Warrior's Bride

by Gerri Russell

  The charge of treason hung in the air of the great hall when the door burst open, the heavy wood crashing against the stone wall behind it. The flame of the torches bent and flickered as the wind from outside wafted through the chamber. In the doorway, silhouetted against the red and orange fingers of sunset, mounted upon the largest stallion in the castle's stable, was Isobel.

  Yet it wasn't Isobel. At least not the woman Wolf had left in the bedchamber only a short time earlier. This Isobel had fire in her eyes as she rode the horse into the chamber. The clatter of hooves on the stone flooring brought all the noise in the room to a hushed silence.

  Isobel's chin came up as she drew near, dressed in chain mail from head to toe, topped by a surcoat, leather cross-garters over boots, and leather gloves. Golden locks spilled from beneath her coif and across her shoulders, softening her otherwise fearsome features. She appeared every inch the warrior's bride.

  Mighty, dangerous, magnificent. At the sight of her, a curious warmth centered in Wolf’s chest.

  The soft hum of whispered conversation hovered in the room. Light from the setting sun streamed through the high, rectangular windows overhead and caressed her features, limning her cheeks with yellow-gold light and tipping her lashes in gold.

  "What is the meaning of this?" the king roared with disbelief, bringing the room to silence.

  "Isobel?" Wolf stared at her as she sat atop the beast, almost not believing the vision before him.

  "Isobel? So your bride managed to survive. She must be clever." The king's tone softened. "Explain yourself, girl."

  Isobel and the beast moved forward as one. "I was asked by the lord of the castle to oversee his people. I am doing just that." Her bearing was strong and proud, yet her voice held a strange intensity. Uncertainty?

  The scrape of metal against leather sounded as she drew her sword from the scabbard at her side. She clutched the weapon with as firm a death grip as he'd ever seen in the course of battle.

  At the sight of her sword, the king's brows pulled down. "What is it that you want'"

  She brought the horse to a stop before the king and dismounted. "I have come to bargain. Since you intend to relieve me of my first husband, I demand you replace him with a second."

  An unexpected tightness seized Wolf’s chest

  "Put the sword away and we might discuss the matter," the king suggested.

  "Unbind Wolf’s hands and I shall consider it." Her tone was firm.

  The king nodded, and the guard slashed the bindings at Wolf’s wrists.

  Isobel sheathed her sword.

  The king's bearing relaxed. "Who exactly did you have in mind as this replacement? Or am I to choose for you once again?"

  She strode forward with a slight swagger to her step. A warrior's stride. "Oh, I have someone in mind, Your Grace."

  That brought a frown to Wolf’s face. "Who?" he asked before he could hold the question back.

  She did not look at him, only the king. "I choose Douglas Moraer ... Black as my spouse."

  "Such a man does not exist" The king looked dubious.

  "He does if you create him," Isobel challenged. "You want retribution for Wolf’s treason? Very well. Destroy the man who disobeyed you, then give him life once more. As a father, can you do anything less?"

  The king blinked, then laughed. "You're a clever girl."

  Her gaze strayed to Wolf’s then, and he saw all the love, all the bravery, all the fear of her actions that lay just beneath the surface of her facade. And he loved her all the more.

  "What you ask is impossible," the king replied. "One woman's wishes cannot change the laws of a country."

  She brought her shoulders back, her gaze spanning the other occupants in the room. "It is not only my wishes that you should consider here. There are others who will stand behind this man."

  Brahan stepped up to stand beside Isobel. "I would."

  Walter came forward as well. "As would I."

  A paralysis seized Wolf’s limbs as he watched his people step forward, one by one, each placing themselves at risk by vowing their support. Their collective voices echoed through the room, falling away until there was only silence.

  "You are the king." Isobel's mouth took on a faint, wry curve. "You make the law. You also have the power to override it. All these people are your subjects. You have the power to make them beholden to you, or turn them against you. The decision is yours."

  The king narrowed his gaze on her, yet not in anger. Respect and gratitude reflected in his father's eyes. "Nay, the decision is no longer mine, milady. You have seen to that."

  He turned to Wolf. "Kneel," he said, without the harshness that usually followed his instructions to his son.

  Wolf’s chest ached, not at his father's actions, but at the show of affection by his people. Regardless of his past, they respected him, cared for him, were willing to fight for his life. A surge of emotion welled inside him, robbing him of speech as he knelt upon the floor.

  The king reached for Isobel's sword, drawing it from the scabbard in a single, swift stroke. He placed the flat of the blade against Wolf’s shoulder. "I declare before this assembly that Douglas Moraer Stewart, the man also known as the Black Wolf of Scotland, exists no more. From this moment forth, you shall be known as Douglas Black, guardian of the Seer's Stone." The king lifted the sword from his shoulder and handed it back to Isobel. "Guard him well, milady. And love him as he deserves to be loved."

  "With pleasure, Your Grace." Tears shimmered in her eyes, and one of them raced unheeded down her smooth cheek. "With pleasure."

  Wolf swallowed back the emotion that pulled at his throat and met his father's gaze. Unable to do anything more, he nodded. His father's head dipped with an air of regal authority before he turned and left the room.

  A touch on Wolf’s sleeve brought his gaze back to Isobel. "You are free of him, Douglas, just as I am free of my father."

  "Say that again," he said, his voice thick.

  "You are free—"

  "My name, say my name."

  "Douglas."

  He allowed himself a small smile. "On your lips it sounds right, but it will take some getting used to."

  "We have the rest of our lives to practice," she said, her voice as passionate as her gaze.

