Highland Awakening

by Kathryn Lynn Davis

  Magnus closed his eyes in an expression of long-suffering patience and pushed back all the things that rushed to his tongue in a desperate need to be spoken. “What is it, Graeme? I’ve told ye to leave me in peace down here.” Surreptitiously he glanced at the velvet curtain and was relieved to see it was completely closed.

  “We’re waiting for ye at breakfast. Ye’d best hurry.”

  Pointing up at the window, Magnus grumbled, “Tis no’ yet dawn.” He was immediately suspicious. “Why would ye do that?” Despite his doubts, he hurried his brother out of the room and down the stairs toward where the dining room of Lewis Castle had been more or less restored.

  “Da just wants the family to eat all together.” Graeme rushed the words, pushing them together.

  “In the middle of the night?” He knew better, but something in Graeme’s demeanor set his teeth on edge. Muscles tense, Magnus stepped in front, blocking his brother’s way. “Why?”

  Graeme, both taller and broader than his older brother, seemed to shrink where he stood. “How would I know? He doesn’t tell me his plans—just gives me orders.”

  Shaking his head in distrust, the laird turned and continued down the narrow, chipped stone stairs. He had suggested they abandon the castle for the ruin it was and build a manor house instead, but both brothers and his father had stood against him. Tis just no’ practical, he’d explained. It costs far too much and we’re no’ a wealthy clan. He had argued for days and weeks and months, but they had won in the end.

  He knew from the way Graeme was acting that they wanted something else today; they always ate breakfast without him. And most other meals as well. Preparing himself as if for war, he stepped over the last threshold and into the dining room.

  ~ * ~

  “Magnus, lad, tis good to see ye this fine morning,” his father, Diarmid MacLeod greeted his oldest son with gusto, though he usually could not be bothered to rouse himself when Magnus entered the room. The old laird had been a soldier in the Black Watch, where he’d received a wound in his leg that had festered while he was on campaign. It had not been treated properly, though Magnus, who was a healer, kept from pointing out with great difficulty when his father waxed on about the loyalty and splendor and unimpeachable perfection of everything about his former regiment, including the doctors.

  “Tis drizzling, Da,” his third son, Hugh reminded him. “Again.” He watched a drop of water as it dripped from the arched ceiling, but did nothing to stop it from landing in the platter of trout.

  “You’re looking well this morning, Da. What gets ye out of bed so very long before dawn?” Magnus repeated his distaste for the early hour, perplexed. For years his father had been retreating: from society, from the outdoors, and from his duties. He had managed with his gamey leg until his wife died six years earlier, when he resigned his lairdship and turned it over to Magnus. His once handsome face was pale and wrinkled, his hair white and usually stringy. His shoulders slumped the more he disappeared into his study by the sea, where he charted the seabirds with strict attention. Until a few months ago he had stopped doing even that. He had once been a very different man: intelligent, forward thinking, affectionate, who had worked at bringing the MacLeods into the new and strange world Scotland had become. Magnus had admired that man and been been proud to follow him. But that man had given up when he lost his wife, and now he was slipping backward.

  However, this morning Diarmid was standing straighter; his hair had been carefully combed; he wore a snowy white linen shirt and satin breeches, all of which perplexed Magnus mightily, though he was delighted by the change.

  His brothers Hugh and Graeme stood on either side of their father, both brown-haired, Graeme more or less handsome, and Hugh rugged-looking. They were both taller than Magnus, soldiers, whose muscular bodies filled out a uniform nicely, as his young cousin Mairi had once told him.

  The three of them, arrayed across the table from him as they were, did not frighten him, though he did not have their physical might. Instead he had the tiniest impulse to laugh, but he kept it in check. “Yes?” he said politely, inclining his head ever so slightly.

  “Now see here!” His father leaned over, pounding the table with his clenched fist. He winced visibly, which detracted from the drama somewhat. “We’re tired of waiting for you to do what you aught! The MacDonnell wench has humiliated you publically, and therefore all of Clan MacLeod. Tis no’ to be borne, do ye hear! Ye must take the role of laird and behave accordingly, or I’ll…” He sagged a bit and began to cough. “I swear I’ll—” He slumped down to the chair suddenly, coughing and choking, holding his throat and gasping.

