Kathryn and the Raven had Dun Bhuird only by the King’s say-so. She and Harald were the true heirs. The grandsire they shared from the same Comlyn lineage as Erik the Bear had been cheated of his birthright.
Redressing that wrong had become the goal that shaped her thoughts, her every action.
No sooner had Harald straightened his plaid than she saw Kathryn leave the chieftain’s bedchamber. “There you are. After her now, and show willing.”
Make Kathryn think yer a warrior to be counted on, instead of the rutting stag led by his prick that you truly are.
She watched him hurry to catch up with Kathryn, praying he wouldn’t let her down this time. He’d failed to kill Euan McArthur for her, which had led to Erik the Bear banishing him. However, that was in the past, and she admitted the notion of killing Euan had been wrought out of her spite toward her cousin Astrid, his wife. Euan was the only man ever to refuse Brodwyn. Another reason she had shed nae tears when Astrid, his third wife, died and he got his comeuppance once more.
Aye, Harald had failed her there. Best the dolt made good use of this second chance.
Following him, she heard his loud, “I’m here for ye, Kathryn,” as Harald pushed between her and Magnus. “My sword arm is at yer command.”
Chapter 4
Gavyn kept an eye on the ring of fire burning atop blue hills shading to purple shadows where the heather grew in the cuttings running down from the top of Bienn á Bhuird.
A welcome? Never. Most likely a warning.
Remembering his parting from his wife, he doubted these signal beacons promised a celebration. Aye, it was all right deciding he’d been foolish not to send a messenger ahead of them. And why? Because his friend Euan McArthur had assured him that the clans to his northwest had been quiet of late. That the men he had scouring the borders of the McArthur and Comlyn lands had reported no unrest, the imminent harvest of this year’s crops being of more import than coveting another clan’s lands, animals, or women.
That brought his mind back to Kathryn—his wife in no more than name. He’d thought to surprise her.
It had amazed him how often his daydreams had turned in her direction while he was gone. A fleeting glimpse of gold hair, or a blue dress in the colour she favoured, and he’d remember her chin tilting up at him, gaze unwavering as it passed across the scarred side of his face.
If he disgusted her, she had refused to show it, even when he’d threatened her, warning her of what would befall if he found she’d taken another man between her legs.
Gavyn felt the blood flow into his groin as he thought of the night that lay ahead of him, though she wasn’t aware of it as yet. He thought himself a fair man, just; and because of that he had remained celibate all the time he had been gone. Foreign whores held no temptation while thoughts of Kathryn lingered in his mind, though he doubted she’d ever be persuaded to believe it.
He found justification hard to come by, for there was no love involved in such an arrangement, only convenience, and most of it Malcolm Canmore’s. However, unlike most of his mercenaries, he was aware that for all the fancy finery some lasses wore, lurking beneath the folderols, hid the French disease.
A gift his wife wouldn’t thank him for bringing home.
Home—Dun Bhuird—a place he’d lived for less than a senight. He glanced at the mountains. Wood smoke floated in soft grey clumps against the blue sky, like miniature thunderclouds gathering overhead, grey and foreboding. Aye only a fool would say the signs looked promising—and no, that didn’t include Nhaimeth.
On impulse, he called over his shoulder to his Lieutenant. “Guard the wagons. We’ll ride on ahead.” Finishing his thought by motioning Rob and Jamie forward, lads she might remember. “Rob, Jamie, you’re with me,” he shouted, and immediately set spurs to his steed.
Better to present a smaller threat by riding openly up the glen. Magnus, the constable he’d left in charge of Dun Bhuird should have no worries o’er the danger they presented.
The grain was on the verge of ripening, and hard seed heads bent atop the pale green stalks, whipping the feathery hocks of their mounts. Side by side they rode along the edges of fields that promised a good harvest, better than he had expected to see.
Kathryn felt the sun’s rays slant across the tops of her cheekbones. Fierce as it tried to escape the clouds, it burned red as a warning flag, over mountains as purple as a bruise.
