Lyon's Gift

Lyon’s

Gift

TANYA ANNE CROSBY

This e-book is licensed for
your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved, including the
right to reproduce this book, or a portion thereof, in any form.
This book my not be sold or uploaded for distribution to
others.

This is a work of fiction.
Any references to events or people, historical or otherwise are
used fictitiously. Names, characters, places and incidences are the
product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual
events, locales or persons living or dead is purely
coincidental.

Cover design by
Ravven

ISBN-10:
0988497433

ISBN-13:
978-0-9884974-3-6

Published by Oliver-Hebert
Books at Smashwords

Copyright © Tanya Anne
Crosby

Dedication

For Chaise

Other books in this series
by

Tanya Anne
Crosby

THE MACKINNON’S
BRIDE

ON BENDED KNEE

LION HEART

LION HEART coming soon as
e-book

Prologue

The forest was their sanctuary.

Meghan and her grandmother had spent many a morning
in the dimness of the woodland, gathering herbs for her
grandmother’s potions. Just now they were searching for sweetbriar
upon MacLean land, and Meghan was on her hands and knees, crawling
across the ground at the forest’s edge, painstakingly inspecting
foliage.

They were not supposed to be here, she knew, as old
man MacLean was apt to be angry if he discovered them once more
upon his land. Last time he had accused her Minnie of poaching,
though there had not been a whit of evidence in their sack. All
they had borne away with them that day were weeds and little more.
He did not know her grandmother if he thought she would do such a
thing; her Minnie would never eat an animal if she looked the
creature in the eyes beforehand.

“
Ye dinna have to look so
carefully, Meghan!” her grandmother directed. “’Tis not so wee a
plant, child—more like a shrub!”

“
I remember, Minnie, and you said
look for the pink flowers, too. So I’m looking, but I dinna see
any!”

“
Och, lass! That’s because you’re
crawling on your belly like a bloody viper! Get yourself up before
you grind the dirt into your sweet knees!”

Meghan peered back at her grandmother over her
shoulder, watching her an instant. The old woman was hunched over,
scanning the plants, murmuring to herself as she scrutinized each
one. Every so oft she would bend to pluck a sample and then crush
it between her fingers.

“
Be careful with the thorns,” her
grandmother said absently as she inspected a small branch of some
plant.

“
I will!” Meghan promised, though
she wished her Minnie wouldn’t treat her like a wee bairn. She was
all of eight summers now, and not nearly so little
anymore.

Her grandmother, oblivious to her complaint, began
to sing and dance.

“
Wretched mon, why art thou
proud,

That art of earth made?

Hide not behind your shroud!

But fore thou came naked!”

Meghan giggled at the sight of her, dancing so
lively, and felt warmed by the old woman’s joy.

“
Ta ta dum, da dum, da dum,” her
grandmother hummed.

Meghan made to rise, except that in that instant she
spotted a face peering out at her from behind a wide oak and she
gave a startled blink. The face was just about the size of her own,
and the eyes were wide and full with fright. They were visible only
an instant and then they vanished behind the tree.

Her grandmother carried on.

“
When thy soul have journeyed
out,

Thy body with the earth covered over!

That body that was so haughty and loud Of all men is
hated!

Ta dum dee dum, dee dum!

“
Och, Meghan!” she called out
suddenly.

“
Aye,” Meghan replied, turning to
peer over her shoulder to see if her Minnie had noticed the face
too.

“
Never
let a handsome smile
turn your head and woo your heart, d’ ye hear me, lass?”

“
Aye, Minnie,” she replied,
confused. She didn’t have any notion why her Minnie was so
concerned with boys. Meghan certainly wasn’t.

“
Ye know that Adam took that apple
all on his own, d’ ye not? Bluidy knave blamed it on Eve because he
did not have the nuts to take the burden on his own!”

Meghan rolled her eyes, having heard this tale more
times than she could count.

“
It serves him right that Eve
shoved that apple down his cowardly throat and that he bears it
still!”

“
Aye,” Meghan answered absently,
and crawled closer to the tree, her heart pounding within her
breast. The face did not peek out again, even when she’d reached
the trunk, and she was sorely afraid they’d scared her off. Holding
her breath, she craned her head around the tree trunk, and gasped
at the sight of a wide pair of eyes as green as her own staring
back.

“
Oh!” Meghan exclaimed. “There you
are! I feared you’d run away!”

The little girl said nothing, merely stared at
Meghan and cast nervous glances over Meghan’s shoulder at her
grandmother still carrying on behind her like a mad woman. Meghan
turned and appraised her grandmother an instant, seeing her through
another’s eyes, and frowned. Her grandmother suddenly fell to the
ground upon her knees, cackling in delight at some discovery she
made, and Meghan winced at the sight she presented.

“
She’ll not hurt you, I promise,”
Meghan swore, turning back to the little girl. “She’s not really
mad, she’s just my Minnie.”

The little girl’s face was frozen in an expression
of doubt and her eyes shifted warily to Meghan’s grandmother.

“
Och, Meghan!” her grandmother
said, “I believe I’ve discovered something here!”

The little girl’s eyes widened in sudden fear.

