by King, Susan
Yet she had no sense of a death being foretold by his appearance. What, then, could the vision mean? Shivering, she rubbed at her arms.
Strangely, she had felt a tug at her heart when she saw him, and an odd yearning to go with him. She had felt no fear or dread during the perplexing vision. She moved toward the bank, glanced down.
The water, she thought; sometimes it was so, with water. Gazing at the glistening surface of a stream or a lake could be the same as looking into a bowl of rainwater used for divining. Spontaneous visions could happen unexpectedly. She blinked to dispel any lingering haze from the moment of otherworldly seeing.
Her cousins were talking now among themselves, and one or two glanced toward her with covert concern. Squaring her shoulders, lifting her head, she stepped up on the bank.
Though the vision had left her knees and hands trembling, Elspeth went forward now as if she had nothing more on her mind than a few trout.
* * *
Where a steep hill rounded to a rocky peak, two men reined in their horses and gazed out at the broad view. The cool, damp snap of the summer breeze billowed out the wrapped and brooched plaid of one man, and tore at the black cloak worn by the other rider.
Below, the long surface of a loch gleamed like a steel mirror, reflecting forested hills and an azure sky. The man in plaid nodded and glanced at his companion.
"Have you seen such a sight in years, Duncan Macrae?" He grinned, sweeping his gloved hand in a sweeping gesture. Thick blond hair glinted beneath a dark, flat bonnet, into which were thrust a few sprigs of fresh yew. With a broad, toothy smile, the burly Highlander inhaled the fresh air as if proud and satisfied. "Such a fine place, this!"
Duncan Macrae looked westward past the loch. Rugged hills faded from blue to lavender, soaring into distant mists. Silent, he rested neatly gloved hands on the saddle bow. The tall black stallion shifted beneath him.
"'True, Alasdair," he replied quietly. "I've not seen the like for sixteen years and more." A quick breeze lifted his black cloak from wide, powerful shoulders, revealing a carefully tailored black doublet and trews tucked into high boots of ebony-dyed leather.
"Is it enough to stir the Highland blood in you, then?" Alasdair said. "After all, you are laird of Dulsie Castle in Kintail now, and surely are eager to see the place again."
"Alasdair Fraser, bràthair," Duncan said, "brother you are, for we fostered together and you are wed to my sister. Call me the laird of Dulsie if you will, though I've not been there since I was seventeen." His tone turned grim. "As for my Highland blood, well..." He paused to shove back a drift of dark brown hair. "Perhaps blood such as mine shouldna be stirred up."
"Bah," Alasdair protested. "It is good that you were sent north by the queen's Council. I did not think you would ever set foot in the Highlands again."
Duncan made no reply. As he looked out at the bold, beautiful hills and loch, his heart surged almost painfully. Far in the western Highlands, well beyond those blue mountains, lay Dulsie Castle, which had passed to him on the death of his last remaining brother two months ago. He had not sent word to the rest of his family there that he had returned to the Highlands. He was not certain when—or if—he would do that. Perhaps he would ask Alasdair to carry a word of greeting to his grandmother and his sisters.
For now, Duncan's immediate destination was closer, just southwest along Loch Ness, whose waters flowed below them. At the lower tip of the great loch lay Castle Glenran, home to Alasdair's kinsman, a laird called Callum Fraser. There Duncan understood that he would find Hugh Fraser, the MacShimi, the chief of Clan Fraser.
As one of the queen's lawyers, Duncan Macrae had been sent by the Privy Council to journey into the Highlands carrying an important document for Clan Fraser. The necessary signatures would take but a day or two to collect, and he would return to Edinburgh. He did not intend to stay long in the Highlands, he thought. If he remained here too long, he might never want to return to the safe, ordered life that he had made for himself in the Lowlands.
He had stayed away from the Highlands for all these years, convinced that it was best.
A breeze ruffled through his hair, bringing the blended scents of pine, heather, and water. The smell of water was everywhere here, from the great loch, from myriad streams and rivers, even in the very dampness of the air. He was keenly reminded of the tangy scented air at Dulsie.
And he thought of his family there. "And how is my sister Mairi, auld man?" he asked.
