Magnus turned toward his sister as he made his way to the Great Hall two and a half weeks after he arrived. His chamber was on the third floor, but most of the family ones were on the second. He waited as Siùsan approached.
“Nay. Nae at all. What makes ye think that?”
“Because we havenae talked once since ye arrived. Ye’ve been with the men practically every minute ye’ve been awake.”
Magnus couldn’t tell her he was spending time with Saoirse or doing his best to distract himself from a blonde beauty who danced through his mind at the most inconvenient times.
“Are ye busy now? Would ye walk with me to the village? I was going to browse the market.” Magnus wanted to buy Siùsan a gift for her upcoming saint’s day.
“I was headed there too. Ye can carry ma baskets.” Siùsan winked before they went to the kitchens. She gathered two large baskets that Magnus took from her before they stepped outside. They walked in silence until they left the gates. Three guards trailed them since Callum had a fit whenever Siùsan or his daughters left with less than that. Shona had a skill at evading more than one guard. “I ken it’s been a difficult three years, but I’ve missed ye and Seamus tremendously. It's wonderful when Michail and Blythe visit, but it isnae quite the same as having ma brothers.”
Magnus remained quiet. It wasn’t only Brighde and Cerys who had a complicated family tree with branches tangling with the Sinclair family’s. Siùsan’s mother was a MacLeod of Assynt before she met their shared father. Rose MacLeod died on the way to marry their father after handfasting. Magnus and Seamus’s mother contributed to her death, and Siùsan’s unexpected birth when Rose fell from her horse. Elizabeth Gunn was on her way to marry their father in an alliance arranged by their grandfather. After Rose’s death, their father lied to the MacLeods and said Siùsan died along with Rose.
It wasn’t until after Siùsan and Callum married that the MacLeods learned Siùsan was not only alive but more than twenty-years-old. That discovery only reignited a simmering feud between the Mackenzies and the MacLeods of Assynt. Once Seamus became laird, and Magnus took over as tánaiste, they made peace with the MacLeods. But it was still uncomfortable to be in the same room as Michail MacLeod, Siùsan’s cousin. The only thing the Mackenzies, MacLeods, and Sinclairs shared was animosity with the Gunns. After their father died, Seamus and Magnus’s mother—Siùsan’s stepmother—returned to her clan of birth. She did it out of spite and to encourage the ongoing strife. The Gunns were the bane of several northern clans’ lives.
“I ken. I’ve missed ma big sister. Ye give sage advice.”
“I do ma best. Ye and Seamus are ma only direct blood relatives besides ma children. That still means a great deal to me. What’s happened since we last saw each other? I ken aboot the sickness and the floods.”
“Aye. It’s been one thing after another. The floods destroyed our crops two and a half years ago. Leaking roofs meant much of our stored foods spoiled. The roofs would have been fine throughout a normal winter or even a heavy rainy season, but they werenae a match to our weather. It chucked it down for days, and it felt as though the Lord was punishing us. The Chisholms fared as badly as we did, but the Frasers and Mathesons barely had a drop. We’re a large clan with more land than nearly any other clan in Scotland, but it also means Seamus and I are responsible for many people’s wellbeing. He and I took turns riding our territory to check on our farmers and villages. We were each gone for sennights at a time. I kept waiting for Noah to offer me safe passage.”
Magnus smiled, but Siùsan noticed the strain and sadness in her younger brother’s eyes. The Sinclairs sent what they could, including men, to help rebuild villages on the lands that bordered the Sutherlands. The Sinclairs and Sutherlands were bound by marriage when Liam married Kyla, and they remained the closest allies over the decades by choice. Laird Hamish Sutherland, Liam’s brother-by-marriage, sent men and supplies too. But everyone knew nothing they sent would be enough.
“The foul weather led to sickness sweeping through the clan time and time again. One village seemed to recover when another fell victim. We tried to keep people from traveling, but our holdings are too vast to control that. People wanted to help their families in other villages. Traveling merchants likely spread it too. We lost hundreds from it. I never imagined I could attend so many funerals that werenae caused by a battle.”
“But I thought things improved.”
Magnus looked toward the cliffs that overlooked the North Sea. The sea breeze lifted his hair from his forehead and neck, a comfortable reprieve from the oppressive weight that bore down upon him with unceasing heaviness.
“It was supposed to. Since Seamus already married one of Deirdre’s cousins, we have an alliance with the Frasers. Despite being away so much, Seamus and I agreed after a year that it was time for me to marry, or at least become betrothed. With the way things stood, we needed an alliance with a clan nearby. It left the Chisholms, who were in the same boat as us, and the Mathesons. The laird only has sons, but he has a niece.”
“Aye, I ken. I remember Louisa from when we were weans. It shocked me that ye agreed to marry her.”
“I never wanted to. But it was what was best for the clan. She is nae an easy woman to be around.”
“Is she still as manipulative as she was when we were younger?”
“Worse. She’s had years of practice to hone her skills. She has a vindictive and malicious streak that runs from the roots of her hair to the end of her toenails. She hides it well, but when ye see it, ye canna unsee it.”
“Was she horrible to ye?”
“Nae in the beginning. She kept it hidden, but Seamus and I have devoted ourselves to repairing the relationships with our people that Father destroyed. Our clansmen trust us, and so they talk to us. The women in the village told their husbands how Louisa treated them. The men came with their pitchforks. I had to arrange a hunting party to get them away from the keep to tell me what happened. I long suspected Louisa had spies, and at the end, I discovered I was right. She’d paid nearly a score of people working within the keep and living in the village to report to her.”
“What did the men have to say?”
“Louisa is an attractive woman, and when she smiles, ye believe she means it. She beguiles ye until ye think ye’ve made the closest friend ye’ll ever find. Or at least, that’s what the women thought. Thinking her a close friend, they were always eager to see her when she and her uncle visited. They came nearly every moon, and her uncle pushed a wedding date each time. But everyone kenned, it wasna the right time for me to take a bride once the illnesses started. I was away from home too often.”
“Did they visit even when ye werenae there?”
“Aye. That’s how the trouble started. Louisa appeared flighty and oblivious half the time. She knew Caroline was Lady Mackenzie, so she had no reason to appear like she could be an effective chatelaine. She began sharing things the women told her in confidence or blatantly making up lies. She riled the women, pitting them against each other, but positioning herself as the only one who could solve the problems. It took a few moons before the women deduced what she’d done. After Louisa’s seventh visit, they talked when she returned home and compared the things Louisa told them. Louisa’s meddling caused strife within families’ homes and in the village. But she kept it away from the keep’s servants, so Seamus, Caroline, and I were none the wiser until the husbands came to me. They held naught back.”
“That’s horrible.”
“If only that were the worst of it.”
“There’s more?”
“Tons upon tons.” Magnus looked at the market and had second thoughts about sharing his tale of woe where others could hear. “I ken ye need to go to the market, but could we walk to the loch instead?”
