Chapter Two

Casting long shadows as it descended, the sun created a golden hue over the vast expanse of Caol. A gentle breeze carried the scent of blooming heather, and the distant sound of a murmuring creek added a soothing rhythm to the landscape.

Very close to the creek, not far from a vibrant wildflower meadow, and nestled within a sun-filled clearing inside a protective forest of trees, Sorcha Reid stood within her apiary. The air hummed with the industrious buzz of winged workers, and Sorcha, clad in breeches and a long tunic, moved with practiced ease among the new skeps she and Grimm had made over last winter. Employing careful motions, she paused to lift the veil of her hood, allowing a single drone to escape, the slowness of her release causing no alarm to the bee that had briefly been trapped inside the veil.

She hummed as she worked.

Though she knew Grimm didn't mind her speaking her thoughts aloud, which she regularly did even as she knew he would never respond, she also knew that he far preferred it when she hummed or sang. Dear Grimm wore a perpetual expression of acute pain, his visage flooded with memories too painful to escape. At least that's what Sorcha believed. But when she sang, or when she hummed, she imagined he was given some measure of peace. His rugged and scarred features softened. He was able to rest.

It had been this way since last summer when she'd first met him—or when he'd come to her rescue, as the case had been. She'd been caught up by Hamish McNair one night after she'd sung in the alehouse. He'd harassed her about being a witch, not anything that Sorcha hadn't heard before, an accusation she might have merely shrugged off if not for Hamish having become belligerent and physical, pulling at her hair when she'd attempted to walk on by.

Never in her life had she laid eyes upon Grimm until that moment, when he'd come to her aid, a flash of dark shadow, a flurry of action as he'd disengaged Hamish's hand from her hair and then at least one of Hamish's teeth from his mouth when the quarrelsome man didn't know when to quit.

Grimm hadn't said a word, hadn't replied to either Sorcha's effusive appreciation or her subsequent rising, vocal alarm when Grimm had then proceeded to clasp a meaty paw onto her arm and had walked her all the way home, the stranger eerily knowing the way.

Slow had been the building of their friendship—they were friends, she imagined now, despite the fact that he'd not ever spoken a word to her—with Grimm initially proving as wary of her overtures to engage him as Sorcha had been of his constant presence, always lurking. Fairly quickly, she'd understood that his watchful attendance was purely about safeguarding her, and the small distance was maintained so that he didn't trespass into her personal space or privacy.

Sorcha, however, hadn't long suffered his silent, near-but-not-close presence.

She'd stopped one day while walking along the creek, knowing that he was nearby as he had been for weeks. With her hands on her hips, she called out to the trees and the brush and the rocks, "It's much creepier when I can't see you. If you're going to follow me about—and I don't mind it at all—at least do so in my company so that we might get to know one another."

He hadn't, not that day. But Sorcha pretended that he had, knowing he was still close, and had begun to talk to him.

"If you're not going to introduce yourself politely, I will have to imagine your name. I've decided it's Grimm, as you are, ever lurking and wallowing, when you could be here in my company," she'd said to him last summer. "At one time, people found pleasure in being around me. Hard to believe, I know, with how I live now. But once I was the dutiful and respected daughter of an important man and many sought my good opinion in the hopes of currying favor with my father."

Another time, she had tried to cajole him again. "You could be the first, Grimm, or the first in a very long time, to simply enjoy my company, mayhap companionship itself, with no other agenda. I think I might like that with you."

And maybe he was as starved for friendship as she was so that the next morning she found him rather close by so that she left the door to her small cottage open. From inside, she'd called out, "Come in and break your fast with me. I tire of eating alone."

That was the first time he'd entered her home, but he had many times since then, nearly every morning, while they shared a meal together. And every day, he followed her about, around the immediate yard of her cottage as she worked with the bees and her garden there, and often to the second apiary in the forest glade. Several evenings a week, as soon as darkness fell, he walked along with her into Caol proper where she sang her songs. As the weeks had gone on, Grimm had shortened the distance between them until finally he was walking side by side with her.

Unable to resist, she'd teased him when first he'd nearly matched his pace to hers, though he'd been tight-jawed, and staring straight ahead.

"I'm thrilled to have your company, Grimm," she'd said, quite cheery at that moment of supplication, "But you may soon wish you'd remained in my shadow. I am likely to chatter your ears right off." She'd glanced sideways at him, unable to hide her wee pleased smile. "You won't mind, will you, Grimm?" She'd guessed correctly, "Mayhap if I speak in a soft and melodic voice, you won't mind."

Shortly after this, she'd divided the meager coin she earned at the alehouse into two parts and presented one half to him, the coins laid out in the palm she lifted to him.

He'd shaken his head and had given her a stern look, as if offended by the gesture.

