Chapter One
Sutherland, Scotland,March 1566
“Daughter, I require ye to do this one thing for me. ’Tis not as if I ask all that much o’ ye.”
Annista MacRowan spun to face her father, a tide of wild protest rising in her heart. There he stood like some sort of ghastly ogre out of a childhood tale, amid the smoke that filled the gloomy hall. The big fire in the hearth refused to draw on account of the rain crashing down outside. It seemed always to rain these days, as if the very world wept for the state of things.
She squinted at him, trying to assess his mood while entirely overwhelmed by her own. A proud man usually, though now a certain look of pleading had entered his eyes. Annista attempted to persuade herself he did not mean to play upon her emotions—possibly with cold deliberation.
“One thing,” she repeated. “One thing?”
Since her sister, Robena, had gone away to marry two years ago, Annista had carried much responsibility for this place. Father, ceasing to be the man he once was and seemingly weighed down by the way things stood in the country, appeared unable to face a future made dubious for Catholics such as they. He had kept his head down and stopped participating in the politics of the land.
As for Mother—well, since they’d lost Robena, she had more or less retired from life, spending most her time in her chamber and leaving the running of the house, in truth, to Annista’s hands.
She’d always known Robena had been their favorite—why should she not be? She’d been the cherished light of Annista’s world also. A sweet, gentle girl, as opposed to the harridan Annista had always been—who would not favor Robena?Dead now, was her beautiful sister, gone from the world.
For the last twenty months or more, it had been Annista who saw to the daily running of the keep, made sure there was food for the table, clean clothing for Father to wear, and ale for him to drink at night when he sat up late. Unwilling to go to bed? Struggling with a guilty conscience? A part of Annista almost hoped so.
She loved her father, to be sure she did. At this moment, this particular moment, she hated him as well. Because he asked the impossible, and because it was his fault Robena was dead.
Annista knew that to her heart, had not a flicker of a doubt about it. Nay, Robena had not died by Father’s hand, but he had sent her to her terrible fate.
Just as he now wanted to send Annista to take her place.
She tipped her head and looked at him. “It seems to me,” she said crisply, “ye never cease wi’ making demands o’ me. See to the dairy, Anni. See to the kitchens. Provide a welcome for a cluster o’ unwelcome earls—”
Robert MacRowan flinched. A man not overly tall, he had been gey good-looking in his youth but had not aged particularly well and now ran to flab, the wattles on his cheeks wobbling when he spoke.
“Ye ken fine I must show willing and hospitable when the lords call. Ye ken how important it is. We maun keep on the right side o’ the men leading this land. D’ye want to see me in chains?”
Aye, sometimes she did. Annista was not proud of that, but by and large she was an honest woman. Their nation was in a state of upheaval, the Protestant lords at odds with their Catholic queen and deals being made on every hand. The balance of power swung like the pendulum on the old clock in the hall.
That the intrigue should reach even here to their little enclave in Eastern Sutherland was not so surprising. That it should touch Annista’s life was.
“I thought Queen Mary led the land?” she retorted.
Father scowled deeply. Indignation stiffened his spine and flushed his face. “Aye,” he said waspishly, “ye always did ha’ the ready tongue, did ye not? Throwing words at me when Robena offered naught but obedience.”
Annista fixed her eyes upon him. “Do ye no’ dare say her name to me.”
“The gall o’ ye, Daughter, to speak to me in that manner! Where is your respect?”
“Perhaps it went into Robena’s grave wi’ her. Ha’ ye considered that? Ye knew what Evan MacKallan was when ye sent her off to marry him. Ye knew she would be neither happy nor safe. But ye made your bargain and ye sold her—sold her—for your own benefit. Now that she is dead—”
Dead. Dead! Her beloved sister was gone forever from her.
A hundred images tumbled swiftly through her mind. The two of them born barely a year apart and always, always together. As different as night and day in appearance and in spirit, they had nevertheless harmonized with one another perfectly.
Telling stories and giggling in their bed. Running wild over the hills and coming home with their dresses torn, their hair tangled, and their slippers in ruins. Running to each other with every hurt, or imagined hurt. Confiding their dreams that they would tell to no one else.
Robena’s dreams had always been about finding a love like to those in the old tales, a love for the ages. And what had Father done? Sent her away to a man so cruel it had taken him less than two years to destroy her.
“—and,” she finished bitterly, “ye want to send me now to tak’ her place.”
“’Tis no’ as if I want to, Anni,” he spoke now in a hush, some of his indignation flown. “Keeping Neilan MacKallan’s protection is as good as my life.”
Aye, Catholic landholders such as Father, those remaining loyal to their faith and their queen, were being harassed, arrested, and charged for crimes on the thinnest of pretexts. Father refused to surrender his faith, saying he owed an even higher allegiance than that to his country.
