Chapter Five

Laren had just given the girls over to Vanora for an evening meal when Bram approached. "I saw the glass before Nairna wrapped it," he said. His voice was low and there was a warning hidden within his tone. "You're going to tell Alex about this before we go."

Her face must have revealed her hesitation, for he added, "If you don't tell him, I will. Be assured of it."

She hadn't expected her brother-in-law to react so strongly. "Why does it matter if I tell him now or later? For all we know, it may have no value at all to the monks." She clenched her fists, her nerves trembling.

"Oh, it has value. And if I know my wife, she'll get exactly what she wants." He nodded towards Nairna, who was busy speaking to a small group of women. "I've heard the others talking. They haven't the brains God gave a carrot, but they think you're spending your time in idleness. They've formed a false opinion of you."

"I don't care what they think of me."

"It reflects poorly on Alex. If they knew the truth, they would show more respect to both of you." Bram reached forwards and touched her glove. "You have until morning to tell him." The scars around his throat tightened and she understood that he would uphold the threat.

While Bram returned to the wall the men were constructing, Laren let out the breath she'd been holding. She didn't feel at all ready to reveal this to Alex. Not when he was fighting to keep their clan together, to unite them in the rebuilding.

But Bram's words burrowed beneath her skin like a barb. They think you're spending your time in idleness.

She wasn't. The glass she made did have value; she knew it in her heart. Somehow, she would use it to help all of them.

The torches flared in the darkness as Alex stood before the men. Once, there had been nearly three dozen. Now, they numbered fewer than twenty. In their faces, he saw discontent and frustration. "I thought we should join together and talk," he began. "Some of you seem to have doubts about our rebuilding."

"It's a waste of energy," came the voice of Brodie MacKinloch. "We haven't the men to build a castle. And what would we need it for? Our clan isn't important enough. The English will simply return and destroy what's left of us, now that the French are gone."

"If we build our homes of wood, they'll simply burn us out again," Alex responded. "It's a greater waste of time."

"But faster." Brodie stood, studying the faces of their kinsmen. "You seem to think we're one of the great clans of the north. But look at us. We've nowhere to live and hardly any food. If we want to survive the winter, we have to leave."

Alex saw the agreement dawning over the faces of the men and he had to put a stop to it. "We've enough to make it through the winter if everyone shares." He stood up and met Brodie face to face. "Years ago, Tavin dreamed of building a great castle, one to defend our people. But we never believed we could do it."

"Because we can't," Brodie argued.

Alex stepped forward, using his height to stare down at the man. "And you're going to let the English defeat us, are you? You're going to run away to your wife's family in Perth, hiding like a coward?" He raised his voice almost to a shout. "They may have burned Glen Arrin to the ground, but I'll not let them scatter our clan. They will not divide us."

His anger was barely contained, rising into a fury. "We're going prove to them that we're stronger. And if they dare to attack us again, their blood will fall upon our soil."

"Alex," came the voice of his friend Ross, "perhaps it's better to be practical than to dream of castles and a fortress we can't afford."

He spun, confronting the older man. "You don't believe our clan is worth fighting for?"

"We've been fighting the English for years now," Ross said. "And they keep coming back. We can't get rid of them."

"They want us to give up," Alex said quietly. "They want us to hang our heads and dwell upon our losses, believing we're not strong enough." He stared into the eyes of each and every man, letting his words fall upon them. "But they're wrong."

He pointed to the hills and mountains in the distance. "We have wood from our forests. Stone from the mountains. And the labor of our hands. If we don't stand together, more English garrisons will spread across Scotland. We've seen it with our allies and our enemies." He met Ross's apprehensive look, adding, "If our clan splits apart, we'll have nothing. Not our friends. Not our clan. Not our freedom."

An air of silence descended over the men. "If we rebuild our past mistakes, we'll only repeat them." He turned to face the foundation of stone, pointing towards it. "It will take time, aye. It won't be finished by the spring, or even next winter. But if we build it the way it should be created, out of the sweat of our backs and the best materials we can find, it will last." He turned back to them. "And it will remain standing when the English are gone from Scotland."

His words descended upon them and the mood among the men shifted. Alex strode away, having said all he could. He walked through the darkness, hoping he'd convinced them. Along the way, Nairna's dog Caen trotted behind him. Though the animal likely only wanted food, it was good to have at least one supporter of his ideas.

