Amanda Scott (36 page)

“I hope you can forgive this interruption, my lady,” he said as soon as he was close enough to speak in hushed tones. “Fin,
there’s trouble to the east. Some of our lads found three bodies half buried near the wee glen this side of the head of Loch
Duich. If you’d turned a few yards off the track today, you’d have stumbled onto them yourself. We think Donald must be responsible.
Ian Dubh, Malcolm, and the others lost sight of him, and we’ve had no trouble brewing hereabouts but his.” He paused, and
then added, “One of the dead men carried a letter from Jamie to you.”

“Did you bring it?”

“Aye, but there is no light for reading, and I’d as lief not burn torches when we don’t know who might be slithering through
the shrubbery. The message will keep until we return to the castle. There’s worse, though,” he added. “One of the Murchisons
from Glen Shiel came to tell us that someone killed Dougal Maclennan and his entire family. The folks there fear more attacks
will come.”

Shocked, Molly said, “Dougal Maclennan? Our priest?”

“Aye,” Patrick said. “And his murderers must be the same men who killed Jamie’s messenger. They evaded our watchers, Fin.”

“Our men were not watching Glen Shiel,” Fin reminded him. “Nor could they watch all the MacLeod land south of Kintail to Kylerhea.”

“We know Sleat was on Skye before the wedding,” Patrick said.

“Aye,” Kintail agreed. “ ’Tis likely that, knowing most folks hereabouts would be at the wedding, he hoped his own presence
there would lull suspicion that he was up to mischief.”

Molly said unhappily, “But he was up to mischief all along.”

“It seems likely,” Patrick admitted.

“It
is
likely,” Kintail said. He put his arm around her and gave her a firm hug as he said to Patrick, “We’ll leave at sunrise to
see that Dougal Maclennan and his family are properly tended, and then we’ll track the villains to their leader before they
can harm anyone else. I have had enough of Sleat’s antics. I want him and his men out of Kintail for good.”

B
ack at Eilean Donan, Fin kissed Molly and sent her to bed, knowing he would be up most of the night with Patrick and the others,
organizing supplies and men to hunt down the priest’s murderers and rid the area of Sleat. He hated to send her away, though,
and he could tell she hated to go. Their time on the inlet had been magical. It seemed that he had only to touch her to make
his whole body vibrate with longing. The feeling was indescribable, unlike anything he had felt before.

She paused at the doorway to the stairs and looked over her shoulder. She looked wistful and utterly desirable. “You will
take care, won’t you?”

“Aye, lass,” he said. “You and I have unfinished business. I’m not likely to let anyone kill me before we’ve seen to it.”

She blushed, looking more beautiful than ever despite her still damp, salt-stiffened hair and mussed clothing. When she turned
slowly away without another word, a new concern occurred to him, and he said, “One moment, madam.”

She turned back. “Aye?”

“You are not to go outside these walls,” he said, hardening his tone, wanting to be sure she understood that he meant it.
“Not for any reason. I’ll leave Ian Dubh and Thomas MacMorran here with a few men; so, as long as you do not venture outside,
you will be safe. As I told you before, it takes only a handful of people to defend this castle. Just keep the portcullis
down and stay inside till we return.” He paused, then added firmly, “I want your word that you will obey me.”

She gazed at him for a long moment without speaking, and he let the silence lengthen until he heard some of his men shifting
their feet and knew that they wondered at her daring. He said nothing even then, but he felt the muscles in his jaw tense.
Surely, she would not choose this moment to defy him again.

At last, quietly, she said, “How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “That will depend on how much damage Sleat has done and how long it takes us to track him down. I’m
sending Patrick to Skye with a pair of galleys to see if Mackinnon has had news of Sleat’s movements. It may be that the villain
intends to land more men near Kyle to launch an attack through my western lands. If so, Patrick and I may well trap them between
us. Others will soon learn of the trouble here and come to help, but in the meantime, we don’t know how many men Sleat has,
where they are, or how long trapping them will take.”

