Claire Delacroix (2 page)

Alasdair quickly lost his bearings and could only cling to the harridan and dog her steps. She flew down a shadowed corridor and darted up a course of unevenly cut stairs but Alasdair galloped directly behind her

And caught his breath at the cold when he stepped through the doorway at the summit.

Witch and warrior stopped as one, the puffs of their breath mingling in the chill of the air. Innumerable stars dotted the indigo sky, their twinkling light surely just beyond the reach of Alasdair’s fingertips. The rise of Arthur’s Seat was a still darker silhouette against the blackness of the night far to his left.

Evidently, it was to the top of some high tower they had climbed. Alasdair wondered at its age. The stone rim of the parapet was broken here, and he had a dizzying view of the drop, straight down the side of the mount to the market far below.

He swallowed and looked skyward. A lump rose in his throat as he recalled how brightly the stars had burned on his last night at home. His heart had been heavy then with the weight of what he had wrought and what he must do to make it come right.

Could he ever have imagined ’twould take so long?

Alasdair deliberately looked out toward the hills, fighting against the unruly tide of emotion that set his heart to pounding. He could not bear to think what had become of those he had left behind – he did not dare to consider it.

He had never imagined that the good fight would take so long to win. But soon Robert the Bruce would reign victorious and Alasdair’s debt would be paid.

Soon he would be able to go home.

The stillness of the night was disturbed when the first man stumbled onto the small landing behind Alasdair. The remainder of his companions spilled out in quick succession, their breathing heavy after their face.

“A fair chill night it is, indeed,” muttered one man.

“Aye, enough to steal the warmth of the drink away from a man’s bones.”

Surely the witch’s nonsense need not take all the blessed night.”

Alasdair met the gaze of the woman who yet held fast to his hand. A glimmer in her eye made Alasdair wonder whether she read his thoughts, his doubts, his fears.

“It is time,” she said simply and released her grip. The men fell silent as she dug into a concealed pocket in her dress. Alasdair frowned when she shoved a plant cutting into his hand.

Heather.

“From the bonny hills around the Stone of Scone,” whispered the woman. “Where all grows thicker, for the old forces are stronger there.”

Alasdair looked at the plant again and noted that the flowers were white, not the usual plum shade. Uncommon luck, his gran had foretold, whenever anyone found the rare white heather.

Would he have uncommon fortune this night?

The old woman pushed something cold into his other hand. “And from the regalia itself is this,” she confided as Alasdair touched the smooth edges of the gemstone.

“The regalia?” Alasdair’s frown deepened, and he felt his own displeasure echoed in the mood of the men around him. “But what…?”

“Morgaine said a tall man would come to this place – a man young yet bold, a man with hair of gold,” the woman intoned hoarsely. “’Twas he, she said, who should be the one to venture into the beyond. ’Twas he she would have for her very own.” The woman leaned closer, and a shiver of trepidation rippled over Alasdair’s skin.

“You are the one,” she confided.

“Bollocks! I will be no witch’s toy!” Alasdair squared his shoulders, well done with listening to this lot of haivers. “Summon your lady Morgaine for me. She and I have matters to discuss if she thinks to make a captive of
me
!”

The woman cackled. “Nay, laddie, you must go to her!”

“Where?”

“Ah, my lady lurks in the hidden corners of the beyond.” Before Alasdair could ask for explanation, the woman pointed a bony finger at his feet. “Turn thrice in this place while I chant her spell.”

Alasdair could not keep his brows from rising in skepticism. “And then?”

“And then we shall all have another sip of whisky!” concluded one of the men, an idea that was greeted with great approval.

“And
then
…” the woman said loudly enough for her voice to carry over the men’s foolery. “And then you will have the opportunity to ask of Morgaine your questions.” She leaned closer and her voice dropped yet lower. “If you dare.”

There was such certainty in her tone that Alasdair suddenly feared there was more to this matter than he had suspected. A shiver danced down his spin as the cold wind ruffled his hair. He stared into the mad witch’s eyes and for a fleeting moment doubted the wisdom of taking his men’s dare.

