The Raven's Wish (5 page)

A perfect time to seize the girl and stop this feuding nonsense, he thought. He moved forward, shouldering between the lads.

Elspeth turned, and now stared full at Duncan. Her luminous gaze was fixed intently on his face. Tears sprang onto her lashes, and she reached out a hand to him.

"The raven," she whispered. "Are you the raven? Or one of the
daoine sìth
?"

The fairy people? Confounded, Duncan stretched out his hand to her, partly obeying his original intent to grab her, and partly in response to her offered hand.

One of the Frasers grasped his shoulder. Another one threw out an arm to stop Duncan's advance. "Do not touch her!" Callum hissed. "
Dà-Shealladh!
"

The Second Sight. Duncan frowned. He recalled some mention of seers and witchery earlier, during the shouting match. He thought it an insult. Apparently it was said in earnest.

"Touch a
taibhsear
at the moment of a vision, and you will see the same sight," Callum said urgently. "Stay back!"

Duncan still held a hand out, palm out. A powerful sensation, strange and irrestistible, filled him, as if he were a lodestone pulled toward the girl. A deep ache went through him. He wanted desperately to touch her. Could not help himself. He stretched his hand toward hers.

"Do not touch her!" someone warned. "Stop, man!"

The girl's eyes were wide and silvery. Then she stretched out her hand. As his fingers touched hers, he felt only that small, slim hand. Fragile and vulnerable, not fearsome, he thought.

But a strange golden mist gathered over his sight. He blinked, but could not clear it. Neither could he separate his gaze, or his hand, from hers.

"Your death…your death will be mine," she whispered, so softly that only he could hear her. He frowned, caught, gazing at her.

Then her eyes rounded up to disappear beneath fluttering lids. As her body went limp, knees buckling, Duncan caught her. He shifted her light weight in his arms. In that moment, the golden mist and his thoughts cleared.

Stunned, he looked around at Alasdair, who stared back in astonishment at him. Then Duncan glanced around as he heard the rapid thunder of hoofbeats.

The MacDonalds fled as if hell's own hounds pursued them.

Chapter 3

`Lay my bible at my head,' he says,

`My chaunter at my feet,

My bow and arrows by my side,

And soundly I will sleep.'

~"The Twa Brothers"

"No more of that foul stuff, Flora," Elspeth complained, refusing the wooden cup held out to her. She sat up gingerly on the featherbed. "My head is sore, and that posset will heave my belly quick." Her head ached, and even the dim glow of the peat fire in the hearth hurt her eyes.

"Tcha," Flora said calmly, placing a hand on Elspeth's shoulder. "Drink it down. It is what you are needing. And I will hold a basin for you, as I did when you were a babe." She handed the cup to Elspeth, who sipped and made a face.

"Tcha," Flora said again, while Elspeth finished the contents. "Such headaches are part of the burden of
Dà-Shealladh
. Bethoc MacGruer has the Sight, too, and is plagued with a sore head every day. Every day, poor woman!" Her voice was husky and deep, and as large as the woman herself. She turned away to set the cup down.

Elspeth knew Flora exaggerated: Bethoc had visions, and sometimes headaches, but not every day. She moved her legs slowly over the side of the bed.

"Slept for hours, you did, poor bird," Flora said. "And missed dinner."

Glancing at the small window in the bedchamber, Elspeth saw twilight blue streaking the sky beyond. "I missed the fish?" she asked hopefully.

"You did," Flora answered, and gave a loud grunt of effort as she bent to rummage in a wooden chest near the wall. One iron-gray braid slid over her broad shoulder to dangle off the shelf of her generous bosom. "Delicious, those trout, rolled in oats and butter, and fried. The lads ate like they were starving." Coming back to the bed, Flora looked down at Elspeth. "For you, a bit of
fuarag
would be better."

"Oats in milk?" Elspeth's stomach lurched. "Not yet, Flora."

"If you are feeling better, the MacShimi and Callum asked that you come down to them as soon as you can." Flora held out a folded tartan cloth and a clean shirt.