Smoke from the beacons her people had lit on the ridges scented air that seemed to shrink around them. Kathryn pulled in a ragged breath, a mouthful of air torn and frayed around the edges by the surfeit of uneasiness shared by all those around her.
At last had come the moment she had prepared for, nae dreaded, since the lands of Bienn á Bhuird became her responsibility—to have and to hold while her erstwhile husband went to participate in some benighted French king’s war across the water. At this precise moment, it was as if she had always known today would come to pass.
As inevitable as night followed day.
Now she had to prove that she was the true head of the Comlyn clan—by right of blood—not Gavyn Farquhar. Not the mercenary the king had gifted with both her hall and her lands.
Low rays of sunlight cut under the base of the clouds and smoke the high hall’s shape firmed, its huge log walls limned in shades of bronze and black, the high hall crouched on its broad ledge, glaring down on the glen like a fierce lynx ready to pounce on the unwary.
Three sets of large hooves thundered atop the dirt trail in time with Gavyn’s heart. Both it and the other’s mounts sped faster the closer they approached Dun Bhuird.
Dust rose like smoke plumes around the feathered hooves of their mounts as he hauled back hard on the reins. With Rob and Jamie but a moment behind him, they came to a halt but six horse-lengths from the gatehouse.
His eyes were drawn again and again to the high hall as it glowered down at them above the jagged log walls of the palisade, its gates firmly shut against him as he pounded toward the barrier as if it didn’t exist.
It remained shut.
Kathryn stood steady, the mail weighing as heavily on her shoulders as her responsibilities—both tainted by the deaths of her father and brother. Her family were dead and the McArthurs bore the blame. Her breath caught on a shuddering sob she dared not give voice to while she … aye, she, was preparing to face the large band of men marching on the Comlyn stronghold.
With the light behind them, it was near impossible to recognise the ensign on their shields. It made little difference; no friend marched upon another without advance warning. And any chance of surprise had long since faded. That they were expected was without doubt. The beacons had warned not only those at Dun Bhuird.
The Comlyns had Right on their side, but history wouldn’t care for that if the last of them were wiped off the face of the Highlands. The thought wasn’t to be borne that she might go down as the one responsible for that tragedy.
She refused to consider that her father might be to blame for pursuing a war he could never have won.
Her thoughts raced, all of them bad. Meanwhile fate kept pace with her deliberation and arrived in the shape of the enemy. All too soon it was time for her, Kathryn Comlyn, to step up to the mark.
She strode to the edge of the rim, nocked her arrow—a signal meant for her men—and drew the bowstring until it quivered against her ear as she held her breath.
Out of the darkness below she beheld a black bird rising, a raven.
Kathryn’s cheek stung as her arrow flew.
Gavyn, lifting a metal-gloved fist, roared at the slight figure in fine silver mail on the edge of the rim outside the longhouse, demanding, “Open the gates for your laird.” The words had barely left his mouth when the arrow stabbed the ground between his mount’s hooves. It said much for Cloud’s training that the horse didn’t rear and unseat him.
Aye, he was well trained.
Howsoever, it would seem the same couldn’t be said for his wife.
A man might have killed him, or attempted to.
Not Kathryn Comlyn.
And somehow that didn’t bode well.
Chapter 5
“Welcome hame, Farquhar, welcome,” the words of greeting accompanied outstretched hands, and judging by the vigour of their clasps, Magnus and Abelard, the men he’d left in charge still saw him as the laird of Dun Bhuird.
Whether or not his wife did was a different kettle of fish.
The two older men had waited inside the palisade to greet him the moment the huge double gates swung wide then were fastened against log towers the height of four men. He measured with his eyes. Not high enough. Tall they may be, but these wooden walls would have to be removed after the stone curtain wall was constructed—part of his plans the future.
All well and good, for the now.
Here he was, finally—Chieftain, by the king’s command—yet nobody cheered. Nobody smiled. The glances cast his way were not quite disappointment, more bewilderment that he was actually alive. The wagons filled to the brim with iron-bound chests were looked upon more favourably—a mix of speculation and avarice.