Meghan shook her head. “Don’t worry,” she said,
understanding the girl’s alarm. “I willlna tell her you are here.”
Meghan smiled at her and then called out, “What is it, Minnie?”

“
Touch-me-nots!” her grandmother
declared.

Meghan loved the delight with which her grandmother
embraced all things great and small.

“
What is it good for?” Meghan
asked, trying to keep her grandmother’s attention from turning to
their unexpected guest.

“
Not a bluidy thing!” her
grandmother said and cackled. “Have you ever seen such a thing,
Meghan?”

“
Nay, mum,” Meghan replied,
glancing again at her grandmother who was now lying upon her belly
on the bracken of the woodland floor.

And she would have had Meghan get up off her knees?
Meghan rolled her eyes again.

“
Looky here! Ye touch the bluidy
little buggers and the pods burst with seeds!” Meghan watched her
grandmother poke her finger at a few, and then listened to her
laugh uproariously.

She turned back to the little girl. “I am Meghan,”
she said to the girl. “What’s your name?”

“
Alison,” the little girl replied,
still staring at the cackling old woman.

“
We’re looking for sweetbriar,”
Meghan shared.

“
Why?” Alison
whispered.

“
I don’t know,” Meghan whispered
back. “For my Minnie’s potions.” And then she realized how her
disclosure must sound and winced.

“
To turn people into toads?” the
little girl asked with no small measure of concern.

“
Och! Nay!” Meghan exclaimed. “My
Minnie would never do such a thing! I have never once in my life
seen her turn anyone into a toad,” she swore. “But I did hear her
call my brother Leith a frog.”

The little girl tilted her head, looking as though
she wanted to believe Meghan. “She wouldn’t?”

“’
Course not!”

The two of them sat peering at each other a long
instant, and Meghan wondered if she dared ask.

“
Do you wanna be my friend?” she
whispered to the little girl. “I have never had a friend so little
as you!”

The little girl suddenly seemed to forget her
grandmother and her fear. “I am not so much littler than you!”

Meghan grinned. “Nah,” she agreed. “But I have never
had a friend ’cept for my Minnie.”

“
Meghan, listen!” her grandmother
called out. “Do you hear them, child?”

“
Hear who?”

Alison retreated behind the tree.

“
Woodland sprites! I think they
are speakin’ to me, lass, though I cannot be certain. Do you hear
them too?”

“
I heard nothing, Minnie!” Meghan
called back, and peered around the tree again. “She’ll not hurt
you, Alison. I swear on our friendship.”

“
I did not say we would be
friends!” Alison hurried to make clear. “My da will not let me play
near the auld witch—your grandminnie,” she amended.

Meghan’s face fell, her hopes dashed.

Alison shrugged. “But maybe I can sneak away,” she
offered a little hesitantly. “If you will too?”

Meghan thought about it less than an instant,
desperate as she was for a friend her own age. “Oh, yes, I will,”
she promised. “So then we are friends?”

“
Aye,” Alison said, and
smiled.

“
Are you certain you did not hear
them, Meghan?” Her grandmother cocked her head to listen closer. “I
know I do! Listen child.”

“
I’m listening, Minnie!” Meghan
said, and turned again to her newfound friend. “I must go and help
her, but shall we play in the meadow this noon?”

“
Aye,” Alison agreed, and smiled
again. “I shall meet you by the cairn.”

“
Verra well, then.”

“
Come alone,” Alison urged
her.

“
I will!” Meghan swore. “Go now,”
Meghan urged her, “before she comes to look for me.”

Alison nodded, and didn’t tarry any longer. She cast
a glance at Meghan’s grandmother and then leapt up and hurried
away.

Meghan watched her go, and felt as great a burst of
joy at her own discovery as her grandmother certainly had with
hers. And then she turned toward the old woman to see what she had
discovered.

She crawled to where her grandmother lay, and
sprawled beside her on the ground. The two of them completely
forgot about searching for herbs as they played with the little
yellow flowers and green pods, poking at them and watching them
explode, giggling together upon the forest floor.

It was very, very nice to have such a sweet
grandmother, Meghan thought. But it was a special, special day for
she had also made herself a friend.

CHAPTER 1

“
Twenty-seven!” Baldwin announced,
marching into the room where Piers sat poring over his new
survey.

It was a lesson Piers had taken from old King
William: one could hardly rule a land unless one knew precisely
what one held to rule. Following William the Conqueror’s example,
the first thing he’d done upon receiving this fief was to survey
his holdings, meager though they might be. And it was a good thing,
as it seemed his stock was dwindling quickly. He might never have
known until they’d been seriously depleted.

Thieving, conniving Scots.

“
Twenty-seven!” he exclaimed.
Christ, but he didn’t know whether to be angry or amused. At last
count—only yesterday evening—the sheep had numbered thirty-four.
“When did those whoresons have the occasion to rob me again? I
thought I told you to set a man to guard those mangy
beasts!”

“
The Scots?”

“
Them, too, cunning bastards! But
I meant the bloody sheep, Baldwin! The bloody rotten mangy sheep! I
thought I told you to set a guard for them!”

Baldwin’s ears reddened. “Well...” His face twisted
into an abashed grimace. “I
did
set a man to guard them, you
see… but it seems I set a wolf to guard the sheep’s pen.”