Grandmother, what are they doing to you? Where are you? Ramsey had assured her they’d found no bodies during their search, but she feared for the old woman—Grandmother was not strong, and who knew how long her heart would hold out?
And what of the children?
What of everyone?
Katrina hastily wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. No time for tears. The women and children downstairs will be a mess; they do not need your weeping on top of it.
The great mass of men rode off to the south, where the Gunns supposedly lurked, and Katrina took that as a cue to leave her room.
The keep itself sounded woefully empty. Her footsteps echoed down the halls, and it was silent and drafty when just yesterday it had been a loud, happy place.
She found Cara, Sabrina, and their assorted children in the great hall. Sabrina waved her over, but her smile was weary and her face looked drawn. “Katrina, we’ll be having a simple lunch today. Logan says it’s best we stay on the grounds.”
Katrina nodded.
Cara was carrying her smallest child in her arms while her little boy clung to her skirts. “Do you have children, Katrina?”
“No, none. No husband, either.”
“A man?” Sabrina pressed.
“No…”
The two women exchanged glances.
Katrina looked around uneasily. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Cara said. “You are a woman grown, though, and most are forced into marriage by then.” She gestured to her children with a free hand. “As I was with Alec…although that worked out in our favor.”
Katrina had heard a bit of the story of Alec and Cara, though she was not sure how much of it she believed. The parts Sabrina had told sounded suspiciously exaggerated for to heighten the romantic aspects, though Katrina supposed it wasn’t entirely far-fetched.
Sabrina and Cara were still looking at her. Katrina took a deep breath. “The carnival life is not like the lives you have. We do not stay in one place for long…I have no time to meet anyone, and no reason to arrange a marriage. Most marriages take place within the carnival folk.”
Cara looked taken aback. “Does that not lead to…well…closeness?”
It took Katrina a moment to understand her. “Goodness, no. It’s not one closed-off group. People join the carnival, people leave. There isn’t…it’s not one set pool of folk, thank heavens.”
The women nodded, though they both had those peculiar sly expressions. There was nothing malevolent about them, but Katrina found herself misliking those looks intensely.
Perhaps they intended to press one of the soldiers upon her.
They shared a quiet lunch of cold chicken, bread, and sweet wine, and Sabrina allowed her eldest son Jamie to take several sips from her goblet. The child promptly fell asleep on the floor, curled up beside one of his father’s hunting dogs.
Sabrina stared down at her son, her lower lip quivering slightly. “Ramsey has never been gone for long stretches of time. I do not know how they will manage without him…”
Katrina stretched a hand toward her. “Children are resilient, Lady Munro. They will be upset for a day or so, and then they will bounce back, particularly if you keep them busy.”
“She’s right,” Cara said. “We can occupy them well enough. Jamie and Connor will play with the dogs, and the little ones, well…” She glanced down at her babe, perhaps contemplating tasks she could assign the wee one. “They don’t know the difference, not really.”
Sabrina turned to Katrina. “What happens to the children in the carnival?”
It was not a question she’d been expecting, though she supposed the conversation would have turned to it eventually. “They are like brothers and sisters. There is a pecking order, just as there is amongst siblings. It’s like…” she searched for an apt comparison, but could find none. “It’s rather like growing up in a village, but not exactly so. That’s as closely as I can describe it.”
They nodded.
After a moment, Cara spoke: “You speak very well, if you don’t mind my saying. Most of the carnival folk I recall…”
Now this question she had expected. “My grandmother claimed our family served in the halls of lords and kings, and passed down proper speech to us. It’s true, many carnival folk do not speak as you do. They almost have their own language.”
“It must be terribly exotic,” Cara said.
Katrina recognized the glaze in the older woman’s eyes, and felt a slight smile pull at her lips. So many lusted for the perceived wonder of the carnival and what it represented—an escape from a life perceived dull or broken. It was the life of the vagabond, those who danced on the edge of civilized society.
Those who wished so hard for the carnival would not likely last long in one, but Katrina supposed she could understand the appeal.
“I always wanted to go elsewhere,” Cara went on. “To see the world, visit all those places the storytellers talked about. The carnival moves, it travels…”
“And yet we have no home,” Katrina said. “You will return to your husband and your keep. The carnival keeps moving, always. There isn’t a home, save for the people you love. And if you don’t have those…”
She shrugged. The words came out slightly bitter, though she was not certain why; she’d always thought herself relatively happy with her lot.
Perhaps seeing the Munro women with their families had stirred something in her.
“Katrina,” Logan called, “might I press ye to go for a ride with me?”
The two women shared another look. Katrina felt her stomach twist into an uncomfortable knot. They mean to press Logan upon me!
