“I am Diarmid MacKinnon. I bring with me the sister of the laird of Clan MacKinnon and the betrothed bride of the Earl of Angus,” her cousin bellowed in a strident voice. “Open the gates!”
Upon seeing the line of bowmen stationed on the battlements above, Laoghaire thought it an inhospitable reception. Refusing to be intimidated, she flung off her hood and tossed her thick braid of hair over her shoulder, the copper-colored strands catching the midday light in a burst of fiery hues. She then thrust her chin upward as she glared at the top of the gatehouse. While they waited for the portcullis to be raised, she set her gaze upon the black cloth standard that waved to and fro in the breeze. Emblazoned with a blood-red rampant lion, it was a brazen image of brute power.
Moments later they rode through the arched gateway, still under the watchful eyes of the guards who manned the battlements. To her stunned disbelief they had to pass through two more heavily armed gatehouses before they finally emerged in the lower bailey.
“’Tis a prison if ever there was,” she murmured, able to feel disembodied eyes peering at her through various arrow loops. “There are actually two rings of curtain wall surrounding the castle.”
Playfully elbowing her, Diarmid said, “Are ye afraid that Angus intends to lock ye up and throw away the key?”
“He won’t have to.” She craned her neck to peer behind her. “I’ve already lost my bearings in this stone labyrinth.”
While her brother’s castle on the Isle of Skye was a testament to Celtic hardiness, well-constructed but with few comforts, this monumental stone complex bespoke of luxury and ease. At seeing the copious amount of glass in the upper stories of the domestic range, her eyes went wide.
Noticing the direction of her gaze, her cousin said, “All of that glazing must have cost Angus dearly.” Given that he was the steward at Castle Maoil, Diarmid was always quick to reckon a thing in terms of its cost.
To compound Laoghaire’s disorientation, she now found herself in the midst of numerous men-at-arms and villeins, all of whom were industriously engaged in some activity. There were menservants unloading heavy sacks from carts, scullions carrying dressed game on long poles, and women hauling water in buckets that hung from wooden yokes. The frenzy of activity was accompanied by shouted commands and the frantic barking of several dogs.
It didn’t escape Laoghaire’s notice that there wasn’t a plaid in sight, all of the men attired in tunics and chausses.
“I’m not dressed for the occasion,” Diarmid chortled good-naturedly, while he swung a leg over his horse’s withers and dismounted. As with all of the men in their entourage, he was attired in MacKinnon plaid, the woolen fabric belted around his waist, with the remaining length fastened to his shoulder with an ornate silver brooch.
“You are wrong, cousin.Theyare the ones who are strangely attired,” Laoghaire insisted. About to hoist herself out of the saddle, she curbed her natural tendency and instead permitted Diarmid to assist her in dismounting.
No sooner did her leather boots touch the ground than several grooms rushed through the melee to take their horses to the stables.
“Are they not Scots? Every one of them appears as English as any Norman subject of Longshanks,” Laoghaire griped as she straightened her shoulder-length mantle. Because the weather had warmed considerably once they’d crossed the Grampian Mountains, the hooded cowl was the only covering she wore over her red woolen kirtle. The fact that she herself was attired in the Lowland fashion irked her immensely, her brother Iain having insisted upon it.“Ye’re about to become a nobleman’s wife and ye must look the part.”
“The Ogilvies are an Anglo-Norman family, true enough.” As he spoke, Diarmid motioned for their kinsmen to follow the grooms to the stables in order to unload the pack horses. “But then, so is the king’s own family. Ye must learn to accept that things will not be as they once were.”
As they once were back home on Skye,Laoghaire silently appended, the thought causing her throat to constrict with emotion as she was struck suddenly with a wave of homesickness. They’d only just arrived and already she felt like the biblical Ruth, a stranger in a strange land. She was a Celtic Highlander, and as such she’d been born into an entirely different culture. It wasn’t that everyone around them spoke English rather than Gaelic, or that they dressed peculiarly. They were a different race of people, descended from the Norman invaders who arrived from England two hundred years ago. Despite the invaders having imposed their Norman ways upon the vanquished inhabitants, they had never been able to subjugate the Highlanders. Though it was not for lack of trying; a fact that had given rise to much distrust and enmity over the years.
Suddenly seeing a tall, broad-shouldered man enter the inner bailey, having emerged from a nearby tower, Laoghaire inwardly braced herself. Unable to tear her eyes from him, her heart began to thump erratically against her breastbone.
Hell and the devil! ’Tis Galen de Ogilvy.
Not only was Sir Galen the earl’s nephew, he was his chevalier, the commander of Angus’s knights and men-at-arms. Despite serving a Scottish earl, the whoreson was English by birth. He was also the man who only a few months ago had threatened to destroy all that Laoghaire knew and loved.
Though she willed it otherwise, in those pulse-pounding moments it was as if her body and mind were seized by a dark foreboding. Hoping to calm the tumult, she took several deep breaths.
“Lo! The Highland bride has finally arrived,” Sir Galen said by way of greeting as he strode toward them.
“And the English knave approaches,” Laoghaire hissed under her breath. As she did so, she automatically reached for the sword that she customarily wore belted at her waist. Coming away empty-handed, she belatedly remembered that she’d been forced to relinquish custody of the blade to her cousin. Given the intense hostility that she bore for the knight, Diarmid had been worried that she might be tempted to draw her weapon.
Standing beside her, Diarmid shot her a quelling glance.“Prudence,”he mouthed silently.
When the knight came to a standstill a mere arm’s length from her, Laoghaire refused to nod her head or bend a knee. Even though she was taller than most men, the knight towered over her by a good six inches.
The man is brawny, I’ll give him that,she acknowledged grudgingly. And despite the scar that marred the left side of his face, he was darkly handsome. No doubt Sir Galen left scullery maids twittering in his wake, his head capped with thick black hair that curled loosely about his temples and nape. Were he not a villainous knave, Laoghaire would have found him a compellingly attractive man. But because her memories of the knight were so dire, she was instead repulsed by his countenance. He was a cur, possessed of a dark hole where he should have had a heart.
As she fought to control her runaway emotions, Laoghaire noticed that beneath his black surcoat—emblazoned on the chest with a red rampant lion—Sir Galen wore a coat of mail that was very near in color to his pewter-gray eyes. However, what worriedly garnered her attention was the long scabbard that dangled against his left hip, from which protruded his sword’s copper-gilded cross guard.
While Laoghaire knew that Diarmid would defend her with his life, at that moment she felt extremely vulnerable.
His lips curved in a sneer, Sir Galen appraised Laoghaire’s attire before remarking, “You look vastly different from when first we met. And for the better, I might add.”
“The incident of which ye speak is never far from my mind,” Laoghaire spat at him. “For I well recall how ye threatened to raze Castle Maoil to the ground.” Indeed, in the months since, Galen de Ogilvy’s fearsome image had routinely haunted her dreams. Even now, the memory replayed in her mind’s eye with a vivid intensity.
At seeing the long line of mounted knights, Laoghaire charged across the battlements. With a lance held at her shoulder, she set her sights upon the black-clad demon who’d led the raid against her brother’s castle.
