Page 5 of The Refuge

Steinar rubbed his aching thigh. He’d been sitting in an alcove at one end of the hall all morning, his head bent to the parchment crafting messages Malcolm intended for the mormaers in the provinces. The king was raising an army of foot for a raid into Northumbria. All who were sworn to him would respond with fighting men.

Steinar had to acknowledge the king’s wisdom. It was best not to allow an army to be idle overlong. Soldiers with nothing to do were likely to drink and gamble and work up quarrels amongst themselves, rather than train to fight the enemy.

Finishing the last missive, Steinar set his quill aside and stretched his neck from side to side, relieving the cramped muscles. With pleasant reflection, he remembered Talisand’s priest, Father Bernard, who had been his tutor. Mayhap his graying brown hair was now completely gray. He had been too kind to inflict punishment on Steinar when he had forsaken his lessons. The only thing that had brought him back to his studies had been his father’s glare the one time he had been caught sneaking out and his older sister’s threat that she would best him if he did not practice as the priest urged. So, instead of riding Artair, the black fell pony he had raised from a colt, he had dipped his quill in the ink and begun again.

When he and Rhodri had come to Scotland and the opportunity presented itself to serve the unlettered Malcolm, Steinar had silently thanked God for Father Bernard’s teaching .

Pushing from the bench, he tentatively put weight on his leg. It protested, stiff at first. Slowly he crossed the empty hall and stepped through the door, looking into the cloud-filled sky that portended rain.

As he walked, his leg loosened up. He followed the stream away from the tower, the pain lessening as he went. By the time he reached the open field, he was striding apace.

Suddenly, a hawk’s cry pierced the air. He looked up to see a small gray speck cutting across the sky like a shooting star. With its wings tucked in close, the bird dove toward a flock of mallards on the wing. One duck exploded in a burst of feathers as the falcon slammed his talons into the bird’s wing.

A cheer went up and the two birds plummeted to the ground. Clutching the mallard was a small falcon. The granite-colored head and wing feathers and eggshell throat told Steinar it was a peregrine, a male half the size of his kill.

Well done.

A whistle pierced the air. Steiner inclined his head, searching for the source. Standing to one side of the field with her gauntleted hand outstretched to receive the falcon was the auburn-haired beauty he’d seen in the hall just that morning breaking her fast. The same one he had watched the night before. At this time of day, the queen’s ladies were usually at their needlework, yet this one had escaped that duty.

How had she managed that?

The falcon flew to her gauntlet and she fed it meat from a pouch on her belt. The young man with hair the same red as hers left her side to retrieve the duck. The woman bent her arm to display the falcon to a small boy beside her.

Thinking this was too good an opportunity to let pass, Steinar crossed the field to the small group standing around the falcon.

He recognized the boy. ’Twas Giric, one of the orphans the queen fed. Likely, the cheer Steinar had heard came from him.

As Steinar drew near, the lad looked up and said, “’Tis the king’s scribe.”

Steinar bowed before the woman. “My lady, Steinar of Talisand, at your service.”

The falcon flapped his wings. When he settled, his shrewd black eyes scrutinized Steinar.

“This is Kessog,” the woman said, giving him the bird’s name but not her own. “My tiercel.”

Not the young man’s falcon, but hers . Somehow he was not surprised. He had already marked her as unlike the rest of the queen’s ladies.

The falcon flapped his wings again.

“Ye’ve upset ’im,” wailed the boy, a stern frown darkening his young face.

The woman stroked the falcon’s chest with the back of her fingers and the bird calmed. Steinar found the gesture oddly sensual and imagined those same fingers stroking his chest.

“’Tis no matter,” said the auburn-haired young man to Giric. “He is still becoming accustomed to this place. In a few days, the falcon will settle.” Facing Steinar, he said, “I am Niall of the Vale of Leven, and this is my sister, Catrìona.”

Catrìona . The name seemed to suit her. He liked the lyrical sound of it. Rhodri had been right. The two redheads were siblings. “Welcome to Dunfermline,” Steinar said, inclining his head. The woman’s eyes, as green as the grass on which he stood, examined him much like her falcon had done earlier.

