by Alisa Adams
"Nanny, if I put on a kilt and cut my hair, will I be a boy too?"
Nanny looked alarmed.
"Naw, lass!" She shook her red head vehemently. "Ye'll never be a boy. Ye'll grow up tae be a lovely young lady an’ one day a handsome laird or even a baron will come an' ask for yer hand in marriage."
"I only want to marry Graham Hamilton," Alexa said, her voice firm. "And I want to be a boy."
Nanny again looked at her in astonishment.
"I think ye're tae young tae be sayin' things like that, Miss Alexa! An' if the good Lord had wanted ye tae be a boy, he'd a' made ye one!" She laughed. "Onyway, how can ye be a boy an' marry a boy?"
"I will turn back into a girl before then, Nanny," Alexa said airily. These complications were as nothing to a six-year-old. "I am going to marry him, Nanny. You wait and see!"
Alexa stuck her nose in the air, which was usually a sign of trouble.
Alexa did not believe Nanny Joan, but she waited patiently to prove her wrong – since she wanted to grow a bit taller before her transformation.
One day when she was eight, and she was supposed to be taking her afternoon nap (for which she was far too old!), Alexa stole Nanny's sewing scissors and cut her hair up to her ears in a ragged crop. She took all the excess hair and tossed it out of her window where it landed on some astounded stall holders in the courtyard. She had bought some hose and a shirt from one of the stable boys and put them on, even though they were ragged and dirty.
When Nanny Joan saw her, she was speechless.
When she recovered her voice, she wailed: "Oh, Miss Alexa! What have ye done tae yersel'?"
"I'm a boy now, Nanny." Alexa wore a smug smile. "Now I can go and have sword fights and ride ponies!"
Nanny shook her head. "Hen..." She sighed. "Ye will never be a boy. I have told ye before."
"But I've got short hair! And I'm wearing hose!"
"Yer uncle will kill ye!" Nanny Joan groaned. "An' then me!"
When Moira Drummond saw Alexa, she was horrified.
"Oh, my God, Alexa!" Her eyes were wide in horror as she looked at her younger sister. "Who did this to you?"
"I did it myself!" Alexa replied indignantly. "I want to be a boy!" She stamped her foot on the floor in a tantrum. "And I want to marry Graham Hamilton!"
"But a man cannot marry another man," Moira pointed out, trying not to laugh.
"I only want to be a boy for a while – then I will turn back into a girl again," Alexa said reasonably. "Nanny can make me some new dresses, and I can be a girl again."
"Mistress, I am so sorry." Nanny was practically in tears. "But I thought she wis sleepin'. If I had kent she wis gaunnae dae this—"
"I think we need to tell her some things," Moira said, matter-of-factly. "About why girls cannot be boys. I have been dreading this day." She sighed.
Moira was Alexa's guardian. Their mother had died when Alexa was two years old and their father a year later, leaving them penniless and alone. Fortunately, Laird Drummond, a handsome widower in his early thirties, was looking for a suitable second wife. With a young sister to look after and no means of support, Moira was glad to accept his offer of marriage. He was a fairly quiet, dull man, but he was kind to them and treated them well, accepting little Alexa as his own. Even though he was her brother-in-law, she called him 'Uncle' because he was so much older than she was.
So Moira and Nanny Joan went on to explain the different things that happened to boys and girls as they grew up, and Alexa's eyes grew wide.
Eventually, Moira said, "Do you understand all that, Alexa?"
Alexa considered it for a moment.
"You're not joking, Sister?" she asked, somewhat anxious.
"No, wee lass, I'm not," Moira answered affectionately.
She tucked what was left of Alexa's fair curls back behind her ears, then she laughed, suddenly seeing the funny side of it.
"Bath – now!" she commanded. "Nanny, I think we had better take her to the barber in the morning to cut this mop into shape – or mayhap I will get the shepherd to attend to it with his shears!"
Alexa squealed in mock-terror and ran along the corridor back to her bedroom.
