Read Lord of the Black Isle Online
Authors: Elaine Coffman
Lord of the Black Isle
Copyright © 2012 by Elaine Coffman
Cover and internal design © 2012 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover illustration by Judy York
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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I have found power in the mysteries of thought,
exaltation in the changing of the Muses;
I have been versed in the reasonings of men;
but Fate is stronger than anything I have known.
âAlcestis
(438 BC)
Euripides (484 BCâ406 BC)
Greek tragic dramatist
Love will find a way
through paths where wolves fear to prey.
â
“The Giaour” (1813)
Lord Byron (1788â1824)
English poet
MÃ rrach Castle
Isle of Mull
Scotland, 1516
A bloodred moon hung as if suspended over a velvety black sky. From the swells of the Atlantic below, a blue mist rose, spangled and spiraled. It curled like a cat's tail around dark castle turrets. It drifted lower, to creep silently over roof tiles to an open window casement and slide quietly into the bedchamber below. As hushed as a vapor, it floated toward the bed where she slept, passing like a cold chill over her still form, as softly as the caressing hand of a lover seeking warmth.
Inside that bedchamber, Elisabeth Douglas slept fitfully, plagued by a dream. Out of the shadows, a blackbird came, sharp claws extended, searching for someone to love and possess. Terrified of its stark blackness, she lay tangled in pale, gauzy bedding, a prisoner of the night. She closed her eyes against the frightening sight and listened to the dreadful flap of wings, coming closer and closer. Caressed by the sweep of sleek black featherings that touched her, she could only watch with speechless dread as the night turned black as pitch and the stars went into hiding.
She yearned for the pure light of morning to cleanse the effects of this blight that covered her like a curse. She wanted to open the window and see sunlight spangled upon the sea, and to listen to the song of birds on the chimney singing to the sky, yet all she heard was the pounding in her heart, a throbbing beat in her head, and the sound of sand bleeding through the wall and onto the floor, the passing crystals of time running out.
Slowly, ever slowly, the bloodred moon began to sink beneath the horizon to ride upon a wine-dark sea, until the earth was cast slowly into inky oblivionâ¦
And into her world rode the black knight upon a demon black horse.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never metâor never partedâ
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
â“Ae Fond Kiss” (1791)
Robert Burns (1759â1796)
Scottish poet
Isobella Mackinnon had never seen her sister, Elisabeth Douglas, look more beautiful than she did at this moment. “You look as graceful as a plumy egret,” she said. “If only you could see yourself. Oh, how I wish we had a full-length mirror.”
“I don't need a mirror, Izzy. I can see myself in your eyes.” Elisabeth looked down at the dress and declared, “It looks as fragile as fairy wings.”
Isobella nodded. “Just think, if you married in our time, you would be in a boring white gown and about to marry some dude from the twenty-first century.”
Elisabeth laughed. “Oh spare me, for that reminds me of how much I wanted to throttle you the day we came back in time and found ourselves in a glen full of warring knights. Remember how the Black Douglas stood there, looking positively bewildered when he saw I had accompanied you? I'm still ashamed of the fit I threw when I found out he couldn't send me back. And I was so angry at you, too. Do you remember how I said I would love to punch you, flat out?”
Izzy laughed and said, “Yes, and I was afraid you were mad enough to do it!”
“I know it's a little late, but I feel I should apologize for being so hard on you, Izzy. How would I dream that jumping back six centuries in time would change my life for the best? Please don't feel like I gave anything up, because I didn't. I'm still a doctor, and I am needed here so much more than I could ever be in our time.”
“I know, but I wish it could have happened a year later, after you finished your last year at Johns Hopkins. I know it was hard to give up your position as chief resident.”
Elisabeth hugged her and said, “Yes, but look what I got in return.”
