The Raven's Wish

by King, Susan

  "A letter o' caution! The feud's not twenty years old yet. And who is named as the cautioner? Yourself? Och, you may regret that obligation, man."

  "I anticipate no problem. I will witness the signing and return the document to the Privy Council. The friendship between Frasers and Macraes will make the cautioning period of one year easy enough."

  Alasdair cast him a wry look. "Luck go with you. A Highlander cherishes a good feud."

  "I know that better than most," Duncan said.

  "Come ahead, Cautioner, if you dare. There's some Frasers below, on the bank of the stream." He pointed down the slope.

  Squinting in the sunlight, Duncan peered down the grassy slope to see a group of Highland men, wearing plaids of the blue and green favored by Frasers. They stood beside a wide stream. A lad with hair bright as flame stood ankle-deep in the water.

  A sudden chill crept up Duncan's spine. He felt uneasy, unsettled. His black cloak floated out on a quick breeze. A disturbance of the wind, he thought; he had forgotten about the nearly constant presence of the Highland winds.

  "No surprise to find some of them fishin' here, but the MacShimi is not among them," Alasdair remarked. "Fishing the Fraser way—knock the fishie on the head," he went on proudly. "We are known for it, right enough. But these lads are up to something else, I think. The riders across the stream wear red rowan in their bonnets."

  Duncan swore softly. "MacDonalds."

  "Your own clan's greatest enemy," Alasdair said. "Did the Privy Council realize that when they sent you north?"

  "Aye, and so they sent me to caution Frasers rather than MacDonalds," Duncan replied. "No one would send a Macrae to bring a bond of caution to Clan MacDonald. There would be blood instead of signatures."

  Alasdair huffed at that, and guided his horse down the tufted, rocky slope. Duncan followed. They reined in their horses a few yards from the stream.

  "Hail and good day to you, cousins," Alasdair called out in fluent, airy Gaelic. "Callum, Magnus! A fine catch, there. Ewan, Kenneth! Failte, lads. Greetings!"

  Hearing the names reeled off, Duncan could not, at first, sort one lad from another. They all resembled each other, and all were hearty lads wearing blue and green plaids. Only their heads were different, gold and russet, copper and chestnut.

  Two stepped forward, one tall and broad with hair like lamb's wool. The other had long dark hair in several plaits.

  "Well met, cousin," the burly woolly-haired young man said to Alasdair, then turned to Duncan to introduce himself as Callum Fraser, laird of Glenran.

  "What goes on here, lads?" Alasdair asked.

  The one with the dark braids pointed to the far bank. "MacDonalds, as you see."

  "Aye, Kenneth, but what do they want?"

  "Only trouble," the young man answered with a shrug.

  A commotion was going on near the water, Duncan noticed. The MacDonalds were shouting across the stream to the Fraser boy who stood in the water. The lad was obscured from Duncan's view by the brawny Frasers who stood on the bank.

  While he could not hear all the words being exchanged, the angry tones were clear enough. He watched with interest: here were some of the very trouble-stirrers he had come to reprimand. But he frowned, realizing something.

  "Alasdair," he muttered low in English. "These lads, and the laird, too, are rather young."

  "They are," Alasdair agreed softly. "Many of the Fraser males are but lads. Because of the losses at Blar-na-Léine nineteen years ago, the surviving Fraser men are young, either adolescents or young adults, with few over the age of majority. Do you not recall the legend?"

  "Sweet Christ," Duncan murmured with sudden comprehension. "Of course. The legend. All those male babes born to Fraser widows. If so, they would all be eighteen, nineteen by now."

  "If it is true? You have been in the south too long! A Highland man friendly to Frasers could never doubt it. Duncan," Alasdair said, watching the stream. "That legend—did you know that only one of the bairns born after the battle was a lass?"

  Duncan frowned. "I had not heard that."

  "It is so. And there, in the water, stands one of the wildest Frasers. Her name is Elspeth."

  Duncan saw then that the lad in the stream was no lad after all. Standing with her back turned toward the bank, Elspeth Fraser shouted again in Gaelic. The words were lost on a breeze, but the reactions of the MacDonalds on the opposite side attested to the insult she delivered.

