Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
FRASER KEEP
T he air was sharp even as clouds hung over the distant mountains, bringing with it the promise of snow, the trail ahead empty except for those who traversed the hillside between the keep and the village.
Gone were the burnt remains of dozens of campfires from weeks before when the clans had gathered, washed away by the rains that had followed... and the silence with no word from their kinsmen.
Alix tied the woolen shaw about her shoulders and picked up the basket she'd filled earlier. It had been overlong since her last trip to the village, tending Mistress Brynna and the new bairn, then an assortment of ailments and wounds, including a severe cut to young Alexander's hand when he took it upon himself to seize a claymore from the armory in a game of mock battle. He was fortunate to still have all his fingers attached.
"Ye'll not tell my mother?" he'd asked, bravely holding his hand aloft while she bandaged it.
"There's no need," she had replied. He had been momentarily relieved.
"It's not likely that she'll not notice with this wrapped around yer mitt."
Lady Brynna had noticed just before midday meal, but young Miss Eleanor chose that moment to run into the main hall with a furry bundle in her arms.
"Can we keep it?"
The bundle was a young kit fox that squirmed in her arms. Only the saints knew where she had come upon it or managed to capture it. But in the next moments, the hounds picked up the scent of the fox and set up to howling. Terrified, the young fox managed to free itself from the young miss' grasp, and then leapt to the floor of the hall with the hounds on the chase.
It was complete chaos as the fox darted under one of the long tables with young Eleanor after it, and the hounds after them both, terrifying two of the women from the kitchen with pots of soup in hand and platters of warm bread for the midday meal.
The soup ended up in the rushes. The fox bolted through the kitchen, past one of the young boys who brought wood for the cook fires, and out into the orchard beyond, the hounds in mad pursuit.
One of the women from the kitchen scalded her hand on the overturned urn of soup, the other badly twisted an ankle as she tried to dodge the fox then the hounds, and Eleanor wailed at the loss of her pet. Master Alexander was temporarily saved explaining his injury, scooped up a thick crust of bread, and headed for the stables.
In the aftermath of that small disaster, Lady Brynna had to see to the demands of her newborn son, then the cleaning of the hall. It was the day after before she made comment on young Alexander' s bound hand and he invented an excuse he knew she would accept.
"One of the horses took a nip is all."
"Have Alix see to it, or you'll end up like your uncle Ruari with but one good hand."
That no doubt would have suited young Alexander far better than she knew.
"He's a fierce warrior," the boy had replied with something very near worship in his voice.
She shook her head. "A horse nipped ye, ye wee pest?"
"I was supposed to be at the stables with Dougal cleaning the stalls."
"And so, ye lied to yer mother." Alix had rolled her eyes, and whispered a small prayer to spare her a handful of sons like this one. On the other hand, she might one day find herself with a spirited handful who dragged kit foxes into hall.
One day...
And then another. And another. And the children's antics became welcome relief to the somber mood that settled over Lechlede as they all waited for word of their kinsmen, or better the sight of them returning safely.
Everyone felt it from the stables to the kitchens, to old Maisel's cottage where she spent as much time as possible to dry, crush, and replenish badly needed treatments until her fingers were stained from the leaves.
She had gathered an abundant supply of Hart's tongue and mallowroot during the warmer season to see them all through the coming winter, along with Tormentil, the rafters of the kitchen filled with drying stalks. She had then stripped the stalks of the dried leaves and crushed them, filling the clay jars that lined one wall of the kitchen. When the jars were filled, she then carried several to Maisel's cottage and set pots to boiling roots, skimming off the pungent oils to make salves.
She adjusted the basket at her arm as Dougal joined her. Of late Gabhran refused to allow any of them to venture from the keep without an escort.
"Aye, Gabhran is in a fine black mood this morn," he greeted her. "Tossed Cam into the yard when he questioned his orders to clean leather harness again; Cam saw no reason to clean it again when it's not been used."
She nodded as the guards kept their watch as they passed through the gates, and set out on the footpath to the village.
"Aye, everyone seems to have a thistle up their backside these days."
He agreed, shifting his sword at the leather scabbard as his back. The wind had come up pulled a scarf up about his face.
"Thank ye for the trip to the village." He grinned at her. "Ye must take yer time this visit."
They were both glad to escape for a while. He saw her to the candle makers, then went on his way to the ale house.
"There is someone I wish ye to see, miss," Kaylen told her, after she'd given her a pouch of Bog Myrtle and instructions for brewing the tea that would give relief from her husband's stomach ailments.
"Tis the sister of my husband. She's a sweet lass, been staying with us these past few weeks."
It was odd that the girl was staying with them, but not unusual.
"What is her complaint?"
