In the mountains, the summer smelled of pine and heather, and lower down the slopes, great thickets of birch trees spread lovely dappled shade across the rocky patches. Kirk had decided they should make one of their rare visits to the village in the valley. He rolled the furs he had trapped and treated last winter, hoping he had enough to trade for a young goat. The girl could use more milk. Some cheese. He worried constantly about her. She was getting so tall lately, her arms as skinny as her knobby kneed legs. In her shift, she looked like a waif. Maybe she was. "Are you ready now?" he asked, knotting the rope around the bundle. He would sling it across his back like a pack.
She nodded eagerly, smoothing her hair back from her face, her eyes bright. Cordaella loved the visits to the village. There were always so many people. So much to see.
"Is that all you have to wear?" he asked, seeing how much leg showed beneath the short hem of her shift. More scorn in Lochaber, he thought wearily. God only knew what they'd say now.
"I won't be cold," she answered brightly, skipping to the door. "It's a fine day, so much sun everywhere."
"It isn't the cold I'm thinking of," he said, whistling for Culross to follow. "It's just that your dress is small."
"Because I am so big." Cordaella danced delightedly in front of him. "See?" she said, pointing to the mark on the door. "I am much bigger now than I was in the winter."
"Yes, I see." He shut the door behind him. "Don't waste all your energy yet, lassie," he said, watching as she twirled down the path, her long hair flying in a circle of black. "We have hours of walking ahead of us."
"Oh, hours," she laughed. "Hours and hours!"
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That night, she woke with a lurch, her eyes flying open and her hand reaching out to the side of her straw pallet. Her fingers grasped the space between the pallets and she lay still, listening to the night and the wind blowing across the mountain behind the croft.
Culross, her wolf, was at her feet, and his head lifted in her direction. Slowly Cordaella lay back down, her heart still beating quickly, a pummeling that made her feel as if she had been running hard across the hill. "Papa—"
He grunted in his sleep.
"Papa, are you awake?"
"No. Go to sleep." He rolled over, pulling the blanket higher around his shoulders.
She stared up at the thatched roof, damp with the terror of her sleep. She had dreamed of a man in a strange robe. He had come with two other men to take her away. He had tied her to the back of the horse. "Papa!" Cordaella turned on her side to stare at her father's back. "I dreamed an awful dream. I dreamed that someone came to take me away. You were gone and Culross was dead."
"It was a nightmare. Go to sleep."
"I can't, Papa! It's true, isn't it?"
"Going into Lochaber has given you strange ideas, Cory. Maybe I shouldn't take you with me anymore." He listened for a moment and, when she did not reply, he was about to sink back to sleep.
"I dreamed that you let them take me. You walked away! I cried for you. But you were not listening. You did not hear me," she whispered, a profound terror in her hushed tone. She shivered and inched closer to the falconer.
He pulled her pallet next to his and patted the straw. "Hush, child, you will make yourself ill dreaming such things." She snuggled against him, her eyes just able to make out his profile in the dark.
He studied her tense face, not able to fathom her fear. "I told you that no one shall ever take you from me. I will not let your grandfather have you, nor the friar. As long as you wish to stay with me, I shall protect you."
"What if you are gone?"
"But where should I go? Lochaber? Not a chance. You saw how they nearly chased me from the merchant's stall." He tried to smile but he hadn't forgotten his shame from earlier in the day. "I'm afraid you're stuck with me, lassie. We'll be here forever, in these great mountains of ours." Kirk placed one hand on the top of her head and he could feel the tangles beneath his rough palm. "I should have washed your hair before we went to town."
"I like it this way," she said, enjoying the feel of his hand against her head. He rarely touched her, never held her. It was nice to feel him now. "Perhaps you might have to go away like Mama."
"I am much bigger than your Mama. Now sleep, child, and remember that tomorrow the sun will rise and I shall still be here, and your Culross will be here."
She lay still, again listening to the night. Far away in the distance she could hear the hoot of an owl. It sounded lonely, she thought, as she plucked at the bedcover, a strange ache filling her chest. Culross sat up and whined, creeping nearer to Cordaella. He placed one paw on her ankle and whined again. Cordaella felt another wave of sadness but did not understand why. "Papa..."
He resigned himself to her questions. "Yes, Cory?" They were inevitable. When hadn't she asked him things he couldn't answer?
"Do you ever get afraid?"
He flashed back to the scene in Lochaber today, the merchant picking up a rock and brandishing it over his head. Kirk had been glad Cordaella was busy in the street with Culross, too entranced by the town activity to see the merchant's threat. Awkwardly he patted her head, his fingers tangling in her hair.
"Papa?" she persisted. "Not ever?"
