Bold (The Handfasting) - By Becca St. John Page 0,24
the despair of my task pull me under, Conegell MacBede asked any who would listen. ‘Do ye remember the time young Maggie gave us our talismans?’
“Talismans, I thought, thinking of old hags and their mysterious witchcraft. But the man did not speak of an old hag, or of sorcery. Nay, straight on the heels of his asking, another chuckled. Oh, aye, he remembered the lass, no more than eight years, and there she was giving the men more strength in her little parcels than any drop of draught could do.
“I’m telling you now,” Talorc placed his hands flat on the table as he leaned out in his telling, “the curiosity alone drove away my wretched worries. I stood and listened as others were beginning to do, for the MacBede fire pit held the only voices to sound the sound of vigor. They chuckled, they spoke of strength being given. It was a night when all were hungry for such sounds.
“So, as the other men left their fires to stand around the MacBedes, the tales continued. I learned that an eight-year-old lass strode out to the courtyard as the MacBede warriors prepared to leave. She ignored wives and mothers and sisters who stood near their men, and approached each and every warrior to hand him a small parcel.
“It was a square of plaid, no more than a scrap, and inside that plaid she’d placed a piece of heather amid soil from the land. Then she told them, in her earnest child’s way, to carry that parcel with them for it would remind them of what they fought for; the land, the name and the wild glory of both.”
The cheers of earlier were no match for these which shook the very walls of the keep. And as Maggie looked out at the wild shouts she saw, to her amazement, that every MacBede man held his little packet of plaid and soil and heather in the fist of his hand. Some so old, soil spilled from the worn fabric. Others were bright and new.
They had kept them? They had not tossed them in a stream as they left the land? They had not laughed at her, or thought her so foolish that they could not answer her?
“As you can guess, the men were stunned beyond words for the fear that tears might fall. That a child, a mere little child, bonny as she was, could speak what each needed to hear . . . ah, she was a one to be remembered.”
Maggie slumped upon her bench, startled by what she was hearing, seeing.
“But it did not stop there, Maggie girl,” Talorc said directly to her, though his voice filled the entire hall.
“Nay, it did not stop there. For tales abound of the young girl, Maggie MacBede, of her throwing a rock and downing a Sassenach, of topping an enemy who tried to climb over the wall.
“There’s talk of a little bairn, six years at the most, making a nuisance of herself on the battlements, carrying water and lugging pebbles, whatever she thought the warriors would need.
“My heart swelled with the hope that one day I would have such a daughter when the stories turned, and this wee lass was not so wee any more. No, she had grown in the space of the telling, into a strapping lass whose honor was much sought after. It took all seven of her brothers to keep suitors at bay.”
“There were not so many!” Maggie snapped, slapping her hand over her mouth in embarrassment.
The Bold laughed, an audacious bellow.
“You think not, lass?” He calmed enough to ask, “And why do you think you're left with nothing but puny men to look to?” Maggie could do naught but shake her head. She wanted to say that puny men were all she wanted, but she could not, so Talorc continued. “The rest, my sweet, the men more worthy of you, have been warned away. Which pleases me to no end.” Talorc confided to the whole of his audience. “For I mean to make her my own.”
“No!” She screamed, pushed beyond control by his bluntness.
No one took any notice. No one cared that her hands shook at the way he was openly courting her, putting her in a place she didn’t want to be. A place she might not be able to extract herself from.
The Bold continued his tale. “I am The MacKay, the Laird of our clans, and yet this woman, your fine, gentle and true Maggie MacBede rounded