Song of the Highlands: The Cambels (The Medieval Highlanders) (16 page)

“
You’re still as lovely as ever, my dear
Gwynlyan.
”

Modron gasped and took in a mouthful of
water. Swiftly, she whipped into an upright position and crouched
up to her chin in the burn. Coughing as she crossed her arms o’er
her chest, she turned in the direction of the voice, and froze, her
eyes wide with shock and disbelief, her jaw slack.

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
“Aye, ‘tis I, your husband.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound
came forth.
Morgunn
. He’d survived somehow.
Praise
be
. “How?” she managed to ask at last.

Morgunn glanced down at the folded garments
near his foot. After lifting them in his hand and thrusting them
out toward her, he said, “Clothe yourself first, then I shall tell
you.”

She nodded and waded a step toward the bank,
but then halted. “Place the garments on yon bolder and turn your
back to me while I dress.”

The smile did reach his eyes then. “Surely
‘tis not shyness you are feeling—not with all that we were, all
that we shared.”

Modron bit her lip. Aye, ‘twas shyness.
After all, it had been nearly fourteen years since he’d last seen
her in the bare; much had changed—settled—since that time.
And...there were the scars now, as well. “Please. Turn around.”

The smile left Morgunn’s face, but he did as
she’d asked.

She darted out of the water and, as quickly
as she was able with wet skin, tossed first her chemise and then
her gown o’er her head and tugged the resistant hems down o’er her
dripping, chilled frame. While she tied her knotted, damp hair with
a leather thong, she turned back to the man she’d wed with so much
hope in her heart twenty years prior. “All right. I’m ready to hear
your tale.”

He swiveled to face her then. Crossing his
arms over his chest, he said, “After my brother’s accomplices left
with you and our daughter—”

“So you do know of Donnach’s treachery.”

His jaw clenched. “Aye,” he ground out, “and
he’ll pay. This I vow.”

She gave a quick, decisive nod of agreement,
then prompted him on with his tale, saying, “After...?”

“Aye, after the fiends left with you, your
cousins, Giric and Alaxandar, the men I’d sent to arrange the next
delivery of copper and who were to join us on our journey that day,
fished me out of the water and brought me to a nearby kinswoman’s
cot. They’d come upon the grisly results of the ambush just as the
convoy was leaving—and just as the conspirators tossed my limp,
bloody carcass in the loch. The dear woman worked a miracle
somehow, for I survived the bastards’ swords—and the near-drowning
as well.”

Modron could not take her gaze from the man
before her. In so many ways, ‘twas as if no time had passed. And
yet. He was older, as was she. Where before, his hair had been long
and straight, black—so black, the sun’s rays could make it seem
streaked with deep blue—and he’d always had it tied with a thong,
now ‘twas cut short, in the way of the Normans, and there was just
a touch of gray at the temples.

But, Lord, he still had the powerful build
of a Highland warrior, still had the rugged handsome appeal that
had drawn her to him when she was but a lass of twelve summers and
he, a young squire of fifteen.

“Do you still love me, Gwynlyan?”

Modron’s pulse pounded.
Did
she still
love him? Her heart could not answer. Too many years had passed,
and her time of grieving her loss, his death, had long receded into
history. All that had been left, until just moments ago, had been
warm memories of her youth and resentment at the loss of her love,
her life.

Morgunn snorted. “Nay, do not answer.” He
turned and walked a few paces away. His arms akimbo, he stared out
into the darkness of the forest. Neither of them spoke for long
minutes afterward. The only sound between them was the quiet hiss
and crackle of the torch’s flame or the occasional scurrying of
some woodland creature.

“How long have you known we were here?”
Modron asked at last.

Morgunn swiveled to look at her a moment
before turning back to his perusal of the black shades in front of
him. “Nigh on a moon.”

Her brows shot higher. “Have you been here
that long then?”

He shook his head. “Nay, I only arrived this
day past.”

“Where were you?” Her throat ached from the
effort not to scream the words, for she’d meant more by them than
what he’d no doubt kenned. And ‘twas growing more plain to her with
each passing moment that he’d left her to rot in her prison, left
their daughter to nearly do the same in that nunnery she had been
shoved into...afterward.

