The Chieftain's Feud (3 page)

It was a lack of interest, not opportunity that had stilled his hand, or lips, and dulled his passions as well. Few lassies were blessed with the temerity Eve possessed.

He remembered the first words she had spoken to him. ‘So this is where yer hiding?’ They had rung clear as a bell in his head, and each time he wondered what would have happened if he had got to his feet that day and walked away from the lass.

Truth be told, he had been avoiding her. He should have realised that might provoke her to pursue him with greater diligence. She’d broken his resistance the day she’d discovered him dozing in the sunshine down by the Ferm burn, his back against the trunk of an apple tree. He’d awoken to his downfall. A fluttering sensation like a butterfly dancing on his cheek brought him to his senses with a start. Disconcerted, he woke to see the lass who moments earlier had filled his dream. There she was, alive, real, crouched beside him, her eyes round and as green as the apple she held, attached to the leaf she had been using to tickle his cheek.

Thinking back, he was still amazed at the control he had scraped up frae the dregs of his being,
used
to still his impatient fingers. Even now, his hands curled into the fists he had used to contain his urges by painfully pressing them against the gnarled tree roots he had wedged hips and thighs betwixt to support him as he slept.

“God’s blood,” the curse leapt from his lips as he drew back frae thoughts that had everything to do with Eve and naught of the promise he had given himself to ignore her. He’d managed, largely, to forget Brodwyn, who seldom crossed his mind apart frae rare moments when he reminded himself that if could achieve his goal once he could do so again.

Disenchantment had a grand way of putting a dampener on love if not lust.

At Cragenlaw he had a guid example in Euan McArthur, the McArthur chieftain; he had buried three wives before Morag arrived at Cragenlaw.

Nhaimeth had originally lived in the castle as Euan’s deceased third wife’s Fool but, to Jamie’s way of thinking, Euan McArthur was the bigger fool of the two. He had still to wed Morag because of an auld curse. It seemed the only thing that scared him was losing her.

In any event, the McArthur had been instrumental in sending the three of them out in the snow to scour the trees for the mistletoe and keep the lasses quiet. Sent them off as if they were still naught but lads that he expected to do his bidding. Or as if, Jamie pondered, the three of them were too inexperienced to ken anything that could contribute to their elders’ plans to fend off the Normans.

To turn his thoughts in a happier direction, Jamie cast his gaze o’er Rob’s big black stallion. Although the beast was getting on in years, there was nae doubt that Diabhal was enjoying the outing away frae the stables. Jamie found himself laughing out loud at the venerable steed’s antics, silencing any other thoughts. If there was anything he liked to watch as much as a sauncy lassie, it was the magnificent combination of muscle and bone that made up a horse.

He wasn’t surprised when Rob pranced closer, as if to show off Diabhal. What took him aback was Rob’s shout, “Look over there, Jamie. To the north,” he pointed. “One of the horses must have got loose.”

Turning his gaze northward, slightly farther along the shore’s edge, he remembered that the snow liked to lie in long drifts in that area, filling the narrow valley with traps for the unwary. The beast was of smallish build, though bigger than Nhaimeth’s pony—a palfrey, one of the beasts mostly used to carry lassies and priests. There was nae doubt that the horse was in distress. The animal’s head lifted, mouth open as if on a whinny of fear that the wind carried toward the sea.

Frae the grumbling behind Jamie, Nhaimeth obviously hadnae heard Rob. Turning in his saddle Jamie realised his wee friend had ventured into a passage of deeper snow mounded between the tracks left by both larger mounts. A wide grin on his face, he turned Faraday towards his wee friend without breaking pace until the gelding had trampled down the snow blocking Nhaimeth’s passage. If he smiled it wasn’t because he doubted Nhaimeth’s courage. There had been a time when yon short legs had led them though dark tunnels that would have given the bravest of them second thoughts. “Best stay in our tracks Nhaimeth. We dinnae want to find ye swallowed up by a drift. We might never find ye until spring.”

He made a jest of it, for there was nae insult intended. Nhaimeth could always keep up with them whether astride a horse or at swordplay. Euan McArthur had had a blade forged especially to fit Nhaimeth’s size and hands. Jamie might tease his friend, yet he could nae more bear to see him hurt than he could leave a horse to freeze to death.