  Magnus leapt over three chairs and reached the sideboard in seconds. He retrieved a bottle of pale purplish liquid and a spoon on his way back across the chairs. Deciding over the table was the quickest way to advance, he put one foot on a chair and lifted himself over, landing quietly beside his father.

  “Da,” he said gently, “listen to me. Let me help ye sit up straight.” The man still had incredible strength for as sunken and defeated as he looked some days. It took everything Magnus had to get him to stop wrenching his body back and forth without hurting himself. “That’s it. No, I’m here, ye won’t fall. Now try to breathe in and out while I get ye a spoonful of my special tisane.”

  The coughing slowed somewhat but it still sounded hollow and raw. While his brothers stared blankly, Magnus managed to get the tisane down Diarmid’s throat.

  “Now lean back and relax, Da. No, ye won’t fall. I’ve got ye. You’re all right now. Does your throat feel better?”

  The sound of his musical voice did much to calm troubled waters. Until Hugh pushed ahead of Graeme. “We’ve decided, the three of us, that ye must go take the men and lead them on a raid straight to The MacDonnells of Glengarry’s front door. Make him hurt for what he’s done to us. Make him force his daughter to honor the betrothal.”

  “Else there’ll be war between the two clans,” Graeme finished for him.

  Magnus gaped at them, waiting for them to laugh at the joke, but they did not. He was silent for the longest time while their ‘suggestions’ clattered around in his head. “Ye don’t start a war over a broken betrothal anymore,” he pointed out at last. Though he had yearned for Julia a short time past, the thought of attacking the MacDonnell stronghold, and then having her father drag her back here, forcing her to marry Magnus—it made him feel slightly bilious. He simply did not want a woman who did not want him, and if his knot-headed brothers couldn’t see that…

  “Our pride is at stake!” Graeme bellowed far too loudly. “You’re making us look a cesspool of fools.”

  Cesspool of fools, Magnus thought. Precisely.

  “Tell him what you’re going to do if he doesn’t restore our pride!” Hugh poked his father in the shoulder. “Tell him!”

  Diarmid MacLeod looked up at the son who had leapt to his aid when he began to cough, at the son who had kept him from curling in upon himself, which would have made him choke to death, no doubt. The son who, even now, was holding him upright, just to be sure.

  “Tell him what you’ll do with the title of laird,” Graeme insisted.

  “I’ll take it away,” their da croaked through an irritated throat, “and give it to Graeme if ye don’t give a care for our honor, Magnus, for it doesn’t seem to me that ye do.

  Chapter Three

  Glen Affric

  The first time she dreamed, Esmé felt only joy and jubilation slipping through her blood, almost—but not quite—singing. The rhythm of rejoicing filled her in a way she’d never felt before, as if she were discovering something altogether new and irresistible. The rhythm became a soft echo of drums in the distance, calling her, as did the grass and flowers, which grew so vibrant and intense they lifted her from the ferny bed in which she lay.

  But no, that wasn’t right. She was in her own bed at home, where the leaves did not burst like stars, so full of happiness were they. The drums and a harp and, quietly,
quietly, the flitter, flirt of a reed whistle calling. The colors were so pure, the music so alluring that the blossoms kissed her hands and the notes raised chills along her arms.

  She was lost to all that was familiar, all that was comfortable, and yet she had never felt safer—or more passionate. And then she heard the thin thread of a voice rise from the harp strings, and all at once it was inside her, and the song was her song, and the beauty her beauty. She longed to stretch out in the small pool under the shady oaks, to bury her feet in the soft, silken silt, and let her long blonde hair flow out behind her. Without a word, the voice inside her told her she could not reach so far. Not yet.

