At The Laird's Command (Sword and Thistle Book 3) (6 page)

“It is only…at a time like this, when everyone in the castle is coming together in common purpose and under such privations, for me to wear pearls…and for the clan to know that you gave them to me…”

My laird slowly let the pearls slip through his fingers, then brought his hand to my cheek. Brushing me there with the pad of his thumb, he stared into my eyes with an intensity I’d never seen before. “Like a wise counselor, you are thinking of my standing with the clan.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling the flush on my cheeks at what he must see as an overstep. “I have no place to advise you.”

“Don’t apologize, lass. You have touched me deeper than you know. And there is something I must make clear to you. Something I should have said before now. Whatever I might say in the heat of passion—when I am thinking only of your body—I know that I have in you a woman of uncommon grace and wisdom. Which is why you are worthy of my mother’s pearls, and which is why you may wear them when and if you see fit.”

A woman of uncommon grace and wisdom.

I couldn’t think of anything kinder that a man could say to a woman.

He thought I was worthy of his mother’s pearls, and because I wanted him to be right, I decided that I must find a way to assist with the day-to-day work of the castle.
 

In the morning, I set aside the pearls with a wistful sigh, then donned the most respectable garment I had. When Brenna came to tend me, I had her help me loop my braid at the nape of my neck for modesty.

Then, mustering my courage, I went to billeting room where the respectable ladies and Macrae kinfolk were gathered to make cloth for the effort. I knew how to spin and sew; I was eager to do it. But no sooner had I appeared in the doorway than did Lady Fiona rise and block my entrance. Smiling brightly—too brightly—she escorted me from the sewing room to say, “My dear, I have my daughters and their reputations to think about. I cannot have them associating with a woman of your ilk.”

She was the daughter of a laird and the sister of a laird and the aunt of my laird. Even before the laird ruined me, she would likely have said the same thing. I was a crofter’s daughter; she was a lady of landed wealth. But now that the laird had taken me to his bed, I knew that my lowly social origins were not her foremost objection. “My lady, surely at a time like this, all hands are needed—”

“This isn’t the first siege I’ve lived through,” Lady Fiona snapped. “And it probably won’t be the last. But a lady’s virtue must be guarded well, so that it may endure eternal.”

I swallowed, waiting for the pain of my shame to blossom in my chest.
 

Yet, it did not.
 

Because if the laird was pleased with me, then I ought not care what Lady Fiona thought. Nor her daughters. And I suddenly realized what a blessing the laird had given me by asking me to devote myself to his pleasure and his alone.
 

Why he’d given me some manner of armor!

“I find my virtue in doing my duty by the laird,” I said simply.
 

Then I turned and left her gawping, for she could hardly argue with that.

Having no where else to go, I wandered down the stairs to where my sister worked with the physicker, madly grinding something to a powder with a mortar and pestle. She knew herbs—healing herbs—and was determined to keep the castle well-stocked or well-organized. I had to confess, while she’d never been terribly reliable at home on my father’s croft, away from our father’s oppressive presence, my little sister had recently come into her own.

“Can I grind that for you?” I asked, discomforted by the change in our roles.

Blowing a tendril of hair out of her eyes, Arabella looked up from her worktable and held out a jar for me. “You can tell me what this says before I end up mixing the wrong things together.”

I stared at the smudged markings on the jar, but could make no sense of them, a thing I was embarrassed to admit, since I’d been taught to read at the laird’s command and expense. “I’m—I’m not sure what it says. Does the physicker have some idea?”

“He says he’s never seen it before and doesn’t know how it came to be amongst his collection. And he also said he didn’t have time for my nonsense. A direct quote…”

“I can try to find out if you let me take the jar.”

“Take it where?” Arabella asked.

“To Ian Macrae. He’s the one who taught me to read.”

She snorted. “I don’t see what place a big brawny warrior has playing your school master.”

“The laird told him that he must,” I said.

She snorted again. “Is he always obedient? Because between you and me and these gray stone walls, I must say, I’m not sure the man can be trusted.”

