting her fine Clydesdale, Angus, and heading north.
Agnes soon learned that the reason for not traveling at night was more than just for comfort. Her horse, though usually a surefooted and steady mount, found it hard to do so much as trot without losing his footing, and Agnes wasn't sure how she could maintain the course to Scotland without being on a road, and without being able to see.
Her route had been carefully chosen after an afternoon spent poring over the regional maps and finding the course that would be most likely to be uninhabited and untraveled. She was going to travel through the woods to the north of her father's manor, going in a generally easterly direction gradually, until she eventually reached Nottingham. From there, as long as she wore a cloak and didn't make a spectacle of herself, she would be far enough away from her father's influence to travel on the roads without fear of detection.
What she didn't account for, being the aristocratic woman that she was, were the logistical difficulties. Not half a mile into the woods did she learn she had to set up a camp and resume her journey come morning.
When she did wake, it was due to the biting cold of the autumn morning, yet another thing she hadn't taken into account. Her ability to take in all the factors and consider them, and then plan for them, was woefully inept. Growing up in an aristocratic class and suffering very little hardship from the real world precipitated that.
Regardless of the hardship, she mounted her Clydesdale again and set off. Maintaining her course was only possible thanks to the river Trent, which she was able to run into, more or less by coincidence. From there, she piloted herself to Nottingham, and then managed to follow the roads further north.
She entered Scotland without any trouble from anyone her father may have sent to recover her. The journey was so easy that Agnes wondered if possibly her father didn't send anyone at all, or if her route was just so quickly traveled that no courier sent after her could catch up.
Regardless of the reason, she did enter Scotland and went to the first border town that she could, that being Canonbie.
The whole sum of money that she took from her father's coffers was just enough to pay her traveling expenses for the seven day journey by horseback, and provide for her for another three days. By then, her money would be gone, but she felt confident that Providence would look after her because of her brave sacrifices to make the journey all the way back to her homeland.
Once she had made her way to the Canonbie Inn, she tied up Angus outside and went into the innkeeper's reception. There was an old woman with her wispy white hair tied up carefully in a bun. Her face was a network of mistrustful wrinkles, and once she saw the fine attire on Anges' pleasantly plump body, her expression was even more suspicious still.
"What business do you have?" the woman asked. Her tone was just short of accusatory, and it took Agnes by surprise. Certainly she was met with some questioning looks before because of her figure and clothing denoting her wealthy background, but she never was met with hostility. A sort of fearful respect was more common.
"I would like a room," Agnes replied very matter-of-factly, trying to seem as though she was totally unperturbed by the woman's reaction to her.
The woman didn't stop eyeing her suspiciously, but she gave a reasonable quote for a room for the night, including dinner. Though her behavior was odd, Agnes wasn't in the mood to search all over town for a more accommodating place--especially not when considering the fact that such behavior would be deemed strange by the locals. So, Agnes paid the fee and had her supper, then went to bed.
Chapter Two
When Agnes woke up, it was because she was being lifted out of her bed by a pair of strong arms that could carry her weight like she was nothing but a small rucksack. At first, she didn't know what to do, or how to react. It took a moment for what was happening to process in her mind, because she had never experienced what it was to be fearful, or to be in danger. Her instincts kicked in within moments, though, and she began screaming for help.
Her screaming couldn't be allowed to continue, however. A hand soon covered her mouth and nose, making it nearly impossible to breathe, let alone scream. The strong man who was carrying her didn't even break stride, and before he reached the door of the hotel, Agnes felt her consciousness slowly ebb away again.
When she did awake, it was to the dingy lighting of some unfinished dirt basement with only one oil lamp on a table in front of her. She hadn't even adjusted her sight to the dingy and inadequate lighting before a deep and gravelly voice addressed her.
"Did you think you could spy on us? Try and obtain information for the English scum?" the manly voice demanded. Agnes felt a cold sweat break out all over her body, and she was rendered speechless. "Well, Levin?" he asked, the volume of his voice steadily rising in anger.
"N-no, no. I am not here to meet the ends of the English--" Agnes quickly said, trying to assuage the man of those fears.
"Don't lie to me, Levin scum," he said, growling slightly.
"How do you know my family name?" Agnes asked. It troubled her that this man seemed to know who she was. Could her father actually have men looking for her to take her back home all the way in Scotland? No, that was inconceivable. He was a traitor to the Scottish people. No self-respecting Scotsman would dare to sell his labor to a man who so brazenly and unabashedly betrayed him.
What was more concerning, now that Agnes was able to think a bit more clearly, was the fact that she held the same name as her defecting father. Perhaps that's why she was detained and why this man was questioning her.
The man was eerily silent for a few moments, then he stood up, slamming his fist down on the table. "You don't think that I would let a Levin through my town, do you? You must have thought you were going to pull the wool over my eyes, but you're wearing an English fashioned dress. My mom was able to catch that, and from there it was simple enough to discern who you were," the man growled.
"No, I didn't come here to fool anyone--"
"Liar!" he said, his tone rising yet again, but Agnes wasn't daunted. She believed firmly that she was in the right, and she was determined to show it.
"I'm no liar! I am here to fight for Scotland! Unlike my father, I'm no turncoat!" Agnes replied, her voice alive with the passion of her convictions. This did not convince her interrogator, however.
"Oh yeah? And I'm the bloody queen in that case! Don't lie to me!" he said, though despite his yelling, Agnes was not afraid. She tried to stand to continue to engage him on the matter, but she realized then that she was tied to the chair. This was q
uite serious, then. She was earnestly considered a threat by this man.
"Besides my last name, what makes you believe I'm a liar?" Agnes asked, glaring at the shadowy figure who was insulting and interrogating her.
This question seemed to give the man pause, and he didn't attempt to reply right away. "I don't need another reason to think you're a traitor, Levin. The sins of the father are visited upon his children. Your father abandoned us because of a coming storm, yet you expect me to embrace you? Don't make me laugh!" he said, spitting on the ground.
"Perhaps my father did betray you," Agnes began, but then corrected herself. "No, my father definitely did betray you. I don't blame you for being angry with him. The reason I'm even here is because I'm angry with him, too. But just because my father betrayed you doesn't mean that I will! Why would I have come to the front lines of a war if all I meant to do was betray the Scottish people? I could have stayed at home in a large manor with servants, but I left that all because I knew I belonged in Scotland!" Agnes said.
"Perhaps you did leave Britain, but just because you did doesn't mean you're on the side of the Scots. After all, if you did want to help Scotland, wouldn't you do better for us by trying to sabotage England from within? What's one little woman going to do for a war?" the man demanded.
"Sabotage? I left my father's house to avoid disgracing and embarrassing myself, sir," Agnes replied, indignant. "And I'm not just one little woman!"
"Oh, and what are you?" the man asked curiously.
"I'm a woman with important documents about British stratagems," Agnes replied. "And the willingness to help my country in whatever way possible. What else could a person offer?"
The man hesitated for a moment, not sure that he wanted to trust this strange woman. Still, the earnestness with which she spoke did make him willing to at least give her a chance.
"Fine. Start by giving over those documents, and maybe we can work something out together," the man said.
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