Amanda Scott (46 page)

Chuff leapt to his feet again and charged them, pushing past the man with the rope to hurl himself again at Ewan.

Allan moved to intercept him, but Ewan shouldered him aside, striking Chuff again with his free hand and snatching Mary back just as the blunted end of a lance sliced toward Allan, striking his throat a glancing blow. Jerking back in startled amazement, he lurched against Ewan, who was still trying to fend off Chuff.

Mary, trying desperately to wrench free of Ewan’s grasp, realized—just as a sudden terrified scream filled the hall, followed by a hollow thud and silence—that Pinkie held the lance. A moment passed before her shock allowed her to sort through the confusion and tell her that Allan, twisting to avoid the lance and propelled by Ewan’s shoulder, had stumbled screaming into the pit.

Solemn and silent, Pinkie still held the lance, pointed now at Ewan.

All motion in the room had stopped. The man with the rope stood as one turned to stone. Chuff sat on the floor, staring wide-eyed at Pinkie. The little girl stood quietly, still holding the lance she had evidently snatched from the wall to protect her brother. Ewan stared into the pit, from which came only silence.

He was the first to recover. He looked at Mary, his expression difficult to interpret. She had felt him push Allan with his shoulder. Now she wondered just how hard Ewan had pushed him, and if he had intended to kill him.

“Bring me that rope,” Ewan said harshly to his man.

“Be quick,” Mary said. “We must see what we can do for him.”

“There is nothing we can do,” Ewan said flatly as he took the lance from Pinkie’s unresisting hand and tossed it aside to clatter on the floor. “No one could survive such a fall. He’s dead, and I, for one, won’t mourn his loss.”

“You must want to make certain,” she said dully.

“Why?”

“Then what do you want with the—? No! No, you can’t! Ewan, no!”

Her struggles were fruitless. Knotting the rope around her waist, Ewan and his man lowered her into the pit. Mary grabbed at the rope end to hold herself upright and fought against rising panic.

When her foot touched Allan’s body, she snatched it up only to put it down again at once when she realized that she would end up sitting on him if she did not do something to prevent it. Reaching out frantically with both feet, she managed to find the stone floor, and although she stumbled and nearly lost her balance, by steadying herself with a hand against the wall, she avoided falling on him.

Standing rigid, pressed against the damp stone wall, she shut her eyes, trying desperately to imagine open fields and wide blue skies, to forget the stones pressing in around her, to forget the corpse at her feet. Suddenly, she realized that Allan might not be dead. The instant the thought flashed into her mind, she bent, only to have the rope bring her up short. “Give me more rope, Ewan. I cannot reach him!”

“Untie yourself, lass,” Ewan ordered, his voice bouncing off the stones in eerie reverberations.

“I will not.” Her voice sounded hollow when it echoed back to her.

To her shock, the rope fell, tangling itself around her, and panic seized her at the thought that Ewan might not have another, that she would remain in the pit through all eternity. Then she remembered Allan and, fiercely suppressing her fear, she knelt beside him, searching for any sign of life.

There was none. Sickening warm stickiness oozed from his head, and once her eyes accustomed themselves to what little light there was at the bottom of the pit, she saw that he lay in a crumpled heap, in a contorted position that no living man could or would maintain willingly.

“Please, God, no,” she murmured, seeking comfort in the sound of her voice. There was none to find, however, for she knew he was dead and he would not come back to life merely to provide her with company. Fighting another fear now, the oldest of all, she swallowed hard and moved carefully away from the dead body.

Then the light disappeared, plunging her into total, terrifying blackness.

She screamed long and loud, turning to claw in panic at the wall behind her, seeking hand- and footholds, finding only dampness and slime.

Appalled by the hideous sound of her voice ripping back at her from the wall of the pit, she forced herself at last to stop screaming and stood rigid, pressing her head, back, shoulders, and palms hard against the wall. Her breath continued to come in harsh sobs. Terrified to stay where she was, more terrified to move, she could not seem to think.

Mental images that had haunted her for six long years hurled themselves into her mind’s eye. As clearly as if it were happening again, she saw soldiers drag her father and brother from the house, saw them beaten, kicked, and tied to posts for flogging. She heard their screams, and again she saw her sister run shrieking from the house, saw soldiers grab her, fling her to the ground, and take turns raping her.

