Chapter 1
Eilidh felt as calm as she’d ever been as she directed the guards through assembling a quick, makeshift travois, carrying the stranger into the Keep, and seeing him installed in a guest chamber.
“Careful!” she snapped when they stumbled. “Dinnae jostle him, ye will make his injuries worse!” She was filled with purpose and she knew precisely what she had to do.
It was everyone else that didn’t seem confident.
“I dinnae ken if this is a good idea,” James said for what had to have been the fourth or fifth time. She ignored him, just like she had when he’d tried to order her away from the man’s side.
“Your objection is noted,” she told him as she waved the guards to carefully lower the man onto a bed, then gently guide him off the stretcher they’d used to bring him in. “You are free to return to your training if this makes you feel uncomfortable.”
James gave Eilidh a look that was very reminiscent of the way that Vaila often looked at her. It was wry and exasperated but still affectionate beneath that. Deep down, perhaps, but still there.
“Eilidh,” he groaned. “Ye cannae really believe that I’m going to leave ye alone with a total stranger when our people are in the midst of a war.”
Eilidh looked pointedly at the unconscious man, who was unlikely to do any harm more grievous than bleeding on her.
“He does seem quite the threat,” she said sardonically.
James’ eyes flicked heavenward, as if he needed to pray for patience before he replied.
“He could wake up,” he said with exaggerated calm.
Eilidh glanced back at the stranger. Beneath the blood smearing his face, he had golden hair that was just too light to be brown, though a few dark threads were intertwined with the blond, especially in the beard that covered his chin.
It looked as though it had been neatly trimmed a few days prior, but like he had been without his usual tools for a little while.
His clothes bore the same signs; they were well-made but bore signs of recent wear.
“I dinnae think that he could put up much of a fight even if he does wake,” Eilidh argued. “He looks half dead.”
James tilted his head, like he couldn’t deny the logic of this. “More like three-quarters,” he opined.
Eilidh knew when to press an advantage. “See?” she said sweetly. “You arenae needed. I can handle this alone.”
“I dinnae think so.” Ewan Buchanan strode through the door, a forbidding frown on his face.
Eilidh shot James a betrayed look.
“Ye told Ewan?” she complained.
But it was the Laird himself who replied. “Ye mean did the Captain of my Guard tell me, the Laird of this Keep, that a mysterious stranger arrived, half-dead, on an unknown horse, while we are in the midst of a war?” He arched a skeptical brow at Eilidh. “Aye. He did.”
Well, when he said it like that, it made her seem foolish.
“I just meant,” Eilidh retorted with a huff, “that ye should be pacing outside Ailsa’s door or something of the like. Isnae that what new fathers are meant to do?”
Ewan scowled at her. Right. Perhaps she ought not mention his wife’s current ordeal. Men did get so touchy about such things.
“That isnae the point,” he said tersely. “What matters is that there is a man, who could very well be here as a spy, in my keep.”
“I’m nae saying this means we should trust him,” James added, clearly speaking to his Laird and friend and not to Eilidh.
She resisted the urge to stick out her tongue at them, but only because she was trying to present herself as the kind of mature, reasonable person who could be trusted with this newcomer.
But they deserved to have a tongue stuck out at them. Men were so annoying.
“But,” James continued, “I dinnae think he could be faking these injuries. They’re extensive.”
“I dinnae like it, though,” Ewan replied, still ignoring Eilidh. “A man doesnae just appear out of nowhere.”
“Aye,” James agreed, “and he has a fine mount, too. Your typical brigand wouldnae have such a fine stallion beneath him.”
Eilidh cleared her throat pointedly. The men paused, looking irritated at the interruption, but she just smiled. It was so satisfying to prove naysayers wrong.
“It’s a Donaghey horse,” she said sweetly.
They stared at her for a moment. It was precisely as gratifying as she had anticipated.
“I beg your pardon?” Ewan said.
“The horse,” she repeated carefully. “It’s from the Donaghey stables. I dinnae ken this exact horse’s name, but the sire is Bramble and the dam is Kenna. They’re a good, strong line. He’s a good, strong horse. A Donaghey horse,” she concluded triumphantly.
“That’s… suspicious,” Ewan said after a full breath’s hesitation.
Eilidh frowned, seized by a sudden defensiveness on behalf of this poor, unconscious man who couldn't even speak in his own defense.
