Sue-Ellen Welfonder - [MacLean 03]

by Wedding for a Knight

  Chapter Five

  THE PLACE HELD MAGIC.

  Or so some believed.

  Magnus had ne’er been sure, but now, under a brooding sky and with the runic-carved stones of the Beldam’s Chair looming a dark, wet-gleaming gray before him, he could almost put faith in the ancient tales.

  Especially with the chill wind howling around his ears and masses of dense clouds swirling overhead. Aye, he would not be hard-pressed to believe the stories. Just looking at the great cairn of stones and its hoary relic sent a shiver sliding down his spine.

  The stone-heaped burial mound, a sepulchral memorial of the distant past, made a sight eerie enough to twist the guts of the most stout-hearted of men.

  If, unlike him, they allowed such stuff and nonsense to bother them.

  Even so, he adjusted his plaid more securely about his shoulders and let its familiar warmth comfort more than his physical body. Then he squelched the scowl threatening to darken his features.

  A wise man, even a somewhat doubting one, knew better than to frown in such a venerated place.

  Thus bolstered, he kneed his shaggy-maned garron past a series of peat bogs and small tarns, reining in near an outcrop of jagged, upthrusting boulders.

  Keening wind moaned about the rocks, its high-pitched wail lifting the tiny hairs on his nape, but the day was not yet come when he’d fall prey to the mind ravings of his da and start seeing otherworldly menace crouched behind every stane to dot the high moors.

  Ancient family curses and ghost galleys, indeed!

  Nay, he was more plagued by thoughts of connubial four-posters and large, sweet-puckered nipples a-winking at him from behind layers of thin, mist-dampened linen!

  His newest personal demons they were, and already nestled snugly amongst the army of other assorted torments and responsibilities encamped on his shoulders.

  He almost swore.

  Instead, he bit back the blasphemy, set his jaw, and stared hard at the concentric rings, arcs, and zigzags incised on every inch of the Beldam’s Chair. Ancient Celtic symbols, their original purpose and meaning forever lost to the mists of time.

  Only the chair’s reputation for lending succor remained.

  And since time was, the seannachies of Clan Fingon contended that anyone who sought ease in the throne-like chair could absorb the healing power and protection infused in the living rock from which the seat of stone was hewn.

  Set deep in the north-facing side of a burial cairn, clan tradition claimed the sacred chair once belonged to the half-mythic female healer thought to lie within the pile of carefully mounded stones.

  “That is your Beldam’s Chair?” Colin drew up at last, halting his garron beside a black-surfaced bog pool not far from the cairn. “The miracle-spending wonder chair? I’ faith, with all those runic carvings, it looks more like to damn than cure me.”

  “You shall see,” Magnus said with a shrug. “There are those in my clan who swear by its powers. And not just the graybeards from whom you’d expect such faith. The chair’s powers are renowned far and wide.”

  Colin looked anything but impressed.

  Indeed, he appeared decidedly unimpressed. “Each to his taste, I say.”

  Ignoring him, Magnus glanced up at the roiling heavens, a fierce tic working at his jaw despite his best efforts to hold fast to his composure. A losing battle he’d been waging ever since waking to hear his da’s frantic cries emerging from the latrine shaft earlier that morning.

  His brow dark as the day, he swung down from his saddle, dropping lightly to his feet. “Say of it what you will, my friend. For the nonce, you deserve no better.” He cast a sidelong glance at Colin—just to make certain the skirt-chasing knave hadn’t lost his footing upon dismounting onto the boggy, moss-slicked ground.

  But the cheeky varlet stood tall and steady, his dark gaze darting about, and Magnus didn’t know whether to be relieved or annoyed.

  Opting for annoyance, holy ground or nay, he jerked his attention from his fast-recuperating friend and stared out across the high, rolling moorland. Frowning openly now, he raked a hand through his hair and took in the vast expanse of heather, peat hags, and countless brown-watered lochans.

  A vista he loved with the whole of his heart and ne’er wearied of drinking in. Even on the darkest, most windswept of days. Mayhap especially then. The landscape, unchanged for centuries, stretched away in all directions and, of a certainty, looked wild and primal enough to encourage belief in all manner of far-fetched tales.

