The bright morning sun bespoke of a hot day to come and brought with it some clarity for Lyall. He stood on top of the stack of rocks where years ago he had watched Dunkeldon burn, and he concentrated on the single thought that he had a mission to complete: to trade Glenna for Dunkeldon. Only one more day was left, because tonight would finally end this. Tonight, he would walk away from her.

To most, Dunkeldon was nothing but a burnt shell of a keep, a place with its glory lost except to his own memory. What value did it have? Perhaps only to de Hay and his allies who sought to gain their desires by dangling his family ruins before him.

He leapt down onto the ground and moved through the woods, his head clear, his mind focused on his goal. But before he was halfway back he stopped at the edge of the small clearing where he had played war games back when he was not living his own war.

The last place he expected to see Glenna was beneath the ancient yew. But she stood there, talking to it

“Did I imagine what I felt, Tree?” She touched the bark and stared curiously at her hand. “Do you hide fairies under your roots? Does magic pulse beneath your bark? Must I believe you are simply an old tree and my mind is bewitched?” She placed both hands flat on the trunk and leaned into it with all her weight, looking up into its wide crown. “Do you make wishes come true?” she asked and Lyall was struck by the coincidence, her image so like his own had been as a lad.

Something else hit him--a strong sense that the two of them were bound by some emotion that was kindred and otherworldly. He felt her coursing through his blood and in the marrow of his bones, and some place he could not name. His heart? His soul? His evermore?

“Hallo, little bird,” she said then she began to sing, siren music that pulled at him like before. “Bird on a briar, bird, bird on a briar…”

His resolved shattered as her song spun up into the air and around him, lifted him with its joyous notes, as if she were his hope, and the next thing he knew he was standing next to her, his arms out to her. She turned as her song waned. Under the shade of the ancient tree, she stepped into his embrace, and he made the fatal mistake of looking at her mouth.

He kissed her, because he had no other thought at that moment except to taste her, to hold her soft body to his, and yet he knew he was a madman to do this. His whole path was mad, and now his sanity constantly fought with a great and driving desire. His head cleared for a single thin moment of time and he pulled back as if he had touched hot coals.

The sense of awe in her eyes made him unable to stop himself. His mouth was on hers again, denied the strength of will to leave her untouched because of the innocent hunger he saw in her expression, her own desire clearly there for him to read and try to not act upon. He was not that noble or valiant. He had no power of self-control…only the knowledge of what was right, and he had long ago given up on doing what was right.

His mouth moved on hers, and as he pulled her against him, he knew he should turn and walk away. Some voice in his head said Go! Leave! Release her!

Her hands were flat against his chest, warm, and she pressed, resisting. His hand gently cupped the back of her head and he softened his mouth, gave her sweet small kisses, his lips on her hers, sipping, before pulling back, kissing her again, and pulling back, so she knew he would not force her.

Yet his intent was clear; he knew he was seducing her. Only his wants drove him. No minute slip of lost conscience miraculously appeared. Getting closer was his goal, inside of her. There was one truth in all of the desire and want. Some truth in his head told him if he could get inside of her heart, she could save him from himself.

Then she surrendered to him and kissed him back, linked her arms around his neck; she was warm and fluid, melting into him. The longer he held her and kissed her, the closer he grew to her, the more he understood he was a doomed man. The taste of her mouth was all he needed for the rest of his life. Thoughts ran rampant in his head, fighting with the powerful emotion of what he was feeling.

The precious daughter of the king? She was the farthest thing from safe, so why did his instincts tell him she was his salvation? He was mad…mad…mad….

His mind reeled backwards to another time, another woman who had jumped from a tower to escape his desire. Although everything that was right in the world shouted for him to cease this insane act now, his passion flared like oil on fire, blinding him with its intense light and burning through his doubts and whatever handful's worth of conscience and honor he might have had left.

There was nothing but her soft mouth open and yielding, nothing but his need to get inside of her innocence. There was her tongue against his, her scent swirling around him as if the air held nothing but her.

The time for his salvation was past. He was too far gone to save. But for the sweetest of moments, he found a taste of the life he could never have.

Just one more moment, he told himself.

The passion, brilliant and golden, began to wane and a heart-crushing sound, pitiful and innocent, made him freeze.

She was crying.

As recognition cracked through his senselessness, he broke the kiss. His kisses, gentle though they were, had made Isobel cry. He stepped away, needing some distance between her soft body and his.

