The Chieftain's Curse

by Frances Housden

  Then Euan was beside her, scooping her into his arms. “What’s wrong? Is it the baby?” His voice was as gruff as Rob’s had been childlike, yet she suspected other suspicions drove him as he finished, “Or, someone else?”

  “I’m fine now. Put me down and don’t make a fuss. Everyone in the hall is watching.” She pushed against him, felt the heat from his body against her palms as they pressed against his shirt and, as ever, his strength and aura pulled her in, made her wish she could lay her cheek against chest one last time.

  Arm under her legs, he stooped releasing her once she rested on her stool. She shivered, bereft of his warmth, yet he didn’t move away. Not even while Rob took her hand, patting it as one was wont to do during times of pain.

  “You were looking at the mercenary,” said Euan, “I heard you call out. Did his face frighten you?”

  “His face, aye, but with shock more than fright, I’ve seen worse scars. No, it wasn’t that. I thought I’d seen a ghost. He looks so much like my brother, Gavyn. He died that day on the battlefield when I found you. He was but one of the Wolf’s whelps in the battle that day. The other is he whom Rob and I were hiding from.”

  Euan’s eyes narrowed, the moment she had been trying to avoid had come to fruition. He would want to know everything.

  “You came here because you were hiding. No, don’t think to deny it,” he growled low in his throat. “There’s no going back.”

  None for her either. She had intended using Rob to keep them both safe, but the need hadn’t arisen. Nor had she bargained on the curse, or how her plans would look to Euan. No matter, she had to put that aside to inform him about Doughall, and the threat he presented.

  “If Kalem, that’s the Moor, was in these parts, then Doughall is here too. After Doughall brought the Moor to my father’s hall, one ne’er went far from the other.” She glanced at Euan’s face to gauge his reaction then continued, “Doughall undoubtedly knows where we are.” If only her explanation eased the guilt inside. What kind of mother would do what she’d done; even to save her son’s life. Yet, as it turned out, she’d been too late.

  “Aye that’s exactly what Rob said he heard while he was imprisoned in the wagon. They’d gagged his mouth, but never thought to muffle his ears. As usual, Comlyn hasn’t so much arranged a marriage as a mutually satisfying alliance.”

  She felt so tired, had times when all she wanted to do was sleep, but that was the baby draining her energy. “I feel exhausted. It’s been a day like no other, but perhaps if I ate something…”

  “Rob fetch Morag some food and spiced wine.” Euan sat down in Rob’s empty place. She felt every eye was upon them, but Euan paid attention to no other but her.

  With Rob out of earshot, he said, “Are you sure the baby’s well? If you need, I can carry you up to our bedchamber.”

  Her mind pounced on the word our bedchamber, and she allowed herself a few moments relief. “No, I’d rather sit here, with Rob, and you, if that’s all right.” Could she have made herself any clearer if she had begged?

  “Perhaps, I should introduce you to the Raven. If you get used to seeing his face Perhaps you’ll not keep thinking you’ve seen a ghost.”

  He was as good as his word, and aye, the Raven was badly scarred, but not actually repulsive. Yet, she still felt as if she faced her brother Gavyn. Apart frae the scar, the other differences were only what one would expect with the passage of years. The eyes were blue, but without the bright lights of expectation that had made Gavyn so different from Doughall. The jaw was hard, square, the creases round the mouth, weary. This was a man who had seen too much, and very little of it to his liking—but, height, width of shoulder … that hadn’t changed.

  He could be Gavyn.

  “Tell me, sir,” she asked, after the few minutes of formal exchange expected when meeting a new acquaintance, unable to quell a need to poke, or erase that lingering streak of hope in her heart. An emotion, a wish that said everything Doughall had put her through would be worth it if Gavyn still lived. “Your accent, is from the south, as is mine, where do you come from?”

  “Wouldst I could tell you, my lady.” He touched his forehead, ran his finger down the scar, across the puckered join in his eyelid. “The blow that did this, also robbed me of everything that had gone before that day, and nobody, clansman nor earl, laid claim to me after the battle. Perhaps, they were all dead?”

