The Falconer’s Daughter: Book I

by Liz Lyles

  “But she was a lady. She was a Macleod!”

  “She came to me, crept into my bed at the mews. What was I to do?”

  “You make her sound cheap. But Anne wasn’t cheap. She was just a child, a pretty thing, sweeter than the others. You know she was different. She was her father’s favorite.” Geoffrey colored, his chin tensing, his mouth tight. “She ought to have been protected from all of this. She deserved better.”

  The falconer gripped the stick and carefully sliced off one layer and then another, the wood shavings curling as they fell to the floor. His thick black hair lay matted against his head, his dark eyes set deeply in his face. He was as thin as he was tall, his collar bones jutting through the wool jupon as he whittled away.

  “Remember when we returned that September, when she was in her fifth month? And the Duke wouldn’t have anything to do with her? That was when she gave up.” He worked the blade in long smooth strokes. “She never said much after that. She couldn’t wait to have the baby and then she couldn’t wait to die.”

  “Give the child to me. His lordship can provide for her. He can give her all the things you haven’t got. He can make sure she’ll have both name and position—”

  “Like he did for his own daughter?” His lower lip curled, black lashes shadowing his eyes. “Anne chose me because she didn’t want to go to Castile and she didn’t want the Netherlands. She didn’t love me. It was the opportunity to escape that appealed to her. She craved change, but only if she could choose it, mold it.” He dug hard with the blade. “I loved Anne—not that it mattered—and I’ve feelings for the babe.”

  “So you’re telling me no?”

  “I’m telling you to tell the Duke that as I’m the father, I’ll raise her here.”

  “What good can you do her?” There was more than a hint of contempt in the question. Geoffrey Mclnnes had grown up in circumstances much like Kirk Buchanan’s. The villages were full of peasant children who needed more than a warm meal and a fire. They needed a future. Both of them had found work but that didn’t make things equal. “It is your pride speaking, not your sense. If you gave her to his lordship she’d have everything—a name, a position, an income. Why deprive her of so much?”

  “I don’t trust him. I don’t trust any of it.” Kirk rose unsteadily, glancing in the sleeping babe’s direction. The wee thing lay across the straw mattress, one arm flung out as if to keep the bad dreams at bay. He knew that face, the tousled head, the tiny hands and feet as if they had been traced against his eyelids, dreaming her in his sleep. “She is all that I have.” He said simply. “How could I let her go?”

  “You treated your birds better, Buchanan.”

  Kirk looked away, silent. There was nothing for him to say, nothing for him to do.

  No one would ever know what he had already suffered. No one would ever know what it was like to watch Anne die.

  Geoffrey sighed. “Can you at least agree to send word twice a year? Can I tell him that? He needs something.” He glared at Kirk, perplexed and frustrated. “Come on, man, you’re not the only one hurting!” He stood in irritation, gathering his outer cloak with the thick fur-lined hood. “He’s an old man, Kirk. Can you not see that, can you not put yourself in his position?”

  “Why? Has he ever put himself in mine?” The falconer laughed harshly and the babe stirred, turning over on the ticking with a slight cry. Kirk walked over to her bed, kneeling down to pull the coverlet over her shoulder. She buried her black head deeper into the mattress and fell back asleep.

  “He is the Duke.” Mclnnes shrugged. He was tired. Anxious to be home. “If I leave now I can make it down the mountain in a couple hours. I’ll camp at the base and then travel tomorrow to the village. My horse is there.” The Macleod page slipped his arms through the fur-lined cloak, tightening a belt about his waist.

  “Take care. It grows late.”

  “And I’d be careful, Kirk, if I were you.” Geoffrey opened the latch on the door, bracing himself for the cold temperatures outside.

  “What is that?” Buchanan stood, towering at least two heads taller than the other.

  Mclnnes swung the door open, blinking at the sudden chill. “Macleod isn’t one to trifle with. If he wants the girl…” his voice trailed off momentarily, “she is, after all, his granddaughter.” Geoff clapped his gloved hands together once, twice, glancing down the mountainside to the glen far below. “You don’t want trouble.”

