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James had requested a conference with Robert, and as he entered the keep, heading for the king’ study, Shabib appeared from the entryway to the stairs.
“Ah, Shabib, just the man I was searching for. I’m about to have counsel with the king. ‘Tis time for us to set up our own place at Threave, as promised by the king when I wed Tosia. I want to do that before we leave for the Highlands so she might be settled. Come with me so we might learn when we can to begin our transition to that keep.”
Shabib’s stoic face hid in the royal blue of his hood. Instead of an eager reception and the prospect of a home, Shabib’s hesitancy raised the hairs on the back of James’s neck.
The reason Shabib had sought him out was not a good one.
“I do not believe I’ll be leaving with you, my brother.” Shabib’s deep voice emanated with an air of sadness.
James inhaled, trying to take in Shabib’s words. They had been together for so long. Why did his friend want to part ways now? James narrowed his eyes at Shabib.
“Why not? Have I, or the king, offended ye somehow?”
Shabib’s blue hood shook. “No, my brother. Nothing of the sort. And I will yet travel with you to your northern lands. I am not leaving your king. At least, not yet.”
James raised an eyebrow. “Your decision to remain at Auchinleck wouldn’t have anything to do with the black-haired lass who arrived with the MacMillans, would it?”
Finally, Shabib’s impassive visage broke, and he dipped his head low. James’s lips split into a wide grin. “Och, so it does.”
James clapped his friend on his shoulders hard enough to make Shabib stumble forward.
“Weel, then, my brother. Ye will be missed at Threave, but I applaud your desire to pursue this woman. I canna fault ye for affairs of the heart when I worried that ye had lost your heart altogether. And as long as ye fight by my side, I dinna have a care where ye lay your head at night.”
“I could say the same of you, James. When you set your own keep on fire, decimating your own stronghold, I worried for your heart and soul. While I have to leave your soul to Allah, I’m pleased that you have yet retained your heart and gifted it to the care of your wife. She has grounded you in a way you didn’t know you needed.”
James’s grin faltered a bit. “You as well. I hope this woman has a care for your heart and provides a salve for your wounds when you return from battle.”
“Thank you, James. Your blessing makes this easier for me.”
James rested his hand on Shabib’s shoulder, gripping him tightly. “Your life has no’ been easy. I could no’ image having to reject my own people, my prior life, after so devastating a blow. Lands and castles, they are dirt and stone and can be replaced. Your loved ones can never be. But you can try to reclaim a measure of that in the future. I bid you the best life here with your woman in a free Scotland.”
Shabib nodded his head. “And I will fight by your side until that day arrives.”
The wee Brenna Fraser had joined the other women to help prepare and serve dinner to the swelling ranks of the Bruce’s army. With the recent arrivals of the Sinclairs, the Frasers, the MacLeods, and the MacRuaidhrís and MacDonalds from the islands, the Bruce’s army bordered on formidable. The English would surely tremble in fear. Yet it also meant much assistance was needed to help house and feed so many men. Even the help of the oddly dressed Brenna, with her perky smiles and easy manners, was more than welcome.
Caitrin was absent from the kitchens, much to Tosia’s dismay. Over the past months, Tosia had grown fond of Caitrin and her austere sister-by-law, Lady Elayne. As Tosia arranged the meat on a platter, she decided to check on the fair woman if she didn’t appear to evening meal. In the meantime, Tosia chatted with the pert Brenna, avoiding the obvious topic of her manly dress.
Once Tosia found a moment to sit at a table near the kitchens with Brenna, she craned her neck to see if Caitrin had appeared. Indeed, the lass reclined on a chair nearer to the Bruce, her normally milky skin wan and pale. Her husband, the mighty Torin who attended the table in front of the king’s, never took his protective eyes from her form. Something about the woman worried him, just as it worried Tosia.
Davina wove her way through the tables to sit by her sallow daughter, fawning over her. A similar sense of concern tightened the lines of Caitrin’s mother’s face. Tosia forgot her own meal as she watched with overt curiosity the scene unfold between mother and daughter. Only Elayne seemed unworried, and Tosia noted a small smile tugging at the Lady’s cheeks, as if she knew a secret none other did.
What does she know?
Then Caitrin’s pasty lips formed their own slight smile as she leaned into her mother, speaking into her ear. Davina’s face transformed into equal parts shock and joy as she screeched loud enough to garner the attention of those in the hall before clapping her hand over her mouth.
