by King, Susan
Duncan almost laughed as he looked around. The long course? They had walked so far that he could no longer see Castle Glenran in the misted distance. They would be knocking featheries into the eastern sea by nightfall, he thought, unless they turned soon.
Raw, wind-swept hills and rocky moorland ran toward distant mountains dusted purple with heather. Just underfoot, the grasses were turning a late-summer gold, grazed flat by sheep. Duncan breathed deeply of the sweet, moist air. The spitting mist of the past few days had cleared, today, to warm sunlight.
Suddenly he was glad to be back in the Highlands, even if he was only here temporarily to negotiate the bond with these genial but uncooperative Frasers. Standing here now, he could not regret the journey north. He had not seen these blue-purple hills, or inhaled air as sweet and clear as this for far too long. Looking to the west, he saw the faded contours of the mountains that led to Kintail and Dulsie.
A pang of longing, keen and deep, twisted in his gut. Alasdair would have traversed those hills by now, and must surely be at Dulsie Castle. Duncan abruptly turned away.
He looked toward Castle Glenran in the distance. The stark tower-house, a gray-walled fortress, rose solid and square on a grassy knoll, overlooking a small loch, or lochan, which lay just south of the great loch called Ness.
Squinting, Duncan noticed several tiny moving shapes moving along a hill behind the castle. A rider with a group of several running gillies, the Highland equivalent to men-at-arms, descended the far-off slope. While the runners' bright plaids were like red splotches against the dun and green hills, the single rider wore somber dark colors.
Wondering who the travelers might be, he shrugged and walked on to meet Magnus. At this distance, he could not be sure that the little party was even headed toward Glenran.
"Kenneth has an eye like a hawk," Magnus said as Duncan joined him. He pointed toward his cousins, who were celebrating another of Kenneth's lucky shots. "And his aim is as good as his eye. He cannot be bested out here on the long course."
"He must be a good tracker, then," Duncan commented. "A useful man to have on a raid, I would think."
"He is." Magnus glanced at Duncan from the corner of his eye. "And he and Callum are both fine men to have at your back, with a lance or an arrow. Elspeth is the better tracker, though, in the black of night or in the day."
"Oh?" Duncan placed his featherie and tested his stroke.
"She seems to know just where the cattle are. Or where the deer are when we go hunting. The Sight has its uses," Magnus said. Seeing that Duncan was ready to make his stroke, he paused and stood back.
"Dhia!" Duncan swore as the wind swooped up the featherie, which careened left, rolled down a hill, and landed in a small burn. Duncan swore again. Magnus shook his head in sympathy as both men descended the slope.
Grimacing in disgust, Duncan stepped into the cold burn and angled his club, his high boots protecting his legs from the chill. He swung, splashing widely, to launch the water-laden ball into the air. Halfway up the slope, it fell and began to roll down. Before it could land back in the burn, Duncan ran to swing at it again.
"You use Elspeth as a tracker?" he asked, after stubbornly beating the ball back up the steep slope.
"We do. She has a fine sense of where to find the animals."
Duncan blinked at him in disbelief. He had never heard of such a thing. A tracker should know the lay of the land like the hairs of his own hand, not guess at it, or even worse, divine the knowledge. "Well, then. I should have asked your cousin Elspeth how my game would fare today," he grumbled. "Perhaps then I need not have come out here."
"If she foresaw this game, she would have kept silent out of her soft heart," Magnus said. Duncan slid him a glance. "But I would not have asked any favors of her this morning. She was in no mood for pleasant speech. Since she visited with Bethoc MacGruer a few days past, she has been snappish as a cat." Magnus scratched thoughtfully at the brown and gold sand of his beard. "None of us have had a kind word from her."
Magnus took the next shot as Duncan watched. Then they walked over the moor toward another small hole, and Duncan spoke.
"Do you really believe the girl can find hidden cattle, or foretell the future?" he asked.
"If the Sight comes to her, she can indeed. She has done it all her life, and told truly each time." He glanced at Duncan. "She saw some vision when you arrived at the stream, though I do not know what it was. But should the girl say a word of warning to you, listen well to her."
