The captain looked confused. Rose smiled behind her hand.
“But when it comes to my mother,” Tristan continued. “my father is as harmless as a puppy dog.” Tristan laughed…but then stopped, perhaps realizing that he wasn’t so different from his father when it came to love.
Rose already loved it here. The brothers had created a haven for their kin. She wouldn’t live behind the wall but on the open hills, alone with her husband and six other shepherds.
Tristan’s cousin, Elias, was the seventh shepherd, but he had found his life in a small village near London while the Black Death ravaged England.
Rose and her husband would live in Elias’ house until theirs was built. She could take her horse and ride to the stronghold anytime she wished and would always be let in.
They grew closer and already a few guards on the battlements recognized him and left their stations for a moment. By the time Rose and her group reached the gate, another man appeared and leaned over the edge of the battlements. Was it his father? It had to be, for he shouted to open the gate while they were still a hundred feet away. He was as handsome as his son, and older. It was clear by his gray hair intermingled with the rest and filled out on his temples in broad strikes. Even from her vantage point, Rose could feel the power of his gaze.
The gates creaked as they were opened. She could hear a man’s voice calling out. “’Tis Tristan! Tristan is home.” Rose could feel the charged air. She looked at her husband. He had nothing but glorious smiles for the man who was hurrying from the battlements to see him. Others were leaving their homes, including the manor houses, and running toward them. His kin were about to be upon her. She wasn’t afraid. No. She welcomed the thought of having a family. She would do whatever she could to please them and make her own way among them.
His father reached him first. He had beautiful sapphire blue eyes that appeared dark gray against his braided hair.
Tristan dismounted and remained upright when Cainnech MacPherson collided into him, his arms open wide.
“It has been a long time, Tristan,” his father’s deep voice fell softly over her ears.
“Aye, Father, but I am home now.”
“To stay?” his father asked with hope filling his eyes.
“Tristan?” a woman shouted, coming from an enormous garden on the side of the western hills. “My son!”
“Aye, Mother, ’tis me,” Tristan called back.
His mother approached, holding her skirts about her ankles. When she reached him, she cupped his cheek in her hand. Her large emerald eyes filled with tears. “Tristan, I feared I would never see you again.”
This was she, Rose thought with a worshipful smile, the woman who fought the Scots from the trees.
“Fergive me fer stayin’ away fer so long, Mother,” he said with his eyes rivaling hers when he gathered her in his arms.
“Do we have ye to thank fer bringin’ him home?” Cainnech called out to her.
Rose smiled and shook her head no after she dismounted and stood toe to toe with the man who raised the man she was in love with. “’Twas your prayers that brought him home.”
“What is this I hear?” said an older man with a bald head and a tender gaze, wearing robes from neck to feet. “A lass who trusts God to answer prayers?”
“Father Timothy.”
Rose didn’t realize she’d spoken his name out loud until he smiled and melted her heart over her bones.
“Tristan, my boy,” he cried when Tristan gathered him into his crushing embrace.
“Everyone!” Tristan called out after a teary reunion with the priest. “This is my wife, Rose.”
They all looked at him first, and then her, stunned.
“How in the world did you ever accomplish that?” asked another lass with raven hair plaited down her back and blue eyes as intent as her father’s. There were five children gathered around her, the youngest was cradled on her hip.
“Fer her ’twas easy, El,” Tristan answered the lass.
El. This was Elysande, his sister. Tristan had told her of his sister on their journey here. Her beauty nearly made Rose want to turn around and go back to the ashes. But the children stopped her from leaving. She hadn’t seen children close up since she, too, was a child. Her eyes misted with tears yet again.
“Hmm,” his sister mocked her brother gently with raised brows and half a smile. “Fergive me, Rose,” she said softly. “’Tis just hard to believe that hard-hearted Tristan would marry. Is it love?”
Rose had to smile. Everyone (having grown to seventeen in number) was waiting for her answer.
“Aye, ’tis love,” Tristan said before Rose could.
“Aye,” she agreed, letting him take her hand and looking at him.
After the shock wore off, everyone cheered. The first was his sister. Then Tristan told them of the Black Death in Scotland.
They locked the gates of the stronghold.
Rose thought that being inside would be difficult for her, but it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. There were over five hundred people living at the stronghold and the gates were expanding every year. There were large cottages and small cottages branching out from the three main manor houses. Parapets led to every house, every cottage. Everything was connected within.
They passed carpenters and tanners and smiths. There was a church and a gatehouse and vendors of every kind, and chickens and pigs roaming free. This was a fully functional market town meant only for its inhabitants.
More women came to sit with her while they supped. They asked her questions about her life and she told them a little. There was so much, after all.
“Tristan cares only for fighting,” warned a lovely woman with red hair and dark eyes. With her was a younger version of herself in her daughter. Tristan’s uncle, Nicholas, introduced them as his wife, Julianna, and their daughter, Adela. Rose met everyone, including Uncle Torin with whom Tristan rightly guessed she would hit it off.
Torin was
