The noise of joyful revelry wafted on the chill night air, up and over the wall. Valor stood wrapped in his great kilt, arms crossed over his breast, a thoughtful frown set on his face. The wolf-cross dog near his feet yawned broadly and set his muzzle down on his paws.
“The MacDonald's are really throwing a smashing gala for Margaret.”
Valor's statement held a hint of bitterness. The dog continued to look bored, even when his master sprinted across the courtyard and gained the top of the wall by means of a few well placed leaps and scramblings along a very narrow hidden staircase.
Leaning far over the wall that surrounded the Buchanan manor, Valor looked into the little valley that separated the homes of the two rival noblemen. Charles Buchanan, Earl of Braekirk, and his arch-rival, James MacDonald vied for the King's favor. There had been some talk, it was rumoured, that the King wished peace in Braekirk...and that he would force a marriage of convenience to ensure it. That, Valor considered grimly, meant the wedding of himself and Margaret MacDonald.
“Not that she's a bad looking lass, mind you,” he spoke to the dog who had shifted his bored position to the foot of the wall, “but a MacDonald! Me, a Buchanan wed a MacDonald! Why, it's never been done before! It's outrageous!”
The dog just closed his eyes.
Valor leaned his back into the little nook at the top of the steps and likewise closed his eyes, sighing. There he slept as the sounds of mirth continued to blow over on the cold breeze.
The dog barked violently...once...twice.
Valor's eyes flew open. Immediately, his keen ear caught the scuffling of feet along the hard road that ran just beyond the wall. Rubbing sleep out of one eye and peering over the wall with the other, Valor saw a small party weaving along the road...it appeared to be two men, supporting a woman between them.
Shushing the dog's growls, Valor descended to the now snowy courtyard.
“They probably be drunk...a little too much of our neighbor's wine,” he scolded the dog. “Come on, I had no intention of taking a wee nap...might as well go on to bed.”
Hand caught in the dog's leathern collar, he stumbled toward the block building before him.
**
It had been several days since the MacDonald's had thrown their daughter's smashing sixteenth birthday party. In that time, Valor had heard rumours that Margaret MacDonald had gone missing. Simply disappeared on her way to retire for the night. It did not overly concern him, assuming as he did that it was just servant's talk and that more likely the girl was ill from over-indulgence, the MacDonalds being of an more extravagant disposition than the Buchanans.
However, it was then his father informed him gravely at the breakfast table, “It appears that the King's threat shall come to naught, for that fool MacDonald girl has run away from her home.”
Valor's head came up and he stared across the length of the table at his father.
“Run away? But why would a girl of her station run away?”
Charles Buchanan laughed shortly, sarcastically, “Mayhap to avoid wedding with thee, my son.”
Valor grimaced, his manly pride slightly nettled despite his mutual desire to avoid nuptials with a MacDonald.
“I suspect,” Charles continued, “that her father told her of the King's plan to wed her to you and that she, with her father's pride and hate of our house, preferred to risk the crags than life as a Buchanan.”
His sneer was quite evident and his sarcasm cutting. Valor scratched his face absently with the blunt side of his dagger's point, thrumming his fingers on the table in the meantime. He really could care less where Margaret had got off to...
Suddenly, he sat bolt upright demanding, “Wait, Father...so the King had settled it that Margaret MacDonald and I were to wed?”
Charles nodded as he inserted a large bite of seared mutton into his mouth.
“When did you learn this? Why was I not told?”
Charles leaned back while he slowly chewed his mouthful, watching his son carefully. Valor was blazing. That quarter Irish from his mother showed in his eyes when he was riled up. The Irish, Charles had concluded long ago, were even worse than MacDonalds.
Finally, he responded, “I got the letter a few days hence...and I had yet to discover the proper time to inform you of the King's decision.”
Valor got to his feet and turned about the room.
“I suppose,” he then said, “this means that technically, Margaret MacDonald is my betrothed...no matter where she is?”
Charles looked suddenly as if that dark idea had never entered his mind and he nearly choked on his vittles. He gave no response to his son's irritated question; it was fairly obvious what the answer was.
Valor slapped his hand down on the back of his chair before striding out of the room. His dog slunk after him.
Valor sprang up the narrow staircase to the top of the wall. Stradling it, he sat there glaring out over the landscape, seeing nothing. Suddenly, his visage took on an expression of shock and he looked down at his faithful hound.
“The other night! Those people you were barking at, though you couldn't see them...was Margaret kidnapped? But why?”
The dog cocked his head to one-side, his wolfish face inscrutable.
“Ah well...” Valor sighed. “It's not my problem.”
But even as he said it, he felt that it was his problem, unwelcome as it was.
**
The wolf-cross dog raced up the snowy path, happily in chase of the coney who had so far managed to give him the slip. Behind him, Valor leaped over fallen timber and stones, sometimes landing it drifts knee deep. In his hand he carried a longbow and at his side, in addition to his ever-present dagger, he bore a light-weight, but sturdy rapier. It was times like these, barreling up hills and through forests that he was especially glad that the days of the claymore were in the past. Not, he would chide himself, that he wasn't brawny enough for one...but the light weapon was more easily accessible and easier to wield in a tight spot.
