Highlander Claimed. Juliette Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ own age who had found my interest in soldiers’ training amusing. They’d spent many an hour teaching me how to fight and how to ride. Skills I was blessed now to possess.

      I had known all along that my destiny lay elsewhere. Most of my clan had long forgotten about my mysterious arrival as a child of three or four, accepting me as another daughter of a clanmember, and then as a servant and pair of hands. My unusual looks were occasionally commented on: hair so fair it was almost white, and light green eyes, not at all like the darker hues of my parents and friends. But there was too much work to be done to ponder excessively over the details of my foreignness. With mouths to feed, walls to build and crops to tend, there was little time left over to dwell on the origins of an outcast child.

      I had not forgotten. The questions visited me daily. They resided in my dreams. And they made me less willing to accept my fate as the servant of a tyrannical laird whose intentions for me had been written in every glance in my direction since I came of age. But I’d known this was coming. I’d known it all along. I had waited for this day.

      And here it was.

      At the last moment, I grabbed a war helmet and stuffed it into the remaining space in my bag.

      Several horses were grazing near the stables. I slipped a bridle onto a chestnut pony that I had ridden before—and draped a saddle blanket into place. I used a tree stump to mount the horse and climbed on. He could sense my frantic state, and it unsettled him. I was profoundly grateful that the stable hands were used to seeing me ride. They glanced up from their chores but didn’t dwell on what I was doing.

      My immediate concern was to put as much distance between myself and my crime during this calm before the storm. The laird was, perhaps, weakened by loss of blood. He might be unconscious, not yet able to issue orders to have me followed, caught, beaten, killed. But that wouldn’t last long—I felt certain he would recover if a fever didn’t set in. I knew firsthand that Ismay was a highly talented healer. After all, she’d relied on me to gather the herbs she needed to make the healing paste, a good strong brew.

      I skirted the horse around the loch, gaining speed, at full gallop by the time I reached the open gates of the keep.

      I never looked back.

      Riding faster than I’d ever ridden before, I pushed my horse until his coat was lathered with white sweat. I was fortunate that the ground was dry and a slight breeze stirred the air; the horse’s prints would not be deep, and the wind might erase them before they could be followed. I rode until the sky bled purple, then black.

      Still I rode until the horse stumbled, almost spilling me onto the ground. Only then did I let him carry me forward at a slower pace, until we walked almost silently but for his soft-struck footfalls through the star-laden night. We neared a small brook, which cut through the wooded land like a snake of silver, illuminated by the dappled moon and a splash of bright stars.

      I dismounted then, to drink and let the horse rest for a time. He found a small patch of grass, which he snatched up in greedy mouthfuls, reminding me of my own hunger. Glad for my stolen meal, I ate most of the bread I’d taken from Matilda’s kitchen. I wondered what the scene there would look like now, busy with the scandal of my crime and my desertion.

      I lay on the ground for a moment, using my bag as a pillow, and wound the horse’s reins around my hand. I slept for a time, waking with a start when my horse pulled on the rope clasped tightly in my fist.

      There was no sound, save the light splash of the stream nearby and the soft rhythmic chewing of the horse. No far-off shouts or thundering hoof beats. No sign that the laird’s henchmen were on my trail. But my sense of security was hardly robust. Here I was: alone, homeless, an outcast. With blood on my hands and now only one small loaf of bread in my bag. I had no shelter to seek out, no clan to rely on.

      Yet I had considered where I might go if I found myself forced to flee. None of the options were entirely appealing, but I had decided I would travel to the Macduff clan, far to the north. Laird Ogilvie’s niece, Una, had been married to one of their upper-ranking clansmen, several years before. I could seek her out; she might remember me and allow me to remain with her clan, to work in their kitchens. But it would take several weeks to reach their lands.

      I led my horse to a fallen tree and remounted to resume my journey. I was fairly certain I was traveling northeast. I tried to recall the maps that the laird and his men often displayed on the grand table, as they discussed skirmishes, gatherings, marriages and disputes. There had been days when I’d been cleaning the meeting room, polishing the pewter of the candlesticks, and the maps had remained in place, unrolled. The names were familiar enough, from the discussions over the tables I had served. Ogilvie. Machardie. Stuart. Macduff. Mackenzie. Buchanan. Campbell. Macsorley. Morrison. Munro. Macintosh. Macallister. What I was less familiar with was the placement of the clans’ territories.

      Searching the memory, I tried to picture the map and the configuration of the boundary lines across the landscape in my mind. I’d tried to read the maps, to decipher the shapes of the letters, to match them to the names of the clans I knew. But it had been too difficult. My mother had begun to teach me to read as a child, but there had been little time to practice it, so my knowledge was limited. Instead, my education had consisted of garden work, household chores, cooking and cleaning. Once my father died, the most important skills required of my fallen status were to remain meek, mild and appropriately subservient at all times. I’d never mastered any of those arts, I’d be the first to admit.

      It was much easier to recall the stories Laird Ogilvie and his ranks told about the clans and the strengths and weaknesses of their lairds. They’d discussed these things often, and I, pouring their ale, refilling the quickly emptying platters, attending to their requests, artfully dodging the grasp of their hands, had been privy to a wealth of information.

      From their stories I knew that the Mackenzie clan lands were due north of Ogilvie’s, spreading widely to the east. Laird Ogilvie had said the Mackenzies presided over a large territory—larger than Ogilvie’s—of rolling fields, craggy terraces and richly stocked forests. Their lands would be closest to where I found myself now, I guessed.

      Mackenzie.

      The name made me uneasy.

      I recalled one session where Laird Ogilvie and his highest-ranking officers had spoken of the Mackenzie men in particular. The hour had been late and the conversation loose.

      “’Twas last year, in the skirmish at Ossian Lochs, over the coveted king’s lands,” one of Ogilvie’s men had said. “Absolutely deadly, that Laird Mackenzie. He watched his father die at the end of an enemy’s sword. And in response, he cut a line through Campbell’s troops that ran my blood cold. Mad, he is. Wickedly lethal.”

      “Aye,” agreed another. “He’s huge, and that wild black hair does nothing to tone down the menace of him.”

      Laird Ogilvie had agreed. “Knox Mackenzie is dangerous, guarded and altogether sour. It might be true that his clanspeople are gifted in the ways of the land. Their fields and orchards are rich with crops, aye, and their harvests are bountiful enough to feed not only their entire clan but also to trade with other clans for valuable commodities. But he’s gruff and entirely lacking in the diplomacy of his father.”

      “And what’s the next brother’s name? Wilkie, is it? If you ask me, his swordsmanship skills are overstated.”

      “But the women surely do fall at his feet. They flock around him like birds. He’d be easy to defeat—he’s too distracted.” This had inspired laughter.

      “Aye, СКАЧАТЬ