by Jill Barnett
The trail led in a wide circle back to the stream. So it was no surprise when he found she had pulled the same trick again further upstream, only this time the hoofmarks were headed north, and again she had covered her tracks back to the stream--which meandered westward before turning into a rock falls down a hillside near the eastern edge of the woods.
He followed her trail, trusting his instincts, which had yet to lead him false. Only when he let down his guard did his plans go awry, he reminded himself. Something to keep in the forefront of his mind when it came to his thoughts and plans and feelings about Glenna.
Eventually he rode out of the woods to face the road to Inverness, the sun far behind him, and he spurred his mount forward, riding hard and fast--a wolf on the scent.
* * *
As she sat on the wagon seat waiting, a familiar panting sound came from overhead, and she leaned to the side and glanced upward to see Fergus, snout resting on his large furry paws atop the piles of corn, eager eyes wide and looking down at her. She could hear his tail thumping on the husks. He whimpered and crawled forward, so she stood and wrapped her arms around him, burying her face in his fur then letting him freely lick her face.
“I swear I will never again spike a tankard of ale.” She gripped his wrinkled furry jowls and faced him nose to nose. “I am sorry, sweetling.”
From the barber’s open shutters, a loud, drawn-out shout of pain cracked through the air, and Fergus lifted his head, ears perked. Glenna winced, then shuddered slightly, thankful for every tooth in her head, even the crooked two on the bottom.
Time slogged by. She began to tap her feet.
The finally door opened and Heckie came out, a leather flask to his lips. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and climbed up into the wain, the overly pungent scent of usquebaugh tainting his breath.
He sat down and weaved a bit, then gave her a silly drunken grin, revealing a large bloody gap where his bad tooth had been. “Gone. There…see? I’m grateful, lad, for staying with the load.” He inhaled deeply, whistling slightly. “I see your dog is awake. Good…good. Now we’ll be off to find your stables.” He paused, shook his head and moved his mouth oddly slipping his tongue into the space where his tooth has been. “This fresh hole in my mouth is making music. I breathe and whistle.” He inhaled. “There. Did you hear that?”
Before she could agree, he was off talking about the barber and how much the usquebaugh burned his mouth and throat but lessen the pain greatly, except for when the hard grip of the barber’s tool clamped onto his deviled tooth, and he snapped the reins and continued to blather on…only twice as fast and loose.
'Twas not long before Glenna had bid a sweet farewell to Heckie, who drove off to take his load to the mill for grinding, talking avidly to the ox team and occasionally taking another sip from the flask. Skye and Fergus were fed and boarded in backstreet stables owned by the town’s well-trusted alewife, so Glenna moved without worry down the short maze of narrow alleys.
With her coins safely tucked inside her chest bindings, and a few more in her boot (no thief would be fool enough to carry a purse about a market that would no doubt be crawling with divers and pickpockets) she stood at the edges of the market cross and took it all in.
After purchasing apples and root vegetables for the road, the thought came to her that it had been a long time since she’d entered a market without being there to stake out the easiest victims. She felt easy, light of foot and mind, and she hummed a merry tune as she moved from booth to booth. The scent of warm oat and cinnamon honey cakes wafted from nearby and she bought one and ate it like a child given a treat for the first time.
Colorful flags and tent awnings were trimmed brightly to catch the eye. The unmistakable scent of fresh bread and the sweetmeat call of pieseller’s booth drew her into the thick of things, past the dancing of tumblers and the lively song of bonepipe and naker drum, on to the tented booths where huge cheeses were sold by the slice and crusty bread made with light flour were all but impossible to pass up.
Munching on her third mincemeat pie and feeling fat as that spotted sow, she paused at the mercer where silk as fine as hoarfrost hung next to stacked bolts of Flemish velvet softer than feather down, and shimmering metal threads of thin gold, copper, and silver lined the back shelves. What would that silk feel like against her skin?
“You, lad.” The mercer whacked her hand with a measuring rod.
