by Jackie Ivie
“I don’t need anything or anyone,” Morgan replied.
He swiveled his head to look at her. “It’s late, I’ve a lump on my head, and we’re talking structure. You’re a strange squire, Morgan. You got a last name?”
“Nay,” she replied.
“Why not?”
“My parents lost interest,” she replied.
He chuckled. “Lean on me, lad.”
“I’ll not need it,” she replied, trying to find a comfortable spot for her chin against her collar.
“I’m not asking for your comfort.”
“What?” Her mind must be as fogged as the landscape, because that made no sense. Morgan scrunched her face.
“It’ll create a backrest for me, too. Try it, lad.”
She leaned forward and touched her forehead into the space right below his shoulder blade. He immediately put so much pressure on her, she rocked backward with it. He snapped back forward.
“Try again. This time, put some strength into it. I know you’ve got your share, albeit your bony appearance. Lean into me.”
This time Morgan hunched forward against his back, and made a brace for both of them. She didn’t find his weight an issue this time as he leaned back. She simply closed her eyes and slept.
CHAPTER TWO
Dawn cold evidenced itself as dew on every hair she had on her legs. Morgan shivered for a moment, and then opened her eyes. She was stiff from the top of her neck to the bottom of her spine, aching along both thighs clear to her knees, and staring at where her kilt had slid up, showing all and sundry that if she was a male, she wasn’t a very well-endowed one. She blinked at the sight. Blinked again. Closed her eyes and rubbed them.
The view didn’t change.
She pushed with her forehead at the same time she pulled the tartan into her lap, piling it between her and the saddle. The large male body, that had been blocking the dawn, simply stirred forward, then rocked back, right into her abdomen.
His eyes are blue.
The thought took over as he focused on her with a frown. His eyes weren’t just blue, they were deep, dark blue, as deep as midnight, and as vast as Creggar’s Loch.
“You a skelpie?” he asked softly.
“Nay. I’m your new squire, my lord,” she answered with a haughty tone.
His frown deepened. “Wha’ happened to the old one?”
“Battle took him. He fought well.” she replied.
She watched him scrunch his face further. “What battle?”
It would be easier to answer, if he wasn’t leaning on her and pushing her closer to the horse’s tail at the same time.
“As near as I could tell, it was reavers being punished.”
“Reavers?”
“Thieves. Highlanders. Name of Killoren. They any relation?”
“Reavers?” he repeated again.
“I guess they was na’ satisfied with stealing cattle. They had to avenge a taking.”
“Taking?”
“Killoren had a lovely daughter. She is na’ more.”
His frown deepened. “They took her?”
“Took her and took her, if you ken my words.”
“Who?”
“Mactarvat. Lowlanders. Large clan. Not much on riches and land, but clan a-plenty they do have.”
“Why?”
“The Mactarvats brew whiskey. Best in the land. They don’t take well to having their whiskey stolen. They did na’ know it was the Killoren lass they took.”
“That’s the problem with this country. Too many clans fighting amongst themselves. What we really need is to—” He stopped his words and glared at her. “You a loyalist?”
Morgan blew the disgust through her upper lip. The horse replied with his own snort. “I look like a loyalist?”
“Yours is the boniest frame I’ve ever set myself against, and with not an ounce of spare, either.”
“When you finish with your compliments, you mind setting away from me for a spell? You’re numbing my legs.”
His gaze sharpened on her. “Where are we?”
“Atop your horse,” she answered.
“My horse,” he repeated, stating it without question. “We near a tent?”
Morgan looked around. They were not only near a tent, they were stomping it into the ground. She looked down at the wreckage of poles, cloth, cooking utensils and smiled wryly. “Aye,” she answered.
“Good. He’s well trained.” She watched as he pulled himself up with the saddle horn. “You lie, lad. We’re...not near....” His voice faded as he seemed to poise for a dive, before toppling full-out into the remnants of his own cook-fire.
