by Alisa Adams
The conflict had been messy, disorientating, and noisy. The horses had screamed with surprise; the geldings that drew the carriage had fought against their harnesses. The cart itself had been forced to bump and rock through craters and holes in the road. There was a feminine cry from inside the cart and shouts of threats from the thieves. Finn was lost in the commotion and violence of the moment, his military training coming to his aid and his determination to see those within the carriage safe setting his heart and courage true.
By the time it was over, the cart’s driver was slumped in his seat, an unfortunate blow to his side causing him to bleed out. The guardsmen were dead on the ground, one crushed beneath the hooves of the animals. And the vagrants themselves had been forced to confront their misdeeds with their maker. One had fallen to Finn’s dagger, dead but still in his saddle. The other two had met the earth, their demise swift and by the sword. Their horses had been left to gallop away in terror.
Finn, breathing a little heavily, was forced to look about himself and confront the festering remains of the conflict.
The stench of death and blood was in the air, the animals still lurching with rolling eyes, horrified by sights and smells that Ajax was so familiar with. The carriage itself was set at a drunk angle in the road, perhaps damaged beyond repair.
Standing there, amongst the debris, Finn heard the shuffling sounds of movement from within the carriage. He quickly glanced at the bodies on the ground; faces of death stared back at him. He remembered how the gasps he had heard before had been feminine; soft and lilting.
This was not a scene that should be witnessed by a woman. Noble or otherwise.
Intent on stalling any curiosity that would see the passengers looking outside, Finn hurriedly dismounted and approached the carriage. With a foot braced upon the wheel so he could lift his body to the tipped and wonky door, Finn took hold of the window’s edge and yanked hard. The door gave way, and a cry of fearful anguish came from inside.
The inside of the carriage was dark. With the forest on one side and the ground rising to meet the other, little sunshine filtered through the wooden slats or open windows. Shadow clung to the belly of the cart, hungry to claim and absorb the light that danced in the open doorway. More than the occupants of the carriage, Finn’s eyes could make out the little dots of dust and sand floating in the air, grey speckles sinking into the darkness.
There was a curved shape that possessed the body and softness of a human. It shifted in the dark, and Finn caught the shining glimmer of light hair.
He didn’t give his eyes the time they needed to blink away the bright afternoon sunshine and adjust to the dark. Instead, Finn held up a hand, wondering exactly how much of him they could see in return. He spread his fingers, allowing light to outline each one and show his palm to be empty of any weapon.
“Wait here,” he said to whoever was inside. “Don’t come out until I say.” He tried to adjust his tone, to be friendly and warm. He didn’t want to scare them. But, given the fright they were likely to have had in that last leg of their journey, Finn wasn’t at all sure that his efforts might not be wasted.
Given that the door’s angle gave them only the view of the tops of nearby trees and avoided the carnage down on the ground, Finn left the hatch open. He didn’t want the passengers inside to feel like they were prisoners, dependent upon his mercy. And a little fresh air might help with their panic.
Quickly, he hopped down from the wheel he had used as a ladder and bent low over the first of the victims on the ground. It was one of the guardsmen who had been assigned to the carriage. His chest had become a pin cushion for the thieves’ arrows, one striking him clean through the heart. Finn yanked the arrows free, the bloodied wounds masked against his dark tunic. Casting the arrows aside, he bent to lower the guard’s eyelids, covering the glazed look he offered to the clouds above and then took hold of him beneath the arms. Dragging him to the side of the lane, Finn chose a particularly twisted elder as his marker and laid the man out beneath it. Another guard was next to join him; the stiff and the driver were added thereafter.
There was nothing he could do to carry the servants of Mackenzie back to their lands across the nearest vale. But at least he could give directions to those who might care for these men so the bodies could later be found and buried with ceremony.
He treated the bodies of the thieves differently. Finn worked quickly to strip them of any weapon or coin that could be of use and then kicked them down the dune and into the heath below. He was less worried if anyone found them. From his limited lessons in childhood, Finn knew thieving to be against the Holy Book. As far as he was concerned, thieves didn’t deserve the honor of consecrated ground.
Looking about himself, at the three dark shapes laid out neatly beneath the shade of the trees, and the blood that slashed the floor in angry strokes, Finn was forced to accept that there was only so much he could do to hide the realities from the women. Better that he speak with them and get them back on their journey, and away from that particular stretch of road, as soon as possible.
Slotting his sword back into the sheath lashed to Ajax’s side and dusting off his hands, Finn hopped back up onto the cart and peered in once more.
“You can come out now,” he said, offering a smile.
There was no movement from within.
For a moment, Finn’s heart twisted in his chest, and he feared a stray arrow had found the passengers closeted inside. That the sounds made earlier had been in the throws of near-death, and he’d been too worried about their sensitivities to notice.
But, when a sniffle came up out of the shadows, he was able to breathe again.
“It’s fine.” He smiled again, hoping they could see the flash of his teeth, even with the sun behind him. “No one’s going to hurt you. But I need you out of the carriage so that I can try and get it upright again for you...”
