The Virgin Spring

“Forgive me, Laird, I—”

Hoofbeats sounded on the path behind them, and their conversation was forgotten.

Instinctively, Gilchrist reached for the broadsword strapped across his back and grimaced as the familiar, brilliant pain ravaged his torso and arm.

Hugh drew his weapon. Before he could position himself on the path in front of Gilchrist, the rider appeared.

“Alex!” they cried in unison.

Gilchrist relaxed and allowed himself a rare smile as the warrior approached. His steed was near spent, and Alex himself appeared little better. His plaid was filthy and rumpled, as if he’d ridden all night.

“We expected ye last eve,” Hugh said.

“Aye,” Alex said. “I was…detained.”

Gilchrist noticed a bit of dried blood streaked across Alex’s face. “What happened?” He motioned to the faint scratch marks.

Alex brushed his cheek with a gauntleted hand. “’Tis naught. Just—” He looked ahead to the clearing and his gaze lit on the girl. “’Twas Arlys,” he said and shot them a thin smile.

Arlys? “Hmph.” Gilchrist leveled his gaze at Hugh. “Loyal and true, indeed.”

Hugh shrugged and looked away.

Alex was clearly puzzled by their exchange. He nudged his gelding forward, even with Gilchrist’s mount. “Ye should be resting, Laird,” he said. “I’ll take care of things here.”

Hugh sprang to life, cocked a brow and set his jaw in that I-told-ye-so manner Gilchrist hated.

Aye, all right—I get the bluidy point, he replied with his eyes.

“Will ye come then, Laird?” Hugh said.

He looked again to the burnt-out clearing and wondered why the devil he had come here at all. Mayhap to see if he could bear it. He could not. “Nay, I’ll leave ye both here. I’m off to the spring.”

“What, the virgin’s spring?” Alex asked.

“Aye, that’s the one.” He turned his mount and guided him off the path into the wood. “I find the waters soothing.” Hugh followed but Gilchrist waved him back. “Nay, I wish to be alone. Stay here and help Alex.”

Hugh muttered something obscene under his breath, and shot Alex a stony glance. “As ye wish.”

Ignoring him, Alex said, “Do ye know the story of the spring? The one the old woman used to tell when we were lads?”

“The healer?” Gilchrist said.

“Aye, the same.”

“Go on—tell it.”

Alex drew his mount closer. “Dinna ye remember? ’Tis said three outlanders wrecked and murdered a Scots maiden on the very spot. ’Twas brutally done, and all wept for the loss. And when the girl’s father lifted her body in his arms, a spring flowed from ’neath the soft pillow of heather where rested her head.”

Gilchrist had heard the tale, but not for many a year. “I remember this story.”

“And the rest of it?” Hugh quipped. “Some say the waters have the power to heal.”

Alex smirked. “I think not. Nonetheless, for years after, women who were ill used or who’d compromised their virtue bathed in the waters as a means to restore their purity. There’s many who still believe in it.”

Gilchrist snorted. “The virgin’s spring—nonsense.”

“Mayhap not,” Hugh said, then laughed. “Alex, ’tis said your mother frequented the place often before ye were born.”

Alex kicked his mount forward, his face contorting in rage. Hugh’s hand moved like lightning to the hilt of his dirk.

“Enough!” Gilchrist shouted. The two warriors froze. “Get to work—the both of you. I’ll return on the morrow.” Hugh’s behavior was fair testing his patience.

Alex and Hugh turned their steeds, gazes locked like two feral predators, and made their way stiffly along the path to the clearing. The girl, Arlys, scrambled down from the burnt stump and ran toward them, waving at Alex, her face alight with surprise and pleasure.

Hugh nodded at her, then called back over his shoulder, “Laird, will ye do it?”

“Do what?” Gilchrist shouted.

Hugh nodded again toward the girl. “Marry!”

Alex’s eyes widened. He looked from Gilchrist to Arlys, his expression unreadable.

“I’ll think on it,” Gilchrist said and spurred his mount up the hill into the wood.

Thunderheads massed, full to bursting, the air chill and heavy with the scent of rain. Lightning flashed in the distance against an ominous sky. Gilchrist reined his stallion to a halt and listened. Any moment now…

Ah, there it was—the low, crackling rumble. He looked skyward and breathed deep. Winter was not yet ready to relinquish her hold, and he was glad. He favored the cool, dreary days and long nights.

The first few drops took him by surprise. Before he could react, the clouds burst and he was caught in the downpour. “Ah, well, no matter.” He proceeded to strip to the waist. His movements were slow, methodical; he gritted his teeth against the inevitable pain. “Bluidy hell.”

He was saved a pummeling by the thick canopy of larch and laurel that choked this part of the Highland wood. All the same, the rain stung his newly healed skin. God’s truth, he welcomed it in some perverse way.

He’d grown used to the pain. ’Twas almost comforting now, in a way he couldn’t fathom. Constant, true, something he could count on. It was what it was, and never deceived.

His stomach soured at the memory of the pretty, lying eyes of the woman he once thought to wed.

He spurred the stallion up a steep embankment. The horse protested, his hooves sinking deep into the mud, but Gilchrist urged him on with firm commands. They topped a ridge and turned south. ’Twasn’t far now.

He looked forward to his visits to the spring. They afforded him time alone, time to think. Aye, he’d done a lot of that of late.

Hugh’s words gnawed at him. He was right—the clan needed a strong laird, especially now. Gilchrist flexed the muscles in his ravaged arm and slowly opened the claw-like hand. Once, there had been no question he was that man. And now?

After the fire, when he lay near death, Alex had stepped easily into the role of leader. He was a good man, well liked by the elders and the clan. Mayhap ’twas all for the best. ’Twould be easy for Gilchrist to step down and fade neatly into the background.

As for those who loved him…What would they think of such a thing? He barely remembered his father and those early years before his death. ’Twas his uncle, Alistair Davidson, who’d raised him, God rest his soul, and his own brother, Iain. What would they expect of him now?

What did he expect of himself?