Page 55 of Highlanders for the Holidays
Chapter 1
Chreagach Mhor, Scotland, December 21, 1135
The fire drovethem from their beds in the wee hours of the morn. The landscape raged like an inferno, consuming crops and trees, setting fire to the night itself.
Thankfully, it spared the majority of the villagers’ homes, as well as the keep and some of the surrounding buildings. All but one of the storehouses had been reduced to ash. For nigh on a week, the clan had labored through a warm spell that would very soon end. Unseasonably temperate for the Ides of Winter, it afforded them a rare opportunity to work from sunrise beyond sunset.
At seventeen, Malcom MacKinnon was as braw as any man, able to work his share and then some. And so he did. Theirs were unforgiving lands, in troubled times and a Scotsman hadn’t the luxury of sitting about on his rear, ordering servants about. He’d witnessed such behavior only once in his life—years ago, while being held by Hugh FitzSimon. Thank the Gods his stepmother was naught like her odious Da.
Despite that Page wasn’t Malcom’s true mother, she was nonetheless the light of his life. His father worshipped her as well. She could do no wrong—not in Malcom’s eyes, nor in his father’s. She worked harder than any Highland lass, and harder yet than some of the men.
He eyed auld Angus, seated once more on his pimply auld rump, drinking liberally from hisuisgeflask. When it came to Seana’suisgethat man had a tolerance none could rival. Angus claimed it loosened his joints, but from what Malcom could tell, it simply loosened his tongue and then glued his arse to the bench, from whence he might never again rise.
He watched Angus now, trying to get up, and half hoped he wouldn’t make it. Judging by the way he wavered and then fell upon his rear at least three times before making it to his knees, he would be a far greater liability returning to work.
Shaking his head, Malcom returned his attention to repairing the roof.
So much damage was done, but the mood was hopeful and the help of their neighbors was much appreciated. He barely recalled a time when the clans were at war. Now it was more like than not that MacLean brats were running about, stealing tarts from their windowsills and Brodie brothers were lolling around, draining his father’s ale—and then their willies onto their bushes.
The only one thing that hadn’t changed much in all these years was that his grandfather—Dougal MacLean—kept mostly to himself. Despite that the old man had made peace with his only remaining daughter, he couldn’t seem to bring himself to extend that peace to Malcom’s Da—and by virtue of that fact, Malcom as well.
MacLean still blamed Malcom’s father for his eldest daughter’s unfortunate death, but rather than acknowledge that he had had some part in that, and that both Malcom and his father were bound to share his grief, he forsook them both and kept to himself. The last time he saw Old Man MacLean was at his daughter Alison’s wedding.
MacLean had no sons, and rather than see his legacy continued through his grandson, or even his daughter, he was prepared to let his lands go fallow. Already, his clansmen had abandoned him to serve the Brodies. He was but a grumpy old man, sitting alone in a dark house—or at least that’s how Malcom imagined him and he felt aggrieved by the fact.
But although the clans were not so antisocial as Dougal MacLean, perhaps the biggest surprise of all was that Malcom was taking orders from Gavin Mac Brodie’s wife—a dún Scoti maid that Gavin wed some years past. Catrìona Brodie, like Page, worked harder than most of the men, though in her case, her skill was rather surprising. Catrìona could weave a thatch roof as tight as you please. She could design a hut with greater skill than any draftsman, and she could lay bricks with a keener eye and tighter seams than any bricklayer. But, be damned if she wasn’t a bossy wench, taking over their crews from the instant she’d arrived on the scene.
“Here,” she said to Malcom. “Take this to your Da.”
Malcom eyed her with a lifted brow, though he took the rolled parchment she handed down to him from the rooftop, wherein she’d scribbled a few more changes for his father to see. He did not much appreciate being ordered about, and wondered what his Da would think when he handed him yet another new set of Catrìona’s blueprints.
Annoyed, he nevertheless started down the hill, mulling over what sort of clan raised a lassie to work like a man—and to act like one too.
Page’s bossiness could be excused, Malcom supposed, for she’d been left to fend for herself, much like Seana Brodie had been. But at least those women knew to give their men obeisance in front of others. Catrìona treated her husband with the same bossiness with which she treated Malcom.
“Do this. Do that,” she would say. And Gavin Mac Brodie would rush to do her bidding, all the while grinning like abampot, as though he thought it would gain him some wonderful prize. What Malcom wouldn’t give to be away from this place—somewhere where he could begin to matter. Here, he was only the MacKinnon’s son, and all his counsels were scoffed at.
Down, deep in his soul, he felt a coming tide … a surge of something foul. Trust was simply not something Malcom gave so freely.
All his grumblings were forgotten the instant he spied the riders coming up the hill.
Hastening to his father’s side, Malcom handed him the parchment from Catrìona without a word.
His father turned the parchment in his hand. “What’s this?”
“From Cat,” Malcom said, rolling his eyes, and fixing his gaze upon the approaching riders. “She says the chimney is better positioned to the middle of the roof.”
“Does she?” his father said, and stuffed the parchment into his belt to deal with later, his gaze returning to the riders. “Where are your sisters?” he asked.
Malcom shared his concern for their safety. He did not suffer strangers easily. “Page took the women to the brook.” All save Catrìona Brodie, he didn’t bother to add. She, more than any of them, needed a bath, for she sweated like a man.
“Good.”
It wasn’t until the riders were halfway up the hill that Malcom realized who it was. A wolf’s-head banner snapped in the breeze, and he peered back at Catrìona.
* * *
Abit fartherdown the way, near a bend in the road, a small cavalcade stopped for a rest. Broc Ceannfhionn held the wagon reigns, considering a detour.
