“’Tis nothing more here, Da.”
“Ah, lad, there is,” he growled. “Just as a voice can imply the true or false intent of the spoken word, so parchment and quill can tell you more than is strictly written.”
Tayg leaned against the table and waited for his father to explain.
“You have been with the king. What do you know of this?” Angus gestured at the missive.
Surprise coursed through Tayg. His father was asking his opinion? Very well, a test. “’Tis an uneasy alliance,” he began, “between the king and the Earl of Ross, despite the impending marriage of the earl’s son to the king’s sister. ’Tis no secret there is little trust between Ross and the king as of yet.”
“Aye,” his father said, stroking his black and silver beard, “so Ross needs to offer proof to the king that he is a loyal servant, and what better way than to have as many folk as possible attest to such after seeing or hearing of this document.”
Tayg nodded and followed the line of reasoning. “He wants this conspicuous display taken to each chief, so that they too may attest to his loyalty when they greet the king at Dingwall.”
Angus nodded and paced.
“But why have one of our kin carry it?” Tayg mused.
“Ah, ’tis simple, that one. The earl would not wish to send one of his own kinsmen into that stronghold. There is no love lost between the Earl of Ross and the MacDonells.”
“So we, as loyal allies of the earl’s, but who have no argument with the MacDonells, are selected to trek into the bens at the start of winter.”
“You see?” Angus said, grinning as if Tayg had surprised him. “There was more to the missive than the words written upon the parchment. Perhaps your time with the king has honed your mind as well as your sword arm.”
Tayg tried to ignore the reference to his previous lack of interest in the politics swirling around the clan. Serving in the king’s cause for more than a year taught a man many things besides the art of battle.
“’Twill not be an easy journey,” Tayg said. “And Hogmanay is less than a month away.”
“Aye, ’twill likely take a fortnight or more to complete the task, and then only if the snows hold off.” Angus pulled a rolled parchment from a shelf below the table, spread it over the missive, and began studying what appeared to be a map.
Tayg considered the task. A fortnight journeying through the Highlands. Dun Donell would not be an easy trip even in high summer when the days were long and the weather gentle. This would be a fortnight, all told, in the cold, traveling from village to village, castle to castle, all alone. A fortnight might give him the time he needed to figure out how to avoid his mother’s solution to the problem with the lasses, or if he must wed, at least he would have this time to choose from other lasses he might meet along his journey. His father’s plan became clear.
“So I shall take this missive to the MacDonells,” he said, “thereby serving the king, the Earl of Ross, and escaping the clutches of both Mum and the other scheming women.” He tried to suppress the smile that fought to spread itself over his face. “And perhaps I shall find a lass I might wish to wed—one who is not enamored of the bard’s version of Tayg of Culrain.” He glanced at the map.
Perhaps ’twas better in more ways than these for him to leave the comforts of his home for a while longer. Perhaps this bard would be gone by the time Tayg returned from his travels or at least his songs would have ceased. Or he would have moved on to another village where he would tell the same stories and sing the same songs and spread this drivel even farther into the Highlands…if others had not done so already.
He was daft if he thought escaping Culrain would solve this problem. The bards had no doubt spread these songs and tales across the Highlands. Such things were meant to lift the spirits, and songs of bravery in war were always the first to spread. No wonder his mother claimed the lasses were scheming to marry him. With drivel like that to contemplate, the lasses would be lying in wait for him, especially if word got out that he was journeying into the bens. Ballocks! ’Twould be an escape from his mum’s scheme but no reprieve from marriage-minded lasses.
Applause drifted through the door, and he heard the bard’s clear tenor voice beg the crowd’s pardon while he took a wee break.
