Chapter Forty-Five
Katrin leaned far out over the ramparts so she could see what was happening in the bailey below. Winter had nearly gone, and the land lay raked by the storms they had endured. Near-endless storms there had been, as if they had not enough to bear without.
The ground below was a sea of muck, that being one of the woes that beset them.
Another was a winter ague that had spread through the guards and many of their families.
Katrin had fought it off early, surprised she had the strength.
These days she seemed to have strength for naught more than facing one day after the other, doggedly.
The ancient songs had fled her life, and with them all joy. All meaning.
Aye, well, that was not strictly true. There was meaning still in shepherding her clan, in leading them through the hard winter and keeping their heads up in what seemed to be the new Scotland.
News had filtered to them only rarely during the cold, dark months.
None of it had been good. The king remained in English hands, and the barons had been knocked back on their heels.
God alone knew what would become of Scotland.
But that did not concern her now. The welfare of her own people and protecting her holding did. Da would want her to stand tall, to lead their folk, and so she would.
A curious thing, though—for most her life she’d half envied Geordie, wondering why she had not been born male so she might follow Da and better serve the clan, march to war, and defend. And now she was doing just that. Fate had presented her with her heart’s desire, and the pity was—
The pity was, her heart was dead within her.
Everyone around her knew it, or at least suspected.
When first she’d come back from England, they had tiptoed around her, giving her time to heal.
The weight of the battle—for Rabbie and Davey had spoken of it, as had the others who succeeded in making their way home—added to Da’s passing made it understandable that she should be changed.
But as time passed, they grew disappointed and perhaps a little impatient with her continued malaise. Da’s advisors, who so tangibly longed to help her, lost their enthusiasm, if not their kindness. Rabbie and Davey, with whom she remained close. Even her maid.
None could help her, though. Her heart had become a barren place. A desert.
“D’ye want to fall to yer death?” a voice beside her demanded, and a strong hand caught the back of her cloak.
Davey. A lad no longer, he had grown into a man during their tortuous journey home and now regarded her with level blue eyes.
“Lean out any farther, mistress, and ye will land on yer head below.”
“Aye, so.” She could not but agree. Mayhap a part of her would not mind falling to her death, if it would halt the pain. The longing. But nay, for Finlay had paid too high a price to buy her life, had he not? “I would no’ die, Davey, cushioned by all that mud.”
“Aye, so. What are ye thinkin’?”
“That ’twill be a hard year ahead.”
“Could scarce be worse than the winter.” Davey himself had been down with the ague for a fortnight. She’d thought she might lose him.
Sometimes it seemed there was naught but loss. First Ma. Then Geordie. Reagan. Finlay. Da.
“We will get through somehow.” Davey tried to sound braw. “Though we are gey short-handed.”
They had lost so many in the south, only a portion of those that had gone off managing to make their way home again, and some of them maimed.
“’Twill get easier,” he went on, clearly searching for something that could lift her spirits, “as the weather improves.”
Would it?
“So many widows,” she mused, “and bairns wi’out fathers. I canna forsake them. We maun provide.”
“Aye,” he said softly. “They do trust ye, mistress, to mak’ the best decisions for them.”
“Do they? I am no’ so sure about my father’s advisors.” Aye, they had left her alone for a time after she’d arrived home. Let her grieve. But then they’d begun to badger her, if as gently and persistently as possible.
To Davey, with her eyes on the sea that crashed against the shore below, she said, “They want for me to marry. Someone suitable.”
He gave a hard laugh. “Aye, well, that will be a fine trick, wi’ so many perished.”
There was that. A definite dearth of men beset them.
“They say ’twill strengthen the clan to ha’ a man at the helm.”
“I canna imagine a stronger leader than yoursel’, Katrin. ’Twas ye got yer father home.”
“’Twas all o’ us. But Davey”—it was a cry from the heart—“wha’ good did it do in the end?”
“It allowed the chief to die at home where he wanted to be, and be buried here as well.”
“Aye, ye are right. Ye’re right. ’Twas important.” Far be it from her to take anything from the valiant effort he and Rabbie had put into that cause.
“’Twill get better,” he repeated kindly. “So I promise.”
She reached for his hand—deeply scarred in the palms—that lay beside hers on the parapet, and clasped it. With false lightness, she asked, “Will ye marry me, Davey?”
“Me? Nay, I am no’ man enough for that!” Besides”—he hesitated—“I ha’ been speaking wi’ Red Alice. Her Neil did no’ come home, and she wi’ the two wee bairns to look after.” His voice had turned serious. “She needs someone, and I care for her, for them. But I donna ken—”
“What?”
“Whether she will ever be able to care for me, after losing Neil.”
Aye, there was the crux of it. So many hearts broken, so many lives shattered.
“She will be that fortunate to ha’ ye, Davey.”
“Ye think so?”
“I know it.”
“’Tis a funny thing. We were so sure we did the right thing when we marched off and awa’ to that battle. Obeying our chief, who answered to his own laird. But it has all gone wrong and our very lives are changed.”
“Scotland hersel’ is changed,” Katrin agreed softly. Hanging in the wind and twisting slowly. Who knew what would become of them?
