Chieftain By Command

by Frances Housden

  She had stopped wishing, If only Father were alive. Eric the Bear was long gone. No matter that she was a wife in name only, she felt she had gained maturity. Gavyn had left Magnus and Abelard in in control—in control of her. Fate had stepped in to change that, Magnus had broken his thighbone and now had a limp that slowed him down. Abelard had simply aged, his eyes dimming so that he found it difficult to read. Their misfortune had served her. She had learned more about the running of a clan than she had known before.

  And a lot of good it did her. None of that knowledge prevented her clansmen from seeing her as a woman—as naught but the Bear’s wee lassie.

  Lhilidh broke into her reverie, saying, “I have everything in the basket, Lady. Let’s be off now. Maw will be waiting.”

  “It’s to be hoped she slept last night. Her pains are getting much worse.” Kathryn ran her fingers through the little pots of salve, linen twists of powder and small flasks of potions, checking she had all she would need for the folks expecting her to visit over the morning. “Hmm, thank you Lhilidh, it appears to be all there, as you said. Let’s be off.”

  They had to duck their heads low to enter the wee house. The doorway was covered by a length of auld cowhide hung from a rough wooden beam to keep out wind and rain. The grey walls, a jumble of stones pieced together into a whole, had been carved from huge rocks that the mountain birthed aeons ago. The thick thatched roof glowered down at all who entered, two bushy eyebrows of bracken hanging over each wee window. At least the heather thatch kept off the rain more ably than the gaps between the stones thwarted the wind.

  Her fondness for Lhilidh, meant Kathryn had done her best to provide a few creature comforts inside for the lass’s ailing mother, though naught would cure what ailed Geala. She knew that the most her efforts could achieve was to stave off the pain that constantly doubled Geala over. First she had brought herbal decoctions and, lately, milk of the poppy. Poor Lhilidh was ignorant of the true state of affairs.

  Death was no stranger to Kathryn. How could it be with the Bear as a father? The same couldn’t be said for Lhilidh. Not because Kathryn deliberately kept her suspicions to herself; she dreaded breaking the bad news to the young lass. With Geala gone, Lhilidh would have no one. That is unless one was forced to consider Nhaimeth—the wee Fool Astrid had taken with her to Cragenlaw—as family.

  Reason enough to keep her counsel a while longer.

  Lhilidh crossed the threshold first and ran to her mother’s side. Geala lay curled up in her plaid, her gaunt face the colour of cold ashes. “I think she’s asleep,” she whispered, but from her expression she feared the worst.

  Kathryn followed her, touched her fingertips to Geala’s face, as startled as Lhilidh when her mother began to grumble under her breath, a hodgepodge of words too softly spoken to understand. “She’s fine but in pain. See whether any wine is left in that flask we left her yesterday. She’s been dribbling and her mouth will feel dry.”

  Curling an arm around Geala, she propped the older woman’s lax body against her shoulder while Lhilidh tipped a cup up to her mother’s lips. “That’s it, Geala. A few wee sips and you’ll start feeling more like yourself.”

  Soon Kathryn had her sitting up, with Lhilidh for support, while she gave her milk of the poppy for the pain. Naught else worked anymore, and no wonder. Since winter, Geala had gradually grown weaker and thinner while the bulge of her stomach had grown apace. Catching Kathryn looking, the older woman ran her much wrinkled hand over her protruding belly and gave a dry laugh that set her coughing. “There are some foolish auld biddies out there who believe I’m having another bairn.” She broke off on a crack of laughter then squeezed Kathryn’s hand. “You ken better, lass,” she acknowledged. “Besides, I’ve had twa bairns, more than enough for any woman.”

  “Three bairns, Maw,” Lhilidh interrupted.

  “Nae, just you and Murdoch, and him dead afore his faither which is nae richt.” Geala’s eyes brightened and, though her lips smiled at Kathryn, they held a flicker of slyness before settling back into her usual pain-worn expression. “You never kenned that Murdoch was only your half-brother Lhilidh, aye an truth be told, half-brother to you an’ all, Kathryn.”

  Kathryn’s gasp fast became a frown, her thoughts racing through a maze of confusion. She soon grasped that Geala’s decision to blurt out the secrets, was the realisation that she was about to meet her maker. A priest would have been more fitting to hear her confidences, yet Geala’s disturbing confession tugged at her curiosity. “Half-brother?”

