Betrayed, p.1
Betrayed, page 1
Betrayed
CARLA SIMPSON
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be sold, copied, distributed, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or digital, including photocopying and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of both the publisher, Oliver Heber Books and the author, Carla Simpson, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018by Carla Simpson
Digital copyright © 2018 by Carla Simpson
All Rights Reserved
First Published by Carla Simpson, 2018
Cover design by
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Published by Oliver-Heber Books
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Preview: Revenge
Chapter 1
From the Author
Also by Carla Simpson
About the Author
Je Suis Prest
Prologue
1189 SCOTLAND
The old woman smiled to herself as she bent over the stones scattered in the dirt before her, each one with those familiar marks worn now by time.
They formed a pattern, the third time, exactly the same, and she was not surprised when she felt the boy's presence. The stones had told her.
Curious, he was, staying in the shadows at the wall beside the stone steps that led down from the keep above. Watching, thinking whether to approach, or turn back. Not out of fear, never that this bastard born son of Fraser, the father whose claim to these lands came with the Conqueror two hundred years before.
Two hundred years.
The blink of an eye in the way of her people who had walked these lands far longer. But many feared the old ways and had replaced them with a new religion.
Let them believe in their god and their saints, she thought. She knew they were but messengers just as the stones were messengers. They spoke to her now and her smile deepened as the boy, Jamie, didn't retreat but continued to watch from the shadows.
"Come closer, boy," Maisel invited him in the old language that she knew perfectly well he understood.
His mother, Ailyn, had been of the old people, fated to die in childbirth, leaving a bastard child and the Chieftain, Simon Fraser, forced to take an English wife, Gwyneth for the alliance to secure his land-hold. But his heart had always belonged to the young girl he had loved first against his father's wishes, and then lost, and he had loved the son the same.
Lady Gwyneth ruled the keep with a cruel hand, sending young James to sleep in the stables so that she would not have to look at him, and made certain Maisel was kept to the chambers below the keep.
She had doled food out to the warriors who served the Chieftain, even though the larders were well stocked, grudging them even the most meager meal while she dined on stuffed fowl and fine cakes.
When he heard of it, the Fraser's anger at her shook the stone walls. Food thereafter was much improved and Lady Gwyneth kept herself from the main hall, wrapped in her mantle of unhappiness.
Then, Uilliam mac Eanric, King William of Scotland, purchased back the sovereignty of Scotland back from Richard I of England so that he could finance his crusade to the Holy Land. A fool's errand, Maisel knew, fated to end in blood and death.
Scotland was now its own kingdom, and no longer owed fealty to England. But times were still dangerous, especially in the lawless border lands between Scotland and England. The Fraser had offered to send his English wife back to England to safety. His one condition had been that their firstborn son, a sickly, whining child of three winters named Hugh, remain in Scotland.
To Maisel, the mother and the child were cut from the same wool, and good riddance. But Lady Gwyneth refused to leave the boy, hoping to negotiate a divorce settlement from Simon Fraser in gold it was widely gossiped.
When that did not happen, she retreated to her tower rooms and barricaded the door except for her maid and the boy. The Fraser had the door taken apart plank by plank, and sent the maid to the kitchens below, letting it be known that no door or mewling maid would keep him from his lawful wife whether she liked it or not.
A daughter, Alexandra, was born a scant nine months later, quickly followed by another son, Ruari. The girl had the look of her mother's family, while the youngest bairn had the look of its sire in flaming red hair and blue eyes.
In a fit of despair after the last bairn's birth, Lady Gwyneth had slipped out of the keep in the midst of a winter storm wearing nothing but her shift.
Gone mad, it was whispered about the keep. She was found the following day, frozen to death on the banks of the loch, fulfilling a vision Maisel had seen in the casting of the stones.
The Fraser was away at the time. If he mourned her death it was not to be seen in either his expression or manner when he returned. His attention turned to the bairns and his clan.
It would have been natural enough for him to ignore James, bastard born that he was and set him aside, but it was known that Ailyn, but fifteen summers when the Chieftain took her to his bed, had been the love of his heart, and that same love was seen on his face when he looked at Jamie even when he was forced to punish the boy for some misdeed.
And there were many misdeeds, for the child was the image of his sire--bold, strong-willed, and by turns fierce and stubborn. But Maisel knew a different side of the boy, that part of him that came from the young woman who had borne him out of love and passion.
