“So they are. They surely came with Lovat.” Alanna felt her heart sink as she watched the outlandishly dressed guisers shake their rattle-branches, toss balls of mistletoe, and drape swags of holly-and-ivy about revelers’ shoulders. One grabbed two wall torches, throwing them high and then juggling the fiery brands, his skill drawing cheers from everyone in the hall.
Aye, the guisers could only be from the earl’s household.
The longer she watched them, the surer she was. Only a high-ranking noble could employ such talented performers. And that meant he was here, or fast approaching. A truth that would end her pleasure in the feasting before the night had truly begun.
As if to prove it, a skirl of pipes and a blast of trumpets announced the Earl of Dunwhinnie and his entourage. Tall and resplendent in his finery, Durward Lovat strode into the hall as if he’d already claimed possession of Seacliffe, and her.
Not near the graybearded ogre she’d expected, he also proved quite good-looking. But his far-famed lustiness was apparent when his gaze latched onto Maili, Seacliffe’s bonniest serving lass, as she dashed through the hall with a basket of fresh-baked bannocks. Indeed, so great was Lovat’s interest in the laughing-eyed, bouncing-breasted Maili, he nearly tripped over one of the castle dogs.
Alanna didn’t care.
Far from it, she struggled to keep a straight face, the merriment welcome. Amusement would help her greet the man with a smile when he reached her.
But before he could, the keep’s door crashed back against the wall and a dark-cloaked horseman burst into the great hall. His huge beast reared, pawing the smoke-hazed air, and then slamming his iron-shod hooves back onto the floor. As if to display his magnificence, the horse pranced in a proud circle. The rider, a man just as hot-eyed and fierce-looking as his steed, had a great sword in one hand, a broad-bladed ax strapped across his back, while a shield hung from his horse’s saddle.
Clearly a warlord, his cloak didn’t hide the gleaming mail beneath, or that his arms were thick with silver and gold warrior bands. A silver torque flashed at his neck – or so Alanna thought until it vanished before her eyes, replaced by an equally heathen Thor’s hammer. The armbands were also gone, along with the torque, surely a trick of the firelight and smoke-hazed air.
The man was real, though, and bold, an almost savage look on his darkly handsome face. Alanna’s breath caught and her pulse raced, something about him sending shivers all through her. And – she gulped – the odd knowledge that wherever he went, men would never forget him, weaving legends about him long after he spurred his great steed and galloped away into the night.
Or so he struck her.
Then he stood up in his stirrups and shouted, “Hail Thor and Odin! Merry Yuletide, all!”
Shocked silence answered him, and the excited barking of dogs. Somehow unable to move, Alanna stood frozen as he suddenly spurred his horse and plunged forward, knocking over full-laden long tables as he hurtled right at her.
“Lady!” he called to her as he neared the hall’s double-arched hearth where she stood, Aunt Nettie beside her, gripping her hand. “Bid farewell to these foul auld stanes!” he roared, pulling up before her.
His high-strung beast snorted as he leaned sideways and reached for her – a move he couldn’t finish because a great bear of a guiser with a wild mane of dark hair and silver rings glinting in his equally wild dark beard, broke through the crowd then and ran at him, shouting curses. This man plowed into the horsed intruder so hard that both men fell to the rush-covered floor.
The beast sidled, trampling fallen food and crockery.
Gasps, cries, and the sound of running feet filled the air as the two warriors rolled about, tightly locked together as they wrestled, toppled benches, and fought, seemingly bent on murder.
“Stop!” Alanna pulled free of her aunt’s grip to dash forward, snatching an ale jug as she ran. “Have done now! This is my hall – it is Yule!” she yelled, drawing back her arm to hurl the ale at the two men. “I forbid-”
“Nae, lady, I do,” a deep voice, smooth and authoritative, broke in as the Earl of Dunwhinnie took the ale jug from her and tossed it aside. Thrusting her behind him, he yanked the ring-bearded guiser off the interloper and then drew his sword, raising both arms wide as he faced the man in clear challenge.
“You!” He stopped before the still-prone intruder, ignoring the man’s agitated horse. “Stand and cast down your weapons,” he commanded. “I’ll spare your life if you do.”
“Odin’s balls, you will!” the other roared, glaring at him. On his feet in an eye-blink, he whipped out his own sword and cut a lightning quick arc in the air, the blade’s sharp edge just missing the earl’s arm. “My sword thirsts for a drink.”
“Dinnae be a fool.” The earl lunged, but the other man leapt back and spun, his scything blade a blur of silver, the clash of steel on steel echoing in the now-silent hall.
“Be gone and I’ll no’ spill your blue blood,” the intruder snarled, edging forward, the point of his blade aimed at the earl’s throat. “I’m no’ fond of jarls.”
“Jarls?” Dunwhinnie blinked, a mistake that cost him, the other’s sword-tip now in his neatly-clipped red beard.
“Earls.” The other flashed a smile. “There’s no’ a one worth living,” he added, whipping up his blade and then slashing it down in a killing blow, a fountain of red arcing high as the earl crumpled to the floor, his life’s blood pooling around him.
Alanna screamed, her eyes flying wide, dread sluicing her as the intruder whirled to grab her, somehow swinging up on his great black steed. In a flash, he clamped her across his powerful, rock-hard thighs, kneed his beast, and galloped out of the hall.
“Put me down!” she cried, flailing her arms, trying to squirm from his iron-grip. “Now, at once! I am the lady of Seacliffe and-”
“So you are, and I ken your benighted home even better,” her captor returned, his voice cold. “’Tis a cursed and foul place, by all accounts,” he added as they raced across the now-empty bailey, through the gatehouse and into the night.
“Even the air here is tainted,” he snarled, spurring his steed to even greater speed. “You should thank me for freeing you from such misery.”
“How dare you!” Alanna fumed, fury heating her blood, making her oblivious to the biting wind, the frigid air and slanting snow, as they pounded across the high moors, each galloping stride of the bastard’s horse taking her farther from her home.
