"Shut your mouth, you little brat. I'm your mother, and if I have to beat you to death to understand that, I will!" She dug her fingers into the girl's scalp and yanked cruelly on the dark hair so like her own.

Fiona cried out softly.

The laird and his captain had finally reached her. Malcolm Scott looked at the woman who had once been his wife. She was still beautiful, but there was something dissolute about the shape of her mouth he had never before noticed, and her beautiful bright blue eyes were hard and merciless. "You will return my daughter to me, Robena," Malcolm Scott said in a quiet but firm voice.

"Our daughter, Colm," she answered him.

"You rejected her at birth, and when you deserted her at two you relinquished your right to call her yours," he replied. "Fiona is my daughter."

"She calls your whore Mam. Do you think I will let her be raised by that whey-faced English bitch, Colm? Do you think I will let her call that woman Mother?"

"Alix has been more of a mother to Fiona than you ever were," the laird told her, "and she has spent more time with her than you ever did. Beinn, get Fiona."

Robena backed her horse away. "Stay where you are!" she cried.

"I spared your life seven years ago, Robena," the laird said. "I will not spare you again. I warned you then if you defied me I would put you in the tower dungeon."

"You will never put me there, Colm, and you shall not have Fiona back!" Robena Ramsay screamed at him. And then, pulling her horse about, she kicked the injured beast, who leaped forward, startled, and disappeared from sight with its shrieking rider and Fiona.

"What the hell…" the laird cried out.

"Wait, my lord, wait!" Beinn shouted, and jumping from his own horse he walked carefully forward. "Dear God," he said, for the moorland disappeared suddenly and unexpectedly at the point where they were standing, giving way to a steep drop down into a fast running water that tumbled over its rocky streambed. "We must go on foot, my lord. Hurry! Hurry!" And he immediately began the descent downward.

Malcolm Scott swiftly joined him, and together the two men made the climb down to where Robena Ramsay's horse lay in a crumbled heap, its rider and passengers beneath it. Quickly the two men struggled to move the dead animal enough so they might get to the child. The angle of Robena's neck indicated that she had been killed in the fall. They both crossed themselves at the realization. A little groan from Fiona increased their sense of urgency as they reached her. Carefully Beinn extricated the girl from the tangle, and they climbed the steep incline once again. Gaining the top, the laird mounted his horse and reached out for his child. Cradled in his arms she opened her eyes, smiled, and said, "Da!" Then her eyes closed again. Her breathing was labored. Her little face pale.

Malcolm Scott sent his captain on ahead to alert the keep and see it was opened to him. Then he slowly and carefully made his way back to Dunglais, his injured daughter in his arms. As he clopped across the lowered drawbridge into the keep's courtyard he saw Alix and Fenella waiting. Beinn took Fiona from his master, and following instructions from the women, brought the child into the dwelling. When the laird finally reached the hall it was empty. "Where is my daughter?" he asked a pale-faced Iver.

"They have taken the little mistress to her bedchamber, my lord." Tears sprang into the steward's eyes. "She is grievously injured, I fear. I have sent for the priest."

Malcolm Scott felt as if an icy hand had clutched his heart. He ran up the staircase to the upper hall and into Fiona's room. His daughter, white as snow, lay upon her bed. Alix sat on one side of her, holding her small hand. Fenella on the other. Her gown was wet and streaked with dirt. Her small face was dirty from her tears. "Why is she not clean and dry?" he demanded in a fierce voice.

Alix looked up at him but said nothing.

"We dare not move her, my lord. It is too painful for her," Fenella said. What she did not say was apparent.

Fiona Scott was dying. Her little body had been crushed by the weight of Robena and Robena's horse. Her bones were fractured and broken. Her innards were shattered beyond any repair that might be done had they had a physician to aid them. But at the sound of her father's voice she opened her eyes and whispered, "Da!"

He was at her side in a moment, taking the little hand that Fenella relinquished. "I am here, my sweet bairn," he told her, fighting to hold back his own tears. "I am so sorry, Fi. I am so sorry I could not protect you better."

"Love… each other," Fiona whispered to him. "Love… my… mam. I… love her."

"I love Alix, my bairn," he told Fiona. "I love your mam."

Fiona turned her head slowly, painfully so she might look at Alix. "Tell… my… brothers… that I… loved… them," and then she died with a small shudder.

He looked across at Alix. "I do love you," he told her.

