by Tessa Murran
‘I think once you know me better, you will warm to me. Come out with me tomorrow, we will take a ride around Bain lands, and you can get free of your prison.’
‘Do you think I will swoon and lift my skirts at the very sight of your vast lands?’
‘I have other vast things which may interest you more.’
‘You are disgusting, and I want to go home, Will’ she said, like a petulant child, as if saying it over and over she would get her way.
Will sighed. ‘Listen to me, woman. You are in peril from Ranulph Gowan, don’t be naive about it. If he strikes at your clan like this, who knows what he is capable of? I like you too much to put your life in jeopardy by letting you go home alone in this present danger, so you will stay until your brothers fetch you. So, what say you, Morna, do you want to get out of this room or not? The price for that is my company for a few hours, and I swear I will not lay a hand on you.’
She bit her lip and frowned. ‘I will think on it,’ she said, tilting her chin up defiantly.
Will bowed low and left the room. As the door thudded shut behind him, he smiled. Tomorrow, he would have Morna Buchanan all to himself, away from prying eyes. For the first time in many months, he was actually looking forward to something, and it definitely included putting his hands all over her.
Chapter Nine
‘He is a headstrong beast, are you sure you can manage him?’ said Will as the huge, chestnut stallion tossed its head, showing the whites of its eyes and chomping on its bit.
‘I can more than manage him, so shall we get on.’ Morna kicked the beast’s flanks as her heart lifted at being free of the confines of gloomy Fitheach castle.
‘Give him a firm hand until we are well away from these cliffs for he’s devilish fast, but foolhardy,’ shouted Will.
Morna spurred her horse forward relishing the wind on her face and the pounding of the stallion’s hooves. He was strong-willed and tricky to manage, but she was an excellent rider, and his wildness thrilled her. She glanced over at Will as he came alongside.
‘Slow down,’ he shouted.
‘Why?’
‘You do not know where you are going.’
‘I don’t care. I just want to go fast. Do try to keep up.’
‘Alright, head towards those peaks in the distance, and I will follow.’ He gave her a big grin and fell back. Up ahead, a few miles away, Morna could see black crags. They were shrouded in mist at their summits, forbidding and wild and, in no time at all, the horse’s hooves were clattering on loose scree as he strained up the side of a steep hill towards them. Larger rocks crashed downwards, dislodged by his hooves. Morna had to grip hard with her thighs, and her arms ached with reining the great beast in, but she was not about to show Will she was tired. She had stayed in front of him for most of the ride, preferring not to get drawn into a conversation where she would be on the back foot, as she so often felt with him. Now he drew alongside.
‘Slow down, this part is treacherous,’ called Will.
‘Are you sure it is worth the climb?’
‘Aye, keep heading upwards.’
They reached the crest of the hill together, marked by a lone tree, straining into the wind. As she drew over the top of it, Morna gasped. Will moved his horse close beside hers and, as one they surveyed the valley falling away beneath them in a sweep of grass studded with rocks.
On the far horizon, the ocean went on forever, a dark turmoil of surging waves under a bright sky, brisk with scudding clouds. The green, folding hills fell away, jewelled with lochs here and there, shining in the sun. But all that beauty was overshadowed by one thing dominating the landscape. Rising out of the ground was a stand of huge, jagged rocks reaching for the sky, each mountainous in their breadth, both timeless and menacing. Morna’s spine tingled at the sight of them.
She could not contain her wonder. ‘Oh, Will, what a sight.’
‘I told you it was worth it, did I not? This is the Quiraing, one of the most ancient parts of Skye, and the most mystical some say.’
‘They look like the teeth of the Gods,’ she said in awe.
‘What God’s would they be, Morna?’
‘Why, pagan ones of course. Certainly not Christian ones, for those rocks are too terrifying.’
‘God might strike you down for such blasphemy, woman.’
‘Then I shall die happy, for I have never seen such a sight in my life.’
