Once Upon a Plaid

by Mia Marlowe

  “Seeing home again with their balls intact isna nothing, I’m thinkin’,” Sinclair said.

  “Then ye’re a coward,” Murray said. “Ye hold your manhood too cheap. We’ve set ourselves to bring down Glengarry and we damned well ought to do it. Whether Lord Badenoch falls or not.”

  “We canna go back on the agreement made in parley,” Gordon said.

  “Then we make sure MacNaught wins.” Murray glowered down at the castle. “D’ye see the pile of rubble at the eastern corner, where the roof of the bastion came down?”

  MacTavish twisted around to look. “Aye.”

  “I’m thinking that under cover of darkness, a single man could work his way around to the loch and then come up along the eastern corner without being seen by their watch,” Murray said.

  “To what end?” MacTavish asked.

  “To the end of being close enough to put a bolt through Badenoch’s heart if it looks like he’s about to best MacNaught,” Murray grumbled. “God’s Teeth, I’d have to draw this one a picture to teach him to take a piss.”

  “At least I’m willing to do something instead of just talk about it, which is more than I can say for ye, old man,” MacTavish said, rising in a huff and slinging his crossbow over his shoulder. “When this business is done, Murray, ye and I are going to have more than words.”

  He stomped off into the night.

  “MacTavish is younger and faster than ye, Murray,” Sinclair said. “Yet ye dinna look worried.”

  “Naw, after he puts a bolt through Badenoch, he’ll have betrayed his position and someone from Glengarry will see him right there under their noses,” Murray said. “Whatever happens, MacTavish won’t have a fart’s chance in a skillet of making it back to our line.”

  It came, a floweret bright,

  amid the cold of winter,

  when half spent was the night.

  —From “Lo! How a Rose E’er Blooming”

  “I canna think of aught good that comes in the middle of the night. Or in the wee hour of dawn either, for that matter.”

  —An observation from Nab,

  fool to the Earl of Glengarry

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Katherine woke curled up on the parapet with Will’s heavy cloak tucked beneath and around her. She’d meant to stay up with him, but anxiety and more than a few sleepless nights had a way of wearing on a body, and she must have drifted off surrounded by the warmth of his cloak.

  Now the parapet around her was filling with the Glengarry defenders, all jostling for position in order to best see the drama unfolding below.

  He didna even say good-bye.

  Her heart was a prickly ball of thorns. Katherine scrambled to her feet and peered over the wall. On the trampled snow about one hundred yards from the castle, Will and Ranulf dismounted and handed the reins of their horses to their seconds. Hew MacElmurray and Lamont Sinclair led the horses a safe distance away from the combatants.

  William and Ranulf seemed to be speaking to each other, but strain as she might, she couldn’t make out any of their words. Her cousin turned and, as if he felt her eyes on him, stared straight at her for a blink. Then he gave her a mock salute, raising his claymore above his head.

  William didn’t glance her way.

  It was a good thing because Ranulf used the gesture to initiate his attack. Will barely had time to draw his sword from its shoulder baldric and meet MacNaught’s blade.

  Katherine had often listened to her father and William discussing fighting styles over their meals. She wished she’d paid closer attention now. She might have been able to make more sense of what she was seeing. There was no finesse. No strategy. Her husband and her cousin seemed to be taking turns trying to split each other in two.

  She felt every bone-jarring parry. Her breath fled away with each thrust. She dug her nails into the granite wall so hard that they bled.

  Her vision tunneled till all she could see was Will. Circling with deadly grace. Leaping back to avoid Ranulf’s blade. Returning a vicious stroke with a blistering one of his own.

  The cacophony of steel on steel strafed her ears so loudly, she didn’t hear her father’s approach until Lord Glengarry, supported by his seneschal, Jamison, was beside her on the wall.

  “Good lad,” her father said through one side of his mouth. The left side of his face still sagged as if it had melted. He laid a heavy right hand on her shoulder.