They reached a parting of paths and the dog whined at his master that the coney had popped into it's burrow over yonder. Valor laughed. It felt good to laugh, he realized, after the heightened strain amongst neighbor's these last few weeks. It had been quickly established by the MacDonald's that their daughter had been kidnapped and only one person they could think of would have had any motive. Valor Buchanan had brashly defended his father of any such foul play. Still...and he had to wonder, there did seem to be slightly odd goings-on around the manor. A certain number of strange visitors had appeared to be swiftly swept into audience with Charles Buchanan only to be equally swift in their departure. Valor had gotten no answer to his inquiries as to the identity of said persons.
Throwing himself carelessly athwart a log, Valor whistled to his dog. The wolf-hound returned rather sulkily from his frantic diggings at the burrow. The young man curled his fingers in the dog's fur, warming them against the animal's skin.
“Wait a wee while and ye may get him yet,” he whispered to the animal. Getting bored, the dog began nosing about in the snowy leaves in the area. Valor watched him, chuckling everytime the dog sneezed.
Suddenly, something glinted. Something other than snow.
“Wait. What's this?”
Valor pounced and stood upright with the last object one would expect to find in a forest wilderness—a filigree mask.
It was of silver thread, wound delicately and in a light, airy pattern. The sort of thing a beautiful woman would wear to a masquerade ball.
A masquerade ball? Valor's heart began to pound furiously within him. Wasn't Margaret MacDonald's birthday gala a masquerade?
He had said lightly, “It's not my problem,” but it was. It didn't matter whether she was a MacDonald. It did not even matter that if the King had his way, which he would, that Margaret was his intended. All that mattered was that a woman, nay, a girl, had been taken from her parents and that he, Valor Buchanan, was a man. A man of honor...a man who could not stand by and see injustice done.
He sighed. Sometimes, doing the right thing wasn't easy. Sometimes, it was downright irritating. The reward did not always satisfy...or more actually, it wasn't what one wanted.
“But this really isn't about me,” he had a habit of discussing things with his hound. “It is about truth and honesty...and kidnapping is neither! No matter who's doing the kidnapping and who's the kidnapped.”
Tucking the filigree mask into his belt, he swung off up the path, alert. This was, he assumed, little more than a reconnaissance mission at this point.
Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. The thought that had stopped him gripped his heart with ice-cold fingers. Turning his head, he looked off up the side of the mountain.
“Come on, lad. It's to Buchanan's mountain aerie we're off.”
**
Cresting a low ridge, Valor ducked off the path and began a cold, wet, bone-chilling climb up a semi-perpendicular, yet very pocked, cliff face. The hound sat himself down at the foot of the cliff and settled in to wait patiently.
Panting with his effort, sweating and yet freezing as the wild wind whipped his kilt about his knees, Valor paused to rest half way up. His hair was wet through and getting in his eyes. Slowly releasing his grip with his right hand, he brought it before his face.
“Pah! Valor, lad, yer fingers may be bloody, but ye will no' stop.”
Half humming, half grunting the tune of “Will Ye No' Come Back Again”, he returned to his climb, determined to reach the top before it got too dark to see. The lowering sky threatened heavy snow, but still he kept on up and ever upward.
Finally, he reached the top and though half expecting what he saw, it dampened his spirits more than the cold and the pain of his bleeding hands. There, fifty yards apace was the Buchanan mountain fastness. The windows were lighted and smoke curled listlessly out of the chimneys, only to be swept impatiently away by the wind.
Roughing up his own hair, Valor bit his lip in vexation.
“Ah well. I've come this far. I might as well discover if Margaret is really here. Once it's fully dark I can sneak down by way of the path without being spotted.”
Creeping forward, staying as much as he could to the shadows, Valor neared the thick walls of the grand house. It took all the determination in his now completely chilled body to brave the task of climbing the ivy that was grown tightly against the walls.
He whistled softly under his breath, “I've grown a wee bit since last doing this. Pray heaven that it holds!”
At least reaching the solid stone balcony that was his destination, he squirmed through the supports and lay panting against the wall. At that moment, the whirling snowstorm broke. Valor gave a brief thought to the wolf-hound down a one hundred fifty foot cliff, but figuring that the dog was better protected than he, he quickly passed to other thoughts.
Crawling forward on his hands and knees, Valor peered into the brightly lit room beyond the glass.
Standing in front of an inviting fire, back to the window, stood Margaret. She was a rather short girl with a pleasing enough figure and he had no doubt that it was she. Well satisfied now that his father was the man behind Margaret MacDonald's disappearance, Valor would have crept off at that point, but the snow was coming down in such a furious manner that he knew it would fool hardy to venture to leave. He equally knew that he could not stay out here to freeze.
