 
# THE FALCONER'S DAUGHTER

Liz Lyles

The Falconer's Daughter: Book 1

©Copyright 2015 Liz Lyles

The Tule Publishing Group, LLC

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-1-942240-74-7
For my father.

I am yours,

the falconer's daughter,

carrying you forward

your words forever

entwined with mine.

## Acknowledgements

A very big thank you to the incredible publishing team at Tule for taking this book of my heart and bringing it to life!

Thank you to my editors Danielle Rayner and Lindsey Stover for your time and attention. Editing and copy editing this huge saga was a labor of love (and sometimes just pure labor!) and I am immensely grateful you cared so much about this story and devoted so much energy to getting it right.

Thank you to Meghan Farrell, Managing Editor, and the rest of the team for taking risks and being willing to experiment with my sprawling saga. I have loved working with you all.

Thank you to Lee Hyat for the beautiful cover. I couldn't love it more!

And lastly, endless love and appreciation to my grandmother, who read this story when I was in graduate school and went through the book with her pencil circling typos and misspellings, including the word _pens_ i, which should have of course been, _penis._ Grandma, you are a trooper and my inspiration every single day.

## Preface

Set in the late Middle Ages, _The Falconer's Daughter_ is a story about a woman's search for meaning. I began the novel as an attempt to understand relationships, particularly those between families and one's tie to history. We all have a history—ancestry—and this history brings both problems and promise to our definition of self.

Like Cordaella in _The Falconer's Daughter_ , my father died when I was young and his death forced me to look beyond my immediate family to the larger world for answers, directions, resolution. I found that the larger world weaves a pattern of birth, marriage, family, and death: this pattern repeating itself endlessly, from generation to generation without regard to class or gender.

No two characters in _The Falconer's Daughter_ have the same life experience, each character is affected by fate and choice. Fate isn't always just, or kind. What is left then? Choice. My characters must choose to accept, fight, or deny the demands and changes brought by their world.

These elements—fate and choice—are the key elements that have shaped my protagonist, Cordaella Buchanan. She was born to one set of circumstances and later asked to adapt to another. As a woman in the Middle Ages, she holds a position of limited power. As an intelligent woman in the Middle Ages, she learns to use her strength within the confines of society, enabling her to be more powerful.

Yes, _The Falconer's Daughter_ is fiction and the larger-than-life story of one woman. But the novel is also about courage and passion, conviction, hope, and acceptance. The setting may be medieval but the themes are timeless. _What does it mean to be human? To be a woman? To find happiness? Meaning?_

I like my heroine. I have given her qualities I would have wanted. I have given her a world filled with intrigue and drama, peopled by those who are both brilliant and broken, generous and complex. I also gave her story a conclusion that promises good, something better in the future. In short, when the novel ends, I wish for Lady Cordaella Buchanan Fernando much love, many years of life, and continued adventure.

# THE FALCONER'S DAUGHTER

Book 1

## PROLOGUE

London, Britain 486 A.D.

On the battlefield, his left hand cradled against his chest, blood caked on his brow, Leir slowly lifted his head to the sky. Fine streaks of light—the sheerest yellow—began to shine through the clouds. Light.

With the emergence of the sun, it all came back to him, words he had heard but ignored, words that could have perhaps prevented this. Now, two daughters lay dead. The third—Cordaella—would she ever forgive him?

Light. Truth. Words disdained. And bleeding, Leir, who once was the greatest of the great Kings, remembered wisdom too late. How had it been? What had the sage said?

The sage's eyes opened, the watery gray depths focusing on the shadow of the brooding king. "I know these things: the child not yet born is female. Your wife will bear no sons. Of your three daughters, two shall be against you. Watch your back. Watch your breast. Their immature love will poison your spirit, impossibly sweet kisses will bring blood."

_Abruptly Leir stood, a large man of larger tension._ _"How shall I know the daughter that is true?"_

" _You may ask, but can you hear?"_

_Angrily Leir clenched his sword. "You answer me with a question?"_ _His wrist shifted as he stepped forward. Legions of men gestured for weapons. Leir knew a challenge. His heart thudded, an uneven tattoo within his chest, his breath heavy. Wait, he told himself, wait..._

The sage's lids lowered, seeing the waters and skies of time unwinding, of rime bending, fulfilling prophecy. He knew what would come, ten years, fifteen years, forty years. Even his wisdom would not save Leir from himself.

Softly the sage intoned, "You are the greatest king in all the Island. Never has there been such a ruler, never will there be again. Your kingdom stretches endlessly beneath the soles of your feet, even now, your palm shapes legends, answers fate." A soft, warm breeze brushed the sage's beard, his words as if kisses on the wind. "You will live to be old, older than reason, but do not forget to mind the hearts of women."

The king's white-knuckled grip on the sword eased, long, even fingers resting more lightly on the hilt. Leir slowly turned to face the sage, his profile hard and clean against the expansive blue sky. He was determined, a conqueror to the end. "What am I to do?"

" _Know your daughters."_

## BOOK ONE: BRITAIN

1398-1413

## CHAPTER ONE

January 1398

Cold. So cold. His breath clouded in thick silver puffs and the peasant reached up to adjust the scarf wrapped against his mouth. Only his dark eyes could be seen through the dense swaddling of woolen robe, the thick black fringe of eyelash coated with ice. He prodded beneath the snow crust with a stick, once again finding nothing.

Kirk Buchanan dropped the stick into the crook of his arm and clapped his hands together once, twice, forcing the blood through his fingertips. His stomach churned and he fought panic. There was nothing to eat here. No root, no bulb, no sign of hope. But how could he give up? What would the babe do then?

Suddenly, the wind died and the steep slope hung in silence, a strange serenity for the cascade of mountains that were as fierce as they were breathtaking. The frigid gale winds had turned the trickling waterfall into long spinning strands of silver ice. Mount Ben Nevis shadowed her smaller sister peaks, the range of mountains stitched together so tightly they formed a fortress more formidable than any other in the Scottish Highlands.

Above him came the faint cry of a bird and he looked up, scanning the white wintery sky. A gerfalcon. Narrowing his eyes, he watched the bird circle, its flight pattern tight and concentric. He suspected that he had stumbled on her nest. "I see you," he whispered, standing motionless, waiting as if torn between two lives, two dreams of who he was and who he once was. Finally he began to back away from the rocky incline, stepping carefully onto a lower snow-banked shelf. On safer ground, he glanced up again. The gerfalcon had disappeared.

Blanketed in snow, the mountain swallowed all sound, all surfaces white and slick, patches of ice on the exposed rock and icicles glittering on the lower limbs of the twisted pines and sharp overhang of roof. The cottage, built in the shadow of Mount Ben Nevis, clung to the steep slope as if it had always been there, perched among the outcropping of rocks. The mountains were frequently covered in clouds, but the mists had lifted in the last half hour to reveal the great north face of the mountain. This was the side of the mountain Kirk loved best, respecting the north face of Ben Nevis the same way he respected all that was wild, unguarded, free. These were the gifts of God and no other.

From inside the cottage, he closed the window against the cold, the rough planks splintering beneath his fingertips as he struggled to secure the shutters. "Damn!" Kirk pressed his thumb against his teeth, trying to dislodge the sliver before it buried deeper.

"That's exactly what I mean." Geoffrey Mclnnes tapped his foot anxiously, the stool too small for his lanky frame. "This is no place for a babe."

Wordlessly, Kirk settled himself back onto the hearthstones, sitting cross-legged before the fire. He pulled the small whittling knife from inside his tattered boot, running the tip of the blade over the reddened skin on his thumb. He began to work the splinter until it protruded out of the skin and blood trickled from the cut, dribbling down his thumb into the crease of his palm. Ignoring Mclnnes' tapping, Kirk worked the splinter free and wiped the blade clean on his pant leg before returning the knife to his boot.

"Is this what you do every day? You eat? You whittle? You wait for the babe to wake?" Geoffrey struggled to contain his impatience. "For God's sake, man," he said, a lock of dark blonde hair falling into his eyes, "you can't keep her here."

"And why not?"

"Take another look at this place!" Geoffrey jerked his arm out, gesturing about the primitive cottage. "How is she to survive here?"

"It's not as if there is any danger."

"You'll do to her as you did to Lady Anne!"

Kirk's hands stilled on his knees, the wide strong hands spread flat against the press of kneecap. For a long moment, he didn't look up, didn't speak. Instead, he sat brooding, more like a bitter old man than one who was twenty-four.

_This_ is why Geoffrey was angry.

_This_ was the issue.

The Macleod page had been Kirk's friend for years, but before befriending Kirk, Geoffrey had been the childhood playmate of Lady Anne, the middle girl of the three Macleod daughters. _Ah, Geoffrey, did you fancy her, too?_

Kirk passed one hand over his eyes as if wiping away the memory of the buff-colored stones of Angus Castle and the sound of voices, like the tremulous cry of the Macleod sisters as they rushed down the stairs. They were always like that in his memory. The three of them together.

"I ought not to have said that." The page adjusted his collar and then the hem of his oversized jupon, the blue and burgundy coat cut from fine fabric, as if acutely aware of Buchanan's ragged jupon and threadbare leggings, of the old boots barely patched together. "The infant is what? One?"

"Fourteen months."

"That's right, it was about this time last year when his lordship, the Duke Macleod, received word of the child's birth." Geoffrey remembered that he had been the one to give the Macleod word of the birth. The page had ridden hard most of the night, traveling east beneath a full moon from the rugged Highlands to the frost-glittering meadows of Aberdeen. He arrived cold and breathless, his pale skin blotched with red. _"I have come with news from Ben Nevis, my lord," he had said timidly, hesitant to interrupt._

" _What news can there be from Ben Nevis?"_

" _Her lady has given birth. It was a girl."_

" _Was?" Macleod managed the word with difficulty, his voice sounding impossibly tired, even small._

" _The infant is eight weeks old but sickly, and not expected to survive."_

Macleod's heavy head wagged, locks of thick white hair hanging across his forehead, half hiding one eye. His words were nearly incoherent. "Does the Macleod womb know no other sex?"

_The page waited, counting to himself, counting imaginary stones and sticks, counting plump wenches, counting and counting to contain his own eagerness, not to mention, impatience. He was becoming adept at waiting. His lordship had not been himself for nearly a year. Too many tragedies had befallen him. Ever valiant in battle, the great John Macleod broke fragile in his castle. His strength had been his heart and his heart had been his daughters. Now, with Lady Charlotte bedridden in Derbyshire, Lady Mary dead, and Lady Anne banished, there was no strength left in the old Duke. Geoffrey hesitated a moment._ _"Shall I arrange to have gifts sent, my lord?" He remembered sending mountains of fine things to the eldest Macleod daughter, Lady Charlotte, on each of her births. Presents for young Lord Philip and Lady Elisabeth._

Macleod hunched silent, huddled in his mind.

" _My lord?"_

McInnes imagined sending great carts to the remote Highland cottage, a cottage battered by drifts of snow and frigid gusting winds. He imagined lovely Lady Anne rushing to the door, her hands trembling with the latch. He would overwhelm her with treasures, wagons mounded with sides of beef, venison, boar. Partridges strung on sticks. Smoked salmon and salted eel. Loaves of sweet bread, jars of clotted cream, and rich, thick, sticky berry jam. He would send spices, herbs, dried seasonings in small pliable pouches. Jugs of wine and soft linens for the newborn. He knew how Lady Anne's face would light, her lovely eyes filling with quick tears, and her mouth, so expressive! To shower her with everything she loved best.

" _My lord?"_

Macleod's eyes closed, scarred hands gripping the arms of the chair. The muscles in his throat worked, one after the other, finding his voice small. "No. Nothing." Macleod seemed to die then, slowly, a man bleeding himself to death.

" _No words of congratulation? Or of sympathy? The babe might not survive—"_

" _No!" The Duke cut him short._ _"Nothing. No words at all."_

Bile rose in the page's throat, filling his mouth, staining his tongue. As bitter as it was, the acid was easier than the violence inside his chest. He didn't understand the Duke, didn't see how he could turn from his daughter, from the lovely Lady Anne.

It was then that the Duke gasped, doubling over as he clutched his chest. Geoffrey leaped from the embroidered footstool, grabbed at him as Macleod collapsed.

" _Guards!"_ _Geoffrey shouted frantically, bracing his lord against his own thin heaving chest, "My God! Guards!"_

Geoffrey shuddered, remembering. He would always regret that he was the one bearing the news. He would relive that moment, and it took all he had to keep the staff from losing their minds. It was as if he, instead of the falconer, had stolen Anne. Of course, no one knew what to do when word came, three weeks later that Lady Anne was dead.

"He wants her back, Kirk. He needs her."

"Cordaella and Anne are not interchangeable. One was his daughter. The other is mine."

"You owe it to him—"

"Owe?"

"For taking Anne from him."

"You're mad, you know. You talk as if you never knew her, as if you didn't know that no one ever made Anne do anything against her will. God help her, but she chose her own lot." Kirk hated this talk, hated this miserable emotion that wound from his belly into his heart, a bitter brutal helplessness and loathing.

Desperate for distraction, he picked up his whittling. Ever since he was just a boy, he worked hard, leather and leads in his hands, a saddle over one shoulder, feed over the other. He had never been good idle, never been happy without trade. From stable hand to apprentice in the mews, he had learned his craft well. Eventually he knew birds and dogs better than any other in Highland or Grampian.

"She always had a mind of her own." Kirk weighed the carving in one hand, considering the size and shape of it. "Although it was the trait I first loved, it was also what I first came to hate. I could not make her listen to me. I couldn't make her understand."

"Understand?" Geoffrey echoed.

"Understand that there are circumstances that are fixed. Circumstances which ought not—cannot-be changed—"

"But at least she chose you."

"For what? This?" Kirk laughed disbelievingly. "Come on, Geoffrey, you can't think she wanted this once she was here. She hated it. Soon she hated me for it."

"Don't tell me that"

"She cried herself to sleep nearly every night. She wouldn't take any comfort from me. Like you, like the Duke, she blamed me. S said I should have known what it would be like."

"She had a point"

"She had no right," he answered, his voice tight. "I lost everything, too. I knew my dogs. I knew my birds. I can never trap or train them again. I can never seek work. I can never live among others. His lordship did more than banish us—he cursed me."

"But she was a lady. She was a Macleod!"

"She came to me, crept into my bed at the mews. What was I to do?"

"You make her sound cheap. But Anne wasn't cheap. She was just a child, a pretty thing, sweeter than the others. You know she was different. She was her father's favorite." Geoffrey colored, his chin tensing, his mouth tight. "She ought to have been protected from all of this. She deserved better."

The falconer gripped the stick and carefully sliced off one layer and then another, the wood shavings curling as they fell to the floor. His thick black hair lay matted against his head, his dark eyes set deeply in his face. He was as thin as he was tall, his collar bones jutting through the wool jupon as he whittled away.

"Remember when we returned that September, when she was in her fifth month? And the Duke wouldn't have anything to do with her? That was when she gave up." He worked the blade in long smooth strokes. "She never said much after that. She couldn't wait to have the baby and then she couldn't wait to die."

"Give the child to me. His lordship can provide for her. He can give her all the things you haven't got. He can make sure she'll have both name and position—"

"Like he did for his own daughter?" His lower lip curled, black lashes shadowing his eyes. "Anne chose me because she didn't want to go to Castile and she didn't want the Netherlands. She didn't love me. It was the opportunity to escape that appealed to her. She craved change, but only if she could choose it, mold it." He dug hard with the blade. "I loved Anne—not that it mattered—and I've feelings for the babe."

"So you're telling me no?"

"I'm telling you to tell the Duke that as I'm the father, I'll raise her here."

"What good can you do her?" There was more than a hint of contempt in the question. Geoffrey Mclnnes had grown up in circumstances much like Kirk Buchanan's. The villages were full of peasant children who needed more than a warm meal and a fire. They needed a future. Both of them had found work but that didn't make things equal. "It is your pride speaking, not your sense. If you gave her to his lordship she'd have everything—a name, a position, an income. Why deprive her of so much?"

"I don't trust him. I don't trust any of it." Kirk rose unsteadily, glancing in the sleeping babe's direction. The wee thing lay across the straw mattress, one arm flung out as if to keep the bad dreams at bay. He knew that face, the tousled head, the tiny hands and feet as if they had been traced against his eyelids, dreaming her in his sleep. "She is all that I have." He said simply. "How could I let her go?"

"You treated your birds better, Buchanan."

Kirk looked away, silent. There was nothing for him to say, nothing for him to do.

No one would ever know what he had already suffered. No one would ever know what it was like to watch Anne die.

Geoffrey sighed. "Can you at least agree to send word twice a year? Can I tell him that? He needs something." He glared at Kirk, perplexed and frustrated. "Come on, man, you're not the only one hurting!" He stood in irritation, gathering his outer cloak with the thick fur-lined hood. "He's an old man, Kirk. Can you not see that, can you not put yourself in his position?"

"Why? Has he ever put himself in mine?" The falconer laughed harshly and the babe stirred, turning over on the ticking with a slight cry. Kirk walked over to her bed, kneeling down to pull the coverlet over her shoulder. She buried her black head deeper into the mattress and fell back asleep.

"He is the Duke." Mclnnes shrugged. He was tired. Anxious to be home. "If I leave now I can make it down the mountain in a couple hours. I'll camp at the base and then travel tomorrow to the village. My horse is there." The Macleod page slipped his arms through the fur-lined cloak, tightening a belt about his waist.

"Take care. It grows late."

"And I'd be careful, Kirk, if I were you." Geoffrey opened the latch on the door, bracing himself for the cold temperatures outside.

"What is that?" Buchanan stood, towering at least two heads taller than the other.

Mclnnes swung the door open, blinking at the sudden chill. "Macleod isn't one to trifle with. If he wants the girl..." his voice trailed off momentarily, "she is, after all, his granddaughter." Geoff clapped his gloved hands together once, twice, glancing down the mountainside to the glen far below. "You don't want trouble."

"I'm not looking for any."

"Just be careful." The page waved once and then jogged slowly through the drifts to the edge of the snow-covered meadow. With a final wave, he began the descent.

The night swallowed the croft into its vast darkness, the sky blanketed with clouds which hid the mood. Inside the croft, firelight flickered across the dirt-packed floor, spreading shadows against the walls. Ever since Mclnnes' departure yesterday afternoon, Kirk had sat brooding over his whittling. He could hear the babe playing in the far corner even though he couldn't see her in the dark interior. She was talking baby talk, a mixture of words and sounds that he could not yet identify. Would she be safe enough here? Would she have what she needed?

He lay down his whittling as she teetered out of the darkness and closer to the fire, her small legs crouching as she struggled to pick up a stone from the ring of rocks around the center hearth. "Aahh," she gasped, dropping the stone quickly. He watched from the other side of the fire. Should he warn her of the danger yet again? She never listened.

"Cory." He said her name brusquely.

The child straightened slowly, swaying on legs just learning to walk. At fourteen months she was still thin, but her small legs were strong. The toddler pushed back the curls that hung long in her eyes. "'Ot!"

Startled, Kirk said nothing, staring in silence at his daughter. Finally, "Yes, the fire is hot."

Balancing precariously on one foot she took a step away from the circle of stones surrounding the cottage fire. Her head tilted back as she tried to get a better look at him. Her eyes found his and as she stood there swaying, her small mouth puckered and smiled. "'Ot," she repeated before turning away with one triumphant last smile in her father's direction.

The chilly spring nights gradually warmed; each morning the slopes of the mountain seemed a deeper green, pockets of wildflowers splashing yellow, pink, and purple color across the verdant green. In the mornings, Kirk was at his most cheerful, tramping through the tall grasses, the child perched on his shoulder. He would hike up the mountain towards Nevis, naming the plants and birds, pointing out hidden foxholes, the timid rabbits, the nests in the granite crags.

Walking, he found his voice, his anger dissolving in the freshness of the crisp air and the exercise. He felt closer to freedom than he ever did; this was how it should have always been, instead of his years in Grampian and Aberdeen, the ignorant peasant struggling to placate his lord.

But Anne. It was she who had come to him, who revealed her world to him, the comparisons between the classes making him sick, his stomach a knot of bitterness and pain. He wanted her because she was beautiful but also because she was better than he...

He lost his head. He made the wrong decisions.

Kirk would never tell her, this daughter perched on his shoulder, of the shame he had left behind. Instead, he told her of legends and the great clans. The stories were always the same, as if to make up for silence and the loneliness, the misfortune of not having mother or nurse. He would make sure she'd grow up knowing something of her mother's family.

"To understand the strange Macleod ways," he said, his feet trampling the tender grass and scattering of miniature blue flowers, "you must first understand the strange Macleod clan."

"Macowd—" She repeated the clan name, struggling with the consonants.

He told her that Leod was originally of Norway, although others said Leod was Celtic. "Your grandfather claimed that Leod was one of Olave the Black's sons. Olave—remember—was the king of Man and the Isles. Leod lived some three hundred years ago, and after growing up, he married a daughter of the Macrailt clan. They had children and their children had more children, some becoming Island chieftains, all men eventually holding posts of honor in the Island of Skye's army."

Cordaella clasped his neck with one arm, the other hand grabbing at his rough jupon. She listened patiently, if not closely, content to let his voice wash over her, the words slipping in and out of her ear, and she'd hold onto one and then another, not particular about which word she'd cling to.

"One of the Macleods broke from the family, leaving Skye permanently, settling eventually in Aberdeen, the first of the Aberdeen Macleod chieftains. From this Rory Macleod came your grandfather, John, your mother, Anne, and yourself."

"Me." She patted his cheek with her hand. "You and me."

"You, not me." He swallowed painfully. "I am just a Buchanan. But you, Cordaella, you mustn't forget you are half-Macleod."

In summer, Kirk left the window unshuttered, the sweet air still mild late at night. After he put the child to bed, he'd sit outside the open door, pull out his whittling again, and work with whatever light the moon provided. As he leaned against the croft, the uneven stones gouged his back but he ignored the uncomfortable sensation, focusing on the pipe he was crafting.

He loved the girl. God knew he did.

But he wasn't happy. Time passed slowly, too slowly, and he did miss Anne, he missed her more than he would ever admit. It had been horrifying to lose her. They had never thought of that—the two of them in those early days. No, he would not have been able to imagine a world without her as she had been everything, as close to the sun and stars as he ever thought to reach. When she came to him two and a half years ago, when she begged him to take her away from Aberdeen, he had only felt hunger, a yearning for warmth, for peace, for her.

For Anne.

The night she died. That had been the worst. And he had to suffer it alone, had to hold her hand while she died, bury her the next day, hike with the sick infant to the town thirteen miles down the mountain to have word sent to her father, the Duke.

The babe had been born in November. Anne died in March. It had been ten months now since he lost his Anne.

Why couldn't he forget? Why couldn't he stop thinking about that last night?

Was it because of the unusual chill? The cold front that swept in from the western sea with wind that howled endlessly? She died shortly after midnight, and dawn took forever to arrive. At the first light, he went to the window, pushed open the shutter, and drank in the biting morning air. Wind still galloped across the meadow, the ragged mountain above him cast a vast purple shadow across the valley's floor. _Anne._

But that was then, and this was now, and July was kinder than March. Tonight the air was sweet, fragrant with summer. There was no wind, either, to rustle the tall sunburned grasses.

Kirk lowered his whittling, his head turning towards the door to listen for Cordaella. There was only silence inside the dark croft, the fire banked for the night, and he sighed. The baby. Perhaps she was more like her mother than he thought. Cordaella was into everything and listened only when she was so inclined.

He drew the knife tip along the edge of the pipe bowl, pale slivers peeling as the tip wound its way around the small circle. Cordaella Anne Buchanan. Someday the girl would learn the significance—and shame—of her poor clan name. But until then, let her sleep, let her dream the dream of babes.

Kirk woke early and rose, dressing soundlessly by the cold ring of fire stones. He woke with an uneasy feeling, as if he had spent too much time thinking, his thoughts as heavy as the tattered jupon he pulled over his old undershirt.

Maybe it was time for a trip to the village in Glen Nevis. He could take the skins he had prepared to the village and trade for some woven cloth. The girl would need more than a shift come winter, and the autumn months never lasted long in the high mountains.

Where had the summer gone? By his calculations it must be late August—or was it September already?—and still the girl had met no one, seen nothing. She ought to meet people, just to know she wasn't alone, and if he didn't do it now, it'd be another eight months before he had the chance again.

Kirk opened the door and stepped outside with a yawn and lengthy stretch. He had put some weight on since the winter, food always more plentiful in the warmer seasons. And the goat, which he bought last spring, helped. It was she who provided the milk for Cordaella. This reminded him, as he turned to look back in the croft, the girl ought to be up now.

"Cordaella—" He called to her, then peeked in to make sure she heard him. Although not up, she was awake, lying silently on the blanket-wrapped straw, one fist in her mouth, her eyes on him as she twisted her legs in and around her coverlet.

"Good morrow," he said gruffly.

She blinked but said nothing as she pushed herself onto her hands and knees. He took a step back into the cottage, ducking his head to get through the doorway.

