Two things became immediately clear to Gelis when she wakened early the next morning.
First, and most disturbing, she was alone.
Her bed — nae, the Raven’s massive oaken four-poster — nearly swallowed her whole. She eyed the broad expanse of sumptuous coverings and furred throws, not missing that they were barely rumpled. And of the sea of goose down pillows massed along the elaborately carved headboard, hardly a one proved disturbed.
Only the pillow she herself had slept on.
Her late-night hopes that the Raven might return during the small hours, slipping silently into the bed to ravish her, had been for naught.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, puffed a tiny goose feather off her cheek.
Then she frowned.
What should have been the most glorious morning of her life was remarkable only in that she’d wakened without Arabella’s snores ringing in the day.
Not that her oh-so-perfect sister had e’er believed that she made such ghastly nocturnal music!
Gelis knew.
She also knew she needed to make haste.
Clear and clean morning air was streaming in through the still-closed shutters. And the dim gray light just beginning to dispel the room’s shadows indicated she’d slept longer than had been wise.
Her second realization wouldn’t suffer fuzzy, sleep-addled wits.
Seducing Ronan MacRuari wasn’t going to be a walk through the heather.
She’d need more than bouncing green love-baubles and scandalously dipping bodices.
Fortunately, she had a plan.
And she was more than ready to set it in motion.
Heart thumping, she scrambled down from the great bed’s high mattress and hurried across the rushes to a little oaken table in the far corner.
Naked, but too excited to mind the chill that was raising gooseflesh on her skin, she eyed the grooming goods set neatly before her.
Someone, likely the large-eyed girl, Anice, must’ve slipped into the chamber only a short while ago and had obviously taken great care to please.
The provided amenities were no less fine than those she was accustomed to at Eilean Creag. A large bowl, a drying cloth, and a ewer of fresh bathing water awaited her morning pleasure. Best of all, a small earthen jar of her own rose-scented soap had been placed on the table as well, and she dipped her fingers into it quickly, eager to rush through her ablutions and be on her way.
Already, she could hear a great bustle stirring in the bailey below. Trumpet blasts, men’s shouts, and the clank of armor filled her ears. The snorts and whinnies of restless, hoof-stamping horses reached her as well, that great ringing clatter a sure sign that her father and his guardsmen were readying for imminent departure.
At the thought, her breath snagged and she clapped a hand to her throat. An awful tightness spread through her chest, and for one wild, crazy moment, scenes from her life as she’d known it up till now flashed before her.
Not taibhs, images called forth from her gift, these images were ripped from her heart.
She closed her eyes, the memories so clear she could almost reach out and touch them.
Her father, with his oh-so-commanding presence, almost larger than life, always plaid-wrapped and sporting his sword, would remain her forever hero. Her mother, Saint Linnet to all who knew and loved her, beautiful still, and the most caring soul she knew.
Even Arabella, so prim, serene, and — at times — so vastly annoying. Telve and Troddan, too. Her father’s enormous, impossibly shaggy, and best-loved dogs, always begging ear fondles and treats. Eilean Creag itself whirled across her mind’s eye, her beloved home filling her vision until her eyes burned and blurred.
“ Pah-phooey!” She blinked furiously, swiping at her cheek before she did something unthinkable.
MacKenzies didn’t cry.
And she wasn’t about to spoil that long-held tradition.
Ignoring the stinging heat making it so difficult to see, she hurried to her nearest coffer of raiments and flung open its lid. She grabbed the first gown she closed her fingers on, then dashed about the room, snatching up a few other necessities she’d let carelessly fall to the floor as she’d undressed the night before.
“Cuidich’ N’ Righ!” The MacKenzie battle cry split the morning. “Save the king!”
Gelis started.
Her fingers froze on the gown she’d been wriggling into, its finely wrought folds of bright blue and gold gathered in bunches about her hips.
“Cuidich’ N’ Righ!” Her father’s powerful voice sounded again, this time quickly followed by the enthusiastic echoes of his men.
Even Sir Marmaduke’s English-tinged roar.
Panic rising, she yanked up her gown, thrusting her arms into the sleeves.
The war cry was all she’d needed to hear.
MacKenzies only used the slogan in battle or when on the verge of an important leavetaking.
Nae, she corrected herself, in the very moment of such a farewell.