“What say ye, Rob, do ye recognise it?” he shouted, keeping the palfrey under close scrutiny as he urged Faraday to trudge through snow that suddenly felt like a mess of cold porridge. This passion he had for horses was difficult to explain to others. He found it easier to defend his fascination for the lassies. As a lad, the high point of his day had been when his father arrived home. The moment Ruthven rode into the Bailey, Jamie would rush to his side, begging to be lifted up to sit afore of him. He had seen a different world frae up there, a world where even a wee bit of a lad had more significance—a fact that had encouraged him to always take note of the horses men rode and, as often as not, his discoveries had coloured his opinion of the men themselves.

O’er the years he‘d had developed a fine eye for a prime animal, and could recall most of them without effort. This palfrey wasn’t one of them—a fact that made the back of his neck tense, as if the snow had found its way under layers of plaid and lambskin. How did it come to be out here, on a day when even cateran were wise enough to hole up out of the cold?

Rob’s big black ploughed ahead, his friend’s voice floating back over his shoulder as Diabhal’s long, loping strides took him closer to the palfrey’s quivering side. Gone were the days when Jamie’s eye could pick out every horse in the Cragenlaw stables—a fact that merely went to show the span of years that had passed since he last lived there. Nowadays, although Euan McArthur treated him much the same as he always had, for the first time he felt like a visitor. It made nae difference that he and Rob would always be friends, their lives had grown apart since the night he had watched his friend kill his first man—watched Rob kill Harald, spill the sleekit bastard’s blood, all the while wishing that he, Jamie Ruthven, could have found enough steel in his belly to do the deed himself.

He shrugged his mind away frae the past, regrets werenae going to get the job done.

The pale grey palfrey’s black mane flew out behind it in a flurry of the wind and snow. Eyes rolling at the sight of them, it gave the appearance of crying out for help—a notion that made Jamie’s innards curdle at the thought of it having injuries so bad they might have to end its life—a mercy killing. As they drew closer to their goal, his view became impeded by the bulkier frame of Rob atop Diabhal. Puzzled, Jamie looked around frae his advantageous position atop Faraday’s fine leather saddle, noticing a lack of recent footprints in the snow. Had the palfrey escaped or been abandoned by someone with nae appreciation of a bonnie wee horse?

Ahead of him, Rob gave a shout after reaching over to grasp the grey’s reins and revealing the truth of the matter. Pulling the horse around, Rob allowed Jamie a view of the bundle of a blue plaid, muted by fallen snow, spread on the ground like an icy blue lochan.

Though not uncommon in colouring among clans, the sight brought bile surging into Jamie’s gorge. Like an omen of misfortune it made his blood run colder than the inclement weather had succeeded in doing, filling his mind with memories of long shadows—his and Eve’s—splaying through the tower entrance of King Malcolm’s palace to darken similarly coloured plaids worn by Buchan and his brother Hadron.

Jamie turned his back, avoiding the memory of the day that last piece of treachery had been perpetrated by the head of the Buchan clan. This time, instead of his father, he had been on the receiving end at the hands of Ruthven’s bête noir.

He hadnae realised such a small coincidence could so easily rekindle his anger at the two treacherous acts perpetrated first by Brodwyn then Eve—women who had both pretended to love him.

Whilst Jamie shoved aside his troublesome thoughts, Rob leapt frae Diabhal’s back. Landing hard, he sank to the tops of his thigh high wolfskin boots. Without hesitation Jamie joined him, swinging a long leg over his saddlebow. He sank into snow, soft as coney-fur, yet cold enough to skin the hide off a body. He went to the horse’s head, intent on quieting the poor beast, just as Nhaimeth arrived, setting off another louder and even more anxious volume of equine trumpeting. Jamie’s anger flamed at the careless rider who had abandoned the grey palfrey,as its sorrowful lament rang in his ears. Nae doubt the animal mourned the loss of its rider. That said, the half-frozen beast couldnae be blamed for belonging to someone who would appear to be a Buchan.

“Is he dead?” Nhaimeth wanted to ken. Jamie, however, declined to imagine any other outcome was possible for a body lying atop the snow in the dead of winter.

Nae one could survive this icy cold for long.

“Nearly dead,” called Rob, his gloved hands scooping snow from around the bundle of plaid and humanity. “There is a wee bit of a pulse, but faint. Nhaimeth, you take the other side and Jamie, for the love of God, soothe that animal; it’s fair getting on my nerves. Anyone would think I was trying to murder its master instead of rescue him.”