"Are you dirty?" Cordaella shook her head and clambered to her feet. She took longer than he did to wake in the morning and, after a moment's hesitation, she touched the swaddling on her bottom. Her baby hand patted her behind as she looked up at him.

"Do you have to go?" he asked and she nodded, the fist still in her mouth. Kirk crossed to her, unknotting the cloth from her legs. "Then go sit on the pot. Get on with you while I make us some breakfast."

Cordaella walked towards the corner and he bent to push her mattress against the wall. Breakfast was nothing more than a slice of flat dark bread and some soft goat cheese, but it was food, and the best he could do. Bread wasn't easy to make and he had struggled for months to learn how to produce even this modest loaf.

Suddenly the goat, tethered at the back of the croft, cried plaintively and Kirk looked away from the slicing of the bread to see twenty-month-old Cordaella attempting to suckle from one teat. "God in Heaven," he swore, his face contorting. What next? What didn't she do?

"Cory, no!" His sharp tone stopped her and she sat back heavily on her bare bottom, peeing all over the packed dirt floor. "Cordaella..." he groaned, dropping the loaf onto the rustic table. "What would the Macleods think of that?"

The years passed, one after another, and it never grew much easier. The falconer struggled in winter to keep them warm enough. He worried each autumn about the cold and the scarcity of food. He whittled all winter. And spring arrived as it had every year, slowly, timidly.

At three, and still at four, Cordaella was as inquisitive as ever, afraid of nothing, not fire, not water, not wildlife. She trusted her father implicitly, and treated everything in nature the same. Kirk would watch as the toddler, wandered away from the croft across the flower-streaked meadow towards the distant wood. He would call after her and she'd nod, but did she listen to anything he said? Repeatedly he warned her about being caught alone in the woods, the edge of cliffs, and the unstable footing on the granite slope of Nevis. When he caught her walking into the stream beds swollen with the runoff from melting snow, he'd pull her away with a smart spank on her bottom. She never cried. Instead she stared at him, her expression serious until his glower eased, and then, rocking back on her heels, her hands caught in midair for balance, she'd smile.

Her smile, that triumphant expression which lifted her eyebrows and dimpled her mouth, where did she get it from? It wasn't his smile. And it wasn't her mother's. Then whose? Which of the powerful Macleods had left this? Her smile didn't erase his worry and yet it reminded him that she was someone else, someone other than him. She would grow up and then what? Who would she be?

Just before summer, in mid-May, a stranger climbed the steep slope from Inverness to the lower meadow of Ben Nevis. The monk had made the trek to meet the falconer and attempt to persuade him that the Duke Macleod could offer the child more. "You must send her to a proper school."

Kirk stiffened. His face was gaunt, high hard cheekbones pressing against his dusky complexion, black eyebrows nearly one thick line above his eyes. "She is but four."

"You fail to bring her up according to the laws of our dear Lord Jesus Christ! You have a duty to your daughter—"

"Cory is my daughter. I will choose for her."

"Are you a Christian, Brother Buchanan? How will she learn of her heavenly Father here? What have these mountains to teach her about charity, godliness, purity?"

He could hear the wind blow across the meadow grasses, the low soft rustle that made it seem as if the entire field was moving. He knew that the soft summer wind would give way in a number of weeks to clouds and rain. The summer season was always short here, but it was fair and good. Kirk cleared his throat.

"You use big words, Brother. You ask me to prove things I cannot. But I tell you that these mountains are more godly than your Glasgow and Edinburgh and Aberdeen. God is here in this cottage. He is in each meadow flower and in every season. My daughter learns of Him when the winter comes and the spring follows, snow melting in the sun."

The monk could also hear the wind ripple the grass and yet, to him, it sounded mournful, almost frightening with the low throb and constant movement. "But do you not teach her about sages? About pagan fairy folk and ignorant fairy faith?"

"I am a Christian, Brother." Kirk wanted to smile when he heard the brother talk of fairies and sages. Of course Kirk told Cordaella about magic. There was always magic in the woods.

"But are you bringing your daughter up as a Christian?"

"To the best of my abilities, Brother. I cannot read. I have no scriptures. I know only the rudimentary facts myself. I'm no different from the other Highlanders. We are a simple folk. We are also superstitious. Go back to Inverness. The Buchanans there need you more."

"Are you in contact with your family, then?"

The wind was rushing louder, a constant rippling among the flowers and he closed his eyes briefly, imagining himself outside. Free. "We do not know each other."

"But your mother—"

"I've never known her. I was sent to Angus Castle at four. I have no recollection of her." He hesitated, his fingers wrapping about the pipe stem, the wood smooth and warm in his hand. He lifted his head and his dark eyes fastened on the monk. "She is alive, then?"

"Yes, and your brothers. At least Michael, Rory, and John. The first two work at trade, the last, John, is at sea."

After being alone so long up here, he found it difficult to picture all of them: Michael had been the eldest, then Kirk, Rory, Alan, and the youngest, John, whom they had always called Troy. As he said each of the names to himself, he pictured his brothers' faces. In his mind, they would always be like him, just lads. Nothing more than hungry young boys who always wanted something more to eat.

"What of Alan? Where is he?"

"Dead. The same epidemic that killed him took your brother, Michael's family." He waved his hand in front of his face, flushed, still hot from the climb. "Now the girl—"

"My father?"

The friar shrugged, exasperated. "He left the family years ago. I believe he drowned shortly afterwards."

"Drowned?"

"If I recall, he worked on a fishing vessel. Was drunk, fell over, and that was the end of him."

The falconer kicked the embers of the fire. He watched the red lump break apart and crumble into hot glowing dust. His voice was low, cold when he spoke. "As I said, Brother, the Buchanans need you more there than we need you here."

"Why don't you take the lass back with you? This is no life for a child."

"I can't go back. There is nowhere for me to go. Macleod's ban extends far and wide. Other lords are honoring the decree. I, the Macleod falconer, can go now here but up and down this hillside."

"And Cordaella?"

"Cordaella is happy here. For her, this is home. How can she want more? To her four-year-old mind, this is what the world should be. Meadows and rivers and animals. She has a playground bigger than any other northern child. No one else lives so high, and this," he said, stretching his hand out, gesturing to Ben Nevis in the background, "this she believes is all hers."

"And her soul? What of that?"

Hearing the cowbell shake in the doorway, Kirk glanced up. Their cow stood in the open door, peering through. Cordaella would not be far behind. "She is not an orphan. She has a father. She is but a wee thing yet; my God would not make me give up my child."

"This is not Abraham sacrificing Isaac, Brother—"

"Good, because I will not." Kirk's black eyes narrowed, the features savage. He had lived too long among the lonely peaks of Scotland, nearly six and a half years; it had been a difficult adjustment, but now he was at ease with no company but his own and the girl's. "My child shall not be brought up by strangers. I love the lassie too much."

"If you love her so—" The priest broke off as a high-pitched whistle pierced the air.

Moments later a brown face peeped through the doorway.

"Papa!" The child's voice, although pitched soft and urgent, was unusually husky for a child so young. Her eyes were pale, a faint shade of gray.

"Come, child," Brother Lyles encouraged, working a warm smile to his round face.

She had spotted the visitor from afar earlier and hidden herself in the meadow waiting for him to leave. But the hours passed and he—this enormously fat man—remained.

Restless at last, Cordaella returned to the cottage.

"Come, my dear", the monk repeated.

Kirk suddenly saw her as the brother must. She looked as ragged as any street urchin, only slightly cleaner. Her face and hands were relatively clean, but her long black hair hung in a dirty, poorly braided plait down her back, loose curling wisps in her face secreting those unusual eyes.

Cordaella reached for the open door, pulling it close against her. She hid behind it, leaving only one eye gazing out from behind the solid surface. She felt much better like this. Now the fat man couldn't see so much of her. She had already decided she didn't like him. Papa looked cross. Too cross for a sunny day. If Papa was cross, she would be cross. She frowned at the stranger, hoping to frighten him off. Her brows pulled forward and her mouth puckered. The frown was working, she could tell. The fat man did not look very happy.

"Cordaella," the priest tried yet again. "I have come here to meet you. What do you think of that? I have walked for three days to get here. All the way from Inverness, Do you know where Inverness is?"

"I do not care." She shrugged, pretending disinterest. Actually, she was very curious but she would never let this stranger know.

"Do not be shy, my dear child. I am a friend of your father's." He turned to the falconer. "Isn't that so, Brother Buchanan?"

Kirk stared calmly at the friar, saying nothing. Cordaella looked at her father, trying to gauge his mood. She pulled on the door, causing the hinges to whine. She was very thin, and her knees, exposed by the short plaid shrift, were prominent, even knobby. Her attention was fixed on the fat man, her head tipping back on her long slim neck, thick black lashes lifting to reveal remarkable eyes. "Are you my uncle?"

Brother Lyles blanched. "Do you know your uncles then?"

"You called Papa brother."

"We are brothers in the blood of our Savior Jesus Christ."

"You are too fat to be my uncle," she said firmly.

"Enough of this." Kirk curtly snapped his fingers at her. "Friar, explain yourself to the child. Cordaella, hold your tongue."

Cordaella gave her black head a toss, dismissing her father's temper. His scowl was fierce, but it hid a heart deeper than the highland ravines. She knew he loved her, he loved her almost as much as she loved him. "Papa," she asked, giving the fat man in the ugly gown a careful look, "what does he want?"

Kirk threw up his hands. "You're a sassy thing, Cordaella Buchanan. Ask him yourself if you must know everything."

"Come, child," Brother Lyles entreated. "I will not bite."

"My cow does not bite," she retorted, scurrying around the friar to her father. "But that doesn't mean I talk to him."

Kirk dropped down to the stool and she leaned on his knee, staring the stranger full in the face. She was not at all impressed with him. He was ridiculously heavy and half her father's height. Pfft! Her small nose wrinkled in distaste. She couldn't help wondering how much of him was real under the robe. His belly was vast! Could all of that stomach be one man?

The croft interior was flooded by sun, the streams of yellow light falling across the floor through the open door and unshuttered window, all silent except for the sound of the grasses rustling as the breeze sang across the highland meadow. The cowbell clanged softly behind the cottage wall. Kirk was comfortable in the silence. He was not accustomed to conversation, except with his Cory.

Cordaella too, accepted the stillness as the natural order of things. She pressed her weight onto Kirk's knee, content to say nothing and swing her right leg. The shrift of her tartan skirt was pulled high, her legs long and even her bare bottom tan. All of her skin was the same burnished brown, her cheeks still glowing from her earlier run. As she swung her leg, she yawned lazily. Summer was coming. She loved summer. During summer she could run all day through the fields, chasing whatever came before her fancy.

Cordaella stuck a piece of her hair in her mouth, chewing on the ends. A couple hours ago she had pretended that she was one of the little village dogs in Glen Nevis. Dogs could do as they pleased. She ran here and ran there and sat up wiggling, barking shrilly. How much fun to be a dog. If she was a dog, she would always keep her tongue hanging outside her mouth, drooling on everything. She smiled suddenly, her eyes lit by mischief. "Rrruff! Rrruff iff!" She barked, fixing the friar with her pale stare, "Rrrf! Rff!"

Brother Lyles pulled back. "What is that?"

Cordaella grinned. "A dog."

"You have a dog?"

"No. I am a dog."

"You are a dog?"

"Aye. Rrrufff! Rff! Rff!" She twisted her head from side to side panting. She was a very hot little dog. Her tongue sticking out, she practiced more panting. "Hheheh."

Brother Lyles looked at the falconer. Kirk said nothing. The monk sighed and pulled himself into a better sitting position, his girth riding high above the cord on his thick waist. The hapless bench squeaked in protest. Cordaella grinned again, the fringe of eyelashes lowering over her dusty eyes.

Kirk watched his daughter curiously, as if she were someone new and not his own kin. If he were to pull away, to send her to Inverness, would she be better off? Would she be happier? He looked down on her dark head, seeing the small cleanly etched profile: her tiny straight nose, the full mouth, the startlingly pale eyes. She was a funny-looking little thing, so skinny, so wild. His own. She was his own.

Only now did he realize that she had survived infancy—so few babies did—and here she sat, no longer a toddler but a little girl of four. No fat on these arms and legs, her slender limbs sunburned and strong. It was easy to see the dark Celt in her.

Brother Lyles cleared his throat. "Cordaella, do you know your true Father?"

"My Papa is here," she said, pointing at Kirk.

"No, Cordaella, that is your earthly father. Do you know your eternal Father?"

Frustrated she reached back for Kirk's knee. "Papa!"

Kirk patted her tan cheek, his voice husky. "The Brother means God, Cory. When he says 'Father' he means 'Father God', not Papa."

Indignantly she turned back to Brother Lyles. "Of course I know God! He made everything—all the birds, all the bugs. He even made me!"

"There is but one God, my child, and He is the maker and master of every man. He is Lord of all Creation, Lord of Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales, Normandy..." he paused to take a hasty breath before plunging on. "His Son came down from Heaven and lived as man for thirty years, sharing in all the human burdens and sorrows, eventually dying on the blessed Cross so that we fearful sinners, all of us, might know eternal life." He sat back, "Do you know Him, child, this Savior?"

"I have never met him," she replied truthfully, "We do not get many strangers here. So far, only two, including you. But the other man was not so fat. He is a page. Do you know what that is? Papa said pages must take messages back and forth. Why didn't you send your page here?"

Brother Lyles' Adam's apple wobbled up and down for a moment. "I am not speaking of a mortal man, Cordaella I refer to Christ our Lord, Christ the Son of God! Do you know nothing of Him?"

"Aye, I know God," she repeated patiently. "He made everything. He made Papa and me and all the flowers and—"

"But Jesus? You cannot get to Heaven, into God's presence without first accepting Jesus. Are you unfamiliar with the parables? The great teachings of Jesus our Lord?"

Her delicate forehead creased seriously. "Is he an Earl perhaps?"

Brother Lyles threw up his hands in disgust, crossing himself quickly before rummaging on the ground for his walking stick. As he rose, he said, "Mark my words, Brother Buchanan. Unless you send this child from here, you shall bring destruction on your house!" There was a long span of silence after the friar faded from sight. After several minutes Cordaella walked resolutely to the door and shut it. She lowered the bar across the door, latching it for good measure.

"That will keep the bad men away," she said, turning back to Kirk.

"Thank you." He wanted to smile but couldn't.

She still remained by the door. "What will happen to our cottage?"

"Nothing."

"But he said—"

"I know what the Brother said."

"Then why—"

"Because." He cut her off with a glower. He was sick at heart, sick deep in his gut. Why had the friar come up here, bearing his tiding of doom? Already Brother Lyles had begun the process of taking Cordaella away from him.

She hesitated, still torn. Her curiosity won. "Where is he from?"

"Inverness."

"He is not a falconer, is he?"

"No. He is a man of the church. A monk of the Benedictine order."

"Why is he a monk?"

"He would probably say that he was called by God. Most likely he was sent to the church by his family. One son too many!"

She was increasingly perplexed. Nothing the stranger or her father said was making sense. Why was Papa acting so funny? Why didn't he just answer her questions?

And who was Jesus the Lord? What a very peculiar name. Was he a powerful lord? Was he like her grandfather in Aberdeen? She wrinkled up her face, knowing that Papa would not like this last question. "What do monks do?"

"What Brother Lyles did here."

Her mouth formed a tiny perfect circle. "Oh." And she made a face, not wanting to hear any more.

## CHAPTER TWO

He left her alone when he went hunting. There was no way Kirk could take the girl with him. He told her to stay inside, to keep the door closed. "Animals cannot open doors," he would say, "and the only way you would be hurt is by letting them in."

"But animals do not want to hurt people," she would answer, having already been taught that animals were good and important to the mountain.

He added an extra log to the fire before leaving, his face already wrapped against the wind and snow. "You won't go near it now, will you?"

"No," she said a little crossly, huddling in the deerskin lined with supple pelts. She didn't like being left behind. It was lonely when he was away, so quiet, so big. He filled the cottage up, took its silence and space, not that there was so much space in winter when the cow lived inside too.

After he had gone, she slid the bar across the door and went back to her pallet on the floor. Curling beneath the fur throw, she watched the fire, the red flames rising between the logs. She remembered how she had burned herself once, trying to capture the fire in her hands. She had never done that again and the burn had healed by the summer's end.

She must have fallen asleep because she was woken hours later by her father pounding outside. "Open up, Cory. Open the door!"

The fire had burned out while she slept, and, shivering, she stumbled to pull back the bar. As she swung the door open, snow swirled outside in great white gusts, powdery drifts forming just inside the step.

"Careful, Cory," Kirk said, as he staggered in.

"A deer?" she asked, struggling to close the door as snow blanketed the dirt-packed floor. She bent over to brush back the snow, her fingers smearing the snow pink and in some places red. She smelled her hand. Blood. "Papa?" she said, tracing the puddles of red to his footsteps, pools of it forming by his instep.

"Be very quiet," he said, his husky voice but a whisper. "Come see what I have." She tiptoed to him, careful not to push against him. She couldn't help worrying about the blood though. "Are you hurt?"

"I'll mind it soon, lassie. But look here now, gentle is it." He opened his coat for her to see. She stared at the ball of fur uncertainly. "A wolf pup," he said, his large hand covering the white furry head, soothing the pup's trembling. "What do you think of that?"

She touched the soft head and felt the tiny nose brush against the palm of her hand. Its nose was cold. Damp. She smiled in wonder. "Can I hold him?" she asked, feeling the pup nuzzle against her hand.

"Keep your fingers out of its mouth for now. He hasn't been weaned and might be a wee bit hungry. We'll need feed him in the morning, as soon as your cow can be milked."

She held the squirming pup on her lap as her father pulled up his pant leg and began tending to the wound on his ankle. Long red scratches ran down his calf, the deeper of those cuts not yet scabbing. "What happened?" she asked.

"Chose the wrong night, wrong place to hunt. I must have stumbled on the den. Or else they were on the move."

The pup gave a tentative lick at her fingers and she buried her other hand in its soft fluffy coat. "What happened to the mother?"

"Died."

"You killed her?"

He wiped the blood from his hands and straightened. Blood had trickled down his cheek, drying at his jaw in a dark clot of color. "I had no choice," he said quietly. "She came at me instead of running away. Must have been starving, poor thing." He stared at the pup in her arms. "I shouldn't have gone out tonight. I thought something bad might happen. I could feel it in my bones."

"Some things can't be helped," she said, seeing the blood crusted on his face and the stain still on the floor. Snow had melted around the door, water running back under the frame. The pup rested his small head in the crook of her arm.

Kirk's heart tightened as he realized she had already learned about fate. Even here, on top of this mountain, the child knew more than he did.

Cordaella turned over, crushing the warm, fragrant grasses of the meadow as she threw her arms out at her sides. Opening her eyes, she stared into an immense blue sky, the clouds sailing slowly, no wind to hurry them today. Something stung her ear and she reached up to swipe it away. Ants, she saw, brushing at her ear and neck. Little red ants. She brought her hand before her face to inspect them. She didn't mind the biting now. At least she knew what it was.

Suddenly a furry head appeared over hers and a tongue lapped the ants off her hand. "Culross!" she cried, but there was laughter in her voice as she reached up to hug the wolf's thick black and white neck. "Culross," she said again, pulling him down next to her. He groaned as he settled against her, one paw stretching out across her midriff.

Cordaella smiled up into the sky, one hand on the wolf's neck, the other arm behind her head. She knew how old she was now. Her papa had taught her how to count. She knew that every finger on her hand represented something, and that she could keep track of everything that way. She was glad she had at least six fingers because that's how old she was now. Six. That meant she was almost as old as Papa. A as she turned to look at Culross who was sleeping next to her, she knew she didn't have to worry about her father anymore; the wound on his leg had finally healed. And Culross had been with her for two winters, one spring, and one summer, which meant that at least a year had passed.

Culross opened his eyes as if he knew she was looking at him. He licked her face and she rubbed his head, reaching under his chin to scratch there, too. Culross was her best friend. He knew everything about her.

Cordaella turned back to the sky, and she thought one massed cloud looked like a huge rock and another—which floated in thin wisps—like a stream, and she wished she were a cloud and could sail above everything just to have a better look at the valleys below.

Papa had told her there were bigger rivers far away, rivers so big that people called them oceans. She thought she would like to see oceans. So much water. So much blue. She loved the color blue.

Far away, in Aberdeen, the wind howled, the bracing sea air stinging Duke John Macleod's eyes and tousling his shaggy white hair. He rode beneath the burgundy and blue of the Macleod colors, traveling with three of his knights, two pages, and six mounted guard along his favorite stretch of coast.

They had just stopped at the village's small fishing port which hosted a half dozen boats, these tied to the low stone wall where men climbed up and down ladders lugging nets of herring to the wharf. Two women worked at the huge salt barrels, coaxing the herring from the net.

"I ought to do something with this port," the Duke said, watching one of the women begin filling a new barrel.

His nephew, Dunbar, answered, riding close to the Duke's side, "It is worth considering, Uncle. This port could be of value."

"The only profit from the port will come from the continent. No one here—Scotland or England—can afford to develop the harbor. The damn war in France has sucked every purse dry."

"You still have options, don't you? Denmark. Castile."

The old man nodded. "It could provide a dowry for the girl. She has little else."

"For whom, Uncle?" Dunbar leaned forward, not sure he had heard correctly. The wind perhaps had changed the words.

"For Anne's daughter," Macleod said, slightly defensive. "But it is only a thought." He glanced back over his shoulder, at the rear guard. "Is Geoffrey near?" Dunbar offered to find him for his uncle.

The old Duke wiped watering eyes with the back of his arm as the page returned with his nephew. "It is a salty wind we have today," he said.

"Yes, my lord." Geoffrey McInnes agreed.

"But that's not why I had you called. I want to know—" the Duke hesitated, his gruff voice lowering, "I want to know this, have you news of Ben Nevis lately?"

"No, not lately, my lord."

"When were you last there?"

McInnes masked his surprise. "I've only been to the cottage twice, and then, my lord, it's been four years."

"Four, hmm." Macleod's expression was closed, the lines deeply etched between his eyes and along his mouth. "The child has turned six."

"Yes."

"And I don't even know whom she resembles. Is it Anne? Perhaps Mary or Charlotte?"

The page spoke carefully, "She does not resemble her mother, or even your other daughters." He did not want to offend his lordship. "Except for her eyes, she takes after the falconer."

"What color are her eyes?"

"Pale gray, like a pond frozen in the winter."

"Is she a dull child?"

"They say she is very quick." He half smiled in Dunbar's direction. "It is said her temper is also."

"None of my daughters had a temper."

Dunbar's red hair waved at his nape, the brisk wind dusting his brow and beard with miniature salt crystals. "Maybe my cousins didn't, but _my_ mother did."

The Duke gave a barely perceptible nod. "Yes." His eyes narrowed. "No wonder my father sent your mother to Orkney." His gaze swept the rocky coast, white water churning against dark cliffs. "How is the girl? Is she well?"

McInnes leaned on his saddle. "From all accounts, I would say yes. In Glen Nevis they call her a Highland fairy, for she lives on berries and nuts and swims as if a fish in the mountain streams."

Macleod could not have been more shocked. "She swims?"

"As if a trout."

"Are you sure of this?"

Geoffrey shrugged. "It is what I have been told."

Dunbar hooted at the idea of a girl swimming. "Come now, McInnes, _where_ do you get your tales from? Now you'll be telling us she just jumped in."

"No, she didn't jump without provocation. It seems her wolf pup fell into a frigid lake, and frantic, the child dove in after it. The pup swam out and so did she."

Dunbar howled with laughter, ribcage heaving. "What do you mean, wolf pup? What pet is this? I've never heard of a Macleod taking to water much less wild animals."

"She began swimming last year when she was five."

The Duke's voice was quiet. "And the wolf?"

"That was the last time I heard from the falconer. He sent a message after his accident, asking about a possible home for the girl in the event he died—"

"You never told me," the Duke said coolly.

"—I was asked to wait until the falconer made a turn for the worse. He said I would know when he wasn't going to make it. And so I waited."

"You should have come to me." Macleod's grip tightened on the reins. He was staring out over the sea, the waters deep green, dark beneath the blustery sky.

"Forgive me, my lord." Geoffrey was genuinely puzzled. "But you had refused all previous communication..." He looked to Dunbar for help.

"But the wolf, what's the story there?" Dunbar wanted more of the girl's antics. McInnes noted Duke Macleod's expression, his features twisted in grief, or pain. "My lord?"

"Yes," the Duke conceded, "tell the story." He spurred his horse forward, riding around the last of the bends as they made the ascent towards Angus Castle.

"About two years ago the falconer was attacked by wolves. He killed several—or so I think the message read—however, he discovered that one of the wolves he killed had left a pup. The pup was not yet weaned and sat in the snow next to its mother crying piteously. The falconer—never one to leave an animal injured—carried it back to the cottage with him."

The fingers of Macleod's right hand played lightly on the hilt of his sword as he listened. McInnes smiled and continued, "Of course, the girl, Cordaella, took straight to the pup. It now follows her like a dog. The village folk think she is a strange sight, coming down from the mountain—singing fierce Gaelic songs—with a huge male wolf padding at her heels. The wolf is full size now. He is at least a hundred pounds heavier than she. No one comes near the girl. They are too afraid of the animal and Cordaella's wild ways."

