by Amanda Scott
“Aye, well, I want to think a bit more on the matter,” Mackintosh said. “Sithee, the lad does be one to reck nowt, and he is headstrong. But drink up now, Fin of the Battles. They’ll be serving supper after they ring yon bell for vespers.”
“Do you keep a chaplain here, sir, or do you lead a service in the hall?”
“Neither. I leave Kirk matters to parsons, bishops, and the like. But I do want to ken the time of day. They’ll be ringing that bell soon, though, and I warrant ye’ll want to have a wash afore our ladies see ye again.”
“I would, aye,” Fin said, feeling a rush of relief at the respite.
“Ye’ll not have time to go upstairs, so just use the ewer and basin in yonder corner,” Mackintosh added, pointing. “The jib door beside the washstand opens on the service stair. If ye want the garderobe, it lies three steps up on your right.”
Realizing that he would be putting off the inevitable if he delayed further, Fin said, “You did say that you wanted to know more about me, sir.”
“I did, aye, but I want to think now. Forbye, the women will ask ye all that at supper, and I’m thinking I have nae need to hear ye spit out the details twice.”
Having returned to the hall with her grandmother and mother while Morag ran up to get a shawl, Catriona had just begun to think that her grandfather might have ordered supper put back when the inner chamber door opened and he stepped through the doorway. Fin followed him, looking freshly scrubbed but tired.
Immediately feeling guilty again about trying to slap him, Catriona smiled and felt a rush of pleasure when he smiled back. The smile was not the small one she had seen on the hillside earlier but wider and more natural, lighting his eyes and revealing his even white teeth.
The Mackintosh strode to the central chair at the long high table, facing the lower hall, and gestured Fin to the seat at his right. Morag hurried in as the other three women took their places. Lady Annis sat at her husband’s left with Ealga next to her, Morag next to Ealga, and Catriona at the end.
For some time, everyone’s attention fixed on servers who proffered platters of food and jugs of whisky and claret. But when Lady Annis had accepted all that she wanted, she leaned forward and said across her husband to their guest, “One trusts that ye’ve found all ye need, sir. Did they show ye to your chamber?”
“Not yet, my lady,” he said. “We talked too long.”
Catriona had leaned forward when her grandmother did, and his gaze caught hers long enough for her to smile before he shifted it politely back to Lady Annis.
“What did ye talk about?” her ladyship demanded of him.
If the question disconcerted Fin, he did not show it. But the Mackintosh said curtly, “What we discussed concerns others, my lady, and will remain between us.”
The emphasis on that single word made Catriona look to her mother, hoping that Ealga might understand what he meant. But Ealga watched her own mother.
Lady Annis kept a gimlet gaze on her husband but turned it at last to Fin and said, “Do such concerns include where ye hail from, Fin of the Battles?”
“At present, my lady, I come from the Scottish Borders,” he said.
“Ye’re not a Borderer by birth, I trow,” she said. “Ye lack the sound and manner of such. Ye sound like ye hail from a place nearer to Glen Mòr.”
“I have lived in the Borders for years, but I do know the Great Glen,” he said. “I spent my childhood in Lochaber near the west shore of Loch Ness. I regret to admit, though,” he added glibly, “that I never saw the monster that dwells there.”
Ignoring that gambit, if gambit it was, Lady Annis said, “My father was Hugh Fraser of Lovat, on the east shore of Loch Ness. I ken most folks fine from Inverness down both shores to Loch Lochy. Who are your parents?”
“My father was known as Teàrlach MacGill, my mother as Fenella nic Ruari,” he said. “I also spent some years in Fife, madam, near its eastern coast.”
A movement from her grandfather—almost a start—diverted Catriona’s attention as Fin spoke. But she could not read the Mackintosh’s expression, because he had fixed his attention on Fin and did not say a word.
