WHEN THE LAIRD RETURNS

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

            There were no hints of what was to come on that perfect summer morning, no sign that in a few hours her life would be forever changed.  But then, Iseabal was to later realize, momentous events are often heralded not by a thunderclap but with a sigh. 

           She bent over the neck of her horse, flying over the ground so fast that the grass was only a green blur.  A brilliant blue sky, cloudless and clear, was a backdrop for the craggy hills in the distance.  To her left was Loch Euliss shining gold in the morning sun, and ahead was her destination, the ruins of Gilmuir.  The ancestral home of the MacRae clan sat perched on a cliff faced promontory overlooking Loch Euliss and connected by a strip of land to the glen.

            The wind, brushing against her cheeks almost abrasively, made her feel free and brave. But the feeling was always short-lived and edged with caution.   Each time she’d engaged in secret rebellion, the act had been accompanied by a sour taste in her mouth. Even now as she slowed, her fingers began to tremble on the reins.

            Her father and his entourage had left for Inverness not an hour earlier, but Iseabal knew better than to believe herself completely safe.  Hesitating at the land bridge, she turned in the saddle, watching as the sheep behind her were being moved.  The shepherd was not, blessedly, looking in her direction. 

            Dismounting, she tied the reins of her horse to a piece of iron bar, all that remained of the front door.  Stepping between two leaning columns Iseabal entered Gilmuir.  Although the slate floor was covered in brick dust, the hallway  connecting the main part of the castle to the priory was surprisingly intact.  The curved roof still held and sunlight spilled through the trellis-like pattern of bricks on one side.   Walking through the corridor, Iseabal stretched out her hand, touching the sun warmed bricks in greeting or petition. 

            After all, she was a Drummond and a trespasser.

            “It’s the spawning site of our enemies,” her father had once said about Gilmuir. “Just as well there are no more MacRaes about,” he’d added grimly.  “I’d have to kill them all.”

            Yet, she could not find it in her heart to feel anger toward people she’d never known. 

            Reaching an opening in the corridor, Iseabal turned to her left, facing the ruins of the clan hall.

            Summer had come to the Highlands, sending the warm wind soughing around corners and darting in playful gusts around the rubble.  Gilmuir seemed saddest in this season, as if knowing that the world blossomed around it and life would never come again to this once grand place. 

            There was no sign of grandeur now. All of Gilmuir’s walls had fallen but for one short section, and it leaned at an angle toward the cavernous space below the ruin, a framework of piers and vaults that had once supported the floorboards.

           Her imagination, however, sketched in details long gone.  Across the ceiling and against the walls the banners of the MacRaes would have been hung.  Below her feet polished boards would have gleamed from a treatment of heated oil.  At night lamplight and the glow from candles would illuminate the painted walls and embrasures.

            The wind swirled around her, brushing a tendril of hair onto her cheek as if admonishing her for this moment of pretense.  Smiling, she thought that the breeze, too, would have been different back then, filled not with the scent of dust but the smell of fresh herbs and flowers. 

            Her fascination with the old castle had begun as a child watching as her father directed the removal of stone and bricks from both Gilmuir and the adjoining Fort William.  From that moment on, the fortress and the promontory on which it stood had been a lure. Perhaps in some way, her fascination with Gilmuir had also been responsible for her love of working with stone.

            Sometimes she lost herself in carving, the rigidity and rough texture of the stone being the life she lived.  The broad strokes of her chisel against rock became her secret wish to escape from such an existence. 

            Leaving the protection of the corridor, she walked out into the open air. Something caught the light as she skirted the edges of the chamber.  Kneeling beside the open foundation, Iseabal stared down into the forest of pillars jutting up from the earthen floor.  There, not far from the base of one was a stone block, not white or beige limestone, but something as dark and shiny as the eye of a conjurer.

            Measuring the distance from the surface to the bottom of the foundation she realized that it was too steep to descend.  Resigned to not being able to retrieve the stone, she began to stand.  Without warning, the earth crumbled in large chunks beneath her.   To her horror, Iseabal was sent hurtling into the open pit. 

            She fell hard, the force of the impact stealing her breath.  Stunned, Iseabal lay as she’d fallen, struggling to breathe. The earth, soft and powdery beneath her cheek, smelled sour, layered as it was with rotting wood.  Darkness draped around the base of the pillars like silken curtains.  Other than her harsh breathing, there was not a whisper of sound.

           Each indrawn breath brought a piercing pain, each exhale an answering discomfort. Pressing her left hand against her ribs, Iseabal laboriously rose to her knees, leaning her shoulder against one pillar.  Carefully, she pushed herself up until she was standing.

            How was she to find her way out of here?    

            Glancing up at the spot where she’d been standing, Iseabal began to realize how far she’d fallen.  Puffs of dust filled the air as she wound her way through the pillars looking for a way out of the foundation.     