“No,” she retorted. “No, it isnae. It’s a Donaghey horse. We’re Donagheys. Where else would he get it, if not from Graham?”
“Well, ye will recall that Gordon recently occupied Castle Dubh-Gheal.” James said it kindly enough that it was clear that he hadn’t intended to make her feel stupid—something that of course had the effect of making Eilidh feel twice as stupid as if he’d been rude about it.
She hated when they treated her like she was the foolish little sister. But she hated it even more when they were right to do so.
Much of her confidence slipped away, though she found that her determination was renewed when she dared a glance over at the unconscious stranger.
He wasn’t an enemy. Somehow she just knew it.
She lifted her chin in Ewan’s direction. Even if this man was an enemy—which he was not—he needed to be healed.
“Well, we will never ken which one of us is right if he doesnae wake,” she said firmly. “So he will need a healer. And someone to tend to him.”
Ewan had a stubborn sort of look on his face, like he was going to deny her—in Eilidh’s opinion very reasonable—request. But just at that moment, a cry rent the air; Ailsa, suffering one of the pangs of childbirth.
The yelp sounded more based in exertion than anything truly amiss, but Ewan went as pale as Eilidh had ever seen and his head jerked around.
He glared in the direction of the sound as though he could help soothe his wife’s pain from sheer force of will.
“Fine,” he snapped impatiently, startling both James and Eilidh. “Ye stay with him, but James will leave guards outside the door. If he does anything untoward, anything at all, ye are to shout for them immediately.”
James gave one sharp nod in acknowledgment, while Eilidh’s nod was more exuberant, trying to show Ewan how agreeable, responsible and trustworthy she was.
“Aye, of course,” she agreed.
Ewan looked exhausted already. Eilidh was not going to be the one to tell him that a first birth could sometimes take days.
“And,” he added, “ye must find out his name, at the very least. We need to know what side he is on. And if it turns out he is an enemy—”
“I will shout for the guards,” she promised dutifully.
Ewan didn’t seem entirely comfortable with what was happening, but maybe that was good practice for him. Babies so rarely followed orders, after all. Truly, Eilidh was doing him a service by giving him a chance to try out his skills on someone other than his own infant child.
He let out a long, slow groan, but then there was another yelp from down the corridor, and, this time, Ewan’s entire body turned toward the door.
“Leave your best guards,” he called to James as he headed out the door.
“Of course,” James called after his friend. He shook his head in amazement at Eilidh after the door had quietly clicked shut behind the laird. “I dinnae ken how ye get your way like that, lass,” he mused. “Ye must be touched by the faeries.”
Eilidh shrugged innocently at him, and he shook his head some more, chuckling quietly. “Dinnae forget to call for the guards if ye need them,” he reminded her.
She gave him a solemn nod, hoping to convey how seriously she took this responsibility.
He clapped her on the shoulder, as much encouragement as it was warning, then headed out of the room.
Eilidh heard him give stern instructions to the guards to not leave the door unattended for any reason, including if the skies themselves started to fall.
Eventually, though, the sound faded, and Eilidh was alone with the man.
She had fought for this opportunity, but now that she had it, she felt vaguely at odds. She sucked in a slow breath, then let it out again.
There was an ewer of water on the table by the bed, as well as a stack of cloths that had been brought in by a nervous-looking healer. Eilidh took a cloth from the stack and dipped it into the water, which was still warm, and then began to dab the blood gently from the injured man’s face.
She could do this. She could help him. She could heal him.
No sooner had she had the thought than she felt one of her fancies coming over her.
Her sisters hated when she did this, thought it made her naive—and maybe sometimes it did.
But Eilidh had found that imagining herself as something bigger, something more than just the last, least helpful sister in the pack helped her get through things.
The tough times like this past year, yes, but also the boring times when all her sisters had been too busy to spend time with a little tagalong.
In the weeks after Graham had disappeared, presumed dead, and everyone had been lost in their fog of grief.
In the moments when Eilidh wished she was more but didn’t know how to make herself so.
Thus, she pretended. She imagined. She wove stories.
It was easy enough to let a new web spin around her.
She would heal this man, this stranger, and then it would turn out that he’d been sent by Graham after all.
But he wasn’t any mere man… no, he was a messenger!
Carrying information that would end this miserable war, something so important and precious that it would change everything.