Chapter 22
“Audite! Audite!” A monk standing near Gellir suddenly bellowed, throwing back the hood of his cowl and raising a rolled parchment in his hand.
Gellir could not have been more dumbfounded. It had been astonishing enough to find the cunning warrior fighting beside him was Merraid—a discovery that filled him with a mix of emotions ranging from shock to joy, from relief to terror.
Now his cousin Adam had shown up. In the guise of a monk.
What they planned, Gellir couldn’t imagine. But Adam’s outburst had effectively put a halt to their imminent massacre, so he was grateful for that.
“I have brought word from Roma,” Adam announced with a thick Roman accent. “From His Holiness himself.” He made the sign of the Cross.
The soldiers surrounding them gasped.
Gellir could only gape. Adam had certainly outdone himself this time. And he’d thought impersonating the king was audacious.
A missive from the Pope was rare indeed. In fact, Gellir couldn’t remember ever seeing such a thing. Aside from an interest in the new cathedral being built at St. Andrews, he doubted the Pope thought much about Scotland at all.
From atop the parapets came the voice of the king. “You there! Did you say His Holiness?”
“Aye, Alexander III!” Adam called back. “Are you Rex Scotiae?”
“We are.”
“Then it is for your ears as well, domine.”
The defeated earls began to rouse. The bedraggled lass tearfully dabbed at the young earl’s bloody chest. Fertech took off his helm to rattle his brains back into place.
The hairy man blinked back cobwebs. The redheaded earl cradled his broken nose.
The short earl scrambled to his feet. And the beast managed, with the help of several bystanders, to peel himself off the ground.
The king cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled down, “Can we agree to a temporary truce to hear the words of His Holiness?”
“A truce?” Fertech growled under his breath. “With a Sassenach kiss-arse? Never.”
But the remaining earls had other thoughts.
The short one whispered, “But Fertech, if His Holiness himself sent word…”
The youngest chimed in, “I for one have no wish to challenge the church.”
The hairy one snorted. “And if the truce is only temporary, I’m for it. After all, we’ve been freezing our arses for a fortnight and gotten nowhere.”
The redhead groaned, pressing tenderly at his cracked nose. “I suppose ’tis better than sitting here, bleeding to death.” He punctuated his remark by hawking bloody spittle on the grass.
Fertech still wasn’t convinced. “I won’t bow before that traitor of an upstart.”
“No one’s asking you to, Fertech,” the hairy one said. “We’re only agreeing to a reprieve. Just so the missive can be read. Right?” He lifted one caterpillar of a brow at Adam.
Adam nodded.
“Fine,” Fertech decided with a sigh. Then he called up to the king. “’Tis agreed, Your Grace. For now.”
The king consulted with the men standing beside him, then announced, “We will open the palisade gate and meet the earls there.”
Gellir gave Adam a clandestine glance. He wondered what his cousin intended. What was written on that parchment? What could His Faux Holiness have to say about a land conflict in faraway Scotland? And how much danger was Adam putting himself in, pretending to be the representative of the Pope?
Was the missive an attempt to challenge the authority of the king? Did it praise the efforts of the earls to recover their lands? Or was it a condemnation of the earls’ demands and an affirmation of Malcolm’s status as supreme monarch?
What side had Adam taken? And did he realize the grave responsibility he bore, espousing a holy opinion that came from God knew where?
He couldn’t let his cousin endanger himself like that. The merest slip of Adam’s tongue could betray him. The slightest wavering of his voice could bring his charade to an end. His words, spoken in the presence of the most powerful man in Scotland, could be used to denounce him.
Gellir reached out a hand, intending to grab Adam. To put an end to his cousin’s playacting before he buried himself in political intrigue.
But Merraid prevented him, catching his arm in an iron grip. Despite the lovely blue of her eyes, the look she gave him was grave. Deadly. Forbidding. With the subtlety of a sharp blade sinking into soft flesh, she gave him a wordless warning.
Nay.
He should have ignored her. He should have pulled from her grasp and prevented Adam from joining the earls. But by the time he disengaged from her gaze, the entourage was halfway to the palisade gates.
When the clan armies followed after them to watch, he turned on Merraid, seizing her by the upper arms.
“What have you done?” he demanded in a sharp whisper.
