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‘There’s a younger sister,’ the messenger wheezed. ‘Married and living in Doonhill.’
‘That is days south of here! Prepare my horse. I’ll not be wasting any more time.’
The messenger started to shake. ‘Which horse for you, my laird?’
‘What do you mean which one? My horse, you knapweed. ’T is the only good horse in this wreck of a land!’
The messenger gnawed the inside of his cheek. ‘She took it.’
‘She what!’
‘Took it,’ he stuttered. ‘’Tis also missing.’
Busby took a ferocious step forward. He desperately wanted to wrap his hands again on the messenger’s throat and squeeze until he could release some of the raging frustration he felt, but instead, he turned his anger inward, let it cool. Only one person deserved his full wrath and he had every intention of delivering it to Gaira of Clan Colquhoun.
* * *
Pain throbbing through his temple woke Robert from blackness. He opened his eyes and saw shafts of moonlight through wisps of a burnt roof. He started to sit up.
‘Move too fast, English dede-doer, and I’ll throw this dagger at your loopie nobill part!’
He stilled. The voice came from the corner of the hut. A woman took a step forward.
Highlighted from the moon above her, she stood dressed in a tunic and leggings too large even for her tall and thin frame. Her hair was plaited in sections and swung like tiny ropes over her breasts. Her stance was wide-legged and crouched and she waved a dagger in front of her. He peered closer. His dagger.
‘You threw a cauldron at me,’ he accused in Gaelic.
‘Swung it, more like, and I reckon you deserve a lot more than that! You had your sword drawn and you stink like an English knight.’
Moving his arms, he felt the ties of rope around his wrists, but his legs were free and, using them as leverage, he sat up. The grip on her dagger tightened and he moved slower. He knew from his battles that those afraid were just as dangerous as those angry. From the pain ringing in his head, he knew she was both.
‘The hut was dark. It would have been foolish not to have my sword drawn.’
‘That’s supposed to make me feel better?’ she scoffed.
The conversation was not going well.
She was angry, a Scot and a woman. He was English and in a Scottish village that Englishmen had massacred. She held a dagger and his wrists were tied. The odds were not in his favour.
As far as he could tell, it was only she and he, and she could not make him stay on the floor for ever. But if she was a villager, how had she survived?
‘I mean you nae harm,’ he continued in Gaelic. ‘What do you do here?’
‘Now, that should be a question I should be asking you.’
‘I am but a traveller.’
‘An English one despite your trying to use our language you’re mangling,’ she pointed out. ‘What is your name?’ she asked in English.
She spoke the King’s English. If she was a villager, she was no simple one. ‘I’m called Robert of Dent and there’s hardly a crime to being English.’
‘There is when we stand in a village where my kin were killed.’
She straightened; the dagger did not waver. His hands were still tied, although he was fast loosening the rope. ‘I have just recently come. I had no play in this. What do they call you?’
She ignored his question. ‘How am I to know you had nae hand in their deaths?’
He was surprised by her response. ‘So are you not one of the villagers?’
Even in the dim light, he could see her features pale, then darken with anger. ‘Nae, you weedy outwale! How’m I to be a villager? I’m alive, I am.’ She stopped. Tears sparkled, when she continued, ‘You must have seen what happened to the villagers when you passed this way.’
He didn’t understand. ‘You escaped.’
‘Nae, I’m a traveller, too, and came too late.’
Her reply was too careful and his wrists were now free. ‘You are more than a traveller, you said you had kin here,’ he replied. ‘Did your kin perish?’
Her body jerked at his question. ‘You just be passing by?’ she asked.
She ignored his question. Given their surroundings she had a right to be suspicious of him.
‘Aye,’ he lied.
‘Hah! You with a sword drawn and a fine dagger, I’m to believe you?’
He could tell this wouldn’t be easy. ‘Pray—’
Running footsteps behind them!
‘Auntie Gaira, there’s a horse at the top of the hill. Auntie Gaira, it smells and I can’t see anything. Are you all right? I’ve come to warn you!’
The woman’s attention flew to the door. It was all the diversion he needed. Dropping the rope, he sprang to his feet and caught the boy entering the hut.
