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I feel it too. Of course I want him. He’s an incredibly handsome man but it’s not only his looks. This doesn’t feel like simple lust, no matter how much I wonder what his lips would taste like. It’s this feeling, this understanding that I know him. Know him in a way that our short time together can never explain. In a way I’ve never known or felt about anyone before in my life.
“And on the seventh day of his captivity,” the storyteller continues, and I realize I’ve missed part of the story while lost in Duncan’s gaze, “he went again to the tree that grew in the middle of her palace. The silvery light it gave off called to him. There was a piece of fruit hanging this day from a low branch. Rich, vibrant, tempting his great hunger for it had been more than seven days since he had taken food.
“With a trembling hand, he reached for the fruit but as his fingers were about to close upon its ripe richness, he noticed a thing about the tree itself. The branch from which the fruit hung had a dark mar upon it. Such was this mar on what was otherwise a most perfect tree, that it pulled his attention away from his great hunger.
“Instead of grabbing the fruit, he put his hand on the scar and it was as if a veil was lifted from his eyes. When he did, the great beauty and shining perfection of the palace faded, for you see he saw it as it really was. The glamour of the Queen was removed.
“‘Now you see our truth,’ the Queen said from behind him. And when he turned, she was no longer a beautiful woman to be desired but a hag, bent and lined with age. ‘Do you still desire me? Will you take me as a man takes a woman?’ Our poor shepherd shook his head, denying the Queen though he was fearful that in rejecting her he might lose his life.
“The Queen didn’t harm him, though. Instead, she nods and smiles, a toothless smile. She tells him when he returns to his world to remember the Fair Folk but more than that to dream. She touched his forehead and bright lights exploded in his head and he remembered the dreams he had as a young lad. Dreams of owning his own land, of living free, of having a beautiful family of his own.
“When his head cleared, he was home, as you well know, and the lost lamb was at his feet. He knew that he’d been given a gift. That the gift of the Tree was to dream. And that, dear friends, is the greatest gift that the Fair folk can impart.”
The crowd explodes, clapping with a furiousness as the tale comes to an end. The music resumes and everyone leaps to their feet dancing. Duncan makes his way through, weaving around the dancers with the skill of a man used to the field of battle. When he stands before me, his musky scent fills my senses.
“Might I have this dance?” he asks, holding out his hand.
There’s a fluttering sensation in my chest and tears well in my eyes. Biting my lip, I nod as I take his hand. His smile breaks across his face like the sun bursting past the horizon. The tune is a lively, quick beat. I’ve never been much of a dancer, much less knowing the style of dance being done here, but I let him take the lead.
As we step onto the open ground and join the others, it feels natural. Right. As if this really isn’t something new at all. He puts one arm behind his back, keeping my hand in his other. He rises onto the balls of his feet, and I mimic his motion. He bounces and kicks a foot out in time with the music. I stumble trying to imitate him and he laughs.
“Nae, m’lady, like this,” he says, holding me up by my arm.
He repeats the step. This time he moves slowly through the actions. The booze has definitely gone to my head. I giggle, and my head is light and my heart palpitating.
“Are you insulting the quality of my dance, sir?”
“No, m’lady,” he says smiling. “It’s quite fine… if’n you were a goat.”
“Ach,” I gasp, mimicking the sound Alesoun makes to me so often. “I cannot believe such an insult to my honor.”
I throw my free hand up to my forehead and look skyward as if I’m endlessly offended.
“M’lady, I will nae allow anyone to ever besmirch your honor.”
The laughter is gone from his voice. I look at him quickly. The earnest seriousness on his face makes my breath catch in my chest. His beautiful yet icy eyes bore into mine with so much intensity my throat is dry. My lip trembles as I become acutely aware of the burning warmth of his hand holding mine. Wordlessly, I move towards him, my lips closing with his.
“Chief Johnne!”
The voice yelling for the chief breaks the moment as the music, clapping, and singing screeches to a halt. A young boy, probably in his teens, stumbles into the open space in front of the fire. He comes to a stop, resting his hands on his knees while panting heavily. When he looks up, his eyes are wide and his face smeared with dirt. There’s a trail of blood running down the side of his face from a nasty cut on his forehead.
“What is it, William?” Chief Johnne asks, emerging from the crowd and towering over the boy.
“The king,” William gasps. He digs into his pouch and pulls out a crumpled, dirty piece of paper. “Colquhouns are to arm themselves. Against us.”
Chapter Eighteen
Tension crashes over the village as if it was carpet bombed. A silence so deep that I don’t even hear the insects holds everyone.
Chief Johnne grabs the paper and turns so that the light of the fire illuminates it for him to read. His face becomes stonier as he reads, his lips pulling down into a frown as his brow furrows. . His eyes go over the lines and I wait, like everyone, with bated breath.
“It’s true,” he says at last. “The English King James has authorized the Colquhouns to arm themselves against the scourge of the MacGregors. Our deeds at Glen Fruin were ‘without pity or compassion’. Our ‘wicked and unhappy’ race is to be ‘exterminated and rutted out.’”
An eruption of arguments explodes as everyone shouts and yells in their own defense. A raven’s caw echoes in my head. Numbly, I drop Duncan’s hand. That memory I couldn’t quite recall crashes into my head with all the force of a speeding semi-truck. It bursts through the barriers of forgetting and slams into my metaphorical face.
MacGregor. The MacGregors go on a cattle raid, but the Colquhouns use it to persuade the King of England to basically deputize them. That was the raid they just did. The writ is only the beginning. It’s going to get so much worse. They won the battle, but they lost the war without even knowing it.
Their rivals, the Colquhouns, and behind them the Campbells, are luring them into a trap. Those two clans are already maneuvering against them politically and have primed the King of England to give them the writ.
