Held Between Sun and Stag

Held Between Sun and Stag

The Lowlands of Scotland were rolling hills, fertile valleys and a rich turbulent history. Along the Borders, where the land rolled softer Clan Kerr held fast to their fields and fords, guarding the south with sun bright banners and hard earned resolve. Clan Scott answered them from neighboring ground, stag raised high, as stubborn and certain of their claim. The feud between them had outlived its first cause. It had begun with land and passage, with promises broken and reprisals answered, and it endured because no one had ever dared to lay it down. By the time men gathered at the burn, history had already chosen their sides.

It was the ninth of September, in the year of Our Lord 1402. The heather lay flattened under boot and hoof, darkened by rain and the heavy tread of men who had been promised honor and given mud.

Elsie Kerr tied her tartan tippet snug and her cloak tight against the rain as she moved with the women who had come to drag the wounded from the slope. Officially, she was there to carry water. Unofficially, she was there because her brother had ordered her to stay in the keep, and Elsie had never been good at obeying a man who thought a command was the same thing as sense.

The valley below rang with steel. Shouts bounced off the hills. A banner snapped in the wind, the Kerr sun on dark cloth, and across the burn the Scott stag lifted and fell as men surged.

She found the first body at the edge of a whin patch, a Kerr man with his hair plastered to his forehead, eyes wide and unfocused. Elsie knelt, pressed fingers to his throat, then closed her eyes hard. She pulled the cloak higher and went on.

A rock slid under her foot. She steadied herself on a clump of wet grass and looked up.

Rory Scott stood on the ridge line above the burn, the rain slicking his hair back from his temples. His sword hung low, and his shield was splattered with muck and her kin’s blood. He should have been a blur in the crowd, another warrior in a field full of them.

But he wasn’t.

Elsie’s heart gave a sharp, foolish leap, and her anger arrived right after.

What are you doing here?

The question sat on her tongue, but she did not speak. Speaking was dangerous. Speaking in this place was the same as raising a banner.

Rory’s gaze found her in an instant, as if he had been searching the slope and had finally gotten his wish. His mouth tightened, and he took one step forward, then stopped.

A Kerr archer lifted his bow five paces away from Elsie. The string drew back with a soft, vicious sound.

Elsie moved before she thought. She rose, flung her empty bucket aside and stepped into the archer’s line.

“Donovan,” she snapped, using the man’s name as a whip. “Are you mad?”

He blinked at her. “My lady, he’s a Scott.”

“And I am Kerr. Put it down.”

Donovan’s eyes flicked to her brother’s men behind him, to the swirl of bodies in the valley, then back to Elsie. “He’s within range.”

“So am I,” she bit back and held the archer’s stare until his cheeks reddened with embarrassment and he lowered the bow.

A shout rose from the valley, and a knot of warriors broke up the slope, Kerr tartan pushing hard. Scott men met them at the burn, steel ringing, boots sliding on stones.

Elsie turned, meaning to get back to the wounded, meaning to be sensible.

Rory took his chance.

He came down the ridge in a rush moving with a warrior’s efficiency. He caught her wrist, hard enough to anchor her, gentle enough not to hurt, and pulled her behind a boulder both of them slick with rain.

“Have you lost your wits?” he hissed.

Elsie yanked her hand back. “Do you ask that of every woman you drag into hiding, or am I special Rory Scott?”

His eyes flashed, green shot through with storm light. “You should be at home.”

“And you should be anywhere other than here,” she shot back. “Your father promised he would keep you away from this.”

“My father promised many things.” Rory’s jaw tightened. “Your brother rode on to Scott lands and burned croft and byre with folk inside.”

Elsie went still. “That’s a lie.”

“I carried a girl out,” he said, voice low and sharp. “Her hair was smoking. Her hands were blistered. She kept crying for her mother.”

Elsie’s stomach turned. She swallowed hard, felt his judgement. “My brother,” she said, each word careful, “is proud. He is also cruel when he believes himself wronged. I do not know what he has done.”

Rory stared at her as if trying to decide whether her honesty was real or a trick taught in the keep.

“Why are you here?” he demanded again.

“Because Hamish Kerr is my brother,” she said defiantly. “And because if I stay behind walls, I can pretend the world is neat when It is not.”

“That is a dangerous truth.”

She gave him a thin smile. “It runs in my blood.”

A scream cut across the burn. A Kerr man went down in the shallows, water reddening around his kilt. Elsie started forward.

Rory caught her sleeve. “No.”

