by Tessa Murran
What trap was being laid here?
‘Aye, Laird,’ he replied, ‘it is my right, is it not?’
Fearchar stood up. At over six foot he was a daunting sight, wild-eyed, brawny, not an inch of fat on him. Though he was a good deal older than Will, Fearchar kept himself lean and strong by brawling and hunting and rutting in equal measure. He was a Bain, from a lineage famous for their insatiable appetites. As a half-Bain on his mother’s side, the same blood flowed in Will’s veins, and the same violent impulses drove him too. So, when Fearchar rushed from the table and came towards him, Will did not flinch.
Fearchar stood before him, toe to toe. ‘It seems to me, William, that you already rewarded yourself, when you had my wife, when you took her against her will, when you beat her into submission. See what your fists did to her as she pleaded with you to stop, you bastard,’ he snarled, pointing at Edana.
Edana stood up, and Will looked into her eyes. Excitement and triumph lived there as she yelled, ‘Kill him Fearchar, for what he did to me, take his head.’
So, it seemed the bitch had done for him. She was cleverer and more vengeful than he thought.
Fearchar came closer. ‘Any last words before I restore my wife’s honour by ending you in the most painful way I can imagine?’ snarled Fearchar, his spittle wetting Will’s face. ‘Shall we tie him to the rocks and let the crabs eat him?’ he shouted to his clansmen.
Muttering speared the tension in the hall, spreading like a pox. People shuffled their feet and looked away. Women covered their mouths with their hands. No one said anything in his defence for fear of the Laird’s retribution landing on them too. Goading this man was his only hope now. If he could beat their Laird in a fight, man to man, he had a chance of surviving the day.
‘Shall I spill his guts onto the floor and watch this wretch squirm in agony for days, drag it out, eh?’ Fearchar continued.
‘You may try, old man,’ hissed Will. ‘Or will you get your men to do it for you, Fearchar? It’s not as if you could ever best me in a fight.’
‘Get down on your knees, dog, and beg for the mercy of a quick death for shaming my wife.’
‘I did not do anything to your lying wife that she did not beg me to, as she has of others.’
‘Silence,’ bellowed Fearchar, straight into his face.
Will held his ground and kept his voice firm. ‘She’s opened her legs for more than me and every time that bitch was laughing at you.’
Fearchar came so close they bumped chests. ‘I took you in when you had nothing in this world. I made a man of you, and this is how you repay me, by violating my wife and lying about it.’
‘I violated your trust Fearchar, but not your wife, I swear to it. Not that I’ll beg forgiveness either way, for any of it. Aye, you made me a man, so that I could strike down your enemies and make you rich. Have I not earned my place here with every drop of my blood I have spilt for you?’
‘You have no place here save the one I give you.’
‘Aye, but I took one for myself - in your wife’s bed. A man who can’t satisfy a woman deserves to lose her and let me speak plain. I was not the first lover Edana’s had and, even if you kill me, I’ll not be the last, you can be assured of that.’
Fearchar shoved Will hard in the chest, sending him staggering backwards as the women ran for cover at the sound of swords unsheathed from scabbards.
‘Father, no,’ shouted Fearchar’s son Drostan, weak, sickly, his voice struggling to be heard over Fearchar’s howl of rage. ‘Please, Father, let us get to the truth of this first.’
‘There is only one truth, son. For shaming me, I will cut out this wretch’s liver and make him watch as I eat it. I will feed him in chunks to my dogs.’
The men of Clan Bain gathered around them, faces rapt at the prospect of a fight to the death.
Fearchar rushed forwards. He was incredibly strong and delivered blow after crushing blow. Will managed to parry and swivel to avoid the worst of them slicing him in half, feeling the rush of air again and again as Fearchar’s blade swept past. Another blow narrowly avoided taking half his face with it and clipped his arm instead. Blood sprayed out onto the onlookers, who took a step back. His uncle bellowed out his anger, and then their swords came together with a deafening scrape as Fearchar threw his full weight at Will, crushing him against a wall.
