Chapter 1
There was no doubt that Ailsa Gun Ainm believed herself to be the luckiest young woman in the world. Not a day passed by without Ailsa secretly hugging herself when she went to bed in the evenings, thanking her guardian angel for the way her life had turned out.
How she came to be brought to the MacTavish village bailey, Ailsa would never know.
When she was old enough for her memories to take a form that enabled her to recall them at will, she was already the foster daughter of an elderly woman in the village, Gudrun Gun Ainm.
One of her earliest memories was visiting Gudrun’s foster sister, Oona Tanner.
Oona was the tanner’s wife, and like Gudrun, she had once been a slave up at the MacTavish castle.
Both women had been cast out of the castle when they grew too old for Laird Hamish MacTavish to take pleasure from them anymore, so they both found themselves down in the bailey before the time they turned five and twenty.
Oona had met Tam Tanner and married him.
Gudrun had remained a spinster in title and in deed; she was the best spinner in the bailey and married to her craft.
One day, the little girl had asked Aunt Oona how she, Ailsa, had come to live with Gudrun, as the spinner was neither wife nor widow.
Oona had continued shelling peas, occasionally passing a plump pod to the little blonde girl to eat before answering her in the language of the Norse.
“We were not born to these green lands, Ailsa.
Gudrun, me, and ye were born in the lands to the north.
There is much confusion over boundaries and ownership in the northern seas.
Corsairs from the lands of sand to the south prowl the beaches from Iceland to Ireland, looking for small, isolated villages to ransack.
If one does not convert to their faith or is too young to do so, they are sold as slaves.
If a boy is captured, he is often held for ransom.
If the family does not have the gold to exchange for him, they offer a daughter in his stead.
Only a few miles from the northern tip of these Highland shores lie islands where fierce Norse Vikings, slave-trading pirates, and freemen all intermingle and exist in a state of brotherhood, brought together by their tolerance for slaving.
“When Gudrun bought ye, ye were sold to be a slave.”
Ailsa had frowned, then chewed her mouthful of peas and swallowed. “But I must have been a baby when that happened, Oona. I cannot remember a time when I was not Gudrun’s daughter.”
Oona had given a dark look in the direction of MacTavish Castle. “To that lecherous wretch up there on yon hill, ye are no daughter, Ailsa, but just another piece of young flesh. That is why Tam is making plans for yer departure from here before you become too bonny.”
Ailsa knew enough of the Scots language by now to be able to translate her name. “Is that why Gudrun and I are Gun Ainm?”
Gun Ainm—Without Name. And with no heritage or family beyond what they chose to make for themselves in the future.
Ailsa had always believed herself to be Gudrun’s child.
To find out that the fat beast who lived in the castle above the bailey thought of her as some gift that he could dip his hand into the village at any time and pull out for his own was a terrifying thought.
Oona told her that Gudrun had put aside her Norse family’s name when they had given her over to slavery in exchange for their son, Gudrun’s brother, who was held hostage by the pirates.
A young girl exchanged for a strong son was considered to be a fair bargain as dowries for daughters were costly.
For many nights after hearing this, Ailsa had refused to leave the cottage, preferring to sit beside the spinning wheel, watching Gudrun twirl the wool between her fingers and then spool it onto the bobbin.
It made sense to provide Ailsa with a small loom where she could tie her own warp threads to the frame and then comb the weft yarn down to make a tight cloth.
As she got older, the threads became silk and the balls of weft silk were dyed using expensive and exotic ingredients: snail mucus for Tyrian purple; lapis lazuli for sapphire blue; cherry pink; woad, cobalt, madder, turmeric, and saffron.
Ailsa could create a rainbow with her fingers.
Then one day, Tam woke them in the middle of the night. Ailsa used a truckle bed in her mother’s room. He was a Highlander and could only speak the language of the Scots.
“Wake! Ye must flee. Reports of yer beauty have been carried back to the castle. Soldiers will come for ye in the morn!”
