Page 41 of My Scot, My Surrender
They entered a large room where the abbot directed them to a circular stone basin, water bubbling down from a small fountain in the center. A few other monks appeared and left folded lengths of toweling upon the stone rim. Sorcha and Brandt washed their hands and faces and necks in silence while the abbot directed the monks to prepare some food for their guests.
“Come,” the abbot said after, “the refectory is this way. Ye must be hungry and weary, if ye have traveled from Maclaren lands.”
They followed the abbot through another cloister and into a high-ceilinged dining room.
“We travel from Selkirk,” Brandt said before taking a seat at a long table. The room was cold, and the bench lining the table, hard. But as Sorcha sat across from Brandt, she felt her legs throb with relief.
“Selkirk?” The monk’s eyes widened. “’Tis more than three days’ ride from here, and two days more from Maclaren. Ye have been traveling some time, then?”
“Yes,” Sorcha said. She was well aware of the distance, and how much ground they’d covered. She’d learned to ride a horse before she could walk, and Scottish horses were bred for their endurance and distance, but even she was bone weary from being saddle bound.
“We’re being followed by a band of men belonging to the Marquess of Malvern,” Brandt said. The abbot’s calm expression pinched.
“I see,” the abbot said, pouring cups of wine from a jug in the center of the table. His hand shook and, though it could have been from his age, she thought it more likely the palsy was due to knowledge of Malvern. “And yer destination isBrodielands?”
The emphasis he made on “Brodie” made Sorcha pause before she could sip from her cup.
“Yes,” she answered. “Is there any reason you know of why we should not travel there?”
Had there been a conflict? If the Brodie had taken up arms against another clan, she and Brandt could be riding into hostile lands.
The abbot poured himself a cup of wine before answering. “I only wonder why ye shouldnae travel to Montgomery lands instead. They are much closer.”
Across the table, Sorcha saw Brandt’s eyes snap to the abbot. He swallowed his gulp of wine and slowly lowered the cup, his jaw tensing.
“Montgomery?” he asked.
The name had come up during her time with Brandt. His father, she remembered.Monty. Short for Montgomery. And Brandt’s middle name as well, she recalled from the register at the Selkirk village jail.
“Aye,” the abbot replied, his hand gesturing toward Sorcha’s own, currently wrapped around the simple wooden mug. “Yer ring’s crest. ’Tis the Clan Montgomery’s coat of arms.”
Sorcha looked to her ring and the faded colors of the crest. Brandt’s utter stillness was not lost on her, and when he finally spoke, his voice was hard as iron and flint. “Are you certain?”
The abbot opened his palm in a silent plea for Sorcha’s hand, and when she slipped her fingers into his waiting palm, he nodded. “Aye, quite. I assumed ye wore it because of yer relation to the Montgomerys.”
She turned her eyes to Brandt again, her hand still resting in the abbot’s grip.
“It belonged to my mother,” he said, his eyes not on her or the ring, but some spot on the table. His mind was miles away, sinking into a past she knew haunted him.
The abbot released Sorcha’s hand. “Then ye are a Montgomery,” he said, as if it were the simplest reckoning in the world. But by the untethered expression upon Brandt’s face, it was no such thing. From his earlier admissions, he had grown up with absolutely no knowledge of his mother or the circumstances of his birth. And now…with this abbot’s confident statement, he had learned.
Brandt’s gaze again shot to the abbot, the distance his mind had traveled having closed within seconds. “Where are Montgomery lands?” he asked, biting off each word as if it were poison in his mouth.
The abbot blinked, surprised at the leashed violence of the question. Sorcha felt the chill of it and understood the place of pain from whence it had come. Her heart ached for Brandt, but she knew he would not welcome her concern. Or her pity.
She had come to know his private thoughts only by chance because of goading him, not because he had trusted her enough to confide in her. He would not appreciate any outreach. Instead, Sorcha schooled her features into a blank mask.
“West,” the monk answered. “Perhaps one or two day’s ride, depending on yer haste.”
Her sister and brother-in-law were to the north, many more days than that. And Coxley would not be far behind. Sorcha had heard of the Montgomerys, one of the oldest Scottish clans, though the Maclarens did not have many dealings with them. They were not one of her clan’s enemies, but what she did not know was whether they were friend or foe to Malvern. The man had his fingers embedded in every part of Scotland. She thought back to the men who had attacked Ronan…their plaids had been varied. Mostly Lowlanders, but a few Highlanders, too. Trust was a luxury that neither of them could afford, at least until they got to Brodie.
“We are going to the Brodie,” she hissed to Brandt through clenched teeth. He considered her for a moment. That was all. The blasted man. What was going through his mind?
“We will take the closest sanctuary from Malvern we can find,” he replied. “And that is Montgomery.”
“And are you so certain they will offer it?” she asked softly, even as her thumb touched the underside of the gold band on her finger. Even if he presented the ring and said it had been his mother’s, there would be no proof he was telling the truth. The ring could have been got in any number of ways—sold, pawned, stolen. Scottish heirlooms and antiques were traded and sold like common goods to keep families fed, thanks to the Clearances. But if it was indeed his mother’s and he was a Montgomery, then the woman who’d birthed him and hadn’t wanted him could deny him now, as well.
He already harbored enough hurt. Sorcha didn’t want to see him rejected again.