Dunbar wiped his eyes dry, tears brought on by his laughter. "She is a barbarian!" He grinned, flashing a smile minus several teeth. "You should send for her, my lord. Can you imagine the wee waif and her wolf in Aberdeen?"

They reached the top of the hill, the best vantage point from the Angus estate. The Duke scanned the sea and its misty gray horizon. Far out on the water, two carracks sailed into the distance, their huge white canvas sails billowing fat and full in the wind.

Dunbar's words struck close to Macleod's heart. The idea of his granddaughter, so alive, smote him. He wanted that child and her fierceness here. He wanted her energy and her pride and her wild spirit. He hadn't given up hope yet that he could bring the girl to him. He owed it to Anne to see that the child was raised properly. He owed it to himself. Maybe this granddaughter of his would even grow to love him. He looked away from the dark green sea towards the distant ridge of mountains. Yes, Cordaella should come soon.

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!"

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."

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.

_The shadow of_ _the mountain remained with her, dwarfing the past and the present, subduing whatever resistance remained. It seemed that Ben Nevis always huddled over her, its ragged peak piercing her memory, the ridges of the mountain fixed to her spine. She was scrambling over rocks, scrambling over the red thorn bushes, scrambling as the dirt and pebbles scattered beneath her feet. The mountain could not hold her. The mountain would not hold her. She tore the skin from her palms and feet as she scrambled, her hands bleeding on each stone she touched. Papa was below her, far far down. Where was Culross?_

Cordaella reached higher, ever higher, the mountain growing, swelling in her face, pressing against her forehead and her chin and her eyes were full of the dark sharp mountain. She reached up and up for yet another ledge, a fresh fistful of coarse dirt and pebbles streaming in her eyes. She blinked back the dust, the grit between her lashes, beneath her eyelids. She could taste the dirt. It was in her nose, coating the inside of her mouth. Cordaella knew she had tasted this dirt all her life. Exhausted, she leaned into the wall of rock, the mountain her only mother.

She craned her head, searching for a glimpse of her father. She could see him, he was still there, still at the base of the mountain, his own face pressed to the rock. Wasn't he coming? If he didn't hurry it would be too late. Time was running out. "Papa!"

His voice was faint and yet the urgency carried, "Fly Cory! Fly." His desperation echoed thinly on the silver air. The mountain trembled and she screamed, her body hugging the cliff, her eyes wide with terror. "Help me!"

" _Fly Cory! Fly away!" He was bleeding worse, more and more red pouring from his mouth. She couldn't hear his words, the blood taking them all away. Cordaella couldn't hear him. She shook her head violently, her short nails digging into the cliff. The mountain trembled again. He would die down there. He would die without her. But he wouldn't let her come down, drowning in his sea of blood._

She threw herself from the mountain, leaping madly into the air, the legend of Icarus coming to life all over again, poor brilliant Daedalus far beneath. She pumped her arms harder, more vigorously and sobbed, "Papa! Wait!"

He died.

"Wake up! Wake up, you wretched wild thing!" Elisabeth pushed Cordaella angrily, her small hand snaking into Cordaella's tangled hair. She gave it a hard pull. "Whatever are you howling about now?"

The dreaming. Cordaella would forever be dreaming the end.

"Leave her be, Beth." Philip groggily raised his head from the pillow. "She's having another of her bad dreams."

"She is a bad dream—" Elisabeth cried petulantly. "Why does she have to be in here with us?"

"Because she's our cousin." Philip swung his legs clear of the bedcovers. "You shouldn't be so nasty to her. She can't help it. An orphan and all."

Elisabeth flounced back to her bed, "She doesn't even speak English properly! She doesn't belong here with us. What can Papa be thinking?"

Grudgingly Philip had to agree with her. "It doesn't make very much sense."

"It certainly doesn't. Falconer's daughter indeed! Papa is a fool to think she will ever change. What is he to do with her? He ought to put her with the other servants—"

"But the inheritance—"

"Keep it of course. But send her to a convent. Ugh!" She shivered in disgust. "A stable animal, that is what she is."

Cordaella lay silent, listening, her eyes open and fixed intently on the high vaulted ceiling of the nursery. Now that the dreaming had begun it would never end. Nothing was real anymore. It was as if she had fallen into a deep sleep and could not wake. God only knows what they did to him. Why couldn't she remember better? Somehow she only saw the blood. There was so much of it.

Elisabeth turned on her side and Cordaella could feel Elisabeth staring at her. Cordaella turned to look at Elisabeth, her cousin's blue eyes brittle in the moonlight. "You do not belong here, Cordaella Buchanan," Elisabeth said.

Softly Cordaella whispered back, "Aye. I know that much."

"I am the lady of the house. And I say you shall go."

Cordaella would not cry. It didn't matter. None of this mattered. Nothing would ever matter again. "Then I shall go."

"Have some pity, Beth," Philip whispered.

Elisabeth ignored him. "I shall have her sent to sleep with the pigs."

Cordaella squeezed her eyes shut, a hot emotion splitting her heart into two, and then into two again. She would have promised anything at that moment if it meant she could escape.

Abruptly Philip rose from his bed, his footsteps heavy on the wooden floor. "Hush, Elisabeth! You are too cruel!" He crept to his cousin's bed and knelt beside it. Awkwardly he pulled the covers up around her, his voice uneven. "Go to sleep, Cordaella. It is too late for this." He patted the covers down before standing up. She closed her eyes. "That's right," he said approvingly, "Sleep now or Mrs. Penny will take the strap to all of us."

Cordaella kept her eyes shut until she heard his steps retreat across the nursery floor. She had been here two weeks and it seemed like forever. Everything was so new, so strange that it was still difficult to sleep in this room with these people. Her cousins. They were supposed to be her people—kin—but they didn't feel like anybody she had ever known. Cordaella listened to Philip climb back into his bed, his eleven-year-old body still skinny, all pointy elbows and knees, and she remembered his gangly walk and the odd way he ducked his head when he laughed.

She wanted to smile because there was something funny about Philip, a nice funny, but she wouldn't let herself. She was too angry at being brought here, too angry at what happened to her father. Not wanting to think anymore, Cordaella turned onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. Against the black of her eyelidsm and the dark of her mind she saw the rocks, and the rocks were dark red.

By night, the nursery served as a bedchamber for the children. By day it became a schoolroom, lunchroom and playroom. Now, in the early hours of the afternoon, it was a schoolroom and the tutor from London—a young man recently completing studies at Queen's College—was assisting Philip in translating a Greek poem into English.

"It is the new development," he was saying to the boy, "this resurgence of interest in the Anglo-Saxon language. Since early time, historians and poets have written in Latin. Latin is the universal language of Europe and the educated people. But now, more serious works have begun appearing in translation."

"In English?" Philip asked.

"Not just English, but many vernaculars—French, Italian, German. And some very modern authors have recently composed _in_ English, like the Londoner, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Langland, who wrote _Piers Plowman_."

Cordaella lifted her head from her book. "Then why do we not read in English?"

The tutor considered her for a moment in surprise. So far in his instruction, she had never asked a question, never directly addressed him. After two and a half months he was almost shocked to hear her speak.

She repeated the question. "If there are books in English, why do we not read them?" It was, to her, a perfectly logical question. It seemed ridiculous to learn Latin only to read a book which might already be available in English. She was sure that if the Latin verse could be translated into English verse, Latin prose could also be translated into English prose.

The tutor, Simon Pole, sniffed. "Only the common people," he said, giving her a meaningful look, "need books in English."

"But why?" she interrupted. "Why do the common people need books at all if—as you say—they cannot read and do not need to read?"

Philip lifted his head quickly up and to the side as he was wont to do when amused. He would have laughed, but he was embarrassed by his laugh, and instead he covered his mouth, his head bobbing silently and his eyes, light gray like Cordaella's, creased.

Mr. Pole shot a reproving glance in Philip's direction before turning his hard gaze on the younger girl. "Some common people read."

Elisabeth closed her book. "Even _you_ can now read," she said coldly.

Cordaella glanced from Elisabeth to the tutor. She thought the entire argument was stupid. Why should some people read one kind of book and others read another? It would be far simpler if all books were the same. "If I learn to read in Latin—"

"You are already learning to read in Latin," the tutor corrected impatiently.

"Yes," she answered, "but if I read in Latin, may I still read in English?"

"Why would you want to read in English if you could read in Latin?"

"Perhaps there are books in English that will not be translated into Latin—"

"For example?" He sighed, exhausted and nervous.

"The Londoner."

"Chaucer?"

She nodded. "Yes. If he was English and wrote his poems in English, why should they be translated into Latin? An Englishman ought to be able to read his own language. Isn't that so?"

Simon rubbed his forehead anxiously. "But there are those in Denmark or Portugal who might want to read Chaucer. Thus, a Latin translation of Chaucer would be necessary."

She still didn't know the places he named, her world barely large enough to include Scotland and England and France that she had heard so much about. "Why wouldn't Chaucer simply be translated into another native language—"

"Not native, vernacular!"

"Into another vernacular?" She said the word strangely, the accents stilted on her tongue. It was hard for her to lose the Highland inflection, her words soft, the consonants full, round.

"You ask too many questions," Mr. Pole said.

Her papa had said that, too, but at least he always answered them. "You can't explain, then?"

"I won't explain," he said irritably. "Your questions are irrelevant...no, it's not even that. They are ignorant. You ask because you don't want to learn. If you don't want to learn, then waste somebody else's time."

"I'm not," She shouted, preparing to throw her book at him. "And you are the one who is lazy. You don't want to explain, or you can't, because you don't know the truth."

"The truth?" he shouted back. "How would you know? Do you want the truth? I'll give it to you. You're a bastard, did you know that? A shame on your entire family."

Cordaella hurled the book, catching Mr. Pole squarely on the forehead. The years hunting with her father had given her an extraordinary arm. "Liar."

"True." He dropped his voice as he rubbed the spot where she'd hit him, a look of fury in his eyes. "It is. Your parents were never married."

Tears welled in her eyes, furious tears that she dashed away with her balled hand. "It doesn't matter," she said, but her own voice failed her, all conviction gone. She felt Philip's and Elisabeth's eyes on her. She wished she were dead, killed along with her father. Anything would be better than this. "It doesn't matter to me," she repeated, hoping for a measure of defiance, for some disdain to disarm the tutor. "I loved them anyway."

If lessons were bad with Mr. Pole, Mass with Bishop Langford was far worse. The only interesting part of Mass was the chapel itself, which, the Earl had noted in his most puffed voice, had been built only eighty years ago in the Gothic style, a style copied from Paris at the height of its popularity. The chapel was supposed to be a miniature of the great cathedrals in France, with its small ceiling soaring towards Heaven, which Philip confided, was meant to help one's soul draw closer to God.

Saintly statues had been carved into the small portal, more reminders that the chapel was to be—indeed—an image of Heaven. Yet Cordaella dismissed the figures as ludicrous. They were neither delicate nor expressive, carved by a village mason who knew too little either about limestone or about the human body. These saints had limbs and heads that were oversized for the small torso and the grouping of saints looked more like peculiar animals. Cordaella would kneel during Mass and half close her eyes, squinting at the statues to see if she could make them move.

Without turning her head, Cordaella could look from the statues to the row of her relations. From her position in the pew, she could see all of their bent heads—one short uncle, the Earl; his new wife, Mary, who only talked in a whisper; and her true blood relatives—three sickly-looking children terrified of their father. She lifted her head slightly to get a better look. The Lady Eton still knelt, her lips moving in silent prayer. The Earl's chin was in his shoulder; he was probably sleeping. Philip read, Elisabeth traced the embroidery in her skirt, and little Edward picked his nose. Trust little Eddie to be picking his nose.

The priest's intonation began again, his chanting a singsong of Latin. Cordaella could only understand the odd phrase, partly because her knowledge of Latin was still scant, and partly because the priest was very hard to follow. If the priest prayed in Latin, did that mean God spoke Latin? Did that mean she was supposed to only pray in Latin?

The priest said "Let us pray," and everyone moved forward to the kneelers. Cordaella knelt with the others, folding her arms in front of her as Lady Mary had directed. The black sleeves of her gown fell back, revealing her small white wrists. She would wear mourning for a year in honor of her late grandfather, the Duke of Aberdeen, John Macleod.

To wear black for mourning. It was another new idea, a peculiar idea to wear only one color, and such an awful color, for a year. Nothing in the Highlands had been black, not even the night. In the mountains, the sky was blue or purple, violet streaked with gray, but never black, never so heavy and unrelenting. In the mountains, the sky was full of stars and wisps of cloud, the moon, and even the wind which was but a whisper in the summer.

Elisabeth moved suddenly, her elbow sharp on Cordaella's arm. "What are you looking at?"

"Not you," Cordaella answered, pulling her arm away.

"I hate you!" Elisabeth said.

Cordaella fixed her gaze on her cousin's face, the light gray pupils unblinking. For a long minute she said nothing, content to look at Elisabeth with that hard pointed stare. Cordaella had faced fiercer beasts than this. "It is not as if I take every breath just to spite you—"

"You are not one of us!"

"I know."

"You haven't the breeding to become one of us."

"And I don't want your breeding!" Cordaella whispered angrily, pressing her hands closer to her mouth to stifle the sound. "The last thing I want is to become one of you, just a sheep, with no thoughts of its own."

"Shut up."

"I'm a wolf, and I eat sheep," Cordaella said, baring her teeth.

"Shut up!" Elisabeth's angry retort rose above the prayers, even the priest momentarily interrupted, his concentration broken. The Earl had been roused and, shaking himself from his drowsy state, he tapped Elisabeth and glowered at Cordaella who was just out of reach.

"I've been asked to Court. Bolingbroke wants to see me," the Earl said smugly, holding out the letter to Mary. She smiled gently but shook her head; she couldn't read. "Anyway," he continued, "a week from today I'll leave. I might even take Philip with me."

The four children were just returning from a riding lesson, and the girls hung back as the boys continued towards their father. "Where does Philip go?" cried Eddie, overhearing the last part of his father's conversation. "Why can't I go? Why do I never get to go?"

"None of your concern, Edward." The Earl half-heartedly rebuked his younger son, ignoring his daughter and Cordaella completely. Cordaella caught the look on Elisabeth's face as her father passed her without acknowledgment.

"Father." Philip hesitated in front of his sister. "Where was it that you said you might take me?"

"Oh, yes," Eton offered the letter to the thirteen-year-old. "London. I've been asked to a meeting with the King."

Philip's face brightened. "If it could be arranged, I'd like to go with you. I haven't been to London in years."

"The city has changed. It's much bigger. Twice the size, or so it's said." The Earl read over Bolingbroke's invitation again, thinking of what he, Grey Eton, would do with his revenues. It was clear to him by now that he'd never make a tremendous profit from the land. It was time to go into trade; maybe his son could help him.

"Mary," he said, rousing himself to a decision, "take the girls in with you. I trust they have other things to do besides stand here in the way."

Lady Eton nodded, drawing Cordaella and Elisabeth after her, Elisabeth's face flushed with color while Cordaella appeared not to care. "Father." Elisabeth stopped in the doorway, not wanting to be left out, again ignored. "Father—"

"Yes? What is it?"

"Could I go to London with you?" She wanted him to say yes, she wanted more than anything for him to smile at her, to include her in his conversation.

"Of course not. If Edward can't go, you certainly may not either."

"But why Philip?" wailed Eddie.

Eton sighed, signaling again to Lady Eton. "Because he is the eldest, the first son. Now Elisabeth, don't be tiring, go along with Mary." He waited until his wife had closed the door leaving him alone with his sons. "Boys," he said with a groan of pleasure as he took a seat in the solar's great chair, "have I told you about my last trip to Rome?"

## CHAPTER THREE

If it was hard losing her father, Cordaella thought. It was also hard leaving the freedom she knew in the mountains. Nearly a year after her arrival in Derbyshire, she still chafed at wearing stockings and heavy soled shoes, chemises that covered her neck, a scrunch of stiff cloth beneath her chin. That entire year she had fought the changes, resisting Peveril's discipline and order. She thought the lessons in the nursery were boring, but worse than learning to read, was learning to sit still. She had always been so active before, and now look at her, trapped in this silly old nursery with a fat nurse that was stupid enough to let coarse black hairs grow out of her chin.

Cordaella leaned forward against the window, still amazed at the cool slick glass surface. They didn't have glass in their windows in the Highlands, or hearths with thick chimneys and broad mantles either. She breathed on the glass just to see it cloud, tiny little puffs that spread along the window pane. She smiled at the clouds, pretending they were in the sky and not on a leaded window pane in an English nursery.

"Get away from there," Mrs. Penny said from the corner. "You're always dirtying the window." Cordaella ran her fingers through the clouds, smearing them until nothing was left but streaky fingerprints. It hurt to smear them but she didn't want anyone else to take them from her. She had so little for herself.

"Go on with you," Mrs. Penny said irritably. "You should be in the kitchen learning something. There is plenty for you to do downstairs. Lady Eton always needs the help."

"Then why don't you go," Cordaella said, her brow furrowed as she jammed her hands into the yellow and brown sleeves of her gown. She hated these colors. Hated this dress. Of course it had been one of Elisabeth's. Almost all of her clothes had come from Elisabeth's wardrobe.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." She left the window and walked through the door and down the three flights of stairs to the great hall. She could hear her uncle's voice coming from the solar.

Pressing her ear to the solar door, she tried to hear with whom he was speaking.

Since it seemed like she would have to stay here, at least for a few years, she had given up pretending that she would be able to return to Scotland soon. There was no one in Scotland to take her. She had no other family but this, not that the Earl was her family. He was only an uncle by marriage, married to Cordaella's Aunt Charlotte, the eldest of the three Macleod sisters. But everything was so different here. Peculiar. Like the way the Earl spoke to his children, and the indifference he showed Elisabeth. Cordaella couldn't help comparing the Earl with her father. She couldn't imagine her father ignoring her simply because she was a girl.

And being a girl meant that she couldn't take fencing lessons with the boys. Instead, she must learn to sew, or stitch, whichever it was with the needle and spool of silk thread. Even the clothes seemed designed to keep her from moving quickly, the layers, sometimes three of them, weighting her down, making it hard to lift her arms or pull up the skirts to climb. It was nearly impossible to run now, the endless folds of fabric catching between her legs, trailing behind her in the dirt. Lady Eton said she musn't run anyway, explaining that Cordaella was too old—marriage being but five or six years away—and Cordaella wrinkled her nose. _Marriage?_ How strange the English were. Why should she care about marriage? She was only nine.

She pressed her ear closer to the door, listening to the discussion—it was still the Earl talking, more about his business with merchants overseas, something that the Earl called exporting and importing.

Her uncle was awfully long-winded. He could go on for hours and she guessed it was Philip inside, enduring another of the Earl's lectures on improving trade. She had learned enough by standing outside doors to know that the Earl owned three ships and had arranged trade agreements with a port called Lisbon and another called Barcelona. She was intrigued by the idea of ships carrying goods from one country to the next. Although she had never seen a ship, she knew that they looked like long houses with sails and decks and chambers below for the sailors. And better yet, ships sailed on the ocean, and ever since she was a wee mite of a child she wanted to see the ocean, to see water so big that it stretched as far at the eye could see, blue waves with white crests breaking against the shore.

Inside the solar, the Earl was still announcing his plans, something about visiting Italy in the spring. He was talking about being competitive, and needing to carry more goods at a cheaper price. Money, he said, could be made that way. She didn't hear Philip's question but heard Eton answer, "Yes, in theory, but in practice there are also innumerable opportunities for disaster. Storms. Disease. Fire. War. Robbery." She imagined the Earl to be at his table littered with maps and record books, his writing quill lying on its side, dribbling ink across one ledger.

"When you go away next time—" Philip began, clearly a question in his voice.

"Yes?" the Earl was waiting.

"I was wondering—" and again Philip's voice failed him.

"Yes?"

"It's just that I thought—or hoped that—"

"What?" Eton slapped the table with his palm. "What do you want?"

"Books." Philip could scarcely bring himself to speak. "More books."

"God in Heaven! You do try my patience."

"I am sorry, Father."

" _I am sorry, Father!_ " Eton mimicked, his voice high and quavering. "Philip, I thought you might share my interest in the business, have some curiosity about maritime trade. Now ships—" he said, sounding as if he were tapping something on the table, "—they change everything. Sea trade is more fascinating than anything I've ever dabbled in before. Everything is still new, open to exploration, ready for growth. We can be a part of it, Phil, we can take a piece of it, make it ours. What do you think? Eh?"

"I am glad for you, Father. Very glad."

"Is that all?" the Earl boomed. "Don't you find it exciting?"

"Yes, Father. Very exciting."

"Crock of shit!"

"Father?"

"It is a crock of shit, Philip. And you know it. You don't mean a thing you say."

Cordaella heard a thud followed by a high splinter of glass. It sounded as if the Earl had swept everything off his table. "Leave them!" Eton shouted. "You don't care what happens to the business, so don't pretend to care about the books. Go on—" he shouted even more angrily than before, "—get out."

Cordaella turned and ran up the stairs before the door opened. She didn't know where to go; she didn't want Philip to know she had heard everything. She peeped into the nursery and saw that it was empty. Mrs. Penny must have gone down the backstairs to the kitchen or to the privy in the tower. Cordaella shut the door and hid on the other side of her bed.

Moments later, the nursery door was flung open and Philip threw himself on his bed. She could see his thin wrists where the sleeves of his coat fell back. Although three years older than she, he wasn't much bigger, and she felt sorry for him, sorry for the smallness of his hands and the narrowness of his shoulders. She listened as he cried, wondering if she should go to him. "Philip?" she whispered after several minutes passed.

He didn't speak, his shoulders still heaving.

"Can I come sit with you?" she asked.

He sat up quickly, trying to wipe the traces of tears from his face. "How long have you been here?"

"Just a moment, and hardly that," she said, not wanting to hurt him. He had such tender feelings. She crawled over her bed to his and gingerly sat down next to him. "What is the matter? What has happened?"

"My father," he said, rubbing his eyes. "He can be so hateful."

"He doesn't understand you, does he? All he wants to talk about are his ships." She looked at his profile, the slender nose and boyish mouth. She wondered if he looked like his mother, because he didn't take after the Earl, and he was more slender, fairer, than his brother or sister.

"You are so different from Elisabeth," he said with a short laugh, a hiccup in his voice. "She wouldn't care if I cried myself to death...not that men should cry. You mustn't tell anyone," he urged, taking one of her hands in his. "Swear to me you won't."

"I swear." He released her hand and she tucked it under her, sitting on it. "But you needn't make me swear. Of course I wouldn't tell anyone. And who should I tell? Your sister doesn't talk to me and Eddie—" she laughed, "—he is such a baby."

"Spoiled, he is."

Cordaella nodded. "But you're not. If anything, your father is too hard on you. Has he always be so strict?"

"I am the eldest. And Father thinks I should be like him. He wants me to fight and go on expeditions. He thinks it is wonderful to have a business. Make money." Philip shook his head. "I will never be like that. I don't care for wealth. Not at all. I wish I were the second son, and maybe then I could be a scholar. Join the Church or go to Queen's College."

"Like Mr. Pole?" she said, horrified.

He smiled weakly. "Well, not exactly like Mr. Pole."

"I think he's dreadful. And what do you want more books for?"

He stared at her for a long moment, his mouth pursing. "You were listening, weren't you? Outside the door again!"

She shook her head. "No, no I wasn't."

"Do you swear, Cordy?"

She looked him in the eye, his as gray as hers, and it was like seeing her eyes, the expression nearly the same. She dropped her head. "I did listen."

"Why, Cordy?" his tone was full of reproach.

"I wanted to know about your father's ships. I wanted to learn more about Italy." She answered nervously. "I know it is wrong. But I listen because no one will tell me anything—"

"Of course they won't," he interrupted with a hint of impatience, "you're a girl. It isn't your place."

"I don't want to be a girl then."

"You have no choice. That is fate."

"Rubbish!" she turned away from him, her jaw jutting obstinately. "I do not have to be a girl and be made ridiculous by these stupid skirts—" she flicked the top gown disdainfully. "In the Highlands it didn't matter."

"But it does matter here, Cordy." He leaned forward to get a look into her face. "Why is it so hard for you? Elisabeth—"

"And Elisabeth, yes, she does mind being a girl. If you'd only look at her you'd see. But none of you look, you don't see how lonely it is for her or Lady Eton or even me. But Elisabeth, she wants your father to like her, to notice her. She cries when no one is looking. If she wasn't so mean to me I'd feel sorry for her."

"When you grow up, it will be different. You will have important roles, important decisions to make."

"Such as?"

"Babies. Minding the staff. The kitchen and all the functions of the estate."

She pushed off the bed and stood up, a slight figure in the vast yellow and brown embroidered dress. "Well, I don't want babies and why should I mind the staff? They know their job better than I do." She looked at him hard, as if trying to see the way he saw these tasks. "And needlework! Needlework is awful. All I do is pierce my finger."

