by Jackie Ivie
“All right, love, all right. That’s verra nice. What is the question again?”
She huffed the sigh out with an exasperated sound. “Why do you have a brother named William?”
“William? Well...I think my da was home when he was whelped. He had a say in it. My mum was annoyed with him, she was. She never ceased to harangue him over it, either. Remind me to tell you of it some day.”
She couldn’t restrain the laughter that time, and had to choke with it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Morgan came to the horrid, sickening realization that Zander’s plotting had worked the exact moment that she rode her horse, Morgan, into Old Aberdeen’s marketplace, Castlegate. The Bruce had been regaling anyone who would listen about how important the burghs of Old and New Aberdeen were to him. They were a blend of new, such as the trading and fishing village on the Dee, known as New Aberdeen, and of old. The home of the Celtic bishopric of Aberdeen, Old Aberdeen had been there for centuries, as had the historic Cathedral of St. Machar. He had also spoke in a long-winded fashion about the construction Aberdeen was experiencing. He pointed out the bridge they were building to span the Don, that was going to be named the Brig o’Balgownie. He talked about the residences that were being built to house single families. He talked of the commerce and trade that was available for this booming city in the Highlands.
He was very proud of the city, and he should be. It had more stone-built buildings, more streets, and more people than any settlement they’d yet gone through. There was also a bustling marketplace, known as Castlegate, and he cautioned them to keep their horses in rows of two abreast, in order to keep from upsetting the order of business. Then, he led what looked like hundreds of men on horseback through the streets, causing just about everyone to stop what they were doing and gape.
Morgan and Zander were the seventh pair behind their sovereign and liege, and had just ridden beneath a large wooden archway, when her belly literally moved. She put both hands to it and waited. When it did it again, she looked down to herself and saw her hands were shaking.
It couldn’t be. While it was true her belly had a slight bulge to it, she’d thought that due to lack of exercise. Except for her daily and nightly lovemaking with Zander, she hadn’t gotten in any serious push-ups or lunges or squats in weeks. She had also been eating more than she was used to. All of which had combined to make her gain a bit of depth to her, but not enough to mean anything.
Her belly twinged a third time, and her eyes widened in shock, amazement, and horrendous guilt, in all the same moment.
Dear God, I’m carrying a FitzHugh bastard! she thought. She didn’t question it, either. She knew. She couldn’t afford anyone else to know, however. Especially the man riding at her side and looking at all the wares spread before them, his eyes alert and watchful, and the strangest quirk to his lips as he did so. Morgan moved her hands back to the horse’s mane, amazed she still had the reins in them, and that Morgan, the horse, had continued walking with the reins pulled like they had been.
“Morgan?”
Zander sidled his horse closer to hers, until their ankles brushed with each step of either horse.
She tightened her jaw, looked straight ahead and ignored him.
“I know you can hear me. The Bruce is setting up a show tonight that will be talked of for years.”
She turned her head slightly, but she refused to look at him. You’ve given me a bairn! She knew her face would be shouting it. Worse, you made me take it! You’ve given one of the last KilCreggars on earth a FitzHugh bastard to carry!
Her hands were still shaking, and she rested them on the front of her saddle to hide it.
“What is it?” Zander spoke again.
“This show...it will not be difficult?”
“Difficult? For me, aye. For you...nothing is difficult. It will be like play for you. He’s using fire.”
She glanced over at him then, but couldn’t hold his look. It was too immense, too loving, and too inescapable.
Her hands tightened. “Fire?” she asked, because Zander seemed to be waiting.
“More in the way of flaming arrows, dirks with fire-lit fishing twine, that sort of thing.”
“I have no dirks like that.”
“I know. He ordered them made.”
Morgan forced herself to concentrate. “Why would he do such a thing?”
“Because Scotland isna’ just a country. It is a thing of immensity, beauty, contradiction, and pride. The Bruce wants to stir their senses, inflame their pride, and fill them with the possibilities of all a Scotsman can and will be. He wants you to set the stage, so he can say the words.”
