The Outcast Highlander

by R. L. Syme

“Aye, he’s a nobleman from the south. The younger brother of the Lord of Moray, I believe.”

  Kensey smoothed the unmoving bedclothes around Fiona’s still hand. If she didn’t know better, she’d think her friend dead, her movements so infrequent.

  “Broc mentioned him once or twice. He’s the one who found the cast-off Sinclairs.”

  Duncan nodded. “Aye. Took them into his war band. Marauders, mostly. Not big enough to defeat an army, but they don’t fight in open battle. They favor stealth. Secrecy.”

  “Why did Broc leave this time?”

  “Andrew has been taken captive. Elizabeth believes Broc to be the only thing standing between them and death.” The sarcasm in his voice was evident, as was the pain these thoughts evoked. “He feels that he wouldn’t have survived without Andrew, so he abandons all to go.”

  There was a pause so deep and intense that Kensey almost felt afraid to breathe. These were dangerous waters to tread lightly around Duncan. His feelings of abandonment ran deep.

  “But Broc wouldn’t have stayed, except for…” Duncan stopped, his voice cracking. “Elizabeth is the daughter of my father’s cousin. She was Broc’s first love.”

  Kensey hunched over as though she’d been punched. Broc’s first love, the wife of his best friend. Suddenly, his distance made so much sense. He loved another woman he could never have.

  Three months ago, she would have said she bore the same fate—to love Albert forever while he loved another and another. But Broccin had helped her to forget about loves past.

  If only she’d had time to help him to the same.

  The chance was gone now. If Duncan was right, Broc may never return.

  “He feels as if he owes Andrew something. That’s why he stayed even after they’d been beaten. That’s why he felt no pain when Andrew and Elizabeth decided to get married. That’s why he left you this morning. Because he’s trying to repay a debt.”

  She had been waiting so long to hear this explanation, yet when it came, it rang hollow. Nothing could replace the fact that this woman had been to her husband’s heart before her. Given all the barriers he already had, she could all but abandon hope now.

  Kensey braved a touch of Fiona’s hand, but her friend still didn’t move. “But what about Elizabeth?”

  “What about her?” Duncan asked.

  “It must have been difficult to let Broccin go. Does she still care for him?”

  “Do you wish to know if he loves her still?” Duncan asked, walking around the side of the bed toward Kensey. When she didn’t respond, he continued. “There were times I thought so, when he first returned to us. But now, when I see the way he looks at you, I cannot believe he doesn’t love you.”

  “Enough.” Kensey stood from her chair and walked past Duncan, toward the door, but he caught her by the arm.

  “Broccin wouldn’t have left you unless it were of utmost importance. Whatever he feels about us, about his family, I know that he values you and Robert above all.”

  Without agreeing or disagreeing, Kensey walked out the door and closed it behind her. She was unable to discern just what her feelings were on the matter, but she knew that if she listened to anymore talk of Elizabeth or Broccin, she would begin to cry. But she didn’t want to let Duncan realize how deeply the thought of Elizabeth and Broccin together truly affected her.

  ***

  “She’s awake!” came the shout down the hallway as Kensey and Robert sat at the shatranj board. The door, which had been partially closed, was suddenly flung open, and Brigid came bursting into the room. “Fiona is awake, lass! Hurry!”

  Kensey jumped from her chair and ran to Duncan’s room with Robert close behind her.

  “Is she alright?” Kensey breathlessly followed Brigid.

  “She seems to be. But we’ll not know for awhile yet.”

  “But she’s talking?”

  “She’s talking a bit now, and asking for you.”

  Kensey almost squealed when she entered the room and saw Fiona sitting up in bed, her hand being held and kissed, if gingerly, by Duncan. He had tears in his eyes and was thanking God aloud.

  “I wondered if you would ever wake.” Kensey gasped and sank onto her knees next to the bed, taking Fiona’s other hand in her own and looking up into her face. Both hands were covered in surface cuts that looked to be healing.