            What she needed was a stepping stone. Walking back to the spot where she’d seen the black rock, Iseabal placed her hand flat against her side and slowly knelt.  Not shale, she realized, stroking her fingers against the slick ebony surface. Black marble, cool to the touch and too heavy for her to move. 

            Tilting her head, Iseabal wondered what she could carve from it.   Get yourself out of here first, Iseabal, before you begin to envision what shape is hidden in this stone.  

            Standing once again, she leaned back against a pillar. 

            “Help!”  A call too faint to be heard.  Pressing both hands against her side she shouted again.  The word, eloquent in its simplicity, seemed absorbed by the foundation.  As if, she thought, Gilmuir wished her to remain in this prison of rock. 

            Weakly, she leaned her head back, wondering how long she would have to remain here.  Gilmuir was deserted, a place avoided by the people she knew.

            Hours seemed to pass, or it could have been only moments.  Time had a way of lengthening when she was afraid.  The sun was directly overhead signaling the noon meal and the beginning of her mother’s worry.   

            As a child she’d been entertained with tales of the Raven, a mythical figure who’d been credited with rescuing Scots in trouble.  Iseabal suddenly wished that he was real.  She needed the Raven to save her from the foolishness of her own actions. If she were not found, Iseabal thought, she might well die here, becoming one of Gilmuir’s spirits. 

            “Please,” she said placing a hand against the wall and resting her forehead against it.  “Please,” she said again, her murmured word a prayer. 

*****

            A mischievous breeze ruffled his hair and Alisdair impatiently brushed it back from his forehead, staring ahead at the fortress he’d heard about all his life. Perched at the end of Loch Euliss were the cliffs of Gilmuir with their striated bands of beige and glittering white stone. Topping them like a worn and rusty crown was the ancestral fortress of the MacRaes.

            “A lonely looking place, captain,” said a voice to his side.

            Alisdair turned, glancing down at his first mate.   Daniel’s auburn hair and beard seemed afire in the afternoon light, lending color to his pale face.  He had the complexion of a clerk, not a man who’d spent his life at sea.  His face was a pleasant one, if unremarkable, but at the moment marred by a frown. 

            Alisdair had been subjected to that glower every day since they’d left Nova Scotia two months ago.  The voyage had begun on a Friday, an invitation to disaster according to Daniel.  But the most dire warning of all had come when Henrietta, the ship’s cat, had begun mewing while they were still docked.  A sure sign, according to Daniel, that the voyage would be long and dangerous.  The fact that they had made Scotland so fast. and that the entire journey had been marked by tranquility had no effect on Daniel’s ill temper and oft repeated warnings. 

            “Henrietta’s been sneezing,” Daniel said now, glancing down at the overfed, purring calico cat in his arms.  “A sure sign of rain.” 

            “Yesterday she was frisky, and a gale was supposed to occur,” Alisdair said dryly, glancing up at the cloudless sky.

            A sailor trusted in the wind and waves, entities over which he had no control.  Rituals that promised safety and fair weather, the right amount of wind, and protection from sea creatures were part of a man’s shipboard life. Daniel, however, took the custom to extreme, seeing omens and portents where none existed. 

            Ordinarily one of his brothers would have occupied the role of first mate, but they were ferrying ships to French buyers. Daniel was a fine man who held the post well, and upon their return to Nova Scotia, would be given his own merchant ship to command.  Aboard his own vessel, Alisdair thought, Daniel and Henrietta could foretell doom and gloom to their heart’s content. 

            Staring up at the ruins of Gilmuir, Alisdair considered Daniel’s words.  A lonely looking place?  He supposed it was.   And majestic in its way. 

            The MacRaes were returning to Gilmuir, if only for a day or two. On such a momentous occasion pipes should have been playing, but there was no stirring call, no cry of lamentation or joyful greeting.  Instead, accompanying the Fortitude’s progress through the loch were the voices of the crew shouting responses to Daniel’s commands, canvas sails snapping in the wind as they were being unfurled, and the splash of frothy waves against the ship’s hull, proof of the strong current of Coneagh Firth.

           His duty had only been to travel to London, and his decision to come to Gilmuir had been an impulse, one that felt almost like a summons.  As they had followed the coast of Scotland, he’d felt an odd sense of homecoming.  When they’d entered Coneagh Firth, Alisdair seemed to know every turn, every current as the ocean met the freshwater lake.   Sailing through Loch Euliss was familiar and known, almost as if it had been imprinted in his mind and his heart. 

            Their ultimate destination was a hidden cove protected by a necklace of rocks, another of the tales told him in his childhood. 

            The ship he’d designed was fast, an ocean bird with her sleek prow and silhouette. Raising one hand, Alisdair gave the signal to lower the eleven foot stern anchor, just until it broke the surface of the water.  The drag would be enough to offset any of the Fortitude’s forward impetus.