  He meant well, but it was little comfort. Not when her heart was out there, dodging each blow along with William.

  The combatants seemed to be tiring, for their movements slowed. The snow they trampled underfoot was turning slushy and slick. Kat’s breath hissed over her teeth when William lost his footing and went down on one knee.

  With a roar, Ranulf pressed his advantage. He came flying, his blade poised to be buried in the juncture of Will’s neck and shoulder. At the last moment, William caught Ranulf’s claymore with his own and, with a quick circular stroke, tore the sword from MacNaught’s hands.

  Will rose to his feet, his sword tip pointed at MacNaught’s chest. “On your knees, if ye value your life.”

  Ranulf panted from exertion but remained upright.

  “Yield, damn ye.” Despite the cold, a bead of sweat trickled down Will’s spine. “I dinna wish to murder my wife’s cousin if I can help it.”

  “Do what ye must,” MacNaught said and ripped open the front of his shirt. He took a step toward William. “I willna beg.”

  Before Will could deliver the final blow, utter surprise widened Ranulf’s eyes. He toppled like a felled pine with a crossbow bolt protruding from his back.

  “Damned fool,” Gordon said. “MacTavish missed and killed Ranulf instead.”

  “Even better,” Murray muttered, and then raised his voice in a shout that he hoped could be heard by the cowering masses behind Glengarry’s wall. “Treachery! Some coward from the castle has murdered MacNaught by stealth. Kill them all!”

  Murray drew his sword and led the charge down the hill. The men at his back were eager for a fight, pouring after him like a raging stream. After days of doing nothing but lobbing rocks and dodging arrows, they relished the chance to blood their swords.

  He didn’t need to kill everyone in the castle. If they only managed to kill Lord Badenoch, that would do. It would take the heart out of the defenders, and Glengarry Castle would fall into his hand like a ripe plum.

  His hand, not Ranulf MacNaught’s. Murray was the next strongest and the only one with the cunning to make the most of this unexpected development.

  If MacTavish survived this morning’s work, he’d have to find a way to thank him.

  Katherine’s relief at Will’s victory was short-lived.

  William shouted up to the archers on the wall, probably ordering a volley, but his words were whipped away by wind and the banshee howling of the advancing force. A few arrows flew, but it didn’t result in the kind of devastation a sustained release would have produced.

  Her father tried to speak but couldn’t form the words. He only managed to point at William.

  “To arms,” Katherine shouted. “Every man to his blade and Lord Badenoch.”

  She wasn’t sure it was the right order when she gave it, but her father nodded. Men flooded through the gate to stand before the onslaught. For good or ill, the word had been given for the last stand of Glengarry. The battle was joined.

  A melee was something men might speak of with each other, but none discussed hand-to-hand warfare before their women. Katherine was unprepared for the carnage that erupted before her.

  There was no order. No semblance of a battle plan on either side. Only the need to keep moving or die. She lost track of William’s dark head and despaired, only to find him again in the center of another circle of desperately battling warriors.

  Her cousin had amassed so many men. The Glengarry defenders were hopelessly outnumbered, but Kat couldn’t look away. As long as William was still upright, still fighting, she’d
bear it with him.

  Her father went down, his one good leg no longer able to support him. She could hear Jamison fussing over the earl beside her, but Katherine remained at the wall. She had to keep watching William.

  Part of her knew she couldn’t change anything happening before her eyes, but a more primitive part of her mind argued that as long as she could see him, as long as her spirit yearned toward him and prayed for him in a place too deep for words, he would somehow be safe.

  Glengarry’s numbers dwindled by the moment. Katherine covered her mouth to keep the scream building inside her from escaping.

  Then she heard the hunting horns.

  A phalanx of riders burst out of the trees on the eastern road. Her brother, Donald, was in the lead and the Douglas men, William’s brothers, were hot on his heels. Behind them came another hundred seasoned warriors on horseback, swords drawn and ready for the fight. Someone on a Shetland pony was bringing up the rear, bouncing along as if the saddle was fitted with springs.

