Heaven and the Heather (38 page)

“Let her go!” Niall ordered. He reached back at the large sprig of false heather and unsheathed his claymore. Blue glass beads rained down on everyone, capturing the candlelight, sparking as they bounced to the floor.

“I’ll cut her throat and save Her Majesty the trouble of hanging her,” Campbell threatened.

Sabine clawed at his arm tightly ratcheted about her neck, cutting off her breath. Niall lunged forward, claymore thrust in front of him. Campbell cowardly used Sabine to shield his own body.

“Cease this at once!” Mary demanded.

“I have to save Your Majesty from the savages that beg for mercy at your feet with their lies against me,” Campbell protested.

“Her Majesty should be saved from ye,” Niall said stepping forward. “Release Sabine, now!”

The guards stepped up to either side of Niall. Sabine tried to shout out a warning to him, but Campbell had stolen her voice with his strangle hold.

“Take the Highlander,” Mary commanded.

Campbell smiled in triumph.

Mary nodded again at her guards. “And take Lord Campbell, until we can decide what must be done with them.”

“No!” Campbell cried. “I, a Scottish noble, will not rot in the gaol with a Highland outlaw. What of the proclamation against the MacGregors declared by Your Majesty’s father? Have you no recollection of it?”

“We’ll have no more of this insolence!” Mary said rising from the throne. “Guards, obey my command!”

Both of them seized Niall.

“Wait!” a voice bolted from the crowd.

Sabine knew it well, so did Niall.

“Rory!” he shouted turning around. “Ye bloody fool!”

Dressed in an outlandish costume, obviously of his own making of different parts inexpertly pieced together, Rory bounded through the gaping crowd a knife held fast in his fist. Without effort, he tore the costume from his body revealing his Highland plaid. Gasps quickly ran through the crowd. Rory stopped before the queen and made an exaggerated bow, more of a genuflection, to her.

“Niall speaks the truth, Yer Majesty, ’tis Campbell who is a traitor.”

“Haud yer wheesht, ye daft bastard,” Niall hissed, fighting the guards who held him fast against their armor-clad bodies.

“What proof have you, Highlander, other than because of the outrage I see before me now?”

Rory dropped to one knee, relinquishing his knife at her feet. “I was the one who shot the arrow toward ye. ’Twas no’
mademoiselle
Sabine.”

The silence that followed Rory’s confession was thicker than the Scottish mist that had greeted Sabine on her first day in this land.

The thunder that quickly roiled in deafened Sabine.

“You bloody bastard!” Campbell roared. “Your skill with the arrow was without measure. I paid dearly for that skill and received nothing in return!”

Sabine beamed at Niall. He, too, knew what Campbell had just done.

His grin sliced through the mist and the distance between them. “
Touché
, Campbell,” he said.

Campbell paled and shrank back, loosening his hold on Sabine. She stole the advantage and ran to Niall.

“Release him,” she demanded to the guards. “Campbell has fashioned a noose from his own tongue, can you not see that?”

The guards remained bound to their duty.

She looked into Niall’s eyes seeing the victory playing within. “We’ve won,” she whispered.

“Aye,” he replied.

A sudden shadow cast over his blue eyes. “Niall?”

She grasped his doublet, wishing it were his plaid. “What is it?”

“Bastard,” he hissed.

Sabine turned around in time to see Campbell plunging across the floor toward them. He would surely cleave his sword through her to get to Niall.

“Die, MacGregor! And take this crippled bitch to hell with you!” Campbell screamed. Sweat ran down his pale face in rivulets.

“
Non!
” she cried turning to face him.

Campbell rushed at her, the queen’s guards in pursuit of him.

With a mighty shrug, Niall jerked from the guards and swept his sword up from the floor. He shoved Sabine roughly out of his way right into the queen. For one moment Sabine thought the once thinkable of him:
sauvage!
And then it was gone, forever. No savage could wear the doublet so magnificently and love his queen as much, and save her life for the price of his own.

“
Onaraich mi Gregarach agus Sabine!
” Niall cried, bringing his claymore above his head.

“Damn you, MacGregor!” Campbell shouted sword raised.

The two enemies struck their swords in a lightning clash. A hail of sparks soared through the air. Then laughter. Niall’s.

Campbell stood holding the pathetic stump of his weapon. The rest of his slender blade lay at Sabine’s feet. A humbling tribute from him as it was clearly no match for Niall and his claymore.

Niall stared at Campbell as he lowered his claymore. “I honor my clan and Sabine.” He looked at the guards. “Take this filth to the gaol.”

“That, Highlander, is for me to decide,” Mary said. She looked at Campbell’s letter as her guards surrounded him. She regarded the words. “We have many missives from Lord Campbell asking us for this and that….” She turned the paper over. Sabine took a step away from her queen.

“Our Sabine, where are you going? We are in need of your practiced eye.”

Sabine curtsied and returned to the queen’s side.

“You have a keen eye for detail,” her sovereign said.

“
Comment?
Your Majesty, I do not—”

“Ply me not with ‘do not’, our Sabine. I have knowledge of your art.” Mary regarded Niall. “And from what I can compare to the subject you have chosen here before me, your eye for detail is most accurate. Have you perchance given thought to creating our royal portrait?”

Sabine shook her head. “
Non
, Your Majesty…I…I would never presume to….”

“Not like this of course, although…” She handed the paper to Lord Darnley. His eyes widened and he gave Her Majesty a small smile. She looked at Sabine. “…I wonder if Lord Darnley would ask you for a similar commission for us.”

Sabine could not help but smile.
Marie Reine
certainly was a woman who knew her own mind, just like herself. “
Oui
, Your Majesty. Upon your royal command.” Sabine curtsied again.

“Was it upon our royal command that you brought such melee to our court?”

