Possibly Maggie had no interest in all the goings-on of the hall, but she pretended she did, her eye scanning the hall, giving no individual attention to any person, not even this circle of people she knew. He hadn’t forgotten how green her eyes were, of course, but damn, he hadn’t recalled properly, that was sure.
Meeting Duncan’s gaze, Iain saw that he noticed it as well, that she was not at all the same Maggie Bryce they’d known. She was neither wide-eyed nor curious, her roving gaze filled only with dread, he thought, swiveling often to the door of the hall, as if she expected at any moment the portal might be kicked in by an army.
Her husband, he supposed she feared.
“Aye and that’s a lot of promise fulfilled, lass,” Duncan said cheerily beside Iain. “Thought you were bonny in the caves, but that dinna compare to this, now.”
Her gaze spun from the door to his captain and she required several seconds to digest his words, it seemed, but then only offered a wee smile, though said nothing so that Duncan blew out a breath and searched for more conversation.
Cheerily, he said, “Summer is nigh, Berriedale is healthy and its laird in residence, war has paused for the while—all is right in our little corner of the world.” He lifted his tankard as a toast.
Arch and Iain followed suit, tipping the ale back just as Glenna returned to them.
Maggie said nothing.
Iain saw Artair approaching, inclining his head to persons as he passed, his smile slight but friendly. The old man stepped into the space between Duncan and Glenna, making no effort to remove his curious gaze from Maggie. Iain didn’t understand why it was so important to him that Artair appreciate the lass, or why he was nervous about an introduction, but recognized some anxiety within that the old man approve.
“Artair, may I present Maggie Bryce? Lass, this be Artair, Berriedale’s fine steward.”
Artair stepped forward, closing the space between them, his keen gray eyes giving no hint to his thoughts. He lifted Maggie’s hand in his, holding it lightly, patting the top of it with his other hand, while he held her gaze and measured her person.
She fisted the fingers of her untouched hand at her side.
“This is indeed a great pleasure,” he said in his polite way. “It’ll be no secret that your name has come to my ears more than once, lass. It’s nice to put a bonny face to the name.”
“I am very pleased to meet you,” Maggie replied earnestly with a briefly bowed head. “Mistress Glenna says you’ve been with three Berriedale chiefs now.”
Artair gave one of his slow smiles. “Which is her polite way of having informed you that I am as old as dirt, lass.” Before Maggie could gainsay this, he patted her hand again and advised, “But yes, three lairds I’ve now proudly served.”
Her response was naught but a nod and she pulled her hand away from his. Iain saw those fingers as well clench and disappear into her skirts.
The kitchen staff appeared then, bearing trays and platters of food.
Glenna shooed everyone to their seats, leading Maggie Bryce to the head table with them. Maggie’s halting, “Oh, but I couldn’t,” was dismissed by his mother with a negligent, “But you will,” as she directed her to sit in the chair beside Iain.
“Begin as you mean to proceed,” his mother said to him when he threw a questioning glance her way, over Maggie’s head.
He had no quarrel with Maggie sitting at the head table, only supposed it might send the wrong message about her position at Berriedale. But then, as she had no official position, other than a guest he supposed, he didn’t worry overmuch about it. Berriedale’s people were generally good-natured and welcoming—Glenna and Artair would never allow for anything less.
However, he did somehow need to explain her presence to one and all and did so with a toast before they dined.
“We have much to celebrate tonight. This is Maggie Bryce, ladies and gentlemen. Treated poorly by the Sutherlands, she comes to us with much to offer and with hopes of a fine welcome. Now, dinna ask her to tell you any jests, as she’s no’ a good mummer.” While the people inside the hall laughed at this, Maggie only stared straight ahead. “Welcome her kindly, if you please, for by the grace of God, she’s one of us now!”
