The Laird's Bastard Daughter (The Highland Warlord Series Book 1)

by Tessa Murran

  He flung her away from him as if she were something distasteful. ‘She had the gall to come before me, dying, with a brat in her arms a year later and tells me I am its father. She has your eyes, I remember her saying, she is of your blood, you cannot spurn her. I don’t know whose blood you have girl, but I am ashamed if it is mine.’

  Ravenna tried hard not to cry and, though she was shaking and there was a raw feeling inside of her, she knew she had to find a way to save herself, and Brandan, from her father’s wrath. She stayed on her knees to placate him.

  ‘I can’t help but love Brandan, Father, as you could not help but love my mother once, and we didn’t mean to shame you. Forgive me, I will do whatever penance you want for my sins if only you would let us be together. I will make amends, I swear.’

  ‘Your lover has offended me beyond measure.’

  ‘It was not his fault, it was me, I led him on, I tempted him.’

  ‘No Ravenna, don’t,’ said Brandan, shaking his head.

  ‘Oh, I know it was you Ravenna,’ said her father quietly, which was more menacing than the shouting. ‘It is always you causing trouble. Your mother was a stubborn bitch, and you have her whore blood in your veins. Even as a child, you always watched me with those withering eyes of yours, resenting me, and my other children too. You are made of bitterness and deceit Ravenna, so I shouldn’t even be surprised at what you have done. As to a fitting punishment, I have already decided upon it. You will never see this cur again.’

  ‘No, please don’t separate us. I will do anything you want, Father.’

  Baodan turned to Brandan.

  ‘Brandan, you will leave at once with a patrol going out into Buchanan lands. Hurt those bastards, take back what they stole from me and bring me back Cormac’s Buchanan’s head and, if you succeed, you can have my bastard daughter and do whatever you like with her. If you fail, and you dare to show your face in my hall again, it will be your head I take.’

  ‘Father no, please, not this. It is too dangerous, those are hard men and too many, last time your own son was cut down and …’

  ‘If Brandan is man enough to bed his Laird’s daughter, then he is man enough to pick a fight with Cormac Buchanan.’

  ***

  Glencoe Pass - Scottish Highlands

  Three days later

  Pushing up the glen was hard in the driving sleet and with the wind in their faces, but the horses bent their heads low and plodded on alongside the burn. The men clutched their cloaks around them, necks sunk into their bodies, shoulders hunched, eyes narrowed against the freezing wind. Cormac was stiff and aching with it.

  When was this filthy weather going to relent? This last patrol seemed to have gone on forever and he was tired to his bones. How he longed for a fire, with his dogs at his feet and ale and food in his belly. He pulled his cloak tighter, though it did little to lessen the scouring cold.

  ‘Cormac the weather is worsening. We should find shelter somewhere,’ shouted his younger brother.

  ‘Not much to be had out here, Lyall.’ He had to shout hard to be heard over the wind. ‘Once we clear this glen there is a wood further down to cut out the wind a little.’

  Looking up at the bare hills towering over them, Cormac could see black clouds rolling in, sucking the light from the sky and making him feel as though the peaks were closing in, about to swallow them whole. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and the sky lit up.

  Lyall rode down the line of men and drew them together in a huddle. There were fifteen in their party, all fighters, all as tired and cold as he was, but his brother did not show his discomfort. Cormac noticed, however, that his youngest brother, Darrow, was shivering violently and so he rode his horse over beside him to cut out some of the wind. He was rewarded with a grim smile from lips blue with cold.

  As Lyall readied himself to talk to the men, lightning flashed around the valley, glinting off something higher up, just where the land rose up steeply from the burn. A blade?

  Cormac narrowed his eyes and pushed the hair from his face. Something or someone was there up ahead, waiting. The hair stood up on the back of his neck, and his hand went to his claymore.

  ‘Lyall,’ he shouted and, as his brother turned to him, there was a whistling over the wind, and an arrow flew past Lyall’s shoulder and struck the chest of the man next to him, propelling him backwards off his horse. Cormac rode over to the man, now thrashing on the floor, making a wet, choking sound. He coughed up blood, which spattered over his face.