Risking much, in the way of being discovered by the men his father had placed to ensure Margaret did not escape, Valor reached out a stiff, bloodied hand and rapped sharply on the window.
Margaret jump and whirled about, staring with big brown eyes. The young man in the great kilt knew he must make something of a sight, but he stayed right where he was.
Suddenly, the girl reacted. She seized the poker from in front of the fire and came over to the glass doors. Cautiously opening them with one hand, she shook the poker with the other.
“Valor Buchanan...”
He never did know what she meant to say because he crawled in past her wordlessly and dragging melting snow in with him heedlessly went straight to the fire where he sat cross-legged and held his hands to it's heat.
He heard the door being closed behind him and the curtains pulled. He sensed the girl's return trip across the room. Splashing behind him didn't even make him turn his head. The pain of the heat radiating into him was searing...and yet so comforting. The stench of drying wool rose from his sopping kilt.
Margaret came around one side of him and sat down on a stool. Wringing out a rag, she reached out and gently took one of Valor's wrists. Startled, he turned his head to look at her as she began to clean his scrapes and cuts patiently and carefully. She really was pretty, he thought...but what was a MacDonald doing being kind to a Buchanan?
His quizzical expression was met by an equally mystified look from the girl. They sat there then, looking at one another, neither knowing what to say.
Finally, Valor cleared his throat. As if it were a cue, Margaret, now bathing his other hand, leaned a little closer and demanded, “What are you doing here?”
Valor smiled a little crookedly at the irony of what he was saying, “To see if you were here.”
She gave a small, derisive laugh, “Surely you were aware of my kidnapping. Your father has been most kind in his efforts to stop peace between the MacDonalds and Buchanans.”
She got up and walked off with her bowl of now dirty water, offended dignity oozing off her. Valor raised his eyebrows and screwed about on the floor to watch her.
“I most certainly did not. I only just figured it out this afternoon.”
She gave him a disdainful glance.
“'Tis the truth,” he argued. “My hound and I were out hunting this afternoon and...and I stumbled on this.”
He pulled out the filigree mask and held it out to her. She came over then and plucked it from his hands. Holding it up, she exclaimed, “It is the one I wore for my party! I lost it along the way...but I didn't mention it in hopes someone would find it and have some kind of idea of looking for me.”
“Which is exactly what happened.”
It was a statement of fact. It was plain truth. And Valor could see that despite herself, she believed him.
Suddenly, she sat down next to him on the floor and taking his hands in hers, she turned them palms up.
“You climbed up the cliff?”
He nodded.
“Why? I thought you hated me.”
“Odd about that,” Valor grinned. “So did I.”
“Why do our families hate each other, Valor?”
“Don't ask me...it's just always been that way.”
She looked shy all of a sudden and stammered, “When my father told me of the King's order, he was very angry...but I told him that if it would bring peace, I would willingly...m-marry you.”
Valor stared at her, “You did?”
She nodded. “I had changed my mind because I thought you were in on the deception, but if you're not...”
“I'm not.”
“If you're not, I revert to my original position.”
“Look here,” Valor said, more roughly than he meant to due to a sense of bewilderment, “you want to marry me?”
Margaret pulled back a little bit, “Only if you are gentle with me.”
Properly rebuked, Valor said more softly, “It's not such a horrid idea at that. I think I could get to like you if I let myself.”
This interesting scene of budding love, if it could be called that, was suddenly interrupted by a noise from below stairs. Valor leaped to his feet when he heard it.
He looked at Margaret. Her face had gone rather pale, but she likewise rose.
“Quick! We have to get you hidden before he gets up here!”
As Margaret was helping conceal him under the bed, Valor whispered, “How often does my father come up here?”
“Roughly twice a week. He likes to insult me and tell me all the ways that I'm not good enough for you. The one he likes best is that I shall be fat like my grandmother.”
Valor snorted and Margaret suddenly grinned at him.
“It's probably true, but I still don't like to hear it!”
The door opened shortly after and a whine was heard. Valor stiffened, but it was too late. The hound had found him.
Charles Buchanan reached under the bed and hauled his son bodily out. His eyes were blazing. Margaret was leaned against the wall, her eyes wide and scared. Valor shook himself free of his father and jumped backwards.
Father and son faced one another, differing heights, differing ages, but most importantly, differing view points. Both were angry, but for very different reasons.
Charles snarled, “I thought you'd be here after finding your cur down on the road! What are you doing here?”
Valor retorted, “You taught me from my childhood to be an honorable man—is this what you call honor?”
As he spoke he gestured widely, including the frightened Margaret in the sweep of his arm. A blow across the face set him reeling as his father shouted, “She is a MacDonald!”
Valor, voiced pitched as it had never been before at his father, returned, “I do not care! I do not care! Right is right, regardless!”
The young man crashed through the long windows and had thrown himself over the railing onto the ivy before his father could reach him. Scrambling down the ivy, it broke under him and as he fell the rest of the way to the ground; he heard his father above yelling orders for the men in the house to seize the young master.
