by Jill Barnett
“Fergus! Fetch!” Glenna called to the hound, and walking out toward deeper water, she threw a rope of knobby kelp. He barked and dove at it, his head popping up out of the water, kelp rope between his grinning teeth. She laughed at him before a wave knocked her under and she came up spitting saltwater and searching for her footing.
A piece of bleached wood drifted past on swell. She tossed it high in the air for him. The two of them played with the stick for a long time, stopping to paddle together in the calmer sea between waves, until they both were cool and breathing hard. She trudged through the water with the strong tide pulling at her clothes, before stopping in the sand to pull up her tunic and tighten the rope drawstring on her sodden peasant trouse.
On the northern edge of the cove, the huge granite rocks were warm from the bright sunshine, and she climbed atop a flat one without a seal stretched out on it, and lay back, hand over her eyes. A nearby seal barked, but didn’t deign to move when Fergus jumped up next to her, circling twice before he hunkered down for a nap, shaggy wet chin resting on his enormous paws. Soon she drifted off.
What woke her she could not say, but Fergus’ head shot up with her and he growled lowly. A horse and rider came around the far southern end the cove, where there was a small, less rocky trail from the far cliffs down to the sea.
“Come, Fergus! Quickly! Down!” Glenna rolled over and went down behind the rock, climbing back and around so she was hidden between the seals.
Who was this man?
She and her brothers lived on the midwestern edges of the island, far, far from the only village to the east. Even the Norse on the northernmost tip of the island stayed clear, so beaten and gaunt was the terrain here. There was no value to the land or what little grew on it; they lived in complete isolation, which her brothers claimed was what their battle-weary father had wanted, to be hidden at the end of land where no one would call him to war or had a reason to come within even a half day’s ride.
She had no weapon. Her belt with its knife lay next to her bed in the cottage. A fool’s mistake. Slowly she eased up between a group of seals to keep her eye on the stranger, then quickly shoved Fergus’ head down when he decided to follow her lead.
“Stay down,” she whispered to him, and he whimpered and put his snout on his paws, clearly unhappy with her.
As the man rode closer along the edge of the water, she could easily see his rank as a noble warrior dressed for protection in a padded jack gambeson of leather and mail covered his legs. He rode with no troop of men, and she glanced up at the cliffs to see if there were others above, but there was no one. She looked back at him. A shield emblazoned with a rampant golden lion on an azure field hung down from his pommel and soon the sun caught the glint of his sword and she spotted several large stones the size of crabapples inlaid along the scabbard strapped to his hips. His wealth was evident; his horse was one of the finest animals she had ever seen, head high, perfect arch of the neck, black mane and tail flowing. And she watched, somewhat lost in the beauty of the two of them; the horse and man cut an exquisitely handsome figure through the wet sand, sea spraying up behind them and turning into rainbows in the glare of bright sunshine.
He dismounted, tossing the reins over his saddle and stood at the edge of the water, looking out to the sea, his hands resting on his narrow hips, and she wondered what he was thinking and why he was in this singular and lonely place. Within moments he had unbuckled his sword and tossed it in the sand, pulled off his boots, jack, mail and linen, until he stood there beautifully and quite wondrously naked, a golden image walking into the water, almost like some Norse idol come to life; the man was pure gold from the thick head of hair ending at his wide shoulders to every inch of skin she could see. For just the barest of moments, the sun caught and glinted off a gold cross he wore on a chain around his neck and she smiled—perhaps he was her gift from God.
He dove under a wave that would have taken her down, his head coming up behind the swell like one of the seals and he swam across the water, riding in on the waves and swimming back out again, his arms making powerful strokes that seemed to cut easily through the pull of the sea.
Glenna eyed the horse, then the man, who was swimming even farther out to the larger swells beyond. She leaned against the rock with one hand as she slipped on her wooden shoes one at a time. “Bare-assed fool,” she muttered. “To go frolicking in the sea while that fine, fine animal stands there…sorely abandoned.” She sighed, as did someone who had little choice in what they were about to do, and made her way over to the lovely horse, Fergus trailing behind her as she began to speak to the black in a low and melodic voice.