  Whose voice was it? Who was whispering to her? She tried to reach out, just a little, because she had been her own prisoner for so long, but found her body curled in on itself, as it did when she was lonely or afraid. Or when she thought of Ewan. Except now she was enveloped in a veil so fine, so gauzy it might shatter with a breath, yet she knew it was her shield, her armor. And she felt at ease, at peace, as if the whole of the world that daily threatened her, had turned into this place flowing with life and color and song. It was a celebration, and even her doubts could not dim her joy, because it was not of her mind, but of her senses. She reveled in those senses, light as a soap bubble, floating on air.

  And when the music faded into the faint echo of harp strings and a distant recorder in the quivering grasses touched by the rising sun, she tried to open her eyes, but it was too difficult. She blinked and blinked again, trying to dissolve the veil that left everything blurred and indistinct, as if it were the first time she had ever opened her eyes and tried to see. When at last the veil fell away, everything glimmered and shone with new, vivid intensity. Esmé gave a little gasp and leaned forward on her mattress, entranced by the vibrant hues. The song came back to her as she crouched, smiling: a reed whistle and hand harp mingling in a soft, seductive tune. For an instant the dream was alive again.

  She felt a disconcerting warmth in the pocket of her night rail. Carefully she removed what lay inside, closing her fist tightly around it. Gradually, lips parted in anticipation, she opened her fingers one-by-one to reveal the gold medallion in her palm. She had found it years ago while planting herbs in her special garden, and she knew it was very old. She’d looked among her grandfather’s books in the crowded library at the Hill of the Hounds, discovered the pattern had come from the time before the Romans. She treasured it above all things and was amazed that the dream had affected it so. It glowed, warm and beautiful in her palm. She pressed it to her cheek and the warmth passed through her body like the steady burn of a firefly in her blood. Smiling, she slipped it back into her pocket. Somehow The Voice had touched her deeply, in a way she would never forget.

  ~ * ~

  Dressing quickly in trews made of the red Rose plaid and the plain muslin shirt she always wore when she worked in her garden, Esmé hurried downstairs. She had ruined more than one dress when she was younger, until her Grandmother, Caelia Rose MacGregor, began to make her these boy’s clothes, so she would not drag more dresses in the loam. Esmé was clever with a needle, and was soon making her own clothes, and her sister’s, much to Caelia’s relief. The girl was happy that her grandmother now had time to get back to her painting with pastels. There was some MacGregor plaid around the house, but mostly it was the Rose.

  “Why, Grandda?” Esmé asked Rory MacGregor once.

  Brow furrowed over his hazel eyes, he thought for a moment. “Tis because my family was lost to me long ago, and the Roses took me in and made me one of their own.”

  “But how were they lost to ye?” she persisted, as only a young child will.

  “Tis a long, complicated story, lass, and I’ll tell ye one day when you’re older.”

  Nodding solemnly, Esmé jumped down from his lap, stopping for a moment to say, “I’m glad ye came to us, Grandda.” She scampered away before he could reply.

  Now, on the morning of the dream, with its magic lingering about her shoulders, Esmé crept downstairs and along the hall to the door just beside the kitchen. As always, she paused with her hand on the doorknob, heart racing. Her palms grew damp with sweat as she slid back the bolt and tried to turn the knob. It slipped through her hands once, twice. She dried her palms on her trews and made one more attempt; this time it turned and she pulled the door open slowly, until she stood with both feet on the threshold. Swallowing dryly, she looked around at the cozy garden full of herbs and late winter flowers and crates for injured animals, sniffing the scent of pines that wafted over the tall stone walls. As always, she had to remind herself of the beauty in this place, the safety, before she could take a single step outside. Tis your haven, Esmé, don’t be an eejit.

  With that she moved into the garden, closing the door behind her so she could not turn back. Other than to work in this private little garden, she not set foot outside the house at Hill of the Hounds since she was nine and the tragedy happened. Bad things happen when I go outside, she told her family when they asked her why. She had hated feeling the bear’s pain, the agony she’d caused her father; she’d hated her ignorance about Ewan. She should have looked for him as soon as they got home. And oh, how her father and his only son had suffered. Ewan had been horribly ill for several weeks, and then he died. My fault. All mine! She would never take that risk again.

  Brushing the dark thoughts aside, she went to her menagerie and took a jack-rabbit out that had injured its foot. She calmed it by looking it straight in the eye and humming a tune. Slowly, it relaxed, lay its head between its front paws and closed its eyes.