  Myth, legend, and high-hung hopes.

  Not that he’d e’er again give heed to his own.

  Colin started toward the cairn, his handsome face a mask of skepticism. “An unholy place you’ve brought me to, my friend. Without light and . . . yieee!” he cried out, slip-sliding on a patch of oily black peat mire.

  Sprinting forward, Magnus snatched one of the lout’s flailing arms, righting him before he could plunge headlong into the bog. Already, he’d sunk in above his ankles.

  “Have a care,” Magnus warned, helping the other to step clear of the mud. “It is said the ancient ones do not care for doubt.”

  More than full of himself despite the muck slapping loudly around his boots, Colin’s dark eyes danced with challenge. “And are you not in danger of being owl-blasted yourself for daring to tread their sanctum in such a cross-tempered mood?”

  “I am not cross-tempered.”

  “Then what are you, my friend? Jealous, perchance?” Colin arched a brow. “Mayhap because the Lady Amicia complimented my singing voice and the skill of my fingers? Plucking only lute strings, that is—never you worry.”

  Magnus pressed his lips together, unwilling to dignify such flummery with an answer.

  “Aye, I do believe that is it,” Colin asserted.

  Taking ever-longer strides, Magnus kept walking. Wordless, he skirted a thick-growing cluster of whins and broom bushes, and made for the cairn, leaving Colin to limp after him or stay where he would and spout his nonsense.

  “I would think you’d be grateful,” came Colin’s deep voice at his elbow, the persistent oaf clearly bent on making a nuisance of himself. “I’ve given you the perfect way to keep your bride and save your pride . . . or did that one wee glimpse at her feminine accoutrements not whet your appetite?”

  The reminder, even said in jest, stopped Magnus in his tracks.

  Lifting a hand, he rubbed the back of his neck and drew a long, deep breath of the cold, earthy-smelling air. Then, with careful deliberation, he rolled his shoulders, refusing to let them tighten in agitation.

  He would not be goaded.

  Not for whatever misguided reason Colin Grant seemed so determined to make an arse of himself.

  “There is naught amiss with my appetite, never you fear,” he declared, pushing the words past gritted teeth. “And be assured that my wife’s accoutrements, however delectable, are none of your concern.”

  “Ho! Your wife, you say?” Colin’s roguish smile flashed. His amused gaze not leaving Magnus, he lowered himself into the Beldam’s Chair. “It gladdens my heart to hear you call her thus. At least you admit you are well and duly wed to her, proxy marriage or no. Aye, there is hope for you yet, my sour-faced friend!”

  There was that word again.

  Hope.

  Magnus’s stomach clenched around the wretched term and all its empty implications. His hopes had been cast so soundly to the four winds, he doubted if even the e’er-quixotic Colin Grant could gather the remnants.

  Well aware he must look soured indeed, but unable to do aught about it, he fixed his most level gaze on his fool-grinning friend.

  “Aye, she is my wife,” he said, the words like cold ash on his tongue. “And though, for a surety, I was not looking for one, it appears as if that is what I’ve been handed . . . and with all sundry comforts. Thanks to you!”

  Colin’s lips twitched in a pitiful attempt to hide another smile. “And will you be keeping that vow you made me, MacKinnon?”


  “For good or ill, you ken I ne’er break my word,” Magnus jerked, nigh having to force himself to breathe. Saints, just giving voice to the admission jellied his knees.

  Would that any lass save Amicia MacLean would open wifely arms to him! Then he could have done with the task and mayhap even convince himself it had ne’er happened.

  Or transpired out of mere duty.

  Even pure base lust.

  But lying with Amicia would cost him far more than his seed, and once the deed was done, he’d be forever lost.

  “I am well-pleased to hear you will . . . er . . . stand to your vow,” Colin was saying. Truth be told, he looked supremely content.

  Disgustingly so.

  “And,” he droned on, settling back in the Beldam’s Chair, “I suspect you will thank me in earnest once you’ve pushed past your pride, for I would wager my sword the lass favors you greatly.”

  Magnus’s heart gave a quick bound at his friend’s words, but he only made a noncommittal grunt.