She cried out softly on a breath, and her moist eyes flew open. Her expression told him she was unable to understand what had just happened. Bewilderment, the same confusion he felt, pain and something close to horror ran across her expressive and lovely face. And it was like watching someone crush a perfect rose in their fist. Tears fell from her eyes. Her hand went to her mouth and she looked up at him with honest desire and something else he wished he did not see there.

Her heart was on her sleeve, and his heart was in the way.

Lyall wished he were capable of love, of believing he could put himself in someone else’s hands, but he might as well believe that if he held very, very still, a bee would never sting him.

“Do not look at me like that,” he said gruffly. He was a man who could never love. His love would be pure destruction and he would take down with him any poor female soul who believed he was worth loving...worth saving.

As she searched his face he forced himself to look passive, unwilling to give anything, afraid if he did he would take her to hell with him. He could never let her see he had almost given into everything he was feeling. So he grew tense, and she looked down—shamed by him. He had taught her that with their first kisses—to be ashamed. Proof of the bastard he was.

She turned her back to him, a sorrowful cry escaping into the air.

He stepped forward, his hands on her shoulders and he pulled her back against him, resting his chin on the top of head, closing his eyes against all that was going through him.

She was quivering like a frightened hare when she said, “I am supposed to feel ashamed. I am ashamed this time.”

“No, Glenna. You are innocent.”

“But you do not understand. I want you to kiss me. I want you to touch me. Oh, how I regret what I feel!”

He turned her around and she would not look up at him. He lifted her chin with his knuckle. “You have nothing to regret or be ashamed of. Your heart and what you feel is pure. ‘Tis not you, but me.”

She gave a quick and humorless cry and shook her head. “I do regret what I am feeling because of how you look at me when we stop. As if this is horrible, what I feel. It consumes me and I cannot stop myself.”

He laughed bitterly then because her words were the same as his thoughts.

She stepped out of his arms and faced him.“You can stand there, as I bare every thought in my head and feeling in my heart and still laugh at me?” She stared at him in disbelief. “I unfold the deepest of my secrets and you mock me?” She was truly angry and her face crumpled as surely as if he had crushed it in his fist. “I think at this moment,” she said. “I truly, truly hate you.”

Perhaps hate was the best thing between them, at least he could let her believe that she hated him. It was not true. And if nothing else, she deserved some truth in this whole tangle of lies.

Lyall took a long breath but his chest was so tight he could barely fill his lungs. When he spoke, the words were the most honest he had ever spoken in his whole miserable life. “What we feel is not hate.”

He turned then and walked away. He had said all he could. ‘Twas not hate he felt, but the opposite, yet there was no possible way he could ever say the other words to her.

***

The hot midday sun beat down on the links of Donnald Ramsey’s cowl, cooking his head like a roasted boar…all he needed was an apple in his mouth. He signaled for his men to stop. The thunder of horses’ hooves ceased pounding the ground and a cloud of dust swirled up around the troop, now speckled with pieces of sun-dried grass.

He tightened his grip on the reins as his horse danced along the wide, dry crest of high ground overlooking the valley to the west that cradled the Beauly River, its abbey, and in the distance, a sparse pattern of crofts. Off to the west stood the blue shadows of the western coast. They, however, were headed south, and east of Ben Nevis, which lay far in the distance like giant sleeping cattle.

Ramsey pushed his cowl back and took a drink from a skin of water before pouring some of it over his sweaty head. He swiped at his brow to keep his eyes clear and took another drink, then exchanged a look of misery with his men at arms. “I do not know if we should pray for rain and suffer battling the rust, or continue on only to swallow more dust than air.”

“‘Twill only become worse if we keep following this trail another twenty leagues,“ said his captain.

“There is a small stream and falls over that distant rise, my lord,” offered another. “We can rest and water the horses.”

The rise was in the wrong direction but Ramsey knew he could not ride his men and their mounts into the ground, no matter how desperate he was to catch Lyall before he destroyed his future and made himself into the traitor Ewan had been. The horses and men needed respite from the sun. His itching, sweaty skin and dust-burned eyes could use some shade and water.

“Aye. We’ll ride to the falls.” He pulled his cowl back over his damp head and waved his men forward.

The falls were wider than he had expected, with clear water rushing downward over granite rocks edged in lichen, trees cloaked with moss, lush patches of long grass and circles of cool treeshadow. Mist rose up from the spill of the falls and rinsed the dry, dirty taste from the midday air and cooled their hot, flushed skin. The horses drank for a long time, their tails flicking lazily at flies, and his men rested in the shade, many of them sitting in the grass, some in their linen and soaked from a quick swim in the cool waters, now chewing on dried meat and crusts of bread.

