The Falconer's Daughter, Book 1

Chapter 1 - Part 1

January 1398

Cold. So cold. His breath clouded in thick silver puffs and the peasant reached up to adjust the scarf wrapped against his mouth. Only his dark eyes could be seen through the dense swaddling of woolen robe, the thick black fringe of eyelash coated with ice. He prodded beneath the snow crust with a stick, once again finding nothing.

Kirk Buchanan dropped the stick into the crook of his arm and clapped his hands together once, twice, forcing the blood through his fingertips. His stomach churned and he fought panic. There was nothing to eat here. No root, no bulb, no sign of hope. But how could he give up? What would the babe do then?

Suddenly, the wind died and the steep slope hung in silence, a strange serenity for the cascade of mountains that were as fierce as they were breathtaking. The frigid gale winds had turned the trickling waterfall into long spinning strands of silver ice. Mount Ben Nevis shadowed her smaller sister peaks, the range of mountains stitched together so tightly they formed a fortress more formidable than any other in the Scottish Highlands.

Above him came the faint cry of a bird and he looked up, scanning the white wintery sky. A gerfalcon. Narrowing his eyes, he watched the bird circle, its flight pattern tight and concentric. He suspected that he had stumbled on her nest. "I see you," he whispered, standing motionless, waiting as if torn between two lives, two dreams of who he was and who he once was. Finally he began to back away from the rocky incline, stepping carefully onto a lower snow-banked shelf. On safer ground, he glanced up again. The gerfalcon had disappeared.

Blanketed in snow, the mountain swallowed all sound, all surfaces white and slick, patches of ice on the exposed rock and icicles glittering on the lower limbs of the twisted pines and sharp overhang of roof. The cottage, built in the shadow of Mount Ben Nevis, clung to the steep slope as if it had always been there, perched among the outcropping of rocks. The mountains were frequently covered in clouds, but the mists had lifted in the last half hour to reveal the great north face of the mountain. This was the side of the mountain Kirk loved best, respecting the north face of Ben Nevis the same way he respected all that was wild, unguarded,free. These were the gifts of God and no other.

From inside the cottage, he closed the window against the cold, the rough planks splintering beneath his fingertips as he struggled to secure the shutters. "Damn!" Kirk pressed his thumb against his teeth, trying to dislodge the sliver before it buried deeper.

"That's exactly what I mean." Geoffrey Mclnnes tapped his foot anxiously, the stool too small for his lanky frame. "This is no place for a babe."

Wordlessly, Kirk settled himself back onto the hearthstones, sitting cross-legged before the fire. He pulled the small whittling knife from inside his tattered boot, running the tip of the blade over the reddened skin on his thumb. He began to work the splinter until it protruded out of the skin and blood trickled from the cut, dribbling down his thumb into the crease of his palm. Ignoring Mclnnes' tapping, Kirk worked the splinter free and wiped the blade clean on his pant leg before returning the knife to his boot.

"Is this what you do every day? You eat? You whittle? You wait for the babe to wake?" Geoffrey struggled to contain his impatience. "For God's sake, man," he said, a lock of dark blonde hair falling into his eyes, "you can't keep her here."

"And why not?"

"Take another look at this place!" Geoffrey jerked his arm out, gesturing about the primitive cottage. "How is she to survive here?"

"It's not as if there is any danger."

"You'll do to her as you did to Lady Anne!"