  “Aye, but dinnae worry, that was a lang time afore you were born. Ma son grew into a fine figure o’ a man just like his faither.” She laughed, though few might have recognised it for one as the sound rasped up the walls of a dry throat before she thought to continue. “Whether he would have been as lusty and hard to refuse as the Bear, we’ll never ken since his years on this earth ended while he fought at the Bear’s side.”

  This brought to mind the last man to fight at her Father’s side, Doughall Farquhar. The Bear had dragged her out to meet her first Farquhar groom and, praise be to God, he had died before they made their vows and, aye, her father soon after. She found it hard to believe Erik the bear had kept a son secret from them all. A brother, Geala’s son.

  Kathryn sought to bring the lad to mind, but her father had frowned on his daughter’s becoming too friendly with the clansmen. In his eyes, his daughters had been meant for something better, worth more than a common warrior, and look at her now, married to a warrior from the wrong side of the border, though few would say he was wrought from the common mould. Geala was right about her father; there was no denying that as a Chieftain he had looked the part—a fair mountain of a man, larger than life. From the depths of her memory, she plucked out her earliest recollections of him wearing his bearskin cloak. Powerful he’d been, rugged as the mountain he presided over, even in death, from the high cairn.

  Lhilidh broke in on Kathryn’s thoughts, “Am I … are we…?”

  “Nae, she’s nae sister of yours.” Geala cackled again, this time as if the pair of them were there for her amusement. “The Bear and me didn’t last past his first marriage.”

  That was as may be, but Lhilidh’s newfound courage made her insistent. “An’ what about Nhaimeth? Is he my brother?’ the lass asked, while Kathryn sat in front of them on a stool—waiting, listening, wondering what had drawn her ‘sister’ toward the dwarf.

  “Nhaimeth, ye say? Nae, I didn’t give birth to that wee fool. His faither thrust him on me when his wife died giving the bairn life. Blamed the bairn, an’ if not for me he’d like as not have left him on the mountain.”

  She shook her head as if she regretted her moment of compassion. “Ach, I was feeding Murdoch anyway and had enough milk for twa, an’ he was but a bairn, nae matter what he looked like with his crooked back and stumpy legs. Aye, that’s God’s truth. Wi’ the twa lads under my roof I never had to worry about lang cauld winters with nae food again. It was enough.”

  Reaching up with a claw-like hand, Geala patted her daughter’s hand. “Yer faither was a braw man, and I still had my bonnie looks then. But he was only visiting. I hardly ken if he’s alive or dead—probably the last, him being handy with a sword. You have his eyes and his fine straight nose, lass. Quality.’ Geala touched the round snub nose that centred her worn features. “Dinnae look for more.” She finished then as the poppy’s strength, left her weak and no longer able to hold her head up. Geala leaned back, her head in the crook of Lhilidh’s shoulder and closed her eyes.

  Soon Lhilidh had her mother wrapped once again inside the folds of her warm plaid. Geala had fallen back once more into the land of dreams by the time Lhilidh tucked her up in the thick wolfskin—a comfort provided by Kathryn.

  After a few more visits to clan’s folk who were ailing, they returned to the hall, climbing the wide, worn steps of the steep slope side by side. They walked a while in silence before Lhilidh found the courage to speak the thoughts on
her mind, “It would have been nice to have a sister. Even so, I would never have presumed. You’re the lady of the hall and I’m happy to be your maid.”

  “It’s strange to discover that, though we were ignorant of the truth, we once had a brother in common. I truly wouldn’t have minded having you for a sister. It can’t be denied that, like you, I have no one. You realise that Geala hasn’t got long now; naught anybody can do will make her better?” Lhilidh nodded. “Shortly you and I will have only each other to rely on, and I’m happy that it’s so.”

  “You have Brodwyn.”

  Kathryn broke out in smiles, as if the bad humour she had woken up in had been cast aside. “Lhilidh, you make jest. Next you’ll be adding that null Harald to the list, since he’s my cousin as well; but Brodwyn… I’d as soon take a wild cat to friend.”

  Though she didn’t smile, since they were her betters, Lhilidh’s eyes creased at the corners, if only for a moment. “You have the Raven,” she spoke his name in the way folk had once mentioned the Bear, with a hint of wonder.

