Chapter 4
Fifteen years earlier
Lyall was barely ten that day when he sought escape from the dark moods of home and fell asleep in the deep woods, cradled against the thick, sinewy trunk and sprawling roots of an ancient river tree.
Between those roots was his favorite fishing perch and next to an outcrop of flat rocks where a narrow, clear and swift running section of the River Tay cut through the dense forest to the south of Dunkelden Castle.
Above him, through gaps in the crown of dark and lacy yew leaves, the sun grew warm and bright and speckled over the ground like the skin on the sweetest trout. He opened his eyes then yawned. His hound Atholl lay next to him, the wolfhound snoring, snout resting on his lap.
Before Lyall could move, a bee buzzed near his nose, so he stayed perfectly still.
The bee lit on his hand, which was resting on his ribs, and Lyall held his breath.
Someone once warned him if he held still, a bee would never sting him, but instead it would realize he was not sweet clover and fly away.
The bee sat as still as he did, wings down, tail up, then it dropped and stung him.
He yelped and jumped up, dancing around and shaking his hand with the stinger in his skin.
Atholl awoke and frowning up at him as if he were mad.
He pulled the stinger out and stuck his hand in the cold river water.
“Hold still,” he muttered. “And a bee won't sting you.”
When his hand stopped burning he pulled it from the river.
Atholl sat waiting, watching him from familiar trusting brown eyes while his thick tail began to thump on the damp ground.
Lyall stood, gathering his things. “Come, you worthless hound,” he said with affection, rubbing his pet’s ears before he bent and picked up a sack full of freshly caught trout and tied it to his belt. “We are late.”
Looking up, he studied the sun moving across a wedge of blue sky, which told him they had been gone from home too long.
“Mother will be worried. Come, else she will send Malcolm to prod me home with the sole of his boot and he was in a foul mood this morn.
If he has to spend his time searching for me, then he will be angry and blustery and refuse to play draughts with me.
Atholl sat at Lyall’s feet, head cocked and listening.
“You know how Malcolm’s anger swells and then he’s as impossible to live with as the English.
” He laughed out loud, because he was jesting, preparing his sharp words for nightly bantering with his older brother.
The truth was he worshipped Malcolm, who would be ten and three and was not all that much older.
In less than a fortnight, Malcolm was due to leave Perthshire and Dunkelden for Angus, to Castle Rossie, where he would be fostered.
The agreement had been drawn and sealed before their father was killed—the reason why home was uncomfortable and why their mother hovered around them all too closely of late and sometimes looked as if she was in a place far, far away from the rest of them.
Without their father, Mother was not the same woman and added to her fretfulness was the fact that too soon her first born son would be leaving.
After their father’s body was brought home and buried in the small lime washed chapel at Dunkelden, Malcolm wandered the whole castle with his hands in fists because he did not want to leave and fought with everyone who would listen and even those who did not.
Still he lost his frantic bid; all said Malcolm must do what his father wanted and foster with Ramsey.
His brother was repeatedly reminded of the honor and respect of following their father’s wishes.
Now that Ewane Robertson, the great warrior and friend of the king, was dead, the agreement he'd struck for Malcolm was even more important.
That same night of the death of their father and under the light of a full moon, Malcolm had dragged Lyall up to the tower parapet, pricked his hand with a knife, and made him blood- swear to protect their mother and sister in his absence.
Lyall understood that his brother would be gone all too soon.
His heart grew heavy and he slowed his steps, thinking about his father’s wishes.
He, the younger, did not know what his father had wanted from him, other than to grow into a man of honor.
He did not like to think of his father, who had always talked to him as if he were not too young to understand, and who oft times rested his strong hand comfortably on Lyall’s shoulder as he spoke to him and told him of the world in which they lived and about the kinds of men who inhabited it.
Those moments when he forgot his resolve and thought too long about his father, his grief came back hard and strong.
He would not shame himself and weep again like he had done when they buried his father’s body deep in the bowels of the small family chapel.
Someday he, too, would be a great knight; he would be like the men his father spoke of, the proud and the good, and knights did not cry.