"She told me some warning, leave or suffer," Duncan said. "I thought it nonsense. She would like to see me leave here, I know." He looked up, hoping for a reaction, but Magnus was silent, his dark blue eyes unreadable.
Magnus stood back, and Duncan swung wide to send the featherie sailing cleanly, at last, toward a hole marked by a stick and a scrap of heather. As it bounced once and dropped in, Duncan laughed out loud in amazement.
"I could not have wished a better shot," Magnus said, smiling. He gestured ahead. "There are two other holes at this end of the moor, and then we go back."
Duncan nodded. "When we get back to Glenran, I will go over the document again. Meet with me in the hall, and tell your cousins to do the same."
"You will not give up until the paper is signed, I think."
"Indeed, I will not."
Magnus narrowed his eyes as he looked up at the sky. "We will not sign until the MacShimi does. We are his bodyguard," he said simply. "There is not much good in a feud, I know that, even one with the MacDonalds. But our clans have been fighting since before we were born. We cannot stop so quick, just for a bit of paper, even one sent by the queen. Wait a bit."
"I will wait as long as it takes. But tell Hugh Fraser the sense in making the bond as you see it."
Magnus laughed, short and mirthless. A breeze gently swayed his golden braids, and he shaded his eyes with a flat hand, peering into the distance. "Elspeth's half-brother may wish to comment on where her signature goes."
"Half-brother?" Duncan frowned, puzzled. "Are you not all cousins? Which of you is her brother?"
"We are cousins here at Glenran, fostered together. Elspeth has a half-brother, though no Fraser is he. Now and again he comes for a visit. Look." He gestured toward the slopes that lay beyond Glenran. "Just there he rides, see, with his gillies running alongside. They will reach the castle sooner than we would, even if we left now."
Looking across the moor, Duncan noticed the group that he had seen earlier, the single rider with several running boys, so tiny against the rough, rocky contours of the hills that they looked like fleas crawling over the gloved knuckles of a giant.
"Well then," Magnus pronounced with a sigh, shouldering his golf club, "Hugh will be wanting a rescue from Robert Gordon."
"Her half-brother is a Gordon?" Duncan asked quickly.
"He is. And the Gordons are not in favor with the crown just now, we have heard."
Duncan huffed. "They are in deep disgrace. Their chief's heir has been stripped of his title. I am guessing you will have heard the story of George Gordon's trial for treason."
Magnus nodded. "Grim indeed. The Council sent you as the royal lieutenant in place of the Gordons, then."
"They did." Duncan glanced again at the party of men approaching in the distance. "How is it that Elspeth has a Gordon for a brother?"
"Elspeth's father, Simon, married a Gordon's widow, who had a young son. Simon Fraser died at Blar-na-Léine, that tragic battle—and his wife passed months later, after Elspeth's birth. Robert was but five or six years old then."
"He was not raised by Frasers?"
Magnus shook his head. "Robert went with his Gordon kin. But Lachlann Fraser, who fostered us all, was Elspeth's uncle, and raised her as if she were his own daughter." He fixed his serious blue gaze on Duncan. "Many of us young ones were taken in at Glenran. Fostering is a common thing—kin often raises kin in the Highlands—but Lachlann and his wife took as many as they could, mostly babes whose paren
ts had died. They had but one son of their own, Callum."
"How many children fostered at Glenran?"
"Fifteen and more. I was four when I was brought here. Elspeth and Kenneth came later, orphaned newborns. Then Lachlann took in Ewan and some others you have not met—David and Andrew, Tomas and James and Iain, Diarmid, Domhnall—all babes and young children."
Duncan blinked in amazement. Lachlann Fraser's generosity toward tiny children, years ago, was admirable, and demonstrated the love and pride of this clan. "So many orphans, then, after the battle?"
"Too many. And there were many Fraser widows, too, mothers struggling to care for their children without a man in the household to hunt and herd. Other families took in fosterlings too, throughout Fraser lands."
"More than fifteen babes," Duncan said. "I had four brothers and two sisters—and our home was loud enough."