“Did ye see Kessog take the duck?” Giric proudly asked, his chest puffed out as if the falcon were his own.

“Aye, I saw it,” Steinar returned. “A very fast strike.”

The woman’s smile aimed at the bird perched on her fist made her eyes shine like emeralds. Steinar felt a pang of envy because the favor of that lovely smile was bestowed on the falcon, not on him.

He understood by their speech the two redheads were Gaels but he’d never heard of the place the brother had named. “You said you were from the Vale of Leven. I know of Loch Leven north of Dunfermline but not a vale. Where is that?”

“Far to the west,” said Catrìona, “next to the loch called Lomond.”

“We came most immediately from Dunkeld,” said her brother, “the home of our uncle, the Mormaer of Atholl.”

Ah, Rhodri was right again. She is a relation of the powerful Atholl . He might have expected as much. Another woman come to the king’s court to seek a husband .

Turning to his sister, Niall said, “I must leave if I am to retrieve my bow and join the archers.” He handed the duck to the boy. “See that Kessog’s kill gets to the kitchen.”

Giric took the bird, nodding happily.

“You go to practice your skill with the bow?” Steinar asked the brother.

“Aye.”

“Then you will meet my friend, Rhodri, the Welshman.”

“The bard?” the brother asked.

“Aye, he is the king’s bard but you’ll not find another as proficient with the bow,” said Steinar. “He taught all at Talisand.”

“He never misses,” said Giric to Niall.

“Where is this place you speak of,” Catrìona asked, “this Talisand?”

“’Tis in England.”

“You are Saxon, then,” she said.

He could speak Gaelic now like one of the Scots but he was still English, or had been until the Conqueror had come. “Not Saxon from Wessex, like the queen. I am from farther north, but like the queen, driven to Malcolm’s court by the Normans.” The words were bitter on his tongue as he remembered the Norman king who had robbed him of his family and his home.

With Niall’s imminent departure, Steinar said, “Since you are going to join the archers, I will be happy to see your sister safely back to the mews.”

Catrìona frowned, then shrugged and nodded to her brother. “Until this eve.”

The brother waved to them as he walked off in the direction of the archery field.

Steinar led her to the path that would take them back to the tower.

Giric ran ahead with the duck hanging from one hand, leaving Steinar alone with Catrìona, who carried her falcon on her gauntlet.

“You did not seem pleased with my offer to escort you.”

“I can see myself back, ’tis all.”

“Ah, but here at Malcolm’s court a lady is usually escorted.”

She made a sound that sounded like a huff.

“How do you like being one of the queen’s ladies? ”

“I cannot really say. The queen is very kind, but the role is a new one for me. Thus far, it has been rising in the dark to pray, feeding the orphans and…”—she screwed up her face as if tasting something unpleasant—“needlework.”

Steinar hid a smile. This woman would soon grow bored with such a routine. “You may find the days a bit tedious, but if you can attend the queen’s councils, the ones she has held with the Culdees, you will find her of keen intelligence. The king attends, oft translating the Gaelic since it is still a new tongue to her. She pursues debate on behalf of the church with great fervor.”

“I would like to see these councils you speak of.”

He chuckled. “I expected you would.”

“Do you know me so well, then?” Sparks in her green eyes signaled a challenge.

“I do not know you at all, my lady, but I suspected.” He wanted to tell her of his sister, Serena, who was so like her in temperament, but she might not understand he was offering her praise, not criticism. Catrìona was young and, given her station, likely unused to men. As with a wild falcon, he would have to first win her trust.

A look of annoyance crossed her face. “If you do not mind my being so bold, Steinar of Talisand, from what I have observed, you do not have the look of a scribe.”

“I assure you I am educated to the role,” he said, amused.

“Nay, you misunderstand. I did not mean you had not the skills, else the king would use another. But you carry yourself like one of his knights, in form a warrior, not a clerk.”