“O-o-oh, wait!” She dashed about, searching for her shoes. “You canna leave yet!”
Thrusting her fingers through her tangled, unbound hair, she concentrated, willing herself to remember where she’d pitched her wretched footgear.
But the answer didn’t come.
And her bluidy cuarans were nowhere to be seen.
“Hell’s bells and damnation!” She whirled in a circle, scanning the floor rushes, the great bearskin rugs scattered here and there.
Desperate, she dropped to her knees and peered beneath the bed, seeing naught but a welter of dust balls and smelly, matted rushes.
“Arrgghhhh! So be it!” Frustration welling, she leaped to her feet and ran from the room.
Any who looked askance at her because her hair tumbled loose to her hips and no shoes adorned her feet could, well . . . they could just take a flying leap into the nearest and most ripe dung pit!
A particularly vile and stinky one.
There were, after all, more important things in life than perfectly dressed hair and . . . shoes!
Feeling better already, she sprinted along the dimly lit passageway and tore down the winding turnpike stair, not stopping until she raced through the darkened great hall and burst onto the keep’s outer stair.
A thin drizzle of rain greeted her.
That and utter chaos.
Crowded and torchlit, the bailey swarmed. Stable lads dashed hither and thither and MacRuari guardsmen lined the battlements, their steel glinting and their expressions somber. Her father’s men were already mounted, the whole illustrious lot of them gathered near the entrance to the gatehouse pend, banners snapping and spirits high.
Everywhere, dogs barked and chickens squawked. A loose boar, escaped from his pen, ran underfoot, his zig-zag path across the cobbles increasing the madness. His curling tusks gleamed in the morning light while his squeals and grunts only made the castle dogs bark all the louder.
Most damning of all was the great ear-splitting screech of Dare’s iron-spiked portcullis clanking upward, the creak of wood as the heavy, double-hinged gates swung wide.
“ No-o-o!” She bounded down the steps, her heart’s wild hammering a great roar in her ears until she saw her father — and him — sitting their mounts a bit to the side of the gatehouse, apart from the general hubbub.
Her father looked carved of stone. Braw and impossibly well-favored for a man of his years, the rigid set of his jaw and the way he held his shoulders would have sent her fleeing in the opposite direction did she not know what a loving heart beat beneath his fierce exterior.
Would that she could say the same for the Raven!
Looking equally tense, his bold stare blazed right at her, its ferocity almost burning her. Unblinking, he watched her, his dark eyes narrowed and his silky blue-black hair lifting in the breeze. His golden torque gleamed at his neck and he wore his great black travel cloak, the one she’d found tossed across a bearskin rug.
Garbed thusly, he reminded her so much of the raven of her visions that she almost stumbled on the stairs.
Chills rippled down her back and her senses sharpened. Her pulse leaped and her skin began to tingle, awareness of him singeing her.
A man should not be allowed to be so compelling!
So blatantly . . . sensual.
His stare intensified and he seemed to grow larger, the bailey around him to dim and recede.
The air between them crackled, almost as if charged by trapped lightning. But then her uncle Marmaduke rode into view, his arrival shattering the spell.
He drew up beside her father and the Raven. Holding his sword a mite too casually, at least to the eyes of those who didn’t know him, he watched the goings-on carefully, his scarred face revealing naught of his true emotions.
Save for a flicker of concern when he spied her tangled, unbound tresses; her bare feet flying over the slippery wet stone of the stairs.
Gelis’s heart squeezed.
Once again scenes of home seized her.
She hitched her skirts, hastening down the last few steps much faster than she should have, caring only to reach her loved ones before it was too late.
Torcaill the druid was there, too.
Well mounted and looking proud, the ancient jabbed a tall walking stick into the air. His voice rose above the pandemonium, calling out blessings as the contingent of MacKenzie warriors spurred their beasts, surging as one through Dare’s yawning gates.
Her father turned in his saddle to watch them go, his own great warhorse beginning to sidle and fret, clearly eager to be gone.
“Wait!” Gelis careened across the cobbles, dodging dogs and leaping over chickens. “You cannot go until —”
“Ho, daughter! I’m no’ going anywhere — no’ yet.” Her father swung down from his steed as she drew near, striding forward to sweep her into his arms. “No’ before I’m assured that you” — he threw a glance over his shoulder, his dark eyes narrowing suspiciously on the Raven — “passed a satisfactory night!”
