Chapter 15
She hardly recognized the stern, coldhearted man who woke her the following morning.
“Come on. Wake up. Drink some ale. It’s time for us to move on.”
He gave her one final shake of her shoulder and then poured water over the fire embers. The smoke set Meria coughing, and her eyes stung.
“What’s the rush?” she wanted to know, but when he did not answer her, she understood why. Sunshine was pouring through the cavern mouth and the crack in the stone ceiling that his scarf had once plugged shut.
He did not even look at her when she told him she no longer needed to wear his trews and began removing them.
Meria made as much noise about it as she dared without wanting to appear to be too much of a desperate minx, hopping from one foot to the other and clearing her throat when she slowly pulled her skirts over her naked behind.
But Callum stayed at the mouth of the cave, staring resolutely outward.
His silence and remoteness continued for the rest of the morning, no matter how much she tried to draw him out of his dark mood.
“Look, Callum! Sparrows!”
Grunt.
“I wonder where the wolf disappeared to, Cal?”
Grunt.
“What a glorious day, Cal! Don’ ye want to ride Frankl for a wee bit? I promise no’ to fall down the mountainside.”
Grunt.
It was useless. All Meria could do was stay riding his horse and suppose he was angry at her for the fact he had to walk.
It did not slow down their progress, however.
Callum’s long strides ate up the miles almost as fast as his horse did.
Her poor little mare limped behind but seemed more sprightly without a rider or chest weighing her down.
Meria glared at her horse, blaming the silly animal for Callum’s strange mood.
It was almost as if they had broken all their vows up there on the mountain, and now they had to bear the awkwardness of how to live their lives as forsworn oathbreakers.
Meria wanted to scream at the back of his head. Ye foolish man! I might be a bonded bride, but it has nae stopped me from falling head over heels in love with ye!
No bond could ever stop the way she felt inside her heart. Even if Laird MacTavish kissed her private parts with a hitherto only dreamed of expertise, it would not be enough to chase the love she had for Callum out of her.
And still, the infuriating man strode ever onward, dragging her toward her fate.
Meria vowed to make another escape attempt at the inn, but Callum escorted her up the stairs to her chambers, and after tying the window sashes into a knot, locked and barred the door after him.
He only opened it again to allow the maid to bring her food and ale, and then it was closed.
When she put her mouth to the door crack to speak to him after hearing his back settle against the panels, he told her to use the chamber pot when she requested the use of the retiring room.
Not even the sound of her weeping into her pillows had the power to soften his heart.
But what Meria hated the most was not knowing what she had done between now and then to make him turn against her.
He must want to widen the gap between them the closer she got to becoming his laird’s wife.
She would be Lady MacTavish—his superior and mistress.
He must be angry and disgruntled about that.
When Callum opened the door the next morning, he found a cool and calmly collected young lady waiting for him, seated in the high-backed chair by the window.
“Did ye manage to find a blacksmith to mend Clara’s shoe?” was all Meria said. He nodded and opened his mouth to say something, but she raised her hand to cut him off. “Good. Let us be off. Laird MacTavish must be worried as to our whereabouts. We are two days late.”
When he made to lift her into the saddle by the waist, she pulled the mare over to the mounting block and settled herself onto the saddle on her own.
Meria did not even bother to look at how Callum took this new development.
She trotted Clara out of the yard and down the road, not checking to see if he was following behind her.
The sun had not even begun westering on the horizon when they reached MacTavish land.
She looked over her shoulder at him with her eyebrows raised.
He had the grace to look shamefaced for his dastardly behavior toward a young girl who was being taken to an unknown fate and a stranger for a husband, but Meria no longer cared.
It was as if her heart had turned to stone.
She had cried out every tear and churned every regret in her mind, and now there was nothing left for her to feel.
He cantered past her, leading the way. For one ghastly moment, Meria fantasized about turning around and trying to escape for one final time.
But the hopeless acceptance of her fate overtook her, and all she could do was point Clara to follow in his trail.
She watched the way his dark red hair flowed in the wind behind him and remembered how it had felt when she ran her fingers through it.
How special it was when their hair had intertwined on the fur beside the fire…
Around the next bend in the road stood the castle.
The drawbridge was down, and the villagers in the bailey were standing outside, lining the roadside, waiting for her to ride past them.
Some of them raised a cheer when she rode by, but others, mainly women, simply looked sad and shook their heads.
