Highlander Betrayed (Guardians of the Targe) (36 page)

“All in good time,” Rowan said, grinning at him. “Before anything else we need to find the ermine sack. I have the Targe stone.” She held it up for all to see. “But not the sack.”

Nicholas let go of her hand and strode to a pile of travel bags, weapons, and tools the MacAlpins were gathering together. He searched amongst the bags until he found a familiar, well-worn, tooled leather bag that he knew Archie had traded for with a pilgrim who was freshly back from Spain.

He pulled back the flap and found the Targe’s sack balled up inside. He pulled it out and held it up for her to see.

“Let us return to the castle,” she said, taking it from his hand and settling the stone within it. “There is much this Englishman must answer to and I would not keep my uncle waiting any longer.”

Nicholas grabbed her free hand—she gripped the sack so hard in her other one her knuckles were white—and together they moved off toward the castle. Duncan, with Archie trussed belly down over the garron’s back, followed behind.

R
OWAN WAS EXHAUSTED
, dirty, cold, and yet there was a fire in her belly that energized her and kept her feet moving until they were within the remains of the castle wall. Denis cried out as they came through the torch-lit gate passage, alerting everyone within the castle of their arrival. Cries went up but Rowan could not tell if they were cries of relief or disbelief, for she was sure they all looked like they had bathed in mud. They stopped and Nicholas let go of her hand long enough to assist Duncan in getting Archie off the garron. Each man held the prisoner by an arm as he swayed between them, shaking his head as if to clear his vision. A roar came through the crowd, which parted, letting Kenneth through. His hair stood out in clumps.

He came to a halt next to Rowan. “Is this the man that killed my Elspet?” he demanded.

“Aye, Uncle, this is Archibald of—”

Before she could finish Kenneth drew his dagger and plunged it into Archie’s belly. Archie gasped. Nicholas blanched.

Kenneth roared at Duncan and Nicholas. “Put the bastard on the ground.” When they didn’t immediately obey, he lowered his head and cocked it a little to the side. “Do you disobey your chief?”

“Nay, Kenneth, we do not,” Nicholas said. “But—”

“Down! ’Tis my right to pass judgment on this man and I have found him guilty of murder. The sentence is death by my hand. Do you disagree with my judgment?” He was bellowing at Nicholas and Duncan, but Rowan knew he also dared anyone else to gainsay his right to kill this man.

“Nicholas,” she said, trying to speak as calmly as she could when her heart was pounding loud in her ears. “Duncan. Put the man down.”

Kenneth moved with Archie as he was laid down, keeping his dagger set deep in the Englishman’s gut. “I would put this knife through your heart, bastard, as you did to my wife, but that would be too quick.” He twisted the hand that gripped the dagger and Archie could do nothing but let out a strangled gurgle. “I would cut your heart out, as you have cut out mine, but that, too, would be too quick.” Kenneth twisted the knife again and Archie managed a grimace.

“This is not over, Highlander,” he gasped. “The king will have the stone and the girl.” Kenneth pushed the dagger deeper and Archie’s eyes started to roll but he fought it, rasping out, “He knows—” A long rattling breath left him and he lay limp in a pool of his own blood. Kenneth stepped away, leaving the dagger in Archie’s body as he turned away and made his way back through the crowd, heading toward the tower.

It was only when her uncle left that Rowan was able to look away from the body. Nicholas was pale, but showed no grief over the death of the man. Duncan’s eyes were fixed, across the open center of the crowd, on Scotia, who stood expressionless.

Jeanette was not to be seen until Rowan looked up. Her cousin stood in the window of Elspet’s chamber looking down at the gathering in the bailey, and even from this distance the grim set of her mouth was plain.

“Betsy, Meg, will you take him and wrap his body?” Rowan said to two of the clanswomen standing nearby.

“You mean to bury him?” Meg asked, her voice disbelieving.

“Aye, with the men who died for him today. Duncan, when they are done you will take him back to the clearing, add his body to the cairn they are making there.”

Duncan nodded at her, then reached down and drew Kenneth’s dagger out of the body.

H
OURS LATER, AFTER
Rowan had helped Jeanette into bed, and Scotia after her; after Kenneth had made it clear he was not leaving
Elspet’s side this night and Rowan had settled him in a chair next to Elspet’s bed, then she managed to change out of her mud-caked clothes and wash most of the dried dirt from her hair and body before she collapsed upon her narrow bed in the chamber with her cousins. Nicholas had refused to leave her and slept upon a pallet blocking anyone from entering the chamber. It seemed only moments after Rowan laid down when she woke with a start.

Looking around to see what must have woken her, she found Nicholas quietly snoring by the door and Scotia standing at the small window that looked out over the bailey. Rowan disentangled herself from her blanket and went to her cousin.

“Scotia,” she said quietly, not wishing to startle her. “Sweetling, what is it?” She expected tears but found instead a steely-eyed expression she’d never seen before.