Resplendent in his gleaming black mail and hung about with more steel than was surely necessary, he set her from him. “I’d hear the truth, lass.” His gaze bored deep. “ ’Tis no’ too late for you to return with us. Your uncle and I —”
“Ho, indeed!” Valdar’s bearlike figure stepped out of the shadows. “I told you fine that all went well with them.” He hooked his hands around his sword belt, looking pleased. “I saw the lad racing up the stairs to join her late last night — saw him with my own two eyes.”
Sir Marmaduke lifted a brow, his doubt only increasing the old man’s mirth.
Valdar wriggled his own brows in Sir Marmaduke’s general direction. He hooted heartily, his great barrel-bellied girth jigging with merriment.
“Och, suffering saints save me!” he burst out, eyes dancing. “I saw it all, I did.”
“You have a crafty tongue in that head of yours, MacRuari.” The Black Stag eyed him, clearly rankled. “Many sets of feet tramped up those stairs last night. That two of those feet belonged to your grandson means naught.”
Gelis felt her face warm.
The Raven was still watching her, his gaze sharp.
“Means naught, eh?” Valdar rocked back on his heels. “Mayhap not that he ran up the stairs, I’ll agree. ’Twas how he was running up them that makes the difference!”
His point made — leastways to him — he looked round as if awaiting accolades.
“Och, aye, Kintail,” he announced, “hills rocked and the moon wept when that boy reached his bonnie bride’s door last night!”
The heat staining Gelis’s cheeks slid around to scald the back of her neck.
Her father’s brows snapped together.
“Have done with such gabble, MacRuari.” His tone was thunderous. “You’re no’ making sense. Dinna make me call you a blethering old fool.”
Valdar laughed and slapped his thigh.
“Fool I may be,” he boomed, his bearded face splitting into a grin, “but I’m man enough to ken that a young stirk doesn’t go tearing up stairs nekkid unless he —”
“Naked?” Duncan MacKenzie roared with all his lung power. His hand flew to his sword hilt. “Saints, Maria, and Joseph! I’d have expected more of—”
“Caution, my friend.” Sir Marmaduke’s voice cut in. “They are handfasted — good as wed.”
The Black Stag scowled, fixing his long-time friend with his most formidable stare.
“Hell’s afire!” He flung back his plaid, his eyes blazing. “Why I have a brain in my head when I have you to constantly remind me of things that canna be changed, is beyond me! Besides, running naked up stairs, and on his way to greet a lady, is just —”
“He was naked save his plaid.” Gelis raised her own voice. She just omitted that he’d held the plaid in his hand. “Valdar must not have gotten a good look at him. The stair tower isn’t well lit.”
Her father mumbled, cursing under his breath at no one in particular.
Valdar rubbed his hands together, beaming still. “A spirited gell, did I no’ say so already?”
Ignoring him, Gelis gripped her father’s arm. “Now who is being a blethering old fool?”
She leaned close, her voice low. “Or would you claim it isn’t custom for men of these hills to go bare-bottomed beneath their plaids? Especially when within their own good walls and heading to their own bedchamber.”
The Black Stag looked down at her, his mouth clamped tightly shut.
“And” — she lifted on her toes, speaking into his ear — “he had every right to enter that bedchamber — as well you know!”
“I’d know what riled you so greatly, you’d come hallooing down here with your hair undone and no shoes on your feet.” He jammed his hands on his hips, took in her dishevelment. “If he —”
“He had naught to do with my appearance this morn — you did.” Gelis tossed her head, flipping her hair over one shoulder. “I heard our clan battle cry and thought you were leaving —”
“Havers, lass.” He grabbed her, pulling her against him for a swift embrace. “You should ken I’d ne’er have left without seeing you. I knew you’d be down —”
“But the war cry — I heard it.”
“To be sure, you did.” He released her, his expression lighter.
Almost as if he was going to laugh.
But he caught himself, lowering his voice instead, “I only bellowed the war cry to put the fear o’ God in this pack of cloven-footed MacRuaris!”
Gelis stared at him, not knowing whether she should laugh or scold him.
“You never change, do you?” She spoke the words lightly, knowing her love for him shone in her eyes.