He stomped faster through the woods, the mulchy leaves soft beneath his heavy boots, Atholl panting faithfully at his side.
Once Malcolm was fostered at Rossie, everything would change.
He did not know what he would do when he was left at Dunkelden with naught but his flea of a sister, who shadowed him almost everywhere and drove him away this very day with her pestering, and his mother, who would coddle him and watch over him like a babe and want to know his every move.
He kicked a stone. How would he practice his bow? Who knew when he could get away to go fishing again? Now he could spy a trout and pierce it with a single draw of an arrow. His hard won skills would grow slow if he were stuck to the sides and shadows of his womenfolk.
Soon he was running, Atholl at his heels, as he played a war game and wove and spun and leapt his way home through stands of larch and pine, running faster and dodging as if they were each his enemies coming at him with lance and sword, shield and mace.
His feet were quick, he knew, but not as quick as his brother’s.
He swore to himself he would practice his footwork.
When Malcolm came home at Yuletide, Lyall vowed he would be the faster.
With his free hand outstretched, he moved swiftly toward an old and infamous yew tree, his fingers grazing the ancient wood as he passed.
Some said the old tree with its huge, clawing roots had been planted by Druids to mark a sacred well.
He did not know of sacred wells, but he knew as surely as the sun rose each morn, that if he passed by the yew and touched its trunk, he would catch as many fish as he needed, which always pleased his mother.
And served to irritate his older brother, who couldn’t catch any fish at all.
His brother could spend from dawn to dusk at the stream or at the loch and would come up with nothing.
Malcolm accepted his inability, though it frustrated him, especially when fish seemed to land in Lyall’s hands.
Malcolm swore that if a stream full of leaping salmon were swimming right toward him he would come up with empty hands.
Their sister Mairi said the best way for Malcolm to catch a fish was for someone to throw one at him.
Lyall proudly patted his day’s work—a sack full of fat, speckled river trout, but froze when he heard the sudden loud crack of a branch behind him. Atholl barked. Nerves suddenly raw, Lyall’s heart beat loudly in his ears.
“Ach!” Came a worried cry. And a familiar voice.
He turned slowly, angrily, and planted his hands on his hips and looked up.
His sister’s feet and plump legs dangled from the huge yew tree above him.
“Mairi! “ He shouted at her. She was sitting on a high branch but he could not see her face. “When will you cease following me? Come Atholl.” He started to stomp away.
“Lyall! Wait! “ She swung down lower, holding the branch by her hands as she hung from the tree. “Stop! Please!“
He heard the panic in her voice.
“Stop, Lyall!”
Was she crying? He moved back to her, concerned. “What is it?”
Her face was pale and she was truly frightened. He reached up and lifted her down.
“Malcolm told me to hide here. To wait for you.” She clung to him, clutching his tunic in her tight fists and burying her face against his chest. “Oh, Lyall. They are attacking Dunkelden.”
“What?”
“Look there!” She pointed into the air, where above the tall trees a dark cloud of smoke billowed into the blue sky.
“Who?”
“I do not know, but they say Papa was a traitor and those men hung the traitor’s flag on the gates. They said that he died a traitor’s death and he betrayed the king.”
“Our father was no traitor,” he said fiercely. “Where’s Malcolm? And Mother?”
“Malcolm took me out through the back caves and made me swear to wait here in the tree for you. He went back to get mama. But, Lyall, that was a long, long time ago.” She began to sob.
“There, Mairi. Stop crying. We need to be brave.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Come,” he said easily, but feeling as frightened as she.
He knew his father would be shamed if his youngest son showed fear to his sister, who he was so recently sworn to protect and not scare witless.
He took a deep breath. “Stay close. I am here to protect you. That’s why Malcolm brought you here to wait for me.
” He took her hand and moved more stealthily through the woods, his dog at his side.
He wanted to run, he wanted to see what was happening, he wanted to try to help his brother, but sense told him to protect his sister and move cautiously.
Glancing down at her, he took some bit of comfort in the fact that she had stopped crying.