The animal’s ears went up and twitched, but she easily took the reins, stroking his head. “There…there, my sweet and lovely thing.” She began to hum softly and saw trust soften his eyes.
She slowly led the horse in a half-circle so the beast stood in front of the man’s clothes, hiding her from his view, before she pulled the lion shield from the saddle; it dropped heavily into the sand, then she lifted the solid sword and its scabbard from the sand with both hands and a grunt, and hooked it over the pommel, quickly flinging his lighter clothing, leather gambeson, and lastly his weighty mail onto the horse.
“God’s blood! You, there! Stand back from that horse! “ Sir Golden Himself was swimming back toward shore.
‘Twas a shame, really, about the golden cross. She was certain it would fetch a good penny.
“Get away, I say! That horse will trample you before he will let you touch him! Back away, you!” A wave washed over him and he came up from behind it, standing in the water, his wet skin gleaming jewel-like in the bright sunshine, his hair slicked back and his face red and angry as he strode waist-deep through the strong pull of the tide.
Poor fool, she thought. He was not moving quite swiftly enough. She gripped the horse, her foot in the stirrup, and mounted, leaning over to stroke the black’s arched neck. “You won’t hurt me, sweet lad. Will you?” Reins in her hands, she looked back at the man, so huge and trying to power his way to shore through seawater, ebb tide, and the next waves.
“What are you doing?” He bellowed so loudly his voice echoed in the cliff caverns and birds flew into the sky.
Glenna wheeled the horse around. “Me, good sir? Why, I’m stealing your lovely sword-- nice jewels—“ she patted the scabbard meaningfully, “also your clothes,” she added, as the black sidestepped in the sea foam that curled on the sand and around his hooves. “Fret not, for I will leave you your most precious jewels,” she said pointedly. “And your shield to protect them.”
“Get off that horse!”
“This horse? I think not. But I thank you for him!” She gave the poor man a final wave and took off down the beach on that powerful black beast with his hooves pounding in the hard wet sand, riding like the wind away from the golden fool, Fergus loping along behind, and her sweet, wicked laughter echoing back in the warm air.
* * *
Some half a day’s distance away from the cove, solidly built into the downside of a grassy slope, was a stone cottage with a sod roof that blended in with the terrain, and inside the main room stood a long wooden trestle table with a scarred top. The open shutters on the window alcoves let in air and plenty of light from a lingering sun still shining past evening.
Glenna pushed the sword across the trestle table toward her eldest brother, Alastair, who was closely studying the scabbard jewels, while her younger brother, Elgin, rummaged through the man’s belongings.
“These are emeralds and rubies,” Alastair said to her, testing the hilt and holding up the great sword. “And the largest stone in the center is a sapphire, which would be considered rare at half its size.” He stood and moved across the small room, swinging the sword at imaginary opponents. For a time, their father had begun to train Al in the arts of war, but for Sir Hume Gordon, whose wife had died just after he came home from war, death came suddenly and had robbed her eldest brother of any dreams of
fostering toward knighthood.
“Look here.” Elgin said. “Manna from Heaven.” He set five plump bags of sterling on the table, a silver meat knife with a gold filigree handle circled with rubies and a matching rare, two-pronged fork. There was a small handwritten parchment book with tooled leather covers tied together with silk braid in azure blue and gold, a wine chalice with an ebony inlay and a stem shaped into a rampant golden lion, a signet ring again with the lion, and a rolled sheaf of papers marked with an important looking wax seal.
Only Alastair could read and write, and he often shook his head many times as he tried to decipher some document or letter, so Glenna thought he could not actually comprehend all the words he tried to read. But he had been only ten and two when their father died, and Elgin was barely nine, and she but four. Alone they had buried their father, and for as long as she could remember life had been just the three of them.