When the sound of shifting fabric was accompanied by a slow sense of movement, Finn backed away. There was the soft noise of harried murmurs and frightened words that he didn’t catch, and then an older lady broke out into the sunshine. Her face was cautious, her lips thin. And, as she caught sight of the crimson stains across the rocky earth below, her skin went grey.
It was only a step down to the ground but, with the carriage’s wheel sunk into its hole, it was a large one. Finn reached out, offering to take the woman’s hand for balance, and suddenly felt a shrewd and penetrating stare labored into him.
The shiver that ran over the back of Finn’s neck reminded him of the look that Agatha used to give him when he’d pilfered eggs from the chicken coop down the street or gotten muddy down in the creek. What did they do? Take ladies aside when they reached a certain age and teach them a stare like that? The kind that had grandchildren grinning sheepishly and made grown men quake?
However they learned it, the woman before him was a fine study, and Finn felt her stare from the scar on his forehead, down over his bloodied clothes and all the way to his cold toes, curled inside his boots. Her look came back up to assess his offered hand, his entire being judged in the space of a heartbeat.
She took his hand.
With a smile, Finn helped the woman down so that she could find a clear bit of dirt for her kid slippers and then looked up to help a second lady who had emerged from the carriage.
What greeted him was an angel.
Finn had heard parables of angels. Such tales had morphed and become twisted up with Old Aggie’s hoarse chuckles and murmurings of Druid nonsense. Yet whatever this lady was—angel or nymph—Finn’s eyes could not look away.
She was small. Perhaps only just out of her childhood years, only recently a woman in her own right. The rounded, plush curves to her face held on to her cherubic infancy, and the wide cast of her eyes gave her a look of haunted innocence. Her hair, lighter and brighter than any he had ever seen before, caught the sunshine in their flyaway strands and gave her a glowing halo about her head. It was this aura that had Finn
thinking of the glass in the old church that he had attended back before he had yet to grow taller than his father’s knee. There had been angels in the stained glass of the house of worship. Yet, her eyes were so bright—a pretty mottled color between blue and green—that they had Finn thinking about magic, as well as faith.
Realizing his lips were parted open like a fish, Finn snapped his mouth shut and shifted into a little smile. His hand renewed its offer, straightening from where it had hung impotently in the air between them, paralyzed by surprise. He reached out and, after a moment’s hesitation, she placed her hand into his.
Her fingers were tiny.
And so was the rest of her.
Surely little more than five feet tall, the young woman struggled where her maid had not and could only jump to the floor. A slight stumble and a loss of balance had her falling for a moment, but Finn caught her. His fingers tightened around hers, and his other hand shot out to support her arm before she could tumble flush against his chest.
On instinct, the girl froze beneath his touch and then tugged herself away from him. Finn didn’t press the matter. However, he was tempted to scare all the spirits out of her and tug her close when she looked at him for the first time.
Her cheeks had been rubbed a pretty but angry-looking pink, clearly recently scrubbed of the moisture that still lingered about her eyes. Her stare was unnaturally shiny, and her eyelashes clumped together into heavy, dark spikes. It was clear that the riot upon her carriage had reduced the young woman to tears and that she was equally determined not to have anyone notice.
All Finn wanted to do was hug the poor girl.
Knowing that such an informal act on the part of a stranger would only see the young lady run for the hills, Finn glanced between the two women as they gravitated closer to one another. Despite wearing linen to the young girl's silk—a servant to her blue-eyed mistress—the older woman wrapped an arm around the shoulders of her charge. There was clearly affection there, regardless of social rank.
Deciding to set them at ease, Finn clipped his feet together, placed a hand to his chest to rest upon his honor, and bowed low.
“My ladies, I apologize for frightening you. My name is Finlay Dunne—Finn—and I am your friend. Your coach was attacked by thieves who have now been dispatched.” It was important they knew the circumstances, but he moved on quickly so they didn’t linger on the details. “But your driver was lost in the fray.”
Finn winced his sympathy as the two women shared a quick and worried look between themselves. He moved towards the back side of their carriage.
“Now, I don’t think your wheels are actually damaged. Just stuck. So, if I can get the coach out of its rut, you’ll be able to journey home.” He looked at the older of the two women, the servant. “Do you know how to drive a coach?”
When she shook her head, swallowed, and tried to find a voice hidden by fright, Finn raised a hand to still her nerves and then looked upon the carriage himself. His hands found his hips, and he sighed.
He couldn't leave two women alone on a road already proven to be dangerous. Not when they had no way of getting home. Once the carriage was out of its hole, he would hitch Ajax to the back axis and drive them to wherever they were going. Then he'd head back towards Agatha's.
If he had the time.
Two days, he'd told his brothers. And, with death the penalty for deserters, he couldn't afford to break that promise.
Despite serving the Mackenzie family for all his years of manhood, Finn’s duties had seen his presence in provinces far and wide. He had never seen the home of his laird and ultimate master. In his head, he had always imagined it to be some kind of ethereal place, carved from bright light and white stone. Somehow the idea of riches and personal freedom had seen the noble family become synonymous in his mind with the idea of heaven. Walls that never stained, kitchens that never cooled, and food and wine that never ran dry had perhaps been childish ideas but then Finn had never given it enough thought to correct his fanciful notions.