  A tingle of anticipation ran up Morag’s spine. Her hands trembled. She clasped them to prevent revealing her inner excitement. “What happened then? What did you do?”

  “I was dragged from the battlefield and carted back to Dun Edin with a horde of other wounded, stitched together, and told I was lucky. Others had lost limbs, hands arms, so I believed them. I was lucky. I had lost my memory, but I was still alive.”

  The Raven told his tale like one oft repeated, and Morag listened, thinking that perhaps at one time the man had hoped his story would strike a chord in someone. Then, as the years passed, the events and circumstances had become like an ode, so well known that the base horror had faded away until the only shadows remained in the storyteller’s mind.

  “My ringmail was finely made, and so cancelled out the notion I had been but a warrior fighting for a lord, but, without family nor clan to claim me, it was of no help. My surcoat and shield had been stolen. All I had was a hauberk, a sword and a helm split apart where the sword struck me.”

  “I can’t imagine how it must have been, but from my own experience, I know that if the mind is strong, the body can perform miracles.” She attempted to reassure him, for the longer they spoke the more certain she became that this was Gavyn.

  “Och, he countered, “when your memory is taken, the only thing you can count on is a strong arm and a blade to wield with it. That’s how I became a mercenary.”

  She had to ask, could no longer hold back the question burning at the back of her mind. Morag slightly swivelled on her stool, feeling the need for Euan’s approval. “You talk as if the battle happened a while ago. Which battle were you wounded in?”

  She spoke in a rush, her lashes flickering, quickly seeking Euan’s response to her boldness, treasuring the warm gleam in his amber irises and his additional nod of confirmation.

  Her breath caught as the captain said, “I find it hard to believe, but twelve years have passed since that day west of Berwick. The last thing I remember was seeing a slavering wolf standing over me and the sound of a sword cracking my helm.”

  Chapter 27

  Euan spoke first, “I was there,” he said, and Morag echoed his words with barely a pause between the two voices.

  Almost knocking the stool out from under him, the Raven backed away, his face etched with surprise, chin tucking into his neck as his eyes darted from one to the other, “Both of you?”

  The Raven’s gaze fixed on Morag. Euan could see a goodly amount of surprise writ across the badly scarred features, but under it all, Euan was certain the Raven’s mind worked as a good leader of men should when the unexpected occurred.

  “What was a lassie doing in that charnel house?” he demanded of her. “Surely twelve years ago you would have been naught but a child.”

  “Well for one, Morag was rescuing me. She dragged me away from the battlefield, saving my life by her courage. I had a crossbow bolt in my shoulder.” Euan grimaced at the irony. “A gift from a French mercenary, they were fighting for the Northumbrians, as were Morag’s family.” A fact he acknowledged but that moment. She wasn’t Scottish after all.

  The Raven rewarded him with a jerk of the dark brow left untouched by the scar, but remained silent. Had he noticed, as Euan did, the shimmer of hope and excitement glowing in Morag’s eyes?

  “I was looking for my brother. His name was Gavyn Farquhar, eldest son of Baron Farquhar, the Wolf of Wolfsdale, and I think you are he. I think that’s why no one claimed or recognised you, because, like me, you aren’t Scottish. You’re Northumbrian and, in truth, my brother Gavyn.”

/>   Euan imagined this man was seldom taken unawares, but Morag had managed the trick. The two of them sat staring without uttering a word. It was Rob who broke the silence. “Does that mean this is my uncle? Christ’s blood, a father and an uncle in one day. That’s a feat seldom heard of. Except perhaps at birth, how often would that happen?”

  “Rob, there’s no need to curse,” his mother scolded her son.

  But Gavyn paid the lad no heed, “No-o,” he gasped from lack of breath, for hadn’t Morag just stolen it. “No-o,” he choked as if on laughter, “the lad has the right of it, Christ’s blood is exactly what I’d have said if I hadn’t been dumb foundered.”

  All three were excited. Only Euan sat back and tossed the day’s events around in his mind like a juggler or a Fool. As Rob had indicated, it had been a lively day. Euan himself had found a son and heir and, thankfully, discovered Graeme to be every bit as pleased as he was himself. His cousin would still have his Keep, still become Thane of Kinlochery.