"She's with the children," Kaylen had gestured for her to follow her to the small cottage at the back of the shop.
Mina was a slender girl with soft brown eyes and long brown hair. The two women spoke together, then Kaylen introduced her to the girl who was not much younger than herself.
"Go on," Kaylen told her. "Yer brother is not about."
Mina twisted her hands, then look as if she might bolt through the doorway as one of the children set up a squalling. Kaylen quickly grabbed both and disappeared to the front of the shop. As she disappeared the girl looked as if she wished the floor of the cottage would open up and swallow her.
"Kaylen said ye wished to see me?"
"She said ye might help me."
"I need to know what ails you."
Mina glanced past her to the front of the shop, then quickly closed the adjoining door.
"My father will kill me... "
"It might help if I knew the reason he'll kill the both of ye."
Mina's buried her face in her hands.
"I have a bairn growing inside me!" she wailed. "And I donna know what to do!"
Alix wrapped her arms about the girl's shoulders. "Tis not such a dreadful thing," she tried to console the girl who was near hysterical.
"Ye donna know my father, and then there's me brother." Her eyes were dark pools filled with tears.
"Perhaps not. What about the father of the babe?"
That set Mina to more wailing to the point Alix was afraid she would make herself ill.
"You donna understand!"
"I can't understand what you won't tell me," she gently explained. "What about the father of the babe? Have ye told him?"
It wouldn't be the first child conceived before the mother and father were wed. And thought the girl was young, there were others who had wed young.
"I canna tell him."
"Why canna ye tell him?"
There were more tears and a great deal of hiccoughing.
"Because I donna know who the father is."
"How could ye not know?"
"Because... " There was more sniffling and hiccoughing, "There were the two of them, ye see."
Two? Father in heaven, Alix thought. How had the girl gotten herself into this mess?
She was pretty enough, but apparently not too bright.
"I dinna mean for it to happen... "
Alix had heard that one before.
"Cam said nothing happened, but I dinna believe him... And then Jerem was so kind."
It was all Alix could do to remain calm. Her anger would do the girl no good.
"You must speak with Cam and Jerem both. I can help you."
"No, ye dinna understand... Cam knows. He said he will wed with me, but I dinna know for certain if the bairn is his. Kaylen said you could help... I've heard some of the women in the village speak about something they get from ye that prevents a bairn."
Some of the women... she knew who Mina spoke of. It was no secret that a handful of women--an older window who had lost her husband and a couple others kept company with some of their kinsmen outside any formal arrangement. It was also apparently no secret that there was a way, a tonic that prevented a child.
"How far along are ye?"
"Near three passing of the full moon, twas at the summer feast."
Summer feast indeed, Alix thought. The girl was a brainless twit, to lay with two young men and not know this might happen?
She shook her head. "There is nothing to be done. But I will help you explain to yer father, and Cam."
"What about Jerem?"
"Jerem as well, and then put it before the chieftain to decide the matter."
"But Jerem is with the chieftain and may not return... "
"I canna do what ye ask," Alix told her. "But I will see that yer healthy and the babe as best I can."
"Canna?" the girl cried. "Or will not! You dinna understand. What if it was yerself?"
"Cannot," Alix explained. "Life is precious and I will not help you destroy it. No matter the getting of it, the child has a right to live. When he returns I will speak with the chieftain and Lady Brynna. They will see that the matter is set right as best it can be. And I will speak with Cam. He is a good young man and I donna see him leaving ye on yer own in this."
"Ye would do that for me?"
Alix nodded. "Aye, for the babe."
And God help the poor wee thing to have such a brainless twit for a mother.
She made several more visits, leaving instructions with the herbs for fevers, a case of the worms, and a sharp kick one of the village children had taken from a goat.
"My da says he'll put the goat on the cook fire if it does it again."
Alix had smiled as she bound the child's leg. "Next time, get out of the way. Yer da needs the goat."
Dougal was standing just outside the tanner's hut as the sky turned leaden. He fell into step with her, passing villagers who had taken their wares, fresh vegetables, and woven linens to the keep, as they returned.
She had spoken with Kaylen. It was best if Mina remained with her for the time being, until the chieftain returned.
It was near nightfall as they walked through the gates and the order was given for them to be closed for the night. She looked back at the gathering darkness as she had each day these past weeks, but there was only the emptiness of the night.
The next days there was still no word from Stirling.
Alix spoke with Lady Brynna about Mina.
"I will speak with James when he returns," she promised, putting the babe down for his morning nap.
"James would name him for his father, Connor. But this one is to be named for his father. Little Jamie, but say nothing until I have spoken to my husband on the matter."
It was always ' when ' they returned, not ' if ', as the days stretched into three weeks, then four.