“He’ll drown.”

“He’s Kerr.”

“He’s a man,” she snapped, and jerked free.

She scrambled down, skirt heavy with water, boots slipping on wet stone. The wounded man’s hands clawed at the burn’s edge, fingers skidding. Elsie grabbed his arm and hauled, muscles screaming.

A shadow fell over her. Rory dropped beside her, grabbed the man under the shoulder, and heaved with a grunt that sounded torn from him.

They dragged the warrior onto the bank, both of them soaked, both of them breathing hard, and Elsie realized, that she had been counting on Rory without even thinking. Counting on him the way she always had, from the first day he had stolen her brother’s apple at market and bowed to Elsie with a grin that promised trouble.

The man on the ground coughed, spat water, and stared blearily at Elsie. “Lady Elsie,” he rasped.

“Stay with me,” she urged. “Rest, if you can.”

His gaze slid to Rory and sharpened with fear. “Scott.”

Rory’s hand moved toward his sword.

Elsie put her palm flat on Rory’s chest, over wet wool and the steady beat beneath. “He cannot fight,” she said, without taking her eyes off the wounded man. “And you will not kill him in front of me.”

Rory’s shoulders held rigid for a moment, then eased. He looked down at Elsie’s hand as if it was a blade pressed to him.

“You will get yourself slain,” he said, quieter.

“Perhaps,” she said. “And perhaps I’ll get someone else home.”

A horn blew from the ridge, Scott’s call, deep and urgent. Another answered from the Kerr side, higher, furious. The battle shifted. Men began to pull back, not in surrender, in regrouping, dragging their pride with them.

Elsie helped the wounded Kerr warrior sit up, then waved one of her clan’s women over with a sharp gesture. “Take him. Wrap his leg. Keep him awake.”

The woman stared at Rory, then at Elsie, mouth pinched. She did as she was told.

Rory stood, water running off his hair, and looked across the burn where his clan’s banner still fought the wind. His hand flexed on his sword hilt.

“You should go,” Elsie said.

His gaze dropped to her face. The anger was there, and something softer underneath that hurt more. “Come with me.”

It was an impossible request. It was also the truest thing he had felt all day.

Elsie almost laughed, the sound trapped in her throat. “To be hunted by both our names? To have your mother spit at you and my brother put a price on your head?”

Rory’s mouth curved without humor. “My mother would throw a skillet first.”

Elsie’s eyes stung. Rain, she told herself. Only rain.

“You’ll still came to the loch,” he asked, voice rough. “Like You promised?”

“I promised,” she answered, “before men set fire to byres. Now it’ll be harder.”

“But you’ll try?” He’s eyes were deep and questioning.

“Aye, Rory Scott, I’ll try.”

A Kerr warrior stumbled toward them, sword dangling, eyes wild. He saw Rory and lifted his blade with a hoarse shout.

Rory stepped forward to meet him.

Elsie grabbed Rory’s arm. “Rory.”

He looked back, and for an instant the battle fell away, leaving only the two of them, wet and furious and foolish.

“Do not make me watch you die,” she said.

His words flooded out “Then give me something to carry out of this.”

Elsie reached up fast and pressed her lips to his lips. It was brief, fierce, tasted of rain, and it made her hands tremble after she let go.

Rory went still, as if the kiss had struck him harder than any fist.

“Go,” she whispered.

His eyes burned into hers. Then he turned, caught the attacking Kerr warrior’s sword arm, twisted, and sent the blade flying into the grass. Rory drove the man back with his shield, hard enough to drop him on his backside, and then he was moving again, up the slope, toward Scott ground, toward duty, toward more blood.

Elsie watched him until the rain blurred her sight.

Then she bent, picked up her bucket, and went back to the wounded. She was a Kerr, that was her side of the field, but she refused to let it be the only thing that defined her.

Across the burn, the stag banner dipped and rose.

The sun banner answered in kind.

And somewhere between them, hidden behind duty and stubborn hearts, a kiss waited for a day when men would set down blades and remember they had hands meant for other things.

By Heather Patton / Verdant Butterfly

Wee Scots Glossary

(Just in case ye dinnae ken)
Tartan Tippet : A garment that covers the neck and shoulders,
Whin : “gorse shrub” a common plant in the moorland. brilliant yellow, coconut scented flowers and sharp, spiny needles.
Burn : small stream or brook
Croft and Byre : a farm and building for cattle

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2026 Heather Patton · The Verdant Butterfly
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