Her grandmother said, “Your father’s name does sound as if I ought to know it, but MacGill is a general sort of patronymic, is it not? I expect that your business with the Mackintosh pertains more to your having come here from the Borders. Still, I suppose I must not question you about what you did there or…”
She paused, clearly hoping that he would invite her to question him. But Fin just smiled as if he were waiting for her to finish her sentence.
Sighing, she said, “What did your father do in Fife that required him to take your family so far from Lochaber?”
Fin looked startled then, as if he had not expected the question, but Catriona could not imagine why he would not, since he had mentioned Fife himself. Evidently, they were not to pursue the subject, though, because the Mackintosh said, “Bless me, lad, if I did not forget to ask ye how soon ye’d be expecting your men to join ye.”
“His men?” Lady Annis shifted her attention to her husband again and then back to Fin. “Ye’ve men of your own hereabouts, too? Where are they?”
“I can boast of only two, madam, and they should rejoin me tomorrow or the next day. But now that you bring them to mind, sir, it occurs to me that they’ll seek me at Castle Moigh unless I can get word to them to come here instead.”
The Mackintosh laughed. “By morning, there won’t be a man in Strathspey who does not ken that Catriona brought ye here. I’ll put out word for our people to watch more keenly than usual for strangers, but I trow that your lads will find ye.”
Conversation became desultory after that, although Catriona had hoped that her grandmother would press Fin harder for information about himself and his family, because she had sensed soon after meeting him that he was keeping secrets. Moreover, although his antecedents sounded common, he had traveled more than most Highlanders did and spoke better than most other noblemen.
And his sword was that of a warrior.
However, the Mackintosh bore him away to the inner chamber again when the two had finished eating, saying cryptically that he had made his decision.
The statement stirred her curiosity. What decision, and why not share it with all of them? They would doubtless learn of it in time, but she wanted to know now.
Following the Mackintosh into his chamber, Fin was glad to see that he did not reach for the whisky jug. His head ached, and he was sure that it ached as much from the whisky he’d had before supper as from the gash suffered earlier. The ache had a familiar dullness about it and a depth that reminded him of mornings in his youth that had come too early, after he had imbibed too freely of the potent stuff.
He would have liked a mug of spring water. But he decided that, rather than troubling his host, he would ask a gillie to fetch some for him when he retired.
Mackintosh returned to his chair but gestured Fin to remain standing. “Ye look as if ye’d do better to take to your bed, lad, so I’ll not keep ye,” he said. “I do agree to host Rothesay’s meeting here with the lords of the Isles and the North.”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Aye, well, I ken them both. Donald of the Isles and Alex of Lochindorb are both men of their word, so I’ll grant them safe conduct to come here. But I’ll want their word, and Davy Stewart’s, that they’ll come here without great tails of men.”
“Rothesay told them the same, sir, because he does not want them to draw notice, as they would with their normal entourages. But Donald will need your safe conduct, since he is not welcome in the western Highlands, where he covets much land. When my lads arrive, I’ll send one to Perth to tell Rothesay you have agreed.”
“Aye, good. Now, just shout up yon service stair for my man, Conal, and ask him to show ye to your chamber. He’ll ken where they’ve put ye, and that way ye’ll not have to talk more with the women but can get right to sleep.”
Fin, feeling his w
eariness again, was more than willing to obey.
Stirling Castle
Robert Stewart, erstwhile Earl of Fife and now Duke of Albany, looked up from the document he had been reading when, with a single sharp rap, a gillie opened the door to his sanctum and stepped back to admit a visitor.
Still lanky and fit in his sixty-first year, his dark hair streaked white in places, but otherwise showing few signs of age, the duke continued as always to favor all-black clothing and obedient minions. In his usual curt way, when the gillie had shut the door again, Albany said, “What news have you, Redmyre?”
“We ken little of note yet,” Sir Martin Lindsay of Redmyre said. “He is still in Perth, but I have found someone from the area in question to aid us.”
“You may speak freely here,” Albany said, pouring him a goblet of claret.