"But what of the linens? The tapestries that will need mending?"

She shuddered. "Stop it. I would rather sit in the solar and listen to talk about ships. I think it sounds much more exciting."

Philip pulled her fingers from her sleeve where she had been picking at the embroidery threads. "You will ruin the dress if you're not careful, and then Mrs. Penny will be after you again."

"But I hate yellow." She plucked at the neckline of her houppelande, the collar too tight, the ruffle rubbing the skin raw beneath her chin.

"Yellow is a bright color."

"Not this one. And why put yellow with brown? It makes me think of mud. Or mustard." She made a face. "Of course Mrs. Penny would make me wear this gown every week. I think she does it on purpose."

"What would you rather wear?"

"Blue!" she answered promptly, smiling at him, one of her rare and dazzling smiles. "Like the rivers. Like sky."

He smiled, drawn in by her whimsy, her wonderful spirit and defiance. "I should have known."

"Have you seen the ocean before, Philip?"

"Only once, although in London I've walked along the Thames River. It is an awfully big river and it leads out to the ocean. All the ships dock there from the continent."

"Is it beautiful?"

He grinned. "No, it stinks. All the privies run off into the river. And after a rain, it is worse."

"Why don't they bury it instead?"

"Because it is London and the streets are all cobbled. How could you bury so much waste?"

"I don't think I'd like London very much," she said. "Not if—" she broke off at the sound of heavy footsteps outside the door. "Mrs. Penny," she mouthed.

He nodded and they jumped up to dash towards the door. "Meet you downstairs," he cried, as the door was flung open and they ran under the fat arms of the nurse and to the head of the stairs.

She had thrown another book at Mr. Pole after he refused to let her participate in the day's lessons. He said she wasn't prepared. She knew she was. "What did I do wrong?" she demanded, furious that he would single her out again.

"You don't know your Greek letters," he answered.

"But you haven't taught me Greek," she replied.

"And so you aren't ready to learn. Go work on your letters by the window, sit with Mrs. Penny and Eddie." That's when she had picked up her book and thrown it at him, again hitting him squarely on the head. Mr. Pole sent Mrs. Penny to the Earl and now she had to go face her uncle in the solar.

"Why?" Was all the Earl of Derby said when she walked in.

Cordaella swallowed. "He calls me a bastard. He won't let me learn with the others. It isn't fair," she said, her voice falling to a whisper.

"And so you dare to strike him, a man? A _scholar_?"

"But he is rude. He says cruel things to me."

The Earl lifted the switch. "Lie across the stool," he said emotionlessly, as if eager to return to his maps and papers. Tears started to her eyes. "I will apologize," she said hastily.

"Of course you will. After I give you ten. I will even let you count them for me. Practice for your numbers," he added, waiting for her to take her position on the stool. Reluctantly she crossed the floor and knelt next to the low stool. "Pull up your skirts, but leave the chemise down. We don't need any cuts or infection."

Her lower lip trembled as she leaned across the stool, her skirts pulled over her back. She could feel the Earl lift them higher. "You may begin counting now," he said bringing the switch down on her back, the thin strip of leather whistling as it swung through the air.

"One," she said, wincing. The switch fell again. "Two." The tears trickled from her lashes to her cheeks and she squeezed her eyes tight as the switch came down for a third blow. She counted every blow just as he had told her, her back and fanny blistering hot, her stomach so sick she was sure she would be ill right there in the solar.

"Now go apologize. Immediately." He stood back and after setting the switch back on the table, wiped the perspiration from his hand. "Next time you will earn yourself twenty. You can count that high, can't you, Cordaella?"

She could see why Philip hated him so much. How dare he treat her this way? But she hid her anger and resentment. "Yes, my lord," she whispered.

"Good day, Cordaella."

"Good day," she said, clenching her jaw to still the angry retort, "my lord."

After leaving his lordship behind, Philip led Cordaella through the cold, damp tunnel below the castle, the space so narrow that they could only walk single file. It was dark in the tunnel and trickles of moisture seeped through the stones. If it weren't for Philip's candle, she would have tripped a dozen times. At last they came to a small door in the smooth wall and Philip pushed it open. He pulled himself up over the ledge and then helped Cordaella crawl out.

She sucked in the clean fresh air. "Where are we?"

"Take a look around."

She turned slowly about, gazing at the mossy trunks and pale green ferns growing at the foot of the trees. "Why, we're outside Peveril!" She ran her fingers lightly across the soft moss on one tree trunk, the texture something between goose's down and cook's best custard.

"Yes," he said, grinning. "Past the walls and gate without a problem. What would the guards think?"

"I think your father would have a fit."

"But he doesn't know," he said, carefully closing the tunnel door, hiding the opening beneath a wild tangle of ivy and vines.

"Has this always been here?" She stared at the hidden entrance, intrigued.

"I think so. The tunnel must be a good two hundred years old at any rate. It was probably built back when the castle and walls were just wood."

"What is it for?"

"Defense, I suppose. Escape in times of siege or war. Means for provisions." He looked from the old castle to the forest. "And if you continue this way, straight through the wood, you'll come to a clearing. That's the mews, of course. Someday you'll have a chance to see my father's birds. He doesn't hunt them now as often as he once did."

"You have a falconer?"

"But of course," he said. He then saw what she was getting at and he flushed. "I see, you mean like _him_ —" and he floundered, at loss for words.

"Yes, like my father."

He didn't know how to answer her and so he changed the subject. "I don't think anyone else knows about the tunnel. It has always been my secret." He looked at her uncertainly. "Do you think you can make it over these trees? I have a favorite log I sit on, but it is a rather rocky climb."

She hiked up her skirts. "I like a rocky climb." She smiled at him and stalked into the woods, climbing over the first of the rotting tree stumps and jumping down past the great mound of wild mushrooms. "This is lovely," she said, taking care not to smash any of the purple wildflowers blooming between fallen branches.

He pulled himself up on top of the big tree that lay across the small clearing, making room on the log for her. She threw one leg over the trunk and then another, settling her skirts over the smooth bark. "I love it here," she said, drawing a great breath. "Why didn't you show me before?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"You might have even liked my mountain." She turned to look at him, wispy blonde hair falling across his forehead. "Ben Nevis," she said it as if it were sacred. "No one but us lived on it."

"Your mountain? But surely you didn't own it."

She wished he hadn't said that. It made her feel bad, feel small. Of course they didn't own it. People didn't own mountains. They couldn't own nature or fairy faith. It was all just part of things. "No one lived on it but us." Her chest hurt when she answered, as if suddenly reminded of all that she had lost.

He leaned on his arm, rubbing his cheek against his jupon. "Sometimes I feel sorry for you," he said softly. "You don't like it here much, do you?"

"No." She didn't even like him very much at that moment. He didn't understand anything.

"And yet the others envy you. Can you believe that?"

"Envy me? Who?"

"Elisabeth. You must know that she is terribly jealous. She wants to be terribly rich and Grandfather Macleod left you everything—his estate, the lands, the income."

"Absolutely everything?" she repeated, feeling rather dense. They had never talked about her inheritance before.

"Well, almost everything. But you weren't supposed to inherit. My Uncle Dunbar was first, and then his sons. But they all died at Angus the same day. And so you, who were only supposed to have enough for a small dowry, inherited all."

"But what about you? And Elisabeth and Eddie?"

He shrugged. "We were given fifty thousand sterling each. It isn't a significant amount, not when compared to your four or five hundred thousand. I don't know. It may be more, particularly if the port in Aberdeen is developed."

"I had no idea." She sighed. "No wonder Elisabeth hates me." She ran her fingers along her skirts until they reached the hem, her stockings soft and warm. She had never worn stockings until she came here. But then, she had never worn underskirts and chemises, or shoes with silver buckles. "No one has ever hated me before," she said after a moment's hesitation. "I don't like it. It hurts."

"I know how it feels. I think my father hates me."

"He can't hate you." She squinted, trying to see him in the glare of late afternoon sun. "He is your father."

"Fathers don't have to love their children. They don't even have to like them. I have heard of fathers—mothers, too—who never see their children. Especially in families like ours. Many fathers and mothers live somewhere else."

Her brow wrinkled, black eyebrows rising curiously. "Then who raises the children?"

"Wet nurses." He could tell she didn't understand. "Nurses like Mrs. Penny." His voice took on a practical tone. "Then later come tutors and lessons and apprenticeship."

"Will you be apprenticed?"

"Eddie will. I'll be assigned as a page to a knight or squire. Eventually I'll earn my knighthood and so forth."

"I think I'd rather be a knight than an apprentice."

"But it's not so easy, Cordy." Philip swung one leg from the tree trunk. "I don't get to choose. My father will decide everything. He'll even decide when I must leave Peveril and when—if ever—I can return. I hope to inherit, but nothing is certain."

"You must be rich."

His laughter was low, almost mocking. "Rich? Of course. The Etons are new nobility...all we have is money. And that's Father's only ambition. If we were a different family, if we were an old family like the Percys or Beauforts, we would have many estates and hundreds of acres of land. There would be places at court for both Eddie and me.

Instead we've only our name and our purse, and I can tell you, from what I've heard Mr. Pole say, that it's the Eton purse the King wants, not the family."

"That's terrible," she said. "It sounds so unhappy."

"Everything about Peveril is unhappy." He hid his face momentarily, his lashes fluttering against the skin on his hand. "Perhaps that's why Elisabeth is so hard on you. She is miserable, too."

"But why? Is it your father? Aunt Mary?"

"I can't say. I don't know enough people to figure out if the whole world is unhappy, or if it is the English, or just this family. But I realize it is duty—our responsibilities—which weigh so heavy, which confine us. The only thing I've learned is that complaining changes nothing. It only begs for more trouble."

"You make the future sound wretched."

His lashes lowered, his mouth trembling imperceptibly. "I know," he said quietly, feeling the weight of his thirteen years, "sometimes I think it is. But that is why books are good." He gripped the tree trunk with his hands, wanting to hold on forever. "Books do not speak loudly and they do not interrupt. They can't make fun of you and they wait patiently until you understand. Even difficult translations—" he said, half smiling, "—even they give you time."

"Reading books?"

"Yes."

"But reading is hard."

"It only takes practice," he answered warmly. "And after a while you forget you are reading. Instead you just live."

"In books?"

"Yes, you live in them," he said with a frown, "well, not in their covers, of course, but through the pages."

"You must be a very good reader." She sighed, wishing there were more days like this, more hours to be outside, unattended. "Would Mrs. Penny be furious if she knew we were here? Without a chaperone?"

"Yes." He bit into his lip, adopting his father's mannerism without knowing it. "And I hate being punished."

"So do I. My papa never beat me."

"No?"

She remembered the whipping from two weeks earlier and how painful it was to sleep. For over a week she had to lie on her stomach and it hurt just dressing, pulling the chemises over her head. "No," she said, thinking of her father's hard features, the shock of black hair falling in his eyes. "He said I learned well enough from a hard look or sharp word. Or making my own mistakes. Like the time I burned myself." She smiled wistfully. "I never did go near the fire again."

"Cordy?" He didn't look up. "What happened to him?"

Her face flushed hot and heavy, the skin feeling stretched, swollen. "Cordy?" he whispered. "Do you mind me asking?"

She forced her voice to come out quiet and even, though it hurt her to speak. "They killed him." She tried not to think about it, not to picture it. "There were three men and they murdered him with knives."

He shuddered. "How do you know there were three men?"

"I heard them. I watched some." Her voice was small, cold.

"But what did they want?"

"I don't know." She stared at the canopy of trees above them, the blue of the sky appearing through breaks in the leafy green. The sky seemed far away here, unlike the mountains where the sky had always seemed so close, even the sun and moon had hung just above her head. "I don't want to talk about it anymore," she whispered, the fear chilling her heart, numbing her legs and arms. "I don't like thinking about it. It makes me sad."

"Yes." He sat up and shivered, looking away from her. "I agree. It makes me sad just thinking about it, too."

Simon Pole left the children momentarily on pretext of taking a walk. But they knew better. He was on the chamber pot, and would probably be away a good while. Philip, Elisabeth, and Cordaella looked at each other for a long moment, considering their unexpected reprieve. Eddie was in the nursery taking his afternoon nap.

"I am sick of learning," Elisabeth grumbled, closing her book with a bang.

Cordaella glanced up and said nothing. She waited for Philip to speak. Inevitably, Philip intervened, carrying the conversation and easing tensions. "Just another hour," he said to Elisabeth, "and then Eddie and I take our fencing lesson."

Cordaella's face crumpled. If the boys were fencing it meant that they—she and Elisabeth—would be stitching. "Ha!" Elisabeth said, with a triumphant little laugh. "There is something for you, Cordy. Embroidery. Tapestries." She knew how much her cousin hated sewing. "Just wait until you have to stitch an entire one by yourself. It will take you a year, at least."

"At least," Cordaella agreed, returning to her book.

"You can't read," Elisabeth said interrupting, "so don't try to pretend." She stared at Cordaella, ignoring her brother. "Why do you bother with it, anyway? You were too old to begin with and you'll never really need to know how."

"All ladies should know how to read." Philip stood up and restlessly paced the floor. "It's important."

"I don't agree. It's silly to fill your head with stories from old civilizations. Things that happen now are more important." Elisabeth fidgeted with her skirts. "I would rather read about court and what is happening in London. I want to hear about the expedition in France. Those stories are exciting—not ancient epics."

Cordaella rose up on her heels, looking longingly out the window. "Why can't we go outside?"

"Because Mr. Pole told us to read twenty pages each. I haven't even read seven," Philip said.

"I don't care what old Mr. Pole said." Elisabeth rose. "And I am sick of this chamber."

"Then let's go out," Cordaella proposed.

"We can't." Philip stubbornly buried his nose in the book.

"Fusspot!" Elisabeth said, sticking her tongue out at him. "You are a stuffy old man already, Phil."

"Do come, Philip," Cordaella urged. "Let us go have a look outside. It would be so nice to walk—"

"But we'll get in trouble."

"We will get in trouble anyway," Elisabeth retorted.

"She's right, Philip," Cordaella said, suddenly desperate to be outside and free. She longed for the mountains with the open space and the huge sky and the smell of heather and pine. "And I am going," she said, putting the book down. "I don't care if I do get in trouble."

"Me, too." Elisabeth pulled her cloak over her dress. "I will go with you. Besides, I haven't had a whipping in years."

Reluctantly, Philip rose. "But where will we walk?" He and Elisabeth turned expectantly to their cousin.

Cordaella was still staring out the window and little by little her expression lifted, the dark brows arching as a thought came to her. "Why," she said with a quick laugh, "perhaps we can try the mews."

"The mews?" Elisabeth said, darting a hasty look at her brother. "To the falconer's? But how would we get past the gatekeepers? You know they won't let us out without Father's permission." She was still watching her brother who had picked up his book again. "Maybe we shouldn't," she said after a strained moment. "We would get caught."

Cordaella thought of her last whipping and looked out the window at the wonderful sky, the clouds high and thin against the deep blue. She would have to learn to appreciate the sky from here. Slowly she sat down again, frightened by the realization she was becoming like the others. Just a sheep. No mind of her own.

Supper was always eaten in the great hall, the earl and his family sitting at the main table on the dais. Cordaella sat near the end of her uncle's table, directly across from Mr. Pole. Mr. Pole was the only one of Peveril's staff who sat at the earl's table. She wished she didn't have to sit across from Mr. Pole, it made her sick just to watch him. It wasn't that he was messy; he was just the opposite, nibbling on the venison, picking at the duck, his bites so small that it took him forever to finish anything. He could make the fish course stretch for fifteen minutes, and she thought dinner was already too long, some nights lasting two hours or more.

"Ladies should not stare," Mr. Pole said, wiping his mouth with his hand towel before returning his attention to his plate. He was still flaking the smoked trout from the bones. Cordaella dropped her head but lifted it moments later to watch him take a bite. The fish barely filled his spoon. She sighed. Why did she have to sit _here_? "Perhaps you could use this time," Mr. Pole proposed, lifting his fork again, "to review your Latin conjugations. You haven't mastered them at all."

"I'm not in the nursery," she answered tartly, frowning at him over her cup of watery wine.

"Perhaps you should still be eating there. Mrs. Penny and Edward could use the company."

Cordaella balled her hands in her lap. "Why do you keep telling me to join them? I'm not a baby like Eddie and I don't need a nurse."

"You certainly could use manners. You talk like a barbarian and eat as if you've never had a hot meal before this one. 'Tis no wonder your uncle put you here with me. But what you need, I simply cannot teach. There aren't enough hours in the day."

"I think it is a pity you haven't men your age to pick on," she said, her voice cold. "Queen's College must be ashamed of your learning—"

"Studies," he said, interrupting her, "it is called studies."

"I don't care!"

"But that, child, is obvious." She glared at him, hating his pale skinny face with the chin that seemed to unexpectedly disappear. He had no lips either, just a small hole for a mouth. No wonder he was called _Mr. Pole_.

"What now?" he sighed, looking up from his plate.

"Nothing," she said. "It is not something I imagine you'd want to hear."

"Good," he replied, allowing himself a small smile while he took another bite of his fish. "Delicious, isn't it?"

The summer had given way to autumn and from the castle Cordaella could see the farmers harvesting the barley. Peveril's bailiff, a Mr. Smith, would ride out every day to oversee the yoking of the plows, the reapers, and the threshers. Today, Cordaella could see him, with one of the castle's scribes, riding past the woods and the one small meadow to the first of the fields. She thought she would like that job. He was always coming and going and she fancied that he would always have diversions in the village.

Fortunately this afternoon they were excused from lessons, and Cordaella planned to escape the nursery as soon as she could slip past Mrs. Penny, who looked as if she were about to fall asleep any minute. Edward was riding back and forth on his red painted hobby horse, a gift from his father after the Earl's latest return from London, and Elisabeth was preparing to bathe in Lady Eton's chamber. And since Philip was downstairs playing chess with Mr. Pole in the solar, it left Cordaella free to explore the woods.

The moment Mrs. Penny's eyes closed and Eddie's back was turned to her, Cordaella tiptoed to the door and raced down the hall for the southwest stairs. This was the stairwell that Philip had used to reach the tunnel. It took her some doing, but she finally discovered the spring that opened the trap door, and she lifted the step up to slide through the crawl space and replaced the stair step. She had forgotten to bring a candle and for a moment she stared sightlessly ahead, panicked by the darkness. She took a step and then another, moving her toes forward to search for steps or obstacles. What if the tunnel led in two directions? What if she took a wrong turn? She shuddered, wishing now she had never come. She might get lost and no one would know where she was. She could very well die here.

_Take a step_ , she told herself, and use your hands to guide you. _Pretend you are blind. Pretend you must climb the mountain in a snow storm._ It seemed like forever, but she thought she saw a sliver of light ahead. She walked a little more quickly, her hands scraping a rough stone as she hurried. She grasped the handle on the door and pushed, then pushed again. Slowly it gave way and light poured into the darkness. Climbing out of the tunnel she shut the door, carefully hiding the hinges with the ivy tendrils. She wouldn't need to find the opening; she wouldn't be going back that way. It had been scarier than she remembered and it would be better to get in trouble than have to do it alone again.

The ground was damp from the last rain so Cordaella lifted the hem of her skirts, tying them up around her waist. As she walked, leaves crunched beneath her shoes and she took bigger steps, hopping from one foot to the other. As she hopped she sang, a little Highland chanter about a handsome man cursed by a fairy woman. Her favorite part of the chanter was when the young man died heartbroken on the fairy knoll. She liked the ending and sang it three times through until she glimpsed the small square roof of the mews. The chimney was smoking. She skidded to a stop, her soft shoes scuffed with mud. It was real after all: the falconer, the birds, the mews.

Sometimes she thought she had imagined it all, the stories her father had told her about his early years at the Macleod mews. He told her he had lived in a stone cottage, the building even smaller than their Highland croft. She had laughed at the idea, laughed at the picture of her tall father stooping to get in and out of such a squat building. Her father. The falconer.

"Papa," she whispered, her voice trembling. It had been so long since she had said his name, so long since she had been happy. She could still see his face clearly and hear his rough voice. Remembering him was easy. Letting go of him would be the difficult part.

But she lived here now, at Peveril. In England.

England. Even the name sounded strange. Perhaps it was her way of saying it that made it sound so foreign. But it was foreign to her; as was everything in this place. She suspected it would always feel this way. Some things couldn't be undone, like taking the mountains out of a person. Her papa and the winters and Culross had taught her too much. She wasn't a sheep, not like the English. Not like the Etons. She would rather die than be like the Etons. Resolutely, Cordaella straightened her shoulders and let down her skirts, suddenly seeming much older than her nine and a half years. She turned around to walk back the way she had come.

In London, the Earl of Derby met for the second time in six months with King Henry IV. Bolingbroke, as the King was affectionately called, suffered increasingly from poor health, his bad days more frequent, limiting him to bed rest. But on his good days, and this was one of them, he tried to ride and hunt, meet with his council, consult with advisors.

Bolingbroke had not felt well enough yesterday to rise, and postponed all meetings until the next day. Fortunately, this morning he woke without the pain in his legs and he felt clear, alert. Now he convened in one of the Tower of London's smaller halls to meet with the Earl of Derby. They were discussing England's trade relationships and the King had been attempting to analyze why England's agreements were not as profitable as her European counterparts.

Eton believed that England wasn't utilizing her routes to full advantage, relying too heavily at the moment on the Italians.

"What do you propose then?" Henry said, oblivious to his scribe and bevy of advisors clustered behind him. "Limit our treaty with Italy?"

"No." Eton enjoyed these meetings tremendously. "Rather we use our own ships and develop our own routes. If you would take a look at these maps—" The Earl drew the King and the three chief finance advisors to the table, "—you will note that Italy, Aragon, and Castile dominate particular routes and ports. For example, Italy's heaviest trade is within the Mediterranean Sea. Italy is the only country that ventures as far as Constantinople and Tripoli. While their ships dock at some thirty-odd ports, the majority of their trade takes place between Cadiz and Naples."

"But the Italian carracks dock in London!" interjected Thomas Beaufort.

"Yes," the Earl agreed patiently, for he loved this subject better than any, "and that is the extent of Italy's trade with England. Do they only dock in London because that is the only English port?" He shook his head. "We have a number of good harbors—Chester, Bristol, Plymouth, Southampton, Hull, and Newcastle."

"But exports—does no one export from any other English port or must everything pass through London?" asked Beaufort.

"The Hansards sometimes stop in Newcastle and Hull. The Castilians, due to their proximity, prefer Bristol and Southampton." Eton traced the routes with his finger, tapping England's southern coastline. "We have harbors, we have ships, we have exports. But we lack the cooperation between port and merchant that I have seen in other countries." He stood up. "Expanding our production and distribution of exports would significantly improve commerce. Not only does trade boost income—" Eton knew the King was listening closely now—"it also raises taxes. Each increment of growth, is an increment of revenue for your treasury."

Bolingbroke said nothing for a long minute, studying the map and the black arrows that had been carefully drawn from one port to another, indicating the main directions of sea trade. "We develop our own ports and our own routes..." His voice drifted off as he considered the opportunities, "...which does not affect the trade agreements, therefore we are not breaking any contracts and we are not subject to penalty or regulation." He continued to study the map. "Which ports do you suggest we develop first?"

"Our Chester to Dublin, and Bristol to Cork," Eton said, naming two important Irish sea towns. "Only Spain calls at Cork. No one calls in Dublin."

"What about the coast of Portugal?" The King asked.

"And the northwestern ports of Castile?" Beaufort added, squinting at the map and the intricate arrow patterns.

"Portugal won't trade with Castile, and trades only to a limited degree with Italy." Eton felt warm, relaxed. His mind was clear, every thought lucid.

"Meaning, Portugal might welcome a new treaty—" Bolingbroke smiled, realizing the considerable possibilities. "And Castile...another future possibility."

"Exactly," the Earl of Derby agreed, thinking of Aberdeen and its harbor, along with Cordaella and her inheritance. When the girl married...depending on whom she married...Eton smiled. She could be of infinite value, an asset, unlike his own poor plain Elisabeth. It had been a stroke of luck—or was it genius?—bringing Cordaella to Peveril. She would more than pay for her keep. She would make his.

## CHAPTER FOUR

April 1412

In protest to the girl's threat, the plump elderly woman stood, her full skirts rustling beneath the simple blue houppelande. With a hasty motion, Mrs. Penny tucked the needlework into her skirts, folding her hands over her ample stomach. "His Grace will not stand for your impertinence. Neither will I."

Cordaella turned disdainfully from the window. "Rubbish!" she cried.

"You grow wilder by the day, Cordaella Buchanan."

"And you always say the same things."

"Do not forget your place. You show too little gratitude for his lordship's kindness."