  The thick plait of fair hair, sheened like Celtic red-gold, was untidy. The plaid, worn over a linen shirt, was thick and enveloping, and revealed no clue to age or gender. But her bare legs, long and smooth and tautly muscled, planted firmly in the water, had the gracefulness and strength of a woman grown.

  Kenneth spoke to her and she glanced around, the turn of her head a motion of simple grace. Sunlight danced over her head and her finely shaped face. Light reflected from the stream touched her eyes. Duncan thought their color was very like the water, or like a cloudy sky.

  Hardly an aging Diana, he thought, thinking of his earlier jest, but perhaps a Boudicca after all—young and lovely, and copper-haired as the ancient Celtic warrior woman was said to have been. Fascinated, he stared, admiring her face and form even as he was surprised to see a female here, half-clad and obviously reckless.

  He knew women in Edinburgh who would faint to see what this girl did; he knew others, however, who would applaud. The queen herself might approve, he mused; Mary of Scotland and her ladies sometimes dressed in men's clothing for an evening's supper and entertainment. He smiled, thinking how women, particularly in England, were beginning to argue for intellectual rights with men. Here in the Highlands, regarded as backward by southerners, this girl assumed her equality as easily as she assumed male clothing.

  But she was inviting danger here, confronting the three angry MacDonalds mounted on the opposite bank. She was shouting, leaning forward, furious about something. When the wind shifted, Duncan heard her more clearly, and understood her Gaelic easily.

  "Do not think to come over here, MacDonalds!" she yelled. "Reivers and thieves!" One of her cousins, the tall blond called Magnus, called to her from the bank. She waved him away.

  "A chick among pups," Duncan remarked wryly in English.

  "A what?" Alasdair looked at him, puzzled.

  "My sisters once had a wee fluffy chick that they raised with the pups. Grew into a fine hen, but she ran with the dogs, ate under the table, and slept on the hearth. She was totally wild, and no great egg-layer. But the dogs accepted her, and she thought herself one of them. That one over there," he gestured toward Elspeth, "is a chick among pups."

  "Ah. What happened to yer wee hen?"

  Duncan shrugged. "She was bested by a neighbor's hound and eaten."

  Alasdair blinked, eyes wide.

  "Do you dare to cross the stream, Ruari MacDonald?" she yelled. "If you reived the cattle that went missing from Angus Simsons' land, if you laid a hand on that old man and a kinsman of the MacShimi, come and get your due payment here and now!"

  "Enough, girl!" Magnus stepped down into the water.

  "Angus was beaten that night," she said. "Would you have him go unavenged?"

  "We will cross the water when we please!" one of the MacDonalds shouted. "Such is not possible for you, witch!"

  "Hah, witches cannot cross a running stream!" yelled another MacDonald. He shielded his eyes. "Watch out for her Droch Shùil, her Evil Eye!"

  "Hold your wicked tongues!" Kenneth hollered. He and the other Frasers splashed down into the water, ready to defend their cousin.

  "Fools!" Callum shouted. "Elspeth is a taibhsear, and you will treat her with respect!"

  "We MacDonalds wear rowan in our bonnets as protection from witches!" said a rusty-haired MacDonald. His companions laughed.

  Elspeth surged forward. "I will cross this water, and you will need protection from my dirk!" She charged through the water with a phalanx of cousins at her heels.

  Unsure if
the boys meant to stop her or support her, Duncan dismounted and ran to the bank. Alasdair was close behind. Such disputes easily drew blood in the Highlands, and Duncan knew that all too well.

  Reaching the water's edge, he stepped down, the chill striking his legs even through his woolen trews and high boots. When he was within arm's distance of the virago, he lurched forward between her brawny cousins, ready to lay a hand on her and haul her unchivalrously back to the bank.

  Abruptly, as if they had all struck a stone wall, the young men in front of him stopped, and Duncan knocked into one of them. Tall enough to measure with the tallest of the lot, he looked over Magnus's shoulder.

  Elspeth had halted, and now stood still, water swirling around her legs. She neither spoke nor moved as she looked up at the sky.

  Duncan looked up at the sky, too, expecting to see some awful sight. Only a few fat clouds drifted over the sun. What the devil was going on here?

  "What—" he began.

  "Quiet," Alasdair murmured, having followed to join them in the stream.

  The girl stared upward, her eyes crystalline gray, as if filled with light. Duncan thought of a painting he had once seen of an angel with the same limpid, beautiful eyes as this girl, wide and innocent and holy. But this brawling wench was hardly an angel.

