Authors: Patricia McAllister
“Nay,” she admitted. “I was only loath at first because I feared what sort of welcome a burly fellow like Lord Scott might have in mind.”
Ranald chuckled. He, too, had taken the opportunity to bathe and exchange his shirt for another of identical style but a much whiter linen. Merry noted the stir his presence created among Goldielands’ female residents; even the youngest serving girl with a timorous manner snuck admiring glances at the famed Wolf of Badanloch. While Merry had not been afforded the chance to ask Lady Scott where Ranald gained such an impressive reputation, she gathered it was not without cause as all the border reivers greeted him with due respect.
“’Twill not harm your cause with the queen despite your present association with Braxholm Scotts,” Ranald told her in a low voice before they parted company at table. “Fiona has an upstanding reputation among English and Scots alike. She attended both Courts before her children were born.”
Merry nodded. “She is a kindly and resourceful hostess.” She marveled that the woman endured such a cacophony and all manner of children and beasts underfoot, but then Fiona appeared equal to the task. She was quite half a head taller than her stocky laird, and never needed to raise her voice to be heard. Her quiet yet firm statements immediately yielded results.
As guests of honor, Merry and Lord Lindsay were seated near the head of the table, facing each other. To Merry’s right, the visiting bard was accorded a spot of honor as well. Seosamh nodded acknowledgment at Merry’s polite greeting, but seemed disinclined to converse further. Which was just as well, for Merry was ravenous and much preferred sampling the rich fare to exchanging social pleasantries with an ill-groomed stranger.
The chair to her left, the only one yet unoccupied, remained empty until midway through the meal. Suddenly a silence fell over the hall, and Merry looked up from her partridge and saw an elderly woman carefully making her way down the stairs with Peigi’s aid. Peigi steadied the white-haired crone, who was simply clad in black worsted with a dark-blue shawl pinned at her shoulder with a bell heath silver badge. While Merry and the others watched, Lady Scott rose from her own chair and greeted the late diner with visible surprise.
“Mother MacDougall, how good of you to join us.”
Fiona’s mother, mayhap, or her grandmother. Merry wondered at the relation, and at the others’ rapt silence, for nobody spoke or ate another bite until the older woman was settled at table with all due pomp and circumstance.
Feeling the crone’s keen gaze turn on her, Merry attempted a smile at her left-side neighbor. “Good eve, milady.”
Piercing, pale-blue eyes sought Merry’s so intently she gasped aloud. For a moment, she was too shocked to respond. No true lady stared thus at anyone. It was not a hostile glare, but neither was it warm and inviting; it seemed to reach deep into one as if the crone read an open book.
Merry shivered. She felt suddenly vulnerable, especially when all attention in the hall focused on her and the old woman. From the corner of her eye she saw the bard shift slightly, as if leaning closer so he might listen in on any ensuing conversation.
“Tide, tide, whate’er betide, The Wolf be daein brawlie on his night ride.”
The words muttered by Mother MacDougall seemed more a prophecy than any idle commentary upon the weather, and Merry tore her gaze from the crone’s and noted the shocked faces about the table. For the first time, Lady Scott looked distressed, and clasped her hands together across her rounded abdomen in an unconscious protective gesture.
More interesting yet was Ranald Lindsay’s expression; he might well have been slapped as the color rose in his face and his dark eyes flashed.
Used to averting disastrous encounters at Court, Merry spoke quickly to the old woman.
“I am Mistress Meredith Tanner, milady. I am honored indeed to enjoy the hospitality of Goldielands.”
Fiona nodded slightly, gratefully, encouraging Merry’s efforts, but the older woman merely looked at Merry as if to say, “I know who you are, lassie.” She might have been amused.
The next time she spoke, Mother MacDougall looked directly at Ranald Lindsay. “At Wolfen Den, if ye should be, A corby hert ye there may see.”
Upon which Ranald rose from table, scraping back the heavy oak chair, and abruptly left the hall. Merry sensed his restrained fury, punctuated for emphasis with collective gasps around the table. A strained silence echoed his departure. Quickly Gordon Scott seized his quaich, and raising it high, shouted a toast to banish the somber atmosphere.
“Hout! Here’s ta the Land o’ the Bens, the Glens, an’ the Heroes! Here’s ta the heath, the hill, and the heather, The bonnet, the plaidie, the kilt and the feather! Here’s ta the song that Auld Scotland can boast, May her name never die!—that’s a Bordermon’s toast.”
