Tangled (Handfasting)
Page 1
THE HANDFASTING
Tangled
Part 2 of
A Novel in Three Parts
Becca St. John
THE HANDFASTING
~ Destiny brought them together. . .
if only for a year and a day ~
BOLD
Two stubborn people, each fighting for their own way.
After The MacBede battle cry, “For Our Maggie!” and the impossible victory it spurs, Talorc the Bold, the Laird MacKay vows to marry the lass for the power of the clan. Maggie MacBede refuses to risk her heart to the sword. Give her a poet, a bard, any man but a fighting man, and she will find her match.
TANGLED
Two passionate people, tangled in a skirmish of love.
Cornered into a Handfasting, a marriage for a year and a day, Maggie MacBede finds herself plunked into the lap of danger and all because of Talorc the Bold, the Laird MacKay.
TORN
Two powerful people, whose enemies would fight to divide.
An enemy lurks deep in the belly of the clan sabotaging their Laird. By winning his bride’s love, Talorc may just lose her life.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, persons or clans is entirely coincidental.
Tangled©2009Martha E Ferris
All rights reserved
Cover Art © 2012 Kelli Ann Morgan / Inspire Creative Services
www.inspiredcreativeservcies.com
ISBN-13: 978-1484124741
ISBN-10: 148412474X
Dedication
To my husband for introducing me to castles and Scotland and all things British.
Table of Contents
Contents
CHAPTER 1 – GLEN TORIC
CHAPTER 2 – CLAN MACKAY
CHAPTER 3 – INTRIQUE
CHAPTER 4 – CHANGES
CHAPTER 5 – MEANS OF ESCAPE
CHAPTER 6 – ENEMY WITHIN
CHAPTER 7 – TROUBLE FINDS HER
CHAPTER 8 – A LAIRD’S WIFE
CHAPTER 9 – DECISIONS MADE
CHAPTER 10 – VOWS
CHAPTER 11 – LEAVING
CHAPTER 1 – GLEN TORIC
Maggie’s head spun as her world heaved and surged. Bile, bitter and hot, stung her throat. She fought against it.
What wretched thing roused her when all she wanted was to go back, deep, into darkness. She must be on a boat with its pitch and sway, seasick and in a pain so sharp it hurt too bad to think.
She licked lips, dry as ash. Thirst. She was thirsty, and incapable of doing anything but moan. Surely her mother was near.
“Maggie?” A deep voice vibrated against her throbbing head.
Not her ma.
Someone shifted her. She groaned, flinched as sunlight pierced the veil of her cocoon.
The boat stopped. Voices floated like jetsam in a harbor.
“Is she awake?“Ah, the lass is goin’ to be alright? Eh?”
“Shhhh,” that deep voice hushed all others. Comforted by the protection, she snuggled back toward the warmth of the body that held her.
“Maggie girl,” his voice gentled. “We’re almost there.” The rocking started again. She hated boats, and this one smelled of horses. Sounded of them to, the clump of hooves, the snort of breath, close, too close. The boat lurched, the stench. . .
“Oh,” she tried to push free, “I’m going to be sick.”
Guided over the flank of a horse, she heaved, eyes shut as shattering pain racked her head. It lasted too long, and then it was done. She clutched at a wet cloth put to her mouth, pressed it there to hold back agony, and opened her eyes.
A foot, dripping with sick, hung below her head. She snapped her eyes shut, disoriented, as she was swung back up, into the arms of the man with the voice.
The mouth piece of a drinking bladder pressed against her lips but, thirsty as she was, all her fuzzy mind could register was the horse. She was on a horse, not a boat.
“Drink up lass. It will make you feel better.”
“Aye, Talorc.” She froze. Her mouth acknowledging what her fuzzy mind refused. Talorc the Bold, the man her clan pushed her to handfast, to marry for a year and a day.
A man the whole of the highlands idolized and she just christened his foot but good. Shame mingled with her moan, and then she remembered. This man took her from her home, the place she loved, the people she knew, where she was safe.
Humiliation be damned.
She struggled to speak. “What happened?” but the words slurred, the effort to try again so beyond possible she gave up thinking altogether.
“You caught a rock between the eyes. You’ve a nasty lump and you’ve slept for the time it took to reach Glen Toric.”
The horse started forward again, jarred her stomach, jolted her head. She sounded the ache, clear from the depths of her.
“I’m sorry Maggie mine, but we are in sight of the castle, and I dare not stop. You need to be tended to.”
She would not answer to Maggie mine. It would hurt too much to try.
“I’m going as slow as possible.”
“I don’t want to be sick again.”
“Nobody would blame you if you were.”
The vibration of his voice rumbled through her. If he just put her on the still ground, left her to die, she would be happy. He wouldn't though. He would push her again, force her to wait to die, or at the least make her wait for unconsciousness.
He said they reached Glen Toric, his home, her home for the next year. These people would be her people. She refused to disgrace herself by meeting them in a dead faint. She would stand on her own two feet.
Only, just now, it was an improbable goal.