“My girl.” His voice was rough, deep, and only for her. “Have a care with yourself, you hear?”
She nodded.
He said nothing else.
A muscle jerked beneath his left eye and she touched the place with her fingers, pressing gently until it stilled. A common trait shared by many MacKenzie males, the twitch made her breath seize, the sight of it reminding her of kith and kin she might not see again for many days.
Her beloved Loch Duich and the great hills guarding its shores; a land dressed in clouds, mist, and heather.
But Dare was her home now, so she swallowed against the lump in her throat, squared her shoulders, and prepared to bend the truth one more time.
“My night was good,” she lied, lifting her voice so everyone present could not fail to hear her. “There is no reason for you to leave in anger or in doubt of my happiness.”
“She speaks true, Kintail.” The Raven appeared beside her. “Her night was a peaceful one.”
No longer mounted, he looked between her father and his druid. That one, too, had dismounted and now hovered at the Raven’s elbow. The ancient’s long flowing mane glowed white in the bailey’s torchlight, and he clutched his tall walking stick in a gnarled fist.
Her father glowered at them. “Then see you that all her nights are that, just!”
“I shall.” The Raven took her father’s hand in both of his, the gesture seeming to startle the older man. “I desire naught more than to know her well.”
“Harrumph!” Valdar whacked his thigh again. “ ’Tis more to desire than —”
“And I suggest we be on our way,” a deep voice interrupted him.
Sir Marmaduke again.
Mindful of her father as always, he’d surely recognized the telltale brightness beginning to show in the Black Stag’s eyes, and no doubt, too, the way he’d started blinking more than was usual. For all his scowls and bluster, no one was worse at suffering farewells.
Proving it, he arched a contrary brow. “We’ll leave when I am ready.”
“ ’Tis best to be away anon.” The Raven lost no time in siding with her uncle. “The mist through the glen will be at its lightest if we ride now,” he said, casting a glance at the hovering druid. “If we dally —”
“Since when did a bit o’ mist hinder a Heilander?” The Black Stag drew himself up, adjusting his plaid with a great flourish. “But I’ll no’ stand about saying soppy good-byes like a woman!”
The words spoken, he reached for Gelis, crushing her so hard against him she feared he’d cracked her ribs. But he released her as quickly, his misty eyes explaining the lack of a verbal farewell. Then he whipped around, vaulting up into his saddle before she could even catch her breath.
“We’re off!” he shouted, already kicking his heels into his mount’s sides, sending the beast racing for the yawning gatehouse pend. “Cuidich N’ Righ!”
Gelis pressed a hand to her mouth, her throat too thick to call out to him.
Not that he would have heard her.
The Black Stag was already gone, the echoing thunder of his horse’s hooves all that was left of him.
“He’ll be fine.” Her uncle slung an arm around her, pulling her close. “See that you are. It would break your father if aught happened to you.”
“Nothing will.”
Nothing except happiness, she added in silence, willing it so.
He gave her a quick nod. Something in his eyes made her think he’d heard the unspoken words. But before she could decide, he, too, was striding away.
Swinging up on his horse with no less style than her father, he whipped out his sword, raising it high. “Cuidich N’ Righ!” he yelled, charging after her father, his cry loud in the mist-hung morning.
“Save the king,” Gelis returned, her voice catching.
She blinked hard and swiped a hand beneath her eyes, somehow unable to see her uncle’s receding back as he rode away. Drifting wet mist dampened her cheeks, stinging her eyes and spoiling her view.
“They are good men. My sorrow, lady, that the parting is difficult for you.”
Gelis started, whirled around.
He was at her side again.
Magnificent in his black cloak, he towered over her, his midnight gaze much too intense and his proximity more than disturbing.
Gelis swallowed, any words she might have said lodging firmly in her throat.
So greatly did he affect her.
Something flickered in his eyes then, and he lifted a hand, bringing it almost to her cheek as if to dash away the dampness she was trying to so hard to ignore.
But before his fingers touched her, he lowered his hand, turning away so swiftly she wondered if he’d even reached for her at all.
Indeed, she blinked and found herself alone.
From somewhere, she heard the hollow clatter of hooves on cobbles, the sound moving away from her and into the mist and dark beyond Dare’s walls.