She nodded. “Very well, sir, I will do as you bid. However, you must know that I will use my own judgment if you are away
overlong.”

“If you do that, lass,” he said grimly, “you had better hope when I do return that I agree that your judgment was sound.”

She gave him look for look, then turned and left the hall.

“It’s a good thing you are leaving Ian Dubh in command here,” Patrick said. “He’ll see to it that her ladyship does nothing
foolhardy.”

“Aye, and Mauri will look after her, too,” Fin said. “Now, where is this letter of Jamie’s? Have you read it?”

“I have not. ’Tis a royal message, I’ll remind you, sealed and addressed to you, so I did not dare. Indeed, ’tis a wonder
the assassins didn’t find it. Our lads said it was tucked just inside the man’s jerkin.” He extracted a folded, red-sealed
sheet of parchment from beneath his mantle and handed it to Fin.

Breaking the royal wax seal, Fin smoothed the parchment. “It is indeed from Jamie and apparently in his own hand,” he told
Patrick when he had read the first few words. Frowning as he read on, he added, “He writes that he is clarifying the message
Lady Percy will have given me. Who the devil is Lady Percy?”

“Percy is an English name,” Patrick said thoughtfully.

“Aye. I don’t like any of this,” Fin said. “Jamie writes that Sleat, having threatened to raise all the Highland west against
him, his grace requires the aid of his loyal clans, particularly the Mackenzies and MacRaes. He writes that Sleat’s army numbers
fifteen thousand and his navy boasts a hundred galleys. He will soon march south, and his fleet will accompany him down the
coast, Jamie says.”

“Fifteen thousand men and a hundred galleys?” Patrick’s eyebrows shot upward. “I don’t believe it, Fin. Sleat cannot have
that many.”

“’Tis not unusual for exaggerated accounts to reach Stirling,” Fin said, “but our own information suggests, does it not, that
he
has
begun to move.”

“Aye,” Patrick agreed grimly. “What else does Jamie write?”

“That he suspects the fine hand of England’s Henry in all of this,” Fin said.

“Jamie always suspects the fine hand of Henry—in everything.”

“Aye, but this time he warns me not to trust Lady Percy, despite the purported motive for her visit, but at all cost to keep
her at Eilean Donan until she is ready to return to Stirling. I do wish he had thought to tell me who the devil she is, but
I begin to suspect that she is either dead or has fallen into Sleat’s clutches.”

“Well, at least we need not fear England’s Henry, as far north as we are.”

“Don’t count on that,” Fin said. “Evidently, Jamie suspects that Henry is supporting Sleat financially, that he intends to
invade Scotland and will time that invasion to accord with Sleat’s move south in order to trap the Scottish forces between
them. What with Henry’s persecution of those who do not like his new church, we know that many refugees have crossed into
Scotland, fleeing his wrath. Not only does their departure anger him more but few doubt that he wants to control Scotland
as punishment for our refusal to reform our own Kirk.”

“Does Jamie say what he and his other nobles will do to stop Henry?”

“Aye, he says the Border lords are raising the Borderers to block Henry’s invasion, whilst his grace gathers ships to challenge
Sleat’s fleet.”

“He will find it hard to raise even fifty galleys along this coast,” Patrick said.

“He knows that,” Fin said, swiftly scanning the rest of the missive. “He also knows that Sleat has no cannon. So, Jamie is
arming as many large ships as he can to sail up the coast and challenge Sleat’s fleet, hoping that if they blast Sleat with
cannon-fire, they will halt his advance south. That will take time, so we are to keep Sleat busy here as long as we can.”

Patrick crooked an eyebrow. “What do you say then? Does this news alter our plans for the morrow?”

“It does not,” Fin said. “We leave at dawn, but we’ll leave fewer men here, I think. Sleat has no cannon, and against anything
less, Eilean Donan is impregnable. If we can find Sleat and render him unable to lead his army and fleet, we will eliminate
the problem that faces us and solve Jamie’s problem for him, as well.”

