“Oh, Sister, it was a glorious night!” Hugh beamed up at her. “We are tired, though likely Dinsmore and his cronies be more bone weary. When all the chamber pots were emptied, we pelted them with stones, not big enough to maim, but enough to vex them royally, since Dinsmore commanded them not to loose arrows in return. The Campbells finally rode back up the hill to Dinsmore’s tent. Whilst they jumped into the burn to scrub off the dung, we set their horses free. It took them ages to round them up. Later, while the knaves slept, we slipped back and cut the ropes on the tent. The whole thing collapsed on Dunny Dinsmore. Och, did he curse a blue streak! While his men tried to drag him out from under it, we unhobbled their horses and chased them off again.”
Eyes narrowing in fury, Aithinne whipped around on Einar. “You let them do this? They could have been wounded, killed if Dinsmore’s lackeys stood and fought.” She threw up her hands when Einar’s head hung lower. “Och, I do not ken why I bother.”
“Sorry, Princess.”
“Sister, stop slapping Einar’s ears with words. The Campbells could not fight. They would do naught to upset you. ’Tis why it is muckle fun to torment them.” Hugh smiled and lifted the goblet of ale to his mouth.
When Deward and Lewis fell to the floor, still struggling with the other, she glared at Einar and then pointed to them. Instantly, he grabbed them by their belts, lifted them and dropped them on the bench. Both young men glared at the Norsemen and then at her.
“Enough!” Aithinne used the voice she reserved for listen or else. “I want to ken where you stole that warrior from…now.” She stomped her foot to focus their attention, but mumbles and shrugs were the only replies she garnered. “You found him―at Glenrogha. After I forbad you to go there, you went to the Beltaine festival and stole the man from there. Did you no’?”
Their eyes widened at her deductions. Hugh frowned. “’Tis not fair, Aithinne. You promised never to use The Kenning to prod our minds. ’Tis knavish to walk in a person’s thoughts without their leave.”
“I have no need of tricks to twig your feebleminded actions. The knight called me Tamlyn. That told me all. He be from Glenrogha.”
“Aithinne, I need to seek my rest.” Lewis rubbed the sleep sand from the corners of his eyes. “Cousin Tamlyn shall not miss him. She already has one just like him.”
“Just like him?” she echoed in confusion.
“We made sure we got the right one.” Deward looked at her earnestly, as if seeking her praise.
Lewis sighed, then straightened his clothing, mussed in the struggle with Deward. “And mind, ’tis not an easy chore. The place is overrun with dragons. Surely, that will not miss one.”
Fearing they were too far into their cups, her foot tapped out her waning impatience. “Explain dragon. Say you dare no’ speak of the Dragon of Challon―the Norman warrior Edward Longshanks sent to claim Glen Shane. Surely, even you three cannot have done something so reckless as to steal him?”
She reeled, faint from the ramifications of their foolish actions. In her plotting, she had merely sought to simplify her life, give her some small measure of security and control. Now this spiraled into a nightmare, one that would see her in White Tower, prisoner to the English king.
“Sister, do not fash so…no’ that Dragon.” He grinned over their accomplishment. “We borrowed another.”
“What dragon?” A dull throb grew behind her eyes from trying to uncurl their lack of sense. Since they turned five and ten and suddenly shot up taller than her, she could no longer take a switch to them. If she tried, they would wrestle her down to the floor and sit on her until she expended her fury in the useless struggle. Thus, she was forced to use her wits to handle them now. Only, using her wits against three ignoramuses left her with a dull throbbing pain behind her eyes.
“No’ a real one, Aithinne.” Lewis propped his elbow on the table to hold up his head. “The Earl Challon―the Black Dragon―was sent by Edward Longshanks to claim Glen Shane. The English king commands he marry one of our cousins. Challon chose our Tamlyn and she seems fair happy with the notion. Stares at him with calf eyes, she does. They speak his two brothers shall wed with Rowanne and Raven.”
She pointed to the ceiling. “Then who is that up there?”
“A cousin. He favors Julian Challon, much the same way Tamlyn and you do each other. We thought it a fine jest. Actually our dragon is prettier and taller than Tamlyn’s dragon,” Hugh said as a yawn popped up.