Gudrun said nothing. She rose out of her bed, went to the chest in the corner, and pulled out a small hopsack.
“Take this. It has everything ye need.” Then she hugged the young girl, who could not have been more than twelve years old, and said, “I will always love ye as me own, Ailsa. Promise me that ye will never come back here while that monster is still alive.”
It was not a request, but an order.
Ailsa felt a sort of relief amidst her sorrow. She had been waiting for this hammer to fall for so long, it was a strange comfort to know that it finally had.
“Farewell, Mither. I thank ye with all me heart for all the love ye have given me and for me happy life. I pray to heaven that I can come back soon.”
She had followed Tam out into the night, where a cart full of tanned hides was waiting.
Tam covered her with the hides, and they left the MacTavish bailey, trundling down the main thoroughfare until they reached the borders.
The moment they crossed it and MacTavish soldiers no longer held sway, Tam had allowed her to sit on the cart seat next to him.
They did not have far to travel. News of Ailsa’s great skill with silk threads had spread far and wide.
She was to be apprenticed to Mistress Weaver down in Inverness.
Tam had only waited to see her ensconced in her new home before he headed back to MacTavish Castle.
The tanner lived with the perpetual fear that Oona might be recalled to the castle to work there again.
Ailsa had served her seven years of apprenticeship to the weaver, living for the letters that would arrive from the bailey once every quarter.
Their letters were written in Norse, so mother and daughter were able to communicate freely about what was going on up at the MacTavish slott.
She gauged her age to be about nineteen or twenty summers when a letter arrived from her mother.
Dearest daughter, the delight of my old age and the prop of all my happiness,
Such news do I have for you, I do not know where to begin!
I must start with the best news, so that my raptures are better understood.
MacTavish is dead. A rogue warrior came in from the wastelands and agreed to work for MacTavish as a mercenary.
He was sent with four others to escort a bride from the South back to the castle to marry MacTavish - the laird having his eye on the girl’s dowry and maidenhead, of course - but four of the soldiers never returned.
The bride and her escort guide were waylaid on the Grampian mountain pass by bad weather.
An angel must have touched their hearts, because your Aunt Oona tells us that the rogue warrior and the bonded bride arrived at the MacTavish slott already in love.
The priest claims MacTavish wed the girl, but there is no proof of his claims. It matters not, however, because the warrior killed MacTavish before the old laird could bed the girl.
His carcass was thrown on the dunghill and left to rot, with not one of us mourning his demise.
The carrion has already been picked clean as I write this - the only thing left of him is bones.
The slott has been renamed MacNair Castle, after the warrior, and he is set to wed the bonded bride, as she is bonded no longer.
Come home just as soon as you can; there is much cleaning work to be done.
All my love, your Mother, Gudrun Gun Ainm.
Ailsa wasted no time taking the letter to Mistress Weaver. “Ye may take this to the scribe at the kirk to be translated if ye like, mistress,” Ailsa said after rising from her curtsy, “but he will only tell ye what I am about to say: Mither bids me come home as it is safe for me to do so.”
The mistress was heartsore to see her apprentice leave, but she’d had seven years of free work out of the girl, with the weaver’s only expense being that of providing her with bed and board.
“Och aye, Ailsa. I ken this day would come, but it is a wrench all the same. I hope this new laird appreciates yer talent and puts ye to good use.”
Ailsa gave a smile. “Nay, I am to be a maid in the new house, mistress. Me weaving days are over.”
And so it was. When Ailsa returned to her old home, she never wanted to see another loom again in her life. Oona and Gudrun had gaped.
“But ye are so talented, Ailsa!” Oona exclaimed. “If ye tell Lady MacNair ye are a weaver, she will have ye up in the tower with her every day. Ye’ll never have to sweep or peel or wash ever again in yer life!”
Ailsa shook her head. “Nay. Weaving was what I had to do when that man was alive. And now that he’s dead, I want to see how it feels to do other things.”
