Luag

by Jane Stain

  And third was the cunning that showed on her face briefly while she thought of a way to ask for what she wanted without seeming to do so —a skill of hers that he begrudgingly admired, so good was she.

  “The grass is thicker over there across the water,” she said from atop the horse, “and unlike yer boots, my shoes canna take being wet.” As if she were doing him a favor, she reached out her hand for him to help her down as he usually would any lass who asked it of him.

  As if he wouldn’t even realize what she was up to.

  But he wasn’t having it. “Sae ye wish tae get doon, then?”

  She huffed. “Ye ken I dae.”

  “Well then?”

  “Well then what?”

  “Well then, ask me nicely tae show ye.”

  She gritted her teeth.

  He chuckled.

  Growling, she relented. “Will ye please show me how tae get doon off this horse.”

  It was a statement rather than a question, but he would take it.

  Luag felt red coloring his own cheeks at how cruel he’d been to her compared to how kind she’d been to him in her time.

  Katherine saw it and rode Golden Foot over.

  He searched for a way to change the subject as he got on Steam.

  But with genuine kindness in her face, she told him, “I forgive ye, Luag. Thank ye for teaching me tae ride. I mean it.”

  He didn’t want her to look away, so he said the first thing that came to his mind. “I did ye a favor that day, ye ken.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Aye? Pray tell.”

  “Aye,” he said with his best mock-superior face. “The best way tae dae some aught difficult is as fast as ye can.”

  8

  Once more, she was on the trail to Aberdeen with Luag, and she got a bit of embarrassment when they’d been on the trail a few hours and she needed to find a bush. Thankfully, Jessica signaled to Leif that she needed one as well, saving Katherine the trouble.

  Knowing how to dismount by herself now and being extremely proud of the fact, Katherine did so. After handing the reins to Luag to hold while she did her business, she ran over to Jessica and Lauren, happy to have some time alone with her friends.

  But Taran handed his and Lauren’s reigns to Leif, indicating he would escort Lauren.

  Katherine confronted Taran. “If ye take Lauren, then who will take me? Lauren can protect me and Jessica, sae the lasses should be able tae go off by ourselves, right Lauren? Jessica?”

  Jessica shook her head no where she stood by Leif, obviously planning on helping him hold Lauren and Taran’s horses.

  “Lauren?” Katherine asked, knowing there was desperation in her voice but not caring. She was not going to pee within sight of any of the men.

  Lauren gave Katherine an apologetic smile, holding onto her new husband as if it were the most pleasurable thing in the world to do —which Katherine allowed that maybe it was, but that was beside the point. “I’m a ninny when it comes tae fighting. Did I seem sae tough tae ye back at PenUlt? Nay. All that fighting skill was Galdus. He knew how tae fight like nay one’s business, and like a fool, I let him lead me. He used his fighting knowledge tae lure me intae allowing him tae start controlling me. Now that I am finally rid o’ the auld druid in that dagger, I’m as helpless as ye are. ‘Tis glad o’ it I am.”

  “May I tag along with ye?” Katherine called out after Lauren and Taran.

  But they ignored her.

  Having a sneaking suspicion what was going on here, Katherine turned her attention to Leif. “I dinna suppose ye wull let me tag along when ye escort Jessica tae use the bushes?”

  Leif started to shake his head no.

  But his wife elbowed him in the ribs, smiling sweetly while she did so.

  Chuckling, Leif said, “Verra wull. Ye can tag along with Jessica. For now.”

  Katherine looked around for Luag’s reaction to all this.

  But his face was hidden. The man was sensibly doing his own business behind his and her horses while she haggled with the others.

  Seeing her opportunity, she went behind the horses, feeling a strange affinity with Luag as he circled the horses around to give her privacy.

  So this was how it was going to be? She and Luag were a default couple? She could work with that. It wasn’t going to be how the others intended. She was not going to stay here any longer than it took to get this business with the MacDonalds sorted out short-term. Long-term, they were on their own.

  When the group sighted Aberdeen, Katherine was impressed despite herself. It was a fairly large city, and even outside the gates there were hundreds of buildings.