Valor lay for a moment, gasping for the air that had been knocked out of him. His ankle throbbed, but he knew his father's temper and was soon on his feet, running as best he could towards the cliff. In this weather, he knew he would have to be extremely careful, but he was less likely to be caught clambering down the cliff than he would be making down the path.
He almost fell to his death then. If the wind had not momentarily laid at just that instant, Valor would have taken the next step into nothing but wildly blowing snow. As it was, the fury of the snow's beating into his eyes abated enough to let him see his danger and skid to a precarious stop. Sliding over the edge with his kilt billowing dangerously like a sail about him, Valor began the downward assent. The hands recently warmed and washed ached furiously as the scrapes began to split open again.
Inching his way cautiously, each foot felt like a mile. His hands and feet were so painfully numb that it felt like a thousand pins were being driven into them from all directions. At last he reached the ground where the wind was somewhat less violent. Stumbling along the base of the cliff, he finally located the bow and rapier he had left behind for climbing convenience. After a few ineffectual tries at clasping his sword belt, he forgot it and carried it in his hand. He began to move down the side of the mountain slowly, cautiously, staying clear of paths. He wished violently that he had his wolf-hound with him, for the dog would have been able to spot dangers more readily.
Hours after he had climbed down the cliff, he exited the forest. It was still snowing heavily, but the wind was much calmer. Now he allowed himself to think of his next step. He hardly dared go to MacDonald, but felt he had no other choice. The betrayal of his father was bitter in his mouth, but it must be done. Right was right, regardless. Kidnapping was wrong.
“Hang it all!” he chattered angrily into the wind. “Be betrayed and betray! Fine pair we Buchanan's make!”
**
The MacDonald manor rose out of the blowing snow. Valor picked himself up for what felt like the thousandth time. At this point, all he cared about was getting out of the snow. He'd lost his left ghillie back aways and he was convinced his hose and foot were frozen completely through. The right wasn't much better. His lips were cracked and bleeding, his ankle was killing him, his knees were bleeding, his hands were bleeding.
Pounding on the door with his bare fists, Valor felt as though each swing was that of a heavy stone-breaking hammer. Each impact felt like a thousand spikes in his hands and down his arms. In reality, the taps were light and it's a wonder the gate-keeper even heard them over the wind's whistling.
As the gate cracked open, Valor Buchanan entered the MacDonald manor for the first time in his life. He fell in across the threshold and lay as one dead.
**
It was so delightfully warm...the softness of a down mattress caressed the aching muscles of his body. Valor was fixing to drop back off to sleep when he remembered where he was. Sitting bolt upright, despite the complaining of his muscles, he found himself looking straight into the face of none other than James MacDonald.
Valor blinked once and the two of the stared at each other wordlessly for some minutes. Valor began to feel very uncomfortable and guilty. Suddenly, it dawned on the foggy mind of the young man that the other was waiting for an explanation. Summoning up his courage then, he opened his mouth to speak and immediately regretted it for his lower lip split wide open. However, he was determined...
“Sir...I suppose you are wondering what I was doing this evening on your threshold.”
“This evening!” James MacDonald snorted. “This evening! That was last evening and you've been sleeping like a daft log for the last sixteen hours!”
Valor looked startled, then vexed.
“Quick, we must hurry then!”
MacDonald pushed him back into the bed, “'We' must hurry? Where to and for what, Buchanan?”
“To rescue Margaret, of course!”
The roar that response brought forth was terrible.
“MARGARET???”
Valor saw he apparently was doing a poor job of explaining...and that he hadn't muttered anything after his collapse and hastened to explain himself.
**
Having ordered Valor to keep his wickedly aching ankle, which the leech pronounced broken, in bed, James MacDonald set forth with stout retainers to go and retrieve his daughter from the clutches of his scheming neighbor.
Valor fumed a bit at being left behind and yet was greatly relieved that he was not going to be there for the public humiliation of his father. Finally, he went back to sleep. In his dreams he kept getting lost in the blowing snow of the night before and falling...and falling...
“Valor!”
His eyes flew open and the first thing he noticed was a searing pain in his hands as he had busted all his scabs open with the force with which he was gripping the linens. The second thing he noticed was a bright faced girl leaning over him with a look of sympathetic amusement.
He grimaced, not unkindly, up at that face.
“Margaret...uh...I was falling from a cliff just now.”
She laughed, “So that's why you yelped...how do you feel?”
Valor sighed, “Rather like a man who has a broken ankle and is chapped from head to toe. I hurt all over!”
Margaret sat down on the side of the bed and put one of the chapped hands gently in her lap.
“He wouldn't surrender,” she said softly.
Valor bit his lip and turned his head away. Through the window, he saw an old building up in the crags...Buchanan's Mountain Aerie. And he knew, it was now his...and he was now the Earl...and that, in some part, it was of his own doing...but justice had been served...painful as it was. It would not be in vain, he promised himself. Gently, he squeezed the hands that held his.