Morgan nearly gave vent to the first dose of amusement she’d felt in years, then stilled it. They were too close to English soil at present, and she had a FitzHugh to torment. It was enough for the moment that he was covering himself with soot at her feet.
Morgan slid clumsily off the back end of horse, told it not to move, and slid into the trees to take care of her business. When she returned, not only had the horse stayed, but Zander FitzHugh was still lying atop the pile of ashes, a smile on his handsome face, and a litany of snores coming from his mouth. Morgan rolled her eyes, thought for half a moment of leaving him, and then sighed. She wasn’t going to toss this gift aside. She’d lost count of how many times she’d prayed to have the mighty FitzHugh in her power. She wasn’t going to waste any of it running from him.
She was going to enjoy making his life as short and miserable as they’d made the KilCreggars’. She searched for his bow, took one arrow, and left. Someone was going to have to see them fed, and it wasn’t going to be him.
She had another cook-fire going, a hare roasting and a good dram of whiskey beneath her belt when Zander FitzHugh next favored her with his midnight-blue gaze. She didn’t even see it; she felt his attention on her, by a shift of the elements, a flare from the fire, or perhaps it was a shake of the leaves above them. She looked across at him from her perch atop a log, where a small pile of shavings showed what she’d been doing and met his stare. She didn’t know it would feel as warming as the whiskey.
Morgan didn’t say a word as he blinked, widened his eyes, and then lifted his head from the ash-pile, snorting a nose full of the stuff, before coughing like he had the ague. He had to arch his back in order to wheeze it out. Morgan watched him for a bit, before resuming the carving. She had to suck in on her cheeks to keep quiet, though.
“By all that’s holy! What the hell happened to me?”
“You’ve been eating ash,” she said.
“Ash?”
“Ash,” she replied, looking up. The amusement in her voice made his gaze sharpen on her. Morgan swallowed the bubble of mirth in her throat. It took every bit of her composure not to react to the dark streaks down his cheeks from his tears, though.
“How did I get here?”
“You fell.”
“Fell?”
“From yonder great beast,” she gestured with her carved icicle. “He’s well-trained, you said. I don’t know for what.”
He swore, raised himself to his hands and knees, and then stumbled to his feet, wiping uselessly at the gray dust all over him.
“I fell into a fire-pit, and you left me lay there?”
“I could na’ move you. You should’ve found yourself a stouter squire. Either that, or eat less.”
He glared at her, his eyes blazing from that ash-white face, and Morgan controlled the shiver. She wasn’t about to be frightened of him.
“Make yourself useful, and find me another tartan.”
“I already made myself useful. I hunted a hare for your sup, started a completely new fire pit to roast it in, and carved you a toy to bribe the next bonny lass into your bed.”
He had his hands on his hips now. He didn’t look amused. Morgan felt the rush of hair at her neckline warning her of it. She didn’t care. She looked at him with complete indifference.
“I’ve a tartan for you, too.”
> “I like my own fine,” she replied, “and I’ve not said I’ll change just to please you.”
“You’ll change, and you’ll assist me to do the same, and you’re going to do it a sight faster than you are right now.”
“You don’t say,” she answered, and had to ignore where he’d moved and the way he did it. For a large man, he wasn’t easy to follow when he shifted to another spot. Morgan narrowed her eyes and considered him. He was trained to move quickly and without attracting notice, just as she was. She just hadn’t seen him do it.
“Get fresh plaids. I’ll not have KilCreggar sett in my camp. My own clan will string me up by my thumbs.”
“Why?”
“Are you going to get the kilts, or am I going to have to make you do it?”
“Now, how do you plan on doing that?” She lifted her icicle for inspection, spinning it this way and that before moving her gaze back to him. It wasn’t pleasant when she couldn’t find him.
“Brute force,” he replied from behind her left ear, before gripping her about the belt and hurling her to the ground. She skidded along dirt and through the ash he’d been in, her knees taking the brunt of it, then she was rolling to her feet, pulling the nine hidden dirks from her socks. She had them by the blades when she faced him again, crouching slightly.
