The Chief

by Monica McCarty

  They pulled alongside the jetty beneath the castle, and Tor jumped off onto the wooden dock into a crowd of guardsmen who’d come down to greet them. Christina tried to make out what they were saying in the short, cryptic phrases shot back and forth, but they seemed to be speaking in some kind of code.

  Mhairi had awakened, and Christina was doing her best to keep her calm. A young guardsman suddenly appeared to help them off the boat. “Don’t worry, my lady,” he said kindly, noticing her horror-struck expression. “You’ll be safe here. No one can take Dunvegan.”

  Gazing up the steep staircase carved into the rock that led to the sea-gate, she could see why. The only entry in the massive curtain wall was through an iron gate in a small arched entry. It was well protected by a small guardhouse box built directly over it and a long curtain wall manned by dozens of arrow slits from every direction. An attempt to charge the steep, slippery stairs that led to the entry would be foolish, more likely to lead to falling to one’s death on the rocks below.

  Despite the harrowing circumstances, a small smile crossed her lips. With those stairs, being carried across the threshold for her wedding night was probably unlikely, though if anyone could do it, it would be her impressive husband.

  She turned to look for him and felt the warmth rush out of her.

  Her chest pinched. Her husband was…leaving. All she could see was a streak of gold blowing in the wind beneath his steel bascinet, and the broad lines of his muscled shoulders and back as the boat pulled away from the jetty.

  Her lips parted, but no sound emerged as she watched him disappear into the black, soupy mist. Disappointment burned in her chest. He hadn’t even said good-bye.

  Not once did he look back.

  It was hard to convince herself that he hadn’t forgotten all about her.

  —

  A man stood on the battlements watching the boats approach and leave again.

  MacLeod was back.

  The chief was too late, but the man shuddered nonetheless. Though he did not fear discovery—yet—betraying a man like the Chief of MacLeod was a terrifying prospect. If he were caught, the best he could hope for was a quick death. More likely the ruthless warrior would rip off his head and feed him to his dogs for a snack.

  His face paled and bile crept up his throat. Despite the cold wind, he dabbed a sheen of sweat from his brow. Dear Lord, he wasn’t cut out for this. What had his uncle been thinking?

  He consoled himself that at least for now, the MacLeod chief was looking in the wrong direction.

  “The Greatest swordsman in the isles,” they called him. MacLeod’s chief’s increasing power in the isles had not gone unnoticed, earning him many enemies. Enemies eager to see him fall. First, however, he had to find proof.

  The first day was the worst. Never had she felt so alone. Abandoned by her new husband at the gate to a castle of clansmen stunned by the news of their chief’s sudden marriage, Christina felt like she’d been dropped on the other side of the world.

  The MacLeods of Skye spoke the same language, wore the same clothes, ate the same food, and lived in similar structures as she did, but everything was different. Subtle variations made even the familiar feel strange and new.

  The two days that followed were marginally better, if only because she’d decided to keep herself busy by making the Great Hall feel more welcoming. The Hall wasn’t as primitive as she’d feared on arrival, but neither did it have those additional touches, the small luxuries, that she was used to. Everything about the Great Hall of Dunvegan, the principal building of the castle—its structure, furnishings, and decorations—were basic, practical, and undeniably masculine. It looked like what it was: a shelter for warriors when not on the battlefield.

  Nothing close to the cozy haven she’d imagined.

  At first she feared she would have to sleep communally by the fire, but she was relieved to discover that behind the long wall of the hall were three private partitioned chambers. She was led to the middle of the three—a small room with a bed, a table, a chair, and a small ambry for storing clothes.

  She now stood before the largest of the three chambers. Christina knocked softly on the door to the lord’s—or king’s, as they called it here—solar, entering when bidden. Ri tuath. King of the tribe. That’s what they called her husband. At first she thought she’d heard it wrong, but if there was anything she’d learned since she’d arrived, it was that these people revered their warrior chief. To them, Tor was what he’d been before Skye had been annexed to Scotland: an island king. The fact that he was considered the greatest warrior of the age only added to the clan’s pride. The poems recited by the Sennachie at the meals seemed almost mythic in their lauding of their chief. Surely, her husband couldn’t have defeated a score of men surrounding him by himself?