“Ouch!” She pulled back quickly and the pie slipped from her other hand. Wincing and stunned, she rubbed her throbbing hand as tears burned the backs of her eyes.
“Little bugger!” He waved the measuring rod in her face. “Keep yer greasy fingers off the goods!
She bit back the urge to curse him to the bowels of hell and instead looked down to hide her tears. Her pie lay broken in two on the ground. A large boot of oxblood cordovan leather smashed the pie, and she slowly raised her face upward.
A tall knight with bright red hair stood but a hand’s breadth away, staring down at the pie oozing up from the edges of his boot. He looked at her and his dismayed frown faded. “Lady Caitrin!” He gaped at her with an expression that was almost comical…until he said, “We left you at the castle. How did you come here? Surely you are not alone?” He looked around swiftly. “Finn will have your head…wearing peasant clothes again. What were you thinking, woman? He whispered harshly. "You swore you would obey all his commands.” The knight grabbed her arm tightly.
Lady Caitrin? “Let me go, sir.” She pulled on her arm but he had the grip of a giant. “I am no lady. I am Gordie of Suddy.”
“Aye…and I am St Columba facing the great monster of the Ness.” His hand moved so fast she hadn’t time to stop him. He jerked her hat off her head and her braid tumbled down her back.
There was a gasp from the crowd nearby, which was growing, a sea of curious, wide-eyed faces.
She snatched her hat and crammed it back on just as he began to drag her away. “You, my lady Cait, will come with me to find Finn, and you can then tell your husband your boldface lies.”
Oh God… She dug in her feet, and bit him hard on the arm, her hand going for the knife in her boot.
He swore in a huge and loud bellow.
She kicked him first in the knee and again between the legs.
With a loud “Offffff!” he doubled over.
She snatched away her arm, cut his purse from his sword belt and ran, weaving in and out of the crowd, crawling under displays and leaping past anyone who got in her way, leaving a path of overturned carts and tables and spilt goods, screaming merchants and utter chaos. Scrambling on hands and knees, she crawled away from the center of the market, under a rack hung with tunics and braies, (she grabbed one of each and a handful of crossgarters, tucking them in her trouse) and scurried around a table stacked high with bolts of wool and linen. Over and behind the booths and carts she went, weaving like a frightened hare.
Creeping along behind a line of tailors’ displays, she managed to pull a dark woolen cape from a corner hook undetected, before she ran on and snatched a green feathered hat with two more just like it from a plumer who had turned away to watch the commotion. For protection, she sliced open a large sack of his down and sent a cloud of feathers into the air, before ducking, tucking up her hair under the hat, pulling closed the cloak, and within moments she had made her escape.
The north end of the market was already chaotic with the business of cattle and horses being bartered by raucous copers, and men racing swift and agile Arab and Barb-blooded mounts for betting stakes. Losing herself amongst the crowd, she slowed to catch her breath, staying in the thick of them, and she wove her way north, away from the main market cross.
She reached the high end of the market at the tinker’s corner and heard a horrific, angry shout.
“Cait! Caaaait!”
She swung around as a tall nobleman in a red tunic plowed through the crowd and leapt over one tinker’s booth before knocking down a stack of copper p
ots. His intended path was straight towards her, hands out, and he looked as if he were preparing to go straight for her throat.
“Bugger!” She took off northward, heart pounding in her ears, crossing the road and ducking down an alleyway, running for all she was worth. She took another side path then slipped into recessed doorway and pressed back against the door, holding her breath as she heard the thunder of more than one person's bootsteps running down the alleyway, coming nearer…then past.
“You men! Get your mounts and ride to the town gates. She will not escape again!” came the man’s angry shouts.
Panting in time to her beating heart, she closed her eyes. She knew the man who was coming for her. His overly handsome and striking face was memorable, although she recalled him more clearly with his bare chest…and bare arse. He was the drunken lord whose horse she had stolen, the first man she had left naked in the road.
Who was Lady Caitrin? Whoever she was Glenna pitied her, surrounded by men who bellowed at her, handsome, naked, or no.