Will’s head hit the stone with a dull ache and anger boiled in his belly, quickly turning to black rage. Will bit onto Fearchar’s ear, feeling the gristle crunch between his teeth. He tore on it, ripping flesh away from flesh, blood filling his mouth, metallic and warm. He spat it out into Fearchar’s face.
His opponent staggered backwards, red pumping down his cheek and onto the floor. Now was his chance. Will rushed at Fearchar, sword raised, but slipped on the blood and fell down. His sword clattered away from him and, as he reached for it, Fearchar brought his own down, hard and fast.
It was as if time held its breath.
Just as Will rolled aside the blade crunched into his hand. There was a thick, pumping feeling as blood gushed, a low-pitched ringing in his ears. Rolling to his feet by sheer determination, Will glanced back at his two fingers, severed on the floor. His vision darkened and bile rose to his throat. His senses seemed to fall away all at once, everything becoming muted, slow, as though he were drowning, sinking down and down. His clansmen, roaring. Blood pumping in his ears. Edana shouting, ‘Kill him, Fearchar, kill the raping bastard.’
It all rushed back in, the stumps of his fingers turning to red hot needles of pain, a clammy sweat breaking out all over his body. He grasped his injured hand to his belly as it seeped red into his tunic, but it just intensified the pain.
In a detached way, he readied himself to die, as Fearchar rushed at him. His head was swimming, any moment he might pass out but in some bleak recess of his soul his will to live rose up and growled, ‘Fight, you coward, fight on.’
With every ounce of self-preservation he had, Will side-stepped Fearchar’s charge. The big man’s sword bit into thin air, and the momentum of his attack over-balanced him. Will staggered back to his sword, grabbing it with a hand slick with blood and charged at his uncle before he could get to his feet. Fearchar turned, and Will’s blow hit its mark, slicing across Fearchar’s chest from shoulder to hip. The man fell back down to his knees, mortally wounded. As he bled out, he stared up at Will, the light fading from his eyes, face chalk white.
‘Be a man. Finish it,’ he gurgled, through a mouth filling with blood.
‘Forgive me,’ said Will as he thrust his sword straight through Fearchar’s heart.
He pulled it out, watching the life’s blood of Laird Fearchar Bain pump out all over the hall floor. There was a moment of shocked silence then his uncle’s body fell sideways to a collective gasp from the onlookers. Will wiped his sword on his uncle’s body and turned to his clansmen.
‘Does anyone have anything to say?’ he bellowed in a rage, hearing his voice echo off the walls. His mind screamed in agony but he did not show a trace of it.
Silence followed his words, punctuated only by the drip, drip, drip of blood hitting the floor from his ruined hand.
‘Any one of you pack of wolves want to challenge me to be Laird here?’
There, he had said it, and it had been a long time coming. Every man in the hall knew it would have ended this way eventually. Fearchar’s resentment of his nephew, his strength, his will to fight, the way he was respected and feared by his clansmen, had long been festering like an abscess, infecting the clan with division and uncertainty. To many, there was only ever going to be one outcome - a mortal struggle for supremacy.
Will swept his eyes around the hall at the faces of the Bains, hard bastards all of them. He pointed at Drostan, Fearchar’s son, white-faced and weeping with shock on the dais. ‘Do you want his son to lead you?’ he shouted. ‘This pup cannot fight. He cannot face down our enemies, and you know we have many, all clamouring for our demise. You have a choice he
re and now. Do you follow strength or blood?’
Silence.
‘If it is blood, come at me now. The first to attack is the first of many to fall as I am not done with this life yet. So I ask again, for the last time, strength or blood?’
‘Strength,’ shouted one man and he saw it was his friend Waldrick and nodded his thanks. Then others joined the chorus. ‘Strength, strength, always. That is the Bain way.’
‘Aye, we follow you, Will,’ said another.
Will took a deep breath and spat on the floor of the hall. He could still taste his uncle’s blood in his mouth. He sheathed his sword and pushed his clansmen aside to get to the her.
Edana backed away, but not quickly enough. He grabbed her around the throat with a red hand. ‘Are you happy? You got what you wanted. I made you a widow.’