"Tis warmer by the fire than in the shadows," she told Jamie now, feeling his eyes on her. She shrugged a shoulder.
"Or leave, tis no matter to me."
But it was, for there were things she had seen in the stones about the boy who carried Fraser blood, and was perhaps more of this land than any of the other three, that he needed to know.
Light from the flames at the hearth played across the old woman's wrinkled features, the bones of her shoulders sharp beneath the wool of her gown. She moved, as though she was truly as old as time, as his godfather Gabhran had said.
The chamber smelled of dampness that seeped the stones, the sooty smoke at the hearth, and dried leaves that hung from branches suspended at the rafters overhead. A healer some called her, and though he wouldn't have admitted it, James knew that his god-father often came there for some salve or potion for some cut from a sword or the bruises from some mishap.
He had come here himself when the Lady Gwyneth's beatings had drawn blood and Maisel had made him a salve from berries she simmered and then mixed with goose fat.
The wounds had healed leaving barely more than thin, pale scars. Now, he came because of the dream that kept returning--a dream of blood, and death, and he wanted to know its meaning.
"Gabhran says that you see things in the stones," he said, watching the old woman as she bent over her grinding stone, a pungent fragrance filling the air as she worked.
Maisel smiled to herself. He wasn't afraid like others, who whispered behind her back and kept their distance until they had some ache or complaint, then sneaked into her chamber and asked for something to ease the pain or fever. This one was curious and troubled, for one so young.
"Gabhran," she snorted. "What would that foul one know of such things?"
She might have chosen another to be the boy's guardian, but she had known it would be the warrior, Gabhran, trusted as no other by the Fraser. What he lacked in refinement or education, like the monks at Beauly, he more than made up for in strength and fierce loyalty. There was no one else, who would lay down his life for young James Fraser without hesitation or question, and take several others with him in the doing of it.
She sensed when Jamie edged closer, then perched on the bottom step, arms folded across his knees, watching her. He had the looks of his mother, dark hair tied back with a length of leather and those handsome features that had been a striking beauty in the mother, but his eyes were Fraser, as blue as the loch, and just as unfathomable. He was long-boned like his father. There was no denying blood, or the thoughtful expression as he searched for the right words.
"He says that you carry the blood of the old ones and the stones speak to you. They tell you things that have not yet happened." There was a hint of doubt in his voice.
"Does he now?" she studied the boy. "Heathen that he is, probably kin to the Norse with their bloody pagan rituals. What do you believe, young Jamie?"
She saw now what she had seen in the stones, the way he turned things over in his thoughts, a glimpse of things just at the edge of his knowing, the way he kept at it, turning it over and over until he saw the way of it. This one would have much wisdom, when he became a man. He would need it.
"He told me that you saw Lady Gwyneth's death before it happened."
Maisel waived a hand as if it was of no importance.
"Lady Gwyneth brought her own death upon herself with her evil ways for all to see." That blue gaze met hers.
"You think I did not know that she beat you more than the times you came to me, and those times she sent you away from your father?"
He looked at her with surprise. "I did not tell anyone."
No, he hadn't. It wasn't in him to whine or speak of another's faults. Brave he was, and proud, like his sire. And like the father, he would bear it, but he would remember.
"Sit by the fire, young master."
"Why do you call me that?"
"Because unlike the others your father has sired, you have that way about you, and some day you will lead others."
He frowned. "Did you see that in the stones?" he asked with growing curiosity. He moved closer.
"A thousand years and more, young master, but not without hardship and loss. But always there will be the blood that flows through you. Even after you are gone, there are those who will follow." She laid a finger alongside of her nose.
"I see it in the stones."
He frowned and nodded. "Through my sister and brothers, because my father cannot acknowledge me."
She smiled softly at the slight catch in his voice, and laid a hand against his cheek.
"You have your own destiny, Jamie. Never forget that. It will find you." She picked up the stones, one-by-one and tucked them into the leather pouch that hung about her waist.
"Are you through with your lessons for the day?" she asked, for she knew he often escaped from the tedious studies.
Father Anselm had been summoned from the abbey to see to the children's lessons after Lady Gwyneth's death. Little Alexandra was too young still, as well as Ruari. But Hugh had begun his lessons, as well as James.