Attention turned to the women as Davina threw her arms around her daughter. Torin knocked over the bench he shared with MacCollough, who ended up on the floor as a result, as he barreled past the table to his wife. Caitrin’s still pale face yet glowed as she smiled at the giant.
“Caitrin! What is it?” His large hands gently grabbed hers as she rose partially from her seat. Her mother rose with her, unable to stop patting her daughter’s hair and shoulders.
Caitrin’s hand snaked to her belly, and she dropped her gaze before speaking. More quiet than her mother or husband, Caitrin once again leaned in and spoke low to Torin. His bearded jaw dropped open.
“Are ye certain? Are ye well?” His eyes dropped to Caitrin’s belly, and he covered her slender hand with his own.
That movement told everyone in the hall what ailed Caitrin. Tosia glanced at Elayne, who stayed seated and picked daintily at her meal. She’d known the whole time. Elayne could keep a secret, that was evident to Tosia.
Torin wrapped his bear-like arms around his wife before half-turning to those in the hall.
“Congratulate me! I am to be a father!”
Declan sprang up from the floor and rushed his friend, slapping his back before embracing his sister in an affectionate embrace.
Tosia fairly sighed as she watched the scene. So much love in one family, one kin, one clan. The Bruce, and Scotland as a whole, was all the better for Highlanders such as these living and fighting for it.
As cheers rose around her, drowning out other sounds in the hall, Tosia wrapped her arm around her own waist. James had been unending in his attentions toward her. Might she be carrying a babe now? And how would she birth it and raise it if she did find herself with child? Here at Auchinleck? James, under the command of the king, planned to situate her at Threave before they departed for the Highlands — would he even be here if she bore a babe? The uncertainty, the precariousness of their circumstance suddenly overwhelmed her.
“Are ye well?” Brenna asked, placing her hand on her arm. Tosia turned to her with a weak smile on her lips.
“Aye, thank ye. I got caught up in the joy of it all, aye?” She tipped her head toward the celebratory family.
“Och, aye. Babes bring such joy, do they no’?” Brenna agreed and turned her face to the activity at the front of the hall.
Tosia nodded absently at the lass’s words, as she searched the hall for James. “Aye, that they do,” she said more to herself than to Brenna.
Was James thinking the same as she? Did he even desire children? They had never spoken about it. What would he do if, when, she did find herself full with child?
James hunkered down next to his king and wondered, what next, what next? The past few weeks had been enough to try any man’s soul, and he glanced at the Bruce. What of that man’s soul? He was still separated from his wife and child, and the fate of his crown and country yet undecided. James knew he’d not fare as well, or with the same measure of composure, as the man seated beside him. The Bruce’s eyes sparkled as he watched the tender scene of Torin learning he was to be a father.
James’s own eyes shifted from his king to the women in the hall, searching for the russet-haired lass who’d stolen his heart. The idea of children was one that hadn’t crossed James’s mind when they first wed, but now that the past few days had been ones of reunion, of forgiveness, of family, and now of babes, his mind had turned to his wife and their procreating activities.
As he gazed upon her face from under hooded eyes, her expression changed from one of celebratory delight to one of furrowed brow and fretful lines. Perchance she’d been thinking the same as James, of the eventual results of their frequent coupling.
That expression of concern tore at his heart, and bowing to the Bruce to excuse himself, he made his way through the throng of lauding men and women toward Tosia. Cheers of Slainte! rang throughout the hall as he reached his wife. The strangely dressed Fraser woman perched next to her, but that lass’s attention focused on the joyous MacColloughs. Tosia started when he placed his hand on her dainty shoulder. Her hair entwined in his scruffy beard as he leaned in to speak in her ear.
“A word, wife?” he asked. Tosia reached her hand up to cover his before rising.
She wiped the fretful look from her face and replaced it with a tender smile. “Of course, my husband,” she answered as she stood.
James took her hand in his and tugged lightly as he led her past the tables to the main doors of the hall, flung wide to the only moderately cooler air outside.
He walked her to the low wall that buttressed the front steps, turning her so she faced the bailey, then stood behind her, his arms on either side of her hips as he rested his hands on the stone wall. She was cradled in his arms, protected.
A gentle breeze lifted flyaway locks of her hair, and he caught scents of grass, heather, and the oncoming autumn, lingering scents that spoke of her day. All that combined with an underlying scent that was uniquely Tosia, an aroma that drove his mind to a heated madness. His groin throbbed every time he caught the scent. Tonight, he forced himself to tamp that arousal down.