  Esmé continued to hum an ancient tune, gift of the Old Ones, as she clipped off the bandage and examined the stitches on the back paw. The wound was healing nicely, and she could feel there was no poison flowing through the rabbit’s blood. Its heartbeat was steady and pure, its pulse untainted by infection. She lay her cheek against its flank and smiled. Deftly, before it woke from its daze, she snipped the stitches with her embroidery scissors, put on one more application of garlic and set the animal down.

  She could have sworn by the Tuatha de Dannan—the ancient Celtic Gods—that the animal smiled at her. So she smiled back.

  Most lowlanders worshipped the new and were slowly forgetting the old, as were the Highlanders, who had once held fast to the legends and traditions of the past, believing, as Esmé and Caelia and Rory did, that these thing were the heart and soul of Scotland—what made it great and rooted so deeply in the soul.

  Esmé looked around at her garden of starflowers and daisies struggling through the chilly soil, though it was nearly June. The winter simply would not let go. Still, the branches of rose bushes spread and tangled their way up the uneven stone walls with tiny pink and red buds that fell off the vine before they bloomed. Moss and ferns grew along both sides of the tiny burn her grandfather Rory had dug for her, then guided the large burn outside to split off and supply her garden with peat-brown water running over stones. In spite of herself, Breda the brat came out, crouching for hours beside the stream, placing rocks of various sizes to create a pond and a tiny waterfall, a burn that rippled over smooth, round stones.

  This small walled garden was the only place where Esmé ventured to visit the outdoors, because she was safe here; here she had control, though she never forgot her fear and guilt. They all had lost so much that night. That’s why she had studied with Eachan, the healer who had saved her father, learning all she could about herbs and poultices and teas. She never wanted to feel so helpless a second time.

  “Ye have that look on your face again,” her father said, coming up behind her.

  Startled but not distressed, she crossed her legs and sat on the ground that she kept soft, by turning it over and over, despite the chilly weather. Outside her enclosure there was snow and frigid wind, but not inside. She and Connall Fraser had made sure of that. “Ye shouldn’t creep up on me, Da. Ye know how fragile I am.” For once, her tone was light-hearted.

  “Oh, ay
e?” Connall shook his head, though she was fragile in some ways; in others, she was incredibly strong. He wished, as he had so often, that he understood her better. “I’ll try to stomp louder from now on.” He pointed to the rabbit. “Have ye been doing your healing again?” He barely kept himself from emphasizing ‘healing’ with a tiny bit of sarcasm. Her healing frightened him sometimes, so he often responded with skepticism or anger.

  “Aye, he’s free of infection; I felt it.”

  Connall Fraser stiffened as anger flashed, stifling the fear. “Ye can hear things in the beat of his heart, no doubt, but I doubt ye can ‘feel’ what he feels. Tis just no’ the same, Esmé, lass.”

  Sighing, she put the rabbit in the clever cage her father had built, which gave him air and light and even grass, but kept him safe from the other animals. “I forgot we can no’ discuss such things, Da. We agreed, did we no’? Ye believe what gives ye comfort and I’ll do the same.” Her hazel eyes, more silver than grey, begged him to leave it at that.

  “So we did, and so we shall.” He glanced around at the tall walls he had built for her, with occasional windows to let in more light. They had worked together on designing the cages, with Grandfather Rory suggesting a few clever touches. Grandmother Caelia had helped the girl lay out and plant the herbs she needed for her healing, and even the reluctant Breda had helped—in her own way.

  Connall felt he owed this sanctuary to his daughter, because of the guilt she carried on her slender shoulders. He would rather have removed that guilt entirely, but he did not begin to know how. So he did what he could for Esmé, his multi-talented, sensitive daughter. She made him ache sometimes, such as now, simply by smiling.

  “Thank ye, Da.”

  He was not certain to what she was referring, but her gratitude warmed his heart regardless. “I came out to tell ye your grandmother is bringing ye some food, since ye missed breakfast with us. Are ye well, my lassie?”