  When Taran and Lauren arrived at the gate in front of the group, the guard halted them.

  “Taran, ye deserted yer men when they needed ye the night afore the last battle. Leif covered for ye, but I dinna think ye’ll find a verra warm ‘wull coome’ inside here. Ye can bide the night at one o’ the inns oot there.”

  Hearing this, Luag turned his horse around.

  “What are you doing?” Katherine asked him.

  “If Taran is getting such a poor reception, I wull dae even worse. They all ken what family I belong tae.”

  “We need tae go inside,” she urged him.

  “That’s true, but we wull hae tae devise some sort o’ scheme sae we are na recognized. We need an inn for tonight. Leif will hae tae hire it for us. I will hae tae sneak in like an ootlaw.”

  A party of English-speaking people walked by the front gate on the road. Katherine was fascinated, because everyone else was speaking Gaelic. Once they had passed by, she was overcome with anger and stormed up to the front gate and gave that guard a piece of her mind.

  “Taran fought in the battle the next day, even after having tae gae all by himself ower tae Laird Ualraig’s castle and rescue Lauren. If anything, I think he should be lauded, but especially na given such grief when he is just trying tae enter the city!”

  The guards chewed on that a moment.

  Meanwhile, a lady in the party of English-speaking people turned and winked at Katherine approvingly.

  The guards were still chewing over their decision.

  Katherine said to them, “Who is that lady?”

  “The Lady of Bath from England,” said the lead guard, who then turned to Taran. “Ye did well for yerself in the battle. Come on in.”

  Katherine turned to smile at her friends in triumph.

  But Leif frowned at her and shook his head no, subtly signing, “Luag canna go in any case.”

  Oh yeah.

  Katherine turned back to the guards. “I guess we wull bide ootside the city after all. Thanks anyway.” She gave them her level ten smile.

  It worked. They elbowed each other, grinning.

  When Katherine turned around, she saw that her friends were already quite a ways down the road, apparently more desperate than she had realized not to have Luag recognized, now that Taran had been given trouble. She ran to catch up.

  The problem arose again when they got to the inn. The couples wanted privacy, and Luag couldn’t get a room at all.

  “Loan me yer arisade,” Katherine said to Lauren.

  “What for?”

  “Just hand it over,” Katherine said with her best urgent face.

  It worked.

  “Here,” Katherine said, putting Lauren’s long, billowing plaid covering over Luag’s head and pulling it over his body as if he were an old woman. “Ye are my aging mither.”

  Before she could instruct Luag on how to look like her aging mother, he stooped over and walked haltingly, saying in a high pitched and scratchy voice, “Ye wull take care o’ getting the room, wull na ye, dear?”

  Everyone laughed.

  But when they got to the inn, the stable boy ran to help Katherine’s ‘mither’ up the steps.

  So Luag would be sleeping in Katherine’s room with her, but she’d worry about that later. For now, they were all in Leif and Jessica’s room, planning what to do.
>
  Lauren suggested, “Leif is a laird, sae the rest o’ us can enter Aberdeen as his and Jessica’s servants.”

  The others agreed with that.

  But Luag spoke up, looking them all in the eye by turns. “I hae some aught that wull guarantee I get an audience with the Regent, but not in peasant clothes. Ye wull hae tae trust me on this.”

  Instead of puzzlement, Leif gave Luag a knowing nod.

  Katherine looked over at Jessica to see if she would reveal anything.

  But Jessica shook her head no.

  “Verra wull,” Katherine said to the group, “sae Luag needs tae get an audience with the Regent but canna be noticed in toon. He wull hae tae go in disguise. And the best way tae accomplish that is for Luag and I tae pose as a laird and lady from England. They will na be known verra much around here, and the English are backing the Laird Regent—”

  “What?”

  “The English are backing the Laird Regent?”

  “Ye canna mean it!”

  Katherine got out her phone and brought up the book she’d downloaded, the one about the history of Inverurie. “Sorry, I thought ye all kenned that. Hear it for yerself.”

