NEWS FROM A CASTLE
The fire roared in the grate upstairs in the solar, the great, arched windows covered with tapestries to screen the bitter chill from the room. Joanna, sitting at her place at the table, fanned herself with her hand. It was warm up here. She gathered up her hair and lifted it momentarily off her neck, seeking some coolness. At nineteen, her hair was thick and lustrous, hanging down to her waist.
The whole family was gathered together in the solar, to celebrate Lammastide, the festival that gave thanks for the year's harvest. The atmosphere was crackling with life, conversation merry, and laughter loud. Joanna bent down, frowning in concentration, to hear what her aunt Chrissie had said to her.
“Oh, Joanna! You are so thoughtful.”Aunt Chrissie smiled at Joanna from her place at the table. Joanna grinned at her fondly.
“It wasn't really thoughtful,” she admitted. “I enjoyed taking Conn and Leona out for a ride.” She glanced across the table at her little cousins, who were engaged in fighting over a helping of pudding. They had ridden for an hour around the castle walls, the two youngsters shrieking with delicious horror at the thought of bears, or wolves, prowling from the woods. Joanna enjoyed their company and, besides, it kept them out of mischief.
Chrissie touched her hand. “You are a blessing, my dear.”
Joanna felt warm inside. Chrissie – sweet and kindly – was a dear friend. Taking her son Conn for a few hours was no hardship at all. Especially not now, when they were all gathered for the Lammas feast.
Joanna glanced across the laden table, lifting a strand of long red hair off her brow as she watched her cousins and their argument over the plate. At thirteen years old, the pair of them was always getting into mischief – a state of affairs Joanna suspected was mainly Leona's fault. Alina's only daughter, and as beautiful as her mother, Leona was already stubborn.
And so enchanting she can get away with anything. Joanna smiled, watching the two cousins talk.
“It's my pudding!” Conn protested as his cousin reached across to take a piece with her spoon.
“Oh, but you don't mind sharing with just me?” Leona said, smiling, all dimples and shining eyes.
“No, Leona,” Conn said, gazing back. He looked adoringly at her and Leona dimpled sweetly.
Joanna wanted to laugh. The two cousins had been pledged at birth for marriage, and she could already see the strong regard between them. Leona's dominant personality certainly ensured that there would be no mistreated wife in her home! She grinned.
“What, dear?” Amabel, her mother, asked from across the table.
“Nothing,” Joanna replied. “I was just watching those two.”
Amabel smiled fondly at her niece and nephew, sitting beside her at the table. “They're a fine pair.”
Joanna nodded, feeling her throat close with emotion. Leona and Conn were all set up for their future, it was true. They might only be thirteen, still children, but they had more of a secure future planned than she had.
I should find a husband.
That was proving harder than it should be. Not because of lack of suitors, but rather because of too many possibilities facing her. Broderick and Amabel, her parents, had placed no burdens on her, leaving her free to choose. Sometimes she wished they hadn't.
I really have no idea how to make such a decision.
Amabel, her mother, had suffered from her great uncle’s scheming and insisted her own daughter would not face that. However, it might have made it easier, Joanna thought a little helplessly, if she had at least given her a narrow range from which to choose!
She leaned back in her chair, contemplating the possibilities. Sean Donahue, Leonard McNeil, Rufus Stewart. Those were three of the most eligible young men in the region, and all three spent time here at the castle at least three times a year.
Dunkeld, the hilltop fortress where Joanna lived, was always the location for parties, the favorite spot of many of the gentlefolk of the region. This meant that potential suitors were almost always in the house. Even now, at the feast for Lammas, there were eight young men at the lower end of the long table, and most of them, she noticed with some annoyance, were sneaking the odd covert glance at her.
Boorish louts, the lot of them! She dismissed them with a sense of impatience. Joanna had already met all of them, since they had been there for just over a week already, preparing for the hunting season with her father, already famous in the region for his hunting parties. She didn't like any of them. Most of them were typical of their type – loud, swaggering, and interested in hunting, fighting and their own importance. Joanna knew many girls would probably like them, but she found them all a bit shallow.
Sean is...acceptable. She noted that particular young man was still stealing glances at her. With his gentle eyes and curly hair, square jaw and muscled form, he was certainly nice to look at. Nevertheless, so far, she had barely managed to exchange two sentences with him. He didn't seem to be interested in anything besides what his father was doing with their estate.
Dutiful, yes, but a bit too much for my liking!
Joanna sighed. She was at fault, she was sure, probably too picky. She should be content to settle down with the first acceptable young man who held her interest.
Maybe I would be, if I had never seen that man.
It was daft, she told herself crossly, reaching across the table to refill her goblet, but the memory of her youthful dream would not desert her.
I'm sure he's not a real person. Just some sort of symbol, like Aunt Alina talks of.
Aunt Alina was her mentor, possessed of the same intuition she had herself. Alina often told her that what seemed one thing in dreams was often another thing in reality – that was the way of it. Joanna had learned to accept the strange ability she herself had to hear another's thoughts, and come to respect Alina's wise guidance in these matters. Still, she could not convince herself the man with the intense, haunting eyes she had dreamed was not real.
In which case, I simply cannot find Sean appealing. No matter how hard he tried to be.
Anyone else was simply too ordinary, compared to that man. The dark haired haunter of her dreams.
“Niece?” Duncan, her father's brother and Alina's husband, smiled at her. His pale brown eyes seemed somehow concerned.
“Yes, Uncle?”
“You look sad. Has aught upset you?”
