Chapter One #3
She knew he was very busy prepping hides so they could be turned into vellum.
Halting the painstaking and time-consuming process midway to go north to help Father Lanaghly had cost him to lose three much-needed vellums for his trip this spring.
But Laurel had not cared. To her, his trip was months away and therefore three vellums were a negligible loss.
Father Lanaghly’s need, however, was important.
Monumentally important. Conan disagreed.
It was upsetting to learn that a small priory had caught fire and was no longer habitable, and even more disheartening to know that two people had died.
But the church was already in the process of relocating the nuns and the undamaged artifacts to a larger, more established abbey in the Lowlands.
Conan cared nothing about some uninteresting religious scrolls that had miraculously survived a fire.
It annoyed him greatly that, because he was highly intelligent and kept a lot of written scrolls and books, people assumed he wanted to read just anything.
Maybe in his youth that had been true, but never had he aspired to be a scholar who consumed any type of knowledge whenever he had the chance.
Out of all his brothers, he might be the one who valued written knowledge the most; however, that did not mean he was the only one able to protect some religious documents.
Anyone could put them in a crate, a trunk, or a bag.
How hard was that? Even Conor could manage such a feat, and he was already up north visiting Cole.
Then again, why did Father Lanaghly need send for help at all?
He was as capable as anyone of carting some scrolls and keeping them safe from poor weather.
Instead of seeing the logic of his rather straightforward arguments, Laurel had become highly emotional and issued him a fiery command—ride north to Cole’s immediately and help Father Lanaghly or deal with not just her wrath, but that of Conor’s, when he returned.
His eldest brother, Conor, would indeed have been furious.
Not because Conan had done anything wrong, but, because like many around the McTiernay Castle, his brother’s concern was mounting about his wife and her increasingly fragile emotional state.
Conor had almost not even made the journey to Cole’s, and he had made it clear when he left that he was entrusting certain people to see to her happiness.
That included Conan, especially if the clan was to provide him any precious vellums for his upcoming journey.
Happiness. A completely outrageous concept to demand. But that was what love did to a man. It made him unreasonable and caused him to issue crazy orders that no sane, cogent person could follow, even if they wanted to. And yet, in part to keep Laurel happy, Conan had left as she had demanded.
But not as she had intended.
Conan had proclaimed his departure was driven by his need to get away from her nagging voice, but in truth, once he had decided to take a longer route, he had been almost eager to leave, for he had wanted to come to this area of the Highlands for awhile.
He had always taken the most direct route to Fàire Creachann, but this time Conan had journeyed along the eastern border of his brother Cole’s lands.
He had never mapped this part of the Torridon Mountains and after trekking the area for hours he had been pleased to find a small loch nestled in the peaks.
The surrounding large boulders were easy to climb and gave him a better perspective when it came to mapping the area.
That was his passion. Maps. The idea of converting information to a useful picture inspired how he saw all that was around him. Unfortunately, very few maps depicted such information, and he was not sure any existed that did of Scotland.
Oh, maps were plentiful, but none were accurate, nor were they intended to be.
At best, their purpose was to illustrate those with power, and whatever the creator deemed most important was placed in the middle.
Since most scribes were associated with the church, Jerusalem somehow became the center of most countries’ maps—something any intelligent being knew could not be true.
Conan intended to create an actual visual depiction of Scotland.
Come this spring, nothing was going to stop him from leaving his McTiernay home to spend his life creating maps of real value.
They would be accurate. They would show the best routes to travel.
His maps would depict probable flashpoints along clan borders and various paths the English might use to re-invade Scotland.
He had already completed several small illustrations of McTiernay lands and those of their ally—the Schelldens.
And while he had much of Cole’s lands and the majority of the Torridon peninsula sketched out, the eastern region lacked important details, such as the markers the MacCoinnich clan used to denote the border of their land.
Throughout the summer, skirmishes between MacCoinnich and their neighbors had been growing in both number and violence.
As of yet, none had involved McTiernays.
Both Cole and Conor wanted to keep it this way.
It was the reason his brother had gone north despite Laurel’s erratic behavior.
Conor had called a meeting to discuss the potential reasons behind the increase in activity and whether there was any reason for the McTiernay clan to be concerned.
The answer would determine if Conor moved additional soldiers north to support Cole’s army.
Such a move would not go unnoticed and, in itself, might create tensions where they could still be avoided. So caution was key.
Conan saw the importance of such talks, but he knew he would be no help with them.
The best way he could support his brother was not with his sword and certainly not in negotiation, but with information.
This surprised some, as he was oftentimes quite vocal with his opinions.
Most women of his acquaintance had issue with this character trait, but in his mind, that was their problem.
Conan liked who he was and was certainly not going to change just to make a woman feel at ease.
Conan was also well aware that he was not the smartest person alive. Not even close. Nor did he have some driving need to be the smartest person. The notion was almost as irritating as it was ludicrous.
He had met many monks who were far cleverer and more knowledgeable than he.
He welcomed intelligence from anyone—which included women.
Anyone who could offer witty and challenging conversations was preferable to someone inane.
Unfortunately, his experience had taught him that those women were extremely rare and was why he valued Laurel and Conor’s youngest child, Bonny.
Despite being only seven years old, she often caused him to pause and think about what she was saying when arguing a point.
Bonny’s knowledge was only hampered by her limited life experience, but he would not be surprised if his niece grew up to outsmart every living soul she encountered.
Conan dreaded saying good-bye to her in the spring and knew he would miss her enormously in the years to come.
Many did not understand the special bond between him and Bonny.
Conan knew her parents blamed him for some of her blunt and seemingly offensive comments.
Laurel often made it clear that she did not want her youngest child growing up to be like him—rude, mean, unsympathetic, and egocentric. Conan disagreed.
He was an ideal model for his niece.
First, he was not rude. He was honest. Why should Bonny learn to hold her opinion simply because some people were incapable of hearing the truth?
And just because they could not accept the truth, that did not make her mean for stating it.
Rarely was there malicious intent behind his words and so calling the straightforward delivery of his honest opinions brutal was not only misleading, but incorrect.
And aye, sympathy was a quality to be admired, but there were always countless women around more than willing to provide a sympathetic ear.
As far as his self-absorptive personality, well, he knew that to be pure myth.
The women he had been with enjoyed his charms while he was willing to give them.
It was only when he was bored and needed to refocus his efforts to his future and his freedom that they suddenly claimed to be wounded by his callousness.
So what Laurel viewed as egocentrism, he would call determination.
And in the spring, all that focused attention was finally going to allow him to travel the world and never, ever be manipulated by Laurel McTiernay again.
* * *
As soon as Conan finished loosening the last knot in the rope, the dead body dropped to the ground.
A loud crunching sound indicated that several bones had broken despite the short fall.
Conan nudged the large mass with his foot so the man lay face up.
It had taken almost two days to get from the small loch to Fàire Creachann, and in that time, the body had gone from limp to rigid and back to limp again.
In a couple more days, he would no longer be recognizable, but for right now, he looked much like he had upon his death, aside from the yellow, somewhat greenish tint his skin was turning.
“You recognize him?” Conan asked, looking up at his brother.
“Nay,” Cole replied and waved his hand in front of his face.
In the past several hours, the odor had gone from severely unpleasant to outright nauseating.
“A shaoghail! It’s like smelling rotten cheese made from feces.
Thank God you stayed outside of the castle walls.
Elle would skin me if she had even a whiff.
The stench is going to linger for days.”