"Oh, he is kind, isn't he?" Cordaella settled back down on the stool in front of the window, her arms propping her up on the sill. "In the six years I've been here—"

"Don't start on that again. I don't want to hear it. If you can't be pleasant, Cordaella, you needn't speak at all." Mrs. Penny placed a hand on either side of her high back chair and eased down into the cushioned seat with an appreciative groan. "Your gratitude ought to assume a more pleasing demeanor. And even if you don't feel grateful, you don't need to wear it on your face." She tugged the needlework out of her blue waistband and fanned her flushed face with the scrap of linen. "You are too sour. It's almost as if you want everyone to know what a pitiful life you've had."

"I want pity from no one—"

"Now I'll grant you, it is a pitiful life—"

"Not even from you." She concluded firmly, giving the nanny a look that would have wounded a more sensitive soul. "Besides, this castle is full of fools—the exception being Lord Philip—and I shall not pay lip service to the Earl or the younger children. Eddie is as much a baby as the day I arrived and goodness, he's nearly twelve. Elisabeth—"

The nanny interrupted her. "The Etons have treated you admirably considering you were orphaned."

"Mrs. Penny." Cordaella looked at the old nurse as if amazed. "My uncle took me in because he profits from my warship. He receives all income from my lands, all revenues and taxes from Aberdeen and the various castles in the shire."

"Yours?" The nanny sniffed. "I can't help asking what everyone was asking. Why you? Why did the Duke Macleod leave everything to you? Philip, he is the one that ought to resent you, but does he? No, he is like a lamb. Always thinking of you—"

"Philip is good," Cordaella admitted.

"Philip is more than good. He is an angel and you are ungrateful."

Cordaella looked sideways at the old woman. "The Earl didn't have to take me in. And he didn't have to profit from the Aberdeen income. Until I marry, he takes everything."

"See, you can be guaranteed an excellent marriage. You will take into the marriage an outstanding dowry. Elisabeth. Tell! Now she knows she won't ever have that kind of dowry." The nanny adjusted her girth as she shifted her immense weight on the cushion. "So why are you so sour today? This is more like the girl I knew six years ago, not like the young lady of fifteen who can have sweet manners and a pleasant face."

"Perhaps I only wanted an invitation to join the party," Cordaella answered more wistfully, watching the garden banquet again. From the window she could spot Elisabeth's pale yellow damask gown swish through the guests, the dark gold embroidery on the yoke and sleeves glistening in the sun.

"His Grace has his reasons for your not going. Besides, it's your pride that eats at you most." The grizzled old head wagged slowly, perspiration beading her upper lip.

"Your pride will get the better of you, if you're not careful, miss. I've seen it before. I've said it before."

"But why couldn't I go?"

The nanny shrugged. "Now that I don't know. Maybe you should ask him."

"I did. And he said I'm of an age for marrying but there are none here for me to marry." She had hated his answer, hated his smugness. He was still so pompous. It made her sick.

"There you have it, and instead of being grateful that he is looking after you, you sit here moping."

"I am not."

"You are. As sure as my name is Agnes Penny, you have the sulks." Mrs. Penny rethreaded her needle with red.

"I even dressed," Cordaella whispered, toying with the wide sleeves that fell back from the wrist, exposing the creamy white chemise beneath. The violet and gray surcoat was cut narrow through the shoulders and bosom, falling in long loose folds from pleats at her breasts. "He doesn't have to be ashamed of me. I wouldn't behave badly."

"Maybe he fears you'd draw more attention than his own. Who can say?" Mrs. Penny jabbed the needle through the fabric, pulling gently on the thread. "You don't try to look at it from his point of view. The fact is, the issue is, that you aren't..." and she hesitated, searching for the right words, "or, what I mean is, you are a problem."

"A problem?" Cordaella leaned forward against the glass until her brow rested on the thick pane. She watched as three ladies met on the lawn, their gowns the colors of peacock blue, vivid green, and buttercup yellow, the fabric swirling as they talked and laughed. Two men sauntered past, bowing, laughing, their jupons just as bright, more blues and greens with leggings of contrasting color. "I've never wanted to be a problem. But sometimes it has been so hard."

Mrs. Penny attempted to soften her tone. "Come, child, come sit by me. You haven't finished your cider."

"But it's cold now. And I don't really care for it." Cordaella's heavy plaits of hair tumbled over her shoulders, falling from the coil on her head, bringing the headpiece of rolled fabric and cut leaves down.

"At least let me fix your hair."

Cordaella watched as the cluster of ladies moved from the middle of the lawn to the white tent pitched close to the hundred year old oak tree. The giant limbs of the tree supported one side of the white canvas. That was where he was supposed to be, this special visitor, the Irishman who had been recently knighted by the King.

"Cordaella?"

She stood up and went to Mrs. Penny's chair where she knelt long enough to let the nanny twist the coils back up and fasten the headdress on. "There." Mrs. Penny patted her. "You look lovely again."

Cordaella didn't return to the window, taking a stool in front of the hearth instead. This had once been Eddie's seat before he was too large for anything but a regular chair. "Do you remember my Aunt Charlotte?" she asked, hugging her knees.

"Oh, yes."

"Was she happy here? Didn't she find it terribly different from Aberdeen?"

"I think your aunt accepted whatever life gave her."

"Which means she received very little, doesn't it?"

"That is not at all what I intended, miss, and you know it. Your aunt was a lovely young girl. She had spirit and intelligence and considerable charm."

"I wonder that she died so young."

Mrs. Penny bit off a bit of red thread and selected a new bobbin from her basket. "From what I know, all the Macleod daughters died young. A tragedy for the clan."

"I wish I had known them." Cordaella rose from the stool and wandered aimlessly about the chamber, touching odds and ends as she passed. The water pitcher. A pile of yarn. One of Philip's old books. No one really used the nursery anymore. She wasn't sure why she had taken refuge here today. Perhaps it was the size. Or the view. From the window she could see across the peaks, not to mention the courtyard below. "I wish there was something of them to hold onto—just for luck, or memory. Maybe it would help." She had returned to the window, her fingers on the thick bubbled glass.

"If I could, I'd give you a bit of the Macleod smile. Those sisters had the sweetest expressions..." Mrs. Penny sighed, "Oh, well, it is just as well. None of you take after your mothers—" Elisabeth interrupted her by dancing in.

"Oh, Cordy!" she cried, sinking into a chair. "You missed a wonderful party."

"Did I?" Cordaella picked up Philip's old book and settled down in a chair by the window.

"Everything was so lovely! And Sir Bran—" Elisabeth acted as if she were swooning, her small mouth pursing, "—has the most wonderful accent. I never liked the Irish before—uncouth as they are—but he seems different, doesn't he, Philip?"

Philip had quietly followed his sister through the nursery door and leaned against the hearth. His fair hair had been cut shorter, the dark blonde bangs barely sweeping his forehead. "What are you reading, Cordy?"

" _The Iliad_." She said, opening the cover and turning a page.

"Haven't you read that before?" Elisabeth made a grab for the book but Cordaella held on to it.

"I can read it again, can't I?"

"It wasn't that good the first time." Elisabeth tapped her foot against the floorboards, her expression dreamy. "Anyway, the party was lovely, and better yet, he's going to stay here for a few days. Can you believe it? He was to have journeyed back to London to join the prince, Thomas, you know, the Duke of Clarence, but instead Sir Bran will remain here. He has something to discuss with Father."

"It's actually the King's business. More trade talk." Philip bit his fingernail down low, sucking the skin where it bled. "Damn all." He looked at the small tear, "that hurts."

"You shouldn't chew your nails. It's not becoming." Elisabeth held out her own hands to admire them.

"And I," the nineteen-year-old answered firmly, biting a second nail, "do not care."

"But you will," Elisabeth retorted, "when you're married."

Cordaella set the book down. "Are you going to be married, Philip?" The thought hadn't ever crossed her mind. She wasn't sure she even liked the idea. Philip, married?

"No," he said crossly.

"We will all eventually marry." Elisabeth sat up, too excited to sit still for long, the bells on her gown tinkling gaily with every flounce she made. The pale yellow of her houppelande cast a golden glow across her face, the neckline round, the yoke heavily embroidered. She wore a string of folly bells draped across one shoulder that she played with "Philip will marry first, then me, then Eddie. And Cordaella last." Elisabeth smiled as she shook her bells. "Cordaella will be lucky to marry at all."

"Maybe not. Cordaella could be the first." Philip said, turning from them to the window. The guests were all gone; only the servants remained, tidying the lawn and packing the canvas tent.

"I don't care if I ever marry," Cordaella answered. "It is not something I look forward to."

"I can't wait to be married. I want a husband now." Elisabeth shook her bells, listening delightedly as they jingled. "I would marry Sir Bran if Father would consider it."

Mrs. Penny shot them all reproving looks. "It is not up to you to decide when you marry—or whom. I don't see why you waste your time with silly talk, considering suitors who aren't possibilities."

"Who is to say that Sir Bran—" Elisabeth protested before Philip cut her off. "Well, what, Philip? Why isn't he?"

"Come on, Beth, let's change the subject. This is a waste of time."

Elisabeth tossed her head. "Everything is meant to waste time. What else is there to do?"

"Too much in your cups, that is what I think," the nanny said suspiciously, her needle working in and out of the linen, the red thread crossing the brown pattern. "This is the last thing you need, Lady Elisabeth."

"And don't you be crabby," Elisabeth retorted, sweeping up from her chair with a luxurious stretch, the embroidered hem of her gown trailing the scuffed hardwood floor. "I don't want my mood spoiled." Elisabeth twirled, enjoying her new gown. "You should have come, Cordy. I can't believe you'd rather stay in here."

Eddie threw open the door, bounding into the room with an oath and a toss of his riding crop. "It is bloody hot for April!"

"You've been for a ride already?" Philip asked with some surprise.

"Why not? I was tired of waiting for something interesting to happen at the party. That Irishman didn't say much, did he? I found the whole thing rather boring. I had hoped to see a good joust or fight. Not even a single fencing match today."

"The party wasn't meant for dueling," Elisabeth said, "it was a luncheon, games on the lawn. Thank God for Hocktide. The festivities needn't end."

"Please, no more of that music." Eddie grimaced, his pug nose pulling up. "I've never heard such an awful lot of musicians in all my life." He sidled up to Cordaella's chair. "And you, Cordy, what did you do all day? Read poetry to Mrs. Penny?" She ignored him, turning another page in the book. "Father said you didn't come because you weren't feeling well. Is that true? You aren't well?" He leaned over her shoulder to look her in the face. "But you don't look sickly now."

"Edward!" Philip remonstrated.

"Not any more sickly than you normally do. But then I don't suppose you can help that ugly face."

Elisabeth giggled nervously. "Eddie!"

Cordaella's expression changed imperceptibly. She stared him hard in the face, taking in the slight freckles across the bridge of his nose and the gap between his front teeth. "It must be hard," she said, her tone as pleasant as could be, "to be so short, especially when you are almost twelve."

"At least I have a proper name." The boy clenched his fists.

"At least I don't have the body of an eight-year-old."

"You are stupid and ugly—"

"Eddie! Cordaella." Mrs. Penny wrung her linen. "Not another word from either of you or I'll march you straight to your father."

"Bugger to that," the boy said, glaring at the nanny. "He's meeting with some of the King's advisors. I guarantee he won't see you."

Cordaella laughed. Edward froze. "Why did you do that?" he asked, one hand rising to strike her.

"Because you're awfully funny. I can't imagine anyone taking you seriously—" She broke off when he reached across and smacked her on the face. The nursery fell silent. Cordaella pressed her hand against her cheek. After a moment's hesitation she calmly laid down the book and grabbed Eddie by the arm.

Philip stepped forward. "Cordy, he is just a baby—"

"Please, Cordaella," Mrs. Penny urged, "leave him be! Remember the scripture; it is always better to turn the other cheek."

"Why?" Cordaella's grip tightened on her cousin's upper arm. "So that he can hit me again?" Eddie tried to pull away but Cordaella was stronger.

"Mrs. Penny! Mrs. Penny!" the boy implored.

"You had no right to hit me." Cordaella's fingers dug into his arm as she brought him nearer her face.

Bravado was his only weapon still available. "I'll do it again if you don't let go—" But he was genuinely afraid now, his eyes rolling to the sides for help from the others. "Mrs. Penny! Philip!"

Cordaella let go of him so suddenly that he stumbled, falling forward. Just as he fell forward she swung her arm up, catching him full on his nose. There was a loud pop and Eddie stumbled, screaming in pain as he writhed on the floor.

"Oh, no!" Elisabeth whispered.

Philip knelt at his brother's side, his fingers swiping away the dribbling blood. "I think his nose is broken."

"Cordaella!" Mrs. Penny could barely speak. "What did you do?"

"I don't know. I didn't mean to hit him—" She sat down on the floor next to the boy, attempting to wipe up some of the blood with her skirts. "Eddie," she said, dabbing at his face, "you must lie still."

"Get away from me!" he screamed, his voice shrieking with anger and pain. "I hate you. Leave me alone."

"I'm sorry, Eddie."

He wrenched away from her, fresh blood spilling, causing him to shout again. "Damn Northern bitch—"

The nursery door was flung open. "In God's name, what is this?" A pall fell over the nursery as five pairs of eyes riveted on the Earl, Grey Eton. He was not alone. The knight, O'Brien, hovered not far behind. "Well," Eton thundered, "what happened here?"

Cordaella knew it was best to get it over with. "I broke Eddie's nose," she confessed.

Philip quickly added, "But Eddie hit her first, Father. I swear it. She didn't mean to hit him hard. He sort of fell on her hand—" Philip's voice broke and he hung his head ashamed.

Elisabeth said nothing, her face scarlet. Cordaella got to her feet, trying to hide the stains on her gown. "I am sorry. I know I shouldn't have lost my temper."

"He's just a boy," the Earl thundered. "Why can't you see that? You can't behave like this, a banshee from the Highlands. I won't stand for it."

"I know." She could feel all eyes on her and her throat closed, tightening around the apology. "I am sorry. I was wrong."

"Not only is your cousin younger, he is also your lord."

"Yes, Uncle." She fought her pride and yet once again her pride won. "But, sir, if he is my lord, why is he treated like a baby? He is nearly twelve, sir."

"Did you just question me?" Eton bent over but did not have to stoop far, Cordaella nearly reached his shoulder. She was already as tall as Philip and a good head taller than Elisabeth, although both were several years older than she. "Did you?" he persisted. Cordaella nodded, shrinking from what would come next. "Go to the solar." Eton's voice was cold. "I will be there momentarily."

The Irishman's eyes narrowed as he saw how the girl's face paled, her jaw working furiously. He thought she would protest again and for a long painful moment no one moved or scarcely seemed to breathe. Cordaella fought the urge to cry. "Yes, sir." Even if O'Brien did not, all the children knew what would happen next.

Cordaella left the solar with dry eyes. She had dug her nails into the wooden stool during the whipping rather than cry out loud. But now that she was free, she gathered her skirts into one hand and fled down the backstairs, climbing over the tall iron gate that separated the stable yard from the orchard. It was twilight and the sun had sunk low enough to leave the woods in long cool shadows. The ground was moist and as she walked, the smell of the earth rose up, warm and rich.

She walked quickly, covering the distance in fifteen minutes that might ordinarily have taken her twenty. She knotted her hands, her teeth grinding together to keep the tears away. Once in her life she might have wept. But she couldn't cry now, not when she was fifteen—nearing sixteen—and wise to the Earl's ways. There was no use holding a grudge against him. He never thought twice about administering a punishment, later expecting all to continue as it had.

Smoke swirled from the falconer's chimney, and she heard the barking of dogs. The falconer must be at home, either working with the birds or preparing a bit of supper. She was hungry herself, and now that she thought about it, cold.

It had been too long a day, one of those days that went on and on, broken only by anger and pain. Her dress, she looked down at the bodice, was stained with blood and the hem caked in dirt. She rubbed at the stains, but it was futile; the dress was ruined.

She leaned against the trunk of a birch tree, pressing her forehead against the white bark. Her arms went around the trunk and she held it to her—as if it were a mother or a father. She closed her eyes but couldn't picture the cottage anymore. It had become harder to remember her father's face, his voice. She knew she had once lived high beneath Ben Nevis, but everything had blurred, and the memories had begun to desert her.

Cold, it was cold here. Cordaella shivered and rubbed her arms briskly. She turned to look for a place to sit in the clearing. Even now she was drawn to the woods, always returning to this place as if it held some special answer, some words for her. Her father had once told her that her mother had also been drawn to clearings, treasuring a favorite place in the Angus woods in Aberdeen. Anne, he had said, believed that clearings held magical powers and that mist in a clearing meant a quest was at hand.

A quest, Cordaella thought, drawing her legs up, wrapping her arms around her knobby knees. She hated her knees. Hated her long skinny arms and legs. She needed a quest. Something big. Something grand. Something like Arthur, when he pulled the sword from the stone, she would have to accomplish something.

Blood.

Did she say it or see it? The blood on the snow. And it all came back to her, pictures rushing into her head. Culross with his matted fur. Her father with the knife in his belly, the blade slicing up towards his heart. She was sure that his death hadn't been an accident, not now, not after all she had seen in Peveril. Too many things were planned. Manipulated. Cordaella inherits. Cordaella is orphaned. She swallowed the sourness in her mouth, the first taste of hatred. She would find a way to get even.

A twig snapped behind her and she twirled around to peer into the twilight shadows of the wood. It was cooler already, a dampness in the night. The footsteps sounded again, heavy, deliberate. She slid down, hiding behind the fallen tree.

"Hello!" the voice called, the accent strange to her ear. She didn't answer him, her heart hammering. "My name is O'Brien. I am a guest of your uncle's—" Then the voice broke off, and laughed lowly. "But I don't suppose you care to hear that."

She wondered at the laughter in his voice, at the cool lilt in his voice, the words turning up and around as if each one rhymed. The knight. The Irishman. What was he doing here? She pulled herself in tighter, balling like a pillbug, attempting to become small and invisible. Maybe he'd go away.

"I didn't want to intrude on you, but I thought perhaps you might want a cloak. It is a cold night, a night with rain in the air, isn't it?" She thought his accent was like the night. The sound of his voice made her shiver again. "You can give it back to me later, tonight, after supper."

Slowly she rose from behind her tree fortress, ashamed that she was hiding, that she was found out. "Thank you," she whispered, not sure what to do next.

"Take the cloak, would you?"

She accepted it silently, pulling it on over her shoulders, fastening the ties at the front. "I was cold," she admitted. "But I didn't want to go back." She sat back down on the tree, uncomfortable and at a loss for proper etiquette. What did one say to a famous knight?

"Would you like an escort back?"

"Thank you, but no. I don't want to go yet." She was silent a minute, thinking, and then her mouth turned, her lips curving in a wry smile. "You see, my lord, I have what Mrs. Penny calls, too much pride. Right now I am telling myself I'll never go back. But I know that's not possible. I will go back...eventually."

"Wishing you could run away?" he asked, sitting down beside her.

She didn't immediately answer him, instead apologizing for the afternoon fight. "I am sorry for the scene I caused earlier. How humiliating it all is—" She quivered, remembering. "It is a hard place, sometimes. I haven't quite figured it all out." She stared down in the darkness, barely able to make out his boots. His boots were large, just like his legs. He must be very tall. "If you will forgive me for saying so, but you don't seem like a great soldier."

His laughter was quiet, like the summers in Glen Nevis. "I don't consider myself a great soldier."

"I didn't mean that you weren't great—" She broke off again. "Oh dear, nothing today is quite right. What I meant to say is that you are awfully kind. Very polite. One never pictures great soldiers being gentle. I think that's what I mean to say."

He laughed outright, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "You can't be English, not with that tongue of yours. I warrant you come from the North."

"Aye. From the Highlands, not far from Glen Nevis." She stared at her hands for a moment before asking, "How is it that an Irishman is knighted in London? You must have done something great."

"I saved Bolingbroke's son, the young Thomas of Clarence." O'Brien said dispassionately. He might have been talking about food or the weather. "His Majesty was grateful."

The night fell deeper, the woods dark, inky. She thought that he seemed to belong here, fitting right in with the darkness and the forest. His accent was soft, and she pictured the breeze rustling meadow grass, warm, sweet. She wished he would go on talking forever. "I would have knighted you, too. It must have been difficult, how you saved him."

"It was war. War means hardship."

"I don't think I'd like that very much, though I always wanted to be a soldier, even though I'd been told otherwise." She turned her cheek to look at his face. She could only see shadows and a line where his nose and brow met. "I think it must be hard killing people."

"It is."

"How do you do it?"

"Kill people?" he asked, "Or not think about it later?"

"Oh." She turned back to rest her chin on her knees. "My father was killed. I think about that a lot. I wonder how they could have done it—stabbed him—and then left him like that. I was there, but what could I do? I was little yet, and I didn't know much about healing."

"Once somebody is hurt, there isn't much anyone can do. Not after a knife wound. You mustn't blame yourself." He looked down on her. "Is that why you came here? You had nowhere else to go?"

She nodded. "But I don't like it here. Except for Philip. He is good. The others—" she said with a shrug, her silence revealing more than words ever could. "Anyway, this is where I am now."

"So you aren't going to run away?"

"Where would I go?" She knew the truth. A young girl belonged to her guardian. She supposed she was lucky she had a guardian.

He leaned over to pick up a twig, twirling it absently between his fingers. "How are you a relation to Eton? He isn't from across the border, is he?"

"No. His first wife, Charlotte, and my mother were from Aberdeen. Daughters of the late Duke Macleod."

"John Macleod?"

"Yes. There were three daughters. Charlotte was the eldest. My mother was the middle sister. Mary was the youngest. I think of them, those three sisters, and I think of my grandfather and my uncle, the one they called Dunbar the Red." She hesitated before continuing, "and then I think of my father. And they're all gone." She lifted her face to the wind, the cold stinging her cheeks. "But I can't let them go. Not yet. Not until things are right."

"Then you might find the world a very hard place."

"But of course I will. I am a Scot."

"Yes, and not so different from the Irish." He broke the branch between his fingers, the dry wood snapping.

She looked up high, past the treetops to the sliver of moon. "Do you know what the strangest part about living here is? It is being a girl. In the mountains I never thought about being a girl. I didn't even know I was one. I was just me, Cordaella. But here I am something different...like a different breed of animal. And it's not just me. I see Lady Mary treated the same way, although she is older and a real woman. But Elisabeth! She, I think, has it even worse than me. She doesn't seem to matter, at least not to anyone here. It is almost as if she didn't exist." Cordaella shivered. "And because Elisabeth matters so little, she blames me. I wish she had inherited the Macleod estates. Perhaps she would be the one guarded, protected."

"Is that why you weren't at the banquet this afternoon?"

"My uncle—" and she laughed, sounding lonelier than she would ever know, "—thinks I might draw an attack, provocation for jealousy. He seems to think everyone covets the inheritance. That I would have false suitors." She shook her head, her teeth now chattering. "Perhaps we should go back. It is late. Supper can't be long now."

He took her arm, assisting her over a stump and through the tangle of undergrowth. Color fanned her cheeks and she kept her head down, trying it ignore the warmth of his hand on her arm, of his upper hand at the small of her back as they hurried through the dark musk fragrance of the woods to the distant lights of Peveril. She heard the wind pick up, the trees singing. This is where magic happened. And she would somehow help her father, avenge his death. Like the trees and the night, she was strong.

A handmaid knocked on the bedchamber door as Cordaella tugged her muddy shoes off. "You're late, miss," Maggie rebuked as she bustled in, stirring up the fire and setting a kettle on to boil water before unlacing the stays on Cordaella's dirty houppelande.

Cordaella held her trembling hands out to the fire, grateful for the warmth. "I feel frozen through," she said, but she was thinking of the Irishman and she hugged the half hour in the woods.

Maggie stripped the chemise over the girl's head. "Look at that back," the maid clucked. "He's been at it again, has he?" Carefully she blotted the welts on Cordaella's back with a damp cloth. "One of these days he'll leave scars."

"Only twelve this time." Cordaella pressed her arms to her bare breasts, her legs trembling with cold. She remembered the parting look the knight had given her, a small smile on his lips, and yet his eyes—they were so blue!—had stared down at her with as serious an expression as she had ever seen. "And he didn't even make me count."

Cordaella's head felt light, her legs almost too weak to hold her. She couldn't wait to see him again. She must hurry, must hurry back downstairs.

"I suppose he only wants the best for you," Maggie said matter of factly, lowering a clean chemise over her head. "No bath for you although heaven knows you need it. Your cousin went down a half hour ago." She opened the trunk at the foot of Cordaella's bed, drawing out a dark green velvet surcoat, this one with black-striped sleeves. She gave it a hard shake to soften the wrinkles.

Cordaella stepped into it, settling the waist and adjusting the high neck. While Maggie laced her, she tugged the sleeves into place, the full material at the wrist falling back over the pale ivory chemise. "Don't fuss much over me," she said, glancing towards the door. "I better go on downstairs."

"You better let me do your hair. You've got the entire woods caught in it—" The maid, only two years older than Cordaella, pushed the girl onto a low bench, plucking twigs and leaves from the black braids. "You've taken a walk again. To the mews, have you?"

"Not quite so far." Cordaella clasped her hands in her lap, trying not to fidget as Maggie pulled the pins out of the tangled coils and braids, loosening the strands so that the black hair waved past her shoulders. "But how did you know?"

