Why, then, did he wonder what news Wee-Jamie wanted to disclose to him when he’d said, “I have somethin’ important to tell ye”?
Why, then, did fear overwhelm him … fear that he was about to lose the most important thing in his life?
Chapter Sixteen
Eight hours later…
Chaos reigned at Beinne Breigha.
But it was chaos of the best, most marvelous kind, in Maire’s opinion. She stood in the doorway of her great hall, which gave her an equal view of activities both inside and outside the keep.
Bagpipe music had been blaring sweetly for some time now. Well, some of it was sweet, when it came from the expert mouth and fingers of Murdoc. And some was not so sweet, when it came from Murdoc’s apprentice-in-training, Bolthor.
Everywhere could be heard sounds of levity. Giggles. Chuckles. Belly laughs. There was so much joy that Maire could scarce contain her own gaiety. In fact, she suspected she wore a continual, silly grin on her face.
Females, young and old, garbed in their best arisaids, danced at will and occasionally burst into Highland songs as they helped set the trestle tables for the largest celebratory feast ever seen by her Campbell clan. “Is there aught more beauteous than a comely lass with a smile on her face?” Old John was heard to remark on more than one occasion.
Even in the worst of times, Beinne Breagha boasted an abundance of nature’s blessings, whether from land or water. If ever they’d appeared to be poor of victuals, it was not for lack of food, but more for lack of time or people to prepare fine fare. Already the boards groaned with fishes of a dozen different varieties … baked, boiled, jellied, pickled, minced, and smoked. A mass of eels still slithered in their scullery barrel awaiting the perfect moment to be boiled and added to the leek and curdled cream sauce. And not to be ignored at this special event was the Scottish favorite, smoked craigellache, or salmon.
Even the standard fare seemed uncommon today: tupney pies; cock-a-leekie soup; blood sausages or black pudding; potted headcheese made of boiled shin meat and marrow bone; vegetables, including the infernal neeps; and of course, haggis.
To satisfy the sweet cravings of young and old, there were preserved fruits; cook’s famous currant and hazelnut pudding; uisge-beatha-laden cream custard, known as crannachan; and Scotch shortbread. Honey still in the combs sat on high shelves in the kitchen, away from sticky-fingered children, to be slathered on oat cakes or bannocks in the course of the feast.
Males, young and old, dressed in their best pladds, stole kisses and made assignations for later as they passed to and fro from the great hall to the courtyard where a huge red deer stag was being roasted on a spit, rotated by children who took turns at the honored task. To supplement the red meat and fish were hams fresh from the smoke huts and chickens stuffed with chestnuts and boiled eggs. Later in the evening, once the wee ‘uns had fallen asleep on their mothers’ laps from pure exhaustion, the scullery maids would carry out a silver bowl, passed from generation to generation, containing the Campbell flummery. The base of the frothy concoction was soaked cereal, the liquid of which set to a clear jelly, flavored with rosewater and topped with cream and honey and its own distinctive ingredient… uisge-beatha. Definitely an adult drink.
The most chaotic thing about this whole chaotic scene was that there were witches here, witches there, witches essentially everywhere. Ugly witches. Beautiful witches. Dour and sweet. Although there were a few young witches, most of them seemed ancient. Some of these were white of hair, toothless, and hairy-waited, with dried-apple faces, but others were softly aged with wise, all-knowing eyes. Though they varied in physical appearance, they all had one thing in common… cackling. Even the prettiest of them let loose with a decided cackle now and again. Mayhap that was why Maire had never become a very good witch; she’d never been able to cackle.
The way Cailleach was cackling right now.
“Ye’ve made a fine mess of things this time,” her mentor proclaimed as she opened her arms for Maire’s enthusiastic embrace. “Tsk-tsk-tsk!”
“I didn’t mean to call up all the witches in Scotland.” Maire replied defensively. She pulled back to get a better look at her beloved teacher. It was alarming to see how much Cailleach had aged in the past five years. Or had the witch always resembled an old hag?
