~ Chapter 1~
~ Toying with a Wee Mouse ~
The season of the Great Celebration had arrived at long last. A stretch of languid days spent feasting and renewing old friendships. A time where the Highland Clans amassed to pay homage to the Midsummer Solstice, as well as a period of preparation for the highly anticipated Boar Hunt held inTarbert, Loch Fyne.
Arianna had yearned impatiently for this day’s arrival, and now that it was here she meant to make it a time to remember. It would be one filled with promise and unimaginable opportunity and Ari felt staunchly determined to revel in every small detail. After all, this was something she’d awaited for her entire childhood. Today she had reached the compulsory age required to engage in her rite of passage. Her sixteenth birthday!
She would be of age to not only participate in the Hunt, but to qualify for her ranking amongst this season’s field of skilled archers.
Her bow and quiver hung at the ready from a fur-lined strap stretching across her chest. The leathered satchel held twelve of her most prized flint-tipped, hand-honed arrows, which she had personally adorned with hand-dyed plumes of turkey feathers. All of these represented appendages as essential to Arianna as her own freckled limbs.
More importantly, they were vital to both her identity today and essential to her livelihood in all the tomorrows stretching into the future.
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"This cat and mouse game has gone on long enough," whispered Arianna beneath her breath in frustration. Tossing her long flowing mane of red curls back over one shoulder, she took her position poised to strike.
Her green amber-flecked eyes scanned the milling crowd of townspeople in the square below. Taking extra care to remain hidden, she crouched lower, tucking in and under the jutted ledge of the parapet. The aromatic scents of roast mutton and chestnuts wafted on the late afternoon breeze towards her, flooding her mouth with saliva.
"Where is he?” she voiced with exasperation. At that very moment, as she adjusted her positioning by turning slightly to her left, she caught a quick glimpse of subtle movement below; a scrap of a torn red tunic sleeve disappearing in a flash of colour behind a vendor’s baked goods stall.
"Aha. There you are, you wee bugger! I won’t be late for dinner after all!” Smirking to herself now that she’d become alert to the location of her quarry she revelled in her good fortune. One more careless misstep by Tristan and she would most definitely be the victor pocketing the coveted prize: a charm-stone thistle brooch embedded with sparkling topaz and sea amethysts.
Down below, Tristan crouched lower behind the stall, craning his neck past the aproned girth of the sweat-soaked vendor. He grasped onto the hope that the vendor wouldn’t suddenly decide to roll the cart away to a new location, thus exposing him as a result. Tristan’s empty stomach grumbled with hunger the longer he remained in hiding.
His senses were overwhelmed by temptation, heightened by the undeniably delicious aromas emanating from the items laid out upon the cart — they ran the gamut from freshly baked scones, to wild strawberries, to flaky gooseberry-rhubarb pies; all were proving to be too much for his weakened sensibilities to ignore. All he could envision was the satisfaction of sinking his teeth into a warm buttery scone and that solitary image consumed his thoughts.
Acting on instinct alone, and without serious consideration of the danger he risked in exposing himself, he impulsively stretched out his hand to grab for a scone as it sat nestled in the wicker basket laying on the cart, a mere few inches and a nimble hand’s grab away.
"Only one," Tristan thought to himself while reaching with his left hand up and over the back corner of the rickety stall. Manoeuvring himself so that he could more steathily reach out towards the scones, he took care to keep the vendor within his periphery.
Without benefit of raising his head, for fear of giving his position away, he spider-walked his fingers across the surface of the cart. Just at the moment that his fingers groped and caught hold of the largest scone, he felt a sharp pain penetrate that hand, which was now wrapped around the steaming baked good.
"Ugh! Oww!" yelled Tristan.
As his anguished voice rang out from behind the cart, the vendor, having been alerted to Tristan’s presence, grabbed an iron rod and began beating Tristan with it, without mercy, about his head.
"Get away, you thieving rascal!” the vendor bellowed with each glancing blow.
"Drop that scone if you value your life, thief!” And with that said, Tristan ducked and bolted.
********
He began running for cover trickling a steady trail of blood in his wake. Once he felt able to safely stop and catch his breath, he made an attempt to remove the arrow without success. It had embedded itself deep in the flesh of his hand and was firmly fixed. He began crumbling the scone from its perch encircling the arrow which had stuck and pinned the scone to his bleeding hand.
With extreme difficulty Tristan tried to ignore the excruciating pain radiating up his arm, and continued picking at and hungrily nibbling the few crumbs he was able to tear off from around the shaft of the arrow.
Lost in confusion brought about by the beating to his head, he startled at a scuffle behind him. He abruptly jumped to his feet — fighting back a sound of fear, when the threatening voice of Arianna demanded sternly, "Give me back my arrow you cowering whelp!"