Even Valdar was nowhere to be seen, though she couldn’t blame him for seeking the comforts of his hall on such a chill, damp morn.
Not now that all the excitement was over.
But then, as she turned to make her own way back into the keep, she did spy another soul remaining.
Buckie.
And the sight of him caused her heart to wrench.
The dog sat in the lee of the gatehouse wall, staring fixedly into the shadows of the tunnel-like pend. His head was lowered, his ears hanging, and his great plumed tail flat and unmoving against the wet cobbles.
“Buckie!” Gelis called to him, but his only response was a single twitch of one tatty-looking ear.
“Come, old boy,” she tried again, crossing over to him. She stroked his head, laid on her most coaxing tone. “I’ll give you a fine meat-bone to chew beside the fire.”
He looked up at her then, his milky eyes sad.
“Och, Buckie, please . . .”
But the dog refused to budge. With a pitiful groan, he returned his attention to the empty gatehouse pend, once more ignoring her.
“You love him that much, eh, Buckie?” Gelis bit her lip, shoved a mist-dampened curl off her brow.
She also blinked hard, fighting another ridiculous attack of the stinging heat that seemed wont to jab at the backs of her eyes this morn.
“As you will then, laddie, I’ll leave you be.” She gave the dog one last head-and-ears fondle, then turned and strode resolutely across the bailey.
Gathering up her skirts and lifting her chin — just in case anyone was watching her — she mounted the keep stairs, ascending them with a studied grace that would surely have impressed her sister.
She spared a glance at Maldred’s heraldic shield as she neared the landing, but in the gray morning light, the stone’s ancient engravings appeared even more worn and age-smoothed than before.
Squinting up at the thing, she could barely make out the lines of the raven’s sculpted wings.
No matter.
She reached for the hall door’s heavy iron latch, letting herself into the warmth and firelit coziness of the great hall. The day was young, and it was time to see to the first stages of her seduction plan.
But first she needed to find her shoes, do something with her hair, and then make a quick visit to the kitchens.
If the fates were on her side, Ronan MacRuari would learn the mettle of a MacKenzie woman.
And that she — Gelis MacKenzie — wasn’t one to accept defeat quietly.
As Gaelic winds blow, strong and fey, about the time Gelis hurried up Castle Dare’s winding turnpike stair, her mind busy with her plan, another soul bustled about a tiny, thick-walled cottage on the Hebridean isle of Doon.
That sweet isle, little more than a deep-blue smudge against silver-misted skies, was a different world. A nigh-mythical place that — to most — proved difficult to reach due to the isle’s high black cliffs and the treacheries of its surrounding waters.
The black skerries with teeth sharp as a razor’s edge and rip tides capable of claiming the most stout, well-manned sailing vessel.
Truth be told, those who were granted access to Doon’s golden-sanded shores had only the good graces of Devorgilla to thank.
Bent, grizzled, and slow of gait, but with twinkling blue eyes that defied her age, the far- famed wise woman of Doon was selective in whom she called friend.
Likewise, she made a formidable foe.
And she it was, Devorgilla of Doon, who unwittingly or otherwise, now mirrored Gelis’s circular ascent up Dare’s winding stair tower.
Even if the crone’s circuitous path only took her round and round the tidy, peat-smoke-smelling confines of her cozy, low- ceilinged home.
As a good, nae, as the most revered cailleach in all the Highlands and the Isles, she wasn’t just hobbling round her central hearth fire.
O-o-oh, nae.
She was scuttling along deiseil, circling her fine smoldering peat fire in a sunwise direction. She chuckled to herself as she went, taking care to croon to the little red dog fox trotting along in her wake.
The wee fox, Somerled by name, knew better than any that the crone’s mind was just as busy that morn as was Lady Gelis’s in distant Glen Dare.
Devorgilla pressed a hand against her hip and glanced at him as she passed her cottage’s two deep-set windows, her wizened face wreathing in a smile when the sharp-eyed fox swished his thick, white-tipped tail.
Her faithful companion and helpmate for some years now, he understood her well.
She winked at him, pleased when he flicked his tail once more.
“Ach, laddie, we have much to celebrate this morn, eh?”
Without halting her shuffling black-booted feet, she snatched a twist of dried meat from a small wooden bowl on her table and tossed the tidbit to the little fox.
She cackled with glee when he leaped in the air, catching the treat before it fell to the flag stoned floor.