She counted slowly and waited, listening in case it was a trick, then counted again before she stepped away from the door and edged back toward the alleyway, back pressed against the stone wall of a carpenter’s shop—she could hear the sudden pounding of a hammer, and when she felt safe, she doubled back and made her way to the alewife’s stables, sought out the woman and used some of the knight’s coin to pay for the feed and shelter.
Inside, Fergus spotted her and sat up, tail wagging, a look of adoration on his silly face. “Hullo, Fergus.” She fell onto a pile of hay, drew up her knees, slipped her arms around him and laid her head against his warm fur when she realized she felt lost and a little alone. She grabbed Fergus’s floppy jowls and shook his head a little. “But I am not truly alone. I have you, do I not?” she said to him, putting her face up to his. He still smelled like the abbey soap. Suddenly she could hear the memory of her own laughter echoing in her head, as if she were back there again.
For that one single moment, while bathing Fergus, there had been nothing on her mind but the joy of her laughter and a natural warm bond with Montrose, the kind she’d had with Al and El—a rare occasion in her life now, when she wasn’t worried about what she had to do next and how they were going to go on.
Why did that make her belly churn and her chest ache, as if she had lost everything all over again? One breath more and tears burned in her eyes and she sniffled, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. She lifted her tunic and pulled the spare clothes she'd stolen from her belt then added the knight’s coin purse on the pile next to her.
Staring at her plunder, she felt nothing good. They were not hers, she thought, in a rare bout of conscience. Stealing was no lark, held no happiness for her, anymore than being alone was any kind of lark or pleasure. Being alone was just that…alone. Empty. For the first time she could ever remember, she was truly afraid to go out into the world. She was afraid to leave the hay she was sitting upon. Al and El were no longer part of her life. They did not ride at her back or laugh at her jests or hug her just because she was their little sister.
A long and quiet time passed before she looked at her situation without self-pity. She had spare clothing and more than plenty of coin. She dumped out her boot and removed the money she’d carried inside her chest bindings. But she had no supplies. Her plump bag of apples and turnips were back at the mercer’s booth, and she dared not return to the market, now being unmasked and a woman.
To stay in town was no longer safe for her. All was ruined. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, searching for some of that infamous courage in the blood of kings. Perhaps Montrose and Alastair had lied about her father, she thought, having no great surge of some magical, instinctive feeling that made her want to rush out and face warriors, naked noblemen, or her unknown future.
She got to her feet, picked up her saddle and readied Skye, cinching the belly strap, tying on her possessions, moving by rote. She left the stables, Fergus following and looking none the worse for wear after his encounter with Montrose’s spiked beer, but she did not head for the western walls where those men were looking for someone named Lady Caitrin. To the east stood the castle on its great crag, and to the south was the wide stretch of the River Ness--another ferry crossing--which she dared not chance, and that was the only way to the southern side.
Instead she moved past the alehouse and into an alleyway that circled to the northeastern edges of town, heading swiftly towards the old northern gate. Seldom used since the treaty with the Norse rendered the town no longer a target, the back gate was forgotten--a place where she and Al had crept into town once before--and where she now left Inverness and rode into the slough marshes, through the reeds and peaty black water that dirtied Fergus’ clean paws and belly hair, out over the Great Beyond, heading westward across the northern lowlands and towards all the places she was supposed to avoid, because she had no other choice.
16
Lyall quickly stepped back into the shadows when he heard the clamor of men and horses, then eased deeper into the depths of the alley where he knew he was out of sight and moved over to the opposite wall for a better view. Across the way, a tall, copper-haired nobleman came out of a tavern to join a troop of men-at-arms waiting in the narrow dirt street. Lyall recognized the badges and the Douglas device.
“The alewife says she paid for boarding her horse and hound,” the man told Finngal Douglas, tall and mounted at the head of his guards on a fine piece of Barb-blooded horseflesh that shifted spiritedly, hooves dancing in the dirt.
“What hound?” Douglas asked, frowning. “Cait has no hound.”