"Then leave," she'd boldly said, even as she was half afraid he might. "If you won't share in the bounty, such as it is, then I don't want your help." When he'd only appeared to grow angrier at this, Sorcha cajoled with great and purposeful manipulation, "I want you to have this. I value you and what peace I know with you near." ?Twas true, indeed, since the occasions of her being belittled, harassed, and otherwise pestered had dwindled noticeably since she was so rarely alone but often in the company of the gentle giant. "If you won't take this, we can't be friends."

His lip had curled, evidently displeased to have been given an ultimatum, but he'd reached out his big hand and had plucked one coin from the bunch in her hand. Sorcha had considered it a fantastic victory.

While she'd named him Grimm, the townsfolk called him The Oaf, but Sorcha knew he was anything but a fool. From almost that first night, she'd sensed an intelligence behind his deep set, dark eyes, a haunted quality that she recognized as the weight of memories, none of them good. She had some suspicion that while she had a cache of gorgeous memories of Finn, short and sweet vignettes that sometimes happily interrupted her mourning, Grimm might not have so many fond memories to dull the pain of the bad ones.

"I was thinking that when next we go to market," she said presently while she tended the hives, "that we should buy some hens so that we have our own eggs, whenever we want them."

As she was regularly required to do, Sorcha turned a glance over her shoulder, having to receive his response by expression since he couldn't or wouldn't speak.

He nodded, rather noncommittally, Sorcha thought.

"Or a horse? Should we purchase a horse? Which would benefit us more—a horse, or half a dozen hens?"

At this he scowled so that Sorcha had her answer rather quickly.

"Fine. Hens it is. Fresh eggs in the morning," she exclaimed. "Won't it be lovely?"

She moved now to the opposite side of the next skep, the conical willow hives she'd made and had coated with dung and daub—cloaming, it was called, the weather-proof outer layer she'd applied—so that she faced Grimm now.

Grimm was indeed a giant, larger than any person Sorcha had ever known, with a powerful build that bespoke of immense strength, evident beneath the unkempt layers of clothing that draped his robust frame. His hair, regularly untamed, fell in thick strands around a face weathered by time and trials—more the latter than the former, since Sorcha wasn't quite sure he'd reached three decades yet. Despite the wear on his features, Grimm's eyes held a quiet intensity. Deep-set and most often shadowed by a furrowed brow, his eyes revealed a complexity that Sorcha could sense but didn't fully fathom yet. Aside from the occasional grunts and even rarer chuckles, Grimm was silent, adding an enigmatic quality to his presence.

Delicately, she lifted the outermost straw covering, the hackle, which sat over the skep much as a hat sat on a person's head. This further protected the hive from wind, predators, and most importantly, water. Honey lasted so much longer if, between Sorcha's protection and the hive's industry to keep dry the combs, the water content was reduced as much as possible. Too much water and the honey would ferment and be good for little else than honey mead, which was pointless as so few people could afford honey mead and chose instead to brew or buy the regular grain ale.

The bees, engrossed in their busyness, paid her little mind as she inspected the skep.

"Just as I feared, Grimm," she said absently. "No new eggs." She spotted the queen bee, distinctive because of her longer body—her abdomen stretched beyond the tips of her wings and her back was shiny and bald, unlike the worker bees—and chided lightly, "You have one task, my dear, heart of the hive, mother of all. If you won't give us eggs, well then...."

She pinched the queen from among the hundreds of bees, extracting her with one hand while setting down the skep with the other. Without a word she stepped across the leaf-strewn clearing and transferred the queen to Grimm, wincing as she did so, for what had to be done. His hands, calloused and strong, bore the scars of labor and war. He opened his palm and held his other hand close, his large fingers carefully grasping one wing so that the queen did not escape.

Sorcha turned away before Grimm did what needed to be done. "I'll introduce a new queen tomorrow," she said on a sigh as she replaced the hackle shield over the skep. "I'm done here, but I want to get over to the vale on the other side of the cottage and forage for nuts," she said, lifting the veil from her face. "No singing tonight, Grimm," she decided. "I haven't the energy today."

Often, the prospect of singing felt like an unbearable intrusion into her private grief, a violation of the fragile sanctuary she had carved out for herself after Finn's demise. Away from the prying eyes and whispered judgment of strangers and those regulars inside the alehouse, Sorcha frequently grappled with conflicting emotions. The loss of privacy was a constant source of discomfort, a reminder of the vulnerability she felt whenever she exposed her wounded heart to the world. She'd much rather have kept her grief and her pain, like her sweet memories of Finn, to herself, close to her heart.

