Highland Master (44 page)

“I asked them.”

“You
asked
them?”

“Aye, sure, how else was I to get such information?”

“But you said they won’t trouble us. If there are
two
, won’t they rouse—?”

“Nay, they will not. Now, are you coming?”

Realization of what he must have done struck hard, and remembering his first words to her about the guards, she knew that she ought to have taken his meaning then. She did not speak, not knowing what to say.

He kept silent, too, so she knew that he was waiting for her to ask him if he had killed them. Instead, she stood, shook out her skirts, and said, “I am wearing your mantle, sir. Do you want it, to warm you as we go?”

“Nay, it must be damp, too, and my tunic will suffice as long as I keep moving. I see no sense in warming up just to go back into that water.”

They went quickly back to the dam, with Boreas loping silently ahead of them, ranging back and forth as he always did.

“Don’t let him get too far ahead,” Fin warned Catriona.

“He won’t,” she said. “When he comes to the fork, he’ll wait for us. And, as you’ve seen, he’ll also stop if he senses anyone approaching.”

Going around the hill instead of over it as Fin had before, they reached the front of the dam without incident. The water had climbed several feet above normal.

He thought that he could stand up to bore many of his holes but knew that he would have to bore others with his head underwater just to get the angle of the auger right. The planks near the bottom were the most important ones, because no matter how high the dam was, it would all go when its underpinning went. Even so, he could not be sure that his plan amounted to more than wishful madness.

As he stripped off his sword and tunic, he handed her the latter and said, “I’ll be in the water for some time, so tuck this under the mantle to warm it against your body. But go back to the top of the hill now, and keep hidden in the bushes.”

He moved nearer the water and was putting his sword down close to where he would be working when she said quietly, “How are your feet?”

“They’ll do. They’ve toughened since I came to Rothiemurchus.”

The truth was that they hurt, but the pain was bearable.

He could feel her watching as he picked up the sack and waded down the granite slope toward the center of the dam. The water there was up to his armpits.

“How are you going to manage that sack
and
the auger?” she muttered.

Without taking his attention from what lay before him,
he replied in the same tone, “I’ll hold it in my teeth, lass. Now, go. You must keep watch.”

Hearing only a brief rattle of pebbles in response, he felt relief sweep through him. She would be safer atop the hill, with Boreas.

Catriona moved far enough away to be sure that she had faded into the darkness as Fin had when he had left her earlier on the hillside. She stayed until she thought she had given him enough time to push her out of his mind. Then, quietly commanding Boreas to stay on guard, she made her way back toward Fin.

If he was like most men she knew, once he began boring his holes, he would concentrate completely on them. But he would need help. It felt as if more than an hour must have passed since they’d left the island, but she could not be sure. It had seemed at least twice that long when she had waited for him before.

She knew it had not been anything like so long. But with Comyns still lurking in the area and Albany and Douglas on their way, every minute counted.

The rain had stopped, and looking up, she saw a few scattered stars.

Boreas would warn her if anyone came, and she would be able to warn Fin more quickly if she was near the water than if she stayed obediently atop the hill.

But she had known better than to suggest that to Fin.

She could hear him moving, then the sound of water sloshing as he set the auger to a plank and began to bore, turning the handle swiftly enough to splash. The sound seemed loud, but she doubted that it would alert anyone
unless that person was nearby. And, thanks to Boreas, she knew that no one was.

Fin’s work went smoothly despite devilish conditions.

The rough-hewn planks sat tightly between two rows of distantly spaced support posts, just as Aodán had described them. The water of the loch crept higher as he stood there, but he had to bore near the center of the planks to have any hope that his two vertical, closely spaced lines of holes would cause them to break.

The higher the water rose, the more weight it would exert on the lower planks. He knew that once they cracked and water started flowing with speed, its force would carry away the planks and all that the Comyns had piled behind them.

