Chapter Seventeen #2
She slid a look at Colin. “Is that not right, good sir?” Amicia charged him, knowing already he’d pull down the moon and the stars for the wee flaxen-haired maid.
“To be sure, it is,” her husband’s friend agreed, and planted a kiss on the top of his lady’s head. “I love her true and would make her mine at the soonest—if she will have me.”
“Then let us follow your own sage advice, pray God yon cockleshell will see us safely ashore again and then make all haste back to Coldstone, where we can recover from this madness and you can properly woo her!” Magnus declared, already climbing down into the little currach, eager to be off.
More than ready to put the chaos of the morning behind him and do some wooing of his own.
But when a short while later, Magnus and his little party approached the massive curtain walls of Coldstone Castle and clattered through the torchlit gatehouse pend, all thought of wooing, and otherwise, took flight.
He stared at the well-burning torches, his confusion so palpable he could taste it, cold and metallic on his tongue.
It had been years since anyone had bothered to illuminate Coldstone’s gatehouse, the need for rationing fuel superceding ease of passage through the tunnel-like entry.
Yet, now twin rows of torchlight ran the pend’s length.
Even more astonishing, the outer bailey and inner courtyard bustled with activity as strange men hurried to and fro, shouldering great iron-shod chests and bulging leather satchels.
They were apparently heeding the shouted orders of Dugan and Hugh, who stood at the center of this chaos, grinning like fools and gesticulating in so many directions Magnus grew dizzy just staring at them.
And, again here, the whole impossibly surreal scene was lit by scores of blazing torches.
A quick glance at the looming bulk of the keep showed that fire glow and torchlight flickered behind every tower window as well. Even more startling, the strange men who scurried about so industriously were no Highlanders.
Nay, they had the look of the Lowlands to them—and were far too richly garbed to be just anyone’s lackeys.
And with surety, they were too fine-looking to be any distant kin or friends of his da’s.
For one long-stretching moment, Magnus wondered if he’d somehow ridden into the wrong castle. Or if he, his lady, and mayhap even Colin and Janet, had indeed drowned in the waters off the boat strand and this was some crazy kind of hell he’d awakened in.
But then his brothers spotted him and their faces split into even broader grins as they hailed him, waving furiously and glowing with more exuberance then he’d seen on them since they were spindly-legged laddies e’er tagging after him, adoration in their hero-worshiping eyes.
“Ho, Magnus!” Dugan called, lifting his voice over the pounding rain and the shouts of the scurrying strangers. “Here is a fine day, I tell you! You have your lady safe and sound, I see, and . . . Da’s ghost galley has landed!”
“Da’s ghost galley?” Totally flummoxed, Magnus dismounted, a throbbing ache beginning at his temples—despite the goodness of the day.
The fine day as Dugan had called it.
The madness going on all about him was more goodness than he could swallow just now.
Especially when one of the strangers—a strapping young lad dressed fancier than an emissary from any royal court—rushed up to lift Amicia gallantly to the cobbles, near knocking down Magnus in his hurry to display his chivalry.
Frowning, Magnus swept an arm to take in the whole of the high-walled courtyard. “God’s eyes, man,” he said, half-surprised his tongue didn’t fail him in his amazement. “What goes on here?”
“I told you Da’s ghost galley has arrived,” Dugan said again, laughing this time, scarce able to contain his mirth, in fact.
“And yours, too,” he said to Colin, giving Magnus’s owl-eyed friend a playful punch in the arm.
That, at least, gave Magnus a chuckle—ne’er had he seen a look of greater perplexity on Colin Grant’s face.
“Take yourself inside, Magnus,” Hugh suggested, ever the peacemaker. “Da will surely explain everything the instant his eye lights on you.”
Eager for that moment, indeed, Magnus grabbed Amicia’s hand and dragged her with him across the bailey and into the keep, leaving Colin, Janet, his brothers, and any richly-raimented strangers to stare after them or follow, however it suited them.
“Heighho, laddie!” Donald MacKinnon hurried forward the moment they stepped into the great hall. “You will ne’er believe our good fortune! Old Reginald has had mercy on us at last—he’s done gone and lifted the curse. Aye, to be sure!”
Magnus blinked. “Reginald and his curse?” Now he was confused. “Dugan said your devil ship had landed?”
