Now, at last, she was on her way to see her beloved.Beloved; yes, she thought of Fergus that way. She smiled as she thought of their many letters to each other, letters in which they shared their hopes, dreams, and gossip about their neighbors and friends. Grace kept all the letters in a special oakwood box to which she had the only key, and she often crept into bed and read them by candlelight, going over each word over and over again.
Occasionally, she was reduced to tears of laughter by his funny anecdotes, like the time he told her about how the pig from one of his tenants’ sites had escaped, wreaking havoc in his neighbor’s chicken coops.
‘You know that pigs will eat anything,’he wrote.‘Especially when they are farrowing. They have strange fancies, just like women do, and this big pregnant sow just happened to fancy eggs that day. By the time she had finished, there was not one egg left that was not smashed or gobbled up! I looked at the wreckage and had to stop myself from laughing, even though I knew it wasn’t funny. I paid the farmer for all the eggs because I felt so sorry for him.’
She knew with complete certainty that Fergus was the person with whom she wanted to spend the rest of her life. She hugged herself, and closed her eyes as she brought his face into focus in her mind’s eye. She had engraved it in her memory.
It was a strong face, with blue eyes, so dark they were the same color as a twilight sky, shadowed by thick dark eyebrows. Everything about him was strong; his slightly aquiline nose, high-sloping cheekbones, full lips and his strong, square jaw. She longed to run her fingers through his thick dark hair. It would feel like strands of silk, she thought.
Crissy, her maid, waved a hand in front of Grace’s eyes. “Wake up, dozy thing!” she ordered, laughing. “Are ye daydreamin’ about that boy again?”
Grace nodded, embarrassed, then smiled ruefully. “You know I have been dreaming about him for the last five years, Crissy.”
“Well, I am happy if you are happy, hen,” Crissy said fondly, smiling at her. She had expected the correspondence between them to peter out after a while, but it had not, and she was hopeful that this young man would be the one and only love of Grace’s life.
“I hope I don’t do anything foolish like throwing myself into his arms!” Grace said, giggling. “I think this will be the happiest day of my life—except my wedding day, of course.”
Crissy leaned forward in her seat, then took Grace’s hands in hers. “I am sure he will be delighted if ye dae somethin’ like that,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “You might find that Fergus is still a bit of a wee boy inside, but a’ men are like that, an’ that is why we love them so much.” She smiled widely, almost as happy as Grace herself.
Grace laughed. “I like the thought of that. Oh, Crissy, I am so excited!” She was bouncing up and down on the seat, unable to keep still.
Crissy looked into her eyes, smiling. “Aye, I can see that, hen! I dinnae think I have ever seen ye like this before!”
“You are more like a big sister to me than a maid.” Grace smiled warmly at Crissy. “Thank you, Crissy. I will bear all this in mind, but I still think I’m ready, and I know he is too.”
Crissy looked at her hopeful face, feeling almost as excited as she was sure Grace was. She almost felt like bouncing up and down on her own seat. She could remember being in love herself, and almost felt envious.
* * *
The clouds were gathering in the sky, and they both hoped that the rain would hold off until they had traveled the rest of the way to their destination. Grace sighed, wondering how many miles they had to go. Their carriage was amongst the most comfortable and well-appointed of all such vehicles. Nevertheless, miles of trundling along bumpy and sometimes muddy roads had left them both with aching bones and feeling slightly dizzy. Crissy had been asleep for most of the time, however, a talent Grace envied. They had stopped overnight at a coaching inn, but now, at last, they were nearing their destination.
At last, they ascended to the summit of a low hill and saw Inverleck Castle spread out at the bottom of a shallow valley below them. Grace ordered the coachman to stop so that they could get out and survey the scene properly. They had seen it before, of course, but that had been a few years earlier, and Grace found that her memory had not done the castle justice. She gasped in amazement as she saw it again. “It’s magnificent,” she breathed.
It spread all over the floor of the valley as if it had grown out of the ground, and its moat twinkled around it, hugging its shape. The building was not a square or a circle; indeed, it was not any kind of regular shape at all. It was made up of many layers of circular and square crenelated battlements, all leading up to a central tower from which flew the MacAndrew crest and the Scottish national flag, the Saltire.
The outermost wall of the castle was about twenty feet in height, high enough to allow an army of archers to let fly on any attacking troops across the moat, which, as well as water, was full of deadly spikes, as many enemies had found, to their dismay. From where they were standing they could see giant siege engines ready to repel any would-be invaders on the first layer of the ascending turrets.
Grace doubted they had been used for a long, long time, however, since there had been no serious fighting between clans, or against the English, for years. However, there were rumblings in the surrounding areas that this was about to change.
The higher layers were not quite so well-fortified, gaining an advantage from their height, and the topmost tower was used merely as a lookout point since it had a commanding view over the valley and for miles beyond. Castle Inverleck had not been built with beauty in mind, but with the sole purpose of defense. It was a mighty fortress.
The sloping sides of the valley below them were covered in emerald green grass, which was being cropped by fluffy white sheep with black faces. It was the end of summer, and the lambs that had been born in spring were fully grown and almost ready for the market now.
Great, gray sloping boulders jutted out of the grass here and there, each one covered in moss and lichen, and the spaces in between them were spattered with wildflowers. Mushrooms flourished there too, some as small as buttons, others as big as soup bowls.
“Dinnae ever touch those mushrooms,” Crissy warned Grace sternly. She pointed to a small white fungus with a flat top. “Destroyin’ angel. Deadly. It is better no’ tae pick anythin’ ye don’t know, hen.”
“Thank you, Crissy,” Grace smiled and put an affectionate arm around her shoulders. “But you have told me a thousand times what to avoid!”
“Ye can never be told too many times, hen!” Crissy said, then she laughed. “If anythin’ happened tae you, what would I dae wi’ myself?”
They were both silent for a little while, then Grace raised her gaze to the sky. It would not be dark for a long while yet, but the clouds were gathering like the troops of an aggressive army. They had to hurry.
In the far distance, Grace could see the shimmering waters of Loch Inverleck, and the memory of Fergus’s face, his blue eyes shining into hers, came back to her in vivid clarity, and she shivered.
She could not wait a moment longer. She had to see him.
* * *