‘Put him down!’ she shouted. ‘He’s done nothing to you! Put him down, I say!’
The boy, absorbing the woman’s panic, wriggled and fought in earnest. Robert grunted when sharp teeth chomped into his side. Yanking the boy free, he held him out in front of him. ‘Seems I’ve got something of yours.’
‘He’s innocent, I tell you.’
‘He may be, but it seems we’re even now. You’ve got the dagger, but I’ve got your boy. I’ll guess you’ll not throw that dagger any time now.’
The woman looked defiant and he tensed, ready to dodge if the dagger flew. Regardless of what he said, he had no intention of the boy getting hurt.
She threw the dagger at his feet. ‘You may do what you wish of me, but I beg you to leave the boy be. He has seen enough.’
He took the dagger and the boy flew into the woman’s arms. The darkness would not allow him to discern her features, but he sensed her relief and something else.
‘Can the boy leave the hut before we begin?’ she asked.
Her voice was uneasy. It was so different from before that he didn’t comprehend her words, but then he understood. She thought he’d rape her. What horrors had she known before he arrived? He’d been here only moments, but seen charred ruins and shallow graves.
It had been two days since the attack. From the rancid smell, he knew some had died of sword wounds, but many more had been burned. She’d been here longer than him and seen too many horrors.
‘I’ll not be harming you or the boy. I may be English, but I meant it when I said I came in peace.’
‘We are beyond your peace.’
Guilt. An inconvenient feeling along with his need to protect, but he suddenly felt both. It had to be the woman.
Her arms were around the child. She was vulnerable, yet she still challenged him. She was brave, but through the filtered moonlight, he could see the exhaustion in her limbs and hear the grief in her voice.
He lowered his eyes. Her ankle was crudely wrapped and didn’t hide the swelling. It was her feet he had seen in the tracks. Only hers.
‘I passed by your...garden. Are you the one doing the bedding for the spring?’
Instead of answering, she fell to a crouch and tried to turn the boy to face her. ‘Alec, please go up to the camp.’
The boy wrenched his head to keep his wary eyes on him. ‘Doona want to.’
‘Alec, you be listening to me on this. You know I forbade you from coming to the valley. You disobeyed me. But I’ll be letting any punishment go if you leave now.’
The boy didn’t move.
Her tone softened. ‘Alec, if you go right now I’ll give you my last honeycomb.’
The boy looked at her, his face scrunched up. She nodded vigorously at him. With barely a glance back, he ran out of the hut.
As the boy’s footsteps faded, the woman slowly straightened.
‘My life for a sweet. Ah, to be five again,’ she said wistfully. She smiled and grasped her hands in front of her. ‘I fear we had a misunderstanding. I’m Gaira of Clan Colquhoun.’
He wondered where her anger and defiance had gone. Her stance, the very air around her, had changed. He was suddenly suspicious. ‘Your manner has changed.’
‘Aye, you may be English, but you are different than the men who burned Doonhill.’
This woman made no sense. ‘Aye, I am, but how do you suddenly know?’
‘Gardening?’ she said, looking at him in exasperation.
He was thoroughly confused. Did she want to speak of plants?
‘You did not ask if it was I burying the dead. You asked whether I had been gardening. Any man not wishing to hurt the feelings of a child cannot be the same as the monsters who destroyed this village.’ As she turned her back to him and bent down, the large tunic fell forward and exposed her stretched backside under the tight leggings.
All thoughts left his head. He knew the moonlight played tricks on him; knew his thoughts were filling in what his eyes couldn’t possibly be seeing. But still his mouth turned dry. The fine strong curve of her legs seemed to stretch to heaven and her derrière was round, full, lush and entirely too...there.
All these years without a woman and he had never been tempted. They had pressed against him, flashed their breasts, licked their lips and he hadn’t felt a flicker of emotion except annoyance. But this woman’s backside, wrapped tight in a man’s leggings, struck him across the loins with heat. He felt the rush, the quickening, and forcibly focused at the object in her hands.
It was a sword and pointed towards him.
‘I thank you,’ she said, her tone still polite. ‘I have been trying to protect him from what really happened to the people here.’
She cleared her throat. Paused. She was waiting for his response.
