2
When the horns blasted again, both Isla and her father could not help swearing a long, harmonious string of curse words together.
“When is this dratted war going to end?” Isla almost screamed the words. “I’ve had enough of raid after raid happening while we quiver in our castle like a bunch of frightened auld women! Why don’ they hire some mercenaries to kill the McTavish raiders afore they even set foot over the hills? When is that dratted Dougal battalion going to win the day? I’ve seen neither hide nor hair o’ them for years.”
“Of course the laird’s son has kept in contact with his faither, Isla,” her father reassured her. “Ye have never set eyes on him because they make their encampment outside the estate and communicate with messengers. I deliver their swords an’ arrowheads to them there. They don’ come closer in case McTavish has spies watching the castle.”
Isla sniffed. “Well, the auld laird’s son and his men have nae done that for over a year, nor have they sent word, so it cannae be wondered at why the clan want the Steward to rule in his place.”
Because the blacksmith and his daughter lived in the bailey outside the castle so that Isla might attend the small schoolroom there, Isla had had no interaction with soldiers, counselors, and courtiers before. And as a lass of a scant sixteen summers, she had no interest in such affairs, being more interested in attending dancing and sewing lessons with Pila and the other young girls who lived in the village. It was only because the McTavish war effort had escalated so much over the last two years that it forced Isla and her father to engage with the castle dwellers more and more as they sought refuge behind its walls.
“An’ ye can stop howlin’ for the lost battalion, Isla,” Pila said. She lived in the castle (her mother was the cook there, and her father was the brewmaster) and was far more informed on matters than Isla was. “It’s been almost two years since the laird’s son marched out o’ here at the head of his small army. No’ a word has been heard about them since then! I would fall backward in a dead faint if hide or hair were ever seen o’ them again.”
“So what?” Isla grumbled. “Auld laird, new laird, or measly steward—they are all equally incompetent when it comes to stoppin’ this war and lettin’ us go back to dancin’!”
As much as he agreed with what Isla was saying, Master McDonnell was not keen for his daughter to make her discontent more widely known. It was one thing to complain to a father or a friend, but if Isla was heard shouting about the castle’s ineptitude, she might suffer the worst punishment there was—to be put outside the gates right before a raid was going to happen!
“Wheesht, Daughter! Are ye ravin’? Don’ let them hear ye shout out that the castle is being run incompetently! It will go hard on ye.”
The blacksmith and his daughter were dressed in their best clothes, ready to approach the counselors in their hall. Isla’s father had decided to ask permission for them to leave. He had made a huge stockpile of weapons, enough to last any fortress through many years of warfare; now he wanted to take his daughter and go. She deserved a better maidenhood than this. One royal reeling or town hall assembly dance and the blacksmith knew the young men would be flocking to pay Isla their attentions.
Pila found everything to be good with this plan. “Once ye’re settled down in Inverness, Isla, ye must send me word so that I might come an’ join ye. I’ve had it with this wretched, besieged castle! I want fun and laughter and Highland reels!”
Pila helped Isla dress and did her hair. The blacksmith’s daughter was a maiden, allowed to have her hair down. The long, dark red waves cascaded down Isla’s back like molten lava.
“Perhaps a gold circlet to hold back the strands?” Pila was talking more to herself than to Isla, but the blacksmith’s daughter agreed.
“Och Pila. To think that I would see the day when I took such care to dress meself for such a boring thing as a council meeting? But what’s a lass to do when there’s nowhere else to go?”
Pila tied a McDonnell plaid kirtle around Isla’s waist with a green velvet riband and tightened her stays to make her breasts lift up higher.
“Just imagine that the bunch of auld gentlemen are handsome young men, Isla,” Pila told her. “That will bring a sparkle to yer eyes.”
“Humph!” was all Isla had to say to that, but she gave her friend a hug before the two girls sallied out in the blacksmith’s wake.
Halfway up the road, Isla stopped.
“I forgot me gold circlet! Ye two go on ahead, an’ I’ll follow anon.”
Then she turned on her heel and ran down to the forge. The gold circlet was new, and her father had left it cooling in the forge water after crafting it that morning.
She tiptoed over to the pail of water standing in the corner and dipped her hand in to retrieve it. When she withdrew the gold circlet, she was about to place it on her head when a voice was heard behind her.
“I’m hopin’ that circlet does indeed belong to ye, lass. If it does no’, I might have to punish ye for stealin’ on my faither’s land.”
Isla gasped, whirling around so fast that her kirtle spun out above her ankles. She saw a terrifying-looking man standing at the forge entrance, leaning against the doorpost as if he was very tired. His long hair were a very dark shade of red that looked almost black when the sun was not shining, and they half-covered his eyes. His beard was matted, and his right wrist had a soiled bandage tied around it underneath a leather band. His bonnet was knitted in the Dougal plaid, but other than that, he was a stranger to her. For one moment, she wondered if he were a McTavish raider dressed in disguise, but there was something about the way his tall figure seemed to fit in with his surroundings that made her realize the stranger felt at home. When he shook the hair off his face, she saw that his eyes were icy blue in color; he had a way of tilting his head back slightly so that she would not be able to read the emotions masked inside their cold blue depths.
“If ye cry ‘felon’ on me, stranger,” Isla said, “it would go badly for ye. In fact, it’syewho are trespassing on me faither’s property. He’s the master blacksmith here.”
The man stepped inside the forge, looming over her with his great height and braw muscles. After spending most of her maidenhood surrounded by elderly gentlemen, relatives, or servants grown old in the laird’s service or too young to know anything else but that, Isla did not know what to say. She thought she would not know how to react to him coming closer either, but a small part of her found the tall stranger compelling and welcomed his nearness. He had an air about him, an almost lairdly, self-assured air, but he was obviously someone who knew he had the strength to back it up, whatever his claims were.
“Ye must point him out to me then,” the stranger said, “because I require the services of a blacksmith.”
And on those words, the tall man reached behind his back and unsheathed his sword! Isla screamed and cringed backward, but all the stranger did was hold the hilt out toward her.
“Lass, please dinnae be afeared o’ me. If ye kent how far I have traveled to hear a kind word from a woman, ye would understand how I crave soft words to come out o’ yer mouth instead of fearful cries.”
Isla saw the man’s sword blade was nicked and pitted with many marks.