“What is a Scotswoman, then?” she asked.
He took a couple of loud breaths. She heard them. “All that and more, of course. She is the vessel that holds and delivers the future, with each bairn she carries. Look about you, Morgan. You see the future?”
She saw the future all right. It was grim. There was a FitzHugh bastard being birthed to a KilCreggar lass, who was portraying the legendary Squire Morgan. The Bruce would be reviled, mocked and vilified all over the face of the British Isles, not just Scotland. She shifted on her saddle. “Aye,” she replied finally. “I see it.”
“How about the emotion that is here? Do you feel it? I do, and it’s right here in this beautiful city. Like a pulse of Scotland, itself. Hard and fast. Strong and virile. Fresh and pure. Canna’ you feel any of that, too?”
The emotion? he asked. What did she feel? Dread. Hate. Sadness. Anger. Fear. Shock. Wonder. Which of those am I supposed to say I feel, Zander FitzHugh? she wondered. It wasn’t the last-born of the FitzHughs that would deal with the mortifying results of their coupling. Nay, he’d be strutting around like a peacock, with his chest puffed out, and with his pride intact. It was going to be the last-born of the KilCreggars who would live with the humiliation and shame, which would grow and become more apparent as the baby did.
God, how she hated being a woman! Especially right at the moment. She didn’t want anything to do with this bairn. She had a mission to accomplish, and then she was ready for what life held. Carrying a FitzHugh in her belly while she killed another was not part of her plan. She didn’t know if she could handle it. She knew it wasn’t right that she had to handle it, and it was Zander FitzHugh’s fault, damn and blast him, anyway!
“Are you all right?” Zander asked from right beside her.
“Get away from me, FitzHugh!” she snarled, shifting her horse a good yard’s distance from his.
Midnight-blue eyes blazed at her for as long as she could hold the gaze, then she moved it ahead. He always could see too much with that intense look of his. She wasn’t going to let him see this. She was going to deal with this the way she dealt with everything: by herself. She didn’t think she would ever speak to Zander FitzHugh again.
The Bruce’s camp was already well under way and nearly set up by the time the procession reached it. They were encamped in the valley connecting the two burghs, and as far as the eye could see there were tents, making a huge circle about an epicenter that held a large conical affair. Morgan sat atop the horse, Morgan, and looked at the small hill they were constructing of logs and sod.
“What is that, Zander?” she asked.
He was grinning when she glanced his way. Probably because she’d been forced to forget her own vow of silence with the curiosity. There was something else in his look, too, and she was afraid to decipher it. It was too loving and gentle.
“Off-hand, I’d say it’s your stage. Since I already helped envision and design it, I’d have to say it definitely is your stage. Come. I have a lot to do today.”
He led into the camp, wending his way through tents until they reached his. He didn’t ask Morgan to follow, either. He just reached over, plucked the reins from her hands and led them. Morgan didn’t mind. She was looking over at the scaffolding they had put together, and noting that it was at least three stories from the ground.
> “Doona’ fash yourself, Morgan. That there is Scots pine, good Scots damp to the inside and heavy Scots peat atop the whole. There’s nae stronger wood and nae better materials on the earth. It could hold a dozen men if need be, na’ just your slight weight.” He paused for the briefest moment before continuing, “...combined with mine, of course, as it should be.”
Morgan jerked her head to his. “What did you just say?” she asked.
“Only that I’ll be in there with you. Holding to you. Getting the pitch on your arrows lit, handing them to you. I’ll be making certain nothing save the arrow shafts catch fire. I’ll be there, Morgan, just like always. Are you certain you’ve not caught an illness?”
She swallowed the instant moisture he always conjured in her mouth. For a moment when he’d mentioned their combined weights, she’d thought he’d guessed about the bairn. She’d go to her grave before admitting it, and it was his fault that now it would have to be happening sooner, rather than later.
She sucked in on all emotion that thought caused her. She was not afraid of dying. She was more afraid of living. At least, she always had been before.
“You look flushed, Squire Morgan. You have a fever? Chills? Sickness to your belly?”