"The others told me."

"Others?" Cordaella asked uncertainly. She pictured the Earl and her cousins.

"Yes, the servants talk." She combed out a tangle. "They see you scrambling over that back gate, your skirts flying like you were a bird or something. Good thing they like you. You don't know how many times the folk have covered for you—" She sighed as she worked at another knot in Cordaella's hair. "The falconer knows you go that way, so do the stable hands. The gardeners see your footprints in the orchard and lucky for you they keep an eye on the woods. It's not safe there, my lady. Woods are always full of trouble. Poachers, robbers, you don't know who might be watching, waiting to harm you."

"Well, I wasn't alone tonight. No one need worry."

"Yes, I heard that, too. You've made friends with the Irishman, have you?" Cordaella didn't answer, surprised that word had traveled so fast. "Well," Maggie said, "what is he like? Besides his looks. He isn't handsome, I know, his nose and chin are too hard, but I liked that roughness of his, all wind and weather."

Cordaella liked the description of him. Wind and weather. Like his voice. "He was nice," she hedged. "We talked mainly about the North. About the Macleods."

"Trying to impress him, were you? But remember now, he hasn't a copper to his name, my lady, so don't be thinking he's the one for you. Your uncle would never consider it." She laughed without malice, but even then, the laughter stung. She smoothed Cordaella's dark hair, the fishtail braids coiled with a rope of pearls and onyx stones. "Now hurry off with you before the Earl comes calling again."

Cordaella stood and taking the small hand mirror, she inspected her face. Her eyes looked too big for her face. Her mouth too full. She wished she wasn't so dark or the color of her eyes so light. Too much contrast, everything too strong.

"You don't like your hair?"

"No, it's not that." She returned the hand mirror to the bureau. "I was thinking—wishing—" She felt as if she was going to cry and she shook her head, ashamed by the strange emotions. "Maggie, am I pretty? Is there anything fine about me?"

"Ah, now that would be telling. We can't have you getting your dander up, thinking too much of yourself." She saw Cordaella's expression, the girl's eyes filling with tears. "I'll give you this, miss, you cast a fair shadow over the others, that you do. You've a different look, my lady, and you'll continue to grow into it. How can you help it? Now go—" Maggie pushed her towards the door. "I don't want the blame. Hear me?"

"Yes," she said, but still hesitating.

"What is it now, Lady Cordaella?"

"I will be sixteen on my next birthday." Cordaella thought of Sir Bran and shivered involuntarily. He was twice her age, but did that make him old? "And is that considered of marrying age?"

"Sometimes."

"Do you think the Earl might have plans for me?"

"Perhaps."

"But you'd tell me, wouldn't you, if you knew?"

"Perhaps," Maggie answered before opening the door and handing Cordaella a candle from one wall sconce. "Now go on before I take you downstairs myself."

Seated at the far end of the table, she could just see her uncle, with the Irish knight sitting directly across from him. She sipped at her soup, glancing up beneath her eyelashes to watch him. It had been years since Mr. Pole had gone and for the first time she could remember, she didn't want supper to end. Let them dine all night, as long as Sir Bran was there, his elbows on the table, his red gold head tipping back in laughter.

Tonight she didn't even mind having to share dishes with Eddie, allowing him most of the bowls, and as she dipped her fingers in the water bowl, she saw that the knight was doing the same thing. He wiped his hands on his towel, and she thought they looked like strong hands, good hands. She ducked her head, color darkening her cheeks. What was she thinking? But even the minstrel's song filled her with longing, making her wish for something she had never known. " _When that I think what grief it is again, to live and lack the thing should rid my pain._ "

"What a stupid song." Eddie interrupted her thoughts, propping his head on one hand. "What is a 'Lover not Beloved'?"

"A love song," she answered shortly, not wanting to look at him and be reminded of the black and blue swelling around his eye.

"It makes me sick. Who wants to hear about love?" She didn't answer and Eddie scowled at her, put out by her silence. But she was thinking secret thoughts, feeling a strange new tenderness inside of her, an emotion unlike anger or sadness, fear or despair. This breathed within her, soft and eager. She glanced at the knight again, wishing she were outside, wishing she were next to him, wishing it was his voice speaking, his voice lilting like the moon, like the wind, like the stars she once counted in the Highland nights.

## CHAPTER FIVE

In Santiago de la Compostela, Castile's Galician capital, the long windows of the palacio were drawn against the night, curtains swathed across cold glass. A fire burned zealously in the hearth, casting shadows of the Duke Fernando and his advisor huge on the stone wall. Pedro Fernando's brows grew heavier and heavier above his eyes, the dark and white of the pupil glistening. He guarded his kingdom and his castles, but there were two things he had loved far better—his cathedral on the square, and his merchant ships that doubled and trebled his wealth.

He had been one of the first to see the opportunity in trade and had taken great risks in the beginning. For twenty-nine years he labored to expand his trading empire, constructing stone by stone one of the finest ports on the continent in the protected harbor of San Sebastián. Early it had been a struggle to finance the first handsome fleet of ships. Since then twenty-three ships had sailed under his colors; his ships were his making, each voyage a discovery and a horde of treasure. He started small, just a bit of this and a chest of that. Now he was an expert on export—satisfying the aristocratic tastes in Westminster and London with the Mediterranean pleasures. It was he who controlled the price for wines, olive oil, dried fruits, salt, rare dyes, mercury, iron, and hides. What did he take from England, working now, with the Earl of Derby?

Fernando took wool. Each year his ledgers showed the profit. Almost twenty percent of all English wool was sold to Castile—Fernando with the biggest share—and sold again on the continent. England's raw material was always in demand. Bolts of beautiful cloth returned to Britain on Fernando's ships after the wool had been woven in Prato, Milano, and Roma. Each exchange made money. Lots of money.

But for Pedro Fernando, the Duke of Galicia and Count of Santiago, money had never been the object. He was already wealthy. Rather, his shipping empire brought power. He relished his control over England, the continent, the seas in between. As a duke he was formidable in Castile. As a merchant he was invaluable to kings.

At the moment, Fernando was furious, nearly distraught over the most recent loss of cargo. Two of his ships had been boarded and raided—thirty-three miles off the Dover coast. It was the second act of piracy in the last twelve months. Despite the Anglo-Castilian treaties, the laws of international trade were not enforced. Another deterioration in control, one the duke attributed to England's ailing king Henry IV.

Perhaps it was time for Fernando to assert himself. It wasn't lost revenue he was after. His desire was for something more, something less tangible than gold. Trade was his interest, power was his pride. And no one, his black brows plummeted, no one played lightly with Pedro. His empire had cost him too much, the price too dear. He would have his own port in Britain, a harbor like San Sebastian, which would protect and preserve what he had begun. And maybe there was something his new English associate, this Earl Eton, could help him with.

It rained most of the night, revealing the morning as a watercolor landscape painted gray and white with a soft sable brush. Misty veils hovered over the hollows of Buxton, Derbyshire, more mist clinging mysteriously to the woods and the village green. The castle felt as damp as it smelled, long cool shadows lurking in the corners of the massive building. Philip walked along the battlements, his cloak billowing off of his shoulders, as Cordaella leaned over the edge, staring off towards the village.

She was thinking about the traveler that had stopped last night at Peveril, and once his tongue had been loosened by ale, spoke at length of London, having just come from there. She was amazed by his description of the market places, street after street lined by merchant and farmer. It sounded so big, so interesting. "I keep thinking of the visitor," she said, leaning on the balustrade.

"He did know how to talk," Philip said as he paced behind her. "Of course Father only wanted to know of the taxes being levied on imported goods. He doesn't care about the war in France. Just his ships. His purse."

He had come to a standstill and she said, "He did talk of the war. He spoke of sending you with Sir Bran on the next expedition." Four miles down the road lay the village of Buxton. Thick smoke curled from the thirty-odd cottages and she watched it rise in heavy black columns.

"I'll never be a soldier," he said quietly, joining her at the embattlement "It is this place that I love," he said, running his hand along the cold wet stones. "This old damp castle with its unmatched towers and tunnels and passages that lead nowhere."

She knew how passionate he was about Peveril—its musty smell, the cool dark places where tapestries hung permanently damp on the walls, the high narrow windows that one could barely touch with a hand but never see out. She had been with him when he crept along beams in the solar and watched while he shinnied down the outer keep's walls, climbing over the back gate to join him in the woods. One summer they had pretended to be Merlin and a knight, and while he had been Merlin, she had been the knight. She looked up past the smoke from the village. Gray swollen clouds seemed to touch the top of Peveril's towers. "It will be raining before long," she said.

"Let us go in." He held out an arm to her, leading through the nearest tower door. They took the steps quickly, knowing the spiral staircases by stone, each of the four staircases winding through the four castle towers. This stairwell spiraled down the full four stories and they exited into the great hall, she heading for the kitchen and he for the stable. The ladies' maid, Maggie, ran past, her arms full of linens, her face red. "My lady," she gasped, out of breath, "they have been looking high and low for you. The gardener went to the woods, thinking you might be there."

"Why? What has happened?" Cordaella picked up her skirts, hurrying after Maggie. The maid turned briefly, nodding for emphasis. "You best follow me, miss, and your lordship, too. You will be wanted."

Philip chased after them. "What is it? Is someone hurt?"

"The village," Maggie panted, "it is on fire." And she exited through the smaller of the two kitchens. They were greeted by more chaos as maids frantically dashed from the scullery to the fireplace and back again. Pots rattled as servants shouted from one kitchen to the other, their raised voices echoing off the vaulted ceiling. "Here," the cook said, handing Cordaella a basket. "Inside is root of peony, holly seed, sage, rue, poppy, parsley—" She broke off, "I think that's all now. You are needed to take it down to her ladyship. She is already in the village. Horses are waiting. Hurry now!"

Philip took the basket from Cordaella. "Since Father is gone I better go and take an account of the fire." A stable boy waited with the horses and the lad helped Cordaella up while Philip swung into the saddle. "Do you know what happened?" he asked the stable boy. "Can you tell me anything?"

"I heard it said that a fire swept through three houses. There were six children inside."

Philip glanced at Cordaella who simply shook her head. They set off at a canter, Philip shouting to her. "Why would the children be alone? Where were the parents?"

The wind caught at her cloak, pulling her hood low on her shoulders. "You know how it is," she called to him. "But both parents are needed to work the fields. It's the only way they can break even. The taxes are becoming heavier each quarter."

"Don't let my father hear you."

She ducked her head as they rode beneath a low tree branch. "I think it is hard for you to understand them."

"Harder for me than you?"

"They love their children, Philip, but they take greater risks. They have to."

He reined his horse in at the muddy road running into Buxton. "So much smoke! It burns my eyes."

Her eyes were already watering as large ashes drifted down, dusting their cloaks and horses' manes. "Look," she coughed and pointed, "Mary waits for us there."

It was a long afternoon as Lady Eton and Cordaella tended the surviving children while Philip painstakingly recorded all of the details gathered from interviewing the neighbors and describing the particulars. Inside one of the cottages that had escaped the fire, Lady Eton worked, her skirts knotted out of the way. Ash marked her forehead and chin, sweat dampening the front of her plain brown gown. "I doubt any of them shall last the night," she said, standing slowly up, rubbing her back where it ached.

Cordaella finished swathing one child's spine, gently applying the smelly poultice to puckered skin. "Infection is already setting in."

"Elisabeth never did come down." Mary found a stool and sat down on it, rinsing her hands in the bucket of water. "I wish his lordship were here to see this. He doesn't understand these people. He doesn't know how they suffer." She struggled to dry her hands, fighting the trembling in them. "It makes me so angry," she said, "but how can you blame them? They are poor—they work hard. They do not deserve what they get, or should I say, they do not get what they deserve?" She stared at one of the pallets. "God help me," she murmured. "That one has already died."

"I would like to say it was carelessness that killed them. But they were left because the mothers had no other option. So different from the castle, isn't it?"

"Someone other than a five-year old should have been with them. A five-year-old! She was still just a baby herself." Lady Eton's voice thinned with frustration. "Yet I grew up in Bakewell, eleven miles down the road. I know how it is, Cordaella, I was once like them." The sky cracked with thunder, followed by splinters of yellow-white lightning. "The system..." she said, shaking her head, "it doesn't want to change. I ought to know that. I was lucky to have married out of Bakewell, to have been considered by the Earl. If my father had not had money of his own..." she said with a shrug. "What good does talk do? It would be better to find Philip. He will need the name and age of the child for the castle's report."

The room felt oppressively close after Mary had gone; storm clouds turning the afternoon prematurely dark, the odor of burned wood and skin lingering in the croft. Elisabeth crossed over the threshold, the hem of her riding houppelande lifted high from the dirty floor. "It smells terrible in here," she said.

Cordaella had no patience left. "Then go back outside."

Elisabeth ignored her, bending over to inspect one of the pallets. "How did the fire start? And who is this?"

"Hainey's little boy. And he just died. Mary went to tell your brother."

"He's dead?" Elisabeth said, pulling back in horror. She moved quickly to the next pallet. "And whose little girl is this?"

"I think she is the blacksmith's daughter. Cecily."

Elisabeth glanced at Cordaella. "Is this typical of the cottages?"

"For the most part."

"Was your croft like this?"

"No, ours was smaller."

"Smaller?"

"Aye." Cordaella intentionally answered with the Scottish word. She didn't like Elisabeth's questions. This wasn't an appropriate time. "Our croft only had one room."

"But what about your animals?" Elisabeth held her velvet burgundy sleeves and carefully sat down on the stool Lady Eton had earlier used.

"At first we only had a goat. Later Papa traded furs for a cow."

"But in the winter, you didn't leave the cow outside, did you?"

Softly, Cordaella said, "No, they came inside."

"With you?"

"With us."

Elisabeth rose again, saying nothing else. She stepped across the bucket to a third pallet near the corner. "This child does not breathe easily." She leaned over the boy to listen more closely. "You had better come see for yourself, Cordy. I think he is ailing."

Cordaella knelt opposite her, putting her ear to Bobby Purcell's chest. She heard a faint rattle, air moving in little fits through his lungs. He sounded like a bird, trilling unsteadily. There was nothing she could do. He had only turned two last week. "Elisabeth, fetch his mother." For once her cousin did as she was asked and Mrs. Purcell ran into the room, her eyes red-rimmed, her mouth pinched.

"No, miss, not my baby!" She stretched out her hands to Cordaella, pleading, "Can't you do something else? Don't you see, the twins were in the cradle? I have no more."

"I am so sorry," Cordaella whispered, her mouth dry, her eyes dry. She felt so helpless. "We have sent for the doctor but he hasn't come."

"But I have nothing now," the poor woman sobbed, covering her face with her hands.

Cordaella sat back on her heels. The meanness of the small room overwhelmed her. She tried to shut out the old thatched roof smelling of mildew and the walls of smoke and urine, hay and sweat. Her stomach cramped, queasy. The rush of nausea was unexpected and tendrils of hair clung to her damp brow. She covered her mouth, afraid of betraying herself in front of Mrs. Purcell.

Mrs. Purcell's wailing, the stench, the darkness of the croft all set her nerves on edge, keenly stirring memory, a physical reflex to death. She fought the unexpected terror, reminding herself that this was not her cottage, not her home. If only she could get outside; the fresh air would help clear her head. But she was loath to leave the weeping mother by herself, and waited indecisively while ghosts of the past climbed on her shoulder. She felt like a child again, and she could see her own cottage, hear her own terrified screams. _"Aiee, Papa!"_

His right arm was nearly severed free, blood pooling below his armpit, staining the straw a summer pink.

They had come near midnight, the sky was black—starless—and it had been hard, so hard to drag him in. She stared at the knife protruding from his stomach, wondering who was still out there, wondering when they'd come get her. Inside the cottage, the heifer's bell clanked dully as the cow lowered her head.

Cordaella wrapped her skirts tightly around her legs, her fingers kneading the nubby woolen fabric as she stared at her father. What was she to do first? He was not a bird with a broken wing. Nothing would stop the blood from flowing. Did that mean she could not save him? She stiffened at the sound of footsteps close to the door. Her mouth was dry, too dry for her even to swallow.

Moaning, the falconer stirred. His eyelids fluttered, but it took him a moment to open them. He stared at her hard, pupils black, a peculiar expression in his eyes. As he said her name, red dribbled from his nose, mingling with the red at his mouth. She watched red bubble with his breath. There was too much red. Blood spilled everywhere. She leaned closer. "Papa!" She couldn't feel anything, nothing but pain where her heart had once been.

" _Listen, my girl," he said, his mouth working. "You must get to the village. Your grandfather—from Aberdeen—has left you money—" His jaw went slack._

Her grandfather. The money. Aberdeen. Her grandfather. Money.

Cordaella lunged at the door, groping with the handle to get outside. The old terror was back, reminding her of the six hours she had spent, huddling near his dead body, waiting for the light of morning.

In the last six years she had not let herself dwell on it, steering her mind from the horror. Outside the cottage she gulped in air with great breaths, her face pale, perspiring. She leaned against the door frame, shuddering from the cold and pain. Those were the longest hours of her life. Even after he died, she still heard the voices and the heavy footsteps outside. There were at least two of them, their conversation rising and falling, once peaking in argument. _"You take her, then!"_

" _Why me?"_

" _Well, I don't want her—if you want to try your luck with her, that is your affair."_

" _There is no money in it?"_

" _I don't_ _know_ _."_

" _Would we stand to lose any?"_

" _I don't know. She wasn't mentioned in the agreement."_

She listened to their voices, not understanding. For some reason they had come to kill the falconer, but then, why not her? Aberdeen. Her grandfather. Money.

Did it have to do with the inheritance? They had come to rob her, they wanted the money. They were angry because she didn't have it here. As it all became clearer to her, the fear dissipated, replaced by rage. They killed her father over nothing.

Cordaella ran to the door and flung it open. "May God curse you," she screamed, lunging out the cottage door. The men had been dozing and now jumped up. Dazed, they scrambled with their coats, reaching for weapons. "Kill me too!" she cried, "if you had to kill him, why not kill me too?"

She sounded mad, her heavy accent, the wild grief unsettling the men. They swore, exchanging few words before two dashed off, heading down the mountain. The third one, the one that remained, was young, seventeen, maybe eighteen, and thin. "It wasn't you we wanted," he said.

" _But why him?" she cried. "He was good." And the boy broke into a run, following hard and fast on the others._

The sky forked with lightning and the thunder crashed. Again lightning streaked the twilight with crooked fingers of white, the distant hills of the Derbyshire Peaks deep green against the dark horizon. Cordaella slowly tipped her head back until she stared straight up into the fury of the sky. There was nothing but clouds and a play of light.

The rain began to fall steadily after dinner, and by half past eight, it came in pelting streaks, pinging against the lead windows and sizzling in the fireplaces. With the Earl gone, Lady Eton excused herself early. Philip made one final trip to the stables, and Edward was nowhere to be found. Only Elisabeth and Cordaella shared the solar's fire.

A half hour passed with Elisabeth stitching and Cordaella reading. As the rain continued its steady stream, the drumming pulled Elisabeth from her piece. "Philip said the coroner's inquest determined today's fire was caused by one of the farm animals." She plucked at a loose thread, pulling it completely through the fabric with a dexterous needle. "Is that common?"

Cordaella had been reading the same paragraph for the last several minutes, too wearied to make sense of the archaic prose. She was good at Latin, but Greek was more difficult, especially when she was tired. "Common enough."

"How? Oxen cannot lay a fire."

She closed the volume of Plato, fingering the padded leather cover. She looked at her cousin. Why did Elisabeth want to know? "Oxen are not kept near the hearth. Generally, accidents are created by pigs. Or chickens." She ignored her cousin's incredulous expression. "This fire could have been touched off by a chicken dropping a bit of burning straw into the cradle, or a pig knocking the fire out of the hearth. Sometimes pigs knock a cradle too near the fire. Since most cottage floors are covered by straw, it only takes an ember and breath of wind to ignite the entire croft."

"Did your croft ever catch fire?"

"No, it did not."

"Do you miss it? Your croft?"

"It's not the building I miss. It's the mountains."

"Nobody else lives there. That's what Father says."

"It is harder to survive high up. You can't grow much and the winters are longer, harsher. It's not much of a life."

"If it is so hard to survive, how did you?"

Cordaella rubbed the book's binding. "Papa did it all—found the means to keep us fed and warm. He worked at things, whittling, fur, building odds and ends to trade in the village. Papa always said—"

"Why do you say his name like that?" Elisabeth said, interrupting her. "You always say it the same way."

"How do I say it?"

"Reverently." Elisabeth kicked one foot out from beneath her chair, the full burgundy and brown skirts rustling, revealing the lace of her ivory chemise. "Perhaps you aren't like the wild thing they brought here years ago, but you still talk about him as if he were—" Her mouth pursed. "God." She stared so hard at her cousin that Cordaella shivered. "He was just a poor falconer. A man with nothing. No work. No home. No name." There was a minute of silence. Maybe two. "I can't think why you want to remember him like that, as if he was the very best thing, or very best person, you have ever known. People die, Cordy," Elisabeth said, sounding almost angry. "They die all the time."

Cordaella looked to the fire. The wood had burned low, the grate a pile of red coals. "It's late," she said at last. "It has been a difficult day."

"Yes, it has." Elisabeth rose, taking the candle from the lip in the wall. "Are you coming, then?"

Across the English Channel, far down the continent's coast, guests had arrived at the palacio in Santiago to meet with the Duke, Pedro Fernando. The brothers, Enrique and Carlas de la Torre, glanced at each other as the door opened. Duke Fernando extended his hands to them. The Castilian brothers bowed low, the velvet of their elegantly cut jupons a glow of purple and black in the candlelight. "I am interested in knowing more," the Duke began without preamble. "What property does this Cordaella of Aberdeen bring?"

Enrique smoothed his slim black mustache. "Nearly forty thousand acres, Your Grace."

"And do not forget the harbor—" added Carlas.

Pedro Fernando unrolled his ivory-colored map, pressing it flat on the desk. "Yes, just a fishing port now, isn't it?"

Enrique, known as the 'handsome twin', sketched the opportunities, "But Aberdeen would give you your own port in Scotland, effectively avoiding the high tariffs imposed by the English crown. By trading directly with the merchants of Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, you would have no need for Southampton, London or even Hull."

"It would open up the seas," agreed Fernando thoughtfully, considering the potential routes on the map, up and around the coast of Portugal, the ports of France and across the English Channel to the frigid North Sea. "How much gold is the Earl of Derby asking?"

"He wants more than gold. He wants to negotiate new trade agreements." Don Carlas de la Torre answered, his voice unusually smooth, disarmingly soft.

The Duke sat. "What kind?"

"Exclusive supplier in some cases."

"What? A monopoly on services?"

Enrique shrugged noncommittally. "She brings all of Aberdeen with her, not to mention the annual income from the lands."

"And I would own Aberdeen?"

Carlas and Enrique exchanged glances again. "Not own," corrected Carlas, "but control."

"Your heir would inherit, of course." Enrique concluded.

"Tempting," the Duke murmured, his attention returning to the map. "The proposal has merit." He tapped the table, engrossed in the idea.

Carlas relaxed, his pensive expression disappearing into the merest hint of pleasure, lines crinkling about his eyes and mouth. "Shall we send a counteroffer?"

"Write up a contract." The Duke raised the map and placed a kiss on the coast of Scotland, his dark eyes over bright. "If Aberdeen comes to Santiago, I have no intention of giving Aberdeen back."

Lady Eton slowly brushed her hair, watching her husband from the corner of her eye. She wondered what he was planning now. For the last two days he had been immersed with papers and charts and maps, chewing on the quill of the pen, ink staining the edges of his mouth. What was it about Grey that made her feel like this? It wasn't the silence; she was used to his inattentiveness. She couldn't put her finger on it, but in his company she felt empty. Her life was neither better nor worse than she imagined it to be. It was simply different. Empty. There was that word again.

The fire crackled, orange fingers of light, wood popping amid a shower of sparks. "Damn!" The Earl swore, stomping out a swirl of hot embers. He yanked in annoyance on the robe, stirring the papers. Again he swore, his jaw peppered with a graying beard.

"Were you burned?" Mary asked.

"No." He answered irritably.

But Mary, being lonely, needed to hear her own voice and hear him answer her. "What do you read?"

"A proposed contract."

"For?" She tried to sound interested; she wanted to understand his business. He had become more involved with his trade in the last two years.

"Cordaella."

Mary stilled, the brush limp in her hand. "The girl's fifteen."

"Almost sixteen."

"Is it a good offer?"

"I doubt there could be better." He drew the papers together, sorting them into two neat stacks. "But it need not concern you, nothing has been decided. Not yet." Seven years ago he hadn't minded her plain face, but then she still had some youth. The years had not been kind to her and he was irritated by her expression and her simplicity. He forced down his revulsion and went to her, drawing her up to kiss her on the right cheek and then the left. "It is late, Mary, and I still have work to do." He gathered his papers. "Do not wait up. It may be hours before I join you."