Ramsey wrapped closed his food cloth and tucked it inside his satchel. He winced when he felt the leagues he had travelled in his stiff muscles and rattled, creaking bones.

By God’s eyes he was getting old. Too old to rescue a young man from himself. They had been riding for a long stretch without stopping, compelled to stay on Lyall's trail from Inverness. Although he had joined his men late, after riding straight from Rossie, and they were still a merry distance from where he expected to find Lyall. He did not believe the lad could pass remotely close to Dunkeldon and not go there, so they were headed that way.

And there had been more news. Seemed that there was word the Gordon brothers were tracking and asking questions, too.

Ramsey’s instincts were high and strong. He would find Lyall. But he could not say if he could find him in time. His instincts seldom let him down, except perhaps in the glimmer of honor he’d thought he had seen in his stepson all those years back. Where did that lad go?

He glanced at his men and thought to give them more time, so they could ride even harder. He had men in eight different directions, like the one who discovered the Inverness trail, lone riders who could ask questions and find answers.

Another smaller contingent of men were with his captain, heading in a different direction, toward de Hay lands, but more as a precaution after what Mairi had revealed to him about Lyall's father by marriage. Isobel's father, Huchon De Hay, was a weasel of the worst kind, conniving in his practices and treasons. De Hay’s unfortunate ties by his own marriage to a powerful Norse earl as well as a blood bond as a distant cousin to the king of France had provided him protection for all too many years.

Would De Hay dare to conduct his treasons in his own nest? Did not seem likely. He was too sly to tempt getting caught. For all too long the man had managed to straddle both sides of the power struggle for the crown, waffling over and placating each side, while subversively aiding the other, hoping to make his own gains amidst the chaos.

In planning the king’s upcoming return, Sutherland had found enough evidence to suspect de Hay’s true loyalties lay among the Norse earls, or at least with their gold and promises. The wealth and power of those earls had been threatened by the true king’s marriage and the short peace that marriage brought before the young queen had died. That peace had put a stop to the earls’ constant, lucrative raids down into the southern isles and their drive to continually encroach upon northern borders. Rebellion and a king in exile kept their coffers filled and their lands expanding southward.

'Twas in the Norse earls best interests to feed a war over the Scots throne, allying and abetting Argyll, the most powerful lord in the west, and continuing to light the man's hungry desire for the power of the crown itself and using the well-known greed of England's Henry to aid in his schemes.

But William, the true king, was soon to be free. All the plans were set, the ransom grudgingly set and agreed.

Except that Lyall's stupidity and single-mindedness was about to ruin his own obligation and part in those plans, and jeopardize the safety of Glenna Canmore. All those years of hiding the king’s daughter were about to be made worthless because years back Ewan Robertson had been a traitor.

Lyall, where go you? Foolish, foolish lad to involve yourself in this. The noose is tightening about your neck, son.

Ramsey stared out at the misty dark outline of Ben Nevis in the distance, and felt as if the road he faced ahead was like climbing that great mountain on foot. His stepson had grown up determined, but lost, unable through his years of trying to in any way redeem his name, to extirpate his father’s treason. It seemed to him that Lyall had eventually given up and tied himself to de Hay with that disaster of a betrothal in a desperate attempt to regain his family’s lost lands. The meek Isobel De Hay had been raised in a nunnery and was unable to face wedding anyone other than her own God.

Since that disastrous day when Lyall had stood over her broken body, he had built a wall of solitude and isolation around himself, which led him on a dark path to destruction, all because of the pain and guilt the lad carried. That determined boy with the bow and quiver, and eye of an eagle, was slowly decaying and destroying the man he could be. Lyall was compelled by some demon of legacy to make the same mistakes Ewan had. And if Lyall was condemned to hang for treason, Beatris would shatter as easily as a clay pot dropped from the hall rafters.

Beatris.

The image of her as Ramsey had first seen her so long ago was always close to his mind. Back then, on that singular day so many years past, she had worn no hood or veil to hide her face. There was no need. She had been young and bright, with skin like the shine of the moon, her eyes the color of the firth in summer, and her hair--the darkest, deepest color of a ripe apple--long and waving down her back. She had been laughing, the sound like bells in the wind, and running into the arms of his closest friend.

The memory faded then, growing dry as the dust on the road they had travelled, leaving the same taste of failure in his mouth as those times when his wife hid her face from him. His Beatris could not survive much more suffering. Ewan’s betrayal wounded all of them in a deeply profound way.