And then it was time for the apple harvest, and Alix spent much of these last days before Samhuin at the orchard with the women of the keep, young boys scampering into the highest branches to pick the gleaming red fruit before the birds got them. They were then stored in barrels that were taken into the cool storerooms below the kitchens. In the coming winter they would be baked, stewed, or roasted over an open fire then coated with honey and spices.
Gabhran watched over it all with a sharp eye when he wasn't at the wall. He kept his thoughts to himself, but Alix knew he was worried as the number of day multiplied that their kinsmen were gone.
"Aye, come wi' me lass," he told her one afternoon as barrels were rolled onto the platform and then lowered into the store room below.
She followed him down the stone steps that disappeared below the kitchens of Lechlede. They passed two men who steadied the platform, eased it onto the stone floor, then rolled the barrels into place against the far wall. Gabhran waited until the men were finished, then motioned for her to follow him as they returned to the kitchens above.
"I would show you something," was all he said he grabbed a torch and they walked past barrels, baskets, and cartons of food set away for the winter; salted beef, wrapped wheels of cheese, grains for bread, spices, and jars of honey. All of it necessary for a household the size of Lechlede. There were also bolts of cloth, carded wool, casks of wine, berried jams that had been put up then sealed with wax in clay jars, along with precious stores of candles needed to light the hallways and chambers of Lechlede.
"It is this." Gabhran shown the torch on the walls behind them to make certain they were alone, then set it at the bracket at the wall. Light at the eyes of a small inhabitant that scurried into the shadows, and pooled across the wall at the back of the store room.
She would not have seen it if he hadn't pressed his gnarled fist against the edge of a stone at the wall at shoulder height, a flat piece of iron the length of his hand suddenly appearing.
"Give me your hand, lass."
He placed over the lever. "Take hold and push down."
She did as he told her, the iron cool at her hand. She felt the resistance, then pushed down harder. It gave, a section of wall opening.
Gabhran nodded. "Aye, ye're a strong one. That'll do. Now move your arm between and shoulder it open."
It took a great deal of strength, but she was able to wedge the opening enough for a good sized man to pass through. He grunted with satisfaction.
"The torch, lass." He motioned for her to follow him.
She retrieved the torch from the bracket at the wall and handed it to him.
He stepped through the opening into the looming darkness and motioned for her to follow. Light from the torch slipped across stone and earthen walls, a passage looming in the darkness ahead of them.
"The old chieftain's father had it carved out of the earth when the first stones of the keep were laid." He angled the torch higher, light angling off massive timbers at the top of the passage.
"He was a true warrior, as was his son, Connor, and now James and Ruari after. Those were dangerous times."
He glanced over at her, his meaning clear--no less dangerous than the times they now lived in.
"He fought to keep the land, but this was his guarantee that if Lechlede should fall, those of his blood would be safe. Ye see it there?" He held the torch aloft, light reaching to the timbers overhead.
She was eventually able to make out images that had been carved into the face of the first overhead timber--what appeared to be numbers and other images she wasn't familiar with.
"I was told that it's Latin," Gabhran explained. "The year the Fraser set foot on this land and his name."
She thought of the crumbling stone hut in the forest where she and Ruari had spent that night together and the story he had told of the first Fraser chieftain over two hundred years earlier.
"Ruari told me of it," he continued. "Learned the Latin from the monks when he was sent away... " He gave her a long look. "That set him on his path."
Outlawed for murder. She knew the judgment that had been handed down by the Scottish king that then banished him from Scotland, but knew not the circumstances of it. There were those, including James Fraser who believed it unjust.
She had overheard a conversation long ago between the chieftain and the Lady Brynna, after Ruari for France--the anger in the chieftain's voice as he spoke of it, Lady Brynna's words as she tried to ease that anger.
"Aye," Gabhran said, as if he could read her thoughts. "There are things a man must do no matter the price to be paid, even if the man is no more than a stripling lad. It has to do with what is right and what is wrong. The wrong must be set right."
Honor.
Ruari had spoken of it that night in the old place. He didn't want to dishonor her even when what passed between them had been give of her own free will.
"Do others know of this place?"
"Jamie and Ruari to be certain, and now yerself, lass."
"Why do ye show me this place?"
The old warrior's expression softened. "Ye are a bonnie lass to be sure, but there is a great strength in ye as well. I have seen it when ye are helping others--the sick and wounded. And with Master Ruari as well. It's a fierceness ye have, the need to protect what is yours--the mistress, the chieftain's children and the bairn. Ye'll not let a thing stop ye to protect them. Ye will need that."
They had spoken of many things as Ruari rode from Lechlede with the chieftain and their kinsmen, but not this.