“You are taller than Tamlyn.” Shooting a glare at Lewis, warning their fight was not over, Deward picked up the explanation in his rambling fashion. “Our cousin warms to Lord Challon, danced before the balefire with him, she did. Can you no’ see Fate, Sister? It seemed the weave of magic to us―she lay with Challon last night, you lay with his kinsman. It has to be the will of the Auld Ones, dare you deny their purpose and provoke their will?”
Totally flummoxed, she sat down with a thud on a bench. For her idiot brothers that was very deep thinking. “What be his name?”
“St. Giles, Lord RavenHawke, kinsman to the Dragon,” Lewis supplied. “They say Lord Challon sets muckle store in him, treats him as a brother.”
“Ohhhhh…” Aithinne stomped her feet several times in rage, feeling as if she were sinking in a bog and could not find purchase on solid land. “You blethering lackwits!”
Hugh pursed his face, then sighed. “Now, Aithinne, rein in your freckles. You sent us forth to acquire a man. A stallion…a breeder…” He sniggered and winked at his two look-alike brothers. “We love you, Sister, thus we wanted to give you someone pretty. You must agree we far exceeded that. You would not want to lay with some pitted-face artisan and have him father a dullard bairn upon you, would you?”
Swallowing to keep back raw emotions, she shook her head. “Nay, since I have done this foolhardy thing I ken the warrior shall give me a beautiful babe.”
Suddenly, images of her holding a black-haired bairn in her lap flooded her mind. The child―a boy―seemed to be about a year old, and was so precious her heart squeezed. In the vision, she hummed a cradlesong to the wee babe and ran her fingers through the thick, wavy hair so like his father’s. Despite all the worries and fears rising from the after effects of this mess, she wanted that child. Ached to hold his small body, to suckle it.
Never before had she envisioned the child she had plotted to conceive. It was just one of those vague pieces to the riddle in her mind, a means to an end to keep Edward Longshanks and the greedy wolves from the gates of the two fiefs.
The only children she’d cared for were her brothers, younger than she by seven years. She was barely nine years old when their parents were lost through a wasting fever. In some ways, she had taken over being mother to the lads when she was but a child herself. She loved the triplets, but they had been tedious to raise, thus she assumed she had used up all desire to have a child of her own. She had seen castle workers’ babes when they brought them to show her, but the children never provoked that yearning within her to be a mother.
Now, everything was different. She could see the child she would make with this nobleman, and she wanted it. Would fight for it. The instinct to be a mother reared itself within her and proved nearly overpowering.
“Stop and consider,” Lewis pressed. “Can you see yourself lying with someone like Phelan or Dinsmore? Or worse? I think no’, Sister.”
She exhaled resignation. “Aye, you speak truth. I was able to go through with this because I found him so pleasing. Only, if Challon is to marry with Tamlyn, that summons the danger of RavenHawke being at Glenrogha sometime when I am there. The idea was to fetch a man I would never meet again. There will be no avoiding him with him serving Challon.”
Hugh crossed his legs at the ankles and appeared smug. “Give us tribute, Sister. Nay, he spake that he only pays visit to the Earl Challon, and shall move Northward to claim some fief that belongs to his grandfather.”
“See there be no need to furrow your brow,” Lewis concurr
ed.
Not realizing she had been frowning, she relaxed her eyebrows and sighed, confused and worried over this foolish mistake that could prove costly.
“You should keep him,” Einar pronounced.
All heads snapped to him in shock. Einar never voiced opinions, merely went along with whatever she ordered. Aithinne’s mouth hung half-open. Becoming aware she gaped, she snapped it shut.
Keep St. Giles? She spoke the name in her mind and he was no longer her stranger, but St. Giles, Lord RavenHawke. A man who did not belong to her. Even so, her imagination immediately took the bit between its teeth and ran wild with flashes of visions, showing her images of a possible future with this man. Them laughing, working to protect the people of Lyonglen and Coinnleir Wood. Him making love to her in the dark of night.
Oh, temptation to keep him was great.
Nevertheless, she could never forget this man was in love with Tamlyn. Her cousin may be betrothed to his kinsman, but St. Giles’s heart burned with devotion for her. He coveted her in a way a man did not forget. Oh, men could lie with others, but their hearts were branded. A woman might become St. Giles’s lady wife, share his life, but each time she lay with him she would ache inside knowing he loved another.