‘Will, please, forgive me for lying, I…’ she began to plead, but he cut her off.
‘You would beat yourself just to get even with me? You would see me die for slighting your pride,’ he snarled with disgust. ‘What kind of a bitch are you?’
‘Please, Will you are hurting me.’
Shaking with rage and pain, he cast her aside. ‘Get out, now, while I still have it in me to be merciful and you still have your life, Edana. If you ever return to Fitheach, trust me, I will take it.’
When she had scurried from the hall, Will grabbed the poker from the fireplace. Clamping his teeth together hard, he pressed it to his bloody stumps. Through sheer force of will, he pushed down the impulse to scream at the top of his lungs as the red hot iron seared his wounds shut. His whole body was beginning to shake, but the agony kept him conscious. Now he must get out of sight of his clansmen before he weakened and screamed his pain to the heavens.
He strode from the hall past his uncle’s corpse. The impact of what he had just done hit him like a punch, but there could be no show of remorse. For the last few years of his life, it had been a case of kill or be killed. From this day forth he would have power over his own destiny, and he would demand respect, and from now on, if he wanted something in this life, he would just take it, and conscience be damned. It was worth the shame of killing his own blood just to be free of the grovelling dog he had once been, the object of his uncle’s unrelenting cruelty.
He ruled Clan Bain now, and he would rule with an iron hand for it had never got him anywhere to feel pity for the weak, or love and tenderness, loyalty and hope. Those things were for weaker men than he.
Above all, Will had learnt a valuable lesson. Women, and what they made a man feel, were a hundred times more dangerous than men, and were never, ever to be trusted again.
Chapter One
Beharra Castle
Glencoe - 1319
Morna ran along the river bank, away from Beharra Castle, with her face burning. It was done now, he had said the words and could not take them back. She cursed herself for a fool. News of his arrival had stirred excitement in her breast. She had rushed and put on her best dress before going out to greet him because Owen Sutherland coming to Beharra could only mean one thing. So why this turmoil when he had blurted out his feelings? These last weeks she had wanted him to do it and yet dreaded it, in equal measure.
Owen Sutherland wanted her to be his bride, to share his bed and raise his children. A whole new life would start if she said yes, but her freedom would end.
Handsome, rich, Owen Sutherland would wed her. On such little acquaintance, as they had, this man had offered his hand and his love. After he’d rushed the words out, with his face reddening and longing in his eyes, Owen had taken hold of her and kissed her, before she’d even had a chance to say yes or no. Morna had granted him such liberties several times before. It was indecent of her to do it, but what a sweet feeling it was to be in Owen’s arms, a flutter of fear mingled with excitement, the warm slide of his lips on hers. She knew she had power over him, for she’d felt his need, hard against her belly. Morna had felt that need too, that desire to join with him, but he had no power over her. Owen could ride away from Beharra, and she would miss his handsome face and good cheer for a time and then…nothing. Why was that? Was she a cold bitch who could banish love and desire with one snap of her fingers? Did she like him just because she ought to?
Rounding a bend in the river, she saw Ramsay Seward sitting on the bank with his head in his hands, his horse cropping the grass beside him. She tried to back away, but the crack of her foot on a twig gave her away. He rose to his feet with a strange look on his face. It was almost desolate.
‘Do you ail?’ she asked, though she doubted it. This man, her brother Cormac’s right hand, had the strength of ten oxen. His lean and sallow look was deceptive, for he was as tough and harsh as the wind-scoured moorland surrounding Beharra.
He sighed and looked down at his feet. ‘So, by the look on your face, he’s asked you then, the honourable Owen Sutherland?’
‘Yes. Did he say something to you?’
Ramsay’s voice was bitter as he snarled, ‘Why would the Sutherland wretch seek the opinion of a lowly servant? He scarce knows I exist, and yet he would be the ruin of my heart.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Morna.
‘Ah, ‘tis nothing, just the hopeless complaint of a fool.’ Ramsay bent to kick the dirt at his feet and then he looked up at her through dark hair falling over his eyes. ‘Will you take him, will you wed him and be gone from Beharra forever?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it to you.’
