The Highlander's Honorable Savior (Iron Of The Highlands Series) Page 14

  “Well, Mr. Hume.” Bonnie explained, feeling a bit guilty that she wasn’t in the barn, working on the latest project. She and Barra had come up with a new plan to beat the wool taxes, but it needed a lot of work and it was her job to do at least half of it. “We’re getting close to a finish.”

  “Grand,” the old man grinned. “I’m very glad you came.”

  “Thanks,” Bonnie whispered. His words touched right into her heart. Nobody had ever wanted her before.

  “I’d best see how those sheep are getting along,” he said, taking painful steps to the door. Bonnie reminded herself to prepare more salve for his bad knee. “It’s quite something to have to bring them in, this time of year,” he said with a wheezing laugh. “Cursed weather.”

  “Yes, it is,” Bonnie murmured, waiting until his steps had limped away before turning back to the fire. She knew she should do something helpful, but her heart wasn’t in it. She just wanted to sit and think about the past. In the last week or two, she had been happier than she had ever known, despite the growing distance between her and Arthur. She had thought she could heal it, but now even the small chance of that had been taken from her.

  The person she had trusted had left. The only person.

  “Bonnie?” she heard somebody call her.

  She turned around. Her friend, Barra, was in the doorway. “What is it?” she asked. “Is something amiss?” She felt so lackluster herself that it was hard to find real enthusiasm for anything.

  “No, not at all.” Barra grinned, her round cheeks flushed and her lips parted in a happy smile. “I just went to see how it’s all getting along.”

  Bonnie frowned, but then the meaning became clear to her. “Oh! The spinner. I see.”

  She stood and went to the door, reaching for her cloak. She let it fall around her shoulders, marveling at the fact that she had never had a cloak like this before. She followed Barra, chatting excitedly, out to the yard.

  “Oh, lass! I can barely wait for this to get started! It’s the one way we can beat the English with their awful taxes. I want to see the look on their faces when we tell them they can’t have it for the fleece tax, because it’s made into things already.” She grinned over her shoulder at Bonnie, who smiled and nodded.

  In the barn, several wooden pieces lay on the table. Some had been assembled in the corner into a platform of sorts. Two vertical arms were fixed to the platform, ready to receive the thing that lay on the table. The carter had made it, adapting a pushcart wheel to Bonnie’s requested dimensions, and smoothing and lightening it such that it made a lightweight, readily turning wheel. The sort of wheel to spin wool.

  “It’s almost done!” Barra was excited.

  Bonnie felt joy stir in her as she looked around, a sweet warmth she hadn’t thought she’d feel again. She looked down at the wheel, lifting it to feel its weight. It was balanced well and, when held at the midpoint, turned easily and lightly. She smiled. The light from the barn window shone on it. On its own, it was just a wheel. Put together with the stand and pedals, it was freedom.

  “It’s grand.” She felt a smile twist her lips as she weighed it again in her hands, the pale wood glinting in the sunlight.

  “Och, Bonnie!” Her friend beamed. “You’re such a rare lass! How it is you knew how to make it, I don’t know. But it’s grand! I’m so excited.”

  Then, to Bonnie’s utter amazement, she wrapped her arms around her and hugged her. Bonnie gasped in alarm, but then she felt tears spring to her eyes and she hugged her friend back. She rested her head on her shoulder. She had never felt acceptance and love like this before in her life. Barra looked into her face, her own touched with a gentle smile.

  “Och, lass. You’re crying! Here. Wipe your eyes, you daft lass.” She gently wiped her cheek with a handkerchief, smiling with real warmth as Bonnie took the handkerchief from her and wiped off the streaks of tears.

  “It should be done tomorrow,” she said when she could find her voice again. “We should ask Hogan if he can fix the supports so the wheel turns freely.” Her mind was already jumping to the next steps, seeing the wheel finished for operation. With one spinning wheel, they could work one fleece in a day, if they kept at it, and then in a week…

  “I don’t know how you know all this,” Barra said, interrupting her thoughts, “but I’ll find Hogan and tell him. I can barely wait to get it started!” She shook her head. “We’re lucky to have Hogan. He’s a loyal man.”