Cailleach waved a bony hand dismissively. “ ’Tis not that mess I be referrin’ to, dearie.” She pointed to the exercise yards where Rurik was helping some men set up targets and other equipment for the games to be held on the morrow… archery, wheel throwing, wrestling, triple jumping, and horse racing. Although Rurik had already been to the loch to bathe with the other men, and his hair was fancy-braided on the sides with amber beads, he had stripped off his tunic and was working bare-chested now, with his black braies hanging low on his hips.
Maire’s heart lurched and her blood thickened with desire at just the image of Rurik’s ridged abdomen and the thin mat of hair that ran down in an enticing vee toward his …
Her thoughts broke off at that juncture on hearing yet another cackle.
“That be the mess I am referring to, girl.”
“Rurik?” she asked with surprise.
“If Rurik be the name of the too-pretty Viking with the wicked eyes glancing this way, then, aye, that be the selfsame mess I see ye embroiled in.”
Maire looked toward the exercise yards again. Sure enough, Rurik’s wicked eyes were directed toward her. And she could swear, though the distance was considerable, that he winked a sensual promise her way.
Maire felt her face heat up under Cailleach’s all-discerning scrutiny.
“So, that’s the way the wind be blowing,” Cailleach said with another cackle. “ ’Twould seem the mess is even worse than I thought. A Viking, though. I canna fash where yer good sense has gone.”
“What’s wrong with a Viking?”
“Not a thing. Not a thing… if all ye want from him is a strong fighting arm … or a virile bed partner. But methinks ye want much more.”
“And if I do?” She raised her chin defiantly.
“If ye do,” Cailleach repeated her words back at her, “then I foresee teardrops ahead. Dinna know that Norsemen are rovers? They mislike settling in one spot fer long.”
“Mayhap this one is different,” Maire argued, as much to counter Cailleach’s contentions as to assuage her own doubts.
“Mayhap. Mayhap,” Cailleach acquiesced. But then she asked the question that had been niggling at Maire’s conscience all afternoon, “What will the Viking do when he discovers he has a son?”
“So, yer the one?”
Rurik just about jumped out of his skin at the crotchety-voiced inquiry, which was accompanied by a high cackle.
Spinning about, he saw Maire’s old mentor witch, Cailleach, sitting on a pile of wooden shields, watching him. He was the last one on the exercise field, where he’d just donned his tunic and was buckling his belt. The old crone must have come up behind him. He shouldn’t have been startled by her presence. There were witches everywhere. In fact, many people were complaining about them … except Toste and Vagn, who claimed to have tupped a few of them already, though Rurik could hardly credit the truth of their boasts, especially when they claimed to have been ensorcelled into performing some perverted acts. Those two wouldn’t have had to be ensorcelled into doing anything of a sexual nature, perverted or not. On the other hand, they had been avoiding lies of late, like every other man within miles of Beinne Breagha, Viking or Scots, because of Maire’s outlandish tale connecting falsehoods and shrinking man parts. So, mayhap they were telling the truth.
“The one what?” Rurik finally managed to answer.
“The one Maire has gone weak-kneed over?”
Rurik’s lips turned up with pleasure. “Maire is weak-kneed over me?”
“Aye, and well ye know it, too. A rogue like you specializes in such nonsense. Truly, if women knew what men were thinking half the time, they would be slapping their faces right an
d left.” She chuckled… rather cackled… at her own joke, then continued, “Ye delight in turning a lass’s fancy just for the fun of it.”
“You don’t know me well enough to determine my motives.”
“Oh, I know ye, boy. I know ye better than you think.”
“Boy? I am no boy. What do you here anyway?” Rurik snapped at Cailleach. “Other than offer insults.”
The old biddy cackled a few more times before submitting, “I know ye like my Maire well enough to bed her, but I wonder…” She let her words trail off and narrowed her rheumy eyes at him, studying him as if he were a piece of meat for sale at market.
“Well, spit it out, witch, what is it that you wonder?”
“I wonder… do ye love her?”
That question stopped Rurik cold. “You overstep yourself. What business is it of yours how I feel about Maire?”
