Chapter 16

The bride was shaking. Nhaimeth could see her tremble frae where he stood next to Rob with the priest behind them, all three waiting for Melinda and Euan, who frae the look on his face was ready to drag her up the aisle should she try to escape.

Nhaimeth had ne’er attended a wedding in the chapel afore—funerals aplenty and a few naming days, but nae weddings. The day that lodged in his memory was the one when Erik the Bear died not far frae where they stood today. It had been the only time Erik had acknowledged him as his son, and then only to tell him it had been for his own good, for what clan would look to a dwarf as their Chieftain.

Aye, he was long over it. The McArthur men—father and son—had seen to that.

He supposed it wasnae yer usual kind of wedding. The only friends the bride had were her wee sons Harry and Ralf and their wet-nurse. Everyone said Ralf looked just like Rob apart frae the green eyes. Naebody said Harry had his father’s eyes, but Nhaimeth could see it, could see the kindness in them. It had been there in Rob’s the day they met, and in his heart. How else would he have taken a dwarf as his friend, ne’er mind friend to stand up for him on his wedding day.

The bride was dressed in a creamy white worsted kirtle, the colour that came off the sheep’s back, and her nut-brown hair, sleek as the lochan at Dun Bhuird, flowed over her shoulders and back as far as her hips. Yesterday, he had wondered if propinquity had led to Rob bedding the lass, but this morning he had nae doubts that Rob had fallen in love with her—though at the moment that love was suffering a wee setback. As friend of the groom, he would do what he could to help mend that. Aye, he would try and, like it or not, he would enlist Morag’s help. Betwixt them they might be able to call on the Green Lady’s assistance. In the Highland’s, folk had yet to abandon the auld gods that inhabited the forests, sea and mountains. Erik, his father, had always been sure the ravens on the cliffs above the lochan at Dun Bhuird were what kept the family safe; and Nhaimeth, Rob and Gavyn Farquhar had discovered the truth of it when the ravens came through the tunnel under the falls with them and helped them rescue Kathryn. Lhilidh had been the casualty of that day, but some things are meant to be. The love betwixt her and Rob hadn’t been part of the Celtic gods’ plans.

Now, as the piper began to play a song of triumph, he watched Rob slide a gold ring on Melinda’s finger as easily as he had slid a sword betwixt the ribs of Harald, the man who murdered Lhilidh. The auld Celtic gods had the rights of it; everything was connected—the land, the plants that grew on it and men who walked on its surface. They all needed each other the way fish need water. The priest could extoll his God for all he was worth; the Highland folk knew better. The work needed to make folks’ lives bearable was o’er much for just one god. The fact that he and Rob now stood by side after all their adventures was proof of it to Nhaimeth’s mind, and he wasnae reluctant to turn his back on the priest and, with Euan McArthur, follow a grim-faced Rob as he escorted Melinda back down the aisle.

Soon the celebrations would begin and the whole clan would descend on Cragenlaw to make it a day to remember. There would be pipers and dancers, and beasts roasting on the spit for all to fill their bellies, not forgetting the ale that would flow freely. He could see anticipation on the faces of clansfolk who crowded the chapel.

Nhaimeth felt happy, almost content, the only thing that would have made it better would have been to watch Euan wed Morag. Yet she was happy. He’d watched pride bloom on her cheeks and shine in her eyes as she stared at Rob, the son she had kept frae his father for eleven years. Yet look how it had all turned out, with three generations of the McArthur family here in the chapel. Nhaimeth was sure Morag would agree that sometimes the auld gods knew what they were about.

Aye, it was momentous occasion, a grand day in the history of the McArthur clan.