“That’s your response? Toothpicks?” He motioned to the knife hilts protruding from between her fingers.
She sang one right to the center of his FitzHugh brooch, and he pulled back a fraction as it trembled on the dragon’s eye it had speared.
“Lucky shot,” he taunted, taking a step toward her.
She sent two more to the exact same spot, where he now had three, looking like a pin cushion sprouting from his chest. He had a bit more respect showing in him now as he lowered to semi-crouch, although it was far shy of the one she was in.
“You’ll need a bigger blade to stop a FitzHugh, boy. Your prior master should have learned you that much.”
Her answer was three quick tosses, leaving all three knives embedded into the hilts of those at his belt. The next one went into his sporran, where a dark trickle started up.
“That’s good whiskey you’ve hit, now,” he replied. “The punishment is na’ going to be as lenient as a bath and a change of clothing. I may have to take a strap to that scrawny body of yours.”
“Back away, FitzHugh,” she said, rotating the final two blades through her fingers, one in each hand.
“Why? You’ve not shown me one reason. A fool can toss a knife and miss even scratching their opponent. You’ve got but two left. You planning on barbering me next?”
“If I wanted to draw your blood, you’d be bleedin’,” she said.
“And sows will be flying,” he answered.
The knife he got for that one sliced the inside tassel off his sock. Her next one took off the other one.
Zander looked down at himself, and when he looked up, she watched his eyes widen at the three dirks she’d pulled from the back of her belt. She twirled them, one in her right hand, two in her left. She watched him watch her hands.
She didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t want to draw blood. Not yet. She knew as well as any that the dirks wouldn’t stop a man his size, unless she hit something vital, or had some time for him to bleed to death. He’d strangle her before that happened.
She’d always received plenty of respect for her throwing aim before. It had never taken all nine dirks she kept in her socks. She’d never had to resort to using the last three from her belt. She and the FitzHugh started circling, the roasting hare between them. He wasn’t as nonchalant as he was feigning, either, for a fine sheen of sweat was starting to make the ash coarse down his face.
“You ready to cease this, and get my kilt?” he asked.
The knife sliced through the hair beside his ear, taking off a lock. He didn’t even flinch. Morgan was the one with sweaty palms.
“And yours?” he continued. “I’ve a hankerin’ to see you clad decently, in my own green and blue. ’Tis a bold combination, not one you need hide yourself from. The lasses like it, too.”
The hair beside his other ear received the same shaving. Morgan began sweating, herself. She was down to the last one. She’d never been tested this far. The blade was slick with moisture from her palm and hard to hold. None of that showed, however.
He smiled, and amid the streaked ash, his face was horrible-looking. Morgan swallowed.
“I’ve been looking for a good barber, myself. If you’d told me your leanings, I’d have had a nice trim a-fore this.”
“You have that much a-tween your legs, FitzHugh, that ye laugh at me?”
“Laugh at you? You’re not worth the time it would take. You’ve one chance left, lad. I would na’ miss again if I were you. I’ve a slew of ash to wash off, a fresh kilt to don, a nicely roasted rabbit to eat, and half, nay....” He looked down at the sporran that was still leaking down his ash-covered clothing, leaving a dark trail. Then he looked back up at her. His eyes might as well have been black holes, for all the emotion they showed in that ash-white face. “...I’d better make that a third of a sporran left of me whiskey. Lay aside your blade and assist me. I’ll give you that one bit of mercy. You won’t like the alternative. Put down your toothpick.”
Morgan held the blade. She wasn’t going to let it go that easily. She had to pick her target. There was only one that would take him down without killing him. She was afraid to consider it. If he was smallish, or it didn’t hit vitally, she was as good as dead. And, if it did hit vitally, she was as good as dead.