Instead, he had been left to consider the laird's home to be a place of magic and holy order, content in the knowledge that the absent leader he served was of such glorious power that he never needed to doubt his duties.
As Finn guided the horse and carriage through the main gates and into the courtyard of the Mackenzie castle grounds, his entire life's purpose was not thrown into doubt but the reality of his master’s home was certainly an anticlimax of sorts. There were no angels, no creatures of power. No clouds floated amongst the turrets, and all of its shape and body were built from stones of grey, not brilliant white light.
As he drew the geldings to a halt, Finn craned his neck to look up and over the towers and wings of the estate. Mollified by its size, he reminded himself that, even if no divine spirit lived within its walls, the castle was still the grandest of buildings he had ever seen.
Built at a right angle, the north and eastern wings reached like arms around the central courtyard. A massive round tower stood proud and erect at its center, and a curling staircase wrapped around its spine. There were arched walkways running down the sides of each building, and Finn had seen more of the structure running back behind the tower upon their approach. At least two hundred people could live within its walls with space for them each to have company.
Finn found his jaw hanging open for the second time that day and made a note to be more aware of his mouth. No one liked a gawper.
Fastening the reins in place on the overhang of the driver's seat, Finn hopped down from the carriage and looked around, surprised that more people had not come to greet their arrival. He, of course, was in no way special, but he knew that the younger girl in the coach was one of Mackenzie bloodline. Didn't the nobility go everywhere with trumpets and bowing slaves?
By the time Finn had opened the door and escorted the servant and her mistress down to the ground once more, only four individuals had stepped out to greet them. Three were servants and the last was a woman that had Finn think of queens and princesses from fairy tales. Her golden hair was piled on top of her head in complex braids, and she wore a gown the color of blood. Red stones graced her neck and her fingers, and her eyes were quick and smart.
When the two noblewomen gasped and ran to embrace one another, Finn knew them to be family. But the woman in red was too young to be the other's mother. A sister, perhaps?
In the muffled cries and joyous reunion, names were cried, and Finn finally had titles to put to faces.
Ella was the woman in red.
The angel from the carriage was Merith.
Finn felt his lips begin to curl into a smile. They formed her name silently. Merith. It was soft, wispy, and delicate.
It suited her.
"Just where have you been? We thought you were dead on the roadside! The messenger said you were gone! Mother is in such a fright! Is this some kind of game of yours, sister dearest? It is not funny. And who is he?"
The woman in scarlet spouted her questions in every tone imaginable. Confusion, fear, excitement, chastisement, and shrewd distrust. Yet, she never paused long enough for the angel Merith to answer any of them before another spiel had tumbled from her lips.
The look of amusement on the younger girl's face told Finn that this was a common habit of her sister.
Realizing that Lady Ella's last question had turned all eyes upon him, Finn found himself straightening under her assessment. His hand moved to rest on the pommel of a sword that wasn’t at his hip—he had sheathed it upon Ajax's saddle—and was left to hang limply at his waist without purpose. He felt his cheeks redden and he wished he'd thought to brush his hair back before the doors of the courtyard had been opened to them. The road had been windy, and he no doubt looked every inch the commoner that he was.
Not that he was ashamed of himself.
But when one met a woman like Lady Merith, it was hard to bask in her light without noticing the shadows of one’s own appearance.
"He is our savior."
It was the first time that Finn had heard the young girl speak. He had expected something high-pitched, breathy, and without body. Something that squeaked from between her lips, prised from the tiny frame she possessed. Instead, the voice was soft and true. Sweet and melodic, it hummed in his ears like the harmony equivalent of honey. It warmed him.
As his cheeks flamed again, Finn was glad for the hot summer that year. After months of marching and working alongside his brothers, he was deeply tanned to the waist. And while it gave him a permanently dirty look, it would at least hide the worst of his blushes...he hoped.
What it couldn’t do was stop him from smiling like an idiot when the lovely Merith turned her gaze upon him. The moment those pretty blue eyes met his, he felt a heat rise in his belly, and his hands itched to reach out and touch the curls of hair that hung about her face. There was one in particular that hung just in front of her ear. He had the most bizarre impulse to tug upon it and watch it bounce.
Finn’s heart beat hard in his chest as Lady Merith held out a hand and beckoned him closer.
“Come,” she said, a sweet curve to her lips. “I wish you to meet my father. He will surely have a reward for your bravery.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her there was no such need; that he had not raced to stop her carriage and see her and her servant safe for the sake of money or prize. But something deep within could not refuse the temptation in her eyes, the request of her fingers.
Finn felt his legs follow her with all the grace of a recently uprooted tree. And, as he followed her across the courtyard and into the estate of her family, Finn had the peculiar sensation that, if given the chance, he might follow her anywhere.
3
As she followed her sister through the familiar corridors of their home, Merith felt out of sorts in her own skin. Ever since that first sign of danger—those loud sounds outside the carriage—had set her heart hammering with fear, she had felt her spirit shuddering around inside of her body. Her skin was tight and tingling, and she was oversensitive to everything around her.