Everlasting Rapture

The steam rose from the pot above the small fire, letting a string of aromas into the air to surround the camp grounds of the clearing. The mouths of the men watered from just the smell, never caring if it held rations of horse manure. Their stance shifted predatorily, eyeing the one next to them, tensing when either feigned a move to spring forward. The way the behaved was more like a pack of ravening wolves gone too long in starvation over the winter, their growls just as primitive. Their wild hungry gaze broke when a diminutive, slender hand bashed them on the side of their heads, howling by the blow.

“Control yerselves, ye lot of idiots,” Moira said mockingly. “Ye do naught but drool at the sight of stew in front of yer eyes as if ye ha’e ne’er seen venison or the like.” She giggled when Tristan and Hamish gave her a baleful glare as they rubbed their sore heads, Tara all but mimicking the giggle.

“Wheesht, aye,” Tara said giddily. “Ye must wait until the ladies get their spare of fare afore ye fools set the pot on its end by yer display of masculinity. ’Tis better to wait patiently, instead.” She danced her way to the pot as she scooped herself and Moira a helping of venison stew, exaggerating the indolence only to see the two guards glower dangerously at the tiny girl.

“Ye seek a hand to yer backside, Tara,” Hamish said dryly.

“Aye,” Tristan agreed wholeheartedly with a vigorous nodding, his brown-eyed stare fixated on the carved bowl that Tara held in her small hands.

Moira and Tara looked at each other, as they let out a burst of amused laughter, finally giving them a share of the venison that Moira had cooked when they chanced to stop for the three-day trek across the highlands to Dublane. Hitherto, her instincts were proven fallacious, no menace has crossed their path since leaving the protective walls of Millancraig.

Often alleged, said too soon.

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Moira dipped her hands into the clear stream of the small rippling river, bathing her face with its cooling water and brushed her teeth with her handkerchief as dawn broke the sky. Looking around, the landscape of green made her peaceful, just the experience of being one with nature made her completely enraptured by the beauty it displayed. How freely it grew, wherever wandering along unabashedly settling without consent. She sighed as she saw two wrens chirped on an overhanging branch above her head, two companions in life. Nearly a score year of age, she was growing steadily unable to attract a man’s eye. She touched her wild, unruly hair, neither red nor brown, wondering that the color was disagreeable to the eye. Moira also acknowledged that a husband would like a woman more fulsomely curved and she was nearly shapeless, slender and wee.

“’Tis almost as if I am a still a bairn,” she muttered quietly, watching the pair of wrens take flight into the foliage of the trees.

A silver object darted in front of her peripheral, happily distracting her from her morose thoughts, she saw the fish swimming in the center of the small brook. Smiling, she took off her boots and stockings and hitched up her skirts.

It was near noon as she came back to camp with four fish in her hands. Moira saw how her absence had affected her two guards for they were pacing frivolously, in her opinion. She shook her head and hid a grin when Tristan and Hamish turned at her silent approach. Hamish’s burly hands clenched into fists and his fair complexion turned red as his hair which seemed to crackle, his cheeks bulging angrily. Tristan, alternatively, stalked in front of her, his hands extending to her shoulders to shake her. Tara sate demurely on the rough coverlet with her eyes wide with tomfoolery.

“Silly wench,” he barked. “Do ye ha’e any idea how nearly I razed the entirety of Scotland for ye!”

“’Tis gathering fish an offense, Tristan?” Moira asked delicately, broadening her eyes with innocence. “I but thought ye weel be ravenous in the wee morning and I found a brook but a few paces from this humble site.”

“Moira MacMillan,” Hamish fumed.

But what he was about to say ended abruptly as they all felt the ground tremble lightly, an array of pounding hooves was heard distinctly. Tara jumped to her feet, her tiny body tense and frightened.

“Stay back,” Tristan ordered tersely, brandishing his sword and dagger as Hamish mirrored him.

Moira moved back at the edges of the underbrush as she grabbed Tara, taking out her dagger from its sheath at her waist. “Tara, if any of us are felled ye run to the horses and flee without faltering,” she ordered the stiff child behind her.

“Nay, Moira,” Tara gasped, outraged, looking up at Moira.

“Aye, Tara, ye run and ye flee,” she snapped.

Just as she completed her order, the clearing flooded with at least half a dozen bearded men. Moira stared in consternation when she saw an arrow thrust into Hamish’s shoulder as he tried to deflect it. It was an uneven fray. Hearing the clash of swords, Tara flinched and huddled farther behind her eldest sister’s skirts, giving thanksgiving that she was able to convince Nairna to stay in the safety of Millancraig. Moira nearly shrieked in terror when the raid leader’s sword cut a gash through Tristan’s leg. One of the men dismounted and started heading towards Moira and Tara, laughing when he saw Moira stand protectively in front of Tara as she held out her dagger, all to willing to use it to protect her beloved wee sister. His rotted smile made Moira freeze, his gleam in his eyes made it noticeable on his intent as it raked her from head to toe. To her surprise and horror, the man stumbled before her, his hand grasping at her skirts as she fell along with him to the ground, a trickle of blood escaping the corner of his mouth. Moira rolled away from his heavy body, seeing the feathers of an arrow protruding from the dead man’s back. She become aware that more riders started to appear, at least one short of a dozen. Moira craned her neck, meeting eyes that were coal blue-grayish eyes of her intended champion.