Still sobbing, Mary clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming again. The horrid smell of slime from the pit wall shocked her and sent her senses and thoughts reeling. She jerked her hand down, squeezed her eyes tight shut—as if by doing so she could make the images go away—and tried to think of Duncan as he had been before his death.

To her astonishment, his image came easily and swiftly, as if it had waited only for her call. He was there with her, and suddenly, she could hear him saying, as he had before, “It’s the past, lass. Let it lie in the past. Let go, Mary.”

Drawing a deep breath, ignoring the horrid smell, ignoring the presence of Allan’s body at her feet, she tried to keep her mind on Duncan, to keep him with her. For as long as he stood at her side, she had nothing to fear. His love for her and hers for him would sustain her.

The last thought nearly led to her undoing, however, for it occurred to her that she had never told him she loved him, and he would never stand at her side again. He had as good as said the words to her, but she had let him die thinking she had loved Ian too much ever to love another man. Tears came then, and more sobs, and she crumpled to the ground, hugging herself, no longer able to care that she was in a pit with a dead body.

Overwhelming grief pushed every other thought or image away, and she gave herself up to it, letting the tears flow. Pressed against the slimy wall and clutching her knees to her chest, she sobbed, rocking a little, back and forth, her fears submerged in anguish. Then exhaustion took its toll at last, and she slept.

The terrors returned full force when she awoke. At first, she could not think where she was, and it was as if she had awakened to find herself blinded. She cried out without thinking, reaching out with both hands, expecting to touch a coverlet or bed curtain. Instead the back of her left hand hit slimy rock wall. When she gasped, the flood of terror washed over her again.

How, she wondered, fighting it, had she slept? Focusing her frantic mind on the fact that her legs had cramped, she nearly moved to stretch them before she remembered Allan. Stifling a shriek, certain that even a little one would explode into the same panicked screaming that had overcome her before, she fought to regain control of her sensibilities.

Suddenly, with a clatter and thud, welcome light filled the pit, and she heard Chuff’s excited whisper. “Mistress, there’s boats a-coming! I saw them myself!”

Hope surged through her, but then she heard Ewan’s voice. “What the devil do you think you’re doing, brat?”

M
ARY SAW CHUFF STAND
to face Ewan, and heard the boy say clearly, “There’s boats a-coming, laird. Someone is coming tae rescue us, and ye’ll be sorry, ye will! I wager that Himself isna dead at all, and he’ll pitch ye straight into hell tae do the devil’s work, he will. Here now, let go o’ me!”

Mary gasped, seeing Ewan swing the boy out over the pit. “Don’t drop him,” she cried.

“Can you tell me yet where the treasure lies, lass?”

“No, I cannot. I can scarcely think in this horrid place.”

“Then I’ll drop you a wee companion. Mind you Catch him now.”

Almost before she realized what Ewan meant to do, he lay down on the floor and, dangling Chuff by one arm, lowered the boy as far as he could.

“Mercy, sir, are you mad? You can’t just drop him down here!”

“He is nothing to me, lass. If you value his worthless hide, catch him. Here he comes. Now!”

She had no time to think, only to react. Reaching up to catch the boy, she tilted her head back, bumping it yet again against the stone wall.

Chuff crashed into her, his foot thudding against her ribs and scraping down along her left hip and leg as she struggled to break his fall. Staggering with his weight, she managed to hold him as she slid down against the wall to the floor. When she touched Allan’s body, she recoiled, hugging the boy to her. Gasping, for his kick had knocked the wind from her, she felt him wriggle to be free.

“Are you all right, Chuff?”

“Aye, I think so. Cracked my head against your shoulder, I think, but I’m all of a piece at least. Hark though, that’s Pinkie shrieking. If that brute hurts her—”

Mary’s breath stopped in her throat. Pinkie was crying out, her voice coming from a distance, echoing off the walls of the pit, and the combination of details was suddenly, overwhelmingly, familiar. Except for the few moments before she had slept, when she had forced her mind to focus on Duncan’s voice and her love for him, the image of him falling and her terror of the pit had filled her mind to the exclusion of rational thought.