The two men had known and trusted each other for years, because although the stocky Redmyre was younger by more than a decade, they shared like views on Albany’s right to power. They also shared a loathing for the heir to Scotland’s throne.
Redmyre accepted the wine, saying, “Right, then. I’ve found a man to watch Rothesay if he heads into the Highlands. And my chap, Comyn, has kinsmen who will aid us if it means stirring trouble for the Lord of the North. I ken fine that you have men listening everywhere, but are you sure Rothesay will make for Strathspey?”
“I am, because Davy drinks too much and then talks too much.”
“Aye, and wenches too much, by God,” Redmyre growled.
“Just so, but your sister is safe now, and her husband won’t dare to abandon her. I do not know that Davy will go to Lochindorb, but he does want help from Alex. In any event, Davy is unfit to rule this realm as Governor, and must be unseated.”
“Aye, then, we’re in agreement. I’ll report to you when I learn more.”
Albany knew that he would, and that Redmyre would exert every effort to bring Rothesay to book. There were others like Redmyre, too, who would help.
When Catriona, her mother, and Morag went upstairs to their bedchambers, they went together as far as the landing outside Lady Ealga’s room. Noting that the smaller room across from it showed no candlelight under the door, Catriona hoped that her grandfather had sent Fin to bed. He had looked woefully tired.
When she and Morag had bade Ealga goodnight and continued up the stairs, Morag muttered, “I hope your mam will be safe with that man sleeping there.”
“God-a-mercy, why should she not be?” Catriona said. “He is injured and exhausted, so I warrant he wants only to sleep.”
“Doubtless, James would agree with me,” Morag said stubbornly.
“Then I wish James were here, because if he was, mayhap you would cease to be so glum all the time,” Catriona replied, and was instantly sorry.
Her good-sister was not a close friend, but Catriona knew that Morag was unhappy at Rothiemurchus. Indeed, her unhappiness had long since persuaded Catriona that she never wanted to marry and have to live among strangers.
“I apologize, Morag,” she said sincerely. “I should not have said that.”
“Nay, you should not,” Morag said, passing her to go to her own room.
Letting her go, Catriona went to bed and lay contemplating the man she had met that day, wondering how it was that, having known him such a short time, she could feel as if she knew him well one moment and not at all the next, and how he had so easily stirred a temper that she thought she had learned to keep well banked.
She slept at last, and when she awoke, the sky outside her unshuttered window was gray. From her bed, it was hard to tell the hour, but it seemed earlier than usual, so she got up, wrapped her quilt around her to keep the chill off, and went to the window.
Her view extended over the wooded north end of the island to the loch, and she could see over the wall to the northeastern shoreline beyond it to her right.
A figure walked there, a well-shaped masculine figure, completely naked. Feeling chillier just watching him, she drew the quilt closer. He turned then and raised his face toward the gray eastern sky. She had suspected who it was the moment she saw him, but there could be no mistaking him now.
As she watched, he looked from the gray sky back to the equally gray water before him, took a few running steps, and dove in.
Flinging the quilt aside, Catriona snatched her old blue kirtle from the hook where Ailvie had hung it, threw it on over her head, pulled the front lacing tight, and tied it swiftly. Without a thought for her hair, let alone for washing her face or hands, she flew barefoot down the stairs and past the great hall to the main entry.
There she paused. Drawing a deep breath, she pulled open the door and went with more dignity down the timber stairs and across the yard to the gateway.
Chapter 4
The water was so cold from its snowmelt tributaries that it took Fin’s breath away. He felt an intense urge to shoot straight back up and out, as if he could then run back across the water to where he’d left his tunic and braies on the rocky shore. So great was the icy shock of diving in that it almost made such a feat seem possible.
When he did surface, gasping, he began to swim hard and fast.