“Based upon her history for trouble, Finn, she could have most easily found herself a hound…no doubt one that once guarded the River Styx.”
“Aye. Do not remind me of her propensity for trouble. She is my curse for every wrong I've ever committed.“
"Was like trying to cull coin from that alewife’s purse to get her to tell me what little she did spill. Seems she took a fancy to the poor laddie.”
“The poor laddie, my bride,” Douglas said, shaking his head.
“The puir wee laddie who stole my purse.”
“She will pay you back, I will see that she will regret this day.”
“She is a wonder, the way she can twist people around her finger. The old alewife gave me the evil eye for daring to ask about her or imply the lad was in truth a woman.”
“Cait does not have me fooled. The moment my back is turned she is gone, out traipsing the countryside on a lark, dressed as a lad or servant, unprotected….again. How many times is this?”
“Five,” the knight said, ”If you count the time she dressed as a nun.
Douglas drew a gloved hand through his dark hair and scowled. “God’s Legs….if anything happens to her, Sutherland and my father will have my head on a pike.”
“Aye, Finn,” his friend said sarcastically. “Keep telling yourself ‘tis all about the earls’ tempers,” he paused. “And that you care naught a fig for her.”
“I care,” Douglas said briskly. “I care to make the little shrew regret disobeying my orders.”
The knight shook his head. “I would wager a year’s income—should your wife not steal it from me—that she is no longer in Inverness. She was most likely out the gates before we had gathered the men in their saddles. We have searched the town twice over.”
A look of pure determination washed over the face of Finn Douglas. “Then mount up and we will ride hard to Killencraig. I feel the sudden itch to beat my wife.”
“And come out the worse for it, I’ll wager. You are dealing with the Lady Caitrin. What do you suppose she will throw at you this time? You had good a lump from that apple. I would have never believed fruit could be an effective weapon. Mayhap we should store a barrel of them along the curtain walls.”
“I didn’t see it coming," Finn groused. "And stop grinning like a fool. I know all too well this old trick of hers-- heaving of missiles.
I'm familiar with her diversions.”
“Perhaps to protect your head, my friend, you might send a man ahead to clear out the sharp objects—and fruit--from the castle solar.” The man was laughing as he mounted and moved his horse to Douglas’ side.
“I intend to get my hands on her first…but I’ll remember to wear my helm.”
“And to duck.” Laughter followed the men’s comments as they rode off toward the town’s western gates.
Lyall stared at the dust swirling in the empty road, lost in thought. Finngal Douglas was heir to the earl of Dunkirk, a strong ally and sword-arm to Glenna’s father the king, and a man who was close friend to the most powerful noble outside the crown--the earl of Sutherland--whose tight ties to the English crown, to Ireland and the Norse made him untouchable by anyone, even the king’s strongest enemies. Sutherland also happened to be the king’s most loyal friend, his eyes, and his ears, and a man Lyall’s father had known well.
Before his father had been condemned as a traitor, both Sutherland and Dunkirk had come to Dunkeldon on the king’s business. Though he was merely a young lad at the time, Lyall still remembered their colorful arrival through the gates of Dunkeldon.
He had been more than curious about the king’s great earls, and so he had hidden in the galleries above the hall, hanging on every word as he watched the king's earls dining and drinking with his father, talking politics. When talk grew more intensely heated, they moved their conversations to someplace more private than the Great Hall.
Too young then, he had not yet honed his skill of listening at doors, back when the name he carried was not one of shame. A few years later, his ear pressed to doors was the way he could keep his single-minded goal before him. In time he learned all about manipulation and whether honor mattered in the Great Schemes of man, and he learned about desperation, the dark shadow of which was now always with him.
Sutherland and Dunkirk were assuredly at the helm of whatever plan there was for the king’s return. But he knew little of Douglas, the son, except by reputation, acknowledged wealth, and word he was a man whose name garnered respect and reaction. He then remembered Mairi and his mother gossiping the last time he was at Rossie, some maelstrom regarding the recent wedding of Lord Finngal Douglas, the king's champion, to Sutherland’s ward.