It wasn’t just any sword. It was his sword. Embarrassment doused his lust. What would Edward think of his soldier now? The sword flexed slightly as she wiggled the hilt.
It would be so easy to take the blade from her. Her balance was off and the sword was too heavy for her. She was no threat.
But he was a threat to her. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m pointing a weapon at you, that’s what I’m doing.’
‘I thought you said I wasn’t a monster.’
‘Aye, I said you weren’t the same as the monsters who burnt this village. But you’re still English. I can’t trust you.’ She nodded her head. ‘Kick that rope and dagger to me. I’ll be using them again.’
Concentrating on his movements, rather than his thoughts on what she looked like, Robert slowly kicked the dagger and rope to her.
‘I’m awake this time and you’re all alone,’ he said. ‘Why would I hold still so I can’t protect myself?’
She didn’t take her eyes off him. ‘To prove you aren’t one of the monsters.’
He paused. He knew there was a woman and a boy. He didn’t know if there were any other survivors.
‘It didn’t hold me before,’ he pointed out.
‘I’ll not be making that same mistake twice.’
‘And my sword?’
‘I’ll be keeping it, as well as your dagger.’
He fought the instinct to fight back. She was Scottish, but a woman and she had Alec to protect. She was vulnerable enough without him adding to her fears. Still, too, he needed more answers and she wouldn’t be talking if he was a threat. But if she tied him more tightly, he would be defenceless.
He held his clasped hands in front.
She shook her head. ‘Behind you and turn around.’
‘I’ll need to relieve myself.’
He could feel her weighing his words before she nodded and placed the sword down.
‘For an Englishman, you’re right, you know.’ She slowly walked to him.
He didn’t feel right as he held still for her to bind him again. ‘About what?’
With more twists around his hands, she wrapped the rope around his wrists. She tied more securely this time, but he didn’t clasp his hands tightly and would still be able to loosen the rope. It was dark and she didn’t notice.
‘I’ve been burying the dead,’ she said, stepping away from him. ‘But only at night and my ankle slows me too much.’
He turned around and saw her picking up his sword and dagger. The angle wasn’t the same as before, but his memory was still too fresh and her legs were still too long...and shapely.
‘Why at night?’ He cleared his hoarse voice.
‘I’m trying to hide what I do,’ she answered.
He thought of the boy running past the gravesite. Even at such a tender age, he had to have known what she was doing. ‘You have more to bury.’
‘Aye. I’m afraid the smell is getting so bad I can hardly do it any more.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘But I won’t leave Doonhill till it’s done.’
He ignored the conviction in her voice. He had come only to get some answers and report to Edward. Not help her bury her kin.
She pointed towards the door and he turned to leave the hut. Keeping her distance and his sword, she followed afterwards. She held it over her shoulder to support the weight. Robert honed his blade so it could slice full-grown trees. Her neck was no barrier and her ankle made her clumsy.
‘Take my scabbard,’ he offered.
‘It won’t fit around my waist.’
He stopped. ‘Hold the sword like you are, just put it in my scabbard.’
She gave him a look he did not understand, but she did as he asked. After placing the sheathed sword back on her shoulder, they continued walking.
Why he wanted to save her neck, he did not know. ‘Your name’s Gaira?’ he asked instead.
She stiffened. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I thought Gaira meant—’
‘Short,’ she interrupted. The tension in her shoulders eased. ‘It does. I think my ma had hopes I wouldn’t end up like my brothers.’
She had brothers. Were they the ones killed here or were they camped nearby? He had no intention of being strung up by some Scotsmen.
‘Is the boy safe where he is?’ he asked.
‘Aye, we have seen nae one for almost a week and the camp is somewhat hidden by the forest. He’ll stay there till I return. He has been too frightened to disobey.’ She stopped, shrugged her shoulders. ‘Or maybe too busy eating honeycomb. Do you have a camp?’
‘No, I just arrived.’
‘Will there be other Englishmen?’
‘Shouldn’t you have asked that question before you kidnapped me and walked me to your camp?’
She laughed, but it was the sound of panic and she quickly silenced it.
Not for the first time, he wondered at his acquiescence, but for the first time, he was apprehensive.
