book JdM6x1406931-20978754 (13 page)

Her father spluttered, “No… no… not—I am so… Come, let me…”

He held out his arms, awkwardly, but Elisabeth paid them no notice.

“Father, I should like to introduce to you my husband, Angus MacGregor of Glanaidh.”

“What?” he exclaimed, as Angus came forward to stand beside Elisabeth. “You jest, daughter, and poorly, too.”

“It is a shock, I am sure,” she said, “but I tell you it is true. I am wed to this man, as fine a freeholder as ever walked the Great Glen. When you fled down the loch, I found aid from him and from his kin, and I resolved to stay by Loch Ness until Urquhart should rise again.”

“Have you lost your wits, girl?” He looked at Angus scornfully. “You are destined for Edinburgh, or even for London. I suppose I owe this man my gratitude—”

“I do not need your gratitude,” Angus said.

“Silence, man,” said Gordon. “Your better is speaking.”

“I’ll not take that from you, Gordon,” Angus replied. “He may be a laird, but no man is my better.”

Elisabeth saw Gordon make a signal to the men-at-arms, and they quietly approached. The other Highlanders had dispersed; perhaps a scream from Elisabeth could have brought them back, but she still hoped to make her father see reason somehow.

“You must take that from my steward, man,” said William Grant, “for he speaks the truth, as much as your bestial Highland notions deny it. I am your better, and so is the woman you seem to call your wife, though it will not be long before you cannot call her that any longer, one way or another.” He turned to her with a cold look on his face. “Your brother William has died in France, three months since. You are the heiress of Urquhart, but if you think your Highlander will be Lord here, I advise you to reconsider.”

“Father, you are entirely mistaken if you think you can undo what has been done this year since, before God and man.”

“We shall see,” her father replied, and he nodded to Gordon.

Gordon said to the men-at-arms, “Take the girl to her old chamber in the tower and put this man in irons in the dungeon.” He turned to Elisabeth’s father. “It may require a lengthy stay,” he said, “but patience is best in these circumstances. Bring a cousin or two up the loch, and she will soon forget about these barbarous clothes and the smell of peat.”

“Never,” said Elisabeth quietly. “Angus…”

The men-at-arms were already pulling at his plaid to lead him away. He bent down toward her. “Do not fear, my dearling,” he said, softly. “Do not forget, you are my Highland eagle. When the eagle shows its talons, the field mice scatter.”

Then he was gone, and another man-at-arms was leading her away too.

“A pity she’s spoiled, now,” she heard her father say to Gordon as she flushed with shame, “but still very salable, do you not agree?”

* * *

He had told her what to do, had he not? Or had she simply known already? He would be angry, though, if she did what she had it in mind to do, wouldn’t he—if he hadn’t in fact told her to do it himself, when he said that about the eagle’s talons?

Surely they would not simply execute him? Her father was too cowardly, she was sure, for to lose the alliance of Clan Gregor would wound his strength deeply, would it not?

She paced the chamber, her mind racing. The room was bare now of all the wonderful things she remembered in it from her little girlhood and from the year since she had returned from Edinburgh, things she had found upon the shores of the loch: feathers and stones and odd pieces of driftwood.

The only one whose loss had made her cry when they had first brought her here and locked the door behind her was the little portrait of her mother that she had since she had died when Elisabeth was ten years old. Elisabeth wondered whether she would have loved her mother as much now if she had lived as she remembered loving her when Elisabeth was small. She remembered Elisabeth Stewart in her beautiful blue gown at her name-day feast—the same as Elisabeth’s own name-day, of course. She remembered the sadness on her face, for her health was failing then, and the way she herself had seemed to be able to brighten her mother’s eyes with her kisses.

She remembered her mother saying to her, “You are my Highland lass, Elisabeth. Your home will always be here by this loch that you and I love so much.”

“But, Mamma,” she had replied, “are you not from the Lowlands?”

“Aye, my love,” she had said, with tears in her eyes, “but I did not start to live until I came here to Castle Urquhart.”