  The orchestrator of his doom brought steepled fingers to his chin. “Aye, I am quite certain of it. She is sore smitten with you, laddie.”

  “And if that were so, you honor your friendship to me by spiriting her into a dark window embrasure and using my own brother’s lute to serenade her with love songs?”

  “Ahhh, but you wound me.” Colin placed a hand over his heart. “I but wished to keep a certain flaxen-haired vixen from sinking her talons into the lass. That one favors you, too, I have seen. And more than is good. Her bright blue eyes talk quite loudly and she is none too pleased about your marriage.”

  “Of that I am aware, but her displeasure has no grounding.” Magnus glanced to the side, smoothed a hand down his chin. “Janet has trailed after me like a puppy since we were bairns. Nevertheless, she is sorely mistaken if she e’er understood my regard for her to be more than I would feel for a sister.”

  “You are a fool if you think she esteems herself as your sister.”

  “She is kin, man—my cousin.”

  “A not-too-near one, I am betting?” the long-nosed knave pursued, tracing a slow finger round and round one of the concentric circles carved on the chair arm.

  “Kin is kin.” Magnus let out a long sigh. The blackguard was pushing him over and beyond his patience. “Sakes, Colin, she is the one I spoke to you of months ago . . . the cousin I meant to dower with some of my tourney winnings.”

  Turning aside, he pressed his fingers against his temples. “Do you not see I have failed her, too? She is a bastard, see you? No man will have her without a notable dowry. And now—would that it were otherwise—it would seem I must hurt her heart as well as leaving her dowerless.”

  “I would take her. Dowered or no.”

  Magnus swung back around. “And her bastardy?”

  “Traitor, thief, advantage-taking sorner . . . those are the titles that carry shame, my friend.” Colin eyed him, his expression bitter earnest. “On my soul, if she would have me as I stand before you—my lands burned, my keep in ruin, and no family to welcome her to their hearth, then I am telling you I care little if she is a by-blow . . . and even less whose!”

  “And that she fancies herself . . . I mean, you care not that—”

  “That she thinks herself taken with you?” Colin finished for Magnus, his roguish smile beginning to spread across his face again. “Guidsakes, MacKinnon, think you I could not turn her head if I put my mind to it?”

  Magnus hesitated, his gaze on the dark, lowering clouds. Of late, there was scarce little he cared to put his faith in—even Colin Grant’s redoubtable skill at charming women.

  Whole legions of them the last time Magnus bothered to notice.

  “She but needs a bit of wooing,” Colin expounded, clearly warming to the notion. “She is a fine and high-spirited lass—a meet bride to walk beside me on a path that will prove anything but smooth.”

  “She is notable strong-willed,” Magnus argued, nudging a spongy clump of red-brown sphagnum moss with the toe of his boot. “Do not think I am not fond of her, but I would be honest with you. Her tongue—”

  “Devil take me, but I am betting her tongue could make the hardest man beg for mercy.” Colin released a low, appreciative whistle, slapped his good thigh. “I’ faith, the mere thought of such sweetness is a nigh unbearable incitement.”

  His jaw near hitting the squishy ground, Magnus stared at his friend. “Sakes, you have naught else on your mind? In these sore times?”

  “I would rather dwell on bliss-spending thoughts than otherwise.”

  Magnus suppressed a derisive snort.

  His own thoughts went to his friend’s empty coffers, the rubble and waste of his once-proud holding. The injured leg that, unless healed properly, would hamper him for life. Truth be told, the list of woes and misfortune plaguing them both could be recited until the morning broke.

  Magnus’s head began to ache.

  “I canna believe you would obsess yourself with wenching when your prospects are more bleak than mine,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “At least Coldstone Castle is yet standing—such as it is.”

  Colin’s good humor faded, but only for a moment. “The lass has a lusty touch, see you? It took all my strength not to run full-stretch when she was a-washing round my ballocks yester eve,” he confessed, having the decency to appear a wee bit abashed as the admission left his lips.

  “But never you mind her sweet-stroking fingers.” He leaned forward, looked directly into Magnus’s eyes. “Do you not ken what a boon having such a braw lass at my side would be for me—facing what I must?”

