Duty of the Chieftain - a Highland 'Lord's Right of the First Night' novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions #3) (4 page)

Ginny's diplomatic skills were fair amazing
, but Ranald espied her hands twisting this way and that as if doing unseen knitting, and her eyes struggling to meet his.

She knew.

"...And Archie the Swordmaker did wonder if the Lord's Right is now changed, milord, or if... if ye had some other reason that ye did not breach Meredith.  He seeks audience with ye, and awaits in the Estate Room."  Ginny's face turned puce as she added, "And I am to tell ye he did not lie with his bride last eve, in case ye have want of her yet."

The meddlesome Lady
Elinor had no idea of the consequences of her deed.  Ranald had some covering up to do here.  It would involve telling a fat lie to a man he had the utmost respect for.  The other way was a truth that could never be told.

Cornered.  He did no' like that.

"Go now to Archie.  Be not overheard! Tell him that Meredith's virgin's blood is to honor all of Clan MacKrannan in battle.  Tell him I have decided it fitting that the Swordmaker himself must mingle his seed with her blood to keep power in our forge."

Ginny gasped at the privilege.
"Archie will be..."

"
Hush ye and listen!  I have immediate need of a ladymaid, by way of a chaperone.  Ye'll be away from the castle till luncheon at the least."

"
Oh thank ye, milord!  Thank ye!" she cried, all excited.

"
See Archie at once, then take a warm set of clothing from my sister's old trunks, something fit for a sea trip.  Go then to my boat and await me, with yer ears open and yer mouth firm shut, mind."

"
Archie, clothes, boat, listen, dinna tell… I understand, milord, and if ye please, will Dougall be coming with us?"

The brightness of Ginny's hope was enough to soften Ranald's
temper.  "He will, lass.  Ye'll be looking forward to yer wedding, aye?"

"
Oh aye!  Dougall says he is the luckiest man in all of Scotland," she said with some pride.

"He has told me that himself
more than once.  Ye'll have a good life together, I am sure."

The change in tone of their exchange led her to a bigger question.  "Am I to come to ye for the Lord's Right, milord?"

The sodding Lord's Right had
Ranald in enough sodding trouble this minute, and he felt disinclined to do duty again for it anytime soon.  But Dougall was his steward, and had been courting Ginny for some time.  He'd known the wedding was coming.  Crying off this duty was impossible without giving great insult.

"
I would think so, lass.  Away now and find the Swordmaker and tell him what I have said.  I'll see ye on the boat."

A
swift scrape of his face with a blade, a long talk with his astonished parents, and he was ready.  Dougall pointed him to a flat rock at the sea's edge where Elinor sat like a mermaid, hair flying loose in the morning breeze and her eyes closed.

He was about to destroy whatever inner peace she'd gotten from the ocean, and it would be upon the ocean he did it.

Ranald sent his guards and her own few to a distance with their backs turned, and appeared at her side.  Elinor near jumped out her skin.  She scrambled off the rock and tried to sidestep him, yet still found her way barred.

"
Forgive me, chieftain, but my journey is long today, and your company unsought."

The fight for control of the situation had begun, and Ranald intended to win. 
"We go by boat."

"
I go by horse, and must take leave of Sir Thommas and Lady Agatha.  Let me pass."

"My parents already know ye're coming
with me – by yer own will or by mine."

Elinor
's head came back high and haughty.  "Do not dare to lay one finger upon me!"

"
A finger, is it?" he leaned down to hiss in her face.  "Ye had my cock up yer crack no’ half a day ago and I'll be hearing yer purpose to while away the sail."

"
Hush!"
she squeaked, looking to the guards on the hillock above them.  "Keep your foul mouth for your wenches and let me pass!"

"
Ye found my mouth syrup enough atween yer legs yestreen," he quipped.  "And I would no' insult any wench with such vulgarity."

Lady Elinor was demeaned into speechlessness.

Turning to the hillock, Ranald whistled one long and three short bursts.  Four guards ran down to him, including his steward.

"
Dougall, man, have ye coin ready?"

The brief nod was all the reply expected
.

Ranald
snatched Elinor's hand and tucked it firmly under his left forearm, while giving instruction under his breath.  "Dougall, see to the compensation of the Lady Elinor's men and maid, then join us all again."

Elinor
tried to pull away, only to find her fingers clamped all the tighter by the chieftain's immense paw.

"
You cannot expect me to leave without my guard!"

"
I will be guarding ye, madam," said Ranald, grimly.  "Take comfort in the sureness of that."

"
My maid... I need my maid!"

"
Share mine.  Ye are acquaint with Ginny already, I believe."  A smirk split his face as he walked her towards the village.   "Come.  I would show ye the MacKrannan village and some of our trades."

Woodsmoke
drifted in a lazy fug above the heather-thatched cottages, all newly built in whinstone from the same quarry as the castle.

All
through the village, people toiled in open-doored workshops and outside their homes.  Women sang waulking songs while they cleaned briars and burrs off wool fleeces.  Ranald introduced Elinor to the carpenters and masons, the fletchers, the sailmaker and the saddler, according her the basic civility of saying her name first.  Some of the faces were familiar to her from her brief times at Hall with Thommas and Agatha.

