Highland Dragon Rebel

by Isabel Cooper

  As I am, she thought. As we all may be soon. On the battlefield, the MacAlasdairs in true form were creatures of awe and terror. That had served well when the world was a wilder place. It was useful still in some battles, when their side didn’t need horses or could work around them. Those fights were getting rarer.

  Ah, yes, Moiread mocked herself. The time may come when all I’ll be is stronger than most men and much harder to kill. Such sad days are at hand.

  All the same, she felt a pang at the idea of her other form being useless, dwindling to an interesting relic like the Roman ruins and the burial mounds of the old Celts. It was a night for pangs. It was a night for self-pity.

  Moiread tried to shake off the feeling the way she’d often done with melancholy—by turning her attention to her task and her senses. She concentrated on the regular scraping whisk of metal on stone, on the footsteps of those crossing the courtyard and the low barking of the castle dogs as they fought over scraps, and then on the singing of night birds in the distance.

  Then she heard the voices from the window above her.

  They were quiet. She didn’t think any human would have heard them coherently, and she hadn’t done so until she began to listen. One was young, female, and noble—most likely Bronwyn, unless Teleri sounded young for her years.

  “I like him. I hadn’t expected that.”

  “That isn’t wholly a misfortune, signorina,” came the second voice, low and male, with a hint of Italy in the softness of his final vowels and the fluidity of the words themselves. “As he is here, and the marriage looks likely. A bride should like her groom when she can.”

  “But I still have my fears.”

  Under the window, Moiread wondered if she was overhearing a nervous girl’s talk with her confessor. She hesitated, stone idle in her hand, thinking that she should perhaps go, when she heard the man’s reply.

  “I share them. But if it is to be marriage, that opens other doors. Many a man has taken his wife’s counsel to heart. Many a man and his land have done better thereby.”

  That did not sound like worries about the wedding night. Moiread slowly and quietly re-sheathed her sword, but didn’t stand up yet. If Bronwyn hoped to sway Madoc, it would be best if Moiread—and perhaps Madoc and Artair—knew what she wanted.

  She waited and heard in time a faint, accepting sigh. “And he doesn’t seem unreasonable, thank God, nor like a man who delights in war. It’s only that I never believed matters would truly get so far.”

  “Alas, child,” the man replied, responding to the faint note of accusation in Bronwyn’s voice. “It is only the Almighty who sees all, or can do all. Whatever we may have hoped, he is now here. A wise carpenter uses the branch he has and does not lament the tree he imagined. If you are to deal in power, and I believe you will, you must learn such lessons.”

  “Yes, I see that.”

  “Trust in God. Trust in your father. And trust in me, hmm? You may like the man and marry him. All will be well.”

  “Thank you,” said Bronwyn.

  “It is my duty and my pleasure, signorina. Now…to your chambers. You’ve a guest to delight tomorrow.”

  Moiread also made for her bed, thinking all the while. The conversation was probably harmless, or at least not urgent. Bronwyn feared war, or that Madoc was preparing for it, but he was cautious about the whole matter himself. They might work well together in that respect.

  They might work well together in general.

  As Moiread walked the last few steps to her bed, she was tired indeed.

  Thirty-six

  In the absence of other guests of rank, Madoc shared a chamber with Iestyn. The boy’s two younger brothers were babes in cradles, sleeping but a few steps from their mother, so his quarters had the most room and the least noise. The bed was a comfortable one. The lad slept soundly, barely turning over as Madoc slipped into the room and stole over to stand beside the window.

  It had been a long day and a late night. Madoc’s very bones felt heavy. Still, there was more work for him to do. A wise man learned his surroundings as soon as possible, in every possible way. Moiread, sleeping in the hall below, would have agreed. The thought of her let Madoc summon the will to stay awake a little while longer.