It rained during the night and in the morning the mist raised thick from the wet earth, hanging low over the Derby forest. The old trees pierced the mist with their gnarled branches, clinging tightly to the gray clouds. Philip overtook Cordaella in the stairwell. "Where are you going, Cordy?"

"For a walk."

"Come up on the parapet, will you?"

"Why?"

"I've some new books. I don't want Eddie to see. He has been following me everywhere lately."

She shook her head. "I think I'd rather not, Philip. I've had a terrible headache for the last two days." She rubbed her temple with a regretful smile. "Perhaps tomorrow?"

He dropped down a step and touched her shoulder. His voice lowered, "Cordy, the books are a pretense. I have something else to tell you."

"What?"

"I can't tell you here. It's not safe."

"Don't be silly!" She smiled tentatively but he didn't smile back. "I will then, but give me a few minutes. I want to see about a drink for my head. Mary has something in her herbs that help."

She returned to the tower a quarter of an hour later and looked for her cousin on the parapet. He stood at the balustrade, leaning over the stone railing. "What is it then that is so secret?" she asked, glad she had worn her cloak.

He glanced behind him, taking precautions against being overheard. "I wanted to warn you, Cordy. My father has made plans."

"For?" But her heart pounded harder as if she already knew.

"Your betrothal."

She sat down at the base of the wall, drawing her skirts around her knees. "Are you sure?"

He sat down beside her, his long slim poet's fingers wrapping the hem of her gown about them. The fabric slipped through his fingers, cool, slick. He was afraid, and it had nothing to do with him. "I heard my father speaking of it last night to Mary. And a letter went out with a page today."

"A letter to whom?"

"The Duke of Galicia."

She was silent for a moment, absorbing the news. "Galicia. You mean in Castile?" He nodded. "Does that mean I am to marry him?" she asked.

"I think so, but I may be wrong. Perhaps it only has to do with Father's trade."

She could tell that he was nervous. "What do you know of him?"

"Not much," he said. She stared at him hard. "And that he is thought by many to be more powerful than Castile's Regent. The real power in Castile isn't with the crowns, but the different kingdoms. And Galicia is reportedly unsafe for business or travel. Most people—including the Regent—ignore the Duke Fernando's heavy-handed rule." He ducked his head. "It isn't the place I would want to see you go."

"I can't believe it," she whispered.

"Maybe it won't be for years—" He broke off, hearing footsteps. "Hush, Cordy!" He listened to the voices coming from the stairwell. "Do you hear?"

She nodded. "Your father," she said, grabbing his hand. "Should we make ourselves known?"

"No, let us wait. Perhaps he shall pass on. I don't want to face him now." They knelt down and crept low around the edge of the tower, too far from the stairs to make a run for it, too near the balustrade to make a sound.

The voices overtook them, the Earl's tone distinctly furious. "What kind of fool are you? Never, ever, were you to have returned here."

"No one knows me. I was a lad when I left."

"But to risk coming back!"

"The money is gone. We must have more. My pa is in bad shape. He was wounded in the attack those years ago."

The Earl laughed, his tone contemptuous. "More? I have given all I will give. What makes you think I shall hand over more?"

The peasant voice lowered. "You wouldn't want it to be known that you were a murderer, now would you?"

"I? A murderer? I murdered no one. You and your father, you were the ones. No blood was shed by my hand."

"Now listen to me—" The peasant's tone became menacing. "—We killed him like you said, and didn't harm the girl. But the falconer had a wolf with him—" Cordaella reached out to grasp Philip's hand. "It bit my dad. The old man can't walk anymore and I have to take care of the both of us. You have plenty of money. All I'm asking for is a fair share. A couple of florins wouldn't hurt you any."

Philip had to restrain Cordaella; she was on her knees, desperate to get up, to get even. She heard the Earl answer the peasant, "It's the principle of it."

"What?" the man asked.

"I hired your father to take care of a job. He botched the assignment, not I. Why should I pay for his mistake?" The Earl's tone changed abruptly. "Now go, and never, ever return. If I see you again I shall have my cooks prepare you for dinner."

"Your threats don't frighten me—"

"No?" The Earl's voice was swallowed by the scrape of metal. Cordaella stiffened, reeling forward, Philip barely able to catch her before she slumped against the stones. "Then perhaps this will!" Eton answered as metal clanked against the parapet and the man shrieked, falling backward. "Help! Help, God, help!" the peasant cried, his voice spiraling faintly into the morning mist.

"Enough!" Eton pulled his sword free and swiftly drew it across the other's neck. The peasant lay still. "God damn whore," he muttered softly, wiping the blade off on his cloak. "Whores, all of them." His footsteps receded, taking him down the second tower's stairs.

Philip would have jumped to his feet, but Cordaella was vomiting against the balustrade. He tried to shield her from the body of the peasant, the throat slit, a pool of blood spreading towards them. "Come, Cordy, we must get out of here." She stared at him in horror, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "We must," he insisted. "The guards will be back. Father mustn't find you anywhere near here." He pushed her to the head of the stairs. "Hurry!"

He was pulling her down the stairs, and she tripped, falling helplessly against him. Everything blurred, tears blinding her. She felt as if she was going to be sick again, and it took all of her control not to be ill on the stairs.

Philip pushed her into her bedchamber and shut the door. Cordaella stood in the middle of the floor, clasped her arms around her, and cried. The terror relived itself again and she was sure she would always picture her father bleeding. Red, red, it stained her hands, her skirt, the floor. The Earl had killed her father. Even as he killed the man on the tower.

She lifted her hands, imagining them covered in blood. The Earl made it look so easy...killing. Could she kill a man? Would she be able to do such a thing? She stared at her palms, and they looked too narrow, too white.

No, she couldn't kill the Earl, she didn't have the physical strength or murder in her heart. She turned her hands over and finally hid them behind her back. There must be another way; she knew there was always more than one solution. She would make him pay. Somehow. Someday.

## CHAPTER SIX

It would come back to her, the scene on the parapet, and she would be struck mute standing lost, silent, as she listened to the voices playing in her head, hearing again the peasant's accusations, the Earl's contempt, the screaming. She wondered how many others Eton had murdered. And none of it seemed significant to him because all who had died were common, peasants. Dirt.

For years she had wondered what happened, there in the snow of Ben Nevis. Now she knew the truth and did knowing change anything?

Autumn was passing quickly. She thought ahead to November and December, before long it would be St. Nichol's and then the twelve days of Christmas—. When she first arrived at Peveril she had been surprised by the numerous Yule festivities: costumes and singing, dancing and gift-giving. The Nativity, on December's twenty-fifth, had been barely noticed in Glen Nevis, her father and she too poor, too busy to make up costumes and masks. Yet those Yule celebrations had been mystical, green pine branches draped across the door, tucked under eaves and into shutters. Outside it was cold, silent, white. Inside the fire glowed, the fragrance of pine filled the air and the sticky gold sap dripping from the boughs formed puddles on the floor. It had seemed lovely to her, beauty in the simplicity of the rough wood toys and the green garlands on the brown walls.

Cordaella stood on tiptoe, reaching up high to lift the garland off of the Earl's bedchamber wall. The dried herb and flower wreath was replaced with another. She stepped off the stool, careful not to crush the brittle wreath under her arm. The bedchamber door opened and Eton walked in. "Mary," he said, "where is my—" breaking off when he saw Cordaella instead of his wife. "What are you doing here?"

"Lady Eton asked me to change all garlands with the ones we made during the summer."

He seemed to be examining her, the same inspection he gave his best horses. "You are almost sixteen, aren't you?"

"Yes, my lord. In November."

"One month," he said, still considering her. "And you stay busy enough."

"Yes, my lord." She wiped dust off her cheek, aware of her old stained surcoat and her hair loosening from the braid. She hadn't expected to see him this morning. He was supposed to be with the bailiff and his scribes in the solar, hearing complaints from the villagers and settling disputes.

"You are spending more time helping her ladyship?"

Of course she was, she thought, he had ordered it, saying that she was too old for lessons and games. "Yes, my lord," she answered instead, keeping her gaze down, fixed on the floorboards between them.

"You will need to know how to run the affairs of a lord." He turned to rummage in a trunk at the foot of the bed. "You weren't brought up with responsibilities, living like a banshee in those mountains, and you need to work hard here, to learn a lady's duty." She was glad he couldn't see how much she hated him. She had learned to hide the loathing and anger behind vacant eyes and an empty expression. He slammed the trunk lid down with a curse. "Damn all! I cannot find my riding cloak, the brown one, with the fur hood."

She watched him turn around in his chamber. He looked helpless then, so small, almost lost. She wanted to laugh at him. She wanted to challenge him...to challenge his greed, his selfishness, his cruelty. Instead she swallowed, saying only, "Lady Eton is mending it. She and Elisabeth are sewing in the nursery."

"Then go fetch it for me," he said with a trace of impatience as he walked to the chamber door. "I will wait in the solar."

The solar, the room where he meted out all discipline with the low stool and the switch. How appropriate, she thought, climbing the narrow twisting stairs for the nursery. She would forever associate him with his fist. She wasn't even sixteen yet and she already knew that this was one of the ways men made women obey.

Even if the Earl hadn't said anything, it was clear that Cordaella was being prepared for marriage. She now spent every afternoon in the kitchen, learning from the cook and the steward. They instructed her in cooking and recordkeeping, in planning a supper for twelve and a banquet for two hundred. She was taught the difference between sauces, how seasonings should be used, which fish to serve first, and the order of courses when there would be more than seven.

Mr. Russell, the head steward, sat her on a high stool in his cramped office, which was really only a corner of the scullery, teaching her how to record purchases and profits "There are columns for stags taken from the woods," he said, flipping several pages, "and tallies for the birds—quail and pheasant, duck. But chickens go under a different column." He also showed her how he kept record of the silver serving pieces, and how the scullion reported to him on the number and condition of plates and dishes.

The head cook, Mrs. Smith, who traveled from Buxton village every day, whispered that the young girls were often lazy and in need of constant watch. She told Cordaella that the head cook must make sure all vegetables were fresh and that the dairy produced sufficient milk for butter and cheeses. "You will have girls for every task," Mrs. Smith explained, "and they should stay with the one task in order to know it well. Don't let them jump from task to task or else they'll always be pestering with questions and making mistakes, costing time and patience, and God knows, we've never enough of that in here."

Cordaella followed Lady Eton through the Great Hall and corridors as the Earl's wife detailed finer points to household staff: more oil polish for the paneling, fresh whitewash on the small solar's plaster, hearthstones regularly scrubbed with soap and water. And gradually Cordaella knew what needed to be done, tending to the washing of the linens on her own, stuffing the mattresses with clean straw, plumping pillows with down and stitching the seams closed again. She felt more sure of herself, the muscles in her arms taking shape as she swept and scrubbed, cooked, stirred, chopped, and helped carry wood. There was little time now for play or talk, and it wasn't until evening, when all retired for the night that Cordaella would relax, pulling a book from her trunk, grateful that Philip still loaned her his. Sometimes she would read a book four or five times until he would finally get another.

The last several nights she had been reading about men and women and it made her think of the Duke Fernando. She wondered if she would really be betrothed to him. Philip said so little about it lately that she thought perhaps the talks had ended. Maybe the Earl was considering a proposal from someone else.

It didn't frighten her anymore...the talk of marriage. She didn't have much choice anyway. Of course she would have to marry. It was her _duty_. Her responsibility. She smiled as she turned a page in her book, glancing briefly in Elisabeth's direction. Elisabeth was sleeping; her face was buried in the pillow. The glow of the fire lit the creamy pages of Cordaella's novel and even though it was late, easily an hour past midnight, she couldn't put the book down. Philip had loaned her his copy of Boccaccio's _The Decameron_ , a novel written in Italian that took considerable effort to read. Italian was enough like Latin that she could make guesses at unfamiliar words, but that wasn't the reason she was so fascinated by the book.

At least some of the tales in the The Decameron were about men and women and things they did to each other for pleasure. Cordaella turned a page, her gaze racing down the paragraph. She squirmed at the depiction of nuns and holy men, young girls and eager men. There was something dark about the writings, something sordid, but the very same sordidness made her mouth dry and her belly tighten. Is this what men and ladies did, this groping beneath robes, this _riding_?

She read slowly now, beginning a new tale, "Second Day, Seventh Story." Her Italian was terrible but she was still able to understand the direction the story was taking, particularly the paragraph about robust Pericone stripping off his clothes and getting into bed with beautiful Alatiel, the daughter of the sultan of Babylon. She reread the description of how with Alatiel he gave her "the horn men use to butt", and how Alatiel repented, rejecting Pericone's earlier advances because she found she liked his presence in bed very much.

"Cordy," Elisabeth said, turning her head towards the fire, her dark blonde hair matted and her cheeks flushed from sleep, "when are you going to sleep?"

"Soon," Cordaella promised.

"But you've been reading for hours. And the fire is too bright for me to sleep well. Can you not wait to read until the morning?"

Cordaella closed the book and scrambled to her feet, her hair loose down her back, the long black tresses inky in the firelight. She gathered her blanket and pillow and hurried to bed, the wood floor cold beneath her bare feet. Slipping between the covers, she pulled out the stones that the housemaid had placed earlier between the sheets. The stones had lost their heat and the sheets were stiff. Cordaella lay in bed with her eyes closed. She wasn't in the slightest bit sleepy. All she could think of was the novel and the stories of men and women pleasuring each other. She had never thought of it that way, never considered that bodies could be anything but ugly and meant for covering. Timidly she reached under the bodice of her chemise and touched her breast, her fingers tracing the shape of her nipple. The nipple hardened beneath her fingertips, the center of the aureole contracting as if cold. Nervous, she pulled her hand away and yanked the covers flat over her chest. Would the Duke Fernando someday touch her that way? Would he like to feel her skin?

Cordaella turned on her side, drawing her legs up into a circle. The novel had made her think of new things, and was it a sin, these thoughts? Was it wrong to be curious about the secrets between men and women?

She didn't want to think of the Castilian, not of him or the marriage bed. Instead, closing her eyes, she pictured the Irish knight, Bran O'Brien. She could see his red hair, the color like copper in the sun. She remembered how tall he was, his shoulders large and wide beneath the black jupon and silver chest plate. He was old but not ancient. He was strong but not fat. She liked his blue eyes and his accent, the way his voice sounded like night.

What would it feel like if he stripped her, lay in bed with her? Cordaella pressed her face into her pillow, eager and yet ashamed. Would he hurt her? What would he even do?

"Cordaella!" Elisabeth sat up, propping herself with one elbow. "You are tossing so much that I cannot sleep. What is the matter with you?"

"No," Cordaella whispered, forcing her legs out flat, her knees stiff. "I am sorry. Go back to sleep. I promise to be quieter." She listened while Elisabeth lay back down, watching her cousin's shoulder shrug back beneath the bed covers. Cordaella closed her eyes again, willing herself to relax, but it was impossible to not think of him, and so she reminded herself of her uncle instead. Yes, her revenge.

The sun broke through the clouds for the first time in days. From Peveril's windows, the pasture stretched below, acres of gold and green. "Soon they will be sowing wheat and rye," Cordaella said, leaning against the window sill. "And then in spring again, oats, beans, and barley." She reached out to tap the leaded glass with her fingernail. "The seasons come one after another, more work, another harvest." She glanced over her shoulder at Philip. "From here the villages look small and clean."

"What are you thinking now, Cordaella?" She didn't answer him, watching a fly land on the window and walk in the smallest of steps across the glass.

"Green and lush," she said, looking out on the farmland. "The village plants and we eat. They work for the castle and then the castle redistributes the food."

"Whatever is the matter with you?"

"Nothing." She left the window and sat down on a bench near his feet. She wrapped her arms around her knees, sitting back to look up at him. "Perhaps I might ask you the same question. What is the matter with you? You never laugh with me anymore. You are always so serious, Philip. You don't want distraction." Cordaella smiled slightly. "Perhaps it is the books you are reading."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm only just finishing Boccaccio. Did you read it before you lent it to me?"

Philip walked to the hearth and kicked the log, rolling it over in a shower of red sparks. "No. I thought it vulgar. Too florid." He leaned against the mantle. Her chin jutted in mute protest. "Don't be angry, Cordy." He gentled his voice. "I don't mind you reading it, only Father wouldn't be happy. He would think it improper."

Her jaw tensed, her fine arched eyebrows lifting. "I don't care what he thinks."

"I only want what is best for you. And although I know my father has wronged you—"

"—I thought we weren't to discuss it," she said, interrupting him.

"But I am partly responsible. I am his son, the heir to the earldom, to Derbyshire and the Peveril estate. I can't help him for what he is, but I can try to make amends—"

"Don't go on like this." She fidgeted with the ragged edge of her red and black sleeve. "It won't help to discuss it. And of course it isn't your fault. How could it be? Now, please, Philip, stop."

"I know what he has planned for you, or an idea of it. I can't bear to think of you married for my father's gain. Please..." he said, moving to intercept her as she got up and walked towards the door. "Won't you hear me out?"

"No."

"You don't even know what I'm going to say!"

She placed a hand on his arm that was barring the door. "Let me pass. And say no more."

"And where will you go now? Back to your Boccaccio?"

"Don't be unkind."

"Do you know how I feel?" He grabbed her hand, his fingers tight about hers. "Do you have any idea of my feelings?"

She wrenched her hand free. "Your father's shame is not your own. I do not blame you. I would not hold you responsible. Let me do what I must—"

"And why must you marry Fernando?

"We don't know that for sure."

"So let me act before the betrothal is announced. I will marry you myself, Cordaella—"

"Stop." She was frightened, unnerved by his passion and his insistence. His father would kill him. And maybe her too. Then poor Elisabeth would inherit. Cordaella shivered. Philip had never been practical. Now she saw how little Eton there was in him. She could almost imagine her mother pleading with the falconer this way, _Marry me, marry me and let us leave here._ But Cordaella knew what had happened to her mother and her father later. It hadn't been a happy story. Nor a happy ending.

"I care for you," he said so quietly she barely heard him.

"And I for you." But she hardened her heart against further entreaties. "Now let me pass." Wordlessly he stepped aside, watching her walk the length of the corridor. He waited until she was gone to look out the window where she had earlier stood. The sun, so brilliant on the crimson and copper-colored leaves, only reminded him of his own emotion, of his heart so cold that it hurt to breathe.

After a day of sun the fog returned, rising from the valley beneath the peaks, rolling up over the hills to blanket the morning in a thick wet cloud of gray. Cordaella was released from her work early and decided to ride. Elisabeth, overhearing Cordaella's plans, asked to join her. They rode through the edge of the woods, the forest opening onto the meadow between Buxton and Bakewell before narrowing again into a dark thicket of trees.

Elisabeth was the better rider, fearlessly flying over stumps and fallen branches, leaning forward on her horse's neck for balance and speed. Cordaella was able to keep up, but she hated traveling so fast when the fog lay low and thick, trees disappearing into the mist, shrubs shrouded in white. Cordaella pictured ghosts, and spurred her horse on, watching Elisabeth vanish into the mist, as if another spectre.

And then Elisabeth screamed, a terrible cry that pierced through Cordaella. Cordaella clenched the reins as Elisabeth's screaming continued, a high horrible peal of terror. Cordaella could only charge blindly into the mist, following the screams and the frantic nickering of Elisabeth's horse. "Oh God," Elisabeth sobbed as Cordaella heard something else, something that sounded frenzied, furious. Like a wild pig. Boar. She had seen dogs gutted by boars and horses with bellies ripped open. If Elisabeth was cornered... "Where are you?" Cordaella called, straining to see familiar shapes in the fog.

"Help me, oh Cordy, help!" Cordaella could just make out a burgundy skirt, and ducked her head to ride beneath the low bare branches. "Cordy, it is too awful," Elisabeth sobbed, "my horse—"

"Where is it?" Cordaella called.

"There, in the bush," she said, her voice quavering, "but the boar...it's staring at you, Cordy, it might charge again."

Cordaella reached up to snap off a brittle tree limb. She could make out the black bristles of the boar now, its tusks nearly as long as her forearm. "Get on," she said quietly, keeping her eyes on the wild pig, "I can't ride any closer." Elisabeth dashed towards Cordaella, her deep red skirts tangling in the undergrowth. The boar grunted and lowered its head. "Quickly," Cordaella urged, "it's going to charge again."

Elisabeth was grabbing at Cordaella's saddle, her damp hands slipping on the leather. "I can't," she sobbed. Cordaella tried to scoot forward, reaching down to give her cousin an arm. "Careful," Cordaella gritted, straining to pull Elisabeth up. "It's coming!"

She didn't know how to ride and protect them. She knew that if they rode, the boar could still charge them, destroying the horse and leaving both Elisabeth and her vulnerable. She would fight, then. She watched as the boar's black head lowered, its small red eyes focused on the horse's forelegs. Cordaella lifted the tree limb over her head, tensing, waiting. And then she swung, bringing the branch down with all of her strength. She heard the pop and the branch exploded into three pieces, flying out of her hand. She had merely grazed the boar's head, and it hesitated for a fraction of a second. Elisabeth kicked the horse hard, so hard that the mare lunged forward, sending the two girls forward.

"Hold fast," Elisabeth panted, kicking the horse again. She had taken the reins from behind Cordaella and Cordaella grabbed handfuls of mane, leaning against the mare's neck as Elisabeth whipped the horse into a hard run. They galloped through the last of the meadow and into the acre of wood before Peveril's gates. Cordaella could hear Elisabeth's muffled tears and she felt as shaken. The attack had all been so sudden, so unexpected. Cordaella had forgotten the danger in the woods.

"My horse," Elisabeth said, trying not to sniffle.

"I know," Cordaella whispered, grateful to see the guards swing open the huge iron gates for the girls. "I am so sorry."

Elisabeth pulled up on the reins, slowing the mare to a canter and then a walk. "Thank you." They rode up the sweeping drive, the brown dirt cutting between the green lawn. "Visitors," Elisabeth said, seeing the ring of eight horses at the stable door. She rubbed any trace of tears clean and unfastened her cloak's collar. Beads of water clung to tendrils of her dark blonde hair. "Their colors look foreign," she said. "Whose banner is black and yellow?"

"Castilians," Cordaella said softly. "The Duke Fernando's colors."

The Castilians were the two de la Torre brothers and their guard; the brothers sailing from Santiago as emissaries of Duke Fernando. Cordaella did not meet them until supper when the afternoon fog gave way to rain, Peveril's windows rattling throughout the meal, wind shrieking through the castle's towers.

After dinner they left the drafty hall for the snug solar. The Earl had learned of the boar attack just before dinner but hadn't yet spoken to either girl about it. "What do you mean," he whispered angrily to Elisabeth as they took seats in the solar, "riding so far from the road? What foolishness! We lost a good animal today and we might have lost you," he said, but he had turned to look at Cordaella as he spoke the last words. Elisabeth's lip trembled and the Earl hastened to say, "You're never to ride beyond Buxton again. Is that clear?" She nodded unhappily and Cordaella lowered her head, feeling somehow responsible and aware that all could hear the Earl.

Carlas de la Torre held his hands to the fire, his dark coat gleaming in the red and gold light. "It must have been frightening," he said, his accent flawless, "and yet, what an adventure. Who would have expected so much excitement on an afternoon ride?"

Elisabeth shuddered. "It wasn't exciting. It was horrible," she said. "My horse didn't have a chance. If Cordaella hadn't been there, I would have been killed."

"And what did Cordaella do?" Eddie mocked, full of eleven-year-old malice. "Strike the boar down?"

Elisabeth looked at him, her expression cold. "Yes, she did."

The other brother, Enrique de la Torre smiled. "And does she always carry a weapon?"

"She didn't have a weapon," Elisabeth said, her voice small, tight. "She took a branch—"

"A tree branch?" Enrique's eyebrow rose.

"Yes, and she clubbed the boar with it."

Eddie howled, "I would have liked to see that!"

"I only stunned it," Cordaella defended, wishing they would forget the incident. It had been a horrible afternoon and all she wanted was to go to bed, to climb beneath the warm covers and hide.

Carlas and Enrique exchanged glances. "You must be very brave," Carlas said gently, taking an empty seat near the hearth. "So much courage for a girl."

Cordaella stared at him, trying to see past his pleasant expression, wondering what he was really thinking. She didn't trust him; she didn't trust any of these men. Lady Eton stretched out a hand, calling for Cordaella to join her. She had brought out the tapestry and Elisabeth was already threading her needle.

Thunder boomed, the window pane rattled more loudly and the Earl sent a servant to shutter over the glass. In the meantime he offered more of his hot spiced wine, the fire hissing as stray drops of rain sizzled on the flames. "I apologize for the weather," he said, his voice too loud for the solar. "England is normally more temperate than this."

Enrique shrugged. "England is England." He gargled the strong wine at the back of his throat. "Which means wet."

Carlas, ever polite, smoothed his brother's remarks over with a small gesture of his hand. "Rain is always welcome to a Castilian. Our father's orchards depend on the rains, something we don't get very regularly in Barcelona."

Eddie rose on one knee. "But I thought you were from Santiago."

"We serve the Duke Fernando, our mother's cousin. She is from there. We were raised in Barcelona." Carlas' civil answer seemed to please nearly everyone.