The exchange was unmistakable. Women of all people shared it when they thought no one else would notice—Katrina had seen it in the carnival, in visitors, in the houses and villages she’d visited in her young life.
Sabrina and Cara were planning on meddling.
Logan was still looking at her.
“Yes,” she said, smiling at the two. I know what you plan, she tried to convey, but her expression only prompted a stifled giggle from Sabrina and a knowing smirk from Cara.
It was a bloody pleasure to follow Logan outside. “What are me sisters doing to ye?”
“Scheming,” she said.
He grunted in response. “’Tis what they do best. Ignore them; they mean well, but their ideas are…troubling.”
He saddled two horses for them, dismissing the usual groom. Katrina swung aboard her mount, a pleasant bay mare with two socks and a stripe on her nose. “Where are we going, Logan?”
“Just for a ride. I wish to see how the land looks with the army departed.” He glanced at her as he gathered his big stallion beneath him. “I thought ye could stand some freedom from the women. They did not hesitate to swarm ye.”
“I think they mean to marry me off,” she said.
He laughed, and sent his mount off at a trot. Katrina’s mare followed. “That sounds like them, aye. They want everyone t’be as happy as they…noble enough, I suppose, if foolish.”
“Why foolish?” They began riding up a hill, their mounts dropping to a walk.
“Not all stories end as happily as theirs, is all. Most don’t, I wager. Love is well and good, but when it fades yer trapped with a person ye cannot stand.”
She thought that a most peculiar answer for a man surrounded by love as he was. “You distrust love?”
“I distrust what it makes people do. Men do the most foolish things for love…foolish, fickle things.”
She did not answer him. It seemed better not to.
They reached the top of a hill, and Logan stopped his horse and flung out an arm. “The Munro lands stretch on into forever,” he said. “We protect those who live here, and have for hundreds of years. Godwilling, we’ll protect them for hundreds more.”
He seemed so composed and wistful as he looked out over his family’s lands. Katrina could hardly take her eyes off him; he looked every inch a n
oble warrior, a man who embodied honor and duty and something of the wild.
Perhaps Sabrina and Cara are not so far off…
No, absolutely not! She could not allow such a thing. How could she even entertain the thought?
They rode together for a few hours, taking in the cool air and speaking of their childhoods and youth. She found Logan a thoughtful conversationalist once he began speaking; he took a bit of time to prod into discussion, but he was a keenly intelligent man, well aware of his life and all that had shaped it.
He did not like the carnival, however, for reasons even he could not entirely remember.
“Something must have happened when I was wee,” he said. “That’s all I can imagine—I doona recall anything else. I know I was there, I recall yer grandmother’s tent…but that’s it. So why am I so troubled by it? I dinna even want to visit with Ramsey yesterday; he had to order me to go.”
She frowned, her body rocking slightly with her horse’s gait. “My grandmother wouldn’t tell you?”
“No, she only said I would learn it on me own. Bloody irritating.” He sent her a quick glance. “I’m sure she’s a fine woman.”
Katrina didn’t bother holding back her laugh. “Grandmother can be vexing, Logan. It’s all right to admit it. Most mystics cannot seem to give a straight answer, no matter how much you ask…”
“Why is that?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps it dampens their mystique? She is always right, though, so I suppose you will find out.”
They returned by mid-afternoon, where they took a fine lunch of meat and cheese in the kitchens. Katrina could not recall the last time she’d enjoyed a man’s company so much, and tried not to fixate too much on Logan’s laughing eyes or his wicked smile. He had a fine mouth—the sort of mouth that would follow her into her dreams.
My goodness, what am I thinking?
By nightfall, the children were laughing again, and Sabrina sent away the remaining servants. Katrina told stories in the great hall, Logan poured wine and brought out sweetmeats, and everyone did their best to distract themselves from what was happening not so many miles away.
Her mind was clouded by wine, and she went to sleep with a smile on her face. Everything seemed possible.
“We’re bloody surrounded!”
The shriek launched Katrina out of bed, and she nearly fell out of bed. The contraption was too high; she was too used to sleeping on the ground, and she was not used to the cold stone floor. She hurried to the bearskin rug in front of the bed, warming her feet as she pulled a robe on over her chemise.
Her head ached terribly, but she’d known that would happen—she could scarcely keep her head about her with one cup of wine, much less three.
The screams of dismay continued through the keep. Katrina yanked open her bedroom door just in time to see Logan rush down the corridor, a claymore in his hands. “Logan! What is it?”
“Gunns!”
Men on horses surrounded the keep, forming lines on the three sides Katrina could see from the battlement. Logan stared wildly at the warriors, then called out to a guard running toward them.
“It’s the same in back, my lord! We’re surrounded!”
