Chapter Thirteen

 

 

MacLeod castle was usually a welcome sight. Many times when Callum returned from patrols he had been glad to see its towers and flags soaring, the crows circling, the white walls that spoke of power and strength to any that might threaten the clan. He had always felt that he was coming back to a safe place when he returned.

Not this time. His home felt neither safe nor welcoming. For one thing he was coming back without Kerry. For another, he knew he was going to have to deal with the aftermath of his ill fated journey north to MacIntyre hall.

Was it possible they had heard of him straying onto the land of another clan for no good reason? Could he even explain it if he were asked? I went onto their land to assist a woman from the future with getting back to her own time.

What about Nessa? Would she be there waiting for him?

He sat on the back of his horse and looked down the slope at the castle. There it was, looking much like it had done the last time he saw it. The castle had not changed but he definitely had. So much had changed since he went north with Kerry.

It had been two days since he left The Red Fox and in that time he had tried not to think of her, to think only of returning home and putting all that behind him.

He was a warrior, that was all. A highland warrior who never doubted himself. What would his men think if they’d seen him looking so glum on the trail south? They would have thought he’d been bewitched and in many ways he had. Not any more. That time was gone.

He allowed himself a last few moments of peace. When he entered the castle there would be little peace for a long time, if ever again.

The flags flying high gave away signals to those who knew how to read them. His parents were home, that was the most important thing to know. It meant there was no avoiding the inevitable. It was going to be marry Nessa or be banished.

He had no intention of being banished. That would be like having an arm wrenched off, a part of him torn from his body that might leave him alive but he would not be living.

There was no choice but to marry her. Kerry did not want him. That had been made abundantly clear with the note she’d left for him. He had been a fool to open himself up to her. He would have been better never meeting her, remaining on patrol forever, protecting the clan with his sword rather than risking its safety over a woman.

He had been wrong to fall for her and it wasn’t something he would do again.

He sat taller on his horse. He would marry Nessa as they deigned but he would not remain by her side. With no love between them she would not mourn him if he died in battle.

Dying in battle was exactly what he had planned. As he began to ride down the slope to the castle, he couldn’t think of a better way of ending the pain of losing Kerry than by a sword running him through as it had done to Orm.

The pain of conflict was nothing to the pain he felt deep inside and as he rode closer to his home he did his best to leave all thoughts about Kerry on the mountain behind him. He was not meant to love. He was meant to be laird. He was meant to protect his people. That was his destiny. Getting involved with a woman who pretended she was the future was foolish but at least nobody here knew about it.

There must have been someone watching out for him because by the time he reached the castle gates his father was standing there, arms folded. “Who was she?” he asked as Callum nodded a greeting.

“Who?”

“You know who, my lad. The woman you ran off with. Who was she?”

“Nessa MacKay.”

“So who’s that over there then?” He pointed into the courtyard. Callum walked past him, knowing what he would see. At the far side of the courtyard an elderly man was standing deep in conversation with a young woman. Both of them were wearing the tartan that Callum knew all too well.

Callum winced. “That’s Nessa and old man MacKay.”

“Nessa and her father, aye laddie, that is them. Perhaps you might tell me again who you went north with.”

“Just a lass I met.”

His father’s eyes narrowed before he burst out laughing. “Good God, dinnae let your mother find out.”

“Find out what?”

Alan threw an arm around his son, lowering his voice. “I ken what it’s like. You want to get to know the lassies for a wee while before you settle. Dinnae forget I was young once. I dinnae judge you for it but now’s the time to become a man, not a laddie. Come on in and meet your bride to be and we’ll say no more about any of this.”

Before they could cross the courtyard Nessa and her father vanished inside the keep, Nessa glancing back over her shoulder and giving Callum a look of undisguised contempt.

“Should we follow them?” Callum asked. “She does not seem that pleased to see me.”

“Only because you are encrusted with filth and she has been waiting these six days for your return. Let her have her time in anger. You get yourself clean and then you will meet her tonight at dinner. We will have a feast to celebrate your return.”

“Can we afford a feast, father? Are we not still planning for winter shortage?”

“You have a lot to learn about politics, my boy. We must show them our stores are bulging.”

“But they aren’t.”

“No but when MacKay goes home, he can tell his clan we are struggling and might be easy to conquer. Or he can go back and say he ate a feast fit for kings and they should accept we are the better clan.”

“Why can we not just share out the food with those who are hungry? I passed many struggling villages on the way home, father. They would be glad of what we have to spare.”

“Did you not hear me? It is not spare. It is to impress MacKay. Now go to the infirmary and wait.”