  “I’m not looking for any.”

  “Just be careful.” The page waved once and then jogged slowly through the drifts to the edge of the snow-covered meadow. With a final wave, he began the descent.

  The night swallowed the croft into its vast darkness, the sky blanketed with clouds which hid the mood. Inside the croft, firelight flickered across the dirt-packed floor, spreading shadows against the walls. Ever since Mclnnes’ departure yesterday afternoon, Kirk had sat brooding over his whittling. He could hear the babe playing in the far corner even though he couldn’t see her in the dark interior. She was talking baby talk, a mixture of words and sounds that he could not yet identify. Would she be safe enough here? Would she have what she needed?

  He lay down his whittling as she teetered out of the darkness and closer to the fire, her small legs crouching as she struggled to pick up a stone from the ring of rocks around the center hearth. “Aahh,” she gasped, dropping the stone quickly. He watched from the other side of the fire. Should he warn her of the danger yet again? She never listened.

  “Cory.” He said her name brusquely.

  The child straightened slowly, swaying on legs just learning to walk. At fourteen months she was still thin, but her small legs were strong. The toddler pushed back the curls that hung long in her eyes. “’Ot!”

  Startled, Kirk said nothing, staring in silence at his daughter. Finally, “Yes, the fire is hot.”

  Balancing precariously on one foot she took a step away from the circle of stones surrounding the cottage fire. Her head tilted back as she tried to get a better look at him. Her eyes found his and as she stood there swaying, her small mouth puckered and smiled. “’Ot,” she repeated before turning away with one triumphant last smile in her father’s direction.

  *

  The chilly spring nights gradually warmed; each morning the slopes of the mountain seemed a deeper green, pockets of wildflowers splashing yellow, pink, and purple color across the verdant green. In the mornings, Kirk was at his most cheerful, tramping through the tall grasses, the child perched on his shoulder. He would hike up the mountain towards Nevis, naming the plants and birds, pointing out hidden foxholes, the timid rabbits, the nests in the granite crags.

  Walking, he found his voice, his anger dissolving in the freshness of the crisp air and the exercise. He felt closer to freedom than he ever did; this was how it should have always been, instead of his years in Grampian and Aberdeen, the ignorant peasant struggling to placate his lord.

  But Anne. It was she who had come to him, who revealed her world to him, the comparisons between the classes making him sick, his stomach a knot of bitterness and pain. He wanted her because she was beautiful but also because she was better than he…

  He lost his head. He made the wrong decisions.

  Kirk would never tell her, this daughter perched on his shoulder, of the shame he had left behind. Instead, he told her of legends and the great clans. The stories were always the same, as if to make up for silence and the loneliness, the misfortune of not having mother or nurse. He would make sure she’d grow up knowing something of her mother’s family.

  “To understand the strange Macleod ways,” he said, his feet trampling the tender grass and scattering of miniature blue flowers, “you must first understand the strange Macleod clan.”

  “Macowd—” She repeated the clan name, struggling with the consonants.

  He told her that Leod was originally of Norway, although others said Leod was Celtic. “Your grandfather claimed that Leod was one of Olave the Blac
k’s sons. Olave—remember—was the king of Man and the Isles. Leod lived some three hundred years ago, and after growing up, he married a daughter of the Macrailt clan. They had children and their children had more children, some becoming Island chieftains, all men eventually holding posts of honor in the Island of Skye’s army.”

  Cordaella clasped his neck with one arm, the other hand grabbing at his rough jupon. She listened patiently, if not closely, content to let his voice wash over her, the words slipping in and out of her ear, and she’d hold onto one and then another, not particular about which word she’d cling to.

  “One of the Macleods broke from the family, leaving Skye permanently, settling eventually in Aberdeen, the first of the Aberdeen Macleod chieftains. From this Rory Macleod came your grandfather, John, your mother, Anne, and yourself.”

  “Me.” She patted his cheek with her hand. “You and me.”