Alastair picked up the papers and screwed up his face as he concentrated. It was a long time before he looked up. “These papers are assurance for safe passage.”
“His passage was not safe with Glenna.” Elgin laughed.
“Not when you turn your back for barely a moment,” Alastair added.
“What about these clothes?” she asked, unrolling and laying out the heavily-padded, leather gambeson. “Can we sell them?”
“I cannot believe you took the poor man’s clothes,” Alastair said, trying to look serious but she could see he was having trouble. Her brothers could never scold her or even stay angry with her for long.
“Twas not the first time,” Glenna said easily. “And these clothes are anything but poor.” She took a roasted capon leg from a platter in front of them and bit into it, chewing as she added, “He left them beside his poor horse. Seems only proper that someone should relieve him of them, particularly when he seemed to care not a whit for any of it.”
Alastair shook his head. “Glenna… Glenna…What am I to do with you?”
“Did not Hercules say to the waggoner, ‘the gods help those who help themselves?’ ” She shrugged, picking clean a small bone. “I merely consider myself an apt student of Hercules--I helped myself. In truth, I doubted we could sell his shield, so I chose to leave it behind. The fool is lucky to have it.”
“Not when the man’s shield is what identifies him.” Elgin couldn’t seem to stop laughing; he had always been the cheeriest of them. “Can you see him? Bare-assed as the day he was born, making his way home with naught but a shield, one that tells the world exactly who he is.”
“Ah…but from what wee, wee bit I saw,” Glenna said pointedly. “The man didn’t have much to cover. His shield was more than large enough. Were I to really think on it, I believe his gold ring could do the trick.” She tossed the bone away.
Her brothers laughed out loud and she tried not to smile at her lie, but when Elgin, with tears of laughter in his eyes, snorted like a pig she lost her composure and giggled, the image of Sir Golden Himself with nothing but his emblazoned shield to hide behind was more humorous than even she could pretend to ignore. “You should have seen him, plodding through the water to catch me—truly, the man was a knight on a lost crusade.”
Elgin slipped on the gambeson, which hung off his shoulders, down over his hands, and the leather hem drooped near his knees. He trudged slowly around the room like a jester mocking the knight in the water in a sing-song voice, “Bring back my horse! Bring back my horse! You cursed thief!” He stopped suddenly and straightened, one hand in the air. “Know, lass, you must ransom my clothes, for I shall pay a fortune—five bags of silver and all my worldly possessions--to protect my poor ballocks---”
“Poor wee ballocks,” Glenna cut in.
“I stand corrected,” Elgin said, pausing before he flung his arms out to his sides. “To protect my poor wee ballocks from the hot sun burning them to the color of embers if I am forced to walk bare-assed over the countryside.”
For the next few minutes they made jests about the man, and then Alastair stood and stretched. “I should feed the horses.”
“Sit,” Glenna said, pulling an apple from a bowl and slipping it into her pocket. “I will go. I want to check on the black.” Her dog was standing at the door, tail wagging, tongue hanging out of his big mouth. “Nay Fergus. Stay.” He whimpered and lay back down by the hearth, nose on his paws. She walked outside and paused.
To the west, the sun was finally beginning to trail down the sky, and the distant horizon was turning deep violet and gold. The narrow path she followed snaked over a hillock and down to where stables, like the stone cottage, were built into the slope and a wide wooden pen adjacent to the byre contained all the horses when they weren’t feeding or in their stalls.
Their father had bred and raised horses and sold them far away on the mainland, until the day he was thrown from a frightened gray in the paddock and killed. Her brothers Alastair and Elgin continued to raise both prime Gordon horseflesh and Glenna. So she grew up around horses, beasts ten times her size, yet she held no fear of them. Her gift: there was no horse yet she could not sweet talk and ride.
Glenna opened the gate to the outside paddock and crossed to draw water from the stable well, pouring it into the wooden water troughs, before she refilled the feed, waving the flies away from her face. She spoke to each of the animals as she searched the stalls for the hayfork, then turned quickly when she felt someone watching her.