  But for all the good that had come out of the past eight hours, tomorrow would still bring war to Cragenlaw. Alexander was dead, and his half-brother mourned more than either he or anyone else had believed possible, considering the bad blood between them when the lad first came to stay at Cragenlaw.

  And Comlyn’s partner in war was undoubtedly Doughall Farquhar, Morag’s brother and, as Gavyn was yet unaware, his younger brother which, by all rights of inheritance, made Gavyn Baron of Wolfsdale. As soon as Doughall became aware that his erstwhile partner in debauchery was dead…

  Only one thing was clear in Euan’s mind, and it meant making changes to his previous plans, for only a madman would inform Comlyn that Alexander was dead before he need do so. “I’ll leave you to reveal the ins and outs of his history to Gavyn, as you call him,” Euan told the pair, brother and sister—once his enemies now his friends. No, now his family, for he had no qualms that Morag’s belief was true. The relationship appeared unquestionable when he looked at Rob. Either way, his son came from good stock.

  “I’ll give Graeme instructions for the morrow, then return and assist Morag to our bedchamber. The hours following sunrise will be equally as, if not more vexatious than, those of today.”

  Euan was still making plans for the clash of arms that was sure to come hard on dawn’s heels. Meanwhile, the hall had emptied out, every board and trestle cleared away and Morag still sat at the high table with Gavyn.

  “You are certain he killed our father, a man who gave him refuge?” Even in this bloodthirsty age when men killed for naught but a wee slight, Gavyn sounded incredulous. “How can you be sure?”

  “You have to understand, Doughall’s relationship with Kalem was unnatural, yet our father seemed blind to it.” Morag found a half-smile to share with her brother. “After you died, if our father loved anyone, it was Rob. I think he saw in him what he’d lost in you. Doughall could never live up to the Wolf’s aspirations. I should have told father Kalem was a pederast, that he had Rob in his eye as an object for his perversions—” She broke off.

  Even so, she’d loved her father, looked up to him, wanted to be thought as good as his sons—his son. Why else had she risked her life in the aftermath of that battle, if not to please him?

  Looking with a kind of wonder at the brother she had long believed dead, she realised that if not for the scar, he would have looked very like her father. The same arrogant nose, strong chin, the same grey-blue eyes and straight black hair, much like hers. He should have been a handsome, but now it hurt just to gaze upon his face.

  Fate, it seemed, was every bit as perverse as Doughall and the Moor who had met his end for daring to meddle with the McArthur of Cragenlaw.

  And now look at them.

  Never in the all the months she had been on the road and, of late, under Euan’s protection, had she been able to give voice to her belief that she was responsible for her father’s death. She couldn’t now. Instead she mouthed a truth, “The Wolf would have killed him with his bare hands had he found out.”

  “As would I,” confirmed Gavyn. “I wish I had been the one to kill the Moor. His death was too easy, too fast. Our brother has much to answer for.”

  She stared at her eldest brother, his face had a natural ferocity because of the scar, but if Doughall ever chanced to see the expression that shaped Gavyn’s battered features, he would shiver in his splendid boots.

  She leaned closer, her voice harsh with emotions, both old and new. “You know Doughall will deny you, deny your right to be baron.”

  Gavyn was probably already aware that the road ahead was dangerous, filled with a vast many pitfalls; still she felt driven to emphasise the difficulties facing him.

  “I can’t imagine otherwise,” he stated grimly. “While you’ve been relating our history, I keep recalling dreams … no, visions—most of them hidden behind a mist.” He reached out and took her hand. His fingers were hard, callused from a life spent holding a weapon. He squeezed her fingers, saying, “That gives me hope that my memory will return.”

  “Mind now, Doughall will not give way easily, he’s always been stubborn,” Morag told him. “Aye, and ambitious,” she continued, “I can’t see Kalem devising a plot to kill the Wolf without Doughall having a hand in it.” Whatever hopes Gavyn cherished, she didn’t want them to be false.