"Auld man? I may be married now, and a father, but call me auld, and you will go there with me. Auld are we, at thirty-three," Alasdair muttered. "I hear men in England dinna marry afore thirty years. Is it true?"
"I ken little of English ways. I lived with my mother's people for years, on the Scots side of the border, and never crossed over."
"Hah! Never crossed by light o' day, nor crossed legally."
Duncan almost smiled. "My cousins, the Kerrs, are good citizens of her majesty Queen Mary Stewart."
Alasdair laughed out loud. "That Highland Macrae blood of yours, lad, found its merry niche with the Kerrs, who rank with the most fearsome border reivers who ever haunted the line between Scotland and England, or so I hear."
"Well," Duncan drawled, "occasionally a few cattle and sheep wandered over the border. Someone had to fetch them back again. We obliged."
"With lances and swords, no less."
"Just so," Duncan said. "Cattle are dangerous beasts." He paused while Alasdair hooted a laugh. "So you told me about Mairi and the bairns. How is my sister Kirsty?"
"Wee Kirsty?" Alasdair smiled. "She is fine, as is Mairi and the young ones. Did I say that our youngest, Dougal, is dark like the Macraes? Aye, and broad and bonny as the Frasers." Alasdair slid him a careful look. "Mairi took the wee ones north to spend time with your grandmother and Kirsty at Dulsie. I'll be going there to meet them soon. Will you not come too?"
"I have duties in Edinburgh when I finish this task."
Alasdair sighed. "They would welcome the sight of you after so long."
Duncan shook his head. "I will send documents north to turn Dulsie over to my sisters. I think it is best."
"You've been a Lowlander for a long while, with all those years spent on the border, and at the university at St. Andrews, and then lawyerin' and such at the courts in Edinburgh," Alasdair said. "But do not fool yourself, lad. No such tame life could please that wild Macrae blood for long." He tipped a brow. "It is long past time you allowed yourself to be a Highland man again."
"The wild Scot in me is gone, and I do not mourn his passing." Truly, he was glad that he had tamed those wilder urges; they had nearly ruined him once.
"Hah," Alasdair said. "The Macraes are legendary in the Highlands for recklessness, and for strength and darin', and for tempers that would make even Frasers quake. That blood tells in a man, no matter where he goes in life. And never was a lad as bold as Duncan Macrae."
"Oh, I once meant to be the boldest of the wild Macraes, but that was long ago."
Alasdair looked at him. "Let it go, lad," he said softly. "You were sixteen when they died. Will you carry the guilt of that day forever?"
"Aye," Duncan said curtly. Shutting the regret out of his thoughts, he set his jaw and fixed his gaze on the far mountains. He was a lawyer now, disciplined and scholarly, no longer the angry lad who had left these hills behind.
And as a lawyer, he had been successful enough to earn the respect of Queen Mary Stewart's Privy Council. Ironically, that same steady capability, and his understanding of the Highland temperament, had earned him a royal order to return to the Highlands and deliver a legal document to the Frasers.
He glanced at Alasdair Fraser. And some called the Macraes wild, he thought. The Frasers' feud with the MacDonalds had been fierce enough to catch the attention of the crown. Duncan had been sent to quell it.
"Alasdair," he said, "no more talk of wildness, I think, unless you wish to discuss the Frasers." Gathering his reins, he urged his h
orse forward.
Alasdair laughed as he rode alongside. "Aye, wild we are, particularly my cousins. Including Elspeth, who has likely ridden on every raid in MacDonald territory. You will have a challenge discouraging this feud with that bonny lot."
"Elspeth Fraser?" Duncan frowned, not recognizing the name. Likely one of the Fraser widows, he thought, to be so adamant about the MacDonald feud. "What, does she stir her sons into battle fever?"
"She'd be in the thick of it herself, weapons and all."
Duncan raised his brows in disbelief. "A warrior woman? A matronly Athena? A Boudicca in your midst?" He laughed. "Well, if she shares your brawn and your mean looks, my friend, it is no surprise that she wields a claymore with the best of them."
Alasdair laughed outright. "I'll say no more on that, man. You will see for yourself." He kneed his horse into a canter. "Come ahead, lawyer, if you dare. Castle Glenran is not far!"