“Bloody hell!” He slammed his fist against the stone battlement. “The army is gone and they’ve come straight to us.”
“Logan, what are we going to do?” Sabrina asked. She, too, was dressed in a chemise and robe, and had a crying Jamie in her arms.
“I don’t know! I need to think…have they sent anyone? Has anyone come to the keep?” Logan looked at them all, but no one came forward.
He nodded. “Inside, everyone. Away from the windows and battlements. We’re within range of their archers.”
It was no better inside. Those who had stayed behind were in an uproar. Katrina found herself holding Cara’s youngest while his mother barred the door, and Sabrina hurriedly issued orders to the handful of servants that weren’t running in circles.
“Stop!” Logan finally bellowed.
The hall became very quiet.
“They will send a messenger,” he said. “An emissary with demands. We will greet them and hear them out, but we cannot do that standing here in a state. Everyone, get dressed. We will eat. We will wait.”
His voice rang with confident authority, and those in the hall slowly began to move. Katrina waited until it had emptied out before turning her dumbfounded stare on Logan. “Are you mad?”
“What more can I do?” he hissed. “They’ve got us surrounded. If I put up a strong front, they might not realize…”
He did not need to finish his sentence; Katrina could see on his face that he knew it was folly. The Gunns had waited until Ramsey’s army was well away to strike.
Logan set his sword on the table. “Bloody hell,” he growled. “They’re good. They’re clever. They knew Ramsey would go after them if they struck the carnival folk—they knew—and they planned it out so perfectly. They must have been watching us…”
They watched us riding? The idea made Katrina shiver. Her innocent, lovely ride with Logan had been under scrutiny the entire time?
“Get dressed,” he said. “We must present a united front.”
She rushed back to her room, nearly stumbling over Sabrina’s son Jamie. He was still outside her room when she emerged, dressed in a modest gown she’d managed to rescue from her grandmother’s tent. He held up his arms, and after a moment’s hesitation, Katrina picked him up.
He was shaking. “What’s the matter, little one?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light. Jamie might not understand all that was going on, and there was no need to frighten him further.
“Me Da’s gone, and the bad men are here,” he whispered.
All right, there was no fooling this little one. Katrina hefted him tighter in her arms and looked him in the eye. “It’s true, there are bad men,” she said, “but your Uncle Logan has matters firmly in hand, doesn’t he?”
The child nodded, although Katrina was not entirely sure Logan had anything in hand at all.
“We must be brave for him, and you must be especially brave for your sisters and little cousins, isn’t that right?”
Again the boy nodded, though he seemed uncertain.
“You are the man of the house, after Uncle Logan,” she reminded him. “Your young family members are looking up to you. Be brave for them. If you act brave, you’ll be brave.”
“There you are.” Sabrina swept around a corner and swiftly plucked Jamie from Katrina’s arms. “Jamie, run to Cara and help her with Connor; he’s fussing this morning. Then I want you to join the nurse in the smaller kitchen, do you understand? You’re all baking a cake with old Dennis this morning!”
Jamie’s eyes lit up at the mention of cake, and he squirmed free, rushing off down the hallway.
Sabrina shook her head, staring after him. “Remarkable, what the promise of a cake will motivate them to do. I dread the day they outgrow it.”
Katrina laughed quietly. “My mother did the same thing to me, using sweetmeats.”
“I heard what you said to him, right before I arrived. Act brave, be brave. My uncle said something similar to me once.”
“My grandmother used to say it. I always thought it was to shame me into behaving when something frightened me, but now I wonder…” Katrina shrugged, looking over at the lady of the keep. Sabrina’s hair was pulled back into a plait, and she wore only a drab gray dress over what looked like boots. “Forgive me. This is no time for reminiscing.”
“Oh, this is precisely the time for reminiscing. We must be brave, for our children and ourselves.” Sabrina took her by the arm, nudging her back toward the great hall. “Cara is with old Dennis and the nurse. If the worst should happen, she will see the children safely away. The Munro keep has secrets yet that the Gunns do not know of…but we shall see what these fools want. Storming my bloody home. The nerve.”
She sounded every inch the proper English lady, and Katrina found it in herself to smil
e.
It doesn’t feel real. This can’t be happening. We cannot be under siege, cannot have an enemy clan surrounding us…
Logan paced back and forth in the great hall, though he stopped immediately when the women arrived. “They’re sending an emissary,” he said. “Sabrina, will you see to it that ale and bread are provided?”
“Shall I poison it?” Sabrina asked lightly.
“No. I’ll behead him if it comes to such a thing.” Logan nodded toward the claymore. “Where are the children?”
The Munro Clan Highlander Collection (The Munro Clan Highlander Romances) Page 14