The Raven's Moon (2 page)

The air was thick, restless tonight, perhaps due to the stretch of turbulent weather that had plagued Scotland these past months. But soon certainty crackled along her spine, and she knew what would come.

A man would ride through here within the hour. She would take that one down too, with her comrade's help—if he ever showed up—or else Iain would be hanged, wrongly accused.

Mairi would not let that happen.

Turning, she glanced toward the ruined keep that crested the next hill. Its jagged corner tower rose into the rainy sky above crumbling walls. That broken place had been deserted long ago, rumored to be haunted.

The local people skirted a wide path around Lincraig Castle. No one ventured inside. Yet recently, it was whispered that the ghosts of Lincraig rode once again.

The wild wind shoved at her, tugging her cloak, whipping at the dark braid over her shoulder. Rain pelted her hooded head. Discomforts she could ignore; fear was not so easy to dismiss.

Clutching the reins, she murmured as her black mare sidestepped nervously. Drawing a breath, Mairi told herself to be calm and patient—and to wait, however long it took.

She looked toward Lincraig on its hill. Devil's Christie Armstrong should arrive soon. Together they would surprise the approaching messenger, stun him, snatch his pouch and search for any papers he carried. He could have anything else of value—Mairi did not care. She and Christie would then vanish into the rain and mist and leave the man to the rest of his mission. He would be convinced, like the previous messengers, that he had met the riding ghosts of the old keep.

That old ruin's reputation had suited Mairi's cause well. Perhaps tonight she would finally apprehend the writ of execution with Iain's name, the document that the March warden expected from the king's council. Mairi had no interest in valuables, nor did Christie.

Watching the road, Mairi shifted slightly as a prickling ran up her spine. Danger swirled in the wind and the chilly rain. A certain undefinable power swept the air.

For an instant, she knew that if she carried through her mission tonight, she would be forever changed. The risk, she realized, was that great—though she did not know the reason.

"Find your courage, girl. Remember Iain," she whispered to herself in her native Gaelic. And remember, she reminded herself, Iain's wife and the new babe who waited for him in their cozy stone house nearby. Jennet and Robin were her brother's heart, and so hers as well.

She closed her eyes, felt the rain on her cheeks, and thought of the last time she had seen Iain in late summer. He had spoken of a foreboding just before he had ridden out. He had been taken down that night.

Mairi,
Iain had said.
Mairi, I had a vision.

* * *

A tiny pool gleamed like a fiery bit of sunset sky fallen to earth. Mairi lifted her skirt and stepped over the water, and turned, barefoot in the long grass, to look up at her brother.

"Iain, tell me what you saw," she said.

He shook his head. "I need to think about what it means."

She frowned. "I do not have visions as you do—but I have strong feelings that I trust. That lec Scott is a wild rogue who is naught but trouble, Iain Macrae. Promise me you will not ride out with him this night."

"I must,
mo leth,
" he answered her in the Gaelic they spoke when alone.
My half
—he often called her so. "I will help him get back the cattle that reivers stole from him. He did the same for me when my own beasts were snatched by reivers."

"But"—she glanced at the darkening sky—"do you not feel the unease here?"

"Ach,
unease rises with the moon here in the Borders. But I will be riding with good friends at my back."

"And a sack of booty on your saddle, while herding beasts that are not yours—and with the warden's mosstroopers on your tail," she said. "You learned those ways when we came out of the Highlands to foster with our Kerr cousins. I think even our father, though raised in the Lowlands, did not guess how much the reivers his kinsmen were when he sent us down here."

Iain smiled, gray eyes twinkling. The wind riffled his golden hair and he shoved it back—so handsome, familiar and dear to her that Mairi smiled too, despite her trepidation. She had ever been quieter, darker, more somber than her
leth-aoin,
her twin.

Leth,
they always called each other: half. Iain, handsome and confident, had the golden sparkle of their mother, Elspeth Fraser. Patient, practical Mairi was dark like their father, Duncan Macrae, and shared his serious nature.

She and her brother had fostered together in the same Kerr household in the Borderlands, with paternal kin who encouraged them to speak their father's English—and hide their mother's Gaelic. The twins learned Lowland customs, including how to reive cattle swift as the wind steals clouds past the moon.

"Ride out if you like, but not with Alec Scott," Mairi told Iain. "One day that one will call such trouble on his pretty head that even his charming smile will not undo it."

"Do you worry because the March warden dismissed him as his sergeant? There were other reasons, nothing to do with Alec's notorious kinsmen. I trust Alec Scott more than Simon Kerr." He smiled. "Besides, I rent my house from Alec's grandfather and so I owe them service as part of the privilege. The Blackdrummond Scotts befriended me—both of us, my half—and now I'm wed and settled here. I may be a Highlander in their midst, but I feel at home here."

"I do not." She scowled. "They are outlaws and murderers."

Iain sighed. "Let your heart heal, Mairi."

She raised her chin, declaring her right to still feel the hurt that had nearly undone her. "I too would have felt home here. But one of the Scott kinsmen killed my betrothed. And I will not forget it." Shivering, she folded her arms. "There is danger coming. I feel it, I." She glanced at the scudding clouds.

"Just another summer storm," Iain said. "I will be back before dawn. Watch over my Jennet for me. She is restless at night as her time draws near. It was good of you to come here to help Jennet with her babe."

