Keeper of the hearth the.., p.1
Keeper of the Hearth (The Three Sisters MacBeith Book 2), page 1
Keeper of the Hearth
The Three Sisters MacBeith
Book Two
Laura Strickland
© Copyright 2024 by Laura Strickland
Text by Laura Strickland
Cover by Kim Killion Designs
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
P.O. Box 23
Moreno Valley, CA 92556
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Produced in the United States of America
First Edition January 2024
Kindle Edition
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All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Additional Dragonblade books by Author Laura Strickland
The Three Sisters MacBeith Series
Keeper of the Gate (Book 1)
Keeper of the Hearth (Book 2)
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Laura Strickland
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Epilog
About the Author
Chapter One
Northwest Scotland, June 1620
Rhian MacBeith raised her gaze and scanned the battlefield. The fighting here, fierce and desperate, had lasted most the afternoon. She’d watched from her father’s keep just behind her, aching because she could do nothing to help the people she loved—those who bled and suffered and, aye, all too often fell beneath the swords of their rivals and enemies, the MacLeods from across the glen.
Fear, anger, and frustration made her sweat. As a healer, she found it tortuous to stand by and watch, unable to act while others suffered. She’d wept and prayed for their MacBeith warriors to turn back their enemies, chase them back to the loch that separated the MacLeod from MacBeith lands.
The warriors of Clan MacBeith included two women, for both Rhian’s sisters fought in this battle. Moira had, since their father’s death early this summer, set herself up as chief of Clan MacBeith, and took her duties most seriously. Saerla, Rhian’s dreamy-eyed, fey younger sister, who made a surprisingly fearsome warrior, had long since trained for the field.
The battle had turned just before nightfall when members of the MacLeod vanguard fell, and the others withdrew. Pursued by Rhian’s sisters, their war chief Alasdair, and the rest of the howling MacBeith hosts, the enemy had not paused even to pick up all their dead. Everyone Rhian loved was still out there, in danger.
Now, in the rapidly gathering gloaming, she stood heartsick and surveyed the carnage.
She’d come stealing out of the keep past the forecourt and the main gate, which now stood open, with her basket of simples over her arm. No one had ordered her to stay inside, mainly because no one remained who had the authority to do so. Dead and dying—members of both clans—lay everywhere. Her heart told her it was her duty to alleviate suffering where she could.
But standing here, it seemed pure folly to think she and her basket of cures could do much good. The smell of blood arose and assaulted her nostrils. It mingled with that of sweat and mud trampled underfoot, for it had rained earlier. The air felt soft, and mist had begun to claw its way down the surrounding hillsides, mingling with the dusk to obscure what she did not want to see.
By God, what could she do here in this sea of suffering? Where to begin?
“Mistress Rhian!” One of their men, Hector, ran up beside her. He’d been defending at the gate for most the day and bore a number of garish wounds. One, which coursed down the side of his face, still dripped blood. “Ye should no’ be here.”
He was right—she likely should not. Moira would have a fit if she knew Rhian had ventured out. But her sister yet risked her life somewhere off in the gathering darkness.
Could she, Rhian, do any less?
“There are wounded,” she began to Hector, but he had already left her. She could hear him still, calling to his fellows who had begun moving out into the field. “Bring in our wounded. Any MacLeods who are no’ dead—finish them!”
Finish them. End their lives. Let whatever blood they had left after contributing to the morass that lay at Rhian’s feet flow.
Murder accomplished here in the soft dark. Madness.
She went sick inside, and aye, she nearly turned back. Her skills would be needed when they began bringing in their wounded. She should retreat.
But—what she heard coming out of the gloaming would not allow her to turn away. Men calling out. Groaning, crying, one screaming from a wound he could not bear.
How could she turn back when these men needed succor?
She tightened her grip on the basket. She could not think of her own safety. She must put her feelings of horror aside, as she had so often in the past. When her ma, whom she adored, had died. When her brother, Arran, had fallen in a battle not long after, and with him the hope of the clan. And Da—cut down only weeks ago in a battle against these same opponents. She had learned to bear the unbearable, to present a serene front, to think always of others.