  9

  Ye must hae it backward, Katherine,” Luag said with as much gentleness as he could manage, which wasn’t much. He didn’t understand why, but he sat there on the floor of Leif’s inn room praying it would be enough.

  Good, she responded with a raised eyebrow, curiosity rather than her usual glorious haughtiness.

  He explained frankly. “It would na surprise me one bit if my kinsmen the MacDonalds hae enlisted the help o’ the English tae take ower Scotland, but there is na way the Stewarts would dae sae. As the rightful but incarcerated king and his regent, James and his uncle Robert already hae Scotland. If history says the English were involved, then this whole situation is more dire than I thought. ‘Tis urgent, even now that Roland will dissuade the druids.”

  This brought the mood down. Jessica laid her head on Leif’s shoulder, where the two sat side by side on the bed. Taran slumped where he stood against the door holding Lauren.

  Leif gave everyone a pointed look. “That is enough talk for this evening. Let us recommence on the morrow.”

  Katherine raised her face with resolution, however. “I think just Luag and I should gae in and talk tae the Regent.”

  A change in the set of Leif’s jaw told Luag his friend was about to nix this idea.

  But Katherine raised her hands and quickly signed for him to please give her a chance to finish.

  Leif relented, telling her so with a quick raise of his head.

  After briefly looking surprised, she rushed into her sales talk, which she had plainly thought through in great detail. “We already had trouble with Taran going in, and everyone kens ye are his brother, Leif. Aye, ye hae explained everyone kens Luag is a MacDonald, but he could enter Aberdeen as my aged mither. Just two women with marketing baskets on their arms should raise na fashing.”

  Leif shook his head no. “Ye made quite a name for yerself last evening. Ye as wull are memorable now.”

  But she didn’t give up. “Then I wull put Jessica’s plaid ower my head and we wull both be auld women.”

  She looked at Jessica for her approval.

  Jessica nodded that of course that was fine with her, but she raised her own objections. “Yer charm will na work nearly sae wull as an auld woman, and certies ye canna expect two auld peasant women wull be admitted intae the Regent’s presence?”

  “Ye hae the right o’ it,” Katherine said, seeming to accept defeat for a moment.

  But then she spoke up again with that scheming gleam in her eye which drew him to her like a moth to a flame. “‘Tis why we wull gae tae the Lady o’ Bath. We wull gae at first light through a different gate and ask the guard where she bides. She winked at me last night, impressed by my bluff. Luag wull reveal himself tae her as a MacDonald, once she invites us in. If the MacDonalds and the English are in on the invasion together, then she wull be happy tae help us any way she can.”

  Luag nodded slowly as the cleverness of her plan sank in. “But I hae tae warn the Regent aboot the impending attack. She will na take ower wull tae that.”

  Katherine smiled indulgently at him, the way one smiles at a small child who has stated something obvious. From a man it would’ve infuriated him, but somehow from her it made him like her.

  When she spoke, the feeling intensified.

  “O’ course. But Luag wull insist on speaking with the Regent privately.”

  Luag looked to Leif. “‘Tis a good plan. I agree. The rest o’ ye bide here at the inn and we wull rejoin ye in at most tae days. If we have na come oot in tae days, then try some other way o’ getting the news tae the Regent.”

  Leif nodded sagely and then looked to his wife as if for comfort, but in in truth this was his way of signaling the others it was time to leave.

  So they did. Taran and Lauren quickly went to their own room and closed the door before Luag could ask Taran if he could sleep in there and Lauren could sleep in Katherine’s room.

  Nope.

  Luag turned to Katherine.

  Katherine shrugged in a pretty way, signing, “We will just hae tae bear it, I suppose. She giggled then, the sort of anxious giggle a young lass gives her lass friends when a lad smiles at her.

  He smiled at her in gratitude and stepped aside, clearing the way for her to precede him into her room, the only other room here at the inn.

  She opened the door and stepped inside, turning at the last moment and holding the door open in invitation.

  He accepted.

  There was only one bed, a double.

  “Ye take the bed,” he told her even as he was taking off his weapons and stowing them beneath it within easy reach of the floor where he would be sleeping.

