The Reluctant Highlander

by Scott, Amanda

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  Other Books by Amanda Scott

  Series

  THE BATH TRILOGY

  The Bath Quadrille

  Bath Charade

  The Bath Eccentric’s Son

  BORDER NIGHTS

  Moonlight Raider

  Devil’s Moon

  THE BORDER TRILOGY

  Border Bride

  Border Fire

  Border Storm

  THE BORDER TRILOGY 2

  Border Wedding

  Border Lass

  Border Moonlight

  THE DANGEROUS SERIES

  Dangerous Games

  Dangerous Angels

  Dangerous Illusions

  Dangerous Lady

  THE GALLOWAY TRILOGY

  Tamed by a Laird

  Seduced by a Rogue

  Tempted by a Warrior

  THE HIGHLAND SERIES

  Highland Fling

  Highland Secrets

  Highland Treasure

  Highland Spirits

  THE ISLES/TEMPLARS SERIES

  Highland Princess

  Lord of the Isles

  Prince of Danger

  Lady’s Choice

  Knight’s Treasure

  King of Storms

  LAIRDS OF THE LOCH

  The Laird’s Choice

  The Knight’s Temptress

  The Warrior’s Bride

  SCOTTISH KNIGHTS TRILOGY

  Highland Master

  Highland Hero

  Highland Lover

  THE SECRET CLAN

  Abducted Heiress

  Hidden Heiress

  Highland Bride

  Reiver’s Bride

  Novels

  An Affair of Honor

  The Battling Bluestocking

  The Bawdy Bride

  The Dauntless Miss Wingrave

  The Fugitive Heiress

  The Indomitable Miss Hariss

  The Infamous Rakes

  The Kidnapped Bride

  Lady Escapade

  Lady Hawk’s Folly

  Lord Abberley’s Nemesis

  Lord Greyfalcon’s Reward

  The Madcap Marchioness

  Mistress of the Hunt

  The Rose at Twilight

  The Reluctant Highlander

  A Highland Romance

  Amanda Scott

  To Tom & Kathleen Fashinell,

  two very special friends,

  for always being there, again & again.

  Thank You!

  Author’s Note

  Until the mid-1600s, the town of Perth, Scotland, was St. John’s Town of Perth, after its namesake. Perth was the entire region now known as Perthshire.

  Medieval Highlanders rarely used surnames, because most people in a given area belonged to one clan. In this book, for example, Gaelic Mòr, as in Glen Mòr and Shaw Mòr, means “the Great.”

  Kilts were nonexistent until the sixteenth century. But dyes came from local plants, so woven wool garments in one area might have colors and/or patterns distinctive to that area. Clan tartans came along much later and became popular after Queen Victoria visited Scotland (1842) and acquired Balmoral (1852).

  Glossary

  For readers’ convenience, the author offers the following:

  Àdham(h): pronounced “Adam” in medieval days, now YAH dav

  Catriona: Ka CHREE na

  Clerical hours: Prime = 6 a.m.; Terce = 8–9 a.m.; Vespers = 4:30–6 p.m.

  Father Prior: the proper form of address for lead prior of a monastery

  Gillichallum Roy: Gilli HAL um; Gillichallum = “Young Malcolm”; Roy = red

  Glen Mòr: the Great Glen

  Inver: mouth of the river (i.e., Inverlochy; Inverness)

  Ivor: EE vor

  Keekers: eyes

  Jack-o’-plate: sleeveless jacket with inserted plates of iron or other padding

  Plaid: pronounced “played”; an all-purpose garment from a length of wool kilted up with a belt. Wearer flings excess length over his shoulder.

  Sark: long shirt (thigh length)

  Wheesht (as in “Hold your wheesht”): Be quiet

  ’S math an còcaire an t-acras,

  ’S mairg ’ni tailleas air biadh,

  Fuarag eòrn’ a sàil mo bhroige,

  Biadh as fhearr a fhuair mi riamh.