Morgunn turned. He took two steps toward
her, then halted, as if he knew she’d not allow him closer, as if
he
did
know what she’d meant. And when he spoke, he proved
it. “For almost nine years afterward, I was lame from the sword
wounds. Giric and Alaxandar sheltered me until I was well enough to
be moved, then they found a place for me to live and a nurse to
take care of me.” He took another tentative step toward her. She
stepped back, crossing her arms over her chest. “I was not in my
right mind, Gwynlyan. The near-drowning had affected my reason,
somehow. But, finally, with the aid of that good nurse, with her
healing skills and my own determination to o’ercome my weakness,
finally, about four years past, I at last regained my strength, my
full mobility, and my reason. I’ve been looking for you and our
daughter e’er since.” He turned his head and gazed toward the pile
of wood and debris that made the dam. “Tho’, ‘tis truth, for most
of that time, I believed I was searching for your graves.”

“I was in the land of the
Armorics
,
locked away in Alaric’s seaside fortress,” she said, tho’ there was
little emotion in the sound.

“Aye, I know.”

“You
know
?” she accused with a
start.

Morgunn sighed. His hands clenched, then
opened, then clenched again at his side. “Did it ne’er occur to you
to wonder why you were finally allowed to leave? Given berth on a
barge from there to the port near the King’s court?”

‘Twas Gwynlyan’s turn to take a step
forward. Her heart began to thud in her chest. “You? How?”

“How did I find you, or how did I gain your
release?”

“Both.”

* * *

Morgunn would have given his hard-won right
leg’s agility at that moment to fold her in his arms, to feel the
comfort of her lovely frame—the other half of his own—securely in
its natural place once more, but he knew she was not yet ready to
allow such from him. He could see, in the rigid way she held
herself, hear in her voice, how deep the hurt had gone. Aye,
‘twould be a long, difficult struggle to regain her love, regain
his place in her life. But, he was bound to do it, as, for him,
there was simply no other choice. He was hers, had been since the
first time he’d seen her, met her, on the rolling moors of Carn
Dochan and Bala, near the old Roman fort of
Caer Gai
in
Cambria.

“I found Angharat, your lady’s maid, back
with her family near
Llyn Tegid
,” Morgunn said at last. “She
told me of a rumor she’d heard not long after my brother’s deceit.
A rumor that you and our daughter were not dead—that you had been
hied off to some fortress in the duchy of Brittany, and my daughter
was ensconced in a nunnery there as well, but that she, being a
woman of little power or means, feared making accusations that she
had little way of proving, knowing that her own family would be in
his sights next, were she to do so.” He scrubbed his hand across
the back of his neck a few times. “I had no other choice then. I
risked all and went to Bishop Richard in Dunkeld, undisguised,
allowing him to recognize me, and told to him the entire tale.”

He heard her gasp. Morgunn looked up once
more, and seeing his wife’s surprised, beautiful mien, he wondered
again if he could e’er win back her love. “He arranged a private
meeting with King William. Once I revealed the betrayal to him as
well, he agreed to press Donnach to bring Morgana to court, to try
to stir Donnach’s fear that his crime would be discovered so that
he might again begin to plot.”

Morgunn took in a deep breath and turned his
gaze upward, focusing for a moment on the twinkling stars above as
he continued, “In truth, our King had not been as startled by the
revelation as I’d believed he would be,” he settled his gaze on his
wife once more, “and when I inquired, he yielded that he’d
suspected my brother’s hand in the deed all these years past, but
could ne’er gather enough evidence to charge him, so had finally
left the matter in God’s good hands to punish.”

Restless, Morgunn turned and walked a few
paces away. Turning back, he said, “After my meeting with King
William, I went to Brittany, to Alaric’s fortress—for who else
among my brother’s comrades would have done the deed for him?—and
bargained for your escape with the night guard.” He took in a deep
breath and slowly released it. “I ransomed you with my father’s
sword.”

Gwynlyan gasped. “
Morgunn!
‘Twas your
most prized possession, the key to your birthright, your final
proof of his will that you hold
Aerariae secturae
upon his
death!”