From one of the bartizan towers extending from the walkway atop the northwest side of the keep, Molly glumly watched the
men depart the next morning, disappointed that Fin had not sought her bed during the night but understanding that he had much
to do.

Doreen had been waiting for her when she retired to her bedchamber and had helped her wash the salt from her hair, scolding
her but laughing, too, at her tale of the nude swim. Molly had considered going to Fin’s room when she was ready for bed but
decided against it. If he wanted her, he knew where to find her.

He had wakened her at dawn to bid her farewell, kissing her deeply and lingering long enough to remind her of why she would
miss him. If he had slept, she knew it had been only a few hours.

Despite Doreen’s ministrations, her hair was still damp when he woke her, but she had gotten up after he left, brushed it
briskly before the fire, and now, nearly dry, it was braided and twisted tidily into a coil beneath her coif.

By the time she had reached the battlements, Fin had already crossed the narrow channel to join the main portion of his army.
That body consisted of a number of men-at-arms in mail shirts and an even larger number of ragged-looking, bare-legged, bare-chested
ones. Fin wore his chain mail over a shirt and dark leggings, with his green-and-indigo mantle over all. Each bare-legged
man wore a short kilt with the long end thrown over his shoulder, and each carried a naked broadsword slanted across his back
from that shoulder to his waist on a broad leather strap. In the other hand, each carried a gleaming, wicked-looking dirk.
Some carried axes or lances, and others carried longbows and quivers full of arrows.

Most were afoot, but some, like Fin, rode. They all traveled swiftly, following the track along the northeast side of Loch
Duich toward Glen Shiel, looking exactly like the barbarians that Molly had once imagined them. She knew that even the men
running barefoot would have no trouble keeping up with the horses, for it was their normal custom, and so famous had Highland
running gillies become that Archbishop Beaton, the Lord Privy Seal, had once taken a group of them to Rome to show them off
to the Pope.

Sir Patrick had already departed and was headed in the opposite direction. He commanded two galleys with forty men each, rowing
westward toward Kyleakin. When the last boat and rider had passed from view, Molly turned away and found Mauri standing behind
her.

“I think ye should come within, mistress,” the older woman said. “The laird did order the postern door shut and sealed afore
he left, and the portcullis be safely down, but ye shouldna remain here in plain sight like this.”

“Any fighting will take place far from Eilean Donan,” Molly reminded her. “Do you fear that Kintail might fail to find Donald’s
raiders and stop them?”

“I dinna ken what I fear, mistress, but our Patrick and the laird did both wonder at Donald’s actions. I wish the old master
were still here,” she added wistfully. “He and Gilchrist MacRae knew that wicked Donald better than most.”

“Eilean Donan is safe, come what may,” Molly said, feeling a need to defend Fin but repressing a shudder at the thought of
a possible attack on Eilean Donan with so few people left to defend it. The only ones left inside were Mauri, Doreen, Thomas
MacMorran, Ian Dubh, and herself, unless one counted wee Morag. Tam Matheson and Malcolm MacRae had ridden with Fin.

“We’d best go down to Doreen,” Mauri said with a sigh. “She’s wi’ my wee lassie in the hall, and they’ll both likely be on
the fret. The men be looking round, even now, to be certain the castle be secure, and when they’ve done wi’ the searching,
Ian Dubh says they’ll keep watch from the bartizan walkway.”

“There are only the two entrances to the castle, are there not?”

“Aye, the main-gate portcullis and the postern door at the foot o’ the northwest tower. That door be thick and heavily barred,
and the portcullis be solid oak five foot thick. Its wood were soaked in salt water to pack the grain, and it be bound wi’
iron rods as well. Likely, it’ll not even burn, they say, so we’ll be snug enough.” Mauri stood at the entrance to the stairway.
“Do ye come in now, mistress.”

“From which direction would an attack most likely come if ever there were one?” Molly asked as she moved to follow her.

“Yonder to the west if ye’re thinking o’ Donald and his lot,” Mauri said, pointing. “We’d ha’ warning afore they could reach
us from the land, so they’d come from the sea, and there be room for only a few boats to beach, any road.”