When he reached Ross's house, he scratched Caen's ears. The homely dog licked his fingers, arching with delight from the affection. "Go back to Nairna," Alex ordered.

Caen expelled a whuff of air and went on his way. When Alex entered the hut, he saw Vanora tending the fire while his daughters slept upon a pallet. "Where is Laren?"

Vanora shook her head. "She said she'd forgotten something she left behind on her walk earlier." The matron lifted her shoulders in a shrug. "I would have gone after her, except I couldn't leave the girls. I suppose she must have lost track of the time."

"How long has she been gone?"

"An hour or so."

A dark fear clenched inside him, for he couldn't understand why Laren would have left the girls alone for so long. It wasn't like her at all. He had visions of her lying unconscious and bleeding from the wound she refused to take care of.

Alex grabbed a torch and strode away from the fortress, not bothering to notify his brothers of where he was going. He planned to scour the edges of the loch, praying he wouldn't find her anywhere near the water.

The night sky was clouded and moonless, and his torch cast a flickering reflection against the surface of the water. He ran through the sand, his eyes searching the ground in front of him. His blood pulsed with fear, and as he kept searching he smelled the scent of smoke. Though he knew Dougal had dumped a pile of ashes not far from here, the odor was stronger, almost as if a fire were smoldering.

His senses went on alert and movement caught his eye. Ahead, he saw a dark figure moving. He raised the torch and saw the gleam of Laren's red hair. Thank God. He breathed a little easier as she approached. Her eyes were weary, as though something troubled her.

"Where were you?" he asked. "When Vanora didn't know where you were, I worried that you were hurt."

"I'm all right," she said, moving past him.

But he caught her gloved hand and forced her to stop. "You had a reason for coming out here alone. What was it?"

She shivered in the darkness. "I was just making sure the glass was ready for our journey. I…wanted to be certain we were taking the best pieces."

Around her body, he caught the scent of fire smoke. And once again, he saw the faint perspiration on her skin, as though she'd been standing near a hot fire for a long time. She seemed to sense his unease.

"Alex," she murmured, "there's something I need to show you."

From the heaviness in her voice, he didn't know what to think. She was acting nervous, almost as if she were afraid of him.

He followed her along the edge of the loch. Before he realized it, they were standing in front of the small white stone that rested on the hill. Laren started to walk past it, but Alex trapped her hand. "Wait."

He didn't want to pass their son's grave without voicing a silent prayer for David's soul. "I wondered if perhaps you came walking here, to be with him."

In the moonlight, her face had gone so white, she looked miserable. "I can't look at it whenever I walk past," she admitted. "It hurts too much to think of him."

Though it had been almost three years since David had died, not a day went by when he didn't imagine how their lives would have been different. This was the son he'd longed for. The boy he'd wanted to follow in his footsteps, just as he had idolized his own father Tavin.

Laren closed her eyes, but she didn't weep. The more he thought of it, she hadn't wept at all when she'd held the infant's body in her arms. Instead, she'd locked her grief deep inside, the way he had.

Not once had he released his emotions, for he'd had to be strong for their family. And though it weighed upon his spirit, he couldn't reveal his pain in front of the clan. It was best to let David go and not to let anyone know how deeply it had affected him.

"He'll never be forgotten," he said at last.

"No." She lowered her face, wrapping her arms around her waist.

Though it was dark, he could see the pain on her face. Like a haunted spirit, he sensed her fading away from him. He hadn't meant to hurt her by bringing her here; he'd only intended to honor their son's memory.

"Come," he said, leading the way. "You wanted to show me something."

Laren joined him and they walked through the sand to the entrance of Father Nolan's cavern. He saw the light glowing from the far side and immense heat radiated within the air. From a first glimpse, the cavern appeared otherworldly, almost as if it were inhabited by fey spirits. Apprehensions took root inside him, and when he looked to Laren, her face masked any reaction.

She stopped at the entrance and gestured for him to go inside. When he did, he saw a boy tending the fires, slightly younger than Dougal. Ramsay was his name, Alex recalled.

The boy froze at the sight of Alex and stared down at the ground, his hands clenched with uncertainty.

"It's all right," Laren murmured. She nodded toward the outside. "Thank you for keeping the fire going. Go and get some sleep now. You can return in the morning." She reached into a pouch that hung at her side and handed him some dried meat and an oat cake, that he accepted.