Reflecting the gray dawn light as the loch had, with the spectacular, knife-edged, still snow-covered granite ridges and peaks of the Cairngorms providing a backdrop to the east, the water had looked so silvery and serene that he had felt guilty even to think of disturbing its calm. But he wanted to feel clean again and to see if the water would reopen his wound.
Soon he felt the agreeable awareness of exploring virgin water, and his sense of humor stirred. He was putting his mark on the loch, conquering new territory.
If his wound had opened, the cold water numbed any indication of it.
The lass had said no more about stitching the gash, but when they’d reached Rothiemurchus, her family had given her precious little chance to say anything to him. In truth, though, he did not think it necessary for anyone to sew him up.
The very thought of her sticking a needle into his aching forehead…
Briefly, he shut his eyes.
Focusing again, and warmer, he took powerful strokes toward the eastern shore, less than a quarter-mile away. Despite the water’s hitherto calm appearance, he felt a current trying to tug him toward the north end of the loch. It did not pull hard enough to worry him, only to make him work harder. He would explore later and see where the water spilled out of the loch. It might provide a good waterfall.
He was partial to falls, especially when they were as full as any in that area should be at that time of year, when the snows were still melting.
He had warmed up enough to breathe normally and know that he was not going to freeze. So, when he neared the eastern shore, he turned back toward the castle without pausing. Continuing his fast, powerful strokes, he took pleasure in the exercise until he realized that he was nearing the island shore again. He knew that if he were careless, he might hit a rock with a foot or his fingertips.
Looking ahead to judge how much nearer he could safely swim before feeling for the bottom, he saw Catriona walking with her wolf dog on the shore. She was looking down, watching the ground in front of her.
She had walked confidently with her head up the previous day, despite rougher terrain, so he wondered if she was upset about something. Or, perhaps she had seen him, noted his nudity, and was shy of letting him know that she had.
He had a sudden desire to test that possibility.
She wore the same old blue kirtle that she had worn kilted up the day before. So, either she enjoyed early-morning rambles, as he did, or she had come outside in haste because she had seen him swimming or walking naked on the shore.
The dog glanced his way but stayed at her side.
Her confidence in rowing the overladen boat had assured him that she could swim, because he, too, had spent his childhood on an island in a loch. He and his siblings had learned to swim like fish almost before they could walk. He supposed that she h
ad enjoyed similar training for safety’s sake if for no other reason.
In any event, she had shown no fear of the water.
“Good morning,” he called as he drew nearer.
By then he was certain that she either concentrated harder on her thoughts than any woman he had ever known or purposefully avoided looking his way.
She turned when he called and walked to the water’s edge with the dog at her heels. Returning his greeting, she added, “You are up early, Fin of the Battles. At this season, only osprey and fish swim so early. Is that why they call you Fin, because you swim so well?”
“Nay, they call me so because my name is Finlagh,” he said. Then, because she still watched him, he added, “I’m coming out, lass. If you are going to look, then look. But if you want to protect your modesty, you had best turn away. My clothes lie yonder by that boulder some yards to your right.”
“Shall I fetch them for you?” she asked demurely.
He chuckled, swallowed water, and kicked hard for the shore. Moments later, he touched a granite slope that provided traction enough for him to stand waist deep without incident. He did not want to slip awkwardly back in while she watched.
Shaking water from his head and slicking his hair back with both hands, he walked out of the water, wondering how long she would watch.
In most Highland households, women assisted male guests with their bathing if the men had not brought servants with them. But women who did were usually married servants, not noble granddaughters of confederation captains. He noted with a grin that Catriona looked hastily away before he fully exposed himself.
Still, she had two brothers as well as a father and grandfather, so he suspected that the male anatomy was no secret to her. Her modest demeanor amused him.
Boreas had moved to the water to lap.
“What are you doing out so early, lass?” Fin asked her as he pulled his tunic on over his head. Reaching to his knees, it covered him enough for modesty’s sake as he reached for and pulled on his braies. “Methinks your family would not approve.”