  —Alexander Stewart, 12th Earl of Mar,

  September 1431

  Hunger is a good cook,

  It is pitiful to scorn food,

  Cold barley gruel from the heel of my shoe,

  The best food I ever got.

  —English translation by David Gressett,

  master Gaelic instructor, 2016

  Prologue

  Lochaber, Scottish Highlands, 23 June 1429

  A lone dark-bearded, steel-helmeted Highland warrior stood on a steep, forested hillside, south of the river Spean, watching the chaotic scene below. Catching his breath, he tried to determine whether his fellow Highlanders’ odds of defeating the enormous army of invading Islesmen had improved or grown worse.

  Weeks ago, Alexander MacDonald, third Lord of the Isles—believing he should be lord of all in northern Scotland—had marched ten thousand Islesmen up the loch-filled rift in the earth that Highlanders called Glen Mòr, a difficult march of nearly eighty miles over rough terrain, to the royal burgh of Inverness on the Moray Firth, the glen’s north end.

  The Islesmen had burned the town and besieged its castle for over a fortnight. Then, lacking supplies to support his vast army much longer, Alexander turned his men homeward, only to meet days of cold, pelting rain and harsh winds that left muddy bogland in their wake.

  Meanwhile, James Stewart, first King of Scots by that name, learning of his cousin Alexander’s siege of a royal castle and outrageous declaration that he was not subject to the King but equal to him, had led the royal army northwest from Perth into the Highlands. En route, hearing that Alexander and his Islesmen had left Inverness, James had changed course to intercept them at Loch Lochy.

  Two days before, the royal army had ambushed the Islesmen on the boggy east shore of the loch, which had overflowed its banks during the deluge. Battle had raged along its shore and uphill along the Spean since then, littering miles of ground with bodies and turning much of that vast area red and slippery with blood.

  The young warrior was a skilled archer, swordsman, and woodsman. Under orders from the captain of his confederation to attack the Islesmen on the south flank of the battle with his bow, he had retained his mud-streaked green hunting plaid for warmth and concealment in the forest. Collecting spent arrows as he went, by routes learned in childhood, he’d made his way to the south bank of the Spean.

  To be sure, as muddy as everyone was, he could scarely tell one side from another. However, many among the king’s recently arrived royal forces wore breeks, helmets, shirts of mail, even light armor, while most of the bare-legged clansmen and Islesmen wore only quilted, saffron-dyed sarks or tunics because they had cast aside their woolen plaids to fight.

  For a time, the archer had darted from tree to tree, reducing the number of Islesmen on the opposite bank. Now, breathless from his efforts but noting diminishing action across the river, he felt hopefu
l that the tide of battle was turning to favor the King.

  Movement a half mile to the northwest drew his gaze to a line of warriors moving south along a narrow, cliff-shaded path on Loch Lochy’s west shore.

  That path, he knew, led to a perilous ford on the river Lochy. The newcomers’ visibly cleaner, leaf-green plaids told him they had not traveled far, and he knew that the area west of Loch Lochy was mostly Cameron country.

  Few men in the thick of battle would notice the newcomers. But they were close enough for the keen-eyed archer to recognize the large dark-green oak-leaf Cameron clan badge on their white standard.

  Impulsively, he set off to meet them.

  As he wended his way downhill amid the trees, sudden childish shrieks of pain issued from the thinning woodland ahead. With his bow in his left hand, he reached with his right for the sword in its baldric across his back, resting his hand on its hilt as he quickened his pace.

  Soon, he saw two bearded louts in muddy plaids revealing the jacks-o’-plate beneath them. The taller one was taking a stiff tawse to the backside of an eight- or nine-year-old boy while the other held the shrieking lad in place.

  “Hold there!” the warrior commanded loudly enough to make himself heard above the shrieks and the continuing clamor across the river.

  “This be nae affair o’ yours,” snapped the man belaboring the lad’s breeks-clad backside. “Stay till we finish, and I’ll teach ye tae mind yer own business.”