  “You, not me.” He swallowed painfully. “I am just a Buchanan. But you, Cordaella, you mustn’t forget you are half-Macleod.”

  *

  In summer, Kirk left the window unshuttered, the sweet air still mild late at night. After he put the child to bed, he’d sit outside the open door, pull out his whittling again, and work with whatever light the moon provided. As he leaned against the croft, the uneven stones gouged his back but he ignored the uncomfortable sensation, focusing on the pipe he was crafting.

  He loved the girl. God knew he did.

  But he wasn’t happy. Time passed slowly, too slowly, and he did miss Anne, he missed her more than he would ever admit. It had been horrifying to lose her. They had never thought of that—the two of them in those early days. No, he would not have been able to imagine a world without her as she had been everything, as close to the sun and stars as he ever thought to reach. When she came to him two and a half years ago, when she begged him to take her away from Aberdeen, he had only felt hunger, a yearning for warmth, for peace, for her.

  For Anne.

  The night she died. That had been the worst. And he had to suffer it alone, had to hold her hand while she died, bury her the next day, hike with the sick infant to the town thirteen miles down the mountain to have word sent to her father, the Duke.

  The babe had been born in November. Anne died in March. It had been ten months now since he lost his Anne.

  Why couldn’t he forget? Why couldn’t he stop thinking about that last night?

  Was it because of the unusual chill? The cold front that swept in from the western sea with wind that howled endlessly? She died shortly after midnight, and dawn took forever to arrive. At the first light, he went to the window, pushed open the shutter, and drank in the biting morning air. Wind still galloped across the meadow, the ragged mountain above him cast a vast purple shadow across the valley’s floor. Anne.

  But that was then, and this was now, and July was kinder than March. Tonight the air was sweet, fragrant with summer. There was no wind, either, to rustle the tall sunburned grasses.

  Kirk lowered his whittling, his head turning towards the door to listen for Cordaella. There was only silence inside the dark croft, the fire banked for the night, and he sighed. The baby. Perhaps she was more like her mother than he thought. Cordaella was into everything and listened only when she was so inclined.

  He drew the knife tip along the edge of the pipe bowl, pale slivers peeling as the tip wound its way around the small circle. Cordaella Anne Buchanan. Someday the girl would learn the significance—and shame—of her poor clan name. But until then, let her sleep, let her dream the dream of babes.

  *

  Kirk woke early and rose, dressing soundlessly by the cold ring of fire stones. He woke with an uneasy feeling, as if he had spent too much time thinking, his thoughts as heavy as the tattered jupon he pulled over his old undershirt.

  Maybe it was time for a trip to the village in Glen Nevis. He could take the skins he had prepared to the village and trade for some woven cloth. The girl would need more than a shift come winter, and the autumn months never lasted long in the high mountains.

  *

  Where had the summer gone? By his calculations it must be late August—or was it September already?—and still the girl had met no one, seen nothing. She ought to meet people, just to know she wasn’t alone, and if he didn’t do it now, it’d be another eight months before he had the chance again.

  Kirk opened the door and stepped outside with a yawn and lengthy stretch. He had put some weight on since the winter, food always more plentiful in the warmer seasons. And the goat, which he bought last spring, helped. It was she who provided the milk for Cordaella. This reminded him, as he turned to look back in the croft, the girl ought to be up now.

  “Cordaella—” He called to her, then peeked in to make sure she heard him. Although not up, she was awake, lying silently on the blanket-wrapped straw, one fist in her mouth, her eyes on him as she twisted her legs in and around her coverlet.

  “Good morrow,” he said gruffly.

  She blinked but said nothing as she pushed herself onto her hands and knees. He took a step back into the cottage, ducking his head to get through the doorway.

  “Are you dirty?” Cordaella shook her head and clambered to her feet. She took longer than he did to wake in the morning and, after a moment’s hesitation, she touched the swaddling on her bottom. Her baby hand patted her behind as she looked up at him.

  “Do you have to go?” he asked and she nodded, the fist still in her mouth. Kirk crossed to her, unknotting the cloth from her legs. “Then go sit on the pot. Get on with you while I make us some breakfast.”