All her life at Beharra, Morna had never looked on anything so wondrous in its harsh beauty. This was what life was about, this adventure, this vast open space, this wild sense of freedom awash with possibilities.
She looked out at Skye, all barren mountains, dark ocean, with shafts of sunlight hitting the water - harsh, desolate, but beautiful, like the man beside her. Morna risked a glance at Will. Somehow, he knew to be quiet and let her have this moment of awe. The wind ruffled his hair, brightened in the sunlight to gold. He smiled to himself, deepening the lines at the side of his eyes, a dark blue like the stormy seas in the distance, shadowed by sleepless nights underneath. Did he lie awake with thoughts of her in his head, as she shamefully did of him? Did he picture her face in his mind and imagine kissing it?
He turned and looked deep into her eyes, his own joyful and warm, and there it was, his power over her. Will could give a look that held and seduced a body, made you feel as though no one else existed in the world at that moment. Morna’s heart seemed to swell in her chest, and longing uncoiled in her belly.
‘It is a wonderful thing,’ he said quietly.
‘What is?’
‘That joy on your face.’ His eyes held hers with a kind of sadness in them, broken when he smirked. ‘You know, out here, under a bright sky, it makes you look almost pretty.’
Morna frowned at his teasing.
‘Come,’ he said in a voice thick with some emotion, ‘I will lead, you will follow this time, for the path down is steep. There is a place below where we can take some rest.’
The horses soon picked their way down the hill, and they rode a winding path between the massive crags, looming overhead, black with age and damp. Morna felt her palms start to sweat as the rocks seemed to swallow them up, but then they opened up into a flat, grassy plain in the middle.
‘See, here we have our own private place, unseen by any, apart from those pagan gods.’
‘What a good hiding place,’ Morna exclaimed.
‘Aye, people used to hide cattle up here, seek shelter from their enemies,’ said Will, dismounting and dragging a blanket from his horse’s pack. ‘Some folk refuse to venture close for fear of ancient demons and such, that are thought to inhabit this place. It has an enchantment over it, they say.’
‘Whatever lies over it, this place is beautiful.’
‘Aye, it is. I’ve always thought so,’ he said softly.
Morna slipped off her horse which bent its head to nibble the grass. She set off to explore the clearing, running her hand along the stones and staring up at the blue sky above her, lost in a world of her own.
As he saw her hand caress the stones, how Will wished those soft hands were touching him. Most of Morna’s hair had blown free of her plait, and she uncoiled it and let it fall around her shoulders and then came over and sat beside him. Will watched her fingers slipping in and out of her hair as she crossed one thick skein over another until the plait was back in place. The sun shot through her dark hair with auburn streaks, and the light in her eyes turned them from dark brown to warm amber. The exertion of riding had brought a pink bloom to her cheeks and, in her smile, lived such excitement, such joy in the world around her. Morna may be hard on the outside, but Will sensed that, on the inside, lived a soul that yearned to be free and wild and loved, one that was not as worldly as she seemed.
‘Will, tell me, why are you so hard on Drostan?’ she said suddenly, breaking him out of his musing.
She was here with him alone, and all she could think of was that fool Drostan. Frustration clawed at him.
‘But he says you stole his birthright, and you admitted that you killed his father.’
‘He does not mourn Fearchar, for that man used to beat him mercilessly and despised him as a weakling. He knew as well as I do that should Drostan become Laird the Cranstoun’s would ride right over him, and a dead man can’t inherit anything, can he? Trust me, he is better off under my rough guidance than he ever was under his father’s. Yet he bleats about how hard done by he is. What I stole from him was never his in the first place. The men don’t respect him so they won’t follow him, but it seems the weak always resent the strong, it is the way of the world, so he spits his poison at anyone who will listen.’
‘What ails him?’
‘An affliction of the lungs. I doubt he’ll see old age.’
Morna looked down at her hands and then looked up at him from under her lashes.
‘You think me harsh, girl?’ said Will.
‘Aye, but I suppose life has made you that way,’ she replied. ‘What happened to bring you to this place Will? How did you come to be a Bain, here, at the edge of the world?’