            Ahead was the chain of rocks.  Unlike Gilmuir, both erected and destroyed by man, this marvel of nature was unchanged, rising from the bottom of the loch like the jawbone of some mythical creature. 

            Creeping around the last rock, the Fortitude headed into the cove almost hesitantly as if uncertain of her welcome.  Encircled on three sides by high cliffs, this refuge was a silent place. No birds were calling out in warning from their nests tucked into the pocked stone.  Even the water lapping onto the rocky shoreline was muted.  The wind had subsided until it was no more than a tranquil breeze dancing on the deck of the ship.

            Both stern and bow anchors were fully lowered as the crew began to make preparations for docking. But this visit would be, of necessity, a short one.  He was due in London, a guest of the Countess of Sherbourne.  

            Giving the order for a boat to be lowered, Alisdair began to descend the rope ladder. 

            “Shall I come with you?” Daniel asked, peering over the side.   

            "No," Alisdair said, glancing up. For once Daniel didn’t question why, or offer any superstitions to fit the moment, seeming to sense Alisdair’s need to be alone. 

            Daniel nodded, pulling back from the rail. 

            The trip across the cove was easily done.  Alisdair pulled the boat up a few feet onto the shoreline, tying the rope around a large boulder. Straightening, he smiled at the curious sensation beneath his feet.  The earth felt stolid and dead; there was no current, no feeling of movement as when a ship skimmed the waves.

            Retrieving the lantern from the boat, he walked along the rocky shoreline until he found the entrance to a cave.  Bending, he entered, then stood looking around him.  Just as he had been told, here were the pictures drawn centuries ago, portraits of a woman beloved by a saint named Ionis.

            “She’s beautiful,” his mother had once said of the drawings.   

            "Not as beautiful as you, my love," his father had interjected, smiling down at her.  "But then, it's probably a good thing that you're not aware of your own loveliness."

            He and his brothers had turned away, disgusted, Alisdair remembered.   His parents were always losing themselves in a glance, or smiling secretly at each other as if the world around them had faded away. Only after he’d grown did Alisdair realize the depth of their love for each other.

            But his mother had been correct.  The woman in the paintings was lovely. Her long black hair was adorned with a wreath of daisies, her winsome green eyes and smile seeming to welcome him.  Ionis’s lady.

           On the other side of the cave was the opening he sought. Staring up at the steps, Alisdair realized that he didn’t need the lantern.  Leaving it on the bottom step he started upward.

            The echo of his boots thudding against the stone steps marked his journey.   A pleasing breeze accompanied his ascent, freshening the air.  Near the top, he encountered broken slabs of chiseled slate, one bearing an iron ring.  The answer to a riddle, then.  Light filtered through the staircase because the entrance had been shattered.  He pulled himself up with both arms, wondering at the destruction.  Had the English, angered at their Colonel’s disappearance, hacked their way through it? 

            But it no longer mattered that the two secrets had been discovered.  Every MacRae knew of the existence of both the cove and the staircase, having either been part of the exodus from this place thirty years ago, or descendants of those who had fled Scotland. 

            The priory seemed more suited to shadows than the bright sunlight.   But there was no roof, no walls, and little more remaining of the structure than the slate floor beneath his feet.  The atmosphere, however, was one of serene sadness as if the death of Gilmuir had been expected but not unmourned.

           A series of arches had once stretched across the back of the priory, facing Loch Euliss.  Only part of one arch remained, framing the view.  Loch Euliss stretched out before him, gradually narrowing until it flowed into Coneagh Firth and from there to the sea.  On either side of the lake were thickly forested glens, the trees appearing more black than green.

            Turning, he entered a hallway that had been described to him numerous times.  The fortress had originally been built in the shape of an “H”, with the priory and castle connected by a covered corridor. But there were few signs remaining of what Gilmuir had once been.  There were no tall chimneys, steeply pitched roofs or towering walls aged by the passage of centuries.  Instead, he viewed a crumbling ruin.

            His father had spent years of his youth at Gilmuir, and later his mother had been held hostage within these walls, before becoming a rebel and then a wife to an English colonel engaged in treason.   Here, his great-grandfather had ruled as laird and tragedy had swept over the clan beginning with his grandmother’s death.

            Reasons enough for feeling an affinity toward the old castle. Or it could be that the answer lie in his great-uncle’s words to him as a boy. "It doesn't matter where you're born, lad. If there’s a drop of MacRae blood in you, you’ll always be from Gilmuir.”

            Unexpectedly, Alisdair heard a soft, keening cry as if Gilmuir’s ghosts rose up to greet him. He shook his head, amused at himself and the fact that he’d momentarily allowed tales from his boyhood to overshadow reason.