  Cruelty to a child or animal always stirred the archer’s ire. As he rested his bow against a nearby tree, a sweeping glance ahead through the foliage assured him that the men he had seen still had a distance to go before reaching the ford.

  “Let the lad go, or face my sword,” he said.

  “Aye, then, I’ll face ye,” the spokesman replied. “Give the wee feardie a few more licks,” he told his henchman, tossing him the tawse. “I’ll tend tae this upstart.”

  Pausing only long enough to see his man catch the tawse, the spokesman snatched his sword from its sheath and leaped toward the warrior.

  Stepping lithely aside at the last possible moment, the warrior caught his attacker a thunderous clout to the head with the edge of his blade.

  The man collapsed near his feet.

  Seeing him fall, his comrade shoved the lad aside, turned tail, and vanished uphill into the forest.

  The skinny, sobbing urchin in his ragged breeks and filthy, too-big shirt stood rubbing his backside, his blue eyes wide, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  Curly flaxen hair hung damply to his shoulders, and a small gray cap lay on the ground near his feet.

  “Pick up your cap, lad, and take yourself off and away from here,” his rescuer said. “You are too small to linger so near such carnage.”

  “I’d liefer stay wi’ ye,” the boy said, stifling a sob as he stepped cautiously around the body on the ground, eyeing it as if he distrusted its continued stillness.

  “I cannot take you with me,” his rescuer replied firmly. “We still have much fighting to do to win this battle. So, get along home with you now.”

  “I canna . . . I darena go through them woods.” He glanced up the hill and then at his former tormentor. “Rab’s dead, is he no?”

  “Aye, you need fear him no longer.”

  “But they’ll blame me! They’ll say it were my fault, and they’ll kill me.”

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  The boy, trembling, fiercely shook his head. “I dinna ken!”

  “Come now, you must know them. You called the man Rab.”

  “Aye, sure, ’cause that other coof did,” the boy said. “I were in the woods when they found me, and they made me fetch and carry for them. I dinna ken who they be.” He glanced up the hill again, still trembling. “That other ’un . . . he’s sure tae tell his lot that this were my fault, though. Then they’ll kill me the minute they clap keekers on me again. I . . . I ha’ nae one. All me own lot be dead.”

  Recognizing true terror, the warrior said calmly, “Can you climb a tree?”

  “Aye,” the child muttered doubtfully. “But even an I do . . .”

  “I’ll put you up high enough to climb that one.” He pointed to a tall, thickly canopied beech in the midst of nearby evergreens. “No one will see you there if you lie on your belly atop a thick branch. Also, your backside will soon stop aching.”

  “’Haps it will, but I’ll break me neck a-climbing down.”

  “The King’s army will win this battle before day’s end. After we do, I shall return this way. You may come with me then, if you like.”

  “What if they dinna win?”

  An ominous shiver shot up the warrior’s spine at the unacceptable thought of failure, but he said firmly, “I will come for you even so.”

  The boy eyed him shrewdly. “There be dunamany fighting men,” he said. “And I ha’ seen nae King. What if they kill ye?”

  “They won’t.” Nodding toward the beech, he said, “I cannot tarry, lad. You have my word as the King’s warrior that I will come for you.”

  Absently rubbing his backside again, the boy gazed into his eyes. But when sounds of fighting erupted a short distance east of them, he said hastily, “Aye, then, put me up.”

  After seeing the lad vanish into the beech tree’s dense canopy, and despite a bone-deep weariness beyond any he had known, the young warrior set off again at a long-legged lope. The lingering din of clashing swords, shouts, and screams from the opposite riverbank accompanied him.

  The steepest part of the river behind him, he crossed to the west bank of the Lochy by leaping to a massive boulder that divided its frothy flow and then to the shore beyond it to the west. Having made the treacherous crossing with more ease than expected, he waved down the leader of the approaching men, whose helmet bore the two eagle feathers of a clan chieftain.