There was the life. A bard traveled freely, unencumbered by responsibilities. He had the attentions of the lasses but not the burden of their aspirations. He had all the good of life and very little of the bad. If only…
Of course! A simple bard could do what Tayg of Culrain could not. A bard could deliver the Earl of Ross’s missive, make light with the lasses, and enjoy the hospitality of anyone he encountered on his journey. The only responsibilities he would have would be to entertain his hosts with songs and stories and the latest gossip. True, Tayg didn’t sing all that well, but he told stories as well as any trained seanachaidh, and he used to play the frame drum a bit when he was a lad. He knew gossip aplenty from spending months in the king’s army. How difficult could it be to pretend to be a bard—at least once he left the country where his face was known?
“I shall leave at first light.” Tayg quickly rolled up the Earl of Ross’s parchment.
Angus actually chuckled. “Wise lad. I’ll do what I can to dissuade your mum from finding you a lass herself. In truth I think she sees trouble where it is not, or perhaps she simply pines for your bairns. See that you do not return too soon, or we may see you wed too quickly yet.”
Tayg had packing to do and a drum to find, for he would be quit of these walls before sunrise. He gave a nod to his father and left the bear’s den, happy in his prospects, at least for the present.
CHAPTER TWO
“LEAVE MY CHAMBER now!” Catriona MacLeod glared at her eldest brother, Broc, and pointed a finger at the door.
He was aptly named, closely resembling the badger both in appearance and in temperament. Tall with a sharp face, midnight hair, and small eyes, he was quick to pick a fight and ruthless in defending his right to order about his many younger siblings. Catriona, the youngest, knew well how to deal with his brand of arrogance.
He stepped toward her. “I am not finished instructing you in—”
“It seems to me that the last time you ‘instructed’ me your porridge was burned every morning for a month, your bed collapsed beneath you, and—”
“Enough!” he bellowed. Catriona enjoyed the crimson cast to his skin.
“I am a woman grown and will run this castle as I see fit. If you do not like it, leave. ’Twould improve the smell greatly.”
He stepped closer until they were nearly nose to nose and she could see the hardness in his dark eyes.
“You will not run this castle with your demands and threats much longer, Triona,” Broc said. “Soon I will become chief, then my wife will see to its running and finally I will have some peace, a decent meal, and no more of your cutting tongue.”
“Are you not forgetting something?” she said, moving away from him but not being so stupid as to take her eyes off him.
“I never forget—”
“You have no wife. Pity no one will marry a mighty lout like you.”
“Unlike you, dear sister.” He surged forward and grabbed her arm, squeezing hard. Silently she cursed herself for not evading his grasp, but she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt her. “You will be married sooner than you imagine.”
Catriona’s skin crawled at the quiet threat in his loathsome voice.
“What do you mean?” she asked, despising the glint that danced in his eyes as a genuine smile spread across his face.
Nothing good ever came of Broc’s good humor.
“You will find out soon enough.” He released her and turned to leave. Catriona heard him snicker. “You will get your due.”
“Tell me what you know or I’ll see that what remains of your precious hair falls out by month’s end.” Catriona knew each of her five brothers’ weaknesses and Broc’s was his hair. Long admire
d by the lasses for its glossy ebon waves, now, at only eight and twenty, it was thinning rapidly.
Broc grimaced but turned back to face her. “Your betrothed—” the smile on his face turned to a sneer “—is to arrive a sennight hence. Three days more and you shall be married. We shall be rid of you.”
Stunned, Catriona stared at him. “Who?” She hated that the word came out on a whisper.
“’Tis a good question, that,” Broc said. “There is only one clan in all the Highlands who is so desperate for an alliance as to accept Triona the Shrew as a bride.”
“Who?” she asked once more, her voice firmer now as she glowered at Broc. He was dangerously close to smiling again. “Who!”
The smile crashed across his face and she wanted to smash a fist into it, but she had never been successful against her brothers that way and she needed to know her destiny. With a huge effort she held her fists at her sides, digging her fingernails into her palms.
“Who am I to wed, Broc?” Her voice dripped with the contempt she felt for this brother, but she knew he would not recognize it for what it was; he was too dense, too concerned with his torment of her to see it.