"I am sorry, mistress," Joan repeated. "The master—"
"Pfft!" Moira flapped her hand. "Don't worry, Joan. I will handle him. Just get those rags off her back before she infests the whole castle with fleas!"
Graham had paid little attention to Alexa while she was growing up. She was a familiar figure at Mass on Sundays, and sometimes she accompanied her father to his own father's castle when they had business to do, but he said very little to her unless it was to pass the time of day. The only unusual thing about her was her habit of wearing boys' clothes sometimes. He had never seen a girl do that before and thought it was very odd. But he had plenty of male friends to play with and his choice of fine horses to ride. He was becoming tall and muscular, and at the age of sixteen was already sporting a little beard.
When Alexa was twelve, she suddenly became self-conscious. Boys and young men were beginning to pay attention to her, giving her compliments, offering to help her mount her horse and opening doors for her. They talked in a way that seemed to her disrespectful yet alluring, and she found it confusing in the extreme, so she asked Moira about it.
"It's called 'flirting'," Moira said, sighing, "and it means they find you attractive. They just have a funny way of showing it."
"Aye," Nanny Joan said gloomily. "Noo's when all the trouble starts!"
"What trouble?" Alexa asked, frowning.
"Ye'll soon find oot, lass," Nanny replied, sighing.
Graham was trotting his dappled gray mare, Esme, toward Castle Drummond one morning when he saw in the distance a teenage boy shooting a crossbow at a target on a big pine tree. He decided to stop and warn him about the outlaws that infested the nearby mountain since there was a notorious ambush spot nearby.
However, as he drew nearer, he realized there was something not quite right about the boy, and as he came alongside, he realized that the figure he had thought was a boy, in fact, was a girl, and a very pretty one.
Alexa Montgomery had grown up to be a beauty, with shining blonde curls and huge blue eyes. Her figure was as slim as a boy's except for her breasts which were full and womanly. She was almost eighteen, breathtaking, and suddenly Graham wanted her very much indeed.
"Miss Montgomery!" He dismounted and strode up to her, smiling. "I did not recognize you."
Alexa gave him no answer for a moment but loosed another bolt into the dead center of the target, where it joined three more, all within a fraction of an inch of each other.
"Mr. Hamilton."
She was wearing a tunic over her hose with leather boots on her feet. Around her hand-span waist, she wore a thick leather belt from which hung a vicious-looking sheathed dagger. He could see a tartan cloak draped over her horse's saddle, with a sharp shape underneath it which looked suspiciously like a claymore. The combination of beauty and wildness was arousing in the extreme, and Graham could not keep his eyes off her.
Alexa noticed the look at once since she had become very familiar with it in the last few months, but this was Graham, the boy she had idolized since childhood.
He was not that boy anymore though. Now, he was tall with a thick mane of golden-brown hair, light hazel eyes, and broad shoulders. He was very close to her, and she took an involuntary step backward, feeling threatened by his nearness. He noticed, and bowed slightly, stepping back. Alexa would have curtsied politely but felt that it was foolish to do so while dressed in men's clothes.
"I'm sorry for standing so close," Graham said, "but I feel protective when I stand near a lady in such a dangerous place. There are outlaws nearby."
She smiled and loosed another bolt into the tree. Then, almost too fast for him to see it, the dagger jumped into her hand, and she was holding it at his throat before he could do anything to stop her. He froze. She looked into his eyes steadily for a moment, and the fier
ceness of her gaze made him want to beg for mercy. Then she lowered the weapon and put it slowly back in its sheath. She took a slingshot from one of the panniers on her horse and placed a large stone in it.
"See that rock over there?"
Alexa pointed to a boulder about fifty yards distant, then spun the slingshot around and above her head. When she loosed it, the stone bounced off the rock with a loud crack and chips of stone sprayed into the air.
"If that had been someone's head," she informed him, "the skull would have been shattered."
She put the weapon back in her saddlebag.
"Would you like to see my sword?" she added, smiling mischievously.
"I think I have seen enough, Miss Montgomery," Graham replied. "But even all these weapons will not protect you against a dozen armed outlaws."