Ah, but what choice had she but to exploit her sorrow? Though the sense of exploitation cut the deepest, the knowledge that her sorrow had become a commodity to be traded for a few sparse coins, she knew she must suffer the indignity of it simply to eke out a meager existence with the coin it did afford her. Beekeeping was her love, her last connection to Finn aside from memory, but it barely earned enough yet to sustain her.

Briefly, she closed her eyes and brought Finn's image to mind. His hair was the color of sun-kissed straw with gentle waves that framed his youthful face. His eyes were chestnut in color, warm and inviting, and so often brightened by a smile. She recalled his quiet strength and gentleness, what had drawn her to him years and years ago.

I will never meet another like him, she thought, as she and Grimm walked back home. She had nothing but memory, a bittersweet reminder of the love they'd shared and the dreams they'd once dared to chase.

***

Augustus returned to the Bonnie Barrel Inn the next night and the one after that, and now tonight, growing more desperate after three days for another glimpse of the beekeeper, and more needful, for another performance.

The innkeeper, Murdo, chuckled at his constant presence.

"Dinna I say? I did, dinna I? That ye would be entranced? And so ye are, returned again and again."

"We need to eat," suggested Geddy, who had returned with Augustus, along with Kael and Angus. "But does she nae keep a regular schedule?"

"Sings when she wants," said the innkeep, "mayhap when she has a need. We've come to expect her at least twice a week. A few times, she let me post about it, and kept to a time and date. I paid a lad to run the news all about, saw two, three times as many as she'd normally draw in."

Augustus could not refrain from inquiring, "For whom does she mourn?"

"And there's a tale, tragic in two parts, is it nae?" Replied Murdo. "?Tis said she was born into a guid family, monied ye ken, expected to marry well." He scratched at the side of his head, his eyes crinkling with conjecture. "Milngavie, was it? Mayhap Bearsden? Dinna matter. But aye, dinna she fall in love with the beekeeper instead and off they run, land here near Caol and are we nae the better for it? Save that her lad was rounded up by the MacLaren, dumped into his army, and lost his life in Ayrshire. That was just ?boot a year ago, if I reckon it right. And now she abides, still keeping bees, living out along the narrow brook in the hovel he'd built for her. Keeps company with the Oaf—dinna ken where he came from, was just here one day— but ye willna see one without the other most days." He grinned cheekily at Augustus. "Ye'll nae get past him to get to her. Och, and haven't they tried? This one, that one, and others. He'll nae let ye within a few yards of her. Safer that way, anyhow, and mayhap that's the way she likes it: untouched, with her grief, her Oaf, and her bees. Mayhap that's all she needs. Nice lad, he was," Murdo continued. "As honest and industrious as she is bonny, I ken that much about him. Says to me when he left, will I keep an eye on her? See that she has peat for her fires and bread for her belly. She dinna ever ask so I guess she dinna need it after all."

Probably not what her man had expected when he'd put in the earnest request. Before Augustus might have commented on this, Murdo shrugged and continued.

"Earns a right guid sum each week anyhow," said the proprietor with no small amount of puffed up munificence. "One-tenth every coin paid for the privilege of hearing her sing."

Augustus scowled at the man over this and could not let this go unchallenged. "One-tenth? She packs your tavern and puts free coin in your pocket—costs ye nothing to provide the venue for her song—and ye sell more ale, take more coin, and her share is but one-tenth?"

"Fair value," defended Murdo, his conceit over his supposed largesse fading quickly in light of Augustus's umbrage. "More'n she earns with honey and wax."

At Augustus's unwavering annoyance, Murdo took himself away.

"Wonder if he'd feel the same were she his abandoned lass," Geddy questioned. "Aye, but nae matter. The venison pies are fine and they're warming up to us, the locals. Soon, we'll add to our ranks."

They sat tonight, as they had the last two nights, not at that far corner table furthest away from where the beekeeper had sung her song, but closer to the bar itself, so that both rooms of the alehouse were in sight. Augustus had a clear line of vision to that back door, through which she'd come and gone the other night.

They'd enjoyed two tankards of fairly decent ale and had supped on more venison pies—admittedly coin they didn't need to spend—before the back door swung open. In ran a scruffy lad, breathless and purposeful, scanning the alehouse until he spied Murdo and made straight for him. The lad, not much shorter than the innkeep, tugged at Murdo's sleeve as he talked to patrons at another table. By Augustus's estimation the lad said but two words, to which Murdo nodded before waving him away, off in the direction of one of the barmaids. The lad went to her next, catching her as she wound her way between tables, chairs, and patrons, a tray of tankards in her hands. She nodded as well and soon, all within Augustus's watchful scrutiny, she passed on what news came to another barmaid and soon both of them and Murdo were collecting coin.

She comes, Augustus was almost sure the lad had first said to Murdo.