She opened her eyes and glared at him. “I am never ill.”
“True. We’re here. Come, Squire Morgan. Get your raiment on for the show. You, there!” He hailed a clansman. “Send Scribe Martin to me! Tell him I need a message sent to my brother, Plato.”
“Plato? Why send for him? He stays with his winsome Gwynneth in Argylle,” Morgan remarked to herself as she entered their tent. “She has a fiefdom to secure for the Argylle clan, and legitimate bairns to create to do so.”
Morgan’s voice was very soft and bitter when she ended. She could only hope he hadn’t heard. She went cross-legged on the floor and flattened out a dirk that had rolled in her sock and was chaffing at her ankle. Then she looked up.
Zander stood at the door, holding the flap on his head and looking at her with such warmth in those eyes, the hand holding to the dirk trembled. “Plato is na’ with his bride. He, and FitzHugh clan, ride two days ahead of the king. He always has been. ’Tis he who marks the campsites, and ’tis his responsibility to regale all who will listen about the king and the squire who rides at his side.”
“He does?” she asked.
“Aye. I am not the lone FitzHugh gifted with this big voice you have noticed. Plato has one just as large. He uses it to tell all, who will listen, of the arrival of Scotland’s future, and to watch for it. Have you never wondered at the crowds awaiting us everywhere we go?”
“I thought word of mouth was bringing them.” For some reason, she felt even more deflated by this news, if there was such a thing. She was delaying her clan’s justice for the glory of a unified Scotland, something that had seemed forced on her by the fates, and now she finds out it was being orchestrated?
“Word of mouth? True enough. Plato’s mouth. It may be larger than mine. That is a surprise, I think.”
“Zander—” she began.
He grinned, dropped the door flap and stepped in. “He also has the chore of making certain there is enough foodstuffs ready and enough game downed to feed everyone before we arrive. We haven’t time to do all that. We have to speak to the masses.”
She lowered her head and lifted her eyebrows.
“Very well, The Bruce has to speak. We have to get their attention.”
She set her jaw next.
“All right, stop giving me that look. ’Tis Squire Morgan that has to get their attention, but his lord, Zander FitzHugh, is at his side. A squire canna’ be a squire without a master, you know.”
Morgan looked at him for another moment, and it was difficult to ignore the wide smile, and teasing glint to his eye. She looked back down. There was nothing teasing or amusing left in the world. There never had been. Damn Zander FitzHugh and his notions of play! she thought.
“But, he just wed,” Morgan whispered.
“Aye, but he had a day and two nights with his bride to put his love into her, and his seed. Unlike me. I am the luckier one, I think.”
“Will you cease speaking of that, and get serious?”
He went cross-legged before her, and waited. Morgan had to look. It was what he was waiting for.
“There is too much death and hate and pain and seriousness to the world, Morgan. And, while it canna’ be avoided, and has a place, there needs to be equal time given to the joys of life. I am trying to teach you that. I would like to think I have shown a little of it. I would double my efforts, if I dinna’ think it might kill me.”
She sucked in the breath. “Zander FitzHugh,” she said, in what she hoped was her sternest voice.
He sighed hugely, making that chest rise and fall. “Oh verra well, Squire Morgan. You are the most humorless person I know. I am na’ an ugly man. I am na’ a weak man. I am known throughout the Highlands as a verra wealthy man. Any father would want me for a husband to his daughter. I have been so told. I could have had any number of lasses begging for a glimmer of my smile, a flirtatious glance, the chance to match their body against mine, and receive me. Why, I could have fallen in love with dozens of lasses that find play as absorbing as I do…but no. I had to search out and pluck the most deadly serious woman ever birthed. Verra well. What is it you wish to know?”
She looked up into those midnight-blue eyes and couldn’t find one iota of thought in her head. Everything fled. Then he grinned, and the rush of emotion to the top of her head was so quick and vicious, she very nearly returned his smile, despite hating him for what he had done to her. Her eyes widened, and at that moment, the bairn she already was so mixed-up about, decided to make his presence known again by the gentlest twinge.
