Emer did not wait to hear what the sexton said next; she was already running toward Bessie. After urging the palfrey into a fast trot along the muddy road, she entered the smoldering ruins of the once-thriving and vibrant little village of Nethy. An eerie silence had replaced the roar of flames. Only the steady drip-drip of water could be heard from a roof spout; an abandoned bucket lay next to the well in the empty village square.
Emer could not stop her knees from shaking but rode past the well and onto the farmhouse. It looked more like a skeleton than the welcoming home where she had spent the last one-and-twenty years of her life. She dismounted and then stopped. Whatever was waiting for her inside, she had no desire to see. Everything was ash and ruin, and somewhere amongst it lay the bodies of her beloved mother and father.
The ground seemed to rush up to greet her as Emer fell down in a dead faint.
* * *
“Where will ye go, Emer?” Ernest, the sexton, asked her. It was he who had found her lying unconscious amidst the farmhouse wreckage.
Emer shook her head, still in shock as she realized she only had the clothing in which she stood, and her wee palfrey horse left.
Farmhands and clan folk from other parts of the Cairngorm mountains had come to help. They brought food and offered shelter. A few men had gone to pick over the piles of rubble. One of them came up to Emer and Ernest now.
“Ye’re the lass from the farmhouse, are ye nae?” When he saw Emer nod her head, he held out a small sack to her, “We found yer faither’s gold and a few of yer mither’s trinkets next to their bodies. The pouch was burned away to ash, but the sovereigns are only scorched. They must’ve protected the meager possessions with their bodies,” he paused as Emer flinched and closed her eyes as though someone had burned her, “A thousand pardons for giving ye more pain, lass. I’ve put the gold into a wee sack..., it will help ye start yer life anew-that’s what yer mither and faither would’ve wanted.”
Emer took the sack and stared at it uncomprehendingly. Her life had changed so fast and so dreadfully in the last few hours, she could not even focus on basic actions. The coins clinked when she placed the bag on the ground.
“Where will ye go, Emer?” Ernest asked kindly, “or would ye like me to go ask one of our clan folk for shelter?”
Those words managed to filter through to Emer’s mind. She sat up and looked around for Bessie.
“I must go tell me sister Davinia about what has happened. She will offer me refuge at Laird Maclachlan’s castle.”
“Will ye ride to Maclachlan Castle all on yer own?” Ernest was surprised. Emer might be a farmer’s daughter, but the Wylie family could trace their ancestry back hundreds of years and were as well-bred as any noble laird when it came to a good family name. A beautiful maiden riding through the mountains on her own would cause more than a few heads to turn in amazement.
Because no one, least of all the youthful sexton, could deny Emer’s charms. In a village where most of the women were blue-eyed and fair of hair, Emer’s coloring not only set her apart but gave her an exotic distinction. Her mother had come from across the Germane Sea, accompanying her family on a trading expedition to the Cairngorms. When they had reached Nethy, the young Marie Bourgine had taken one look at the tall, strong, red-haired Farmer Wylie and lost her heart forever. Fortunately, the attraction was mutual, and the merchant had returned to France without his dark-haired, black-eyed daughter.
Emer had received a little of both her parents’ coloring. Her hair was somewhere betwixt her mother’s dark locks and her father’s russet ones, with the ability to turn dusky black in the dark and then flame red in the sun. It was only when she was indoors during the day her hair appeared an ordinary brunette hue. Emer also had her mother’s dark brown eyes, and yet somehow, they could seem clear and light when she experienced strong emotion.
She was beyond feeling anything except shock and horror the day after the fire.
Emer wiped her tear-stained face with a trembling hand and stood up with more resolution than she felt inside. The strength and courage of her Highland ancestors would have to sustain her until she reached Maclachlan Castle, where her sister, Davinia, was employed as a maid.
“Aye, Ernest, I leave today for Maclachlan Castle. It’s what me parents would’ve wanted.”
And on those words, Emer mounted her little palfrey and rode away.
Chapter One
“Allow me to help ye stand up, faither,” Gawain Maclachlan said, offering his arm to his father. Laird Maclachlan had been head of the clan keep for dozens of years, and the harsh Highland winters had finally caught up with him. He seemed old beyond his years, and rheumatism knotted his bones.
Sighing in frustration, he waved his younger son’s assistance away and stood up from the desk where he had been writing scrolls and signing parchments all day. He had to use the edge of the great wooden table to haul himself up, but the look on his face after he accomplished it held a certain sense of triumph.
He felt for his walking cane perched at one side of a richly carved mahogany bureau and grasped its knob firmly.
At the other end of the extensive library where Laird Maclachlan conducted all his business, and clan affairs sat his eldest son, Caillen--a gentle smile on his face as he watched his father fight to stand up and walk across the room with his staunch determination.
The auld man hasnae forgotten his proud bearing and fighting disposition in all the long years I’ve been away. But time has not been kind to poor Faither. Perhaps that’s why I found that messenger waiting at me last port of call.
Caillen said nothing out loud, however. After years of dealing with perilous interactions and crooked seafarers, he had learned to observe first and only speak and act later.
“Ye should change that cumbersome and stiff wooden chair on which ye sit all day, Faither, for a more comfortable one,” Gawain insisted, “I can organize a nice velvet cushioned invalid chair for ye. I’ve heard they can be propelled forward on small wooden wheels. Then ye wouldnae have to walk at all!”
Poor Gawain. Always somehow managing to put his foot in it. He does nae have the wisdom to see Faither would rather fall down than accept help--at least when it comes to his physical abilities. If I’m correct, he wants to talk to us about running the keep. Faither was always as shrewd as he could hold, and if he’s too sick to oversee the castle, that means me adventuring days will have to be put on hold for now.
“Leave yer wittering for the womenfolk, Gawain!” Laird Maclachlan shouted, “I’ll nae have an invalid chair as if I were some self-indulgent Sassenach weakling!”
Caillen gave another small smile as his father hobbled to a library chaise and threw himself down on it.
