“So ye will,” David reiterated, “or I’ll take Broc’s head.” He nodded once to affirm his position. “And then… I’ll take yours and send it to your brother on a targe.”
Behind her, she could hear Broc struggling against his captors, but the sounds were stifled nearly at once.
Disbelieving the turn of events, Lael cast the new laird of Keppenach a disbelieving glare. “You would wed a woman who would not have you?”
The Butcher’s face was a mask. For a long instant he did not answer, and then he did. “In truth, nay,” he said, surprising her. “But my lady, you do have a choice, do you not?”
King David’s expression turned even more self-satisfied, if that were possible. “So what will it be?” he pressed.
Behind her, Broc Ceannfhionn continued to protest. She could hear him attempting to rise and she turned to spy one of the guards bat him across the back to force him down again. That same man drew his sword and placed it to Broc’s neck. Another seized Broc by his golden locks and held him down.
Lael’s heart twisted. She took refuge in anger. The cords of her neck tightened. She couldn’t in good conscience say, “nay,” but she would see them regret this day.
“If I agree to wed him—“ she couldn’t even speak his epithet “—ye will set Broc free? Here and now?”
The king smiled thinly. “Not so easily done, my dear. First ye shall wed the new laird of Keppenach, get his babe… and then we will set Broc free. So what’ll it be?”
Wed the demon butcher, or see Broc die before her eyes—then join him too upon the executioner’s block. That was her choice.
Her entire life she’d trained to fight as men fought, to hold herself above the trappings of her sex… and this is what it came to after all?
She couldn’t look at him, refused to even look into that knowing gaze. “I’d as soon challenge him for my freedom,” she insisted. “If in fact he is your champion, let him choose a weapon and I will match him here and now.”
The hall erupted with laughter and Lael was at once disheartened. For all that she’d already matched these men blade to blade, they saw her as little more than chattel. In truth they were already English, and Scotia was naught but a name, for they had all forgotten from whence they came. Their ancestors were strong men and women—both valued for what they could bring to a clan. Her own folk would never forget, and her brother would never devalue her this way.
David’s smile faded. “Do you value Broc’s life so little?”
Anger suffused her. “What makes ye think I would lose? Perchance ye’d care to wager with your champion, not your mouth? Unbind my hands and hand me a sword and I will earn my freedom and Broc Ceannfhionn’s!” She cast a glance at the Butcher—a gauntlet tossed with her eyes. “Unless he be afraid?”
Silence fell—a silence so quick that Lael could at once detect the breathing of every man in the hall… save one.
The Butcher remained silent, unfazed.
David tapped his fingers upon the table whilst the hall remained silent, wondering how either would respond.
David cast a wary glance at the Butcher, but the Butcher’s eyes remained fixed upon Lael. After a moment, he said, “I will not draw my sword against a woman.” The mirth was now gone from his voice, and for that alone Lael felt a shred of victory.
She lifted her chin. “I have bested better men than ye,” she dared, and spied the fury that flashed through his eyes. To most he might appear calm, but she saw the muscles that coiled through his forearms and the fist he furled and then unfurled at his side.
“Aye? And how many have you killed?” he asked pointedly, his voice barely above a whisper though it seemed to echo throughout the hall. “How many men have you faced, eye to eye, and then shoved your sword into their hearts?”
If possible, the hall grew more silent yet, and even David ceased his tapping upon the table.
The answer, in truth, was very few, and none so purposeful as that. In fact, until the night MacLaren entered their vale, she had had little cause to spill any man’s blood, for her brother had always kept them safe.
But she could, and she had…
And yet, she did not miss the point he endeavored to make, even without speaking it: He, on the other hand, could not count the number he’d slain.
That was all he said, but it was enough of a threat upon its own.
The hall remained quiet and the Butcher’s fierce expression undermined his silence, for there was little that was complacent about the man and she sensed in that instant that whatever she freely gave he would take, and he would never, ever set her free.
David gave the guards behind her a beckon with his hand and they brought Broc Ceannfhionn to a bench beside the table where she could better see him, forcing him to lean over it. This time Broc did not struggle, Lael saw. She knew he would not. With a single word from her the man she’d come to respect would suffer no more at these men’s hands. He would die a martyr for his cause and jongleurs would sing of his courage and then hold him up as a symbol of Scotia’s fight for freedom.
But then he would leave a wife and bairns alone, with fields that would grow fallow without his strong hand. Any chance of him rising up with the rightful sword would be ended with one swift blow. As yet, David did not know about the king sword. But if Broc walked away… if he returned with men aplenty… he might still wrest away his rightful seat… precisely in that spot David mac Maíl Chaluim sat now.
“What will it be?” David persisted.
Yeah, or nay.
In truth, the choice was hers. “I need but say words?”
“And get a babe,” the king reminded her with a simpering nod.
More than aught, Lael wanted to slap it from his face. As for the man who would be her husband, she still could not even look at him—not now.
Truly they’d underestimated her; that much was clear. So aye, she would say their odious words… but then she had wiles to use and she would use them well and find a way to free both her and Broc as well.
