Chapter 1
As the eldest child of the Calvin clan, Meria had always known it was up to her to marry well. Not only would it establish the fledgling clan by linking it to more powerful Highland lairds, but by obeying her father’s command, it would set a good example to the other children.
There was talk of her father taking a second wife, and then Meria knew she would have to relinquish the many duties of running the household over to her stepmother.
Her father had not made his selection yet, but the woman was likely to be the widow, sister, or daughter of some influential laird.
No further back than seventy years ago, Meria’s great-grandfather had staked his claim on a tract of land that had fallen into wilderness after clan fighting had brought its previous occupant to ruination.
The only way the Calvins had been able to stave off greedy lairds who wanted the land for themselves was to marry into the families.
Meria’s grandfather’s wife had come from a neighboring clan, and so had her mother.
The problem was that no Lady Calvin for the previous two generations had been able to produce more than one heir.
Meria’s own mother had died in childbirth, and the sad truth was this: There were more land-hungry lairds than there were Calvin children to wed them.
The moment she reached a marriageable age, Laird Calvin, Meria’s father, had wasted no time in writing to the most bellicose and avaricious laird in the Highlands—Laird Hamish MacTavish.
My dear friend and neighbor - Laird Hamish MacTavish - greetings.
Your interest in these rich fields and lands is entirely understandable.
May I remind yer lairdship that that was not always the case?
When my grandfather took on the stewardship of these pastures, they were waterlogged bogs for the most part, and those parts that were not were rock strewn wasteland.
It was the Calvin clan who drained the fields and brought kine to enrich the earth. It would soothe my worried mind to know you have no designs on the meadows and grasslands my clan have nurtured for over two generations.
With this in mind, Laird MacTavish, I reach out to you with a proposal.
To wit: My eldest daughter, Meria Calvin, is an acceptable wife for you to take unto your own.
She is strong and wide in the hips, not to mention generously bosomed with a neat waist. A comely lass with above the average height and prettiness.
Hair - the dark red of a setting sun lingering on the horizon before the nightfall; eyes - green, but I assure you it is not the dark green of witchcraft, but the sunny golden green of the trees in spring.
She has nine and ten summers in her dish, and is a canny lass, good with writing her letters and tallying her accounts.
If she is sharp with her tongue or shows herself to be too talkative for her own good, by all means throttle the girl and she will come about.
What say you to my offer, Laird MacTavish?
I know you can have any number of slave girls to take to your bed, but there is something to be said for a girl who is noble and well-born enough to take to wife; she will produce for you many children and heirs on the right side of the blanket covers, on this you have my word.
Yours in loving brethren hood and humble gratitude,
Laird Aiden Calvin
P. S. If this offer is acceptable to you, make all haste to send me word, followed by a troop of men to carry her back to your castle. I have Laird MacDonald and Laird Robertson’s son panting eager to take the girl off my hands if you say me nay.
P. P. S. I can sweeten the deal for you by throwing in a score of kine - the finest milch cows this side of the wall - but that is my final offer.
The answer had come back with all speed.
Laird A. C.,
I am sending men to fetch her now. She must come alone - I will not house any Calvin spies in my castle.
No maid or page boy. Tell the girl she will not be given the tools to write to you either - my dealings must stay as my own secrets.
The girl can bring one small chest attached to the back of her horse saddle - as for the rest of her goods and chattels, they may follow behind in her train by and by.
If she has not produced me an heir within the first five years, she will be returned to you along with the milch kine, and any nursing calves the cows have birthed that year: to wit - all her goods and chattels.
If she is fruitful and demure, I will send you a troop of my own soldiers to protect your borders.
If you refuse my offer, my soldiers will still come - not to protect your borders, however, but to take them away from you.
My men will be with you forthwith.
MacTavish
The herald had been sent to Meria’s chambers immediately after Laird Calvin received the letter, and the household had sprung into action, packing trunks and sewing tiny pearls on Meria’s wedding gown.
Her maid wept. “I cannae believe ye are to travel away so far from home, dearie, and leave yer poor Catherine behind. What beast of a man would order a young woman to travel without her maid? Who will do yer hair and tie yer stays when ye dress in the mornings?”
Meria had been thinking along the same lines.
She rubbed the tip of her nose thoughtfully.
“Me hair does nae take kindly to brushin’ and fussin’ Catherine,” she said, patting the elderly lady’s shoulder to comfort her.
“The curls just bounce back no matter how many oils and scented waters ye pour on it. As for me stays and the sides of my stomacher bodice, I can lace them up meself. Why not? It’s…
”—here Meria struggled to find the right words—“...very strange that Laird MacTavish would not allow me to bring a small retinue of servants with me. It makes me think he has something to hide.”