Elspeth nodded, and stood to change the rumpled linen shirt she wore for the fresh one. Flora carefully arranged the long length of the plaid on the bed.

"A pretty cloth, this," Flora remarked as she pleated the wool into neat folds. The tartan pattern was mostly white, crossed with dark blue, green, and purple. "Suitable for a young woman, it is, with the lighter colors."

"Bethoc wove this length of plaid, seven years ago, I think," Elspeth said, fingering the lightweight wool, soft and warm against her cool fingers. "I helped her to set the purple yarns, and made an error, here—see this break in the pattern."

"I see it. No matter, when it is folded. Though why you wear the wrapped plaid, I do not know. Any girl your age wears a gown. But then, you're a bit wild, with only lads for companions, and you have been allowed to do as you please, though I do not agree with it."

"I love running with the lads," Elspeth said. "I am content."

Flora sighed. "Your aunt had a soft heart, and after she was gone, your uncle Lachlann had no good idea what to do with one girl in the midst of all those boys. Well, early on we let you go your way. I know that soon enough you will be ready to act like a woman." She raised a brow, but humor sparkled in her dark eyes. "And then you will change your gown, eh?"

Elspeth settled the long linen shirt around her hips and sat lightly on the plaid, now pleated flat on the bed. Quickly gathering the cloth around her waist, she nipped shirt and plaid together with a leather belt. Standing to drape the remaining length of the plaid over her left shoulder, she tucked the end of it at her waist and pinned the cloth at her shoulder with a brooch, a wide bronze circle studded with cairngorm, a chunk of smoky quartz.

The pounding in her head was lessening. She wiggled her toes on the rushes covering the wooden floor planks, and reaching up, threaded her fingers through her hair to rebraid it.

Flora watched, her mouth pursed in thought. She heaved a great sigh. Flora used words sparingly, Elspeth thought, but her sighs were exquisitely expressive. This one indicated concern. "You swooned with this vision. That's not happened before," Flora said.

"Never, though I've felt faint with them."

"Well, it is not uncommon, or so Bethoc says." Flora shook a finger. "You go soon and talk to Bethoc."

"I will," Elspeth agreed. "I visit her every week." She worked at the braid. "Who was the man with Alasdair at the stream today?"

"Duncan Macrae, he is called, a brother to Alasdair's wife. But he is also the lawyer sent by the queen and her council." Flora laughed, short and breathy. "I thought all long-robes were old men with long beards. Not this one! A fine man. Even has a ring of gold in his earlobe."

"He is here?" Elspeth looked up.

"He's brought a letter from Mary the Queen, about the fighting with the MacDonalds. Callum and the MacShimi are meeting with him now. The queen should send that letter to those fool MacDonalds, and not to the Frasers." She folded her arms over her large bosom.

Elspeth sat on a stool near the hearth, her hair glowing bronze in the low light. As she combed it out, she thought about Macrae, who had worn the raven's color, and had been clothed like a Lowlander, without a plaid, in a black doublet and high boots. His hair was a deep, glossy brown, and his eyes were blue as a bright sky. He was handsome, she thought, with a calm, sure look to him. No unearthly messenger. Only a man, the queen's own lawyer.

The lawyer had not hesitated to touch a
taibhsear
in the midst of a vision, though by the time she had felt his hand the vision had passed. He could not have seen what she had seen.

She recalled his touch, his arms so firm and strong around her. Just as she had fainted, she had felt his hard chest beneath her head. A quick, fierce blush heated her throat and neck.

And she felt sure that he was the man who had appeared in that vision on the hill, like an odd glimpse of what was about to occur. And she was still shaken by the experience.

She tugged a comb through her hair. No vision had ever had such an impact on her. She had swooned, slept, waking with a crushing headache. And now she felt a strange yearning, as if she struggled with a deep hurt. And she felt fearful, too, like a chill mist over her.

