Highland Master (42 page)

“
We
are not going.”

“Ay-de-mi, but you
will
take the raft. If you mean to put holes in that dam, you will need it just to keep you afloat if the dam breaks before you expect it to.”

“As you said yourself, lass, if it goes, I’ll go with it, raft or no raft,” he said grimly. “And so will anyone else who is nearby on the loch. The current there will be fierce until the loch returns to its natural level.”

“Then it will be as well if we… that is, if
you
… are out of the water long before then,” she said. “To avoid disaster, you must mean to plug your holes somehow. Or do you simply mean to bore holes
until
the dam breaks?”

“I do have rags to plug them and a large ball of twine,” he said, realizing that she thought such plugs would keep the dam strong enough to hold but unwilling to increase her fears by explaining that each hole he drilled would weaken that plank regardless of any plugs, that they would just keep outflowing water from interfering with him as he worked his way down to the most vulnerable planks. He would tie the plugs together so that he could pull them free quickly in a hope of
relieving
the water pressure if any plank began ominously bowing or cracking as he worked.

That small relief would, he hoped, give him time to get out of the water.

“A ball of twine is not enough,” she said. “We…
you
need a rope, a long rope.”

“I mean only to set the plugs in place tonight if such a plan proves feasible,” he said. “At the pace the water is rising, it won’t reach the great hall until tomorrow afternoon
or evening. Tomorrow night, Aodán and I can return if that becomes—”

“Listen,” she murmured.

He heard it then, too, the sibilant whisper of raindrops in the canopy above.

“All the better,” he said, reaching for her and pulling her close. “The rain will help conceal me, sweetheart. I must go, but I will be back as fast as I can. Now, kiss me, cease your fratching, and get back inside that castle and to bed.”

She leaned into him, putting her arms around him and holding him close. Then she tilted her face up and kissed him, pressing her tongue to his lips.

Parting them, he savored the taste of her, aware that he might never taste her again if anything went wrong. Plunging his tongue into the softness of her mouth, he moaned softly, wishing that he could carry her back to bed and stay there.

Reluctantly, he released her.

“How will you go?” she asked.

“I had thought of swimming straight down the loch from here,” he said. “But now that the rain has come, I think I can safely swim to the shore instead and walk at least partway and possibly as far as the turning if I can keep near the water.”

“That path will still be above water, I think. But won’t they be using it?”

“If any Comyn is wandering about at this hour in the rain, I will attend to him,” Fin said. “He won’t be expecting anyone, and I will. Don’t fret.”

“Nay, then, I won’t, I promise.”

“I want you to promise me something else.”

“Aye, aye, I ken fine what
that
is. Now go, so you can come back to me.”

He gave her a hug and stripped off his mantle, keeping only the thin tunic he had donned to come outside, and he kept that only to cushion his sword as he swam. After weeks of hardening, his bare feet were tough.

Handing her his mantle to hold while he fastened the belt that held his dirk in its sheath, he tied the cloth sack that contained his rags, twine, and auger to it. The sack would hamper his swimming more than the sword but was a necessary burden. He had a shorter distance to swim, so it would not hamper him much.

Confident that Catriona and Boreas would return to the safety of the castle, he walked with her to the place where she said it would be easiest to get in, kissed her once more, waded in, and silently pushed off.

Rain pelted the water around him, but even angling north as he did, the swim was short, his sense of direction reliable, and he soon decided on his destination.

C
atriona watched Fin swim away, relieved to see that he
could
swim with the heavy sword strapped to his back. But she soon lost sight of him in the rain.

Satisfied that even a Comyn dependable enough to keep watch in the middle of a rainy night would not see him if she could not, and certain that Fin would win against any single opponent, she turned from the shore but not toward the castle.

Instead, she went back through the woods and sloshed to the raft tied on end to its tree. Setting Fin’s mantle atop a shrub with thick foliage above it, she began to unwind the long rope binding raft to tree.

Boreas pressed his nose into her hand.

“Good lad,” she said. “But you’ll stay here.” Coiling the rope, she tipped the raft over, its cumbrous weight defeating her so that it made a great splash when it landed. She was sure that the noisier rain hid the sound, and as she had hoped, the water was deep enough there for it to float. She would take the rope with her.

Tying the raft to a sapling, she went back for her paddle. As long as the rain continued, she would paddle standing, as she and Ivor had done as children. There would
be no current as there had been then to aid her tonight, though.

As that thought crossed her mind, another followed. There
would
be a current after she and Fin destroyed the dam, so getting back to the island might be hard. She wondered how long it would take the loch to return to its normal level.