"I came to plead with you to move your family to the Highlands, if you would know," Mairi said.

"I know you do not like being here, Mairi. I understand."

"And I know you love it here. You have Jennet," she murmured. "I thought I would be happy here too, with Johnny Kerr. But he has been in the ground these two years." A wave of grief—smaller and more dull than a while ago—went through her. "I returned to the Highlands, meaning never to come back."

"You will see my child born, and I thank you for it."

"Thank our parents. They sent me back here to you."

"Ach,
truly it was because you did not want to sail with them over the cold sea to Denmark," Iain teased.

"Iain—do not go out tonight."

"All is well," he said. But Mairi sensed a thread of doubt in his words. He looked past her as they both heard hoofbeats on the turf. Mairi did not turn. She knew the rider was Alec Scott.

"Tell me your vision," she told her brother. "Quickly."

Iain tapped his booted toe, rippling the shining pool at their feet. "I looked into a rain puddle—a tiny pool—and a vision appeared there."

"When was this?"

"A few days ago. I was out in the hills. In the water, I saw a storm reflected. A demon of a storm, with black clouds, thunder and lightning. I stood in sunlight, but the little pool went dark. I saw lightning breaking over dark hills. A rider came through the storm."

"Who was he?"

"I do not know. He carried weapons, wore a helmet and breastplate. A mosstrooper perhaps, or a Border rider. A tall man. He was... determined, desperate somehow. There was danger both before and behind him. He was riding through that wild storm to... find someone. I knew he had little time left. He rode up a hill, called out—shouted out a name, and—"

A chill ran up her spine. "What name?"

"Yours, Mairi," he said low, his gaze meeting hers.

"What? Where did he ride? And what does a mosstrooper have to do with us, or with me?"

"He was somewhere in the Borderlands. I think he searched for you. But I do not know. I only know that he was looking for you before I—" He paused. "Before I was to die," he finished.

She gasped, covering her mouth.

"Then the vision was gone," Iain said. "Who he is, or what it was about, I do not know. But there is some kind of danger ahead. The man is determined to find you. His will—his need—was powerful."

"I do not understand," she whispered.

"He was frightened for you—and—there was concern for you. Fear. Love."

"Love!"

"It was as if the man would risk his very life—for you."

Mairi felt stunned. "A dangerous vision," she said. "What of you? Your life was threatened too. Iain, please do not ride out tonight."

"Mairi, it might not be a true vision."

"It is a warning of some kind. He could be a horrid and dangerous enemy, bringing us both disaster. Love!" She huffed. "You must not ride out."

"Will I hide in my house because of a vision?" Iain held her gaze for a moment, gray as her own. Then he turned away. She turned too.

Black against the twilight sky, Alec Scott sat his horse, waiting for his comrade. His steel helmet glinted red in the sunset light. He lifted a greeting hand.

Iain gave Mairi a quick hug. "Watch after Jennet."

"I will," she agreed. Iain crossed the yard to untether his horse, and mounted to quickly join Alec Scott.

Mairi folded her arms over her heart, fearing without practical reason that she might never see either of them again.

The men vanished into twilight and the hoofbeats faded. Mairi shivered in the wind, and for a moment wondered about the man who would ride through a wild storm, a threat to Iain and to her. Love—that part was untrue, she thought.

Only danger approached, surely as another storm.

* * *

Seated on the horse in the darkness, rain trickling on her cheeks, Mairi tipped her head under the drape of her wide hood. She stirred, alert.

The muddy road was empty, but again she felt someone approaching. Knew it, real and cold within her. She felt alarmed and exhilarated. She would do this, tonight—and she would be successful this time. No matter what her foreboding said, she had to do this. Who else could help Iain?

Suddenly she wondered if this storm would bring the man Iain had foreseen.

If so, she would be waiting, ready to take him down.

Chapter 2

"Trust yow no Scott."

—Andrew Boorde, in a letter to Thomas Cromwell, 1536

Dark clouds moved through the sky like the devil's own galleons. Rowan Scott leaned a shoulder against the doorframe of the inn and looked up. Rain before nightfall, he thought. Again. What blastedly unpleasant weather Scotland had suffered through the summer and now into the autumn. So much rain that rivers had overflowed their banks, bridges had collapsed, crops were ruined. Jehovah's wrath, they were calling it. Enough, he called it, longing for sunlight.

He ignored a demand behind him to shut the damn door. Sipping ale from a pewter cup, he studied the violent sky.

The people were saying that Jehovah's vengeful breath produced the heavy storms that had buffeted Scotland. The weather had been poor in England, too, where many believed that the Almighty had created powerful winds and waves in the English Channel to defeat the Spanish Armada just two months earlier.

Few in Britain would argue the outcome, he thought.

God's well-timed breath had blown the fleeing Spanish ships northward. The Spaniards had intended to sail around Scotland and south toward home, but Jehovah was not done with them. The treacherous North Sea and relentless storms had swallowed several galleons heavy with cannon—and treasure.

Weeks ago, Rowan had seen the jagged remains of one galleon washed up on a Scottish beach, its hull and mast laying along the strand like the bones of some monstrous water beast. As a Border officer sent to the site by the Scottish privy council, he had helped to supervise the salvaging of gold and other goods from among the debris.