“Still and all,” said Davey, who despite all the hardships seemed determined to search out the hopeful, “we ha’ survived and ha’ a chance to mak’ somewhat of our lives.”
“Aye.” They had survived, as so many had not. How could she complain then? Even if, for her, all the songs had faded into silence.
*
“Mistress,” said old Dougal, who had once been Da’s closest advisor, “a letter has come. Brought by a messenger just this morning.”
The aged man gave Katrin a close look with careful eyes.
He likely did not want to upset her and found that these days much did upset her.
Try as she would to receive him, others of the council, and the clan’s folk who came to her with patience and kindness, she felt brittle enough at any point to break.
She had watched Da’s advisors whispering about her after they tried to reason out the steps they thought she must take, to lead their clan. Did they think she could not see?
“Wha’ letter?” she asked him. “From whom?”
“It comes fro’ Oran MacGill, our neighbor, ye ken, to the south.”
“I ken fine who he is.” Katrin’s skin crawled. She did not like MacGill, had never quite trusted him, even though he and Da had dealt fairly together.
Dougal drew a breath. Katrin could almost feel him bidding himself to remain patient.
“He sent a runner, a young man who has fair winded himself. He came all the way in due haste.”
Katrin turned and looked at the old man, dismay stirring in her heart. “Is there trouble? Did the young man say?” By God, what else might befall them? What fresh and terrible horror?
They were in the small chamber behind the hall, where her da had always conducted his business. She turned to Dougal and held out her hand.
“Is that the letter ye ha’ there? Gi’ it to me. I ha’ best read it.”
Dougal swallowed. “Mistress, I ha’ read it.”
“Eh?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Was it addressed to ye, then?”
“Nay, mistress.”
A rare anger stirred in Katrin’s heart, mingling sickeningly with the dread in her stomach. She felt so little these days, was careful to let herself feel little. But like a vixen besieged by hounds, she experienced the desire to turn and fight.
“Then why ha’ ye read it?”
“Mistress Katrin, ye maun understand. I, and your father’s other advisors, are doing our best to deal wi’ the situation. To protect both yer welfare and that o’ the clan.”
“Am I no’ the chief?”
“Nay, mistress.”
What had he said? Katrin blinked at him, trying to make sense of it. When she did, the rage flared and clawed its way up her throat. Following all the hollow emptiness, it almost felt good.
“Am I no’ my father’s heir?”
“Well…” Dougal struggled visibly with the answer to that question. “Since there is nay male heir, aye and nay. If ye wed—”
The hand Katrin still held out in demand of the letter began to tremble. “Gi’ that to me.”
He did, extending it silently. Since the room was dim, she took it to the low-burning fire and unfolded it there.
She could read, if not particularly well. The script upon the page was ornate and difficult to decipher, but it was, aye, addressed to her.
How dare her father’s advisors, however well trusted, withhold it from her? Keep from bringing it to her until they’d had a chance to discuss its contents, no doubt. She wondered—without much sympathy—how Dougal had drawn the dubious duty of facing her.
Slowly she puzzled the letter out. Heat rose to her head, making it feel like it would explode.
Her neighbor but one—for MacEwan held the stretch of coast between them—was Oran MacGill. They’d long had what might best be called cordial relations with him.
Now he wrote offering to solve Katrin’s current dilemma by doing her the great honor of making her his wife.
I apprehend, mistress, that as a woman standing alone at the head of a great yet much-damaged clan, ye find yourself in a perilous position.
Prey to any unscrupulous lord or baron who might happen along.
Since your father has left nay heir, I am prepared to offer ye my protection in the form of marriage to be performed as soon as can be arranged.
I am sure that ye will see the wisdom of this and I accept your gratitude in advance.
Katrin read it once. Twice. The parchment trembled in her hands. She raised a stricken face to her father’s advisor.
“He offers, here, to marry me.” Of course, Dougal already knew that.
“Aye.”
“He does me the great favor of offering.”
“He does, mistress—”
“He is twice my age.”
“That scarcely matters.”
It might not to Dougal. Nor might it to Katrin’s shattered heart.
“It is, mistress, a solution to the predicament in which we find ourselves.”
“Predicament?”
“There is currently nay heir to Murtray—”
If he said so one more time, she would beat his head in.
She thought furiously. “Oran MacGill is already married, is he no’?”
“He states in the letter, if ye read on, that his wife has most fortuitously died—”
“Fortuitously?”
“That is the word he used. He is thus a widower.”
“He wants the lands. Naught but the lands.”
“He will be able to defend them.”
Slowly, in defiance of her rage, Katrin turned to face Dougal more fully. “Ye are never telling me to accept this—this vile offer?”
“We ha’ discussed it and—”
“Ye ha’?”
“I and your father’s other advisors.”
“Get out o’ my sight.”
“Mistress!”
“Get out before I say or do somewhat I will regret.”
The old man moved stiffly toward the door, turning back at the last moment. “I hope ye will consider, mistress, wha’ yer father knew full well. Ye maun exist, now, solely for the benefit o’ this clan.”
“Do no’ tell me my duties. I understand them.”
He went out. With fastidious haste, Katrin fed the parchment to the flames of the sleepy fire.