“Guid,” she gushed, watching him fall into place behind her again, prancing along as if he hadn’t just performed such a bold and dashing maneuver.
She, too, felt nimble just now.
Power sizzled through her bones and lightened her heart. And though she wouldn’t own it — the Old Ones frowned on those who boasted — she was almost sure even her finger- and toenails tingled with magic.
So she continued on her way, mumbling blessings and indulging in a wee bit of humble if well-deserved self-praise.
’Twas well enough earned.
If she dared say so herself.
Her third rounding of the cottage’s central hearth fire completed, she paused. She raised her hands, palms upward, her gaze following her black-sleeved arms but seeing much more than her ceiling’s blackened, herb-hung rafters.
Then, when her palms began to warm and pulse with the Old Ones’ benevolence, she lowered her arms. Well satisfied, she turned her attention to the steaming cauldron hanging on its great iron hook above the pungent, earthy-sweet smolder of the peats.
Unable to help herself, another gleeful cackle — or two — rose in her throat.
She didn’t even attempt to stifle them.
Even though her excitement and bustling was clearly a great botheration to Mab, the tricolored cat curled in the exact middle of Devorgilla’s sleeping pallet and pretending disdainfully that it was just another ordinary Doon morn.
Not that any day on that cliff-girt, sea-bound isle could be called the like.
Devorgilla wagged a finger as if to emphasize the point.
Her wee fox lifted a paw in absolute agreement.
“We showed those mist wraiths, eh, Somerled?”
The fox’s golden eyes glittered.
“Banished them with a mere wriggle of my fingers, we did!”
Chortling still, the crone demonstrated. Her bright eyes full of merriment, she thrust her hand into the cauldron’s steam and twitched her fingers, causing the drifts of steam to shift and waver.
“Mist wraiths — fie!” She withdrew her hand. “Let them try to rise again. Perhaps next time I shall tie them all in knots!”
She nodded to herself, very much liking the idea, but set the possibility aside for the moment.
Other chores and duties beckoned.
Stooping to the side, she plunged her hands into a large wicker creel, retrieving a handful of plump, waiting-to-be-smoked herring.
A gift from Sir Marmaduke Strongbow and his lady wife, Caterine, but originally from Glenelg’s joy woman, Gunna of the Glen, the prized fish needed to be hung one by one to a taut-stretched drying rope she’d affixed across the modest breadth of her cottage.
With a practiced eye, Devorgilla set about her task, making sure the choicest specimens were placed just above her e’ er-burning peat fire.
Herring thus cured would be carefully guarded. Each one stashed away as delicacies of great worth, only produced when guests of particularly high standing came to call.
“Noble folk the like of the Black Stag’s daughter and her raven,” she announced, slanting a proud glance at Somerled as she fastened another fine and weighty herring to the string above her fire. “They’ll no doubt wish to thank me, sail to Doon bearing gifts and oblations . . .”
She let the words tail off, preferring to glory in how easily she’d banished the mist snakes.
How one stern look and a mere wriggle of her knotty-knuckled fingers had sent the foul slithering creatures scurrying back to the hell whence they’d come.
“O-o-oh, aye, Somerled,” she skirled, snatching up another fat and glistening herring to hang in the cloud of steam gathering above her cauldron, “the flow of the tides and the currents aren’t strong enough to hinder Devorgilla of Doon’s powers!”
“Fool woman!”
The powerful voice came from within the cauldron steam.
“Gaaaaa!” Devorgilla jumped.
The fish went flying from her fingers.
“Cease meddling with matters beyond your ken!” A towering dark-robed figure glowered at her from the swirling vapor.
Glaring fiercely, he scowled down his long nose, his white-maned hair whipping in an unseen wind as he raised an arm and shook a great, silver-glowing staff.
Devorgilla lurched backward, toppling the herring creel.
Somewhere behind her, Mab hissed and Somerled barked.
The figure waved his staff more vigorously. A shower of blindingly brilliant silver-blue sparks and spangles sprayed everywhere, lighting the cottage as if it were noontide on a bright midsummer’s day.
“Be warned, woman!” The figure’s eyes fixed on her, penetrating. “Try such foolery again and I’ll do more than just frighten you!”