  He glanced around. All the men, including the MacDonalds on the far bank, were as still as if they were at Mass. The jaws of the MacDonalds, he noted then, hung open stupidly.

  A perfect time to seize the girl and stop this feuding nonsense, he thought. He moved forward, shouldering between the lads.

  Elspeth turned, and now stared full at Duncan. Her luminous gaze was fixed intently on his face. Tears sprang onto her lashes, and she reached out a hand to him.

  "The raven," she whispered. "Are you the raven? Or one of the daoine sìth?"

  The fairy people? Confounded, Duncan stretched out his hand to her, partly obeying his original intent to grab her, and partly in response to her offered hand.

  One of the Frasers grasped his shoulder. Another one threw out an arm to stop Duncan's advance. "Do not touch her!" Callum hissed. "Dà-Shealladh!"

  The Second Sight. Duncan frowned. He recalled some mention of seers and witchery earlier, during the shouting match. He thought it an insult. Apparently it was said in earnest.

  "Touch a taibhsear at the moment of a vision, and you will see the same sight," Callum said urgently. "Stay back!"

  Duncan still held a hand out, palm out. A powerful sensation, strange and irrestistible, filled him, as if he were a lodestone pulled toward the girl. A deep ache went through him. He wanted desperately to touch her. Could not help himself. He stretched his hand toward hers.

  "Do not touch her!" someone warned. "Stop, man!"

  The girl's eyes were wide and silvery. Then she stretched out her hand. As his fingers touched hers, he felt only that small, slim hand. Fragile and vulnerable, not fearsome, he thought.

  But a strange golden mist gathered over his sight. He blinked, but could not clear it. Neither could he separate his gaze, or his hand, from hers.

  "Your death…your death will be mine," she whispered, so softly that only he could hear her. He frowned, caught, gazing at her.

  Then her eyes rounded up to disappear beneath fluttering lids. As her body went limp, knees buckling, Duncan caught her. He shifted her light weight in his arms. In that moment, the golden mist and his thoughts cleared.

  Stunned, he looked around at Alasdair, who stared back in astonishment at him. Then Duncan glanced around as he heard the rapid thunder of hoofbeats.

  The MacDonalds fled as if hell's own hounds pursued them.

  Chapter 3

  `Lay my bible at my head,' he says,

  `My chaunter at my feet,

  My bow and arrows by my side,

  And soundly I will sleep.'

  ~"The Twa Brothers"

  "No more of that foul stuff, Flora," Elspeth complained, refusing the wooden cup held out to her. She sat up gingerly on the featherbed. "My head is sore, and that posset will heave my belly quick." Her head ached, and even the dim glow of the peat fire in the hearth hurt her eyes.

  "Tcha," Flora said calmly, placing a hand on Elspeth's shoulder. "Drink it down. It is what you are needing. And I will hold a basin for you, as I did when you were a babe." She handed the cup to Elspeth, who sipped and made a face.

  "Tcha," Flora said again, while Elspeth finished the contents. "Such headaches are part of the burden of Dà-Shealladh. Bethoc MacGruer has the Sight, too, and is plagued with a sore head every day. Every day, poor woman!" Her voice was husky and deep, and as large as the woman herself. She turned away to set the cup down.

  Elspeth knew Flora exaggerated: Bethoc had visions, and sometimes headaches, but not every day. She moved her legs slowly over the side of the bed.

  "Slept for hours, you did, poor bird," Flora said. "And missed dinner."

  Glancing at the small window in the bedchamber, Elspeth saw twilight blue streaking the sky beyond. "I missed the fish?" she asked hopefully.

  "You did," Flora answered, and gave a loud grunt of effort as she bent to rummage in a wooden chest near the wall. One iron-gray braid slid over her broad shoulder to dangle off the shelf of her generous bosom. "Delicious, those trout, rolled in oats and butter, and fried. The lads ate like they were starving." Coming back to the bed, Flora looked down at Elspeth. "For you, a bit of fuarag would be better."

  "Oats in milk?" Elspeth's stomach lurched. "Not yet, Flora."

  "If you are feeling better, the MacShimi and Callum asked that you come down to them as soon as you can." Flora held out a folded tartan cloth and a clean shirt.