He had more important matters to discuss with Tosia.
“Lass,” he spoke into the wind. “What was on your mind in the hall? Instead of celebrating with the new mother, ye appeared concerned.”
His arms tightened against her, trying to be the solid foundation, the rock she needed to rely on, to ease her ability to voice what had her disheartened. She took his meaning and reclined back, her eyes on the darkened skies and slowly twinkling stars.
“I did celebrate for them, briefly. Caitrin, and the Lady Elayne, have been so kind to me here.”
James waited. When she didn’t continue, he urged her. “Yet?”
She whirled around in his arms, her eyes searching his face. “Yet we are naught but visitors here. Even after we move to Threave, ye are yet his man. Are we to be endless guests of the king? And what happens when I am with child? Are we to raise it here, amid an army? And what of ye?”
Her rush of panicked questions surprised him. James snapped his head back. “Me?”
“Ye are to leave with the king for the Highlands soon. What if ye dinna return?”
There it was. She feared for his life, for their future. His arms tightened around her, drawing her shaking body to his. The night was far too warm for her to shiver from cold — it was fear of an uncertain future that drove her shivering.
“Aye, lass. Ye speak the truth. At any time I might give my blood, my life, for the idea of freedom for Scotland. ‘Tis a prospect I gladly took up when I swore my oath to the king. But I have his assurances that ye, and any babes we have, shall be cared for if I dinna return from battle. That being said,” here he lifted her chin with his finger. “I plan on returning every time. To our home at Threave. If the English haven’t been able to best me yet, and believe me, they’ve tried, I dinna think they will get to me at all. I will outlive them all, I vow.”
Her arms flexed around his waist, clinging to him as though he was the single, solid thing to hold on to as they floated through the unknown of the world. James kissed the top of her cool hair, soft and comforting against his lips.
“More than that, I made a vow to ye. The day I wed ye, and every day I am with ye. Every time I share my body with ye. I vow to be here for ye, to love ye, to grow old with ye. I’ve no’ forgotten that vow. I am no’ ready to leave this earth yet. God willing, I will be here to love ye for a long time yet.”
She melted into him at his words. He didn’t often share the tender sentimentalities of his heart, but after the past few days, and with the conversation he’d had that afternoon with the Bruce, he needed her to know how deep his feelings were for her.
“And I ye,” she whispered into the rough fabric covering his broad chest. “I was so afraid when I came here, was told to wed ye, but ye have given me a life I never imagined, a love I never knew possible. I thank ye for that gift of your heart.”
James’s chest throbbed at her words. At this moment he hadn’t considered possible in his days before the Bruce. He lowered his lips to hers, brushing against their yielding softness with a light kiss.
Then he lifted his head and peered into her upturned face, as bright and glowing as the half-moon that had begun to shine above them.
“And with that, I spoke with the Bruce this day. I have asked that we be permitted to settle at Threave in a sennight’s time. We lived there before we came to Auchinleck, so a household is already in place. And if ye have any maids here, Brigid, for instance, that ye want to join us, he’s granted leave that they may come as well.”
“We move to Threave?” Her eyes reflected the moonlight, shining up at him. James barked out a laugh.
“Dinna be too excited. ‘Tis only the start of a keep. Right now, ‘tis no more than a pile of rocks on a peat-covered island in the middle of a loch. There’s much work to be done to put it to rights and finish the construction.”
Tosia shook her head wildly, her chestnut tresses flowing around her shoulders.
“’Tis of no matter. A place that is ours, where we can put down our roots, where ye can rebuild your stronghold, one that is no’ tainted by the English, ‘tis all that matters to make it ours.”
“And ye,” James finished for her. “As long as I have ye there, by my side or waiting for me when I return, then ‘twill truly be home. Though, I may have to take on the mantle of monster in the north to oust the English. I will always be Black Douglas, my love.”
“Aye, and I may be his wife. But when you are here with me, I shall tame that beast so ye know how great of a man ye truly are.”
“Ye are the light in my darkness, Tosia.”
Her full, flashing eyes fixed on him. “Always.”
He kissed her again, under the gentle moonlight, his lips searching hers with all the promise and hope that the heavens, watching from above, might grant them in this shared life in a freed Scotland, together.
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The End
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