“He…” I trailed off, not knowing exactly what I meant to say of Ian Macrae. He was the laird’s kinsman, but a thorn in his side. He was a close advisor, but a hostile one. Though he’d never been
particularly
kind to me, he’d also risked his life to protect me. “Before the siege, when you were captured by the enemy, and the Donalds tried to capture me too, Ian was nearly killed defending me, so I cannot say a bad thing about him.”

But I also couldn’t speak much of him without remembering how he had also been present when the laird deflowered me. How he had watched, with lust in his eyes. How I had wondered if he would take a turn with me—not hating the idea, at the time. The memory made me blush, which caused my sister to misinterpret my embarrassment entirely. “Well, then I’ll say nothing against him, Heather. Is he a bad teacher? Does he bellow every time you get a word wrong?”

I turned away. “He doesn’t love teaching me, but he’s been surprisingly patient. We’ve found together a love of books.”

“
Books
,” Arabella said, dreamily.

I sighed, too, for I loved them. Ever since I’d learned to read, I’d found great solace and escape in their pages. Books seemed to me a magical thing. Murmuring softly to myself as I puzzled out the words, I was sometimes transported to other times and places. Sometimes I marveled at the poetry of a phrase. Sometimes I learned things that I longed to put to use somehow.

And I owed that, in part, to Ian Macrae.

 
So I was feeling entirely charitable toward the man when I found him out in the wintry cold by the gate, where he had his sword drawn against two terrified villagers. “Out you go,” he barked at them. “And be glad you’re not being dumped over the walls into the cold loch.”

At the sight of the villagers’ tear-streaked faces and the sound of these harsh words, I came to a dead stop, my hand curling around the jar. Ian couldn’t mean to send villagers out of the castle, defenseless against the enemy.
 

“T’was just a misunderstanding!” one of the villagers cried, and I could see that he was bleeding at the nose. “There’s bound to be brawling when tempers are so high.”

“But it’s not the first time between you two, is it?” Ian snapped. “I warned you last time you took to each other that you’d be thrown out of the castle, and the cook now tells me that you broke her crockery and busted open a cask of wine.”

“T’was an accident!” the other villager exclaimed, his beady eyes darting to me in desperation. “We’ll starve out there, or be beaten, or worse, lass. The laird wouldn’t want that for his people would he?”

Before I could speak, Ian put the blade to the man’s throat. “Better you starve than all the law abiding folks inside these walls do. You made your choice to behave like ruffians, now this is the price. You can leave by the door or we can push you from the top of the walls—your choice.”

“Ian!” I cried, the jar in my hand forgotten. I knew what the Donalds did to our people in the countryside. They’d held my own family hostage, kidnapped my sister and quite nearly raped her besides. “You can’t send them out there.”

My laird’s warrior whipped his head around to glare at me, as if he couldn’t decide if I was merely a half-wit or a complete madwoman to interfere with him. “This is none of your affair, woman.”

It wasn’t my place; of course it wasn’t. But my heart had started to pound in fear for the two villagers. “The laird has offered the clan his protection.”

“Under his rules,” Ian barked. “These two can’t seem to abide by them. They’ll have to take their chances.”

“You’re not the
laird
, Ian Macrae,” one of the villagers cried. “You can’t eject us. We want to talk to
the
Macrae!”

Ian punched that one in the mouth, then put the blade to the throat of the other. “Well, you’re not going to. Out, you bastards, or I’ll run you through myself.”

“Ian!” I cried again. And this earned me a look so ferocious that I retreated a step. Then I vowed, “I’m going to find the laird myself to put a stop to this.”

I turned, hurrying as fast as I could back inside, searching for the man who ruled this castle and everyone in it, my fury rising more and more as I ran. Ian caught me in the hall, just before I started up the stairs to the tower.
 

Ian’s big hand closed over my forearm and yanked me so hard that I spun against the stone wall. “What the devil do you think you were doing out there, you daft woman?”

Spitting mad, I accused, “You cast them out! Those poor villagers? You did it, didn’t you?”

“Oh, aye, I did. And I’d do it again.”

“Do you think the laird will thank you for it?”