  But her face was not healing as quickly. The swelling around her visible eye had increased, and new bruises came to the surface with yellowed edges.

  “As did I.” Duncan’s teary eyes belied his smile, which was a mixture of misery and happiness. “I thought you would be lost to me forever.”

  “But I’ve come back to you both.” Fiona managed a small smile. “And I promise I’ll never leave again.”

  “We’ll not let you.” Duncan kissed her fingertips and finally released her hand. “You’ll be safe here. I promise, this will never happen to you again as long as you live.”

  “I’m with the two people that I love most in the world and I am alive.” She tried to smile, but the swelling on the side of her face prevented much expression. Kensey’s throat tickled with the threat of more tears.

  “There’s so much to tell you.” Kensey lay her still-throbbing head on the cool sheets near Fiona’s hand. “So much has happened. So much is different.”

  “There will be time for that,” said Fiona.

  “I do not think we should shock her with too much information at once.” Duncan slid a hand along Kensey’s hair, patting as he might pat a horse.

  “But I should tell her about Broc. And my parents.” Kensey’s head shot up as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She hadn’t asked if the news about her father had been widespread. Perhaps Fiona already knew.

  “I had heard about your parents.” Fiona’s voice cracked in soft peaks. “I am so sorry, my dear. First Albert, and now things are in such turmoil at home.”

  Duncan shook his head. “Please, love, let’s not talk now. Why do not you go back to sleep and we’ll talk later?” He slid a finger along the mostly undamaged side of her face. “I want you to mend.”

  “Do not take Kensey from me already.”

  “I have no plans to leave,” promised Kensey. “I’ll come to see you once you wake again.”

  “And tell me all about this man of yours as well, my dear?” Fiona failed another smile. It twisted at Kensey’s heart to see up close the damage done to her oldest friend.

  Kensey swallowed, almost willing herself not to answer. “I promise to tell you all.”

  Fiona tried to push herself up farther in the bed, but didn’t budge. Kensey moved to assist her friend, but even the touch of her hand on Fiona’s side made the girl cry out in pain.

  “Has she been checked over for major injuries?” Kensey removed her hand and tried to provide some leverage from under Fiona’s arm, which seemed to work better.

  “Brigid and Lydia did as thorough a search as they dared.” Duncan took a similar position opposite Kensey with his hands under Fiona’s arm.

  “Is it better for you to sit up, dear, or to lie down?”

  Fiona gave a tiny shrug. “Both will cause pain. But perhaps if I were lying down, I wouldn’t have to work so hard to keep my head upright.”

  Duncan helped Kensey slide Fiona into a sleeping position. Her body was so frail—much more of the skin-and-bones look than Kensey had ever seen on her, and Fiona had always been slight. But now on her back, the most obvious physical change in Fiona’s body was her protruding belly.

  She had mentioned something about losing a baby in the letter. But she must not have lost the baby after all.

  First, Brigid, now Fiona. Kensey’s hand went unbidden to her own abdomen. She wondered if Broc had given her a baby as well. She could only hope.

  “They were careful of the baby.” Duncan’s voice was barely audible. From what Kensey had heard from Fiona while in France, she knew the two had been promised
as husband and wife, and that Duncan had taken Fiona into his bed. She wondered, if Fiona had been this obviously pregnant, why Colin Ross hadn’t especially wanted to kill the child inside her, for her adultery. Or perceived adultery, since by the laws of God, Duncan and Fiona had promised their lives, they’d lain together and produced seed, they were by rights joined before she’d been with Colin.

  Not that he’d see it that way. And Fiona surely hadn’t been able to convince Colin the baby was his. They’d only been married a few months, and she was well-nigh-to-bursting when she lay straight on her back.

  “How long until the birth?” Kensey asked.

  Fiona and Duncan locked eyes and something passed between them. Kensey wasn’t about to pry into that, whatever embroiled them so. Instead, she leaned down and kissed Fiona’s cheek where there was no bruising or swelling.