No more would Buchanan and MacDonald live at enmity one with another.
“The MacDonald's are really throwing a smashing gala for Margaret.”
Valor's statement held a hint of bitterness. The dog continued to look bored, even when his master sprinted across the courtyard and gained the top of the wall by means of a few well placed leaps and scramblings along a very narrow hidden staircase.
Leaning far over the wall that surrounded the Buchanan manor, Valor looked into the little valley that separated the homes of the two rival noblemen. Charles Buchanan, Earl of Braekirk, and his arch-rival, James MacDonald vied for the King's favor. There had been some talk, it was rumoured, that the King wished peace in Braekirk...and that he would force a marriage of convenience to ensure it. That, Valor considered grimly, meant the wedding of himself and Margaret MacDonald.
“Not that she's a bad looking lass, mind you,” he spoke to the dog who had shifted his bored position to the foot of the wall, “but a MacDonald! Me, a Buchanan wed a MacDonald! Why, it's never been done before! It's outrageous!”
The dog just closed his eyes.
Valor leaned his back into the little nook at the top of the steps and likewise closed his eyes, sighing. There he slept as the sounds of mirth continued to blow over on the cold breeze.
The dog barked violently...once...twice.
Valor's eyes flew open. Immediately, his keen ear caught the scuffling of feet along the hard road that ran just beyond the wall. Rubbing sleep out of one eye and peering over the wall with the other, Valor saw a small party weaving along the road...it appeared to be two men, supporting a woman between them.
Shushing the dog's growls, Valor descended to the now snowy courtyard.
“They probably be drunk...a little too much of our neighbor's wine,” he scolded the dog. “Come on, I had no intention of taking a wee nap...might as well go on to bed.”
Hand caught in the dog's leathern collar, he stumbled toward the block building before him.
**
It had been several days since the MacDonald's had thrown their daughter's smashing sixteenth birthday party. In that time, Valor had heard rumours that Margaret MacDonald had gone missing. Simply disappeared on her way to retire for the night. It did not overly concern him, assuming as he did that it was just servant's talk and that more likely the girl was ill from over-indulgence, the MacDonalds being of an more extravagant disposition than the Buchanans.
However, it was then his father informed him gravely at the breakfast table, “It appears that the King's threat shall come to naught, for that fool MacDonald girl has run away from her home.”
Valor's head came up and he stared across the length of the table at his father.
“Run away? But why would a girl of her station run away?”
Charles Buchanan laughed shortly, sarcastically, “Mayhap to avoid wedding with thee, my son.”
Valor grimaced, his manly pride slightly nettled despite his mutual desire to avoid nuptials with a MacDonald.
“I suspect,” Charles continued, “that her father told her of the King's plan to wed her to you and that she, with her father's pride and hate of our house, preferred to risk the crags than life as a Buchanan.”
His sneer was quite evident and his sarcasm cutting. Valor scratched his face absently with the blunt side of his dagger's point, thrumming his fingers on the table in the meantime. He really could care less where Margaret had got off to...
Suddenly, he sat bolt upright demanding, “Wait, Father...so the King had settled it that Margaret MacDonald and I were to wed?”
Charles nodded as he inserted a large bite of seared mutton into his mouth.
“When did you learn this? Why was I not told?”
Charles leaned back while he slowly chewed his mouthful, watching his son carefully. Valor was blazing. That quarter Irish from his mother showed in his eyes when he was riled up. The Irish, Charles had concluded long ago, were even worse than MacDonalds.
Finally, he responded, “I got the letter a few days hence...and I had yet to discover the proper time to inform you of the King's decision.”
Valor got to his feet and turned about the room.
“I suppose,” he then said, “this means that technically, Margaret MacDonald is my betrothed...no matter where she is?”
Charles looked suddenly as if that dark idea had never entered his mind and he nearly choked on his vittles. He gave no response to his son's irritated question; it was fairly obvious what the answer was.
Valor slapped his hand down on the back of his chair before striding out of the room. His dog slunk after him.
Valor sprang up the narrow staircase to the top of the wall. Stradling it, he sat there glaring out over the landscape, seeing nothing. Suddenly, his visage took on an expression of shock and he looked down at his faithful hound.
“The other night! Those people you were barking at, though you couldn't see them...was Margaret kidnapped? But why?”
The dog cocked his head to one-side, his wolfish face inscrutable.
“Ah well...” Valor sighed. “It's not my problem.”
But even as he said it, he felt that it was his problem, unwelcome as it was.
**
The wolf-cross dog raced up the snowy path, happily in chase of the coney who had so far managed to give him the slip. Behind him, Valor leaped over fallen timber and stones, sometimes landing it drifts knee deep. In his hand he carried a longbow and at his side, in addition to his ever-present dagger, he bore a light-weight, but sturdy rapier. It was times like these, barreling up hills and through forests that he was especially glad that the days of the claymore were in the past. Not, he would chide himself, that he wasn't brawny enough for one...but the light weapon was more easily accessible and easier to wield in a tight spot.