Isobella's eyes sparkled as she said, “I'd better get going so I can get dressed before I start crying from happiness and get tears all over my new dress.” She started toward the door, then stopped and turned. “You aren't sorry about the way things worked out⦠I mean, if you had it to do over again, only this time if you had a choice, would you choose to come back?”
Elisabeth's smile was brilliant. “Without hesitation,” she said, and watched Isobella slip through the door, looking happier than a smiley face.
After Izzy was gone, Elisabeth dressed quickly, glanced at her wedding dress again, and sat down on the bed, her heart bursting with happiness as she fell back, thinking about her future. An hour later, she was still lying on the bed, enraptured in her thoughts about her life at MÃ rrach Castle, which included the marriage of Izzy to Alysandir, Chief of Clan Mackinnon. And now here she was, a year and a half later, about to marry his brother Ronan.
I
don't deserve to be so happy. No one doesâ¦
Poor Elisabeth. She needn't have worried about being so happy, for personal turmoil was about to come her way. When it came to the future of Elisabeth Rhiannon Douglas, Fate had other plansâ¦
***
Later that evening, Elisabeth sat on her bed, too exhausted to cry any more. Suddenly, the door opened and Isobella rushed into the room, threw her arms around Elisabeth, and said, “Oh my God, Elisabeth! I'm so sorry. I don't know what to think, because I know nothing can ease the pain you are feeling. Oh, what can I say? What can I do? What can any of us do?”
With a stone face and a broken heart, Elisabeth lifted eyes that were void of life, as she replied, “Nothing. There is absolutely nothing you or anyone can do.” She sighed. “Oh, Izzy, they lie when they say love conquers all. I loved and he loved, but that was not enough. My love for him was like quicksilver slipping through my hands, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.”
Elisabeth stood and walked to the window. “Why couldn't I marry the man I loved as you did? Oh, I don't know why I ask you that when the Black Douglas is the only one who can answer it, and he is making his ghostly presence very scarce around here. Not that I blame him. He knows I wouldn't be very nice to him. You haven't seen him, have you?”
Isobella shook her head. “Not so much as a ruffled leaf or a draft blowing down the chimney.”
Elisabeth nodded and crossed her arms in front of herself as she began pacing back and forth.
Isobella watched her⦠back and forth⦠back and forth⦠and wondered how she, or anyone, could explain why, on the eve of his wedding, Ronan was ordered to marry the daughter of the Earl of Bosworth. Isobella had never felt so inadequate, and it pained her to see the way Elisabeth pressed her fists against the knots in her stomach, just before she spoke.
“I wish to God he had thrown me aside for another or lost his feeling for me. That I could have suffered and gotten over,” Elisabeth said. “But this? How does one get over knowing we were separated by an edict from the King's regent?”
Isobella walked to the window and stood beside her sister, still at a loss for words.
“Oh, Izzy, how can I face tomorrow and all the tomorrows that follow? My life is over.”
Isobella gave her a shake. “No, it isn't! You mustn't say that because it isn't true. You have been wounded deeply, but you will heal in time. And while you wait for the healing to come, you must stay busy. Yes, you love him, but he was not your first love.”
Elisabeth jerked back as if she had been slapped. “
Not
my first love?” she said. “Izzy, how can you say that?”
“I can because it's true. Medicine was your first love. Focus on that, and you will find your healing.”
Elisabeth sighed, lost in her thoughts, and then, after a few minutes, she realized Izzy was right. She was in danger of allowing her grief to take over.
Elisabeth, you have more self-discipline than that, and you cannot allow your pain to ruin your life. What would you tell a heartbroken patient?
She knew the answer to that, just as she knew the answer to what would save her.
She turned to Izzy and said, “You're right. If anything can save me from ongoing despair, it's medicine.”
“I'm so glad to hear you say that,” Izzy said. “You are a doctor, a healer, and a damn good one, or you wouldn't have been appointed chief resident. It's like you told me onceâfind your bearings and you will regain your life.”