“ ’Tis very much me business. Maire has suffered these past years. I do not want her to suffer more.”
Rurik stiffened with affront. “I mean her no harm.”
Cailleach shook her head sadly at him. “That may not be your intent, but I suspect it is inevitable.”
Rurik was uncomfortable with this conversation and started to walk away.
“You did not answer my question, Viking. Do ye love her?”
Rurik turned slowly and eyed the pestsome witch. “Nay, I do not.” He raised a hand to halt her next words. “But I care about her. I do. Methinks I am incapable of love. That capacity, if I ever had it, was burned out of me as a child.”
Cailleach nodded knowingly. “In the Northlands … Kaupang. Aye, I ken how that might be.”
Rurik’s head jerked up. How did she know where he’d spent his youth? Fine hairs stood up all over his alert body. Truly, the witch gave him a creepy feeling; she knew too much. But he would turn the tables on her. “Can you remove this blue mark?” he asked, touching his forehand and running a forefinger down his nose and through the center of his chin.
The witch laughed. She had the nerve to laugh at him. Then she shrugged. “Mayhap I can. And mayhap I cannot.”
Rurik clenched his fists to keep from reaching for the witch’s scrawny neck.
“Getting rid of that mark is important to you, isn’t it?” Cailleach inquired amidst a few more cackles.
“What manner of question is that? Yea, I want the mark gone. Is there aught wrong with that?”
“Not if ye do not make it more important than everything else. Some say the peacock must lose its feathers afore it can truly sing.”
“Are you daft, old lady? Stop speaking in riddles.”
“Aye, I will speak plainly to ye, lad, and make sure ye listen well. Yer life is about to be turned upside down. We shall see what kind of man ye are when ye finally land on yer feet. We shall see if ye deserve Maire. Or if that bloody mark is all ye care about in this world.”
Oh, that was unfair… to lay the blame on him. Why was it such a bad thing that he wanted his face restored to its former appearance? Who said it was the only thing he cared about? He was not that vain and self-centered. Just because he could not love, that did not mean he could not care.
Rurik closed his eyes to calm his roiling temper. When he opened them, the witch was gone … though he thought he heard the sound of cackling laughter in the distance.
Little did the witch know. His life was already turned upside down.
“Can we go celebrate now?”
Rurik’s warm breath whispered into her ear, causing incredibly sensual currents to ripple through her body. For a moment, Maire paused and relished the exquisite sensations that caused her breasts to peak and heat to pool between her legs.
Finally, inhaling sharply for composure—a futile exercise—she turned in her seat at the high table and addressed the rogue, “I thought we were already celebrating … for two hours, to be precise. What else do you call these massive amounts of food and ale, not to mention lute and bagpipe playing, singing, juggling, and more of Bolthor’s sagas than any sane person should be required to hear?”
Even Rurik, who was not an overly modest man, had said, “Enough!” when Bolthor had told not one, or two, or three, but four different sagas about Rurik’s heroic deeds during today’s battle. And Toste and Vagn had yelled, “More than enough!” when Bolthor had attempted, instead, to tell a saga entitled “A Tale of Witch Swiving,” immediately after “Ghostly Seductions.”
Rurik laughed, his mouth still way too close to her ear. “I had in mind more of an intimate celebration.”
She knew what he meant, and, truth to tell, her thoughts had been wandering in that direction all day. But she had things to tell him first. Taking one of his hands in hers, she twined their fingers together, marveling at how small her hand—which was not all that small—looked in his much larger one. At the same time, she delighted in the pressure of his callused palm against hers, and the beat of his pulse where their wrists met. Maire feared she was a lost cause where this man was concerned. Bracing herself, she started what had to be one of the most difficult conversations of her life. “I have wanted to thank you. You saved my clan, and for that I will be forever grateful.”
“You are welcome, m’lady,” he said graciously, then waggled his eyebrows at her, adding, “Perchance you would like to thank me in a more private place. Methinks a little chain mail exercise would not be amiss.”