Much of her years Aithinne always felt less pretty than Tamlyn. She heard people comment on the unfortunate red tint to her hair and the freckles on her nose. So sad, poor Aithinne is no’ the beauty her cousin is, they whispered when they thought she did not hear. No matter how she could wish for this man to be a part of her existence, she would never place herself in this soul-destroying, lifetime of comparisons. That path held nothing but crushing heartaches.
“Einar, keeping him is not a choice. He is no’ a cat.” She tried to make light of it as if he meant it as a joke. Only she couldn’t ignore the twist in her heart. Oh, aye, she’d like to keep him, but not when he loved Tamlyn.
“Norsemen took people.” Einar puffed up his chest, proud of his heritage.
The lads groaned and repeated like echoes, “Not another sermon on the ways of Norsemen.”
“Einar, your people took slaves.” Aithinne restlessly tapped her fingernails on the wooden table, trying to cipher what was best to do. “That man would never be anyone’s slave.”
Einar grunted. “Aye, I cannot see that warrior a slave to another. But you are a princess…”
Aithinne groaned, not about to address the same old a princess can do anything nonsense. “It shall no’ matter to this knight.”
Einar summoned his stubborn Viking scowl. It worked on her brothers, but he wasted it on her. “You are a witch. Bind him to you. Turn his mind to you, Princess. Take the bond of blood with him.”
How tempting. It was true. She could bespell him, turn the man’s mind in circles, thus convince him to remain with her. Her heart ached even more. To control his devotion through magic would be as hollow as St. Giles lingering with her because she was an echo of the woman who had stolen his heart, a woman he could never have.
“He needs must go back to his kinsmen. This night,” she said firmly, to convince herself as much as them. Aithinne tried to harden her heart, but she was close to breaking down and bawling like a babe. “Dose him with the potion of blackness, and then dump him outside of Glenrogha just before dawnbreak.”
“No.” Einar crossed his arms over his massive chest to emphasize his outright refusal.
Aithinne frowned, shocked. Never had the Viking balked at any of her orders. “You deny my command?”
“Oonanne says he stays the seven nights of the waxing moon. He remains. To do otherwise shall anger the Auld Ones. Óðinn has commanded the weaving of the skeins of this warrior’s life. What the Allfather wills must be.”
“He speaks truth.” Oona stepped into the light, as if she materialized from the shadows.
“Methinks Loki has more to do with the quagmire I have stepped into,” Aithinne grumbled.
“Lass, you set the wheel in motion. To alter its path now would call down catastrophe upon all our heads. You made wishes and bargains with Annis, our goddess of the water. If you now refute what she grants you risk summoning her wrath,” the crone warned. “You made your bed, my lass―with a pretty man in it. Now you must lie in it with this braw warrior…see the deed done.”
“I wish―” Aithinne started.
All five people blurted out, “No more wishes!”
♦◊♦
Damian St. Giles ached from every fiber of his being. He wanted to move, tried to move, but found for some reason he could not. His mouth tasted fuzzy, musty, the cursed mead leaving a peculiar aftertaste as if he’d been gnawing on a half-rotten stump. He needed water. Opening his eyes, he struggled to focus.
At first he feared he’d been struck blind. After the shock, he realized his arm was oddly bent so the inside crook of his elbow covered his eyes. He attempted to shift it, but the flesh was numb from being in that position too long.
“Damnation!” With effort he lifted it away, grimacing at the pain. He batted his eyelids several times to rid the haze clouding them, and then pushed up to a sitting position, stretched and yawned. “Where the bloody hell am I? I presume I still live since I taste such agony.”
His words bounced off the stone walls, garnering no reply.
Running his hand through his hair, he struggled to gather his thoughts. Beltaine…the festival on the tòrr. He recalled that much, bringing to mind the beautiful night and the sight of the dancers, the smell of the fire. And remembered he had been miserable, and stupidly, drank too much in an effort to drown his sorrow.
Tamlyn. He summoned her visage to mind, so stunning as she danced around the balefire. She had shimmered, like some faery queen his Scottish mother used to tell him about at night when she put him to bed.