"I started the green melt," Ramsay muttered, before he crammed the food into his mouth and fled.

Alex had no idea what the boy was talking about, but the interior of the cavern was roasting hot. He removed his cloak and loosened his tunic, walking in front of the furnaces. Rows of pipes were set within one of the openings and inside another he saw clay crucibles.

When he reached the last fire, he turned to face his wife. Laren's blue eyes stared at him and slowly she removed her gloves.

Upon her hands and forearms he saw mottled red skin and burn marks he'd never noticed before. "My God, what happened to you?"

Alex crossed the cavern to examine her. From the look of them, they were not recent marks. Even so, he was almost afraid to touch the skin, for fear of hurting her.

"When did you burn yourself?" It seemed that there were multiple scars, some older than others.

"The burns are from the times when I caught a heated segment of the pipe. Or when I was careless with the fire."

Alex stared at Laren. "You're saying that the glass Nairna wants to sell…is yours?"

She lowered her head in a nod, then raised it again. "Yes."

He kept his stare fixed upon her. If she'd said she'd created diamonds out of grass, he couldn't have been more surprised. But it did explain why she disappeared each day for hours on end. And why her hair often smelled of smoke.

And the scars upon her hands.

He couldn't take his eyes off her burned skin, unable to grasp the truth of it. It was as if the woman he'd married had disappeared, leaving another woman in her place. "When did you learn to make glass?" he asked, keeping his distance from her.

"Almost three years ago." Her voice was quiet, emotionless. "Just after we lost David."

Though she was saying something about how she'd needed to bury herself in work, that she couldn't be around the keep because it reminded her too much of the baby, all he could think of was that she'd hurt herself.

By playing with fire, she'd caused scars that would never go away. She'd taken grave risks, injuring herself, to make glass that she'd hidden in this cavern. And he'd never noticed. Guilt flooded through him, and he realized he didn't know his wife at all.

Laren. His Laren. Making glass?

She hardly talked to anyone and seemed overwhelmed at the thought of running a household. How could she transform sand and other elements into glass? It seemed impossible.

He caught her hand, another suspicion taking root. "There were nights when you left our room and said you needed to sleep with the girls." He kept a firm pressure upon her fingers. "Did you leave Glen Arrin to tend the furnace?"

Her face paled, but she admitted the truth. "Yes. After all the work I'd done, I didn't want the fire to go out and lose the glass. I had to do it alone, the first few months after Father Nolan died. I lost many, many melts until Ramsay agreed to be my apprentice."

There were so many lies she'd told, so many deceptions. He no longer knew what to think of her. Why hadn't she confessed the truth? Why had she built up stories about taking walks, about sleeping with the girls because they were frightened of the dark?

And most of all, why hadn't he noticed? All the signs had been there.

Mingled emotions fumbled within him, anger and confusion, but shadowed beneath them was the question that bothered him most. "Why didn't you tell me?"

She looked at her scarred hands, her mood turning somber. "Because I knew you'd be angry with me. And in the beginning, nothing I made was good." She turned her gaze toward the heated stones, drawing her knees up to her chest. "The colors were wrong. The glass cracked apart when I tried to cut it. Nothing I did had any sort of beauty."

"Then why continue?"

"Because it kept me from thinking of David. I lost myself in the work and it made it easier to bear the pain. It didn't matter that I wasn't good enough. It was my escape," she whispered.

"You used to weave tapestries," he reminded her.

She shook her head. "I couldn't touch a loom any more, because the last thing I wove was clothing for the baby. Making glass was different." She turned back and raised her scarred hands to him. "I remember each of my mistakes and I won't repeat them."

He went to her and touched her knuckles, studying the marred skin. He confronted her, unable to let go of the betrayal. "You lied to me."

Laren didn't deny it. But she'd been half out of her mind after losing David and had needed solitude. She simply couldn't face the grief or her husband. Being around Alex only reminded her of the tiny infant who had stared at her with solemn blue eyes. The child who would never grow into a man. Even now, the memory of her son's face brought a searing pain to her heart.

Working with the glass had saved her from shattering apart, and she didn't regret the apprenticeship with Father Nolan. It had been her one solace.

"I'm sorry." She folded her hands, wishing he could understand. "But I knew you wouldn't approve."

"You're right." He let go of her, rising to his feet. "It's dangerous, and you've already injured yourself."