Elisabeth smiled sadly, remembering when she said that, never knowing she would one day heed her own advice. She was a healer, and although she had suffered a terrible loss, she could spare others the painful heartbreak of losing a loved one by devoting herself to her calling. She would lose herself in caring for others. She would return to her first love, medicine. And there she would find solace, if not happiness; peace, in lieu of love. “I think I became so enamored with being in love that I quite forgot about medicine. Remember that quote Dad had framed over his desk?”
Isobella nodded. “It had something to do with timing, I think.”
“Yes, that's the one,” Elisabeth said.
“Timing⦠and picking up the pieces when all is said and doneâor something to that effect.”
She sighed and looked off. “You know, that's very similar to what Ronan once told me.”
Isobella waited a moment, then asked, “And what was that?”
“Things do come at their appointed time through all the changing seasons of life.”
Mr. Turnbull had predicted evil consequencesâ¦
and was now doing the best in his power to bring
about the verification of his own prophecies.
â
Phineas
Finn
(1867)
Anthony Trollope (1815â1882)
British novelist
Aisling Castle
The Black Isle, Scotland
The Black Isle, or
an
t-Eilean Dubh
, as it is called in Gaelic, is a study in contradictions. It is not truly an island, but a peninsula surrounded on three sides by three firthsâCromarty Firth to the north, Beauly Firth to the south, and Moray Firth to the east. And it is not really black, although some believe it obtained its name because snow does not lie in the winter, so the point of the promontory looks black against the snow gleaming on the higher ridges.
Steeped in history, Aisling Castle sits inland, nestled on a rocky outcrop of cliffs and woodlands, with a view of Moray Firth. The castle is decorously skirted by majestic conifers and girdled with steep, jutting boulders. A hidden glen not far away sends a torrent of white-foaming water falling over lime-rich rocks of rapids and under a fallen rowan tree before peacefully flowing into the dark silence of a deep pool.
One can hear the falls at Fairy Glen before they can be seen, or hear the cry of a golden eagle as it flies over broad-leaved woodlands set in the steep-sided valley. It is where the gentle greens of moss-colored glens give way to sea fjords and deep, blue lochs where the Picts once hunted lynx and bear. In ancient times, this land was called Pittanochtie, a Pictish name for which the translation has been long lost, for the Pictish language has been extinct for hundreds of years.
It is an enchanted place, beautiful, mysterious, and rich in history, where soldiers stand guard over grand castles, unaware that most of them will one day lie in ruins. In the winter, the land lies silent and cold beneath snow or the frozen dew of hoarfrost. In the summer, the fields are fertile and green, some covered in fields of broom and whin, others lined with thick forests, covered with oak, hazel, and pine; a place where deer and wild pigs roam, carefully trying to avoid the prowl of a hungry wolf. Here, eagles are plentiful, as are ptarmigan and raven, which fly far above herds of red deer, or an occasional wildcat, haughty, aristocratic, and reclusive.
On this particular day, David Murray was returning from a successful hunt, as he rode through a thickly wooded valley. Before long, the sun would slip behind the black fringe of trees and darkened fields as the golden orb dropped from sight. But at this moment, the entrance to Aisling Castle was still sun-warmed from the west, defended by a barbican and high curtain walls, topped with corner turrets that took advantage of all that lay below.
There was something romantic about this time of day, when night creatures would soon begin to stir in the huddle of hills, as if competing with the roar of a nearby burn, teeming with trout. David was not thinking about burns or castles this day as he rode toward Aisling, for his mind was on his tyrannical father and the pressure David was under for his “stubborn refusal to wed and produce an heir,” as his father called it.
It had only been a fortnight when the Duke of Ballinbreich had proposed, for a second time, a wedding between David and his daughter, Fenella Gordon. Although David liked her as a family friend, he announced his dislike of taking Fenella to wife in the same breath that he informed his father that he would not wed her if the king himself ordered it, simply because he did not love her.