Maire’s face flamed at his reminder of her outrageous conduct of yestereve. “Rurik, I must know. What are your plans now?” She couldn’t believe she’d asked that question. She’d promised herself that she would not, even though it had been foremost in her mind all day.
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “Well, actually, I do know, but must we discuss this tonight?”
Her heart sank at the seriousness of his tone. But he was right. This was a night for celebration. She could learn of his plans later.
There was a critical matter to be discussed, however.
“About Jamie …,” she began.
Rurik groaned.
“I told you afore you left for the MacNabs that there was something important I had to tell you. Well, this is the time—”
“Speak of the little devil,” Rurik said, chuckling.
Jamie and his little band of urchins were swaggering across the cleared area in the middle of the great hall where some ring dancing had just ended. The rascals … six in all… were wearing miniature tunics, like the Vikings wore, and each had their hair braided clumsily on the sides of their faces. But they’d added a new touch this evening … blue, jagged lines down the center of their faces … probably made with blueberry juice, Maire guessed.
She felt Rurik stiffen beside her. Alarmed, she looked at him and quickly advised, “Now, don’t be getting your whiskers in a twist again. They’re not mimicking you. They’re emulating you. You’re their hero of the day.”
But Rurik wasn’t angry this time. She could see that. Instead, his head was tilted to the side and a puzzled expression caused his forehead to furrow. “I’m not upset… precisely,” he murmured distractedly. “It’s just… his black hair.”
“Hair? Jamie’s?” Oh, God! Oh, no, not now! Not this way!
“Something’s been nagging at me for days, especially today after the battle,” he explained, turning to stare at her. “All of the MacNabs had red hair. Every single one of them.”
Maire tried to pull her hand out of Rurik’s grasp, but he would not release her. Maire felt a desperate need to run from the great hall, even if Rurik followed after her. “Rurik, not now. Let’s go outside and discuss this. Not here.”
It was as if he didn’t hear her. “And you have red hair, too,” he pointed out, as if speaking his thoughts aloud unconsciously. “So, how is it possible, Maire, that…”
Her heart thumped madly in her chest.
“… that your son has black hair?”
He looked at Jamie, playing a running tag game with his friends, then back at Maire, then at some of t
he curious faces of people in the hall, including his own Viking comrades, who were noticing his distress. Everyone’s actions seemed to have slowed down. A sudden chill hung in the air, and Rurik’s face filled with understanding, and then horror.
He pulled his hand out of her clasp and put his face in both hands. For several long moments, he stayed thus, and Maire’s heart sank with dread. “Please, Rurik, let us go outside and discuss this in private.”
Finally, he lifted his head, and he gazed at her with contempt. “Tell me,” he demanded in an icy voice.
“Aye, I will tell you,” she agreed on a long sigh. She barely stifled a sob as she admitted the long-withheld news, “Jamie is your son.”
A son? I have a son?
For five long years I have had a son and never knew!
How many people know? Am I the only one in ignorance?
Oh, God! That foul-mouthed, arrogant, precocious, filthy—in essence, adorable—Scots-child is mine. Mine!
How could she? How could she keep this from me?
Rurik was so angry he feared what he might do. But even in the midst of the red haze that nigh blinded him, Rurik realized that his loss of temper could ruin the celebratory feast for all of the Campbell clan, and that he did not want on his conscience.
He grabbed Maire by the wrist and led her forcefully away from the guests, smiling right and left as he passed through the crowd toward the stairway leading to the upper bedchamber. Only he knew how brittle was his tight-lipped smile, and only Maire knew how painfully his fingers dug into the flesh of her wrist.
Once out of view of her clan and his Viking friends, Rurik practically dragged her up the stairway, down the corridor, and through the oaken door to her bedchamber, which he slammed after them. He shoved her away, fearing he might do her bodily harm, and only then did Rurik relax his tense muscles and press his forehead against the door.
Tears filled his eyes—tears, for the love of Freyja!—but he could not say if they were signs of hurt over Maire’s betrayal, or signs of happiness over his instant paternity. So many emotions overwhelmed him, one after another, that he could scarce keep track.
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