There was only trouble ahead, for despite his compassion for his stepson and his great love for Beatris, his loyalty was first to his king. Above all, Ramsey knew he must keep his pledge to protect the king’s eldest daughter and if that meant Lyall would be sacrificed, then he little choice.

One of his men stood up abruptly. “My lord!”

Ramsey rose more swiftly than his muscles wanted.

“A rider!” More men shot to their feet, weapons ready as one of his outriders rode toward them with great speed.

Ramsey sheathed his weapon as the rider reined in. “Argyll is trapped and sent for aid from de Hay at Kinnesswood, my lord.”

De Hay at Kinnesswood? That was Frasyr's keep and Frasyr was Argyll’s cousin. But the castle was solid and impossible to attack without tenfold his current number of men. If Glenna Canmore was there she would be in the hands of the king's opponents.

“There is more,” the rider said seriously and he pointed down into the glen. “Look there.”

Two riders were crossing Beauly glen, heading south and west. Ramsey watched them long enough to recognized them by the mounts they rode. The stride of the horses was swift and nimble, bred from the finest of Arab bloods, distinctive in their size, color, and motion.

“The Gordons,” Ramsey said.

“They have been asking their own questions, my lord, and had left just before I heard about Argyll’s messenger.”

There was no doubt what they were about. The Gordon brothers were looking for Glenna. “Mount up!” Ramsey said, wincing slightly as he followed his own orders and his legs and hindside ached sharply when they hit the saddle. He gathered the reins and held up a hand. “Wait… Let them go over that next hill and then we will follow. I suspect we are headed toward the same destination.”

His sharp eyes followed the black outlines of the Gordon brothers riding in the distance, heading south and west toward Loch Lisson, where Kinnesswood stood towering over the water from a solid rock island in its center, a castle in a key position and impregnable to attack.

“Ride!” Ramsey ordered and they took off, heading toward a quest that appeared to be impossible.

* * *

Clouds rolled in on gust of strong wind and the dark sky overhead seemed unpredictable. There was no bright shining moon in the night sky, no trout cooking on an open fire, or starlight over the ruins of a burnt castle, just the high clouds over the black darkness of a loch and distant silhouette of a rock island in the middle of the loch, and above it, the staggered shadows of a castle tower and wall.

Glenna pulled her woolen cloak more tightly about her as she sat in the boat while Montrose rowed them across a lake toward their swiftly approaching destination. What was inside that castle ahead of them? Along its crown were the jagged crenels, looking like a demon’s bite. She closed her eyes and sought some sense of courage she doubted she had left; but she needed some strength of heart for the unknown she was about to face.

Montrose was silent. For the whole day he had withdrawn again, erected a stone wall around himself, and nothing she could say would break through to him. That hardness, that silence, carried into the night.

The night air went suddenly still, as if someone swallowed the wind and left only silence that was pierced only by the rhythmic slap of oars as Montrose drew them through into the water.

‘Twas odd. She looked around her.

The brush lining the shore was thick and dark and still. Her mind was mad, her instincts affected by her fears. The trees and bushes had no eyes.

She faced forward, calling herself silly. Her heart was affecting her head.

Behind Montrose, the image of the castle was growing larger and more imposing, and with each oarstroke her hands began to shake more. The wind picked up again, a small gust, then another, bigger and higher. She could hear a tree bend, the rustling of leaves. Hair pulled from her braid to cut across her mouth and whip into her eyes, for a moment obliterating what was ahead.

When she tucked her hair back, before her was their destination and the knowledge she was one step closer to the moment she would face her father, her fate, her failure and whatever horrible humiliation her future would bring. At that moment she would have given anything to be a crofter, a milkmaid, a goat girl…anything but the daughter of a king.

She tried to quell the rising tide of her fears. Montrose’s lack of speech became too much for her. “Will my father be there?”

“I was told to bring you here. Whether it is to await his arrival, or to meet him, I do not know.” His deep voice sounded cold and tight, his words sharp. He’d had a hard time looking her in the eye since he’d left her standing alone by the strange old tree, confused and feeling adrift.

“I merely wondered if perhaps he had come back undercover for his safety, rather than arriving from a ship like before to face his enemies and their arrows.”

If Montrose had heard her, she would never know. He chose to remain stonily silent, but she could not. “I do not know what he expects of me.”

There. She had spoken her fears aloud. She admitted what she was afraid of.