  Visio dei, he whispered into the quiet night air. The spirits came at once, changing his sight of the world around him. Neither walls nor furnishings showed any color, but Iestyn’s small form slumbered inside an orange-and-gold aura of surpassing vibrancy. The boy’s personality might have played a part in that, or the general vigor of youth. Either way, he practically lit the room like a fire. Smaller, duller sparks studded the walls and bedding: insects, rats, and other creatures best not thought about too closely. Elian’s servants clearly changed the rushes often—and kept anything biting out of the bedclothes, as far as Madoc could tell—but nature was generally inescapable.

  Llanasef Fechan was built low, so the room was not far above the ground. Outside the window, Madoc could see the faint but healthy green glow of grass and fields, the deeper and more enduring color of the trees, and as with the vermin in the castle, the dim presence of animal life. None of the brighter auras of humankind entered his view, which was natural so late at night. Anyone awake, save the guards on the wall above him, was likely to be inside.

  That was sight taken care of.

  Madoc put his hands flat on the windowsill, curling his fingers around the ridges and gaps of the stone. With a deep breath, he called up the simplest of his power and sent it out into the land—not trying to bind or mark, simply to become familiar, as a new lord might ride out to see the fields and forests in his charge.

  It was familiar, this land, even if it wasn’t his home. Madoc knew the feel of it: milder and wetter than Scotland had been, and more welcoming to men, or at least more used to them. Magically, it gave more easily on the surface, clay rather than rock, but a deeper layer budged only reluctantly. A wise magician also learned that the initial give was deceptive. The power in the land closed back in quickly, resuming its former shape with a slow, persistent strength.

  Always, with magic as with men, it was better to persuade than to force. In Hallfield and at Loch Arach, that persuasion had been an almost businesslike matter: simple offers, negotiation, and final acceptance. At Llanasef Fechan, the exchange would be more akin to the playing of a song. As a ballad could move men’s hearts to valor or sorrow, Madoc would make the native power feel that he and his were worthy of loyalty—even of friendship, if a nonhuman force could reason in such terms.

  The land’s power was only half of the matter, of course. Elian and his bloodline were another matter, one for which Madoc had less idea of the best tactics. They would be deliberately meeting his will with theirs, which would make things easier, but Madoc knew that magic could also respond to what a man felt, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

  Or a woman, he thought. Bronwyn had made her views clear. They were wise enough, and Madoc agreed somewhat, but he couldn’t promise her that there would be no war. His quest was in part a preparation against any such eventuality, after all, and there seemed at least one among the English who took defense as aggression. If her doubts were strong enough when she entered the ritual, they could cause problems.

  Courting her might help. He’d already agreed to the marriage, or not disagreed with it. If he played the ardent suitor, affection could overcome Bronwyn’s worries.

  He’d have little time to do that. And it seemed dishonest to try to sway the girl by the heart, particularly when—

  —when he had no such feelings for her. Oh, she was lovely, well-mannered, and intelligent, as far as he could tell. If their fathers were both in assent, Madoc would be foolish as well as insolent to act like the stripling hero of a bad song. As a wife, Bronwyn was all a man could reasonably wish for.

  He wished for Moiread, which was not reasonable.

  T
he prospect wasn’t unthinkable. Madoc had been considering that on their approach to Llanasef Fechan. Her father was a wealthy lord, and one of his father’s allies. His nonhuman blood might make children possible between them. Indeed, such children might have abilities neither line had yet shown. As a match, it might be wise.

  Yet Moiread had lived three times his age. She’d been to war; she’d roamed as she pleased; and she’d soared on high in a shape that put all humans to shame for power and majesty. Asking her to bind herself to him—and to the life of a lady in a mortal castle far from her family, however loose he could make those bonds—seemed almost an act of hubris.

  Before talking to Elian, Madoc might have found the courage to speak with her before the end of their journey. But if he incurred Rhys’s displeasure and endangered the alliance—no. Offering Moiread a marriage that would please both their families was one thing; begging for her to join him as a wife his father would scorn was another.

  Madoc sighed.