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Bowen cleaned the bloody sword on the jupon of the man he had just recently killed. Sheathing his sword and dirk, he looked around observing the rest of the men, perceiving that there were no dead on their part, but there were wounded. Sighing, Bowen looked towards his laird, what he saw made him do a double take and gawk in disbelief.

Moira knew that it was unfair for her to point her dirk directly above her champion’s heart. She might have held it to his throat but the man was intimidating taller than her, but when her savior had dismounted from the gigantic perch of his mount and came towards her with a cold look and a scowl curving his disarmingly beautiful face, Moira couldn’t help but be defiantly frightened.

“Ye repay me by pointing yer dirk at my heart, wench,” her redeemer growled, he stood still. Half his size but with fury and fear in her odd-colored eyes, Gowan McDonald was wee bit impressed by her defense to protect the wee child hiding behind her skirts.

“Weel, sir, I doona ken ye,” Moira muttered with enough determination that set her voice strong. “’Tis either a liberator or a lion I now face.”

The voice Gowan expected to hear come from her wee body was not the tone he imagined, it was deeper and huskier that reminded him of sensuality. It made it hard to breathe. He raised an eyebrow, intent on hiding the effect that voice did to him. “I just saved ye from a raid,” he snapped.

Moira gasped and quickly looked around. She let out a small cry of alarm when she saw Tristan writhe in agony where he fell. “Tristan!” Moira breathed, grabbing Tara’s hand and ran towards her guard.

Bowen moved to Gowan’s side, finding it amusing when he saw his friend scowl at how tenderly the wee lass gathered the bleeding man’s head to set it on her lap. He turned his gaze at the lovely woman, trying to comprehend that a few seconds ago she held her dagger to a man whom could easily cut her throat, bravely confronting Gowan. Even more so, with the glower that set a man’s knees quaking.

“Tristan, ye idiot,” Tara mumbled in distress, ripping her chemise to mop up the excess blood gushing from his leg.

“Doona worry so, Tara, ye worry o’er me too much,” Tristan gritted when Moira pressed the makeshift tourniquet on his leg.

“Aye, ye fool, ’tis no’ so frightening to have ye bleeding like a stuck pig on a pike, aye?” Moira grumbled, irritated.

Tara moved to Hamish’s side when he shuffled to their side, holding his left arm where the arrow struck him on his shoulder. “’Tis nice to ken ye survived the ordeal, Moira, with naught but a sour mood,” he drawled dryly. Moving his gaze to the men clearing the camp of the bodies of the raiders, it stayed on the man staring at the four with a grinning man-at-arms at his side. “And ye, man? Who be ye?”

Bowen snickered when Gowan glowered heatedly. “I be the man to save yer wretched arses,” he growled, ignoring when Bowen tsked at his vulgarity.

Moira glanced at the rude man disdainfully as she cleaned the wound on Tristan’s leg and readied to stitch the wound. “They be a bairn and a lady in the presence, sir,” she murmured resentfully, taking Gowan by surprise. “But I thank ye for saving our measly necks.”

Bowen stepped closer, lest he made Gowan livid by his enjoyment of how the lass inability to cower at the look on his laird’s face. Mostly he saw women give Gowan a welcoming, warm look, thus to his fascination, this lass was a nuisance he could gladly take to consideration.

“M’lady, I am Bowen McDonald,” he said politely as he crouched before her, not missing how the guard tensed and eyed his approach cautiously.

“Weel ye ha’e amiability, Bowen,” Moira smiled. “Moira is my name. The lass by the red man is my sister, Tara. These two brutes bleeding afore me are Tristan and Hamish.”

Bowen grinned when Tristan and Hamish grumbled in annoyance. “No clan?”

Before Moira could reply, Gowan interrupted them with a fierce look. “Better give us a clan name, wench, hence ye can be returned to plague yer people. Better to get some coin, too.”

“Nay!” Tara exclaimed angrily. “Ye weel no’ steal mine to fill yer barren pouches. We must go to--”

Moira threw her a look to silence her. “We were on our way to my uncle’s demesne, m’lord. And this man could no’ make the journey with no aid,” she said, trying to reason with him. Vika was depending on her.

Gowan stared at her small, heart-shaped face with her odd eyes pleading and her fair skin flushing crossly. He knew in the moment he stared at her pale hand moving delicately over the wound on Tristan’s leg, his prevention for a nuisance was ignored.

Possibly the lass was more answer than bothersome, if only to thwart his uncle’s plot of holding his dwelling. A maid was thrust into his keeping. Fate aided him.