She had not revealed if there were others, but he was fairly sure there were not. It had been only her footsteps in the dirt. Still, he could not be certain.
He knew he could protect himself from one Scotswoman, albeit one mercurial in nature. But he could not control the consequences if there were others. He would not shed any more blood here. She might have tied him up and taken his sword, but he still knew how to fight. If there were more, he needed to leave. ‘Give pardon, but I fear—’
‘Ach, I won’t have you afeared. You’ll stay where I stay. And I’ll not be biting you. You’re too hairy for that.’
He blinked, not understanding the direction of her thoughts, until he remembered his overgrown beard and long hair. Hairy. Something rumbled inside him. Laughter. She had almost made him laugh.
Chapter Four
Gaira kept glancing over her shoulder at the stranger who quietly followed her. No, not quiet. Contemplative. Dark. He was dark like the bottom of a turbulent river. This man, though seemingly tranquil, was as forceful and powerful under his surface as any Scottish river. It made her nervous that he hid it.
He hadn’t said a word since he’d retrieved his horse. Now he walked behind her with the huge horse in tow. She had his dagger and sword, but the horse was laden with a larger sword, blankets and two pouches, one she was sure jangled with coins. He was quiet, but she could almost feel his thoughts. She tried to stop biting her lip.
She had invited a stranger to the camp. An English soldier, who talked of peace but walked with his sword drawn and carried more weapons on his horse. But she had to invite him. What else could she do?
If he truly meant her harm, all he had to do was follow her to camp and catch her unawares. It was best to keep him tied and close. But close did not mean stupid and she had some talking to do first.
She whirled around to face him. He stopped just as suddenly and looked at her expectantly.
* * *
Robert watched the woman staring at him. In less than an hour she had displayed several emotions: bravery, fear, gentleness, affection and humour. Now a myriad of expressions were crossing her face, the dominant one being determination. She clearly wanted to tell him something, but didn’t know how to say it. He felt the heady rush of anticipation. It had been a long time since anyone had intrigued him.
But then he saw them.
Behind her was a crude camp. A fire blazed around a steaming cauldron. The fire was strong and the moon was full. Both provided enough illumination. The night’s light was not playing tricks with his sight.
‘Who are they?’ he asked.
Her eyes, so expressive before, became shuttered. Her only movement was the almost imperceptible tensing of her shoulders, the slight raising of her chin. ‘You’ll not be harming them, you ken?’ She kept her voice low. ‘If you do, I’ll be taking away more than one sword of yours.’
‘Who are they?’ he repeated.
She did not answer him, but kept her eyes unwaveringly on him.
As if pulled forward, he walked past Gaira to face four children who emerged out of the trees. They lined up like soldiers for battle. Gaira hurriedly passed him and stood behind the tallest girl.
The image hit him. These children were not lined up like soldiers for battle, but for inspection. His inspection. Gaira did not stand between them to protect them, but behind them as if to point out their merit.
He couldn’t speak.
She brought the children close to her, whispered low, but she did not take her eyes off him.
‘Children, this is Robert from Dent and he is English.’ She stood and raised her voice. ‘I do not believe he means us harm so I asked him to our camp this eve.’
He could sense their wariness turn to fear, but they did not make a sound, nor did they break ranks. Ridiculous as it was, he could not get soldiering terminology out of his mind.
Pressing her hands on the girl’s shoulders and briefly pointing to the boy of equal height to her left, she said, ‘These are Flora and Creighton, they’re nine and, well, twins.’
Flora and Creighton shared the same dark brown hair and, although he could not be certain, their eyes appeared bright blue.
But where their colouring and height were the same, the way they acted towards him was not. Flora’s nose was jammed into her chest, her lips trembling.
Creighton’s eyes were a flat stare and he held his hands fisted at his sides.
Gaira took a quick sidestep and waved her hand briefly over the head of a boy whose hair looked as if it were trying to escape. ‘You met Alec.’ She roughed the boy’s brown hair and it barely moved. Alec smiled, obviously pleased to be introduced.
‘The little one there is Maisie.’ Gaira pointed to the girl hanging on Alec’s left arm. ‘She’s not two, but learning words.’