  Cordaella walked towards the corner and he bent to push her mattress against the wall. Breakfast was nothing more than a slice of flat dark bread and some soft goat cheese, but it was food, and the best he could do. Bread wasn’t easy to make and he had struggled for months to learn how to produce even this modest loaf.

  Suddenly the goat, tethered at the back of the croft, cried plaintively and Kirk looked away from the slicing of the bread to see twenty-month-old Cordaella attempting to suckle from one teat. “God in Heaven,” he swore, his face contorting. What next? What didn’t she do?

  “Cory, no!” His sharp tone stopped her and she sat back heavily on her bare bottom, peeing all over the packed dirt floor. “Cordaella…” he groaned, dropping the loaf onto the rustic table. “What would the Macleods think of that?”

  *

  The years passed, one after another, and it never grew much easier. The falconer struggled in winter to keep them warm enough. He worried each autumn about the cold and the scarcity of food. He whittled all winter. And spring arrived as it had every year, slowly, timidly.

  At three, and still at four, Cordaella was as inquisitive as ever, afraid of nothing, not fire, not water, not wildlife. She trusted her father implicitly, and treated everything in nature the same. Kirk would watch as the toddler, wandered away from the croft across the flower-streaked meadow towards the distant wood. He would call after her and she’d nod, but did she listen to anything he said? Repeatedly he warned her about being caught alone in the woods, the edge of cliffs, and the unstable footing on the granite slope of Nevis. When he caught her walking into the stream beds swollen with the runoff from melting snow, he’d pull her away with a smart spank on her bottom. She never cried. Instead she stared at him, her expression serious until his glower eased, and then, rocking back on her heels, her hands caught in midair for balance, she’d smile.

  Her smile, that triumphant expression which lifted her eyebrows and dimpled her mouth, where did she get it from? It wasn’t his smile. And it wasn’t her mother’s. Then whose? Which of the powerful Macleods had left this? Her smile didn’t erase his worry and yet it reminded him that she was someone else, someone other than him. She would grow up and then what? Who would she be?

  Just before summer, in mid-May, a stranger climbed the steep slope from Inverness to the lower meadow of Ben Nevis. The monk had made the trek to meet the falconer and attempt to
persuade him that the Duke Macleod could offer the child more. “You must send her to a proper school.”

  Kirk stiffened. His face was gaunt, high hard cheekbones pressing against his dusky complexion, black eyebrows nearly one thick line above his eyes. “She is but four.”

  “You fail to bring her up according to the laws of our dear Lord Jesus Christ! You have a duty to your daughter—”

  “Cory is my daughter. I will choose for her.”

  “Are you a Christian, Brother Buchanan? How will she learn of her heavenly Father here? What have these mountains to teach her about charity, godliness, purity?”

  He could hear the wind blow across the meadow grasses, the low soft rustle that made it seem as if the entire field was moving. He knew that the soft summer wind would give way in a number of weeks to clouds and rain. The summer season was always short here, but it was fair and good. Kirk cleared his throat.

  “You use big words, Brother. You ask me to prove things I cannot. But I tell you that these mountains are more godly than your Glasgow and Edinburgh and Aberdeen. God is here in this cottage. He is in each meadow flower and in every season. My daughter learns of Him when the winter comes and the spring follows, snow melting in the sun.”

  The monk could also hear the wind ripple the grass and yet, to him, it sounded mournful, almost frightening with the low throb and constant movement. “But do you not teach her about sages? About pagan fairy folk and ignorant fairy faith?”

  “I am a Christian, Brother.” Kirk wanted to smile when he heard the brother talk of fairies and sages. Of course Kirk told Cordaella about magic. There was always magic in the woods.

  “But are you bringing your daughter up as a Christian?”

  “To the best of my abilities, Brother. I cannot read. I have no scriptures. I know only the rudimentary facts myself. I’m no different from the other Highlanders. We are a simple folk. We are also superstitious. Go back to Inverness. The Buchanans there need you more.”