  Rhuairi, the humorless seneschal, looked up from his seat at the table beside the clerk. The young churchman gave her a welcoming smile, which she returned gratefully. Most of the familiar faces of Tor’s personal guard had sailed with her husband, and the clerk was the sole friendly face in a sea of taciturnity. If Christina had wondered where her husband came by his cold, remote expression, she need look no farther than his clansmen. She feared it was an island trait.

  “Good day, my lady,” the clerk said. “You are up early this morn.”

  She returned his smile. “Aye, Brother John, I’ve quite a few things I would like to attend to today.”

  Though he made no sound, the seneschal appeared to groan.

  Christina tucked her hair behind her ear and squared her shoulders, refusing to be deterred. This was her home now. She was the lady of the keep, and if she wished to make a few changes, it was well within her rights to do so.

  Though she’d been tempted to hide in her chamber and read her book until her husband returned, she was determined to prove that she could be a good wife to him. She knew he thought her young and inexperienced. To him, she was the foolish girl who’d made a mistake and nearly gotten herself ravished, or the coward who’d tricked him into marriage rather than face the wrath of her father.

  But there was more to her than that, and she wanted him to see it. To see her.

  “Of course whatever you need, my lady, will be at your disposal,” the seneschal said.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I thought today I might start on the walls.” The previous two days she’d attended to the most pressing matters, including laundering the bed linens she’d found stacked in a trunk (apparently no one had used the room for some time), changing the rushes in the hall, and replacing the lumpy mattress in her chamber—in their chamber, she corrected herself, heat rising to her cheeks.

  The intimate part of her marriage weighed heavily on her mind. Delay in their wedding night had only given her plenty of time to think about it. Would it be different now that she knew what to expect, and now that he knew it was she?

  Both men looked a bit perplexed. “The walls?” the seneschal was the first to ask.

  “Aye.” With only arrow slits in the thick stone and the hole in the center of the wooden ceiling to allow the smoke from the fire to escape, to say the hall was dark and dreary was a prodigious understatement. She’d added a few candelabra to the tables, but it would take a small fortune in candles to truly make a difference. “When cleaning out the ambry, I noticed a stack of old tapestries. I thought we might take them out for dusting and hang them on the walls.” Her brows drew together atop her nose. “Do you know where they came from?”

  The seneschal shook his head. “Nay, my lady. It’s been sometime since anyone has used that chamber. Perhaps they belonged to Lady Flora.”

  Tor’s first wife. Christina had thought as much. She’d been from Ireland, and many of the tapestries appeared to contain Irish motifs and folklore. Christina didn’t want to rouse any painful reminders of his first wife, but her husband hardly seemed prone to sentimentality. No matter the source, the tapestries were too colorful and beautiful to hide in a closet.

&
nbsp; “Is there anything else?” he asked, his voice suggesting that he hoped not.

  “Nay, that is all.” She started to leave and then pretended that she’d just thought of something, though it was the true purpose for her visit all along. “Has there by chance been any word?”

  She’d not made the mistake of saying “for me” after the puzzled look the seneschal had given her the first time she’d asked. Why would her husband send word for her?

  But her effort at nonchalance hadn’t fooled either of them. The clerk looked down, studying his parchment intently, and the seneschal eyed her uncomfortably. “Nay, my lady. No word.”

  “Oh well,” she said good-naturedly. “I’m sure they will return soon enough.” But the false brightness did not completely mask her disappointment, even to her own ears.

  Christina left the men to their duties, eager to avoid their pitying looks. They felt sorry for her in a manner that made her think she was missing something important.

