The Chieftain Needs an Heir - a Highland ménage novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions) (4 page)

Sorcha
really was the bonniest lass in all Scotland.  Her flaxen hair spoke of the Vikings in her ancestry and her eyes were as blue as the harebells in the meadow.  The Viking influence also made her just a bit over a handspan short o' his own height, and he liked that fine, for she had a way of filling his arms that wee women could never have.

Fair astounded he had been when she'd accepted him.  And more so when she heard what she'd need do on her wedding day
, and still stayed betrothed.  The Coupling of the Chieftain was a MacKrannan tradition guaranteed to sort the oats from the chaff.  He'd been so proud of her on the day that he thought his heart would burst along with his balls.

H
is ease was not to be found with this wench, nor any sign that his body would ever seek it.  He lay still, wondering what this next Tradition would entail.  The wench underneath him coughed, causing him to remember she was there and scrambling off her lest she had anything catching.  He had the grace to apologize for seeing the sun low in the sky and having to rush away.

She was a
nice lass, and deserved better, and he could no' have gotten his kilt on quick enough had he gone as far as taking it off.

The wench was
unbothered.  She had done her work for the clan in keeping their chieftain from straying too far to find his way back to his wife.  Honeysuckle had wondrous powers for keeping men faithful.  Oona and the Bard would be right pleased to hear how he'd spoken Sorcha's name instead of her own and kept his eyes shut throughout his botched attempt at adultery.

A few more
days, Oona had said.  The wench did not expect him back atop her or any other in that time.  Nor ever again, if her instincts served her right.  He was the faithful type.  Time he followed his heart and stayed true to his wife, for Sorcha was a nice lass, and deserved better.

On the mountainside above
MacKrannan Castle, Niall met with his brother Ruaridh in a small cove well-known to them, where none could overhear.

Conversation
did not begin for some time.  Each had a secret they wanted to share.  Neither knew if the other had the secret as well.  So they sat looking out to sea, watching a birlinn drop sail to anchor at the castle, and the fishers landing a catch of herring, until Ruaridh who had called the cove meeting finally broached the subject.

"
Did ye receive a Summons to the Vault of late?"

"Aye," said Niall.  "You?"

"Aye."

And such was the economy of words needed between likeminded brothers, they got up and went home to the castle.

Ruaridh went straight to his wife, and sent the bairns' nannies out the room.

"Ye were right, Mirren – it is about Niall and Sorcha. 
He's heard frae the Bard too.  So if she's confined to her bedchamber, and the Wisewomen are guarding her, and Niall's no' allowed near her… I would lay odds there's some Fertility Tradition afoot."

"See, I told ye.
"

"
Like I said at the start – ye were right."

"But what does the Bard want wi'
the two of us, then?"

Ruaridh shrugged.  "Witnesses
, I would think.  There's always witnesses at Traditions."

"Witness what?  You canna mean…"

The state of Mirren's face was worth the jest, but his own grin gave him away.

"I'm teasing ye, Mirren
!  There has no' been a Fertility Tradition in a hundred years that I know of, and I have no clue what will be asked of us.  Ye know what the Wisewomen are like wi' their auras and vibrations and stuff.  I suppose we'll be handy to have around, being so fertile…"

He
looked to his son and daughter in their cradles, feeling an immense gratitude for what they'd been given so effortlessly.

"
Rest easy, wife.  It's sure to be something connected to the bloodline.  We'll be sent to the kirkyard to bond wi' the spirits o' the ancestors while the ritual takes place, or suchlike duty."

A pity.  He would have liked to find out if his own image of Sorcha undressed matched with the reality.  A goddess, she was,
wi' her hair the color of a cornfield at the harvest.  And tall.  Ye didna find many women tall like that.  Had Mirren come after instead of afore, he'd have taken his chances.

"And Mirren, listen.  Ye know what the Traditions are like.  Behave yerself, aye?  No talking in the silent times.
  This is serious stuff."

While Ruaridh spoke with his wife,
Niall was in the Bard's cottage trying to wheedle information.  The Bard would tell him nothing.  Oona gave him yet another pitcher of mead to take away with him, with the usual strict instructions about it being for his personal use only.  Niall could think of none else who would want plain honey-flavored springwater, which was all this batch of  'mead' was, but he swore upon his honor that he would drink it every day.

He missed Sorcha something painful
, and he seemed to be going about with a permanent cockstand that had interest in none but her.  And a group of clansmen let him know what kind of temper he'd been in lately by discreetly scattering in all directions at his approach.