David had left Aisling Castle early the next morning, before his father arose and sent for him for another brow-beating session. Now he was returning home, and he knew his father would be waiting for him. It was the normal way of things between the two of them: David displeasing his father in everything he did until David would ride away, only to face his father lashing out with accusations when he returned.
Behind him, David's cousins were leading pack horses with three fine stags slung over their backs, along with four fat capercaillies. These were the same cousins his father referred to as his irresponsible kinsmen. Unlike David, his cousins ignored the harsh words of the earl, for they were accustomed to hearing that the earl was greatly disappointed and coldly censorious of his only surviving son and heir.
In spite of his difficult father, David was anxious to be home after the weeklong hunt. They had ridden through miry bogs and muddy tracks for some time now, and had fought a skirmish with the McNabbs, which had placed David in the position of having to kill two of their number. He and his cousins were close to home now, for they soon splashed across Markie Burn and followed the narrow track past the old church and graveyard. A short time later, they rode through the open gate of Aisling Castle.
Overhead, birds shrieked, and he watched the lazy circling of sparrow hawks and doubted even his father would be pressed to find something to criticize about such a boon as three stags and six capercaillies. In the distance, the muted cry of fulmars and jackdaws broke the silence as David dismounted and smiled at his sister, Ailis, who hurried out to greet him as she always did, pausing just long enough to see the spoils of their hunt and then hurrying to greet her brother.
“Och, David! 'Tis a fine trio o' red deer ye have brought us. All and sundry will be looking forward to having something besides fish for our next meal. Father will be pleased to hear ye had such good fortune.”
Turning his head with a skeptical sneer, David replied, “The Earl of Kinloss⦠pleased with something I did? 'Tis surely a jest, sister.”
Ailis rose on her toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “When have I ever been known to jest?” She laughed gailyâa bit too gaily for David, who knew she was trying to lighten the moment. “Aye, jest I did, but I didna say he would be pleased wi'
ye
, but with the knowledge that he wouldna have to eat fish for a while.”
David started to turn toward the hall, but Ailis placed a hand upon his sleeve. “Dinna go into the hall just now, David. Wait a while and give him time to let the flames burn down. He is still verra upset wi' ye.”
“'Tis nothing new ye speak of, Ailis. The mere sound o' my name distresses him.”
“'Tis better that he speaks o' it, David. Ye ken the distress that doesna show on the face lies in the heart. Ye anger him because ye refuse to bend and become what he wants. Faith! Sometimes I wonder if ye dinna do it a purpose.”
David smiled while his eyes searched hers. “Mayhap I do gouge the old toad now and then. 'Tis difficult to always be on the receiving end of his harshness, criticism, and disapproval, and yet remain mute.”
“Just try, David. Please?”
Ailis started to say something else, but David kissed her on the forehead. “When could I ever refuse ye anything, Ailis?”
Ailis stared at her younger brother, the fifth born of nine children, and wondered if there was something cursed about being the fifth, for it did seem her brother was born at the wrong time, to the wrong family, under the wrong circumstances. How else could she explain her father's cruelty? True, he grieved over the deaths of their three brothers, but why would he punish his only remaining son by withholding anything resembling fatherly love, guidance, pride, understanding, or encouragement?
She often thought that had it not been for the love of his mother and, after her death, the love of his sisters, David would have had less regard for his life than the little he now possessed, for he was deliberately defiant with his life, he was fearlessly brave, and his caring for others before himself made him a dangerous man, a valiant knight, a good leader, and a wonderful brother.
Ailis grieved for David, because she knew he was a man in pain. She could not help but respect the way David handled himself with their father, for when it got to be more than he could take, instead of having words with the earl, David and his cousins would go hunting.
There were times in the past that she was certain the castle would explode from all the game being processed. But the clan members were thankful and held David in high regard, for the Murrays were known for their benevolence toward all their clansmen, and none ever went hungry. The earl's son had on many occasions ridden among the common folk with his cousins and pack animals loaded with game, which they handed out themselves.