He raised his gaze to the high rim, but of Kathryn there was no sign.
If her aim had been true, what then?
War? Anarchy?
If that had occurred and he survived? God’s blood, even if he had died, the king would have had his hide. Gavyn drew a breath up the length of his nose, sharpened it with the narrowing of his nostrils until its force made his eyes water.
Did his men still envy him? The impudent scoundrels among them men had jested back and forth about the woman waiting in his bed. Though they chuckled behind his back, they well aware that speculating might be the nearest they came to a woman of their own.
Gavyn had always known Kathryn for wilful, and that hadn’t changed. A less patient, less careful man might have reclaimed his power with a heavy hand. Fine, if what he wanted was a sullen wife in his bed. Or if what he desired was a woman more likely to slide a dirk between his ribs than pucker her lips for a kiss. Nae, he left that sort of risk to fools who had never imagined fitting between her white thighs, never coveted that long tight thrust into the warmth he’d thought of often over two celibate years.
For that reason and no other, he had yet to lay eyes on Kathryn since they arrived, preferring to send his young wife instructions by Abelard’s hand of the duties he expected from the woman he had married. He could easily picture the expression on her face when she received them. It wouldn’t be happy. However, the second-hand delivery was no less than she deserved after her demonstration as she looked down on him from the Dun’s rim.
He had taken good note that both his deputy and seneschal had aged considerably since he left, and that Magnus was hampered by a limp he was attempting to hide. No wonder his wife had felt able to turn her mind to men’s affairs, take the reins of Dun Bhuird into her own white hands.
Meanwhile in the darkness of a tunnel hewn aeons ago from the hard rock lying beneath the mountain, Gavyn personally directed the caching of his bounty—a bigger treasure than any Comlyn clansman had ever seen or was likely to see. No mercenary, no lieutenant, not even the man who stood in place to take over should anything happen to him, knew the true value of the proceeds of their journey to France—a sum that few but the king of Scotland himself had ever beheld, and he still would be, even after his men received their share.
“Dolt! Have a care.”
Gavyn swung around as one of his lieutenants rebuked the men tasked with easing the last of the chests down wooden planks into a tapered cavern. His eyes narrowed as he recognised them as a pair of those who had viewed their compatriot’s deaths in terms of more silver in their own hands.
But the lieutenant wasn’t done with them. “Any lessening of value through your carelessness will lighten your purses.”
“It was a mistake. We’re tired,” said one. “And hungry,” moaned the other.
“You’ll feel worse afore it gets better.” The lieutenant told them. “Slide down the last chest; then, when the oxen are led away, clean up every last skerrick of their droppings. It stinks in here.”
“And do it well,” Gavyn added his might to their discomfort. Their faces crumpled, part exhaustion, the rest from being caught out by the laird—a notion which made Gavyn’s lips curve, realising that at last he thought of himself as the Laird. Slanting his glance away from the men on the wagon towards the lieutenant, he issued an order, “Make sure those idiots wash afore they come up to the hall to sup. There will be no feasting in the hall this e’en for any lout smelling like shit nor any boasting about what is hidden here unless you’ve a mind to receive less than your due.”
The rest of their tasks progressed apace under Gavyn’s watchful eyes. Over his years in the King’s service, Gavyn had learned to be a canny soul, aware that the less said about something such as the fortune he had secured beneath Dun Bhuird the better.
He had no use for the aggravation that flaunting a huge amount of silver under King Malcolm’s nose was bound to bring. No need to give Canmore any reason to question Gavyn’s ambitions. He was loyal to Malcolm Canmore; truth be known he was grateful, and would do as the king expected—protect the lands south of the Highlands from the Norsemen who had long claimed Caithness and Orkney as their own.