  “Why don’t you go back to sleep, dear.” Kensey backed toward the door. “There’s nothing between us, between all of us, that cannot wait until you are better.”

  With a reluctant nod, Duncan followed.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Berwick, Scotland – November of 1296

  The streets of Berwick were bare compared with what they had seen in Inverness and Edinburgh. While Broc preferred bare roads to crowded, and open hills to stone walls, he was unnerved by the relative silence. The ease of access made Berwick a common target for foreign travel, including ships from England, and while not the largest of Scotland’s cities, it should have been bustling, even as they prepared for winter.

  Elizabeth had stopped to converse with the captain of the guard and left Broc far behind, no doubt to offer something that would anger him if he heard it. He only hoped it wasn’t her virtue. He could stand by to watch her give away many things, but something that belonged so wholly to Andrew, he would not stand. He’d cut the man in two before he’d let Elizabeth do such a thing.

  The first day of his travel from St. Claire had Broccin on edge, especially given that Elizabeth had been on horseback and constantly needling him. But once they reached Inverness, she hired a coach, which Broccin refused so he could at least set the pace on his horse.

  He was anxious to return to his wife before the snow flew.

  Although he was more anxious to go before the shire court. In the years since Scotland had a king, so much had changed, and a man was never certain whether he’d be recommended to the Guardians or thrown in prison.

  Much depended on the presence or absence of attacks on the King’s men, and given that Andrew had now been imprisoned for weeks, Broc could only hope the magistrate would be in a good mood.

  He’d only been to the sheriff’s castle in Berwick once, and only with Andrew in tow, as they’d gone to plead for clemency for one of their men who’d been taken captive.

  They were unsuccessful.

  This time, Elizabeth came prepared. They’d stopped at de Moray’s home and collected anything they thought might tempt the court to release Andrew.

  Whatever she had offered the captain, he waved them through the gates to the castle, watching the chests heave atop the carriage with their uneasy weight.

  Gold, silver, jewels. His grandfather’s armor from the first Crusade. And trailing behind the coach, Andrew’s prize Arabian stallion, which would fetch quite a price on the open market.

  After some consideration, Broccin wasn’t sure what they could have found in Castle St. Claire to trade if they could have tried to secure Kensey’s father. Their resources had all been invested back into the castle itself, or in the lands. But the de Morays were an older family, with nobility that reached back to the first Scottish kings, and before. Lachlan MacLeod had some wealth from his French wife, but Broccin wasn’t even sure Kensey would have known where to find her own family’s most priceless items, so long had she been away in France.

  But the de Moray family had more than Broc had imagined, and it would all soon be traded for one man’s life.

  When they arrived at the sheriff’s castle, Broc tied Gaidel’s reins to the carriage, in case they had to make a swift escape. One was never certain with the short lifespan of the shire sheriff in Edward’s days that it would be the same man from year to year.

  As far as Broc knew, the current magistrate was a local man and, as long as the King was not expected, could be counted upon for fair dealings.

  Broc repeated those facts to himself as he followed Elizabeth up the wide steps and into the long hallway that would lead them to the audience chamber.

  Her countenance hadn’t broken since their trip began. The elegant set to her jaw, the unblinking observant eyes, the vigorous long strides. Yet as they approached the power who could release or destroy her husband, the confident commander in her disappeared and a shaking, simpering fool appeared in its place.

  He almost stopped her. But for the guards, he would have chided her back into her other face.

  This shift in her tactics was not new. He’d seen her use them on Andrew, on her brother and father, on men in the retinue. Even, from time to time, on him, though with less frequency. He’d let her know in no uncertain terms that he was on to her games and they’d all but stopped.

  That was, perhaps, why it bothered him so to see her employ them now. After knowing there were men who could see through her charade, she still sank back into her old routine.

  Broc could only hope the sheriff would be as wooed by her beauty as most men. That would give her the advance, at least.

  The audience chamber was a large, dark room with three entrances. One at the far end which admitted only the court members, one near the front for the public to enter, and one leading down to the dungeon. That one was darker than the others, as though the very construction meant to remind the men that they descended into hell.