He was pleased she thought him a warrior, but he wanted to continue their wordplay, which he very much enjoyed. “Bold, indeed, to speak of a man’s form and bearing.”

Her brows drew together and her lips, previously full and lush, pressed together in a thin line. He had been right to think she had a temper. He sensed a fire simmered just beneath the surface. “I only meant—” she started to say.

“I knew what you meant,” he interrupted. “In truth, I was injured so that I now wield a quill instead of a sword.”

She was immediately contrite. “Oh, forgive me. ’Twas not my part to suggest—”

“I was not offended, my lady. I like spirit in a woman but few men do, especially those at Malcolm’s court. They will expect you to be like Margaret’s other ladies, quiet and docile.”

“They will be sorely disappointed,” she said with apparent indifference.

But I will not. The thought made him smile, but she paid no notice. He liked this woman, so different from the others.

When they arrived at the mews, she returned the falcon to his perch. Giric was nowhere in sight.

“I can see you to the tower, my lady, as I must shortly meet there with the king.”

She nodded and they walked along speaking of life in Dunfermline. It was pleasant to hear her voice, even more so to watch the expressions that crossed her beautiful face. But he had to remember she was a mormaer’s niece and he no longer had the rank to court such a woman. The stark truth of his circumstances rankled.

They approached the tower where a man with dark hair and a beard waited by the door, his arms crossed over his chest and an angry scowl aimed at Catrìona on his face.

“Angus!” she exclaimed before they reached the man.

“Milady, I was concerned,” he said, still frowning. “When I inquired about ye, I was told ye were not with the queen’s ladies, that ye had left the tower.”

“But I did so with the queen’s permission,” she assured him.

With her explanation, the man’s expression softened.

Who is he to her?

“Angus, you have yet to meet the king’s scribe, Steinar of Talisand.”

Steinar reached his open hand to grasp the man’s, showing him he had nothing to hide.

Angus grasped Steinar’s hand but returned him a skeptical look.

“He happened upon Niall and me when we were flying Kessog. I wanted to show the falcon to one of the young orphans and the queen agreed I could do so.”

“Oh.”

She turned to Steinar. “Angus came with Niall and me from the vale. He was one of my father’s guards.”

“Now yers,” Angus insisted, casting a sharp glance toward Steinar. Obviously this man considered himself Catrìona’s protector.

“Thank you for seeing me back to the tower,” she said to Steinar.

Summarily dismissed, he bowed and went through the door, heading to his meeting with the king. Malcolm was another willful Scot, but like the woman, one he respected.

***

Catrìona and Fia dressed for dinner in the gowns Audra had told them the queen preferred her ladies wear.

“‘’Tis the court of the King of Scots and we must comport ourselves in a manner to honor him’, so the queen told me herself,” Audra had said.

Wearing fine gowns pleased Catrìona. There had been so few opportunities to wear silk and velvet at her father’s hillfort, no matter he had been raised from thegn to mormaer when Malcolm became king. The vale was remote and far from court. Unless they had visitors, the women, even Cormac’s wife and daughter, more often wore serviceable tunics. But if it pleased Margaret, Catrìona would happily don the elegant gowns her uncle had provided her.

The evening was cool and so she reached for the velvet gown, the emerald green one she thought Domnall would like.

She slipped the gown over her head and Fia laced it snug. “I miss my maidservant,” said her cousin.

“Aye, ’tis not like being the lady of Dunkeld.” Picking up the green ribands Catrìona had set on the bed, she handed them to her cousin. “Only the queen has a maidservant, but that is as it should be. The one who tends Margaret is a Saxon and not young. She may have been with the queen even before she came to Scotland.”

Fia began to wrap the silk around Catrìona’s plaits. “Once I finish with these,” her cousin said, “I’ve some blue ones for my hair. I want to look pretty this eve.”

Catrìona tilted her head to see her cousin, wondering at the excitement she glimpsed in her blue eyes. “You are not, by any chance, going to such measures for the handsome bard, are you? ”

“No more than those you engage in for Domnall.”