"We are learning the history of Rome," he replied, rolling his eyes.
Bah! Rome! she thought. What good were lessons about a place a world away, and a people who had long retreated from Scotia, and were dying in other places?
"It is good to learn the ways of the world," she replied for she had no wish to be at cross-purposes with the Fraser and what he wanted the boy to learn.
"But there are other things you must learn."
"War, as Gabhran has told me?"
She frowned and sighed heavily for she had seen that as well.
"It will come, but after that is when you must know how to lead your people. And that takes both knowledge and wisdom, and a good heart. You have a good heart, Jamie. Never forget that."
"How will I acquire wisdom?"
In time, she thought. If he lived. These were perilous days and Scotland's future was written in blood.
What could she tell him of what he must know? What had been passed down through the eons of time? If he was to be a true son of the earth, sky, and places as old as time, as well as the future?
She rose from the stool where she had been sitting and grabbed a thick, woolen shawl.
"Come," she told him.
"Where are we going?"
Her eyes twinkled. She knew what little boys liked, that sense of adventure, and hidden things.
"A secret place."
"Is it far?" Jamie asked, falling into step behind her.
"Not so far the way we will go. But far in time."
He frowned. "I should tell Gabhran."
"He is with your father's men. Come, he will not miss you."
He was about to ask how she knew where his guardian was, but stopped. It was said that Maisel knew everything, even a thought before it happened.
"And you may bring the hound." She smiled again, having sensed the animal's presence at the top of the steps where the boy had left him.
With a whistle, Jamie brought the great shaggy beast down the steps and they followed the old woman to the back of the chamber, then out through a hidden door into the gray overcast, the sun a red ball in the sky.
"Does my father know about the door?"
"He is the one who put it there," she replied. She winked at him. "So that I might escape when Lady Gwyneth had one of her spells. Or, if others should need to leave without being seen."
Not far, she had told him, and it wasn't in terms of the wild and far places that the Fraser had claimed for his clan. Just a good stretch of the legs on a wintry afternoon, the land covered with fresh snow beneath a leaden sky that hovered over the surface of the loch.
"You have questions." She sensed his unspoken thoughts.
They weren't the questions of most young boys whose thoughts rarely went beyond their next adventure, or their next meal. But his questions were about the future, what she saw, and the dreams that haunted him.
"Hugh is my father's heir. Fraser land will pass to him. Alexandra will one day wed, and wee Ruari will be given his land hold. I have heard father speak of it. But he has not said what my place will be. What will become of me, Maisel?"
A hard question with no easy answer for a man who loved his first son, a bastard born, but unlike the others he had sired in the mother he had loved until death.
She nodded, for she had seen the question and the answer in the stones. It was in the blood of the one who had sired him and the one who had borne him, short though her life had been.
"Your place and those who will follow, is this land, James, son of Fraser. The cost will be high in blood and tears, but Fraser courage is fierce." Her expression saddened.
"The sword is your destiny, yours and all your kin."
He thought on that and other things that Gabhran had told him about the English army that had come before, and the fight to hold Fraser lands. His father's marriage to Lady Gwyneth had been part of the peace King William had negotiated with the English king. There was peace now, but would it last.
He tried to think of the future and what it would mean when his father would be an old man. Would there still be peace? Gabhran had grown silent when he asked that question and in his silence he realized that he had his answer.
"See there," Maisel pointed to a place across the loch. "It is there, on the far shore, where the leaves grow on the trees even in winter, hiding it, protecting it."
"Hiding what?" Jamie asked, staring out across the loch.
"The secret place that is sacred to all."
"Why is it sacred?"
"Because of what lies within--the sacred stone. It was taken there by your ancestors, your mother's people before the Normans, before the Norsemen. It is said that it was taken there at the time of creation and contains the wisdom of the ages."
His mouth turned up at one corner, uncertain what he believed. Myths, legends, stories the old ones like Maisel told. He angled her a sideways look.
"Who put it there?"
"Tis said that the spirit of the loch put it there. She rose from the depths of the loch and carried the sacred stone to a place where it would be safe."
"A woman?"
Maisel looked down at him, a smile on her wrinkled face. "Only a woman spirit would have the good sense to hide it where no man would look for it. And then turn loose the beast of the loch to guard it."
He frowned. "Gabhran says you tell tales to frighten children."