They reached a parting of paths and the dog whined at his master that the coney had popped into it's burrow over yonder. Valor laughed. It felt good to laugh, he realized, after the heightened strain amongst neighbor's these last few weeks. It had been quickly established by the MacDonald's that their daughter had been kidnapped and only one person they could think of would have had any motive. Valor Buchanan had brashly defended his father of any such foul play. Still...and he had to wonder, there did seem to be slightly odd goings-on around the manor. A certain number of strange visitors had appeared to be swiftly swept into audience with Charles Buchanan only to be equally swift in their departure. Valor had gotten no answer to his inquiries as to the identity of said persons.
Throwing himself carelessly athwart a log, Valor whistled to his dog. The wolf-hound returned rather sulkily from his frantic diggings at the burrow. The young man curled his fingers in the dog's fur, warming them against the animal's skin.
“Wait a wee while and ye may get him yet,” he whispered to the animal. Getting bored, the dog began nosing about in the snowy leaves in the area. Valor watched him, chuckling everytime the dog sneezed.
Suddenly, something glinted. Something other than snow.
“Wait. What's this?”
Valor pounced and stood upright with the last object one would expect to find in a forest wilderness—a filigree mask.
It was of silver thread, wound delicately and in a light, airy pattern. The sort of thing a beautiful woman would wear to a masquerade ball.
A masquerade ball? Valor's heart began to pound furiously within him. Wasn't Margaret MacDonald's birthday gala a masquerade?
He had said lightly, “It's not my problem,” but it was. It didn't matter whether she was a MacDonald. It did not even matter that if the King had his way, which he would, that Margaret was his intended. All that mattered was that a woman, nay, a girl, had been taken from her parents and that he, Valor Buchanan, was a man. A man of honor...a man who could not stand by and see injustice done.
He sighed. Sometimes, doing the right thing wasn't easy. Sometimes, it was downright irritating. The reward did not always satisfy...or more actually, it wasn't what one wanted.
“But this really isn't about me,” he had a habit of discussing things with his hound. “It is about truth and honesty...and kidnapping is neither! No matter who's doing the kidnapping and who's the kidnapped.”
Tucking the filigree mask into his belt, he swung off up the path, alert. This was, he assumed, little more than a reconnaissance mission at this point.
Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. The thought that had stopped him gripped his heart with ice-cold fingers. Turning his head, he looked off up the side of the mountain.
“Come on, lad. It's to Buchanan's mountain aerie we're off.”
**
Cresting a low ridge, Valor ducked off the path and began a cold, wet, bone-chilling climb up a semi-perpendicular, yet very pocked, cliff face. The hound sat himself down at the foot of the cliff and settled in to wait patiently.
Panting with his effort, sweating and yet freezing as the wild wind whipped his kilt about his knees, Valor paused to rest half way up. His hair was wet through and getting in his eyes. Slowly releasing his grip with his right hand, he brought it before his face.
“Pah! Valor, lad, yer fingers may be bloody, but ye will no' stop.”
Half humming, half grunting the tune of “Will Ye No' Come Back Again”, he returned to his climb, determined to reach the top before it got too dark to see. The lowering sky threatened heavy snow, but still he kept on up and ever upward.
Finally, he reached the top and though half expecting what he saw, it dampened his spirits more than the cold and the pain of his bleeding hands. There, fifty yards apace was the Buchanan mountain fastness. The windows were lighted and smoke curled listlessly out of the chimneys, only to be swept impatiently away by the wind.
Roughing up his own hair, Valor bit his lip in vexation.
“Ah well. I've come this far. I might as well discover if Margaret is really here. Once it's fully dark I can sneak down by way of the path without being spotted.”
Creeping forward, staying as much as he could to the shadows, Valor neared the thick walls of the grand house. It took all the determination in his now completely chilled body to brave the task of climbing the ivy that was grown tightly against the walls.
He whistled softly under his breath, “I've grown a wee bit since last doing this. Pray heaven that it holds!”
At least reaching the solid stone balcony that was his destination, he squirmed through the supports and lay panting against the wall. At that moment, the whirling snowstorm broke. Valor gave a brief thought to the wolf-hound down a one hundred fifty foot cliff, but figuring that the dog was better protected than he, he quickly passed to other thoughts.
Crawling forward on his hands and knees, Valor peered into the brightly lit room beyond the glass.
Standing in front of an inviting fire, back to the window, stood Margaret. She was a rather short girl with a pleasing enough figure and he had no doubt that it was she. Well satisfied now that his father was the man behind Margaret MacDonald's disappearance, Valor would have crept off at that point, but the snow was coming down in such a furious manner that he knew it would fool hardy to venture to leave. He equally knew that he could not stay out here to freeze.
Risking much, in the way of being discovered by the men his father had placed to ensure Margaret did not escape, Valor reached out a stiff, bloodied hand and rapped sharply on the window.