“Oh! No, Uncle,” Joanna said quickly. “I was just thinking about snow, is all. And how it'll soon be piling up all round the place.” She laughed, trying for a carefree note. She was not about to spoil the party with her melancholy thoughts.
Duncan narrowed his eyes, as if he wasn't sure whether she told the truth. Then he smiled. “Whist! I'd clean forgot about the small matter of the snow. Now you remind me! I'll be out with the men brushing snow off the practice ground every morning soon. What a horrible prospect!”
They both laughed. Across the table, Alina grinned at her husband.
“Now, Duncan! There are some merry things about winter. Candlemas, for instance. Long fires in the evenings...late sunrise.”
Duncan flushed warmly and smiled at his lovely wife. “Yes. I am forgetting those. It's true.”
“And snow fights!” Broderick said cheerfully, speaking up from across the table. Duncan whistled.
“Well, brother! There's a thought. Though you'll beat me hands down. Always do.”
“Snow!” the children chorused. All of them, Joanna's brother Brodgar too, loved snow. At fourteen, he was the second eldest, but still not above the playful wintertime fun they all enjoyed so.
As the dinnertime conversation turned to excited discussions of winter, Joanna found herself lost in thought again. She saw Alina's gaze on her, and wondered what the older woman was thinking. She had a distant look on her face, as if she saw something in Joanna's future. Joanna wondered what it was, and if she should ask her.
“Very well! I surrender!” Blaine, the kind, blunt-faced husband of Chrissie was laughing merrily. Joanna turned to where he sat beside Brodgar, laughing happily. “I'll make a new sled for you. And then we can race them.”
“Don't let him talk you into racing,” Duncan warned. “He's a wily one! He'll beat you even if he has to walk through a furnace for it.”
Blaine laughed. He and Duncan were the closest friends, though anyone who didn't know would think they were bitter enemies, the way they always competed so ferociously.
“I'll remember it, Duncan,” Blaine chuckled, a broad grin on his ruggedly handsome features. “Though I shan't be needing to walk through a furnace to beat you. Not this year, anyhow?”
“Oh?” Duncan said, grinning broadly. “Why? Do you have a plan to defeat my mighty sled?”
They all laughed, Blaine more than all of them. “I do, that. I do...”
“What?”
“Wait and see...”
Joanna joined the laughter.
Broderick stood. “A toast. To all of us here, and all the bairns yet joining us. Slainte!”
Joanna smiled. “Slainte!” Health.
They all drank the toast. Little Amice, Joanna's sister, yawned. Amabel smiled fondly at her where she sat beside Broderick.
“Sleeping already?” Amabel asked.
“No, mummy,” Amice yawned. “I don't need to sleep yet. It's a festival day!”
They all smiled. At ten years old, Amice was the family baby, spoiled and loved by all of them.
The mood settled to mellow talk, and Joanna found herself talking to aunt Chrissie about new dresses for the winter.
“...though we should order in some lace, what think you?” Chrissie said softly. “You'll want to make a gown sometime, I think, yes.”
Joanna bit her lip. She meant a wedding gown. At that moment, a wedding was the last thing she wanted to discuss. She found it only made her miserable, what with all the uncertainty around it.
“I was thinking we should try for velvet,” she said, sidestepping her aunt's comments.
“Yes!” Chrissie said, hands clasped, enraptured, under her face. “I think velvet would be just right. You should have green, I think. And I wouldn't mind a spot of blue. Amabel?”
“Yes, Chrissie?”
“Your daughter was just saying we should order some velvet. Do you think Mr. Strathford will be coming here before winter starts?”
“I should think so,” Amabel said, frowning.
“No, Auntie! You said I could go next...” Alf, Chrissie's younger son, two years Conn's junior and very voluble, said loudly. He had been playing a complex game with Conn using the chestnut shells piled beside his plate, and seemed distracted.
“Alf, dear, I need to answer your mother's question. Yes, Chrissie, he will,” she smiled, shaking her head at the little boys, whose game descended into mayhem.
“Oh, good!” Chrissie said happily. “In which case...”
“My lord!”
They all looked up nervously as a messenger burst into the hall. The man looked exhausted, Joanna noticed distantly, his jerkin dirty, his face pinched with fatigue and weather.
“Yes?” Broderick, the thane, looked up at him. “What is it, my good man? State your business. Take your time, do,” he added, as the man bent double to catch his breath. “You can get your fill at the kitchen when you've told us.”
“Th...Thank ye, milord,” the man gasped.
As Joanna waited with them to hear his words, she felt a sudden sense of aloofness descend. It was a strange feeling, indescribable even to her. As if she was outside herself, watching the events as they unfolded. She saw, with dreamlike clarity, as Amabel stood, rushing to the man as he collapsed, heard her father tell the rest to stand back, to give him air. Saw Alina's face and knew, just as she did, what the man would say.
“Lord Brien...the thane of Lochlann, is dead. Forgive me, my lady,” he added, turning to Amabel, who was white. Alina, too. Beside Joanna, Chrissie let out a cry, covering her mouth with her hand.
Joanna felt their shock fill her too.
Lord Brien, thane of Lochlann. Her own great-great uncle. He was dead.
That meant Lochlann, mighty fortress, ancestral home of her mother, Alina, and aunt Chrissie, was empty.
There was no thane there. No one left to inherit, either.
Joanna shivered. She put her hand on her chest, seeing overlaid across the banquet room another scene. A vast castle, dark and mist-wreathed. A single torch, wavering in its gloom. A party of people, lost within its depths. Lost, as they all were now, with no clear way.
It was her dream.
It had just come true.