The next day, Ailsa had presented herself at the castle kitchens, with her apprenticeship papers in one hand and a besom in the other. Freida, the castle’s cook, had looked at the seal and red satin riband on the parchment Ailsa was holding out toward her and shook her head.
“I never learned to read, dear, but I can see ye are highly qualified and well recommended. What is it ye do?”
Like all the servants at the castle, Freida spoke a patois of Norse and Scots.
MacTavish had spoken Scots to his slaves, but they all came from different regions in the lands of the North.
It had never led to complications before, but Ailsa had a good idea that Lady MacNair would not stand for such a poor and obscure method of communication continuing for much longer.
But it suited her purposes for now. She put on an Inverness accent before launching into her speech.
“Freida, it says here that I am the best housekeeper this side of the Moray Firth! I am Gudrun’s daughter, don’ ye ken?
I have been down in Inverness, acting as housekeeper to the largest, best-run castles there.
I ken there are staffing difficulties here, but I can help.
Who is in charge of housekeeping? Any housekeeper with a pinch of nous will want to hire me, I swear to ye! ”
There was no housekeeper. MacTavish had planned on Lady MacNair running the place for him; he would stand for no male servants inside the house.
The only male staff at the castle were young boys and soldiers, and they were housed outside.
All the castle females were slaves, ranging in age from young girls to elderly women.
Taking all of her courage in her hands, Ailsa said in a bright voice, “I guess I should be the housekeeper then. There must be a ceremony when the keys are handed over to Lady MacNair, and I will be the one to do it. I can speak full Scots, as ye ken.”
It was a long wait before Lady MacNair returned to the castle.
News circled the castle staff that Laird MacNair must establish an army at his bride’s old home before allowing himself the luxury of returning to rule over his new land.
Ailsa was happy to hear this as it gave her time to whip things into shape at the castle.
She had always been a neat and tidy young girl; looking after silk threads that cost more than a year’s salary tended to do that to people.
A small chest of gold had been delivered to the kitchen by a messenger sent from the Calvin estate, Lady MacNair’s old home. The servants had never seen coins before in their lives.
Freida had approached Ailsa. “Dear lass, would ye be an angel and help me pay the servants? I dinnae ken how to do it.”
So when Laird and Lady MacNair finally came home to the castle, the cook had presented them with a neatly written ledger with every staff name inscribed therein and the amount they had been paid.
“Whose penmanship is this?” Lady Meria MacNair had asked.
The answer they received sent the couple out of the portcullis gates and down to the tanner’s house by the cow byres.
But Oona and Tam were visiting with their kin at Gudrun’s cottage; so was Ailsa, who happened to be looking out of the window when the laird and lady dismounted outside.
It was a glorious summer day, and the door was open. Ailsa watched as the laird held his wife’s elbow to guide her over the cobbled pathway, as if she were a rare and precious statue that might break if it fell.
How strange to see caring and loving manners in such a giant of a man. From my first look at him, I would swear he was dangerous—maybe it’s that scar on his face—and yet he treats his wife as if she’s the most important person in the world.
By the time Laird Callum MacNair was ducking his head under the lintel, Tam was already standing up to bid the couple welcome.
It turned out that the tanner and the warrior were old friends after Tam had brought Callum back to his cottage one evening so that Oona could fix the warrior a sobering cordial.
“Laird, Lady, may I introduce me niece to ye? She has been made the proxy housekeeper up at the castle, pending yer approval, of course.”
Laird MacNair had raised one eyebrow, which gave him a fierce appearance because of the way it enhanced his scar, but Lady MacNair held out her hand for Ailsa to shake while curtsying, saying, “Proxy? Nay! I’ve never seen things looking so well at MacNair Castle.
Now tell me, Miss Gun Ainm, what would ye like yer annual salary to be? ”
That was nearly three years ago now. So it was not to be wondered why Ailsa was so happy with her current situation.