Boring steadily, plugging each hole as he went, he wound twine around the rag plugs, cutting lengths long enough to connect them all. Crouching lower as it became necessary, working with his head underwater now most of the time, he worked his way down from the waterline, finding it harder to keep his balance as he bent and harder to press the auger efficiently into the wood.

Before he had finished boring the third plank from the bottom, he realized that the second one was too far under for him to crouch without floating. Surfacing, trying to think and thinking only how cold he was, he muttered a frustrated curse.

The water stirred, and he felt a warm hand on his shoulder. Reaching for her, he discovered that she was naked.

“What’s wrong?” she murmured. “Can I help?”

“You are supposed to be watching for Comyns,” he muttered back.

“Boreas is doing that. I will hear him growl if he hears or smells anyone coming, but we need to finish this and get back.”

“I still have to bore holes in the two bottom planks,” he told her. “Sithee, the lower boards bear more of the water’s weight than the upper ones do, and so the dam will most likely break from the bottom up. But when I bend so low, my body wants to float. Do you think you can hold me down?”

“I’ll stand on you, if necessary,” she said. “I can balance myself against the dam. You need only touch my foot when you need to come up for air.”

Although Catriona had expected Fin to refuse her help, he said, “If you stand on the slope, you can step onto my back when I bend over. Then I can brace myself as I work. And I’ll warn you, aye, before I straighten up.”

He finished quickly after that, although standing on him as he worked proved to be more difficult than she had expected. She nearly fell in more than once, and just before he touched her foot, she heard an odd moaning sound and felt the planks against which she was steadying herself shudder. She shuddered, too, but relaxed when nothing further happened.

She got off him and moved to where she could stand, and he straightened but only to scoop her up and carry her out of the water to where they had left the rope.

She saw Boreas rise from the shrubbery above them, alert to their approach.

When Fin set her on her feet, she reached for the rope, but he said, “Never mind that now, lass. We should get round to the other side of the hill because the dam may break with enough force to fling plank pieces and other debris about.”

“But we must pull out the plugs first.”

“Nay,” he said. “The two lower planks had begun to bow outward, and I heard creaking, so I stopped. It’s too dangerous now to go back in.”

“I did hear an odd moan,” she said, feeling for her kirtle. “But I don’t hear anything now. How long will it be before it breaks?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But unless you want to go naked, hurry.”

Keeping an ear cocked for other ominous sounds as she dealt with her wet kirtle, she could see enough of his shape to know that he had already put on his tunic, belt, and dirk. Before slinging on his sword, he helped her with her lacing.

As he did, he said, “The pressure at the bottom will grow as the water rises, and I do think that it must be about to go. But I dared not wait to bore the last plank, especially you standing atop me, lass, so I don’t even know for sure that this will work. I’m tempted to stay just to be sure that it does.”

“Do you mean that if it doesn’t, you would go back in and bore more holes?” she demanded, feeling an icy chill of fear at the thought of the dam breaking with him still standing in the torrent’s path.

He was silent for much too long.

“Don’t be daft!” she snapped, forgetting to keep her voice low. “Sakes, sir, we still have to do what we can to save Tadhg and the other prisoners.”

He put a finger to her lips. “Shhh,” he said. “We’re not out of this yet.”

“But you can’t stay here. I won’t
let
you!”

“Won’t you?” His voice was soft, even gentle.

She put a hand to his cheek and her face close to his. “Nay, Fin Cameron, I won’t. This is one battle that you will
not
fight alone, sir. Rothiemurchus is my family’s home. If you must stay, then Boreas and I will stay, too.”

“Nay, we’ll go,” he said. “Rain or no rain, that dam will break before the water gets high enough to drown anyone.”

He hugged her then, the strong warmth of his body warming hers.

“You’re shivering,” he said. “But we’ll walk fast, and you’ll wear my mantle until you feel warmer. The thing smells of wet wool, but you won’t mind that.”

“You’ll freeze,” she muttered as he wrapped the damp mantle around her.

“Nay, then, I did not freeze in the river Tay at the ice end of a September. I’ll not freeze here when it’s nearly summertime.”