When Elisabeth had gone to Edinburgh, to her mother’s kin, she had seen how sad her mother’s life must have been. A minor branch of the royal house, the lives of the family’s women were empty of anything that might truly occupy their minds. Despite her father’s being the terrible—though, thank heaven, at least not violent—husband he must have been to her, she was happy at Urquhart with the concerns of the castle to see to and the Highlanders to help when as often happened a boy or girl was brought to the castle in need of medicine.

Elisabeth looked out of the narrow window in the tall tower at the loch far below. How long should she wait?

* * *

When her father came at her summons, it was almost too easy to dart forward with her dirk in her right hand, grab him around his fat shoulders with her left, and spin him about with his arm twisted behind him and the point of her dirk pricking his back just where it could slide into his ribcage. Angus had even had her practice the force necessary on sheep that had been slaughtered for mutton. And she would do it, if she had too. She was an eagle, and he was a craven mouse.

“We are going to go to the dungeon and release my husband. You are going to accompany us to the castle gate, and over the moat, and out of bowshot, and then we shall trouble you no more.”

“Elisabeth, what demon has taken hold of you? Have you lost your wits?”

“No, father; I think rather that you lost yours when you decided to imprison your son-in-law. Let us go.”

He was a mouse, indeed. He even told the men-at-arms that they must not approach and had them clear out of the dungeon completely except for the gaoler.

“Lass,” said Angus, when he had emerged into the courtyard where she was waiting with the men-at-arms, now in the company of Gordon at a distance of ten paces or so from them, “you are in very deep trouble.”

“You told me about the eagle, Angus,” she said.

“I meant that you should not give up hope, not that you should stick your dirk in your father’s back.”

“How very touching,” said William Grant.

“Silence, you craven,” said Elisabeth. She heard Gordon gasp. “If my husband is touched, I will not hesitate.”

She pushed her father forward while Angus went in front of them. They walked through the open gate and then through the market-square, where the pillory still stood where Angus had been placed that long year ago through her own fault.

“Are we out of bowshot?” she asked Angus.

“Hold a moment,” he said. The market square was full of curious MacGregors and Gordons, now formed in a circle around the odd spectacle of the laird with his daughter’s dirk to his back. Angus saw Big Alan. “Alan, can you find us a horse? The laird here will buy it off whoever has it.”

“Will you not, father?” asked Elisabeth.

“Yes,” said her father, weakly but with terrible hatred. “Yes, I will… buy this man a horse.”

It was a matter of five minutes to find a horse from a wool-trader.

Angus mounted.

“Goodbye, father,” Elisabeth said, unable to keep her voice from becoming choked with tears.

She withdrew the dirk and sheathed it under her arisaid. A moment later, Angus had swung her up before him in the saddle, and they were away, down the very same street where there still stood the barn in which he had first spanked her.

* * *

“You had better count yourself lucky, lass,” Angus said angrily as they rode, “that we won’t have time enough at Glanaidh for me to strap you as you deserve. But I shall bring the strap away, lest your father’s men-at-arms get it with all the sheep they’ll take from poor Calum and Alan, and you shall have a punishment ere long that I dare say won’t make your little cunny so wet. It’s not just ourselves you put in danger today.”

“What was I to do, Angus?”

“Keep your mouth closed, Elisabeth, for a start! And then, when you were taken, not risk our lives that way.”

“But you told me to!”

“I did not, you foolish girl. I am grateful that we are free, but you must never forget your promise to me to flee if you can. Even getting me out of the dungeon was too great a risk. You should have taken your father out of the castle-gate and left me alone.”

“Come now, Angus. They would have slain you.”

“Perhaps they would, but you would be safe with my kin.”

Elisabeth started to cry as the wind whipped her face and pushed back her arisaid from her shoulders. “I am sorry, Angus.”

“Hush, now, Elisabeth. We will settle this with the strap.”

* * *

They were at Glanaidh only long enough to gather some food and two extra plaids and Angus’ claymore and bow. Angus told Calum and Alan what had happened and sent them to drive as many of the sheep to Achmonie as they could.