  Raising a hand to halt his followers, the older man strode to meet him.

  Both men wore similar arming doublets of mail under their plaids. The younger one—with tension surging through him—raised the faceplate of his helmet and met the older man’s stern gaze.

  “So it be yourself, eh,” the older one snapped, pulling off his own steel helmet and shoving his other hand through unbound dark hair streaked with gray. “What brings ye here then?”

  “The King and his army have joined the battle, sir,” the warrior said.

  “D’ye mean to say that Jamie himself leads the royal forces now?”

  “He does, aye, and the Earl of Mar has defeated Alexander’s army north of us. Also,” he added, “the Mackintoshes of Clan Chattan still hold Inverness Castle despite Alexander’s having besieged it and burned down the town round it.”

  The older man said grimly, “He is the Lord of the Isles. So, ye canna blame him for burning Inverness, not after Jamie humiliated him and other west Highland chiefs who supported him at Jamie’s Parliament and Justice Court three years ago.

  “Then he took Alexander to St. John’s Town of Perth, scolded him in the kirk like a schoolboy, and imprisoned him. So Jamie canna be surprised that Alexander spent his wrath on the site of his humiliation. Aye, and dinna forget that he hovers nearer than the King does to all of us west of the Great Glen, my lad. Perforce, we ha’ accepted Alexander as our liege lord. We must fight for him.”

  “Nevertheless, James is King of Scots,” the younger man said. “So you would be wiser now to set yourself apart from Alexander. Despite his boast that he led ten thousand men, thousands died at Inverness, and more died when we trapped them in the bogs. James’s forces now outnumber his.”

  “Ye did say that Jamie leads them himself?”

  “I did. He may be as unscrupulous as many men say he is, sir. But he is prompt to act when aroused, and he holds his crown tenaciously. He utterly rejects Alexander’s notion that, as Lord of the Isles and James’s cousin, h
e is equal to the King and need not submit to him. Moreover,” he added, “James will win this battle. So, if you are wise, you will persuade as many leaders in the Confederation as you can to support him before then.”

  “I dinna like your tone, lad,” the Cameron chieftain said grimly. “But your words do have sense to them. Mayhap ye should come with me.”

  “With respect, sir, I ally with the Mackintoshes of Clan Chattan as you ken fine, having abandoned me to them long ago. I am as loyal to his grace as they are.”

  “Why did ye come to me then, like this?”

  The younger warrior shrugged as he pulled his faceplate back down.

  Then, bleakly, he said, “You are still my father, sir.”

  Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, 28 August 1430

  The sun was hot that St. Augustine’s Day, so after a mile-long walk downhill from Edinburgh Castle and the length of the Canongate to Holyrood Abbey, the King and Queen of Scots and members of their royal court had welcomed the cool interior of the magnificent abbey kirk, where they had assembled for High Mass.

  Nobles and other citizens of the town having joined the procession, the congregation was unusually large.

  After a three-hundred-year renovation, the lofty kirk boasted a six-bay choir, three-bay transepts with a central tower, and an eight-bay, aisled nave with twin towers at its west front. Rounded arcading north of the nave, kept from the earlier kirk, contrasted starkly with the pointed architecture of the south side.

  Plump, gray-haired Bishop Henry Wardlaw of St. Andrews had already spoken longer from his pulpit than many thought necessary.

  Some of his young listeners, notably two seventeen-year-old maids of honor in the front row, facing the Queen, shifted uncomfortably on their prayer stools.

  When the bishop paused, Lady Fiona Ormiston turned to her neighbor, Malvina Geddes, to express her discomfort.

  A quick headshake from Lady Sutherland, the Queen’s mistress of robes, kneeling just beyond Malvina, stilled the whisper on Fiona’s tongue. With a sigh, she straightened and stared fixedly at the bishop, wishing she could will him to silence.

  She had already learned much more about St. Augustine of Hippo than any sensible person wanted to know. Sakes, the man had lived a thousand years ago!