  Bonnie felt her throat tighten with words she longed to say. Hogan was one of the few men who’d agreed to stay on to help out at the farm. So many of them had already gone, heading north to where, it was whispered, a resistance was building up. Arthur had been gone a week already and she could not stop wondering where he was, or if he was safe.

  “I reckon we can set it up in the kitchen, so we have some warmth for when we work…” Barra started saying, then she gave a little cry. “Oh! Bonnie! What’s the matter, lass? Why’re you so sad?”

  “I’m…I’m not crying,” Bonnie tried to say, but that just made the tears flow faster. She sniffed and wiped her nose with her handkerchief and tried to think of something else. The harder she tried to push away her grief, the worse it became.

  “There, there,” Barra said, and Bonnie felt herself wrapped in a firm embrace. “You’re alright, lass. Nothing’s that bad…”

  Bonnie sniffed and tried to stifle her sobs on her friend’s shoulder. Having her speak with such kindness was, if anything, even more confusing.

  “I’m…sorry, lass,” she murmured to Barra, who had drawn them into a quiet, dark room around the back of the house. “It’s just that…I don’t know where he is, and what’s happening and…he left! And I trusted him!” She finished, her sobs closing her throat to any further words.

  “Och, lass. Easy, lass. It’s alright. Young Arthur?” she frowned, to confirm who Bonnie was speaking about.

  Bonnie nodded. Even hearing his name was too distressing for her now.

  “Och, that lad…” Barra chuckled. “He’ll be back, you just wait and see. The resistance? It’s a silly idea, I reckon. A pack of lads all excited about playing knights. But if it’ll work, then it’s lads like that who’ll thrive from it. Just you wait until he comes back a real knight.” She giggled. “Then you’ll see.”

  “But he won’t come back,” Bonnie said, feeling her heart almost stop from grief. “He’ll die and leave me, just like Mother did. Nobody wants me. Not really. Or, if they do, it’s just for sport.” She sobbed, the thought too bad for her to contemplate.

  “Lass!” Barra sounded shocked. “Lass, no! That’s a terrible thing to say.” She took her hands in hers.

  Bonnie looked up at her friend, seeing her shocked face. She felt too drained to reassure her. All the sorrows of her life were weighing on her, suddenly. Her friend’s soft touch reminded her of how much kindness had been absent in her life.

  “But it is true,” Bonnie whispered. “It is! Nobody wants me. They only want to use me. To hurt me.” She covered her face in her hands and sobbed again.

  When she stopped crying, she looked up, half-expecting that Barra would have wandered off. Instead, she found herself looking into her friend’s worried eyes.

  “Lass. What happened to ye?” Barra whispered. “I’m sorry. It’s not my place to ask. I just…never saw someone so sad before.”

  “I’m not sad,” Bonnie sniffed. “I have just had enough of men. I thought I could trust Arthur.” She shook her head, shocked at her own foolishness. “He was different. He didn’t use me or hurt me.” She shut her eyes, locked in her own sorrow.

  She heard a chair scrape on the flagstones, and looked up to find that Barra sat down opposite her. “Lass,” she said softly. “Arthur will come back, you know. I reckon he went north to protect us. It was for that he wanted to join up. Because he cares for you. He didn’t abandon you. He’s trying to help.”

  “But why?” Bonnie whispered. “It doesn’t help me, to have him
away.” She felt like a child asking that, but she couldn’t help asking. If he loved her – and he had said he did and acted like he did – how could he go away and leave her?

  Barra chuckled. “Och, lass. Who am I to understand a young lad’s mind? I can tell you one thing, though. He was jealous.”

  “Jealous?” Bonnie stared at her in disbelief. “How could he be jealous? Of whom?”

  She gaped at her friend, but her friend just laughed. Shaking her head, she carried on laughing, the tears rolling down her cheeks from amusement.

  “What?” Bonnie asked indignantly. “Just what is so funny?” She felt a bit irritated with her friend. She was serious, and Barra was chuckling like she was at a mummer’s farce.