  “That’s nice o’ ye, considering this is my room,” she quipped, dropping her plaid on the floor for him and then scrambling under the covers fully clothed.

  He piled his plaid on top of hers to make as comfy a billet as he could. “If ye need the chamber pot in the middle o’ the night, just kick me and I’ll roll ower tae let ye by.”

  She rolled over in the bed so that she was on her side, facing him. “Thank ye for permission. ‘Twas my plan.”

  Her face was so smug, he wanted to pinch it. He settled for a mock pinch in the air in front of her nose. “Sae ye are na longer angry with me ower being a MacDonald?”

  “That was na why I was angry.”

  “Oh?”

  “Nay. I was angry because I thought ye had kept it a secret. Ye canna help what clan ye were born intae.”

  He couldn’t help the smile on his face as he drifted off to sleep. The room was dark. Mayhap she wouldn’t see.

  10

  Katherine and Luag inquired of the guards at the other gate where the Lady of Bath was staying and then made their way to her townhouse.

  An English girl answered the door. “Prithee pardon me. Milady has asked me to turn away all beggars. ‘Tis nothing personal, thou must needs understand—”

  Before the girl could conclude and shut the door, Katherine revealed her young face and showed the girl the ring on her finger, the expensive old-fashioned ring she’d bought on Santa Monica’s 2nd Street Promenade. Had it been just two days ago?

  “We are na beggars,” she told the servant, “And we think yer lady has good reason tae speak with us.”

  The girl stared back and forth from the ring to Katherine’s face. “I remember you.”

  Now she smiled at Katherine in admiration. “You are the Scottish lady who talked her way into the gate yesterday. You’re right. Milady was impressed with you.” She opened the door all the way and gestured inside. “Please come in and have a seat, and I will go tell her you have arrived.”

  The sitting room looked surprisingly similar to many living rooms Katherine had seen in modern life. It didn’t have a TV, stereo, or anything electronic at all of course, but man
y of her friends’ parents liked their living rooms to be just so, places where you talk to your guests rather than places of entertainment for the family. There were comfy chairs and end tables and knickknacks. There was even a grandfather clock.

  A few moments later, the girl returned.

  Two other girls came close behind her, fussing over the Lady of Bath, who was older, probably in her 50s, and had to be helped down the stairs.

  Arthritis, Katherine thought.

  The lady beamed a smile at Katherine. “Martha tells me you’re quite well to do, but also that you request my assistance. I was quite impressed with you yesterday at the gate, and I’m intrigued. Please tell me the nature of the help you request.”

  Katherine looked around at Martha and the other two girls.

  The lady shook her head no. “I’m impressed, but I cannot extend too much trust, you understand.”

  Luag tapped Katherine’s shoulder.

  She turned to give him an irritated retort.

  But she was brought up short by what she saw. Four armed men stood close at hand in the hallway.

  The lady gave Katherine a genuine smile. “Anything you’re going to say to me, all my people can hear. They were born into my service, and they’re loyal. I trust them with my very life, as you can see, and so does my husband, who is gone to court for the day as usual.”

  Luag spoke up now, mostly addressing the warriors. “We request yer assistance in getting me tae court. I wish tae speak with the Laird Regent about this matter o’ his resistance tae Donald Laird o’ the Isles’ claim on the region o’ Ross. If I can get an audience with him, things will gae more smoothly for everyone, with less bloodshed. For I am a MacDonald, ye see.”

  The lady narrowed her eyes at Luag, measuring him up. “How do you think I can get you in?”

  Katherine piped up. “Perhaps we could be yer children?”

  They wrangled over it an hour, going over all the possible problems, but the lady kept looking at Luag with keen interest, and in the end she agreed.

  “It just so happens we have some English clothes that might be made to fit you on short notice.” She eyed Katherine’s ring. “Of course, such clothing is expensive.”

  Katherine took the ring off and held it up, giving Luag an ‘I told you so’ look and signing, ‘Who are you to tell me what not to buy.’ Out loud, she said to the lady, “Once we have the clothing, you may hold this ring as surety for it.”