up with her friends, Duncan and Rory Galbraith, talking excitedly about the events of the night, the three of them left the village, where women and children huddled in doorways, waiting anxiously for their menfolk to return. Several already had, some wounded, bringing with them detailed accounts of fierce combat up on the moor. Ascending the steep road up the glen, young Rory was unable to keep up with his garrulous older brother’s long stride and Lorne’s agile steps.
‘Keep up,’ Duncan told his brother crossly, having just told Lorne that his older brothers’ parting words had been that they would hunt the thieves down, and when they were caught they would string them up and leave their carcasses to rot and the birds to peck out their eyes.
‘My legs are tired,’ Rory complained sullenly, hating Duncan’s tale of blood and gore.
Lorne paused and, looking back, smiled at him. Rory was a quiet boy with a gentle, sensitive nature, unlike Duncan, who was imperious and strutted about Kinlochalen as though he owned it. He constantly bullied Rory, which drew severe reproach from Lorne. She was fond of Rory and always ready to defend him with a smile and a kind word, which earned her his unquestioning devotion.
‘We won’t go all the way up to the moor, Rory. I have no wish to see where our fathers and brothers have played out their foolish charades either. We’ll sit on the rocks halfway up and wait for them to come back.’
‘No, we won’t,’ Duncan objected stubbornly. ‘I want to see where the fighting took place.’
‘I’ll go if you want me to,’ Rory said bravely, but his eyes fell and he clenched his small jaw tightly to keep it from trembling.
‘You go if you must, Duncan,’ Lorne retorted. ‘Rory and I will sit and wait by the burn.’
Torn between going up on to the moor and staying with Rory and Lorne, when they reached an elbow in the burn, Duncan grudgingly sat beside them on a large boulder, folding his arms across his chest and scowling down at the rushing water.
Suddenly, from the mist that still clung to the bottom of the rising hills, something drew their attention. Lorne blinked until she recognised it as a human form almost hidden in a clump of bracken. Quickly all three left their perch. Lorne was there first and fell to her knees beside the inert form, noticing that blood soaked the ground where the man lay on his side. Her hand trembled as she reached out and gently pulled him on to his back, gasping on seeing a youth of no more than fourteen or fifteen.
Her heart almost ceased to beat as she gazed down at his face with a passionate intensity, never having seen a face so fair or so perfect in every feature. Indeed he was as beautiful as the Archangel himself. But his handsome face was white and pinched with pain. She noted that he wore tartan trews and plaid, instead of the simple, loose, flowing kilted plaid the common folk wore in the Highlands, and she could see no point of sword or dirk beneath the tartan. His eyes flickered open, the blue orbs rolling upwards, as if the effort proved too much. Realising the danger and what this youth’s fate would be if he were to fall into the hands of the returning angry men, Lorne looked at her companions, her soft voice holding an urgency when she spoke.
‘We have to move him. We can’t leave him here.’
‘Is he going to die?’ whispered Rory, his dark eyes wide and apprehensive with fear.
‘No. We’re not going to let him,’ Lorne answered fiercely. ‘We’re going to look after him—but we’ll have to get him away from here before anyone sees him.’
Observing the way Lorne was looking at the youth, jealousy, fierce, hot and raw, smote Duncan’s heart. ‘No, Lorne. We can’t. He’s one of the raiders. My father and brothers won’t like it if we hide him.’
‘Aye!’ she flared scornfully. ‘I know your brothers—and we both know what they would do to him when their tempers are hot from battle. They’ll hurt him cruel. He’ll hang for sure.’ She cast her eyes up over the surrounding rocks, her eyes lighting on the rocky ledge concealing the entrance to the giant’s cave. ‘We’ll hide him in the cave. No one ever goes there.’
Rory’s eyes opened wide. ‘But what about the giant?’ he gasped.
‘There is no giant, silly,’ Duncan said with scathing impatience. ‘That’s nothing but a stupid fairy tale.’
Lorne glared at Duncan through narrowed eyes, which softened when she turned her gaze on Rory. There was no place on earth like the Scottish Highlands where superstition and magic were mixed into everyday life. The drama and fairy tales gave Lorne an immunity from a genuine fear of the Highlands—unlike Rory, who was more fearful than a rabbit of some of the mysterious creatures of folklore.
‘Don’t be afraid, Rory. We were all brought up on fairy tales—of giants and brownies and witches—and if there was a giant living in the cave he’s long since gone.’
‘He’ll be telling us he believes in magic and miracles next,’ Duncan muttered scornfully.
‘Why? It can’t hurt. Why can’t there be giants or miracles? If you believe in magic, anything might happen,’ Lorne said defensively, having prayed for a miracle to happen to her all her life that would spirit her away from this inhospitable place and her cold and lonely existence at Drumgow Castle and her father’s and brothers’ barbaric ways.
Gently she shook the youth’s shoulder. ‘Come on—you can’t stay here. You must get up. I’m sure you can manage if we help you.’
Their strength nearly spent, it was all they could do to haul him on to the flat rock at the mouth of the dark chamber and drag him inside. Lorne fell to her knees beside him, peering into his pale face.
‘How badly are you hurt?’
The youth licked his lips. ‘My side,’ he gasped, speaking in Gaelic. ‘I—I stopped a sword—I think. I wasn’t with the raiding party. My companions and I were travelling from Oban when we were set upon by the men from Kinlochalen, believing us to be with the raiders. I—I don’t know what happened to my horse or to my friends. They rode back up the glen on to the moor. My brother is riding to meet me on the road from the south. Try and get word to him—please—and tell him what has befallen me. My—my name is David and my brother’s name is Iain.’ Finding it difficult to speak, he closed his eyes. ‘Iain Monroe—of Norwood—south of Stirling.’
Lorne stared down at the youth, unable to believe what he said—that he was a Lowlander. The McBrydes’ and the Galbraiths’ grievances and prejudices against the powerful English-speaking Lowlanders by whatever name they came were old and unhealed. But Lorne was capable of feeling the softer emotions that make living worth while.
‘I’ll do my best,’ she promised, trying hard not to look at Duncan, knowing full well the fury and hatred that must be burning in his breast on finding he had just helped a detested Lowlander.
‘If he wasn’t with the raiders, then he’ll have nothing to fear,’ Duncan said haughtily to Lorne, his resentment of the youth having more to do with the way Lorne was gazing down at him than finding he was a Lowlander.
Lorne looked to where Duncan stood, a slender, pale-eyed figure of hostility. ‘Yes, he does,’ she retorted crossly. Duncan was being as rude and ill mannered as his brothers were. ‘Your brothers wouldn’t believe him. They would cut him down without questions asked.’ She fixed her gaze on the youth once more, her eyes tender. ‘Were you, a Lowlander, not afraid to pass through Kinlochalen? You must know that any man from there is not
