LITMIR.BIZ

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ye all know why. His father was dead—murdered—and he’d done naught to stop it. Iain clenched his teeth, his mouth dry and bitter. He snatched the kidskin bladder hanging from his saddle, tilted his head back, and took a long draught.

      “What will ye do?” Will asked.

      “I’ll claim what’s mine, and strike down those who stole it from me. I should have done it long ago.”

      He’d burned to do it, in fact. For years that’s all he’d thought about. But his mother’s clan was small, and Alistair Davidson a prudent man. He’d barely let Iain out of his sight whilst he was growing up. And once he’d grown, Iain realized he bore the weight of not only a man’s responsibilities, but a laird’s. Nay, he could not have risked so many lives on a fool’s mission.

      “How do ye plan to take them?” Hamish asked. “Grant commands a sizable army.”

      Iain had spent years considering that very point, obsessed with the strategies and tactics of war, honing his battle skills and those of his remaining clansmen to a sharp-edged perfection.

      At any time John Grant could have hunted him down and murdered what remained of his people. But he hadn’t. That fact, coupled with Grant’s sheer numbers, had been enough to quell Iain’s bloodlust—for a time.

      But things were different now. John Grant was dead, murdered some say, though no one knew who did it. His nephew, Reynold, was laird now. Iain spat. Aye, everything was different.

      “We canna do it alone,” he said. “That much I know.”

      “All the Mackintosh would follow ye into battle.” Will’s face shone with a loyalty that tore at Iain’s gut.

      He smiled bitterly. “So they would. But I willna bring death and destruction to what’s left of my clan.” Few of his father’s warriors had escaped Reynold Grant’s retribution for his cousin Henry’s murder. The best of them had been slain, and their blood lay heavy on Iain’s own hands. “Nay,” he said, “we will come at him with ten score or none.”

      Hamish looked hard at him, blue eyes fixed in question.

      “Aye.” Iain nodded, holding his friend’s gaze. “I mean to raise the Chattan.”

      “Clan Chattan—the alliance!” Will’s eyes widened.

      “Davidson is for us.” Hamish absently twisted the hairs of his beard between thick fingers, weighing their options, Iain suspected. “Your uncle is laird. They will follow him.”

      “Aye, if he agrees.”

      “But what of Macgillivray and MacBain?” Will asked.

      “Leave them to me.”

      Iain grew weary of their conversation. The morning’s white sky dissolved into the pale blue of afternoon. He stretched and repositioned his longbow over his shoulder.

      “’Tis a fine day for hunting.”

      She was master now, and squeezed her thighs together gently across his back to make the point. The gelding responded at once, trotting forward, graceful and compliant. Alena Todd was pleased. Of the new Arabians, the chestnut had been the most headstrong. Now he was hers.

      The Clan Grant stable produced the finest horses in Scotland, swift and powerful, with unparalleled endurance. Her father would be pleased with this one. Would that he could have broken the mount himself.

      The accident seemed a lifetime ago. Alena was twelve when Robert Todd was thrown from a stallion, permanently injuring his spine. He could still walk, but would never again sit a horse without great pain. Afterward, she’d moved easily into the roles her father could no longer perform: breaking new mounts to saddle, transforming them from wild, headstrong creatures into warhorses fit to bear the clan’s warriors.

      She urged the chestnut around the stable yard, leaning slightly forward to maintain her balance. She, herself, never used a saddle, preferring the subtle communication achieved bareback between rider and mount.

      “Alena!” The stable lad’s voice startled her. She slowed the gelding as Martin jogged across the enclosure waving a folded note. “Perkins said ’tis for you.”

      “For me?” She wiped her hands on her worn leather breeches, and Martin handed her the parchment. “What ever could it—” She opened it, and the question died on her lips.

      A half hour later, after enough fanfare to last her a lifetime, Alena urged the gelding up the hill toward Glenmore Castle’s keep.

      The training stable was built away from the keep, a half league down the wooded hillside where there was more space and better grazing. She was glad for the distance. It afforded her more freedom than if she’d lived among the rest of her clan. Stable lads ferried mounts between the Todds’ stable and the small castle stable that housed the laird’s steeds.

      The laird.

      Alena shuddered. She’d seen Reynold Grant at the old laird’s burial just days ago, though his uncle’s untimely death seemed not to grieve him overmuch.

      Reynold was his nephew by marriage, so the story went. When Reynold’s father died, his mother abandoned him to marry again for the wealth she’d always craved. Her English husband had no use for her unwanted son, so John Grant took Reynold in and raised him as his own. Though ’twas common knowledge Reynold and Henry never got along.

      Without warning she felt the darkness again, like a black veil shrouding her heart. The night of the murders burned bright in her memory, even now, so many years later.

      Aye, she remembered it all…John Grant returning to the keep, the body of his son, Henry, tied like baggage across his mount. Later that night, Reynold—he was but twenty then—had thundered into the stable yard with forty warriors demanding fresh horses. They’d reeked with the stench of blood, and a cold fear had seized her. A fear she still bore.

      Mostly, though, she remembered him—the boy, Iain Mackintosh—his face, his promise, vivid still in her memory.

      I will return.

      She’d ridden often to their secret copse those first years after the slaughter, but had seen no sign of Iain nor any of his clan. He’d broken his vow.

      After a while she’d just stopped going, and as she grew into a woman her father had tried everything to make her a suitable match. She’d have none of it, of course. Any one of the men he’d selected would have made her a fine husband, yet…

      Oh, ’twas ridiculous! He was never coming back. The years she’d spent dreaming of Iain Mackintosh were years wasted. They’d been children, for pity’s sake. Still, she was not yet ready to wed. Her parents needed her, her father especially. He could never run the stable on his own. Perhaps in another year, or two, or—

      Oh, hang it all! Now was not the time for such thoughts. She must keep her mind on the task at hand. She urged the gelding faster.

      This summons to the castle was puzzling, indeed. Why had Reynold asked for her? Surely he would speak with her father should the matter concern the stable. Robert Todd had wanted to accompany her, but the note said she should come alone.

      ’Twas safe enough. She knew the wood better than any clansman, and had traveled unescorted since she was old enough to ride. A mischievous smile bloomed on her lips as she recalled the afternoons she’d spent with Iain at the copse.

      ’Twas warm for so early in the summer. The scent of heather and pine permeated her senses. Her mother had insisted she wear a special gown, an heirloom, really: a pale yellow silk that Madeleine Todd had brought with her from France years ago, when she was just Alena’s age.

      She’d wanted to wear her riding boots, but her mother wouldn’t hear of it. Instead she’d donned a pair of soft kidskin slippers that complemented the gown. At her waist, as always, she wore the small dirk her father had given her.

      The castle was in sight. Time to switch to…what had her father

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