MAGGIE MIGHT HAVE ENJOYED the meal and the company tremendously, watching all that went on while listening to the conversations of Iain to her left and Archie to her right. The hall really was boisterous, and the food was very finely presented. Sitting before the laird was one of many roasted geese, stuffed with savory and pears and quinces. There came platters of spiced cabbage and minced pork and raisin tartlets, followed by a dish that widened Maggie’s eyes—boiled dough pieces baked with cheese and butter, which Iain told her was called macrows, and which Maggie decided was her new favorite food item.
If only her stomach would allow her to appreciate any of it.
When the kitchen wenches and lads began to clear tables, a woman sat down in the far corner of the hall and began to play the rebec, the jaunty but low-keyed notes a perfect backdrop to the chatter in the room.
Suppers in Torish, even when her mam and siblings were alive and home, had been quiet and quick, the food given as nourishment, and swiftly consumed that they might return to their labors. Dining at the home of the Gordons, in the short time she’d been housed with them, had been more leisurely, but very sedate, only the Gordons and she and occasionally her father in attendance. And then Carlisle. She’d been a guest only once in the grand hall of the castle, very soon after her wedding and their arrival. An English soldier had inquired of her circumstance, of her family, when her husband was away from her side. Kenneth had returned to find his wife quietly answering the man’s polite inquiries. She’d been whisked away from the hall, his fingers tight around her upper arm. She’d paid dearly for the few words she dared to speak to a kind stranger and was subsequently banned from the dining hall by her husband after that, taking her meals alone in the prison of her grand chamber.
But this now, this hall and these happy people, was unlike anything she had ever known, for exactly how cheery and relaxed this entire room and this supper event were.
She leaned over to Archie once again. He’d finished eating and only sat back, his ale still in hand, seeming content to linger and enjoy the din of the room as she did. “Everyone is so...lighthearted.”
Archie nodded agreeably after considering her curiously for a moment. “Berriedale is generally a happy place.” He shrugged a bit, tipped his tankard of ale on the cloth covered table. “No’ that it hasn’t seen its share of woes through the years. But aye, you’ve landed well, lass.”
“Less landed, I imagine, than was delivered. But where is Hew? Is he on watch? And Daimh and Craig?”
Archie made some inscrutable face and said vaguely, “Aye. Soon, lass.” He leaned back in his big chair then and made another mysterious face. Maggie turned and saw that Archie was holding the gaze of Iain, who gave a curt nod and stood.
“C’mon then, lass,” the chief said, holding out his hand to Maggie. “We’ll take a nice stroll around the yard.”
Maggie understood she was expected to rise but pretended not to notice the proffered hand. She stood at the back of the dais and lifted her eyes to him. He showed a tight smile and pointed to his left, indicating she should step away from the family table and off the dais. He then led the way, single file through the rows of trestle tables, and then out of the hall.
Out in the yard, aglow in a soft orange haze from the setting sun, Maggie folded her hands in front of her and followed as he led her in the direction of the inner gate.
“Your mother is lovely,” Maggie said when conversation seemed not to be on his agenda.
“Aye,” he said. “A great lady, she is.” He gave a nod to the men atop the gate, the watchmen, and led them out into the outer yard through the open gate.
Maggie turned, walking backwards, searching the helmed figures of the men upon the elevated walkway, looking for any familiar face. She
saw none, turned forward, and focused her gaze on the battlements above the outer gate as these men acknowledged their laird’s passing through and his call of, “We’ll no be long, back in time for gate closing.”
Maggie sighed a bit, having hoped for a glimpse of Hew.
They walked further, over the lowered drawbridge and across the grass until they came to the timber-planked bridge. There, Iain pointed to the edge of the bridge and sat with his legs dangling over the side, above the slight depression of ground beneath. Maggie did likewise, sat beside him, her eyes following as he steered her gaze toward the west.
This presented a clear view of the river that met the sea and beyond that, the beginnings of a magnificent sunset, the sky a multitude of colors, streaked with thin orange and blue and purple clouds.
“He’s no here, lass,” Iain said, his voice somber and low.
Maggie pulled her appreciative gaze from the sunset and fixed it on Iain. “Who’s not here?”