“I wanted to go with you today. I wanted to see the man who… who… who hurt Mum. I wanted to kill him myself.”

Rowan looked at this lass she almost didn’t recognize standing before her, not manipulative or coy, but angry, determined, with vengeance on her mind and in her straight back and stiff shoulders. Rowan sighed, sorry that the immature Scotia seemed to have been killed with her mother, but proud that she was not buckling under grief, that she sought action as a balm for her broken heart, not pity. Rowan was sorrier that Scotia would not get vengeance upon Archie except through her father’s hand.

“You were needed here.”

Scotia scowled but did not take her gaze from the dark bailey. “There was nothing I could do here to change what happened to Mum.”

“Her death has been avenged.”

Scotia did not reply and now Rowan saw a lone fat tear roll down her cheek. “We will all miss her,” she said to her cousin, remembering when she lost her own mother. “It is a pain that will never fully heal, a hole in our hearts that will never completely close, but she died protecting the clan. Even in her state she would not give in to that man’s demands. She died as she lived, Scotia, protecting the people and the place that she loved.”

“She died too soon.” Scotia wiped the tear from her face with a knuckle. “She died too soon.”

Rowan tried to swallow around her own grief at losing a mother not just once, but twice, for Elspet had been every bit a mother to her since she’d first come to live here. She hugged Scotia’s stiff body to her and laid her head on her cousin’s shoulder. “Aye, it is always too soon to lose a mother.”

They stood there for a long time and finally Scotia relaxed and wound an arm around Rowan’s waist. “What are we going to do without her, Rowan?”

“I do not know. We shall muddle through as best we can. We still have Kenneth, and Elspet taught Jeanette much, so we yet have her knowledge if not her wisdom. We will have to find our way without her.”

“I already miss her.” It was the faintest of whispers.

“I do, too.”

They stood together, arms looped one about the other, watching as the moon set and the sky began to lighten with false dawn. Scotia’s stomach rumbled and for the first time Rowan realized that more had been lost than her aunt and a building. Their food stores had been in the larder, below the great hall. It was doubtful any of it had survived the fire and the water. Panic set up in her stomach, sending spikes of anxiety through her chest, constricting her breath. How would they feed everyone?

And then she felt the warmth of a hand on her shoulder, patting it, as if to calm her. She looked around to see who it was, only to find no one stood behind her and Scotia’s arm was around her waist, not over her shoulders.

Shaken, she realized the sensation was familiar, exactly what Elspet used to do when Rowan was young and newly come to Dunlairig. When Rowan would get worried, or sad, or angry, Elspet would pull her into her lap and pat her shoulder until she calmed down enough to think clearly. As she got older, she no longer sat in her aunt’s lap, but Elspet would still from time to time pat her on the shoulder, reminding her that things were not as bad as Rowan thought.

She smiled at the memory and the panic began to subside as she thought about what her aunt would do in this situation. Elspet would call upon those families who lived up and down the glen to share what they had with those who lived in the castle. She would send out hunting parties for meat, smoking and drying whatever was not immediately needed. She would send the women into the bens and the valley to find what was available to feed a hungry clan. She would have the milk from their cows and sheep made into cheeses.

They were lucky it was not winter and that the gardens and oat field had not been burned. The grassy shielings further up in the bens would provide good fodder for the animals over the summer, as they always did. It would be more work than usual, but not a great deal more. They would survive. By late autumn they would have their stores replenished enough to get the entire clan through the winter, they would have to.

Aye, that is what Elspet would do.

She was sure she would often look to her memories of her aunt for guidance as they all found their way without her. It gave Rowan a warm comfort to know that in this way at least her aunt would be with them always.

As the sky heralded true dawn, Rowan quickly donned a gown over her kirtle, and an old arisaid that she belted about her waist and drew up over her shoulders, fixing it in place with the pin that had been her mother’s. She realized that what she had told Scotia about losing a mother was true, the wound never healed, but it did grow fainter with time until it was more a gentle familiar ache than the sharp pain it once was. It gave her comfort to know they would never forget Elspet, but neither would they suffer without end at her loss.

She went to Nicholas, who was still quietly snoring on his pallet by the door. His beard-stubbled face looked younger and unguarded in his sleep. She placed her palm against his warm cheek, stroking her thumb across the smooth skin above the beard. “Love,” she said, leaning down to kiss his brow. “The sun will rise soon. We have much to see to this day.”

He did not open his eyes at once but a smile spread over his face, and he captured her hand against his cheek with one of his own. “I would wake this way every morn,” he said, his voice thick with sleep, “with your hands upon me.” He cracked one eye open and his smile turned to a grin until he saw her fully dressed. She watched as the playfulness was replaced by grim determination. “You should have awakened me sooner.”

He released her hand and sat up, pushing his hair out of his way as he looked toward the window where Scotia still kept watch. He cocked an eyebrow at Rowan, but she shook her head. Scotia would grieve in her own way and own time.