The Highlander's Secret(30)
For years, Jain travelled with them on the sea, learned the way of sailing and stayed out of the way when the men fought. For a girl, she was unusually adaptable to ship life and made herself useful in any way she could. Occasionally, she even took up the sword herself. She asked for one of their craftsmen to make a special sword fashioned just her size, but her father refused. He told her that if she was going to wield a sword she would do it properly, or not at all. In the beginning Jain had difficulty lifting the weapon until her arms were strong enough. Her father would just chuckle and remind her it was fortunate they didn’t use the same long swords as the English.
Her father and her older brothers, Ragnar and Leif, would practice with her until she was strong enough. They hoped she would never have to fight, but if the time came she would know how to defend herself.
It wasn’t until they came to Scotland in hopes of starting a new settlement that her seafaring life was over.
Jain remembered crying out in terror at the sound of clashing swords while her kinsmen prepared themselves for battle. Strange men rode over the hill on horseback with axes and torches held high, screaming furiously as they approached. The Norsemen were strong and fought bravely to protect their land, but were unprepared for the vicious backlash of the local clan. Her father had shouted for Jain to hide before he threw her in their house. The walls had not yet been finished, and a beam of wood had fallen across the floor with a hammer and nails around it. While her kinsmen fought, Jain crouched in a tiny space beneath her bed and watched through cracks in the wood.
They’d only made landfall a few weeks before. It wasn’t like their other expeditions. They’d brought women and children with them.
They fought savagely, defending their home as best they could. Jain had scuttled into a crevasse and watched them attack each other. Many of the brave men died right before her eyes. Bjorn and Hakkon went down in a single blow, a swordsman cut through one and then the other. She saw them fall and leave crimson stains on the earth below.
The next thing she’d smelled was smoke as men set fire to their cottages and destroyed everything her kinsmen had worked so hard to build. Throughout that battle, none of them fought more bravely than her father. When he saw them light the roof of his own house, he attacked with vicious fury. The horrible man who helped destroy their settlement had the higher ground. He rode by on horseback and ran Erik through with a sword.
She’d covered her mouth to muffle a scream that escaped her lips and stinging tears streamed down her face as she trembled in the now smoldering house. Leif and Ragnar were nowhere to be seen. They could have been dead for all she knew. She peered out between the slats of wood in the wall and saw them running towards the ships. Once on board, the Vikings had the upper hand and a few managed to escape, but Jain was left behind.
It happened so fast. There wasn’t anything she could do. The longship disappeared across the water as a beam of the roof collapsed. Jain remembered screaming again when it crashed to the ground beside her.
As Jain recalled the memory, her hands began to sweat. It was the darkest and most horrible day of her life. Yet, there had been a ray of sunshine when Eamon and Moira took her in. Even knowing about her past, Eamon loved her just the same.
After the massacre, Jain went looking for her brothers, but she didn’t find their bodies among the slain. In her darkest moments, that was what got her through – hope that they survived. That’s what she was doing when she heard the hoofbeats in the distance and went to go hide. Clan Gordon happened upon the demolished Viking village and assumed it was the beginnings of a new Scottish settlement that was destroyed by Vikings—when in fact it was the opposite.
Jain was a Viking, born of warriors across the sea – those were her true roots. The memories of her past helped to form the woman she’d become, the good and the bad.
If she could survive that, the massacre and destruction of her village and entire family, she could survive just about anything. Like a flower, Jain knew she had to bloom where she was planted. That didn’t make it any easier. That didn’t stop her dreaming. The men who destroyed her village, or Scotsmen as she now understood them to be, had destroyed her world. They took everything away from her. Jain never spoke of it, but she was proud of her northern heritage – it was one of the few things that remained intact and couldn’t be taken away from her. Jain worried that if she married a man from Elign, and bore him children, she really would be Scottish.
In that moment, she decided it was time to let Alan know the truth. She couldn’t keep her secret from him any longer. She loved him, and if they were going to build a life together, it had to start with honesty.
Chapter Fourteen
Alan squinted against the searing heat of the forge as he swung down with his hammer against the molten steel. When it struck the target, the clash of metal against metal sent sparks flying throughout the room. His arms ached from strain of the repetitive movement and rest that would not come till sundown. Most of his shirt was covered in ash and stained beyond ever being clean again. There were rips along the seam and holes where a spark managed to burn through.
It had been a few days since Alan and Rodrick finished working at Eamon’s farm, but he found himself thinking about Jain. After she ran inside the other day, he spent the entire afternoon trying to figure out what happened.
He didn’t like that Conrad was bothering her and couldn’t help but wonder if everything was alright. Still, her bravery in throwing the bucket of soap water in Conrad’s face was something he could cherish always. Jain may have been one of the prettiest girls in the village, but not many men could stand up to her withering gaze. Alan grinned at the memory, coming down on the anvil with his hammer, trying to forget about the ache within his shoulders. The pain only made the work go faster.