Memory of her cavern nightmare flooded in now. She was reliving it, but it had not been a cavern at all. The slimy stone walls closing around her in the dream had been the walls of this very pit.

Her terror had vanished the moment Ewan held Chuff over the pit. Thought of the boy’s fears and the danger to his life had banished her fears like mist in the wind. Now, recalling her dream, knowing it had not been a simple nightmare after all, she knew exactly what it must have been. The Sight had never touched her so before, but it could be nothing else.

“Chuff, help me move Allan Breck’s body up against the wall yonder.”

“Is he dead then?”

“Aye, he is, and he is very much in the way.”

“I dinna want tae touch a dead man.”

“Then I shall move him myself,” she replied calmly. “I want to do it while I can still see what I am doing, and Lord MacCrichton is bound to slam that trap door shut the moment he remembers it is open.”

Grabbing the arms of the corpse, she tried to drag it, but she found it hard to gain purchase. The space was not large enough to allow much maneuvering. After a moment, during which she wondered if she would have to give up the effort, Chuff got up and began to push from the other side.

“That’s it,” she said. “Just a little more now. I want to pull some of these stones but, Chuff, and we will need some space to set them down. With three of us down here, there is not much room, I’m afraid.”

“Will we try tae climb out then?”

The question startled her. “Climb out?”

“Aye, will we pull out them rocks tae make footholds?”

“We’re pulling them out because … because I think we should.”

“Aye, sure, then. Which ones?”

“I-I don’t know.” Then she realized that she had moved Allan instinctively, as if somehow she had known where he would be out of the way. Trusting that instinct, she said, “We’ll try the ones in the wall in front of us first.”

Almost at once, she knew it was the right wall, for the dirt was loose enough to scrape out with her fingers. After a few minutes and two broken nails, however, it occurred to her to see if Allan had anything on his person that might help with the task. With the dirk from his boot top, the work went more quickly. The first stone proved reluctant, but once they freed it, the others came out easily.

“I ken how it is,” Chuff said a few moments later. “We’re diggin’ a tunnel through the wall. We’ll be oot o’ here in a twink, mistress.”

“I hope so, Chuff,” she said quietly.

“Them boats … That
would
be Himself coming for us, aye?”

“Perhaps,” Mary said quietly, not wanting to betray her belief that the hope was a futile one. Indeed, perhaps Neil had survived the attack and was coming for them with those of Duncan’s men who had also survived. She was as certain as she could be that Allan had been wrong in thinking the men would not know who had attacked them, whether they had seen faces or not.

Interrupting these thoughts, Chuff said, “Then why are we diggin’?”

“Because I believe we must,” she said.

A chuckle drifted to them from above. Looking up, she saw Ewan standing at the pit’s edge, hands on his hips, grinning. “What are you doing there, lass?”

Glad the dirk was out of sight in the hole, she kept still and said nothing.

“What did ye do tae our Pinkie tae mak’ her cry?” Chuff shouted.

“Nothing yet,” Ewan said. “The little bitch ran away and hid. I’ll teach her better manners when I’ve more time to attend properly to the matter.”

“Did ye see them boats then?”

“I did. Would you like to hear about them, Mary, lass?”

A note in his voice warned her that he brought bad news, so she said nothing, and for once Chuff kept silent, too.

“I’ll wager you hoped they were coming to rescue you.”

Grimly, she said, “I collect from your tone that they are not, however.”

“They are not. And why not? Because what he saw is a funeral procession, that’s why. There are five sailboats, all decked out with banners and black ribbons.”

Her heart sinking to her feet, Mary said dully, “The snow has stopped then.”

“It has. There’s even sunlight peeping through the clouds to shine on the lead boat. That one flies the Dunraven banner and bears Black Duncan’s body in state on its deck. It’s his funeral procession, that’s what it is, taking him across the loch.”

Chuff gasped, and Mary felt tears spilling down her cheeks. She did her best to stifle her sobs, but hearing Ewan chuckle, she knew that he had heard them.

“They’ll sail from Glen Creran straight to Dunraven,” he went on smugly. “Presently, they’ve formed a wee line at the head of the loch, which is no doubt why the lad did not immediately perceive their dark purpose. Oh, aye, and speaking of the dark …” The trap crashed shut again, plunging them back into blackness.