Only Tamlyn had danced for Julian. Her eyes saw naught but Julian.
Despair twisted within him. He was gifted―cursed, he sometimes thought―with his mother’s Highland sight. The Kenning she had called it. For years he had seen a woman’s face in his dreams, and knew with complete certainty she was destined to be his wife. So when he came to Glenrogha and saw that face, he was devastated to learn it belonged to the face of Lady Tamlyn, Countess Glenrogha.
Only a fool could not see Julian wanted her more than life. Worse, it pained Damian to admit Tamlyn returned Challon’s feelings. His cousin needed Tamlyn. She was good for him, soothed his troubled soul. She could save him from the darkness threatening to claim him. Still, no matter how many times Damian told himself they were a match blessed by the gods, he could not stop his heart from crying out that Tamlyn should have been fated to be his.
Tamlyn was in love with Julian, and Damian knew, without doubt, Julian would kill to keep her. It hurt, but he accepted their feelings, would stand silently by when they wed in a few sennights and offer his heartfelt blessing upon their union.
He acknowledged this finality of Fate. Yet, his dreams had not ended, only strengthened. His heart refused to listen. Why?
How could The Kenning be so wrong―so insistent―in this?
Foolishly, he had tried to drown his feelings in drink.
“Drink…”
The word conjured a vision of three men who looked alike to flash before his eyes. They had offered him a special heather ale…promising it would cure what bedeviled him, and make all his dreams come true.
He searched his mind trying to find a recollection beyond that point. Strangely, there was naught, outside an image of a very tall warrior―a Norseman. With an exhale of frustration, he looked around to get his bearings.
The room was unfamiliar. The chamber was darkened, the only light source came from the narrow window. He did not need to call upon his fey sense to ken he was not in Glen Shane.
“So where the bloody hell am I?”
He glanced at his body, half-covered by the tartan. Naked. Nothing odd in that. He slept in the raw. Yet, as he sought his clothing, he saw none of his belongings. In fact, the whole room
was rather devoid of personal items. There was a trunk at the foot of the huge curtained bed, a table at the side and a chamber pot in the far corner.
“Thank goodness for small considerations.” Deciding to make use of the latter, he scooted to the bed’s edge. The rattle alerted him, along with the pressure around his ankle. Lifting the woolen sheet, he stared at his leg, his mind having a hard time accepting what he saw. “That shall teach you to drown your sorrows in Highland mead, you nodcock.”
He was chained to the bloody bed!
♦◊♦
Restless, fighting within herself, Aithinne paced petulantly in her room. Hearing the door open, she dashed the stray tear from her cheek with the back of her hand and forced pretense that nothing bothered her. All emotions were off kilter by this whole matter. She wanted it over with and St. Giles far away from here this night. Mayhap then her heart would be safe. Contrarily, her body had other ideas. Just the thought of him caused the fire to flare within her, the need to be with him arising to twist her insides until she thought she would go mad.
The door pushed wide and Oona came in carrying a tray. The amber eyes quickly appraised Aithinne’s mood. “Time draws near, Lass. Here be the tansy for you and the warming pot of the salve.”
“I do no’ want the potion or the unguent.”
Oona clucked. “Did I ask if you wanted them? Cease this quarrelling within yourself, Aithinne Ogilvie. Worrying over things you canno’ change is time wasted. Change what you can in life. Accept aught else.”
“I tell myself this. Saying such and believing it are two different beasties.”
“You begged wishes and our Lady Annis grants them. Now you find they are no’ precisely as you hoped. The Auld Ones only give so much, Aithinne. They expect you to work to shape the rest of your destiny. You wanted a child―keep your bargain and you shall have one.” Oona eyed her slyly. “Only, now you want the man, too. That is the trouble, is it no’, lass? You have lain with him, bonded with him―a bond of the flesh, the blood, the soul―and now ken there shall be none other for you. Do no’ hide from these truths, lass. You merely delude yourself when you do. You want him? Claim him. The solution be there. Reach out and seize it. Any woman with RavenHawke in her bed would no’ have to be told what to do.”
RavenHawke (Dragons of Challon Book 2) Page 5
