Page 18 of The Stag & The Owl
Leif bounded down the gangplank almost assoon as it was lowered and embraced the man.
“Welcome home, son,” the man said, breakingLeif’s embrace.“I see your journey was successful.”
“That it was,” Leif said with a huge grin.Hesignaled imperiously at Roark, who took Alina by the elbow, givingit a gentle squeeze as she clutched the sack that held her tatteredgown and the lynx pelt Roark had gifted her.She reached for thepearl that normally hung at her throat, her only other personalbelonging, but found only air.Roark had taken it from heryesterday, claiming that he would keep it safe for her.
He’d told her of the MacKinnons, and so sheknew the tall, white-haired woman with the ermine short cloak nowhugging Leif was Lynette, his mother, and the pretty blonde dancingbeside her was Gwyneth, who hadn’t yet even looked her betrothed’sway.Roger, however, stared at Roark and Alina as they descendedthe gangplank with a smug smile on his long-chinned, sharp-angled,Northman’s face.
Roark stopped in front of Roger and let gohis hold of Alina’s elbow.He stepped forward and clasped Roger’sarm.
“Did you have any trouble?”Roger asked withonly the slightest Northern accent to his Green Isles tongue.
“No,” Roark said.“It went surprisinglywell.”
He stepped back, and Roger and Alina tookeach other’s measure.Looking at Roger was like looking at an olderversion of her Uncle Tryggr.Same height, build, high-boned cheeks,and grey eyes.All fairly typical of a Northman.
Roger gave a signal and Roark took Alina bythe elbow and led her toward a wagon pulled by two draft horseswith two saddle horses tied to the back.Roger gave his wife a handup onto the wagon as Leif helped Gwyneth and then jumped into theback.Roark untied the saddle horses from the wagon, booted Alinaup onto the back of the shaggy little dun mare, and then mountedthe sturdy, dapple grey stallion.
They rode behind the wagon, travelingnorthwest along a road cut deep with wheel ruts through rollinghills dotted with small herds of white, tan, and brown sheep beforethe road turned north through a village of thatch houses, many ofthem little more than huts, the men and women and children therestopping to watch them pass.
Most of the children were barefoot, and theirparents dressed in threadbare tunics and work aprons.Alina lookedat Roark, who met her gaze, and she nodded purposely from theragged serfs to the richly dressed laird’s family, who sat oncushions and blankets and laughed and talked among themselves whileenjoying a meal of fruit, bread, and cheese, never once asking heror Roark if they were hungry, or even glancing at the dirt-poorvillagers.
“I know,” he told her.“This is what I’mtrying to prevent more of.What I’m hoping to change.”
By marrying Gwyneth and keeping the alliancesbetween lairds and clans intact.
Another quarter league up the road they cameto the gated entrance of a two-story manor house with several smallbuildings and what looked to be a stable with a paddock situatedover several acres of cleared land.
They rode up to the front doors of the house,where a middle-aged couple dressed in the plain work aprons ofhouse servants stood waiting.Roger and Leif helped Lynette andGwyneth down from the wagon and the servants followed the ladiesinto the house.
“Bring our guest to my private chambers,”Roger ordered Roark, and then he and Leif strode into thehouse.
Roark dismounted as two stable hands cametrotting over to take their horses’ reins.Alina swung her leg overthe dun’s rump and startled as Roark’s hands grasped her around thewaist and lowered her to the ground.
“Welcome to North Shore Keep,” he said,giving her waist a quick squeeze before letting go.
He pushed the thick, wooden, double doors tothe manor house open and Alina followed him into the entrance hall.To the right of the staircase leading up to the second story was adining hall with one high and several low tables and chairs, and anopen door to the kitchens, from which the enticing scents of breadbaking and meat roasting wafted.Roark turned to the left, leadingAlina through a common room with a large hearth and sitting areafull of chairs and tables to an ornately carved door he knockedon.
“Enter,” a man’s voice said from the otherside.
They walked into a room with wood-paneledwalls hung with richly detailed tapestries, a thick, woolen rug,and heavy wood furniture.
“Take a seat,” Roger said.He sat behind anoak desk with curved legs and clawed feet, and indicated acushioned bench along one wall.Leif sat on a chair with anupholstered seat next to his father’s table across from them.“First of all,” Roger said in the Green Isles tongue, “well done,both of you.Well done indeed.”
“Thank you, Father.”Leif sat taller in hischair.“That bastard Jerrik will be in for a surprise when he findsout his precious daughter isn’t dead but being held forransom.”
“Surprise isn’t what he’ll be feeling,” Rogersaid.He looked at Alina, who lifted her chin a notch at hisperusal, and smiled without showing any teeth, putting her in mindof a cat playing with a half-dead mouse.
“What do you mean?”Roark asked.
Roger smirked.“I mean the plan haschanged.”
“How so?”
“However I say it has,” Roger snapped.
Alina sat back at the angry tone of his voiceand Roark stiffened and said nothing more.From what he’d told herabout Roger, he wasn’t a man to be challenged, especially in frontof others, even if it was assumed they couldn’t understand a wordof what was being said.
Smoothing his tunic, Roger addressed Alina.“I am Roger MacKinnon, laird of North Shore Keep,” he said in herNorthern tongue.“You are my prisoner here for the next fortnightat least, whenThe Roversails for your home again.Behaveyourself and you will not be mistreated.Try to escape, and youwill regret it.”