“My father would not ruin Glanaidh, would he?” Elisabeth asked, in despair.

“I fear he will, my dearling.”

“And it is my fault!”

“No, dearling, it is not, really. He would have discovered it eventually, and Glanaidh would probably have been ruined at all events. It is one of the things I saw when I took you to wife. We will go to Glenstrae, in Argyll-shire…”

“Argyll?”

“A MacGregor can find a welcome in Glenstrae.”

“To stay?”

“For a time, lass. I am certain the MacDonalds will fall on Urquhart again, and then perhaps we can return.”

“Oh, Angus, I am so sorry.”

“I am not sorry, my dearling eagle. You have a sound strapping coming, for it was proud and foolish, but I am also proud of you. And Glenstrae is a lovely place.”

* * *

In a tiny clearing in a little stand of pine upon a high moor, Elisabeth got her strapping for the risks to which her pride had led her.

They had been walking for an hour, up into the hills north of Glen Urquhart, when they came to the clearing. Elisabeth saw Angus look around, and something about the set of his jaw told her exactly what he was looking for. She saw it at the same moment he did: a fallen tree trunk just on the edge of the clearing. Angus stopped walking and put down his pack.

“Get over that tree trunk, Elisabeth,” he said, “and bare your backside.” He bent to retrieve the strap from his pack, and Elisabeth watched him withdraw the ancient, menacing thing and felt her stomach flutter in fear.

Elisabeth had been telling herself on their journey so far that she could certainly endure her chastisement. Had she not felt the strap over and over this past year? But even as she had reassured herself, she had known that this punishment would not be like any she had before. The thought made her heart pound and her legs tremble under her as she walked.

“Angus…” she pleaded.

“Do as I say, wife,” he replied. She looked into his eyes and saw the determination she loved, but that frightened her even more because she knew he had resolved not to let her get off easily for endangering herself and him and Glanaidh.

She gave him one final look, begging for his mercy, but he merely lifted his chin towards the tree trunk, and already crying a little with the fear, she turned away and did as he said. It was nearly full-dark, but at that moment, baring her backside to a clearing on a moor felt like the most shameful thing she had ever had to do.

Angus did not hesitate, but as he had promised, he delivered the strap so forcefully that she felt none of the warmth between her thighs that she almost always knew now when he punished her. It went on and on, and she was screaming and squirming desperately atop the tree trunk from the very beginning. She seemed to feel in each blow how much he cared for her and wished to protect her, but the pain was terrible; Angus was so practiced now in covering her bottom and thighs evenly and repeatedly that she began to worry that her poor rump would never be the same as she shrieked and cried out in agony.

“Elisabeth MacGregor,” he said sternly, “I will not allow you to endanger yourself again. If you
ever
put yourself within range of a pike again without it being a necessity for your
own
safety…”

He struck her again and again, and she sobbed with each one as he seemed to think of what he could possibly say that might suit the occasion.

“…so help me heaven, if I still draw breath when it happens, you will not sit comfortably for a month.”

His voice seemed strange to her ears then, and he unexpectedly stopped thrashing her. Then he was pulling her up, and they were sitting on the trunk together, and he was holding her tighter than he had ever held her. For a long while he simply let her sob into his plaid while he stroked her hair.

“Oh, my eagle,” he finally said. “I do not know what I would do if aught should happen to you.”

“Hush, Angus,” Elisabeth whispered and kissed him. “Thank you for my strapping.”

He looked into her eyes, and she felt herself crying now not in pain but in joy for how much she loved him.

They slept there, rolled in her plaid, but towards morning they were both awake, and by the earliest light of dawn, they looked into one another’s eyes. Angus arched an eyebrow at the look she knew he could see upon her face even in the dimness of daybreak.

“Thank you, again, for chastising me, my love,” she began, softly. She hesitated. “I confess that while you were giving it, I was contrite, and my… private place was indeed not warm… But… now…”

He kissed her hard. “Wicked,” he said. “So wicked.”

She put her hand down to find, through his shirt, that her words were having a very noticeable effect.