Morgunn shrugged. “I had no choice; I could
not leave you to rot in that place. By some act of God’s good will,
or their own blundering dull-wittedness, our attackers did not take
it with them when they fled. For that, I am eternally grateful.
For, I wanted my family returned more than I e’er wanted that land
or the wealth that came with it.” He snorted. “All that land e’er
brought me was grief, from the moment my father forced it upon
me.”

Gwynlyan walked over to stand in front of
him, so close, he could reach out his hands and pull her into his
arms.

If only she’d allow it.

He gritted his teeth and clenched his hands
at his sides to keep from doing as he craved.

“But, ‘twas our only home,” she said at
last. “And he bequeathed it to you—and the sword as well—to show
all that you were the son of his heart, bastard-born or nay.”

“Aye, and the bequeathing of it only made my
brother covet it more. I have little doubt now that Donnach’s plot
against us was set in motion on the very day our father was
interred in his tomb.”

“Truly? As long ago as that?” she asked,
turning and, crossing her arms over her chest, she scanned her eye
o’er the light dancing on the water. The next she murmured, as if
to herself: “ ‘I’d ne’er conceived….”

Morgunn swallowed the bile that rose up at
the memory. He’d lost all because he’d wanted so desperately to
believe his brother’s missive, to believe that, at last, the man
had come to terms with their father’s betrayal of Donnach’s mother,
of their father’s devotion, not only to his new wife, Morgunn’s
mother, the woman he’d wed within days of Donnach’s mother’s death,
but also to the son they’d conceived out of wedlock. Instead,
Donnach had used Morgunn’s desire to mend their torn clan by hiring
men to lay in wait for him and, worst of all, his wife and child.
“I’d suspected, but didn’t want to believe...,” he replied
softly.

Gwynlyan stormed away several paces. “Why
did you not tell me?”

He felt a new crack in his heart at the loss
of her nearness, the renewed stiffness in her frame. “I was trying
to protect you; I knew how distressed you were already. Why give
you more worry if I could come to some agreement with Donnach?” He
sighed and shook his head. As if drawn by unseen silver chains, he
stepped toward her, stood next to her once more, gazing at her
fragile-boned profile. “You were so young, Gwynlyan.
We
were
so young. Mistakes were made, I admit that, and I ache inside
knowing that you have suffered so long at the hands of my brother’s
cohorts.”

Her head whipped around, and a shadow of an
unknown emotion passed across her countenance, lit her eyes, at his
words. But just for a fleet moment, and then ‘twas gone. Gone
before he could capture its meaning. Gone before he could form a
question. But in its wake, an unease twisted in his gut that he
would not acknowledge. Instead, he turned away. Turned away from
the feeling and turned away from her. Turned away from the lovely
eyes that held so much pain, so much accusation in their
moon-gilded reflection.

He faced the darkness of the wood once more.
“You made a mistake, when you agreed to wed me, ‘tis plain,
but—”

He heard her gasp, heard the crunch of twigs
beneath her feet as she moved in some way behind him. “Nay!” she
said. He felt her rush toward him, then halt, just inches away from
him.

He continued as if she’d said naught, “—if
you will give me a chance, I’ll do all I can to make amends for the
harm I’ve caused you.”

Gwynlyan stunned him in the next moment when
she took that last step and flung herself into his embrace, gave
herself, her trust, into his keeping once more.

M
ORGANA OPENED HER
eyes and blinked rapidly against the bright sunshine coming through
the window. As she stretched, she turned her head to look behind
her. The dip in the pillow where her husband’s head had been was
all that was left as proof of his earlier habitance.

This day was the anniversary of her
nineteenth year of birth, or so she’d been told by Vika in one of
their many dark-of-night, hushed confidences during her stay at
King William’s court. All her life—at least the life she could
remember—she’d not known, and so the nuns had simply marked the
beginning of the next year of her life on the day of Christ the
Lord’s birth as well.

This day, however, was to be special. For,
once Robert had learned of it—Modron, bless her, had pressed
Morgana to tell her if she knew the date, then scurried off in
secret to inform him—he’d insisted that they have a feast to mark
the day. She sighed. She smiled. She settled her hand o’er the babe
Robert had given her, tucked snug in her womb.