  “Och, sorry lass,” Barra said, starting to hiccup as she stopped her giggling. “I just couldn’t help laughing. Lass! Did you never think he might have been jealous of the friendship we had? Or your friendship with Hogan?” She gazed at her, making big eyes.

  “What?” Bonnie stared at her. Her friend made no sense! Arthur, jealous of Barra? She couldn’t fathom that. “You mean…”

  Suddenly, things started to make a kind of sense. The way she might have described his behavior over the last few days was sullen. He had been so friendly and, well – more than that. Then, suddenly, he had been so no more.

  “Arthur was getting jealous of our friendship?” she repeated.

  “Aye. He didn’t like how close we all were. Like a family, see?” Barra shook her head. “Daft-headed man!” she frowned. “And now he’s gone and upset you, and that makes me angry. What do you say we should do to him, eh? I say you should forget him. Lad like that? He doesn’t deserve you.” She spat.

  “Barra!” Bonnie stared at her. She had never thought of herself as something a man might want. She ran a hand across her curls, feeling rank astonishment. “What do you mean?” How could a lad like Arthur not deserve her? “Barra…look at me. Why would he even want me?”

  “Lass…” Barra said gently. “Have you no’ seen yourself before?” she shook her head. “You’re a wonderful woman, lass. Brave, clever, kind…and you’re beautiful, too. You must know that, surely?”

  Bonnie bit her lip. The horrible things people had said rained down on her mind like dark sleet. She was ugly, she was wicked. She was cursed. Men might have used her, but that made her feel even uglier, more worthless. Nobody had ever even suggested she was beautiful.

  “Bonnie,” her friend said gently. “Come here.”

  Bonnie watched as Barra walked to the end of the room. It must have been a bedroom once. It still housed the chairs and a table that might have been a washstand, a bed and a chest. Barra was standing at the one wall.

  “Come here,” she repeated gently, “and look here.”

  Bonnie stood gingerly. She stared. On the wall opposite, behind a curtain, was a mirror.

  A mirror! As unusual as spice and silk, mirrors were the prerogative of the extremely rich. She had never seen one and she stared at it with some surprise, marveling at the reflective surface, the silvery color. It looked like ice, a little, or like silver. The surface was not shiny all over, but she could see the back wall and Barra’s face reflected as if they were a painting on the wall.

  “Come on, lass!” Barra chuckled. “Stop gaping, and have a look at yourself! It won’t do any good if you’re over there.”

  Bonnie swallowed hard and approached it, staring at her own face.

  Brown eyes like dark wells stared at her, big and deep. They were set below a high brow, rising into a peak of raven hair. Her skin was white and clean, and her lips were full and dark red. Set off with high cheekbones and a small neat chin, the face was more like the fine ladies she had once seen in church than it was like the crofters in her village. She gasped.

  “Barra…this is a real mirror?” she felt almost afraid, as if it was some kind of sorcerers device, not simply a surface made of rare glass.

  “Of course it is! You daft thing!” Barra gave her a playful shove, then enveloped her in a real hug. Bonnie held her, feeling overwhelmed. “What do you think it is?”

  Bonnie felt her throat close with emotion. Nobody had ever treated her with so much love and acceptance. Glancing back at the mirror again, she felt the strange sensation grow and get stronger. She was beautiful. Now she couldn’t doubt it. She stroked Barra’s pale hair back from her forehead and looked into her eyes.

  “Thank you, Barra,” she said seriously. “You have done so much for me, these last weeks.”

  “Och, lass, it’s nothing,” Barra said, already turning away. “Come on. Let’s go and find Papa. He’ll be wondering what we’re doing for the midday meal already.”

  Bonnie stayed where she was, hearing Barra’s booted feet take her to the kitchen. It wasn’t nothing, she thought slowly, standing before the mirror. It was something she had never felt before, and it took her a moment to identify what it was.

  She felt confident.

  Unplanned Occurrences

  Arthur listened to the sounds in the darkened wood. The wind whistled in the branches overhead, though where they stood on the forest floor there was no wind. A twig cracked near him, and he saw Bert step around the tree trunk. The others walked almost silently behind.