Morgan caught the breath, thanked the heavens for her already wide eyes, and prayed the shock didn’t show.
“Plato knows he will have Gwynneth for the rest of his life. ’Tis the gift you gave to them. She canna’ travel with us, though. She had too gentle an upbringing, and is too weak. She’ll be awaiting his return. He knows it.”
“Wh—what?” Morgan stammered on the word.
“I think you asked of Plato. I think your question was one of surprise to find out he was ahead of the king, and na’ at Argylle Castle attending to putting a bairn in his wife’s belly. I think you wished to know the why of it.”
Her face flamed.
“Plato is a Scotsman, Morgan, and while he likes play as much as the next man, he has a glorious speaking voice, too. He uses his talents for the same thing we use ours for...creating a new life.”
“Wh—what?” she stammered through the simple word again, and felt the gut-choking reaction at the same time. He does know! she thought, with what could only be described as complete panic.
“A new life for Scotland, and all her people. Plato would na’ let me have all the glory. Besides, he is repaying a debt.”
“He owes the king?”
“Nay. ’Tis not that sort of debt. Oh, here is Scribe Martin, now. Look at him, Morgan, rolled scrolls beneath his arms, quills stuffed behind his ears, and ink-stains on most his fingers. His services are in much demand, and I freed him two moons past to do so. I am impressed, Scribe Martin, but what is this? Turn about. A braid?”
The boy flushed, pivoted and turned back around. Morgan watched him do it. It was true, too. He hadn’t long hair, but what he had was twined into a braid and the end tucked beneath his shirt. Morgan met Zander’s eyes and when he nodded she looked away.
“They all wish to look just like my squire. They wish to be my squire. I wonder why. I must be a wonderful master.”
Morgan snorted the amusement, along with Martin, who went to a knee beside them. He had a scroll unrolled and draped across his knee, a quill poised atop it, and a serious look to his face. This lad had certainly changed since the slingshot contest at the fair, Morgan thought, watching him.
“You wish a message written, Lord Zander?
”
“Get a message to Plato. Tell him it is time. Tell him I wish him in two days hence at the Cathedral St. Machar, and he is to bring all I specified. You have that?”
“Aye.” The boy was concentrating and writing. He stuck his tongue out one side of his mouth as he did so. Morgan watched him do it. It was clear he had the talent for stone-throwing, but he looked to be an excellent scribe, too. She was surprised that Zander had known, and seen it accomplished, and wondered why she should be. He always seemed to know.
“You have wax for the seal?” Zander asked.
Martin nodded, stood and went from the tent. Morgan watched him do it. Wax? she wondered. He was back within moments, a thumb-sized blot of dull yellow at the scroll’s edge. Zander reached for the dragon brooch he wore on his tartan, removed it, and pressed it into the wax. Morgan watched it all, including the finished result.
“You think a brooch simply for ornamentation, squire?” Zander teased.
“I dinna’ know that purpose. ’Tis grand. That may be why. ’Tis only the nobles who need such.”
He frowned at that and lifted the dragon to look at it. “Hand me the dragon blade,” he said.
Scribe Martin made a sound of awe as she pulled it out and handed it to Zander. She’d forgotten how impressive the blade was. Zander held it to the light, looked at his brooch and then looked at the blade again. Then, he looked at Martin.
“Can you design another crest, Scribe Martin?”
“Design?” the lad choked.
“Aye,” Zander continued. “Not one dragon, but two. Inter-twined, like the hilt of this knife. You see how the tails spin together, making a whole? You see?”
The lad nodded.
“Can you transfer that to your paper? Can you design a seal?”
“But, you already have a seal, Zander,” Morgan pointed out.
He looked across the blade at her, and Morgan’s back went ramrod stiff with how it felt. She knew then exactly what he’d been speaking of in Aberdeen earlier. It was hard and fast. It was strong and virile. It was fresh and pure. Her ears roared with it on every heartbeat. He held out her dragon blade. She took it.