Chapter 2
Late, late yestreen I saw the new moon
Wi' the auld moone in her arm;
And I feir, I feir, my deir master,
That we will come to harme.
~"Sir Patrick Spence"
"Fish are no fit food for warriors," Callum complained. Sitting beside Elspeth on a boulder beside the stream, he looked disdainfully at the day's catch. Elspeth laughed softly, and Callum smiled as if pleased to amuse her, thrusting his fingers through his brown, woolly hair.
"All is well with you, Elspeth?" he asked.
She looked away, saying nothing of her strange vision of the man dressed in the raven's color. "All is well."
Out in mid-stream, Kenneth struck suddenly at the water and leaned down to bring up a large brown trout, which he tossed to the bank. The fish landed on the pile with a slithery plop.
"Flora MacKimmie may have had her fill of beef, but I have not," Callum grumbled.
Looking at the brawny muscle on her cousin's tall, broad frame, Elspeth smiled. Callum could out-eat any warrior, she thought, for he was tall and solid as an oak, and seemed to desperately need every morsel of food he got, but for fish.
Ewan came toward them and folded his lanky legs on the ground, shoving his hair, a rich russet color, out of his brown eyes. He flashed an impish smile. "Flora's desire for trout sits hard with our Callum," he said, clapping him on the shoulder. Callum grunted in miserable assent.
"If Flora wants fish, she shall have fish," said a calm, deep voice above them.
"Ah! Magnus eats fish without complaint," Ewan said. "Me and Callum, we pass."
"You will eat the catch today and like it." Magnus stood tall over them.
Ewan grinned. "A threat? You would not spoil a finer face than your own!"
"The devil is often handsome," Magnus said. "Like you."
"Hah, you may have handsome then," Ewan returned.
Elspeth smiled, listening, aware that Ewan's quick tongue could annoy as much as evoke laughter. But whenever he sang, his voice entranced anyone who listened.
She looked up at Magnus, who towered over her, his several golden braids hanging down like silken ropes. He was a few years older than the others, but Elspeth thought he was more like an ancient Celtic god, all golden strength and beauty. As a child, she had adored him.
But now her heart surged with sympathy for him. Pain and anger, too, flowed through Magnus like a dark, silent river. He still carried a deep hurt from the death of his wife two years earlier. Since then, he had hardened, his rare gentleness reserved only for his little daughter, who now lived with her grandmother.
Kenneth came out of the water and sat to rub his feet dry with an untucked end of his long plaid. "I would rather eat fish than risk Flora's vengeance," he said. "If we do not have enough fish today, we can go down to the loch. Angus Simson will give us some of his net-catch. He is always generous to his laird."
Magnus looked grim. "Angus lost several cattle the other night to reivers," he said. "His son came to Glenran early today, and said that Angus was sore beaten when he went outside, hearing a noise. But he did not see the raiders for the murk and the rain."
"Surprising to hear of reiving so soon," Ewan said. "The summer nights are too short for it, with sundown coming so late."
Elspeth frowned and toed one bare foot along the rocky ground. "MacDonalds," she said softly. "I know it was them."
"Perhaps you do, seeing things that others cannot," Magnus said. "But we must be cautious. We cannot attack the MacDonalds without good cause."
"Making a marriage with Ruari will not end this feud," Elspeth said crossly.
"I do not think Elspeth should marry into that clan of wolves," Callum said.
"Thank you," Elspeth said.
"But this feud has brought the wrath of the crown on our heads now," Magnus said. "The queen's lawyer will come and order us to end it quickly. This marriage will do that instead."
"I will not sacrifice myself to end this feud for you," Elspeth muttered.
"The marriage is not made, the lawyer is not here, and cattle reiving must be repaid in kind," Ewan said. "We must take back Angus's cattle, and a few more for our trouble."
Callum nodded. "So it goes."
"They will expect a counter-raid," Kenneth agreed. "We should not disappoint them."
"One quick raid," Elspeth said. Her cousins nodded, though Magnus shrugged.
"The nights are yet too short for reiving," her older cousin said.
"We could take back the cattle and leave all the fish," Callum suggested.
Chuckling, Elspeth glanced up, and then straightened, alert. "Hold," she said. "Look there, across the stream."