Catherine sighed. “Och me dear, I may as well tell ye. Laird MacTavish does nae have servants. He deals in slaves.”
Meria could remember how her mother had spat on the ground after an elderly lady had walked past them at Inverness when Meria was a small girl. The behavior was so unlike her refined mother that Meria had not been able to resist asking.
“Yon fine auld lady there is wearing a golden wig, Meria. She does nae care that the hair for that wig comes from the head of some poor captive slave girl, probably from the Norse Lands. The slave traders prey on fishermen’s boats, holding some of them hostage while the other men return home to trade their daughters’ lives for those of their sons held hostage.
It’s a vile trade in human life, and always with women losing the most.”
“Slaves?” Meria wrinkled her nose after hearing what her nurse had to say. “No soldier would fight for a man and risk their lives for someone who does not pay them.”
Catherine had folded a gossamer fine lawn petticoat into Meria’s traveling chest. “That laird pays the men, Meria. The men are all free. It’s all the women at MacTavish Castle who are slaves.
I hear one o’ the laird’s half brither’s is a tavern keeper up in Nairn, and he is just as evil-minded when it comes to slavegirls.
The MacTavish clan ply a trade in flesh, dear, but please don’ tell yer faither I told ye this…
I am sure being the man’s wife will be a perfectly acceptable life for ye. He’s rich an’ powerful after all.”
Meria had a lot to absorb after hearing her maid’s gossip.
She knew there was the possibility that Catherine was exaggerating; that was a fact of life up there in the Highlands that by the time news filtered up or down the coasts and hills to reach Calvin Lodge, it had often been distorted so that it little resembled the truth.
Still, Meria could not approve of anyone who used the labor of bonded servants.
Such practices belonged to the dark ages of times past.
She decided to risk speaking to her father.
He had grown bitter and sullen since the death of his wife, as it had been accompanied by a slew of aggressive lairds who all wanted to lay claim to Calvin clan land, and the Calvins had no army worth speaking of.
It had been a choice between working the land as farmers or training the men to bear arms. The moment the fertile Calvin farmlands bore the fruits of their labor, war lairds had come sniffing around.
It was too late now to train the men to fight.
Meria had to marry Laird MacTavish so her father might protect his land by using another laird’s army.
“Enter!” Laird Calvin barked out the one word, and Meria lifted the latch and went into her father’s study room.
“Please it, Faither, but I overheard some of the servants talking…and they mentioned something about Laird MacTavish using servants who have been bonded to his will with no hope of freeing themselves from it. This worries me, for I have heard that such people can only expect their children to follow in the same path as they themselves have walked. Is this no’ an extremely auld practice that should have no place in our free Highlands? ”
Laird Calvin looked up from his ledgers with a frown. “Which servants were gossiping in such a way?”
There was no way that Meria was going to tell tales on Catherine.
“The servants who let drop this juicy nugget of news are not ours, Faither. It was the men who work for the tradesmen and merchants. They were here to pick up the last of the harvest crop baskets and when Cook told them about me betrothal, I overheard what they said about the goings-on up at MacTavish Castle.”
Laird Calvin got up from his desk and moved heavily around to where Meria stood. “So…ye were eavesdropping on affairs that dinnae concern ye?”
She was tempted to take a step back, but Meria’s pride forbade her. “I could hardly make the men aware o’ me presence after they had already said the words, could I now, Faither?”
Laird Calvin had never heard such a cheeky reply come out of his daughter’s mouth in his life.
If he did not school her harshly now, such sauce could get Meria into deep trouble when she was living at MacTavish Castle.
It was common knowledge Laird Hamish could act like an ogre if a woman gainsaid him!
Or even worse, the laird might send her back home and order his soldiers to invade Calvin land.
“Ye saucy japes!” He slapped Meria’s cheek and gripped her by the back of her neck, dragging her to the window and pushing her face hard against the pane.
“Look at it! D’ye see out the window? Every piece o’ land ye see was hard fought for and even harder to make fertile.
Now, I warn ye, Daughter: If yer unmaidenly words cause me to lose one square foot o’ that land, I swear I will have the skin stripped from yer back by whip each fortnight for a year! ”
Meria said out of the side of her mouth, “I beg yer pardon, Faither, I truly am.”
He let her go, and like all bullies, began to blame her for his actions. “Ye push me too far, Meria. Take yer punishment and then go. An’ learn yer lesson no’ to make excuses for yer clever mouth.”
He held out his hand for Meria to kiss, which she did, and then curtsied herself out of the room.
She had no need to ask further questions.
The way Laird Calvin had reacted told her everything she needed to know: Laird Hamish MacTavish kept women as slaves in his castle and allowed slave traders free access to the ports and towns under his protection.
And that man was to be her future husband.