  Kathryn’s top lip curled from habit, at the thought of her husband. The Raven. He was a paradox of a man if she ever had beheld one, with a face that inhabited some folks’ nightmares if you came upon the wrong side of his features. Yet the first time she beheld him, her breath had caught, swelled in her throat with an emotion she didn’t understand. His straight hair, black as a raven’s wing, the aristocratic nose and full lips… She’d thought that at last she had something for Brodwyn to be jealous of, then he’d turned and she had perceived how wrong she was. Knowing Brodwyn, she would probably have laughed, have derided the contrasting sides of a face that bespoke a creature both myth and man.

  Then she discovered he was just a man wanting his own way, and so stubborn. Pull down the Dun on the Bienn? Not if she could prevent it.

  Farquhar would likely pull the tall cairn down piece by piece and use the stones to build the Keep he had been so set upon the last time they spoke.

  The last time…

  Kathryn closed her eyes. At first, she had felt wicked for having thoughts in her mind she dared not express aloud. Gradually she had come to realise that, like Geala, she would have to be happy with the lot that fate had sent her. And as time passed, the notion that she could ever be chief of the clan receded. She had tried—aye she had—with little measure of success. It seemed a woman could have only the amount of power a man allowed her.

  She shrugged inwardly at the continuation of a thought that had presented itself around yuletide. Though Brodwyn was not the example she would have chosen, Kathryn soon became aware that acting the shrill-tempered shrew she had presented to Gavyn on their wedding night would reap her no rewards. If only the other methods of grasping the power she craved didn’t strike her as base … yet what option did she have?

  If the Raven ever returned to Dun Bhuird, she would have to do what she could to make him fall in love with her.

  As they reached the top of the ridge, she opened her gaze to the bright day through air so clear, so pure; she could see the breeze toss green waves through stems of oat and barley, watch a red deer lift its head, as if feeling her gaze on him. Wild things had that preternatural sense that kept them safe. She would have to try to develop something similar herself, she decided, as the deer returned to nibbling barley until someone spied it and gave chase. Kathryn couldn’t find it in her to blame it. Like her husband, no sooner acknowledged than gone.

  Soon enough there would be little for the deer to steal. The fields would be busy with folk threshing the crops, and the winter ale would be brewing, as in every year, whether Farquhar was here or not.

  She took Lhilidh’s arm and began steering her towards the hall’s elaborate entrance. “It’s true I have Farquhar, yet even after two years I’d be hard pressed to say my life has changed since I wed. He’s been gone so long it’s difficult to recall his face,” she lied. “Meanwhile you and I will be as close to sisters as nature allows us. Life must go on,” she said, her voice dropping away to naught, knowing that if her husband still lived, he was out there in a foreign land somewhere beyond the sea.

  If he lived.

  Chapter 2

  Once a month Dun Bhuird held a gathering day for clansfolk. A month never passed without some quarrel or another needing to be settled.

  She would sit at the high table, like a wee bird—a yellowhammer mayhap—squashed betwixt a pair of plump capercaillie—Abelard and Magnus. Every month, the folks she helped to judge were also taking her measure. That said, she had allowed no doubts to cross her mind, believing in an innate facility to judge fairly all the matters laid before her, confident of seeing both sides of a story.

  That afternoon dragged slowly, so numbingly boring it was a wonder she didn’t nod off to sleep. She found it difficult to remember her father sitting still, listening to all these wee bits of quarrels. Who had let his cattle stray and had it claimed by another? But then, perhaps like her, he had decided a pinch of tedium was a small price to pay for the respect it gained.

  “The signal beacons are afire!”

  Kathryn came to herself with an untoward gasp of breath, heart pumping faster than a cricket could sing. Domestic matters could go hang in the face of the young lad’s shouts as he raced into the hall. Excitement shimmered off the silhouette he made against the bright stream of afternoon sunlight pouring through the open doors.

  Like a little linty, the lad ducked under a housecarl’s outstretched arm and rushed to the high board in a blur of plaid, shouting, “A band of men hae just entered the foot o’ the glen! A whole army I’ve nae doubt, for the watch tells me the sun o’er the tap of the Bienn is glinting aff their spears.”