"Loud hardly describes Glenran when we were small," Magnus said, chuckling. "Lachlann's wife needed help, so Flora MacKimmie came to live with us—Lachlann's sister. She brought her daughters, a determined pack of nursemaids for us all. And so we all grew together."
Magnus placed his featherie ball on a little stone. Then he aimed and swung his club. Watching the ball's flight, he turned to Duncan when it landed.
"Lachlann was one of only five Frasers who survived Blar-na-Léine. He did what he could for us, and taught us to read and write. But he taught us, above all, to have loyalty and pride in our clan. Our fathers died on the shores of Loch Lochy at the hands of the MacDonalds. Remember that, Macrae, when you ask for our promise to stop this feud."
"I understand more than you think, Magnus. My father and two of my brothers died at the hands of the MacDonalds."
Magnus lifted a brow. "Why would you, of all men, want us to end our feud with them?"
"The crown sent me to do this task, regardless of my own feelings," he said flatly. They walked on. Looking again toward the rider and runners in distance, Duncan gestured toward them. "I know this Robert Gordon, I think."
"He is laird of Blackrigg, well south of here."
"Ah. Robert Gordon of Blackrigg was at the inns of court in Edinburgh when I studied law there. We interned together. The fellow kept much to himself. He lacked a sense of humor, too, as I recall."
"That would be Robert."
"Even with the Gordons in disfavor," Duncan said, "I am surprised that the Council did not send Robert with this bond of caution. He is Elspeth's brother and a lawyer, after all."
Magnus laughed. "Robert, deliver a letter of caution to the Frasers? The man would not pledge himself for us, or for anyone." He balanced his club to swing. Duncan stood back again as Magnus tapped the featherie into a turf-hole, then scooped it up and waved to Kenneth and Callum.
"Robert Gordon rides to Glenran," Magnus called, walking toward them.
Duncan did not miss the grim glance that was shared between the Fraser cousins. He looked toward the party in the distance, now skirting the little lochan. Soon they would enter the gates of Glenran, its walls rising smooth and solid beside the water.
"A few shots more, then," Kenneth said.
"Robert will be annoyed if we do not greet him there," Magnus said affably.
"Good," Kenneth said, and stood back to let Callum take the next shot.
"Excellent," Callum grunted, and swung.
Silent, Duncan stood back, puzzled, intrigued.
* * *
"They are waiting for you, Duncan Macrae," Flora said, "up on the roof."
"The roof?" Duncan asked. Setting his beaker of ale down on the table in the great hall, he glanced at his golf partners, lately returned from the moor. Thirsty from the long game, they shrugged in unconcerned response as they drank their ale. Crossing the hall toward Flora, who stood in the doorway, Duncan asked again. "On the roof, you say?"
Flora nodded her heavily jowled face, and pointed upward with a long, knotty finger. "The MacShimi did say, when the long-robe returns, send that one to the roof." She directed her finger toward the stairs, and Duncan nodded.
He quickly mounted the spiral steps, which curved around a central pillar, his boots scuffing on the worn stone. Afternoon sun slanted through the arrowslits cut into the outer wall.
Climbing to the uppermost level, he reached a small landing lit by one arrowslit opening. A rough-hewn wooden door led outside to the roof and parapet wall. He heard voices beyond the door, raised in argument.
Through the tiny window, motes spun along a slender shaft of daylight. He stepped toward the door and reached out to grasp the iron latch. He heard an angry curse, uttered in Elspeth's clear, light voice.
Those pure silvery tones, in other circumstances, might have reminded him of an angel. At this moment, he thought only of an avenging angel. His hand tightened around the handle.
Pushed from the other side, the door burst open. As the heavy oak planking slammed into the bridge of his nose, his vision went momentarily dark, then red and gold before the first flash of shocking pain began to clear.
"Dhia!" he exploded, and pressed his hand to his nose to subdue the pain with pressure. He took his palm away, saw no blood, and touched his face gingerly. His nose throbbed beneath the cover of his hand.
Elspeth had stopped short in the doorway and was looking up at him in evident surprise. Behind her, sunlight made a golden halo of her hair. She stepped into the small landing and slammed the door closed behind her with a resounding, apparently satisfying crash. The iron latch rattled and fell still.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, glaring up at him.
