was only twelve, no match for the burly fourteen-year-old Donal MacPhee. The bully outweighed him by more than a stone, but today it didn’t matter. Today, David wanted to use his fists, to feel bones snap and skin give way. Today, he wanted to assuage the ache in his heart with physical pain.
He took the first hit directly in the face, and his nose broke. There was no pain. Anger gave him courage. Clenching his fists, he charged the bigger boy and knocked him to the ground. Instantly, the children rallied around, urging them on, the blood lust strong in their hearts and voices.
Out of nowhere, into the concealing circle of ash and smoke, ran a child, a girl of no more than eight years. Her eyes blazed with fury. Fearlessly, she threw herself into the midst of the writhing bodies. “Stop,” she shouted. “Leave him be. Leave him be, at once.”
Instantly, the circle of children backed away, their eyes lowered. Donal MacPhee, his hand raised in a punishing fist, looked up through a swollen eye and grimaced. Slowly, he lowered his arm, pulled away, and stood up. David lay on the ground, his face a smear of blood.
Trembling with anger, the girl turned on the children. “Go away,” she said through clenched teeth. “All of you. Go away.”
Without question, they obeyed. All except David. She was Mairi of Shiels, daughter to the laird. It was unwise to cross a Maxwell of the borders. It was the height of stupidity to cross Mairi. She had a dreadful temper and a powerful father. There were those who swore she was possessed, not in the presence of the laird, of course, but in the whispered darkness and flickering fires of small crofts that dotted the countryside. Already, Mairi had enemies. There were only a few who called her friend and no one more than the boy with the bloodied face who lay at her feet.
From that first day at Shiels when David had found her in the woods, sobbing wildly as she attempted to free the mangled carcass of a rabbit from a poacher’s trap, she had claimed his loyalty and his love. That was two years ago, when he’d come to the borders to be fostered to the laird.
For David Murray, the only child of a kindly, but distant father and a self-serving mother, Mairi’s penchant for championing the abused and the lonely was a balm to his bruised spirit. The children were never far apart. When Mairi’s mother died, only David could comfort her. When David’s puppy was found in the woods, its small body dismembered by wolves, only Mairi had the nerve to brave the boy’s white-faced stillness and offer him another hound. When Mairi learned to ride her pony, it was David who boosted her to the saddle. When David learned his letters, Mairi sat at his feet. When he practiced his swordplay, she watched from her perch on the wall. When the fledglings she saved from the cat died in her hands, it was David’s arms that soothed her. Neither child minded not having anyone but each other. Together, they were enough. Until yesterday.
Yesterday, David’s father rode across the drawbridge into the courtyard of Shiels. One look at his face had sent the servants scurrying to heat water for poultices. Their efforts were wasted. He lasted less than ten hours, and because of the nature of his illness, his remains were burned immediately. Nothing Mairi could do or say made a difference to David. He was an orphan, a child. Without a father, he was nameless and alone. What would become of him without his father? His mother would remarry. There would be other children. Her allegiance would be to them and to her new husband. He didn’t blame her. What else was there for a woman? But how could he bear to leave Shiels? How could he bear to leave Mairi? He could smell the fragrance of her hair as she bent over him.
“David,” she murmured, touching his swollen face with cool hands, “are you hurt?”
He turned his head to the side, avoiding her eyes, and kept silent.
“How dare they do this? Those, those—” she fumed, searching her eight-year-old vocabulary for language strong enough to suit the occasion. “Vermin.” She spat out the word. “I shall ask my father to kill them.”
Against his will, David started to smile, then grimaced. The side of his cheek throbbed unbearably. Mairi’s passions frequently took a violent turn.