  Elizabeth was the only woman present, radiating femininity and wealth in an ornate gold gown. Broc imagined it the finest dress this dirty old room had ever seen. Everything else was brown and grey and black and more brown. Muted, dark, and foreboding.

  All heads turned when she entered, although someone else currently had the floor and was offering the life of his family’s only pig in return for mercy. His son had stolen some meat from the butcher and the law demanded his hands be removed for the crime, but the father made an emboldened plea.

  He stopped talking when he realized no one paid him any attention and turned, also, to watch Elizabeth. The poor man.

  The sheriff Broc had expected to see, with whom he was at least familiar, was nowhere to be found. In his place, and likely in his job, sat a rotund man with a pointed nose. His face and neck were too pink for him to be a Scot. This was likely a lowlander, even an Englishman, come to take the place of the old sheriff.

  To break the silence, the fat man stood and pointed at the old man with the pig. “If you can bring me another pig by sundown today, I will gladly release your son with all his appendages.”

  He spoke English, which had to be translated for the old man from the hills, and with an accent smack dab in the middle of the royal court in London.

  Not a good sign.

  Two small guards hauled the old man and his squealing pig past Elizabeth and Broc, and back toward the streets of Berwick. Broc felt some pity for the man, with his son about to be handless, for a pig would cost more than that man could scrape together even if he owned his own land and could manage to sell it by sundown.

  Like as not, anyway, he was a tenant farmer and had only a piglet or two, produced by the pig he now carried, who would be raised up over the winter in hopes that one of them would survive to feed the family in the next year.

  Broc checked his pouch for the remainder of his coin. He had enough in his pocket to buy the man a pig. He would be sleeping on the hard ground and eating what he could catch with his hands on the way home, but it would give him an excuse to leave Elizabeth and Andrew behind and set his own pace for Castle St. Claire.

  His desire to return home surpr
ised him with its ferocity. Not its presence—he’d always wanted to go home, but had never been allowed, let alone wanted. Now he was not only wanted, but loved, and in so many ways. Kensey may have still some reservations, but she loved him. He could feel it in her response. She would grow to love him more, but love him, she did.

  And that love would help her forgive him for leaving.

  He tapped the shoulder of one of the guards that surrounded him and Elizabeth but they ignored him. Instead, they all stepped forward to guide the visitors to the center of the room.

  The captain of the guard, a broad-chested man with a bare head, bowed to the new sheriff. “Your excellency.”

  “Bring them forward.” The fat man reached across his table and picked up a charred leg of some animal. Broc had never seen a sheriff eat in court before and hoped this was a sign of his gluttony. Men with deep desires always had a price.

  The front guards stepped aside and Elizabeth walked between them, leaving Broc in their midst. With his broad sword strapped to his back, it wouldn’t have taken him long to cut through them if he’d had to. Most of them were boys, even compared to his own years, but more importantly, they were not well-fed nor well-trained. The soldiers were in use elsewhere and those who remained filled what boots they could.

  They would be quick fodder if someone threatened Elizabeth.

  “My lord and sheriff.” Elizabeth’s voice wavered, but she executed a perfect curtsey, staying near the floor until he bid her rise.

  Until he got a good eyeful of her spilling décolletage, more like. Broc shuffled uneasily. She played a dangerous game.

  “Rise, lady.” The sheriff burped and set down the fowl leg. A wild turkey, by the look of it. Large, browned skin, dripping with fatty juices.

  He licked his lips like the lecherous fool he was and leaned over the table. With a smile, he followed her rise.

  “I’m here to beg you for the release of my husband, Lord Andrew de Moray, Twelfth Viscount of Avoch and Strathaven, servant to the king.”

  Broc nearly laughed. Servant to which king? The sheriff would certainly think Edward, who had taken the rule of England and Scotland. But when Andrew said it, he meant Robert Bruce, whom he considered to be the true King of Scotland.