"It hasn't happened in a while," she confessed. "I take precautions with the fires, and it's not as dangerous as you think." She reached for a crucible and added a blend of sand, lime and copper. She slid the clay container into the furnace, using a length of iron. "If I can sell the glass to the monks at Inveriston, the silver might help us."

"There are other ways we can earn coins for the clan, Laren." He crossed his arms, as though he didn't want her to leave Glen Arrin.

She'd expected his response, but not the surge of determination that filled her. "I may not be as skilled as Father Nolan was, but it's good enough for the kirk." She walked over to the stone surface where she'd laid out pieces of glass she'd cut and arranged into a wooden frame.

Alex stood with his back to her, silent for a long moment. She waited for his footsteps to approach, for him to see her work. Instead, he held his distance. "What other secrets have you kept from me?"

"I've told you everything." But from the distrust in his tone, she could see that he didn't believe her.

He stood at the doorway, his expression unreadable. She tried not to let his cool demeanour hurt her feelings, but it did. It seemed that he didn't even want to look at what she'd done. "Are you coming back tonight?"

She shook her head. "I can't leave the melts—I've already sent Ramsay away."

"Stay, then, if that's your wish." He cast a glance toward the stone table before he left the cavern, but he said nothing more. She'd hoped that somehow his reaction would be different, that he'd find beauty in her work. But all he could see was her lie of omission.

Loneliness clenched her spirit as she neared the entrance to the cave and saw him trudging along the edge of the loch. The moonlight reflected off the silvery surface, and Alex stopped at the hillside where their son was buried. For a moment, he got down on one knee, as if voicing a quiet prayer.

Laren closed her eyes and forced herself to retreat back into the cavern. She couldn't allow herself to think of David now.

As she touched the smooth glass, she concentrated on fitting together the broken pieces to decide where the lead lines would go.

She spent the next hour cutting the green glass into pieces, scoring the surface with a hot blade and cracking it apart before filing it smooth. But no matter how many hours' worth of work there was, she couldn't silence the worries in her mind.

Already she wasn't the wife Alex wanted. And now that she'd revealed everything to him, it had made no difference at all. She sat down, resting her head upon one hand. She'd made excuses about her shyness, telling herself that she couldn't be Lady of the clan.

She couldn't deny that she'd been hiding away with her glass, retreating from the outside world. It was true that the others ignored her, but hadn't she done the same to them?

She didn't have many friends among the women of the clan. Only Vanora and Nairna, if she were honest with herself, and that was only because she'd spent more time with them. Even if she could overcome her fears, Laren sensed that the others wouldn't want anything to do with her. Already they believed she spent her time in idleness.

As she tended the fires, her eyes blurred from exhaustion and regret. She didn't know how to mend her broken marriage or overcome her timidity.

The only thing she was certain of was that she couldn't live like this any more.

February, 1303

For over a month, his wife remained distant. Alex saw the wild grief in her eyes and nothing could take away the pain. From morning until night, Laren avoided the castle keep. She hadn't touched the cradle he'd made for David, nor had she put away the baby clothes she'd sewn. It was as if, by keeping the room the way it was on the day their son had died, she could somehow forget what had happened.

At night, she curled away from him on her side, as if she couldn't bear to be near him. As if it were his fault, somehow, that their son was gone.

He never spoke to her about it, for fear that it would unleash the frail bonds that held back his own anger and grief.

Then, one night, he'd found her sitting in their bed, holding the infant gown she'd made for their son.

"It doesn't seem real," she whispered. "It's as if I could look back in his cradle and find him there. Sometimes I hear him cry, in my mind."

His throat closed in, but he remained standing in the doorway. Her words conjured up the crippling grief he held inside.

She folded the gown, looking down upon it. She looked so lost, so broken, he wanted to go to her and hold her tight. To grieve together, the way he needed to.

"I know I have to let him go, don't I?" She turned to him, and the stricken look on her face caught him like a spear in his heart. "Could you…help me put his things away?"

She wanted him to sit beside her, to fold the tiny garments. To return their chamber to the way it was. Alex started to take a step forward, but then his gaze fell upon the tiny wooden sword he'd made as a gift for his son.

God help him, he couldn't do it. If he dared to come any closer to Laren, the tight control he had over his emotions was going to break.

In the end, he did the only thing he could. He left her sitting there alone.