Curse the man for bringing her here, and the dizzy hum from a voice so deep she felt it as much as heard it. “Do you ken the slant of our climb? Glen Toric sits atop a steep mound. Bruce rode ahead to tell them you are with us. They are all coming out the gates to greet you, Maggie.”
"With sick all over me."
"You were injured in battle, lass. There's honor in that."
"Who?" Snippets of memory rolled through her awareness, as much dream as reality.
His hold tightened. "They wore no plaid, and we took no prisoners. The dead offered no recognition, but we think they were renegade Gunns."
"MacKay's safe?"
“We lost some good men.”
The horse stumbled, Maggie whimpered and remembered. "I killed."
Talorc snorted. "At least one and good on you."
"Wish more."
His bark of laughter shocked a cry from her.
“Sorry, Maggie, I’ll try to stay quiet.” Quite right, he should sound contrite.
She tried to peek at his face, but only saw plaid. The slope of the ride forced her to sink against him, a solid cradle that rocked with the lure of sleep.
“Maggie,” a voice nudged at her consciousness. “Are you awake, lass?”
Leave me be. All she could do was groan.
The hem of her skirt tugged. “She’s a strapping lass.”
“Hey now, give her room. She’s injured y’ know.”
“The poor thing.”
“Och, take care of her.”
In the hush, whispers crept through the milling crowd.
"Is this what the dream meant?”
“Och, couldna’ be, she’s alive.”
“But a crow, on a bride’s shoulder.”
“She’s not a bride, she’s a handfast.”
“Who dreamt it?”
“Hilde heard it from Seonaid. The lass claims someone dreamt it.”
“Aye, I heard the same.”
"She'll live," Talorc snapped, silencing the whispers.
Bully, Maggie thought. D
eath would be a sweet welcome, would stop the spinning, the churning of her stomach and the anvils pain of her head.
"Seonaid didna' say what bride." Another hissed and the murmurs resumed.
Maggie could only catch bits of the exchanges, could make little sense of the import.
“Did she really save your life, Bold?”
"Bruce said she took a sword and used it."
"Every stone she threw hit its mark."
"Aye, a fine lass, boy. Fine woman to have by your side."
Talorc's lips brushed her ear, “You've impressed them lass."
“Easily fooled.” She breathed.
“Oh, they’re wise ones they are,” he told her, as the buzz of curiosity grew.
Their movement ceased. “We’re at the steps, Maggie. It’ll jar you a might, getting down, but I’ll be as easy as I can.”
“I’ll stand,” she goaded herself with the declaration.
“No, you’ll not stand.” Talorc slipped her from his lap to the horses back so he could dismount, then eased her into his arms.
The man robbed her of her pride.
“Let go, Talorc.” He held her closer. “I’m needing to be sick.”
Close to the truth, the fib worked. Talorc set her down, eased her around. Braced between his back and arm, he kept her from collapsing on wobbly legs.
Maggie blinked. A swarm of features moved before her, as vague as a reflection in a murky pond.
“Give her room.” He barked, and the blur shifted.
He eased a lock of hair away from her eyes. A collective gasp thundered at Maggie. She fought to keep upright as the sound pummeled her.
“Would you look at that?” It asked with reverent horror.
She pushed back into Talorc's hold.
Another nearby reached out. Instinctively Maggie pulled back as Talorc clasped the woman’s wrist just shy of Maggie's face.
“Steady now, leave her be.”
“She’ll be needing some cold against that, Laird. And belladonna for the ache of it.”
“Aye, Laird, she’ll need tending.”
“They clipped her good.”
“Filthy heathens."
Another rumble of sound as shapes moved, leaned toward her. She reached to explore a prickle on her head. A piece of hair? Drop of moisture? Perhaps a spider had fallen down on her. She tried to touch it, brush it away but found, instead, a fist sized lump, stuck right in the middle of her forehead. Split and wet. She held her fingers before her eyes, saw a dozen fingers instead of five and blood.
Blood?
Too stunned to feel at first, sensation returned with a blast. One moment Maggie stared at her hand, the next pain ricocheted, violent, aggressive, against her skull. Blessed darkness answered. Like a rag doll she crumbled.
“At least she didn’t see it, Bold.” Thomas offered as he looked at the hideously purple protrusion.
An old lady tsked. “Or know that she has two great black eyes to go with it.”
“Aye,” Old Micheil sported. “She’s a fine lass, boy, a fine lass in deed.”
* * * * * * * * *
Talorc’s shadow shifted across the shale floor as he turned from the fire to look back at the bed behind him. Ealasaid, drenched sponge in hand, bent over Maggie, dripping water into her mouth.
“Go on down to the celebrations, Laird. It’s the eve of Samhain. You've reason to be thankful, the larders are full, you won a difficult battle. Your clan wants to celebrate the feast with their Laird. They can't do that if you stay here, and look only at what might be lost."
She walked over to him, placed her hands on his arms, as she looked into his eyes. "You’ve been here for as long as she, and naught has changed. Go on down, see to your people. I’ll send for you. . . ” Ealasaid hesitated.
“When she wakes.” Talorc finished.
“Whatever happens,” the old woman answered honestly. “You have to accept, Bold. Since she's been with us, the lass has done no more than breathe. She might not be wakin’ at all.”