Niall stepped up beside Sabine. “’Twas my doing, Yer Majesty. I insisted we come and tell ye the truth of this vermin before ye.” He gave a swift nod at Campbell.

“So it seems,” she said.

Sabine looked at Lord Darnley and then at her queen. “What manner of celebration is this, Your Majesty, if I may be so bold.”

“Yes,” she said, “you may. Being that you were in the Highlands with this MacGregor you would not know that I have been recently engaged to Lord Darnley.”

“A dreadful mistake,” Campbell hissed.

“I will engage upon King Christian of Denmark for a favor. He is anxious that we meet his son. I will indulge that kindness in return for a small favor. Lord Campbell, you will be his special guest. You will be sent to the Danes.”

Campbell paled anew. The sweat that ran off of him could fill the North Sea. “No! I beg you!”

“That time is long past,” Mary said. She stared straight into Campbell’s eyes but spoke to her guards. “Send him to the Danes.”

Behind her back, Sabine heard Campbell’s screams and shouts as he was dragged away. Niall remained at her side despite the guards that surrounded him.

After the great hall had settled a bit, Her Majesty regarded Niall. “We regret that we must carry out our duty, MacGregor. You did disrupt this court with words and sword, and without invitation. You have kidnapped one of our court—”

“He did not kidnap me!” Sabine cried, kneeling before the queen.

Mary paused, then continued speaking to Niall. “By Royal law you shall be placed in the gaol until such time that these disagreeable events can be sorted out.”

“Then I will go with him!” Sabine shouted rising to her feet and taking her place next to Niall. The guards pushed her away and took their place on either side of him.

“Remember your place,” Her Majesty ordered her.

“My place is with Niall.” She barely recognized her voice.

Sabine grabbed his doublet, burying her face into the ruff about his neck. This was far from right. She wanted his plaid, to feel the scratchy wool against her cheek, to invigorate herself in his scent long trapped in that cloth.

“Sabine, this ye cannae do,” he said softly. “Abide yer queen. I will be well and good, for our sovereign will understand me.”

“How can that be?” Sabine asked, leaning her forehead into the side of his strong neck.

“Open her eyes, Sabine. Ye’ve begun yer task by telling her of what ye ken of the Highlands, of the wonder of good lives.”

She kissed him hard. The guards pulled Niall away from her. “I cannot bear to think of you in the gaol.”

“I can bear to think of you in the gaol.”

“I can bear the gaol.” Niall said tossing her a grin, “because I will think of ye, my love.”

Other guards surrounded her, keeping her from Niall as he was taken from her.

His last words rang to her across the great hall.

“
Open Her Majesty’s eyes….
”

Sabine turned to the queen and curtsied, head bowed low. She clenched her right hand. No pain, only strength. For Niall, for her heart, she would draw her sovereign a picture.

chapter 21

A Beautiful View

C
olors Sabine had discovered in her art released Niall from the gaol five fortnights past, color and the undeniable fact that he was innocent.

Mary had marveled at the paintings of the MacGregor’s Highlands. They had taken Sabine three sleepless nights to complete. Afterwards she had slept for days. No one disturbed her, although she wished they had. She had awakened with joy to discover Lord Campbell was on his journey to a Danish prison, but her happiness was short-lived when the page told her Niall had been released back to the Highlands.

She was delighted that he was free, thrilled beyond words that her paintings had helped garner his release, but she had dearly, secretly wanted to go with him.

Color had helped release Niall from the royal gaol, but it did not release him from her aching heart. It only made her longing worse. Mary did not release her from royal servitude, a proclamation Sabine had expected to follow her declaration for Niall’s release.

Now, thirty and seven days after Niall had gained his freedom and left her without so much as a good-bye, Sabine sat in one of the swaying carriages of the queen’s cortege. For each league of the journey she had tried to convince herself this was for the best. Niall was in his world and she was in hers. Saying good-bye would have made the inevitable so much worse.

Sabine sighed. More lies. They would have to suffice as bandages for her wounded heart.

She thumbed through the paintings on vellum she had made for Her Majesty. Scene after scene of the Highlands, of Niall’s home, of his clan, of the bold chief himself passed before her eyes in the most vivid hues. While she studied her work, she straightened the fingers of her right hand and kept them that way, without pain, without caring.

“Do not look so forlorn,” Lady Fleming said. “Her Majesty’s generosity extends far to allow you to return to the Highlands.”

Sabine slid the paintings back into the leather envelope, and closed it by twining a gut string around a bone button. “Her Majesty is bringing me along because I am and always will be a part of her court. ’Tis Her Royal Highness who wishes to see the Highlands. I am here to attend to her wardrobe, that is all.”

“Bitter girl,” the old Scot said. “Your aching heart blinds you from duty.” She paused. “Your hand has healed. ’Tis a miracle or ’tis it love?”

Sabine glared at Lady Fleming. “Presume not to know my mind, m’Lady.”

“Hmm, that is something I would not want to do. Perchance you should’ve gone to the convent instead of royal service.”

“’Twould be little difference from my current situation.”

She was as alone as she had ever been.

Sabine lifted a corner of the velvet curtain and peaked out at the landscape, at the green and granite mountains pushing at the sky. She had travelled this route before on the way to Castle Campbell Dubh. In the distance it sat on the crest of a small hill on the shore of a crystal lake, a “loch” Niall would say if he were here. His voice rang true in her mind in his odd inflection, with the occasional musical Gaelic words. Sabine closed the curtain and leaned back on the bench.

What Highland lord would the queen prevail upon this time? There was rumored to be a Lord Bothwell that had caught her eye, a Border rogue, as much a part of his vacant wilderness in the Scottish Lowlands, as Niall was of his Highlands. Mary was intended to Lord Darnley, but what did that matter? She was queen!