They looked northward. The burbling chant of the stream filled the sudden quiet. Crossing the grassy moor on the far side of the stream, three horsemen galloped toward them and halted their mounts by the bank. Bright multi-colored plaids, red over blue, fluttered over their shoulders, and their sturdy, shaggy garron ponies snorted restively as the three riders glared across the sluicing boundary that separated them from the Frasers.
Kenneth bounded to his feet. One by one, the Frasers rose in silence. Elspeth stepped between Magnus and Kenneth, but Magnus put out an arm to hold her back.
"MacDonalds," Kenneth muttered.
"What the devil do they want here?" Ewan said.
"Take no fish from our waters, Frasers!" The cry boomed across the stream. "This land belongs to the MacDonald clan!"
"By hell it does!" Callum called. "This stream is on Fraser land, and well you know it!"
Ruari MacDonald, his hair bright as rust in the sun, snarled and put a hand to the sheathed dirk stuck in his belt. Some of the Fraser cousins stepped back to pick up their own dirks, which lay piled on their dry shirts heaped on the bank.
Elspeth stepped forward. "Leave here, MacDonalds!" she yelled. "Ride on, or I will be the first at your throats!"
"That is not a proper way to treat your betrothed!" Ruari called back.
Elspeth moved toward the water. "Curse you, Ruari MacDonald, for a fool and a—"
"Elspeth," Magnus barked out. "Stop!"
She glanced back. "They would not dare cross the stream to our side," she hissed. "Ruari MacDonald is a bully and a coward. One curse from me would send him home to his màthair."
"His bràithrean are with him," Kenneth said. "They will not hold back from a fight. And marriage plans will not stop them."
"Elspeth Fraser, hold your temper," Magnus said.
Elspeth paused, the water cooling around her ankles. Magnus was right. She must behave herself. Standing with her cousins, she stared at the three MacDonalds, who glared back in turn.
* * *
"When you sent word of your visit, I knew you might need a comrade to go with you to Castle Glenran," Alasdair said as he and Duncan rode among the birches. "You wear neither plaid nor plant badge. You look like a Lowlander, even a Sasunnach. Though your Gaelic, when you choose to speak it, is pure as any Highlander's."
"I still remember," Duncan said quietly. "So the F
raser chief will meet me at Castle Glenran, where he said in his message he will be fishing for the week on a holiday."
Alasdair chuckled. "Holiday? The MacShimi does little else but fish, hunt and raid."
"MacShimi—so that is what you call your chief."
"Aye, an auld title, after the first Fraser chief, Simon." Alasdair looked sideways at Duncan. "Does the MacShimi ken the why of your visit?"
"Surely he knows that Queen Mary and her Privy Council desire peace throughout Scotland. They wish an end to the feud between the Frasers and the MacDonalds."
"Such a request, even from the queen, may fall on deaf ears among these Highland men."
"The bloodshed and cattle thieving between the Frasers and MacDonalds must cease. I simply act as the royal lieutenant in delivering this ultimatum."
Alasdair let out a loud sigh. "So they sent you in George Gordon's place?"
"The Gordon clan is in disgrace now, their titles and lands forfeit to the crown. Nor can they continue to serve as the royal lieutenants in the northeast."
"The cocks o' the north, the Gordons are called, but they have been brought low."
"Gordon's plan to abduct Queen Mary and marry her to one of his sons was an embarrassment to the whole of Scotland."
"A beastly affair with a gruesome end, that."
Clenching the reins, Duncan recalled the Edinburgh trial months earlier, when a grotesque tradition had been obeyed. George Gordon, earl of Huntly, had died of an apoplectic fit months before the trial. Nevertheless, his corpse, hideously sagged and discolored from salting and embalming, had been propped up in the courtroom for the trial. Sitting as one of the lawyers on the Gordon case, Duncan had watched in sympathy as the beautiful young queen, obliged to be present, had struggled to overcome illness at the horrible sight.
"A cruel thing indeed," he said.
"So you are the queen's lieutenant, sent to talk peace with the Frasers," Alasdair said. "What document did you bring?"
"I am sent to make a bond of caution with the MacShimi and his kinsmen."