She headed for the man she could hear screaming, who lay to her left. Most of the rescuers-cum-murderers had moved out straight ahead, where lay the thickest numbers of casualties.
Here, here had been the flank. She found her man lying among other wounded and dead. She could tell which were which because the living moaned or cried out. This man’s shrieks were wordless and tortured.
She went down on her knees in the soaking turf next to him. Blood wet the ground all around him. As soon as she laid eyes on him, she saw there was nothing she could do.
She knew him, of course, as she knew most everyone. His name was Brann, and he was less than a score and five years old. He’d been partially disemboweled, his clothing rent along with the flesh beneath. His guts spilled from his body, and he stared in shock. He still held his sword in his right hand.
Rhian seized his left in both of hers and spoke his name. “Brann.” She added a lie: “’Twill be all right.”
“Mistress? It hurts. It hurts.”
If she were truly bent on alleviating suffering as she so often claimed, she would open a wound just beneath his ear and, aye, let his life’s blood flow. She had a sgian-dubh—no one went about without a knife, ever. And she could do naught else for him.
His gaze clung to hers in the dim light of the gloaming.
“Am I dying?”
“Aye.”
“Tell my wife—”
He got no farther. A spasm racked him, and a gout of blood gushed from his mouth. He went still.
Thank God. Thank God!
Rhian got to her feet shaking in every limb and fought down sickness by drawing in great gulps of air. She should be accustomed to the smell of blood. But not like this.
The name of his wife, so Rhian remembered, was Aisla. She tucked that away in her head for later. She would tell Aisla her husband’s last thoughts were of her.
Struggling to tuck her emotions away also, she moved to aid the other men nearby, homing in on the sounds of the moaning, the gasping, the desperate cries. She dressed the wounds of one man who then got to his feet and moved off under his own power. Another bore a grievous wound to the leg. From what Rhian could see, he might well lose it, and it was more than she could treat here. She called to two men who came with a litter, and she moved on.
Dead, dead, and dead. Fighting must have been fierce just here on the flank. MacBeith and MacLeod warriors lay together, sometimes entangled in their death throes. It did not matter what they wore, in the end. They all stared at her sightlessly.
She did not at realize at first how far she had moved off into the gloom. Above her, here, stretched the wall of the stronghold. Had these men tried to scale that wall? For MacLeod tartans lay thickly.
And someone just ahead cried out for mercy.
It could be one of her own who’d been battling these would-be invaders. She could not let him lie alone.
“Mercy! Och, please, God!”
She found him lying half beneath the body of another dead man, whom she rolled off him. A big fellow, from what she could see in the gloom. Fair-haired, sprawled on his back, and awash with blood.
Och, by heaven, this must be bad.
She crouched down as she had beside all the others and set her basket on the ground. She could not immediately tell if the blood was his own or that of the man who’d been lying atop him. There was too much of it.
“Where are ye hurt?”
“Lady?”
He reached for her, closing a powerful hand stained with blood on her wrist. Desperate eyes reached for hers also, and as he moved, a groan tore from his lips.
She did not know him, and aye, she knew at least by sight, if not name, nearly everyone of MacBeith blood. But she could see and feel his pain just as if it came to her through his fingers that touched her. The hold that she kept so fiercely upon her emotions threatened to crack. Her compassion rushed forth.
“Hush. ’Twill be all right,” she told him just as she had Brann. “Tell me where ye be hurt so I can help.”
“Merciful lady.” He gasped the words. “My right arm. I canna move it. The wound is deep.”
“Your right arm, ye say?”
“Here.” He let go of her in order to clutch at the arm just below the shoulder that gushed blood. By God, she thought, his arm might be half off, judging by all that blood. How was she to treat such a wound?
“Hush,” she repeated. “Lie still. I will tie it up.”