Margaret jump and whirled about, staring with big brown eyes. The young man in the great kilt knew he must make something of a sight, but he stayed right where he was.
Suddenly, the girl reacted. She seized the poker from in front of the fire and came over to the glass doors. Cautiously opening them with one hand, she shook the poker with the other.
“Valor Buchanan...”
He never did know what she meant to say because he crawled in past her wordlessly and dragging melting snow in with him heedlessly went straight to the fire where he sat cross-legged and held his hands to it's heat.
He heard the door being closed behind him and the curtains pulled. He sensed the girl's return trip across the room. Splashing behind him didn't even make him turn his head. The pain of the heat radiating into him was searing...and yet so comforting. The stench of drying wool rose from his sopping kilt.
Margaret came around one side of him and sat down on a stool. Wringing out a rag, she reached out and gently took one of Valor's wrists. Startled, he turned his head to look at her as she began to clean his scrapes and cuts patiently and carefully. She really was pretty, he thought...but what was a MacDonald doing being kind to a Buchanan?
His quizzical expression was met by an equally mystified look from the girl. They sat there then, looking at one another, neither knowing what to say.
Finally, Valor cleared his throat. As if it were a cue, Margaret, now bathing his other hand, leaned a little closer and demanded, “What are you doing here?”
Valor smiled a little crookedly at the irony of what he was saying, “To see if you were here.”
She gave a small, derisive laugh, “Surely you were aware of my kidnapping. Your father has been most kind in his efforts to stop peace between the MacDonalds and Buchanans.”
She got up and walked off with her bowl of now dirty water, offended dignity oozing off her. Valor raised his eyebrows and screwed about on the floor to watch her.
“I most certainly did not. I only just figured it out this afternoon.”
She gave him a disdainful glance.
“'Tis the truth,” he argued. “My hound and I were out hunting this afternoon and...and I stumbled on this.”
He pulled out the filigree mask and held it out to her. She came over then and plucked it from his hands. Holding it up, she exclaimed, “It is the one I wore for my party! I lost it along the way...but I didn't mention it in hopes someone would find it and have some kind of idea of looking for me.”
“Which is exactly what happened.”
It was a statement of fact. It was plain truth. And Valor could see that despite herself, she believed him.
Suddenly, she sat down next to him on the floor and taking his hands in hers, she turned them palms up.
“You climbed up the cliff?”
He nodded.
“Why? I thought you hated me.”
“Odd about that,” Valor grinned. “So did I.”
“Why do our families hate each other, Valor?”
“Don't ask me...it's just always been that way.”
She looked shy all of a sudden and stammered, “When my father told me of the King's order, he was very angry...but I told him that if it would bring peace, I would willingly...m-marry you.”
Valor stared at her, “You did?”
She nodded. “I had changed my mind because I thought you were in on the deception, but if you're not...”
“I'm not.”
“If you're not, I revert to my original position.”
“Look here,” Valor said, more roughly than he meant to due to a sense of bewilderment, “you want to marry me?”
Margaret pulled back a little bit, “Only if you are gentle with me.”
Properly rebuked, Valor said more softly, “It's not such a horrid idea at that. I think I could get to like you if I let myself.”
This interesting scene of budding love, if it could be called that, was suddenly interrupted by a noise from below stairs. Valor leaped to his feet when he heard it.
He looked at Margaret. Her face had gone rather pale, but she likewise rose.
“Quick! We have to get you hidden before he gets up here!”
As Margaret was helping conceal him under the bed, Valor whispered, “How often does my father come up here?”
“Roughly twice a week. He likes to insult me and tell me all the ways that I'm not good enough for you. The one he likes best is that I shall be fat like my grandmother.”
Valor snorted and Margaret suddenly grinned at him.
“It's probably true, but I still don't like to hear it!”
The door opened shortly after and a whine was heard. Valor stiffened, but it was too late. The hound had found him.
Charles Buchanan reached under the bed and hauled his son bodily out. His eyes were blazing. Margaret was leaned against the wall, her eyes wide and scared. Valor shook himself free of his father and jumped backwards.
Father and son faced one another, differing heights, differing ages, but most importantly, differing view points. Both were angry, but for very different reasons.
Charles snarled, “I thought you'd be here after finding your cur down on the road! What are you doing here?”
Valor retorted, “You taught me from my childhood to be an honorable man—is this what you call honor?”
As he spoke he gestured widely, including the frightened Margaret in the sweep of his arm. A blow across the face set him reeling as his father shouted, “She is a MacDonald!”
Valor, voiced pitched as it had never been before at his father, returned, “I do not care! I do not care! Right is right, regardless!”
The young man crashed through the long windows and had thrown himself over the railing onto the ivy before his father could reach him. Scrambling down the ivy, it broke under him and as he fell the rest of the way to the ground; he heard his father above yelling orders for the men in the house to seize the young master.