Iain pulled at weeds and vines that grew up from the ground beneath and snaked through spaces between the laid timber of the bridge. “Hew.”
Frowning, she watched his hands, stripping the plucked vine of its leaves in his lap. She was afraid to query further, advised of the answers to any questions she would have had by his suddenly solemn mood.
“Or Daimh. Or even Craig.”
Maggie’s bottom lip fell. She stared at him, even as he kept his head lowered, his hands busy with the weeds. Eventually, her shoulders slumping, she turned again to the masterpiece God made in the sky. Now, curiously, amazingly, she seemed to have no tears to shed, even as her chest tightened painfully and a heat gathered in her throat and cheeks.
“They are gone, then.”
“Aye.”
She sighed with a great sadness but couldn’t honestly say she was shocked...but that all three were gone. “I rather thought Hew might have...it makes sense, then.” Iain turned now and frowned at her, until she explained, “I dreamed of him, a few weeks back. Hew. Maybe months, I’m not sure. He was just there, smiling at me, no flush to his cheeks. Just...happy to see me.” She shrugged, unable to explain it properly. “As was I...happy to see him. His features were so peaceful, not a wrinkle in his brow. And...I don’t know how, but I knew he was gone.”
“Gone upon the Steps of Trool,” Iain said. “Then Craig and Daimh lost at Loudon Hill.”
“Loudon Hill?” That place was familiar to her or stirred some memory. “I’d heard Loudon Hill mentioned when we were in Carlisle. The entire court spoke of it for days—whispered really, as none would dare say the words too loud. The English King was incensed at the loss there.”
It was Iain’s turn to show surprise. “You met the English King?”
She shook her head. “I did not. I spied him from some distance one day, unable to believe that so sickly and feeble a man was the same who had rained such terror and brutality over Scotland for so long.” She gave some thought to that lone sighting of the man his own subjects both revered and feared. “He could barely stand. But his voice, when he spoke, was strong and vital.”
“Rumor claims he’s no long for this earth.”
“I couldn’t believe a man who looked like that—all magnificent robes and finery aside—was a living and breathing thing.”
“Did you enjoy the royal court?” he asked, adding almost as a postscript, “Nonetheless?”
At first, Maggie thought the question odd, and let her expression tell him as much. Quickly, however, she supposed so many people would have been enthralled by the once in a lifetime chance to walk within arm’s length of the lady Queen in the halls of Carlisle’s priory, to rub shoulders with the most powerful people in the land, to see such splendid persons and clothes and trappings and food. Perhaps Iain McEwen supposed she might be one of these people.
“Not at all,” she said. And then, returning her focus to the loss of those men who had been so kind and dear to her. “But Hew and Daimh and Craig. It’s just awful.” She glanced up at Iain, who favored the sky once again with his gaze. “I’m sorry about your friends. I’m sorry that is your life, that on any given day, you might be called to arms, and you might lose friends and family and loved ones.”
He nodded, bleakly, she thought, pursing his lips a bit. “Aye, and I’m sorry you had to marry such a one as Sutherland.”
“Of course, that was not your fault...not your doing.”
He shrugged. “And Hew’s death was not yours,” he countered. “But sorry circumstances deserve some recognition.”
Maggie considered this but gave no reply.
He lowered his head, his chin almost to his chest, while he played with those stripped vines again, and inquired, “Do you want to talk about it?”
Maggie jerked her gaze to him. “Talk about being wed to Kenneth Sutherland?” She was rather confounded by the question. Why ever would she want to relive any of that awfulness? she marveled. Her freedom was new yet, and she grappled still with a fear that it was not to be a permanent condition, that her husband would find her. She would pay dearly when he did, she dreaded, and gave some thought to wonder if this precious bit of freedom now would be worth the punishment that would surely come.
Iain McEwen surprised her again, giving a fairly sheepish chuckle before he said, “Mother and Artair are forever insisting that we mustn’t keep our sorrows inside.” There was some mocking sentiment to his tone, as if he quoted either of them but did not entirely agree with the observation. “We must visit them and review them, our sorrows and our grief, to better exorcise them from our minds and hearts.”