She began to work there in the poor light, tore away the soaking remnants of his clothing, and surveyed the wound beneath. The wound, as he said, was deep, the flesh torn in a gaping, ragged hole that exposed the tendons and bone beneath. Despite the horrific appearance of the injury, her hands steadied with the familiarity of the task.
She kept hoping she would recognize him. He might be one of the men come in from outlying MacBeith lands to join the fight against their neighbors. Or, far worse, he could be a stranger.
He had a broad, strong chest and a massive build that included brawny arms, one of which was now chewed to shreds. A wound such as this, he might not survive.
“Ye be lucky,” she told him as she rifled through her basket for enough bandaging to make a pad, and tied it on.
“Ye think so?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Aye, so. Had ye taken this selfsame wound in your chest, ye would likely be dead.”
“I might die, still.”
Their eyes met, there in the gloom. A curious expression twisted his features. “Ye do no’ ken who I am, d’ye, mistress?”
“I am afraid I do no’.” She hoped, hoped he was one of their own. Yet her heart told her otherwise, and his expression confirmed it. She did not know him because nay, he was not a member of Clan MacBeith.
She blinked and moved her gaze over him, trying to peer beneath the blood. A big man, aye, with something compelling about him even though under all that blood—
He wore MacLeod tartan.
Chapter Two
She looked like an angel, this woman who hovered over him. But no ordinary angel with golden hair and feathered wings, all in white. Nay. She had an oval face, wide, steady eyes, and a lot of hair, all braided. He could not tell its color in the poor light, but it was not fair.
She was beautiful, and ’twas her compassion that made her so.
Now she sprang to her feet and backed away from him, having just realized she’d spent the last moments tending a mortal enemy.
Leith sat up in her wake, a gasp of agony tearing from him. What would she do now? The dead—his and hers alike—lay all around them, but the living remained not far off. He could quite clearly hear them, the members of Clan MacBeith. Carrying their wounded from the battlefield. Dispatching their enemies.
Men like him.
All this woman needed to do was call out. Those men who so efficiently dispatched his fellow MacLeod warriors would come. A quick blade to the throat and his life would end.
He drew a breath, which served to intensify his agony. His wound was bad—he’d known that from the instant he’d taken it. Lying there with the body of his fellow warrior, Carr, weighing him down, he’d been as good as dead.
Then he’d heard her. Moving closer, and closer. She’d appeared above him and knelt down, mercy in her gaze. Gentleness in her hands.
Neither could last.
If he could escape her, he might be able to get away through the dark. If he could stand, that was. At the moment, he doubted it. To reach home, he’d have to swim across the loch or make the long trek around by the burn, away up the glen.
Neither of those things was going to happen, given his present condition. Curse it all, he could not even get to his feet.
What he should do—what he truly should do—was silence this woman before she called out. His sword must be here in the grass, somewhere beside him.
He groped for it with his left hand, since the right refused to obey him. That fact drenched him with horror and sweat. His right hand—the right hand of a warrior—would not serve.
Even as he searched for the weapon, he knew he could not use it on her. Not even to save his life.
Abandoning the search for his blade, he attempted to scramble to his feet and failed. Aye, she would call out now. Realizing who, what he was, she would abandon all mercy and betray him.
Only it would not be a betrayal, would it? She was MacBeith and he MacLeod.
There did all mercy end.
He could hear the others getting closer, her clansmen. She had only to open her lips.
For the span of twenty heartbeats, she remained silent. Forty heartbeats. She must call out. And him, without the strength to rise.
Then, quite suddenly, she bent toward him. “Here.”
Her arms came around him, tight. One slender shoulder lodged at his armpit. Even then it took Leith a moment to grasp her intentions, to accept that she meant to help him up.
They managed it, but not without difficulty, and stood swaying together while he fought back the agony and tried to catch his breath.
Despite his being soaked with blood, she kept hold of him, unwilling to let him fall. He could feel the warmth of her there in the rapidly cooling evening. He could smell her, by heaven, even over the heavy scent of the blood. She smelled like herbs. Like woman.