‘’Tis a long story and not a pleasant one. I had a family once, a clan, and I hoped for a future as a Laird, but Robert the Bruce took it all away. That great King your brothers bow down to destroyed my family because they would not side with him in his quarrel with the English King. My father was given a choice, join Robert’s army or face oblivion. Clan O’Neill had already suffered English retribution for joining with Wallace’s failed rebellion years ago, and the people had no appetite for more war. We tried to stay out of it, thinking Robert would fail, but like a pestilence, his violence spread.’
‘He is trying to free Scotland from the English yoke, Will.’
‘While gaining absolute power for himself.’ The old anger rose up inside of him like a bitter river, choking his words. ‘Others pay the price for his ambition, why he has even sacrificed his own brothers. One was hung, drawn and quartered, a hideous death, and Robert did not stop long enough to mourn him. Instead, he set about shoring up his power by grabbing land from other men who would not pledge, men like my father, and I didn’t even see it coming.’
Morna was looking at him intently, so he made his words as cold and dispassionate as possible. There could be no weakness before this girl.
‘My father sent me away to be seasoned in the service of an old friend of his. He told me to learn the art of war, and so I did. I think he saw which way the wind was blowing and got me clear of it. I received word of an attack, so I rode home only to find Balladour Castle razed to the ground and our once proud hall, a place of light and laughter, reduced to a pile of smouldering wood, bodies strewn all over. My father’s charred corpse I pulled from the rubble and buried with my bare hands. Thank God my mother had died years ago and was not there to suffer it. My clansmen were gone too, scattered to the four winds as outcasts, untouchable, treated worse than lepers and named traitors to the Bruce. I failed them, so I cannot fail my people here and return one day to a blackened wreck of a life. I’ll spare you the details of the broken bodies, the blood, the carnage.’
‘I know only too well what the violence of men is, Will. I saw Bannockburn.’
‘Then you should understand why I am hard, why I do not trust in fate.’
‘I do, in part. Each time Cormac and Lyall go off to war I fear I may never see them again, that they will end up ripped open in a ditch somewhere, like the corpses I saw at Bannockburn. I hate this war with the English, and I long for it to end. It has been my whole life so far.’
Will looked intently at her. ‘You know, at Bannockburn, I made a choice. Though I hate Robert the Bruce and what he did to my family, I decided Scotland was more important, so I risked my life for the Scots cause and for freedom. Look where it got me, mistaken for a traitor and almost executed by the King’s own men. If you hadn’t intervened, I would be dust now. That is where my patriotism would have gotten me.’
‘Then I understand, Will, why you want to stay out of it and keep your people safe. Why should you die for someone else’s glory? Why should my brothers?’
‘Aye, I don’t fight for Kings or some misty-eyed dream of freedom. I make my own luck, and I never pledge to anyone, King or commoner. All I had was taken away from me, and I fear it will happen again so, I make no mistakes, I yield to no man. That is the only way to keep safe what is precious to you. Hang on to what is yours and kill anyone who tries to take it from you.’
‘And what is precious to you, here, in this world?’
‘Not much, I’ll own.’ He looked at her, frowning, his eyes dropping to her mouth and back up again. ‘You could be,’ he said, the words spilling out before he could stop himself.
‘Don’t do that.’
‘What?’
‘Talk to me as if I were some simpering fool who would fall for sweet, empty words. I am sure that has worked on other women, but it won’t work on me.’
‘What do you suggest then, if I am to woo you.’
‘There will be no wooing, friendship maybe.’
‘Ugh, what a weak word that is.’
‘So you don’t want to be friends.’
‘I can try, I suppose.’
‘Good, so between us, honesty would be a good start.’
‘Alright, honesty it is, but you won’t like it. I won’t ever love you, Morna, for that is not in my nature, but I want you with an ache in my soul. There is something about you that takes hold of a man and won’t let go. Perhaps it is your cruel tongue, your fine eyes or the clever turn of your mind. You are a challenge and men love to conquer, they love the thrill of the chase.’