  “Nab!” she shouted with joy.

  But when she looked back down at the melee again, she couldn’t find William anywhere.

  The unexpected arrival of cavalry changed the direction of the battle in a heartbeat. Murray’s men had neglected to make use of the horses they had and probably rued their impulsive decision to follow him blithely into the fight. They took to their heels to avoid the slashing hooves and the blades of the men on the horses’ backs. Most were cut down, but a lucky few made it to the safety of the thick forest and disappeared into the Highlands.

  Katherine abandoned her father on the wall and hurried through the open gate. The wounded were starting to return to the castle, some leaning on their fellows, others tottering on their own in a daze. She’d have to oversee a makeshift hospital to deal with them, but first, she had to find Will.

  The corbies had already discovered the bloody hillside, being drawn by the clash of swords and shouts of battle. Now they feasted. Katherine tried to shoo them away, but the carrion birds were a belligerent bunch and resettled on the corpses as soon as she passed.

  She swallowed back the rising bile. “Please God, let me find him.”

  Donald and the men with him returned to help with the wounded, but none of them had seen William.

  “I’d help ye look,” her brother said, “but I need to find Margaret just as urgently.”

  “Ye’ve been gone this long,” she said testily. “Why such a hurry now?”

  “Because when the fool told us the castle was under siege, all I could think was that I might lose her. I never realized till now just how much I . . . I’ve been gone too long chasing a fool’s errand. I suspect I have much to atone for.”

  His suspicion was correct.

  “Margie and the boys are in the souterrain, safe and sound,” she said as she marched away to continue her search. “As is my new niece.”

  She’d call the bairn Donald’s daughter once he started acting like her father.

  Katherine wandered from one group of the fallen to another, both sickened and hopeful. After a time, not finding Will became the goal. If he wasn’t in the growing ranks of the dead, she could still hope.

  In the next tangle of bodies, movement caught her eye. A man pushed another body off him and staggered to his feet.

  It was Will. Her fierce hug nearly knocked him down again.

  “Easy, woman. Let a man find his feet.”

  “Where are ye hurt?” She pawed over him, feeling his arms and legs, running her hands over his chest and belly.

  “Nay, ’tis someone else’s blood ye see. I dinna think I’m wounded,” he said with a hand to the growing knot on his temple, “except for the wee knock on the head I took there at the last.” He bent down, retrieved the Scepter of Badenoch from the lifeless hand of Murray, and tucked it back through his belt. “The man thought he’d liberate this from me, and decided to use it as a mace. Looks like my sword split his gizzard just as he gave me a love tap with the crystal.”

  She hugged him again. Only her William would call a blow that rendered him unconscious a “love tap.” She fingered the swollen spot and then palmed his cheek.

  “I thought I’d lost ye.”

  “Couldna happen,” he said as he drew her into an embrace. “Ye and I are one heart. No matter what happens, I carry a bit of ye in here.” He pressed her hand to his chest and then laid his palm on hers. “And ye are stuck with me wherever ye go. Love is stronger than anything, outlasts anything. Even death.”

  She nodded. “And once we’re both gone, if our love is all that remains, ’tis enough.”

  Yea, all the yearlong have an eye to the poor,

  And God shall send luck to keep open thy door.

  —From “Get Ivy and Hull”

  “I thought I’d used up all the luck God will ever send a fool on that trip to Inverness, but then He gave me Dorcas.”

  —An observation from Nab,

  fool to the Earl of Glengarry

  Epilogue

  Masons estimated it would take years to repair the damage to the castle. Margaret claimed it might take longer than that to repair the rift in her marriage unless Donald lived up to his promise to spend more time in Glengarry. So far, he was showing every intention of doing so.

