Epilogue

Year of our Lord 1104

It was a day of days. The sky was cloudless, blue as the multitude of bluebell flowers that swarmed in the shade under the trees crowning the brae. Partway down the slope, the sun cast shadows beyond the stones guarding the McArthur family graves and lower, at the base of the cliffs the sea lapped, calm and glassy, reflecting Cragenlaw Castle in all its brutal majesty. Straddling the spit of land protruding into the northern sea, the castle had endured—remained strong down the years—standing high in defence of the McArthur clan.

Aye, a grand day, Rob mused as the chapel filled with what might count as a gathering of the clans—McArthur, Ruthven and Buchan frae the nor’east coast plus Farquhar and Comlyn frae Bienne á Bhuird in the Cairngorms. The country had been ripped apart and stitched back together while kings came and kings went, King Duncan killed by the Mormear of Mearns but a short distance frae Cragenlaw and now Edgar held the Scottish throne.

So here they all were, he with Melinda by his side, witnessing an event few folk thought would ever come to pass.

The wedding of Euan and Morag.

He wouldn’t call it a marriage, for as far he was concerned what they’d had for over thirty years was a marriage. His father’s hair had become grizzled, the colour of his favourite sword blade, but Morag’s hair flowed over her shoulders like a unmarried lassie in a fall of pure silver matched by the band studded with blue jewels the colour of her eyes worn across her forehead. Naturally Euan wore his plaid proudly, both it and his stature spoke of his years as the McArthur clan Chieftain. Rob had been surprised by his mother’s garb. Absent were the practical colours she usually wore. Her kirtle was of creamy white worsted that flowed over her feet and wrists—a kirtle fit for a queen, with a silver girdle spanning her waist.

Rob’s heart turned in his chest. He was so proud of her. She had never faltered in her love for her son frae the day she led him out of Wolfsdale on a journey to the gates of Cragenlaw.

The curse had run its course. Cast after Rob was born, his father had still refused to risk Morag’s life, and now he was about to make her his fourth wife, and he and his own wife were here to celebrate this momentous occasion. As if to mark it in her own way, his sister Maggie wore a kirtle and left her sword behind. Still unmarried, Maggie had declared she had yet to find a man as brave as her father desirous of taking her on.

Aye, she was still a handful, but he loved his sister, as did Harry and Ralf.

Looking at them all, he wondered whether, when his father put the ring on Morag’s finger, he would look out into the chapel and recognise that most of the families there owed Euan and Morag thanks—Morag and mayhap the Green Lady for the unexpected directions their lives had taken since Morag rescued Euan frae a battlefield in Northumbria. So much had changed since then.

Rob’s uncle Gavyn and his wife Kathryn Comlyn were here, along with both their sons, a daughter of their own along with yet another lass, her cousin Brodwyn’s daughter Merida. Eventually Brodwyn had died frae the wounds Henry La Mont had carved in her. Yet from the beginning, Kathryn had forgiven Brodwyn for past hurts, taking her in and eventually raising her daughter as her own.

His best friend in the world, Nhaimeth—a dwarf who in Rob’s eyes was as tall as himself—had wed Rowena, and it had to be said that their only son had a great resemblance to Erik the Bear, Nhaimeth and Kathryn Comlyn’s father—a huge man who had lived up to his name—since, young as he was, Ghillie Comlyn looked fair to be as tall as Erik any day now.

Aye, Euan was still Chieftain, and as far as Rob was concerned that could continue for many years to come. The clan was safe. He put his faith in the future in his two sons Harry and Ralf and, strangely enough, Merida. She looked very like her mother but without her grasping nature. Aye, the lass was finely made, delicate as a sharply honed dirk. Truth be told she was a half-sister to Melinda and aunt to his twin lads. On occasions such as this, she spent all her time with Harry and Ralf, with Nhaimeth’s son Ghillie making a fourth.

He hadn’t asked and he wouldn’t ask Rowena about the future.

Rob didnae think he needed to. Some might say it was a trick of the light, but when he watched all their bairns together, they shone, and he believed they would take that grace with them into the future. The auld gods would make sure of that the way they had with him.

The End

Or is it?