A Stockingful of Joy Read Online Free PDF Page B

bones. "I know you want us to reconsider, but we cannot. We signed a bond given us by the Privy Council," he explained. "If we fight with MacDonalds, the man who serves as pledge for our bond can be imprisoned and even executed. That man is Duncan Macrae, my cousin Elspeth's husband."
    "The lawyer?" she asked.
    He nodded. "I owe Duncan my life. He once saved me from a beheading." She glanced at him, her eyes wide. "We all owe him," he continued, "and we will not endanger him. The MacDonalds do not honor this bond as cautiously as we do, but no Glenran Fraser will willingly shed MacDonald blood ever again."
    "I understand," she said, and sighed. "But my uncle has done me a great wrong, and I need help to right it. I may never be able to go back to my home again." She bit at her lower lip.
    He undid the silver brooch, which he had repinned to his shirt, and held it out to her. "Take the snow rose, Catriona," he said. "Take it, and let me help you some other way."
    She did not touch the brooch. "Oats and candles are kind gifts, and brooches are pretty. But none of those help me."
    "Kilernan cannot be taken without starting a blood feud."
    "Then take it without bloodshed," she said simply.
    He shook his head. "That cannot be done."
    "I need only that. All else I can do for myself."
    He bowed his head in exasperation. He wanted to help her, but she would accept only what he could not give her.
    "Do it without blood, Kenneth," she said. "If you want to help me, find some way to take Kilernan. Please." He heard the pleading in her soft voice, and heard a tremble of fear there.
    He frowned, and grabbed up the brooch. Standing, he went to the door and yanked it open. He stared out over the hills, white and vast and endlessly pure. Behind him, Catriona knelt by the hearth. He heard a wooden spoon stir inside an iron kettle, heard the splash of liquid as she began to prepare a meal.
    "You will have to stay another night, because of the snow," she said as she worked. "And with that head wound, you need rest before you can travel. When you return to Glenran, please thank your kin for the New Year's gifts."
    He said nothing. The cross pin of the snow rose pierced his skin as he grasped it. He looked down, and saw a bright drop of blood on his fingertip.
     
    They ate a hot meal of barley and beef, and oatcakes made with a hole in the center, traditionally shaped New Year's bannocks. Kenneth noticed that Catriona did not add the sugar and currants he had brought, as would have been customary. She made a spiced, watered wine with the claret, but sipped only a little herself.
    After the meal, Kenneth slept heavily, as if he had not rested for days, and awoke to find that his headache had lessened a good deal. He looked around. Near the door, Catriona wound a thick plaid around her head and shoulders, over her gown and another plaid. Her hands were covered in heavy stockings. She picked up the cloth bundle that he had brought, opened the door quietly, and stepped outside.
    Frowning, he sat up and dressed, wrapping and belting his plaid over his leather doublet and long trews. Yanking on his deer-skin boots, he followed her outside.
    She rode her garron away from the yard, through deep drifts. Kenneth ran to the byre and saddled his own horse to follow Catriona. He rode after her steadily, his breath frosting in small clouds, his eyes narrowed against the glare of sun on snow.
    "Catriona! Go back!" Kenneth called as he neared her. "These drifts are too deep."
    She turned. "You go back! You need to rest. I am not going far."
    He rode alongside of her, determined to watch over her. If her garron became stranded, at least she would not be alone. She rode ahead of him while their ponies struggled through the drifts. They crossed a long ridge and waded down a hill.
    "It is but a short way now," she said after a while. She urged her garron over a moor. Kenneth followed, his garron, like hers, plowing through deep snow. Cold nipped through his boots