"Mayhap you are right." She nodded in agreement and mounted her horse. "But they would have to catch me first, and my Jenny is the fastest steed for miles around. Where are you going?"
"To see the Laird Drummond." He still felt a bit shaken, in more ways than one.
"Would you like me to be your escort?" she offered politely. "You look as if you need one!"
Graham gaped at her in amazement. This was not the little girl he had once known, who ran wild in the castle’s courtyard. Alexa Montgomery had grown up into a fierce, beautiful warrior woman, and at that moment he knew he wanted her, and wanted her forever.
The Sutherlands
Hector Sutherland may have been the patriarch of a large family, but not one of them loved him. He was a greedy, ruthless, capricious man whose only loves were power, riches, and the eldest of his four daughters, Mairi. Despite the cruelty of his nature, he was not ugly. Indeed, he was a fine-looking man with gray-streaked black hair and dark gray eyes.
Mairi could almost twist her father around her little finger, but not quite, for his cruelty knew no bounds. She was like him, in looks, not in personality, being brown-eyed and dark-haired with shapely, almost masculine features but with a feminine cast.
She was tall and strong, and from a distance could have been mistaken for a man, but she had feminine wiles aplenty. She had to suffer the attention of the other bandits, though, who made very free with their roaming hands all over her body. Her father always struck out if one of them tried to go any further than a caress though.
In some ways, he was very protective, and he had never struck her, unlike the others.
Her brothers and sisters were terrified of Hector, and her mother cowered every time he came near, for his method of discipline was cruel in the extreme. He used his fists, a wooden rod, a leather strap, and the sheer force of his brutal personality. The most trivial of infringements could result in a dozen or more strokes of the lash, even for little Sam, who was only three years old. Often one of the older children would have to hold him down under pain of being beaten themselves. Mairi often pleaded for mercy for them, but it never came.
Mistress Donella Sutherland had already suffered three miscarriages on account of his violence, but she thanked God for them because she had no wish to bring another life into the world to suffer as much as the family she had. She had often thought of smothering the little ones in their sleep and jumping off the high walls of the Sutherland house, but she had never had the courage.
Now, the oldest of her sons, also called Hector, who was twenty-one, was growing up to be just like his father, violent and abusive, especially after a few drams. There were signs that the other two, Alec and Bearnaird, who were twenty, were going the same way too.
Every night Donella Sutherland prayed for deliverance from her husband's wrath, but God had either been rendered deaf or was ignoring her pleas. She thanked him that she was at least too old for childbearing any more. She had nine living children and had endured one stillbirth as well as all the miscarriages.
When Hector came in with plunder from neighboring farms, he was always in a state of high excitement, and these were the times Donella dreaded the most, for then he used her body in the worst way, and clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her screams. Donella tried to acquire some milk of the poppy during those times both to numb her pain and put her to sleep.
But her husband, for all his savagery, was not stupid. Hector took livestock, crops and sometimes even women from the farmers, but he left them enough to live on so that they could always sustain his and his family's needs. His 'estate' as he liked to call it, stood on the plateau of a low mountain with almost sheer sides, almost impregnable from attack by the forces of the two lairds in the valley, and the others, whose land was more distant but in just as much danger.
Despite this, it was heavily fortified and inhabited not just by the Sutherlands, but by any outlaw who proved his worth to them, so the large compound, made up of four different houses, could hold about forty men if need be, and enough sheep, goats, and pigs to feed them all. If they needed more, they simply went on a raid and took what they wanted, and because they never struck in the same place twice in a row, it was impossible to guess their next target.
Everyone knew there had to be a secret entrance to the stronghold, but no matter how anyone searched – and there had been many searches – the entrance had never been discovered, so an ambush by stealth was impossible.
The garrisons of all the lairds had tried to attack the fortress, but Hector Sutherland had been alerted by a spy beforehand. No one knew their identity. He had kidnapped a farmer and his family and held them hostage, threatening them with death unless the soldiers backed away. They did, but the father of the family was murdered anyway, and his head thrown down to the army below. That had earned Hector Sutherland and his three oldest sons a death sentence, but until they could be wrenched from their stronghold, they were as safe as they could be. Even a siege was impossible as long as the entrance to the place was unknown.