With an easy outward flick of her elbows, she broke his hold on her and met his scowl with a scowl of her own. “Saved ye.” She indignantly brushed the dust from her arms. “Ye could at least show a wee bit o’ gratitude.”
He sighed heavily. His shoulders sagged. He rubbed the back of his neck, frustrated with the pesky lass.
But in the end, he realized he couldn’t blame her. She was only a maidservant. She didn’t understand governance. Loyalty. The church. She didn’t understand that a nobleman’s life was not his own. Bloody hell. She couldn’t even accept arranged marriage.
“I am grateful,” he said, trying to muster up a smile. “’Tis only that I fear the two of you are wading into perilous waters.” Then his smile faltered, and he shook his head in disbelief. “Feigning to be a messenger from His Holiness…”
“Don’t fret,” she said brightly. “Adam is brilliant. And once the earls hear my words—”
“Your words?” His heart plummeted. “You wrote the missive?”
“Aye,” she beamed.
He felt ill. “What did you say…exactly?”
She creased her brow. “I can’t remember exactly. But I put in a good quote from Aesop—‘United we stand. Divided we fall.’ And one from Alexander the Great—‘remember, upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all.’ And Publilius Syrus, who said ‘where there is unity, there is always victory.’”
“You quoted,” Gellir choked out, “a Greek storyteller, a Macedonian tyrant, and a Roman slave?”
She smiled proudly. “I told ye Lady Feiyan spared nothin’ when it came to my learnin’.”
Gellir had to sit down. Fortunately, there was a stool near one of the pavilions. He collapsed onto it.
It was too late to prevent what had already happened. He had to think of what to do next.
He couldn’t abandon Adam. If the others discovered his secret, they’d eat him alive.
Then there was the matter of Merraid…
He looked up at her in concern.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“You can’t stay here.”
“Why?”
“’Tis too dangerous.”
“Ye don’t understand. I’ve negotiated peace ’tween the earls and the king.”
“Is that what you think?”
She looked affronted. “’Tis the truth.”
He scoffed. And immediately knew scoffing was the wrong thing to do.
She turned on him with blazing anger in her eyes and her hands on her hips.
“How dare ye! Was I not the one to broker a romance ’tween ye and your bride?
Did I not employ just the right words to charm her tender heart?
Did I not bait the hook with just the right phrases to lure her into your arms?
Did I not season each syllable with just the right touch o’ spice to keep her hungerin’ for more?
” She lowered her voice to add, “Ye think I can’t broker peace ’tween a runt of a king and a half-dozen hotheaded earls?
” Then she crossed her arms and shuddered with frustration.
“‘O ye o’ little faith.’ That’s,” she said, arching her brow at him, “from a Nazarene woodworker.”
At first he could only stare at her. She was quoting Jesus at him.
What a beautifully wild, na?ve, outrageous, determined, carefree, fearless lass she was. Sweet as a flower. Clever as a fox. Generous to a fault. Wise beyond her years. Bright and bold and brimming with life.
A bemused smile slipped onto his lips as he realized the truth.
Merraid cared nothing for protocol. Proper behavior. Codes of honor. Rules of engagement. Everything she did came from her heart. From her soul. From what she knew was right. Not from what someone else had dictated.
The forthright, intrepid maidservant enjoyed a freedom he’d never tasted in a lifetime of honor, chivalry, loyalty, and responsibility. And he loved her for it.
A chuckle escaped him then.
“What?” she demanded, still miffed at him.
“I adore you, you know.”
Merraid didn’t think it was possible for a heart to both swell and crack at the same time.
Gellir’s confession filled her with warmth and joy, even as it broke her into a million shards of despair.
It meant nothing.
Even if she managed to make peace between the king and the earls, it changed nothing between her and Gellir. He was still a nobleman. She was still a maidservant.
She had come here as his friend. To salvage his honor. To save him from his self-imposed exile. Nothing more.
She couldn’t expect more. Not in a world that revolved around titles and rights, alliances and endowments.
She had been born outside that world. And no matter how much training and education Lady Feiyan had so generously provided, no matter how Merraid longed to be part of Gellir’s world, Merraid would never be able to break through the imposing wall of stone that surrounded it.
She’d lost her illusions of belonging years ago.
Knowing she would never fit inside the noble mold, she’d learned to be content with simply making her mark.