  “I’m not here just because the earl is still incapacitated,” Donald professed in a hissed whisper while they were all seated on the raised dais where the family ate in the great hall. Lord Glengarry’s speech was improving, but he’d never be the same man he’d been before his most recent apoplexy. Donald had stepped into the daily running of the earldom on his father’s behalf and the earl seemed pleased to let him. “I’m weary to my soul of court life and have been longing for ye and our bairns.”

  “Ye had a strange way of showing it,” Margaret said, refusing to be mollified too easily.

  “Will ye not forgive my neglect? I was only gone so much because I was seeing to your welfare,” he said. “What must I do to convince ye?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Margaret said with the faintest of smiles, “but I give ye leave to try.”

  Good for ye, Margie. Katherine tipped up her horn of ale and leaned toward William so as not to overhear any more of her good-sister and brother’s conversation. “I understand Nab and Dorcas are to be wed as soon as the chapel is repaired.”

  “Aye, that’ll give time for the swelling to go down,” Will said as he sopped up the last of his mutton broth with a bannock. Nab had taken a horrible beating in Inverness at the hands of those town ruffians he’d encountered, but fortunately Lord Donald’s squire happened by and recognized him before his face was too bloodied. He’d been whisked into the royal presence and been able to convince Katherine’s brother of the dire circumstances at home that required his immediate attention. “And as a reward for his service to Glengarry, Donald has declared that Nab is to be given sole use of that derelict tower room. The walled-up door will be refurbished and the staircase leading to it is to be repaired, as well as the small fireplace.”

  Katherine glanced over to where Dorcas was leaning in to refill Nab’s drinking horn. “I don’t expect he’ll be the sole occupant for long.”

  “And speaking of long, we’ve been a long time from Badenoch.” Will stood and offered her his arm. “We’ll start home in the morning, but there’s something I need to do this night, and I’d have you with me for it.”

  She expected him to lead her up to their bedchamber, but instead, he squired her from the great hall and down into the depths of the keep to the carpenter’s shop. They stopped before a large, ornate trunk.

  “What’s this?”

  “Glengarry’s parting gift to His Majesty now that Donald is home for good. The earl is sending this trunk for King James to use to store the Honours of Scotland. It’s been specially sized to house the Great Scepter, the Sword of State, and the Crown.” Will opened the trunk to reveal the velvety inside. “And it’s perfectly sized for something else as well.”

&nbs
p; He gave a tug on one corner and the bottom of the trunk lifted to reveal a secret cavity below. Then he took the Scepter of Badenoch from his belt and laid it in the small space.

  “Will, what are ye doing?”

  “It served its purpose and Badenoch needs it no longer,” he said. “Only tradition and this scepter guaranteed that the title passed from father to eldest son. After I’m gone, the fittest man will rule in my stead. It’ll be one of our nephews, most like, but only time will tell who has the mettle to be the next laird.”

  “So ye willna need a direct heir of your body,” she said slowly, realizing the enormity of the gift he was giving her.

  “No. The barony will be better served by the best man, not just one with the right blood.” He closed the lid on the scepter, and the trunk hid its presence completely. “And now that worry is over. We can concentrate on filling Badenoch’s keep with fosterlings if that’s your pleasure.”

  “There are children aplenty who need love,” she said, slipping her arms around his waist.

  He snugged her close, the hard planes of him against her softness. “So long as ye dinna forget barons need love too.”

  “And ye have mine. Always and completely, Will.”

  “So no more running away for Christmas?”

  “No more running away ever. Ye told me once that I am your home. Ye are mine as well. We are a family, we two, a complete circle of love. Whether we choose to shelter any fosterlings within that circle doesn’t add to or diminish it. Our love is enough. It can be divided without becoming smaller. It grows with each breath. There will never be an end to it, either in this world or the next.”

  “I dinna wish to fret about the next world just now.” William’s smile turned wicked. “Not when there’s a bed in your chamber waiting for us in this one.”

  Author’s Note