Meria had to summon all of her pride and courage to continue until she crossed the drawbridge in Callum’s wake.
When it closed with a clang behind her, it sounded like a toll bell ringing for her wake.
For some reason, Callum had already disappeared into the background.
She saw Frankl in the stables; Callum was busy rubbing the horse down.
At the castle’s entrance to the great hall stood a massive man.
His hair was white, but age had not yet bent his back or withered his muscles.
He was a formidable-looking laird. A great width of plaid had been woven to make his kilt, and two bolts of cloth had been joined to make the shirt that covered the expanse of the flesh of his belly.
His face showed the most excess. His cheeks were mauve with broken veins, and his bulbous nose glowed red at the end.
His eyes were so pale that they gave him a spectral appearance, being the same color as his pale gray eyebrows.
“Come over here!” he growled. “Let me get a better look at ye!”
With faltering steps, Meria walked toward him.
“Make haste, wench!” the laird roared. “I dinnae have all day!”
She could tell immediately that the tone he was using was not an attempt at jovial teasing, but genuine irritability and scorn. Meria marched up to the stone steps, curtsied, and then tilted her face to look at him. Her distaste must have shown in her expression because he frowned.
“Why are ye tardy?” Laird Hamish MacTavish’s voice rumbled over the courtyard like tempestuous thunder. “Where is the rest o’ the escort party?” It was all the confirmation Meria needed to know that Laird MacTavish had sent out more than one man to fetch her to him.
“We were waylaid by bandits along the road,” Callum’s deep voice said behind her, but Meria used all of her discipline not to turn around to look at him.
He would soon be just another servant to her anyway.
“I survived the attack while the other four men fell, an’ so I continued the mission as I supposed ye would have wanted me to, Laird. ”
A pall fell over the courtyard. The grooms and footmen stopped their errands when Laird Hamish MacTavish spoke.
“Those eyes o’ yers, soldier, they strike a bell of recognition within me.
From whence d’ye hail? There are nay eyebrows such as those around these parts, nor in the whole o’ the Highlands. ”
The question seemed innocently curious until Meria looked at the ominous suspicion in Laird MacTavish’s face. It was a question that Meria herself was dying to hear answered. Kerr was such a random clan name, after all.
“I’m guessin’ me faither hailed from the South,” she heard Callum say behind her. “Kerr was his name if I can remember me mither tellin’ me correctly. ’Tis a common enough name down there. Yer captain said ye were open to mercenaries joining ye from other estates, did he no’?”
Laird MacTavish seemed deeply unsettled by the sight of Callum’s eyebrows.
“If it were nae for yer hair, lad,” the old man grumbled, “I swear ye originated from those lands up north where the fire bubbles out from the earth in the most unnatural way. Or the lands of the Rus heathens where they eat horse an’ birth their bairns without bothering to climb down from the saddle… ”
Callum must have kept an innocent expression on his face because Laird MacTavish seemed to lose interest in him, dismissing him back to the stables. “Well, ye stood true to yer task, an’ me bonded bride is delivered safe. Report to the captain for yer next duties.
“As for ye”—he turned back to Meria—“I have something to show ye…”
He beckoned her to follow him, and when she walked to stand beside him, he pinched her waist in a greedy fashion, whispering to her in a loud rasp, “Ye are a comely, shapely wench, b’gad! I have nay doubt those curvaceous hips o’ yers can birth me many sons.”
On saying those words, Laird Hamish came to a stop and pointed up. But before she could look, he grabbed her by the chin and forced her to look him in the eye.
“Hear me well, girl. I might be makin’ ye me wife, but ye will never be me equal!
” His fetid breath blasted into her face.
“From now on, ye’re me slave and me chattel!
Ye hear me? That’s how I like me women, and that’s how ye’ll like it if ye ken what’s good for ye.
There’s no’ a single woman for twenty miles around here that is nae a slave.
So don’ be setting yerself to think ye are any different to them because if ye do… ”
He let go of her chin and allowed her to look up. A woman’s head was moldering on top of a spike. Just the head. The rest of her was gone. Hamish MacTavish laughed when Meria screamed.
Callum betrayed me! He knew what those men at the alehouse told me was true. He knew it was true because this man must have had something to do with his mither’s death. An’ he led me straight to him so that the same thing can happen to me…
Meria felt something snap inside her, and she fell to the ground in a dead faint.