"Do ye believe trouble will come to Lechlede?" Her voice sounded so small, like that of a child in the cavernous darkness of the passageway.
"I believe that a fool and his head are soon separated," he gruffly replied. Then softened his words.
"I've not lived these many years and not learned a thing or two, lass. I'll not be a fool when it comes to protecting my clan, my chieftain, and my kinsmen. Tis always best be prepared. Aye?"
"I'm not yer kinsman," she pointed out.
Morna's family was MacKenzie. The only thing she knew about her father was from pieces of things her grandmother had mentioned over the years--that he was said to be a distant relation of one the clans on the far isles.
"Ye favor yer mother with her, but yer eyes and yer way of things... Aye, well that comes from yer father. That same boldness and spirit--just as himself, young, bold, and too handsome. Ye have his ways about ye."
His ways. Whatever that meant, had gotten her into her fair share of trouble with her grandmother's hand on her backside... when she got caught.
"Where does this go?" she asked Gabhran now.
He nodded, his eyes glinting with purpose in the light from the torch.
"It passes under the orchard and beyond a good distance, to the rocky cairn where ye use to hide from yer grandmother. Aye, I know is where ye took yerself off too when ye were in a bit of a temper or some misdeed ye'd been caught at." He winked at her.
"Ye didna know it at the time but it was our secret. I never told Morna. Bold as any of the lads, I knew ye needed time to cool yer temper and think on yer troubles. Now come along a piece so yer familiar with the place."
The passage was dark, musty, and smelled of old places. Different from the hut in the forest with its crumbling walls, the passage smelled of earth, dampness, old timber, and other things. She wrapped her fingers around the handle of the slender blade she always carried.
"Are there wild things about?"
Gabhran had gone ahead in the passage, the torch held before him. He grunted.
"Perhaps a flying creature or two, or a wee mouse., and then there are the others with their webs."
He cursed then, in the old language, with several others she understood very well as he swept aside a thick curtain of webs.
"Damned wee beasties! They get in me beard!"
Alix smiled to herself at the gruff old warrior, who fought clan enemies in numerous encounters, including at the borderlands four years before, in a temper over a wee spider's web.
The air was stale inside the passage, the darkness closing around them like a thick blanket that smothered when they stopped. More than once the footing was uneven with roots that had grown over the decades or an occasional fallen stone.
She had no idea how long they were in the passage, following the light of the torch as it played across the walls, when fingers of daylight slipping through limbs and bramble were glimpsed just head.
"Just a bit further, lass." Then, " Aye, this is the end of it."
He set the torch into another bracket at the wall that like the first one at the opening of the passage, had been built into the wall by the first Fraser chieftain at Lechlede. Then the old warrior moved ahead, pushing aside branches and thick clumps of gorse at the rocky entrance that had grown over the opening at the end of the passage. She followed when he stepped from the passage into late morning sunshine.
She breathed in the fresh, sharp air, then angled her head at the nearby sound of water.
"Tis the river ye hear as it passes to the loch," Gabhran explained, and walked ahead toward the river's edge.
She had been there before, on her adventures and hiding from her grandmother, but always through the orchard, never beneath it.
The river ran full after the recent rains as it surged toward the loch. She followed Gabhran to the bank of the river. He continued along it, his boots sinking deep into the mud, hers barely making a mark.
The embankment was overgrown with tree cover and low scrub that was green in the warm months but already turning rich gold and red colors with the past weeks.
He moved on a steady, invisible path until he reached a thickly shrouded place among the pines.
"Ye must see this as well, so ye know of it," he explained, pushing aside heavy growth and underbrush, as well as low-hanging branches, then hacked away a thick tangle of growth.
"Come here, lass."
She stepped closer and saw the length of smooth wood that jutted from the thicket.
"Tis a boat!" she exclaimed with more than a little surprise.
"Aye, and well ye should remember it, lass. If ever there is a need to leave, it will take ye and several others down the river to the loch, and there across to a place where ye will be safe." He nodded.
"The chieftain knows of it from when he was war chief of the clan. Tis a hidden place, a cave where the first chieftain was forced send his family during the old conflicts, and ye and mistress and children would be safe there." He gave her a fierce look.
"Ye have the strength and courage, lass. I have seen it in ye, and ye will well remember what I have shown ye this day. Yer life and those we hold dear may well depend on it."
"I'll not forget."
She had cobwebs in her hair and dirt smudged at her tunic and boots when she returned to the great hall.
Gabhran stopped her with a hand at her arm.
"For now, this will be our secret. Aye? I'll not worry the mistress or the others about it now."
She nodded. "Aye, our secret." And she prayed it would never be necessary for others to know of it.