Alix arose from the dead child's side. "I will never forgive you for what you have done to all of our bairns," she told him. Then she walked slowly from the death chamber.

Malcolm Scott put his head down and began to cry. Shocked to see her master so distraught, Fenella crept from the room. Her own heart was filled with sorrow, but her head was clearer than either her master or her mistress. Going to the hall, she found Iver waiting. "The little mistress is dead," she said to him even as Father Donald ran into the hall and heard her tragic words.

The priest crossed himself. "Where is she?" he said.

"I'll take you," Fenella said, and led Father Donald upstairs to the bedchamber where the young girl lay. As she could hear the laird still sobbing over his daughter, Fenella pointed to the door and retreated.

Father Donald entered the room. Without a word he took out his holy oil and anointed the Fiona with it. Then he knelt by her bedside and prayed. When he had finished he arose and went to the still-weeping laird. "Come, my lord, we need to speak," he said. "Fiona will be taken care of by the women." He led the laird from his daughter's chamber downstairs and into Malcolm Scott's own privy chamber. He seated his master, and pouring them both a dram cup of the laird's own smoky peat whiskey, he sat opposite him. "Now, my lord, tell me what has happened."

"I am responsible for my own daughter's death," the laird said bleakly. "I should have killed Robena when I first found her with my half brother."

"But we settled this matter with Robena Ramsay years ago," Father Donald said. "Did you not send her away? Why was she still on your lands?"

"I sent her from the keep," Malcolm Scott replied. "If I had sent her back to her family it would have caused all manner of difficulty. Her behavior shamed them, and they would not have accepted her back. It would have made ill will between our clans. Are there not enough feuds in the borders that I would start another over a woman like that? And where would she have gone? I had not the heart despite all she did, despite her character, to send her into the world. She would have ended up God knows where."

Father Donald sighed, shaking his head. "Your heart is too good, my lord. So you isolated her in a cottage with two servants and only Beinn went with supplies several times a year. Did he know she was there?"

"Aye. I had to tell him, but he kept my secret."

"Did he know that St. Andrew's had given you a bill of divorcement dissolving your marriage to Robena Ramsay?" the priest queried the laird.

"Aye, that too. He knew my marriage to Alix was true and not bigamous," Malcolm Scott responded.

"Yet I am puzzled why Robena chose this moment to attempt to take Fiona from you," Father Donald said.

"She has lived out on the moor peaceably for seven years. Why did she suddenly want the daughter she had always rejected? I am totally confused by it," the laird admitted. "I know she had learned of Alix, and Robena was always a jealous woman."

"You will have to go and speak with Fyfa, for she may be able to shed light on this matter. What will you do with her and Rafe now?"

"They may have a lifetime tenancy in the cottage," Malcolm Scott told the priest. "They did their duty and cared for her. She was not an easy woman. But to kill Fiona…" He struggled to keep the tears pricking at his eyelids from falling. Men did not weep like women, but Blessed Mother! This was his child. He had lost his daughter and would never again see her laughing face, hear her giggle, receive her sweet kiss on his cheek.

"Where is Robena's body?" the priest asked. He felt like weeping too.

"Where she died," the laird replied stonily. "Let her rot where she fell!"

"Beinn and I will bury her," Father Donald said. "No one else should be involved. And tomorrow you will go to the cottage and speak with Fyfa and Rafe. It is possible they will know what happened to bring this mood upon her. Now go to your wife and comfort her, for Fiona was as much a daughter to her as she was to you. It must have been quite a shock to her to meet up with Robena."

"More than you can know, Good Father. There never seemed to be a reason to tell Alix the whole truth." He flushed guiltily. "And I never told Robena about the bill of divorcement. She would not have accepted it. So she believed herself still my wife. I can but imagine what Robena said to Alix. Now she believes I have made a bigamous marriage with her, and that her children are stained with the shame of bastardy."

"Jesu! Mother Mary and Joseph!" Father Donald swore, unable to contain himself. "I cannot believe you were so imprudent as to not tell Robena that she was no longer your wife! Aye, I can well imagine what she said to Alix. You are a fool, Malcolm Scott," the priest scolded. "Go and find your wife at once so her mind may be put to rest! And when this matter is finally all over and done with you will come to me for a penance. Aye, I must think upon what God would want you to suffer in order to expunge your cruel thoughtlessness to that sweet faithful young woman who is your wife. Go now!"