Maggie reflected upon this recitation, though was of no mind to share with this man the horrid details of her short marriage. Her marriage, for all its brevity, had been the substance of nightmares. Perhaps—if—one day she was assured of a more permanent sense of freedom, she might well do herself a favor and address it internally. But...not yet.
“I don’t think I need to,” she said finally and thought to include, “but thank you.” Maggie supposed she sensed some relief in him then and returned her gaze to the glorious sky, the light and colors having changed so much in just the few minutes they’d sat. Taking a deep breath, she said to him what had plagued her most in the last many months. “I apologize for lying to you, for not telling you I was indeed betrothed to him. You asked. Repeatedly.” She ducked her head in shame and mumbled her only feeble excuse. “I...I just...I never thought for a minute that he would find me.”
He nodded though did not look her way. When enough time had passed that she began to wonder if he would respond at all, if he would forgive her, he finally said, “You owe me no apology, Maggie Bryce. You did only what you thought you needed to.”
She read no forgiveness, in either his tone or his words, that she pressed on, “But now you have saved me, again, that I feel doubly sorry for what little faith I’d placed in you.”
He gave a cheerless chuckle and tossed the bare stem aside. “You dinna ken me at all. You were right no’ to trust a stranger with that truth.”
Her shoulders slumped, sorry now that she had resurrected this between them. “Although I did trust you, oddly enough. Truth be told, by the time...we parted, I felt we were not strangers.”
This brought his gaze back to her. She could read nothing in his dark eyes and was quickly unnerved by the intensity of his stare that she lowered her face again.
“No’ strangers by then, no.” He lifted himself to his feet then. “We need to get back, that they can close the gate.”
Chapter Fourteen
THE VERY NEXT MORNING, her first full day at Berriedale, Maggie shadowed Glenna around the keep, meeting first all the kitchen staff as Glenna’s day began there. The mistress and the cook, a sour-faced though pleasant woman curiously named Rabbie, dealt quickly and efficiently with the meal plan for the day and what preparations they would plan for the next week. Maggie half-listened, glancing around the bustling room, which seemed to employ mostly children, girls and
boys all younger than herself. They were positioned at various places and jobs around the kitchen; two girls chopping leeks upon a prep table, both small enough that they stood on short stools to be of a good height to apply pressure to the large knives they used; a young lad swept out one unlit section of the large hearth, using a short-handled broom to sweep ashes into a bucket; through a door at the end of the kitchen, Maggie spied another pair, a lad and lass, sitting on more short stools around a tub in the scullery, cleaning kitchenware from the day’s first meal. She frowned at these two, thinking neither of them older than ten years of age.
Glenna followed her gaze and said, “Never too young to work.”
Maggie faced Glenna, a bit of guilt tinting her face for her judgment that indeed, they were too young.
Glenna explained, “No one is idle at Berriedale. The children of the keep—and even from the village, if their parents desire—labor for two hours every day. Never more.”
This relieved Maggie somewhat, having worried that they were too young for a long day of labor.
Glenna grinned. “We’re not monsters, lass. But truly, idle hands will only beget problems.”
Rabbie, having finished her meeting with Glenna, had moved on to beginning preparations for supper. From a basket at her feet, she lifted a long salmon onto the counter and neatly chopped his head off with one swipe of her sharp cleaver. The severed head was pushed to one side and the body to another, and another salmon was brought up for execution.
Maggie winced as the knife chopped again, the thud and squish of the death blow turning her stomach. Grimacing, she pressed a hand over her belly and tightened her lips. When the third fish was relieved of its head, Maggie darted away from the counter, toward the back door, covering her mouth as she ran.
To her great mortification, she had barely made it through the door when she retched and heaved her morning meal into the dirt of the rear bailey. Bent at her waist, she felt Glenna’s hand on her back.
The Truth of Her Heart (Highlander Heroes Book 5) Page 16