  He caught her hand. Her fingers twisted with his as she lowered herself to kneel beside him, her gaze level with his. "You fought for me, my warrior bride."

  She bit her lip, trying to hide a sudden wayward smile. "Not in a real battle."

  Her smile hit him like an errant ray of sunlight, warming his insides and bringing sensation back to his limbs. "In the battle for my life, for my freedom." He reached up and removed the chain mail coif from her head. "And for my heart."

  Her fingers found his again and slid between them. "I love you."

  The sweetness of her words warmed him, and he leaned close to brush the corner of her mouth with his lips. "Isobel," he whispered.

  She met his lips with a sudden greedy recklessness, both innocent and ardent. The silence of the hall shattered with a frenzy of applause and cheers.

  "I relinquish your lips for now, Lady Isobel," he whispered against her cheek. "But I promise a more thorough expression of my gratitude when we are once again alone." He stood, then drew her up beside him.

  She nestled against him, her gaze searching the smiling faces of their people. The merry and spirited strains of a rotundellas broke through the noise of the chamber, evoking another hearty round of cheers as everyone assembled for the round dance.

  Douglas grasped Isobel's hand and pulled her into the circle, but the others thought differently and thrust them into the center of the ring. Isobel held on to her husband's hands as he twirled her about. Laughter bubbled up in her throat, and she felt almost too breathless to release it.

  Isobel slowed her steps as the sun's setting rays burst through the windows overhead, bathing the chamber in hues of gold, crimson, and orange. The light through the windows illum
inated the castle just as the man before her illuminated her heart.

  "What are you thinking about?" Douglas asked as his hands cupped her cheeks and he tilted her face up to look into his eyes.

  "Glass and stones." Her mind was whirling as if she were still dancing just from the look of love in his eyes. "What did you do with the two halves of the Seer's Stone? You are now their guardian. How will you keep them safe?"

  "Curious that you should mention those two things— glass and stone—in the same sentence." He tipped up her head to the ceiling, to what must have been a thousand glass bulbs that hung suspended overhead. Each brilliantly colored bulb caught and scattered the light from the giant torches that hung from the walls, bathing the room in a profusion of prismatic light. "The best place to hide things is in plain view of everyone."

  Her gaze snapped back to his. Had he encased the stones in a sea of glass and added them to the rest of the decorations? "You didn't." "I did."

  "But will the stones still hold the same power, encased as they are in glass?" she whispered.

  "Who needs a Seer's Stone? If I want to know the future, all I have to do is look into your eyes." He smiled then, his expression far lighter than she'd ever seen it, free of the shadows of his past, free of obligations, free of duty, filled only with love and joy and anticipation of the future ahead.

  She smiled in return as the light of the colored globes highlighted his dark hair with its one streak of white. "The future looks very bright, indeed!"

  Afterword

  As is the case with much of fiction, a little fact and a little fantasy went in to creating Warrior's Bride.

  The original idea for the story emerged while researching Scottish tartans, when I read a story about a woman named Lady Grange. In 1725, Lady Grange was kidnapped by her husband, who wished to be rid of her, and his friend Lord Lovat, who wrongly assumed she knew too many political secrets about the Jacobites. They took her to the Isle of St. Kilda, where she was imprisoned for more than six years.

  Even though it was common knowledge that Lord Lovat, along with her husband, had engineered the kidnapping, no inquiry into the extraordinary circumstances was ever made, and long before any rescue attempt, she died of neglect and loneliness.

  Desiring justice, even through the pages of fiction, for Lady Grange, I gave her a daughter to see this through and to make the lonely days of isolation not seem so despairing.

  The destiny stone featured in this book was also a real stone that did not have a name. As legend has it, a seventeenth-century visionary named Cuinneach Odhar (Kenneth MacKenzie, from Uig on Skye), who was referred to as the Brahan seer, used a small white divination stone to foretell the future. The stone was passed on to him from his mother, who had acquired it from a Viking princess.

  With the pebble pressed against his eye, Cuinneach foretold everything from outbreaks of measles in the village to the building of the Caledonian Canal, the Clearances, and World War II. His visions brought him widespread fame, but it also resulted in his untimely death when the Countess of Seaforth summoned him after her husband was late from a trip to France. Reluctandy, he told the countess that he saw her husband in the arms of another woman. At this, she flew into a rage and ordered him to be thrown headfirst into a barrel of boiling tar.

  Before his execution, which took place near Brahan Castle on Chanonry Point, Cuinneach made his last prediction: When a deaf and dumb earl inherited the estate, the Seaforth line would end. His prediction finally came true in 1815 when the last earl, who was indeed a deaf mute, died.

  I chose to take the brutal end for this unfortunate seer and turn his fate around. I changed his name to Brahan MacGregor and gave him the gift of sight with the use of the Seer's Stone.

  One last historical note: Robert II, King of Scotland, sired twenty-four children with four different women, two of whom were his mistresses, two of whom were his wives. I chose to give him an additional child with his mistress Marion Cardney for the purposes of this story.

  That the Black Wolf of Scotland, Isobel, or Brahan never existed in history is a fact. It was my goal, within the pages of Warrior's Bride, to give these characters and the real people their creation issued from a chance to find a happy and more fulfilling end to their own personal stories.

  Discover Other Books by Gerri Russell

  Other books in The Stones of Destiny Series

  The Warrior Trainer

  Warrior’s Lady

  Brotherhood of the Scottish Templars Series

  To Tempt a Knight

  Seducing the Knight

  A Knight to Desire

  Border Lord’s Bride

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  Website: www.GerriRussell.net

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