At The Laird's Command (Sword and Thistle 3)

…I began to shiver. It started in my fingers, then worked its way up to my arms, and it felt like a sickness, until I recognized it as a terrible rage. One that I’d never felt before. Never known I could feel. Through my teeth, I said, “You can speak to me of being as true as a husband, and then tell me to find love with someone else?”

There was an unfamiliar tone to my voice—one of pure fury. And he heard it, for his eyes widened slightly. If he would box my ears for it, I wouldn’t care. Perhaps I would even welcome it, so I jutted my chin out in challenge.

“Yes,” the laird finally rasped. “Because in this situation, this is what a true husband would do. So you can either obey me because I’m your laird or obey me for coin, but either way, you will obey me.”

What happened next I cannot explain.

I didn’t feel my own arm raise until I had already slapped him across the face. And even though the blow was muted by my bandages, the whole room echoed with the blow. I had struck the laird. I had dared to raise a hand to our chieftain.

His grip closed over my wrist as his dark eyes filled with anger; I realized he would have the right to…

…I couldn’t think about that. I could only think about the outrageous pain he had unleashed in me. The way it felt as if my heart was cracking in half.

So I slapped him again with the other hand. And I kept on slapping him, snarling and spitting and screeching, “How dare you? I’ve obeyed you from fear and I’ve obeyed you from lust and I’ve obeyed you from love, but never for coin or jewels or anything else. That was not why I came to you in the first place. It’s not why I made a vow to you. Damn you to hell if you believe otherwise, John Alex

ander Ramsay Macrea!”

I had never spoken to the laird this way; I doubted anyone ever spoke to the laird this way. His whole face reddened. I thought he might slap me in return. That he might beat me in earnest, but he didn’t. Instead, he threw up his hands in surrender. “I shouldn’t have said it! It’s only that I want for you the kind of love you read about in poetry books. The kind that you longed for. I want that for you, mo chride. And you cannot have that with me.”

I wanted to slap him again. I wanted to pummel at his strong chest, ineffectual as my little blows might be against such a wall of muscle. I wanted to hit, and scratch, and bite and make him hurt as much as he was hurting me. I’d thought, deep down, I was a good and understanding girl who wished nothing but to do her duty and please her laird, but inside me I now discovered something else. Something darker. A love so strong it felt like hate. “It will break my heart to go to Ian, do you hear me? It will break my heart. I want love with you or no one! ”

That’s when the laird grasped me by the arms and shook me until my teeth rattled. “Do you not realize that I’m not long for this world? We willna grow old together, lass. We willna have a life together. This is a war I’m going to lose and when I do, there is one thing, and one thing only that will make death easier. That is to know that I’ve ensured your future! Even as we speak, there may be inside you a babe of my blood, and by God, there is nothing I willna do to protect you both. Not even if I must break your heart to do it.”

His words knifed across my heart with more pain than I thought myself capable of bearing. And I began to sob. “It’s not true! The castle is well-stocked. I’ve heard you say that the Donalds will throw themselves against the walls and drown in the sea as they always do. Clan Macrae can outlast this siege!”

“Yes, Clan Macrae will survive. But I will not,” the laird said, with cold finality. “Unless reinforcements come, my life is forfeit. I willna starve the villagers or force them out of the castle. I willna surrender the castle or break my alliances. That means that the enemy will have my head, whether they must do it through assassination or treachery. And when that happens, Ian will be the laird of this clan. Do you understand now, why I must command you to make of yourself his woman, and not mine?”

Some part of me did understand. The calculating, strategic part that the laird had taught to play chess upon his board. It was a gambit. I had already learned the harsh reality that my body was a pawn to play for survival; the laird was now trying to tell me that my heart—and Ian’s heart—were just more pieces to move, maybe three spaces at a time.

But I had my Scots pride. And it’s all I had left. “You still don’t know what it is you have in me, laird. You can command my body. My words. You can make me take a paddling. You can make me crawl naked into your bed. You can command me into the bed of another man. Yes, you can command many things and I will obey. But you have never commanded my heart or my love. Not now, and not ever.”

And with that, I wrenched free of his grasp, and walked away.

~~~

Love and hate are closer siblings than we would like to admit, and heartbreak is a mysterious thing. It hurt far worse then the burns and scrapes on my hands and knees. It seemed like the sort of thing a physicker should rush to heal but I supposed no one could see the wound but me.

I’d been ordered to the rooms of another man. Ordered to take a new lover. A new love. But I felt nothing in my heart but pain and anger. A resentment for myself that I’d let it come to this. I’d known better. What was it that I’d been thinking in my secret heart of hearts? That the laird and I would some day marry and live happily ever after?

Me, a disgraced daughter of a crofter and him, a laird of all the clan albeit one who might not survi—

No. I cut that thought off before I could think it. It was too much pain already to think of losing him from my arms. More than I could bear to think of losing him from this world. So I stumbled about the castle in a fog, sleepless and wanting to think about anything other than my own pain.

In defiance, I would not go to Ian Macrae.

I couldn’t go to the laird.

I couldn’t return to my old chambers either.

So I found my way to the library where I stared at the Book of Runes, trying to figure out the meaning of the symbols carved into the jar my sister had given me. It was useful work, the only thing I could do to numb myself to the storm in my heart. Unfortunately, I could make no sense of the symbols, even with a translation. Something about spirit dreams and a beautiful woman.

A cosmetic, perhaps?

Without sleep, I worked on the problem until I was too exhausted to keep my eyes open. I drifted off with my head against the pages and my bandaged hands curled by my cheek.

It was Ian who came to fetch me.

“Come now,” the stern warrior said, gently shaking me awake. “There’s a bed for you in my chambers.”