"Holding my nose," he answered in muffled irritation. Massaging the bridge of his nose with two fingers, he frowned at her over the rim of his hand.
Ignoring his intent stare, she stepped sideways, passing through the shaft of light that beamed across the landing. For an instant as he watched, she seemed to glow, her hair turning to delicate copper, her smooth brow and cheek to creamy gold. When she looked back at him, her eyes caught the light. Their hue was extraordinary, like transparent silver, or sunlit water.
Despite the pain he nursed, Duncan had thought of angels when he had heard the sweet, light air of her voice; now he thought of fairy beings. The girl was sylvan and delicate, with an unearthly purity beneath the tartan plaid, the linen shirt, and the tousled, thick plait of hair.
"I did not know you were there," she said in a clipped tone that offered scant apology. "You will have a bruise for your trouble, I think. Is it listening you are doing, here at the door? Do you seek information for the queen's council? Ask my half-brother, then. He lives in the same pocket that keeps you!"
The gossamer moment vanished. Stepping forward, Duncan shot out an arm to block her way at the head of the curving steps. Leaning his weight into his hand, palm flat against the stone wall, he looked down at her.
"I am no spy, Elspeth Fraser," he snapped.
She looked up at him, her breath heaving in her throat. "Are you not?" she asked. "What is a spy, but a man who lingers at doors and follows others through the dark of night."
Narrowing his eyes at the insult, he lanced her with an angry look. She skipped her eyes away. Leaning on his extended hand, he stood a head taller than Elspeth. He felt as if he caged her in that small space. Another step, the slightest movement of his other arm, and he could trap her against the wall. He considered it briefly, for she had a bitter edge to her tongue. And his nose throbbed. He thought he deserved some apology.
Even in the midst of anger and pain, he was aware of the indefinable pull that he felt each time he saw her, as if a whirlpool swept him along its outer edge. He wondered if she felt it too. But when he looked at her again, he saw only a cool spark of anger in her eyes. His own temper began to flare.
"If I had not followed you through the dark of night on your raid," he said, lowering his voice to a growl, "—and believe me, you Fraser cousins were easy enough to follow with the noise you made—all of you might have been beset by angry MacDonalds. And y
ou, my girl, would have been swallowed whole by the peat bog."
She lifted her chin. "What does a lawyer know of rounding up cattle? We were fine, needing no help. And I would have pulled myself and the lamb out of that bog in quick time."
"Ah, well, then, my apologies. And your apology to me—?" He rubbed meaningfully at his nose.
"I am sorry that I did not know you were spying behind the door," she snapped.
Duncan rolled his eyes. "Graciously said."
Elspeth scowled. He studied with interest the delicate wrinkle between her slender brows. "Go on, then," she said, gesturing toward the door. "They wait for you. The MacShimi, my cousin Ewan, and my half-brother Robert Gordon."
"On the parapet? Do they expect an attack?"
"They do not. Hugh often holds meetings on the roof. He enjoys it there." She frowned up at him. "Go, then. You and my half-brother have much in common, I think."
"And what," he said between his teeth, "might that be?"
"Robert has come here to demand that I marry with Ruari MacDonald within the month. An order you would approve."
"Ah. And so you gave him the same forthright answer that you gave us in the hall the first evening I was here."
"I did." She looked up at him defiantly.
He lifted an eyebrow. "Do you always answer any mention of marriage with the help of stout doors?"
"Robert has no right to demand this of me. The MacShimi, as chief of the Frasers, is my guardian. My father is dead, and Robert is not a Fraser."
"Then whatever the MacShimi decides for you, that you must do. Where is the difficulty? He and Robert both want you to wed this MacDonald. Some of your cousins do as well."
"And the queen's lieutenant approves." She scowled again.
Duncan shrugged. But an odd twist swirled in his gut. Suddenly he no longer approved of this marriage arrangement. Before he could follow his own contrary thought to discover why, Elspeth had stamped her foot in blatant anger.
"None can make me wed this man!" she burst out.