Catrìona felt her cheeks heat at Fia’s words. “’Tis what we do, I suppose, dress to please a man.” But the moment she thought of the man she wanted to please, it had not been Domnall’s face that appeared in her mind but that of the golden-haired scribe.

“Fia, have you ever seen anyone with eyes the color of bluebells, or mayhap a blue thistle flower?”

Her cousin pondered the question for a brief moment. “Nay, I think not. Is there someone here who has eyes like that?”

“Aye. The king’s scribe introduced himself to Niall and me this afternoon as we were flying Kessog. He has blue thistle eyes. ’Twas all I could do not to stare they were so… beautiful.”

“Beautiful? Surely not a man’s eyes.”

“Yea, they are,” she said, remembering the color like none other she had ever seen.

“And the man,” said Fia. “How did you find him?”

“As you would expect a scribe to be, educated and well mannered, but this one has the body of a warrior, not that of a man who spends his days bent over parchment.” Then she remembered their conversation. “And he is a trifle overbearing.”

Fia laughed. “I daresay all the men at Malcolm’s court are overbearing.”

As she helped Fia to dress and wrapped the silk ribands around her cousin’s dark plaits, she remembered her last morning with Deidre who had laid out ribands for her to wear that night. What had become of her?

“There,” she said, “’tis done. Your blue ribands are lovely against your hair. Now I must go or I will be late to meet Domnall.”

Lifting her cloak from the peg, Catrìona left their chamber and hurried down the stairs. Domnall was standing just inside the tower door talking with Maerleswein, who, it occurred to her, was about the same height as the scribe, but a score of years older.

Domnall bowed, “Catrìona, have you yet met Maerleswein?”

“I have not had the pleasure.” She held out her hand and the tall man bowed over it. His sun-lightened hair hung just past his shoulders; his darker beard and mustache were neatly trimmed. Garbed in a fine blue tunic, he appeared every bit the nobleman. Domnall, who was slighter of build, a merchant, not a warrior, seemed much smaller in comparison.

“My lady, I bid you welcome to Dunfermline,” said Maerleswein. He spoke Gaelic but with an accent that she took as English, much like the scribe’s accent.

“Thank you,” she said. “Have you been long at Malcolm’s court?”

“Too long, I think,” he said, letting out a laugh. The two men exchanged a glance that told her they shared a secret. When her brows furrowed in question, he explained, “Malcolm is sending me away, albeit with lands and a wife. The king claims ’tis a reward for my battles against the Conqueror, but I suspect he also wants me guarding his southern border for I will be taking my men with me.”

Notwithstanding Maerleswein’s musings about the king’s motives, Catrìona was certain it was happiness she glimpsed in his expression. “You are pleased by these developments, I trust?”

“Aye. I have been too long idle. It will suit me to have lands of my own again. It has been many years since my wife died and my only child, a daughter, is now wed.” He grinned then. “I rather like the thought of taking a bride.”

Maerleswein’s face bore only a few lines despite his more than two score years. His body was still that of a warrior. Her own father had been the same age, but he had carried more weight. It was not difficult to picture the former sheriff siring more children. “Who might your betrothed be, my lord?”

“One of the queen’s ladies. I assume you know her being one yourself.”

Catrìona was suddenly anxious. She hoped it was not Audra for already she was fond of her and, selfishly, did not wish to see her go.

“’Tis Davina of Lothian,” he said.

Catrìona inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. She did not know Davina well, but remembered the quiet woman with honey-gold hair and soft brown eyes, a woman of few words who was content with her needlework. “She is lovely.”

“Aye, she’ll do,” said the former sheriff, obviously pleased with the match .

“If you will excuse us, Maerleswein,” Domnall interjected, “I promised Catrìona a walk ere the evening meal begins.”

“Of course.” Maerleswein bowed and strode off to join the king’s men.

“Come.” Domnall offered his arm. “We have just enough time.”

She placed her hand on his forearm and they walked out the open door into a summer evening. The air smelled of rain and the sky was filled with gray clouds, hovering low. Angus was nowhere in sight. For at least a little while, they would be alone except for the people who came and went from the king’s tower.