Anticipation seized Augustus like a sudden gust of wind, sweeping through him with an urgency akin to the approach of an enemy force on the battlefield. Yet, unlike the chaos of combat, here he sat in quiet expectation, his senses attuned to the subtle shift in atmosphere within the alehouse. The patrons, too, seemed to sense the impending arrival of the beekeeper, their voices lowering and the clamor of the bustling tavern softening to a murmur.

Distractedly, he flipped a coin to the barmaid who came to collect, ignoring her startled expression when she caught sight of the dull silver penny, but it was another quarter of an hour before the beekeeper finally arrived. Augustus thought the lad must have been watching her further afield, wherever home was, and had sprinted ahead to alert the Bonnie Barrel Inn.

The Oaf, as Murdo had called him, came first, having to duck his head quite a bit under the low door frame.

Then, from a distance of no more than twenty paces, the beekeeper emerged, a petite and hazy figure cloaked in a once fine but now shabby mantle of midnight blue. Despite the thick haze of grease, smoke, and the pungent scent of unwashed bodies that hung in the air, her presence was unmistakable, a sweet brightness inside the grimy alehouse.

She was at first only a shrouded visage amidst the shadows of that corner, where no tables sat and no patrons gathered, her face obscured by the folds of her deep blue hood, her features veiled in mystery.

Likely she understood that she had a rapt audience and slow was the reveal, her hands lifting gracefully to lower the hood. There was no gasp at the face revealed, but Augustus thought there should be.

"Saints be praised," breathed Geddy, "but would ye look at her."

Along with every other waiting patron, Augustus did look at her. Time stood still as he drank in the sight before him. Long waving locks of pale gold tresses cascaded in gentle waves around her shoulders, catching the faint flicker of firelight, and shimmering like spun silk. She lifted her eyes to The Oaf, eyes the color of a clear summer sky, while she nodded at him though no conversation was exchanged. Augustus was struck by depths of emotion in her gaze, in those eyes that surely had known both sorrow and joy, but sadly appeared to retain little hope.

Her features were delicate, soft and ethereal, her ivory complexion flawless despite the rosy flush, and yet he sensed a strength in the set of her jaw and the tilt of her chin that spoke of resilience. Though her face bore the marks of hardship and loss, she managed to radiate a quietly stunning beauty that captivated him in its simplicity. Her nose, delicate and refined, held a subtle curve that lent an air of subdued regality to her features, while her cheeks bore the faintest blush, aware of so many hungry eyes upon her. But it was her mouth that truly captivated, full and inviting, her lips curved with a sweetness that hinted at angelic grace, yet their fullness and tempting shape held an enticing allure that spoke of earthly desires.

She was, Augustus decided swiftly, a vision of innocence and temptation entwined.

Before she sang the first note, Augustus understood why her songs held such power over those who listened. Aye, her voice was pure, and the raw pain could not be discounted, but it was the softness of her features and form and the shadows in her blue-eyed gaze, the juxtaposition of her outer beauty with her inner grief that made her song a profound and bittersweet moment. He might suppose that many were or would be captivated not only by her physical allure but also by the vulnerability and strength emanating from her as she shared the echo of her grief.

While The Oaf, to whom Augustus had barely given any attention save to note his immense size, moved a bit away to lean against the wall, Augustus noticed the slight tremor in the beekeeper's slender frame. A silently nervous energy danced about her as she faced forward but kept her gaze downcast.

Slowly, she drew in a deep breath, and lifted her face. She raised her eyes to the low ceiling, her gaze fixed on a point above any person in the crowded room.

She opened her mouth and the first notes of her song spilled forth like liquid gold.

Instantly made a captive to a voice that was at once a force of nature and at the same time seemed to carry with it the weight of centuries of sorrow and longing, Augustus fisted the hand in his lap while his jaw tightened, silently steeling himself against the anticipated emotional impact of her song.

It was no less powerful than the first time he'd heard her sing, her grief no less evident. ?Twas not the same lyrics, but instead a lament about the conflict she faced, not wanting to move forward, leaving his memory behind.

As if she saw her love upon the stained ceiling of the alehouse, her tortured gaze remained there, never once lowering to meet the eyes of any of her engrossed audience.

He attempted once more to approach her when her song was done, but was thwarted again, this time by The Oaf, who steered her quickly toward the door while holding up a large paw meant to keep Augustus at bay.

Augustus carried an imposing figure, but this dull-witted behemoth was larger in both height and breadth, almost grotesquely so, and with hands large enough to squeeze a man's head. Having no interest in tangling with the mountain, who seemed just slow-witted enough that he might not understand the power of a sword or the strength in numbers, with Augustus having been followed by Geddy, Kael, and Angus, Augustus allowed their retreat. He was imminently curious about the beekeeper, but his curiosity would hold and likely be stirred again another night and with another song.