Maisie’s hair was so blond it was practically transparent in the firelight, but her eyes were round, green and took up half her face. He could not discern much more of her features because it looked as though she were trying to swallow her free hand and arm whole. Spit glistened.
He forced the words from his mouth. ‘Are these yours?’
‘Aye.’ She jutted out her chin.
None of the children resembled each other and certainly not the tall woman in front of him. The camp itself was a single blanket attached to a rope tied to a tree, making a crude tent too small to fit them all. She had a single horse, with a single satchel.
This woman was not their mother, maybe not even their relation. Yet she claimed them. He didn’t know who she was, or even if she was from Clan Colquhoun, but she had been taking care of four children who had survived the massacre. By herself.
And she was burying their decaying parents’ bodies at night. By herself.
It looked, too, as if she had no protection, no companion and was camping in a godforsaken land on the brink of the most bloodthirsty war he’d ever known in his lifetime.
Her eyes were challenging him, her hair coming loose from the many plaits resembling Medusa’s snakes. In the full fire’s light he could make out the roughness and largeness of the tunic she wore. It was not a woman’s garment, but a man’s. Had she been wearing that before or after she arrived here? There were too many questions.
Whatever he was expecting by coming to this small farming village, this was not it. By coming here, he had wanted to see if the rumour was true—if his English brethren could have the capacity for such horror. He hadn’t expected survivors. Yet here they were: four children and a woman.
And he didn’t know what to do with any of them.
Chapter Five
He was going to leave. Gaira could see it in his eyes. She felt a moment of panic before she relaxed again. His hands were tied. How was he supposed to go?
She glanced at the children. Creighton looked as though he might murder Robert. Flora looked as though she might cry from fear. Alec, bless him, looked happy just to be there. Maisie’s big eyes absorbed everything around her. At such a tender age, she had seen too much.
She couldn’t soothe the children’s feelings, which had to be just as confused as her own. She had just brought an Englishman to the camp and the English had slaughtered their families. Had killed her sister. She choked on the grief clogging her throat.
She couldn’t risk letting him out of her sight. ‘You must be hungry. Would you like some food?’ she asked.
He looked to the children as if they had some say, but they were quiet. They knew something was held in the balance.
He nodded and she released her held breath.
* * *
Sobbing.
Gaira woke. The sun was just cresting the hills and it cast the morning mist a milky white. When had she fallen asleep? Late, but it should not have happened.
She moved slowly, careful not to wake Maisie and Alec, who were snuggled against her.
Broken words. Nightmares again.
With the crisp wind biting her cheeks, she tucked her shawl around the children and turned to Flora and Creighton, who slept closer to the fire.
Flora was awake, crying, frantically patting her brother’s shoulders.
Creighton made not a sound, but his entire body keened of the demons trapped inside. This nightmare was worse than the last.
She gently laid her hand on Flora, who jumped. ‘Let me,’ she asked.
Flora shifted away from her brother, her hands locked tight in her lap.
Singing very low, Gaira gently brushed Creighton’s brow until his breathing eased and his body slumped. Singing helped. She had startled him awake before and wouldn’t do it again.
Slowly, Creighton’s body eased and when he woke, he looked surprised that Gaira was there.
Smiling, she stood. The cold wind whipped around her and she wrapped her arms around her waist. Then froze.
Robert was sitting and staring at her. She became aware of the arch of his brow, the shape of his nose, the colour of his deep brown eyes.
She was no longer aware of the children or the biting wind. All she could feel were his eyes. She thought he hid himself just under the surface, but now everything she ever wanted to know about the world, about him, was right there. Without blinking, his eyes became opaque, the brown turning flat.
She felt as though she had been pushed from a summer brook to the cold sand of shore with no chance of submerging back to the warmth.
Acutely self-conscious, she looked to Maisie and Alec, wrapped tightly in her only shawl. She glanced again.
He looked angry and more than frightening.
His hair was a beautiful shade of brown, but it was long, unkempt and fell in deep waves to his shoulders. It looked soft and wild at the same time. She followed each strand, each curve of each wave. A strange tingling in her palms occurred. Nervousness again?