“Are you man enough to confront a harridan?” teased one of the men.

Alasdair aimed an unappreciative glare over his shoulder. “Man enough?” he scoffed in turn. “It seems to me that I have fallen into a company of whispering old women. Turn thrice and see myths come to life. Ask witches about the future. Dragons beneath the mount!” He spat with vigor. “Nonsense all of it!”

His men cheered.

Alasdair braced his feet against the parapet and nodded to the hag. “Chant your ditty, woman, and I will turn as you bid me – if only to prove this whimsy for what it truly is.”

“Hold tight to the charms,” the woman cautioned, her tone ominous. “They might well be your only route of return.”

Return? Surely he was not going anywhere? Alasdair frowned, but the woman began to drone a verse in Gaelic that was vaguely familiar to him. At her imperious nod, he started to turn in place.

Once.

Twice.

Alasdair’s annoyance rose as the air seemed to swim about him. Curse the strength of that whisky! He closed his eyes tightly.

Thrice.

“Wish!” hissed the witch.

Alasdair wished with all his heart and soul to see the future of his beloved Scotland, to see the freedom he fought to ensure his son would inherit.

He stumbled then, the woman’s chanting faint in his ears. His heart stopped cold when his steadying foot encountered naught at all.

He had stepped off the parapet!

Alasdair swore vehemently as he fell, bouncing off the walls of the staircase. He roundly cursed his companions, who did naught to aid him as he tumbled. Blithering fools! His neck would be broken for their foolish dare!

Alasdair landed at the foot of the stairs with a thump so resounding that it stole the breath from his lungs. His hands flew open. The gem danced away and the heather crumbled to naught, though but a moment before it had been green and fresh.

Then his head cracked on the cold stone floor and Alasdair knew no more.

* * *

“Hoy!”

“Stop, lad!”

“Hold up!”

A dozen besotted men stumbled down the stairs in pursuit of their fallen companion. They rounded the last corner and burst as one into the hall below, half afraid to see the bloodied sight each and every one anticipated.

Naught greeted their bewildered eyes but the dancing shadows cast by their blazing torch.

Alasdair was nowhere to be seen.

That was enough to sober the most drunken of them all.

“But where…?” Iain whispered as the others carefully checked the corridor.

After a flustered search, the men faced each other once more, their eyes dark with suspicion.

“Perhaps he but plays a prank upon us,” muttered Iain skeptically. “Alasdair is not above a trick.” The others turned on him, unanimous in their conclusion that this was no jest.

“Then where has he gone?”

“There is no sign of the lad!”

“And where is the old crow?”

It was the first that they noticed she was no longer among them.

One of the younger men ran to the parapet again, his footsteps slower as he descended to the expectant group. His eyes were wide when he came into sight. “Gone as if she had never been!” he whispered.

A chill fell over then, and they glanced at each other in trepidation. There was no other escape from the parapet – unless she had taken flight.

“They will think us mad.”

“Or that we played foul with Alasdair.”

“Robert the Bruce will be ill pleased. He favors the lad, ’tis well known.”

That thought was not received well, and more than one frown darkened a brow in that huddled group.

“He was a good man.”

“A fine soldier.”

“A man of determination and honor.”

“And a man with nary a whisper of his past,” Iain concluded. The men exchanged worried glances. “What did we know of Alasdair MacAulay, in truth?”

“All the more reason to hold our tongues,” advised an older man.

The men nodded slowly, then their glanced lifted to the heavy stone walls around them. Suddenly the castle they had considered no more than a strategic site seemed alive. Danger lurked in every shadow, and the men instinctively drew closer to each other.

For if the doughty Alasdair could be taken so readily, what caprice of Fate left them untouched?

A woman’s laughter echoed suddenly, carrying from everywhere and nowhere at all.

“Morgaine le Fee!” Iain muttered.

“She comes for
us
!”

It took no more than that to set the entire group running for the gates.

* * *

Some time later, they halted, panting, in the same camp where they had lain the night before. The spot seemed haunted by Alasdair’s measured tones, and more than one could fair see him crouched in the midst of them as he described his plan of attack.