“Pschaw!” His father waved a dismissive hand. “There was no ghost galley or a devil ship either,” he said, peering at Magnus from beneath bushy, beetling brows. “I am an auld done man, see you? I make . . . mistakes at times. This was one of those times.”
“This?” Magnus glanced about the hall.
More strangers buzzed about here, too, just as splendorous in their garb, if a bit more dignified in demeanor. And a growing collection of ne’er-before-seen strongboxes occupied one corner.
Strongboxes that looked suspiciously like money coffers and bearing the royal seal.
Magnus swallowed, a sudden, hot-burning suspicion thickening his throat and jabbing red-hot needles into the backs of his eyes.
“Who are these men and what are they about, sir?” Amicia—bless her soul—asked the question Magnus could not get past the swelling lump in his throat.
She stepped forward, lit a hand to his father’s bony arm. “And why are those coffers stacked in yon corner?”
Magnus sent her a silent thank-you, his eyes already misting, for there could be only one answer to the question his thick tongue couldn’t form.
The answer he’d ne’er even dreamed would come to pass.
“Recompense, it is!” Donald MacKinnon declared, snatching up a rolled parchment, its wax seal broken and dangling.
He waved the document beneath Magnus’s nose. “’Tis from the Guardian of Scotland himself, see you? To reward you for your loyalty and valor at Dupplin—and to restore the tourney fortune and booty that were stolen from you whilst you fought for the crown.”
Magnus blinked. Now he knew why the scores of men scrambling about the bailey in all their finery had minded him of Lowlanders—they were Lowlanders, and straight from the royal court.
As were the many coffers of siller and merks, the stacks of silver plate and like frippery mounding on the high table.
Wealth he had earned.
And now returned to him by a grateful Guardian in young King David II’s name.
“They even brought you a horse, Magnus!” Dugan announced, joining them.
“A fine beast—a tourney champion like the one you forfeited to pay passage tolls on your journey home. That loss, too, had reached the crown’s ear.
” Dugan winked. “The animal is in the stables now, already making our garrons half-crazed and asserting his superiority.”
His da waved the parchment at him again, and Magnus stared at it, dumbfounded.
Saints, but his eyes stung too badly for him to make out a word of the spidery handwriting, and his throat had gone too thick even to swallow.
And very soon he might shame himself, for his fool knees were about to give on him.
“Magnus! Your valor honored and your fortunes restored! Oh, how I joy for you, my heart,” Amicia cried, his dear sweet wife showing no such difficulties in expressing herself.
Indeed, she launched herself at him so fiercely, they both near tumbled backward into Colin’s arms.
Righting them, that one slung his arms around both their shoulders and squeezed. “So-o-o, my friends,” he said, looking and sounding as mirth-filled as Magnus’s brothers, “it would seem old Reginald has blessed rather than cursed Clan Fingon, wouldn’t you say?”
“Blessed you, too, Grant,” Hugh said, joining them.
He picked up a second parchment from the table, handed it to Colin with an apologetic glance at the broken seal. “Da could not contain himself in his excitement and opened the scrolls as soon as the courier identified himself. So he read yours, too.”
“Mine?” This time, Colin blinked.
A thickset man of middle years stepped up to them, nodded to Colin. Garbed similarly fine as the other royal emissaries, this one set himself apart by his evident aura of authority.
“I am Sir Alastair Douglas,” he said with a quick glance at the parchment roll clutched in Colin’s hand. “Word came to the Guardian not only of your bravery on the field, good sir, and your injury, but also of the loss of your home.”
Colin inclined his head, his eyes, too, suddenly overbright. He reached for Janet’s hand, drew her away from the old laird and to his side. “Aye, that is the way of it, Sir Alastair,” he said, his deep voice huskier than usual. “Naught remains of my home save a few scorched stones and rubble.”
“And it would be an ill day for Scotland if so great a loss and loyalty such as yours was not duly rewarded,” the crown’s representative said, with another glance at the scroll.
“Yon parchment is a charter for you, Sir Colin. It confirms the fullest possession and all rights of your former lands, restoring them to you—along with ample restitution to see your home rebuilt to its former strength.”
“I—I am humbled, my lord,” Colin said, sketching the courier the best bow his almost-healed leg would allow. “I do not know what to say. A mere thank-you seems—” Colin’s voice broke and he blinked, swiped a hand beneath his eyes.