So the Sutherlands ruled, and that was the fact of life which had been all but accepted in the region. Short of posting a guard on every farm in the valley, which would have required more manpower than they had, it was impossible to do anything to stop them, so they continued to terrorize the community whenever it suited them, which was often.
Many of the farmers were now laying aside a portion of their harvests and livestock as tribute, to pacify them and safeguard their families from harm, but it did not always work. The Sutherlands were power-hungry and bloodthirsty. Not only was violence a means to an end, but an end in itself. They enjoyed it.
Mairi Sutherland had never been seen in daylight by any outside eyes. She emerged only at night and even then was swathed in dark clothing that completely covered her face.
She emerged from the secret entrance in darkness and did not light her lamp till she was a hundred yards away from it – since she knew the path like the back of her hand. She had no desire to waylay or rob anyone. She simply needed a breath of fresh air outside the compound to enjoy the wide-open space, the sigh of the wind and the pleasure of her own company. Sometimes if it was dry, she went to sleep and woke up just before dawn with dew on her face and a feeling of dread in her heart that she had to go home.
Like all the others, Mairi was terrified of her father, even though she knew that she was his favorite. That could always change, though, because he was a changeable, temperamental man, likely to explode at a moment's notice. How she hated him!
One day when her father was sleeping off a particularly bad hangover, Mairi found her mother sitting by the kitchen garden, weeping silently.
Donella knew that Mairi treasured her place as her father's favorite, not so much for herself, but for the tiny bit of protection she could give the others. She did this by distracting his attention from everyone else, and only her mother knew the emotional cost of this.
Now she sat down by her mother's side and looked into her prematurely lined face. She took her worn hand and kissed it, then Donella leaned her head on her daughter's shoulder. They sat silently for a moment.
"I hate him," Mairi hissed out.
"I hate him wi' everything that's in me, Mammy. My soul is black wi' it."
"I do too." Donella nodded in agreement.
"An' I am goin' tae dae somethin' aboot it," Mairi said grimly. "I am goin' tae kill him, Mammy."
"But ye cannae dae that!" Donella protested.
"An' why not?" Mairi demanded. "He beat Rose this mornin', an' she is only five years old, Ma! Is one o' us gaunnae hae tae die afore he stops?"
"He is the only one puttin' food on the table," Donella pointed out.
"Aye – stolen food! He takes the bread oot o' the mouths o' other wee bairns tae feed his ain. Then he beats them half tae death for nothin'."
Mairi sat, breathing heavily, then added, "I will find a way tae make money, Mammy! An' then I will take yon horsewhip in the stable, tie him tae a tree, an’ whip him tae death – an' I dinnae care if I die an' all!"
She paused, and when she spoke again, it was as if the words were coming from the throat of a demon.
"Mammy, when I lash him, I want tae look straight intae his eyes, an' when I give him the last stroke o' that whip, I will pray tae God tae pit him where he belangs – in the deepest, darkest dungeons o' hell wi' the murderers an’ rapers o' women an' wee ones. An' I swear by the blessed virgin that the last hand that touches him will be mine an' the last face he sees will be mine – an' I will be smilin'."
Alexa's Suitor
Graham could not stop thinking about Alexa's blue eyes. They were the last thing he thought about at night and the first thing in the morning. He tried to think of excuses to go to the castle and see the laird, but she was never there, and there were only so many things he could find to talk about, particularly since Laird Drummond was a taciturn man, not inclined to talk about anything except business and the weather.
But one day it seemed that Laird Drummond had come to the end of his tether.
He looked grimly at Graham under his lowering brows and said, "Mr. Hamilton, you have come to see me five times in the last two months. Each time about a trivial matter which you could have taken care of yourself. Please tell me now – what is the real reason for your coming here? I have more to worry about than the problems of a young man who obviously has too much time on his hands."