  She was beginning to wonder whether Tor would ever come back. Determined not to be hurt, she told herself that he had responsibilities…even if it meant missing their wedding night. If she was going to be married to a warrior, she had to get used to it. But though she could make herself understand, it was much more difficult not to be disappointed. He’d left without saying good-bye. It made her feel insignificant—a feeling she’d hoped to forget.

  She busied herself the rest of the morning seeing to the cleaning and hanging of the tapestries, while trying to keep the chief’s dogs off her new rushes. But the three enormous deerhounds were too adorable, and after a few licks and whines, she gave up and ordered them bathed instead. The serving boy gave her a look as if she was addled but did as she bid.

  It was a look she was becoming quite used to. It wasn’t that the people were unfriendly, but neither were they friendly. It was somewhere in between. Respectful and puzzled about summed it up.

  Except for one. Her look had been entirely different.

  There were surprisingly few women about the castle. Other than a couple of young girls in the kitchens, most of the servants were male. Perhaps that’s why Christina had noticed the woman right away. She stood out.

  When she’d walked into the Great Hall on the arm of the seneschal the first evening to be introduced to her people, in the collective gasp of surprise at the announcement of her being their new lady, one gasp in particular had drawn her attention. The woman was tall and stately—buxom, blond, and very beautiful. She was older, perhaps ten years past Christina’s one and twenty, but the years only added to her beauty. She wore her hair coiled in a braid atop her head, and she alone of the other women wore a rich velvet cotte and not a simple leine and brat.

  Their eyes had met. In that one look, Christina knew that this woman was someone. And she suspected it had to do with her husband. More shaken than she wanted to admit by the exchange, Christina had carefully avoided meeting her gaze again. Since that night, the blond woman had avoided the Hall, which only increased her suspicions. But Christina was too much of a coward to ask any questions, so she buried herself in work.

  Once the tapestries were hung in the Hall, she decided to do something with the tables. In the stack of linens, she’d also found some brightly colored cloths and embroidered runners that she had washed, dried, and then added to the tables. A few vases of fresh flowers, a polished candelabrum or two, a handful of sprigs of lavender strewn in the rushes, and the dark, dreary room was nearly unrecognizable.

  Pleased with what she’d discovered in the ambry, she made her way to the kitchens in the adjacent building, wondering what treasures she might find in the storerooms.

  The kitchens were quite spacious, housed in a long, rectangular stone building with a low, wood-beamed ceiling. The only light came from the open doorway. Black soot from the fires lined the walls and smoke filled the room. Unlike those of the Great Hall, the stone walls were roughly put together, making her wonder whether this was one of the original Norse longhouses her husband had told her about. Despite the heat coming from the oven, she shivered. Compared to this, the Great Hall suddenly looked like a palace.

  The cook, a man on the high side of fifty years and missing most of his teeth, didn’t appear pleased to see her. But Christina knew that if she didn’t assert herself now, she would never get a second chance, and that gave her the courage not to retreat.

  “Is there something you wish, my lady?” he asked.

  Behind him, she could see two lads and a lass—probably a few years younger than herself—eyeing her suspiciously.

  “I thought I might have a look at the storerooms, to check the winter reserves.”

  The cook didn’t bother to hide his annoyance, but he spent the next half hour going through the provisions and answering her questions. The smoke was better in the storeroom, but her lungs still burned. Back in the front part of the kitchens, she could hear the intermittent coughing of the other servants.

  Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be any old trunks filled with a hidden cache of gold trenchers and goblets. As the cook led her back into the kitchens by the ovens, Christina suddenly noticed the reason for all the smoke.

  She pointed to the thick layer of ash and buildup of soot in the oven. “When is the last time this was swept out and cleaned?”

  He shrugged. “It’s easier to keep the fires going. It gets cold in here. Besides, the chief likes his bread warm.”