“Should be Da who tells you—”
“’Twould be a pity if you lost the rest of your hair. ’Tis the only thing the lasses like about you.”
He blanched.
She cocked an eyebrow at him in perfect imitation of his favorite expression when he had her in a corner.
“Very well, I shall tell you,” he growled, “but you will do naught to make my hair fall out.”
Catriona nodded. She had had no hand in his loss so far, so ’twas an easy promise to make.
“’Tis a MacDonell lad who has agreed to take you.” His voice was nonchalant, as if he spoke of the weather, but the malice was back in his eyes.
Catriona felt the blood drain from her cheeks, and she was suddenly cold to her bones. “Nay, ’tis not…”
At Broc’s huge grin and quick nod her knees went weak, but she knew better than to allow him to see how horribly his news struck her. She pushed past him, almost daring him to grab her so she could react as she had as a child, all fists and feet, flailing away at his tenderest spot. But ’twas a long time since she could get away with such behavior. Frustration shook her, and she raced for her father’s chamber as Broc chased her down the corridor.
“Father!” she yelled as she neared the chief’s chambers.
Ignoring the closed door, she shoved it open and strode straight for the slight, gray man sitting behind a table, squinting at a parchment filled with tiny marks.
“Broc must cease baiting me or I will not be held responsible if he can no longer father an heir.”
Without looking up, Neill MacLeod answered her. “Wheesht, Triona, I am figuring.”
Catriona huffed, but stood her ground. ’Twas not unusual to be ignored by her father.
“Broc says I’m to be married off to that dog-faced son-of-a-MacDonell.”
Her father continued to ignore her as he silently mouthed the numbers he was laboriously adding up.
“Father!”
Still he mouthed the numbers.
It was ever so with him, attending to the minutiae of inventories, the petty squabbles of the clan. Never did he give her the same level of attention. In desperation, she picked up the inkwell he was absently reaching toward with his quill and held it out of his reach.
“Triona! Damn it, girl! Now I’ve forgotten the number I need to write down.”
“Seven hundred thirty-one.” She held the ink for him to dip his quill into, then waited while he slowly wrote the number. When he was done writing and before he could start adding more numbers, she said, “Broc says you will marry me to Dogface MacDonell.”
Broc chuckled behind her. “His name is Duff MacDonell, and he is their chief. ’Tis a good match for you, Triona.”
She swung round to face him only to find three more brothers ranged behind him. Callum, Gowan, and Jamie tended to travel in a pack. They were stair-stepped in height, hair ranging from a rusty brown to nearly as black as Broc’s, and their expressions were always that of placid sheep, which was how Catriona tended to think of them. Now they were a step behind Broc, as usual. Only Ailig, the youngest son and her occasional ally against the others, was not present. This, too, was no surprise, as his way of dealing with their eldest sibling was mostly to avoid him.
“I was not speaking to you,” she said, glaring at Broc with contempt. She went around the table, the better able to command her father’s attention.
“You ken I will not marry him. I’ll not bend to the likes of Dogface MacDonell!”
“Nor anyone, it would seem, daughter.”
“Bending serves no purpose. You bend to no one. My brothers do not. Why should I?”
“There is bending and there is choosing. You have done neither. You do not bend to my will, yet neither do you choose a husband. What am I to do with such a willful child?”
“I am not willful.” She chose to ignore the raised eyebrows of every man in the room. “I simply will not be sacrificed.”
“We are not sacrificing you.”
“Nay,” Broc said under his breath, but still loud enough for her to hear, “we are gladly giving you away.” One of the sheep snorted.
Triona gripped the inkwell tightly, fighting the urge to hurl it at Broc’s smug face. Instead she slammed it down on the table, then belatedly remembered the stopper wasn’t in it. Ink fountained up and she reached out and caught most of it in her cupped hands before it could do more than splatter the parchment full of numbers.