“
Bellendaine! Bellendaine!
” roared his kinsmen, fellow Scotts and reivers all. Fists pounded the table so hard it trembled with threat of collapse, and during the melee Merry saw Lady Scott rise and slip away from the table, hurrying off in the same direction Ranald had gone.
“Hae ye nae sic wisdom ta impart us, Seosamh?” The Scott bellowed down the trestle at the bard, whom Merry noticed did not drink with the others. The slight, bearded fellow nodded. He raised his tankard at last, and when the din had dropped to a passable level, offered quietly:
“There’s meat and music here, as the fox said when he stole the bagpipes.”
Gordon Scott grinned. “Och, and there’s no much guile in the hert that’s ay singing. Tune yer clarsach, laddy.”
Seosamh Douglas nodded and uprighted the island harp in his lap, adjusting it minutely until it sat within the circle of his arms upon his thigh in the precise fashion he preferred. Softly his fingers strummed the strings, and the silvery sound rippled over the watching assembly. Several were heard to sigh in anticipation, or perhaps Gaelic anticipation of a mournful saga, but not Mother MacDougall. After blurting her second bit of nonsense, she subsided into a catatonic sort of silence, gaze affixed to her trencher as if her mind wandered the misty Highland hills.
Eventually Seosamh opted for the comfort of another chair before the great hearth, and drew his audience with him. Merry seized opportunity to slip away as the others deserted the table one by one. Nobody noticed her exit during the exchange and she was able to ford the hall. She did not know why she felt the consuming need to follow Lord Lindsay and Lady Scott. Certainly it never occurred to her there was anything improper in their mutual absence. Nor did she intend eavesdropping, yet opportunity confronted her just the same.
She heard voices issuing from behind a door left ajar.
“—when she is clearly mad,” she heard Ranald state in an ire-filled voice.
From Fiona Scott’s softer tone, it was obvious she attempted soothing the bristling laird. “I do not think Beitris is aware when the spells happen.”
“Aye, and I suppose her eyes did not gleam when she spouted such clishmaclaver at my and Blair’s wedding,” Ranald said. His voice was cold, but Merry imagined his dark eyes flaming.
Fiona sighed. “Ochone. You cannot deny The Maclean prophecy was brought to bear.”
“Aye, they are forever dubbed The Luckless Macleans now. Mother MacDougall doomed an entire clan with her fey prattling. Would you dub that harmless, Fiona?”
Merry heard another soft sigh, this one resigned. “She did not mean to vex you, I know, when she spoke of a wolf and a raven. Even in her younger days, she cried when she realized how her words upset others. In truth, The Sight ’tis not the cherished gift Seosamh sings of in romantic ballads. ’Tis more a curse.”
“Aye. To me,” Ranald said flatly, and Merry winced for Lady Scott’s sake. The Wolf of Badanloch snarled at anyone when wounded. A second later, Fiona’s words sank in. Wolf and a raven? Mother MacDougall’s mutterings had not made much of an impression upon Merry, but then the thick burr was hard to follow and she was distracted by the others when the verses had suddenly spouted from the woman’s lips.
She touched the amulet at her breast, traced the indentation of the flying bird with some apprehension. It could easily be a coincidence. Else Mother MacDougall had spied the amulet and decided on a whim to discomfit the others with a sudden “prophecy.” It was not incredible she might favor an occasional jest upon her impressionable kin. Merry thought of her own grandsire, The O’Neill, a great braying Irishman with a particularly wicked sense of humor.
To Brann O’Neill, she would always be “Erin,” though he knew quite well his flame-haired granddaughter preferred “Merry.” One of the reasons Merry did not care to visit Ireland, aside from the rough and tumble way her Irish relations behaved, was they reminded her of her own humble roots. It was easy at Court to forget she was but the spawn of an Englishman without title, the youngest of four sons. Slade Tanner was wealthy now, but his fortune had amassed only with great effort and the devoted aid of his wife. Bryony O’Neill Tanner was the proverbial black-haired, blue-eyed Irish colleen with a courage matching any man’s and a reckless nature she did not fail to exercise.