  Christina covered her nose and mouth as another great plume of smoke backed into the room. “It must be blocked,” she said, coughing. No wonder there was so much smoke. How could they work in here like this all day? It couldn’t be good for their health to breathe this. “Put it out,” she ordered. “It will be far colder in here without a roof.” She’d seen a kitchen fire once when she was a child, and it was not a memory she would soon forget.

  “But what about the evening meal? It will take a long time for the ovens to cool enough to clean and then to reheat.”

  “A cold meal will not kill us. The leftover meat and bread from earlier will be fine.” It’s not as if “the chief” was around to object.

  The cook shrugged and told one of the lads, “Do as the lady says.”

  Lifting a bucket of water, the boy dumped it on the fire. Steam hissed off the hot stone. It took another bucket to completely put the fire out.

  Without the heat from the fires, it didn’t take long for the room to cool off considerably. The cook looked as if he hoped Christina was leaving, but she decided to stay and oversee the cleaning. Which was a good thing, because when it came time to clean the debris from the chimney, she was the only one small enough to stand up in the narrow opening.

  Using a pole, she pushed the mixture of soot, ash, and leaves free. Unfortunately, she didn’t move out of the way quickly enough and quite a bit of it came down on her.

  After a stunned silence, Christina took a look at the horrified expression on the young serving girl’s face and burst out laughing at the picture she must present. After a tentative smile, the girl joined her.

  “I think we’d better hurry and get those fires going again,” she said. “It looks like I’m in need of a bath.”

  By time they were done, even the old cook was laughing.

  —

  It was near dusk when the birlinn pulled alongside the jetty at Dunvegan.

  Tor was in a black mood, his pursuit of the attackers having ended in rare failure. By the time he’d arrived at the village, the fires were already dying out. The attack had begun in the dead of night. As before, the raiders had stolen some cattle and set flame to the crops. His mouth fell in a grim line. But this time two of his people had died. One of them was a boy not much older than Murdoch. Standing over the bloody bodies of his clansmen, he’d been filled with a burning rage.

  One day earlier and he would have been here to prevent it from happening. If he hadn’t been delayed at Finlaggan, he would have returned in time. This marriage wasn’t off to the most pro
mising of beginnings.

  He and his men had given chase, almost catching up with the attackers near the Isle of Lewis, but lost them again during a storm. Not many men could outmaneuver him on a boat. MacSorley was one, and possibly the MacRuairis, if the damned pirates were having a lucky day. So who were they? It could be the Nicolsons, but if they decided to attack he did not think it would be in the dark of night to raid cattle. It had the mark of the MacRuairis, but why would they attack Dunvegan when Lachlan had just agreed to fight under him? It didn’t make sense.

  As much as he wanted to pursue them farther, he knew he had to get back. The warriors from Bruce’s secret guard would be arriving soon.

  Tor strode up the sea-gate stairs, greeting his clansmen as he passed. He was tired and hungry, but also aware—painfully aware—of the bride awaiting him. Every passing minute of the return journey, his heart seemed to beat a little harder and his blood rushed a little hotter as his body anticipated the pleasure to come.

  The delay had only increased his hunger for her. Now that he was home, he was anxious to see her. He frowned, knowing that was not quite true. It wasn’t just because he was home. Oddly, he’d thought of her while he was away.

  He’d regretted having to leave so suddenly, but there had been no time to waste. Every minute was precious. Knowing she would be safe at Dunvegan, his only thought had been to get to the village.

  As he approached the Great Hall, he sent his An Leincchneas, privy counselor, Fergus, to inform her of his arrival. With the stench of his journey heavy on him, he decided to take a detour to the kitchens for a soothing hot bath. A warm pottage and bread would do much to improve his black mood before he greeted his bride.

  Though more spirited than he’d initially given her credit for, she reminded him of a frightened bird. Treading gently, however, did not come naturally to a man who had spent most of his life surrounded by the harsh brutality of the battlefield. It was one of the reasons he’d initially rejected the alliance; he did not think they would suit each other. She needed someone to comfort and care for her. He was a man hardened by war and death who knew nothing but the duty to his clan.