“So, it’s a man?”

Rob slashed a glance at him that encompassed their surroundings as if to imply, ‘Dinnae be daft, how could it be a woman in this weather?’ Jamie nodded a silent agreement and turned back to the anxious beast.

Tall and brawny were attributes Jamie never gave much thought to, exercising them as necessary, as he did today, putting both his size and strength to good use. Wrapping an arm around the palfrey’s neck, he dragged its head away from Rob afore it snapped at the arse pointing skyward because of bending o’er the rider.

Speaking in its ear, he held its sharp teeth back from any vital part of Rob’s body that he might be sweered to lose. “Hush-hush-hush shhh … the now, I’m not going to hurt ye or yer master,” he whispered.

With the shuddering beast calming down enough for Jamie to leave its head, he put his best efforts into assisting Nhaimeth to push the frozen bundle up onto Diabhal afore Rob’s knees, kenning his friend would ne’er give up—not until he was certain life had definitely departed the body they were hoisting afore him. Loosening his own plaid, Rob wrapped it around both him and his passenger, fastening the stranger against his chest to make sure he couldnae fall. A moment later, he kicked his heels into Diabhal’s flanks and removed them both frae the scene as fast as the snowdrifts would let him.

“Ye can follow Rob, Nhaimeth. Help him get the stranger back to the castle afore we all turn into blocks of ice. I’ll come after ye and deliver this truculent de’il to the stables—provided I can get him moving that is.”

And that’s what they did—Nhaimeth, with Rob ploughing ahead of him, leaving Jamie and Faraday to tow a stubborn palfrey into the Bailey, both nae doubt encouraged by Jamie’s promise of a warm dark place that smelled of hay and horseflesh.

Night had already draped Cragenlaw in suffocating dark-grey folds and melted them into sleet during Jamie’s march across the lower Bailey. Wet flakes coated his hair, sliding down his face only to be swiped away with the back of his hand. Pitch-tipped torches fluttered in the draughts, hissing and spitting as insistent snowflakes fell into them the way moths did in summer. Shadows filled every nook and cranny of the upper Bailey, and it was with relief that Jamie finally hurried inside Cragenlaw and let its grey granite walls swallow him up.

Having called this hall home for many winters, he was aware that, if his memory served him correctly, the only really warm spots in the castle would be in the kitchens, or the huge maw of a fireplace in the hall. Two days earlier, they had made great play of carrying the blackened Yule log from last year through the castle. Yet on a night like this one when the sky persisted in falling on them, he began to wonder if the stables wouldnae have proved the better choice of a place to sleep until morning.

Halting a few paces frae the large doors, he fought the urge to join the company gathered in the hall, and his sister Iseabel caught up with him just inside the threshold. She had become betrothed to Graeme McArthur in the early days of Jamie’s fostering by Euan McArthur. Now she and Graeme were married and had two bairns, both facts that had made Iseabel believe she was wise in the ways of men and women.

Who was he to disillusion his sister?

The events of this afternoon had scourged up memories he didn’t want to share. He needed to be alone to struggle o’er his preoccupation with the past, yet that wasnae going to happen if his absence set everyone wondering why he chose to shun not only their company, but also the festivities arranged for that evening. He could see Morag and Kathryn had begun making kissing boughs. Thankfully, few of the lasses would expect more than a buss on the cheek.

To say it had been a strange day was nae great distance frae the truth.

He had thought himself well o’er the events of four years ago when the trio of lads had trooped into Dun Bhuird at Gavyn Farquhar’s heels. Seeing Kathryn Comlyn again had brought his humiliation to the fore. God’s blood, surely he could be forgiven for letting Brodwyn’s betrayal cause a twinge or two in his gut. If he regretted anything, it was that it had been that Rob instead of he who had killed Harald—the man who had conspired with Brodwyn to usurp Gavyn and Kathryn. Why was it, then, that Rob didn’t appear to carry the same scars or pangs of guilt?

Twenty-two years under his belt and Jamie still hadn’t been blooded.

Mayhap the earlier hurt felt worse because
his
wounds had been self-inflicted, had been suffered by turning his back on the woman he’d thought he loved, thought loved him.