Ian gave me a shake that rattled my teeth. “If John Macrae was the sort to thank a man for doing his duty, he would, since I did it on his orders.”

The shock of his words made me unsteady on my feet and I had to lean back against the frigid wall. But since I couldn’t fathom how the man I loved could order such a thing, I said, “…if that’s true, then why didn’t you say as much to the villagers when they called for their laird?”

“Because it’s better they hate me. If they should survive out there, the enemy will try to use them against the laird; no need to give them extra motivation.”

Ian was taking the blame for it. That’s what he was saying. He made it sound as if it wasn’t the first time either. I found myself shaking my head. “You’re a bitter, resentful, man, Ian Macrae. And you’ve spoken ill of the laird before. So I don’t believe you. Do you hear me? I don’t believe you.”

He might have slapped me for the insolence. Instead, he gave me a tug up the stairs. “Let’s ask him then, shall we?”

We burst in together, and the laird, who had been staring out over the loch watching for enemy ships, couldn’t hide his shock at seeing us together in such a state of fury. “What the devil—”

“Your woman thinks I’m an evil brute who sends helpless villagers out to their deaths,” Ian announced. “While I don’t see why I should care a whit what she thinks, you ought to have a word with her, because the miscreants looked to her for help before I tossed them out.”

The laird squinted, his eyes shifting between Ian and me as if trying to make sense of it. “What can you mean, Ian?”

“The villagers we sent out tried to appeal through her to you,” Ian explained. “I’m sure it won’t be the last time. So I think she might as well know how it is. She doesn’t believe that I did it on your orders.”

My laird squeezed his eyes shut, then pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s true, lass. I ordered them out.”

I swallowed, my heart sinking. “But why?”

“Because an example had to be made,” the laird explained. “As a siege goes on, people become more unruly. More disobedient. I’ve taken in more villagers than I should have, in mercy. There isn’t any spare room for those who endanger others.”

An icy spike of anger drove into my heart with the memory that he’d also made an example of
me
. I served as an example of what happened to the daughters of men who held back rents from their laird. He liked making examples. “They weren’t endangering others—they were just having an argument that got out of hand. Surely they don’t deserve—”

“They broke open a cask of wine!” Ian roared. “If you think that won’t cost a life should our water be compromised—”

The laird cut him off with a raised hand. “She doesn’t know, Ian. Heather’s a good and gentle lass who ought never know such things as the ugliness of war. I wish she would never have to know the hard choices to be made.”

“But here we are anyway, aren’t we?” Ian said.

“Aye,” the laird said, then met my eyes, his dark with sorrow. “Lass, I would never send anyone out of the castle unless it was for the good of the whole clan. It’s the same weighing of danger and justice that I make every time I ask a warrior to take on a dangerous mission. I did not send those villagers out to be cruel to them, but to be kind to all the others.”

I knew he must be right. The more I thought about men who had been warned before, and still chose to brawl in the keep…

“There have been others just as deserving as being ejected,” the laird explained, surprising me. “But they were either helpless children or womenfolk or old men who didn’t stand a chance. These two…”

These two should have known better and had the best chance at survival, I realized. And though the cold calculation chilled my blood, I couldn’t help but realize how foolish I’d been. The laird stepped to me and took my chin between his thumb and forefinger so that I was forced to look at him. “Lass, I should rather die myself than see your tender heart harden, so I will never count it against you when you come to me with what you believe you see as an injustice. All the same, you must be wary of people using you to influence me…”

I swallowed, and nodded. Was it possible that I
could
influence him? At the moment, I didn’t feel like it. In truth, I felt quite small and ignorant and chastened.

“And you must try not to interfere with my warriors.”

I bit my lower lip, understanding. I owed Ian Macrae an apology. A rather big apology. He didn’t like me, but he’d risked his life to protect me. I’d repaid him very poorly. “I regret interfering, Ian,” I murmured. “In truth, I regret many of the things I said—”

“Why were you even outside?” Ian barked.

“I was looking for you,” I replied, as I remembered the jar in my hand. “My sister is trying to organize the physickers herbs and we couldn’t read the word written here. I hoped…well, never mind what I hoped. I was in the wrong.”