Hector stood at the door of his cottage looking at the
fire laid ready for lighting in the grate and the provisions ready for a hungry traveller on the table.  Stepping inside, he angled his sight to where the sun's rays came through the window.  Not a speck of dust floated in the air.

W
hichever woman had done the brunt of the housework had no' done it recently, yet he'd sent no messenger ahead for he'd have been as well riding alongside him.  The first anyone could have known of his return was when he greeted the MacKrannan guards at the clan border – and his horse was faster than any there.

He wandered through all four rooms
to find naught but a sense of another's presence of late, and evidence of their industriousness in the floors swept clean.  Even his bed was made up, and his great-kilt and clean shirts and pairs of hose all neatly laid out atop the trunk.  He changed out his Queen's Bodyguard uniform and walked back through to the front door to greet the visitor whose footfall was to be heard on the path.

A shadow crossed the open door.  "Hector, ye're home!"

"Bard.  Greetings," said Hector, and made formal bow.

"Laddie, yer head is still at court.  We may dispense wi' these formalities – and I suspect ye may outrank me now."

Hector's laugh boomed around the cottage.  "It is a difficult habit to break.  How are ye, man?"

"Fine, fine.  Ye received the Summons from Oona, then?"

Hah!  He should have guessed there was something afoot wi' the Wisewomen. 

"In the middle o' the night, two days past.  Her Majesty did no' say the how or the why, and I was sleepless myself and thinking on home."

"
Oona's too good at it for the queen to know what stirs her dreaming.  See, I could have sent ye a Summons only by way of a man on horseback.  Oona's ways are quicker.  Women, eh?  Ye canna be upsides wi' them, and none dare try.  And I hear the queen's sister is to be wed again, is that so?"

Hector
yanked the Bard back to the topic.  He was used to fast answers and out of practise at idle chatter beyond opening pleasantries.  "What is the Summons for?"

"Oh.  T
hat.  Come sit with me, Hector.  And fetch that pitcher o' honeymead over while we talk."

Sorcha's enforced stay in her bedchamber had been made quite enjoyable by the Wisewomen.  And she was surprised to find how little she missed Mirren's cakes, for the food and the honeywater brought by Oona three times daily was wholesome fare.  Her body and skin had never felt better.  Even her craving for cattlemeat had waned.  Fish seemed so much easier to digest that their time for dancing was extended.  Hardly a moment has passed after today's lunch but she was whirling round the bedchamber instead of snoozing on the bed.  Her limbs felt strong and supple and much vitalized.  Her mood, too, seemed consistently light and airy.  The Wisewomen laughed the day away, and even their serious moments were absent of dourness.

Cakes apart, s
he found that Mirren's daily visits were no loss either.  Her mind was already made up that gossiping would be forever snuffed out.  Sorcha had never taken delight in the misfortune of others, and her spirit felt much improved by Hilde and Cecily's company.

Wisewomen never spoke ill of anyone.
  They explained the concept very thoroughly – whatever ill you did to another would go forth in an arc to the cosmos.  Every tiny word or deed was recorded in the stars, and the circle completed by its return to you manyfold.  Thus, the stars in the heavens sent much good to you in reward for your own goodness.  A bad deed caused you much harm, for it would also came back to you manyfold and cruelly...  or
'bite ye hard on yer arse'
, as Hilde had phrased it, giving many examples in the form of fables.

Past thoughts and deeds were also recorded in the lines on folks' faces, Cecily explained.  As time passed they could not hide their
true nature from others, for it was written there plain as ink in the lines around their mouths and eyes and noses and between their brows.  This was a good lesson for the wife of the chieftain, said Cecily, for Sorcha was often beheld by thousands at a time – and up close by influential people, even by the king himself on occasion.

"Ye can read faces, then," said Sorcha.

"Like an open book," said Cecily.  A feat in itself, for few women could read or write, and a Wisewoman must do both.

"Can ye read mine?  Or am I sending a thought of vanity to the cosmos just by the asking?"

Cecily smiled at her, etching the best of lines around her own mouth and eyes as always.  "It is not yer vanity asks me.  Yer face already tells me the reason for yer request.  It is for the benefit of others who depend on ye now, and will all the more depend on ye when Niall becomes Chief."

Sorcha took her place on the floorc
loth in the constellation of Pisces.  "Well…" she said, "I had not thought of it like that."

"Ye
had
, milady.  As I have said, it's written in yer face.  For the past four and twenty moons or so, ye had been growing the lines of worry that ye were letting folks down.  And the day that Hilde and myself were sent to ye, there were new lines added to say ye were affeared of yer future.  It was fair chilling to behold."