  His lung was pierced, he was beyond any help Cormac could give and besides, more arrows were coming at them, raining down from the higher ground. With a whistle and thump, they picked off man after man in a merciless volley, skewering some of the horses who reared and screamed and barged into one another in panic.

  Men charged over the hill, at least three for every one of his, bristling with axes and claymores. Gowans, he was sure of it. They couldn’t stay here, for if they did, death would come swiftly.

  ‘Lyall,’ he shouted, ‘we are lost if we do not run now. Get the men clear, head for the trees, go!’

  His brother’s face was grim with shock, but Cormac did not wait for a reply, instead, he jerked his horse’s head around and kicked hard on its flanks and, with claymore outstretched, raced headlong towards the Gowans.

  ‘Cormac, don’t be a fool.’ Lyall’s shout was taken by the wind, which was now ferocious.

  Cormac crashed into his enemy. The first man who reached him got sliced from shoulder to waist for his trouble and the next, Cormac struck on the back swing, laying an arm open to the bone. Several of his men had followed behind him and were hacking at the Gowans either side of him, he could hear their angry growls. His horse, a veteran of many battles, did not falter as it pounded through some men on foot, trampling on legs and faces of those who fell, their screams high and then cut short as its hooves found their mark.

  But there were so many of them, soon they would unseat him, drag him down and set upon him like a pack of wolves. He would be torn to pieces. He hacked right and left, muscles screaming against the weight of his massive sword, hoping he had bought his brothers enough time to get clear of the pack.

  Just as he was about to be overrun, there was a blinding flash, and something hit the man right in front of him. Cormac’s horse reared in panic, pawing at the air. A terrible scorching smell of burnt flesh filled the air and high pitched screams echoed around the glen. Lightning. It had missed him by inches and struck down a Gowan.

  Cormac did not linger to see the carnage, he took his chance. ‘With me,’ he shouted to his companions, and they sped away as fast as their horses could carry them as, all around them, the heavens screamed down flash after flash of lightning, confounding their enemy and slowing their pursuit.

  It was a hard gallop to the trees, and Cormac spurred his horse onwards, crashing through the undergrowth, all the time fearing an arrow or an axe hurled at his back. The thunder was deafening, right overhead, but he managed to wrench his horse to a halt and spin it around to see if they were being followed. His attackers were nowhere to be seen, the lightning had scattered them, and they seemed to have withdrawn from the fight. He let out a breath in relief and rode off in pursuit of his brothers.

  It took him and the other men some time to spot their clansmen in the gloom of the trees. As Cormac drew closer, a huge flash of lightning lit up the wood, revealing a dark bulk slung over Lyall’s horse.

  Flopping lifeless against its flank was a man’s body, a mortal wound to the head, face black with blood in the strange half-light. As Lyall’s horse moved, the corpse’s pale hands swung gently back and forth, boneless in death.

  When Cormac’s eyes met Lyall’s, he knew, with horrible certainty, he knew. Tears were running down Lyall’s cheeks, leaving pale lines through the blood and muck spattered on his face.

  Cormac bellowed his rage and grief to the heavens and something terrible took hold of him. At that moment he made a vow that he would make t
he Gowan’s pay for what they had done to Darrow, his beloved little brother, if it took him the rest of his life to do it. If it took every scrap of blood, bone and sinew that he had.

  ***

  As the cart drew further away from Mauldsmyre, it bounced in the ruts of the track, frozen solid by winter’s grip. Ravenna was banged back and forth against the side of it, setting the shackles around her feet to clinking. Clink, clink, clink, they went. She didn’t hear it, and she didn’t feel it.

  Five long days she had been shut away in a storeroom with the casks of ale and sacks of grain, watching the mice scurry about and listening to the shouts and clatter of the kitchen above her.

  Five long days wracked with worry over Brandon. Everyone was going about their business as usual while she had no idea what fate her father had in store for her.

  But she used the time well, plotting how she could be together with Brandan, how she could slip the noose around her. She gave a good deal of thought as to how she would get her father’s forgiveness, for that was the key to it all. He was offended by her insolence, but she had wriggled out of his punishments before by using her wits. How could she get him to forgive her, for being in love with the wrong man, for being a woman, for being a bastard? Round and round inside her head whirled her little schemes and plans.