  They had marched for over a week. Arthur had forgotten what it felt like to sleep more than a few hours a night. He hadn’t washed or eaten properly and he felt lightheaded. The others around him looked like grimy, thin-faced wraiths. Even Miller had lost some of his complacent attitude. Nobody doubted Alec’s words that there were dangers everywhere and that, should any of them stray, the price was death.

  “A fine evening,” a voice whispered, breaking into his thoughts. Arthur felt his heart thud with the unexpected interruption, then settle back to its steady pulses. He nodded.

  “Aye. We can see far.”

  “I don’t like it,” Brodgar complained. “If you can see somebody, it stands to reason they can see you, too.”

  “Aye, you cheerful man,” Bert scorned. “But who’s going to be looking? Talk about putting fear into people.” He spat into the leaves.

  Arthur didn’t laugh. He had to agree, if the enemy were anywhere in these woods, they would see them. The moonlight lit the forest floor, making it impossible to hide. Their faces were plainly in sight between the shadows of the tree trunks. He shook his head. If they were going to be attacked sometime during their march, now would be the right time to do it.

  “Hey!” somebody called him. Arthur jumped.

  “What the…oh. Miller! You could have warned me.”

  Miller didn’t smile. “We’re stopping up ahead,” he grunted.

  “Good.” Arthur shrugged. He had gotten used to marching through the night, but his legs ached and he felt almost weary with relief at the thought of stopping. He glanced at Miller’s retreating back, wondering what it was that had made the man be so unfriendly.

  Bert said nothing, so Arthur fell in behind him and trudged on up the hill. At the top, he stared.

  Alec was standing there, flanked by Camry and another man who’d joined them on the march, called Gylas. They were staring at a blockade. Arthur felt his brows draw down into a frown. The structure is man made, he thought. Branches had been pulled across the path, and one or two upright branches thrust into the soil, to keep the rest in place.

  “A break for hunters, to stop the prey?” he asked. That was what it seemed to him, something to keep deer on a path, set up by the verderers who managed the wood for some nobleman or other. Beside him, Camry nodded.

  “Think so,” he agreed. He gripped one of the branches and jerked it left, trying to uproot it. The weight of the ones stacked behind shifted ominously, and some stray bits of dirt rolled downhill towards them.

  “Leave it,” Alec said absently. Arthur could see how worried he was. He had one hand clasped at his side, his brow twisted with a frown.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t like this,” Alec
said. “This path is the only one that goes up to Lowdale, where we want to spend the night. Anybody coming along this road ahead of us would know that. And this is the perfect place to surround someone. What do you think?” he gestured widely.

  Arthur studied the terrain. He nodded. It didn’t take knowledge to see that Alec was correct in his assessment, anybody could come up behind then and slaughter them here at the barricade. He shivered.

  “They can only do that if we stay here,” he pointed out in an urgent whisper. “They can’t touch us if we go down.”

  Alec nodded. Arthur noticed for the first time how concerned he was. He lifted an arm, making a turning gesture. “Come on, men!” he whispered to them as loudly as he dared, considering that anybody might be lurking in the bushes, about to spring out and attack them all. “We leave!”

  The men fell in behind Alec. Arthur found himself at the back, near Brodgar. At that moment, he heard the scrape of steel.

  “Look out!” he yelled. It was too late. Men had appeared in the path ahead of him. “Alec!” he screamed.

  He saw the man wheel urgently in the other direction, but a vast horseman chopped down with a sword and Arthur was distracted by a yell from Camry, not seeing if Alec fell or not.

  “Go right!” Camry screamed.

  The sound of metal ringing on metal filled the clearing as Arthur, seeing what Camry meant, wheeled right. There was a path of sorts there, little more than a track somebody might have made by walking repeatedly down the same route. He blundered towards it. He heard a gasp and saw Bert fall. He grabbed him and hauled him to his feet, feeling his weight lessen slightly as he found his own feet.

  “Come on!” he yelled as Bert got himself upright. “Let’s go!”

  “Have to…fetch Alec.”

  “No!” Arthur roared. “You’re wounded. I’ll go.” He pushed Bert in the back and watched as the fellow stumbled up the path. Feeling his lungs burn with the swift activity, he turned and ran back down the path, towards the clearing.