This is not the end.
“Very well. I accept your terms, but under one condition. If this is to be my home and I, in truth, be Keppenach’s mistress, I will not be held imprisoned in a bower cell. I must have free rein.”
“You are in no position to demand conditions,” the king argued.
“Nevertheless,” Lael persisted, “these are my terms.”
Something about the look in his eyes told Lael that he had anticipated the turn of her thoughts and he would give no quarter. “Should I remind you that to refuse will mean I take both your heads here and now?”
Her brother had always said she was stubborn. “If you mean to take my freedom… you might as well kill me now.”
The king gave a portentous sigh. “Very well. ’Tis your head. Take them away,” he demanded. He waved them away.
“I accept her terms,” the Butcher’s said, his voice booming over that of the king’s.
David’s gaze snapped toward the Butcher, but the Butcher’s gaze never left Lael. “What say ye, Steorling?”
“I said, I accept these terms.” His grey eyes were stormy. “But she should ken that does she leave these walls, I will not hesitate to take her lover’s head.”
“He is not my lover.”
Jaime had already gleaned us much, but he needed to hear it from her own two lips. If there was one thing that would stop him from wedding her it was that he would take no man’s lover as his bride.
David had yet to speak, but the king would cede, he knew, for he’d offered David’s pride a salve—such as it was. The king no more wished to see Lael’s head detached from her body than Jaime did.
After an uncomfortable moment, David returned to tapping his fingers upon the table, clearly unsettled, but prepared to yield, for he was wise enough to realize that Jaime would never settle now that his decision was made. None of the king’s barons were pliant to a fault. Nor did David seek to make them so, for he was smart enough to under
stand that strength came with a price. That price for Scotland’s king was that his barons spoke their minds and followed their hearts. But it just so happened that Jaime held David in higher regard than he held himself.
Standing below the high table, Lael peered first from Jaime to David and then back again, clearly assessing them. When she spoke again, it was to Jaime, not to David, for she’d quickly determined that Jaime’s silence was not a point of weakness.
Smart girl.
“After the period of one year if our union does not beget a child I will also demand my freedom,” she dared.
“I believe the law provides for one year and one day,” he countered, before David could chance to respond.
“Very well. One year and one day.”
“So be it,” Jaime decreed. The treatise served him well enough. He didn’t intend to keep an unwilling bride. Nor did he intend to give her time to change her mind—as much for her own sake as for Broc Ceannfhionn’s.
He stepped down from the dais, beside the priest, ignoring the voice that insisted his motives were entirely selfish. “My lady?” he prompted with a smile, and he held his breath while she contemplated her reply.
Still she hesitated.
“One year,” he affirmed, and held out his hand again.
It seemed the breath of the world paused while she made up her mind… and then released in a rush once she reached for his hand.
Chapter Thirteen
David mac Maíl Chaluim departed Keppenach in a bit of a huff. He’d gotten what he wanted, though not precisely his terms.
Jaime and Lael spoke their vows quickly, with a handful of witnesses—including Broc Ceannfhionn—and then emerged into the courtyard so Jaime could present his wife to his newly won demesne. “The new mistress of Keppenach,” he declared, and held up her hand to show them all the hand-fasting ribbon.
Broc Ceannfhionn was marched out of the hall, still in chains, and ushered toward the gaols with nary a backward glance.
A half-hearted cheer rumbled through the forecourt.
Lael cast Jaime a bored glance, allowing him to display the ties that bound them for a moment longer, but then she dropped her hand, leaving it limp so Jaime was forced to support it. She turned her face away to watch Broc disappear around the corner.
They had not even said true words, nor had they cut themselves to meld their blood. It was naught more than a show—all of it.
“Smile,” Jaime bade her. “These are now your people too.”
She turned her lips quickly, but leaned to whisper into his ear, “Neither yours nor mine,” she contended without looking at him. “Ye’d do best to remember that.”
He clasped her hand tighter, capturing it at his side. “Lest ye forget, most of these men are mine,” he enlightened her. “And unlike MacLaren’s feckless lot, they answer only to me, even above the king.”
Jaime treated his men as brethren and knew they loved him well. Not one of them would tolerate treachery against him. He’d handpicked every last one and saw to their wellbeing much as though they were kin—and now they were as far as Jaime was concerned.
“We shall see,” she said evenly, and then widened her smile.
False though it might be, its brilliance competed with the noonday sun, and Jaime forgot himself for a moment. He caressed the back of her hand with his thumb, soft as velvet. She jerked her hand away, accomplishing little for they were still bound.
And that was the extent of their celebration. David gathered his small retinue and took his leave.
Keeping their wrists bound, simply to make a point, Jaime took his wife along to bid the king farewell, and with so little privacy, David declined to speak his mind. His lips thin with displeasure, he nevertheless wished them well.
“Remember my counsel,” he charged Jaime, and then with a sour face, he led his troupe out from Keppenach’s gates.
