Chapter Two
“There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath.”
Cyrus watched the mist moving in from the sea.
Grace had lamented that the moisture was just another indication that a curse had been placed upon her.
Their mother, Olive Mackinnon, had scolded Grace into calming down, and they had been able to run through the ceremony a second time without interruption.
Cyrus spied the note he’d left on the desk in the spacious room he’d been assigned.
He frowned. “No one would have even seen it,” he said to the empty room.
He hadn’t given the message to Grace because she was already screeching about curses and he’d worried that another problem would make her call the wedding off.
This marriage was too important to allow a hastily scribbled note from a questionable source to interfere.
The union added another clan to the Alliance of Skye that Cyrus had written up.
So far Kenan Macdonald, Rory MacLeod, Tierney and Douglas MacNicol, and he had signed it.
Iain Macqueen would bind the northeastern part of Skye to their plan to completely unite the isle, imperative if they were to stand against England and bloody King Henry.
The note had been shot like an arrow onto the floor by an otter-wielding, cloaked woman he’d never seen before. “A foking otter,” he murmured, turning toward the polished mirror in the corner.
The words, however, pulsed through Cyrus’s skull. Do not wed Iain Macqueen. He is the devil despite acting like the perfect saint. Find out the truth about his mother.
As far as Cyrus knew, Iain’s mother had joined a convent near Edinburgh several months ago.
’Twas something that many aging widows did, living out their years in peace and safety.
Had she not wanted to go? Did persuading his mother to retire to a convent make Iain evil?
Cyrus stomped down the serpents of guilt coiling in his gut.
Grace told him she adored Iain Macqueen and Tuath Tower.
She’s in love with him. There were no rumors of Iain being dishonorable.
He’d taken the reclusive Macqueen Clan and enriched it with trade, the profits ensuring his people had food and comforts.
He’d had mistresses before, but Cyrus would leave it up to Grace to either accept that or put a stop to it.
No doubt his sister was strong enough to push out obvious interlopers into what would become her domain.
Cyrus rolled his thick shoulders in the jacket his mother had had tailored for him before the wedding.
’Twas like the formal costume he’d worn when visiting the Edinburgh court with his older brother, Patrick, years ago.
At the time, he’d balked at the tighter-fitting jacket, preferring the loose tunic he wore with his plaid.
Since Patrick had died, Cyrus would likely be the next Mackinnon chief, despite his father’s fury that he’d been robbed of his favorite son.
Hamish Mackinnon might be weakened from age and infirmity, but his remarks against his younger son could still make Cyrus bleed.
Ye should have died instead of Patrick. Well, if their father hadn’t traded Cyrus for Patrick after his beloved son was captured at Solway Moss, Patrick might still be alive.
He wouldn’t have been on Skye for the raid against the Macdonald Clan, where he’d suffered a wound that led to his death.
Looking into the polished mirror, Cyrus fit the required mask to his face, tying it behind his head.
The black leather had been cut in a swooping fashion to cover his cheeks and most of his nose and forehead, with the top portion shaped into stylized horns.
Discs crafted of silver were sewn along the edge all the way around.
The black tunic and jacket added to the demon-like appearance.
What would Father Bright think of it? Even his plaid was black with accents of silver thread.
They mirrored the silver belt buckle and the eyelets on his boots.
The only bit of color he wore was a ribbon of red tied in a small bow that Grace had given him to pin to his sash.
To show you are immediate family. He’d frowned until she’d added that family members could have all the whisky and wine they wanted while others could only have two cups.
Masquerades were common parties to celebrate weddings.
He used to revel in any type of party when he was young, before Solway Moss and a year and a half in a hellish dungeon.
Masks made people less inhibited; where Patrick had been serious and warlike, Cyrus had accepted the role of family rogue, enjoying all the pleasure he could squeeze out of life. But that was before.
With Patrick dead and his father on the way to join his beloved son in Heaven or Hell, Cyrus had grown responsible, even if his father couldn’t see it. Cyrus would prove to him that he could secure alliances to ensure the strength of their isle against England.
He opened the door to his room to the sound of a giggle. Rory and Sara were just exiting their room up the corridor. “Done with yer daily nap?” Cyrus asked.