Soon she would visit Bethoc, and her friend would have some wise insight for her. For now, all she knew was that she must warn the queen's man to leave the Highlands.

"Duncan Macrae," she repeated. The Macraes were a small clan, loyal friends to the Frasers for generations. Some earlier MacShimi had placed a carved inscription over his castle doorway: should a Macrae ever stand without, he would find lodging and welcome within.

Not so easy, then, for a Fraser to ask a Macrae to leave. Between the generous nature of Highland hospitality, and the friendship between Macraes and Frasers, the lawyer could stay at Glenran indefinitely. But she knew he must leave soon.

"What did you see at the stream?" Flora asked.

Elspeth looked up. Flora's height and large build were deceptive: although she gave the impression of power, and had a fierce temper, Flora could be a soothing companion.

"Clearly it upset you. Tell me what you saw."

Elspeth closed her eyes. The memory of the two visions remained clear—first the pair of ravens overhead, then the man on the hill. And later, she had seen the ravens again, just as the lawyer had moved toward her in the stream.

And then she had seen him, the lawyer: unshaven, exhausted, his shirt pulled away from his neck, a cloth over his eyes. She gasped to see it again. "Ravens," she told Flora. "I saw ravens. The lawyer's life is in danger unless he leaves the Highlands."

"Why do you say so?" Flora sat beside her.

"I saw him with a cloth bound about his eyes. I saw a wooden block."

"By the cross," Flora murmured. "You saw a heading block?"

Elspeth nodded. There was more, but she would not say it aloud. She bowed her head, and her hair swung down, a copper-tinted cloud. Tears stung her eyes. She had also seen herself standing with this Duncan Macrae, just as if she had looked into a mirror.

And she had known with a stunning certainty that her fate was tied to his. And she feared greatly that if she might bring Duncan Macrae to the heading block—how, when, why, she could not say. But she was that determined to warn the lawyer to return to the Lowlands. He might die on the block if he stayed here with the Frasers, with her.

Your death will be mine
, she had whispered to him. She did not understand her own words. Standing in the stream with his hand in hers, she had felt fear, passion, and deep regret. She let the tears fall, silent and soft, into her hands.

"You cannot change what you have seen. If the man is to die on the block, that is between him and his queen and his God," Flora said. "It is not your doing."

"I am cursed," she whispered. "Why do I see these things? I have no wish to see anyone's death. I did not want to see my aunt's death, or my uncle's, either. I did not want to know that Magnus's wife would soon die." She pressed her eyes shut against more tears.

Flora touched her hand. "The Sight is a gift from God. You see joyful things as well. You have seen marriages to come, and births. You have told others of happy things in their lives."

Elspeth wiped at her cheeks. "But why deaths? A warning would not have saved any of them, so far, that I have foreseen."

"Heaven arranges fate. Seers only glimpse it." Flora stroked Elspeth's hair gently. "I have no wisdom for you, my little bird," she said. "Only God knows why you were given the Sight."

"What is this lawyer Macrae to us? Only a visitor to the MacShimi. Yet I saw his death. I will warn him without telling him about the death. It is all I can do for him."

"Hush you," Flora said. "I would help you if I could. Hush, now."

* * *

"A bond of caution! May as well be iron fetters," the MacShimi said. He leaned back in his chair. Torchlight flickered over his stubborn frown. "We will not sign this promise."

The MacShimi, Duncan thought ruefully, seemed the youngest of all the Fraser cousins. Barely eighteen, a handsome, lanky lad with dark hair and hazel eyes, his chin was sparsely whiskered. Hugh Fraser, laird of Lovat Castle and chief of all the Frasers, had been born the last of the legendary crop of
Blar-na-Léine
babes.

Duncan silently cursed the assignment he had been given. The Privy Council had not mentioned—perhaps they did not know—that the Fraser chief and most of his bodyguard were young and disposed to argue. Originally he had planned to present the letter, collect the signatures, and depart. But he had a feeling that he might be at Glenran for a long time waiting for a few signatures.