“Triona!” Her father whisked the parchment out of danger. Her brothers chuckled. She glared at them as ink dripped from between her clenched fingers, splattering on the now empty tabletop.
“What’s so funny?” Her brother Ailig, youngest but for her, entered the chamber, pushing past the sheep. He took one step into the room and seemed to immediately grasp what had happened. He grabbed a rag from a table near the door and set it where Catriona could let the rest of the ink run into it.
“Nice catch.” He smiled at her, but the smile stopped short of his eyes and his voice sounded weary.
This was her favorite brother, indeed the only one she liked, fair-haired and unlike the others as much in manner as in appearance.
“Who’s done what to whom this time?” Ailig looked first at Catriona, then at Broc and the other brothers still ranged behind him.
“You have not told Ailig?” She directed this to her father. “Were you afraid he would tell me?”
“Nay. Broc has spoken out of turn,” Neill said, sending a stern look at his eldest. “We were to announce the betrothal at the evening meal.”
Shock coursed through her for the second time this morning.
“You were not going to tell me until you announced this before the entire clan?” She wiped her hands on her gown, leaving long black streaks of ink on the amber fabric. Neill studied the parchment he held safely in his hands.
“I will not marry him,” she said, as much to herself as to anyone else in the chamber. She turned to her father, her gown gripped in her ink-stained fists. “If you make me, I’ll…I’ll…I’ll stab him in his sleep. Then you’ll have trouble on your hands!”
“Triona—” Her father reached out, but she evaded him and fled the room. Broc’s self-satisfied chuckle followed her down the empty corridor.
CATRIONA STORMED THROUGH the bailey to the main gate, scattering children and chickens ahead of her. As she left the castle’s confines, the magnificent vista of Loch Assynt opened up before her in all its early winter glory. The snow-clad peaks of Quinag rising on the opposite shore were reflected in the loch’s mirrored surface. As she neared the rocky beach, she slowed her steps. Ice clung to the verge and spread thickly upon those rocks that poked up from the dark, watery depths.
A breeze, gentle for December but still cold, tugged at her ruined gown. She wrapped her arms around herself, wishin
g she had stopped long enough to retrieve her cloak before venturing outside. Winter was upon them, and she realized the timing of this ill-fated attempt to marry her off could not have been better planned. Soon the snows would reach down the slopes of the bens and into the glens. Everyone in the Highlands would hunker down for the winter. They would wait out the long, dark months until the coming of gentler weather when the thaw would begin. Only then would anyone venture far from their own safe homes.
She gazed up at Quinag. The crystal blue sky set against the white peak created a stark, glittering contrast. She loved this view, this peaceful spot, where she need not be on her guard against her brothers’ constant enmity.
Surely this marriage was Broc’s plan. He was the one who most wished to rid himself of her. What better way to accomplish that than to marry her off just as winter was about to cut them off from the wider world? She’d have no hope of returning home for months. Not that she would have any reason to return, other than to make Broc’s life a living hell. ’Twas not a bad idea, that, except clearly she was not wanted here by anyone. Anger warred with hurt and a painful sense that she’d been abandoned amid this horde of men. Not for the first time she wished she had a sister, a mother, even an aunt nearby. She needed an ally.
She picked up a round, white-flecked rock and let the frost on it melt against her anger-heated skin. Damn them all, brothers, father, everyone, she thought as she aimed at one of the icy rocks far out in the loch. She let her stone fly, hitting her target hard enough to shatter the ice covering.
“Is it safe to join you, or are you likely to pelt me next?”
She turned and glared at Ailig. His sandy hair fell in scraggly waves about his serious face, and his eyes were such a pale shade of gray they sometimes looked silver, as they did now. He wore a faded blue plaid over bare legs, though he had donned his low leather boots in deference to the cold.
This youngest brother, just two years older than her own nineteen years, was the bravest of them all. Though Broc delighted in causing her anger, Ailig was the only one who ever dared approach her when she was already angry.
Charming the Shrew Page 3