With impressing those who dwelled within that world with her learning.
With her skills. With her clever verse and her surprising strength. And that was enough.
At least she thought it was enough. Until she gazed into Gellir’s loving eyes, melting now like liquid silver as he smiled at her.
Then she knew her heart would ache for him forever.
Forever she would remember his tender kiss. His gentle touch. His passionate embrace.
He had been her first. And she knew somehow he would always be her best.
I adore you, he’d said, pinning his heart upon his sleeve for her.
But one of them had to see reason. One of them had to be strong. It was up to her to break the bonds between them.
She kicked at the turf, saying flippantly, “Ye won’t adore me if I’ve started a clan war, will ye?”
“Maybe,” he murmured.
She didn’t dare meet his eyes or she’d be lost. Instead, she picked up Adam’s overstuffed satchel, which he’d left behind, and changed the subject. “Are ye hungry?”
“I wouldn’t turn down a crumb.”
She tossed him the satchel. “’Tis Adam’s. I’m sure there’s a crust o’ bread in there, somewhere among the lockpicks and trebuchets.”
He smirked. “Adam’s strange hoard is the subject of much discussion at Rivenloch.”
He dug in the satchel while Merraid watched for the king’s arrival.
“Ye know,” she said over her shoulder, “ye shouldn’t have written that missive to Feiyan. Ye shouldn’t have taken the blame.”
“Better the fault should lie with me than with Hew.”
“No one in your clan believes you’ve gone off to sow your wild oats.”
He sniffed. “I just need Carenza’s father to believe it.”
She nodded. She suspected as much.
Damn his eyes. Gellir was too good for his own good. He would rather ruin his own reputation than sully the good names of Hew and Carenza or risk the honor of Rivenloch and Dunlop.
“What news of Hew?” he asked around a bite of bread. “Did he return?”
“Nay.” She turned to him. “But he sent a missive. He said he found Carenza. And that she was safe.”
He chewed and swallowed the bread. “He’s not going to return her then.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I suppose he means to reunite her with her lover.”
Gellir shook his head. “Hew’s soft heart will be his undoing.”
There was a long silence before she murmured, “And what about you? What about your heart?”
He gave her a rueful smile. “’Twas never mine to give. You know that. I am a vassal of the king.”
She bit her lip, holding back her opinions about a king who would wield such power over his subjects. Then she lifted her eyes toward the palisade gates. There he was now. Malcolm. Joining the earls to hear Adam’s missive.
“He looks small among the others,” she remarked. Though he was about her age, Malcolm was no taller than Fertech and as thin as a maid. He seemed only a young lad in his father’s clothing, with a crown that was too heavy for his head.
Gellir rose to follow her gaze. “I suppose he is.”
How could such an insignificant man hold Gellir’s future in his hands? How did he have the authority to command earls? To steer the fate of a country?
It was no wonder the earls had rebelled when the young king started parceling out land to the enemy English. It left a bitter taste in her mouth to realize, now that Gellir had openly supported the king, it was even more likely Malcom would wed him to an English noblewoman.
The idea sickened her. Which made it even more critical for her plan to work.
“Listen,” Gellir murmured, taking her chin between his finger and thumb and capturing her eyes with his own. “If your plan doesn’t work…”
Placing her hands on his chest, she tried to protest. But he slid a silencing thumb across her lips.
“If the king isn’t willing to bend…” he continued.
“If the earls are too greedy or Adam’s identity is revealed…
” He looked at her with such intensity, she felt overwhelmed, as if a wild storm had torn the breath from her lungs.
“I want you to know,” he said, as if he meant to impress his words upon her soul, “’tis not your fault. ”
She felt her chin wobble. But she refused to cry. She might not be a maid of Rivenloch. But she’d be damned if she would weep in front of him. Not when she needed to be strong.
He brushed his thumb across her cheek. “I’ve always known my destiny was not mine to command.”
She felt her grief curdling into anger. “Ballocks,” she muttered. “’Tisn’t fair.”
He lowered his hand to capture both of hers, holding them against his chest and kissing the top of her knuckles. “Life seldom is.”
Then, just as her heart was breaking for her noble hero who deserved love more than anyone, she heard, for the third time in a sennight, the all too familiar click of shackles closing.