“Look!” Iain whispered and pointed to the high mount of Edinburgh’s keep.

Every heart sank like a stone as a line of ascending torchlights pronounced the English reclamation of Edinburgh’s prize.

They had failed.

And the English would not succumb to the same deception again.

What would this turn in the tide mean for the course of Robert the Bruce? For the freedom of all Scotland? Could the witch have stolen more than Alasdair this night?

* * *

Chapter One

Edinburgh, September, 1998

By their sixth day in Scotland, Morgan was beginning to suspect that this trip had not been one of her better ideas.

It had sounded so good - using a plump advance to research her book on site in Scotland. But far from the relaxing meander Morgan had envisioned, the trip had become a nightmare in military precision. Vacation with Blake and Justine was proving to have a more demanding schedule than Morgan’s working life.

Which just didn’t fit any of Morgan’s plans.

As they trudged through Edinburgh Castle in the wake of a kilted guide, Morgan thought their relative positions said it all.

Her brother-in-law Blake was right behind the tour guide, his pencil and notebook at the ready, interpretative guidebook - heavily marked with florescent yellow Highlighter - tucked in his windbreaker, Day-Timer and map stashed in the opposite pocket. He pushed his wire-frame glasses up his nose and obediently looked as bidden, his profile reminding Morgan of a hawk on the hunt.

Six-foot-two and so lean that his Adam’s apple looked like a golf ball lodged in his throat, dark-haired Blake was a font of information on bonnie Scotland, as he was on everything else.

Blake was certainly not Morgan’s idea of a knight in shining armor, though she had learned the hard way that her romantic ideals were unrealistic at best. Her brother-in-law was good-hearted, if overly driven, but she supposed a successful corporate player had little choice. And organization had proven to be an addictive habit for Blake.

Justine, poised, elegant and groomed with a precision Morgan had long ago given up trying to emulate, strolled beside her spouse. Justine exuded tranquility in the most harried circumstance, a trait that balanced surprisingly well with Blake’s intense drive. Her Mona Lisa smile and easy assurance had been known to calm the most stressed mother of the bride and had given her catering business a definite edge in the wedding market.

Justine carried the camera, changing lenses before her husband even asked, and she had the enviable ability of finding their location the minute Blake cast the map over his shoulder in disgust.

But then, Justine had always been the Problem Solver.

In contrast to her composed sister, Morgan could get lost in an elevator. Her hair was unruly, her makeup and finesse nonexistent, her culinary skills meager and her inability to be punctual an old joke.

Morgan had the same coloring as her older sister and the same fine-boned build, but while Justine was tall and slender, Morgan was petite. Morgan’s hair, instead of being straight and thick, was a disorderly tangle of curls that fell to her waist. Like Justine, she had green eyes, though hers tipped up at the outer corners.

Justine often said that her sister looked like one of the little fairies from Morgan’s own detailed illustrations come to life. Certainly Morgan would rather have lived in one of the delicate paintings she created for children’s books than the modern world that she often found so challenging.

Morgan was the Artist. It was a role that fit her fairly easily, at least when she wasn’t feeling inadequate in comparison to her sister.

And Morgan finally had a chance to build a fire under her artistic career. This book was a turning point for her - if it was on time and brilliant, she could be looking at years of good work. Morgan had bet the farm to gather the folk stories she needed right here in Scotland, in order to give this book her best shot.

But that hadn’t quite made it on to Blake’s agenda. Not out of malice or bad intentions - Blake just didn’t understand anything that didn’t come with a decimal place. It wasn’t in his nature to sit still and listen to the voices in the wind.

Morgan’s other objective - and her ulterior motive for inviting Justine and Blake along - had suffered pretty much the same fate. Morgan was running zero for two and wasn’t happy about that.

Having a child was the one goal that so far had eluded Blake and Justine, and that was the one thing they both wanted most of all. Morgan was convinced their hectic lifestyle lay at the root of their fertility troubles. And she hoped that a niece or nephew would fill a little hole in the void that love had left in her life.