  He could see no way out. Best to concentrate on what he could do. He turned back to the land, learning its moods and secrets, spending his last energy that way until he was too tired to think.

  * * *

  Moiread had forgotten it was Sunday. Traveling did that. When one of the servants gently nudged her and said that she might want to wash and dress for mass, she had half a mind to grunt and turn back over. Respectability called, though, and it had been a while.

  Once she’d taken her seat in the castle’s chapel, she was glad she’d come. What she could hear of the priest’s Latin, slightly muffled by the rood screen and the fact that he faced the altar, bordered on painful at times, but it didn’t matter. Moiread knew the words as well as he did and could make up the difference in her mind. The colored light slanting in from the stained-glass windows, the smell of incense, and the chanting songs were all familiar, touchstones in the middle of the alien land and her own mind’s confusion.

  Her last confession had been in London. She hadn’t been nearly as remorseful for most of what she’d done as she probably should have been, and she couldn’t summon sorrow over either fornication with Madoc or such murder as defending them from assassins had involved. She trusted that God would understand—and she’d bought enough indulgences in her life to help Him do so. Besides, hell couldn’t hold everyone who’d committed such sins. She took communion with a glad, untroubled heart, aware as usual at such moments of a larger pattern beyond even the worlds and forces the MacAlasdairs knew.

  After, Moiread felt cleansed and renewed. If the sight of Madoc walking with Lord Elian’s family brought a pang or two, well, even the Divine could only do so much with her undoubtedly flawed soul. She smiled, let them go, and followed the general crowd out of the church.

  It had been her intention to go up on the walls and look around. Doubtless there was a good view from that height, and the presence of the guardsmen meant there’d also be decent company. She’d turned toward the outer stairs when she heard footsteps approaching her from behind, but conscious of the need to seem human, she waited until she heard her alias before turning.

  A dark man in dark robes stood before her. “Your pardon for the interruption, young sir,” he said in the same Italian-accented voice that Moiread had heard the night before. “I am Signor Antonio, late of Sicily, now adviser to my lord Elian.”

  “Michael MacDouglas,” Moiread said and bowed.

  She’d heard of Antonio in passing, though none of the castle’s men had thought him noteworthy enough to comment in any detail. Perhaps, being regulars, they’d not faced the scrutiny of his gaze. His nostrils practically flared as he peered at her. Had she opened her mouth wider, he might have counted her teeth.

  “Manservant to Lord Madoc, yes? I hope the two of you have had a pleasant journey.”

  “Pleasant enough, good sir, especially now that we’re enjoying your hospitality. It was passing long, I’ll say.”

  “So I would think. You come from Scotland? Master Iestyn was quite enthusiastic on the subject.”

  “And bless him for it, for it’s the land of my heart.”

  “You must be quite a warrior, then.”

  “I do well enough, I like to think.” Surreptitiously, she sniffed the air, but if she smelled off, she couldn’t tell it underneath the general mixture of courtyard odors. Was it Scotland that drew Antonio’s attention? “I hope my lord has had no cause to complain.”

  “Only the deepest praise has reached my ears, I assure you.”

  “That would probably be Iestyn,” Moiread joked. She’d shared a few of her stories with the boy—the ones that didn’t come close to revealing her identity. “Still, it does my heart good to hear what you say…signor, is it?”

  Deliberately, she mispronounced the title, letting her accent deepen as well. She doubted that the man had heard of the MacAlasdairs, or that he’d mean them any ill if he did, but he was a learned man. Cathal’s wife had figured them out from rumors and books.

  Politely, Antonio nodded. “Indeed. A scholar, though a minor and specific one. How did you find our mass?”

  “A privilege to attend. The chapel is beautiful, and the singers in excellent voice. My Latin’s not good enough to follow much wi’ the difference in our tongues, I fear, but your priest has a most holy manner to him.”

