Free Bold (The Handfasting) by Becca St. John Page B

her.  He nodded, as
though he knew, had waited, just for that reaction, before he continued.
    “As
I watched, as I fought for a way, any way, to encourage each and every man, as
I felt the despair of my task pull me under, Conegell MacBede asked any who
would listen.  ‘Do ye remember the time young Maggie gave us our talismans?’
    “Talismans,
I thought, thinking of old hags and their mysterious witchcraft.  But the man
did not speak of an old hag, or of sorcery.  Nay, straight on the heels of his
asking, another chuckled.  Oh, aye, he remembered the lass, no more than eight
years, and there she was giving the men more strength in her little parcels
than any drop of draught could do.
    “I’m
telling you now,” Talorc placed his hands flat on the table as he leaned out in
his telling, “the curiosity alone drove away my wretched worries.  I stood and
listened as others were beginning to do, for the MacBede fire pit held the only
voices to sound the sound of vigor.  They chuckled, they spoke of strength
being given.  It was a night when all were hungry for such sounds.
    “So,
as the other men left their fires to stand around the MacBedes, the tales
continued.  I learned that an eight-year-old lass strode out to the courtyard
as the MacBede warriors prepared to leave.  She ignored wives and mothers and
sisters who stood near their men, and approached each and every warrior to hand
him a small parcel.
    “It
was a square of plaid, no more than a scrap, and inside that plaid she’d placed
a piece of heather amid soil from the land.  Then she told them, in her earnest
child’s way, to carry that parcel with them for it would remind them of what
they fought for; the land, the name and the wild glory of both.”
    The
cheers of earlier were no match for these which shook the very walls of the
keep.  And as Maggie looked out at the wild shouts she saw, to her amazement,
that every MacBede man held his little packet of plaid and soil and heather in
the fist of his hand.  Some so old, soil spilled from the worn fabric.  Others
were bright and new.
    They
had kept them?  They had not tossed them in a stream as they left the land? 
They had not laughed at her, or thought her so foolish that they could not
answer her?
     “As
you can guess, the men were stunned beyond words for the fear that tears might
fall.  That a child, a mere little child, bonny as she was, could speak what
each needed to hear . . . ah, she was a one to be remembered.”
    Maggie
slumped upon her bench, startled by what she was hearing, seeing.
    “But
it did not stop there, Maggie girl,” Talorc said directly to her, though his
voice filled the entire hall.
    “Nay,
it did not stop there.  For tales abound of the young girl, Maggie MacBede, of
her throwing a rock and downing a Sassenach, of topping an enemy who tried to
climb over the wall.
    “There’s
talk of a little bairn, six years at the most, making a nuisance of herself on
the battlements, carrying water and lugging pebbles, whatever she thought the
warriors would need.
    “My
heart swelled with the hope that one day I would have such a daughter when the
stories turned, and this wee lass was not so wee any more.  No, she had grown
in the space of the telling, into a strapping lass whose honor was much sought
after.  It took all seven of her brothers to keep suitors at bay.”
    “There
were not so many!”  Maggie snapped, slapping her hand over her mouth in
embarrassment.
    The
Bold laughed, an audacious bellow.
    “You
think not, lass?”  He calmed enough to ask,   “And why do you think you're left
with nothing but puny men to look to?”  Maggie could do naught but shake her
head.  She wanted to say that puny men were all she wanted, but she could not,
so Talorc continued.  “The rest, my sweet, the men more worthy of you, have
been warned away.  Which pleases me to no end.”  Talorc confided to the whole
of his audience.  “For I mean to make her my