‘Better you do not waste your time pursuing me for I will be gone soon, back to eluding my suitors, and you will go back to bullying Drostan and sinking ships.’
‘Are you so keen to be away and leave all this behind’?’
Morna smiled and rose swiftly to her feet and, saying nothing, she walked away back to the stone. Will watched the rise and fall of her chest as she composed herself. In a strange way, it calmed him to look upon her. Could she not say something? It had cost him in pride to say soft words which he often did to seduce women into his bed. He laughed at himself. This time he had almost meant them. What a weak fool he was becoming, and that would not do. The anger took hold again. Having this girl was the only way to kill the fascination for her that held him in its grip. He lay back on the grass with the sun warming his face and tried to calm the tumult in his heart at the bad memories she had brought to the surface, like fat on a stew.
***
The sun was at its zenith in the sky, and Will seemed to be asleep. Morna had let him be for fear of wounding him by talking further of his family. He looked peaceful in sleep, all the anger and turmoil, that scowl of his, gone. She made her way down to the furthest crag, where the gap in the rocks afforded a view of the distant ocean, and took deep breaths. Leaning her cheek against the stone she let her mind wander far away, and the wind caress her face. Once she was back at Beharra, it would seem a tame place compared to Fitheach. For a moment, she almost dreaded it.
She started at Will’s touch on her arm, his hand hot through her dress. When he came closer, she backed up.
‘I thought you were asleep. What are you about?’
Will reached out and brushed a strand of hair off her face.
‘You swore you would not touch me, Will.’
‘I lied,’ he said, moving closer still, forcing her to back up against the rock, cold at her back, fire at her front.
‘Don’t take offence. Your hair was in your eyes, and I want you to see me clearly. Have we not decided that we will be friends now?’
‘That was not the touch of a friend.’
‘I am gratified you know the difference for, in truth, it was not meant to be. By God, you are bonnie, Morna Buchanan. It leads me to confess something. I admire you.’
‘I do not want your admiration, Will.’
‘I must give it regardless. Where men are concerned, it seems you inspire both lust and treachery, Morna. Through no fault of your own, you are a siren, you make men want you and they suffer when you do not want them back.’
‘Like Ramsay you mean? I knew him all my life, trusted him, looked up to him even, and yet I have not shed one tear for his death. I must be a heartless woman.’
‘He deserved to die for what he did to you, Morna.’
‘And what do I deserve for what I did to him? I was indifferent to his love. I didn’t even see it.’
‘What he felt for you, and what he did, has absolutely nothing to do with love, so do not feel guilty about his end. He brought it on himself.’
Will was silent for a while, his face hard with anger.
‘If we are to have honesty between us, Morna, I would ask you something. Do you like me, even a little? You snap and snarl at me, and yet I feel there is something between us.’
‘I do not think that there is anything between us.’
‘You could yield to me a little and find out for certain.’
‘No, for I don’t want to serve the whims of men.’
‘I want to kiss you again.’
‘Well, do not, for I will not kiss you back. Gods teeth I am so tired of men trying to command me.’
‘I am not commanding, I am asking.’
‘I cannot. It is wrong.’
‘Who is here to stop you doing what you want? Do you live by your brothers rule, by the King’s rule? Why not just do as you please for once? Tell me true, Morna, have you never loved a man or, if not loved, then wanted one, deep in your belly?’
‘What kind of question is that?’
‘Have you never looked on a man and thought, ‘I want his hands in my hair, his mouth on mine, I want to taste him, smell him, feel him. Have you never craved another so much that you cannot help but reach out and touch them?’
‘No,’ she said, but her voice wobbled along with her knees.
With each word, Will leaned in a tiny bit closer to her, in a casual way, as if he didn’t care what her response was. Nevertheless, she felt like a deer being stalked by a wolf. Inch by inch, Will was clouding her senses and touching that wild core of her that wanted excitement and freedom from restraint.