Jaime had no intention of underestimating his bride. Only after David was gone and the gates were once again shut did he remove the hand-fasting ribbons, and then he commanded Luc to remain by her side. “Dinna leave her for am instant,” he charged the disconcerted lad.
If looks alone could kill, Jaime was certain he would be skewered through. “Nay,” she refused, shaking her head. “Ye swore to give me free rein of Keppenach,” she reminded, as though Jaime could possibly forget.
“Aye, and ’tis free rein you’ll get, my lovely wife, though I never said you could go alone.”
She placed both hands upon her hips, looking magnificently flustered, and it was all Jaime could do to keep himself from lifting her up into his arms and bearing her to his bed that very instant.
Her color was high and he longed to undo those lustrous braids and feel her fine hair flow like silk against his bare flesh, but now he had other matters to attend, and God’s truth if he remained in her presence even one more instant, he would find himself ill-equipped to keep the vows he’d made, if only to himself. His wife she might be, but he would not force her to please him; that decision must be hers and hers alone. Without another word, he abandoned her to Luc’s capable hands.
Higher in the hills, the storm raged throughout the night and then through the morn, leaving the entire vale with more than two feet of glistening snow upon the ground, and then the hoary rain continued, until all chance of traversing the mountain pass was gone.
Aidan paced the hall of the crannóg, cursing Broc Ceannfhionn and even the MacKinnon laird for allowing his liegeman to challenge King David’s right to Keppenach. For more than two hundred and fifty years the fortress had been held by men who’d sworn fealty to Scotia’s crown, and only a few times during that history had it ever become their concern.
The dún Scoti, as they were hailed by outsiders, were all that remained of seven Pecht tribes. Their legacy was one they strove to preserve, and for the most part, his people eschewed Scotia’s politiks, and in turn Scotia remained clear of their vale. It could not serve to draw attention to Dubhtolargg… not for the least of reasons, which included the stone hidden deep within their ben.
Following the murder of King Aed in the year 878—by his most trusted friend and advisor—Aidan’s kinfolk had retreated here to this refuge in order to safeguard the accursed relic that no one even seemed to realize had gone missing. In its stead, his forefathers left a replica that not even the priests at Scone seemed able to differentiate. ’Twas said that only once a true child of both nations arose, only then would the curse be broken. And since their kin were nearly gone now, any hope for a peaceful nation was lost. Lael, more than anyone, understood what was at stake here, and yet she had defied him.
Now what?
The MacKinnon lad rode into the vale upon her horse, and Aidan knew that animal well. Wolf would never have abandoned Lael… unless she were… gone.
Was she dead?
The possibility gave him an ache that settled like a weight in his chest.
Some claimed Aidan was a patient man, but he scarce felt that truth as he waited for Cameron MacKinnon to awake and tell him what precisely had transpired during the battle for Keppenach—if in fact the lad would ever awaken, for he slept like the dead.
Despite the rising cold, the floor beneath his feet grew warm, and he continued to pace, for he felt down in his bones that his sister had need of him now. Trapped as he was, he felt cantankerous and regretful of his decision to allow her to leave. He had known better, and although it was not his way to lay down the law as though he were god, he had sorely wanted to command her to stay and to leave Keppenach to those who would profit most by its return.
His wife Lìli sat at the long table, cradling their young daughter in her arms, but she left him to his thoughts, understanding more than anyone how much he blamed himself.
Una, on the other hand, paced opposite him, ambling along a parallel path, all the while rebuking him for his temper. “There is naught you can do,” their priestess assured him. “Twas her given right to go.”
Aidan said naug
ht, for he realized she spoke the truth, whether or nay he liked it. But neither did her words settle his ire, or stop his feet from wearing layers off the wooden floor. Keane stood beside the fire pit. Sorcha and Cailin had already fled the hall and both now sat watching over the MacKinnon boy.
If the sun comes out, I could still ride out in the morn…
“What good will ye do?” Una pressed him, as though she’d read his thoughts.
Aidan cast her a disgruntled glance, wishing her to the Netherworld—or wherever it was that brownies went when they were not put upon this earth to harass good folk.
At last the old woman stopped pacing opposite him, and stood in the center of the hall, resting wearily upon her staff. Her knuckles whitened to match the weathered ash wood in her hand. “Aidan,” she whispered, and the single word was like a balm. He felt his tension melt a bit as the tenor of her voice caressed his soul. Faerie magic, mayhap—but more than likely ’twas simply that she’d raised him from a wee bairn. Her gentle voice spoke to the child within. With a sigh, he ceased his pacing and found a chair.
Una lifted her chin toward Keane and his brother quickly seized a tankard and then a pint as well and brought it to the table, pouring a hefty dram into Aidan’s cup. Thanking him, Aidan lifted the glass and quaffed the contents, then set it down and requested another.
“She speaks the truth,” Lìli offered now that he was a bit more settled. “There is naught ye can do ’til the snows have cleared. What good will ye be to anyone if ye’re finished by the cold and wind?”
Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2) Page 14