Callum crossed the courtyard on a path of rushes, the mud crunching underneath as the last of the morning frost melted away in the weak sunlight. Inside the infirmary was dark, the smell pungent, mint and lavender perfuming the air. The beds were empty which was fortunate.

The laird might be happy bathing with the sound of the dying around him but Callum could never enjoy cleaning his body with the sick just feet away. He wanted to tend to them, not indulge himself. He could never distance himself from his people in the same way his father could.

They were different in many ways. He would never dream of marrying a MacKay if it were up to him. Not after what they did to Lachlan.

What was it his father told him? He had a lot to learn about politics.

The bath was sunken into the floor in the infirmary warming room. Tiled and beside the enormous fireplace, it was modeled on the bath found in the model of a Norman bishop his grandfather had visited once many decades earlier.

It was four feet deep, the tiles glazed and colored to match the MacCleod tartan. The jugs were sitting by the fire warming slowly. He picked up the first one, ignoring the heat that scorched his fingers. Pouring it into the bath, he watched it pool at the bottom, steam rising slowly.

“We will do that for you,” a voice said behind him. That was another difference between him and his father. He didn’t want servants doing everything for him. He wanted to fill his own bath.

Nonetheless, he let them do it. He was tired of arguing. He was tired of everything. He sat sweating by the fireside as the servants filed out carrying the empty jugs with them.

Stripping out of his clothes, he sank into the hot water and ducked underneath it, letting it soak into his pores. Coming up for air a few moments later, he pushed his hair back from his forehead, leaning back against the tiles, rubbing the dirt from his skin.

He refused to think about Kerry anymore but she invaded his feelings anyway, a more insistent warrior than any he had ever fought, overcoming his defenses effortlessly and whispering to him in a voice he could not hear.

What was she saying to him? He did not know but he cursed under his breath, telling himself to put her from his mind.

He needed to think about the future and she wasn’t it. Nessa was his future. She might have looked as if she wanted to kill him when she first saw him but that wasn’t so bad. It would make it easier when he told her he had no intention of ever sleeping with her.

The water remained heated by the enormous fireplace. He needed only to climb out when he was done and that wouldn’t be any time soon. In here, he was alone, or so he thought.

“Callum,” a voice called out.

“Bathing,” he shouted back. “Leave me be.”

Fenella appeared a moment later. “I heard you were back.”

“Aye but you apparently didnae hear me say leave me be.”

“Good to see you too. I come all the way here to see you and that’s how you greet me. You might want to cover that by the way.”

Callum glanced down at the water, placing his hands over his lap as he realized. “Why are you here, Fenella?”

“I came to ask where your woman might be found.”

“In the keep.”

“Not Nessa. Your woman.” Fenella held her hands to the fire to warm them. “It is bitter out there,” she added.

“She lied to me, Fenella.”

“What about?”

“I dinnae have any wish to talk about it no more.”

“So you’re going to marry Nessa then and that’s that?”

“I suppose so. What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because you’re a fool, Callum MacCleod.” She knelt next to the tub and looked at him closely. “You have a question to ask me. Come on, out with it.”

Callum ran a hand through his hair before speaking. “What did you talk to Kerry about while I was out tending your veggies?”

“I know what answer you seek, Callum but only you can find it. You cannot be led by the hand all your life. You have to make the choices that matter if you are to be the highlander I know you can be.” She pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Do you want a life with a stranger who might be lying to you or a woman who hates you?”

“That’s no choice. Kerry’s gone.”

“Has she?”

“Do you know something I dinnae?”

“I only know she has choices to make same as you.”

“But she lied to me, didn’t she?”

“Lies and truth are not as far apart as some might wish. I could tell you I came here today to bless your wedding. To you that is a lie, to your parents it will be the truth. Do you see they can be different but the same depending on who is listening?”

“No. I dinnae see at all. Why can you not give me a straight answer to my questions?”

“For the same reason I dinnae raise an army whenever danger beckons near my wee cottage. I am not taking charge of your life nor any life. I am just an old woman who likes her peace and I only came to bid greeting to a man in a bath.”

“And I’m a man who is done with his bath so if you’ll excuse me.”

She nodded, getting to her feet. “I shall see you at dinner this evening.”

She was gone without a sound leaving Callum to climb out of the bath and dry himself by the fire. He looked down at his body, examining the damaged skin, the bruises, the scars from a lifetime of conflict. He wouldn’t mind a life of peace if he was able to share it with Kerry.

That wasn’t to be of course so he had no option but to marry Nessa. He dressed and left the infirmary, the heat of the fire soon no more than a distant memory. If only he could say the same of Kerry.