“She’s not to die.”
“Bold,” the old woman snapped, then gentled, patted his chest, where his heart beat. “It’s life’s way. We live and we die without any say of our own.”
He thought of whispers of dreams, of crows, the messenger of death, of Seonaid. "What do you think Seonaid's playing at?"
Ealasaid snorted and left Talorc for her patient. "You know as well as I, Bold. You grew up together, you were close. Seonaid was never one to share."
"I was never hers, she was never mine, and I know her well enough to be certain she does not have the sight."
"She talks of dreams often enough, though she never claims them as her own."
Bold studied the woman who had raised him when his own mother died. "You don't believe her dreams any more than I do."
"No," she sighed, "no, but the others do. This crow could just as easily be the brother of your handfasted. His death is still new, and there's a bond with twins."
He shoved off the bench, crossed to the window and opened the shutters. Shouts and laughter swept into the room. Bonfires, to celebrate the eve of Samhain, backlit odd grotesque shapes of people covered in animal skins, some with horns perched upon their heads. Others dressed in their plaids, their faces and bodies painted to disguise against spirits who had free reign to roam the land this night.
Honor the dead, but don’t let them take you back with them. That was the way of Samhain, when the spirit of those gone, those to come, walked freely with the people.
Ealasaid spoke as though she heard his thoughts. "Even without Seonaid's dream, the eve of Samhain is a dangerous time to be hanging on to life. It's too easy to go and frolic with the dead. To leave this world."
"She's not to die. I feel it in my bones. She is mine, my chosen, mate of the soul."
"There is no finer means of death than battle. She would be honored."
He looked at Maggie's still form and remembered the night he proposed the handfast. I have to be here for Fleadh nan Mairbh. I promised Ian. As though Ian couldn't find her here. Talorc rather thought Ian might.
He had never fought a ghost before.
"Seonaid doesn't worry me. But Maggie's twin does."
"There's naught you can do." Ealasaid smoothed Maggie's hair, like mother to child.
Talorc understood action, it was this waiting that broke him. He would not wait.
“Ealasaid,” He stalked toward the door, “talk to her, even if you think she does not hear.” Why had he not thought of this sooner? “I want her mind full of the sounds of Glen Toric. We will take her down to the celebrations."
"You're mad!"
"Aye, well, so be it. You get her ready, talk to her as you do, of everyday things, of life among the MacKay’s. We need to make her want to wake to us. I will see that a pallet is brought. We'll move her on that.
"You could kill her in the move."
"No." Talorc shook his head. "If a move would do that, she'd be dead now."
"She'll not be freer of her brother in the hall."
For the first time in days, Talorc smiled, the same grin he wore in anticipation of a battle well planned. "You could be right, Ealasaid, but down there the MacKay's call will be louder than any damn ghost."
CHAPTER 2 – CLAN MACKAY
She could hear the flute, and the sound of voices in harmony. Laughter, mugs clinking and someone full of tittle-tattle whispering in her ear. Pain overshadowed her dreams, great standing stones hard and menacing, like the ones in the field. Gray things, she tried to skirt around, hide from, as she searched for the merriment.
Every time she moved those stones shattered, shot piercing pieces straight to the center of her head. Desperate, she tried to twist way from the explosions, but something held her still, kept her from moving and the pain, unerringly, found its target.
So powerful was that hurt, it turned to sound, billowed from her depths, to be purged. Somehow it worked. The sound turned her from the stones to face
a wide stream. Water, cool comfort, enticing her far, far away.
“Maggie . . .” The whisper floated on the wind.
“Ian.” She looked, searched the opposite shore.
“Maggie . . .” his voice touched her shoulder. She snapped her head to the side, to see, but the result was a shatter of sensation that blinded her.
“Shhhh, quiet Maggie.” It was another voice, a deep rumble.
Water washed across the source of suffering. More dripped onto her lips, into her mouth. Greedily, she licked at them, which earned her another refreshing taste.
Comfort of the stream drew her, the pleasure submerging in its depth for relief. “Ian?” He had drawn her to it, could help her find it again. “Ian?” She willed him to return, brushed at the merry making. The noise of feasting too insistent, loud, it interfered, stopped her from hearing the whispers.
A gossip poured urgent words into her ear. Maggie pulled away, cringed against the squelch of noise. “Ian, come back.”
He did.
He stood on the far bank. He stood there and smiled, but he was not the man she last remembered. Instead he stood as a small child, different but like her twin of years before.
“Mamamaggie.” He reached out with chubby arms, for her to come and lift him. His smile wide but changed from what she remembered of her brother. And his hair had gone dark, the redness not so strong. Ian’s hair a brighter red than Maggie’s own.
“The water.” She said. She tried to walk to the stream on weighted legs. She wanted to go where the hurt could be washed away, cleanse her to join the child Ian. But the child was no longer alone, with him was Ian the man.
She did not understand.
"Stop." She begged the boisterous party makers. She wanted the calm of the river, the man, the child.
Her brother picked-up the boy, held him in his arms.
“The bairn will stay with me until you’re ready.” He told her.