Fin clearly had not thought about that. Of course, if he meant just to bore his holes, plug them with his rags, and then connect all the rags with his twine—

Another, horrifying thought struck. What if his intent all along had been to sacrifice himself to save them all as penance for killing Clan Chattan men at Perth?

A raindrop slid beneath her kirtle and down her back, jerking her from the dreadful image and restoring her common sense. Fin would not sacrifice himself on purpose. But if his plan was going to work, it had to work that night. Even the daft Comyns would examine their dam by daylight to be sure that all was well. If they saw twine or rags, any chance of removing them later would be lost.

Aware that if she fell in, she would swim better without her kirtle, she nearly took it off to leave it behind. But it occurred to her that the current created by the water pouring out of the loch would likely prevent any return before morning. If so, she would have to face her grandfather and others wearing a soaked shift with her dirk strapped round her hips, and escorted by an equally underdressed Fin.

On that thought, she went back and collected his mantle and decided to keep her kirtle on rather than chance losing it in the dark if she did fall off the raft.

Wet clothes would be better than facing
anyone
in only a thin, damp shift.

Fin reached shore without seeing any sign of human movement there. Although he knew that a sensible watcher would conceal himself, he also knew that at two hours or more past midnight, all men were less alert.

However, the Comyns would have set at least two men to keep an eye on the narrows between the island and the shore. A short time later, he was satisfied that they had posted
only
two and that neither need concern him any longer.

Aodán had said that the prisoners were on the hillside above the landing, but Fin could not be sure they were still there or how many guards they had.

His primary objective was the dam.

Moving as fast as the darkness and his night vision allowed and keeping to the grassy verge where possible, he soon realized that the rain had eased although it remained steady. It was also warm. If it continued so overnight or grew heavier again, the rate at which the water rose would increase significantly, because it would melt most of the remaining snow above them on the surrounding hillsides.

The Comyns, without interference and given the time, could raise the height of their dam as high as necessary. The granite cleft into which the outflowing burn passed was narrow with steep sides tall enough so that if their dam held, it could easily force the water of the loch high enough to cover much of the castle.

Fin was glad that he had not promised Catriona that
he would do nothing dangerous by himself. He had to do what he could do to avert catastrophe.

He reflected then on the promises that she had made him. At the time they had eased his concern for her, but something about them nagged him now.

A sound diverted his thoughts. Realizing that it was a once-trickling rill ahead, now full of fresh rainwater and snowmelt, rushing downhill to the loch, he focused his mind on other sounds of the night. If he allowed his thoughts to wander again, he risked walking right into trouble.

When he reached the curve where the track forked over and around the hill near the outflowing burn, and slowed his pace, he heard a soft thud as of wood against wood a short distance to his right, on the loch.

Drawing his dirk, he stepped off the path and eased downhill through waist-high shrubs until it felt soggy underfoot. Then he crouched in the bushes to wait.

Freezing in place, mentally cursing her clumsiness in letting the raft bump the shaft of her paddle as, kneeling, she had reached with it to feel for the shore, Catriona knew that she had reached the inner curve just before the shoreline curved outward and around to meet the burn that the Comyns had blocked with their dam. She had often swum near that shoreline and knew it well. Wary now, she remained watchful.

The slope there was steep, as were most of the slopes around the loch, but she managed to float the raft near enough to grasp shrubbery and pull herself toward the granite shelf from which she often swam. The raft made a
whispery noise as she eased closer, and she realized that it was scraping over other shrubbery underwater.

Kneeling as she was, she would have to sit to get safely off the raft. She did not want to step barefoot into a bush or fall into the water as she secured it. But she was in a good place. A deer trail led up from the shelf to the path around the loch.

The rain gently continued and dripped from her lashes, making her blink and wipe water from her eyes. She reached for another branch…

“Don’t make a sound,” Fin muttered from the darkness, startling her nearly into a shriek. Only by what she deemed superhuman effort did she stifle the sound in her throat. Jerking her hand back served only to make the raft tilt dangerously, but a warm, strong hand gripped her quickly outflung wrist, steadying her.

“Can you get off now?” he asked. His voice sounded quiet and calm, as if he were only inquiring about the weather or the state of her health.

James would have begun scolding at once. And Ivor would have revealed the side of him that set the earth trembling from his wrath. But Fin…

She wished she could see more than his shape, because although she knew he must be angry, she could hear nothing in his voice to tell her
how
angry he was.

“Careful,” he said as she used her free hand to shift her skirts out of her way and gingerly swung her bare feet off the raft to seek purchase on the granite.

“I brought your mantle,” she murmured. “And the rope from the raft.”

“You brought company, too,” he murmured as he dragged the raft ashore.