Elisabeth raised her head shyly. "What is Castile like? I heard the climate is very different."

Carlas and Enrique again exchanged glances, Enrique's dark brow rising higher than before. He was the first to answer. "The climate is quite different from here. Less rain. And much warmer."

"Yes," Carlas chimed in, "Castile smells of ripe grapes and oranges."

"I heard that sometimes there is so little rain that the crops die," Philip interjected coolly, his light gray eyes narrowed on the two brothers. There was something tense in his expression that belied his outward calm.

"Perhaps, but not often," answered Enrique.

"What is the word—drought?—n England we do not have that problem," said Philip.

"Every country has its share of problems," Enrique said, taking note of Philip for the first time.

"What else do you grow in Castile?" Eddie asked, impatient with Philip's digression. "Oranges and grapes and what else?"

"Livestock. Nearly two thirds of Castile is pasture land. Also honey and olive oil."

"Honey?" said Elisabeth.

"Yes," Carlas said, nodding, "from many places—Toledo, Talavera, and La Alcarria." He inclined his head. "And do you like honey?"

She blushed, glancing quickly in her father's direction. "Oh, yes, very much."

"Then I shall have some sent to you." He saw her flush again and his mouth curved in a sardonic smile. "After all, Castile is the closest place to Heaven on Earth."

As the storm had passed and the morning dawned clear, the horizon a cool blue with a scattering of pink-tinged cloud, the foreigners left early, intent on reaching London before nightfall. The Earl said nothing about the visit to the others, and as the days passed and one week turned into the next, even Philip and Cordaella were forced to admit that their fears might be unfounded.

"Perhaps it was only for talk about trade routes. That is all we ever heard them say," Cordaella said, taking up the tapestry again. Lady Eton had been disappointed with Cordaella's work from the night before and asked her to replace some of her rows with smaller, tighter stitches.

"Perhaps," Philip answered darkly, staring across the solar at her, his brow creased. And yet Cordaella was surprised by her disappointment, an inexplicable sense of loss. She didn't want to marry the Duke Fernando, but after all the tension, the months waiting, she felt strangely let down.

"But now we have more time together," Cordaella said, an effort at cheerfulness.

"One would almost think you wanted to be betrothed." Philip's jaw tensed, his gray eyes clouding.

"What makes you think that?" She pulled the broken thread through the back of the linen, careful to keep her face expressionless. She should have known that he could read her so easily. Mrs. Penny used to say she was too transparent, wearing her emotions on her sleeve.

"I can tell, that's all." He smiled sadly, scuffing the toe of his boot against the hearthstones. "Is this part of your plan, Cordaella? Do you fancy yourself getting back at my father?"

"Ouch!" she cried, poking herself in the finger. "Now see what you have made me do!" She sucked on the finger, trying to draw the blood away. "How do we even know there is a betrothal? And how do we know it would be mine?" She pulled her finger out of her mouth and examined the puncture.

"Are you listening?"

"Yes," she answered. "But perhaps they are interested in Elisabeth. The nobleman spent considerable time answering her questions. Maybe it is her they are interested in."

"Ridiculous. She has no lands, no income, no _port_..." He stressed the last word hard, referring to Aberdeen. "Why would the Duke be interested in her? She brings nothing to the marriage but herself, and even that isn't much." He sighed. "Why don't you let me help you, Cordaella? Why won't you let me do something?"

"Like what?" She tried laughing at his serious expression. "What will you do? Run the Duke Fernando through? Pull a sword on your father? Really, Philip, you make too much of this."

"But Cordaella..."

"Oh, I hate my name," she said turning on Philip. "Especially when you say it that way, as if I am being sacrificed like the Cordaella of the old legend. And yet we don't know anything, Philip, so we can only wait."

"I like the Cordaella of legend. And you are more like her than you'll ever know."

"Well, I would much rather be Ellen or Eleanor, Margaret or Jane."

"But those are plain names, ordinary names."

"I want a plain ordinary name," she insisted. "Something that would let me hide. Escape." She leaned over from her bench to toy with a bit of kindling heaped by the solar's hearth. The dark beams of the solar glowed from the firelight, the sun working its way through the clouds, drawing long pale shadows on the hardwood floor. "I doubt there is even a single Cordaella in London, and London is a very big place."

"How would you know? You've never been there."

"But you have, and you have never mentioned another Cordaella."

He smiled fondly at her. "Yes, but there can only be one Cordaella. Besides, your name suits you."

"It does not. It sounds like a garden herb." He laughed outright.

"Is that so bad?"

"Why would my parents—or any parents—name an infant Cordaella? Perhaps my mother, ill and all, and still idealistic, thought it pretty, but my father?" She shook her head. "No, he wasn't an impractical man."

"Only impractical enough to run away with the great Macleod's favorite daughter."

"She wasn't his favorite."

"She was," Philip said. "And that's not the point."

She sat silent for a moment, listening to the sudden howl of the wind in the trees. Like a wolf's howl, like her Culross. She pictured the huge animal leaning against her skinny legs, her feet bare. She turned her head quickly to shake the picture, and the strands of pearls roped through her hair snapped together. "I wish we had known them," she said, trying to picture them instead.

"Who?" He watched her as she talked. She didn't know that he thought her unbearably pretty, and that every time he looked at her, she seemed different, her face changing before his eyes, the bones pressing higher against her skin, new planes and angles.

"Our mothers." She shrugged. "Our grandfather Macleod. We have this family we know nothing about."

"What don't you know?"

"Don't be obstinate."

"I don't mean to be." He grimaced at the rebuke.

"But doesn't it ever seem strange to you that we never knew the Macleods? That we know nothing of our mothers, only our fathers? And how different the Buchanan is from the Eton." She smiled almost wistfully. "Perhaps it is our mothers bringing us together like this. Angels."

"I think you are more Macleod than any of us," he said, leaning forward to tentatively touch a tendril of black hair that had come loose from her chignon.

"I don't look like a Macleod."

"But then, neither do we." He pulled a funny face and she smiled, just as he intended to make her do. He stood up reluctantly. "I should see about the horses. Do you want to come?"

"No, it's too windy." But she also stood up.

"If the wind dies down, you ought to go riding with me. You haven't been out in a while, not since the boar incident."

She shrugged. "I haven't felt like riding. It scared me, what happened. I had thought I knew the woods, but—" and she broke off, glancing around the chamber, seeing the burgundy and gold tapestry, the pewter jug, the dark leather chairs and small polished table. "Nothing is," she said, her voice low, sounding lonely like the wind outside, "as you ever think."

Footsteps sounded down the hallway, stopping just outside Cordaella and Elisabeth's bedchamber door. There was a knock. Cordaella continued combing her hair as Elisabeth glanced from the bath. Maggie went to the door, opening it "Your ladyship," she said with a curtsy and opening the door to allow Lady Eton to enter.

Mary Eton stood inside the doorway, her hands folded neatly against her skirts. She rarely visited the girls' chambers and looked uncomfortable now. "Good evening," she said a little stiffly.

"Good evening," the girls answered.

"I have come to speak with you, Cordaella," she said without preamble. "His lordship believes it is in your best interest if we—you and I—talk now." She glanced at the beds and the small wooden bench against one wall. "We can speak here or go elsewhere."

"I am undressed," Cordaella said, having already prepared for bed.

"Then we can talk here." She lifted the wooden bench and carried it to the bed. "Come, sit. I shall say what I must." Cordaella could feel Elisabeth's eyes on her as she walked to the bed, her legs wobbly, her knees loose as if all strength had left her. She sat down, her long hair spilling over her shoulders to her waist. "It is November," Lady Eton began, "and nearly winter." She cleared her throat. "You will be sixteen after Epiphany. Your lady's maid has said that you've begun your monthlies, and—" she wavered for only a moment, "you are of an age to bear children." Cordaella lowered her head, embarrassed. "Your uncle believed it would have been in your best interest to have had you married by your fifteenth birthday. He is looking for a suitable husband, one that will bring honor and strength to the Eton name."

Cordaella's hands felt damp and she wiped them on her nightdress. "Has he made a decision?"

Lady Eton didn't immediately reply. She stared at the girl, her expression pained, her brow furrowed. "Do you understand a wife's responsibility? That she must be quiet and diligent, gentle, honest, and always," she said, stressing the last word, "obedient."

"Even when he is wrong?" Cordaella asked, thinking of Eton's arrogance and manipulations.

Lady Eton held up a finger. "One's husband is never wrong. He cannot be contradicted."

Cordaella looked away, looking to Elisabeth who was silently drying herself by the fire. Maggie was emptying the tub's water into small pitchers which she would then dump out the bedchamber window. "Am I to be nobody then?" Cordaella's voice was barely audible over the popping of the fire. "Another servant for my husband?"

"A wife is not a servant. She is his greatest asset, his help, his hands, his handmaiden, and that is very different from being a servant"

Tears filled Cordaella's eyes. "No it's not," she whispered, "it is no different. It is just that the church makes it sound good. Holy." She swallowed and blinked back the tears. "But I am not like that. I cannot—"

"You must," Lady Eton said, interrupting her firmly. "That is your duty, your calling. Even as God calls some to the church, he calls others to serve through marriage. You are to serve as a woman, as a wife. It isn't your choice. It is His."

"God's?" Cordaella said, "or the Earl's? Or is my uncle God?"

Lady Eton slapped Cordaella, not terribly hard, but with enough strength to chastise her. "Shame! You dishonor your uncle, as well as the Lord. You are still so willful." She shook her head as Cordaella touched her cheek. "Do you think I am harsh? Consider what your uncle would have to say. That is why I am here. I am telling you—trying to prepare you—for the future. God chooses our path. We must then choose to accept."

"You make it sound easy."

"It is never easy."

"I don't know how to accept. Not from someone I cannot trust, cannot respect."

Lady Eton stood up. "You might never love your husband," she said quietly, "but you can obey him. That is your decision." She walked to the door, skirts rustling. "Both of you need sleep," she said, turning the door handle. "We have visitors tomorrow. It will be a long day." She inclined her head. "Good night, Elisabeth. Good night, Cordaella."

From the nursery window the next morning Cordaella watched as the retinue of guards and nobles rode through the gates of Peveril. She heard a shout and then the trumpet of a herald. The horses' hooves kicked up dirt and gravel and she pulled back as the yellow and black banners billowed, the wind filling them like sails. Fernando's men. They had returned.

She was being undressed as if a doll. Lady Eton, Lady Eton's maid, and Maggie pulled off Cordaella's plain surcoat and stripped the everyday chemise from her thin shoulders. She shivered and covered her breasts. "Don't be shy," Lady Eton said, watching as her maid scrubbed Cordaella's neck and chest with a damp cloth. "We haven't time."

Lady Eton opened Cordaella's trunk while Maggie brushed her hair, dragging the bristles through the thick black waves until Cordaella's hair hung even and smooth. Lady Eton's maid, an older woman Cordaella only knew as Joan, rubbed a cream into her skin, working the fragrant lotion deep in the skin.

"This one," Lady Eton said, unfolding a black houppelande from thin paper wrap. She shook out the black and gold folds, smoothing the bodice flat. "She needs a good chemise. Ivory. Should be silk."

Cordaella couldn't think, her mind as numb as her body. She wondered what Elisabeth was doing, wishing it was Elisabeth being readied instead of her. Elisabeth was already sixteen. She should be the first to marry. But as Joan held the chemise open for her to step into, Cordaella did, tipping her head forward so that the back could be closed.

The black gown was heavy, thickly embroidered in gold with a wide scrunch of pleated gold beneath her chin. The dress was tightly laced, the bodice pressing her breasts up, rounding them so they looked bigger, fuller. The black padded sleeves were folded back at the forearm, revealing the snug long sleeves of the ivory chemise. Just a doll, she thought, or a sheep.

"Come," Lady Eton said, as soon as the headpiece was pinned on. "They are waiting." Cordaella followed her down the stairs to the smaller of the two great halls. At the door, Lady Eton whispered, "Be modest. Be quiet. Be obedient."

"I am not ready," Cordaella pleaded, caught by the rise of sudden emotion. She wanted to run, to escape. There had to be some place she could go. Or hide.

"You have no choice. There is no way to prevent this—" She broke off, frustration and pity in her expression. She looked the girl long in the face. "It is easier than you think to accept what comes next. I, too, learned to accept. Take a breath and calm yourself. You mustn't disappoint him. Your uncle has worked very hard on the betrothal." She opened the door and pushed the girl in.

The Earl sat at one of the long wooden tables beneath the great stone arch that divided the hall from the solar. He was not alone. "Come here, Cordaella," he said, rising. "I have good news for you. News that our friends, the noblemen, Dones de la Torres, have brought." She knew then that it was all true—Spain, the Duke Fernando, leaving England. Her mouth half opened in protest but no sound came out. The Earl's face was red from drink. "As you know, Don Carlas de la Torre is an emissary of Don Pedro Fernando, the Duke of Santiago and Count of Galicia." Eton smiled benevolently. "Look what he has brought for you, Cordaella." He dumped a fat black pouch onto the table, sending a heap of gold coins and precious stones in a spill of color along the table surface. "This is but one token of his Grace's respect."

She stared at the jewels, transfixed. The heap of color shimmered, trembling as the Earl bumped the table. "Lucky Cordaella!" Eton enthused, drawing her closer. "Is it not exciting? The Duke is one of Castile's most important men. You shall have a very powerful husband."

More powerful than you, she wondered? Still she said nothing.

Eton tossed a gold coin at her and instinctively she reached out to catch it. "Very good," he said. "Think on it, Cordaella. Gold. A palace on Santiago's main square. Hundreds of servants. What more could a lady desire?"

"But to Spain!" Her voice faltered, and she clenched the gold in one hand, only half aware of its heavy weight.

"You will survive, even grow accustomed to the place," the Earl said matter of factly, as if expecting the initial resistance.

Carlas de la Torre spoke calmly. "His Grace is much impressed with you. He has heard that you are as pretty as you are learned. He looks forward to discussing some of the books you have read." He smiled, revealing even teeth. "Perhaps someday you will be able to travel with him, have a chance to visit those Italian ports you seem to enjoy reading about."

She didn't understand his reference. "My lord?"

"The last time my brother and I were here you were reading the Italians—" His heavy lids lowered to conceal his eyes. "Let me think, who was it? No, not Petrarca. Not Dante. Boccaccio. Giovanni Boccaccio." Again the smile and the flicker of his lashes as he looked up to catch her glance. "What did you think of him? Were you impressed with his style? Or, was it the subject matter?"

"What's this? What are you talking of?" The Earl mopped his brow. "What was she reading? When?"

Don de la Torre held Cordaella's eyes. "I mentioned the novel to his Grace. He thought it most interesting that a girl your age would have such—" and he turned away, breaking the tension—"interests."

"Is it the port of Aberdeen his lordship desires?" She forced herself to speak then, refusing to be silenced, intimidated. If she were to marry Fernando, she would be a Duchess. If the Castilian was wealthy, then she would also be. She watched her uncle, seeing how his mouth pursed at her question. She would find a way to beat him at his own game. If the Earl of Derby was rich, she would be richer. If he owned ships, she would someday own more.

A smile played at the corner of Don de la Torre's mouth. "His Grace does want the port, as well as the trade agreements connected with the region."

"I see," she said.

"Do you?" Carlas prompted softly.

She met his gaze, her head high. She was afraid but not weak. She was a girl but not a possession. Perhaps it would be better for her in Castile. Away from Peveril. Away from the Earl. She hoped her anger was better hidden then it felt. "I do," she repeated calmly. "I bring something of value into the agreement. This is good. His lordship, the Duke Fernando, will know I am important to him."

The Earl flushed. "You best not talk such nonsense. I don't like your tone." He stared hard at her, his eyes glassy. He seemed impatient, eager to seal the agreement. "Cordaella, then you accept the proposal?"

She stared back at him, seeing his red face, the bloodshot eyes. He must have been drinking for hours. How pleased he must be. She bit down on her jaw, holding to her calm, her resolve. "Yes," she said, her voice low but steady. "I accept."

"So be it." Don de la Torre rose. "I shall send word to his lordship. On behalf of Duke Pedro Fernando, I give you this ring, as binding a commitment as the marriage vows." He reached for her hand, the Earl on one side, the Castilian on the other. As the ring was pushed over her knuckle onto the softness of her skin, Cordaella heard her uncle say a soft but fervent 'Amen.'

"No!" He paced the length of the parapet furiously. His cloak sailed behind him, snapping in the biting wind. "I cannot believe it" He shoved his hand through his hair, ruffling the long blonde strands that were badly in need of a cut. His jaw was dark with the shadow of a two-day-old beard. "For the love of God, Cordy, don't tell me you agreed."

"I had to, Philip!"

"No, not yet, you didn't." He swung around, charging at her. "A thousand lashes would have been better than sweet acceptance. How easily you acquiesced." He couldn't hide his bitterness.

"That's not true." She was freezing, the late November air frigid, the wind blowing steady and cold. "Please, Phil, let us go below. I am miserable with the wind."

"Is that all you feel? I wish I were so lucky."

"You're not being fair!"

"What does justice have to do with it?"

"Everything." She fought to keep her cloak from blowing over her shoulders. "You must realize that I had no other choice. I must answer to your father. He is—" and she hated the wretched expression twisting Philip's face "—my guardian."

He took a step towards her, grabbing her against him. His arms were thin but binding, his fingers tight on her forearms. "I will die," he said, burying his face in her hair, "here, without you."

"What do you say?"

"God forgive me, but I love you. I love you better than I love myself," he whispered, his voice wracked with pain. "I won't let him send you away. My father is selfish, and terribly greedy, but this, this—"

Cordaella hugged him. "Hush, Philip! It has been decided. You know I must go."

"But I love you. I want you."

She pulled back to touch his cheek with her hand, his beard scratching the softness of her fingers. "And I love you, my good Philip, but as friend. As a brother. Nothing more."

"You don't have to love me, Cordy. Just let me take you away from here. Let me help you!"

"Your father would never forgive you. And so I can't let you."

"But if you didn't have a choice?"

"A choice?" Her heart thudded uncomfortably, wishing she could explain to Philip about her determination to avenge her father's death. Wishing that she knew how to put into words her plan, and the plan meant leaving here, leaving Peveril and Philip for Castile where her future husband lived, powerful, more powerful than the Earl. Someday she would have everything and he, Eton, would have nothing. "Listen to me, Philip," she said, her tone firm, almost hard. "I have accepted the proposal. I wear the ring now. Yes, hear me." She caught his face between her hands and held his chin so that he had to meet her gaze. "I am going to sail at the end of next summer. Do not, I beg you, muster any defense on my behalf. I could not bear the grief of losing you too. I would much rather have you alive and distant, than dead."

"Fernando is a monster, Cordy," Philip said more quietly, his gray eyes the same shade as hers. His arms had dropped to his side, his sword still sheathed. The wind blew his hair, a lock of it falling in his eyes. "How can I see you sail away?"

She brushed the stray strands of hair away. "Don't watch," she whispered, hugging him one last time. "Do not watch, do not listen. Don't think about it."

"I would do anything for you."

"Oh, Philip, I know."
Read on for a preview from

### The Falconer's Daughter: Book II

Liz Lyles

Copyright © 2015

She could feel his shadow, if that were possible, his tension tangible. Cordaella clenched her hands in her skirts, hiding the press of nail into her palm. More games. He was again playing with her, he the cat, she the mouse. Would it always be like this?

"What do you want me to see, my lord?"

"I want you to tell me how you see me."

She forced her tone to remain light, almost indifferent. "But I can not see you, my lord, not when you stand behind me."

Pedro laughed, a short bark. "Very good," he said, stepping back around her, going to the hearth and talking there. "I am surprised—" he said with a smile, the scar twisting at the edge of his mouth, "—and delighted by your intelligence. None of my wives were ever so interesting before."

"Lent is nearly passed."

"The marriage, yes." He nodded thoughtfully, one finger lying alongside his nose and mouth. "Tell me," he said, "I am curious. What did you think of your voyage here?"

"My voyage?" she repeated. November seemed so long ago. Now it was April and spring, the days were increasingly long, the sun shone warmer, even the air felt softer.

"From London?"

"I have often wondered how women perceive the rigors of traveling, especially the rigors of sailing. No matter how elegantly designed, a ship is never a comfortable place." He extended a hand to her. "Do come sit down and tell me of your trip."

She crossed the chamber, wondering where her attendants had gone, and gingerly took a seat on the edge of the chair. "I haven't thought much of the trip—there has been so much new here."

"Were you sick?"

He was worse than indelicate, he was rude. "Yes, very sick. But even the admiral was ill on that voyage. He said it was one of the worst storms he had ever encountered off the Bay of Biscay."

"Were you friendly with the admiral then?" He sat forward, his shoulders tensing.

She wondered what was behind the question, intimidated by his intense expression. "No, I was too ill to ever leave my chamber. He sent a steward to the door daily with fresh water and to change the slop bucket, and only on the last day did he ever appear." She was relieved when the duke sat back, visibly relaxing. "The admiral stopped to say that we were anchored some fifteen miles off the harbor and would reach the town on the coast tomorrow."

"Were you on deck as _The Anita_ docked?"

"Yes, I watched as we crept in closer to San Sebastian—" She looked at him uncertainly. "That was the name of the city, wasn't it?" He nodded. "I'm glad I was able to see that much."

"Describe it to me."

She took a breath and thought back, remembering their arrival. "It was a lovely day," she said, sounding hesitant, "and the ship's colors were high. There was a strong wind. It felt almost as if we were flying." She pictured San Sebastian as she had on the carrack's deck, twin mountain peaks backing the city and the bay curving to meet the piers of the port. "The harbor grew larger, the wharf and city buildings taking shape, and I remember thinking—so much white, the city seemed to sparkle."

"San Sebastian is a fine city, one of my favorites," he agreed, stretching out a foot to kick the log into the fire. The log crushed the embers, sending a shower of sparks and smoke up the chimney. "She is built in a perfect shell shape, with the river Urumea running straight through the heart of the old city. The architecture is among the best—very solid, sturdy walls, gothic cathedral spires. Everytime I sail back into Sebastian I feel as if I've come home again."

She could almost feel the groan the ship made as it came to a creaking, careening sashay against the edge of the quay, the anchor splashing hard and loud into the bay, waves drenching the hull, dripping cold salt water on everything. Immediately the carrack came to life; the shouts of the sailors mingled with the thudding of barrels as they were rolled towards the edge. Men high above, on the intricate rigging, had already begun the task of folding thick slick sails. "I liked the ship," she said at last.

" _The Anita_ is one of my best ships. Very sleek, very fast. Her cargo capacity is outstanding. I haven't any other ship quite like her."

"They are all different then?"

"As different as men are from women," he said, nodding for emphasis. "My ships are as important to me as family. I can not bear to lose even one."

"Have you lost a ship before?"

Scowling, he said, "I lost three last year to English pirates. England and Spain have had treaties for years, but that hasn't stopped the pirating."

"I haven't ever heard of such a thing!"

"It's a common practice, and not limited to the English. There are Spaniards who will attack ships flying their own country's flags."

"Have they attacked you?"

"They wouldn't dare. I created this country's trade empire; I have helped chart these seas and funded the building of the finest ships." He stared into the fire. "Besides," he said, his voice was calm andeven. "They know what I would do when I found them. And I would find them. I have an uncanny ability for discovering the dissenters."

"What would you do?"

"Cut out each of their tongues and then slit their throats. Slowly." He laughed suddenly and stood up. "And that is what I plan to do as soon as I get my hands on John Buckman."

Squeamish, she asked, "Who is he?"

"An Englishman. An Englishman that has not once, not twice, but three times has boarded my ships, robbing the cargo, and leaving the vessel too disabled to continue. Two of my ships have gone down in flames—"

"What of your men?" She was afraid to hear.

He shrugged. "What of them? Sailors are cheap labor. It is the ship that can not be replaced."

"Were they killed by the pirate?"

He looked at her with fresh impatience. "No, Buckman is too smart to do anything of that sort. He is more interested in stealing what I have."

She would have smiled if she dared, but she didn't dare. Instead she drew her brows together as if thinking very hard, a grieved expression on her face. "I hope you find him, my lord." She hoped the very opposite. She hoped that the brash Englishman would hit the duke's ships again.

Find out what happens next...

Get Now!
The Falconer's Daughter Saga

If you enjoyed **The Falconer's Daughter: Book I,** you'll love the rest of the saga!

The Falconer's Daughter: A Medieval Saga: Books I – IV

Buy now!

## About the Author

Liz Lyles was homeschooled during the years her family lived overseas and loved to lose herself in reading and studying ballet, which was her first passion until she turned 16 and realized she would never make it as a professional ballerina. Determined to be practical, Liz gave up dance to focus on her studies, earning an undergraduate degree in English Literature followed by an MA with a teaching credential. While teaching journaling to her junior high students, Liz discovered her own voice and The Falconer's Daughter, her first historical, was inspired by the sprawling historical sagas she'd loved as a girl.

For all the latest news from Tule Publishing, visit our website at TulePublishing.com and sign up for our newsletter here!

