Page 78 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
“Good mornin’,” Mistress MacLeod said, curtsying and jabbing two stiff fingers of her right hand savagely at her heart. It was clearly a gesture of respect, although a disturbing one I did not recognize. Their daughter wobbled a more traditional curtsy while her husband bowed with a rough-voiced “Banrigh nan Dràgon.” This morning, his hard-worn fisherman’s clothes had been replaced by Highland garb, including the brightly colored tartan trousers called trews. I had seen those worn by Scottish officers visiting the Meryton militia, a show of nationalism that was currently admired but, as recently as my parents’ lifetime, would have earned them a six-month sentence in an English jail.
“Good morning to you,” I said, curtsying showily to the delighted daughter. “Mr. MacLeod, I hope we have not disrupted your schedule. My husband thought you would be fishing.”
“No fishin’ today.” He fiddled with his tartan scarf, his sheepish smile revealing a sliver of uneven upper teeth.
“We’ve called a feast day,” his wyfe explained. “Beltane is a week past, but it was a poor celebration. With a great wyfe in Helmsdale, there’s more cause for cheer.”
She beckoned me to the cookfire. A wide iron pan had been placed on the coals, and a bannock was browning. It was shaped more elaborately than the breads served yesterday, with nine pointed rays around the perimeter, each a handspan in length.
“The Wyves’ bannock,” she said. “Thrice three draca teeth to honor the three wyves, the three dragons, and the three relics. ’Tis part of telling the story of the Wyfe’s Hunt.” Her finger sketched a circle above the smoky hearth, pointing out the nine rays, the ends of which were crisping to tooth-like black spikes.
Darcy emerged from the house; perhaps I had been less stealthy than I thought. He joined us, unshaven but with his neckcloth elegantly tied and his coat pristine. I found myself smiling up at him—it was so in character that he would appear perfectly dressed after sleeping on a wooden floor—then I felt a ridiculous girlish flutter in my breast when he smiled back. That sensation deepened into a more mature, aware yearning. I missed my husband and the joy of our young marriage.
“What of the story of the flute?” Darcy asked. “We believe the flute was connected to the Bennet family, long ago.”
“What know ye of Bennets?” Mistress MacLeod asked, surprised.
“My wyfe is a Bennet.”
Mr. MacLeod grinned, but that news darkened his wyfe’s mood. Frowning, she slid a soot-stained plank under the bannock, lifted it from the fire, and set it to cool on a cloth. “There’re Bennets all about the north, but nae here. Long ago, though, that’s another matter…”
Darcy stiffened like an English Pointer scenting a bird, but my stomach twisted. Foolishly, I had assumed the history of Bennets was forgotten.
“We’ll feast tonight,” she said finally, “and tell the tale of the Wyfe’s Hunt. Then we’ll see about tales of the flute.”
“Not much of a feast,” her husband muttered. “We’ll be chewing shoe leather. That bog bleatin’ factor…” He spat into the fire.
“Enough,” his wyfe said.
“Sellar’s not done with us,” Mr. MacLeod burst out. “There’s still crofters in the hills. He’ll come for them.” He waved at me. “?It’s asignthat she’s here. A sign for vengeance!”
“Stop that!” his wyfe snapped. “Do ye nae see she carries the black dagger? Think what you’re saying. They’ll be no talk of vengeance.”
Darcy watched their exchange. I could practically see the gears turning in his head. Finally, he rubbed his hands in the brisk air and asked Mr. MacLeod what form of net he preferred for catching herring. In a minute, they had set out to visit the boats. The MacLeods’ daughter begged her mother’s permission and ran after them.
“Off to pry the truth from m’husband,” Mistress MacLeod observed as the men vanished.
“Darcy worries about people. He wishes to help.”
“He’s a proper gentleman. He’d be a bonny clan chief if he were not so stiff and English.”
“He would be flattered to hear that.” Darcy held the Scots in high regard and would have merely nodded at being called “stiff and English.”
Mistress MacLeod wrapped her cooled bannock in a cotton cloth, careful to preserve the spiky rays. “I’ve a cartload of cooking to do. For the feast, ye ken? Will ye be fine by yerself?”
For all that I had grown up in a frugal household, I had a lady’s education, and my culinary experience was a few frivolous childhood projects while Barbara, our cook, alternated laughter and theatric despair. So I nodded and, dismissed, found a path to explore the unfinished homes and insufficient farmland.
The village, whatever its struggles, bustled with a festive air. Wyves and menpassed me carrying dishes or returning from the fields with fresh-picked greens, tubers, and flowers. The men all wore tartans; I saw several designs. Some wyves had tartan caps, and the younger, unmarried women had thin strips of tartan cloth tied ribbon-like in their hair. Everyone smiled at me, curtsying or bowing, and the women stabbed two fingers of their right hand at their hearts. I smiled and curtsied back.
No urgency drove me. The endless crush of Fènnù’s violent attention had vanished. My anger at the Blackcoats who hurt Mary felt… resolved. Yuánchi was asleep; I sensed his resting presence and did not probe further for fear I would hurt him. Even Darcy was out of sight, so I did not have to teeter atop yearning for him and fearing that yielding would hopelessly complicate what came next.
Directionless, I followed the salty air toward the sea but stopped when I spotted Darcy with the fishermen. A net had been spread on the short dock, and he was in animated conversation with a half-dozen kilted men. When I first met Darcy at the Meryton ball, I would not have imagined he would mingle like that, a proud gentleman so “stiff and English” at ease with tradespeople. But Darcy admired frankness and competence, whether from a cobbler or a duke, and he swiftly gained the confidence of both. It was social pretense and hypocrisy he abhorred.
Some wrong had been done to this village, and he was determined to unearth it. He would win their trust, and then he would set out to remedy it, preferably invisibly and unthanked. It was a Darcy pattern.
One of the young, unmarried women, red-cheeked with a cheerful step and an armload of green heather shoots, stopped to curtsy while offering her “Banrigh nan Dràgon” and driving two fingers viciously at her heart. When I stood rather aimlessly after my own curtsy, she offered shyly, “Would ye care to help braid the decorations?”
I was far more accomplished at braiding than baking, so we set off together, the dagger bouncing on my hip.