"Everybody is afraid at some time," he said slowly, quietly, feeling as if he had already failed her.
"Even you?"
"Yes." He took a breath and exhaled slowly, easing the tightness in his chest. "But there is nothing to be scared of here, especially as you have Culross near."
"He loves me, doesn't he?"
"Yes, and he will never let anything happen to you."
"Good." She was sleepier now and her eyes felt heavy. "Good night, Papa."
"Good night, Cordaella."
In minutes, she was asleep, but Kirk lay awake, her questions raising questions of his own. Should he send her from him? Should he return her to Aberdeen, the Macleod in blood even if not in name?
But for the love of God, she was seven. Just seven. How could he let her go yet? They were still so young together, he the father, she the daughter. He needed another winter, another summer, another lifetime to teach her about the great birds, the subtle but distinct personalities between the hawk and the gerfalcon, the tercel and the peregrine. He wanted to teach her the name of every plant, to help her see the differences among the wildflowers and the herbs and mushrooms which grew wild in the Glen Nevis woods. Cordaella. He wanted to touch her, to brush her soft cheek, but was afraid of the emotion bottled within him. He loved this girl more than life. Cordaella, he thought, watching her, dream.
The snow piled outside the cottage door, the night still, no wind to scatter the thick white powder that coated the roof and windowsill.
Kirk sat up late by the fire, his black hair shaggy, bangs falling in his eyes. He was determined to finish the doll by Christmas but there were only a few days left.
Culross stirred, sat up and got to his feet. He whined softly, his muzzle rising.
"What is it, boy?" the falconer asked, glad for a bit of company. The wolf whined again and Kirk reached over to stroke the animal's coat. "What do you hear?"
The wolf growled low in his throat, his lips pulling away from his bared teeth. Outside a heavy hand banged on the door.
Kirk set aside the wooden doll, alarmed by the intrusion. There hadn't been a visitor in nearly two years. He went to the door and unlatched it.
"McInnes!" Kirk exclaimed and swung the door wider. "What brings you here?"
"Bad news," the page said, pushing through the doorway into the croft, his hands too stiff to peel his gloves off. "I can only stay a moment for I am to continue to London. I was afraid to send word by anyone else--"
"What news? What are you saying?"
McInnes paced the short stretch before the fire, oblivious to the wolf, the sleeping child, the late hour. "I can't believe it. I don't know what to think. It happened so fast and I don't know how I managed to survive--"
"Macleod?" Kirk asked.
"The clan Fergus has been quarreling for months with the Macleods. Then last September, Dunbar and his men marched on Moray, taking several Fergus nobles captive, seizing the odd castle. James Fergus, the clan leader, has been waiting for an opportunity to strike back."
"Why was Angus Castle not better prepared?"
"The castle had been opened for the festivities, the traditional banquet for the servants and staff. It's nearly Christmastide." He swallowed hard, light-headed. "Yet today the castle is littered with dozens of clansmen, Macleod and Fergus."
"And Dunbar?"
"Dead."
"His three sons? The young lords, Kenneth, Alasdair, Alick? Not them too?"
"All slain."
"Christ!"
"Worse, the Duke—"
"No."
"There was no one left to protect him."
For a moment there was just the crackle of the fire and the slow drip of melting snow from McInnes' cloak.
Kirk struggled to put his thoughts in order. "The Duke. Did you see to it that the he had a proper burial?"
"I could not." It was clearly an effort for Geoff to speak. "A Moray commoner strung the Duke from the drawbridge over the moat. I alone am left. There was no one else alive to help cut the duke down. None to defend the castle. That is why I go to London. The Duke and Bolingbroke were friends. Bolingbroke could send troops. He will help. He is the King."
Geoffrey staggered to a chair, burying his face in his hands to suppress the tears. "Ah, but Kirk... there is nothing left at Angus." His voice broke as if a child again, "Not a lord, not even a man."
"Hush, the child is waking," Kirk whispered, going to Cordaella's pallet where Culross had positioned himself.
Reaching over the wolf, he touched her head. He was grateful that she hadn't woken earlier.
Now he glanced over at Geoffrey. "Don't say anything about this in front of her. She doesn't need to know. It will only frighten her. She has had nightmares since visiting Lochaber. She is sure someone will come here."
"Killed in his own castle. Not far from his bedchamber. Late last night—or was it this morning?—I can't tell, I've ridden for hours to get here and can't stay long."
"But who did it? Why?"
"Papa?" she stirred.
"I'm here," he answered, even as Culross crept closer to her curled body, licking her hand and between her small fingers.
"Is someone here?" she murmured.
"No one, Cory. Go back to sleep."
"But I heard—"
"It's just a dream." He motioned Geoffrey to the door, one finger pressing against his lips. "It's just a dream."