She wanted to ask Domnall about his plans for the future and more precisely, when he would speak to her uncle about their betrothal, but she did not wish to appear anxious, or as the scribe would say, overbold.

“You look lovely this evening,” he said. “That color becomes you.”

He had said as much of her other gowns in former days. She was pleased but it seemed such a common remark when she wanted to hear so much more. “I am glad you approve.” If he would speak of mundane things, so would she. “How went the hunt?”

He smiled. “We will dine on roast boar and venison tonight. ’Twas a vigorous battle to bring the boar down. The king loved it. Malcolm is never more content than when he is in battle, be it against the Normans or more natural beasts.”

“Aye, he is quite the opposite of Margaret. But I think she complements him well.”

Domnall seemed to consider her words. “The Scots have accepted her.”

“How could they not?”

“Yea, the Lady of Scotland is well liked. Malcolm made a wise match, gaining a princess as well as a rich dowry.”

“I would rather speak of you,” said Catrìona, “Will you linger in Dunfermline?”

“For a while yet.” The look in his eyes told her ’twould not be long. Mayhap they would marry here and he would take her with him when he returned to Leinster. It was her most fervent wish.

“I am glad. I would not want you to leave.” With a laugh, she added, “Unless, of course, you took me with you.” When she saw Domnall’s gaze slip to the ground, she instantly regretted disclosing her thoughts.

“In time, Catrìona. All things in time.” Then looking up, he said, “You only just arrived. There is much to learn from the queen.”

Mayhap the king’s scribe had the right of it. She did tend to be too direct. More like her father than her mother. But she was not slow. Domnall had put her off and his words made her squirm inside. Something was holding him back.

“Are things well with your family?”

He was silent for a moment telling her she had hit upon a sensitive subject.

“My grandsire has passed.”

“Oh, I am sorry. Were you close?” She could not recall a time he had spoken of the man.

“Not for a long time,” was all he said. Then he changed the subject and returned to the topic of the day’s hunt, describing the fight the boar had given them.

She listened, but her mind spun with possibilities that would explain his behavior.

Finally, placing his hand over hers, he said, “We had best go in.”

Again he had refrained from speaking of their betrothal. Why?

***

The River Clyde loomed before her, cloaked in swirling mists. A woman’s scream pierced the air, raising a scream in her own throat. She tried to run but her feet seemed to be stuck in the sand. With great effort, she pressed forward. And then she was running, running.

Behind her, Catrìona heard the roar of a harsh voice and the panting of a huge beast. On she ran as screams erupted around her.

Suddenly she was grabbed and wrenched to the ground. A brutal hand clenched her arm, dragging her over the sand and pebbles. She fought to break free, kicking out with her feet but was held fast in a powerful grip.

In a tongue she did not recognize, the savage beast shouted and lifted her over the side of a ship, thrusting her to the hard wooden deck.

Sobbing, she scurried away, but the beast leaped over the side of the hull and stalked toward her. Grabbing her, he bound her hands, bruising her tender skin. She cried out and tried to crawl away but was hauled back.

A dark shadow loomed above her.

“Nay!” she cried out, sobbing.

“Cat! Cat, wake up!”

From deep in the dream, Catrìona’s mind cleared of mist as Fia shook her awake. Opening her eyes, she stared unblinking into the darkness, her heart pounding in her chest. Soaked in sweat, she panted out breaths as if she were suffocating. “What—?”

“’Twas only a dream, Cat,” said Fia, drawing Catrìona into her arms.

“Oh, God, Fia. This one was so real,” she gasped.

“You are all right now,” her cousin crooned softly, gently brushing the wet strands of hair from Catrìona’s face. “’Tis over.”

She clung to her cousin, a tether to what was real. “In the dream,” she murmured, as she regained her senses and her heart settled in her chest, “I was one of the captured.”

Silence hung in the air, then Fia said, “You only imagine what it must have been like for Deidre and the others.”

“Aye,” Catrìona said, thinking it must be so. “’Twas horrible.”