Merry had always been embarrassed by her mother. Oh, she adored Bryony, but in her opinion it was most unseemly for a mother of seven to flit about the high seas, wearing men’s breeks and swearing like a sailor whenever she felt thus inclined. It was an admitted relief her parents spent most of their time traveling, or in Ireland. They rarely visited Court anymore. In the while Merry had come to consider the queen her foster mother, albeit a stricter and more exacting taskmistress than Bryony Tanner had ever been.
Thus, Merry considered most Gaels possessed of a mischievous nature, and it did not seem unlikely Mother MacDougall enjoyed similar sport with her kin. Ranald Lindsay was simply too serious-natured to appreciate a good jest, besides which she knew his surname was of Norman derivation originally and hence he did not qualify as a genuine Scot in Merry’s opinion.
“I regret the evening has brought unpleasant memories,” Fiona was saying. “Truly, Ran, I never expected Beitris to join us at table. She rarely leaves her tower room anymore.”
“I think the old witch takes peculiar delight in baiting me. No matter. I shall simply avoid her until the morrow. We shall be gone quickly enough.”
“Ah, that is another matter I would speak of. Gordon said only you are escorting Mistress Tanner somewhere.”
“Aye. Auchmull, and then to her intended.”
“Why Auchmull at all?”
Fiona’s question was followed by a moment of silence. “I suppose there is no true need now. She seems recovered from travel with your admirable assistance.”
Fiona laughed, pleased by the compliment. “The lass has a fragile appearance, but I oft find such indication is misleading. Mistress Tanner is charming, is she not? A ready smile and a sweet laugh. I like both in a woman.”
Merry did not hear a reply but imagined he shrugged.
* * *
RAN EXITED GOLDIELANDS’ LIBRARY some time after Fiona departed, first availing himself of a rich claret left upon a small sideboard. It was well known the Scotts liked their libation, but Gord’s taste was not confined to border grog. The Scott had much of his stock imported from France, always in ready supply in case a Stuart or nobleman should wander through. Ran swirled the ruby liquid in the glass thoughtfully, reminded for a moment of Meredith Tanner’s hair. A color as bold, as unapologetic, as the Tudor chit herself. He wasn’t certain why or how she’d captured his attention, other than the fact of her identity as Wickham’s woman. He only knew some pattern was beginning to form in his thinking. Something he didn’t particularly like.
He tossed back the claret, letting the piquant flavor burst in the back of his throat and distract him from further musings about a red-haired wench with rain-colored eyes. Tomorrow they would press on, and Fiona assumed he would safely present Mistress Tanner to her frantic intended at Braidwood. Ran wasn’t so sure. The concept of revenge, however fleeting, made The Wolf of Badanloch salivate with anticipation.
Chapter Nine
MERRY RESUMED HER PLACE in the great hall just before Lady Scott and Lindsay returned from their private conference. She felt somewhat abashed over eavesdropping, though it was commonplace at Court—indeed, even expected—and a clever spy was worth their weight in gold. Yet this incident had left her with a sour taste in her mouth. She was not proud of her actions, while at the same time felt she had a slightly clearer glimpse of the man she had ridden with across the desolate Welsh marches.
The pain, the anger evident in Ranald’s voice when he’d spoken of his wedding gave Merry pause for thought. Mother MacDougall had obviously contributed in some fashion to an incident which Lord Lindsay could not, or would not, forget.
Forgiveness also was out of the question. Merry sensed the laird was a hard, proud man whose opinions, once formed, would never waver. She already suspected what Ranald thought of her. He cast her in the role of a shallow, flighty, vain female with little chance of redemption in his eyes. His cool civility indicated he tolerated her, but he would not stand for any defiance. This only pricked Merry’s pride all the more.
She was seated on a green velvet settle near the bard, her rose skirts spread about her in a shimmering circle, when Ranald reappeared. He leaned against the wall near the door, folding his arms and looking for all the world like his namesake, a brooding wolf with slitted eyes. Darkness shadowed the corner where he lingered, no product of the night but rather the aura of the man. The nape of Merry’s neck prickled with anticipation, aware of the precise moment his narrowed gaze slid over her. She quelled the urge to shiver and instead leaned toward the fire. Meanwhile Seosamh’s rich baritone drifted across the hall, mesmerizing all in its path.
“…
The blossoms that were blicht and bricht
By her were black and blue,
Scho gladit all the fowl of flicht
That in the forest flew.
Scho micht haif comfort king or knicht,