“Frighten me? Devorgilla of Doon?” Some sliver of her earlier pride made her shake out her black skirts. She jutted a somewhat bristly chin. “Be that the style of you, then? Preying on old, helpless women?”
Somerled bumped her leg, lending support.
For a moment, the figure looked almost nonplussed.
But then his frown returned and he aimed his staff at the spilled herring. Speaking a spell darker and more ancient than any of her own, he touched the end of the walking stick to the toppled creel, turning it and the precious fish into a charred clump of smoking black goo.
Somerled’s brush shot straight upward, his snarl protective.
Devorgilla placed a black-booted toe over her little friend’s paw, staying him before he did anything foolish.
“Aye.” She bobbed her grizzled head, her eye on the interloper. “Preying on helpless old women . . . and spoiling their stores!”
The figure leaned close, his white head and his ancient, robe-draped shoulders looming out of the cauldron’s mist. “I see no helpless female but a foolish one! Be glad I came to counsel you before your ill-placed interference causes more harm than good!”
He turned a meaningful look on the ruined herrings. “There are those who would do the like to you! And those you hold dear.”
Straightening, he jabbed his staff at the charred creel once more, this time restoring the basket and the herring to their former condition.
“Heed me if you are wise!” He looked at her, his gaze fierce. “Leave any reckonings to those more able.”
Devorgilla huffed.
Putting back her admittedly thin shoulders, she started to argue, but already he was fading. The cauldron’s steam whistled and swirled, closing around him, blotting him from view.
“Stay away from Dare . . .”
The words came as if from a great distance.
They echoed around the tidy little cottage until that warning dwindled, too, leaving Devorgilla and Somerled alone once more.
Mab — Devorgilla was sure of it — would be somewhere far out on the moors by now.
Safe, and seeking a comfortable bed.
“But we shall not be scared off, eh, Somerled?” She leaned down to pat the fox’s head, alarmed to see that her hand was trembling.
“Come, come, my little friend,” she cooed, hefting the creel of herrings onto her hip and hobbling toward the door. “We have much yet to do.”
Above all, she needed to wash the herring — and the creel — with water from her special sacred well. Whether the basket and the fish looked fully unspelled made no difference whatsoever.
The figure had wielded some hoary magic with his spark-spitting staff, and she wasn’t one for taking chances.
Nor would she do any further finger wriggling.
Instead, she opened her door and stepped out into the chill morning. Not quite sunrise, a fine silver-blue haze shimmered across the glade surrounding her cottage.
Unfortunately, the eerie luminosity reminded her of their visitor, and she shivered, not liking him or his warnings.
“Counsel, he called it,” she scolded, shifting the creel to her other hip. “ Counsel-schmounsel, I say!”
Trotting along at her side, the little fox slanted a glance up at her, all hearty agreement.
“And,” she added, encouraged, “there’s no reason we canna use some other means to help our charges, eh?”
She paused halfway across the glade and set down the creel, just to rest her back. The thing was heavy and, truth was, she was getting too old for such onerous chores as lugging full baskets of herring to her well and back.
Devil-blast the long-nosed, white-maned buzzard who’d made such a trek necessary!
“Call me a foolish woman, indeed!” Pressing both hands against the small of her back, she stretched. She rotated her shoulders and rolled her neck, her angry gaze on the early morning sky.
A few stars still glimmered, distant and frosty, while a crescent moon yet hung above the tops of the alders and birches ringing her circular glade. And far below Doon’s cliffs, out across the still-dark waters of the Hebridean Sea, the tides were running fast and pale gray light was just beginning to edge the clouds.
Not that she cared — now — if the sun ne’er broke the horizon this morn.
She had more important things to do.
“Ach, Somerled.” She snatched up the herring creel with a deal more vigor than before. “Now I know what must be done.”
The little fox cocked his head, eyes bright.
Waiting.
Eager as ever to do her bidding.
Pleased, and with a decidedly light spring in her step, Devorgilla led the way to her special well, her wee helpmate matching her hurrying strides.
And just before they reached the well, Devorgilla cackled again.
Their magic-staff-swinging visitor, all piercing eyes and wild-tossing, white-maned hair, had done more than he’d ever intended.
Far from simply warning her, he’d shown her what she’d overlooked till now.
And she intended to take full advantage.
Whether it pleased the old goat or not.