Sara was in the later stages of pregnancy, and Rory said she’d been ferocious in bed after the initial nausea faded. Now they seemed to take to their chambers every day.
“We do actually nap,” Sara said, her cheeks taking on a rose hue.
Rory grinned at her. “Sometimes.” He leaned in and kissed the tip of her nose, still exposed despite her white mask.
It was made of satin and embroidered with a red bird across it, a phoenix.
It matched her red silk ensemble. Rory wore a mask made of yellows and stitched with brown.
He had a hood made of tan fur with ears, giving him the look of a lion.
“You are dashing,” Sara said, surveying Cyrus. “Black and silver, like the night sky when ’tis clear.”
“That’s a better explanation than demon,” Cyrus said.
“A demon would have leathery wings and big teeth,” she said, as if she were an expert on hell-born creatures. “And claws.” She shook her head. “If you’re going to attract a bride from another powerful clan, you should be a night sky and not a demon.”
“Who said I’m looking for a bride?” Cyrus said.
“Your mother,” Rory and Sara said in unison. Olive Mackinnon wanted him wed to another powerful clan on the mainland of Scotland—or even one of the other isles.
Rory stepped before Sara to go down the stairs. “And yer grand plan of making Skye and all of Scotland strong requires that ye give up yer bachelor prowling and commit to a woman with armies behind her.”
“I’m not going to fall,” Sara said, but she placed her hand on Rory’s shoulder at the top of the turning staircase. Cyrus followed them down.
“Perhaps I will wait until yer sisters come of marriageable age,” Cyrus said, earning him a frown from both members of the couple.
“Eliza and Eleri won’t be marrying for a decade at least,” Sara said, brushing the suggestion aside as if it were forever banished.
She’d likely heard the stories of Cyrus’s creative trysts.
Being tupped by him was not for the timid.
He rather prided himself on that. Life was too short to bed someone dull.
“Murdoc Matheson’s sister, Beatrice, has recently been widowed,” Rory said. “Ye could stop her from retiring to a convent.”
“Send her a lovely tapestry,” Sara suggested.
“Bloody hell,” Cyrus said, “if she wants to wed herself to the church, she’s no woman for me.”
Sara patted his arm. “You’re a handsome heir to the chiefdom of a major clan on Skye. You’ll have the pick of chiefs’ daughters to make Clan Mackinnon strong and your parents proud.”
Proud? Olive and Hamish Mackinnon had never been proud of him. Not even when he’d brokered this union. Cyrus was tugging his father into peace. Since the elderly man had taken to his sickbed, there’d been little he could do about it except rage.
Inside the Great Hall, the chairs had been pushed back, and tables were laden with bite-size food offerings from roasted venison chunks to skewered poultry.
Breads in intricately woven shapes sat in baskets, and the traditional bride pies filled with oysters, minced vegetables, and spices were stacked.
A cask of whisky was tapped, and bottles of wine were ready to be poured.
Sweetened blackberry tarts sparkled with ground sugar.
“Look at those flowers,” Sara said, pointing at the swags of dried flowers that Cyrus’s mother had been collecting all summer for the wedding. She and Grace had spent hours threading them together to drape about the hall.
“Make sure to tell Grace and our mother how much ye like them,” he said. It was best to compliment Olive Mackinnon to keep her more pliable.
“Here comes the bride,” Sara said, and Cyrus turned to see his sister, dressed in brilliant greens, blues, and gold to resemble a peacock. The bird’s feathers made up Grace’s mask. Olive, their mother, followed in a costume of brown feathers so as not to detract from her daughter.
Behind them walked Iain garbed in gold, a crown on his head like a bloody king. His mask had jewels sewn into it. They looked real, and he carried a scepter.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Rory said next to Cyrus.
Maybe he should have chased after the woman with the otter, demanded she tell him what her note meant. By now, her tracks would have been erased by others coming and going from the village.
The lute and drum started a joyful song in the corner, and the doors to the entryway were cast open.
A stream of people, feathered and masked, moved inside like a river of gaiety.
Iain had apparently invited most of Skye to attend.
Drawn by the offer of food and whisky, no doubt many had come in from the surrounding countryside.
A few coarsely cut masks and capes made of bedsheets supported that assumption.