Lord of Dunkeathe

“You should tell him that there’s nothing left for your dowry, either.”

“I don’t care about a dowry,” Riona answered. “Your father did enough taking me in when I was a wee bairn and treating me like a daughter e’er since. Besides, I’m too old to think about marrying now. I’m long past the first blush of youth, and none have offered that I cared to wed.”

“You’re not too old. That fellow from Arlee didn’t care about your age.”

“That’s because he was fifty if he was a day—and nearly toothless to boot. If that’s the sort I’ll have to choose from, I’ll gladly die a maid.”

“After rising from your sick bed to make sure all’s in hand before you go,” Kenneth noted.

“Somebody has to look after you and your father.”

“Aye, and the rest of the folk in Glencleith. Tell me, how many cottages have you visited in the past fortnight? How many complaints have you heard and dealt with on your own without troubling Father?”

Riona smiled. “I dinna mind. And the women feel better bringing their troubles to me.”

“That’s as may be, but it’s a fine job you do, sparing Father worry—although a little worry might do him some good. Maybe if we told him I’ll have no money and you’ll have no dowry, that’ll finally make him see the light.”

Riona sighed and leaned back against the wooden palisade. It creaked so precariously, she immediately straightened. “How I wish Uncle had plenty of money and a fine estate, that he could live as he would, without a care in the world. It’s no more than he deserves, for a kinder, more generous man doesn’t live. He’d teach these Norman lords about hospitality.”

“Aye, that he would.” Kenneth brushed a lock of his curly hair out of his eyes, then kicked at a stone near his toe. “Some day, Riona, things will be better. I promise.”

“At least our people can be happy knowing you’ll be just as fine a lord as your father, although perhaps a little more practical.”

That brought a smile to Kenneth’s freckled face that still had more lad than man in it. “I hope so. Tell me, do ye think Old Man Mac Dougan’s really as sick as he claims? He’s been dying—or claiming to be—since I can remember.”

“Aye, I do,” Riona replied. “He was that pale, I’m sure he isna well. I tried to get him to leave that drafty cottage of his, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Just took the food and fuel you brought him, is that it?”

“Aye, but I worry about him, there by himself. Maybe I can persuade—”

“Ooooh, there was a fine lass from Killamagroooooo!” a male voice bellowed in song beyond the gates.

They both stiffened, like a hound on the scent.

“There’s Father now,” Kenneth unnecessarily said, for there was only one man in Glencleith who sang so loudly and lustily. “He sounds happy. Very happy.”

Riona didn’t point out that Uncle Fergus usually sounded happy. If he sounded unhappy, that would be cause for surprise.

“Here’s hoping he got a good price for the wool, then,” she said as she opened the gate.

“Here’s hoping he hasn’t brought back half a dozen tinkers or paupers he met along the way,” Kenneth added as he hurried to help her. “I should have gone with him. I would have, if he hadn’t left before I got back from hunting. I half think he did that on purpose.”

In the interest of family harmony, Riona didn’t tell Kenneth he was right. She’d tried to talk Uncle Fergus into waiting for his son’s return, only to have him wave her off and say he’d been dealing in wool since before she was born. That was true, but Riona also suspected he’d been getting cheated since before she was born, too.

“If he’s in a good mood,” Kenneth proposed, “now might be the best time to suggest he be more…or less—”

“I’ll speak to him right away,” Riona replied. Delaying wasn’t going to make her task any easier.

Through their unguarded gate came their ancient nag pulling a cart with tufts of wool clinging to the rickety sides. Uncle Fergus was perched on the seat, his feileadh belted low beneath his ample stomach, his linen shirt half-untucked. Wisps of his shoulder-length iron-gray hair had escaped from the leather thong he used to tie it back. He looked disheveled enough that Riona might have suspected he’d been drinking, except that Uncle Fergus rarely imbibed to excess, and never in the village.

“And I brought her hooooome from Killama-groooo!” he finished with a flourish before beaming down on his son and niece like a triumphant general home from a long and tough campaign.

“Ah, here you are and both together!” he cried, tossing aside the reins and rising. He spread his arms as if he wanted to embrace the whole of the small fortress, walls, stone buildings and all. “Riona, my beauty, I have such news for you!”

In spite of what she had to tell him and her fear about the price he’d gotten for the wool, Riona couldn’t help smiling. She was beautiful only in her uncle’s loving eyes, but his epithet always made her feel as if she might be a little beautiful.

“Such news—and I might have missed it if I’d waited,” he said with a wry look at his son. He turned and started to climb down, almost catching the fabric of his feileadh on the edge of the seat.

With a soft and mild curse, he tugged the fabric down so that it again covered his bare knee.

“Is your back troubling you?” Riona asked anxiously, as both she and Kenneth hurried forward to lend him a hand. “You didn’t help unload the wool, did you?”

“No, no, my beauty,” he assured her. “I let those young lads of Mac Heath do all the work.”

Kenneth shot Riona a disgruntled look. Mac Heath was not known for honest dealings and Riona didn’t doubt that if Kenneth had his way, they’d never speak to Mac Heath, let alone sell any wool to him.

“Why Mac Heath?” Kenneth asked.

“Because he gave me the best price.”

Riona and Kenneth exchanged another glance, only this time, Uncle Fergus intercepted it.

“Now, children,” he chided, although even his criticism was jovial, too. “There’s no need for such looks. I did as you suggested, Kenneth, and asked more than one how much he’d pay. Mac Heath gave the most.”

Riona guessed Mac Heath had done that because his scales were weighted. Before they could say anything more about that, though, Uncle Fergus threw his arms about their shoulders and gave them another expansive smile as he steered them toward the hall.

“Now let me tell you what I heard. It’s wonderful, something that’s going to make all the difference in the world to you, Riona,” he finished with a nod in her direction.

She had no idea what that could possibly be, unless he’d heard of a way to feed a small household for free.

Uncle Fergus dropped his arms as they reached the hall, a low rectangular stone building ten feet by twenty.

“You know of Sir Nicholas of Dunkeathe? The Norman fellow King Alexander gave that huge estate to, the one south of here, as a reward for his service?” Uncle Fergus asked as he led the way over the rush-covered floor to the central hearth where a peat fire burned, even on this relatively mild June day.

“Yes, I’ve heard of him,” Riona replied warily, wondering what on earth that Norman mercenary could have to do with her.

“So have I,” Kenneth said. “He’s as arrogant as they come—which is saying a lot, since he’s a Norman.”

“He’s got some right to be arrogant, if what they say about him is true,” Uncle Fergus replied. “It’s not every man who can start with almost nothing and make his way so far in the world. Aye, and he’s handsome as well as rich, and a friend of the king to boot.”

“So what has he to do with Riona, or she with him?” his son asked with a puzzlement that matched Riona’s.

“She’s going to have a lot to do with him,” Uncle Fergus replied as he threw himself into the one and only chair to grace the interior of the hall. “Word’s gone out that he’s looking for a wife. Any and all who meet the requirements are welcome to attend him at his castle and he’s going to pick a bride from among them. We’re to be there by noon on the day of the feast of St. John the Baptist—Midsummer’s Day. Sir Nicholas wants to make his choice by Lammas.”

“From the twenty-third of June to the first day of August isn’t very long,” Kenneth noted. “Why is Sir Nicholas in such a hurry?”

“Anxious to have a wife to help him run his castle, I don’t doubt. And who better to be his bride than our Riona, eh?”