  In the end, it was all for nought. When they finally let her out, starving and shivering, it was to tell her that the ambush on the Buchanans had failed. Cormac Buchanan had survived and would, no doubt, unleash vengeance on the Gowans for this latest bloodletting, in a clan feud that had lasted a generation. Ravenna did not care, for she was bound for a new life, separated from everything she had ever known. In fact, she didn’t care about anything at all.

  They had sent him into a fight he could not win, and Brandon Robertson had been cut down on Glencoe Pass, with one sweep of a claymore. Her love had been left lying out on some muddy hillside, ribs split open and gaping to the sky, so they said. He’d had no words of love to calm his fear in his last moments, no hand to hold as he sank into death.

  It seemed St Agnes had come to her in that terrible dream after all, and not with a fantasy of her husband and a future of love and light. Instead, that raven tearing at her flesh had been a warning. St Agnes had come to say, ‘Ravenna Gowan you are unwanted, you are a bastard, you are not worthy and your life is heading to darkness and ruin.’

  Chapter One

  January 1314

  Dumbarton Castle

  Cormac regarded his father with dismay as he watched him coughing his lungs up into a rag. The end would come soon, he was sure of it, and then everything would fall on him.

  ‘You should not have come, Father, you are too weak. I could have spoken in your stead.’

  ‘Weak is it? If that is so, would you let him see it and our enemies too? No, it must be me, dying or no. I must be the one to answer the call of the King.’

  Lyall rolled his eyes. ‘King for how long? Once Edward rides into Scotland with his army…’

  Fearghas cuffed his son around the ear. ‘He is our King, the one chosen by Scots, not those English bastards. Show some respect, boy.’

  Cormac caught Lyall’s eye and shook his head. When his father had moved some paces ahead, he turned and grabbed his brother’s arm.

  ‘Why must you goad the old man, especially today when he is crusty with mud from a cold, wet journey and in a foul mood. This summons from the King has cost him dear, in health and worry.’

  ‘Aye, but I’m no boy Cormac, and I’m not wrong, am I? The Bruces have taken plenty of favours from English kings over the years, and it’s not as if Robert’s hands are clean. How many times has he betrayed the Scots to line his own pockets, why it’s even whispered that he was one of the men who gave up Wallace and…’

  ‘Shut your mouth, Lyall. Whatever the truth of it we are here now and Robert the Bruce, conniving though he may be, is our King and our best hope of getting out from under an English boot. We have made our choice to follow him, come death or damnation, sworn allegiance, and now we have to go forward with him or fall by the wayside. When we go in to the King, you will stand firm beside our father, no matter what is said. Are we agreed?’

  ‘Aye, Cormac, I suppose you are right, I spoke in haste. I am not as clever as you are.’

  Cormac looked at his father riding ahead. He had ridden out to meet them on the road in the hopes of easing their journey. He had been shocked by how frail his father had become since their parting some months ago. How on earth did he find the strength to fight on? Already he was a veteran of many battles against the English. He had triumphed at Stirling Bridge alongside William Wallace when it seemed that independence was within Scotland’s grasp. He had escaped with his life, but without his left hand, cut clean off with one sweep of an English knight’s sword, when a betrayal within the clans had brought that dream of freedom crashing down in a bloody rout at Falkirk. In the aftermath, he had somehow steered Clan Buchanan around the shifting allegiances and power struggles that so beset the Highlands, but he would most likely never see the victory he so longed for. Time was running out for Laird Fearghas Buchanan. It broke Cormac’s heart, for he had nothing but love and admiration for his father, hard-faced, bad-tempered, old bugger that he was.

  They entered Dumbarton Castle and saw around them great activity as Robert’s soldiers dragged hay bales, firewood and anything else that would burn, up against the castle walls and into its keep. People were scurrying around outside, salvaging whatever valuables they could lay their hands on. Cormac and the others hurried along to the great hall and were beckoned inside.

  Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, in full battle dress, was doing a terrible job of washing blood off his hands over a bowl at the high table. He definitely had the look of a man who had just been in a dirty fight. There was a wildness and restless energy about him, just on the edge of violence. This summons boded ill, and Cormac knew they were on a knife-edge, so every nerve in his body was pulled tight.

  The self-proclaimed King of the Scots was surrounded by men, some still bloody from the fight, some more finely dressed. Cormac pushed men aside so that he could get his father to the front, and they caught the King’s eye.

  They bowed low before him. Cormac looked up into the face of Scotland’s master with some trepidation. It was an ordinary enough face, though it had the fine-featured, well-fed look of the nobility. High cheekbones and dark hair were his best features, and he was neither handsome nor otherwise, but look into his eyes, and you saw the real man. They were lit with a flinty resilience and a burning intelligence. Robert the Bruce was all ambition, and he lived and breathed power.

  To hear him speak to the men around him was to be presented with an affable man at ease in company, in possession of a fine education, refined by Scots standards in most respects. His bravery and willingness to throw himself into battle at the head of his men had won him Scotland’s loyalty, and the clans were now rallying behind his standard. But this was also a man who had played the deadly chess game of political intrigue like a master, feigning allegiance when necessary and then turning and biting the English hand that fed him, when it was to his advantage. Cormac had no doubt in his mind that this man had courage to spare. He was also absolutely sure that Robert the Bruce was a murderous, ruthless bastard who you crossed at your peril.

  ‘Ah Buchanan,’ smiled the King, in greeting to Fearghas, as he wiped his wet hands on the tunic of the servant pouring his wine. ‘You have my thanks for making the journey in such hellish weather and your younger son has come along too, good, good. You should know that Cormac here fought bravely to end this siege, he fought with honour.’

  Before his father could speak in reply, Robert’s attention shifted to something over Cormac’s shoulder, and he waved someone forward with a flick of his hand.

  ‘You are of course acquainted with Baodan Gowan,’ the King said evenly.

  Cormac turned, and his eyes met those of the man who had ordered his
death, who had engineered the ambush that had taken his brother’s life, who he longed to rip the guts out of with his bare hands.

  As Baodan recognised him, there was a scrape of swords against scabbards on both sides.

  ‘Sheath your weapons or must I have you taken out and flogged,’ said the King. There was iron in that calm voice, and so Cormac slid his sword back into its sheath, as did Baodan, whose cold blue eyes did not leave his.

  The King turned to his right-hand man. ‘See what I mean, MacDonald, you see our weakness here? It infects the Highlands like the pox.’

  ‘Aye, I do, Your Grace,’ replied Kenzie MacDonald, chief of one of the most powerful clans in Scotland.

  ‘Gowan, Buchanan, sit at this table with me for we must talk like reasonable men.’

  The sworn enemies seated themselves on opposite sides of the table, Fearghas red-faced with indignation and Cormac trying hard to keep his face impassive. His father was fond of saying, ‘Never let your enemy see your emotions, it makes you vulnerable,’ and he had lived by this rule for as long as he could remember.

  ‘Dumbarton castle is now mine,’ said the King, ‘and soon I will take Roxburgh back from the English too, then everything north of the Firth will be mine.’

  ‘But your Grace it is mid-winter, it’s impossible to lay a siege in such conditions. Would it not be best to wait out the winter and build our army?’ asked Baodan Gowan.

  ‘Impossible is not a word used to kings, Gowan, and while we wait it out, Edward has time to build his army too, while garrisoning Scotland with more of his troops.’

  Cormac smiled inwardly. Gowan had shown his hand a little there, shown he did not have the stomach for an all-out rebellion against the English. He owned lands in the north of England, gifted him by the English King Edward, and he would not want to be open about playing both sides. The Bruce would have noticed that reluctance to fight, and he would remember it.

  The King continued. ‘Look, we can sit here congratulating ourselves on our victories so far, but to no good end. Presently we strike and hide, and so we hurt our enemy, but taking supply trains and joining in petty raids, besieging castles, will not win us the prize. Sooner or later, Edwards fondness for lover’s arse will wane, and he will realise he is losing Scotland.’