Valor lay for a moment, gasping for the air that had been knocked out of him. His ankle throbbed, but he knew his father's temper and was soon on his feet, running as best he could towards the cliff. In this weather, he knew he would have to be extremely careful, but he was less likely to be caught clambering down the cliff than he would be making down the path.
He almost fell to his death then. If the wind had not momentarily laid at just that instant, Valor would have taken the next step into nothing but wildly blowing snow. As it was, the fury of the snow's beating into his eyes abated enough to let him see his danger and skid to a precarious stop. Sliding over the edge with his kilt billowing dangerously like a sail about him, Valor began the downward assent. The hands recently warmed and washed ached furiously as the scrapes began to split open again.
Inching his way cautiously, each foot felt like a mile. His hands and feet were so painfully numb that it felt like a thousand pins were being driven into them from all directions. At last he reached the ground where the wind was somewhat less violent. Stumbling along the base of the cliff, he finally located the bow and rapier he had left behind for climbing convenience. After a few ineffectual tries at clasping his sword belt, he forgot it and carried it in his hand. He began to move down the side of the mountain slowly, cautiously, staying clear of paths. He wished violently that he had his wolf-hound with him, for the dog would have been able to spot dangers more readily.
Hours after he had climbed down the cliff, he exited the forest. It was still snowing heavily, but the wind was much calmer. Now he allowed himself to think of his next step. He hardly dared go to MacDonald, but felt he had no other choice. The betrayal of his father was bitter in his mouth, but it must be done. Right was right, regardless. Kidnapping was wrong.
“Hang it all!” he chattered angrily into the wind. “Be betrayed and betray! Fine pair we Buchanan's make!”
**
The MacDonald manor rose out of the blowing snow. Valor picked himself up for what felt like the thousandth time. At this point, all he cared about was getting out of the snow. He'd lost his left ghillie back aways and he was convinced his hose and foot were frozen completely through. The right wasn't much better. His lips were cracked and bleeding, his ankle was killing him, his knees were bleeding, his hands were bleeding.
Pounding on the door with his bare fists, Valor felt as though each swing was that of a heavy stone-breaking hammer. Each impact felt like a thousand spikes in his hands and down his arms. In reality, the taps were light and it's a wonder the gate-keeper even heard them over the wind's whistling.
As the gate cracked open, Valor Buchanan entered the MacDonald manor for the first time in his life. He fell in across the threshold and lay as one dead.
**
It was so delightfully warm...the softness of a down mattress caressed the aching muscles of his body. Valor was fixing to drop back off to sleep when he remembered where he was. Sitting bolt upright, despite the complaining of his muscles, he found himself looking straight into the face of none other than James MacDonald.
Valor blinked once and the two of the stared at each other wordlessly for some minutes. Valor began to feel very uncomfortable and guilty. Suddenly, it dawned on the foggy mind of the young man that the other was waiting for an explanation. Summoning up his courage then, he opened his mouth to speak and immediately regretted it for his lower lip split wide open. However, he was determined...
“Sir...I suppose you are wondering what I was doing this evening on your threshold.”
“This evening!” James MacDonald snorted. “This evening! That was last evening and you've been sleeping like a daft log for the last sixteen hours!”
Valor looked startled, then vexed.
“Quick, we must hurry then!”
MacDonald pushed him back into the bed, “'We' must hurry? Where to and for what, Buchanan?”
“To rescue Margaret, of course!”
The roar that response brought forth was terrible.
“MARGARET???”
Valor saw he apparently was doing a poor job of explaining...and that he hadn't muttered anything after his collapse and hastened to explain himself.
**
Having ordered Valor to keep his wickedly aching ankle, which the leech pronounced broken, in bed, James MacDonald set forth with stout retainers to go and retrieve his daughter from the clutches of his scheming neighbor.
Valor fumed a bit at being left behind and yet was greatly relieved that he was not going to be there for the public humiliation of his father. Finally, he went back to sleep. In his dreams he kept getting lost in the blowing snow of the night before and falling...and falling...
“Valor!”
His eyes flew open and the first thing he noticed was a searing pain in his hands as he had busted all his scabs open with the force with which he was gripping the linens. The second thing he noticed was a bright faced girl leaning over him with a look of sympathetic amusement.
He grimaced, not unkindly, up at that face.
“Margaret...uh...I was falling from a cliff just now.”
She laughed, “So that's why you yelped...how do you feel?”
Valor sighed, “Rather like a man who has a broken ankle and is chapped from head to toe. I hurt all over!”
Margaret sat down on the side of the bed and put one of the chapped hands gently in her lap.
“He wouldn't surrender,” she said softly.
Valor bit his lip and turned his head away. Through the window, he saw an old building up in the crags...Buchanan's Mountain Aerie. And he knew, it was now his...and he was now the Earl...and that, in some part, it was of his own doing...but justice had been served...painful as it was. It would not be in vain, he promised himself. Gently, he squeezed the hands that held his.
No more would Buchanan and MacDonald live at enmity one with another.