  “He does carry himself well, does he not? I’ve seen few with more bearing, even when I spent time in Rome itself.” Antonio glanced over his shoulder, then bowed. “And now I must be away. My thanks for your conversation, Master Michael, and God give you good day.”

  “And you, signor.”

  Moiread headed for the wall and didn’t watch him walk away. She wished she could have, but she suspected that he would turn back at some point to watch her.

  Thirty-seven

  “A moment of your time, my lord?”

  Moiread paused outside Elian’s solar. Within, Madoc lifted his head from his writing. The gladness in his eyes and the genuine warmth of his smile were so welcome that Moiread was almost sure she was imagining them. “Any one you’d like,” he said. “Come in.”

  She did, and closed the door behind her. She’d had a stroke of luck: Elian was hearing a case from one of his tenants; Bronwyn and Teleri were sewing in the garden; and Iestyn had surrendered himself to Antonio’s instruction until at least noon. Even the servants were elsewhere.

  Mindful both that luck could turn and that sound could carry, Moiread kept her voice low. Quickly she laid out the conversation she’d overheard. When she came to the end, she shrugged. “I can’t say there’s anything truly sinister in it,” she added. She half wished there had been. Knowing as much made her add, “Many a girl goes into marriage thinking to change a man. Girls of rank particularly.”

  “And it would be no great change.” Madoc looked back down at the parchment on his desk. His hair, grown over-long on their journey, fell into his eyes. He absently pushed it back. “As I told you, I’ll fight if it seems for the best, and I’ll prepare for the day it does, but I’ll not rush into spending men’s lives.”

  “Yes,” said Moiread, forcing out more words because they hurt, as in practice she’d pushed the sore muscles of the day before. “She’s a touch more reticent than you. I don’t blame her, with that brother of hers. She may grow to think differently. Or the matter may never arise.”

  “Yes,” Madoc said.

  Shadows fell across his face. Outside, one of the servants yelled correction to an underling. Moiread didn’t think any but she would have heard it. To a mortal, all would have been silence.

  And after all, there was nothing to say.

  They were both full grown, neither naive. What Madoc might have felt, what Moiread might have wished he felt, would be of no great matter.

  She pressed her palms flat against her sides. He would notice if she clenched her hands.

  “And Antonio?”
Madoc eventually asked.

  “Was only saying what my father would have told me…or what I would have told the girl, for that matter. A bit suspicious of me, I think,” she said and briefly outlined their conversation. “But then, I am from Scotland, and if he has no desire to see war, perhaps he fears I’ll influence you too greatly. Or perhaps Bronwyn does.”

  “Odd that Bronwyn would confide in him, isn’t it?”

  “He seems to be her brother’s tutor. He could have been hers. Or he could have been an outsider, and so easy to take her fears to, with less worry that she’d sound disloyal.”

  “Her fears,” Madoc repeated, and frowned. “From what you say, it sounds as though she was hoping the marriage wouldn’t come to pass. I’d not marry a woman unwilling.”

  Moiread’s face was hot and cold at the same time. She forced it to calmness, her voice to dispassion, and hoped that she was fooling Madoc. “Unwilling when you hear of an alliance isn’t unwilling once you meet the man. She likes you, remember? She said so. Many a couple have started worse.”

  “I suppose,” he said, “there is that.”

  “Aye. I’d best go. It can’t take me long to tell you the state of the horses.”

  “Have you gone near the horses?” he asked, flashing a smile that hurt worst of all.

  No, worse was that he made her laugh, even at that moment. “As close as I have to, to keep up appearances.”

  She opened the door and stepped out into the hall. There was no place to run, much less hide. She kept her steps even, the sound of her boots on the stone regular and untroubled, as she walked away.

  * * *

  After the footsteps in the hallway had faded away, Madoc leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. His dinner sat like lead in his stomach; his hands felt too unsteady to hold a pen.

  Moiread was right. Protest was useless, and it would be cruel to demand it merely to prove she cared—if she did. They would each survive. They each had their work to do.