Ranald
watched how they greeted her – and how they greeted him, and how they then looked from one to the other.

A
blast of heat came from a workshop, and an apprentice in a thick leather apron pointed past Ranald to a man running towards them from the castle.

"A
rchie, guid man!" Ranald called, "Ginny would give you my message?"

"
She did indeed, milord.  How can we ever thank ye for an honor such as this! 
Meredith?  Meredith!"
he yelled at the cottage window,
"The chieftain is here – come out, for I have such news!"

Ranald
put his hand on the man’s shoulder, staying him.  "We’ll keep the detail between us, Archie, lest the potency be lost.  Only this once it shall be done the way I have said."

The Swordmaker was startled at this added privilege.  He bowed to
Ranald, muttering his understanding and promise of secrecy.  Meredith came out the cottage then, wiping her hands on a cloth.

The clue had been there and he'd missed it. 
Meredith was a right bonnie lass, as the Chief had said, but her hands were working hands.  The Lady Elinor had clearly never scrubbed a floor in her life.  How in hell could he have missed that…

The guilt stabbed at him again, and he shoved it away.
  He was no' the guilty one in this.

Meredith
curtsied neatly to Ranald and Elinor, but her eyes met Ranald’s with a look of hurt that he sought immediately to balm.

"
Long life and guid fortune to you both, Meredith," said Ranald for the second time, though for the first to the correct woman.  "Archie will tell ye of a special duty I would have him do for our clan this day.  And I grant him till supper time to do it, freed of his duties in the forge."

T
he chieftain grinned as he bid the couple good morn and took the Lady Elinor’s arm again.  He chapped the window of another cottage and pressed her firmly through the doorway.

A young woman bade them most welcome to her hearth, lifting fresh bannocks off the griddle hanging over the fire and filling her best goblets with spiced wine.

"How goes it, Martha?" asked Ranald, through a mouthful of crisp oatmeal.

"Grand we are, milord!  I cannot thank ye enough for this cottage.  See there, Roddy has his own room now and thinks himself quite the gentleman.  Ye're looking right well yerself."

Elinor, ignored as of no matter, left her wine untouched and listened to the talk between Ranald and this Martha woman who seemed to converse with the chieftain in a manner highly unbefitting her surroundings.  She discerned from their chatter that the woman’s husband was Scribe to the MacKrannans and was busy working with the clan's Bard.

A black-haired boy came running in, splashing the contents of his wooden pail in his haste.  Elinor’s face wrinkled in disbelief as the distinct smell of stale urine reached her.

The boy set down the pail carefully and ran straight to Ranald who stood up to receive his bow, then lifted the delighted child up level with his face.

"Roddy, lad!  Are ye still the height
of my sword?  Ye have no' shrunk in my absence?"

"I
’m
bigger
than it, I keep telling ye, milord!"  The boy scampered into a side room and emerged dragging an old pock-marked sword.  Ranald held it upright while the youngster stood beside it, needlessly puffing out his chest for he easily surpassed the weapon in size.

Elinor stared at man and child together.  The likeness was so pronounced that Ranald’s introduction was superfluous.

"Roddy, this is Lady Elinor Keirston.  Lady Elinor – my son Roddy, born from the Lord's Right atween Martha and myself five years past."

Elinor inclined her head formally to the bowing child, well aware of the chieftain's insult of putting the child’s name before her own, but diverted by a sneeze coming upon her, occasioned by the urine’s putrid fumes which now filled the room.

"Excuse me, if you please, that smell…"

"Biting yer nose, is it?" said Ranald, lifting the pail and gingerly placing it outside the door.  "But the Scribe cannot miss the gathering of such fine ingredient for his ink-making as men’s piss after a night of drinking.  Ye may thank yer own guard for the pailful supplied, milady."

Martha put hand to mouth, her shoulders shaking.  Ranald caught her eye and the two of them burst into raucous laughter, immediately joined by young Roddy who was well used to visitors turning up their noses at the variety of smells in his home.

Infuriated, Elinor arose from her seat, staring coldly at the
three who seemed determined to affront her.

Ranald lifted his son up against his chest and kissed him soundly on either cheek before placing a small jingling pouch in the boy’s hand.  "Stick in hard at yer schooling, and look after your bonnie mother here."

Taking Martha’s smiling face in his hands, he kissed her forehead and left the cottage.  Elinor scurried out in his wake, arms rigid and hands balled in a wrath that Ranald feigned not to notice as he walked further towards the harbor and the waiting boat.

Elinor
could be silent no longer.  "What is your purpose, chieftain?  Why do you parade me before your people in this manner?"

The faces of his
clansfolk had told him they knew something was up, but not what it was.  He wouldn't be telling her, and bent down to whisper only, "Reactions".

Shocked as much by his hot breath in her ear as by his answer,
Elinor could not help but ask, "And what have you found?"

He
didn't answer, instead walking away to greet a group of fishermen mending nets.  While his back was turned, Elinor looked casually around.  This was the last chance she’d have of escape without need to swim.  Seeing no major obstruction, she lifted the folds of her dress and bolted.

She
managed no more than the distance of three cottages before twelve of Ranald’s twelve encircled her, materialising from alleyways and gardens and thin air.