Ailis remembered David's younger years, before one could see the indifferent gaze in his eyes and the scornful countenance, for it had been a time when he was quick to excite laughter in others with a wry face or to break out with the delightful sound of his own wonderful laugh or to take up the pipes and play a jig. And his beautiful, smoldering voice could soothe a snarling wolf.
She worried, too, that David would never marry, for he rejected every opportunity and ignored his father's efforts to unite him with daughters of powerful Scots, which was a shame in a way, for women adored him, with his black hair and smoldering eyes, the tall frame with the deerhound sleekness, his handsome visage, and the broodingly rebellious hero they saw who aroused their desire to a fever pitch. There was nary a knight in the Highlands who could best him when it came to skill with a sword.
David had known many women, but he'd never met one he couldn't walk away from. He knew the glowing coals of desire, the yearning pull of lust, and the fiercely hot flames of making love, which ended as quickly as they came. He never got close to women, other than those in his family. He'd simply learned to keep part of himself separate when it came to them. And even then, when women heard of his proficiency in lovemaking, his devotion to bringing them pleasure, and the detachment that came later, they still thought they could be the one to win his undying love and devotion. Faith! Ailis was beginning to wonder if any woman could.
“Where is he? By God, I will have a word with him! Send him to see me the moment he arrives!”
At the sound of his father's booming voice, David paused ever so briefly and then continued up the stairs, obviously mindful of the ominous staccato of an angry tread approaching from below. “There ye are, slinking into the castle. Did ye come in the back way?”
David continued up the stairs, having chosen not to respond.
“David, I will have a word wi' ye! Now!”
David paused, then turned and descended a few stairs and stopped. He looked down upon the earl and, by doing so, had the vantage pointâsomething he knew would not escape his father's critical eye.
The earl waited with his customary stern demeanor, tightly drawn lips, and icy blue eyes. “Have ye naught to say?”
“Nae, Father. I dinna ha' any ammunition to give ye today so that ye may fire it back at me. 'Twould be of no use anyway, fer ye have yer opinion of me and naught I can say or do would change it.”
“And ye can live with that? Knowing ye are a worthless son and an insult to the Murray name?”
“I
have
lived with it since I was a boy. I am what ye made me to be, a man like ye⦠cold, uncaring, and arrogant.” His beautiful, fathomless eyes conveyed everything he felt, everything he could not say.
“If only it had been ye that died instead of yer brothers.”
David nodded. “For once we have found something upon which we can agree.”
“For the love of God! I canna understand why ye are so difficult⦠why ye must butt heads wi' me at every turn!”
David turned and continued up the stairs, but the earl was not finished with him. “Ye willna turn away until I give ye leave. I am not finished wi' ye!”
As was his usual way of dealing with the earl, David did not respond and continued on his way. A moment later, he heard the angry tread of his father's footsteps upon the stairs and the too-familiar sound of his harshly spoken words.
“By the hand o' God, I canna disown ye and prevent ye from becoming the Earl of Kinloss, but I can see that ye rot in a dungeon! I willna rest until I find a way to make ye pay for yer insolence. Mark my words well, for ye will rue this day!”
“I canna regret it any more than I already do,” David replied. Suddenly, someone screamed, and he turned in time to see his father fighting for balance just before he tumbled backwards and fell down the stairs.
By the time David reached his father's side, a pool of blood was widening beneath the earl's head, and David knew his father had at last found a way to make him pay, just as he had said.
In the ensuing days, David felt tremendous guilt as the castle bustled with the preparations for the funeral of the Earl of Kinloss, and if he could have grieved at all, it would not have been for the loss of a father, but the loss of the kind of father he might have been.
In the end, he felt some satisfaction in knowing his father got exactly what he wanted, for David did rue this day.