I wonder if he knows that I trust him enough to tell him this. Then she asked herself why that mattered.

The oar locks creaked as he increased his rowing speed, and she could hear the cutting of the water, the draw of the oar and the ripple of the water on the surface, and then his breathing. Not a word from him. There was only an occasional gust of wind over the land and trees.

“Talk to me, Montrose. Please…” Her voice caught a little and sounded as pitiful as she felt and she hated that.

“You are his daughter,” he said heavily after a moment. “No doubt when you do finally meet he will expect to see a young woman.”

“When we do finally meet?” she repeated, almost leaping upon his words. “You know something! You know he is not there.”

“I know nothing,” he said sharply, continuing to row.

“Then why did you say when we finally meet?” She could feel his tension and hear a slight strangle when he said her name aloud. “What is wrong,” she asked.

He shook his head and looked out at the water. His voice was emotionless when he said, “From what I remember of him, you have his looks.”

“I do? Hmmm. If that is supposed to reassure me, it does not. I do not know if having his look is a good thing. They say the queen, my mother, was a rare beauty.” She grew thoughtful about her mother, speaking of her aloud, and she wondered about all those things a girl who never knew her mother wondered and longed for—someone to guide her and explain her feelings and wants and needs, so many things she never could understand.

Her mind flitted from one fear back to another. “But if I looked like her, I might remind him of his loss and he would ban me from his sight. And of course if I am not beautiful enough, then he might ban me anyway.” She faced him. “ Do kings not have pride? Many say they have all too much pride--the cause of wars.” After a moment she threw her hands up. “Oh, none of this matters because once he knows me, he will probably banish me to some tower or if facing a war, he’ll marry me off to an enemy to forge an alliance. I know little of politics and the power struggles of men. How am I to survive? How?”

I only know how to steal a purse.

Panicking, she blurted out, “What if my husband is old? Or worse?” She paused, then whispered, “What if he beats me?” She wanted to bury her face in her hands and sob. Instead, another horrific image came to mind, one worst than the closing of a trap door. “Montrose?” She almost choked on his name. All her fears and feelings were stuck in her throat.

He was silent.

She lowered her voice and said, “Did you know Germans bury their wives alive as punishment?”

The oars stopped and the oarlocks grated loudly. Montrose cursed viciously. “I cannot do this,” he said, and a moment later he had used one oar to turn the boat.

As the boat spun around, racking raggedly, she gripped the sides. “What are you doing?”

“Be quiet, Glenna.”

The wind picked up and boat moved swiftly.

“Why? We are not hiding. No one is around. I can speak.”

“I am beginning to feel a great kinship with the Germans. “ He pulled the oars through the water a good three times faster than before.

“This is no time for jests.”

“What makes you think I am jesting?”

“But what about my father? Why are we turning back?” She looked around her. “Montrose? What are you doing?”

“I’m going mad. Now do not say another word or I swear I will steal a shovel and make you dig your own grave.”

“Ha! You would not dare.”

“Good. You have stopped your crying,” he said.

“I was not crying!”

The boat hit the bank. Before she could move he pulled her out, gripping her by the shoulders. “I believed I was stronger than I am. I believed I could let you go, could turn and walk away. I cannot. I do not know what you have done to me. You drive me mad. “

“I do?” she asked, suddenly warm. His hands gripped her shoulders and made her feel warm, warmer still from the look in his eyes. He wanted to kiss her. His words to her at the tree came echoing back.

He released her as if she were made of Greek fire. “Despite what I need to do, you are forever in my head, deep inside. Here.” He pointed to his temple, then to his chest. “And here.”

On his face he wore the truth: that he was not pleased about what he had just told her. But she was. “You love me,” she said, trying not to smile.

“Glenna….”

“You love me. ‘Tis true. I shall not argue with you about it, Montrose.”

There were deep furrows in his brow and his hands were in fists. He was battling something strong, and having a great deal of trouble.

She watched him pace the grassy bank like a cat caught in a pen. “Scowl all you want, my lord.”

“I am not your lord. I am not anyone’s lord!”

“Fine but I’m still confused. How does what you feel, Montrose--please note I did not call you ‘my lord’-- have anything to do with your taking me to my father?”

He drove a hand through his hair. “Lord above, woman! I am not taking you to your father!”

“I do not understand. Where are you taking me?”

Torchlight and swift moving shadows came out from the trees, and suddenly a troop of armed men surrounded them. A deep voice came from the midst of them. “He is taking you to me.”