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Culross had alerted them to the noise outside.
"It is probably McInnes," Kirk said, rising from the hearth where he had been adding wood to the fire. It was November and winter was already heavy upon them.
Cordaella sat up in her bed, excited by the prospect of a visitor. Maybe someone from Lochaber, she thought, rising to her knees. She waited while her father unlatched the door, sliding the bar open. He stepped into the night, Culross growling low in his throat. "Who is it?" Kirk called.
"We are lost," a voice answered from the darkness, the moon half-hidden by clouds, just the barest trace of silver in the sky. "Can you give us a bit of food to keep us until we reach the town?"
Culross growled again, his teeth baring. Kirk patted the wolf's head to quiet him. "How many of you are there?"
"Just my boy and me," answered the man. "We were crossing the mountains and took a wrong turn."
"You come from the south, don't you? A long way to be traveling." Kirk shut the door behind him, his voice carrying into the cottage. "We haven't much," he said, "but if you come this way, perhaps I can find you a bite—auugh—" His words were broken by a scream. Culross howled, a long low desperate howl, and Cordaella jumped from her bed, running to the door. She heard Culross howl louder, his cries fierce, terrifying, and she threw the door open calling to him, and then calling for her father. She could see nothing outside, the moon too small, too far away and her bare feet crunched ice on the slick white step.
"Papa!" In the distance she heard a horrible thudding and Culross' wild howling. "Culross—" she screamed, knowing without understanding that it was him being beaten, him being killed. "Papa, help Culross. Papa!"
She didn't know that her father had been killed first.
When Culross's whimpering had been silenced, and no sound came from the darkness, she walked out into the snow, searching for her father. He lay several yards from the door, his shirt sticky with blood. She tried to drag him inside, pulling at his arms and chest until she had him just inside the door. As she struggled to lift him, she heard voices coming from the trees, their accents strange, so foreign, and leaving her father on the doorstep, she ran back outside, into the open and screamed at them, screaming her terror and fury and frenzied pain.
She knew they had remained outside all night, and she sat over her father until the first of the sun's rays lightened the horizon. Stars still shone in the violet sky but it was light enough to see, light enough to look for Culross.
Between the cottage and the wood, she found her wolf, the fur matted on his head, a dark spread of blood frozen on the snow. He looked so small now, not like the big Culross who had padded at her heels. She reached over to touch his muzzle. It was frozen. She ran her fingers over his nose and between his eyes, his cold, thick fur hard beneath her hand.
She left the cottage then, without her winter cloak and wearing only her ordinary shoes. She knew of only one place to go. She reached Lochaber as the sun was setting, the winter afternoon so short that she was grateful she had reached the town before nightfall.
She went to the merchant who had threatened her father months earlier, not knowing where else to go.
"My father's dead," she said when his wife opened the door. "They killed him. And Culross too." She didn't cry. Too cold. Too tired. She hadn't remembered how hard it was to walk from Ben Nevis to the valley floor. But then, she had never walked in snow before. Her legs were numb all the way to her hips, the drifts two and three feet high in places.
Lochaber's priest sent word to the Macleods, but there was no one alive in Aberdeen and one week passed before an English noble, an Earl from Derby, arrived in the Highland village to take the girl with him.
"I am your uncle, your mother's sister's husband, and you will live with me," Earl Eton told her, studying Cordaella's slight shape and wan face. Her hair hadn't been combed in months. Dark smudges accented the lightness of her gray eyes. "I have children, three of them, two boys and a girl," he continued as she stared at him, stunned by grief. She didn't think she would ever be able to speak again. "Is there anything you want—or need—from your croft?" he asked. She shook her head and he handed money to the butcher's wife who had looked after the girl for the last week and a half. They set off the same day, the Earl, the soldiers, and the child riding in front of one stern-faced guard.
Now the Earl's retinue snaked through the last of the Derbyshire woods, down the rolling hillside and out of England's peaks. They had been traveling for nearly five days but finally the pale rectangular tower of Peveril Castle could be seen rising above the Buxton's trees. The fields in the small valley had the earth smelling fresh and clean, as it always did after a hard rain.
Cordaella buried her face in the coated chest of the soldier, too overwhelmed to look at the landscape, the hillsides above Derbyshire's fertile soil. Her father was dead, and Culross, too. She didn't know how to make sense of the pain. It was bigger than her, bigger than anything she had known before.
Within Peveril Castle, all was silent. At two thirty, everyone from children to stable hands was sleeping. The night was crisp and clear, no cloud to obstruct the view of the sky which was a deep inky blue, studded with a thousand faraway stars. This sky was the same sky over London and Aberdeen, Dublin and Edinburgh.