‘Better me than Cormac or Ravenna, for they will plead Owen’s cause, while I will tell you the truth, no matter how it hurts you to hear it.’
Morna hesitated. She had grown up with Ramsay, trusted him all her life, though he had little time for foolish women. She suspected he took his pleasure away from Beharra and more so lately, as he often rode out for days at a time on his own. Ravenna, her brother Cormac’s wife, ventured that Ramsay had a lover hidden away somewhere and they had laughed at the notion. One thing she did know, he would give his opinion honestly.
‘Ramsay, Owen said that he fought with the heart of a lion at the siege of Berwick, that he only survived the carnage by holding thoughts of me in his heart. He says he is mad in love with me.’
‘Pretty words, easily said,’ spat Ramsay. ‘Is your head to be turned by such nonsense?’
‘Owen is a good and honourable man from a fine family. I trust in his regard for me.’
‘He is nought but a spoilt milksop.’
‘That is unfair, and it is harsh.’
‘So, if you defend him, you must love him then?’
‘I am fond of him, yes. I want him even, and yet he does not really know me, all my faults. Owen does not see my boredom being stuck here at Beharra or my indifference to the future laid out before me. I am to marry well and lead a dull life producing heirs for a future Laird. That is my fate, and it is as though it were carved in stone. Owen does not see me properly because all I have done is flatter him and make myself pleasing, to gain his admiration. I am a selfish creature, feeding on that admiration like a spider sucks at a fly. I even put on my best dress so that I would look nice when he came. I don’t know what to do. What a torture it is to be so torn.’
‘You regard another’s love for you as torture? How young you are, girl. One day you will come to know the true meaning of pain,’ he said, with a break in his voice.
Morna looked down at her pretty, red dress embroidered with gold thread at the edge of the cuffs and neck. Shame reddened her face as Ramsay continued.
‘Owen does not see your independent spirit and, when he does, he will seek to curb it. Wed him, and he will put you in chains, Morna.’ Ramsay’s voice sounded strange, softer than usual.
‘That may be true Ramsay, and yet I am minded to accept him.’
‘Don’t do it. Don’t wed that preening creature who sees only your beauty, who sees you as a trophy to parade before all.’
‘I must at least think on it. Owen fights bravely
for the King and is loyal to my brothers and to Clan Buchanan. He is kind and brave, any woman would be lucky to have him.’
‘Aye, he is brave, but there’s no grit in his soul, as there is in yours. Wed him and within a year or two, you will despise him. He will break against your hardness, Morna.’
‘What would you have me do, Ramsay?
‘Wed me instead.’
Morna sucked in a breath at the absurdity of his words. Was he jesting? He could not be in earnest. She tried to gather her thoughts and keep her face from betraying her horror as Ramsay took a step closer.
‘I would adore you, as I always have. I’d never raise a hand to you nor leave you unprotected. I know I am not handsome and exciting like Owen Sutherland, but I am loyal and steadfast in my adoration. I have known you as a wee girl and thought of you as nothing more until you blossomed into a woman and such a one as to make my heart break with wanting you. I know it was wrong of me to think of you in that way, but I did, I do, I always will. I love you.’
‘Ramsay, stop.’
‘These last few years, I have kept my feelings buried so as not to offend your brother. But now I feel I have proved myself worthy of you time and again. I have been loyal to this family and to my Laird. Is it so terrible to ask for that reward which I have secretly yearned for?’
Morna shook her head, backing away. ‘Ramsay…I…you honour me, truly, and I value you so much as a friend and a protector, but we would not make each other happy.’ Her face was on fire, she felt sick, foolish tears pricked her eyes.
This was awful, Ramsay was awful, to say such things to her. How could he just blurt them out like that? She had to get back to Beharra.
‘Give me a chance,’ he continued, desperation in his voice. ‘Stay here with me at Beharra, ease my loneliness.’
‘I don’t want to idle my whole life away at Beharra. That would be a kind of death for me, you know this.’
‘We can be gone if that is what you wish. Do not fear my affection for I will be gentle with you, Morna.’