            Striding through an opening in the corridor he found himself standing beside mounds of rubble and one weak looking wall leaning precariously over a pit. He heard the sound again, but this time instead of inciting his curiosity, the plaintive cry irritated him. 

            "I don’t believe in ghosts," he said loudly, staring down into the opening. But the skin on the back of his neck tightened when something moved in the shadows. 

            “I am very happy to hear that,” a female voice said weakly.  

            He frowned, studying the darkness.

            “Show yourself,” he said.

            She stepped out of the shadows, into the afternoon light, glancing up at him, a solemn expression on her face.     

            He wondered for a fleeting moment if it was true, after all, that there were spirits at Gilmuir. The intruder was the image of Ionis’s love, the woman painstakingly crafted in the cave portraits. 

            Not a ghost, but human. 

            Her long black hair seemed part of the shadows, her eyes as delicately green as the stem of a flower.  Her mouth was solemn but seemed to hint at smiles.  An arresting face, squared  in shape.   

            Smudges of dirt marked her cheek as well as her pale blue striped petticoat.  Her soiled white kerchief, was hanging loose, held at the ends by a double brooch pinned to her yellow jacket. Her long black hair was tied at the back of her neck with a ribbon of dark blue, the same shade that bound the hem of her skirt. 

            “Well?” he asked, finally.  “If you’re not haunting Gilmuir then who are you and why are you here?” 

            Slowly, her gaze traveled up from his black boots with their tops folded down at the knee of his buff breeches. His short waistcoat of plaid wool was topped with a buff cutaway jacket, the cuffs and lapels wide and folded back to reveal crimson facings.  His brown hair was tied neatly at the nape of his neck, the high collar of his coat framing a heavily bearded face, thick brows, and eyes a shade of blue so light that looking at them was like viewing a dawn sky. 

            An imposing rescuer.

            Iseabal took one step back.

            “Are you a soldier?” she asked, having never seen the tartan worn by anyone other than the military.  Once, in Inverness, she had watched as a troop of men assembled in strict formation, their attire no less resplendent than this man’s.  A regiment of Highland soldiers, off to fight for the English king.

            “No,” he said shortly.  “And you? Who are you?” 

            “I am no ghost,” she said, bending carefully to retrieve her leather sling.  “But I might well be one if left here.”  Looping the ties over her shoulder, she looked up at him again. “Will you help me?” she asked.  

            Unfolding his arms, he knelt on one knee, studying the distance before laying flat on the ground.  Reaching down with both hands, he waited until she stretched upward, then gripped her wrists.  Rising first to his knees, and then to his feet, he began pulling her free. 

            As he lifted her, Iseabal willed the pain away, but found that it was better simply to pray for the  ability to bear it.   Her knees bumped against the smooth stone of the wall and a moment later she felt the solid earth beneath her feet, the warming sunlight feeling like a benediction against her face. 

            Taking a cautionary step away from the edge of the foundation, she glanced up at him. His size dwarfed her, and she was a tall woman.  There was an air of command to this stranger, especially standing as he was with feet planted apart and the fingers of one hand wound around the wrist of another.

            Only one other person in her life had demonstrated such force of presence, her father.  Magnus Drummond was a short, bandy legged man who nevertheless carried himself as if he were king.

            “Who are you?” she whispered. 

            “A MacRae,” he said, his frown not easing.

            “There are no more MacRaes,” she said, placing one hand against her chest. 

            “You are looking at one,” he said. His voice sounded almost Scot, but there was a tinge of accent that flattened his words.  “And you?” he asked again, taking a step closer.  “Who are you?”  He reached out one hand as if to touch her and she jerked away, the sudden twisting movement resulting in a spear of pain in her side.

            “You’re hurt,” he said, his fingers brushing against hers, sliding to the back of her hand where it rested at her waist. 

            "I’m fine,” she said, taking another step back.  He followed her, implacable in his kindness. 

            A miscreant would be hesitant to have him as judge.  But her lie had been a small one, Iseabal thought, as his eyes, soft disks of pale blue light seemed to bore through her. 

            Taking one more step away from him, Iseabal hoped he would not follow.  

            “How did you come to be in the pit?” he asked.  “Why do you trespass at Gilmuir?”  Once again, he closed the distance between them. 

            One more time, she moved away from him, and now he seemed to understand.   Another step and he remained where he was.

            Reaching her horse, Iseabal untied the reins, knowing that riding would not be wise with her side hurting so badly.  Resigned to walking back home, she turned, heading for the land bridge. 

            “Why are you on MacRae land?” he asked again. 

            Turning, Iseabal faced him, answering him finally.  

            “It’s no longer MacRae land,” she said, wishing that it were not true.  “There haven’t been MacRaes here for years.  It’s owned by Magnus Drummond,”  she added, before leaving both Gilmuir and the man.

© Karen Ranney, 2001