From the last stall, the dark doe eyes of the black watched her. He whinnied and shook his regal head as she moved closer. “You are a great beauty,” she said quietly, stroking him as she pulled out the apple and let him nibble it from her palm.
“Look how gently you eat from my hand. You are no wild one, sweetness.” And she ran her hand along his coat. The curry brushes hung from hooks on the wall, so she took one and stepped inside the stall. “You are too fine a beast for a fool of a man,” she told him easily, brushing his glossy coat and humming. Soon words came from her mouth like honey, her voice lilting in the stable as she sang:
There once was a golden knight,
Who could not foresee his plight.
Across the heath-covered moors he rode,
Gallant, brave and so very bold,
Down he went to the sweet sea cove.
Abandoning his horse, in the water he dove,
The water was so very cool,
But the man was a fool…
Humming, she rounded the horse, brushing his coat, and the man came out of the shadows more swiftly than a snake striking, taking her from behind by twisting her hair around his fist. His bare arm pinned her hard against his warm, damp skin. He released her hair and leaned close to her ear. “Now who is the fool?” he hissed angrily and slowly pressed the prongs of a hayfork deeper into her neck
2
He had the thieving witch right where he wanted her. But angry as he was, he forced himself to remember she was the reason he was there. She began to scream and bite and kick, so he set the fork aside, shifted his grip on her and ripped the sleeve from her tunic. Were he less angry, the panic in her eyes would have stopped him, and he might have eased her mind. Clearly she thought he intended to ravish her. But he was in a foul mood, walking naked for too long in the hot sun, so he let her think the worst. She needed to be frightened and to understand who was in power after that escapade in the cove. He gagged her with the torn sleeve, grabbed the hayfork again, and with her squalling under his arm, he carried her outside.
Halfway back to the cottage he pulled her head back and checked the gag. She wiggled and kicked, but was still pinned to his side, and he swatted her for good measure as well as vengeance. But she retaliated by pinching him blue and viciously twisting his skin. “God’s legs, woman,” he muttered and shook off her hand, then he struggled, tossing her this way and that like a sack of turnips until her arms were pinned at her sides and she was tucked safely back under his arm.
The element of surprise was in his favor. He crossed over the rolling hi
ll and was soon outside the cottage, with her still fighting him. In one swift motion he kicked in the cottage door, standing in the open doorway, the woman now clamped to his chest and the hayfork against her pale throat. He was angry as hell and naked as the day he was born—he and his ‘poor wee ballocks.’
“Do not move if you value her life,” he warned the two young men who were frozen in their seats. The dog rose up from the hearth, growling and baring its long teeth. “Hold back the hound.” He pointed the hayfork toward the dog, and the girl cried out behind gag and tried to fight him. He tightened his arm around her.
“Fergus! Down!” One of the men said, and the dog obeyed, but stayed with ears perked and eyes sharp.
“Where is Sir Hume Gordon?”
There was a heartbeat of uncanny silence and the man who had called off the hound darted his gaze to the girl, who was still as a rock.
Lyall waited, before he said in a calm, deadly voice, “You move your hand under the table again and you will be dead and bound for hell before you can think to move again.”
“Our father is dead,” the other one said quickly. “I am Elgin Gordon. He is Alastair, the eldest. You are holding our sister, Glenna.
“I know well who she is. She is the reason I’ve come to the godforsaken ends of the earth. I am Baron Montrose of Rossie, the king’s vassal, here to provide protection and safe passage for her. And she is no more your sister than I am.”
He heard her gasp, but did not look away. The flicker in the elder Gordon’s expression and the slight fall of his shoulders told Lyall all he needed to know. Alastair Gordon knew exactly who she was. “You may cease with your lie,” Lyall told him. “I’ve come by order of the king.”
Glenna was still as a rock.
“What lie? Alastair? Surely Glenna is our sister,” Elgin said, looking back and forth between them.