  Gavyn pushed her hand back into her lap, staring at the swell of her belly under her green kirtle. “Euan has as much to fight for, live for, as have I.” He straightened his spine, resting his elbow on the wooden surface and his dark, hair-roughened chin on his hand, eyelids closed as if pondering a difficult problem. Then he looked at her once again. “Every time you mention ‘the Wolf’, I see the creature standing over me, but the animal’s no longer real.”

  A notion struck Morag, but before she could give voice to it, Euan, having left Graeme’s quarters, held out his hand to her. “Come, it’s time you were abed. Shall I carry you?”

  Morag felt her cheeks grow hot, remembering the last time he had carried her up to the bedchamber. No disrespect to her brother, dressed in tunic and hose, but, to her eyes, Euan in kilted plaid and linen shirt, neck opening unlaced revealing throat and chest, appeared the manlier of the two.

  “No,” she gasped, more at the direction of her thoughts than to refuse Euan, but she recovered enough to clasp a hand to her breast, and say, “I can manage on my own. No need to take you away from your duties.”

  As she watched, his expression stilled. The skin around his nostrils paled as if the tension in him forced the blood away. He took that hand and folded her fingers in his, pulling Morag to her feet. “There’s time for me to walk with you,” he said, words that sounded warmer than the tone he spoke them in.

  His touch filled her with a yearning she tried to push back inside her heart, from where it had arisen. There would be a settling between them, no doubt, but it wouldn’t come tonight. Of that she was absolutely sure. More so, when he said to Gavyn, “Graeme will tell you of our plans. I’ll be back soon, and we can decide on our various responsibilities. There’s much to be done.”

  Euan had insisted she take his arm. She savoured his warmth, the feel of his hard muscles under her hand. Though he showed her concern, she wasn’t entirely convinced it was for her benefit. No, he wanted to be seen to care for her still, but after…

  “Do you think Comlyn knows Gavyn’s men are here, or that Alex is dead?” she wondered aloud.

  “No, but I’m certain that by now he’s well aware Rob’s abduction failed. I know he has men watching among the woods. There’s often a scent of a cooking fire from among the trees, and earlier, I noticed a drift of smoke in the air as I looked up at the moon while we were bringing Rob back to Cragenlaw. By my reckoning, Comlyn will know before morning.”

  As they neared the head of the stairs, the pitch torch burning against the opposite wall flickered in a draught, casting their shadows as one, a man and woman, rising and falling as if melded to each other in the act of love.


  It broke her heart to realise that, henceforth, this might be the nearest she would come to lying in Euan’s arms, his strong body thrusting into her, hips flexing as he brought her more pleasure than she felt she deserved. There was no getting away from it; she had deceived Euan, kept the knowledge of his son tucked in her bosom, close to her heart. He would never forgive her.

  How could he?

  “Nhaimeth is in the chapel with Alexander, so I’ve told Rob and Jamie to move their pallets into the solar for the night,” Euan told her, as if he had some care for her safety.

  Yet, he didn’t step through the door to the bedchamber, merely left as if he couldn’t wait to be away.

  And who could blame him?

  A sense of foreboding overwhelmed her. Crawling up onto the wolfskins, she wondered if Euan would ever share the bed with her again. She felt a knot tighten inside her chest, remembering the sound of weeping she had heard in the brewery. Had the Green Lady seen the unravelling of the promise Morag once imagined lay in her future?

  Pulling the woollen covers over her head, she curled up under them, her arms cradling the baby inside her until eventually she slept.

  Euan stood atop on the one of the gatehouse towers, Graeme and Gavyn on either side of him, and it somehow felt right. The structures housed the winch, which was used to open and close the entrance to Cragenlaw. They had spent the night making preparations. As a result, the villagers had been warned, and both his men and Gavyn’s had helped move them inside the outer bailey with everything they could carry. Safe for now, with the drawbridge up and the portcullis lowered.

  They had done as much as they could to protect everyone.

  Two of Gavyn’s mercenaries, ones who had been posted as lookouts, had reported back before noon. According to their calculations, soon they would see Comlyn and Farquhar’s men cresting the top of the brae.