  Elspeth nodded, and stood to change the rumpled linen shirt she wore for the fresh one. Flora carefully arranged the long length of the plaid on the bed.

  "A pretty cloth, this," Flora remarked as she pleated the wool into neat folds. The tartan pattern was mostly white, crossed with dark blue, green, and purple. "Suitable for a young woman, it is, with the lighter colors."

  "Bethoc wove this length of plaid, seven years ago, I think," Elspeth said, fingering the lightweight wool, soft and warm against her cool fingers. "I helped her to set the purple yarns, and made an error, here—see this break in the pattern."

  "I see it. No matter, when it is folded. Though why you wear the wrapped plaid, I do not know. Any girl your age wears a gown. But then, you're a bit wild, with only lads for companions, and you have been allowed to do as you please, though I do not agree with it."

  "I love running with the lads," Elspeth said. "I am content."

  Flora sighed. "Your aunt had a soft heart, and after she was gone, your uncle Lachlann had no good idea what to do with one girl in the midst of all those boys. Well, early on we let you go your way. I know that soon enough you will be ready to act like a woman." She raised a brow, but humor sparkled in her dark eyes. "And then you will change your gown, eh?"

  Elspeth settled the long linen shirt around her hips and sat lightly on the plaid, now pleated flat on the bed. Quickly gathering the cloth around her waist, she nipped shirt and plaid together with a leather belt. Standing to drape the remaining length of the plaid over her left shoulder, she tucked the end of it at her waist and pinned the cloth at her shoulder with a brooch, a wide bronze circle studded with cairngorm, a chunk of smoky quartz.

  The pounding in her head was lessening. She wiggled her toes on the rushes covering the wooden floor planks, and reaching up, threaded her fingers through her hair to rebraid it.

  Flora watched, her mouth pursed in thought. She heaved a great sigh. Flora used words sparingly, Elspeth thought, but her sighs were exquisitely expressive. This one indicated concern. "You swooned with this vision. That's not happened before," Flora said.

  "Never, though I've felt faint with them."

  "Well, it is not uncommon, or so Bethoc says." Flora shook a finger. "You go soon and talk to Bethoc."

  "I will," Elspeth agreed. "I visit her every
week." She worked at the braid. "Who was the man with Alasdair at the stream today?"

  "Duncan Macrae, he is called, a brother to Alasdair's wife. But he is also the lawyer sent by the queen and her council." Flora laughed, short and breathy. "I thought all long-robes were old men with long beards. Not this one! A fine man. Even has a ring of gold in his earlobe."

  "He is here?" Elspeth looked up.

  "He's brought a letter from Mary the Queen, about the fighting with the MacDonalds. Callum and the MacShimi are meeting with him now. The queen should send that letter to those fool MacDonalds, and not to the Frasers." She folded her arms over her large bosom.

  Elspeth sat on a stool near the hearth, her hair glowing bronze in the low light. As she combed it out, she thought about Macrae, who had worn the raven's color, and had been clothed like a Lowlander, without a plaid, in a black doublet and high boots. His hair was a deep, glossy brown, and his eyes were blue as a bright sky. He was handsome, she thought, with a calm, sure look to him. No unearthly messenger. Only a man, the queen's own lawyer.

  The lawyer had not hesitated to touch a taibhsear in the midst of a vision, though by the time she had felt his hand the vision had passed. He could not have seen what she had seen.

  She recalled his touch, his arms so firm and strong around her. Just as she had fainted, she had felt his hard chest beneath her head. A quick, fierce blush heated her throat and neck.

  And she felt sure that he was the man who had appeared in that vision on the hill, like an odd glimpse of what was about to occur. And she was still shaken by the experience.

  She tugged a comb through her hair. No vision had ever had such an impact on her. She had swooned, slept, waking with a crushing headache. And now she felt a strange yearning, as if she struggled with a deep hurt. And she felt fearful, too, like a chill mist over her.

  Soon she would visit Bethoc, and her friend would have some wise insight for her. For now, all she knew was that she must warn the queen's man to leave the Highlands.

  "Duncan Macrae," she repeated. The Macraes were a small clan, loyal friends to the Frasers for generations. Some earlier MacShimi had placed a carved inscription over his castle doorway: should a Macrae ever stand without, he would find lodging and welcome within.