  With a snarl, the housecarl leapt after the lad, gripping him by the scruff of the neck. Seems she wasn’t the only one fed up by the monotony.

  Kathryn jumped from the raised platform at the end of the hall with Magnus one step behind her, limping on his shortened leg. “Leave the lad be,” she said, motioning the housecarl back to the door. “Save your breath to send word for all our clansfolk to come inside the palisade.”

  She cast a rueful eye over the two men who had recently been arguing over the ownership of a cow, an argument they had wanted her to settle. “Run quick now, fetch your families. It may well be naught, but better they be safe than sorry.”

  The men took to their heels, the beast they’d been quarrelling over forgotten. When it came to the crux, it was their own families’ wellbeing they had fought over, and it was her duty to ensure they were able to do that. She was barely aware of their swift departure. An unsought picture of half-ripened fields of grain, both oats and barley, trampled underfoot pushed to the fore of more urgent matters. She sniffed up the unwanted emotion the vision evoked. A man would not feel so, and that was part of her problem. She needed to learn to stay cold. Had to think like a man, prevent her emotions frae being captured by a notion of her folk left without the traditional staples like oat bannocks and ale.

  She shrugged the feeling off as Magnus touched her shoulder; she had more things of moment to attend to without burdening her mind with worries about the destruction of her beautiful glen. Abelard had already departed to take care of his particular responsibilities. Should there be a siege, feeding everyone would fall on the seneschal’s shoulders.

  Magnus had more immediate concerns on his mind. “I’ll send out a blast of the horn. That should alert in anyone in nae position to see the beacons.”

  “I’ll meet you outside. I must get out of this kirtle and into something that shows I’m confident enough to stand by our men.” Magnus simply looked down from his greater height and nodded, no doubt cognisant of the drift of her mind.

  She watched him limp into the sunlight as fast as his bad leg allowed. Watched him take down the ancient horn hanging from a peg near the door as he passed. Kathryn couldn’t remember the last time it had been sounded. Most neighbouring clans had known Erik the Bear was far too throng to dare tangle w
ith him in battle. It was the Norsemen from Caithness and the Southerners whom he scared and sent packing with their tails between their legs.

  No matter that her father was dead and her husband reluctant to take his place by her side. That made her responsible for the safety of every man woman and child and everything the Comlyn clan had guarded across the years.

  Restless, Gavyn spurred his steed to the rear of the column. His nephew Rob’s eyes sparked with excitement as Gavyn’s grey mount pawed the air, snorting, after being halted by a hard tug on the reins. Battle-trained, Cloud could turn in a circle nae bigger than a silver Norman shilling and do a deal of damage with iron-hard hooves on the downward pivot.

  Riding with them on a tiny pony the McArthur had procured from one of the isles in the northwest rode Nhaimeth—a wee dwarf of a man with the heart of a lion. For Nhaimeth, Dun Bhuird really was home. Few folk, Kathryn included, were aware that Nhaimeth was a Comlyn, the discarded son of Erik the Bear, who hadn’t been able to stand looking at him. Gavyn presumed that Comlyn had thought the ill-formed bairn would never survive his mother’s death; but in that, as well as many other matters, the Bear had been mistaken. Nhaimeth had clung to life, and throughout that short life had hated his father with a will that would not break.

  This would be the wee Fool’s first return to Dun Bhuird since he’d left at Astrid Comlyn’s side—another of his half-sisters, the more beautiful of the two it was said. To Gavyn’s mind, Astrid must have been wondrous fair, for Kathryn had taken his breath the first time he looked upon her. He was unable to give the comparison fair measure though, for Astrid was already dead before Gavyn first came to Cragenlaw.

  “Do you recognise where we are Nhaimeth?”

  “Aye, part of the forest is thinning out. We’ll soon be marching into the long glen and in nae time at all we’ll reach Dun Bhuird.” Nhaimeth’s expression was not one of unmitigated joy at the thought. When Gavyn looked down from Cloud’s back to quirk an eyebrow at the wee fool, Nhaimeth added, “I never thought to ever gang back there. Never had any notion to return.” His lips took on a wry slant, and his eyes twinkled as he informed Gavyn. “Rob’s excited about getting away frae Cragenlaw, not being under the McArthur’s thumb.”