One Snowy Knight Read Free

snowdrifts made it hard to reach them, and that with each step she sank all the way to the tops of her boots. The heavy wool of her kirtle saw the hem sodden and weighted. The chill was reaching her body, sapping its heat.
    Then she noticed a pale form behind the children. A horse?
    Her relief shifted back to apprehension. No steed would be out wandering in this. The animal could only mean a rider was near, yet none was on his back. As she drew close she saw it was a monstrous destrier, nearly as white as the snow, a beautiful stallion of power, an instrument of war, yet it followed behind her children with the mien of a puppy.
    “Mama!” Annis cried and hurried toward her.
    Skena leaned down to hug her darling daughter, though after that first rush of blessed relief that they were safe, she itched to take a hand to their backsides to ensure they would never do this again. “You two are in trouble, you ken?”
    “Och, Mama, do not fash!” Andrew grinned, while petting the mighty steed on its neck. “Is he not wonderful? The most valiant destrier in all of Scotland? He’s a Kelpie, Mama.”
    “Nay, Kelpies are water horses, Andrew.” She hugged him, and then ran her hands over his body to make sure he was unharmed.
    “Is snow not frozen water? It tastes like water when I catch it on my tongue,” he argued, crinkling his forehead. “I made a wish, Mama—my Yuletide wish—to the Cailleach, lady of winter. I asked her to send us a warrior, a knight to protect us.”
    “A knight to care for us…to love us,” Annis added in her soft voice, lowering her lashes to hide the pain that her father had never loved her.
    Skena’s heart broke yet another time. Annis was such a pretty little girl. She had the same dark auburn hair and big brown eyes as Skena bore. People spoke of how her daughter was the spitting image of Skena when she was a child. How any man could not adore the bairn, she had never understood. Angus had doted on Andrew, his son and heir, but with ‘the girl’ he nearly denied her existence. Tossing her mind back over the past seven years, she could not recall Angus’s ever calling their daughter by her given name. It was always ‘the girl.’
    Skena’s trembling hand reached out and brushed the snow from Andrew’s shoulders and hair. “Oh aye, a grand steed is he, too grand to be out in this winter storm. But he is no Kelpie.”
    “He is, Mama. He brought our knight, just as I asked,” Andrew insisted, getting that stubborn look upon his countenance.
    Skena sighed in exasperation, seeing Angus’s face stamped upon their son’s features. The lad was hard to deal with when he fixed on something. Oft losing the patience to deal with the willful child, Angus had wanted to foster him with his younger brother in the south on the Marches. Skena refused to allow it, begging to keep her son one more year before he was sent away for training. She did not want some man she had never met caring for her son. Though she little regretted she had bent her husband’s resolve in this matter, she was apprehensive about Andrew’s willful streak now there was no man to show him the way of the world.
    Annis took her hand. “Come see, Mama. He is beautiful, a knight true, like some great warrior king of old that the Seanchaidh tells about around fireside.”
    “We need to get back to the dun —now. Dark surrounds us. You are aware night falls early now that the Solstice draws near. You are soaked. I am soaked. We’ll catch our death if we do not get back and dry ourselves—”
    “Mama!” Annis sobbed, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. “We leave him out in the stour…. The wolves will come…and get him.”
    Andrew took her other hand and tugged. “Come, we must fetch him back with us. He is ours now. I asked the Kelpie if he was, and he shook his head aye. Watch.” He stroked the horse’s velvety nose. “The warrior belongs to us now. You brought him for us, eh?”
    The beast shook his head up and