Zander lifted his eyebrows. “You having a little trouble deciding? A sharp-eyed snipe like you? Come along, lad, put the blade down. We’ll both shed our filthy garments and don fresh. ‘Course I’ll see that KilCreggar plaid shredded before I’d keep it, and—”
The final blade went slicing through the kilt between his thighs, ripping material and thudding as it hit the log behind him. She heard his roar, and it wasn’t one of pain. She was already leaping obstacles and dancing around trees to escape him.
Damn him for being small, she thought.
Morgan was fast. She was light. She was able to move quickly and expertly, even though the sun was fast sinking, and he’d pitched his ruined tent near a lot of dead-fall from the trees. He’d also camped close enough to some source of water that the mist it would bring wasn’t far off. If she could keep him at bay until then, she could hide easily.
She stopped, instantly attuned to the woods around her, and didn’t hear a sound. She didn’t feel the shove, either. All she knew was the tree he slammed her front-first into, before he had her shirt collar in one hand and actually had her dangling off the ground while he shook her. Morgan watched him with a stunned expression, not because he could heft her above him with one arm, but because her ears were still ringing from the blow she’d received.
Then, she was drowning as he shoved her under the water and held her against the creek bottom. Just before she lost consciousness and sucked in water, he lifted her, holding her up long enough to shake her until her head rattled, and then he shoved her back again. Morgan’s belly was full of water, and she was coughing it up on the third dunking, and that wasn’t enough for him.
The fifth time, Morgan forgot to suck in air, and just lay on the bottom of the creek, her face scraping pebbles, and being washed by moss. She was going to die, and all because she was too stupid to put a death-blow into her enemy when she had the chance.
She could actually see bright light behind her lids when he finally pulled her up and held her at arm’s length in order to scowl at her. She wondered when it had gotten so bright, and had a chance to watch black dots swim through her vision before it settled back to semi-normal. There was nothing normal about the black hatred coming from his eyes and seeing into every secret crevice she’d ever hidden in, though.
He swore again, and heaved himself backward onto the bank, hauling her with him. He had her torso locked
between his thighs, and that was stupid of him. She hadn’t any fight left in her. None. She saw the glint of a knife and closed her eyes.
“Open your eyes and face your punishment, Morgan!”
He had one hand locked about her neck, lifting it from his chest, and the other holding a skean that made her blades look like the toothpicks he’d called them. Morgan felt the sting of tears, and hated every bit of herself for such a weakness, as they dripped out of eyes she didn’t even dare blink with.
“Tears? You cry woman-tears, now?”
“Just kill me and get it over with,” she snarled.
“As much as I’d like to, I’ll not kill you. A good Scot’s squire is hard to come by. A fighting Scotsman even harder, especially one as talented with a dirk as you are. I’m just giving you a taste of your own barbering.”
“Nay!” She screamed as his hand moved underneath her braid to raise it. She felt the cold of his steel against her skin.
“This hank of hair?”
He was slicing his blade through it, and Morgan started shuddering with the sobs. It was the only thing she had left of her childhood, and the only thing she had that marked her for what she was. A woman. Morgan hated herself anew for the realization. “Please?” she whispered.
He stopped sawing. Morgan held her breath.
“This means so much to you?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“It’s too long, it’ll be in your way. It comes loose in a fight and you’re useless.”
“It does na’ come loose,” she answered.
“Mine does na’ grow past the midst of my back.”
“I’m na’ you,” she answered.
“I let you keep this braid, you obey me? You’ll become my squire in every sense? Guard my back, and take care of my person with nary a complaint?”
Morgan swallowed with a throat that felt too sore, too tight, and too dry. “Hack it off, and have done,” she answered, closing her eyes to all she’d hidden from herself and waited for him to do it. Her tears weren’t subsiding, though, and the woman in her that she’d tried to destroy was the one sobbing. She told herself it was only hair. It would grow back. It was stupid to keep something just because her mother, in another lifetime, had hair just like it. Nothing she tried to tell herself was working, though.