The King’s armies cost a ransom, such as the one he’d hidden away to keep them marching, but his silver would serve a more practical purpose—to afford a curtain wall and, with God’s help, a tower next to the long hall astride the rim and, mayhap, another kind of barrier—solid gates—on the rise up to the Dun. To that end, he had sent the King the more exquisite pieces from their haul. Fancy jewelled and carved statuary taken from men who had stolen them in lands on the far side of the Mediterranean. Aye, he’d sent yon bits and pieces made by Moorish artisans containing less silver and more art.
Apart from his young wife’s audacity, everything had gone to plan. Orders he had given Abelard for a safe place had been carried out, and strong doors built to hide all the chests—more than even he had anticipated—and all would be bound in iron and sealed with padlocks he had acquired from Saxony. He had no intention of making stealing from him an easy task.
For years he’d had a position many envied. Gavyn and his men had performed duties for Malcolm that the king would rather not become common knowledge. Dun Bhuird was his reward—a mountain stronghold and a wife. Neither had come with enough silver to fix the problems he had immediately perceived on the day of his first visit to Dun Bhuird. Never one to put aside problems, he had realised that quickest solution to his difficulties was to be found in fighting for Phillip the First of France in the tug-o-war over who should own the strip of land by the Seine called the Vexin—the Franks, or the Normans.
He had gone at it with a will.
Aye, one of the requisites needed by a leader of men was confidence and foresight.
Gavyn had those in abundance as well as—inexplicably—optimism.
A faculty he would need this night.
He remembered one convivial evening when the king had confided, “A wise man marries to gain power and, if he’s lucky, he’ll also find a wife who makes his rod stand at the slightest provocation.”
The proof of his king’s insight was part of history. He had fought and killed his cousin Macbeth in single combat and soon afterwards taken his opponent’s Lady to wife. Aye, her family had had as much right to rule as Canmore’s—power by the barrelful. The kingdom of Fife had been a grand prize. As for Margaret, his second wife, the observant Raven in Gavyn had always thought the King’s second alliance had love at its core.
Kathryn, on the other hand, had brought him the power and land amassed by Erik the Bear during his years as head of Clan Comlyn and, through her, Gavyn had gained more than just authority, for it was true his young wife made his cock harden in an insistent manner. As for love, it wasn’t for the likes of him.
For a man called the Raven.
&nb
sp; Candles flickered in tall holders set either side of the hearth where a low fire burned ready to be stirred up once Farquhar arrived. Even so, the chamber was dark, hung with tapestries her father had acquired the way he had obtained many of the beautiful things in the apartment, death and plunder.
In that, her husband wasn’t so different from the Bear—but only in that.
She had heard early on, through Brodwyn’s gleeful aegis, that her husband wasn’t truly a Scot. Did that explain his treatment of her a few hours after their wedding? Or had it been her refusal to bed a stranger, husband not withstanding? Not much had changed except her notion of how her dearest wish might be achieved. It had become clear that, being a woman, her power was a transient thing, hers only through her husband’s favour.
Until he had returned, Kathryn’s outlook had been ever hopeful; now, because of her actions on the rim, despondent was a better word for it.
How could she ever succeed in making him love her now?
Last surviving offspring of Erik Comlyn, mayhap, yet her only value was as a wife.
As if in tune with her thoughts, outside the wind rose. She heard it ruffle in and out of the carved buttresses that supported the roof’s overhang, though it surprised her when it whooped and howled sending a swirl of smoke and sparks onto the stone hearth.
An omen? Unlikely.
She refused to imbue her husband with that kind of power.
A spark leapt out of the fire, darted cross the stone flags to land on the fur rug she had spread there for her own comfort. She stamped it out with quick flash of anger, then drew a slow breath, aware this had best be her last show of temper. She picked up the rug and shook it out in case any heat lingered, wondering what comfort would there be for her now.
Her feelings locked deep inside, she supervised the men tipping pails of water into the large wooden tub. Drifts of steam caressed the water’s surface, much like the mists that would tumble down the mountainside onto the lochan in autumn; but that season was months away. God willing, her husband would have forgiven her by then.
Chieftain By Command Page 4