*********
“Bloody hell Ari! Ye weren’t supposed to hit me with da bloody thing. What happened to fair warning? Ya damn near kilt me! You’re nothing but a wee heathen!”
Tristan’s face turned a mottled shade of puce, as he proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs. His blood-soaked hand flapped wildly in the air in front of her, calling Arianna’s attention to the damage she had inflicted upon him. The arrow hung pendulously, swinging to and fro from his tattered flesh, scraps of scone crumbling and flying off in every direction with each dramatic wave of his hand.
With a jolt of recognition, he realized his exaggerated flailing about was only causing him greater injury as with each frenetic motion he made, the point of the arrow dug deeper into the flesh of his hand, tearing further into the underlying layers.
Grabbing the bottom of his tunic and wrapping it upwards around his bloody limb, he attempted to staunch the flow of blood by applying steady pressure to it.
Seemingly oblivious to the drama unfolding before them, two pigeons swooped in for a landing. Spotting the few tasty morsels of scone laying strewn about on the cobblestones, they darted in and in very short order, feasted upon them until not one crumb remained. Once they’d finished they made a hasty retreat. A safer, loftier vantage point would no doubt allow them to escape putting themselves at risk of becoming someone else’s, unwitting dinner feast.
*********
“Ah Tristan. I dinna ken what happened! I notched the arrow and…er… My arm.....er hand..… musta slipped.” Arianna pulled her heart-shaped face into a pout, her full lips pursing, her chin aquiver, eyes dewy and on the brim of spilling over onto her cheeks. He knew that expression well enough and he’d fallen victim to her disingenuous plays in the past. She was a master at manipulation.
He couldn’t fathom the number of times he’d fallen victim to her sly machinations — far too many; he did know that for certain. He’d be a fool to fall so easily this time, knowing with absolute certainty, that she, of all the marksmen he knew, would never, could never, be that careless with the bow. Not Arianna!
Peeking up from the shelter of her long lashes, she could see Tristan weighing the truth of her explanation over in his mind. Was it possible that he was buying her ruse at a true show of innocence?
If she were to be honest, she had meant to hit her mark, and in one sense she had done just that — She had meant the arrow to hit the scone, which it had; that had been her true target. Her shot had only been intended to act as a warning.
Unfortunately for Tristan, his own quickness had proven to be his downfall. His hand, while reaching for the scone at the same precise moment she’d let go of the bowstring, had meant his hand had also been struck by the launched arrow. She hadn’t anticipated him being so adept or timely with his grab or so hungry that he would throw all caution to the wind.
Tristan’s previous puce complexion had now begun to turn a sickly shade of green as he awkwardly staggered off in the opposite direction. Arianna dogged his steps, careful to remain a few paces behind out of easy reach. In his current frame of mind, there was no telling what action he might take in retaliation.
“Where are you off to then? Come on wit ya Tristan! It’s just a wee scratch! It was just an accident after all, I swear!”
Trying to soothe him with as consoling a voice as she could muster, it was obvious to her he wasn’t really hearing her plea.
Now, it appeared from where she stood that he had taken a turn for the worst. His face had faded into a horrible pale shade of ashy-gray. He wasn’t looking at all well.
Along with his sickly complexion, she noticed that his tunic was fast becoming soaked with blood.
“Scratch? You call this here a scratch? I’m bleedin’ like a stuck pig Ari!! I’ll be lucky to make it to the infirmary before every pint has spilt out of me!” and with that Tristan quickened his pace to a slow trot, heading directly towards the open door of the apothecary across the lane.
Tristan could hear her footsteps echoing his. Spinning abruptly around on his heels, he appeared unsteady and at risk of toppling over. Beads of sweat poured off of his forehead as he stomped his feet and demanded in a surly tone, “Why are you following me? Take your wily witchy ways away wit ya. Leave me be! Have ya nae done enough damage for today?”
Spinning around to head back in the direction of the apothecary, Tristan swayed, appearing dizzy and disoriented. He stumbled, catching himself at the last minute from taking a fatal tumble. He made a desperate grab at the polished knob of the shop door and proceeded to prop himself upright.
“I……I wa..I want to be sure yer nae going ta bleed ta death, tha ye’ll indeed live to see another day. I am sincere when I tell you how sorry I am, Tristan.” Stammering and trying to feign sounding as contrite as possible, Arianna realized she actually did feel bad that she had struck his hand. It had all been a rather unfortunate accident; a simple matter of bad timing and a complex misjudgment in distance. A matter of inches. Surely, once his hand had been seen to and he wasn’t so flustered, he’d see reason.
There’d definitely be hell to pay once word spread of what she’d done. Her admonishment amongst the Clans at the gathering would be humiliating to say the least. Never mind the embarrassing ribbing she’d be facing when her brothers caught wind of what she’d done. Gaw!
She scurried to catch up with Tristan, who had already entered the apothecary ahead of her.