  Well-chastised, Magnus nodded. What else could he do? Already, he could feel the heat inching up his neck to tinge his cheeks.

  The inference behind Colin’s words could not have been more plain if he’d held a gazing glass before Magnus’s nose.

  Ten gazing glasses!

  Still, their plights could not be compared.

  His was . . . different.

  Colin took life too lightly, lacked Magnus’s deeper-sitting beliefs and values.

  His abiding sense of responsibility.

  Even so, the lout had made him feel every inch a stone-hearted buffoon. Magnus cleared his throat, ready to apologize—even if he knew himself in the right.

  “I did not mean—”

  “I ken what you meant,” Colin said, all smiles again. He waved a careless hand. “As for wenching, so long as my obsessing is but to lay claim to one bonnie piece, what can be the harm in it?”

  Magnus rubbed his throbbing forehead. Now he did feel the buffoon. “And here I’d been thinking—”

  “That I would use the shadowy confines of a window embrasure to coax a kiss from my best friend’s wife?” Colin made a wry face, but his tone conveyed he bore no ill feelings.

  And if Magnus yet harbored any doubts, Colin’s broad wink allayed them.

  “Discredit my honor if you must, but ’tis well you aught ken my taste in women,” he minded Magnus. “Have we not enjoyed enough shared evenings of, shall we say fair entertainment, for you to recall I have e’er looked to abscond into the heather with pale-haired maids?”

  “Och, to be sure, I remember well,” Magnus agreed. Indeed, the image of Colin with a veritable parade of Janet look-alikes on his arm tramped across his mind’s eye. “You e’er sought wee slips of lassies with corn-colored hair and huge blue eyes.”

  Colin nodded, looking pleased. “Aye, so I did—and still do, I vow! Just as you e’er looked to lose yourself in the arms of sultrier beauties with well-rounded curves.”

  “Your observation skills serve you well,” Magnus conceded.

  Looking down, he made a pretense of studying his knuckles rather than risk letting his astute friend glimpse the damning truth behind his fascination with raven-haired women.

  His pitiable penchant for painting another woman’s face on every dark-haired lass who’d e’er deigned to hitch her skirts for him.

  Amicia M
acLean’s face.

  The one he’d carried in his heart for more years than he cared to remember.

  Disaster and havoc.

  Nothing left but a few scattered stones . . . the dust of your bones.

  Tears, lamentations, even a falling upon your knees will not avail you.

  The malice-filled recitations came with the turn of the tide, the wind and the sea echoing each hate-filled cry and carrying their wrath from the bowels of Coldstone’s most secret heart to a place enfolded by a quiet too deep for human ears—a lone tidal islet too forsaken for even hermits and holy men to seek a foothold upon its jagged, black-glistening surface.

  The Isle of Doon’s accursed Lady Rock.

  A threshold to another world, and where things have no reckoning of time, though none would suspect the like—none save Doon’s own blessed gruagach.

  A benevolent female spirit, older than the ages, she whiled on the islet now, toying with the ropey strands of seaweed tangled in her unbound hair, her very presence making her an interloper in time. A trespasser in a world she’d walked often and in many guises, some of them human.

  A world that, at times, she’d held more dear than had been good for her.

  In recent years by earth reckoning, she’d thought she’d found peace at last, believed she’d addressed and attended the duties gathered during her last sojourn upon Doon’s fair shores.

  But certain tasks yet bound her, in particular the malevolence of a vengeful soul soiled by irrevocable darkness.

  So she returned again and again, braving the loneliness of her perch in the sea, and scarce noting the waves, breaking high and icy cold against the islet’s treacherous rocks.

  With an ache in her heart, but a purpose unbending, she endured the lashing wind and steady drizzle, her gaze ever fixed on the massive walls of Baldoon, mighty stronghold of the MacLeans and her last home in a world she’d not quite been ready to leave.

  In that short mortal existence, she’d been Iain MacLean’s first bride. Fated to perish at the hand of a greed-consumed kinsman for the good her passing would eventually bring the clans whose well-being she was destined to guard.

  And now, in her true form once more, she sheltered them from every dark wind and sought to keep them from harm for so long as they walked the earth.